Raven shook her head. “I’ll pass. Not my kind of place,” she said.

“Okay.” Bree got up, took her robe from its hook, and went out into the kitchen.

Raven rubbed her temples. “I feel like hell. I need a shower,” she said, and padded off to the bathroom.

I got dressed, my thoughts on Hunter and how good it had felt to be with him last night, how I wished it could have lasted longer.

I quickly plaited my hair into a braid and glanced in the mirror on the closet door. In a black turtleneck and jeans, I was presentable. I went out into the living room, where I found Robbie folding up the sofa bed. He was dressed in jeans and a blue plaid flannel shirt, and his hair was still mussed from sleep.

“Morning,” Robbie said. “Hunter left a note for you.” He pulled a folded piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to me.

Morgan—

I’ll meet you back at the apartment by 10:30.

— Hunter

Of course, the thing that I noticed was that he’d signed it Hunter. Not: Love, Hunter or even Yours, Hunter. Just plain Hunter. Very romantic.

Mr. Warren rushed out of the apartment, briefcase in hand, and Bree came into the living room. “What’s up?”

I showed her Hunter’s note. Bree made a face. “I wanted to go the coffee shop downstairs and get some breakfast. But I guess we’ll wait.”

So we waited. Raven emerged from the guest room in yet another skintight black outfit. She seemed a little annoyed that Sky was still out. Bree and Robbie weren’t talking, I noticed, and Robbie was doing his best to pretend he was okay about it. He headed out, saying a little too casually that he wanted to do some exploring on his own. First, though, we agreed that we’d all meet up for lunch at a deli on the Upper West Side at two that afternoon.

Ten-thirty came and went. By eleven Hunter and Sky still hadn’t come back, and Bree and I were dying to get out, get food, do something besides sit around the apartment. And I was getting worried.

Finally I sent Hunter a witch message. But after ten minutes he hadn’t responded. My pulse rate picked up a little. Was he okay?

“Well?” Raven asked.

“Nothing,” I said, trying to keep my voice calmer than I felt.

“That boy has really got to join the twenty-first century and get a cell phone,” Bree said.

I sent another, more emphatic witch message to Hunter, trying to determine if he was okay.

After a moment I got a response from Sky: We’re fine. That was it. Hunter didn’t bother to reply at all. Again I couldn’t help a surge of irritation. Maybe I wasn’t being rational about this, but it sure felt like I was being shut out.

“I just heard from Sky,” I told the others. “They’re okay. But I don’t think they’re going to be back for a while.”

“Then let’s shop,” Bree said.

Raven yawned. “I’m going back to bed,” she announced. “I am not a morning person.”

Half an hour and two pastries later, Bree and I stood on the cast-iron steps of Diva’s on West Broadway. I’d been there once before, but even if you lived in Widow’s Vale and had never been to the city, you knew about Diva’s. It was a mecca for the young and broke.

Bree led the way inside the huge warehouse of a store. Rap blared from the speakers. There were stacks of T-shirts in every color of the rainbow; pants in reds and blues and petal pinks; sweatshirts in olive green, neon yellow, and baby blue.

Bree started poking through the vintage racks and found a man’s long-sleeved black shirt with gray pearl buttons. “Maybe I should buy this for Robbie,” she mused. Unlike the rest of us, Bree had a generous allowance.

I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. “Bree, do you or do you not like that boy?”

She looked at me, startled. “I told you. I’m completely crazy about him.”

“Well, then please stop treating him like crap!” I said. “It’s painful to watch.”

Bree put the shirt back and calmly moved on to a rack of trendier clothing. “If you want to know the truth,” she said, “it’s Robbie who should be treating me better.”

“What?” I stared at her.

“At the club last night,” she said. “He danced and flirted with all those women.”

“Three, and they all came on to him,” I argued.

“Don’t blame them. It’s Robbie’s responsibility to say no,” said Bree. “If he really wants to be with me, why did he encourage them?”

“Maybe because he wasn’t getting any encouragement from you?” I suggested. “Come on, Bree. You had your own little entourage over by the café. What kind of message did that send? Besides, you know none of those women mattered. Robbie doesn’t care about anyone except you. Can’t you see that?”

Bree held up a slinky black cocktail dress. “I know Robbie’s trying,” she acknowledged. “But so am I.” She frowned, put the dress back, and moved on to a rack of pants. “This is just the way relationships go.”

“Only because you steer them that way.”

Bree sighed. “I don’t want to talk about this right now. I’m hitting the dressing room. Are you going to try anything on?”

“I’ll meet you in there,” I told her. Obviously the conversation was over.

I quickly scooped up a couple of V-necked T-shirts and a few camisoles. Camisoles were my official choice for underwear. Having nothing to put in the cups, I’d given up on bras.

There was a line for the dressing rooms, so I shouted for Bree. She yelled back that I should share her room.

I found Bree wearing a stretchy bronze-colored top with black knit hip-hugger pants. She looked amazing. “Think Robbie will like this?” she asked.

I groaned and slid down onto the floor of the tiny cubicle. I decided to try one more time. “Listen, I know for a fact that Robbie loves you. And you obviously care about him. Why can’t you trust that and stop trying to undermine all the good stuff? Why can’t you just let yourself love him and be happy?”

Bree rolled her eyes. “Because,” she said with absolute certainty, “in real life things just don’t work that way, Morgan.”

Didn’t they? I wondered. I thought again about Bree’s mom walking out on her and her dad. That had to be the root of all her warped ideas about love.

Or did Bree really know something I didn’t?

Twenty minutes later Bree and I left Diva’s, each of us carrying a neon pink shopping bag. Bree had bought the bronze-top outfit, a chartreuse day pack, and a black T-shirt for Robbie. I’d gotten a cobalt blue tee and a lilac camisole, which pretty much shot my clothing budget.

“What’s next?” I asked, cheered by our retail therapy.

Bree looked thoughtful. “There’s a fabulous shoe store right around the corner, and there’s a shop close by that specializes in African jewelry. There’s also an aromatherapy place off Wooster,” she added.

“Let’s check that out.”

We hadn’t gone more than a block when my witch senses began to tug at me. “Bree, can we go this way?” I asked, pointing down Broome Street.

She shrugged good-naturedly. “Why not?”

I followed my senses the way a spider follows its own silken thread and found myself in an alley off Broome Street. Hanging over a narrow doorway at the end of the alley was a square white banner with a green wheel printed on it. In the center of the green wheel was a purple pentagram.

“The Wheel of the Year,” Bree said. “The diagram for the eight Wiccan sabbats.”

The feel of magick grew stronger with every step we took. When we reached the shop, a sign on the black cast-iron door made me smile: Gifts of the Mage: Specializing in Books of Magick and the Occult. And beneath it in smaller letters: Welcome, Friends.

I pushed open the door, causing a brass bell to ring, and stepped into a cool, dim, high-ceilinged space. I didn’t see the sort of general Wiccan supplies that Practical Magick stocked, but a wall of cabinets behind the counter held essential oils in bottles that looked positively ancient. A deep balcony ran around the walls halfway up, with more bookshelves and shabby armchairs in alcoves.