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“We can’t afford to be picky. Besides, he pays good.” Aunt June sighed. She sounded exhausted.

“But he’s a vampire,” Gram hissed.

“And I’ve taken every precaution. Vampire money is just as valuable as shifter money.”

Vampires? I thought my family had no dealings with the other side, seeing how heavily warded our houses were. But it would explain the late hour. And the weariness in Aunt June’s voice.

“Not all vampires are willing converts,” Aunt June continued. “Some are forced into it, leaving behind homes and families. Someone has to help them.”

“By meeting them in the dark, alone?” Gram chided. “You don’t know what could happen.”

“I know that magic is a powerful currency. Witches are few, and even fewer from such a strong bloodline as ours. It’s in no one’s best interest to kill me.”

Gram made an exasperated sound. “Did you at least get the ingredients for the poultice? The full moon is coming, and I want to be ready.”

I inched closer, stretching my ear as close to the corner as I could without being seen.

It didn’t make sense that they still kept things from me. I was almost eighteen, practically an adult. They’d denied me any knowledge of the magic I carried, saying it was for my own safety. Yet here they were, putting their necks on the line, meeting with vampires and weres, and who knew what else?

If something happened to them, I’d be lost. And devastated. I swallowed that thought down, not willing to deal with it right now.

Wait, was this why Gram knew so much about vampires? Not from fear but experience? I was tempted to storm into the kitchen and accuse them of being hypocrites, demanding to be given my rightful seat at the table. But I couldn’t bring myself to start that fight. Not again.

I sighed, then stiffened as a secondary option occurred to me.

Julian had offered me a grimoire.

Electricity sizzled through my body like a live wire at the thought. If he wasn’t lying, if he reallydidjust want my help, was there any reason I shouldn’t say yes?

I mean, okay, bringing someone back to life was insane and impossible. And even if there was some magic that could resurrect someone, it would probably bring them back as a zombie or as something wicked.

I frowned at that. Well, at the very least, I’d be able to learn everything I could from the grimoire while I searched for such a spell. Julian didn’t have to know the dark realities just yet.

The grimoire was the key, really. A witch was only as powerful as the spells she could cast, and spells were difficult to master. Some spells simply failed, while others could backfire if done wrong.

Gram had told me of a cousin who tried to cast a protective ward only to suffocate herself. It was probably true, though the thought had crossed my mind that Gram had made it up to keep me from experimenting.

The magic in our line was dying, or at least locking up like Gram’s arthritic joints, and Gram was just letting it happen. But I couldn’t just turn my back on it.

The sound of movement sent me scrambling backward. I wasn’t about to get caught. I hadn’t made that mistake in years.

I slipped back into my room and silently closed the door. Gram and Aunt June were still talking, though their voices had taken on hushed tones. More shifter talk, or maybe vampires, or magic, or any of the things they kept from me.

It wasn’t fair.

And just like that, my mind had been made up.

Diving under the covers, my heart threatening to beat out of my chest, I whispered the spell.

“Sedjed ka.”

The spell reverberated in my skull like the gong of a bell. I pictured Julian in my mind, unsure if I needed to speak his name for the spell to make the connection.

“Who is this?”

I practically shot right off my bed at the eerie sensation of hearing Julian’s voicein my head.

I was smiling like a fool. The spell worked. It freaking worked!