“Hi,” I said weakly, my arms starting to tremble. “Uh, could one of you maybe check me in? I don’t feel so good.”

Ivy stood, reaching out. I tipped forward. My cheek hit the tile. The last thing I remember was my hand touching hers.

Thirty-Three

“Coming!” I called out, my pace quickening as I strode through the dusky sanctuary to the door, my snow boots thumping to leave small inverse divots of snow behind. The huge dinner bell that was our doorbell clanked again, and I picked up the pace. “I’m coming. Don’t ring the bell again or the neighbors will call the I.S., for God’s sake.”

The reverberations were still echoing when I reached for the handle, the nylon of my coat making a sliding sound. My nose was cold and my fingers were frozen, the warmth of the church not having had enough time to warm them up. “David!” I exclaimed, opening the door to find him on the softly lit stoop.

“Hi, Rachel,” he said, looking comfortably attractive with his glasses, long coat, thick stubble, and his cowboy hat dusted with snow. The bottle of wine in his hand helped. An older man stood beside him in a leather jacket and jeans. He was taller than David, and I eyed his lightly wrinkled but trim physique in question. A wisp of snow-white hair peeped from under his hat. There was a twig in his grip, unquestionably a symbolic offering for the solstice bonfire out back, and I realized he was a witch. David’s old partner? I thought. A limo idled softly behind them, but I was guessing they had come in the blue four-door parked in front of it.

“Rachel,” David said, drawing my gaze back to them. “This is Howard, my old partner.”

“Pleased to meet you, Howard,” I said, extending my hand.

“The pleasure is mine.” Smiling, he slipped off a glove to extend a softly wrinkled, freckled hand. “David told me all about you, and I invited myself. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Not at all,” I said earnestly. “The more, the merrier.”

Howard pumped my hand up and down three times before releasing it. “I had to come,” he said, green eyes glinting. “The chance to meet the woman who can outrun David and put up with his working style doesn’t come along very often. You two did good with Saladan.”

His voice was deeper than I expected, and the feeling of being evaluated strengthened. “Thank you,” I said, mildly embarrassed. I shifted back from the doorway in invitation. “We’re all back by the fire. Come on in. It’s easier to go through the church than stumble through the garden the back way.”

Howard slipped inside in a whiff of redwood while David knocked the snow from his boots. He hesitated, looking up at the new sign above the door. “Nice,” he said. “Just get it?”

“Yeah.” Mood going soft, I leaned out to look up at it. The deeply engraved brass plaque had been bolted to the front of the church above the door. It had come with a light, and the single bulb lit the stoop in a soft glow. “It’s a solstice gift for Ivy and Jenks.”