“I don’t know. She’s kind of hard to figure out. Why?”

  She shrugged one shoulder, a half-smirk playing on her lips. “Curiosity, really. When we stayed there, I asked her about all those books she has. She told me they were the story of our roots. The whole Vila history. I’m kind of dying to know how it all happened. Where we came from. Even if I can’t do magic anymore.”

  “Knowledge is power?”

  She laughed. “Something like that.”

  “I’ll ask her. I think she’s got a soft spot for me.”

  Mara smirked. “Thanks.”

  The ring of the doorbell interrupted our moment. “That’s Gavin.”

  “Tell me how it goes?” she asked.

  “I will.”

  I gave her one more hug before I left the room.

  When I opened the front door, it wasn’t Gavin who stood on my porch.

  “Oh. Hi.”

  Chase had his hands in his trench coat pockets and leaned against the porch column. “Expecting someone else?”

  I ignored the question—and the teasing smile. “What’s up?”

  “I have something for you.”

  I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “Really?”

  He pulled a small, red velvet pouch out of his pocket. From it, he pulled a silver chain necklace, the pendant hanging from it a grayish-white stone. Why did my heart flutter?

  “Wh-what is that?”

  He cupped the stone and held it closer for me to see. “This is agate. It’s a precious stone used for protection. My grandmother put a spell on it to magnify its power. It should help keep you safe for a while.”

  “Safe? And what do you mean ‘a while’?”

  “Normally you’re safe until your seventeenth birthday, when the Reaper’s Rite goes into effect. But you’ve crossed over to the In-Between and taken one out. For all we know, that changes everything.”

  I swallowed. “But …”

  “We don’t know if a Reaper will come after you or not. But it’s better to be safe. May I?” He held the necklace up, clasp open.

  “Oh. Yeah, sure.” I held my hair up, and he moved behind me. As he fastened the necklace, I took even, steady breaths, my mind reeling at the thought of being stalked by my very own Reaper. I made a mental note to find out all I could from Lilura—anything more than what she’d already told me—that would help me from being stuck with that fate.

  For a second, Chase’s fingers rested on my neck. I closed my eyes, fighting off a shiver, then turned toward him. Our eyes locked.

  “Thank you,” I said. “And thank Lilura for me.”

  He half-nodded, still gazing at me. “You can thank her yourself when you get back to training. She says you still have a lot to learn. You know, just in case.”

  I nodded, putting my hand over the stone. Maybe it was my imagination, but knowing it was there gave me a sense of calm and diminished my worries.

  A car pulled up, and Chase finally tore his gaze from mine. I smiled when I spotted Gavin. He walked toward us, casting a suspicious glance between me and Chase.

  “I better go.” Chase’s eyes softened as they passed over my face. “See you in school.”

  When Chase got to the bottom step, Gavin handed him a manila envelope.

  “That should have everything you’ll need,” Gavin said. “I brought it to Lilura’s but she said you were here.”

  Chase tapped the envelope against his free hand. “Cool. I’ll look into it.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  Chase walked down my driveway, and Gavin skipped up the porch steps and slid his hands to my waist.

  “What was that all about?” I asked.

  “Chase is going to do a little background check on my parents. My real parents. Maybe find out how they really died.”

  I nodded, scenarios of death flickering in my head. I shook them away.

  “Did he give you this?” Gavin used a finger to lift the pendant from my neck.

  I tilted my head. “Are you jealous?”

  “Depends on what else he gave you.”

  I laughed. “Lilura put some spell on the rock to protect me. At least until I turn seventeen.”

  Gavin narrowed his eyes and pulled my hips closer. “And then what? All bets are off?”

  I shook my head. “I really don’t know.”

  We stared at each other, probably thinking the same thing but not wanting to say it out loud. Finally, Gavin pecked my nose lightly.

  “You ready to go?” he asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Is Mara coming?”

  “She said she’s not ready. Maybe next time.”

  He took my hand and led me to the car.

  ***

  We pulled up to the hospital in silence. I stared at the building, suddenly hesitant. I pulled down the driver’s side mirror and checked my hair. I straightened my blouse and pulled a string of lint off of it. Finally, when I ran out of things to check, I got out of the car. Gavin held my hand as we walked into the lobby. I signed in at the front desk, then leaned on his shoulder as we sat in the waiting room. His presence eased my nerves somewhat.

  A short, plump nurse eventually appeared in the waiting room doorway. “Zadie Stonebrook?”

  I nodded at her, squeezed Gavin’s hand, and forced myself to stand.

  “I’ll be right here, waiting for you,” Gavin said softly.

  I smiled and nodded.

  I trailed the heels of the nurse in front of me. The gray halls made me shiver, a sense of depression pushing me down. Not that I was depressed, but the feeling I absorbed from the place seeped into my pores and flooded me with dread and hopelessness.

  I cleared my throat when we reached my mother’s room. She was painting in a corner. Her red hair was wilder and curlier than I remembered it. When she turned my way, I couldn’t help but think how pale she looked, how her brows and lashes seemed washed out and colorless. Though she looked right at me, I couldn’t help but feel she was staring through me. It was probably because of her medication, but her expression reminded me of Mara when she was under the Reaper’s grip.

  I walked past the nurse and kneeled down by my mother’s legs. Tears stung my eyes as I took her hand and laid my cheek on her lap. I wished I’d known. I wished I’d been able to stop Mom from ending up in this dreadful place. I wished Mom had never left, that she could have been there for me and Mara. The dam holding my emotions back broke when my mother smoothed her other hand over my hair.

  After a few minutes, my tears receded and I lifted my head.

  “Is it okay to have some privacy?” I asked the nurse.

  She checked her watch. “Ten minutes. But the door stays open.”

  “Thank you.”

  I stood up and wiped my tears away, making sure I waited until the nurse was far enough away that she couldn’t hear us anymore.

  “I know what really happened to you, Mom.”

  She focused on some spot on the wall. Not on me.

  “I know the real reason you’re here.” I told her about being a Vila and how they came to be. My words came out all wrong when I tried to explain the Reaper’s Rite, but I pressed on. I explained who Lilura was, how she was training me, and most importantly, how she told me that, if a Reaper couldn’t take your pain, he would take your sanity. Like he’d taken my mother’s.

  I checked my watch. Three minutes left. I told Mom about Mara, about her accident and the coma. I thought she blinked when I mentioned the spell I did to bring Mara back. Then I hurried through the story of how Mara was taken, how I defeated her Reaper. How Mara was alive and safe now, but without powers. My mother finally looked at me with understanding eyes. Relief surged through me. She seemed to actually believe what I was saying.

  “It’s going to take some research. But I’ve got a great team to help me. I will figure out how to get you back, Mom. I’ll figure out how to defeat your Reaper, too. I won’t give up on you, Mom. I’ll never give up.”

  I kneeled down beside her again and wrapped my arms around her waist. We stayed like that until the nurse came back.

  Leaving her room and getting back to Gavin was a blur. Not just from the tears, but from the overwhelming sense that I had so much to do. Gavin held my hand, rubbing his thumb back and forth over my skin as we walked to the car. I sat in the passenger’s seat, simply staring at the building. I was determined to get Mom back home one day. After all, I’d killed a Reaper and saved Mara’s life. I could save her, too.

  I turned to Gavin. His eyes were already on me.

  “You okay?” He reached out and ran a finger gently from my ear to my chin.

  My smile was a content one. “Yeah. I think so.”

  “You’re quiet.”

  “I’m … making a plan.”

  He huffed a small laugh. “Hopefully, I’m in it.”

  I gave him a lopsided grin. “I have no choice. Apparently, I need you in my life or something.”

  His eyes searched mine, his fingers tracing the line of my jaw again. When he leaned toward me, I wrapped my arms around him, swearing to myself I’d never let go. I couldn’t hold back the smile when he pressed his lips against mine.

  I’d learned a lot over the last few months. I’d changed as a person, found out a little more about who I really was. I’d studied enchantments and spells and things I thought could only exist in fantasy, and I’d seen things that defied logical reasoning. I’d fought the supernatural. And I’d come out alive.

  But being with Gavin, the caress of his hand, and the electrifying feel of his lips on mine? Now that’s what I called magic.

  Acknowledgements

  As this book finally makes its way into the wild, there are a few people I want to thank. And when I say “a few,” I really mean a million or so. So bear with me.

  First, I need to thank Georgia McBride, who picked me and my little story out of a plethora of writers and stories, nurtured me and helped me to grow. Heaps of thanks go to my amazing editors: Mandy Schoen, Rachel Bateman, and Ashlynn Yuhas. This book wouldn’t be what it is without your magic. And thanks to Kelly Simmon, who expertly holds me in her precious hands.

  Next, I’d like to thank my awesome critique partner, Elizabeth Holloway, who knows how to put my words through boot camp and make them shine. And thanks to the rest of the critique group: Erin Schneider, Alison Miller, Anabel Gonzalez, and Balin Jones.

  Heartfelt thanks to Sarah Howell, who graciously never said no whenever I asked her to read anything I’d send her.

  I appreciate the heck out of my home-base cheerleading team: Bonnie Lingle, Sasha Loftus, Carol Moscarello, and Rose Rosa. They keep me grounded while believing in me.

  Thanks also to April, Nikki, Renee, Holly, and Kyra, for supporting me with vigor through all the years.

  A special round of grateful hugs goes out to my wonderful, sisterly German TMs.

  And finally, I need to thank my family: My mom and dad, for teaching me that talent is a gift. My awesome brother David, who is my rock. My daughter Kirsten, who not only gets excited to read my stories but also gets me to believe I can achieve anything (isn’t that a role reversal?). My son Zachary, who so energetically offers to help me with action and fight scenes. And especially my husband Stephan: You’re my best friend and I love you, always.

  Photo Credit: Samantha Isom

  Dorothy Dreyer

  Dorothy Dreyer has always believed in magic. She loves reading, writing, movies, chocolate, and spending time with her family and friends. Half-American and half-Filipino, Dorothy lives in Germany with her husband and two children.

  Visit Dorothy Online at www.dorothydreyer.com

  Praefatio

  Available in print and eBook from Month9Books in

  May 2013

  www.month9books.com

  And now, a sample from the exciting new novel, PRAEFATIO, coming from Month9Books in May 2013!

  After everything I’d been through, I couldn’t believe this was how it was going to end. The training, the bloodshed, the kisses—oh my God the kisses—and death, nullified by ten minutes in a police car.

  It was hard to talk, let alone think, with the nonstop pounding in my head. It hurt to blink through swollen eyelids, and the dim overhead lights seemed brighter than they were. Incessant buzzing from a fly sitting defiantly atop the fluorescent beam threatened to make my eardrums explode.

  Everything was amplified, larger than life, and nothing made any sense at all. I suppose I deserved it.

  I watched him, the fly, as he flitted back and forth, struggling to find freedom in the enclosed space of the interrogation room. I wondered if he knew he was going to die here.

  The cop stared like I was a freak straight out of a science fiction movie, tentacles and all. I’d been mumbling incoherently since they’d found me and hadn’t volunteered much more since arriving at the station late last night. My mind was jumbled, scrambled as if it were trying to tune to the correct radio frequency, but couldn’t. Flashes, memories from my past, of what I was and what I had done, were returning, but they were all out of order. I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to remain in my own skin much longer, and all I could do was shake.

  Hours spent waiting for my “paperwork” to be processed didn’t help. How much paperwork could one runaway have?

  When I spoke, it came out like gibberish, or maybe like an auctioneer on crack. The visual made me giggle. My voice was high-pitched and nervous. And then a thought stopped me mid-giggle: Stockholm’s Auktionsverk is the oldest auction house in the world. Not-so-random, but useless information like that flooded my head for no reason at all, or maybe because it simply had no place else to go.

  They wanted to know what I was doing on Gavin Vault’s estate, running and screaming, “help!” That I was barely dressed from the waist up, another mystery. I would tell them, but in my own words. I refused to lie or say something that could send Gavin to prison. And the statement they’d written for me? I was about to tell them where they could shove it when the cop shot me a “you’d better start talking or we’re gonna start the torture” look.

  “You have no idea what you’ve done,” I said as I sipped hot, institutional-tasting liquid, realizing what I’d said made absolutely no sense to the officer. There’s no way she could have known what she’d gotten herself into. Sadly, she was about to find out. “I’ll tell you what you want to know, but you won’t believe a word of it.” Those were the most coherent words I’d spoken since I’d arrived.

  The cop seemed confused, like she was surprised I was capable of forming articulate sentences. She watched as I pulled at the sleeves of the oversized sweater on loan from one of the male cops. Then I grabbed my head in my hands. Vivid images raced through my mind, before leaving as quickly as they’d appeared. They were memories that would free me from this stagnant mental prison if only I could set them in the proper order.

  The fly whizzed past me. I was a volcano of turmoil and angst and sat, leg-shaking and squirming in the metal chair, attempting to calm the impending eruption. The officer just stared as if I were a nut that needed cracking, only she didn’t have the right tool.

  “I’ll tell you everything as soon as my mother arrives,” I offered, sitting back in the steel chair.

  The officer looked at me, then down at her blank pad, then back at me and said, “Miss Miller, do you need a doctor? Were you harmed in any … way?” She leaned over the table, lowering her head and voice conspiratorially.

  But she was out of her mind if she thought Gavin would harm me. She wasn’t even asking the right questions. Like, “what’s someone like you doing here and how did this happen?” I had to get out of there. I needed to find my brother Remi. I needed to know what was going on with Gavin and what they had done to him. What was taking Mom so long to arrive? It should not have surprised me. She’s always been unreliable. I tapped the table to keep from picking up my chair and throwing it at the two-way mirror. I needed to keep my anger in check, but I didn’t know how long I could. How had Gavin and I ended up in a police station, he accused of an unspeakable crime and me his supposed accuser?

  “How did you find me? How did you know where to find me?” I reluctantly asked. I should have been able to get the answer on my own, to read her mind.

  “We received an anonymous tip,” she offered, raising her eyebrows, her tone secretive. And then I saw something, a fuzzy vision. I tilted my head sharply to the side and cringed. The intrusion of my brain hurt like heck. A man, talking, then handing over an envelope with pictures of me looking like something the cat dragged in, then gone—the man and the vision. I gasped as the pounding in my head kicked into overdrive. Evidence? How? Gavin had never hit me. It’s a lie.

  “What do you want from me? You seem to have all the evidence you need.”

  Officer Bladen looked away from me when she replied, “You’re at the very least a witness to a crime, Miss Miller. Has no one explained to you what’s going on?” Then she leaned forward again, cautiously, and opened the folder on the table, my case file. Just like in my vision, pictures of me beat to a pulp and … Gavin seemingly raising a hand to strike me.

  I refused to look at her or the photos and stopped rocking.

  “Don’t you want to know what happened to you, Miss Miller?” She asked in a soft voice, pushing the folder closer to me. She sounded almost compassionate.

  “I already know what happened to me!” I shouted. “I was there, remember?” I couldn’t stop the tears that pushed their way out of my eyes in a race down my cheeks. Gavin and I were being set up. Couldn’t she tell? Wasn’t she trained in these things? I felt like an animal that had been tricked into leaving a small cage only to be locked in an even smaller one.

  I lurched forward and tried to grab the folder, to rip it to shreds. Instead, I caught Officer Bladen’s sleeve and a tiny piece of her hand. She snatched it away as abruptly as if I’d burned her. I fell back into my chair, hitting it harder than I’d intended.

  Something was terribly wrong.

  Officer Bladen shifted in her chair as she checked her watch, then cell phone, then pager. It was as if she were expecting the Governor’s pardon.