Sarafina stared at the singed spot on the floor until long after it had grown cold and black, until her shoulders hunched and her muscles were stony with stress. She stayed that way until the door opened again and the scrabbling of nails sounded on the floor. Doggie yelps of joy filled her ears. She broke from her imitation of a statue to scoop Grosset into her arms.

Nuzzling the Pomeranian’s soft fur she sank down onto the floor and held him close, trying to absorb the massive shift her reality had just taken.

THEO PINCHED THE BRIDGE OF HIS NOSE. “LET’S JUST go in.” Damn all the planning and waiting to hell and back. He wanted action.

“I agree with Theo. We don’t have time to waste,” said Jack McAllister.

Jack looked a little sick. Of course, Jack had just sent his only daughter north to protect her against the swelling magickal storm. If Theo had a two-year-old daughter who was a coveted air witch, he’d probably be feeling sick right now, too. Eva, the child, had gone to a secret location with several of the trusted Coven, including Helen, an earth witch of limited power who was the unofficial Coven nanny.

Thomas Monahan paced away from the elemental witches gathered around his desk, his face pensive.

“We don’t know yet what’s going on,” said Claire in her quiet and strong voice. “However, the Duskoff have proven time and again they aren’t to be trusted, isn’t that right? Therefore, the Coven would be well within our rights to raid them. Anyway, it’s not like they’d call the non-magickal police force in to combat us.”

Thomas Monahan never did anything the rash way—well, not normally, anyway—but all the signs lately were pointing to something afoot, something dark and bloody. With the Duskoff that was usually the case. And there was ample evidence to suspect the Duskoff, a cabal of warlocks, were behind it. Warlocks were witches gone bad, who’d betrayed the Coven’s rede of harm ye none and used their supernatural abilities for their own gain—for money and power.

Lately, there had been a rash of witches outside the Coven who’d gone missing—weaker, younger ones and more powerful ones who’d been alienated from their birthright somehow and were easy pickings.

They’d managed to take an air witch, too. Emily Parker, a witch of low ability, had been snatched from her home near Boston about three months ago and hadn’t been heard from since. All Emily could do was send and receive faint messages via the air. She had no real power to call, couldn’t pick objects up or send her consciousness out to travel from her body.