Her reflection held a shield.

“Thanks.”

A line of charms to keep the twins away from the edge of the landing had been added to the standard protections around the apartment door. It seemed they’d figured out the doorknob while she’d been gone.

“And the lock?” Charlie wondered. “And the charms?” She hadn’t been gone that long.

She fumbled out her key. Graham, for all that being a seventh son of a seventh son made him a special snowflake, couldn’t charm his way in and out, so the rest of the family had gotten out of the habit. Show time. A deep breath and a reminder that Allie loved her, and she slowly pushed open the door.

“Hi, honey, I’m home.”

A piece of pie splattered against the wall beside her head.

CHAPTER TWO

CHARLIE WIPED AWAY FLAKES OF PASTRY, opened her mouth to apologize, and snapped it closed again.

With two years and dozens of other cousins separating them, she hadn’t been particularly close to Allie until she’d taken that first Walk in the Wood at fifteen and gotten hopelessly lost. Literally, lost without hope. She’d wandered for about two days; no food, no water, no idea of how to get out and then, in amongst the cacophony of sound slamming against her from all sides, she’d heard a simple and familiar melody that said, this way home. Allie’s song had not only kept Charlie’s first Walk in the Wood from being her last Walk in the Wood, but had taught her how to separate the sound into paths she could follow. That alone would have been reason enough for Charlie to believe Allie was something special, but after feeding her, her younger cousin had all but carried her upstairs, put her to bed, and stood guard outside the door to the room, refusing the aunties entry until Charlie’d recovered enough to cope with their interrogation.

While they hadn’t exactly been attached at the hip ever since, their lives had been entwined. And if Charlie had come second in Allie’s life to Michael and then Graham, she’d never minded because Allie had always come second to the music.

As it turned out, Charlie’d been right all along and Allie really was something special, objectively speaking. Powerful enough to have defeated a or possibly the Dragon Queen, she’d claimed and held Calgary, Alberta; all one million, two hundred and fourteen thousand, eight hundred and thirty-nine people, one million, two hundred and fourteen thousand, eight hundred and thirty-eight souls plus assorted Fey and family. For the most part, the city rocked on as it always had, but, when push came to shove, it didn’t have to.