“See anything good?” I called up, startling a flock of sparrows into the air.
Winnie glanced down, swinging her legs over the edge of her sturdy branch. “All sorts! There’s a beautiful stream not far from here, and a family of deer came through while you were still asleep.” She inhaled deeply through her nose. “Boy, do I miss this. Being outside heals the soul.”
I climbed out of my sleeping bag, pulled an extra jacket over my sweater, and laced up my hiking boots. “Can you even feel anything?”
“Not really,” Winnie replied. She tipped backward, dangling upside-down from the branch and using her knees to keep herself rooted in place. “But who says that should stop me from pretending?”
“I wish I was that optimistic,” I said, marveling at her gymnastic-like abilities. “Can you see the house? Or the girl?”
“It appears they’re preparing for some kind of party,” Winnie reported, swinging down from her perch. She leapt from twenty feet up, landing in a crouch beside the remains of last night’s fire. “Phew! I could get used to that.”
I began packing up the camp, rolling up my sleeping back and stuffing it back into my knapsack. “Okay, Catwoman. What kind of party?”
“No idea,” she answered. “But I haven’t seen any witches at all yet. The decorators and staff are all mortal.”
“So not any kind of coven gathering then,” I mused. “Who are these people? It’s like this girl doesn’t have a coven at all.”
“Or they’re concealing themselves,” Winnie suggested.
“For what purpose?” I asked. “And why would they leave the girl unprotected?”
“As bait.”
I froze in the middle of loading my backpack. “You think they’re expecting me?”
Winnie motioned for me to continue cleaning up. “In a game like this, you have to consider every possible angle. Maybe Morgan was right. Maybe someone in this girl’s coven attacked the Summerses as a power play. They knew you’d come looking for her. It’s a perfect trap.”
The possibility made me paranoid. I kicked the burned wood pieces of the fire aside and scattered dirt over the rest. With a flicker of witchcraft, I rid the clearing of any traces of our visit. Morgan and Laurel’s footprints disappeared, along with the lingering colors of their auras.
“What I don’t understand is why anyone would target the Summerses in the first place.” I hiked the pack over my shoulder and led the way out of the clearing. “It’s not like we’re trying to take over the world.”
“You underestimate Morgan’s influence,” Winnie said. “The Summerses are incredible in numbers compared to these other covens. You’re one of the five largest families in the United States, and none of them are close to New England.”
I raised an eyebrow. “How did you know that?”
“I’ll admit I was researching more than just cures for curses during all our time in the archives,” Winnie replied with a wink. “I was curious about you.”
“I would’ve told you whatever you wanted to know,” I said. “For instance, the alliance includes four out of five of those covens. Morgan’s binding spell prevents any coven in the alliance from attacking another without suffering severe consequences. It’s not foolproof, but it was a huge step forward in coven politics.”
At the border of the trees, I crouched down and peered across the vast backyard of the estate house. In the daytime, it was easier to see how privileged the other half was. The house was enormous. It would easily fit four of the Summers residence comfortably inside. In addition, there was a massive pool, stables, and a separate garage that no doubt housed several expensive vehicles. I rolled my eyes at the extravagance of it all. There were people who lived on the streets, begging for scraps, while the residents of Windsor Falls planned their next badminton tournament.
“What’s the plan?” Winnie asked.
I heaved a sigh, shielding my eyes from the rising sun. “Honestly, the only plan I’ve got is to play it by ear. Keep an eye on the girl, get her alone, and bring her back to Yew Hollow.”
“Totally foolproof.”
I nudged Winnie’s ribs before I remembered that she couldn’t feel it. My elbow sank into her midriff. “Do you have a better idea?”
“Active reconnaissance,” she replied. “We aren’t going to find out anything about the girl if we sit out here in the dirt. I say we head for the high street, sit down at a cafe, and eavesdrop a little. It’s a small town. If there’s a party tonight, it’s likely that everyone’s invited. Maybe we can get a better idea of what we’re dealing with.”
“And if we’re lucky, we might get a glimpse of our super-powered witch herself,” I said. “Have I ever told you that you’re a genius, Winnie?”
“Once or twice.”
In my dirty jeans, mussed sweater, and hiking boots, I felt conspicuously out of place as we walked past acres of pristine lawns toward the high street of Windsor Falls. I envied Winnie her invisibility. Her airy bohemian style would’ve blended better with the community than my camping clothes. On the upside, it appeared that Windsor Falls favored sleeping in on Saturday mornings. There weren’t many people about as Winnie and I strolled into town, so I found an open bakery, ordered overpriced coffee and a fresh chocolate croissant, then sat down at one of the patio tables outside to wait for everyone else to wake up.
An hour or so later, the entire scene changed. I abandoned the bakery as the line snaked out the door and through the patio tables. Breakfast restaurants advertised peach mimosas and avocado toast. Boutiques opened their doors to display racks of designer clothing in the streets. Woodsy smoke wafted from the windows of a cigar emporium. As I lazily explored the area, nursing my cold coffee, Winnie hovered a few feet above the crowds. I waved her down.
“I don’t see how we’re supposed to gather intel like this,” I mumbled out of the corner of my mouth. “There are too many people here. How are we going to single out the ones who know about this girl?”
A group of giggling teenagers shuffled by us. Winnie nodded toward them. “Start with the obvious.”
I waited until the teenagers passed before falling into step behind them. As I pretended to inspect the shop windows, I listened in on their conversation. There were four of them, two boys and two girls, all well-dressed and about the same age as the healer we were looking for. One of the girls, a tall blonde, playfully slapped her friend’s butt.
“Isabella!” the friend scolded.
Isabella grinned and stuck her tongue out. “Just keeping you on your toes, Lexi. Are you guy still planning to go to Nora’s party tonight?”
“I can’t,” a black-haired boy replied with a sullen look. “I’m grounded. My mom found out that I’ve been selling essays at school.”
“Duncan, you are the only person I know who gets in trouble for doing extra homework,” Isabella said, cuffing her friend lightly over the head.
The other teenager, a spindly boy with lopsided glasses and floppy brown hair, roughly jostled Duncan’s shoulder to place himself beside Lexi. “Don’t worry, D,” he said, draping his arm around the shorter girl’s shoulders. “I’ll take care of Lexi for ya.”
Lexi shrugged the taller boy off. “Get off, Mark. It’s not really Nora’s party though, is it? It’s just another charity gala her mom is throwing, so it’s bound to be boring anyway.”
“Which is why we go and form our own party separate from the adults,” Isabella countered, steering Lexi away from the boys. “Can anyone say free champagne?”
“Free champagne,” Duncan supplied.
“I’m definitely going,” Mark declared. “We can’t leave Nora all alone in a sea of old drunk losers. Maybe I can finally—”
Duncan clapped the taller boy on the back. “Give it up, buddy. Nora already turned down your invitation to the homecoming dance. She doesn’t like you like that. Just accept it.”
“Shut up, D!”
As the conversation devolved into an argument over where the elusive Nora�
�s affections lay, I let the teenagers disappear into the crowd and ducked into a narrow vacant alleyway between two buildings to talk to Winnie without drawing attention to myself.
“What are the chances this Nora is the girl we’re looking for?” I asked her.
A gust of wind swept through the alley, blowing my hair against my cheeks. A colorful flyer dislodged itself from the window of the nearest shop and wafted between the buildings. I snatched it out of the air and examined the fancy font. It was a town-wide invitation for the gala in question, some kind of charity event meant to benefit cancer research hosted by Mr. and Mrs. Owen McGrath. The address matched that of the estate home we spent the night scoping out.
“I’d say a very good chance,” Winnie remarked, examining the invitation over my shoulder.
“Looks like we’re crashing a gala fundraiser.”
By eight o’clock in the evening, I had pilfered a dark green ball gown in my size through the back door of a boutique with the help of an illusionary ward, stolen a pair of black pumps from the shoe store next door, and procured diamond earrings from the local jeweler. I got ready in the woods beside the estate house, careful to keep the gown out of the dirt. Winnie laughed as I used witchcraft to set my hair and makeup. I never had the patience or the need for materialistic beauty until now, so it took me a few tries to get it right. Once I was fully dressed, I transformed a small pond into a makeshift mirror to check my work. I looked more like Winnie than Gwenlyn, something my twin sister noticed as well.
“You look more like yourself in jeans,” she commented. “Not that you aren’t gorgeous, of course. After all, we have the same face, so how could you not be?”
I rolled my eyes, rummaging through my backpack. Near the bottom, I found a small container full of black capsules and popped two into my mouth.
“What are those?” Winnie asked.
“Aura blockers,” I replied after I had swallowed. “Once they kick in, they’ll trick other witches into thinking I’m mortal. I made them before we left Yew Hollow, just in case.”
“Any side effects?”
A wave of tremors shook my body as the blockers worked their magic. “Yeah. I won’t be able to do perform any spells until they wear off.”
“Is that safe?”
“Probably not.”
I stowed my backpack at the base of an elm tree with funny-shaped branches so that I would remember where I’d left it. Then I circled to the front of the house through the woods, holding the train of my dress in one hand and my heels in the other. The guests arrived in droves, piloting luxury sedans up the driveway and handing their keys over to a valet attendant. Each and every one of them was dressed to the nines. The men wore full suits complete with cummerbunds and bowties, while the women donned every color of ball gown imaginable. I let down my dress, stepped into my heels, and slipped from the shadows, effortlessly blending in with the flow of affluent blue bloods toward the front door. There were so many people in attendance that no one questioned my presence. Rather, they chatted excitedly to one another about what they expected from the night.
When I finally made it through the front door, I gasped aloud. The interior of the estate house was even more decadent than I expected. A marble staircase led to a decorated mezzanine that looked over the entry hall, but I didn’t have time to marvel at the architecture before the crowd ushered me toward another set of doors at the opposite end of the room, which were set under a massive replica of the Eiffel Tower. The mouth-watering scent of catered food washed over me, and I craned my neck to see over the heads of those in front of me for a look at the banquet table, momentarily forgetting what I was really at the gala for. Winnie, who hovered overhead, reminded me with a quick swipe through my skull.
“Don’t get distracted,” she shouted over the hubbub echoing through the hall.
With so many people around, there was no discreet way to respond to her, so I gave her a minuscule nod instead and resumed surveying the room. There were several witches in attendance, their auras shining brightly in the crowd. I picked up on their interactions with each other. Some embraced, while others nodded curtly, which made it clear which women belonged to which coven. The teenaged healer was nowhere in sight, and I assumed that she was already in the main room beyond the Eiffel Tower doors.
I spotted the teenagers from earlier. As promised, Duncan was missing, but Isabella and Lexi both surpassed the physical expectation for their age bracket in floor-length gowns of gold and purple respectively. Even Mark, the gangly bespectacled teen, looked too sophisticated for a high schooler in a tailored black tuxedo. The trio ignored the adults around them, instead searching the crowded floor. Occasionally, they waved to another teenager who’d been dragged along to the gala, but they seemed to be looking for someone in particular.
I was nearly through the second set of doors when I felt the girl’s unmistakeable aura arrive in the room. I stopped dead, causing a backup of guests behind me, and turned around. There, having just descended the extravagant staircase, were two witches. I paid little attention to the first, enraptured by the stunning pink glow of the girl’s power. Within seconds, the pair disappeared into the throng below, but it was easy to keep track of the younger woman’s ethereal light. I stepped aside and hugged the wall as the crowd surged into the main hall, bringing the girl toward me slowly but surely.
15
The girl reached her friends before she reached me. Isabella and Lexi pulled her into a hug before holding her at arm’s length and twirling her around to get a three-sixty view of her stunning red dress. As she danced in circles, laughing, her aura hit me in waves. I glanced around, wondering if any of the other witches in the room were as affected by the girl as I was, but they did not even spare her a passing glance.
“Oh my God, Nora!” Isabella squealed, spinning the girl again. “You look amazing!”
“Seriously beautiful,” Lexi agreed, nodding.
“If I wasn’t here, you’d be the sexiest person in the room,” Mark added and winked.
The girl, Nora, made a face. “Gee, thanks, Mark. Where’s Duncan?”
The group of friends passed me, jostled along by the crowd, and I followed them beneath the paper mache legs of the Eiffel Tower and into the main hall. Again, I was overwhelmed by the sheer immensity of the party. Models in antique couture strutted up and down a runway, burlesque dancers commandeered another stage, and some of the guests had already taken a place on the illuminated dance floor. Nora and her friends headed straight for the banquet table, laughing and catching up as they loaded small plates with hors d’oeuvres and fondue. I trailed along behind them, keeping them within earshot. No one paid me any mind as I joined the line at the banquet table and mindlessly collected salmon puffs from a crystal platter.
Mark popped a piece of bacon-wrapped sirloin into his mouth with his fingers. “So, Nora. How long do you have to stick around here before we can form our own little after party?”
Isabella smacked his chest with the back of her hand. “Hey, that was my idea!”
Nora giggled at her friends’ antics. “It depends. I think my mom wants me to chat with a few people first. You know, investors and a few people from application committees for Harvard and Yale.”
“Is this a business luncheon for you?” Lexi asked dryly. “Why don’t your parents entertain their investors?”
“Also, why are they pimping you out to the Ivy Leagues already?” Isabella added. “You just turned sixteen. Isn’t it kind of early?”
“Apparently I make an excellent first impression,” Nora replied, topping off her plate with a dollop of chutney from the condiments bar. “And it’s never too early to think about college.”
Mark groaned and crumpled a paper napkin in his fist. “Don’t remind me. My dad’s already talking about how I need to follow in the footsteps of the men in our family and start thinking seriously about getting into Columbia.”
“Columbia’s a great school,” Nora said, patting him on t
he back.
“Yeah, and it’s in New York,” Isabella added with a smirk. “Which means if the rest of us get into Harvard, we only have to see you on holidays.”
As Mark and Isabella bickered, Nora looked on endearingly before piloting Lexi away from them, balancing her plate in her palm. I sighed deeply and squeezed between two portly guests to follow them. It was going to be a long night.
For three and a half hours, I tailed Nora around the extravagant party. She mostly stuck with her friends, laughing and dancing, but every so often a tall, good-looking man that I assumed was her father introduced her to some other suited business official. As the night wore on and the guests guzzled glass after glass of champagne, the party grew sillier and messier. Business deals and polite chitchat went by the wayside, replaced by raucous conversations and erratic dance moves that should never have seen the light of day. I was getting tired, and Winnie was so bored that she joined the models on stage and struck dramatic poses to make me laugh. All the while, I kept an eye on Nora, waiting for an opportunity to get her alone. Approaching midnight, I got my chance.
I leaned against the wall behind the banquet table, allowing the tipsy crowd to keep me hidden. Nora approached the table, glanced left and right, and liberated an unopened bottle of champagne. She froze suddenly, gazing out of the floor-to-ceiling window. I checked her line of sight. Another witch sat on the porch outside—the same woman who’d escorted Nora down the stairs at the beginning of the party. Her features were hazy through the glass, but I could just make out the faintest hint of her aura, which seemed to be orange or red. A silent exchange occurred between the pair, then the woman outside grinned, winked, and looked away from Nora. Nora’s shoulders visibly relaxed, and she scuttled toward the opposite end of the room with the champagne.
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