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With a sigh, Max got his phone out of his pocket. “Let today’s illegal activities begin.”

31

Darien was in Hooded Skullcap in under an hour.

The place was crawling with suits working for the Magical Protections Unit. A handful of peace officers were here as well, the light bars on the roofs of their cruisers oscillating red and blue. The majority of the golden field was sectioned off with yellow reflective tape, along with a wall of spells that kept people who shouldn’t be here from walking on the premises.

All Darien could focus on was the bus stop where he’d found Loren, and all he could think about was what she’d shared with him about her time spent beyond the Chalk Door. And even though he couldn’t figure out why or how she would be connected to this, there was a part of him that couldn’t shake the feeling that she was.

Walking at Finn’s side on the dirt road near the bus stop, he looked out at the grass swaying under a setting sun. Although the storm that had darkened Angelthene an hour ago had passed, the ground was still soggy, and so was the air, the excessive moisture turning his lungs into sponges.

“There’s no sign of disease?” Darien prompted.

“There’s no apparent cause of death at all. Animals are showing up dead in nearby backyards. Birds are dropping from trees. Pets that are young and healthy, just keeling over like they’ve been shot.”

“How far out?”

“About a two mile radius. Includes the Chalk Door.”

The Chalk Door—where Loren had used a mysterious crumb of Tempus’s power to freeze the Pale Man in his tracks.

“You look like you’re putting a puzzle together in your head,” Finn said, cutting into his thoughts. He stopped walking, hands in his coat pockets. “Is there something I should know?”

There was a fist in his stomach, squeezing and twisting, knotting it up into a tightly packed ball that made him want to throw up. “No,” he lied. “I just wanted to see it for myself.”

Darien didn’t stay long, but when he got back in his car, he blinked his Sight into place, looking long and hard at the taped-off area that stretched all the way to the Chalk Door and beyond. He prayed to every deity he knew that this had nothing to do with Loren.

The engine snarled as Darien started the car. Night was falling fast; in two hours, two of Randal’s men would be running the route Gaven had given him. If all went according to plan, he would be one step closer to ending this bullshit and throwing Gaven and his people behind bars, a few of Randal’s old dickheads with them.

Car idling, he took his phone out of his pocket and scrolled through his unread messages, searching for the only name that mattered. But she hadn’t contacted him. When he’d suggested taking a week away from each other, it hadn’t sounded so bad, but now he didn’t know if he could handle it. It was funny; he spent nearly a whole week away from her all the time, the classes she attended at AA taking up four or five days, depending on the semester. But now that her absence was due to an entirely different reason, the distance made him desperate to see her—and made him feel like he was dying now that it was no longer an option.

He knew he shouldn’t do it, but he clicked on her contact card—the photo he’d taken of her beautiful face smiling at him under the stars—and hit CALL.

Fuck, he was lousy at staying away from her. Being in love with her felt a little like losing his mind.

The answering machine picked up, and he clung to every word that came through the speaker, the sound of her voice instantly slowing his erratic heartbeat. His thumb hovered over the button that would end the call, but he didn’t press it in time before the phone beeped. The recording started, and he was speaking before he could stop himself.

“I know I said that I would leave you alone,” Darien began. “And I will. But I wanted to apologize for how I behaved at your dad’s. I don’t want you to think that I’m mad at you, sweetheart. I love you so fucking much, Loren, and I need you to know that I would do anything for you, anything that you ask, even if you want me to leave you alone for good, I’ll do it. But I can’t stop thinking about how awful I was to you, Loren. I’m ashamed of how I just stormed out on you, and I needed…I needed to apologize. I don’t want my behavior to influence whether or not you come back to me.” He drew a deep, rattling breath as he stared out at the red-and-blue lights, wishing she would just pick up. “Call me whenever you want, and I’ll be here.” He hung up before he could say anything else, that stinging feeling in his eyes again.

A fist thudded on his window.

He looked up to see Finn standing beside the car. He flicked the button on the door, and the glass lowered all the way.

“What now?” Darien asked.

“Dead vampire.”

“Where? Here?”

Finn shook his head. “Silverwood.”

—

Loren had listened to the voicemail Darien had left her three times. She was frustrated with herself for missing his call, but she had spent all afternoon—since the moment school got out—poring over books in the library of Angelthene Academy, searching for anything that might help her break the spell on her ability to speak.

And it was the library where she was sitting now, having returned here after supper to continue perusing every spell book on the shelves, every grimoire she could find tucked into the dustiest corners of the spacious room. She even got permission to borrow a couple from the restricted section, much to the annoyance of the ghost haunting the area, who often peered at her from behind the shelves with pit-like eye sockets.

She was sitting alone at a table, staring at her phone, thumb hovering over Darien’s name, when someone threw themselves into the seat across from her, and she jumped out of her skin.