Chapter Three
To ordinaries, Sunspot looked like every other restaurant in its hip, indie Silver Lake neighborhood—a modern silhouette, white walls with dark brown wood accents, surrounded by lush greenery and a tastefully manicured garden out front.
What ordinaries didn’t see was the faint gold sheen of the magical wards that lined the building.
All they would get was a hazy feeling of dread as they drove past, a subtle twinge telling them this wasn’t the place they wanted to stop for lunch today.
Those who ignored that warning were served a mediocre meal by blasé waiters before being sent on their way, with no desire to repeat the experience.
If you had magic, though, Sunspot was a beacon. Anyone with a hint of power in their blood could sense it: Here be witches. The calm power of the wards that surrounded the building provided an instant balm to Katherine’s pain, a reminder that this was the only place she could truly call her home.
Coven headquarters were all designed that way, aimed at bringing the witches of the area together to learn and share spells, but Sunspot was special.
Welcoming to witches who weren’t invited anywhere else.
Katherine shuddered to think of where she might be if she hadn’t heard the call of Aestas all those years ago.
Probably dead in a ditch. Surrounded by the bodies of all the people she’d taken down with her.
Katherine shoved that thought out of her mind as she pulled into her parking space. Being Aestas’ Executrix came with a lot of annoying things, but at least she got a reserved spot. The middle-class dream—her family would have been so proud.
Her family was another thing Katherine did not like to think about.
Katherine shut off the car and turned to the still-gagged Joe, leveling him with a glare. The body-locking spell was wearing off—his fingers, slowly regaining motion, were drumming against the seat. Katherine sighed as she reached for her caster.
She flicked the blade open and pressed it to her palm.
She’d done this cut thousands of times, but it always hurt.
That was the price of magic—not just the blood, but the pain to bring it out.
Magic wouldn’t work with something so civilized as blood taken from an IV or syringe.
It provided brute force, so it demanded brute force in return.
Every spell required a fresh cut—magic was a bitch that way—and of course, to add insult to injury, you couldn’t use magic to heal a cut used to do magic. Witches healed faster than ordinaries, but it still led to an unreasonably high Neosporin and gauze budget.
Katherine closed her eyes and focused her mind on the bead of blood, channeling it into the rune she had absorbed that morning until it flashed briefly on her palm, a bright violet temporary tattoo against her pale skin.
Her stomach dropped as the spell took hold, the familiar bitter scent of magic filling the air.
She pressed her palm to Joe’s neck, the rune letting out a small flare of purple light between them. Her body deflated along with his, although her sag wasn’t due to the sleeping spell. No, she was just plain exhausted.
She sighed as she got out of the car. It was still hot as balls on the east side, but the heat felt at least marginally less oppressive than it had in Beverly Hills. She wondered if all the spray-tan fumes and egos on Rodeo Drive clogged the air.
Katherine opened her passenger-side door, undoing the seat belt spell and pulling the rag out of Joe’s mouth before putting her arms under her captive’s and trying to heave him out of the seat. She winced as her arms buckled under his weight, his body thumping back against the leather.
Katherine reached into the car to try again, but she was interrupted by the sound of Sunspot’s door clanging shut. She turned around to see Fiona, hands on her hips as she chuckled.
“Please stop laughing and help me with this,” Katherine begged.
“But it’s so much fun watching you struggle.”
“Fiona.”
“Fine, fine. Only ’cause you’re so cute.”
Katherine’s best friend waltzed over, seemingly unaffected by the heat or the glaring sun. She took a hair tie off her wrist and put her head of pink, purple, and blue braids into a high bun. “This is the part where you say I’m cute too.”
“You’re more than cute, Fi. You are a princess. A queen. The owner of my heart and soul.”
They reached into the car, pulling Joe out together, his body balancing between them as they started a slow, sweaty march to the door.
“Why do you only flatter me when I’m helping you carry a six-foot-two pillar of deadweight?”
“I will make a note to compliment you more when we’re not suffocating in BO.”
“You can keep complimenting me while we suffocate too, if you’d really like to.”
“Last week when you texted asking if I wanted to get frozen yogurt, I quite literally teared up because I don’t think I’ve ever known someone so attuned to my every thought and desire.”
“Aw, babe.” Fiona looked around Joe’s slumped body to smile at Katherine. “Froyo later?”
“God, yes.”
Katherine felt Joe start to fall between them, but Fiona picked up the slack, shifting more weight onto herself. Katherine shot her a grateful look.
“He go down easy?” Fiona asked.
“Easy enough.”
Fiona’s gaze went to the cuts on Katherine’s hands, her eyebrows raised in question.
“There were a few complications,” Katherine said. “But I handled it.”
“You always do.” Fiona’s face split into a smile, her brown skin crinkling around her eyes. Katherine hated that look—love. Support. Pride. No matter how many criminals she apprehended, how many people she helped, her slate would never be clean enough to deserve that.
They reached the door, and Katherine shifted to get a hand on the doorknob.
Her palm was slippery with sweat and blood, and she huffed as the metal slipped under her grip.
Luckily, the door swung in on its own, revealing a tall Black woman with a shaved head and a truly flawless graphic eyeliner look that Katherine made a mental note to try (and fail) to recreate at some point. Tess, Sunspot’s new chef.
“Bring the trash in,” Tess said.
Katherine chuckled as Tess joined her and Fiona in hauling Joe over the small step of the threshold. Sunspot didn’t open for an hour, so they were spared the watchful eyes of gossipy witches.
Tess stepped aside as Katherine and Fiona dragged Joe past the bespoke bar area, which was decorated with glittering lights delicately threaded through bottles of upscale liquor.
They were emptier than they should’ve been, thanks to many nights of Katherine and Fiona sitting on the roof, passing a bottle between them as they tried to determine what was an airplane and what was a star. (They were all airplanes.)
They reached the swinging door to the kitchen and waited as the wards hummed, recognizing Katherine’s presence. A few seconds later, another door winked into view, small and flat against the wall, with no handle.
Katherine pressed her palm to the rough wood, praying that she wouldn’t end up with a splinter in her fresh cut. The golden light of the wards flickered across the door as it recognized her touch, then swung open, revealing the darkened stairwell beyond.
Katherine angled her body to slide through, Joe’s weight shifting heavily onto her for a moment as Fiona squeezed in as well. The door clanged shut behind them as she and Fiona rearranged themselves, squishing together so Joe could be between them again.
“Have I ever mentioned how much I despise whoever decided to make these stairs this narrow?” Katherine grunted, shouldering Joe’s body back up before she accidentally sent him tumbling down the steps.
“More than once,” Fiona huffed. “Have I ever mentioned how much I despise whoever decided to put your Creepy Magic Dungeon all the way at the end of the hall?”
“More than once.”
They made it to the bottom of the stairs, emerging into an equally nondescript hallway. The pair dragged Joe past the closed entrances of Aestas’ storage rooms and spell library until they reached the final door.
Katherine’s Creepy Magic Dungeon, as Fiona had affectionately dubbed it years earlier, was not, in fact, Katherine’s, but another invention of Noctis’.
The room was warded so any witch detained inside would find their magic practically unusable.
Fiona called it Katherine’s because Katherine had been, for the last seven years, the sole person responsible for putting anyone inside.
Katherine laid her hand on the door’s surface, gold wards lighting up across it before it popped open.
The Creepy Magic Dungeon had a cot on one side and a toilet (hidden by a curtain) on the other.
It was sparse, but comfortable enough. There was even a small stack of paperbacks in the corner—although Katherine doubted Joe was a reader.
With a grunt, she hefted him higher on her shoulder, then dropped him down unceremoniously on the cot. The sleeping spell would wear off in an hour or two. Katherine hoped that would be enough time for the odd angle of Joe’s neck to develop into a gnarly crick.
Katherine and Fiona left, shutting the door behind them. Fiona raised her hand for a high five, but Katherine lifted both of her bloody palms in response.
“Got a sec to go nab some spells with me?” she asked instead.
Fiona nodded, and the pair walked to another closed door. Katherine’s back straightened as they approached. This room seeped energy, calling to her with intoxicating promises of power and comfort.
The door to the spell library swung open, revealing what would be a pretty pitiful library, with just three thin books lying in a line on a table in the center of the room, open to completely blank center pages. To the casual observer, the sight was odd, yet unassuming.
To Katherine, it was power.