I gingerly reached my hand out and took hold of the doorknob, letting out a soft breath as the prickle faded away to nothing. Overactive imagination? I entered and closed the door quietly behind me, then stood stock-still in the hallway, listening and sensing as hard as I could.

The only sound was the ticking of the clock in the kitchen, but I still couldn’t shake the incredibly nebulous sense of not right. I walked down the hall to the library, trying to move silently, which was a joke on the creaky wooden floors.

I stopped in front of the library, chewing my bottom lip as I looked at the closed door. Had I left it open or closed? For the life of me I couldn’t remember. I extended mentally, testing to make certain that the wards on the library had all been disabled. And had stayed disabled.

To my relief, there were no wards visible in my other-sight. I entered cautiously, letting my breath out when I didn’t feel the beaded-curtain sensation that I was used to—the ripple of arcane sensing that would have told me that there were still active protections. I also didn’t feel any bolts of lightning strike me down, which I definitely took as a good sign. I gingerly peered in.

The room was so quiet I could hear the rush of my own pulse, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something off. I stood in the doorway for at least a hundred heartbeats, but nothing stirred or jumped out at me.

I finally stepped out of the library, firmly closing the door. I continued on to Tessa’s room and gathered up a few personal items, then left the house, locking the door behind me and making sure that the wards were still active.

I drove back to my own house, unnerved. There was absolutely no sign, physical or arcane, that anything had been disturbed, but there was a visceral part of me that knew that someone—or something—had been in that house in the last day.

I dumped my bag by the front door and immediately headed down to my basement. An uncomfortable sense of urgency nagged at me—heightened now by the oddities of Tessa’s house and her possible mystery visitor. And screw Kehlirik and his suggestion that I replace the wards on my own. Next full moon I’m summoning someone to do it for me. My wards sucked ass. I had no problem admitting that.

I carefully sketched out the next section of the diagram, resisting the desire to rush through it in order to get the damn thing working sooner. It would take only one incorrect sigil to render the entire thing useless, and I was fairly sure that I didn’t have the luxury of time to try this again if the first attempt failed.

I opened my backpack and arranged the items carefully within the diagram. The teacup, the comb, the scarf. I also added the picture of the two of us dressed like Purple People. The glop of blood, hair, and fingernails had dried into a nasty dark-brown crust around the inner circle, and I had to be very careful not to touch any of it in case a crucial aspect of it flaked away.

Inhaling, I pulled potency, weaving it into the runes in a careful progression. The power came in uncomfortable sputters thanks to the waning moon, and after just a few minutes I was sweating with the effort of feeding it into the diagram.

I finally released the potency and stepped back, eyeing the diagram nervously. It remained quiescent, and dismay began to knot my throat as seconds ticked by. I made a mistake somewhere. Shit. I’m going to have to start over from the beginning. But where the hell had I screwed up? Starting over wouldn’t do me any good if I repeated the mistake.

Then the diagram gave a sudden pop, which I felt more than heard, and began to resonate. Relief washed through me, and I had to bend over and put my hands on my knees for a few seconds. Okay, crisis averted. I hope.

I made my way upstairs, legs shaking from exhaustion. I collapsed into bed, but, despite my fatigue, I slept badly—worry about my aunt and her house crowding my dreams and waking me repeatedly.

I was also apparently still angsting pretty heavily over my argument with Ryan, judging by the number of unsettling dreams that featured him. I woke with a headache a few minutes before my alarm went off, then stared morosely at my bedroom ceiling as the sun speared annoying fingers of light through my blinds.

It bugged the shit out of me that we’d had a fight—a strange and stupid one at that—and the thought that we might not still be friends left me with a dull ache in my chest. Okay, so he might never be interested in me beyond friendship, but that was better than nothing at all.

Right?

I was in no mood to go in to work, but I still possessed enough shreds of pride that I didn’t want to waste a sick day on wallowing in self-pity. Not that I wasn’t unspeakably tempted to do so as I huddled under my covers. But I suspected that I was turning into one of those horribly needy people who cling far too hard to people who are nice to them. I liked Ryan. Quite a bit. But how much of that was simply because we shared knowledge of the arcane? I wanted very much to think that there was more to our friendship than that, but maybe I’d misread the signs out of my deep desire for there to be more.

I groaned and stuffed my head under the pillow. It was true. I did want there to be more. “I am so pathetic,” I mumbled into my pillow.

On the other hand, why would he be so overly protective of me—even if it was rather insulting—if he didn’t consider me to be a good friend? And how much of my reaction to him the other night had been fueled by a fair amount of guilt that he was right—at least partially? I’d certainly jumped right into Rhyzkahl’s arms on our first encounter, though the reasons for that were far too layered for me to begin to peel apart. But, in my own defense, I hadn’t succumbed to his thrall, or whatever Ryan was afraid of. I was still me.

Right?

And for that matter, who are you, Ryan Kristoff? I thought, feeling suddenly defensive. How the fuck do demons know who you are?

I threw off the covers and practiced a few choice curse words. This entire line of thought was a sure way to drive myself nuttier than I already was.

It was barely six a.m. After a moment’s thought, I pulled on workout clothes, packed a gym bag, grabbed some work-quality clothes, then headed to the gym. I was the kind of member the gym loved: My dues were automatically debited from my checking account once a month, and I showed up about half as often as that. But I felt a deep need to sweat some annoyance and frustration out, and this was a better option than cleaning my house.

To my surprise, the gym was fairly crowded, and I realized belatedly that everyone else was also trying to squeeze a workout in before work. I saw a number of familiar faces, though after a few minutes of racking my brain for names, I realized that they were familiar because I’d seen them recently, at Brian Roth’s funeral. Elected officials, or people in the social scene. No one I actually knew.

I didn’t have much of a workout plan in mind, which was probably a good thing since most of the equipment was occupied. I finally settled for a workout that consisted of: Wander around until you see an open machine and then do that exercise. Amazingly, at the end of twenty minutes I felt like I’d accomplished something. I put in another twenty minutes on the elliptical trainer, and then showered, changed, and made it in to work barely on time.

I didn’t see Boudreaux or Pellini in their offices as I headed to mine, but somehow I doubted that they were out tracking down leads in the deaths of Carol and Brian. More likely, they were conducting a thorough investigation of the breakfast menu at Lake o’ Butter Pancake House.