Anna couldn’t breathe, her heart pounded, and her mouth was dry. They had applied for adoption with a few agencies—but the waiting list was very long. She’d thought Charles was against other options.

She licked her lips and said, “What did he say?”

“Not to go out looking on our own. He is concerned that if the public—the human public—finds out what we are trying, there will be an outcry that will make everything more difficult.”

“We talked about that,” she said. It had been one of the reasons Charles had leaned toward adoption.

She felt Charles nod. “We did. He says to wait until he can make it back and he’ll help. He has some ideas.”

“Did he say when he would be back?” Anna asked. Charles’s brother, Samuel, was traveling with his mate, a powerful fae named Ariana. The last Anna had heard, they were in Africa, and Samuel, who was a doctor, was working with Doctors Without Borders, though there had always been something vague about what, exactly, he was doing.

“No,” Charles said. “He sounded … worried, I think. Unhappy. He wouldn’t tell me why. Da says Samuel hasn’t told him what’s going on.”

“Which doesn’t mean Bran doesn’t know,” Anna said.

“Yes,” agreed Charles. “And Da sounded worried, too.”

“If there is anything we can do, either Samuel or Bran will let us know,” Anna told him.

Her husband let out his breath in a huff of air. “This is true.”

When the darkness pressed too deep as they both lay awake, Anna said, “Why is the music so important? Do you have any idea?”

He gave a deep sigh and she couldn’t tell if he was relieved to change the subject or not. Children were something her husband had very complicated feelings about—and she wasn’t sure he understood them himself.

As he spoke of parallels between magic and music and how they both could be used by various evil creatures, she felt his body relax. Monsters, she thought with drowsy humor, were apparently less frightening than children.

C H A P T E R

3

Anna found herself, not unexpectedly, at the wheel for the California trip. Charles actively disliked driving, and Tag … Tag drove with a joyous abandon that probably had not been as hazardous when the most common mode of transportation had been horses. A horse could decide not to run off a cliff or into a tree no matter what Tag did or failed to do. Automobiles tended to rely on their drivers to avoid accidents, so it was best if Tag didn’t drive.