She fumbled with the lock, slid the door to the side and stepped outside. The warm wind whipped around her bare body as she examined the balcony. The condo was on the fifteenth floor. The only place for the figure to have gone was straight up to the balcony above. She gazed skyward, but saw nothing.

There had been something, though. She knew she hadn’t imagined it. Unless the dream had shaken her so badly, she’d hallucinated. But was it possible to hallucinate a scent? And a scent as strange as that? Like earth, but not of this Earth.

Isabelle shivered, despite the warm air. She stood for a moment, staring out into the darkness. Somewhere in the distance, thunder boomed.

A storm was coming.

CHAPTER FIVE

FIVE

THOMAS WAITED IN THE RECESSES OF GRIBBEN Prison for Isabelle to arrive. Micah, his cousin, stood near him.

The building was named for the Coven director who’d had it built on the sprawling Coven-owned lands. The Council had decided long ago that witches who harmed others could not be allowed to roam free in non-magickal society. First, they posed a threat to witchdom by calling attention to themselves. Second, non-magickals were ill-equipped to protect themselves against a witch with a will to harm.

The Coven had a contingent trained to deal with those who broke the rules they called witch hunters. Wayward witches were tracked down and killed outright by Coven hunters if they posed an immediate danger to others. Witches guilty of lesser crimes or only suspected of violence were caught and brought in to stand trial. If the witch was found guilty, he was housed in Gribben, an underground facility with wardings and spellcastings cemented right into the construction by some of the best earth witches to ever live.

Here, no witch could use magick—not the tenants, not the caretakers or guards, not even visitors. Working here was no treat, so the employees tended to be witches with little inherited magick, who noticed the loss less. In addition, they only worked part-time to limit their exposure to the place.

Thomas hated being in Gribben. Crossing the threshold first made him nauseous, then, as his ability to tap his power vanished, he began to feel like a piece of melba toast—dry, flavorless, and easily breakable. It was probably how the non-magickicals felt all the time.

Some of the prisoners went mad from being imprisoned in Gribben and he could see why. The threat of imprisonment here was a very effective incentive to not break Coven law. Because of that, they didn’t have a huge problem with offending witches. Only the most incorrigible or crazy ended up in Gribben.