Fireworks exploded down the street and the boom rolled through the air like a pressure front before a particularly strong spell manifested. It washed over her, wince-inducing and amplifying and crackling like electricity. The entire street brightened for a split second and all the ambient magic—all the wisps around the dancing sprites, all the aurora-like sheets trailing the Seelie parading through the streets—howled.
Wrenn pinched her eyes closed and reflectively grabbed her ears as the wave’s crackle rolled by. She blinked and willed her eyes to focus through the blue-white haze left behind by the spell and—
Victor, she thought.
No more flashbacks! she yelled in her own head even though she knew better. She wasn’t having a flashback. Not like the one she’d had in her kitchen. Victor wasn’t here. Nor were his demons. She was on the street in the fae realm she called home. Fae partied all around her, happy and boisterous and full of glee.
This was not a place of obvious danger.
Yet her body braced for the possibility of the danger that welled up around her flashbacks. The loss of control. The semi-blackouts. The ragings and the screams.
She was terrifying to everyone around her when she flashed back, and she couldn’t do that on the street. On Samhain. Why had she come out here in the first place?
Someone put a hand on her shoulder. “Wrenn?”
Wrenn whipped around.
Rich raised her hands. “You shouldn’t be out here.” She stood in front of Wrenn in the sturdy pants and black leather bustier over a spotless white blouse she always wore while tending bar. Behind her, a warm glow poured through the grand window of her tavern and framed Rich’s semi-controlled blaze of red hair.
Rich and her partner Lush were both beautiful women—both red-haired, though Rich’s hair was more red than orange—and both half-fae witches who often didn’t get a lot of respect from the full fae in the area.
Rich shouldn’t be out in the reverie any more than Wrenn.
Nor should Wrenn be standing in front of the tavern.
All the buildings in her neighborhood faced the same street. Turn a corner, and you were back on Main Street, just in a different area. The whole cross-section hatchwork of the magic had been confusing for about three decades until she’d figured out the underlying geometry.
Yet here she was.
Samhain clearly had decided to slap Wrenn across the face the moment she stepped outside. Why, though? The visions weren’t a new manifestation with a festival, but they were coming faster and stronger than she’d expected when she’d decided to step out of her apartment.
Rich watched a Seelie couple stroll by. She blinked a few times as if being outside made her nervous. “Come in.” She looked up and down the street, as if watching for the cops even though Wrenn was the local Royal Guard.
How had Wrenn gotten to the tavern? Was this a manifestation of her flashbacks, the same as when she found herself standing over her case files with a towel in her hand? Maybe Rich wasn’t real, yet the perfect scent combination of roasting meats and warmed breads flowed out of the door. Wrenn inhaled deeply, centering herself.
Rich peered into her eyes. “Lush is having strong visions, too,” she whispered. “We both are.”
So it wasn’t just Wrenn.
“You okay?” Rich touched Wrenn’s arm.
Empathy was a commodity among the fae, and real caring was as rare and precious as gold. It was also more likely to happen among the witches.
Like Lush, Rich was a witch fathered by a fae and born to a mundane woman. Wrenn’s height and strength fueled rumors that she was a witch with elf ancestry. She didn’t know. No one knew, but the rumor did give some of the more annoying fae pause.
The magic around Rich flared outward from her like a roiling ball of reddish heat. She shuddered and blinked, then rubbed her forehead. The streetlamp flickered. The lights in the tavern brightened and buzzed. Rich looked up, frowned, and shifted how she held her shoulders.
The reddish magical heat around her danced up and into the air, and the lights went back to normal. “Sorry. Hot flash.”
“S’okay,” Wrenn said. The hot flash thing happened to all the witches in Oberon’s Castle. Except for Wrenn. Not a lot of hot to flash when you woke up every morning with cold skin.
Rich chuckled. “Got to pay the rent somehow, huh?”
In the real world, that heat often caused the witch to overheat in mind and body. But in the connected realms of Oberon’s Castle, a spellwork infrastructure siphoned off any flare-up before it hurt anyone.
Wrenn had long wondered where all that witch heat went. Still, without the siphoning, Rich and Lush would live vastly different lives, if they lived at all.
Rich waved her toward the door.
Some patrons played throwing games in the back. Some talked boisterously at the tables. All buzzed as they partied away the last of the year’s light before winter officially hit.
Wrenn followed Rich through the crowd and sat at the bar. Rich ducked behind and picked up the enchanted, always-full decanter of the tavern’s signature spiced coffee.
She poured out a mug. “You look cold still.” She waved her hand over the mug and a containment spell formed a spill-proof lid over the steaming liquid, then she pushed it toward Wrenn. “It’s on the house.”
Wrenn frowned. “You know, if I could figure out how to help with the flashes, I would,” she said.
Rich leaned against the counter. “We know.” Her eyes narrowed. “You had another flashback, didn’t you?” She shook her head. “And Samhain’s making it worse, isn’t it?”
Wrenn’s frown deepened. Sometimes witches knew more than they had a right to.
Rich stood straight and picked up her cloth again. She nodded toward the back room, and presumably Lush. “Lots of us witches have issues, Wrenn. You need to get yours settled
