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“Yeah, yeah, whatever. It’s been…you know…one more day until…”

“I get it. I do. And I need to tell Mad I’m sorry for flaking on him.” Moon dropped his head and scrubbed his hand through his hair. Sometimes he was a terrible friend. He should have told Sean about needing to get to Mad’s today while they were out. Sean wouldn’t have liked it, but Moon could have managed it.

The problem was that it had slipped his mind. The Zhang clan had consumed his thoughts. Not to mention his new obsession with Chen. Part of him was confident that if he looked away for even a second, Chen would disappear from his life forever. It was twisting his stomach into knots.

But that was no excuse. He’d made promises, and Mad was one of his closest friends.

“Does he still need me to come over and put the blood ward on his place like I did yours?” Moon sighed, hating himself.

“Nah. He’s good. Sky and Nolan stopped by.”

“The human?” Moon snorted. It was kind of adorable how wrapped up Sky was in Nolan. It seemed the dating was going well, even if it was in the early stages. Moon was a tiny bit jealous. He and Sky had a similar problem in that their type of magic was unusual and harder for most “normal” humans to accept.

Assuming the human believed them at all when they said they were witches.

Red laughed for the first time since answering the call. “Yeah, he thinks all this magic stuff is interesting. Sky mentioned that he wants to write a book about a coven of witches, so he’s taking all these notes.”

“That’s cool. That’s cool,” Moon mumbled. He glanced up to find Chen watching him. He needed to get to the point of why’d he’d called in the first place, other than to reassure Red that he wasn’t dead or kidnapped by some weird cult.

The second one might not be too far from the truth, though.

“Red, I was wondering something,” Moon began, aiming for nonchalant while feeling like he missed it by a mile. “Do you know a spell that could locate where the fae door is going to appear on Moving Day?”

“You’ve lost your fucking mind. You know that, right?” Red countered. The plus was that he wasn’t shouting yet. His tone was calm.

Moon tapped his fingers on the table. All the soothing calm he’d garnered from the garden scene in front of him had evaporated. He could feel the ticking clock more now. Chen and his clan were going to get only one shot at this.

“So you’ve told me. But I’m serious. I know we’re running out of time, but is there a spell that would allow you to predict where it’s going to open? I mean, someone cast a spell to figure out it was going to open in Connecticut, right? How do we know it’s going to be near Hartford and not down on the coast at New Haven or out east near Providence?”

“Let me first remind you that I wasn’t the one who did that initial tracking spell. I don’t know who did it,” Red said and Moon rolled his eyes. “But…I can dig through my books. Maybe shoot a message over to some of those other witches Sky knows.”

That wasn’t promising.

Chen stood up and walked over to the open door, staring out at the garden with his arms folded over his chest. His tall, lean figure was rigid to the point of it appearing painful. Moon wanted to wrap his arms around Chen from behind, pressing his face right between his shoulder blades so he could kiss each bump of his spine. But as pretty as that sounded, it would do nothing to help Chen and his clan. That was the only thing that mattered right now.

The vampire whipped toward him and asked in a low voice, “What about tracking the fae once they’re here?”

Moon repeated the question louder so Red could hear it.

“Well, for that, I might know one or two, but why would I go looking for the fae?”

“Red, I need your help. This is for a friend. Please,” he begged.

His old friend sighed and maybe even swore under his breath. “Moon, I want nothing to do with the fae. You know I’m fucking candy to them. I want to keep my head down for the next ten years and pray they don’t notice me.”

“I know. But you also know I wouldn’t ask if this wasn’t fucking important. My friend…his entire family…they need your help.”

There was a long silence from the other end that was broken by a frustrated growl. “Fucking Moon. You know Sky got an interesting call today from Bel and Wyatt Varik? Seems Wyatt ran into you today at a grocery store clear on the other side of town? He said you were with this weird guy.”