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I scream.

Sybil upends the bowl, but it’s too late. The beast’s teeth graze my neck. My amulet burns, suddenly white-hot against my sternum. The chair breaks, legs snapping, and I pitch sideways. I hit the floor hard, and the wolf disintegrates.

The stone bowl lies in pieces. Water drips on the floor. I stare at it in shock. The only trace of the wolf is the frost that still clings to the fabric, the floor, the table.

I didn’t know that was possible.

I don’t even know what that was.

“Get out.” Sybil’s voice is a quiet crack of a whip.

My muscles scream at me, but I force myself up. “What just happened?”

Sybil grabs the front of my shirt. Her sudden physicality shocks me, but she shakes me once when I try to get away. Wordlessly, she yanks the door open and drags me into the hall.

The brighter light of the hall sears my eyes.

Dorthea and Amy are still in the front room, but they both leap to their feet at our abrupt appearance. Sybil tows me past them.

“Leave,” Sybil hisses at me. “Your mother is lost to you now.”

“What happened?” Dorthea asks, following us onto the porch. “Sybil.”

“She’s caught the attention of the Winter Wolf,” Sybil tells them, the words venomous.

Her chest heaves, and she shoves me off the porch. I tumble down the stairs and land in a heap on their walkway. My bones jar. I bite my tongue, and blood blooms in my mouth. I spit on the concrete and climb to my feet.

All I can do is stare up at Dorthea and Sybil.

The latter looks unnerved, and her voice is colder than her scrying room. “She’s been marked for death. If she doesn’t leave our town, she’ll take us to the grave.”

Winter Wolf.

My mind spins.

Dorthea makes a noise. “Astra, your concealment charm…”

I examine my wrist. The leather cuff is still there, but blood drips down my hand from the cut to my index finger. I pull out the stone and focus my attention on it. The magic is gone, and the stone crumbles to dust in my hand. It mixes with the blood.

Sybil grabs Dorthea’s arm. “Listen to me. He’s coming. He reached through my scrying and marked her.”

Amy appears beside her coven leader and tosses my bag off the porch. It lands with a thump beside me. The porch light flickers, then brightens.

Whatever they see in the new light makes Dorthea and Amy cringe backward.

“Leave,” Dorthea says firmly. “Please. We’ve lived in peace with the nearby wolves for generations, but our coven would not survive the Winter Wolf’s pack.”

My ego is bruised, my body aches. I press my hand to my neck, where my Mark is, and shudder at the spike of pain.

My hand comes away wet with blood. My heart thumps a steady, fast pace. It recognizes a different kind of magic singed into my skin, and it’s deeper and darker than this coven will ever admit.

I don’t feel my fear. Numbness has taken over. Or shock.

I pick up my bag and sling it over my shoulder. This was not how I pictured this going. Once Sybil offered her help, I thought it might be easy. That’s laughable, because now I have way more questions than ever. If coming here was supposed to provide me with answers, all it’s done is give me the opposite.

But if there’s one thing I refuse to do, it’s to grovel at the feet of witches who think they know better. So, my heart thundering, and the scent of blood in my nose, I stride away without a backward glance.

She’s caught the attention of the Winter Wolf.