Alarm had already set in for me, and it took only a few more seconds for her. With the light on, she could now see that her front door was ajar, the curtain billowing softly in the breeze.
“I locked that,” she said softly, clutching the cat to her chest. “I closed it, I know I did.”
I was in front of her before she could blink, putting my body between her and the open door. I peered into the house, sniffing the air, listening. If whoever had broken in was still there, I’d rip them to pieces before they touched her.
She pressed a little closer behind me, peering around me. Her scent was all over this place, mingled with the smell of the forest creatures that had passed through the yard, and the cat in her arms. But there was something else, too: something soft but deeply sweet, rich as caramel.
A witch. A witch had been here.
And there was only one witch I knew of in Abelaum: Everly.
I straightened slowly, the tension going out of me.
“What is it?” Rae said, her voice cracking in alarm. “What happened? Is someone in there?”
“Not anymore,” I said, stepping aside from the door. “A human was here, but they’re gone now.”
“What the hell?” She brushed past me, moving cautiously as she put her cat down on the kitchen table and continued on into the living room beyond. The cat, however, had no interest in staying inside. He bounded back out onto the porch and sat again, staring curiously into the woods with his tail twitching. “Someone went through my things! There’s papers everywhere, they even opened my boxes!”
Worry began to knot inside my chest. Why the hell had the witch been here? What did she want? Everly wasn’t like her father. From what I’d observed, she was as much his captive as I had been. Her mother had been the same: bound to Kent by love and the shared blood in their child. Kent protected Everly with the same possessive obsession one would protect a prized weapon, and without the grimoire, she was his greatest weapon now. The fact that she had come here alone was strange.
“Shit! Goddamn it, no!”
Her pained, furious cry sent me instantly to her side. She was crouched in front of a low bookshelf, tearing volumes down, searching.
“What happened?” My voice was harsh with alarm but it didn’t faze her. She looked up, red-faced, jaw clenched with fury and fear.
“They took the grimoire,” she whispered. “It’s gone.”
It felt like cold water being dumped over my head. “Are you sure?”
“It’s gone!” She threw up her hands, clutching her head. She sounded on the verge of tears. “Goddamn it, it’s gone, it’s fucking gone, what the fuck!”
Gone…the grimoire was gone, again. Had Everly taken it back to Kent? Was I about to be forced back to him?
Or had she kept it? That grimoire was written by the founding witch of her mother’s coven. It was her birthright; it was all the knowledge of the witches that had come before her. Everly’s power was still feral, untamed in her blood. But if she were to harness it, if she were to escape Kent and train herself to command her magic…
I shivered, but it had nothing to do with the cold night air whispering through the open door. Witches were not to be trifled with.
“We have to get it back!” Rae got to her feet, fists clenched, her glasses slipping down her nose. “We have to find out who the hell took it —”
I grabbed her suddenly, clapping my hand over her mouth and muffling her furious cursing. She struggled, but only for a moment.
Then she smelled it too.
Death. Pungent and sour on the air. Rae jolted against me, her heart fluttering like a bird. Through the open door, we could both see her cat standing on the porch, back arched, tail puffed. A low, angry growl came from the little animal’s throat, fixated on something in the trees.
The house creaked, as if it were tensing in preparation. Scritch, scritch, scritch. Rae’s head jerked toward the sound, as something scratched at the side of the house. It was coming closer, making its way toward the deck and the open door.
And the cat.
Something wet touched my hand, and I realized she was weeping. I uncovered her mouth, only to hear her whisper desperately, “Cheesecake…here kitty, kitty…come back inside…come back inside, please…”
The trees groaned. The smell grew sharper. The brave little cat twitched his white tail and yowled as if he were the biggest, fiercest beast in those woods.
I’d always liked cats. The fact that this one belonged to Raelynn, well, perhaps that made me a bit more determined to not see it die. I didn’t think I could bear to see her heart break like that. And hell, the little creature was fierce. What else so small would face down the Eld with a puffed tail and some tiny claws?