Natasha scowls. Ethan looks even more annoyed that we turned them down.

“Thanks,” I whisper to Aristelle. I consider it a victory that she consulted my feelings.

“Back to work,” she snaps.

I stride forward and yank out my knife. The tattered flower falls and slumps off my boot.

“Up the stakes,” Aristelle calls out as I stride backward.

Xander grins, jumping from his seat. “I’ve been waiting for this.”

He practically skips to the tree, pausing to pull a cherry from a branch. For a second, I’m worried he’ll ask me to aim for something that small, but he only winks, popping it into his mouth as he holds an ace of spades out against the wood, pinching the tip with two fingers that could easily be removed by my blades.

I shake my head. “I could cut you.”

“You won’t.”

His confidence in me does nothing to stop the tremors in my fingers. Because I don’t trust myself. My magic falters.

“I want to kill vamps, not you.” My grip tightens on my knives.

His card blinks out of sight, and he moves forward, stopping just in front of me. His hand closes around one of my fists, and I resist fighting him as he pulls my fingers apart and frees the knife from my grip.

He places his other hand, palm up, between us. We stand so close his fingertips brush the front of my Rolling Stones T-shirt.

He draws my knife across his palm before I can react, leaving a thin trail of blood. I cringe like I inflicted the wound myself, but he doesn’t even flinch, just passes the knife back to me. My fingers close naturally around the hilt, even though part of me doesn’t want it back.

He holds his hand up as the skin pulls itself back together again. The blood lining his wound bubbles like it’s evaporating.

I’m caught in the glimmer of the jewel at his wrist and the blood still on his hand. My breathing speeds as the red of the cherries in the tree blurs together. Xander asks me if I’m okay, but I barely hear him.

I remember something. I spend so much time thinking about Mom that it’s rare for me to remember something new, but looking at the blood and jewel together just triggered memories that got overshadowed by what happened the next day.