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He dreamed again that night.

This time, Bellamy stood outside under a black sky studded with stars, her warm-toned hair bleached pale by the gibbous moon that floated overhead. She didn’t seem to be in any particular distress, and yet the scene still felt vaguely menacing, as if some threat lurked in the shadows at the edges of his vision, something he thought he should be able to recognize but which remained tantalizingly obscure.

For one moment, her eyes met his, and then she shook her head.

Warning him off?

Telling him he was barking up the wrong tree?

He didn’t know. In a way, it was strange that he stood there in that moon-pale courtyard with her, water from the fountain glistening in the moonlight, because in every other prophetic dream he’d ever had, he hadn’t been present at all, was instead some sort of detached observer.

Maybe this wasn’t a vision, though.

Maybe it was just an ordinary garden-variety dream. He had those all the time, after all, far more frequently than the ones that tapped into his seer powers.

And he knew he’d be lying to himself if he didn’t admit that Bellamy McAllister had made quite an impact on him.

In his dream, she turned away and headed into the house, passing through a set of enormous bifold doors that created a wall of glass on that side of the home. He began to follow — only to walk into something small but very solid, sitting squat and square on the terra-cotta pavers.

The object was a safe approximately a foot square. A red light blinked on its face, telling him it had some kind of biometric lock engaged.

Why in the world would he be dreaming about a safe?

He didn’t know, and when he walked around the thing so he could go into the house in search of Bellamy, the dream fell away, and he found himself lying in bed and staring up at the ceiling. For a second or two, he couldn’t quite remember where he was.

Right — his hotel room in Cottonwood. He’d had dinner with his grandmother, then driven down here, watched some TV, and gone to bed much earlier than he normally would have. Maybe he could blame the early evening on being tired after his long drive, but he thought there was probably more going on here than simple weariness.

However, more than a decade of dealing with meaningful dreams had told him he should do his best to analyze what he’d seen, even if on the surface, it didn’t seem to make a whole hell of a lot of sense.

He’d seen the moon as he was driving down the hill to his hotel, so he knew what he’d glimpsed in his dream was a direct reflection of its current phase. And although he obviously had never visited the ranch Bellamy was caretaking, he had no reason to believe that the courtyard and the wall of glass were anything but a reflection of reality.

Why had she been standing out there, gazing up at the moon? Had she been restless after her shift at Sedona Vines, and had gone out to feel the warm desert wind and ground herself before going to bed?

Had she been thinking about him?

That, he thought, was flattering himself. She’d been friendly but brisk when they met, and hadn’t shown any sign that she’d been impressed by him at all. No, if anything, she’d been almost dismissive, as if she knew she needed to humor him but didn’t think there was anything about his dream of her that merited any particular concern.

Maybe there wasn’t. Maybe all this had been a wild goose chase and nothing more. He’d come up here on a weekend, but because he had his own landscape design business and could set his own hours — and because August was a slow time in Tucson, thanks to the unrelenting heat — it didn’t really matter if he lingered in the Verde Valley for a few days, trying to get to the bottom of all his odd dreams.

If there was even a bottom to get to.

But there had been that safe….

In his experience, if something so out of place appeared in one of his dreams, then it carried much more significance than the object intrinsically possessed. Also, it had blocked him from following Bellamy into the house, which seemed to signal it was something that might cause a problem between them.

If he even saw her again, which right now seemed kind of iffy.

Well, he’d talk to his grandmother tomorrow and see if she had any insights as to what the safe might have meant. Maybe it was nothing.

And maybe it was everything.

Groceries had been bought, and the second load of laundry was already chugging away in the washing machine. Bellamy would never say that doing laundry was one of her favorite household tasks, but it was a lot easier to manage when the room you were doing it in was bigger than your childhood bedroom at home. The flat she’d shared with her two dads her entire life only had the equivalent of a closet with a set of stackable machines, since it had been built long before modern washers and dryers were even a thing, and while they had been efficient enough, they couldn’t really compare to this large space with what felt like miles of counters and more storage than she even knew what to do with.

Well, she didn’t need to do anything with it, really. She used one cupboard for her laundry supplies, and had designated another to store some candles — pretty scented candles were her one real weakness, and she almost always had one burning when she was home — and then left everything else empty. Maybe it was going to take a while to get this place sold, but in the meantime, she didn’t see the point in cluttering up the house with a bunch of stuff she’d only have to move once Ike’s realtor finally found a buyer.

Even though she’d kept pretty busy today, she hadn’t been able to keep herself from thinking about Marc Trujillo. He hadn’t pressed her for more contact and had seemed just fine with letting her get back to work, and yet she wondered if she should simply leave things there.

What if there really had been something to his dream? She didn’t want to think that some kind of danger lurked out there, just waiting to pounce, but she knew the Arizona witch clans — and the Castillos in New Mexico, who’d suffered just as much if not more — had dealt with a whole bunch of crazy over the past couple of years.

Was it foolish to think the danger was now past?

On the surface, probably. Although she hadn’t been directly involved in any of it, she knew the Escobar clan in El Salvador was basically a non-threat now that it had new leadership. There was no reason to believe they would continue to reach out and try to get their hooks into any of the clans here in the U.S., not when they were attempting to rebuild after years of domination by a couple of evil leaders.

And Marc’s clan had worked hard to provide a safe home for all the magical books they’d collected over the years, so there didn’t seem to be much chance that anyone would be able to steal them again, not when they were now stored in the witchy equivalent of Fort Knox.

But he’d felt something all the same, something that involved Bellamy.

Which made absolutely no sense at all. She wasn’t the prima or one of the elders, just a minor witch with a minor magical talent. There was no reason in the world why Marc’s dream would have singled her out amongst all the other witches and warlocks in the McAllister clan.

Maybe she should have given him her number.

No, that was silly. He’d come up to the Verde Valley on some kind of fact-finding mission, but now he’d realized there wasn’t anything to find, he’d head back to Tucson and that would be the end of it.

Besides, he knew where she worked, and therefore knew where to find her.

Except she wasn’t working today…and wouldn’t be back at Sedona Vines until Tuesday at noon.

Hmm.

No, she would not act all desperate and reach out to Tricia McAllister to see if she could get her grandson’s phone number. She’d finish her chores and then put her feet up for a while, maybe watch TV or read a book, and she’d put Marc Trujillo out of her mind.

Good plan. Too bad the more Bellamy tried not to think about him, the more he seemed to invade her thoughts — the impossibly long eyelashes that framed his deep brown eyes, the faint scruff of dark stubble on his fine chin…the way he made a pair of faded Levi’s look absolutely sinful.

Great. Just great.

She’d been sitting in the living room with a book open on her tablet, since she’d had the idea that reading might be a better way of distracting herself rather than trying to watch a show on the enormous hundred-inch TV that took up most of one wall. However, it seemed as if the more she tried to focus on the words on the electronic page before her, the more her thoughts strayed to the patio at Sedona Vines and the man who’d sat across from her at a table there.

Clearly, sheer willpower was failing her now.

She set the tablet down on the coffee table and tried to remember where Bree was playing this afternoon. Maybe it would be better to get out and think about something other than Marc Trujillo.

Unfortunately, although her friend had mentioned her schedule a few days earlier, it had completely slipped Bellamy’s mind, what with getting situated at the ranch…and having Marc show up at the wine bar.

No biggie, though. It would be easy enough to check Bree’s social media. She was always careful to keep it updated, mainly because she had a set of fans who liked to follow her from venue to venue, and posting her various gigs on Facebook and Instagram and TikTok was easier than trying to maintain a real website.

Bellamy reached for her tablet and took a peek at Instagram. Sure enough, Bree would be playing at Tantrum Wines in Cottonwood starting at four. Only an hour from now, so Bellamy thought she should be able to keep herself from climbing the walls in the interim…especially since it would take her about twenty-five minutes of that hour just to drive over there.

And if she should just happen to bump into Marc Trujillo once she was at the winery….

Not going to happen, she told herself. There are at least seven tasting rooms over there, so the chances of him being at Tantrum are pretty low.

If he’d even hung around at all. She thought it very possible that he’d already packed it in and headed back to Tucson, since she hadn’t given him any useful information and there didn’t seem to be much point to him staying in the Verde Valley. Besides, tomorrow was Monday, and she assumed he would have to be back at work.

Or maybe not. He hadn’t mentioned anything about what he did for a living, but a high proportion of witches and warlocks owned their own businesses, just because it was easier that way. It was also possible that he lived off the stipend he got from the de la Paz clan and didn’t work at all. Bellamy didn’t have a clear idea as to exactly how much they paid, but they were a large and prosperous family, and probably allotted more to the family stipends than the McAllisters did.

You’re just going to hang out and watch your friend play, she told herself. It’s something you’ve done a hundred times before. Even if by some miracle you do bump into Marc, no one’s going to think you’re stalking him.

At least, she hoped not.

Marc had texted his grandmother in the early afternoon, well after lunch so she wouldn’t think he was angling for another free meal. He’d slept in much later than expected, not that big a deal since he’d booked the room for three nights. Maybe he wouldn’t see any reason to stay here that long, but in the meantime, it was nice to know that he didn’t have to rush to get out of Cottonwood.

Tricia, of course, had been happy to see him again — although once he described the dream he’d had of Bellamy, his grandmother’s welcoming smile faded immediately.

“You saw a safe in your dream?” she asked, and he nodded, then reached for the glass of iced tea she’d poured him just a few minutes earlier.

“Yes,” he said, then took a sip of tea. “It was sitting in the courtyard of the house I dreamed about. I think the home was supposed to represent the place where Bellamy is staying right now, but obviously, I’ve never seen it, so I have no idea whether my dream was accurate or not. But the safe was blocking my way when I tried to follow her into the house.”

For a moment, his grandmother didn’t say anything, only sat there with a frown creasing her brow and her fingers wrapped around the glass, now sweating slightly, that she held.

“And she didn’t mention it to you when you spoke,” she said.

Now it was Marc’s turn to frown. “So…the safe is a real thing?” he asked. “Not just some kind of metaphor?”

Again, his grandmother was silent while a couple of seconds ticked past, as if she was weighing exactly how she should reply. But then she seemed to come to some sort of decision, because she released a breath and set her glass of iced tea down on the coaster in front of her.

“Oh, it’s real,” she said. “It contains an extremely valuable artifact, an amulet that Devynn Rowe and Seth McAllister brought back from the past. They encountered a warlock using it to enhance his magic — he was a performer in some kind of traveling variety troupe.”

Marc had to take a moment to absorb that statement. It was the cardinal rule amongst all the witch clans that they never, ever performed feats of magic in public, since they all knew their continuing survival depended on the general population not realizing that witches and warlocks were real. Things were a little different here in Jerome, since the civilians who lived in the former mining town were let in on the secret once they’d been carefully vetted, but still, the idea of a random warlock in the past using his magic to pretend to be some sort of conjurer seemed reckless at best.

As for the amulet’s existence in the first place…well, he’d never even heard of such a thing. Witches and warlocks were born with their magic and generally didn’t use outward foci to work with it. They had no need to, not when their talents came to them as easily as breathing.

But then he thought of the grimoires the de la Paz clan had collected over the centuries, books filled with spells and enchantments that allowed them to concentrate their magic and make it even stronger. Was this amulet Devynn Rowe and Seth McAllister had found really all that different?

“So…it makes someone’s magic more powerful?” he asked, and his grandmother nodded.

“Yes. When they were in the past, Seth used it to be able to teleport both himself and Devynn — that’s his talent, although on its own, it’s only strong enough for him to teleport himself — and Devynn, who has the ability to mask her witch nature, used it to shield the two of them when they were working in Wilcox territory.”

A very useful item, obviously. It sounded as though Devynn and Seth had been pretty busy in the past.

But none of that probably had too much bearing on what was happening now, not when they were safely back in the twenty-first century.

“So…the amulet is locked up in a safe?”

“Yes,” Tricia said. “Angela and Connor said they thought the thing could be a tempting target, so it’s been kept in a biometric safe pretty much ever since Devynn and Seth returned to our time. In fact, the safe is locked up in Connor and Angela’s house here, rather than at Seth and Devynn’s bungalow. Both Angela and Connor — and we elders agreed — thought it was probably better to be hidden someplace where no one could interfere with it.”

A good idea. Marc didn’t pretend to know what kind of wards and other spells of protection had been placed on the prima’s house, but he had to believe they were far stronger than anything Seth and Devynn would have in the home where they were currently living.

Also, Paradise Lane was a locals-only kind of street. It sat far above the touristy parts of Jerome, and if you didn’t live there or weren’t visiting someone who did, there was no reason in the world to drive all the way up to the secluded neighborhood.

Still….

“Who keeps an eye on the safe when Angela and Connor aren’t here?” he asked, since even he knew the prima and primus divided their time between Jerome and Flagstaff.

“The elders, of course,” his grandmother replied, now looking a little more sure of herself. “Levi is the one who usually refreshes the wards, just because he’s the most skilled at that kind of magic.”

And probably just about any other kind of magic he needed to utilize. He looked like a man, but he wasn’t…not exactly. Not for the first time, Marc had to wonder how things might have shaken out if Levi had become his cousin Zoe’s consort, rather than Ethan McAllister. Zoe had created Levi out of nothing because she’d despaired at finding her soul match, but it turned out that the man who’d come to fix the mess she’d made was the one who was truly meant to be with her.

Ethan and Zoe’s daughter Rosa was about to turn twenty-one and would soon begin her own consort search. Marc could only hope the process would be a lot less fraught this time.

“Does Bellamy know about the safe and the amulet?” he asked abruptly, and his grandmother frowned again.

“Yes, she does. She’s very good friends with Devynn Rowe, and Devynn wouldn’t have seen any reason to hide something like that from her.”

Which meant that Bellamy hadn’t been completely truthful when she’d told him nothing unusual had been happening in the clan lately. Marc thought that having the McAllisters come into possession of a rare and powerful magical artifact probably fell into the “unusual” category.

Then again, he supposed he couldn’t be too annoyed with her for holding back that piece of information. She’d only just met him, and even though she knew he was as much a McAllister as he was a de la Paz, it wasn’t as if she knew anything about him other than he had the gift of true seeing, just like his mother. Witches and warlocks understood that keeping secrets was part of their nature, and she wouldn’t have been in a position to start blabbing about the amulet Devynn and Seth had brought back from the past, not when she hadn’t been given permission to do so.

“If you dreamed of the safe,” his grandmother went on, “then it seems the amulet must have even more significance than we thought. What, though? We’re keeping it as protected as we possibly can.”

It sure sounded that way. However, Marc recalled the sense of low-level foreboding that had suffused this latest dream, and couldn’t help wondering if the McAllisters were doing enough to keep the thing out of unfriendly hands.

“I don’t know,” he said slowly. “Something about the dream felt ominous, even though I didn’t see anything in particular to give that impression. And why would the amulet even be connected to Bellamy? She’s not the one who found it, and she’s certainly not the person who’s keeping it safe.”

His grandmother reached for her glass of iced tea — not, Marc thought, because she was particularly thirsty, but because she wanted to take a sip as a way of giving herself some time to think.

“No, Bellamy doesn’t have any real connection to the amulet, except for being friends with the witch who found it. And in the great scheme of things, Bellamy’s power really isn’t that significant. Even if she wanted to use such an artifact to magnify her magic, what could it do other than summon some gale-force winds?”

And that didn’t seem very useful, unless you were trying to hold a champion kite-flying competition in Jerome or whatever.

None of this appeared to make much sense.

Marc released a breath and drank some of his iced tea, his throat suddenly dry. The thought occurred to him that his dream might not have meant anything at all, and he was grasping at straws here because he desperately wanted it all to make sense.

But no, that didn’t feel right, either. If his dream had been completely random, then he wouldn’t have dreamed of something that had real significance to the McAllisters.

Instead, he should have dreamed of something silly, like a purple kangaroo or a volcano that spewed hot fudge.

“Maybe I should talk to her again,” he said. “She didn’t have anything too helpful to offer when we spoke yesterday, but that was before I had this dream about the safe.”

Now his grandmother’s blue eyes — so like his mother’s — had an amused twinkle in them. However, her tone was serious enough as she said, “That might be a good idea. If nothing else, you could describe the house you saw in your dream and find out whether it was an accurate representation of the place where she’s staying. That would tell you whether the safe was some sort of random element or whether it really was supposed to mean something.”

He hadn’t thought of that angle to the problem. If the home he’d seen in his dream turned out to be exactly the same as the house Bellamy was caretaking, then he’d know his magic really had been trying to tell him something.

“Do you have Bellamy’s phone number?” he asked. Only an hour earlier, he wouldn’t have been caught dead asking his grandmother to give him a girl’s number, but now he knew he needed to reach out to her and try to get to the bottom of this whole mess.

Tricia smiled. “Let me get it for you.”