“Yeah, we had.”

  “And?”

  She shrugged. “And, like I said, we sat at the bar, and we talked. That was it.”

  I stared at her in disbelief. “That was it?”

  She shrugged again. “Yeah.”

  “What did you think of him?”

  She got this strange smile on her face which I found unsettling. “I mean… I thought he was nice.”

  How little she knew. “Oh my Goddess,” I grumbled as I exhaled deeply.

  “What?” she demanded as she looked over at me.

  “You like him.”

  “Did I say that?”

  I shook my head. “You don’t have to—it’s written all over your face.”

  “Well, so what if I did? He was a nice guy, and we had a fun date.”

  “I can’t imagine ‘Maverick’ and ‘fun’ in the same sentence.”

  She frowned at me. “We had a good time.”

  “And that was it?” I continued, looking at her again. “One date?”

  She nodded and got this bemused expression on her face. “I remember he had a nice ass.”

  “Ack! We are not talking about my cousin’s ass!”

  She chuckled. “Okay, fine. But it is a nice ass. And the answer to your question is no, Maverick having a strange, mannequin turned real-live girl doesn’t bother me any more than the rest of this does. This is Haven Hollow. Strange is the norm, right? So, one of my witch friends accidentally poofed a baby into existence with her dark and twisty cousin. How is that any stranger than a cop transforming into a faerie princess, or a succubus turning a bunch of townspeople into her temporary love slaves? Or any of the other myriad catastrophes this town has seen?”

  “Fair point,” I said, still not quite over the fact that not only had Taliyah gone out on a date with Maverick, but she’d actually liked him.

  “Back to business,” she said and assumed that exact expression. “You said you got a visual regarding where Maverick was last night?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Were you able to narrow down where he might be hiding?”

  I nodded and then cocked my head to the side. “Yes and no. William and Amos helped narrow the scope so I could get a visual, but it wasn’t very illuminating. The scent of Douglas fir makes me think Maverick’s still in the state, but that’s assuming a lot. He could have left that spot when Isis told him we were scrying his location. He could be states away by now.”

  The aspen trees thinned as we approached the interstate. Taliyah kept glancing longingly at her sirens. It would be faster to use them, but a bad idea until we knew where we were going.

  “Maybe I can help. Tell me exactly what you saw.”

  So, I did. I detailed everything I could remember from the lack of stars, hinting at light pollution, to the strange, lumpy things on the ground. The large, serpentine shape in the background, the chains in the periphery, and the woods in the distance. I didn’t expect it to mean much to her, but her eyes lit with understanding when I mentioned the chains.

  “I know where he is,” she said. “Or at least, where he was. If he’s the sort of man I think he is, he’s probably still sulking there for dramatic effect.”

  “You know where he is?” I asked incredulously. “How?”

  She smiled tightly. “Because I’m not the only one who gets maudlin when I drink.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  A cloudburst had doused the park, chasing away all but one occupant.

  The heavy gray clouds were drifting away slowly, leaving the unfortunate man on the swing set to drip dry.

  “A playground?” I repeated, eyeing the open gates with suspicion. “You’re telling me he’s been creeping around this place for days? Someone would have called the cops on him. He looks like the sort of man who’d lure middle-schoolers into his van.”

  Taliyah’s lips tugged into a wispy smile. “He probably comes here at night. High schoolers did it all the time to drink when I was a beat cop in this neighborhood. It’s not hard to make it past the neighborhood watch as a mundane teenager, so it would be a cakewalk if you had actual magic at your disposal.”

  It still didn’t explain why he’d come here. The Crescent Circle mansion was about ten miles up the road. If Maverick was in the neighborhood, why not go there? With his mother in charge, he might have even been welcome.

  “But why a playground?” I asked, gesturing broadly at the place. “It’s nice, don’t get me wrong… I just don’t understand why he’d decide to mope here, of all places. It doesn’t seem like him.”

  Taliyah’s smile evaporated. “You’d know if you bothered to talk with him. Even Astrid doesn’t spend enough time with him to know what he’s been up to in the decades since he was booted from the Portland coven.”

  “And you do?” I asked. “You’ve been drinking buddies what, once? Twice maybe?”

  “Twice. But he’s helped me out in the station more than once.”

  “Maverick helped you at the station?” I continued, frowning.

  Taliyah nodded. “Do you know how hard it is to keep a supernatural creature in cuffs or in a cage if they don’t want to be there?” She huffed out a frustrated breath.

  “Tough, I imagine.”

  She nodded. “I’m not part of the Council, so it’s damn near impossible to deputize people to catch say, a drunk satyr. And even if I do manage to catch them, I have to keep the rest of the cops from seeing what’s going on.”

  “So Maverick—”

  “Acts as a sort of bounty hunter if I need one, and the potions he gives me keep my colleagues from figuring out what the hell is going on.”

  “I had no idea,” I said truthfully. “If you’d asked for help, I’m sure we could have…”

  “Gotten the issue stuck in a bureaucratic logjam? That would have been less than helpful. My point is that co-workers talk. Maverick’s not on my payroll, but he really should be. He’s good at what he does.”

  “Which still doesn’t explain why he’s here.”

  She looked at me. “He made his first friend in this park when he was eight.”

  “What do you mean? Maverick lived with the Coven until he was eighteen. There was a scandal around it, actually. Tabitha was supposed to turn him out before he hit double digits. In general, it’s believed to be kinder to the male members of witch lines to allow them to live with mundane families, since that’s what they usually turn out to be. In hindsight, I suppose Mother might have wanted to keep a closer eye on the males of our line after what happened with William and Amos.”

  “You wouldn’t have been privy to this little misadventure,” Taliyah responded without much surprise in her expression. “You were out of the country with your sister Dilly or… Bella—whatever their weird names are.”

  “Dahlia and Belladonna,” I corrected. “It must have been the summer we went to France. It’s the only time I can remember being gone that year.”

  She nodded. “Maverick overheard Tabitha and Celestine talking. Tabitha was trying to persuade your mother to send him away. We now know that it was for his own protection, but at the time it hurt to hear his mother trying to pawn him off on someone else. So, he ran away.”

  “To the playground?” I asked, nodding toward the swing set and its lone occupant. “That’s not very far. Did he get distracted or…?”

  Taliyah fixed me with a hard look. “He was eight. Were you a mastermind at that age?”

  I sighed. “No, I wasn’t. So, what happened then?”

  Taliyah leaned back in her seat. “His friend’s name was Wendy. I suspect that’s part of what got his wires crossed where you’re concerned—Wanda and Wendy. The names are close enough. She thought he was a little girl and, to be fair, he probably looked like one with his long hair.”

  “It was even longer before he settled in Haven Hollow,” I said, running a hand over the long, silken sheet of my own hair. “It was around the same length as mine. He kept it out of his face with a braid. He would also wear dresses, trying desperately to blend in with the rest of the witches. It worked until puberty.”

  She nodded. “That would explain it then. He ended up playing with Wendy most of the afternoon, as he tells it. She picked him flowers, they took turns on the swings, and dug in the dirt. They replaced the bare earth with tire chips in the 90s, but a lot of the original equipment is still there.”

  Pity twisted beneath my ribs. There was no happy ending to this story. If Maverick had been let loose into the world as a kid, he might have had a happy life with Wendy, or someone like her. But he wasn’t a mundane, and Mother hadn’t let him go.

  “What happened?” I asked, needing to suddenly understand parts of my cousin’s life I’d never been privy to.

  “Your mother and aunt found him a few hours later. Then one or the other of them hit everyone with a befuddlement charm and dragged him back to the mansion. He was punished, and Wendy forgot all about ‘Carmine.’” She sighed.

  “Carmine?”

  Taliyah nodded. “Wendy had misheard ‘Charmin.’ He liked the new name better, in any case.”

  “Was Wendy a brunette, by any chance?” I asked.

  “Black hair, big blue eyes, and she was tall for her age. Roses were her favorite flower.”

  Which also explained why Maverick had been obsessed with my rose-scented hair ointments when he’d been a much younger man. It was a mess of emotional neglect and misplaced desire. Creepy, yes, but also a little sad.

  “I didn’t realize you and Maverick were as… close as you seem to be.”

  “We aren’t close,” Taliyah answered with a quick shake of her head. “Sometimes he just needs to talk and sometimes I listen.”

  “Do you think he’ll listen to me?” I asked, reaching for the door handle. “This news might be better coming from you.”

  Taliyah laughed. “Oh, no. It’s your kid, not mine. You two poofed her into existence, so it’s your problem to sort out. I’m not touching that family squabble with a ten-foot broomstick. I’m only stepping in if one of you tries to kill the other.” She cocked her head to the side. “And, even then, I might just let you duke it out.”

  “Duly noted,” I said, shouldering my door open with a frown. “It’s good to know I have murder as a backup plan.”

  Then I stepped out into the light afternoon drizzle, smirking when Taliyah called a fruitless reprimand at my back.

  ***

  “And I thought my sidewalk chalk circle was bad,” I said, nudging a handful of stones out of my path.

  Maverick didn’t turn to face me, but his knuckles whitened around the chains in each hand. He made no move to pump his way into the air.

  “Gravel and a black Sharpie marker is infinitely worse,” I continued, clearly aware I was talking about nothing but I couldn’t seem to stop myself. “At least the chalk comes in an array of colors. I chose pink, just to adhere to the werewolf puppy’s rigid expectation of gender roles. I was borrowing the bucket from her, after all. It seemed fair. And it was too late in the evening to launch into a feminist diatribe.”

  The space beneath the swing had been cleared of tire chips, which left a soupy divot in the ground. Maverick’s dress shoes were mired in mud, and, by the looks of things, he hadn’t changed since he’d left my shop.

  “It’s dry erase marker,” he answered. “It was all I had in my car at the time, and I didn’t feel like going to the store.”

  I rounded the swing next to his and dropped down into the seat, wincing when water soaked through my jeans in mere moments. I’d worn comfortable clothes out of the house in the hopes I’d find him, but packed my formal just in case we didn’t. No matter the outcome of this talk, I’d have a decision to make. I was going to Rupert’s home. The question was, did I do it with Lorcan on my arm or two covens at my back?

  “Really? That’s… impressive actually,” I responded with a shrug. “You’d have to keep applying it in this downpour… and speaking of, this part of town has been bucking weather trends.”

  He looked over at me. “What are you talking about?” He sounded annoyed.

  “I’m talking about the fact that it’s not raining anywhere else but this neighborhood.”

  It was difficult to tell from his profile, but I thought his lips twitched. “That’s also me, I’m afraid. Blood Warlock, you know. There’s no telling what I’m capable of.”

  “You’re capable of more than this,” Isis said in a soft, chiding tone as she flew from a tree nearby to land on his shoulder. “As I’ve told you, this is childish and bad for your health.”

  I jerked. I hadn’t heard her approach. I craned my neck just in time to see a blur of white and tawny feathers resolve itself into the sleek, oversized bird of prey Maverick called a familiar.

  “Are you saying he’s been sitting here this whole time?”

  “No, I haven’t,” Maverick muttered.

  At the same time Isis said, “No, but he has returned here daily. He is sulking.”

  I plucked at the material of his suit jacket. It made a soft sucking sound as it tried to peel away from his skin. The material was drenched in water, slicked with filth, and probably unsalvageable.

  “You haven’t even changed your clothes? That’s next-level angst, cousin. You should audition for a part in an emo music video.”

  The toe of Maverick’s shoe connected with my shin, sending a jolt of pain up my leg, as well as speckling my pants with mud.

  “Ouch! Hexes and Hoarfrost, Maverick! What was that for?”

  “If you came to hurl insults at me, you can shove them up your ass,” he said. There was a low, warning growl to his voice that I hadn’t heard in a while. “I left to avoid talking to you.”

  “Very mature,” I grumbled, rubbing the ache in my leg. All I succeeded in doing was smearing the mud around. I dropped my hand with another curse and wiped the stuff off on his sleeve. It wasn’t as if the suit would be worse off at this point.

  I waited for him to storm away. With just a little concentration, he could get it to start raining sideways. Hell, with his Blood Warlock magic, he could basically get nature to bend at the knee and do whatever the hell he wanted it to. It would give him time to run, and I wouldn’t have the chance to follow.

  “How did you find me?” he asked, eventually. “My wards are flawless, even in this rain. Isis has been monitoring them.”

  “Not flawless,” I argued.

  “The last time you breached them, it was too dark for you to pick up any landmarks.”

  I hooked a leg around his, tugging him toward me. It spun him in my direction, and I got my first good look at his face. He was paler than usual, and dark circles ringed his large gray eyes. Water dripped off his nose and ran down his chin in fine rivulets. His dark hair was stringy. The fingers that curled around the chains were pruney. He’d been sitting out here for a few hours at least.

  “Because you talk when you’re drunk.”

  It took him a moment to get it, but when he did, his eyes narrowed.

  “Taliyah told you.”

  “Only enough to get me to the park,” I lied. Maverick wasn’t the sort of man who’d appreciate being pitied which is why I’d keep the rest of the story to myself… for now. “I told her I saw lumps in my vision, something snake-like, chains, and woods. She was the one who said they were probably tire chips, slides, swings, and the woods around the fence. She says you come here to think.”

  He visibly relaxed. “Did she now?”

  “You’re lucky, you know.” I bumped my hip against his. “You’ve got a faerie princess rooting for you.”

  He scoffed. “Taliyah roots only for herself and her kids.”

  “Maybe, but she does like your ass.

  “What?” he asked, looking up at me with a frown that said my comment had completely thrown him, just liked I’d hoped it would.

  I laughed and nodded. “She told me so. Plus, the whole bounty hunter thing? Plenty of women would find that hot.”

  He arched one sculpted brow. “Really? I didn’t think she thought of me… that way.”

  “She does.”

  His expression barely wavered. “If you’re trying to make me feel better, you can save your breath. I know how covens work, and what it takes to get yourself kicked out of one. What happened in your store was a disaster, and you can’t afford to open yourself to that kind of scrutiny with other covens watching, etcetera, etcetera. Is that about right?”

  I stared at the side of his face for a moment. His jaw clenched, and a muscle twitched in one cheek. Cold or stress, I didn’t know. His eyes were guarded, braced for whatever I might say next.

  “You’re an idiot,” I sighed.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Maverick’s face paled with rage. “Excuse me?”

  I flicked his ear, which only made his eyes gleam more dangerously. It was a struggle not to laugh at him. Any intimidation factor he could have claimed had drained away with last night’s rain.

  “An idiot,” I stressed. “A melodramatic moron. A breathtakingly obtuse twit. Isis is right. This was just childish. You ran away before I could kick you out? Was that your way of saying, ‘you don’t get to fire me, I quit?’”

  “Don’t you dare—” he began.

  “No, don’t you dare,” I countered, glaring at him fully. “You don’t get to put words in my mouth.”

  “I know you.”

  “No, you don’t. And you obviously don’t understand how important my coven is to me.”

  “Then why don’t you enlighten me?”

  I nodded. “I will. I gathered the people I wanted and bound them into a coven. I wasn’t looking to impress other covens. In fact, I knew I wouldn’t impress anyone else. A Blood Witch, a banished witch, two red-haired witches, a gypsy, and a warlock? That wasn’t going to win me any points. I didn’t go into this looking to win a popularity contest, you pain in my ass. I chose all of you because I needed a coven, and all of you deserved a home.”

  “That was before I animated… whatever that thing is!”

  “Her name is Sybil, and she’s not a thing.”

  “She was a mannequin.”

  “Right and she isn’t one anymore.”