Mei-Ling squealed and leapt out of her seat. She grabbed Tai’s arm and all but dragged him across the library after Birdie. I chuckled and quickly closed the books we’d been reading, then stacked them neatly. Someone with a wand would undoubtedly just flick them back to their spot with ease.

“Ashley, girl, are you still sleeping? It’s like three o’clock in the afternoon.” Some girl walked by me carrying a handful of books, then stopped short and looked up at me, her cellphone still tucked between her shoulder and her ear. “Hey, you still reading these?”

I smiled. “Nope, have at ‘em.”

“Score. Thanks.” She turned back to the stack of books and sat hers down. “Look I don’t care whose bed you slept in last night since I know you’re not in yours . . . just tell him you’ll call him later. It’s sloppy Saturday at the library so hurry your ass up. We’re in the back, in our usual spot. Get here.”

I laughed as I hurried out the front door to where Mei-Ling and Tai had just turned to come back inside. “I put the books back—until they were poached. Hey, what’s Sloppy Saturday? Just heard a girl talking about it.”

Birdie pointed to the library doors behind me. “Once a month the librarians let the library be an extrovert’s oasis. The quiet rule is tossed out for the day. People usually have quite a party there.”

“And why aren’t y’all there?”

Birdie arched one pale-brown eyebrow at me. “Because we’ve seen demons. C’mon, let’s go hit shit.”

“Ya know, I was thinking,” Mei-Ling began as we fell in step with Birdie, “maybe I should change my hair color. Pink is your thing and I did it for solidarity, but kinda feeling I need my own look now.”

“This mean you’re not going straight back to black hair?”

She grinned. “I was thinking orange. I saw this girl on Pinterest with neon-orange and it was epic.”

“Ava can hook you up with that.” Birdie walked up to a set of double doors and raised her hand. That gold pentacle dangled from her gold bracelet. The doors swung open so she led the way inside. “So, Mei-Ling, are you a trained martial artist like Frankie?”

“I don’t know about like Frankie, but yes.” She giggled at her own joke. “I’m the one with more control and trained skill⁠—”

“Yeah, yeah, and I go Hulk smash.” I winked.

“Well, well, what do we have here?”

We all froze at the sound of a deep voice. But when we looked behind us, we found it was only Timothy, and he did not look dressed for combat training in his jeans and flannel shirt. Yet he marched into the training center like he was on a mission.