Page 120

He looks at me for one beat too long.

"I'm working on it."

He pulls his jacket off the chair and puts it around my shoulders, and something slides out of the inside pocket and lands on the floorboards.

An envelope. Plain. Folded once.

He has it back in his hand before I've finished looking down.

"What's that?"

"Nothing."

Every candle in the house goes out at the same time.

All of them. The tapers, the tote, the saucers, the ones we've been burning since Wednesday. All the small flames dying together, and the dark comes down so complete that I hear Cass shout something out in the yard.

I didn't tell them to go out.

Apparently, I don't have to anymore. I know it and Gage knows it and neither of us says the obvious.

Something in me knew the word “nothing” was wrong and put out every light in the house.

25

GAGE

FIVE DAYS UNTIL HALLOWEEN

Every candle in my house is burning again, and nobody lit them.

It's five in the morning and the front room is gold from the floor up, and the tapers are burned halfway down like they've been going for hours.

Upstairs, Maren is asleep.

This is new. Her magic has never once worked while she wasn't awake to feel it.

Five days. Zero wards. And, the Lantern pulls out tomorrow.

And the envelope still in the inside pocket of my jacket hanging close to where I'm standing.

Ours, my wolf says.

"I know what she is."

Then tell her.

I put out the candles again. It takes a while.

By the time I finish, three of them have relit behind me.

She comes down at seven wearing my shirt and apparently nothing under it. Her hair is everywhere, and she stops on the bottom stair when she sees the candles.

"Who had a party?"

"You did."

"In my sleep?"