“Lucas—”

“He’s still young, I know, and he does a lot of pro bono work. That’s very noble, Paige. I can see how a young woman would find it romantic—”

“But,” Julie cut in, “like Wendy says, it doesn’t pay the bills. And he is a Cortez.”

Wendy nodded. “Yes, he is a Cortez.”

“Hey,” Savannah said, standing. “I have a question.” She stepped toward the sisters. Julie shrank back. “When’s the last time you saved a witch from being murdered by Cabal goons? Lucas did that just last month.”

“Savannah…” I said.

She stepped closer to the two women. “What about defending a shaman set up by a Cabal? That’s what Lucas is doing now. Oh, and Paige does charity work, too. In fact, she’s doing it right now, offering two-faced bitches like you a spot in her Coven.”

“Savannah!”

“I’ll be in the hall,” she said. “Something in here stinks.”

She wheeled and marched out of the hotel room.

“My god,” Wendy said. “She is her mother’s daughter.”

“And thank God for that,” I said, and left.

As I drove out of the city core, Savannah broke the silence.

“I heard what you said. It was a good comeback.”

The words “even if you didn’t mean it” hung between us. I nodded and busied myself scanning traffic. I was still working on understanding Savannah’s mother, Eve. It wasn’t easy. My whole being rebelled at the thought of empathizing with a dark witch. But, even if I could never think of Eve as someone I could admire, I’d come to accept that she’d been a good mother. The proof of that was beside me. A thoroughly evil woman couldn’t have produced a daughter like Savannah.

“You know I was right,” she said. “About them. They’re just like the Coven. You deserve—”

“Don’t,” I said quietly. “Please.”

She looked at me. I could feel her gaze, but didn’t turn. After a moment, she shifted to stare out the window.

I was in a funk, as my mother would have said. Feeling sorry for myself and knowing there was no good reason for it. I should be happy—ecstatic even. Sure my life had taken a nasty turn four months ago—if one can call “the end of life as I knew it” a nasty turn—but I’d survived. I was young. I was healthy. I was in love. Damn it, I should be happy. And when I wasn’t, that only added guilt to my blues, and left me berating myself for acting like a spoiled, selfish brat.

I was bored. The Web site design work that had once fired a passion in me now piled up on the desk—drudgery I had to complete if anyone in our house intended to eat. Did I say house? I meant apartment. Fourmonths ago, my house near Boston had burned to cinders, along with everything I owned. I was now the proud renter of a lousy two-bedroom apartment in a lousier neighborhood in Portland, Oregon. Yes, I could afford better, but I hated digging into the insurance money, terrified I’d wake up one day with nothing in the bank and be forced to spend eternity living beneath a deaf old woman who watched blaring talk shows eighteen hours a day.

For the first two months, I’d been fine. Lucas, Savannah, and I had spent the summer traveling. But then September came and Savannah had to go to school. So we set up house—apartment—in Portland, and carried on. Or, I should say, Savannah and Lucas carried on. They’d both lived nomadic lives before, so this was nothing new. Not so for me. I’d been born near Boston, grown up there, and never left—not even for school. Yet in my fight to protect Savannah last spring, my house hadn’t been the only thing to burn. My entire life had gone up in smoke—my business, my private life, my reputation—all had been dragged through the tabloid cesspool, and I’d been forced to relocate clear across the country, someplace where no one had heard of Paige Winterbourne. The scandal had fizzled out quickly enough, but I couldn’t go back. The Coven had exiled me, which meant I was forbidden to live within the state boundaries. Still, I hadn’t given up. I’d sucked in my grief, dried my tears, and marched back into the fight. My Coven didn’t want me? Fine, I’d start my own. In the last eight weeks I’d met with nine witches. Each one said all the right things, then turned me down flat. With each rejection, the abyss widened.

We went out for dinner, followed by an early movie. My way of apologizing to Savannah for inflicting another witch-recruitment session on her.

Back at the apartment, I hustled Savannah off to bed, then zoomed into my room just as the clock-radio flipped to 10:59. I grabbed the cordless phone, jumped onto the bed, and watched the clock. Two seconds after it hit 11:00, the phone rang.

“Two seconds late,” I said.

“Never. Your clock must be running fast.”

I smiled and settled back onto the bed. Lucas was in Chicago, defending a shaman who’d been set up by the St. Cloud Cabal to take the fall for a corporate espionage scheme gone awry.

I asked Lucas how the case was going, and he filled me in. Then he asked how my afternoon had gone, specifically my meeting with the witches. For a second, I almost wished I had one of those boyfriends who didn’t know or care about my life outside his sphere of influence. Lucas probably noted all my appointments in his Day-Timer, so he’d never do something as inconsiderate as fail to ask about them afterward.

“Shot down,” I said.

A moment of silence. “I’m sorry.”