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The few unlocked doors turned up empty rooms, and the drawing room where I’d first met Octavia was no different.
After taking a back staircase meant for the staff, we quickly searched the second level with the same results. Although it might have been a good sign that they weren’t here—maybe they were out shopping or something—the emptier the house remained, the more my gut tightened and my scalp prickled. Instinct was telling me something was wrong.
Very wrong.
Plus, there was no way Octavia would have taken her old butler and vampire maid out shopping.
At the top of the main staircase, I looked back the way we’d just come and frowned. Something was off about the hall’s layout.
This house was as symmetrical as they came, but more doors stood on one side. A large closet might explain the discrepancy, except I had a hard time believing Octavia would be okay with that.
Before I took a step back to investigate, Thane and Lena rejoined us. Their expressions reflected mine.
“Did you see anyone at all?” I asked, still eyeing the hallway.
Thane shook his head. “I expected to find Shirley or Walter in the kitchen or laundry area, but no such luck. This place is a ghost town.”
Moving light caught my eye out the arched second-floor window overlooking the backyard. A greenhouse as big as a two-car garage stood against the tree line, and lights were on inside, casting flickering shadows as someone moved around.
I pointed. “There. Let’s go.”
Thunder rumbled overhead as we hurried down the stairs and out the back door. The grass was wet and slick from an earlier storm, and a woman’s voice hummed a tune from within the greenhouse.
As we neared the door, Lena held up a hand and drew her sword. Although my nerves were just about shot after the nightmare spell and attack on the DEA, I stayed back while she crept ahead and cracked the door open to peek inside. She waved us forward and opened the door all the way.
Thane and Ivan strode in first and took up defensive stances on each side of me, and Lena took up the rear.
Rows of tables holding blooming flowers—everything from tulips to roses and many more I didn’t recognize—spread out before us, their colorful petals arranged in rainbow order from left to right. Familiar fragrances mixed with the unknown, creating a unique blend that tickled my nose. The mixture was both pleasant and oddly disorienting.
Wearing a semi-casual look of designer jeans and a light pink sweater that likely cost a few hundred dollars, Octavia ambled down a row toward us. She inspected each yellow-flowered plant with pruning shears in hand.
Grey strands streaked through her sleek black hair, which fell straight to her shoulders. Her espresso foam skin color matched Kit’s perfectly and infuriated my best friend—she didn’t want to share anything with this woman. It surprised me she hadn’t changed her last name by now.
There was no chance in hell Octavia hadn’t seen or heard us enter, but she continued her inspection as if nothing had changed.
I eyed her shears, wondering if she knew how to wield them as well as her magic. Considering how powerful her magic was, I didn’t want to find out.
“How nice of you to stop by.” Octavia clipped a thorny, flowerless branch from a rosebush and tossed the branch to the side. “Though most people call first.”
“Where’s Kit?” I asked, scanning the rest of the greenhouse. No one else was with her.
Octavia clucked her tongue and snipped off a browning leaf, which fluttered to the ground. “Surely your mother taught you better manners than that.” She turned her face toward me. As her dark brown eyes bored into mine, magic sizzled around her as an obvious threat.
She might be scary, but I’d faced scarier.
Most likely scarier, anyway.
I met her gaze straight on. “I’m sure my mom tried. Now answer my question.”
The corners of her lips turned upward into a wintry smile, and she returned her attention to the yellow flowers. “She’s helping me tend to the garden.”
“You mean you’re forcing her to help you.” I’d only known Kit for a fraction of her life, but gardening had never been among her interests. Not even close.
Octavia examined a few wilting leaves and clipped off another branch, which joined the trail at her feet. “I can assure you, Katherine’s quite happy working here.”
As if on cue, my best friend entered through the greenhouse’s open back door, pushing a wheelbarrow full of potting soil. My mouth dropped open, but my reaction wasn’t from the manual labor.
Kit’s black hair, which she had worn in braids almost daily for the past five years that I’d known her, had been released, fanning out around her head in a natural fro. A red bandana kept her hair back from her face.
