“Dimitri,” the bartender says.
“Sidney.”
Knox glances between them. Sidney’s gaze moves to Knox and lingers for a moment on the red cross on the back of his coat, but he says nothing. He picks up another glass and begins drying it with the same methodical patience. He does not ask why a demon is walking into the bar with a Templar at his side looking as though they rolled out of the same bed, which they did, and Dimitri is privately grateful for the discretion.
“What do you need?” Sidney asks, in the tone of a man who has been asked for worse.
“Xela.”
Sidney regards him for a moment. Then he puts the glass down and calls toward the back of the bar. “Xela, someone for you.”
Movement. A curtain at the back shifts, beaded strands clicking together, and a woman emerges.
Hauntingly beautifulis the phrase people use for banshees, and it is accurate in the way thata little warmis accurate for the surface of the sun. Xela is tall, nearly as tall as Dimitri, and thin in the way of creatures who exist partially in this world and partially somewhere else. Her hair is long and dark and falls past her waist in a sheet of black silk that seems to move independently of any breeze. Her skin is pale in a way that has to do with the fact that banshees are, at their core, creatures of death, and death has never been known for its healthy glow. Her eyes are the problem. They are silver. Not gray, not light blue, not any color that can be reasonably explained by genetics or contact lenses. Silver, the color of a mirror, the color of mercury, and they reflect the light in a way that makes Dimitri’s skin crawl in a manner he finds oddly pleasant.
She is beautiful the way a funeral is beautiful. The way a knife is beautiful. Perfectly crafted for a purpose you don’t want to think about.
“Dimitri,” she says, and her voice is low and melodic and carries an undertone that vibrates in the fillings of teeth he doesn’t have. “It's so nice to see you. Where have you been?”
“Around,” Dimitri says, which is almost friendly by his standards.
Xela’s silver eyes move to Knox. They linger. She tilts her head, birdlike, and something in the quality of her attention changes. “And this is?”
“My Templar,” Dimitri says, and then catches himself, but too late. The words are already in the air, already hanging between them, and Knox has gone very still beside him and is radiating a quiet warmth through the bond that Dimitri is going to pretend he can’t feel.
Xela’s mouth curves into a quiet smile.
“Your Templar,” she repeats.
“We’re soulbound,” Dimitri says shortly, because he can already feel the edges of this conversation turning into something he doesn’t want to navigate. “By accident. By a novice witch who couldn’t read his own spellbook. We need to find the witch so he can undo it, and I need someone who can trace a magical signature.”
Xela regards him, and this time her silver eyes narrow. Not with hostility. With something closer to recognition.
“You don’t need me to trace anything,” she says.
Dimitri frowns. “What?”
“I said you don’t need me to trace anything.” Xela pulls out the stool at the end of the bar and sits down with the fluid grace of someone who has never experienced an awkward physical moment in her entire existence. She crosses her legs and folds her hands in her lap and looks at Dimitri with those mercury eyes. “I know exactly who you’re looking for.”
Dimitri feels Knox shift beside him. A flicker of surprise through the bond. Hope. Knox is careful with his hope, keeps it close and quiet, a flame he is afraid to expose to the wind, but Dimitri can feel it anyway, cupped in his palms at the center of their connection, warm and fragile.
Dimitri crosses his arms. “I’m listening.”
“His name is Newt,” Xela says. “He’s a member of the Hargrove Coven.”
Silence. Dimitri processes this. Beside him, Knox tilts his head, his tell, the thing he does when he’s thinking, and Dimitri knows his tells now, knows all of them, knows the way he tilts his head and the way he sets his jaw and the way his left hand drifts toward his mace when he’s nervous, and this accumulation of intimate knowledge is deeply inconvenient and entirely Knox’s fault.
“The Hargrove Coven,” Dimitri repeats flatly.
“The oldest coven in Haven,” Xela confirms. She picks up a glass from the bar that Sidney has silently placed in front of her, something clear and faintly luminous, and takes a sip. “Founded six generations ago by Mathilde Hargrove, who still runs it, because Mathilde Hargrove is too mean to die and too stubborn to let anyone else be in charge. She runs it as a dynasty. Blood in, blood out. Every Hargrove witch for the last hundred and fifty years has trained under her, and God help the ones who don’t meet her standards.”
“And the boy?” Knox asks.
“Newt is her great-grandson.” Xela smiles again, and this time it is edged with something that might be pity. “Obscenely powerful. Staggeringly incompetent. He has more raw magical potential than the rest of the coven combined, and he can’t control any of it. Every spell he tries to cast comes out sideways. Mathilde has been trying to train him for years and he keeps blowing things up. Literally. He blew up the east wing of the Hargrove mansion last spring. And the greenhouse. And, I’m told, a car, although no one will confirm that one on the record.”
“He blew up a car?” Knox says, with something between concern and bewilderment.
“It’s unclear if it was intentional.” Xela shrugs one shoulder. “With Newt, it rarely is.”
