Her smile softened, sliding closer to truth. “I have it on good authority she’s afraid but finds anger a more fulfilling emotion.”

That sounded reasonable, he guessed, but worrying about Auntie Bea’s anger beat worrying about ritual. Jack didn’t want to think about Charlie rocking anything that didn’t involve him. He stared past her at the end of the bed, found no answers in the lumps his feet made under the quilt, and finally glanced up at her face, trying to look as though it didn’t matter. “Should I warn Cameron? About you being in the ritual?”

Her expression slid under his skin and burned. “No need.”

And Jack remembered he was expected to participate in this ritual as well. “Charlie . . .”

Shaking her head, Charlie stood and shifted the straps of her gig bag. If it looked like she was unsure of what she was denying, he wasn’t sure what he was asking so, in a way, they were even. “I’ve got to go.”

Which was when he realized his room was a little short of greenery. “How?”

“I can tear myself away, trust me.”

“No, I mean . . .” He nodded toward the door. “You can’t go down the courtyard. She’s waiting right outside.”

“Jack Archibald Gale, you do not want to get in the middle of this, young man!” The door vibrated with the force of Auntie Bea’s pronouncement. “And she is the cat’s mother!”

Charlie glanced toward the mirror, took three steps sideways, and waved at her reflection. Her reflection waved back, nothing more or less than what it seemed. “Auntie Catherine can’t break the surface of the mirror to pull me in. Fucking shit!”

“Allie’s barred her.” The quilt slid to the floor as he threw himself out of bed. “She knew that before she sent you to Calgary.”

Charlie whirled to face him. He almost backed up, pushed by the intensity. Almost. “Say that again.”

“She knew that before she sent you to Calgary?”

“She knew she didn’t need the viburnum before she got to Calgary.”

“Sure, whatever.” Jack didn’t see the connection, but he’d seen Charlie tap out that same complicated rhythm on her thigh lots of times over the last four years, white noise to help her put the pieces together. “Look, I could go out the window, get bigger and you could jump. We ride off into the sunset. Well, you ride. I fly.”

“Shhh. Thinking.”

“You are reaching the end of my patience, Jack Archibald Gale!” The grid over the door flared orange. The varnish began to bubble.

“Leave him alone, Auntie Bea!”

Allie. Stepping up to defend him. Him, but not Charlie. That was weird.

“He’s using sorcery to protect her.”

“Of course he is, he’s hers.”

That sounded like . . .

“Even if they can’t do anything about it.”

...the same stupid shit.

“I thought she was yours,” Auntie Bea sniffed.