One very good dream had featured the woman sitting next to her on this sofa, but she needed to not think about that too deeply until the elephant of their attraction was properly discussed and dealt with. If they decided to cut things off where they stood, then that dream would serve as bittersweet fantasy fuel in the middle of the night. If they decided to move forward and see where this led, well—Abby had a scenario she’d very much like to take from her dream and manifest with Wren between the sheets of her bed.
All of those dreams had been normal, if disruptive to her sleep cycle. What had been unusual was the woman who’d greeted her while she was in a trance a few nights ago appearing over and over in her dreams.
She was a spirit, and that alone wasn’t unusual. One of the side effects of the source of Abby’s magic meant she was regularly visited by spirits in her dreams—always had been. When she was a kid, she hadn’t known that’s what they were until her grandmother passed away. When Abby told her mom she was dreaming of Grandma, her mom’s initial reaction had been a nonchalant, “me too. So nice to get to see how well she is on the other side.” Then she’d stopped and looked at Abby, set down the groceries she’d been putting away, and gotten her some ice cream from the freezer. They’d eaten the entire pint together while Mom explained that part of their magic meant that spirits would visit her in her dreams. Often ones she knew, sometimes people she wouldn’t recognize. She’d explained that a spirit who visited in dreams couldn’t harm her and that with practice Abby would be able to interact with them intentionally, if she wanted to, like a waking dream.
So last night, when the blond young woman had appeared in Abby’s dreams, she’d known it was a visitation so she’d greeted her.
“Hi, I’m Abby.”
“I know.” The woman had smiled. “You’re perfect.”
Abby had laughed. “Hardly. How are you doing?”
“I’m fine.” She’d responded so matter-of-factly. “Do me a favor?”
Abby shrugged. “If I can.” When it was a spirit she hadn’t known in the living world, it was impossible to promise until she knew what they wanted her to do. More than once, she’d had to tell a spirit what they needed was a medium, and explained how to find one.
“Don’t let her run from you.”
Abby felt her brows furrow. “I’m sorry?”
“And, when she tries to,” the woman had said, “remind her of all the lies I told.”
When she’d asked who the woman was talking about, she’d shaken her head. And when she’d asked for her name, she’d disappeared.
Abby had woken up from that little doozy of a visitation at four—and hadn’t been able to make herself fall asleep again, her mind spinning and jittery. She’d killed the time until leaving to meet Wren by drawing and journaling, cleaning her room and snuggling with Nova. Her roommate and her roommate’s partners had still been sleeping when she’d left to meet Wren at the coffee shop near the tattoo studio. Wren had driven from there, but they hadn’t said a lot to one another until she’d pulled into the driveway of a cute, northwest-chic craftsman in upper Queen Anne.
“Whoa.”
Wren chuckled. “Yeah, I’m not even sure they know how lucky they are to have this place.”
Home prices in Seattle were stupid high. How’d they afford this? Unless, maybe Zander was a lawyer or something?
Looking at her now, across the living room, she didn’t seem like a lawyer/doctor type. Her dark hair—pixie short and styled messy—wasn’t nearly conservative enough, for starters. And her ripped jeans and gray flannel over a black, scoop neck tank didn’t scream traditional, either. But damn, she and Callum made a smokin’ hot pair, didn’t they? It was impossible not to notice as Callum sat forward, his blue eyes piercing as they narrowed on Wren.
“Do you think the static Trey mentioned is negative energy?”
Wren shrugged, but Abby cut in. “Static?” They’d mentioned that before. “Who is Trey?”
“He’s one of the spirits tethered to Callum and Cecily,” Wren explained.
“And they told us there’s some sort of interference in our signal,” Callum added.
Something niggled in the back of Abby’s mind. Something familiar.
“We thought, maybe—” Callum sighed, and Zander picked up where he left off.
“We’re hoping the interference is the reason Cal’s mom hasn’t shown up to him since she passed away.”
Callum’s mom hadn’t appeared to him since she’d passed?
Wait. Negative energy from an outside force. Interference in the connection between this side and the other. She knew what this was! “Surveillance!”
They all looked at her like she had spoken another language.
“Mystical surveillance,” she said. “It’s a spell—a complicated one—but not uncommon in realm magic. Basically, you’re latching onto an individual’s energy so you can watch it—watch them.”
Zander’s eyes were wide. “Watch them, how? Are we talking literally?”
“Sort of?” Abby replied. “It’s more like putting a tracking chip on them, so you can find them when you want to. It fucks with the person’s energy though, especially if it’s not done right.”
“So we think Cecily is being tracked?” Callum sat forward again.
Abby shrugged. “And you, too, from the sound of it.” Shit, maybe all of them. Callum and Cecily, as mediums, only knew because the spirits tethered to them could see it. Who knew if the others were being tracked as well?
“How do we find out who’s doing it?” Wren asked, her tone and eyes intense.
Unfortunately, Abby didn’t have a ready answer. “I don’t know. This is magic I only know about theoretically.” But she knew who would know. “Give me a minute to make a phone call—I might be able to find out what to do.”
“Hey Abs!” Mom’s sing-song greeting never failed to make Abby smile—even when her heart was in her throat with nerves.
“Hey, you got a second?”
“...Yes.” She must have picked up on Abby’s vibe, even over the phone and hundreds of miles away. “What’s going on?”
“Mystical surveillance,” Abby said simply. “How can we break the spell?”
There was a pause on the other end of the line. “You have to find whoever cast it to break it. Why?”
But Abby didn’t want to go into the why of it right now. “There’s no other way?”
“Not without getting messy. Are you in trouble?”
“No, it’s not for me,” Abby reassured her. “It’s for a friend. Is there a way to find out who’s behind it?”
“Not really.” Mom still sounded dubious, though no longer outright worried. “But you can cast a counter spell to block the surveillance. You’d need a partner to do it with, though, to ensure its strong enough to cover whoever is being tracked. Your cousin, Lizzie has done it before, you can call her if you need.”
“I have a friend I can ask—”
“The same friend whose being tracked?”
“No, different friend. Her magic is living magic, though. Will that work?”
Mom’s laugh said that was an understatement without the need for words. “It’ll work alright.”
That was a relief. “What’s the spell?”
“I’ll text it to you with a list of what you need,” she replied. “Now, tell me about this green witch you met—”
“Thanks, Mom. You’re the best.”
“How’d you connect?”
“I really appreciate your help. Love you.”
“Have you, like, connected?”
Abby hung up before the mortification could creep up the back of her neck and paint her cheeks pink. She appreciated her mom’s interest and support, she really did, but if she could lay off on the thinly veiled “have you slept with her yet?” questions, that’d be great.
The sound of the front door opening had Abby turning around in time to see Scott come through—and stop in his tracks when his eyes landed on
her.
She smiled and wiggled her fingers in greeting as she tucked her phone into her back pocket. “Hey, Scott. I’m not stalking you, I swear.” That had seemed funnier in her head.
“I brought her.” Wren stood from the sofa, and Scott’s attention pulled to her like he was only just realizing she was there, his lips pulling into a grin.
“Hey! I’m so glad to see you. Sorry for bailing on your touch-up the other day.”
Abby had to willfully ignore the tiny pang of jealousy she got watching Scott hug her.
His gaze bounced between Wren and her. “Glad you guys hit it off.”
Yeah, they’d hit it off alright. Right off the edge of a cliff.
“She’s a witch,” Wren announced.
Abby’s feet stuck to the floor, stopping her dead as she crossed the room. Her eyes peeled wide as Wren turned and looked over the back of the sofa at her like she’d felt her gaze—more likely, she’d felt Abby’s energy edge into holy-shit territory. “I ripped the band-aid. You’re welcome.”
Abby tried her best to make her smile light and airy. She’d give herself a solid C+.
“Abby, what the hell!” Cecily crossed the room, arms spread. “How’d I miss that?”
Abby hugged her and felt some of her shock thaw. “I’m careful not to let it show at work.” She looked at Scott. “It didn’t end up being necessary, as it turns out. All of you have magic.”
Scott’s scoff of a laugh was lined with disbelief.
“Abby was just telling us the reason for the static around Cecily and Cal might be something called—” Zander stalled out like she’d forgotten the term.
“Mystical surveillance,” Abby chimed in, then looked to Cecily. “When you came into the shop yesterday, your energy was all kinds of fucked up. It got me worried—so I talked to Wren, who said I should talk to Zander and Callum—”
“Made you talk to them, more like,” Wren remarked. She winked when her eyes met Abby’s.
She had to force her mind to stay on track instead of going down the rabbit hole of oh-my-god-she’s-flirting-with-me. “Anyway, mystical surveillance is when someone uses magic to watch another person’s energy.”
“I was thinking while you were on the phone,” Zander interjected. “Cecily, what if it’s Anders? Maybe he’s trying to keep tabs on us but fucking up the spell? Or maybe he’s a total ass hole. Who knows?”
Cecily shook her head, then turned to Abby. “You said my energy was fucked when I came into the shop yesterday?”
“It was super dark.” Like, ribbons of oil dark, but she didn’t want to say that and risk freaking everybody out.
Cecily turned to Zander. “It’s not Anders. It’s Marcus.”
⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸
As Scott watched Cecily tell the story of her run in with Marcus at the coffee shop yesterday, he had a very real moment to reflect on his relationships.
The love of his life was a medium. So was his best friend.
Zander was a cloak.
Their dear friend was a witch. So, apparently, was the woman who apprenticed for him at work.
The first time he met Abby, it had been at the shop. She’d come in, asked for him, and told the front desk she could wait until he was finished with his client. Two hours later, his client had left, and she’d still been there. No way he was going to duck out on somebody willing to wait that long to meet him.
He hadn’t been looking for an apprentice—and she’d only sort of been looking for a mentor. She already had the skills and the practice, just needed time and opportunity to hone her craft, plus some refinements on her technique (and, he didn’t realize until later, some help breaking a couple bad technical habits instilled in her by her first mentor who’d been an asshole of epic proportions.) The logical part of him had seen her portfolio and thought yeah, okay, I can take her on. Plus, she seemed cool, and he admired her tenacity, sitting in the shop for two hours, waiting patiently for him to free up.
What he’d willfully ignored was an interest in her. At first, he’d assumed it was sexual attraction—Abby was gorgeous, anybody could see that—which hadn’t bothered him. He could find a woman attractive without the desire to pursue anything with her. Plus, he was so happy with Cecily, it was like attraction and desire were no longer connected.
As they worked together, he recognized something in the way his interest in her evolved. It wasn’t sexual attraction at all. It was something different, like the comfortable concern he had for Zander, but without the added intensity of her being connected to Callum. It was the I-know-you-somehow-deeper-than-our-interactions-should-account-for feeling he got when he talked to Wren.
And now he knew why didn’t he?
Because of course Abby was a witch. She’d been right—everybody close to him held magic in some way.
He remembered meeting Callum. Even at nine years old, he recognized feeling different around him, like some rock-solid frozen part of him—the part of him that hadn’t been able to speak, or trust, or interact with other people—was gradually thawing. He’d been to so many doctors and therapists, trying to learn to speak again in more than two- or three-word phrases. A few days after meeting Callum, he was speaking in complete sentences. He’d never questioned what it was about Cal that made him feel safe. Now he thought maybe it was the magic all along.
Words climbed up his throat and part of him wanted to swallow them back—to wait until he knew what was going on with him before he told them all. But they were insistent and, more to the point, he didn’t want to keep a secret from this group of people. Now that he’d told Cecily, he could tell the others. He hadn’t realized just how much he wanted to.
“I’ve started seeing runes,” he said into the quieting din of indignant discussion about Marcus.
Everybody stopped. Cecily’s smile was warm and broad. Abby’s was victorious.
“I knew it!” she exclaimed, stepping over the coffee table between her and the sofa Scott was standing behind. She crawled right up to kneel on the cushions and slapped her hands onto his shoulders. “You have fucking rune magic! That’s why you’re drawing them all over the place! When did you die?”
Brakes screeched in Scott’s head. “What?”
“Or, like, come in contact with the other side?” Abby asked. “A person doesn’t just casually come into magic as an adult.”
Cecily’s hand on his arm pulled Scott’s eyes to hers, wide and knowing. “The Shadow,” she breathed.
The Shadow. He looked to Abby again. “Last year.”
“A Shadow hit him in the chest before I could destroy it,” Wren said, her voice low.
“Wait—” Callum’s voice was tight. “What are you saying?”
Scott’s eyes found his even while he spoke to Abby. “I died. Trevor met me, and he sent me back into my body.”
Cecily’s fingers tightened around his arm while Callum’s brows furrowed. He hadn’t ever meant to keep it a secret, but with everything that had happened after that—saving Zander, then moving across the country—it just hadn’t ever come up. He hardly even thought about it.
“Well that would do it,” Abby remarked. “Do you know what the runes mean when you draw them?”
He nodded, turning to her again. “I know what they mean, always.”
“That’s why he flipped out at the shop yesterday,” Cecily interjected, squeezing his arm again. “I showed him a pic of the runes on Marcus’s arms—”
“They were bad shit,” Scott added.
“Like what?” Abby’s eyes were wide with interest. She turned to Cecily. “You didn’t keep the pic on your phone, did you?”
“No, I deleted it.”
“Good girl.” To Scott again, “So, what were they? Just the words, don’t draw them.”
As he told Abby and the others about the runes—spells for power, forcing submission, control, calling to darkness (Abby called it The Underneath)—it felt new and strange to be contributing this way. He’d always sat on the periphery
while the others made plans and saved the day. He’d participated in the solution when they’d saved Zander from the Shadow, but he was never more than a bystander participant.
Now they were all looking at him like he had knowledge they didn’t and it felt new and exciting to be contributing something more than just his presence.
“Okay!” Abby clapped her hands once Scott reached the end of what he knew and what he’d seen. She looked around the room, at Zander and Callum, and at him and Cecily, finally turning to Wren with a grin. “We have a protection spell to cast.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The light gray sofa and teal chairs were pushed along one wall. The black-and-white chevron patterned rug was rolled up and standing in the corner, revealing the old, narrow-planked wooden floor of the house.
Wren watched as Abby sat on her knees and leaned down, looking closely at the floorboards. She scratched the wood gently with her fingernail, then leaned and sniffed, like smelling a scratch-and-sniff sticker.
When she looked up, she was grinning. “Pine floors—it’s perfect.”
Wren sat across from her and touched the flooring. “You could smell that it was pine?”
Abby shrugged. “More or less. That’s good because pine is ideal for purification and protection spells. We can use its energy to feed ours while we cast.”
Why had Wren never thought of that before? It was genius. But before she could say as much, Zander and Cecily returned with the candles they’d gathered from around the house.
“Great!” Abby said, standing. She took the candles from Cecily and handed them to Wren before taking the rest from Zander. “We’ll get these placed. Do you have any bundled sage?”
A few minutes later, Callum and Scott returned with white chalk, salt, a liter bottle of distilled water, and an assortment of fresh herbs including bay leaves, and basil. Wren took the salt and herbs to the kitchen, where she ground them together in a bowl.
She was proud of Abby for sharing her magical status with the others—something that had clearly been uncomfortable for her. Wren could remember telling Zander she was a witch that first time—drunk at a bar in New Orleans. She’d been a nervous wreck afterward, thinking she’d ruined their friendship. Still, Abby’s level of reticence made Wren wonder what had happened the last time she’d let someone in on her magical secret. Clearly it hadn’t been good, and that made Wren wish they’d known each other then. Maybe she could have helped.
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