“I’d rather help keep you alive than have my power base at full flush.” He reconsidered. “I’ll work on a charm today and see if I can come up with something. If I can’t, it’s coming off.”

“Do that,” said Thomas. He fingered his own hair, tied at his nape. His hair, also a part of his power storage, had been shorn on Eudae by the Ytrayi. “It takes a damn long time for it to grow back in. Either way, I want you both on a plane tomorrow morning.”

THE NEXT DAY SARAFINA WALKED WITH THEO UP the steps of a tall granite building in Manhattan. The large sign in the square in front of the skyscraper read DUSKOFF INTERNATIONAL.

It gave Sarafina chills to see firsthand just how entrenched and established the warlocks were in the human world. Duskoff International was a powerhouse of a company, privately owned by the Crane family until just recently when it had been taken public—owing to Stefan Faucheux’s greed, undoubtedly. The stock price was sky high. Sarafina knew next to nothing about the business world and even she knew all that.

Who would be able to believe that warlocks sat in the boardroom? Three weeks ago she never would’ve.

They’d left for New York yesterday and settled into the swank that was the Hotel Indigo in Soho. Thomas Monahan had a place here in New York, but staying there was out of the question. They weren’t sure if the Duskoff had the place under surveillance, but they probably did. Grosset was back in Chicago, staying with Claire and Adam.

Theo had been able to design a convincing glamour for himself. Just an hour earlier in their hotel room Sarafina had watched him drink the foul-smelling concoction and stared in awe as it worked.

Apparently, glamour charms weren’t easy to make. Only earth witches as powerful as Theo, Thomas, and Micah, three of the strongest in the Coven, could concoct them.

On the downside, the charms were fragile and only lasted about twenty-four hours. By this time tomorrow the magick would erode and the carriage would turn back into a pumpkin . . . not that Theo’s body could be compared to a pumpkin. And there was no re-creating the charm and altering your appearance exactly the same way again. These were onetime deals, suitable more for novelty than espionage.

The upside was, wow, the changes wrought were impressive.

Theo hadn’t been able to create the illusion that his hair was shorter, but it was a different color now—a blond nearly as light as her own. His skin was lighter, too, less swarthy Italian and more winter-loving Nordic.