Part of that was the crack in the doorway Harlow had opened with her bright smile and brighter hair. Some of it was the way Dell shouldered through the door and into my life like she had every right to call herself my friend before I even knew what to do with one. But most of it was the man who stood on the threshold with his foot wedging the door wide open, forcing me to let in more than the persistent few, but the rest of the world too.

Knowing all that, it was too easy for my own nightmares to superimpose themselves over memories of Marie. The pond had been brought low by summer drought, the water where she had been found cupped in the center of a cracked bed we had to crunch across to reach. The closer we came to the serene edge of the abyss, the thicker the mud squished.

This was where I’d met Harlow. She had been bobbing in that very puddle, holding a barrette rescued from the silt.

“Maybe this isn’t such a great idea.” Dell cupped my elbow. “You’re as white as chalk.”

Still a coward down to the bone, I nodded and gave myself permission to stand several feet from the moist nexus, where breathing was easier. “Do you smell anything?”

“No.” Nostrils flaring, she expanded her chest several times as she sucked in oxygen. “Do you?”

My sense of smell was stunted compared to theirs, so I let the faintest brush of magic creep up my arm and into my nose. I inhaled through my mouth, over my tongue, braced for the brackish taste/smell of watery decay and got…nothing. A stringent tickle of magic-scoured woods, and that was all. “Someone cast an erasure spell at the water’s edge.”

Erasure spells had been developed by earthbound fae and were meant to restore balance to delicate natural areas that had been saturated in pervasive magic. The idea had been the spell would clean the air and ground all scents—including itself—so that in a few days the natural aromas would prevail and the local wildlife would reclaim the damaged location.

Of course, there were other uses for it too. All good magic could be twisted for evil. Such as the use we faced now. It was a signature of sorts that explained Graeson’s confusion. Harlow couldn’t cast magic. She used magical items, but she was human and was unable to create her own. He must have caught scent of her outside the spell’s perimeter and identified her. Her and not Charybdis. But his spellwork was present so…

“I don’t like this.” Dell wrapped her arms around her middle. “He must have followed us back here after he grabbed Harlow, but why? We’re hunting him. Shouldn’t he be running in the opposite direction?”