26 Jasper
JASPER
“Oh, Jasper.” Alora Poole sweeps in the moment I get the door open, wrapping me in a tight hug. “We’re so glad you’re all right!”
I glance over her shoulder, looking for any sign of circling ravens. Dáinn said Ludmilla might send them. My new evil eye pendant rests tucked under my shirt, the names of all my coven members added to its spell of concealment. “Come on,” I say, keeping my voice low. “Let’s get you both inside.”
Dáinn said the magic of the ravens is flimsy at best. All priority is on sight over sound.
He said they have to be hovering all but overhead for a message to be relayed to Ludmilla.
They’re certainly more like eyes in the skies, not ears.
Still, I can’t help but watch for them, demonic feathered freaks.
Alora’s daughter, Frankie, walks up behind her, holding a crate full of food.
Both witches are dressed in their funeral blacks.
Alora’s outfit is a bohemian dress, trimmed in jet-black beads, while Frankie looks like an extra from Peaky Blinders.
She’s wearing a pair of black trousers and suspenders over a white button-down shirt.
Her short brown hair is slicked back, the sleeves of her shirt rolled up to expose muscled, tatted forearms. At six feet two inches, she’s a bear of a woman, broad-shouldered and strong.
But inside she’s as soft as a marshmallow. Even now, she tears up looking at me.
They don’t know what happened, only that I was attacked. I wanted them all convened before I share the news . . . and introduce our new guest. Telling them all to dress for a funeral certainly didn’t alleviate any worry or confusion.
“Hey,” I say at Frankie.
“Hey,” she replies.
Alora pats my cheek before heading inside. “Francesca, bring that casserole in here. It still needs to bake.”
Frankie steps up, her lower lip trembling. “If I wasn’t holding all this shit right now, I’d punch you in the goddamn face.”
“I know.”
“Don’t you dare fucking die on me. You know I won’t survive it.”
I nod once, my expression solemn. Our coven is so small now.
Too small. We only have eleven active members—including Phoebe, who has no magic.
Frankie grew up like the middle sister between me and Gracie.
We were the only three children born to our generation.
Losing Gracie almost broke Frankie. Now she may have to survive losing me too.
My smile turns sad. “All mortals die, Frank. You know that as well as I do.”
She sniffs, blinking back her tears. “Yeah, well, I’m goin’ first. You hear me?”
“I hear you.”
“Good.” She steps up onto the landing. “Now, move outta the way. Unless you’re gonna magic yourself some manners and help a lady carry this inside?”
Laughing, I step back, letting her in.
“Francesca!” her mother yells from the kitchen.
She rolls her eyes before shouting back, “Jeez, Mama, I’m coming!”
Frankie disappears inside just as the Dent Farms truck pulls up, tires crunching on the gravel. I wait at the door, watching as Ruby gets out from behind the wheel. Her idea of funeral blacks is a pair of black overalls with her frizzy hair tucked under a faded Dent Farms hat.
Mercy slips out from the passenger side. In total contrast to her cousin, she’s dressed in a black sheath dress and pearls, with a silk kerchief tied over her hair like a Fleet Cove socialite.
Ruby steps around to the back of the truck, her boots crunching on the gravel, and drops the tailgate. “Well, don’t dawdle,” she calls. “Come help us with all this!”
Hortie was right, she came with enough food to feed half the damn island.
Once we’re all inside, my coven makes quick work of turning on both ovens and every burner on the stove.
The kitchen is soon full of the smells of baked tetrazzini, chicken and dumplings, cheesy potato casserole, peach cobbler, and rhubarb pie.
The flowers are all moved to the front sitting room, while the kitchen table is piled with two kinds of potato salad, fresh fruit, deviled eggs, pasta salad, and enough brownies, cakes, and cookies to last us until winter.
Coffee or tea is poured into every cup as everyone talks over each other, sharing cooking tips and island gossip. I’m helping Frankie set out more plates when my phone buzzes in my pocket. I pull it out to see a text from an unknown number.
Unknown: Spotted on the landing outside the apartment! Timestamp: 8:04 AM.
With the next ping comes a picture of a large raven. It sits on the railing outside Birdie’s apartment, where it was clearly just spying on my godsdamn shop. My hackles rise as I work to stomach Ludmilla’s unwanted magical intrusion. This has to be dealt with.
Another ping.
Unknown: Feathered bandit loitered shamelessly until he was promptly shooed away at 8:05 AM.
Another ping.
Unknown: This is Birdie, by the way.
A cold breath on the back of my neck gives me a jolt. Then I’m cursing as Dáinn pulls me from the kitchen and into the front room. “Ouch—get off,” I growl, twisting my arm loose of his grip.
“Is she safe?” he hisses in my ear.
Of course, he was reading over my shoulder. I swat at him, meeting only air. At the same time, Frankie pokes her head in the room, one brow raised. “You okay, J?”
I right myself, stuffing my phone back in my pocket. “Yeah. Fine. Why?”
Her eyes narrow. “Because you were just swatting at the air like you were being attacked by bees.”
“Damn fly in the house. If he doesn’t stop bugging me, I’m gonna kill him.”
The shadowy fucker dares to pinch my ass.
How do you kill something that’s already dead?
Frankie purses her lips, about to speak, when the doorbell rings.
“I got it!” I dash away from her through the front room and back into the entry hall.
Hazel Greenwood is already letting herself in. “Oh Jasper, I got here as soon as I could!” She wraps me in her arms. “Am I late? Did I miss it?”
“You haven’t missed a thing,” I reply, hugging her back. “We’re waiting for Hortie to get back before we start.”
She pulls away, brushing her hands over my cheeks, my shoulders. “I’m gonna call Cora on video chat. She’s ready and standing by.”
I nod. “Yeah, that’ll be great.”
Cora is her daughter, currently away at university.
She’s Phoebe’s age and powerful as shit.
Hazel and Cora are the last living descendants of Charity Ames.
Their magic has always manifested strongest through potion making.
Cora once made a sleeping draught for her high school bully that knocked the girl out for three weeks straight.
The doctors thought she was brain dead. Needless to say, as her high priest, I had to give Cora a stern talking-to.
Her penance lasted the whole summer. But the magic was fucking awesome.
Slipping past me, Hazel enters the kitchen to a chorus of welcomes.
Alone in the entry hall, I press a hand to the front door, trying to catch my breath.
“What happened to Birdie?” Dáinn rasps in my ear.
“Nothing,” I mutter. “She saw a raven, that’s all. It was outside the shop.”
“You put up the sign?”
I nod.
One of Hortie’s jobs was to put a “CLOSED FOR FUNERAL” sign in the front window. It’s a rudimentary ruse at best, but Dáinn assured me that the ravens are none too clever. When Ludmilla wants real stalking work done, she sends him.
Dáinn breathes down my neck again. “Should I go to her—”
“No,” I hiss. “Stay here.”
At least here with me, I know the most he can do is terrorize a room full of witches.
But they’ll quickly recover. Outing himself to Birdie is to out the whole of our magical world.
I picture once more that beleaguered king from the tarot card being stomped beneath the hooves of Death.
I can’t have another soul relying on me for protection. I already have a house full of them.
I’ll probably only live long enough to do this last reckless thing. So, let Birdie think my dislike of ravens is a silly quirk. Let her hate me for being a moody, self-isolating jerk. I mean to keep her out of this. I mean for her to live. For now, she’s safest in the dark.