“You’re sure you’re not getting a cold?” Maya asked.
“I don’t get colds.”
“Lucky you. Is that a witch thing?”
“I’m not sure, actually,” I said with a smile. I had a hard time distinguishing my own idiosyncratic weirdness from the traits I had inherited from my witchy foremothers. “But I’ve never gotten a cold. I’ll try some hot honey lemonade later, just to be sure.”
“Hey, that reminds me,” Maya said. “I stopped by an herb store in Chinatown yesterday to get some ginseng, and ran into Sailor. He hardly even acknowledged me, which was weird. Is everything okay? Did I do something to offend him?”
Sailor is my boyfriend. Correction... Sailor is myfiancé. Lordy, that was a hard idea to get used to. Still, the thought made me all warm and cozy somewhere deep within me.
On his best days Sailor had a tendency to simmer and to brood. On his worst, he was sullen and irritable and not prone to social niceties. But he liked Maya, and it would be out of character for him to ignore her. Plus, it was hard to imagine what well-mannered Maya could do to offend anyone.
“As far as I know, everything’s fine,” I said. “When was this, exactly?”
“Yesterday, a little after four.”
“That’s strange. When I saw him last night, he toldme he had been training with his cousin all afternoon, which is on the other side of town. You’re sure about the timing?”
When she nodded, the beads woven into her locks made a soft clacking sound. “I went right after my drawing class.”
“Huh,” I said.
“He probably just stopped by, and had other things on his mind.”
Maya and I had been working together for a while now, and she knew me pretty well. Not to mention she was no fool. She could tell the story bothered me.
I had landed in San Francisco without family or friends, and though I had been working hard to learn to develop emotional bonds, it wasn’t easy to shake my loner ways. My childhood hadn’t exactly taught me to trust others. If it hadn’t been for my grandmother Graciela, I wouldn’t have known any stability—much less love—at all. So when Sailor actually proposedmarriageto the likes of little ol’ me, I was stunned. Over-the-moon happy and excited, but stunned. I still couldn’t quite believe it was real.
I gazed at the ring he had given me. It glittered in a rainbow of green and blue, pink and orange. The stone, set in antique filigreed silver, wasn’t a diamond but a teardrop-shaped druzy, which was the inside of an agate, whose tiny crystals reflected the colorful mineral underneath. I told myself it was just a hunk of metal and rock, not a magical talisman. And yet... with every sparkle it reminded me that Sailor loved me.
Me, Lily Ivory. The outsider, the weirdo, the witch nobody even liked, much less loved.
All of which made it harder to understand why Sailor would lie to me about what he had done yesterday.It wasn’t a lie,I assured myself. Probably just a misunderstanding. Sailor must have taken a break to run a quickerrand to the store, just like Maya had. No big deal. No reason to even mention it.
Except... Sailor’s teacher in the psychic arts was Patience Blix. Patience was Sailor’s gorgeous “cousin,” but it turned out they weren’t actually related by blood. According to Sailor, it was a Rom thing. Patience possessed an hourglass figure, a mass of black curls, and flashing dark eyes, and she took her role of fortune-teller seriously—particularly in the wardrobe department. She was a talented seer, but we weren’t exactly buddies. In fact, I felt like her first name must have been meant ironically, because the truth was, Patience trod on my last nerve.
“Lily? Everything all right?” asked Maya.
For the second time this morning, I had lost track of the conversation.Not a good habit to develop.Given the way my life had unfolded, I needed to keep on my toes.
“Yes, um... sorry. Too much on my mind, I guess.” Without meaning to, I had been squeezing the mint green satin jacket in my hands until it was a wrinkled mess. I tried to smooth it out, but no luck. “Darn it. I’ll have to steam this again. Let me just—”
Oscar awoke with a loud snort and bolted into the workroom at the back of the store. The nape of my neck tingled.
I turned to see a man lurking on the sidewalk in front of the shop door. He was tall and broad-shouldered, with dark hair and pale, almost colorless eyes. He wasn’t trying to open the door—he simply stood there, staring in through the glass. Looming. Threatening.
He looked familiar.
Dangitall.
Chapter 2
I had met Tristan Dupree when I was a teenager. I had traveled alone to Germany in search of my estranged father, who had abandoned my mother and me when I was a toddler. Our eventual reunion had been a disaster on several fronts, though for some reason I could never remember exactly what had transpired—which was odd, since I usually had a great memory. But whatever it was, I knew it had been bad. And Tristan Dupree had been part of it.
If only I could remember the details. Still, I had a vague impression that Tristan was an underling, a minion—not an archfiend himself, but the guy who runs to the corner store to fetch the archfiend’s cigarettes.
But even so, I was wary at the sight of him. As a general rule, anything or anyone popping up from my past was a harbinger of trouble.
