Odilon Vigne had scared me, which in turn triggered all this—anger. This was new for me, especially the desire for retribution that came after the anger. I wanted to lash out, hurt someone Odilon cared about, take something of his and break it.
Goddess, I was frustrated. I had to either channel my anger or do something to haul my sense of self-worth back to where it normally resided right alongside my spine.
There had to be a way to outsmart his maneuverings and get him to withdraw his business interests from this island—and British Columbia, and maybe all of North America. Surely his father had a vineyard or a cheese-making concern that Odilon could take over and make his own. Or a slew of potential wombs to carry on the Vigne lineage.
I struggled with the zipper on the back of my dress. Adding insult to injury was the text Kerry sent while I was talking with the Frenchman. I hadn’t remembered to check my phone once I was in my car.
“READ YOUR EMAIL THEN CALL ME.” Kerry—or my replacement—must have figured out someone had been in their office over the weekend and they were pissed because they’d deduced it was me.
Guilt punched a hole in my ballooning anger. When I opened Kerry’s email, I scanned through once, then made myself sit and give her lengthy rant proper attention. Orchards and farms all over the island were being cited for breaking laws and regulations. Every single one was an established, family-owned endeavor, and all were under intense scrutiny. The organic ones especially were being threatened with decertification.
Behind it all? The man brought in to replace me. Kerry was irate with him, terrified for what his unfounded accusations meant for local businesses, and ready to quit. I called her private number and was sent right to voicemail. “Kerry. It’s Calli. Thanks for reaching out. We need to talk.”
Odilon’s arrival on the island at the same time as locals coming under threat could not be a coincidence. These locals held exactly the types of land Clan Vigne was intent on acquiring—fertile, prepared by years of proper stewardship, and likely home to tunnels, portals, and other magical trees known and forgotten.
I had to do something. I tapped on my cell phone and scrolled through my contacts. Rose. She’d stare me down, though I was a good three or four inches taller, and make a comment about what a bumbling witch I was. Going into an emotional tailspin about all the choices that had been made for me—by my aunt, by Meribah, by Doug—just added fuel to the fire. Lashing out at the head witch was not good idea. Rose was a hard no.
Tanner. Another no. We were getting closer, but we weren’t yet a team. Tanner, River, Wes, and Kaz were a team. The witches I’d been getting to know were a team. Even my sons were part of a team, as all five teenagers cheered each other through the challenges of finding and accepting their individual magics.
I shut my laptop and stripped out of my dress. I’d have to scrub extra hard to rid the garment of the stink of Odilon Vigne’s cologne. I slipped my legs into the cleanest pants in my laundry basket and found a passable long-sleeved shirt.
Alabastair had said he would always tell me the truth. Right now, I needed someone who would do that for me, who wouldn’t want something in exchange. And like he’d said, if I put my hand on the portal tree, he’d be there, even if he was practicing to be a necromancer at leisure, whatever that meant.
My hand hovered over my new dagger. I curled my fingers around the leather grip. Would I need it? I snorted softly, relaxed my fingers and released my hold, and chose my wand.
And the dagger. Something about holding a length of Damascus steel in my hand set my pulse to fluttering in anticipation. I strapped the leather sheath around my thigh the way Tanner had demonstrated. It took two tries to get it to sit parallel to my femur while not cutting off circulation.
Satisfied, I grabbed my cross-body bag. My water bottle was full, the dried fruit snacks were untouched. I was almost out the door when I doubled back for the tin of anti-nausea tablets, in case Bas had in mind to test me.
Propping my butt against the crabapple tree, I readjusted the contents of my bag and tightened the strap on one shoe. Christoph saw me and called from the vicinity of the bunkhouse. Unable to hear what he said, I went to straighten and nicked my elbow on a thorn protruding from the bark of the Old One. The momentum, combined with awkward footing and the swinging weight of my overloaded bag, sent me careening around the tree to the northeast quadrant. I grabbed the trunk to right myself. Another thorn punctured my skin, this time at the base of a finger, sinking deep enough to hit bone.
The pain of the wound almost sent me to my knees as Christoph’s hammer falls and the birdcalls of a mid-September afternoon deadened to nothing. I tried peeling my hand off the tree in order to tend to the puncture, but the thorn wouldn’t release its hold.
This was not the spot Alabastair had instructed—repeatedly—where I should place my hand.
An odd tugging sensation lingered underneath my skin, pulsing within the bloated vein trailing from my inner elbow, down my forearm, to my wrist. The tree was siphoning my blood. I stayed put, head bowed, breathing into the draw until the utter incongruity of the moment gave me the strength to disengage from the thorn’s grip. Shiny and black, the slender length was coated in viscous, red liquid.
I licked my wound, remembering Maritza’s suggestion that my saliva could both stem the flow of my own blood as well as clean it off fabric. I wobbled on my feet. I was in no
