And for a single mom, the wind isn’t exactly a good relationship partner. Besides, I had a boyfriend anyway—a solid, reliable, and responsible one. And even though the sparks weren’t necessarily there, I figured that was a good thing. Because sparks were a lead-in to fire and fire was destructive.

  On the other hand, Marty and I had something different—something tamer and something sweet. Not only that, but we’d started our relationship the right way—as friends and from there, it had advanced to something more, something real. Even though I didn’t get butterflies in my stomach when Marty kissed me, what we had was solid and he made me happy and I made him happy so we were like one big, happy couple.

  With no butterflies.

  I forced the thought right out of my mind. What wasn’t as easy, however, was forcing thoughts of Andre out of my mind, much though I tried. And had been trying. From the moment I’d met him to the moment he’d left Haven Hollow.

  And every day since then.

  I hadn’t seen Andre since he’d taken the Magicless (the failed Magician who’d lost her hope) away with the intention of rehabilitating her. And that had been a while ago. Months ago—five to be exact. I tried not to think about Andre, because thoughts of Andre were useless thoughts. They were thoughts that didn’t amount to anything because I doubted I’d ever see him again. Besides, thinking about Andre didn’t feel fair to Marty, who, aside from Wanda, was my best friend, and an all-around fantastic guy.

  With no butterflies.

  I scrubbed my hands over my skirt, like I could wipe away my stupid thoughts. “How is Alicia doing?”

  Finn’s smile faded, turning a little somber. “She keeps having bad dreams. But she says hanging out with me helps, so I said we could get ice cream and talk about anything that might be bothering her.”

  I couldn’t help but smile, because I was proud of Finn on a daily basis. “It’s a good thing she has you as her friend.”

  I was pretty sure Alicia had a little bit of hero-worship going on where Finn was concerned, and that her wanting to spend time with him was probably a blossoming crush. But if it helped her, then I was glad. And I was happy Finn was willing to give her what help he could. He might have been going through his teenage phase and asserting his independence but one of the things that hadn’t changed was his big heart. I hoped that would never change.

  Finn tugged his backpack off. “I’m gonna go set up in the back.”

  I froze for a second.

  Finn’s desk was in the storeroom so of course, he’d plan to set up his study session with Astrid back there. Because, really, where else could they study? The store wasn’t exactly large. But the backroom was currently occupied by Bea and a suspiciously injured stranger—and the last thing I wanted Finn to do was what I knew he would—try to heal her.

  So, I stepped in front of the door before he could reach it and I fished a fifty out of my pocket. “Hey, I’ve got an idea. Why don’t you two go study at the Half-Moon instead?”

  Finn frowned and then immediately narrowed his eyes at me. “You’re trying to get rid of us.”

  “Get rid of you?” I asked with a laugh, all the while shaking my head. “No. I just thought you might be hungry.” I was interrupted as Astrid walked over and grabbed the fifty from my hand with a Cheshire Cat grin.

  “Good idea, Poppy,” she said.

  “Mom?”

  Before I could respond, Astrid did. “Finn, you need to recognize when opportunity knocks and not question it.”

  But Finn wouldn’t take his eyes off me. “Mom?” he repeated.

  “Finn?”

  “Let’s go before she changes her mind,” Astrid said as she reached over and wrapping her hand around Finn’s forearm, yanked him towards the door.

  “It’s really not like we have to have our session today,” Finn continued, pulling away from Astrid and locking his arms across his chest as he faced me again. “Astrid can’t teach me Magician magic anyway.”

  “That’s not the point of the lessons,” she argued.

  “Right,” I answered. “You need to know the ins and outs of the magical world, Finn.”

  Magicians like Finn and Andre did mortal magic. It wasn’t something Astrid, a witch, could teach him but that didn’t mean her lessons were without merit. They were, even if the tricks Finn had learned so far had come from Ouire, Andre’s magical book or ‘Grimoire’, something I was fairly sure Astrid knew nothing about. Ouire had randomly wandered into my store one blustery night, tottering over on his cover and wagging his satin bookmark like a happy tail. Finn had instantly fallen in love with the book and was devastated when Ouire had to leave with Andre. I was secretly relieved because it meant I didn’t have to worry about Finn picking up too many tricks too quickly, for now anyway.

  “Astrid can’t teach me Magician tricks,” Finn continued, shaking his head with a frown that never left his face.

  “So what? You could still get something to eat and have some fun,” I responded.

  Finn’s eyes narrowed even further and he watched me, suspicious. “Why are you trying to send us away?”

  I kept my smile firmly plastered in place. “I just want you two to have a good time.”

  I knew I’d screwed up the instant the words left my mouth, even before Finn’s expression darkened. Finn might be a Magician, but he was also as much a Gypsy Traveller as I was. And while the men of our line didn’t usually inherit magic like the women did, they did tend to have talents of their own, and Finn’s had always been able to tell when someone was lying.

  And right about now? Yeah, I was doing exactly that.

  One slender, blond eyebrow arched clear up to his forehead, revealing the fact that he was obviously unhappy I wasn’t being honest with him, but I didn’t know what else to do or say. All this magic and Magician stuff was sending my anxiety through the roof. Teenager or not, powerful or not, he was still my son and when faced with unknown magic; I wanted to protect him.

  Every time someone got hurt these days, it seemed Finn was right there, trying to help. His magic worked best on children, but he’d been getting steadily stronger ever since Andre and Ouire had ventured into our lives. Lately, he’d been able to do a decent amount of magic on adults if they were open to it. I loved that he cared, that he wanted to help people, but I knew from bitter experience that the supernatural world could be dangerous and unforgiving. I just wanted him to grow up in a safe environment, not up to his eyeballs in hexes and monsters. Especially since before a couple months ago, we’d never even heard of Magicians, much less known they existed. I still didn’t know exactly what they could do, or what the cost of their power was.

  “Tell me the truth, Mom,” Finn said, a scowl on his face.

  Astrid muttered something beneath her breath but must have realized Finn wasn’t going to budge because she stepped away from the door and frowned at me, like it was my fault he was a stubborn as an old goat.

  I sagged. I didn’t know why I even tried. Finn had been able to know when I wasn’t being honest for years now. Even deflections hadn’t worked since we’d moved to the Hollow.

  “There was another dancing victim,” I told him, quietly.

  “Another one?” he asked, eyes going wide. He’d been at the store the first time someone had randomly started dancing in the middle of the love potion aisle, all the while growing increasingly disturbed when they couldn’t stop.

  “It’s not a big deal, really,” I continued. “Just a twisted ankle. I can handle this one.”

  He still looked unhappy, his mouth pressed into a thin line. “If it’s not a big deal, then I can handle it.”

  And just like that, I was stuck. I didn’t want to admit that the victims were coming more frequently, because that would just get Finn more involved. And I didn’t want him more involved, especially if this might be a hex or a curse or a particularly mean fairie.

  Before I could come up with any kind of counter argument that might convince him to just go have a nice study session at the Half-Moon, Finn pushed past me, slipping a silver coin out of his pocket as he headed into the back room.

  I didn’t stop him. Frankly, I wasn’t sure I could stop what was happening to Finn at this point. He was coming into his own power, growing into his strength. I’d never tell him but secretly, way down deep, I wished I could stop it. I just wanted my son to live a normal life, a normal and safe life that didn’t involve things going bump in the night. Was that so wrong?

  I bit my lower lip and managed to give Astrid a weak smile before slipping into the storage room, following my son who was growing up way too fast.

  Chapter Three

  With the woman now snoring peacefully on the cot in my back room, her ankle and head fully healed, I helped Finn down into the desk chair.

  He was so pale, his freckles stood out like sepia ink against his skin, and his arm was a little clammy under my hand. I wasn’t sure if the tremble was his, or my own. Whatever he’d just done to help the woman, it had taken something out of him—I could see as much in the sheen of sweat that lined his forehead.

  I bit my lip but didn’t say anything. I just didn’t have the heart to argue with him over what he’d just done. It wasn’t that I didn’t appreciate what he could do. The way he was able to help people—to heal them—was amazing. It was just that… we hadn’t really had a chance to speak to Andre about what being a Magician entailed. So, I didn’t know what the consequences of Finn healing people was—or if there might be any consequences at all.

  Yet, I couldn’t help but wonder: did healing others drain his own health from him? His life? A part of his soul? Or was there no cost at all? It scared me, not knowing, because if there was a cost, if there was something Finn was losing to this magical side of him, I didn’t know what that something was. And that meant I didn’t even have a clue what I needed to protect Finn from.

  I walked over to where Astrid was hovering in the doorway and handed her back the fifty I’d tried to give Finn earlier. After he’d insisted on staying to help the injured woman, Astrid had given the money back to me. “Maybe don’t worry about the history lessons tonight,” I said in a soft voice. “You two should just have an easy and carefree dinner.”

  As before, Astrid didn’t have any trouble accepting the money. She glanced at Finn, and then back at me, and smiled. “I’ll try to sneak in a little something. Especially since Sybil wanted to tag along tonight.”

  Sybil was technically Astrid’s first cousin, once removed. She’d been a store mannequin, before Wanda and Maverick had accidentally magicked her to life. From what I knew about Sybil, she was a sweet girl. A little naïve, since she was practically born yesterday, and she had power that she didn’t know what to do with. Sybil had kind of turned into a coven group project—each of us doing our part to teach her everything she’d need to know in order to pose as a young witch. She’d settled into a form that looked to be in her mid-teen years, but being a shapeshifter, she could mimic almost any woman.

  Finn excused himself to use the restroom and Astrid’s attention drifted to one of the potion bottles on the shelf. It was a particularly pretty one; I had to admit. Brilliant green with little flecks of gold light flickering in its depths. I’d put it in one of my prettiest bottles to compliment it.

  “Pan’s Delight?” Astrid read the tag aloud. “You haven’t shown me how to make this one.” Then she got a big grin on her pretty face as she turned to face me. “Is this a smutty potion, Poppy?” Her tone was exaggeratedly scandalized, but she also waggled her eyebrows at me.

  “No,” I sputtered, color flooding my cheeks just like she knew it would. “I don’t sell smutty potions and you know that!”

  She hummed, disbelieving. “That just doesn’t seem likely… I mean, from what I know about Pan, anyway.”

  I resisted the urge to hide the bottle, like it really was something illicit which it decidedly was not. “Whatever you think you know about Pan aside, it’s a potion for revelry, thank you very much.”

  “Revelry, huh?” she continued. “Is that what you’re calling it nowadays?”

  I shook my head. “You take after Wanda way too much.” Then I breathed out a long sigh, figuring Astrid should know what the potion did. “It simply enhances a party atmosphere.” Her eyebrows raised even higher. “Not like that,” I sighed when she started to laugh.

  “Okay, okay,” she said, still laughing, turning to smile at Finn as he walked up to her. “Come on, Finn. Let’s go find Sybil before she manages to get herself lost.”

  “Have a good time then,” I said, a bit primly, as Finn heaved a sigh that had enough exhaustion in it to make my mom-worry do backflips. He just seemed… a little wiped out. And, of course, I had to wonder if healing the woman had done a number on him. It seemed like it had. My tone softened as they turned to go. “Thanks, Astrid.”

  The red-haired witch gave me a cheeky little wave as she and Finn stepped out the door and onto the downtown sidewalk with a cheery little jangle of bells.

  I watched them go with a little prickle of worry turning my stomach. I just couldn’t shake the fear that Finn had worn himself to a shadow in order to heal someone else. And it wasn’t like I was just being an overprotective and nonsensical mother, either. In thirteen short years, Finn had been terrorized by a poltergeist, kidnapped by fairies, stalked by an insane vampire, and targeted by a Magicless, bent on turning my son into someone as hopeless as she was.

  I knew I had to let him walk his own path, eventually. But that day wasn’t today.

  Bea stepped out of the back room, and I almost jumped out of my skin. I’d been so caught up in worrying about Finn that I’d forgotten anyone else was still in the shop.

  I shook my head, annoyed at myself. “Bea, I’m sorry for taking up so much of your time today.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” she said with a little shrug. Her wings were carefully tucked away again, in respect of the huge glass windows that dominated an entire wall of the shop and looked out onto Main Street. “I would have been off for most of today, anyway.”

  “Oh?” I asked, even though I couldn’t say my attention was really on the conversation. Instead, I couldn’t stop thinking about the lack of color in Finn’s cheeks.

  She nodded. “I’ve been Taliyah’s go-to for faerie council stuff and training, and Fifi still feels so bad about breaking Taliyah’s memory charm early that she’s been keeping me at half-hours so I’m available to Taliyah when I’m needed.”

  Poor Taliyah. Or Chief Morgan, I should say. The spell hiding her faerie identity was set to break in one month’s time, but thanks to Fifi spilling the beans early, the spell had already started unraveling and now Taliyah was finding out what it meant to be fae—I had a feeling it was even worse than menopause.

  I winced. “That must keep you very busy.”

  Bea smiled, showing a dimple in one rosy cheek. “Tutoring an incipient Faerie Queen can be a little taxing. There’s a lot of stuff to cover, and not much time to do it and I wouldn’t exactly describe Taliyah as the friendliest of sorts.”

  “She’s a good person,” I answered, knowing how prickly she could be. But Taliyah had had a tough time of it in Haven Hollow so if she was a little prickly, I figured she deserved to be. Prickly or not, I liked her and always had.

  “She is,” Bea nodded. “And she needs all the help she can get, especially if we don’t want her accidentally turning Haven Hollow into an arctic wonderland.”

  “Yeah, we definitely don’t want that.”

  Bea nodded and breathed in deeply. “I’ll make sure that doesn’t happen. Now if I could just stop Fifi from blaming herself about breaking the spell, we’d be getting somewhere.”

  Poor Fifi. She’d only been trying to help Taliyah and hadn’t realized the harm she’d done. And as to Taliyah, I couldn’t even think of how she must have felt. Especially because she had two boys of her own. How terrified she must have been, when all of her history was revealed to her and the entire world as she thought it existed was turned on its head. The idea that not only did the fae exist but there were a number of them who were trying to steal a throne she hadn’t even known she had? That they were ruthless enough to threaten children to get what they wanted? Taliyah would need to master her powers very soon, just to keep her little family safe. Even if she didn’t want to be Queen Olwen of Winter, she didn’t have a choice, not if she wanted to protect them.

  I shook my head, my heart going out to her. How horrible that must be.

  A particularly loud snore caused me to glance back at the door to the storage room. At least my patient seemed comfortable. “Bea, do you have any idea what might be causing all these incidents?” I asked, shaking my head as I wondered who or what was behind all of them. “I mean, it isn’t normal for so many of these strange things to occur one right after the other.”

  She shrugged. “If I had to guess, the fae have been offended—but we just don’t know which fae.”

  I frowned. “Yeah, but how many people could have offended them in two days? If this keeps up, the mundanes are going to start noticing something’s wrong in this town, and videos are going to end up on ‘Paranormal Caught on Camera’.”

  Bea tugged at the skirt of her dress. “Maybe it’s not a case of retaliation.”

  I nodded because retaliation didn’t really make sense to me either. “I can’t imagine what a bunch of helpless humans could have done to upset them.”

  She cocked her head to the side as she pondered it. “I must admit, it really is unusual. Normally, only the faeries of any given season are allowed to play pranks on such a large scale.”

  I frowned. “I don’t understand.”

  “For example, Autumn faeries get to have all the fun because Halloween falls in their domain.” She grinned, and her shoulders twitched in a way that made me think her wings would have buzzed if they hadn’t been tucked away. “You can get away with some pretty wild stunts in the name of ‘Trick or Treating’.”