“Wanda?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s Andre.”

  I shot up straight in my chair, already half way to standing. A cold, sick feeling crept through my belly. Why would Andre be reaching out to me? He was nice and all, but we didn’t exactly hang out. And if Poppy needed something, she’d have reached out herself.

  Unless she couldn’t.

  “What is it? What’s wrong? Is Poppy okay? Is it Finn?” My voice came out harsh, but I couldn’t have changed that if I tried. I wanted to know what the spell was going on, and I was about four seconds away from reaching through the phone to throttle answers out of anyone I could reach.

  “I’m sorry to trouble you,” he said, his British accent particularly clipped. I could feel the cut glass edge of it. “But Poppy’s been feeling poorly the last few days, and it’s getting worse. Finn is worried. I’m worried… She didn’t even want to get out of bed today.”

  That didn’t sound like Poppy at all. I’d seen her with a cold, and even the flu one winter. She’d stayed home to rest, except that her idea of rest involved a bunch of chores and work, and Finn had finally called me to come over and bully her into taking a nap. I’d had to threaten to hex the doorknob on her bedroom door unless she got into bed and went to sleep.

  Andre’s breath shook a little when he let it out. “I know you have quite a lot going on, Poppy told me a bit of it. But I was wondering, if you had a moment, if you might drop by? I’m sure it would cheer her up to see you and… well, frankly Wanda, I’m quite concerned.”

  I was already halfway to the door, tangled up in my coat and purse strap. I had to hop on one foot for a second to get my shoes that I’d kicked off while studying, back onto my feet. It was a good thing Hellcat had made himself scarce, because I would have rather been hexed bald than have him see me.

  “I’m on my way,” I told Andre, and I hung up on him, hurrying for my car.

  ***

  It was a good thing that the front door to Poppy’s farmhouse wasn’t locked, because I might have just blasted the whole thing off the hinges. As it was, I barged in without knocking. If something was wrong with Poppy, there was no way some wood panels and a couple of hinges were going to slow me down. I heard some voices and quiet puttering in the kitchen, but I ignored it.

  I made it about three steps into the living room before I stumbled to a stop. It felt like there was frost in my lungs, and I was struggling to breathe around it. Poppy was sitting upright on her couch, wrapped in a half a dozen of those knitted afghans people always seem to accumulate. She wasn’t her usual chipper, smiley self, though. Even with the flu, Poppy had been upbeat and cheerful, just with a bright red nose and a dozen tissues around her at all times.

  But now, she looked pale. Wan. Worn thin in a way I’d never seen her. She was huddled into the blankets like she couldn’t get warm and might never get warm again. All I could see of her was her face, part of her neck, and one hand, as well as her feet poking out the bottom of all the blankets.

  Her eyes were red rimmed and puffy, like she’d been crying for a while, and she was laying back, sinking into the couch, but not like it was comfortable. More like she just couldn’t be bothered to hold herself upright any longer.

  And every inch of her that I could see was covered in the thick white webbing of the Tsuchigumo’s curse.

  There was a roaring in my ears, the pounding of my heart driving out every other sound. Everything in my head was throwing out alarms, plans, strategies. But it was very, terrifyingly clear, that the Tsuchigumo had marked Poppy as its next meal.

  My first instinct was to rush over to her and start ripping the nasty strands of foul magic away from my best friend, to get them off her any way I had to. But they were sunk deep, worming under her skin. They must have been setting root for days, far worse than the woman lying in the road. Even worse than the two men who’d done their best to beat each other to death at the Half-Moon.

  That certainly explained the glassy, far away look in Poppy’s eyes. It was like she wasn’t even seeing what was in front of her. No, it was like she was stuck in some other world all alone.

  I hated it.

  “Why didn’t you call me earlier?” I demanded of Andre as he walked in.

  He shrugged. “She seemed… alright just yesterday—as though she had a bad cold. It wasn’t until today that she took a severe turn for the worse.”

  My magic bucked and roiled beneath my skin, begging to be let loose. There was a storm brewing behind my sternum, destruction waiting to be set free, and it was only through decades of work and discipline that I managed to hold it back. Poppy lived right beside a cemetery; the last thing I needed was my magic to seep into the graves and raise everyone from the dead just because I was so furious with this blasted demon that I tasted metal from where I’d bitten my tongue.

  I walked on stiff legs over to the couch and perched beside Poppy, careful not to jostle her too much.

  “Poppy?” My voice was barely more than a breath, like I couldn’t squeeze it out from around the knot of fury and fear clogged in my throat. “Poppy, can you hear me?”

  There was a flicker of her eyelashes, just a tremble of her lower lip, but she didn’t turn. She didn’t look at me.

  I licked my lips, trying to work some moisture back into them. “Poppy, it’s going to be okay. I’m going to help you, alright?”

  A single tear rolled down her cheek to drip onto her blanket, and I felt like burning the world to ashes. It was a struggle to think, to plan, and rationalize. Ripping the curse strands off Poppy might hurt her, for one thing. For another, as much as I hated to think it, this might have been my best opportunity to catch the demon. I knew Poppy would volunteer if she could. She wouldn’t want anyone else to get hurt or die, not when we could end it here and now.

  But I hesitated. Not Poppy. Not my closest friend, who was more of a sister to me than any of my real sisters could ever be. There would be another victim, for sure and I could catch the thing then—using someone else as the lure. Not Poppy.

  But how many potential deaths more before the Tsuchigumo regained all its power? How many more victims would it take before we caught this thing? How many more deaths?

  I still didn’t want to do it.

  Emotions ruined everything.

  “Wanda, can you help her?” Finn asked.

  I turned just far enough to see Andre standing next to him, and Finn was coming out of the kitchen. He was carrying a mug of what looked like tea, moving slowly so he didn’t spill a single drop. I hadn’t even realized Andre had left the room, but with the fact that he was now carrying a plate of carefully cut up fruit balanced in his hand, that was now pretty obvious. Andre was going to a lot of effort to seem upbeat and unruffled in front of Finn, but I could see the tension in his jaw, and the tightness around his eyes.

  This was a man watching the woman he loved dying by inches, and he clearly didn’t know what to do. Actually the more I looked at him, the more I realized he was fighting to keep it together. It made me like him more. And more again that he’d called me to come and use my fantastic, powerful witch magic to save Poppy.

  “Yes, I can,” I said to answer Finn’s question.

  Finn came around to set the tea mug on the end table beside Poppy. He twitched the blankets around her, tucking her in more tightly. He was trying to be brave, I could tell. But there was a redness around his eyes, and the glossy sheen of tears wasn’t far away.

  He wasn’t even sixteen yet. He shouldn’t have had to see her like this.

  “She hasn’t said anything since she woke up,” Finn said in a strangled voice. “Did she talk to you?”

  “No.”

  Finn’s breath hitched, and he gave a jerky nod. “I don’t know what’s wrong with her. I don’t know what to do.”

  Andre came around the couch. He set the plate of fruit down beside the tea, and he put his arm around Finn’s shoulders, pulling him into a kind of sideways hug.

  “It’s going to be okay, Finn. We’re going to figure out how to help your mum.” Andre’s voice was confident, but there was a desperate question in his eyes when he looked at me.

  Oh, I was going to save her alright. And I was going to kick some serious demon ass along the way. I made sure all of that showed in my face for a split second, just a peek of all the very dangerous things I was feeling.

  Andre’s shoulders relaxed just a smidge.

  What an odd man. Most people who saw a witch’s fury didn’t find it exactly comforting.

  There were things I needed to do, but Poppy’s farmhouse at the edge of town, beside the woods and the graveyard, wasn’t exactly the best place to do it. I needed the coven, for one thing. And I needed somewhere defensible, somewhere I could control how and when things came at us. I wasn’t going to take unnecessary risks with Poppy’s safety.

  If there was one thing growing up in the coven had taught me, other than politicking and how to ward against the hexes of teenage girls, it was the art of slapping an uncaring mask over whatever it was my emotions were doing. A blank face was a shield. Never let anyone see behind it.

  At least, that had worked up until I came to Haven Hollow and all these ridiculous people kept worming their way through my defenses.

  Still, Poppy wouldn’t want people worrying about her, even if they had a truly excellent reason to do so. So, I slapped a mask of callous boredom over my face, and sighed, coming just short of rolling my eyes.

  “Yes, yes, I’ll fix her up. Really, there’s no need to be so dramatic, Andre. I’ll need to take her back to the coven house though, because there are some things I need there.”

  Finn blinked at me, his mouth trembling just a little.

  I forced myself to breathe slow and easy, to not tense up. This was the hardest part. Magic tended to favor women, that was a fact. For every two or three dozen witches born, there was only one warlock like Maverick. Even in families with magical bloodlines, like Poppy, the females tended to end up with the lion’s share of the gifts. But every once in a while, something liked to pop up in men, some knack or talent. Finn was unusual in that Andre was training him to be a fully fledged Magician. But his other gift, and way more dangerous one to me at the moment, was that Finn had a little quirk from his Gypsy Traveller heritage.

  He could always tell when someone was lying.

  It was a very careful dance. I hadn’t said anything that was untrue, after all. But lies could be tricky things. People lied with words, with their bodies, with their eyes. So far, at least as far as I knew, it was only the lies spoken out loud that tripped Finn’s particular gift. As he watched me now, I watched him right back, arching my brows in the best expression of impatience that I could muster.

  Finn nodded slowly, biting his lower lip. “Okay.”

  I took a deep breath, deliberately not looking at the knotted mess of the curse, at how it was slowly smothering the spark out of the greatest friend I’d ever had. I would save her. Dammit, I would save her. There was no way Poppy was going to die.

  I simply wouldn’t allow it.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Can you help me get her to my car?” I asked.

  “She can still walk,” Finn said hastily. “That’s how we got her to the couch. She can even do stairs, but we went slow.”

  Between the three of us, we managed to shepherd Poppy to the car without any problems. Once she was safely buckled into place and I shut the door, I turned back to face Finn.

  “No.”

  He blinked at me, so pale his freckles stood out like sepia ink on his cheeks. “I didn’t say anything.”

  “I know.” I put my weight on one leg, hip cocked to the side. “You were about to, though. You were going to demand to come too. And I said no.”

  Finn opened his mouth to protest, but I cut him off by lifting my hand. “I know what you’re going through—or I can imagine it,” I corrected myself. “But I need to focus on your mom right now. And whether you mean to or not, you will be a distraction to me, Finn. And I… we can’t afford that. So, you need to stay here.”

  Again, all of it true. Finn represented one huge distraction, really. Because I knew Poppy would forgive me almost anything in the world. She wouldn’t forgive me for putting her son in danger for no reason, and I couldn’t blame her. And I knew that what I was planning to do—it was dangerous.

  I looked Andre in the eye. “Will you stay with him?”

  Andre stood behind Finn, hands on his shoulders, bracing. “Of course.”

  That was one worry off my back, at least. Too bad about all the other ones I still had to deal with. With one last nod, I backed out of the driveway and headed for the coven house.

  ***

  The curse strands were doing their best to latch onto my arm by the time I pulled into the gravel driveway of the coven house. I had to wrap my arm in strands of crimson magic to keep the demon threads from getting a grip as I escorted a still mostly comatose Poppy up the few steps and into the house.

  I heard a sharp inhale as I came into the great room, and something clattered to the floor.

  “What happened?” Imani cried as she hurried over. The book she’d been reading discarded on the rug.

  I turned my body, blocking her from reaching out to Poppy. “Don’t touch her. You might get cursed, and I need your help with this.”

  She stared, eyes wide, but nodded sharply.

  I shuffled Poppy towards the couch, and I could tell by the way she was trembling, her pale complexion almost gray around her cheeks, that her energy was almost gone. I got her settled down, leaning into the softness of the cushions.

  It was one thing I’d insisted on when we’d been setting the house up; furniture people might actually want to sit on. My mother had insisted on a pile of expensive, fashionable pieces at the Crescent City manor house, and it had all been thin and brittle and horribly uncomfortable. I’d hated it.

  “Imani, could you please alert the coven? Tell everyone to get here as fast as they can. Tell Maverick to bring Taliyah, if he can. We need as much magical mojo as we can get.”

  She nodded, the long coils of her hair sliding over her shoulders. Imani’s thumbs flew across the screen as she texted. “I think Olga and Betanya are upstairs. I sent them a message, but I’ll go up and get them as soon as I alert everyone else.”

  I checked on Poppy, but there wasn’t any change. A lock of lank blond hair had fallen into her eyes, and I smoothed it back to tuck behind her ear. I knew it bothered her to have her hair in her face.

  The curse clung when I pulled away, as if sensing its meal was almost spent, and with a truly vindictive flare of magic, I burnt the tendrils that were touching me.

  Poppy twitched, and made a small sound, but didn’t otherwise react. I forced myself to breathe normally, to focus on what I was doing, but every moment bit at me like fire ants marching over my skin.

  “Make sure everyone knows that the curse is contagious. It will latch onto you if you make contact.”

  Imani nodded, distracted as she typed. “Got it.”

  Once I was sure Poppy was as okay as she was going to be without magical interference, I got my own phone out.

  Texting angry was harder than I thought it would be. My fingers were shaking just enough to make it hard to hit the buttons, and the urge to key smash was huge, but would ultimately be unhelpful.

  The text I sent to Lorcan I wanted to make sure was flawless. I wanted him to read my perfectly articulated word choice, and my flawless grammar and punctuation, and understand exactly how much danger he was in if he chose to ignore me.

  Lorcan. I don’t know what is going on with you lately, and I officially do not care at the moment. Something is very wrong. Poppy is in mortal danger, so get your ass to the coven house as soon as vampirically possible, or Goddess help you.

  I saw the read notification and didn’t wait any further and I didn’t check for a reply. I shoved my phone into my pocket and stalked off to double check all the protections and wards on the house, and make sure that they were all in top order.

  If everything went according to plan, we were going to have some unexpected company shortly.

  By the time I made it back to the great room, the entire coven was arriving. Betanya had been the only one upstairs, studying the last shreds of the white silk and the lingering protections, in fact. Olga had been out, and was wearing a floaty dress, makeup and perfume and had her silver hair arranged in a braided crown around her head, which was alarming for several reasons. I just hoped she hadn’t been on a date. We all had enough to deal with without having to listen to her wax poetic about her newest beau.

  Imani was sitting a careful distance from Poppy, speaking to her in a low voice. It reminded me of the tone she used when she was working. Imani owned a hair salon in town, but a very special one. The braiding, coloring, cutting and styling you could find at any upscale place. But only in Haven Hollow could you get blessings for love, or luck, or happiness woven into your hair along with the treatments.

  When she had a client in the chair, Imani was very good at keeping up a one-sided conversation. Easy, light hearted chatter that didn’t require a lot of focus, or even a response, if they wanted to doze or relax into the luxury of being fussed over. And that was the same tone she used now.

  I didn’t know if it was helping, or if Poppy could even hear her from wherever in her mind she’d retreated to, but some gentle words from a friend were rarely a bad decision, and I shot Imani a grateful look.

  Maverick and Taliyah arrived together, neither looking very happy about things. Taliyah’s face, in particular, looked a bit like a thunder cloud. She was in full Police Chief mode, complete with the stance of sweeping her jacket back with her wrists to rest her hands on her belt, not so subtly shoving off and drawing attention to her badge. I didn’t even know if she was aware that she was doing it, or if it had just become habit, held over from when she was a homicide detective in Portland.

  Before the two of them could descend on me, demanding answers and who knew what else, Lorcan arrived. His hair was windblown, like he’d run the entire distance between work and the coven house to get here.