The Coven archivist and all-around geek snapped the file open. There, paper-clipped to a sheaf of papers, was a photo of Sarafina. It had been taken while she’d been sitting at a Starbucks. She was talking with a good-looking man about her age. Her head was tipped back on a laugh, her long blond hair curling around her shoulders and falling down her back. One hand gripped a paper coffee cup, her slim arm resting on the tabletop near the man’s.

“That your woman?”

Theo nodded.

Micah flopped down in the chair opposite him and pushed one hand through his shaggy brown hair. “Then she’s an abducted witch and she’s been telling you the truth, Theo.”

Fuck. He picked up the file folder and began reading the information on her. “It doesn’t make sense.”

“It doesn’t make sense, I agree,” said Isabelle from across the room. She sat on the edge of her husband’s desk, one long leg swinging, foot encased in a red sandal. “Why was Stefan meeting with this woman, this one abductee? What makes her so special?”

“There’s nothing out of the ordinary in her file,” Micah answered. “Both her parents were fire witches. Her father left when she was just a baby, leaving her to be raised by her very religious mother. We’re talking born-again Christian, here—fire, brimstone, and big tent revivals. There’s no way to know the mother’s story, but as near as I can piece together, being a witch sent her right off the deep end. Sarafina’s mom is famous in Bowling Green because one day when Sarafina was eight, her mother chased her out of their house screaming at her for being a witch, then burst into flames halfway down the block in one of their neighbor’s backyards.”

“Oh, wow,” murmured Isabelle. “Her power killed her. Maybe she didn’t even know how to wield it. Maybe it just exploded out of her when her emotions ran high.”

“Yeah, I tracked down all the old news stories on it. It freaked out everyone in town. It’s still studied by parapsychologists as one of the most well-documented cases of spontaneous combustion on record. They did a fucking Unanswered Mysteries segment on it.”

“Poor woman,” said Isabelle softly. “Her name makes sense, if her mother was really religious. Does Sarafina play off the—”

“Seraphim,” Micah interrupted her. “The highest-ranking angels of heaven according to Jewish scripture.” He paused and twisted his lips. “It also means burning one.”

Isabelle’s jaw dropped. “Tell me you looked that up and didn’t just know it off the top of your head.”