He slaps his desk with both hands, a wide grin spreading across his face. “Oh, thank goodness! We’ve been trying to get in touch with you witches for months, but Ana Vykotsky hasn’t been answering our letters or telegrams. It really is quite urgent.”

“You’ve been trying to reach Mrs. Vykotsky?” I blink a few times, giving my brain the space it needs to catch up to the conversation. I despise the way it breaks my heart as the knowledge settles that he was looking for someone. He sent telegrams and letters for months to Haxahaven. I just wasn’t the witch he was looking for.

“Well, it makes sense she wouldn’t be writing you back,” I deadpan. “She’s dead.” I don’t tell him I was the one who killed her. I blink away the horrible image of her neck snapping in that final, awful, unnatural way.

I pinch the bridge of my nose and close my eyes for a moment, finding my way back into my body.

“Dead?” He shakes his head in disbelief. “Oh, that really is a shame. Not because I was particularly fond of her, no, that is no great loss.”

“Depends on who you ask, I suppose.”

He shrugs. “Who is in charge now?”

“Florence Poole.”

My father shrugs disappointment. “No, no. I do not know her. That would explain all of the unanswered telegrams. It is convenient you’re here. Have you been having the same issues in New York that we’re having here?”

I’m confused. “Issues?”

He nods excitedly, takes a sip of coffee, and then nearly chokes on it continuing his story. “The Sons are in a tizzy, the New York chapter and the European chapters,” he explains. “Someone’s mucked up the veil between the living and the dead. The magic has gone all funny. It’s clouding the clairvoyants’ visions. And then there are the lunatics, the fundamentalists who believe they can use the damage to—” He stops himself. “We don’t have time to get into all that. But have you witches noticed?”

The veil between the living and the dead. My blood runs cold. Suddenly I picture myself back in a basement, talking to my brother through a mirror.

I’m terrified to tell him yes, I’ve noticed the magic going wrong.

“Get into what?” I clutch my hands in my lap to stop them from shaking. I can’t quite follow what he’s talking about but those words he’s using, “the veil,” the talk of magic going wrong, it’s ringing true in a way I don’t want it to. This is the answer I’ve been searching so desperately for.