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I nodded.

“Sure?” she said.

“I mean, I’ve never seen anything like that in my life. A demon like that or one having its head cut off, but yeah.” I took another deep breath, getting my shit together. “I’m okay.”

She winked. “Good, ’cause they only get uglier the farther we go.”

“Cool.” I shuddered. “That gray, slimy, googly-eyed creep was barely ugly at all.”

Ren muttered something under his breath, then he was chuckling again, and I felt as if I’d just won the lottery. I saw Mags and Bram exchange a look.

More demon calls echoed in the distance, noises of creatures even I couldn’t imagine what they looked like, and Agatheena’s power seemed to grow stronger, as if it were wrapping itself around us, checking us out, testing us. I could feel her wards, and I still hadn’t even seen her cottage, but that was a given considering where she lived.

We rounded a massive oak, and then I spotted it. Her cottage was like something from one of the storybooks my mom had read me before she decided parenting wasn’t her jam and left. This wasn’t the soon-to-be princess’s house, though. No, this was the evil witch’s house. It blended in with the forest, trees growing all around it, even through it, and the moss-covered stone walls were stained with age.

A worn path came from the bottom of the porch steps and wound its way around trees to the two thick pines standing either side directly in front of us, their branches forming a leafy arch above.

Hanging from the branches, secured by thick twine, were bits of fabric, several buttons, a glove with the thumb cut off. There were also bones and skulls—demon, by the looks of things—some picked clean, some smeared with fresh blood. There were jars filled with all sorts of crap that had my gag reflex working overtime, eyeballs floating in some kind of murky liquid, what looked like fingernails in another, and yet another nearly full with matted hair in a multitude of shades, and then bigger things that I could only assume were organs.

“What the hell am I looking at?” I said as Mags moved up to stand beside me.

“Offerings.” She walked around to the side of the tree. “You have your blade?”

“Yeah, of course.” I followed her, and she motioned to a knot on the side of the trunk. There was an indent in the middle, and in the very center it was a deep mahogany color, a lot darker than the rest of the tree.

My cousin tilted her head to Bram and Ren, who were watching us closely. “They can’t come with us—”

“You’re not going in there without protection.” Ren said it directly to me.

“You know she’s not going to hurt Jasmine,” Mags said.

“What I know is she’s capable of anything. I’ve watched her paralyze and disembowel a demon alive for her pot.”

Mags frowned. “She’s my friend. I’m her guest. She doesn’t hurt…or eat…her guests.”

Ren turned to Bram. “You’re okay with this?”

“Was nervous at first,” he said, “but Mags has been here a lot. The crone likes her. Jaz is safe.”

Ren’s jaw clenched. “I don’t want you going in there. Not without me.”

I blinked over at him, taken aback. “Um…I need to go in there. She might have information that’ll help find those souls. And Mags will be with me.” I pulled my blade out and watched as Mags sliced her thumb and pressed it to the dark patch on the trunk, and I realized it was blood that had stained the wood.

“So she knows we’re who we say we are,” Mags explained before sliding her blade into her pocket.

I did the same. Ren flinched, a low growl emanating from him when I sliced the end of my thumb. He’d seen Willow, her sisters, Daisy, Else, all cut themselves, use blood magic, and I’d never, not once, seen him flinch. Did he think I needed his protection because I didn’t have a familiar who could fight? I pressed my thumb to the tree trunk as well.

“You coming or what?” a voice called.

We turned. The old witch stood on her porch, her piercing green eyes boring into me.

“Be right there,” Mags called back.

“I need some of your cousin’s hair before you can come in,” she said, then walked back into her cottage, slamming the door after her.

“My hair?”

Mags motioned to the jar of matted hair. “Yep.”