I hunched forward, feeling anxious, and for a long moment, the water was dark. Dark like night. Dark like blood. But as I watched, it slowly lightened, and then I could see shadows moving in the water, shadows with quick darting movements. The water brightened, just enough that I could tell what I was looking at, and my eyes snapped wide at the realization.

  For about seven extremely rapid heartbeats, I had a really clear view of myself. I was kneeling on the ground while ashes fell down around me. Sheriff Lucretia Boline stood over me, her face twisted into a rictus of rage—to the point that she didn’t even appear human. Dark magic crackled around her fists, strong enough that if my blood held any heat, it would have gone artic tundra cold in that instant.

  Because that kind of spell? That was the kind of hex that didn’t leave you with blemishes. Right, it wasn’t the kind of hex that left you so tired, you tripped over your own feet either. That was the kind of hex that killed. The kind that turned the undead into the super dead, and Lucretia looked like she was a micro second away from bringing that killing hex down on me.

  The waters suddenly snapped back to darkness, and I didn’t know if it was because the spell had ended, or because in the vision, Lucretia had just murdered me. I half expected the words ‘game over’ to roll across the basin, like when you died in a video game.

  The thought almost made me giggle, but the sheer horror of everything strangled the laugh before it got anywhere close to escaping my mouth.

  What the hell? What the hell? What could I possibly have done that Sheriff Boline would just spell me to death right there, in the middle of Jinx Junction? Did it have anything to do with all the ashes that seemed to be blowing around in the street? Was the town going to catch fire? How the spell would that be my fault? Or was Lucretia Boline just looking for a patsy to blame, and using it as an excuse to take out a vampire that dared to set foot in her town?

  And, more importantly, what was I going to do about it?

  Telling Uncle Fox was pointless. What could he do about something that hadn’t happened yet? He clearly wanted me in Jinx Junction to teach me a stupid lesson, and he might just think I was trying to weasel my way out of a town full of witches who hated me. Not to mention that Uncle Fox would be super irritated with the fact that I’d had my fortune read by a Jenny Greenteeth in the first place. He’d lecture me about knowing better and I really didn’t need to deal with that conversation at the moment.

  So that left telling Lorcan, and that was probably equally a non-starter, because Lorcan didn’t have magic, and never had, so trying to explain divinations to him wasn’t going to go well. And, really, there wasn’t much he could do about it. I mean, maybe we could leave town, but then Uncle Fox would get his panties all in a bunch and I was fairly sure Lorcan wouldn’t want to deal with that just as much as I didn’t want to.

  Unless this was life or death.

  Right. But that was only a point to consider if I believed in what I’d just seen. And like I’d said—you couldn’t really put any stock into divinations. They could be changed so easily—in a split second. There was nothing that said whatever I’d just seen in that bowl was the truth—for all I knew, it could just simply be a dream I was going to have tomorrow day.

  I rubbed my eyes, simultaneously keyed up and feeling like I’d just gotten hit by a truck. I gave myself a little mental shake as I faced Jenny Greenteeth and tried to maintain my composure. Going all freaked out in front of her wasn’t a good idea.

  “I appreciate the reading,” I said, trying to be polite. In general, fae tended to take rudeness really badly, and since Jenny Greenteeth tended to be the ‘bite first question later’ kind of people, I really didn’t want to leave this one feeling in any way slighted.

  The fae woman nodded, watching my face. “Be careful, little vampire.”

  I just barely managed to scrape up something close to a smile before I staggered off towards the Outlaw Hotel.

  Exploring the rest of Jinx Junction had lost its appeal.

  Chapter Seven

  After that meeting with Jenny Greenteeth, if I’d had my way, I would have holed up in my room in the hotel and just stayed there until it was time to meet with Uncle Fox again.

  After all, I couldn’t get in trouble if I never set foot outside my room, right?

  Unfortunately, it wasn’t likely that I’d get my way.

  I rested fitfully, constantly jerking awake to the worry that Sheriff Lucretia Boline was going to burst into my room and yank the curtains open or something. I hadn’t felt vulnerable before, even with the unfriendly posse of witches who were constantly downstairs. But I felt vulnerable now—all because I couldn’t shake the vision the water had revealed.

  You’d think, as a vampire, I’d have been way past tossing and turning all night, but you would have been wrong. After the fifteenth time I flipped over, I finally hauled back and punched my pillow. I was being stupid. It was just a silly divination, for spells sake! It wasn’t the kind of magic to plot your life by! Not only was the future constantly shifting, but visions of it were notoriously difficult to interpret. Divinations could be filled with symbolism and imagery that needed to be carefully considered.

  Unfortunately, Jenny Greenteeth’s vision hadn’t really been vague. Unless the falling ash was a symbolism for all that was going to be left of me after the sheriff of Jinx Junction hexed me back into my temporarily unused grave.

  I slammed a pillow over my face and tried not to cry.

  The fact was, I hated it here. I didn’t want to be within a hundred miles of Jinx Junction, or any of its nasty witches. Every part of me wanted to grab Lorcan (and maybe even Uncle Fox, but it was notoriously difficult to get him to do something he didn’t want to do) and beat feet out of this stupid town. Not to mention that Wanda would never forgive me if I got vaporized by some witch who looked like she considered denim and a cowboy hat to be couture.

  An ache built behind my ribs. I wanted to go home. Too bad I wasn’t entirely sure where that was anymore.

  I loved Circle Scapegrace. I loved our coven house. I loved coming together around a bonfire to work spells with older witches, to braid our magic together into one long shining chain.

  But I was different, now.

  I’d never be a witch again. And while the coven had made some honorary exceptions in their membership, like allowing Lorcan and Poppy to join, the idea of going back felt like I was trying to squeeze into a too small shirt.

  Scapegrace was full of amazing, talented, wonderful women—well, and Maverick. But they’d run out of things to teach me. That was why I’d gone to Blood Rose Academy in the first place. And now look at me—having to relearn a whole new type of magic anyway. Ugh.

  Part of me wanted to run, but part of me really, really wanted to call Rook.

  I was so mad at him, so frustrated with his ‘Astrid has suddenly become a porcelain doll’, crap. I’d never been a damsel in distress. I’d been a witch, and a red-headed witch at that. Apparently also an Autumn Fae. And now, I was a vampire hybrid. None of those things were weak. So, why the spell was Rook acting like I was going to shatter at the first touch?

  Ugh. Men.

  Just thinking about the way he’d been holding himself back made me want to bite something so much that my fangs ached. But that didn’t make me want to call him even a teeny bit less. Just hearing his voice, listening to him tell me that I could do this, that everything would be okay. I knew it would make me feel a thousand percent better, and that also kind of pissed me off. I mean, I didn’t want to need people’s approval, certainly not pigheaded Rook’s. Except apparently, now I did. Because of stupid vampire crap and adoptive sires.

  Maybe I should have just let Lorcan step in as my sire. At least then I’d only have dumb paternal problems to work out, not… all the other stuff that Rook brought to the table. Just thinking about it, about breaking my sire bond with Rook and going with Lorcan, made something inside me jerk away and snarl. I didn’t just want a sire. I wanted my sire, and no, I didn’t mean the undead moron who’d murdered then turned me in a cold, gross basement.

  And, okay, yes, I knew Rook was older than I was. By literal centuries. To him, I was young. Spell, to other witches I was young. Wanda was a hundred and forty-three, and she was just barely considered a mature witch. I was only nineteen, which must have seemed like a laughably short amount of time to most people in the supernatural community.

  I got that. But also, I’d seen things in my nineteen years, gone through things that would have sent people three times my age running scared. I didn’t need to be babied or coddled. Not that I was in any danger of getting coddled in Jinx Junction. No, here I was more in danger of being murdered.

  I fished my phone out from under my pillow, and just held it there, thinking. A wave of homesickness rose up in me, making my chest feel like someone had tried to replace my lungs with big heavy stones. The problem was, I wasn’t a hundred percent sure just where the home I was longing for was.

  One thing I did know was that home was decidedly not with the Crescent Circle Coven, where apparently, I’d only ever been tolerated. I’d thought Circle Scapegrace would have been my home, and it still was, in a way. I missed Wanda and Poppy and Betanya and Olga, and yes, even Maverick. The truth was that I missed them like I’d miss a lost limb. But the last time I’d been there, things had been just a little different. A little off. They weren’t mean or anything. Maybe they were just still adjusting to what had happened to me. But part of me just couldn’t stop thinking that I didn’t have a place there anymore.

  Then, there was Blood Rose Academy. In spite of everything, I’d actually done pretty well there. I’d learned a ton, made some new friends, good friends, and more importantly, going there had been my choice—it had been what I’d wanted. It wasn’t about being kicked out or sent somewhere. It had been what Astrid Depraysie had wanted for herself.

  Right up until an ambulatory wood tick with delusions of warfare and grandeur had decided to turn me into something else. But still… none of my friends had turned away from me, even once I became a vampire. And frankly, I hadn’t had any friends among the witches at Blood Rose in the first place, so who cared what they thought?

  Goddess, I missed my friends. I knew I’d see them all again in the fall, but that seemed so ridiculously far away when I was tossing and turning in my bed in the Outlaw Hotel, with the summer sun baking the streets outside.

  At least the tumbleweeds couldn’t get me while I was inside.

  Every time I closed my eyes, all I could see was Lucretia Boline’s face twisted up with rage as she murdered me in the street. When I’d looked into the water, I hadn’t been able to see anything else: just me, Lucretia, and the ashes raining down from above, so I had absolutely no idea what it was I could have done to piss her off so bad. What was worth cold-blooded murder, right there in the middle of her town? Not that the witches of Jinx Junction would see it as murder. They’d probably just see it as the sheriff righting a wrong, fixing a mistake. But still, it seemed like kind of an overreaction. It wasn’t like I was in town to cause trouble. I hadn’t even wanted to come at all. Uncle Fox had insisted on it. And it was just training that I had left to do with Uncle Fox, and that shouldn’t have been something the sheriff would get so worked up over. Not to mention that stuff like that—murdering supernaturals in a Hollow which was meant to keep them safe—would get out. And then Lucretia Boline would have a rash of shit to deal with. And I was more than sure she and all the witches knew that—which was probably why no one had hexed me yet.

  All of that made sense, so why did the vision make zero sense? Was my training going to go badly somehow? Was I going to accidentally burn down the town or something? Was that where the ash was coming from? I mean, okay, yeah, I could see someone kicking my ass in a permanent way if I somehow managed to destroy an entire town. Still, I didn’t see how I could do that. Did Autumn Fae even have access to fire spells? Trust Uncle Fox to not share any information about it. He was so light-lipped with what I could and couldn’t do, if he smiled, his jaw might crack.

  Astrid, you’re forgetting that divination spells aren’t reliable! I reminded myself. So, you’re losing sleep for absolutely no reason, because whatever you saw in Jenny Greenteeth’s bowl isn’t going to happen!

  I rolled over the other way, huffing into my pillow. If I focused on how annoyed I was, then I didn’t have to think about being scared. I still couldn’t believe Fox had dragged me (and less intentionally, Lorcan) all the way out here, and then ditched me without telling me one single thing about why we were here in the first place—well, until he had. And on that account, actually, I could totally believe it. It was pretty much dead to rights for Fox, or literally any other high Fae. They didn’t just play their cards close to their chests; they played their cards practically inside their chests.

  Maybe there was some kind of lesson here, some kind of riddle to figure out. Maybe if I failed this training, he was going to rethink our whole deal. I knew I did, sometimes. I’d only offered to become his heir so that he’d finally leave Taliyah alone.

  Taliyah Morgan was not only the Chief of Police back in Haven Hollow, but she was also the heir apparent to the throne of Winter. But most importantly to me, she was also my brother’s best friend and possibly more. Yes, they were married, but I was pretty sure they still didn’t know one another in a married sort of way—it was more for show. But I could tell my brother was smitten with her and it was for that reason that she mattered to me. I mean, sure I cared about her in the general sense—like I’d care about anyone. But since I knew how much she meant to Maverick, she meant a hell of a lot more to me. She was his chance at happiness, I was pretty sure. And, as far as I could tell, I thought she might have been into him too. Of course, she was difficult to figure out.

  All I did know was that Uncle Fox and Taliyah were never going to be a thing and once it seemed like Fox had zero interest in the throne for himself, I figured I might as well rise to the occasion. Plus, it would be nice to start ordering other people around for once, instead of constantly being ordered around myself.

  But that was petty and hadn’t entered into my decision at all. Right.

  But as to why Fox had had it out for Taliyah? Apparently she’d been betrothed at birth to him, or rather, to Prince Reynard of the Autumn Court, who the Winter Court had been at war with forever. Their marriage was going to nab Taliyah her throne, and bring peace to both kingdoms.

  Too bad no one had warned Taliyah about it before it was too late.

  Long story short, Taliyah decided she wanted absolutely none of what the faerie courts were offering, and told them so in some pretty explicit language. And, I mean, I got it. She’d spent almost five decades being Taliyah Morgan, and one little spell later, it’s all: jokes on you, you have to be this totally different person and, oh yeah, you also have to abandon your whole life just because we say so… I’d have hexed anyone who said as much into oblivion.

  Especially since Taliyah had kids, two little boys she’d adopted. Was she just supposed to leave them behind? Or, even better, bring them to Faerie with her? The Faerie that she’d needed to be smuggled out of under threat of death?

  The thing was, I got it from the other side, too. From Uncle Fox’s side. So many people had been banking on Taliyah taking her throne back. Those loyal to her parents probably weren’t having the greatest time, with Janara doing everything in her power to take the throne.

  It kind of screwed Uncle Fox, too. Fae, especially the High Sidhe, well they lived a long, long time. I wasn’t actually sure if they could even die of old age, or if they just… kept going forever. Probably something I would need to ask Uncle Fox, if he ever stopped doing cloak and dagger royal stuff and actually told me what the spell was going on.

  But that didn’t mean the Sidhe couldn’t be killed. Case in point, the father I’d never gotten to meet. With the rest of his family gone, and no one else to take the throne of Autumn if anything happened to him, my uncle was up an unpleasant creek without any mode of propulsion. He needed his wedding to Taliyah in order to get himself an heir, as well as protect his kingdom. Instead, Taliyah had gone and gotten herself hitched to my brother in an attempt to do an end run around the prophecy. And everyone knows just how chill prophecies are, after all.

  Uncle Fox hadn’t killed Maverick, so that was a plus, but he had withdrawn all of Autumn’s support to Winter. And he still didn’t have an heir. Which was where I came in.

  I was the daughter of his brother, after all. I was Uncle Fox’s family. Fingers crossed that was enough, combined with whatever lessons he needed to hammer into my brain, to convince the rest of the Autumn Court that I was a worthy heir, even if I was just a half-breed vampire.

  And absolutely none of those thoughts were helping me get to sleep. I knew I needed rest. I sure as spell didn’t want to be in Jinx Junction while both undead and exhausted, because at that point, I was pretty sure Sheriff Boline killing me would be a mercy.

  Besides, it wasn’t like there was anything else for me to do while the sun was in the sky. I’d only brought one book with me, and I didn’t want to get through it too quickly. The hotel wasn’t all that interesting, even if it wasn’t full of hostile witches and I wasn’t one twitched curtain away from becoming a smoldering pile of ashes.

  I wondered what Rook was up to. Probably sleeping, if he was smart. Away, in his room-slash-luxury prison cell that being a political hostage afforded him. Waiting for the sun to vanish beyond the horizon, and the night to set him as free as he ever got.

  Calling would be rude. I knew I shouldn’t wake him, especially when there was, technically, nothing wrong. What was he going to do, anyway, while half a world away and trapped by the sun?

  I could text him, a treacherous little voice whispered in my thoughts.

  No. I didn’t need him. There was nothing wrong. Nothing I couldn’t handle.