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He doesn’t wake up. He doesn’t even do me the courtesy of pretending to be surprised.

"How did he get in?" she says.

"Beats me."

And, behind her, down the dark hall, the little rubber flap set into the bottom of my back door swings once and settles.

***

The sigil burned into Maren's front door smells like someone who's sat and eaten at her kitchen table.

Not rot. Not grave dirt. Not the sweet, wrong smell that's circled this house for six days.

Under the char there's a person. Human. Familiar. A scent worked into her couch cushions and her coffee mugs the way a scent only gets worked into a place when it's been inside a hundred times.

I breathe it in again just to be sure.

I'm definitely sure.

Know it, my wolf says. Know it. Know it.

Yeah. That's the problem. I just didn't want to tell Maren yet.

16

MAREN

STILL EIGHT DAYS UNTIL HALLOWEEN

The man who has no problem tearing monsters apart is holding a piping bag.

I stop in the kitchen doorway. Nobody's replaced the bulb over his sink yet, so the whole room runs on candles out of my shop tote, and the light does soft, unfair things to his face built for scaring people off sidewalks.

Twelve cupcakes cooling on a rack. Orange frosting. An open bag of candy corn beside them.

"Don't say it," Gage says, without looking up.

"I haven't said anything."

"You're about to."

He isn't wrong. I've been standing here nine seconds and I already have four options.

"Are those homemade?"

"No."

"Gage."

"They came from a box."

"You're piping."

"The box came with frosting."

"In a bag? With a star tip?" I cross the kitchen. "Did the box come with a cooling rack too?"

He sets the piping bag down the way other men set down weapons. The swirl he abandoned is perfect. Even ridges, all the way around, tapering to a point.