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They drove to the former mining town in Marc’s pickup, even though Bellamy had protested that she could follow him so he wouldn’t have to go all the way back to Sedona to take her home. He didn’t care about that, though; in fact, he thought if he timed this right, they might be able to eat dinner there, someplace where they could sit and watch the sunset over the red rocks.

It sounded very romantic, even as he had to admit to himself that there hadn’t been much romance in his and Bellamy’s interactions.

Although he sure found himself wishing there was.

On that hot Sunday afternoon, Jerome was positively jumping, and they had to circle around and drive down to one of the lower parking lots before they could find a place to leave his truck. However, he had to admit it was a little cooler here than it had been in Sedona or Cottonwood — and much more comfortable than it would have been in his hometown of Tucson — so he didn’t mind the slog back up the hill to get to McAllister Mercantile.

It was a big storefront located at nearly the end of Main Street before the road looped back on itself and headed up toward Mingus Mountain. Although he’d driven past it multiple times — and had a vague recollection of visiting the store when he was a kid — he knew it had been a long time since he’d gone inside. From what he could tell, it was a touristy sort of place, with jewelry made by local artisans in a glass case in the center of the store, and tables with stacks of Jerome-themed T-shirts and sweatshirts and other Arizona-centric memorabilia.

A pretty woman around Bellamy’s age was working behind that counter and was in the middle of showing a pair of earrings to an older couple. At the far end of the store, a brown-haired guy who looked like he was maybe around twenty-five was talking to some more tourists.

“That’s Seth,” Bellamy said in an undertone. “And Devynn’s working the counter. I think we’ll need to wait for the patrons to clear out before we can talk to either of them.”

Judging by the ebb and flow of visitors in the shop, Marc had a feeling they might be waiting a while before they got a private moment. However, since he knew that discussing witch clan business wasn’t something they could do while the store had a full house, he told himself he needed to be patient.

Besides, the longer all this dragged on, the better the chance they’d get back to Sedona right in time for dinner, in which case he thought asking Bellamy if she wanted to grab something to eat with him would feel a lot more natural.

Devynn nodded at Bellamy, as if acknowledging her presence. Bellamy inclined her red head in return, signaling that she was willing to wait until Devynn had a free moment to talk.

That moment didn’t come until at least ten minutes had passed, but then the tourists miraculously cleared out, and Devynn emerged from behind the counter, even as Seth walked over to join her.

“What’s up?” she asked Bellamy, her gaze moving to Marc, frankly curious.

“Hi, Devynn, Seth,” Bellamy said. “This is Marc Trujillo. He’s visiting from Tucson — he’s Tricia’s grandson.”

At once, Seth extended a hand. “Nice to meet you, Marc. What brings you to Jerome?”

Marc sent a sideways glance at Bellamy, and she gave a subtle nod, as if to signal that it was okay to discuss things openly with the couple.

“Some dreams I couldn’t figure out,” he said. “That’s my talent — I’m a seer.”

Devynn’s arched brows lifted slightly, and Seth looked a little taken aback. Since Marc was used to getting that reaction from other witch-folk when he revealed his gift, he wouldn’t allow those responses to put him off his stride.

“We think it has something to do with the amulet,” Bellamy put in, and at once, Seth and Devynn exchanged a glance.

“You know about that?” Devynn asked, and Marc nodded.

“My grandmother told me about it,” he said. “My dreams have had a sense of danger, of foreboding, about them, and I can’t help thinking that it might be because someone is going to try to steal the amulet.”

At once, Devynn’s blue-gray eyes narrowed. Although Bellamy had said her friend was a Wilcox, Marc couldn’t help thinking she didn’t look much like one of them, with those light-colored eyes and that mid-brown hair.

Well, her appearance wasn’t anything he needed to worry about.

“It’s totally protected,” she said. “It’s in a safe with a biometric lock that only Seth and I — well, and Angela and Connor — can open. And it’s also got all kinds of wards placed on it.”

“Yes,” Marc replied, doing his best to sound patient, “Bellamy told me all that. But still, I don’t think I’d be having these dreams if something wasn’t wrong.”

“We were thinking that maybe someone from the clan of the guy you took it from might have finally figured out where it went and is trying to get it back,” Bellamy offered, and again, Seth and Devynn shared another weighty glance.

“That doesn’t seem very likely,” Seth said. “I got the impression that Lawrence Pratt never said anything to his clan about the amulet, or they would have done what they could to prevent him from using it publicly.”

“But you don’t know that for sure,” Bellamy responded.

His shoulders lifted, and he looked over at Devynn, as if encouraging her to step in.

“No, of course we don’t,” she said, a frown again pulling at her brows. “All we heard is that he left the troupe he was traveling with and headed back to Duluth.”

“Minnesota, right?” Bellamy asked, and Devynn nodded.

“Yes. He said the clan there was the Olsens, but obviously, since they’re such a long way from Arizona, it’s not as if any of the clans here have had any interactions with them.” She paused there, and her eyes narrowed. “What…you think your dreams are signaling that the Olsens are sniffing around, trying to get the amulet back?”

“I honestly don’t know for sure,” Marc replied. “But it sounds like not many people in your clan even know the thing exists, so Bellamy and I were trying to figure out who else might have access to that information.”

Even as he spoke, he thought of what a long shot the whole thing was…especially since Angela and Connor should have known if any interlopers were wandering around in their territory. Sure, Bellamy had said that Devynn could mask her witch nature, but since Marc had never even heard of such a thing until she mentioned it, he had to believe it was a very rare gift.

“It’s hard to say for sure,” Seth said, his tone now almost musing, as if he was trying to put the pieces together as he spoke. “We always thought that Lawrence Pratt must have done his best to keep the amulet a secret, just because if he said something about it to anyone in the Olsen clan, then they’d know he’d been using the thing to work magic in public. I don’t care what witch clan you’re from — everybody knows doing that is forbidden.”

Yes, it was, and the sort of the activity the man probably would have done his best to conceal.

However, that didn’t mean he didn’t have a diary that might have been found by his descendants, or that he might not have made some sort of deathbed confession about the powerful artifact. If that were the case, though, wouldn’t his heirs have come in search of the amulet decades earlier, since to them, it would have been missing for a very long time and not the several months it had actually been here in the mid-twenty-first century?

Maybe, or maybe not. Members of the witch community couldn’t freely roam wherever they wanted, since it was considered proper etiquette to reach out to the prima of a clan to get permission to even pass through another clan’s lands. Somehow Marc doubted that anyone on a quest to find a forbidden piece of magic would want to tip their hand to the local head of a witch family, especially when those leaders had access to all sorts of magic the rank and file didn’t, and might be able to tell if they were being lied to.

“How accurate are your dreams?” Devynn asked then.

Next to him, Bellamy shot Marc a worried look, as though she wasn’t sure whether he would take offense at such a point-blank question.

However, he could see why Devynn had asked him that. She knew nothing about him or his gifts, and probably thought there wasn’t much point in getting all riled up over something that might not even be real.

“Very accurate,” he said. “That is, I sometimes have to stop and figure out what they’re really trying to tell me, but they’ve never shown me anything that was outright wrong.”

“He dreamed the house I’m staying in, and he’s never even been there before,” Bellamy put in. “So I’m pretty sure we should take his dreams at face value.”

Devynn didn’t respond right away but only gazed at him for a moment, as if doing her best to take his measure by reading his expression.

“Okay,” she said after a moment. “It sounds like you’re the real deal. And I guess I should be glad you wanted to warn us that something might be coming down the pike. I’m just not sure what else we can really do, since we’ve taken all the possible precautions.”

Well, other than maybe burying the safe ten feet under and hoping for the best. Marc still wasn’t sure he liked the idea of the thing being kept in an unoccupied house, even if it was protected by as many wards as the McAllister elders could conjure.

Including ones cast by Levi McAllister, who wasn’t exactly your garden-variety human being. Or at least, while his body was human, the spirit it contained was something utterly different, far more powerful than your regular run-of-the-mill warlock.

“Maybe that’s all that’s needed,” Marc said. “For all I know, giving you a warning will be enough. I just wish we had a better idea of who else might know about the amulet.”

Devynn’s lips parted to reply, but a family group came into the store right then, mom and dad and three little kids who seemed intent on touching everything they could lay hands on, and that seemed to signal the end of the conversation.

So Bellamy said, “Thanks for the help — just let us know if you think of anything,” and then headed outside with Marc following right behind.

The sun overhead was fierce, and he immediately unhooked his sunglasses from where they’d been hanging from the neck of his T-shirt and put them on, while Bellamy did the same thing as well, except that she dug them out of her purse.

Once they’d gone a few paces down the sidewalk, she said, “I’m not sure if that helped any.”

His shoulders lifted. “Well, at least we know the clan Lawrence Pratt came from was the Olsens. It’s too bad my talent isn’t for computer hacking, because then I might be able to find out a little more about them.”

“It’s not mine, either,” Bellamy said, although she didn’t look too dismayed. “But there’s a warlock in the Wilcox clan who’s supposed to be a genius at that kind of thing. I can text Devynn and ask her if she can have him look into the Olsens and see if he can dig up anything useful.”

Deep down, Marc had a feeling that wasn’t going to accomplish much. However, since he didn’t have any better ideas, he only nodded.

“That could work.”

“Well, let’s duck into Caduceus and grab a glass of wine, and I’ll send her a text,” Bellamy suggested. “The views there are incredible.”

Even though they’d already shared a glass back at her house, Marc thought that sounded like a great idea.

“Sure,” he said.

So they went inside and made their way to the seating area at the back of the wine tasting room, which, as she’d promised, offered a wall of windows that overlooked the Verde Valley all the way to the red rocks of Sedona and beyond.

After they both got glasses of the Chupacabra — Marc didn’t think he could resist a wine with that name — Bellamy got out her phone and typed out a quick text. The reply came back almost immediately, which seemed to signal that Devynn wasn’t completely overwhelmed with customers right then.

“She says she’ll get Jeremy right on it,” Bellamy announced after looking down at her phone’s screen. “So I guess about all we can do now is just sit tight and see if he can dig up anything.”

That would be the simplest outcome, of course. Not that Marc was too happy about the prospect of a clan halfway across the country trying to meddle with the Arizona witch families, but it would still be a lot easier if they could at least pin down a possible suspect.

If there was one at all. He hadn’t been lying when he’d said that his dreams were never wrong, and yet sometimes the interpretation could be a little difficult to nail down.

He looked around, but the other patrons of the tasting room were clustered near the bar rather than here in the sitting area, despite the spectacular views.

“What else do you know about the amulet?” he asked.

Bellamy’s lips pursed, but she seemed to realize there wasn’t anyone close enough to hear what they were saying because she replied, “Not a whole lot beyond what I’ve already told you. I guess making those sorts of things was kind of in vogue during the Renaissance, and the people who created them poured their own life energy into the artifacts. Sounds like it was sort of a dangerous process, and some people died during the process. That might be why the practice fell by the wayside over the years.”

No, he supposed a method that might deplete your life force enough to end up killing you was probably better left abandoned.

“Does anyone know how many of them are out there?”

At once, Bellamy shook her head, and her loose coppery hair slid across bare shoulders revealed by the sleeveless blue top she wore. Not for the first time, he thought of how beautiful she was…and how she appeared to be utterly oblivious to that fact.

“Honestly, I’d never even heard of the things until Devynn and Seth showed up with the one they found in the 1880s. Sounds like it was a surprise to them, too, so I have a feeling artifacts like that amulet mostly got lost in the mists of history. Probably they were mislaid or maybe fell into civilian hands, and since a civilian wouldn’t even be able to sense the power they contained, they were probably treated like harmless trinkets.”

Maybe that was a better outcome. Although Marc didn’t really like the idea of a bunch of regular people acquiring objects they didn’t understand and couldn’t possibly use, at least that way, they couldn’t be employed against the magical population.

“Here’s hoping,” he said, and drank some of his Chupacabra. It was a smooth, fruity red, a nice change from the whites he’d drunk earlier in the day. “Because I’m not sure I want to think about what it would be like if these things started popping up out of nowhere.”

Bellamy grinned, a flash of white teeth against the peach-toned lip gloss she wore. “No, that would kind of suck, wouldn’t it? But if that was even a possibility, you’d dream about it, wouldn’t you?”

He wished it was that easy. The dreams came when they willed, and he didn’t have much control over when they decided to appear. Also, it wasn’t as if he had a prophetic dream every time something bad was going to happen in his clan, or otherwise his sleep would be filled with car crashes and cancer diagnoses and all the other thousand and one things that could go wrong in a person’s life.

“Not necessarily,” he said. “I mean, in this case, it seems like a warning of some kind, but I still can’t figure out exactly what the dreams expect me to do.”

“I think you’ve already done it,” Bellamy replied, still smiling. “That is, you let your grandmother know what’s going on, and I’m sure she’s talked to the other elders, and to Connor and Angela, too. Forewarned is forearmed, after all.”

Marc supposed she had a point there. Even so, he couldn’t quite rid himself of the niggling sensation that the universe expected something more from him…despite his not knowing what the hell it was supposed to be.

Not for the first time, he found himself wishing he had a simpler gift, something like making plants grow or healing people or even just being able to soothe a crying infant, like his cousin Lorelei, who was hugely in demand as the de la Paz clan’s babysitter. Something cut and dried, something tangible, rather than receiving images from beyond and doing his best to interpret exactly what they were trying to say.

Since he wasn’t sure of the best way to respond to Bellamy’s comment, he only nodded and then drank some more of his wine. Just as he was setting his glass down on the table in front of them, his phone buzzed from within his jeans pocket, and he hurried to pull it out.

A text from a 928 area code number, one he didn’t immediately recognize.

However, the content was clear enough.

He looked up from the screen to see Bellamy watching him, brows puckered slightly, as if she somehow knew this was no ordinary text.

“It’s from my grandmother,” he explained.

“Someone just tried to steal the amulet from Angela and Connor’s house.”