“I don’t need to—”

She held her hand up. “No, it’s…” Her eyes went distant. Then she shrugged. “Something has arrived. We need to pick it up. I feel it. It’s important, whatever it is.”

Reagan cocked her hip. “I didn’t think you had any of your mom’s talents.”

“I don’t really.” Penny bent to the collection of stones, loading some into her utility belt. “Not where it is actually useful. I only get vague inklings every now and again, and plenty of questionable intuition.”

“Well, super. In that case, sure. To the Bankses’ we will go,” Reagan said sarcastically.

Despite her tone, she hadn’t been lying. To the Bankses they did go. Penny dashed out of the vehicle (a new loaner from Darius—a Mercedes SUV), rang the bell, hugged her friend from Seattle, and brought back a plain brown package that looked awfully familiar.

“I sent that,” Emery said, something in him clicking in a hollow, strange way. Like Fate’s hand had reached through time, pushing him to take the risk to collect that stone and send it so that it would be back in time for this very fight. He knew it was a coincidence. It had to be. But…

Only dimwitted fools believe in coincidences.

Oh great, now he had Ms. Bristol’s voice in his head. That couldn’t be good.

“Here.” She handed up the package from the back seat.

“We stopped here to get a rock?” Reagan said, backing out of the driveway as Callie came to the door with a frown. They hadn’t filled Callie and Dizzy in on what we were doing, knowing they’d insist on coming.

“Yeah.” Penny didn’t elaborate.

Emery tried to hand it back. “I sent this for you. I hadn’t realized I would be coming back myself when I mailed it. Or that it would take so long to get here. The mail is really slow overseas.”

“Open it. It’ll be faster.” She waggled her finger at him.

“Right.” He shook his head as he took down the layered spell and then handed the package back.

She tore through the paper, a hungry gleam in her eyes. Clearly she liked presents. He had to remember that. After opening the package, she stared down into the box for a second, a blank look on her face. She cocked her head. Then handed the package back.

“I know it’s not the best looker of the ones I sent,” he started.

“No, it is not,” Reagan said after catching a glance.

“You must’ve known you were coming back on some level,” Penny said. “It’s not interested in me. It’s interested in you.” A line formed between her brows and she put her palm on one of the compartments on her utility belt. “And Mr. Happy-Go-Lucky wants to tango with it. Seriously, Mr. Happy-Go-Lucky is high-maintenance. Thank you for the gift, but I’m not so sure I’m liking it.”

“Holy crap are you weird,” Reagan said.

Penny’s brow furrowed as she harrumphed and looked out the window. Emery laughed at their antics while taking the rock out of the package. It felt good to have it back. He felt its pulse vibrate through his hand and then burrow deeper, into his body. It echoed outward, joining the bubble of magic within the car, and reacting to the connection he felt with Penny with a fizzing sensation. As soon as he got out of the car, he had a feeling his connection with the natural world would be enhanced too.

“I really did send this back for you,” he said in a wispy voice as they exited the highway.

“Or maybe for my safekeeping,” Penny said, unperturbed.

“Okay.” Reagan turned off the radio. “We’re getting close to the warehouse now. Here’s the situation. It’s a day like any other. As far as they know, we’re going to the warehouse to train. Of course, what we’re really going to do is load up with some spells. I have a bunch of herbs and crap out there, plus color-coded casings. I don’t care what spell goes in what color. I won’t be using them. You do what you want. Don’t use all your energy. Oh, and we should set up some wards and tripwires or something, I don’t know. We’ll play that by ear—”

“Play that by ear?” Penny leaned around the seat in an effort to see Reagan’s face. “Are you kidding? That’s one of the first things we have to do if we’re going to do it. Not to mention we’ll have to make sure they didn’t beat us there and set traps of their own.”

“Yeah, I know. So when we get there, we should have a think. Then we do the spells, and eventually they’ll feel like they’re ready to make their attack, and the show will begin.”

“What—” Penny fell back against the seat. “I don’t think there is a worse planner in all the world. I really don’t. Why turn off the music for that? You’re basically saying we should get out and wander around like dopes.”

“Yes. Perfect. I’m in,” Reagan said. “Let’s get there, get out, wander around like dopes, and see what grabs us.”

“Unreal,” Penny muttered from the backseat.

Laughter bubbled up through Emery, light and joyous, which was very strange, because the three of them were about to challenge an entire host. They were basically going up against all the king’s horses and all the king’s men, and trying not to end up like Humpty Dumpty. It was madness. All of this was madness. Their probability of success had to be so low it was negligible. And yet…

He blew out a breath and looked out at the slightly overcast day. Up ahead on his side stood the warehouse, waiting for them like a great, empty beast. “Madness,” he murmured, the first traces of uncertainty worming through his gut.

“That’s how you know you’re doing the right thing. When the odds are severely stacked against you,” Reagan said, turning into the small lane leading up to the warehouse.

“I think you’ve got the wrong idea about how math works,” Penny muttered from the back.

“Did you talk to Red this morning?” Emery asked as they parked, trying to hunt out any glimmering spells around the area. Nothing jumped out, but wards without additional spell work woven in would be invisible.

“Yeah, that good-for-nothing dog turd.” Reagan parked and pushed the door open. “He’s thinking the mage count must be in the eighties.”

Emery’s joints stiffened and fear bled through him. Suddenly, he couldn’t seem to force himself to open the door. He had his hand on the handle, but it refused to move.

“Are you okay?” Penny asked softly.

“What are we doing, Penny?” he whispered, his body starting to shake. Eighty? That was madness. Madness! Last night he and Penny couldn’t defeat a comparatively tiny host.

Eighty? It was impossible. They would never make it out.

She would never make it out.

After his parents had died, he’d loved exactly three people in his life. Real, honest-to-God love. One as a brother, one as a surrogate son, and now Penny.

He’d lost his brother. He’d helped kill his surrogate father after the man betrayed them.

He could not lose Penny. He couldn’t send her in there to die. It wasn’t in him.

“We need to leave now,” he said, taking his hand away from the handle. “We need to run.”

42

I stilled in the back seat, never having seen Emery like this. Even in the dire situations, when all hope was lost, he hadn’t once panicked.

For some reason, that calmed me. Chased away my own panic.

“What’s up?” I asked, reaching forward to lay my hand on his shoulder.

“Even with Reagan, we don’t have the power to go up against eighty people. It’s impossible.”

“It could only be fifty. Red must have been guessing.”

“Or it could be a hundred.”

I squeezed his shoulder. “My mother is backing this idea. That means there is a real chance we’ll come out ahead. And your foresight didn’t go off— Wait, did your foresight go off?” He shook his head, his face pale. “Right. There you go. It does sound impossible, that’s true. But look, you have your new power stone, and it has faith in you. And a lot of power, actually. We have Reagan. She’s incredible, she really is. And we can get hundreds of casings stored up. She brought a bunch with her from her secret stash at home, remember? Some are probably even ours. She stole them from the vampires.”