Autumn Bones

“It’s okay, Dad.” Sinclair laid a hand on his father’s shoulder. “They don’t mean any harm. They just want to see.”

Everyone waited. Cooper and the ghouls waited on their motorcycles. Casimir and the coven waited in their semicircle. I waited with Sinclair and his father, and Stefan not far away. Curious fairies, hobgoblins, bogles, and whatnot whispered and lurked in the shadows, also waiting.

In the distance, headlights.

There was a faint popping sound, and Jojo blinked into existence, her wings buzzing like a tiny helicopter. “They’re coming!” she shrilled, her narrow chest heaving. “They’re on their way!”

Wait a minute.

“Um . . . Jojo?” I said. “What do you mean, they?”

She shot me a disdainful look. “The sister and the other one, lackwit.”

“Other one?” My temper flared. “Other one? What fucking other one, Jojo? Why didn’t you tell me there was an other one?”

Backing away, Jojo bared her sharp, pointed teeth at me. “Because, you lumpish, hedge-born harpy, you didn’t ask!”

I gritted my own teeth. “I would have assumed—”

In midair, she folded her skinny arms and looked smug. “You know what they say.”

I did.

The rented convertible approached slowly along the winding cemetery drive. The top was down. I was guessing the car probably had heated seats. It stopped before us, headlights blazing. Two figures emerged, silhouettes in the glare of the headlights—one tall and slender and elegant, one stalwart and blocky.

“It’s Letitia,” Thomas Palmer said in a low voice. “It’s her.”

Sinclair swallowed audibly and shot me a single stricken glance before returning his gaze to the car. “Mom?”

It seemed the Right Honorable Judge Palmer had arrived.

Thirty-four

Note to self: When striking a bargain with fairies, be very, very specific.

I’d like to say a cloud passed over the moon and thunder rumbled as Letitia Palmer and her daughter approached our group. It didn’t happen, but it felt like it should have. Sinclair’s mother wore a lavender suit that looked like one of Hillary Clinton’s more ill-advised fashion choices. She carried a matching clutch purse in one hand and an empty glass jar in the other, and an aura of power surrounded her like a storm cloud.

Still, she wasn’t expecting to see her ex-husband. The sight of him brought her and Emmeline up short.

“Thomas.”

“Letitia.”

There was a whole lot of history in that exchange of names. Sinclair’s father gathered himself, standing taller.

“You’ve got no business doing this,” he said sternly. “The boy’s made his choice. You need to learn to respect it.”

“I did.” Her gaze swept around the cemetery, taking in the lurking fey, the waiting coven, Stefan, and the hovering fairy before coming to rest on me with an expression of profound distaste. “Until I found out what it brought him to.”

“Hey, don’t use me as an excuse,” I said, raising my hands. “We’re not actually dating anymore.”

Mrs. Palmer ignored me. “I’ve been patient with you, boy,” she said to Sinclair. “But enough is enough. Are you ready to come home where you belong?”

“I’m not going anywhere.” Sinclair’s voice was strained. He cleared his throat. “This is my home.”

She let out a snort. “This? You’ve got no roots here, son. Home is where the bones of the past are buried. Home is where the soil is soaked with the blood of your ancestors. This place?” She shook her head. “This isn’t home. These aren’t your dead. And these most assuredly aren’t your people.”

“Just come home, Sinny,” Emmeline added in a pleading tone. Apparently she was playing good cop to her mother’s bad cop. “I miss you!”

“No.” Sinclair’s voice grew stronger. “I’m sorry, Emmy. I miss you, too. But you’re wrong. This is my place. And these are my people. Not because I was born here, not because they’re my blood kin. But because I chose this. And I’m not leaving.”

Casimir and the coven had drawn close, ranging themselves behind us. In the headlights, their faces looked stern and different. Even Kim McKinney’s, and I usually thought of sliced cheese and cold cuts from the deli counter when I saw her.

“Your son is under our protection, ma’am,” Casimir said, polite but firm. “And he’s given you his answer.”

Letitia Palmer gave him a stony look, but the Fabulous Casimir didn’t quail before it. She took in his height, his false eyelashes, and the crimson satin turban he was wearing. She took the coven’s measure, took in the hand-knitted scarf knotted around Sinclair’s throat, the evil-eye beads sewn into his hair. She took in the sight of Stefan leaning casually on his sword, his face almost vampire-pale in the headlights. She took in me.

“Letitia, go home,” Thomas Palmer murmured. “Sinclair’s a grown man. Let him live his life.”

“No.” She handed her clutch purse to Emmeline and grasped the glass jar in both hands. “Not like this. Not surrounded by imps and goblins and ghouls, she-males and demon-spawn.”

I had a bad feeling about that jar. Like maybe it only looked empty.

“Don’t!” Sinclair’s voice rose. “There’s no point in threatening me, Mom. I’m protected!”

She looked at him. “Oh, I’m not threatening you, son. This is for everyone else in town.”

He held out one hand. “Give it to me. You don’t know what you’re doing. Magic’s stronger here. You don’t know what you might unleash.”

“On the contrary, I know exactly what I’m doing.” Letitia Palmer stroked the empty jar. “This is my father’s spirit in here, your grandfather Morgan’s. I put the jar to his lips and caught it myself on his deathbed.”

Okay, this would be the time to get authoritative. “I don’t care who’s in the jar, Mrs. Palmer,” I said in a firm tone. “You’re not setting it loose in Pemkowet. Give it to Sinclair, or set it down and walk away.”

She gave me a scathing glance. “Or what?”

“Or I’ll take it from you myself,” I said, suiting actions to words without waiting for her response.

In a perfect world, I’d be rewarded for acting without hesitation, right? I took two swift steps toward Letitia Palmer, reaching for the jar to wrest it out of her grasp. Her eyes widened in surprise. She wasn’t accustomed to being defied, and she hadn’t expected me to act so quickly and decisively. And if Jojo hadn’t had the exact same idea at the exact same time, I’m pretty sure it would have worked.

A green blur streaked past me on translucent wings, then recoiled violently, colliding with my face in an explosion of sparkling dust.

Sinclair’s mother wore a cowry shell like her daughter’s around her neck on a gold chain. Apparently, the ward worked on fairies.

All around us there was shouting, chanting, and commotion, a sense of power thrumming in the night air. I scrubbed at the fairy dust in my eyes and swore at Jojo, who swore back at me. How the hell she’d ever thought she was going to get those pipe cleaner arms around the jar, I couldn’t say.

“Here.” Stefan’s voice, calm and steady. He handed me a clean bandanna to wipe my face.

When I could see again, whatever magical throwdown I’d missed witnessing had turned into a standoff. Letitia Palmer had positioned herself behind a headstone, and her daughter was guarding her back. Sinclair’s mother had the jar raised above the headstone, and her face was grim.

“Tell them!” she shouted at her son. “If I smash the jar, there’ll be no putting him