PAIGE SETTLED AT HER COMPUTER, preparing to run investigative searches on the gang members. As moral as Paige is, she’s also an experienced hacker from her college days, and sees no reason not to use those skills in pursuit of a just cause.

The concept of breaching ethical boundaries to reach a morally acceptable goal is something Paige struggles with more than I do, though it’s always an issue in our line of work. But if the breach leaves no obvious victims, and only puts Paige herself at risk, then she doesn’t hesitate to do it.

It was now seven—or ten in the East—making it a reasonable hour to begin placing calls. I was reaching for the phone when a call came in for Paige from Gillian MacArthur, one of the students in her “Sabrina School.” Paige mentors a small group of young witches, long distance, those without ties to others. Life can be difficult for witches. Their primary institution, the Coven, is more interested in hiding a witch’s powers than in strengthening them.

The witch-sorcerer divide doesn’t help matters, not when the Cabals are run by sorcerers. Witches and sorcerers are historical enemies, a ridiculous prejudice that carries over to this day. According to the witches, they took the less powerful sorcerers under their wings, taught them stronger magic and were rewarded by being thrown to the Inquisition—getting them out of the way so the male spellcasters could rule the supernatural world unopposed. More specifically, it is the original Cabal—the Cortezes—whom they blame as the instigators. Our sorcerer version tells us that witches did indeed help us better hone our innate abilities, but when we became too powerful, they turned us over to the Inquisitors, and we retaliated by doing the same to them. I suspect the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

With an impotent American Coven and exclusion from the Cabals, witches lack a strong place in the supernatural world, something Paige is trying to change. Her Sabrina School is one step in that direction. Today, though, she kept the call short, promising to phone back, then handed the receiver to me.

I dialed the number from memory. It took six rings for someone to answer. This wasn’t unusual, in a household where no one was ever in any rush to make contact with the outside world and trusted that if the caller was a friend, he’d know to stay on the line.

A woman answered, her greeting friendly but distant, as if she had better things to do, but given that no one else was going to pick up the phone, it had fallen to her, as it usually did.

“Elena, it’s Lucas.”

Her tone brightened. “Hey, Lucas.”

We chatted for a minute, then I asked to speak to Clayton. He was outside with the children, and it took a few minutes before he made it to the phone.