I winced. “The only spell I could find in my books was in Latin.”

Nick looked at me in disbelief. “Rachel. I sleep at night.”

I glanced at the clock above the sink. “It’s only one-thirty.”

Sighing, he slid the book to him. I knew he wouldn’t be able to resist once he started, and sure enough, his mild annoyance shifted to hot interest before he had read more than a paragraph. “Hey, this is old Latin.”

I leaned across the counter until my shadow covered the print. “I can read the plant names, and I’m sure I made the transfer medium right, as it’s standard, but the incantation is iffy.”

He wasn’t listening anymore, his brow furrowed as he ran a long finger under the text. “Your circle needs to be modified to resolve and gather power.”

“Thanks,” I said, glad he was going to help. I didn’t mind muddling through most things, but spelling was an exact science. And just the idea that I needed a familiar made me uncomfortable. Most witches had them, but ley line witches needed them as a matter of safety. Dividing one’s aura helped prevent a demon from pulling you into the ever-after. Poor Bob.

Nick went back to sketching pentagrams for me, glancing up as I pulled my twenty pound bag of salt from under the counter and set it thumping on top. Acutely aware of his eyes on me, I scraped a handful from the clumping mass. At Ivy’s insistence, I had blown off the security deposit and etched a shallow circle in the linoleum. Ivy had helped. Actually, Ivy had done all of it, using a string and chalk contraption to be sure the circle was perfect. I’d sat on the counter and let her have at it, knowing it would tick her off if I got in her way. The result was an absolutely perfect circle. She had even taken a compass and marked true north with black nail polish to show me where to start my circle.

Now, peering down to find the black dot, I carefully sifted salt, moving clockwise around the island until I found my starting point. I added the doodads for protection and divination, put the green candles at the appropriate places, then lit them from the flame that I’d used to make the transfer medium.

Nick watched with half his attention. I liked that he accepted me as a witch. When we had met, I’d worried that since he was one of the few humans who practiced the black arts, I would eventually have to smack him up and turn him in, but Nick had taken demonology to improve his Latin and get through a language development class, not to summon demons. And the novelty of a human who accepted magic with such ease was a definite turn-on.