“Let’s head toward home,” I said, finishing my glass of wine. “I don’t want to drink too much and do something foolish.”

“Like kiss a friend in public?”

“Exactly, yes. I wouldn’t want to do something so foolish as that.”

Austin stood and helped me up. He squeezed my shoulders, his face nearly covered by shadows now. “I actually had a lot of fun today. Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet, you’re walking me home. I don’t know what kind of riff-raff we’ll meet on my way.”

“I mean, I could, but I have a series to binge on Netflix, and it’s a couple of miles out of my way…” He chuckled and took his hands away. “Of course I’ll escort you home.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll have Mr. Tom fly you home after.”

“I take my joke back. It was in poor taste. Please don’t ever suggest that again. That’s not a man I want to share a space bubble with.”

“You don’t want to kiss that friend, huh?”

“I am still in hearing distance,” Mr. Tom called. “And I find this chatter highly insensitive. Like a bunch of crude barbarians carrying on.”

The walk home didn’t take long, and as the night wrapped around us, I kept looking back for Mr. Tom to see if I could spot him. In town, it was impossible. I never once caught a glimpse. It wasn’t until the wood overtook our route that I noticed him, a dark shadow within the cascading moonlight. Slight of form and old of body, he still glided like he was made of air. His cape—no, his wings—fluttered out behind him, and I remembered various times when they’d fluttered without a breeze.

“This is all still blowing my mind,” I said into the hush, peering into the deep sheets of black between the somewhat swimming trees. The wine had a tight hold on me. “Like…it is blowing my mind.”

“I imagine. Your perception of the world has changed in the space of a day. I didn’t know that you would take to the idea so fast.”

“I saw a woman turn into a rat. And I have a lot of genre fiction to back that up. It’s just…believing my eyes. Believing something like this is real! It is crazy! But let’s face it, magic is a much better explanation for the amount of weird that goes on at Ivy House. I constantly half wonder how long it will take me to end up in an unmarked grave.”

I thought back to my first visit to O’Briens, back when I was ten. Even then, the house had spoken to me. I’d felt drawn to its dark mysteries.

“I think all kids secretly hope there’s some magic curling through reality,” I mused. “That if we look hard enough, one day we’ll find it. I haven’t ever grown out of that. And I did find it, in books mostly, as I said. In daydreams.”

“Now you’ve found it in real life, and I have to be honest, your situation, whatever you decide, is going to be a lot more dangerous than most.”

I blew out a breath as Ivy House came into view, the windows glowing like a beacon, welcoming us home. Niamh’s rocking chair was empty as we passed her house, but her rock pile was steadily growing. Edgar was nowhere to be seen, and I made a note to find him at his residence, wherever it was, or maybe his labyrinth, just to check in. If I was going to choose this as my new residence, I needed to work harder at establishing the community I so badly desired.

“Well.” Austin stopped next to me on the porch, scanning the grounds. “You made it. No boogeymen.”

“Do you want to have a glass for the road?” I jerked my head at the door. “No foolishness, don’t worry.”

“No.” He traced the doorframe with his gaze. “The house allowed me to hang around earlier. I don’t want to tempt fate.”

“Yes. It did allow you to hang around earlier,” Mr. Tom said, waiting behind us. “Why, I wonder. Now that I am on independent ground, I will say that I was surprised and troubled by that. You overstayed your welcome by some time.”

Austin sighed softly, then took a bottle of wine from the box he carried. He handed it to me. “You’re going to need this. Call me if there are any problems with the hired help.”

He was starting to sound like Niamh. I supposed Mr. Tom could bring that out in people. “Just the one?”

He didn’t grin like I’d expected him to. His face was bathed in shadow, so I couldn’t confirm my hunch that his eyes had turned haunted. “One is plenty for you. I’ll need…significantly more.”

“If you don’t mind me saying so, Austin Steele, with the visitors we had last night, and the ones who are likely to come…keeping a focused mind might be the best thing for you,” Mr. Tom said.

“I do mind you saying so, actually.” He strutted toward Mr. Tom, his shoulders straight and his head held high. Mr. Tom wisely ducked out of the way. “I need a night off.”

“Okay, well…just think about it,” Mr. Tom called after him.

“Who were those people last night?” I opened the door. “And how can this house force people out? I get that it has magic, kinda, but…well, what could it actually do?”

Mr. Tom shrugged. “I don’t know—I’ve never felt it. I’ve always felt welcomed. But I’ve seen plenty of people go running out of here, so there must be some feeling of repulsion. It’s very strange that Austin Steele didn’t feel it—or maybe he did and didn’t want you to see him run like a coward? He’s very guarded about how people perceive him—oh bloody… Hurry, get into the house. That horrible woman is back from the bar. She’ll be all curses and put downs. She really is very trying.”

Once in the house, he took the wine from me and directed me to the kitchen.

“Are you hungry? Do you want dessert?” he asked.

“No, I’m fine.”

He sat me at the small table and poured me a glass of wine before sitting opposite me. “Listen, Miss, Austin Steele is a great man. He has done a lot for this town. He has some very good reasons for wanting to keep the magic confined in Ivy House. But ultimately, he has an agenda. He has created this town as he envisioned it. He is an alpha—he can be very shortsighted when it comes to other people’s visions. Ivy House is speaking to you. The magic is calling you. It would be a travesty to ignore it.”

I stood, suddenly exhausted. “I hear you M—Tom. I understand what you’re saying. I think I’ll just turn in now.”

“Of course. Yes.” He stood and bowed. “It has been a big day. Lots of new ideas.”

I hesitated as I turned to leave. “Who were those people last night? You never said.”

“In Jane terms, those guys worked for one of the major mob bosses. If that boss wants to own this town, there is nothing Austin Steele could do about it.”

I sat at the table in my room not long afterward, letting the sweet air drift in through the windows, and thought about the situation before me. A situation right out of storybooks.

I felt like I was in my own twisted sort of fairy tale, only instead of the handsome prince, I had a geriatric gargoyle. Despite all the messed-up things afoot, I was pretty sure I’d traded up.

I could become magical!

Which was the part my mind really couldn’t compute.

This sort of stuff didn’t happen to me. I’d married young and spent the last twenty years being a wife and mother. My idea of a crazy, reckless adventure had been changing towns without a plan.

I blew out a breath, staring out at the labyrinth, the hedge leaves shining in the moonlight as though they’d just been waxed.

If everything I’d been told today was true, I had to assume everyone had an agenda. Austin had seemed genuinely supportive toward the end, but he’d been drinking. Mr. Tom was right—he had a vision for this town, and he wouldn’t want to see me tarnish it, no matter how much he’d waxed poetic.

That being said, Mr. Tom wasn’t any better. If the magic would act as his fountain of youth, of course he wanted to activate it. Who wouldn’t?

Me.

My heart sank, the sentiments I’d shared with Austin rising to the surface, along with his response.

Stop being ignored. Raise your voice until you are heard. Look however you want—be whoever you want—and demand people pay attention to you.

“That easy, huh?” I whispered.

Magic wouldn’t solve my problems. Even if it was real and this town wasn’t playing an elaborate, special-effects-laden game of “make fun of the tourist,” it wouldn’t make me feel good about being me. It would make me a different me. How could I stand up to people’s prejudices about middle age if I no longer looked middle-aged? Because I knew this was a fight worth having, if not for myself, then for the younger generation.

No matter what happened, I didn’t want to forsake who I’d become or the battle it had taken to get there.

I sat there for a while longer, letting the blissful night wash over me. The last thing Mr. Tom said, right before I’d left the kitchen, rolled through my head and sent nervous shivers racing through me.

If that boss wants to own this town, there is nothing Austin Steele could do to stop it.

Hopefully this was all some elaborate joke, because if Austin couldn’t stop it…someone would have to.

Twenty-Three

I awoke with a jolt, half expecting Mr. Tom to be standing over me like he’d done every other morning. But it wasn’t morning.

Deep night blanketed the windows. The room around me lay quiet, the silence stretching into the rest of the house.

A presence prowled the grounds.

I didn’t know how I knew, I just did. A stranger tread on the property, someone who didn’t belong. Not a kid up to mischief or a drunk night hiker who had taken a wrong turn, either. This intruder had an aura of danger. My absolute conviction sent my heart racing.

I dropped my head to the side where my phone perched in its charging dock. Austin lay through that technological portal, a big bad alpha who liked to secure his territory. He’d made that perfectly clear.