“You’ve got no business doing this,” he said sternly. “The boy’s made his choice. You need to learn to respect it.”

“I did.” Her gaze swept around the cemetery, taking in the lurking fey, the waiting coven, Stefan, and the hovering fairy before coming to rest on me with an expression of profound distaste. “Until I found out what it brought him to.”

“Hey, don’t use me as an excuse,” I said, raising my hands. “We’re not actually dating anymore.”

Mrs. Palmer ignored me. “I’ve been patient with you, boy,” she said to Sinclair. “But enough is enough. Are you ready to come home where you belong?”

“I’m not going anywhere.” Sinclair’s voice was strained. He cleared his throat. “This is my home.”

She let out a snort. “This? You’ve got no roots here, son. Home is where the bones of the past are buried. Home is where the soil is soaked with the blood of your ancestors. This place?” She shook her head. “This isn’t home. These aren’t your dead. And these most assuredly aren’t your people.”

“Just come home, Sinny,” Emmeline added in a pleading tone. Apparently she was playing good cop to her mother’s bad cop. “I miss you!”

“No.” Sinclair’s voice grew stronger. “I’m sorry, Emmy. I miss you, too. But you’re wrong. This is my place. And these are my people. Not because I was born here, not because they’re my blood kin. But because I chose this. And I’m not leaving.”

Casimir and the coven had drawn close, ranging themselves behind us. In the headlights, their faces looked stern and different. Even Kim McKinney’s, and I usually thought of sliced cheese and cold cuts from the deli counter when I saw her.

“Your son is under our protection, ma’am,” Casimir said, polite but firm. “And he’s given you his answer.”

Letitia Palmer gave him a stony look, but the Fabulous Casimir didn’t quail before it. She took in his height, his false eyelashes, and the crimson satin turban he was wearing. She took the coven’s measure, took in the hand-knitted scarf knotted around Sinclair’s throat, the evil-eye beads sewn into his hair. She took in the sight of Stefan leaning casually on his sword, his face almost vampire-pale in the headlights. She took in me.

“Letitia, go home,” Thomas Palmer murmured. “Sinclair’s a grown man. Let him live his life.”

“No.” She handed her clutch purse to Emmeline and grasped the glass jar in both hands. “Not like this. Not surrounded by imps and goblins and ghouls, she-males and demon-spawn.”

I had a bad feeling about that jar. Like maybe it only looked empty.

“Don’t!” Sinclair’s voice rose. “There’s no point in threatening me, Mom. I’m protected!”

She looked at him. “Oh, I’m not threatening you, son. This is for everyone else in town.”