Licking my finger, I rub the little red spot the ember left. I’m not gentle. I’m pissed off. My dad still eludes me.
Maybe I need some advice from Mom after all. I kick over the remnants of the fire and bury the ashes in sand.
6
SARAH
The wards chime with recognition and I don’t need the doorcam to know it’s Harper. Her greeting is sullen as she stomps over the threshold, and I feel like barking at her that I’ve not had the best morning, myself. But I bite it down.
‘So you’ve not heard from him?’ she demands, from where she’s thrown herself into Serafina’s rocking chair – or rather, the perfect replica of it that Pierre made for us. She’s gripping a quilted cushion like she wants to rip its feathery guts out. ‘He turned up in our lives then disappeared again? How fucking dare he?’
I want to explain that’s how the world works, for witches. We don’t get to play happy families – the law’s too cautious of us to allow that to happen. If two witches cohab, one has to be bound, remember? But I don’t, because she’s right. Lachlan showed up in our lives. Made himself a part of how Harper understands herself, her magic, and the world. Then disappeared again.
‘Am I not worth knowing?’ our daughter asks, voice gone small, and suddenly my anger at her father flares like an unwatched cauldron fire. Indeed,how fucking dare henot maintain contact with her?
The wards chime yet again, and I’m so at the end of my tether as I go answer I don’t bother checking the camera.Which is how I open up to two federal agents, one male and one female.
‘Ms Fenn? We’ve come to accompany you and your daughter to Registration.’
Dread trickles in my veins like hemlock. Registration? The letter only arrived a few hours ago. I haven’t even had a chance to discuss with Harper the fact that she’s required to attend too, and how we deal with that. Co-operation or – what, exactly?
‘There must be a mistake,’ I say. ‘The letter was only delivered this morning and it said I’d receive a summons.’
‘Wearethe summons,’ says the female fed, brightly. Her male colleague looms grimly behind. He’s doubtless there for when the smiles don’t work. ‘All witches are judged a flight risk, so once delivery has confirmed your presence – and now we know your daughter is here, too … how efficient!’
‘Mom?’ Harper says uncertainly at my back.
I curse myself for not having sat her down for this discussion the minute we knew Sandra Ortiz’s hideous Bill had passed. I can’t hex these cops –resisting a summons will result in felony charges,the letter said. So I do the next best thing I can.
‘Run!’ I yell at my daughter.
But the burly officer is already shouldering past me.
7
HARPER
I heard enough to put it together.Registration.Both of us.
The guy forcing his way past Mom is huge. Where do I go? We keep our back door locked so he’d be on me before I could get through it. I can’t risk using my magic, because powerful as it is and untrained as it is I might end up exploding him. So I do what I had to many times at school when Bea was on a bullying rampage, and lock myself in the bathroom to buy some time.
There’s only one person Mom and I can truly rely on.
The cops are taking me and Mom, I frantically text Pierre.Please help us!Attaching a Find My Phone link, I hit as the door gives way behind me, and slip the phone into my pocket. Doubling over the toilet basin, I make gagging noises.
‘Are you alright, miss?’ Big Fed asks, nonplussed.
I wipe my chin with the back of my hand. ‘You’re kind of triggering for me. Mom and I had some pretty heavy experiences with law enforcement in Sanctuary. Perhaps you heard about it?’
The cop’s granite features shear in a blunt expression that could be sympathy, as carved by an eighth-grader holding a chisel for the first time in design class.
‘Sorry to hear that,’ he says. ‘But we need you to come with us.’
As the feds duck us into the back of their unmarked car, I feel the buzz of a message alert at my hip. Then another. I daren’t pull my phone out, but we’re about twenty minutes up the interstate toward Hartford when I see Pierre’s car slide into the neighbouring lane.
Of course he’s come for us. He’s been in love with Mom their whole lives. He would have called me his daughter, if she’d let him. I’d often wanted to tell him,You’re like a father to me. Doesn’t matter that I don’t know my real one. You’re enough.But then Lachlan turned up and for months it was like I forgot Pierre even existed. And I wasn’t the only one. I remember the morning I arrived home and found Lachlan in the house having plainly stayed the night, despite Pierre having finally plucked up the courage to court Mom. When Sanctuary went to hell, he was the one who spirited us out of there with DI Knight. And now it looks like he’s going to try and do it again.
Mom and I both owe him more than we’ll ever be able to repay.
