by Kami Garcia
Least one thing is.
She took the familiar deck of cards out of her apron pocket and shuffled them, then chose five cards, flipping them over on the counter with one hand while she dropped battered chicken pieces into the pot with the other. When she turned the final card and saw the spread, a shiver ran up her spine.
The Wounded Heart, the Hidden Door, the Fated Path, the Endless Thread, and the Bleeding Blade.
It was her spread, the one meant for her eyes only. The warning that had haunted Amma her entire life. She’d done everything she could, but somehow it was never enough to change the cards.
Amma had found her way to Mitchell’s house, and she’d fallen in with the Wate family. She’d kept Mitchell safe and happy—and still, the cards never changed.
Not enough to matter.
Today was no different. Not one of those cards meant anything good, unless they were in inverted positions—which these weren’t. But together, they represented something even worse.
Deception.
Mitchell’s girl. That’s what this is about. It has to be.
Her hand hesitated in the air over the spread.
The front door slammed, and Amma swept the cards off the counter and back into her pocket. Mitchell knew she was a Seer, capable of catching glimpses of the future by reading cards, among other things. But he thought she read tarot cards like some sort of exotic fortune-teller, and Amma had never bothered to correct him. The less Mitchell knew about the supernatural world that was hidden in plain sight all around them, the better. That was her job—to keep him safe and to keep him on the right side of all the wrong in this world.
“Amma? We’re here,” Mitchell called out from the foyer.
She pulled the last chicken wing out of the pot, shaking her head.
It was a first.
Burnt as Martha Lincoln’s meat loaf. It’s gonna be a long night.
“Amma?” Mitchell jogged into the kitchen, his cheeks flushed and a mile-wide grin on his face. “Didn’t you hear me calling you?”
Amma put her hand on her hip. “Oh, I heard your hollerin’, Mitchell Wate. But I’m not sure why you think I’m gonna come runnin’ when I’m in the middle a makin’ fried chicken.”
Mitchell threw his big arms around the woman who had helped raise him, and gave her a squeeze. “I smelled it from a block away. You’re the best. You know that, Amma?”
“Me or my chicken?”
“Both.”
She snorted and swatted him with the One-Eyed Menace, the burnt, battered wooden spoon with a hole in it that she wielded like a sword. It was the oldest thing in the room, except for Amma herself. “Don’t try to butter me up. Now get outta my kitchen so I can finish cookin’.”
Mitchell shifted his weight and glanced at the kitchen door. “I have a surprise for you.”
She knew what he was doing, and she wasn’t having any of it. He was waiting for her to ask him to introduce her to his new girlfriend, but the Devil would have to show up on her doorstep passing out Good Humor ice-cream bars first. After reading the spread she’d pulled earlier, Amma knew everything she needed to know about Mitchell’s mystery girl. Even if the odds were good that the same girl was outside waiting on the doorstep right now.
“So where’s Dad?” he asked instead.
Now it was Amma’s turn to look uncomfortable. “He got called to Columbia at the last minute to consult on a big case.”
Mitchell’s grin faded. “Of course he did.”
“Don’t you start up with that college-boy sass. Your daddy works hard and keeps a roof over your head, Mitchell Wate. The way I see it, that counts for somethin’.”
“Not enough,” Mitchell shot back.
“Not enough? Says who?” She pulled herself up a good inch taller, which still meant she barely came up to Mitchell’s chest. “Since when did you get to decide who gets the drumstick and who gets the wing in this kitchen?”
Mitchell raised his hands, admitting defeat.
Amma waved the One-Eyed Menace, ready to deliver one of her lectures—and she was almost as famous for her lectures as her pie—when the back door creaked open, then banged shut a second later. Amma, hearing the familiar banter in seconds, lowered her spoon.
“Good God Almighty. When it rains, it just keeps right on rainin’,” she muttered.
“Now, Harlon, I’m gonna visit Daddy at his new place,” Mitchell’s Aunt Prudence said, instead of nursing home. “But there’s a tuna casserole in the icebox, and Mercy and Grace will check in on you.” Aunt Prue (who probably should’ve been named Impudence) and her sisters, Aunt Mercy and Aunt Grace (neither of whom had been blessed with grace or mercy), had a habit of dropping by whenever the scent of Amma’s cooking caught the wind into town.
“I don’t need your sisters fussin’ and carryin’ on over me. I’m a grown man. I know how to find my own supper,” a man’s voice said from the back hallway. “And if you don’t mind me sayin’, you’ve been spendin’ a lotta time over at that nursin’ home.”
Aunt Prue breezed into the kitchen with her browbeaten husband, Harlon, in tow, and turned to glare at him. “As a matter a fact, I do mind you sayin’, and it’s not a nursin’ home.” She opened her mouth, most likely to give him another piece of her mind, when she noticed her nephew. “Mitchell! I didn’t know you were gonna be here.”
“Then you’re gettin’ senile,” Amma said. “Because I told you just this mornin’.”
Aunt Prue ignored the dig and gave Mitchell a hug, tucking two sour-lemon candies in his shirt pocket. “You save these for later,” she whispered. “But don’t you chew ’em, or you’ll wreck your bridges.”
He nodded. “Never.”
“I hear you found yourself a girlfriend.” Her shrill bingo tone was back. “Where are you hidin’ her?”
Amma huffed from the kitchen.
Back at Duke, if I had my way.
Someone coughed just the tiniest bit, and Amma turned toward the kitchen doorway. A pretty girl, with a pencil holding her chestnut hair behind her ear, fidgeted with the books in her arms and a duffel over one shoulder. “Looks like I found the party,” she said with a rosy-cheeked smile.
Mitchell grabbed her hand and pulled it behind his back, drawing the girl into the room.
Amma raised a single eyebrow. For one of the rare times in her life, she was speechless.
Aunt Prue stood next to Harlon James, with her mouth hanging open as if the girl had just pulled up her skirt and flashed her britches. Aunt Prue had spent enough time mapping the Caster Tunnels—the underground labyrinth that ran beneath the Mortal world—to recognize this girl, too.
Amma’s expression remained unreadable, but she understood Aunt Prue’s reaction perfectly—because Amma had seen Mitchell’s sweetheart before, as well—even if the girl didn’t realize it.
In fact, Amma would recognize that face anywhere.
But finding out she was Mitchell’s girlfriend and seeing her holding hands with Mitchell in her kitchen was a shock to the system—a feeling Amma Treaudeau didn’t like (and a position she certainly didn’t find herself in often).
Thank the Good Lord for that.
Mitchell stepped forward. “Amma, this is Lila Evers, the girl I’m in love with.”
“You hush,” said Aunt Prue, looking horrified.
Lila blushed. “Mitchell, stop,” she said in a tone that implied she didn’t mind one bit.
“You might want ta slow down, son, or you’ll scare her off,” Harlon said from where he stood behind Aunt Prue.
Mitchell looked down at his girlfriend, and they exchanged a conspiratorial glance. “I don’t really have to worry about that, Uncle Harlon.” He raised his hand in front of his chest, his fingers still intertwined with Lila’s.
A tiny diamond, no bigger than a sequin, glinted on Lila’s ring finger.
“That is just—” Aunt Prue spluttered.
“I know,” Mitchell beamed. “I’m the luckiest man in Gatlin.” He lo
oked to Amma, who stood motionless in the doorway. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you first, Amma. I was so happy, I just couldn’t wait. And I couldn’t let her get away.”
Aunt Prue couldn’t look away. “Oh, she’s a keeper, all right.”
“I reckon so.” Amma raised the One-Eyed Menace a little higher, and Aunt Prue clamped her mouth shut.
Lila’s gaze darted to Amma. “Mitchell talks about you all the time, ma’am. It’s so nice to finally meet you.”
“Is it?” Amma wiped her hands on her apron.
Mitchell cleared his throat awkwardly and plucked the spoon out of her hand with a laugh. “I think Amma’s in shock.”
He was more right than wrong.
She wanted to be happy for him, but she didn’t want Mitchell mixed up with this girl—a girl who knew all about the dangers of the Caster world and still pulled a chair right up to their supernatural table. A girl one of the Ravenwood boys—if you could stomach calling them boys—had fallen in love with, not more than a year ago.
Lila Evers was all those things, and something else.
A Caster librarian—the Keeper of the most powerful Scrolls and Casts in the Lunae Libri, the underground Caster Library.
And the former love of Macon Ravenwood’s life.
His Wounded Heart.
The cards were beginning to fall into place, and there was nothing Amma could do to stop them.
After Amma pushed her peas and mashed potatoes around on her plate for an hour while Mitchell provided a detailed play-by-play of his proposal to Lila, it was finally time for dessert—and Amma’s escape to the kitchen.
Aunt Prue and Harlon had stayed for dinner, and Prue hadn’t said much more than Amma. Luckily, Harlon talked to anybody and everybody, including young ladies who spent their time researching dead languages and books Mortals had no business messing with.
Not to mention romancing Dark Casters like Macon Ravenwood, Amma thought.
She picked up the plate right from under Harlon’s fork and knife. He was like a goat; you had to stop him before it all came back up again.
“I’m gonna get the pie,” Amma said, wandering toward the kitchen door.
“Buttermilk or pecan?” Harlon asked, even though he knew full well that she wouldn’t answer him.
“I’ll help,” Mitchell said, standing up.
“You will not, Stickyfingers,” Amma scoffed. Mitchell had a hard time keeping his fingers off her famous crust, but tonight she had another reason for wanting to keep him out of the kitchen. “Lila can help me. She’s the only person at this table I trust to keep her hands off my pie.”
Mitchell looked at Amma suspiciously, but she only shrugged.
Lila looked pleased and pushed her chair away from the table. “I handle rare documents every day, ma’am.” She smiled as she walked toward Amma. “I’ll treat your pie with the same care.”
“Will you, now?” Amma banged open the kitchen door.
She didn’t say another word until the door between the dining room and the kitchen swung shut behind them, and she heard Harlon carrying on about Mercy and Grace driving him to drink. In the safety of the kitchen, Amma’s sanctuary, she didn’t waste any time.
Lila smiled. “That was a lovely—”
Amma held up a hand. Her eyes were dark and her expression cold. This was business.
“You can stop right there. I’m not makin’ small talk about my fried chicken. Not with you, not in this house.”
Lila gave Amma a confused look. “Excuse me?”
“Does Mitchell know the truth about who you are?” Amma asked, even though she already knew the answer.
“The truth?”
“Don’t play dumb with me, child,” Amma said, sounding angrier than she intended. “You’re not in the shallow water now. I know all about the Tunnels that run underneath this town, and the people usin’ them. I also know you’re waist deep in their world.” She leaned forward. “Which means one wrong step, and you go all the way under.”
The color drained from Lila’s face, and she reached for the wall next to her.
Amma ignored the panicked expression on the girl’s face. “What I don’t know is why you’re draggin’ my boy into that drownin’ Darkness with you.”
“I—” Lila’s voice shook, and she took a deep breath and started again, this time clinging to the edge of the counter for support. “I wasn’t aware you knew. But it’s not all Dark. There are Light Cas—” She stopped.
“Casters,” Amma finished for her. “If you can run their library, you should be able to say the word.”
“I don’t remember seeing you in the stacks,” Lila said quietly.
“They don’t call me a Seer because a my eyesight.” Amma folded her arms.
“I swear I’d never involve Mitchell in their world. I love him.” Tears welled in Lila’s eyes. “It’s just a coincidence that we—”
Amma snorted. Right. And I’m just a fortune-teller.
But a clinking sound—one of the bottles on Amma’s bottle tree, just outside the kitchen window—kept Amma from responding. She caught a glimpse of a passing reflection in the glass. Amma moved to the window, searching the yard. Her eyes zeroed in on the source of the disturbance.
A black dog that looked more like a wolf.
Amma squared her shoulders. She knew exactly who that black devil of a dog belonged to and what it was doing in her yard.
Spying on me. The nerve. This day just gets better and better.
“I don’t have time to talk about this right now. You go on ahead and start without me.” Amma handed a shocked-looking Lila the pie. “I gotta see about a stray.” She untied her apron, balled it up, and threw it on the counter. Then she lowered her voice to a whisper. “But we both know that wolf isn’t a stray, now, don’t we?”
“I don’t know why he’d send his dog here,” Lila said, barely able to get the words out. It was obvious the girl recognized the mongrel.
Amma grabbed her pocketbook off the table. “Well, I intend to find out.” She turned on her heel and headed for the back door.
No one spies on me, Amma thought, snapping shut the back-door screen behind her. Not a Mortal, a Caster, or a monster.
The black dog took off the moment it saw Amma stomping down the back steps.
“That’s right, you tell him I’m comin’,” she snapped. “And I’m madder than a starvin’ gator.”
Amma rarely set foot in the Caster Tunnels, but tonight was an exception. The closest entrance was behind the DAR building, but Mortals needed a key to access the Outer Doors that led into the Caster Tunnels. Luckily, one of the few Mortals who did have a key was jabbering away in the dining room at Wate’s Landing right now. Of course, Aunt Prue kept the irreplaceable supernatural key exactly where anyone who knew her would expect—in an oversized plastic Hide-a-Key rock in her garden. Aunt Prue had Harlon paint it bright red and label it HIDE-A-KEY with her label maker, because otherwise she couldn’t see well enough to find it. It was a miracle the key was still inside.
But it was, and by the time Amma made it to the Outer Door behind the DAR building, she was seething. It didn’t help that the black fleabag of a dog had followed her the last few blocks.
“You’re lucky I don’t have my spoon with me,” Amma said to the dog as he crouched in the bushes.
He whimpered in response.
“Oh, really? You chew that one up, and I’ll just get myself another.” She didn’t have to know what Macon’s dog was saying to know it was sass. “Even the dogs are mouthy today.”
Just as she slid the key into the lock, a shiver ran up her spine, and she knew she wasn’t alone anymore. Amma kept her eyes fixed on the door. “You could try sayin’ hello, like respectable folk.”
“Good evening,” a man said, from somewhere behind her. “And I didn’t mean to intrude.”
“Didn’t you, now?” She let her hand drop from the key.
“I assume you’re looking for me, and I thought I wou
ld make it easier for you.”
Amma turned slowly, her hand clutching the protective medal at her throat. She hated being this close to a creature as full of Darkness as an Incubus. But a Ravenwood Incubus was almost unthinkable.
I’ve faced Macon Ravenwood before, and I’ll face worse yet.
“Aren’t you considerate?” Amma straightened her back and studied the Incubus’ pupil-less black eyes. “Maybe you should use some a those manners the next time you think about using your wolf over there to spy on me.”
Macon raised an eyebrow. “I’m impressed, Miss Treaudeau. Most Mortals aren’t aware that Caster animals afford us certain advantages.”
“If you think your only advantage is that mangy old dog, you got another thing comin’. I know all about your kind.” She pointed a skinny finger at the handsome young man’s face. “My mamma was killed by a monster like you. Your own kin, for all I know.”
Macon Ravenwood flinched as if she’d struck him. Amma wasn’t sure if it was the revelation about her mother or calling him a monster that did it, and she didn’t much care either way.
“I’m sorry to hear that.” He kicked at the dirt, the tails of his long black overcoat flapping in the breeze. He looked more like a boy than a dangerous monster. “No one wishes they could change what they are more than I do. But I wasn’t offered a choice, and you can’t imagine what I’ve lost because of it.”
“Like Lila Jane Evers?” Amma snapped. “Is that what you’re moonin’ about?”
Macon’s head jerked up.
Amma took a step closer to him. “That’s right. I know about you and the Mortal Caster librarian. My question is… does your daddy know?” She’d played her card, and from the look on Macon’s face, Amma knew it was the right one to play.
“Word travels,” Macon said.
“Is that so? Then how about these words?” She leaned even closer. “You can quit your sulkin’ and your lurkin’ and take your fanged fleabag and leave us all alone.”
Macon stepped back. “That’s precisely what I planned to do.”
“Then get on with it already.” She waved her pocketbook at him in the shadows. “This is me, seein’ you off.”