“A what?”

“A divination spell,” Sophie repeated.

Layla ran the words through her head. She wasn’t sure what they meant, but it didn’t sound like she and Hunter were in trouble. Was it possible that Sophie hadn’t seen their linked hands as she’d watched them come inside?

But Sophie’s face was tense and unhappy, and her eyes were flickering between Layla and Hunter. Yep, she’d definitely seen them. The question was, what was she going to do about it?

“It’s a strange spell—one not often used because its results are pretty inconsistent. It tries to get information, though, and we definitely need that right now. There’s been no sign of the person killing witches. They probably know the demons are hunting them and might even have gone into hiding. We need every possible clue we can get.”

Layla nodded cautiously. “Can I help?”

“Not this time. It’s a difficult spell at the best of times, and you still haven’t had a lot of training. You should watch, though, and you can help with the set-up.”

Layla followed Sophie to the kitchen, nervously glancing back at Hunter. Only very powerful and dangerous spells required physical objects to amplify a witch’s natural power. She’d spent quite a bit of time going through the spell book by now and knew that only a handful of spells needed significant preparation.

“It’s near the back of the book,” Sophie told her unnecessarily. “Just set up everything like the book says, and then come and call us when you’re done. It’s a new moon tonight, which is best for this particular spell, so make sure to get it done before midnight.”

“Wait, you’re not helping me?”

“We can’t; not if we want to get it done tonight. The spell requires a solid five hours of magic-induced meditation for everyone casting it. Rose and Lizeth came in while you were out. They’re already upstairs, and I’m about to go join Damaris to induce the meditative state for all of us.”

Both annoyed and worried about having to do all of the set-up for the spell without any help or guidance, Layla pursed her lips and asked, “Why didn’t we start preparing yesterday?” She tried to keep her voice neutral, not wanting to cause any trouble.

“We were hoping we wouldn’t need to. If Phoenix had found anything useful in his investigations today, we wouldn’t be bothering. You should also know that, even though you won’t be casting the spell, this one will call on some of your magic as you put the right elements in place, so be prepared for anything. Rose has put up a few extra wards, just in case.”

“Hey, wait a minute,” Hunter cut in angrily, stepping into the kitchen to confront Sophie. “Layla’s been a witch for all of five minutes. You can’t just leave her to do a complicated and dangerous spell like this.” Layla wasn’t sure whether to be glad he was saying what she was too cowardly to say or horrified that he’d cause another fuss with Sophie on her account.

“It’s not ideal,” Sophie admitted. “It’s better to perform a risky spell than let another witch end up dead, though; waiting another month could mean we’d be making that choice. Whatever the complications of the divination spell are, at least they won’t be fatal.”

Hunter looked ready to protest again, but Layla shot him a look and shook her head slightly. The last thing she needed was more trouble with Sophie.

“You’ll wake us up?” Sophie asked, and Layla nodded.

“I’ll get started on the spell now,” Layla announced before Hunter could continue the debate.

Hunter paused to glower at Sophie before trailing Layla into the living room to get the spell book, but he let Sophie go upstairs without saying anything more in protest, at least. Left to concentrate, Layla first spent a few minutes reading through the spell and glancing at the clock. She’d have to hurry if she wanted to get everything done in time.

“You shouldn’t have to do this,” Hunter muttered. Layla glanced up to see that Sophie was already upstairs.

“We need to find out who’s killing witches.”

“Yes, but not at a risk to you. You don’t know what your stipulation for using magic is yet. What if it happens now and you need help?”

“If worse comes to worst, you can go wake up Sophie. We won’t be able to do the spell, but she won’t hesitate if it’s for my safety—we both know that. She wouldn’t ask me to do this if she didn’t think I couldn’t handle it or if she didn’t think it necessary.”

“Or maybe she’s just pissed about us. Did you see her face? She knows,” he said quietly, glancing to the stairs.

“Hunter, she’s not like that. She wouldn’t deliberately put me in danger just for petty revenge.”

Hunter didn’t look like he believed it. “Witches can be vicious when they want to be.”

“So can anyone!” Layla shot back. Shaking her head, she took a deep breath to calm herself and then sighed. “Look, I don’t want to fight, okay? The sooner we catch this killer, the sooner we’ll all be safe. Let’s just get it done.”

Hunter hovered over her shoulder as she went through the process of preparing for the spell. And though she knew it was technically drawing on her magic, she didn’t feel any different. Rather than worry about what might happen, she could only be glad for Hunter’s help for the first part. She needed to create a sort of tent out of a special red fabric that Sophie had folded up in the attic.

Layla had never been camping, and this didn’t even have tent poles or anything to help suggest what needed to be done. The spell required that the fabric be hung from the ceiling, radiating down to form a circular, tepee kind of tent. Getting the fabric to cooperate was easier said than done. Finally, she snuck upstairs and raided Rose’s handbag for the ribbons she used to tie her hair then handed everything over to Hunter.

While he wrestled with the tent, she gathered everything else she’d need. She nearly had a heart attack when she saw that the spell required freshly picked lavender, before remembering that Sophie had a lavender patch in the garden—probably for spells just like this one. Of course, Hunter insisted on accompanying her outside, even if just to the garden. Not that she complained.

The lavender had to be meticulously arranged into little crystal jars, these being filled with water and a single drop of eucalyptus oil. Next, places needed to be laid for all of the witches doing the spell—small cushions for seats, each with a candle in front of it.

When she came to the next step, she paused and stared at it—ever since she’d read over the spell, she’d been trying not to think about the fact that Sophie was trusting her to make this part of the preparation go off without a hitch, just as much as the simpler steps. She looked up to meet Hunter’s gaze as he came closer, drawn to the tension he’d felt coming off her once again.

“I need to purify the house, to get rid of any evil spirits,” she told him quietly.

“That seems sensible. This spell sounds pretty temperamental. You don’t want anything setting it off.”

“I know…but this is an advanced spell, Hunter. What if I get it wrong? I’ve never done anything like this before.”

Hunter’s face darkened. “I’m getting Sophie.”

Layla shook her head—she needed his support, but not that. “No, you’re not.” Layla grabbed his arm as he moved to go upstairs.

“We can still do this. I’m just nervous, that’s all. Can you…can you watch me?”

“You can count on it, obviously. The second it looks like something is even remotely wrong, I’m getting Sophie, spell or no spell.”

Layla took a deep breath to steady herself, reading through the purification spell a few times. Hunter was indeed watching her like a hawk. It made her feel a little better, knowing he had her back if anything went wrong.

“Parician,” she said clearly, concentrating hard.

Nothing happened. That was probably to be expected, though. New spells always took her a few tries to get right, even though she was getting better at them. She double-checked the pronunciation and tried again.

It took seven tries before something finally happened. A sudden wind seemed to sweep the house, setting papers rustling and ruffling Hunter’s hair.

“How are you feeling? Are you okay?”

Layla waited a moment to answer, analyzing her body. “I’m fine,” she said eventually. “I just wish my stipulation would show itself already. It’s driving me crazy, just waiting—not knowing when it’s going to happen, only that it is.”

“I can imagine. When it does, you’ll probably curse yourself for ever wishing it would come, though.”

“Probably,” Layla agreed, looking around to see if the spell had had any effects beyond the wind she’d felt. More hadn’t been expected, but she had expected the spell to cause her more difficulty, at least, before she got it right. Finally satisfied, she added, “I hope it’s something easy like Damaris has. She can manage and control it, at least. For Rose and Sophie, it’s a lot harder. Particularly for Rose.”

Hunter nodded. “She’s very brave. She does magic for the good of her coven without hesitation, even when another could do it without risking unbearable pain.”

Layla looked at him in surprise. “You know, I think that’s the first time I’ve ever heard you compliment a witch.”

“You’re a witch.”

“A witch other than me.”

“Maybe you’re growing on me,” Hunter said, grinning. “Truthfully, it’s a lot easier to keep a prejudice if you live in separate worlds. I won’t pretend I like the rest of your coven—they are witches, after all, and I know how they feel about us demons—but maybe they’re not so different from the rest of us as I might have thought before all this started.”

Layla paused to kiss him before continuing with getting everything ready. There wasn’t much more to do. After hanging up some wind chimes, which seemed a rather pointless exercise considering that all of the doors and windows needed to be closed, it was nearing the time to start.

Hunter and Cord made themselves scarce, knowing that the other witches wouldn’t want any demons around for such a tricky spell. Layla went to Sophie’s room first. Sophie was sitting on her bed with her eyes closed. She didn’t stir when Layla called her name, and only woke up after being gently shaken on the shoulder.

“It’s time?”

“It’s time.”

Sophie’s eyes still looked dreamy and far away, so Layla didn’t try to talk to her as she went to wake the others. Waking the others felt the same—as if they were being brought to the surface of dreams, but left distant from Layla. They came out of the meditation like they were coming out of a deep sleep and hardly spoke at all as they filed downstairs into the tent.

Layla wanted to ask if she’d done everything right, but figured this wasn’t the time; she wasn’t even sure they’d hear her if she tried. She followed them into the tent instead, settling down in a far corner to watch.

The coven linked hands, and Sophie started leading the spell. Most spells were a word or two, or maybe a sentence at their longest. This one went on for almost a page. Layla had seen it in the book, though she’d made no attempt to memorize it. She wondered how long it had taken Sophie to learn the spell.

Spells were in no language that Layla knew of, though they all seemed to be derived from Latin. Foreign as they sounded, Sophie reeled off the words as if she’d been saying them her whole life, despite how disused this spell apparently was.

Once Sophie had stopped speaking, no noise or movement interrupted the air. Layla had a panicked moment when she wasn’t even sure if the witches were breathing, but looking closely, she saw that their chests were rising and falling, if shallowly.

It’s like they went into hibernation.

They all stared unseeingly into the center of the circle, watching things that Layla could only imagine. It seemed to go on forever. She glanced at her watch. They’d been sitting there for an hour, with nothing that she could see happening. The book had said that the spell could take some time, but it hadn’t said how much.

Layla shifted, trying to get comfortable with nothing to lean her back against. She wanted to leave and spend some time with Hunter, as observing clearly wasn’t teaching her anything at this point, but she was worried about disturbing the spell if she left now.

Another hour dragged by before anything else happened. Then, the witches all gasped and their eyes snapped back into focus.

Sophie fell back against the side of the tent, pulling the fabric out of position. Lizeth was only aware for a moment before she zoned out again, obviously having one of her visions.

Rose and Damaris seemed fine, though.

“Did you see anything?” Layla asked hopefully, stretching her sore back muscles.

“No.”

Both of them looked bitterly disappointed.

“Nothing?” Layla was crestfallen. They’d gone through all that for nothing?

“That’s the thing with divination spells,” Rose said sadly. “They let you see a flow of events in the future, but manipulating the sights in order to see anything useful is hard. We tried for as long as we could, until Sophie and I hit our limits. Then we had to end it.”

Rose waved her hands, and all of Layla’s meticulously laid out decorations zoomed themselves back into place around the house, the tent flying away far more easily than it had been put into place.

Damaris called the demons to help move Sophie to bed. They left Lizeth where she was, as she was difficult to move when she was in one of her trances.

Layla wanted to talk more about the spell, but Sophie would be asleep for at least a couple of hours, and it was already far past the middle of the night. Exhausted, she decided she’d have to ask Sophie more about the spell in the morning rather than waiting for her to wake up. She’d probably sleep through the night anyway, even once the weakness from casting magic wore off.

Hunter sneakily followed her upstairs to kiss her goodnight. Layla would have liked to keep kissing him, but she knew the others would be coming to bed soon, so she regretfully pulled away.

“I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“You know it.”

She expected it to take ages for her mind to turn off, but apparently the night had worn her out more than she’d thought. She had no sooner closed her eyes than she was fast asleep.

When she made her way downstairs the next morning, Sophie was looking a lot better, her hands wrapped around a mug of coffee.

“Layla! Great job yesterday. You did everything perfectly.”

“You didn’t find anything, though.”

“No, but the spell casting worked, which means you did your part. We were hoping we’d get something useful from Lizeth’s vision, but all she saw was a room full of chairs, which could have been anything.”

Layla couldn’t hide her disappointment, but Sophie was still talking.

“Anyway, that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about. I’ve got your first official assignment as a part of our coven.”

That sounds exciting.

“It’s too risky to communicate via the phone or internet right now, and magical methods of communication aren’t always reliable. You’re to go to Miami to give a message to the coven there. Cord will go with you to protect you.”

Layla’s momentary rush of joy faltered.

“I’ll go with her,” Hunter said swiftly as he stepped into the kitchen, apparently having heard everything.

“No, I’d like Cord to go,” Sophie said firmly.

Cord looked uncomfortable. “Hunter really would be the best for this particular assignment…”

Hunter raised his eyebrows, and Cord continued, “Actually, he’s the only man for the job. This is clearly the best way to utilize his skills, so it would be irresponsible to send anyone else.”

Sophie glared around at all of them. “I said I want Cord to go with Layla, and that’s final.”

Layla and Hunter exchanged gloomy looks. Layla had thought it was too good to be true that Sophie wouldn’t react to what she’d seen, and she’d been right. Apparently, she and Hunter were going to be separated.