Page 66 of A Witchy Spell Ride

I found Selene in the quiet back hall fixing the clasp on a delicate chain. Her hair shorter now, bared the line of her throat. She wore the black silk slip and the velvet jacket she’d chosen, knives tucked where only I would be allowed to touch. She looked like a sin a man would invent a religion for.

I adjusted the inside seam of her jacket and slid the flat blade into the pocket I’d sewn there myself. “Here,” I said. “And a second in the boot.”

“Overkill?” she asked.

“Insurance.”

“You always carry two?” she asked, teasing the edge of humor without stepping on it.

“Four,” I said. “Two you can see, two you never will.”

Her mouth did that small almost-smile again. “Show-off.”

I didn’t sayfor you. I didn’t have to.

She fastened the chain and held the pendant in her palm, the old silver coin her mother gave her, worn smooth by time and fingers. “For luck,” she said.

“For leverage,” I answered.

I cupped the back of her neck for half a second, thumb pressing the tendons there like a blessing. “Stay where I put you,” I said.

“Bossy.”

“Alive.”

Her breath caught. “Ghost.”

“Yeah.”

“I meant what I said.”

“I know.”

She swallowed and lowered her voice like it belonged only to me. “Then—after—if we get through—”

“We will,” I said, because there was no other acceptable tense.

“Then we don’t pretend it was about him.”

“Not for a second.”

She nodded and looked taller.

Noise arrived with the first wave. Costumes, laughter, the crackle of vinyl capes and cheap witch hats. Daisy’s webbing hung like bad snow. Ash wore devil horns and the expression of a man who’d fight God for making him hot. Vex wore a butcher’s apron as a joke; the blood looked real because the apron was old. The band set up in the corner, tuning, the bass a heartbeat the building remembered.

I took the corner where I could see everything. Selene stayed within reach, talking when people needed her and not when they didn’t. Briar moved like a spell, throwing glitter looks and casual menace. Reaper was a fixed star at the edge of my vision, Cross a steady stream of updates in my ear, a metronome for the night.

At 9:18, Cross murmured, “White van, back lot. Driver stays in. Passenger out. Ballcap. Beard trimmed short. Jacket new. He’s smarter tonight.”

“Plate?”

“Borrowed cousin’s. Already noted.”

“Back hallway,” Reaper said. “Bones?”

Bones: “Waiting with a smile.”

“Selene,” I said, not touching her. “Back of the bar. Left side.”