A balaclava obscured his features and black leather gloves covered his hands, but this guy had to be Rasha. He had the build and that familiar coiled tension. His presence wasn’t random either, because he went straight for Rohan as the greater threat. Ro held his own, the two of them grappling for a hold on the other with a flurry of punches and kicks.

Magic would only escalate the situation and I wasn’t about to have him unleash some unknown power. I grabbed the wooden toy bat.

Rohan slammed a fist into the attacker’s body. He grunted, his entire frame curling around Ro’s punch but recovered pretty damn quickly, slamming both hands to either side of Ro’s head. Rohan’s blades flickered out for a second, snapping back inside him under the thin coat of ice that formed over his skin.

I swung the bat at the back of the attacker’s head but the weapon froze and splintered before contact. The Man in Black turned on me with a menacing smile. Still deep-freezing a struggling Rohan, he grabbed my arm, wrenching it up my back.

Ice filled my veins. Literally. My heart stopped and my blood crystalized into miniscule sharp-edged snowflakes. The world crackled black.

He dropped me on the floor and cracked Rohan’s skull into the wall. Once. Twice. Frost slithered down the wall. “One warning. Back. Off.”

He stepped over me and left.

I curled in a ball, dragging in a deep breath. Big mistake. I shook with a wracking cough, air hitting my half-frozen, tortured lungs.

Blood dripped out of Rohan’s ears as he knelt over me to scoop me into his arms, the drops falling in slow motion. Each plump droplet hit the carpet with a rumbled thud before fracturing, staining the fibers.

He ran the water in the jacuzzi in the bathroom, only letting go of me long enough to strip us of our clothes, before lowering me into the tub braced against his back.

“Cold.” My words came out a garbled mumble. My teeth wouldn’t stop chattering.

“Here.” He shifted for maximum skin contact, wrapping his legs around me.

There was enough hot water in the tub that feeling seeped back into my toes. I cried out, breathing through the blazing agony of having what amounted to my entire body coming off the world’s worst brain freeze.

Ro’s tears hit the water in pretty pink streaks. “Don’t cry,” I said, my chest tightening at how upset he was over my injuries. No, he wasn’t crying. It was blood. His hair was matted with it. My too-tight ribcage convulsed with fear. The water was only a few degrees below boiling and if he was concussed, hot water was a bad idea.

I peeled myself off him. “Out.”

“Yeah.” He climbed out of the tub and collapsed on the floor.

“Ro? You okay?” Still trembling and seeking heat, I slid further into the tub until only my mouth and nose peeked out above the water. I didn’t have the energy to move. Defrosting took a lot out of a girl. Now I finally understood why my Chickeny Delight always tasted so exhausted.

“Dizzy. Need a sec.”

Eventually we recovered enough to throw on our evening clothes, grab our stuff, and get the hell out. Rohan had cleaned up any traces of his blood and had reached the end of his patience with me checking his pupils for a concussion.

“Hey.” Ro took my purse from me. “You’re shaking.” He pressed a hand to my skin. “Are you still cold?”

“No.” My reflection in the burnished gold elevator doors showed a rosy cheeked Nava. I stabbed the elevator button, storming inside the empty car when it opened with a ding. I curled my hands around the metal railing, trying and failing to get my fury under control. “They tracked us here tonight. Came after us, trying to scare us.”

“The further we go down this road, the more the Brotherhood will be gunning for us. We won’t even be able to properly watch our backs, because it might be a friend who sticks the knife in.” Rohan tilted my chin up to face him. “You heard the guy. One warning. Do you want to stop? Walk away?”

“We can’t. And I wouldn’t. Would you?”

He shook his head.

I slid my hand in his. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“You were fighting the guy but it wasn’t because you were trying to protect me.”

The elevator opened into the parking garage, revealing the Shelby. Ro had snagged a spot right by the elevators.

“Slugger, you didn’t need protecting.” He unlocked my door and placed my bag on the floor mat.

“Still,” I said. “Thank you. We need to be smart and way more stealthier from this point on.”

“Plans C through Z. Be more careful. Told you.” Rohan blocked me from getting into the car. He brushed my damp hair out of my eyes. “You’re hooking into me, Sparky and I want to be caught for a long, long time.”

The words didn’t scare me this time. He wasn’t saying them because he was under the influence of a demon drug or even because of the Man in Black. Our night together had shifted something between us–stripped us down and gently deposited us here–a place of cautious optimism.

I curled my toes, rolling onto the sides of my feet. “You’re hooking into me, too.”

Rohan glanced down at the ground, a pleased smile tugging at his lips. “Well, all right, then.”

The first person we called back at the chapter house was Kane. Rohan and I had holed up in my room, leaving our Brotherhood phones downstairs. We used my burner phone and called the landline in Kane’s hotel room in Osoyoos, a small town in British Columbia’s interior.

“Sorry to disturb you.” I put the call on speaker, the cell sitting on the mattress between Rohan and me. “But we’ve got a situation.”

Kane yawned. “This better be an emergency. We’ve got a gong show on our hands between the demons and this flooding.”

“Put your cell in the bathroom and turn on the shower,” Rohan said.

Kane muttered about paranoia but did as he was told. “Speak freely.”

I told him what had happened.

“What do you need?” He sounded wide-awake.

“What Rasha has ice magic?” Rohan said.

“Hang on. Gotta get my laptop.” We heard Kane moving around and keys clacking.

“Is it secure from Brotherhood prying?” I asked.

“Don’t insult me.” More typing. “Hold off on telling your brother about this, babyslay.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m more than mildly annoyed hearing what went down, which means Ari will go ballistic and I need his head in the game right now.”

“Got it.”

“Let’s see what we’ve got.” Kane hummed under his breath. “Fuck.”

I leaned forward. “What?”

Kane didn’t answer me.

“Kane,” Rohan snapped.

“Wait,” Kane snapped back. “Fuuuuck!”

I gripped Ro’s hand. “Kane?”

“There’s only one Rasha in the past fifty years with ice magic. Ferdinand Alves.”

I needed a moment to absorb the fact that a supposedly dead man had attacked us.

Ro paced in a tight circle. “Search for all Rasha killed in the past, say, six months.”

Kane came up with a list of twelve. Four of the men were the hunters that had been killed in Askuchar.

“You sure those Rasha are dead?” Kane asked.

“Yeah. Mahmud saw their bodies and I trust Mahmud.” Ro pinched his nose. “Any correlation between missions? Chapter houses?”

“No and no,” Kane said. “Other than the fact that they all supposedly died, there’s nothing connecting them.”

“Thanks, Kane,” Ro said. “Be careful, man. We don’t know what the Brotherhood has managed to piece together about who’s working with us, but just being our friend is enough to throw you in the danger zone.”

“I’m hard to kill. And no one else is getting hurt on my watch.”

As soon as Kane had hung up, Rohan grabbed the burner phone. “I’m gonna call Drio. He needs to be warned.”

I flopped back against my mattress, rubbing my eyes. “He’ll want to come back here because it’s safer for us to be together.”

“It is safer.”

“And if he decides to bring Leonie with him?” I stared at the print Leo had given me, wishing I could grab her and disappear into that neon cityscape.

“I’ll convince him there’s no point coming back here tonight. But she has to tell him.”

No, that was the one thing she could never do.

Ro’s conversation with Drio was short and to the point. True to his word, he assured Drio there was no reason to come back tonight. Ro didn’t expect any more visits and the attacker had done what he came for. At least until we made our next move.

We had one final call to make and I insisted on making it.

Rabbi Abrams took the development in stride, even the news about my witch status.

“I always knew you were an interesting girl,” he said.

I switched the phone to my other ear. “Does this change anything?”

“Should it?”

“Well, no?”

He chuckled. “Beseder. Then get some sleep.” He said he’d arrange privately to beef up the security at the chapter house. A ward could be set to keep all Rasha out, but that would include us, so Muggle security solutions it was.

I chucked the phone onto my rug and rolled myself up in my blanket like a burrito. If Rohan was able to confirm that those eight hunters left on Kane’s list weren’t actually dead, then they had to be the ones working with Mandelbaum on whatever was going on. I edged my head out of my cocoon. “Can I see the photo you got at Ferdinand’s house?”

“Sure thing.” Rohan jogged downstairs, returning with the snapshot.

In his forties, Ferdinand was ruggedly good-looking, with a crew cut and the deep tan of someone who spent a lot of time outdoors. His clothes were neatly ironed. He had his arm around a woman with long blonde hair with gray streaks, wearing a tie-dyed dress in brilliant swirls of color.

“One of these things is not like the other,” I said.

“Huh?”

I tapped the photo. “He looks like he’s in the military and she’s a Woodstock refugee.”

“Love is blind.”

“Is it? Really? Check out her pendant.”

“A crescent moon. Witch?”

“I’d say love knew exactly who it was tapping.” I yawned. “I’ll see if Gelman can identify her.”

“First, sleep. We need to hit up the sugar refinery in a few hours.”

“The excitement never stops around here.” I didn’t bother leaving my blanket roll.

Rohan crashed out on my bare mattress.

I was woken up by someone shaking my shoulder. “Five more minutes, Mom,” I mumbled.

“Sparky, wake up. Sarah needs to install the safety bars on your window.”

I flung a pillow at Ro’s head.

“Sorry.” A dimpled woman who had to be close to retirement poked her head in to my room. She had a large red tool box in one hand. “I’d have let you sleep, but Uncle Isaac told me this was urgent.”

I blinked through my grogginess, squinting at my clock. I couldn’t see it from this angle, but my room was flooded with bright sunlight. “Yeah. Of course.” I had never been so happy to be wearing sweats and not my dress from last night.

Last night!

I stumbled out of bed, scanning every available surface for the purse I’d so cavalierly tossed somewhere and any bondage systems that may have tumbled free.

“Smooth,” Ro murmured, brushing my hip. “I put it in my room.”

“But it’s mine.”

He grinned, booped me on the nose, and left.

Sarah tested her cordless drill. “You two are adorable. New relationship?”

“Yeah.” I shrugged on Ro’s hoodie that was draped on my chair. “I’ll get out of your way.”

I followed the rumble of the coffee maker down the curved staircase, my hands jammed in the pockets of his hoodie. I rubbed my cheek on the shoulder because the fabric smelled like him.

“Navela.” Rabbi Abrams beckoned at me from the front porch. I almost tripped off the last stair. The man wasn’t in a suit. Just dress pants and a long-sleeved shirt. “Come see what we’ve done.”

I threw a longing glance back down the hallway toward the kitchen and found Rohan behind me holding out my already doctored coffee. “Remind me to thank you in sexual favors,” I whispered.

Rabbi Abrams showed off the new front door. He hadn’t changed the hand scanners because he didn’t want to alert anyone, but this door was some heavy duty shit. It had rebar running in a “T” pattern. When the door was locked, the rebar sunk deep into the frame of the house. No one was breaking in through this puppy. The back door was now the same model.

My burner phone trilled. I glanced at the text as I finished off my coffee.

Thank me in sexual favors.

I snorted my drink out, coughing. Ro patted me on the back, a pious expression on his face as he asked the rabbi questions about how the new security bars on all the windows opened from the inside.

Rabbi Abrams walked us around the house, pointing out all the hidden camera that would be recording twenty-four seven with the data on a server in-house for our eyes only.

“Does your niece own the security company?” I said.

“She’s not really my niece. Daughter of my wife’s best friend. But yes. She’s discreet, trustworthy, and very good at her job.” Rabbi Abrams lowered himself into a chair on the back deck, rubbing his knee. “Do you have your phones on you?”

We shook our heads, having left the Brotherhood-issued phones in Ro’s room, and got comfortable on the wicker sofa. I leaned against my boyfriend, my legs curled into my chest.

“Update me,” Rabbi Abrams said.

Rohan told him about the list. Rabbi Abrams asked for each individual name, closing his eyes. Once again, I’d have sworn he was asleep if he hadn’t been fidgeting with his kippah. “Stop,” he said at the seventh name. “Ilya. He trained here as an initiate many many years ago. His brother still lives here. Mischa didn’t carry the Rasha gene, but they were inseparable. I can put you in touch.”

“Wouldn’t his brother have been told he was dead?” I asked.

The rabbi opened his eyes. “Most definitely, but Mischa was his twin. How well did you believe being told Ari was no longer being Rasha?”

I pulled Ro to his feet. “We’re in business. But first I have to see a witch about some demons.”

* * *

Gelman was in-between chemo treatments and looking a lot better today. In fact, she was dressed and waiting around for her green light to return to her sister’s house. That was the good news. The bad news was that when she glowered at me, holding the photo of Ferdinand and the woman tight enough to turn her fingers white, she was healthy enough that if she decided to blame the messenger, I was toast.

Fuck it. What was one more target on my back? “Do you know her or not?”

“This photo is a fake.” She flung it back at me.

I picked it up off the ground and brushed it off. “Based on your savvy Photoshop skills?”

“Based on the fact that Tessa would never have anything to do with a Rasha. She isn’t working with one and she certainly wasn’t involved with one.”

I picked up the photo and shrugged. “Looks pretty chummy to me.”

“Then she’s being coerced.”

“Yeah, at a patio restaurant with a good view and a fancy-ass bottle of wine. Scary.”

Gelman slammed her hand on the arm of the chair. “She hates the Brotherhood.”

“You sure? Love makes people do stupid things.”

“Yes, I’m sure, you insolent girl. Who do you think I got the Vashar from?”

“Whoa. Hang on,” I said. “She made the Vashar? Is that not a case for her being involved in black magic?”

“That magic was gray at best.”

“Tomato, tohmahto. How can you defend her when she sicced the gogota on you? Those demons may have been modified by the Brotherhood, but Tessa was the only one who could have forced them to attack us. Bad enough the demon came after me for the Vashar, it came after you, period.”

Gelman crossed her arms, jutted her chin out, and looked pointedly away.

“This is your last warning. Quit upsetting her,” Sienna said, entering the room.

I glared at her. She had bags under her eyes and her cartoony penguin scrubs were a glaring contrast to her listless shuffle. Even her dreads hung limply.

“Do you have an APB out for my visits?” I said.

“Yes. The nurses on this ward call me when you show up. Did you pack your toiletries?” Sienna went into the bathroom.

“I already checked,” Gelman said.

“Uh-huh.” Sienna returned, holding up a toothbrush. She hipchecked me off the hospital bed to toss the toothbrush into Gelman’s open suitcase.

“You’re a total witch,” I said.

Sienna raised her eyebrows. “And?”

Grr. I pulled up a chair. “Lure kids to your gingerbread house, much?”

“Nah. I have celiac. It’s straight up puppies and candy out the back of vans.”

“Your patients must love you.”

“They do.” She rubbed her temples.

“Pulling overtime again?” Dr. Gelman said.

Sienna blinked at her confused for a second, before nodding. “Yeah. Rough night.” She pointed at me. “I don’t like you and I certainly don’t trust you.”

“Sienna, enough. Nava is annoying, but her intentions are good.”

I pressed my hand to my heart and fell back in the chair. “Such praise. I’m verklempt.”

Sienna picked up the photo. “Since when is that Tessa’s type?”

“It’s not,” Gelman said. “He’s Rasha.”

The room went absolutely, eerily still. Sienna’s lip curled and any trace of tiredness vanished. “Who is he?” she growled.

“Since you both seem to be so chummy with her, how about one of you call her and find out what the deal with this guy is?” Suddenly, I was levitated horizontally, then crashed onto the ground. Hard. On my tailbone. Bypassing the nice chair I’d been sitting in altogether.

I rubbed my butt, letting Sienna see the magic crackling over my hands. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

“You want to earn a drop of trust with any witch who isn’t Esther? Give me his name.”

If Sienna went after Ferdinand, I suspected it wouldn’t go well for him. I shut down my magic and hauled myself back into the chair. “Ferdinand Alves. I don’t know where he is but he attacked me and he has ice magic, so if you want to rip his balls off for taking advantage of your friend or whatever? Go nuts.”

Sienna dropped the photo in my lap. “Bloodthirsty. There may be hope for you yet.” She scanned the empty closet and closed up Gelman’s suitcase. “Call me if you aren’t feeling well tonight.”

I didn’t rate a goodbye.

“Will I be able to levitate someone like Sienna did? Or wait.” I slid the photo into my pocket. “Fly?”

“Levitating, even a split-second elimination of gravity, takes years to master. So I’m going to go with no. You want to fly? Book a plane ticket.” Gelman rummaged through her purse for her phone, scrolled through her contacts, and called Tessa. She left a message saying it was urgent. “We’ll be lucky if she gets this any time soon. This week was solstice. She’s probably at the Santa Barbara celebration.”

“There are witchy vacation destinations?”

“There are places of interest for our community, but Tessa lives in Los Angeles. It’s not far.”

“Is Tessa powerful enough to wield black magic?” I said.

“Possibly, but she wouldn’t do it for the Brotherhood. Tessa’s a very talented witch who fervently believes that organization is to blame for our community losing strength.”

“How so?”

“What do you know of the Laws of Thermodynamics?” she asked.

“Nothing.”

She muttered a few choice words about the dumbing down of humanity. “First Law. Energy can’t be created or destroyed. Same with magic. Think of all magic as a cup of rice. The number of grains are finite. They can be divided into piles but to do so you must take from one pile and give to another. No adding in new grains.”

My stomach growled. “Hold that thought. I’m just gonna run to the vending machine.” I’d forgotten to restock my purse stash of snacks in all the excitement of the past couple days.

Gelman rolled her eyes, reached into her bag and tossed me a granola bar.

“Aw, thanks, Mom.” It even had chunks of dark chocolate in it. Sweet!

“Feel free to chew before swallowing.”

“I’m channeling my inner anaconda. So what you’re saying is the more Rasha, the smaller the witches’ pile?”

“Yes.” She unwrapped her own granola bar, eating it with pointed slowness. “Tessa figured she could reverse the problem. Magically castrate the Brotherhood and all would be replenished.”

“Hence the Vashar.”

Gelman smiled.

I gasped. “You cold-hearted snake.” I tipped my head in acknowledgement. “You stole the amulet from her so she couldn’t use it and then handed it over to the Brotherhood. Why would you do that? If not having Rasha means witches get stronger, don’t you want the same end goal?”

“Take away the hunters, do you take away the demons?”

“No.”

“Precisely. So we stop future Rasha from being made and in, what, thirty years? Fifty? Demons run wild over the earth. We witches are not trained to handle it anymore, and most in my community have other concerns. We need hunters. Also.” She waved a hand dismissively. “The amulet was a crude solution. Stopping Rasha one at a time would be futile.”

I made puppy dog eyes at her purse but no more treats were forthcoming. “Is it less magic or weaker magic as well?”

“I suspect both. Historical records report witches’ magic had once been strong, come easily, and incurred less of a personal cost. That’s changed.” She cleared her throat. “We seem to succumb to disease faster these days.”

I closed my eyes briefly. Was it her magic, not her smoking that had caused the cancer? On the surface, magic seemed so cool. It was necessary; I just wasn’t sure it was worth it. And from the wistful expression on Gelman’s face, I couldn’t tell if she did either.