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“Hey Jo,” I say around the lump in my throat. “Miss me?”

“Miss you? I’ve been worried sick since Friday.” She hugs me for a moment longer before pulling away, looking over every inch of me. “Is something wrong? Were you sent back like Emilia?”

“Sheesh, Jo. Ye of such little faith.”

“Well, what am I supposed to think? The last I saw of you, you were about to be carted through the Veil by a fucking demon king. What are you doing here?”

Jo’s kept her voice low, but I look around the shop to see if anyone’s watching us. There’s only a handful of patrons in the space, and they seem to be minding their own business.

“Can we talk in private?” I ask her. “There’s so much I have to tell you.”

“Of course.”

Behind the counter, Jo’s assistant manager, a young witch named Marli, looks astonished to see me. Before she can start asking questions, Jo gives her a little wave, seeming to say ‘later’ as she takes my hand and pulls me behind the counter and through the back room to her office.

After shutting the door behind us, Jo grabs me by the shoulders, turns me side to side, and looks me up and down.

“Well,” she says. “You’re still in one piece.”

Continuing her inspection, her eyes land on my neck. On the bite mark there.

“What the—”

My hand flies up to cover it. “Whatever you’re thinking, I promise you it’s not—”

“What the hell? If this is some kind of freaky vampire shit he’s—”

“Oh my god,” I interrupt, clapping a hand over her mouth to make her stop talking. “Stop. It’s… I, uh… enjoyed it.”

Her eyes go cartoon-wide, and I remove my hand from her mouth.

“Enjoyed it? What do you mean?”

I flush red all the way to the roots of my hair. “Please don’t make me give you all the gory details of my sex life with my husband.”

The remark seems to put her at least a little bit off the scent trail she’s following, and she shakes her head in disbelief as she goes to sit down behind the desk.

“Husband,” she breathes. “Goddess, Allie. You’re married.”

“I am.Verymarried.”

“So you and this demon king…”

“That is the nature of the bargain, after all.”

“Is it?” she asks, arching a brow. “I guess I’m not surprised but… sex magick? Wild. How is it? I mean, is his equipment… like… human?”

I groan and take my own seat across the desk from her. “Again. Enough about my sex life. I’m here to see if you’ve heard anything about the bargain? Anything people may have been saying about Emilia, the Veil, any of it, really.”

Her brow creases. “No. Nothing. Though, that’s not really surprising, is it? We never got much coven news up here.”

My heart sinks a little with disappointment. “What about from someone outside the coven? A hedge witch or visitor from another coven?”

She shakes her head again. “Nothing. What kind of news would you be looking for?”

“That’s just it,” I admit to her. “I have no idea.”

I spend the next few minutes filling Joan in on everything that’s happened since Tithe night—excluding the steamier bits—ending with the earthquake and my coming here to get some help.