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I open my mouth to thank him, but he raises his hand, his eyes pinching shut. “Don’t.”

When he opens his eyes, they pass over the room. I feel the magic pulse out of him. I know about this side of our world—the supernatural side. My stepfather built his empire on his magical ability.

However, I’ve never seenthiskind of magic in action—magic that can make things inexplicably occur. I gasp as the blood dissolves from the floor, and then the countertop, and then my clothes, and hair, and hands.

The broken bottle follows. One moment it’s there, the next, it vanishes. Whatever enchantment this is, it tickles my skin as it passes through the room.

Once he’s done with the crime scene, the Bargainer heads towards the body.

He pauses when he gets there, peering curiously down at the dead man. Then he stills. “Is that who I think it is?”

Now is probably not a good time to tell the Bargainer that I off’edtheHugh Anders, the most powerful stock market analyst out there and the man who, for the right price, could tell you just about anything you wanted to know concerning the future. When a drug deal was going to go down, whether the threat on your life was harmless or real, if you were going to get caught for the death of an enemy. If he wasn’t the world’s best seer, he was at least one of the richest. Not that it saved him from death.

Oh the irony.

The Bargainer lets loose a string of curses.

“Fucking cursed sirens,” he mutters. “Your bad luck’s rubbing off on me.”

I flinch, well acquainted with sirens’ predisposition for misfortune. It’s what landed my mother an unwanted pregnancy and an early death.

“Have any relatives?” he asks.

I bite my lower lip and shake my head, hugging myself tighter. It’s just little old me, myself, and I in the world.

He swears again.

“How oldareyou?”

“I’ll be sixteen in two weeks.” The birthday I’d been waitingyearsfor. In the supernatural community, sixteen was the legal age of adulthood. But now that very fact could be used against me. Once I hit that magical number, I could be tried as an adult.

I’d been two weeks away from freedom.Two weeks. And then this happened.

“Finally,” he sighs, “somegood news. Pack your bags. Tomorrow you’re moving to the Isle of Man.”

I blink, my mind slow to catch up. “What? Wait—tomorrow?” I’d be moving? And so soon? My head spins at the thought.

“Peel Academy has summer sessions starting in a couple weeks,” he says.

Located on the Isle of Man, an island smack dab between Ireland and Great Britain, Peel Academy wasthepremiere supernatural boarding school. I’d been dreaming of going for so long. And now I would be.

“You’re going to attend classes starting then, and you’re not going to tell anyone that you killed Hugh fucking Anders.”

I flinch at that.

“Unless,” he adds, “you’d prefer that I leave you here with this mess.”

Oh God. “No—please stay!”

Another long-suffering sigh. “I’ll deal with the body and the authorities. If anyone asks, he had a heart attack.”

The Bargainer eyes me curiously before remembering that he’s annoyed with me. He snaps his fingers, and the body levitates. It takes several seconds to process the fact that a corpse is floating in my kitchen.

The Bargainer looks unfazed. “There’s something you should know.”

“Uh-huh?” My gaze is fixed on the floating body. So creepy.

“Eyes on me,” the Bargainer snaps.