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I scrape the ash into the tin I brought and kneel there in the wet dark, my mate's stolen apron turned to nothing between my boots.

"What happens at midnight on Halloween?"

"If she's what we think, her bloodline opens all the way at once."

"And if she can't hold it?"

Evelyn doesn't answer that one. Which is its own answer.

"What happened to the last one," I say. "The last witch like her."

The silence stretches long enough that I check the screen to see if she's gone.

"I'll call you after the council," she says, and hangs up.

Bad things happened. Bad enough that she won't even talk about them.

I'm home by eight. Maren's curtains are open, her bed empty. Good. Bell & Bone, maybe.

I shower. Dress. Choke down food I can't taste while my wolf wears a groove in me. By nine I can't sit still inside my own skin.

I walk next door.

The shop's locked. A card hangs crooked inside the glass in her handwriting.

CLOSED TODAY.

Not good.

Her house. No answer at the door. I go around the side, checking sashes, checking the ground. No broken glass. No boot prints in the beds.

"Maren?"

Nothing.

My phone rings. Unknown number. I have it to my ear before it finishes.

"Yeah."

Breath. A woman's, slow and pleased.

Threat. My wolf rises.

"Who is this?"

The whisper comes soft as a bedtime story. "You cannot keep what's already promised."

The line dies.

My claws split the tips of my fingers.

I call Maren. Nothing. Again. Nothing. I'm over the low fence between our yards before I decide to move, hammering her back door.

"Maren?"

My wolf is one breath from taking the door off its hinges when the phone buzzes against my ribs.

MAREN: Stop trying to break into my house.