And liabilities disappeared.
The voice had felt real. More real than this bed, this room, this life I was barely holding together.
Find me.
Whoever he was, whatever he was, I was running out of time to figure it out.
No use going back to sleep.
I crawled out of bed and padded to the kitchen, the floorboards cold beneath my bare feet. The house was quiet.Tinker Bell wasn’t up yet, or she was ignoring me. Hard to tell which lately.
I poured water into the coffee pot with clumsy hands, spilling half of it on the counter. My eyes burned. My head ached.
Find me.
The voice clung to me like perfume I couldn’t wash off.
Soft footsteps came down the hallway, and Tinker Bell came into the kitchen. Her blonde hair was sleep-mussed, her feet bare beneath a faded nightshirt. She smiled. “Coffee. Good.” She studied me with those blue eyes. “You had that dream again, didn’t you?”
I took cream out of the refrigerator as the coffee brewed. “How did you know?”
She shrugged as she sat at the counter. “Your room is next to mine. I hear you call out.”
A pit formed in my gut. I grabbed two cups from the cupboard. “What do I say?”
“Find me. Same as always.”
I poured the coffee, not trusting myself to speak. The dream. Margot’s dress. The way my magic kept slipping out of my hands like water. It was all connected—I felt it. I just didn’t know how.
“Am I losing my mind?”
Tinker Bell took a sip, watching me over the rim. “No,” she said slowly. “I’ve been thinking about it. Your birthday is coming up. You’ll be twenty-one soon.”
I froze, cup halfway to my mouth. “You think that has something to do with it?”
“Possibly. Sometimes a witch’s powers come into fruition at certain milestones, and twenty-one is definitely a milestone.”
“You mean I could go nuclear?” My heart sank down to my toes. Go nuclear. Lose control completely. Hurt someone—or everyone. I’d never make it to twenty-two.Please say no, pleasesay no.Angelo didn’t give second chances to dangerous witches. “But my birthday is in a couple of days.”
“You could. I’ve been thinking—” She paused, and there it was. That careful softness in her expression, the one people got right before they told you something you didn’t want to hear. Her fingers traced the rim of her coffee cup like she was searching for the right words.
Or the courage.
My shoulders sagged, and I fought back tears. “You’re going to kick me out of the coven.”
She rolled her eyes. “Did I say that? You’re like a sister to me, Alice, especially after I lost Marigold.” Tears glistened in her eyes.
My heart clenched. Marigold. Even now the name was a bruise neither of us could stop pressing. I reached over and clasped her shaking hand. “I miss her too.”
“I’m not kicking you out,” Tinker Bell said quietly. “I’ve been thinking about something else entirely.”
I stilled, afraid of what she was going to say. Lock me away somewhere? The supernatural community had to have ways of dealing with people who knew too much. Warded rooms. Spelled closets. Places you walked into and never walked out of.
No one had been thrown into the coven’s storm-safe room in years, but the whispers said I should be. I’d seen that steel box—no windows, just cold metal etched with wards strong enough to smother every spark I had left. My unstable magic would ricochet off the walls, building and building until it wrapped around my throat. I wouldn’t break the room. The room would break me.
Tinker Bell poured more cream into her coffee. “I’m not going to lose you like I did Marigold.”
I exhaled and tried to still my quickening heart.
