Faebook: A social media network for the Fae.
Clyde: Son of Noemi. Cousin to Calliope. Has one sister.
Jack Kaukonen: Wolf shifter and officer of the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police).
Wolf: Tanner.
Chapter 1
I had never again wanted to go through the agony of having an enchanted tattoo removed. But here I was, on a sunny day in the middle of September, facedown on a padded chair at Salt Spring Island’s only tattoo parlor, getting inked.
“Ready?” River, a druid of indeterminate age, settled onto the rolling stool and donned a pair of bright blue non-latex gloves. His cohort, Tanner, had been the one to excise the old tattoo by means of a chant, which had lifted the ink along with a layer or two of my skin.
“Ready as I’ll ever be,” I said, giving a relaxed thumbs-up. A local plant witch assured me I could use a heavy hand with her proprietary blend of pain-relieving herbs. The drops tasted of crushed grass and they worked wonders. I was in no discomfort, physical or emotional.
Once I was certain I wanted this tattoo, I tasked River with creating a design that would honor my aunt Noémi and her animal familiar, a towering Kodiak I knew as Bear. Noémi, who had raised me from age six on, died from complications of her dementia over the recent Labor Day weekend.
The stories I told myself about my aunt and her hands-off parenting methods were based on a series of profound misconceptions. I had thought she didn’t care about me or resented that my mother’s death left her with a third child to raise.
The truth came to light in August. In a moment of lucidity from the depths of her dementia, Noémi had shed a hazy beam of light on my childhood. It wasn’t that she didn’t love or care about me, it was that she had promised her parents she would hide me and my mother after we were forced to flee the idyllic small town in Maine we called home.
Who Noémi was hiding us from, and why, were details she took to her death.
“I have to shave you, Calli.”
The serious edge to River’s voice made me laugh. “Is that you telling me politely I have a hairy back?” I asked, quieting the question that ran in a loop in my head.
“No, no, not at all,” he said. “You’ve got peach fuzz. I didn’t want you to be surprised at the sensation.”
“So far, everything about this experience rates better than my first.” I shivered as a droplet of cool water slid underneath my armpit. River patted my skin dry, sprayed a different liquid across my neck and upper back, and pressed on the transfer.
“Stay still.” His fingers smoothed over the paper before he peeled it away. “Perfect.”
I exhaled, sinking the front of my chest into the towel-covered padded support, only to jerk when he started the motor that powered his set up, and again when the needle bit into my skin.
“Steady, Calli. The first few minutes are the hardest.” River set up a rhythm of applying gentle pressure with both hands, lowering the needle, then drawing a line. I wanted to say the movements were soothing, but the constant drone of the motor set my teeth on edge.
“I’m creating the outline first,” he said. “Then I’ll fill in the solid areas.”
“How long did you say this was going to take?”
He chuckled. “As long as it needs, Ms. Jones.”
I tuned out the noise, slipped one foot from its wedge-heeled flip-flop, and spread my toes against the flooring. Keeping my eyes open—which was something I had to make myself practice because accessing magic with eyes closed was not always going to be possible—I rooted straight down. Linseed oil, pine rosin, and cork, compressed to create the squares of linoleum flooring, warmed to the touch of my foot. Below that, a cellar gaped lightless and forgotten, its dirt floor mostly void of living things.
I wasn’t fond of those kinds of spaces and quickly sent my inquiry in a more horizontal direction until I reached the weeds edging the alleyway and the trees lining the sidewalk. Sweet, green, rooty relief.
My mostly dormant magic had reawakened less than two months ago. As a forty-one-year-old witch, that meant I had to uncover and practice my gifts as much—and as quickly—as possible. And I had to study, as in books and lectures and labs and bouts of imbibing too much coffee. At the urging of River’s sister, Rose, now the head witch of the Pacific Northwest Covens and a woman not to be questioned, I enrolled in a five-year Basics of Witchcraft program. I was a handful of sessions in and already itched to condense the time commitment to two or three years.
With that goal in mind I had taken a leave of absence from my position as an inspector with the local Agricultural Commission’s office. My former assistant texted me frequently. Otter or cat gifs meant Kerry was having a good day. Terse messages describing my temporary replacement’s antics meant she missed me. Today, I was on the receiving end of multiple images of kittens. I had to admit I missed Kerry, the regular contact with the farmers and orchardists, and the steadying presence of a forty-hour workweek.
Then again, upheaval had been the theme of my life since that first tattoo was removed and my magic had come back online. I kept telling myself that once my sons and my niece, Sallie, had settled into the routines of high school and work, I’d have more bandwidth for my magical education. I would join a coven, immerse myself in magical studies, and practice, practice, practice.
Or so I hoped. I nudged my sensitive foot and toes farther and felt my way into the tasty spots of magic lingering inside the nearby bakery. My mouth watered.
There was also the task of integrating my paternal grandfather into our lives. Christoph Courant had dropped from the sky—swooped, actually—onto my lawn barely six weeks ago, right at
