Chapter 1
Emergency Meeting
MAX
Agrunt slips past my lips as I brace the rusty iron fence with my foot, balancing five grocery bags between my arms. A muscle cramps in my shoulder, threatening to spark a migraine, but I squeeze past the gate and climb the steps to my childhood home.
The steel door creaks behind me as I slip off my gillies, the plush hallway carpet tickling the soles of my bare feet.
What was supposed to be a quick errand has turned into a worrying discovery, followed by an urgent summons from my coven leader.
My phone buzzes in my pocket, no doubt a flurry of messages from my fiancé.
He’s irritated that I had to cancel our dance rehearsal at the last minute, but I’m more concerned with potential death and mayhem than choreography, at present.
“What’s the emergency, Mabs?” I call into the empty hallway.
A familiar voice booms from the kitchen, “Mabel’s not here yet.” Kerri prances over to me, her freshly done manicure matching her sexy black pantsuit. “Is that how your generation says hello these days?”
Even though we’re both redheads, I’m all pale moonshine and freckles next to her smooth, matte, endless tan.
Her blood-red hair falls to her shoulders, slick and thin, while my wild mane has to be tamed into a long French braid or a bun just so I can get out of the house without being mistaken for a drifter.
“Hello, Aunt Kerri,” I say with a sheepish grimace.
“That’s better.”
I extend one arm forward. “Will you help me with these?” The mischievous glint in her eyes prompts me to add a quick, “Please.”
She takes half the bags, and I sigh in relief.
On our way to the kitchen, Lady rubs herself against my legs, nearly tripping me. The tortoiseshell purrs, hungry for attention. I dump the bags on the kitchen island, scoop her up, and scratch that brown spot under her chin that drives her wild, and her yellow eyes flutter shut in bliss.
“Why are you carrying a week’s worth of groceries?” Kerri asks.
“I swung by Devi’s before coming here. She asked me to bring them, but she wasn’t home,” I explain.
My Faerie godmother, the infamous Devi Eros, almost never leaves her home on account of being a wanted criminal.
Kerri’s eyes widen. “Maybe that’s the emergency. Was there anything out of the ordinary? Any sign of forced entry or violence?”
I shake my head and grab a glass from the cupboard, Lady propped over one shoulder. “None.”
I move to the refrigerator, fill the empty glass to the brim, and gulp it down. The cold water soothes my budding migraine, Lady’s soft purring mellowing the tension beneath my ribs.
Kerri tucks away the perishables in the fridge. “Are you still struggling with those nasty headaches, sweetie?” she asks.
“Nothing a good aspirin won’t fix,” I say.
Her brows knit together. “Nonsense. I’ll brew you something that’ll keep those away for a few days.”
“There’s no need—” The rest of the sentence dies in my throat as Kerri fills the old, bumpy teapot and clicks on the stove.
There’s no use arguing the virtues of modern medicine with a witch.
A tired sigh quakes my chest. “I should be at a dance studio right now. Rehearsing my wedding dance.”
“I know, I know. With your rich, gorgeous fiancé,” Kerri teases. “How’s dear Lawland doing?”
I press my tongue to the back of my front teeth. “Lachlan. Which you know perfectly well.”
Of all the ways she telegraphs her dislike for my upcoming wedding, that’s the one that most gets on my nerves. She’s a witch who deals with hundreds of refugees every year. For her to pretend she can’t remember my fiancé’s name might be the lamest trick she’s ever used.
Her rich hazelnut eyes dim with a hint of shame, or perhaps worry. “I’m sorry, sweetie. This marrying-a-mortal phase of yours will take some getting used to.”
“And what if it’s not a phase?” I shoot back, annoyed.
She raises her palms to the ceiling. “And what are you going to do? Stop practicing, move into his fancy house on the lake, and birth his one and a half kids?”
“That’s the plan,” I say flippantly, my temper tickled by her relentless probing. “And why would I stop working because I’m married?”
Lady squirms, agitated, and I set her back on the floor.
Kerri licks her lips. “I wasn’t talking about medicine, Maxine.”
She was talking about witchcraft, of course, and my cheeks warm.
I don’t think of myself as a witch. My twin, Nickolas, is the witch in the family. He’s good with runes, knows all the spells, and prays every night, while I can barely brew a simple sleep potion.
“Well…” I suck in air, searching for a way out of this conversation.
Mabel wants me to be more involved in the coven going forward, but the thought fills me with dread. I do love Kerri and the others, but it’d be like having an intern run the whole hospital.
“The only witchy thing I’m good at is gardening. That, and making lightbulbs burn out in a room when I’m angry. That hardly makes one a witch—it’s just a pain in the arse,” I say.
“Still. How are you going to justify your quirks to your oblivious mortal husband?”
It stings that she doesn’t contradict my previous statement, even though I wasn’t fishing for a compliment.
“I’m a mortal, too,” I point out. I infuse the words with as much calm and determination as I can muster, but she waves her hand dismissively, as if the correlation only exists in my head.
“You know what I mean. Where is that young woman who spent her afternoons trekking through the autumn woods with her feet bare and a hooded cape? The one who wanted to open up a women’s clinic next to Devi’s tea parlor?” she asks with a sad smile.
My voice dies down. “I grew up, Aunt Kerri.”
I had to, I want to add, but that’s harsh. Kerri lived through hell, too, yet she never assimilated into the mortal world. Maybe because she lived in Faerie too long, or maybe because she’s a full-blooded Fae.
“If you really want to keep your fiancé in the dark, you should stop calling me Aunt Kerri. Better smooth out that habit before the wedding,” she finally says. “Can I be your fun, outrageous younger sister?”
I blink at her a few times. “Pluh-ease. You still look older than me.”
“Not for much longer,” she answers with a wink.
“Fine. You can be my well-behaved, quiet, fake sibling.”
She chuckles in victory, clearly delighted by my grumpiness.
Kerri looks to be in her late twenties forever, while I’m catching up fast. Give it a few years, and I’ll be the one who has to pass as her elder.
She’s Mabel’s daughter, which technically makes her my sister by adoption, but she’s a few centuries older than me, so Aunt Kerri always made more sense.
Mabel raised me and my twin, Nickolas, but always insisted that we shared no blood with her, and we never called her Mom. We already had a mother, and a wonderful one at that. Before the Reds killed her.
I motion to Kerri’s neck. “I’m counting on you to glamor away that tattoo.”
The dark shape of a snarling wolf marks her clavicle and curls up her neck, teeth bared in permanent warning.
She pouts. “Where’s the fun in that?”
A heavy sigh escapes me. “What will Lachlan’s family think of us? A bunch of redheads with an addiction to tea? His mother already hates me…”
Kerri wraps an arm around my shoulders, leaning her head against mine for a brief moment. “Sweetie, mothers-in-law were put on this earth to battle the young women who seduce away their sons—especially when they’re as beautiful as you, and a literal witch.”
I click my tongue. “I didn’t steal Lachlan away with a spell.”
“I know you didn’t enchant him, but it doesn’t mean he wasn’t,” she chimes.
I hike up my left sleeve, revealing the mark near the bend of my elbow—the brand of the Bloodraven coven that summoned me home. The skin is still raised and a deep burgundy color, meaning Mabel hasn’t changed her mind about our meeting, but it isn’t black, which would signal imminent danger.
“Shouldn’t Mabel be home by now?” I grumble.
“Yes, and she must have something vital to share, or she wouldn’t have summoned us both. I was on official coven duty in Culloden when the mark started to itch,” Kerri says.
The kettle whistles, and her lips purse as she opens an empty tea tin. “Bollocks, there’s no angelica left.”
I pick up the gardening scissors and a knitted shawl from the coat rack near the French patio doors. “I’ll get some from the gardens.”
Kerri bites down on her tongue. “Ew. Fresh Angelica is too bitter.”
I pat her arm before heading outside. “I don’t mind the taste. I’ve been drinking Angelica-infused tea my whole life.”
The smell of damp soil and crushed mint wafts through the air as I move along the narrow path leading to the back of the garden. Plants spill over the edges, brushing against my legs, a few twigs catching in my skirt. The garden is busy and overgrown, but familiar, every plant in its place.
The Angelica archangelica is tall and easy to spot above the overcrowded beds.
At two meters, it towers over the sprigs of meadowsweet, Filipendula ulmaria, and elderflower, Sambucus nigra.
Its stems are thick and hollow under my hand, ridged and a little sticky.
The broad leaves are smooth on top and slightly rough underneath, leaving a green scent on my fingers.
I cut off a purplish stalk with the scissors, and the air fills with its strong, bitter tang.
I know these plants by heart. The ones I can’t use, given my non-existent talent for blood magic, I can at least care for, and the garden has always been my sacred place.
The powerful late-autumn breeze plucks the last leaves of the rowan tree towering above.
Long strings of mist rise from the earth.
Fog is a familiar sight in Inverness—whether it’s the steamy kind that forms when cold air meets warm water, upslope fog along the mountains, or the winter fog that rolls in when it gets really, really cold. But this… This is new.