Had speech been possible, I would’ve broken my mother’s rules and let a whole bunch of four-letter words spew from my mouth. As it was, all I could do was stare. The stare of a child who’d believed one thing her whole life, only to discover her parents had believed something entirely different.

My life hadn’t been a lie. It had been a series of shadows and secrets that I was only now starting to shed light on.

“I’m a little confused. Did you say mage?” Veronica asked with rapidly blinking eyes. “And why am I in danger? Who is out there, Ms. Bristol?”

“We don’t have time for questions, Veronica. Grab some dinner for the road and let’s go. I need to head to your house. Your parents will probably think I’m a little eccentric, but that can’t be helped right now.”

A little eccentric? People had thought she was crazy for years. This would dump her into the “best not to look at her directly” bucket.

“You’re a mage?” I finally got out as Veronica turned up her nose at the overly roasted pork. “Not a witch, but a mage?” I’d learned the distinction from Callie and Dizzy.

“Come on, Veronica, let’s get going. We don’t have much time.” My mother dropped a placeholder in the book and closed it up before motioning for Veronica to get moving. “Come on, come on. Let’s go.”

“Wait. Mother!” I tried to block them from the doorway, but I was still mostly numb from the shock of my world being flipped upside down. Zombies were bad, but somehow this seemed infinitely worse. “Is that a book of spells? You can do spells?”

“Penelope, I do not have time right now to explain your father’s and my reasoning for keeping this from you. Or for keeping you from this. You’ve found out, much later than a curious kid might’ve, and now we need to move forward. Move quickly forward, because we don’t have much time. Veronica, would you come on?”

“I still don’t know what’s happening,” Veronica said, allowing herself to be pushed out of the kitchen by my mother. “Penny?”

I didn’t have any explanation to offer. I’d fallen into this life and all these terms not much more than a month ago. I’d found magic haphazardly, and gone about it the way I went about everything—crashing and burning. To now hear that all these questions could’ve been answered by my own mother was beyond my ability to comprehend. It seemed traitorous, somehow. She could’ve kept me from the zombies. And magical battles. And whatever was happening now.

By the time she returned from Veronica’s house (I wasn’t allowed to go), anger simmered deep in my gut.

“Why did you keep this from me?” I asked, ignoring her tight eyes and the lines of fatigue on her face. “Why have you kept me from anything—everything—concerning witchcraft? Kept me from learning, talking to people…”

“Because you have your daddy’s gift,” she said, grabbing the book on the table and then disappearing again. I longed to reach for it. To open it up and explore its pages. But the situation in the church stopped me. I didn’t want to go blindly into this. I wanted to know what I was getting into. “Maybe more than your daddy’s gift.” She returned with a bottle of scotch that didn’t look as old and dusty as it should’ve for someone who didn’t allow drinking within her house.

She took down two glasses, dropped ice cubes into one of them, and plunked it down in front of me.

“Welcome to womanhood,” she said. “We’ll start by having a drink.”

“I went to New Orleans,” I blurted, wanting to surprise her with my own truth.

She sighed as she poured brown liquid into my glass. “I know. You’re horrible at keeping secrets. Clearly you didn’t get that from me.”

Here came the stare again. My mouth hung open wide enough to catch flies.

“I knew the time was coming, but I’d hoped I had a little longer.” She sat down heavily, and suddenly she looked older. Beaten down. “The simple truth is, Penny, that you have a powerful gift. You have a lot of magic. I don’t know how much, but more than me. You can do things even your father couldn’t do, and you’re not trained. But the magical entity in Seattle has grown corrupt. More corrupt than when your father was working there. Much more. His dying wish was to keep you away from them at all costs. At all costs.” She wiped her forehead. “I should’ve moved, probably. The organization isn’t as far-reaching as they’d like to be. But I stayed, thinking someone would overthrow them. That they’d crumble and rebuild by the time you were ready. You’re past ready, and they are worse than they’ve ever been. I’ve even heard they’ve participated in…” She shook her head as a disgusted look crossed her face. “We’ve run out of time.”

I furrowed my brow, not understanding half of this. “We’ve run out of time for what?”

“They’re lurking around the neighborhood, which means they have an interest in you. It won’t take much for them to figure out who you are, who your father was, and what you might’ve inherited. The fact that I believe you inherited more will… Well. They can be a very charming organization. And when that fails, very hostile.” Moisture glossed her eyes. “I’m not powerful enough to keep you safe, Penny. I have to send you away. Which is fine, but I don’t know who to send you to. But I have a couple days. I’ll find the right fit, don’t you worry. Then we’ll smuggle you out.”

My mind was whirling. Thoughts wouldn’t stick. I choked down the scotch and barely tasted the overcooked roast. After dinner, I trudged up to my room, barely able to keep from crying. I wasn’t sad or hurt, just…frustrated. I’d spent my whole life thinking I was supposed to be the same as my peers, that some quirk of fate had made me different. It turned out that I was not supposed to be the same. I was supposed to be different. And that difference would’ve been celebrated by a certain magical group.

I plopped down onto my bed, thinking things through. My mind flitted back to the mages from New Orleans, and how hard they’d tried to get me to train with them. Were they part of this organization that my mother feared? That my father wanted to keep me from?

The scene last night replayed of its own accord. The stranger demanding the name of the person who had killed his brother. No, wait. That was wrong. Who had ordered his brother killed. Those were two very different things.

Organizations ordered people killed. Mobsters and the like. Was that what I was dealing with?

And did that mean the stranger was on the right side of the divide?

But what if there were no lines at all? Just a mess of murkiness I’d never be able to navigate.

I was too gullible. Too easy to prey upon. Just look—my whole life I’d been bullied and badgered by my mother, and I hadn’t rebelled or pressed for the truth. The woman swore, drank, and had powerful magical volumes hidden around the house. I’d spent years blindly following rules she didn’t follow herself. Living in the dark.

I blew out a breath and pushed myself up off my bed. What better time to morosely stare at the rain? I was approaching the window, planning to stew in my sullenness for a moment, when I caught sight of a person walking down our side of the deserted sidewalk.

I dropped low, all my grievances instantly forgotten.

Peeping out of the corner of the window, a place that would be nearly out of sight from down below, I studied the passerby. The man was lean, wearing a black coat with the collar turned up. He had a bowler hat on his head and his hands in his pockets. No umbrella.

To say he stood out on this drizzly night was to say a shark stood out in a shallow pool. This man did not belong.

I clutched the window frame. My breath came out fast and shallow.

He turned and stared at the house, his toes only a foot from our grass line. A long moment passed. Silence stretched like taffy.

He tore his hands out of his pockets and threw them forward. A flash of purple sparkled along an invisible wall on the edge of our property. The patterns and colors I’d come to expect from magic flashed into view, the weave artful and delicate, though not nearly as tightly woven as the stranger’s.

A boom sounded from somewhere within the house. I jumped. A slice of yellow cut through the front yard.

“You got business with me?” My mother trudged into my line of sight. In her hands, held like she’d been born with it, was a shotgun.

“Holy crap-shack,” I said, pushing forward until my forehead was pressed against the glass. “Where did she get a shotgun?”

“I have the right to shoot you. Try me!” she boomed.

The man started and jerked back.

A light clicked on across the street. Lewis must’ve fallen asleep in his chair. Soon he’d see the spectacle. Then call the cops.

At least this time it wouldn’t be our fault. Kinda.

“That’s right. You better run. I know what you’re about.” My mother stalked out a little farther, staring at the retreating man in the raincoat.

I shrank back from the window so she wouldn’t see me. I was supposed to be sleeping, conserving my strength. Though I clearly wasn’t the one who needed it. Not that she’d let me tell her that.

Minutes passed, the curtain across the street rustled, and my mother wandered back into the house.

The street fell into an uneasy quiet.

For now.