“Yeah.” Sinclair let out a sigh. “To try to talk me into coming home. Home to Jamaica. At least during the off season. But you know . . .” There was a faint wistful note in his voice. “I think she misses me, too.”

“You must miss her,” I said.

“We’ve spent most of our lives missing each other, Daise,” he said. “But we’re on different paths.”

According to his sister, the path of obeah was a path of balance, a path between light and dark. That was one of those things that sounded good on paper, all profound and mystical, until you started wondering exactly what the hell it meant, what the real-world ramifications were for mundane and eldritch alike.

And I didn’t know. I had no idea. All I knew was that Emmeline was on it and Sinclair wasn’t, but she and their powerful mother thought he should be.

“Daisy?”

“Yeah.” I shifted Mogwai’s bulk into a more comfortable position. “Look . . . I don’t want to get in the middle of this.”

“What did she say to you?” Sinclair repeated.

I gazed out into the night, listening to the sounds of Pemkowet. It was quieter than it had been in months. It would get even quieter in the months to come. “Do you ever regret not following the same path as your sister?”

“No.” His reply was prompt and sure. “Daisy . . . listen, it’s a long story. It’s part of the conversation I promised you. But the short answer is no. A definitive no.” He paused. “Are you going to answer my question?”

I scratched Mogwai under his chin. He lifted it to allow me access, curling his lip with pleasure to reveal a sharp eyetooth. “Emmeline asked me to stop seeing you. To call off the fairies, use my influence in the eldritch community. To give you a reason not to stay here. To go home.”

There was a short, shocked silence. “She what?”

“Yeah.”

Sinclair laughed. “Oh, hell, no! Emmy, Emmy! I know she only just met you, but what in the world made her think you of all people would agree to it?”

See, here’s where it got tricky. Vague, creeping menace does not a coherent threat make. And I might be entirely in the right here, but I was also the outsider in this equation. Families, even dysfunctional families—hell, maybe especially dysfunctional families—tend to turn on outsiders who slander another member of the clan. I’d seen enough of it with the Cassopolis family to know that. Jen could bitch about her abusive father, her passive mother, and her blood-slut sister, Bethany, all day long, but heaven help anyone else who did the same. That right was reserved for family.

So I temporized. “Oh, I think she thought I’d be swayed by her formidable nature. She is pretty formidable, isn’t she?”

“Mmm.” He made a noncommittal sound. “What about the ghoul?”