front of the main house, undoubtedly the journalist’s ride.
A spark of fear flickered to life inside her, a fear she’d prayed she’d never have to face. “Did you see something strange?”
“There was this creepy person-thing next to that guy’s car.”
In two swift motions, she pulled him all the way inside and slammed the door shut. Heat and the thrum of protective magic blazed up the dragon and monkey tattoos on her arms and across her shoulders. She studied the yard again through the door’s window, hoping to spot a fox or a mangy racoon. Something. Anything.
Peregrine wriggled in beside her, his breath fogging the windowpane. “It kinda looked like the drawings of redcaps I’ve seen in books.”
She scrubbed her fingers over the soft bristle of her close-cropped hair. Shit. Shit. Shit. Not this. Anything but this. Peregrine was the age when most witches’ abilities manifested. And—though she rarely thought of him—Peregrine’s biological father possessed the gift of faery sight, an ability to see through the glamour faeries used to make themselves invisible; fae such as redcaps. The gift was rare nowadays because the gene pool of witches with the ability had shrunk to a handful, after eons of them being murdered or blinded by the fae, who preferred to remain concealed. It was an extraordinarily dangerous gift for the few adults who possessed it. But for an eight-year-old boy? For her boy?
She wrapped an arm around Peregrine’s shoulder, snugging him closer. “Are you a hundred percent sure you saw something?”
“Yeah. Uh—maybe.”
Maybe? Her tension eased a fraction. In truth, it could have been nothing more than wishful thinking on Peregrine’s part, combined with an imagination as active as hers. Even if he had seen a faery, it could have been a benign and unglamoured one that Brooklyn had invited into the complex to help with her herbs and concoctions.
A movement caught Chandler’s eye. Something coyote-size and hunched low to the ground was creeping out from behind the Volkswagen. It slunk along, dragging something—
Chandler shrieked. A body! A child.
She pushed Peregrine behind her, then eased the door open just far enough to get a better view. She had to have been mistaken. It couldn’t be carrying a child.
The creature swiveled to look at her. It dropped the body. Tufts of straw trailed from where the child was missing an arm.
Chandler let out a relieved breath. She recognized the child and the creature now. “There’s nothing to worry about,” she said. “It’s just Henry with Brooklyn’s scarecrow.” Well, there wasn’t anything to worry about as long as Brooklyn didn’t see Henry, Devlin’s golden retriever, making off with her straw man. If she did, there’d be hell to pay.
Peregrine wiggled past her to look. “I wasn’t afraid of nothin’. And that isn’t what I saw. What I saw was bigger. A lot bigger.” He fanned his arms, indicating something twice as tall and large as the scrap-metal rhinoceros that she’d sold to a client last month, impossibly larger than a redcap.
She gave him a side-eye look. Now he was fibbing, except…
A chill traveled up her arms, prickling against the magic in her tattoos. But what if—other than the size—it wasn’t a fib? What if he did have the sight like his father?
Chapter 2
Some say the duplicity comes from demons vying for man’s soul
or the fae seeking sovereignty over this realm.
Many believe it’s witches tainted by a lust for power.
It is all these things and more.
—Rafael Mastroianni, High Chancellor
Eastern Coast High Council of Witches
“Do redcaps leave footprints?” Peregrine asked as they passed the journalist’s Volkswagen on their way to the main house.
“Can we not talk about redcaps anymore?” Chandler said.
He scuffed his feet against the walk. “If their hats are all bloody, why don’t they leave a gooey trail wherever they go?”
“That’s disgusting.”
“I wish I’d see someone shift into a loup-garou. I wonder if Gar can shift. His father’s a loup-garou…”
Chandler tuned out Peregrine’s chatter, focusing instead on the soothing energy wheeling off the main house. The brick building that served as the heart of the coven’s complex had been an abandoned factory before Devlin and his sister, Athena—who had served as high priestess beside him—had taken over the project of revitalizing it from their mother. Chandler had loved the place from the first moment she’d arrived, well over eight years ago now. There was something about its psychic energy. Perhaps it was the memories imprinted into its scarred floorboards by the factory workers who’d traveled over them for decades, or the emotions crackling off the graffiti that still slashed its brick-walled hallways, tags left behind by people who had claimed the factory during the years it stood forsaken. Chandler couldn’t help wondering if their current confrontation with the journalist would also fuse itself to the building’s soul.
Of course it will, she answered her own question. If the journalist hadn’t attempted to infiltrate the coven, things might not have gotten to the point where the Circle couldn’t ignore him. But he had—and, unfortunately, it had happened after a witch by the name of Rhianna had murdered Athena and used dark magic to impersonate her. Every single member of the coven felt ashamed that they had failed to realize Rhianna wasn’t Athena. However, the journalist most likely still believed that Athena, and not Rhianna, had performed the ghastly spell that left his brain scrambled.
Chandler opened the building’s front door and let Peregrine race into the foyer ahead of her. He spread his arms out as if transforming into the falcon he was named after. Then he screamed into the hallway, his birdlike shrieks echoing off the brick walls as he made for the stairwell down to the first floor.
She rushed after him. But by the time she reached the open stairwell, he was already in the living room below. He made a loop around Chloe, who was setting a bottle of wine on the coffee table, then beelined into the lounge before vanishing into the dining room hallway. Hopefully, Brooklyn and Midas would be able to keep him occupied for at least a few minutes.
Chandler hurried down the stairs. “Where is everyone? I thought the journalist was here?”
Chloe was in her early twenties, willowy, blonde and bound-for-med-school brilliant. She was one of the most recent initiates to the coven, but she and Devlin had already formed a close relationship. That was a good thing; coping with the fallout from Athena’s murder hadn’t been easy for any of them, especially not for Devlin. He loved his sister deeply and needed the support—and distraction—of a vivacious witch like Chloe.
Sadness tightened Chandler’s chest. She missed Athena so much. Sure, Athena’s spirit was still present. But that wasn’t the same as having her longtime friend around, not at all the same.
“Unfortunately,” Chloe said, “the journalist is most definitely here. Devlin and Gar are giving him a tour of the teahouse right now. They should be back any second.”
Chandler
