And then I didn’t have to worry about that particular witch anymore.

I wasn’t that strong of will. I knew it, accepted it, and avoided the problem by shunning ley lines whenever I could. I hoped that taking a fish as my familiar wasn’t the start of a new path but just a speed bump in my current road. Glancing at Bob, I vowed that’s all it would be. All witches had familiars. And there was nothing in that binding spell that would hurt anyone.

Taking a slow breath, I closed my eyes to prepare myself for the coming disorientation of connecting to a ley line. Slowly I willed my second sight into focus. The stench of burnt amber tickled my nose. An unseen wind shifted my hair though the kitchen window was closed. It was always windy in the ever-after. I imagined the walls that surrounded me becoming transparent, and in my mind’s eye they did.

My second sight strengthened, and the sensation of being outside grew until the mental scenery beyond the walls of the church became as real as the counter, unseen under my fingers. Eyes closed to block my mundane vision, I glanced over the nonexistent kitchen with my mind’s eye. Nick didn’t show up at all, and the memory of the church’s walls had vanished to faint, silvery chalk lines. Through them, I could see the surrounding landscape.

It was parklike, with a glowing red haze reflecting off the bottom of clouds where Cincinnati would be, hiding behind the stunted trees. It was common knowledge that the demons had their own city, built on the same ley lines as Cincinnati. The trees and plants carried a similar reddish glow, and though no wind whispered through the linden tree outside the kitchen, the branches of the stunted ever-after trees tossed in the wind that lifted my hair. There were people who got off on the discrepancies between reality and the ever-after, but I thought it freaking uncomfortable. Someday, I’d go up Carew Tower and look at the broken, glowing demon city with my second sight. My stomach tightened. Yeah, sure I would.

My gaze was drawn to the graveyard by the stark, almost glowing white tombstones. They and the moon were the only things that seemed to exist without that red glow, unchanged in both worlds, and I stifled a shudder. The ley line made a solid-looking red smear running due north at head height above the tombstones. It was small—not even twenty yards, I guessed—but so underused that it seemed stronger than the enormous ley line the university straddled.

Conscious that Nick was probably watching with his own second sight, I stretched out my will and touched the ribbon of power. I staggered, forcing my eyes to remain shut as my grip tightened on the counter. My pulse leapt and my breath quickened. “Swell,” I whispered, thinking the force surging into me seemed stronger than the last time.

I stood and did nothing as the influx continued, trying to equalize our strengths. My fingertips tingled and my toes ached as it backwashed at my theoretical extremities, which mirrored my real ones. Finally it began to balance, and a trace of energy left me to rejoin the line. It was as if I was part of a circuit, and the line’s passage left a growing residue that made me feel slimy.