Rowan swallowed hard and shook his head, eyes closed. “Damn. Even your babies are messed up.”

“We like to inhabit a space of . . . creative anarchy, that’s all,” Talia said, unoffended. “It works for us. Now, since I’m hosting, anyone else care to propose the toast?”

“To not letting Blackmoore bastards keep us down!” Linden cheered, pumping a fist.

“Or, how about . . . ‘to double double, toil and trouble, when plotters scheme and cauldrons bubble’?” I suggested. “A little spicy, a little derivative, what do we think?”

Talia let out a low, appreciative whistle. “Okay, yeah, that’s the energy we want.”

Linden looped her arm through mine as we all lifted our glasses and clinked them together, catching one another’s eyes as we repeated my silly yet somehow perfect toast. Under the sluice of moonlight and the stars’ keen twinkle, in this clearing that smelled of dying leaves, magic, and burning firewood, I felt such a warm rush of belonging that my eyes prickled with sudden tears. Something like homesickness struck next, a premonitory sense of the yearning I’d feel when I was ensconced back in my little one-bedroom in Bucktown, so very far away from home.

Cut this shit out, I chided myself, struggling to get a grip. You love your life, and this is not your home—not anymore. This is just reunion nostalgia set on high, that’s all. You’ll get over it.

Blinking the tears back, I took a deeper swallow of the wine to chase away the doldrums. It tasted as dark and rich as it looked, like some exotic vintage harvested under a full moon, imported from some otherworldly realm.

“This is delicious,” I told Talia. “What is it? It tastes really special.”

“Oh, this?” She peered at her goblet, shrugging. “It’s just Seven Deadly Zins, I think? You’d have to ask Issa. She’s the one who hit up the liquor store and Whole Foods for the spread.”

I burst out laughing, feeling fully ridiculous. “Seriously? And here I was, like an entire fool, thinking it tasted like it hailed from some fairy terroir.”

“That’s because you have the secret soul of a poet, Harlow,” she said, with a curling half smile, her pale eyes glittering against the dark. “Even if you try to hide it.”

What was it about looking at her, I wondered as I held her gaze, that felt so enticing, so halfway to forbidden? Was it the extraordinary wolf gray of her irises, the intensity with which she looked at me, or maybe the thing her eyebrows did to the shape of her eyes?

Whatever it was, once we locked gazes, I could never seem to pry myself away.

Just then, one of the younger Avramov siblings came loping up to Talia, slung both arms around her neck, and smacked a kiss on her cheek.

“Hey, sestra,” she said, tipping her temple against Talia’s. “I thought I smelled fresh blood.”

From what I remembered, Isidora Avramov was a few years younger than me, maybe twenty-three or twenty-four, and looked much more like their mother than Talia did. The same pale green eyes and a darker shade of Elena’s auburn hair, her fair skin spangled with overlapping freckles like a robin’s egg. Along with the Avramov garnet, a cluster of bone pendants carved with runes hung above the leather and brocade of her jacketed steampunk corset, which she wore over a pair of chicly shabby velvet pants. In contrast, her nearly-makeup-free face was startlingly fresh and peachy. It made the entire look feel like a street style that deserved its own name. Strawberries-and-cream punk? Cinnamon witch burlesque?