Her ankle wasn’t broken, at least I was pretty sure it wasn’t. But it was still terribly swollen and painful looking.

  I wished it were an unusual occurrence to have a person passed out in the back room of my store, but it seemed to be happening more and more frequently lately. Once upon a time, it had just been people coming to me for help: balms for healing, a remedy for insomnia, or a love potion. Now it seemed I’d become the newest hospital.

  My newest patient hadn’t even been a customer at all.

  Instead, I helped her into my shop from the sidewalk outside when I watched her take a tumble. The poor woman was now arranged on a cot and with the help of some ‘Relaxation’, tea, she was starting to calm down. Based on her symptoms, I couldn’t help but wonder if she’d torn a tendon. Of course, I played the injury down, mainly because I knew I could heal it, and owing to the fact that she was a mundane, I didn’t want to give my magical game away.

  With my new line of healing balms and potions, complete with a secret ingredient (known as Wanda’s magic), I could pretty much heal all aches and pains. But humans tended to ask a lot of questions when you healed debilitating injuries nearly instantly, and even though I wanted to help this woman, I couldn’t afford for her to start nosing around. The Council wouldn’t be pleased. And since I was part of the Council these days, it would be an extra bad look.

  I dug through one of the boxes of supplies on the backroom shelf. Wanda and I had been working together on a new line of first aid products and I’d recently just launched them in the shop to rave reviews. They wouldn’t be very useful for serious, life-threatening injuries, but for everything else, they could heal a person up in a matter of hours or days.

  Because I was a gypsy and not a witch, my potions were never going to have the power to stop a heart attack or keep someone from bleeding out or anything like that, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t do a lot of good. Especially since getting my little magic ‘boost.’

  A few months back, Wanda had decided to break a millennium of witch and coven tradition by asking me, a non-witch (and one of a handful of witch enemies), to join her new coven, Scapegrace. Historically, witches tended to be highly territorial when it came to other magic users, or those who were casting adjacent. Witches were known for chasing others out of their territories and even laying claim to territories that didn’t belong to them. To think how far Wanda and I had come since moving to Haven Hollow… well, sometimes it didn’t even feel real.

  I could still hardly believe she wanted me in the coven. But Scapegrace wasn’t a traditional one by any stretch of the imagination. Even without including a gypsy potion maker, it still included a former Blood Witch, a junior witch, a banished witch, and a Blood Warlock. Each of us was enough for more traditional witches to clutch their broomsticks in shock. Throw in the fact that two of us were red-headed witches (known as agents of chaos), an ex-Blood Witch, and a woman who’d been tossed out of her coven for being a serial monogamist, and their stripey socks would be rolling up and down.

  We might not have been a traditional coven, but that worked just fine for us.

  Even so, there had been side effects to my joining the coven. Ever since we’d performed the binding ceremony linking all the coven members together, I’d noticed that my magic had a little more oomph, a little more pizazz, and a little more bang for my buck. And on that front, I certainly wasn’t complaining.

  Some of the other side effects were less thrilling.

  I probably should have realized there would be some complications from tying my magic to other people’s, but in my defense, I never thought I’d ever be part of a coven, let alone with so many different powers involved. But with the funky mix of oddball abilities that were involved, consequences should have been considered before I signed on. To be fair, I would’ve joined anyway, but at least then I might have known what I was in for.

  Because Wanda had been blooded by a vampire and she’d become a Blood Witch, her magic had a decidedly dark tone and lately, I found myself sort of tapping into that darkness. And on that subject, I was starting to get a little worried.

  The first instance? The stupid fight with Janine Carmichael of the PTA at Finn’s middle school. I was embarrassed at myself for getting so worked up, but Janine had just been so condescending at the meeting, with her little sneers and pointed jabs. I’d been doing my best just to ignore her, to be the better person, but she’d made a crack about Marty’s ghost-hunting business, and that had been the last straw. The next thing I knew, I’d hexed her.

  I’d never hexed anyone in my life! Mainly because I’d never been able to!

  Well, I’d definitely hexed Janine Carmichael, and I’d felt so bad about it, I’d asked Libby to help me whip up a batch of her famous apology brownies. Not that Janine knew her sudden bout of severe acne had been my doing, but still, it was the thought that counted, right?

  I finally found the roll of spelled bandages I’d been looking for and turned back to my patient. “How’s she doing?”

  Bea, a member of the spring fae, and a local real estate agent, glanced up at me from where she’d been examining the woman’s leg. Bea had happened to be in my shop when the woman took her spill and thank God for that.

  “It’s not broken, I don’t think, but it is badly sprained.”

  Well, at least the infused bandages would be able to clear a sprain right up. A break would have required different supplies and taken a lot longer to heal besides—in fact, I probably would have needed to call on Wanda. I knelt beside the cot and started to gently wrap the bandages around the woman’s swollen ankle as she let out a whistling little snore—the relaxation tea seemed to be working just fine—in fact, she almost appeared asleep.

  It wasn’t so odd for someone to trip and take a nasty fall, but this was the fifth injury like this in two days and all of them had happened either inside my store, inside Wanda’s store or right outside both. Apparently, Wanda believed these incidences had something to do with the fae—hence the reason why Bea was here—she’d volunteered to help me try to get to the bottom of it.

  She smiled at the woman until she had the woman’s attention, then waved her hands above the woman’s head until little glittery fairy drops rained down all over the woman’s dark brown hair. Then Bea looked up at me.

  “She’s in a trance now and she won’t be able to understand us.”

  I nodded and gave her a smile. “What do you think is going on?”

  “I think this woman was hit with something called ‘The Dancing Plague’,” Bea said, her big blue eyes intent on my hands as I wound the bandage carefully around the woman’s ankle. “At least that’s what humans used to call it.”

  “Hmm, what is it?”

  “It’s a pretty common curse among the fae.”

  “A dancing curse?” I repeated and nodded to myself because it made sense. “Just before she took her topple, she was skipping up and down the street.”

  Bea nodded like she wasn’t surprised. “In history, the fae would use such curses in order to punish mortals who slighted them. Sometimes the really malicious faeries forced their enemies to dance until they died.”

  I felt my eyes go wide. “Is that even possible?”

  Bea cocked her head to the side. “Short answer: yes.” Then she smiled. “But it’s rare.”

  Her wings shivered, casting little rainbows across the floor of my storeroom. We weren’t in public, so Bea had shrugged off the backpack she used to keep her wings hidden from the mundanes. She kept flexing them, and I wondered if they got stiff when hidden away.

  Bea nodded to the woman on the cot. “These dancing curses are usually brief, so it’s probably just meant as a prank.”

  I gave her an incredulous look. “Bea, this woman was dancing outside for hours. That isn’t brief. She did the Macarena from one end of Main Street to the other. If she hadn’t twisted her ankle, falling off the curb while trying to do the electric slide, she’d probably still be dancing.”

  At that, Bea couldn’t seem to meet my eyes. Her wings dipped a little towards the ground like she was ashamed. “Anything less than a day is considered brief, to the fae,” she said, a little sheepishly.

  “It’s cruel.” I finished the last turn of the bandage and sealed off the end so the potions and spells infused into the cotton could get to work on healing the damaged muscles and tendons. Hopefully, they’d start working right away and the woman would be okay in a few hours. The Relaxation Tea would keep her down for the count for at least that amount of time. Maybe a little longer.

  Bea bit her lip and nodded. “It is cruel. That’s why I’ve never done anything like this. I’d much rather live in peace with the mundanes in Haven Hollow. I remember what it was like before places like this existed.”

  I sat back to double check my work, but I couldn’t help but glance at Bea. With her blond little cap of thistle-down hair, and her smooth cheeks and big blue eyes, sometimes it was hard to remember just how old Bea was. It was odd to think she’d been around long enough to remember a time before the various supernatural species had come together and formed the Hollows, places they could live in peace, sometimes side by side with humans, but undetected.

  “Have you ever played tricks on humans?” I asked, merely curious. Bea was nice, but she was also a faerie of the Spring court, and they were known to be a mischievous bunch.

  She giggled and gave a little shrug that sent the light dancing through her wings again. “When I was young, I played a few harmless pranks on unsuspecting folks. But being ‘pixie-led’ isn’t harmful at all, it just gets you lost. And honestly, I mostly did it back then to help my friends to hook up with the mortal men they ‘found’ and led back to town.” She smiled fondly. “That’s actually how my friend Pomifera met her husband, and she has a few generations of great-great-grandchildren now, so it all worked out.”

  “As long as they don’t hurt anyone, then pranks are okay I suppose,” I answered as I thought about Bea’s faerie friend and her mortal lover. “I imagine your friend’s husband came to realize what she was? Or did she leave him when she found out she was pregnant?”

  Bea shrugged again, sending her golden curls dancing. “No, he knew what she was right from the start. She never tried to hide it. And quite frankly, if he hadn’t noticed she had dragonfly wings, then that’s on him.”

  That made me laugh. “Yeah, that’s fair.” The laugh died once I thought about all the folks lately who had fallen victim to this particular dancing prank.

  I bent my head to check that the bandage was working properly. Wanda and I had put a lot of work into this healing product line, but they were still new, and I didn’t fully trust them yet. The bandage seemed to be working though, dulling the woman’s pain (or so I assumed because she wasn’t moaning any longer). And from what I could tell where the road rash on her knees was concerned, the bandages were speeding that healing process too.

  The bell over the door inside the shop chimed merrily as someone walked in.

  “Mom,” a youthful voice called out. “Wanda picked me up when she got Astrid and dropped us both off.”

  “Shoot,” I said quietly, glancing at the woman on the cot.

  Bea gave me a puzzled look.

  I hadn’t expected Finn to be back so early. Ever since we’d found out my son was growing into his own power as a Magician, Wanda’s cousin, Astrid, had been giving him a crash course in the supernatural society he was about to enter, or ‘magic for dummies’, as Finn liked to call it. They’d been cramming in as much time together as they could, since Astrid was due to go away to college soon. She’d already gotten her acceptance letter from Blood Rose Academy and so her time in Haven Hollow was coming to an end, something I was very sad about because I adored Astrid. But I was excited for her to attend the university, especially because she was so excited about it. As to Wanda, she wasn’t given to ‘being emotional’ and hadn’t commented much, but I was sure she was going to miss her cousin.

  Astrid wasn’t just teaching Finn about the supernatural factions, either, but magical theory and lore. Finn needed a working knowledge of the world he was joining. And it seemed pretty inevitable at this point that he was definitely destined to become a Magician.

  Before a couple months ago, I hadn’t even known there was such a thing as Magicians—well, nothing more exciting than stage magic, anyway—magic that was decidedly mundane and, thus, fake. Little did I know there was an extremely rare group of humans who possessed magic.

  And Finn was now the newest member in their ranks.

  I was proud of him; I was. I’d raised a pretty incredible kid, if I did say so myself. It was just… I couldn’t protect him in this new magical world—not only because I knew nothing about it, but also because I was still only human. Granted, I possessed gypsy magic and had my own unique gifts, but my magic wasn’t much when compared to a witch or the fae. There were a lot of dangerous things lurking in the shadows, literal monsters, and the more Finn explored his own magic, as well as this calling, the more attention he was going to attract.

  So, as much as I wanted to wrap Finn in every protective charm and potion known to man and keep him home, where I could keep an eye on him, I wouldn’t stop him from spending time with Astrid. He needed as much information as he could get about the magical world, and besides, Astrid had magical knowledge I didn’t. And I trusted her. Plus, the two of them were like peas in a pod and always had been.

  Regardless, I’d totally forgotten I was supposed to host tonight’s study session.

  “I’ll be right there,” I called, double-checking the bandage wrapped around the woman’s ankle.

  As I rose to my feet, I looked at Bea. “Can you keep an eye on her for a few minutes? Just, hang back here and maybe keep everything on the down low? Please?”

  Bea looked surprised, no doubt at why I wanted to hide the woman from my son but nodded easily enough. I let out a little breath and slipped out of the back room, closing the door behind me.

  Chapter Two

  I crossed the shop floor, a little breathless.

  Finn and Astrid were just passing the counter when I met up with them. I caught Finn in a big hug (which was probably going to be ‘uncool’ very soon, owing to the fact that he would be turning fourteen in six months), and pressed a kiss to his cheek. Instead of bending down to cuddle him, Finn was now five-eight and had four inches on me. The day your little boy is taller than you? Yep—that’s a bittersweet day.

  Finn shrugged me off with a smile. I dropped my hand onto his shoulder and gave it a light squeeze, and didn’t smooth his hair back the way I wanted to—I swear Finn didn’t understand the concept of a brush—every day he went to school looking like he’d just stuck his finger into an electrical socket.

  Even if I had to constantly remind him to put on deodorant and brush his teeth, there was no denying he was growing up. He might still have my blond hair, the same blue eyes, even the same dusting of freckles across the bridge of his nose, but his cheeks weren’t as round as they had been when we’d moved to Haven Hollow, and after all his growth spurts, he was now just gangly limbs.

  “How was your day?” I asked, after giving Astrid a hug.

  Finn shrugged, hitching his backpack strap a little higher on his shoulder. “Mom, you know I hate it when you ask me about my day.”

  “Finn,” Astrid reprimanded him. “Don’t give your mom attitude.”

  Finn frowned at Astrid and she stuck her tongue out at him before he turned to face me. “Fine—I’m meeting Alicia for ice cream one day this week, but otherwise today wasn’t anything different from any other day.”

  I remembered Alicia. She was one of Finn’s classmates. When a Magicless, a Magician who had turned to the dark side, had infiltrated Finn’s school and taken over his class, Alicia had been trapped right along with him. She was probably the one child who’d been hit the hardest by the Magicless’s hope-stealing aura. Finn had managed to save her before the damage had become permanent, with a little help from our friends and neighbors, as well as… Andre.

  Andre was the only other Magician I knew, and he was also the person who’d acknowledged that Finn was one too. Well, with the help of Andre’s strange enchanted book, Ouire, who acted more like a dog than anything with pages ever should.

  Thinking about Andre caused a little flutter of awareness to shoot through me and I had to tamper it down again. And it was always the same—just picturing the man’s handsome face or hearing his name and the butterflies started infiltrating my stomach.

  Andre was charming, beyond handsome, brave, had the most wonderful posh English accent I’d ever heard, and was like every woman’s British dream come to life.

  But that wasn’t the reason for the butterflies or the fact that whenever I thought of him, every nerve within my being seemed to stand at attention. That was reserved for the fact that I felt this almost indescribable magnetism towards him, this strange and unworldly pull. Like I recognized him from another time, another place, even though I hadn’t known him long and really didn’t know him much at all—not beyond acquaintances, anyway.

  Yet we had this almost cosmic connection—at least, I felt like we did. And it was a feeling I’d never experienced before—I’d never felt that kind of instant connection with another person, and from the way Andre had seemed reluctant to leave Haven Hollow after everything had been wrapped up at the school, it left me wondering if maybe I wasn’t the only one who felt something…

  But it was that exact something I’d felt and continued to feel—that almost indescribable sense of longing and passion—that caused me to take a step back. Why? Because I’d never been good with men and relationships. If there was a room full of nice guys and one jerk, I’d always manage to find the jerk. It was like my man picker was broken and had been from the moment I’d started dating. And Andre? Yeah, he was the epitome of a potentially terrible decision—he was too good to be true and that usually was exactly the case. Not to mention the fact that as a traveling Magician, he didn’t have a home base. He just came and he went, just like the wind.