Wide-eyed, Anna looked at the boxes and bag. “That’s a lot of grimoires, right? They have to be handwritten?”

Charles shut the back of the Suburban. “It’s the largest collection I’ve run across in one place.” He glanced over at the storage facility. “They have a presence all by themselves.” And that would explain the heavy feeling in Anna’s chest as soon as she had approached. “Carrie had spelled the locker, or someone—or something—would have come looking for them.”

Anna got into the SUV. “What are we going to do with them?”

“Make my da happy, I’d guess,” said Charles. “Though between this and the fae artifacts we’ve been acquiring, Da is going to have to come up with an alternative storage plan. Eventually we’re going to run into some things that shouldn’t be stored together.”

In her rearview mirror, Tag soundlessly mouthed Boom and made exploding signs with his hands.

Out loud he suggested, “Maybe we should turn the fae artifacts over to the fae.”

Charles looked at him.

Tag raised both hands and said, “It was just a suggestion.”

“What did you learn?” Charles asked Anna.

She shook her head. “Nothing useful, except that I won’t ever be able to think about the people of Wild Sign as anonymous dead people anymore. Zander is observant and a good storyteller, but he’s not a witch. He didn’t notice anything odd.”

“We should find a place to spend the night,” Charles said. “We could stop here and get going early tomorrow. Or we can drive back to Yreka and stay there.”

“I saw a place as we were coming into town. On the river,” Anna said, suddenly exhausted and ready to be done for the day, even though it was only midafternoon.

“I saw it,” said Charles. “That sounds good. Tag?”

“Don’t care,” he said. “Find me a bed and I’ll sleep in it. Otherwise, I’ll sleep on the floor. As long as you ward those books. If you don’t, I’m through sleeping until this trip is over. My hands are still tingling and I don’t think a shower is going to clean me up.” He looked at Anna, meeting her eyes briefly in the rearview mirror. “The Klamath might just do it, though. Let’s stay on the river.”

Anna was suddenly parked in front of a building bearing a sign that read Resort. The engine was running and both of her hands were on the wheel, but she didn’t remember getting here. It was just like the sudden dislocation from Chicago to the Wild Sign amphitheater, but instead of losing years, she’d just lost a few minutes. She hoped.

“Anna?” Charles asked, but not like he was worried.

She shook her head. “Just thinking.”

“Tag,” Charles said, opening his door, “why don’t you stay here and keep an eye on those grimoires. Anna and I will book the rooms.”

Yes, she thought with relief, only a few minutes—ten or fifteen at the most. Not enough to worry Charles with.

They took three rooms. One for Charles and Anna, one for Tag, and a third for the grimoires, which Charles deemed too dangerous to leave in the car.

“What ought to happen with them is burning,” Charles said as they carried them in. “But that brings its own set of dangers.”

Even Anna—who, like Zander, had not been witchborn—felt as if there was something crawling up her arms as she took the bag in. It was uncomfortable enough to distract her from what had happened driving here. What she carried was a lot scarier than her little memory lapse. She was careful to keep the bag from brushing against her leg.

“Is keeping them here going to cause problems for people trying to sleep here after we’re gone?” she asked, putting the bag in the middle of the floor, where Charles directed.

“Not if I do my job,” he said absently, seeing something that she could not.

“Do we make your job easier or harder?” she asked.

“Harder,” he said.

She brushed a kiss on his shoulder—but didn’t touch him with the hand that had held the bag. “I’ll go take a shower, then.”

* * *

*

RENDERING THE BOOKS harmless took longer than he’d expected. They had been ignored for a long time, and they did not want to be hidden again. He would suggest burning to his da. Strongly.

Anna had not been wrong. Someone sensitive might have trouble sleeping in this room if they left the books here very long. But a few days should be fine. He’d smudge the room afterward and that should take care of any permanent trouble the grimoires might try to cause.

Anna wasn’t in their room, though she’d obviously showered. He wondered what she felt she had to clean off. She didn’t usually shower twice a day. The room was steamy and smelled like the things she used in the shower: body wash, shampoo, and conditioner. He took in the scent and . . . Brother Wolf stirred uneasily.

Charles wasn’t going to give in to that. He pulled off the shirt Anna had gotten for him and exchanged it for a red T-shirt. If Tag threw him in the river, he didn’t want to tear up his good shirt.

But when he took the path to the river, he found Anna alone. She was sitting on a big rock, facing the river, her arms slung around one of her legs that she’d pulled up to her chest. Like Charles, she had discarded her good clothes and now wore jeans and a black tank top.

“Hey,” he said to her, because she hadn’t turned around when he’d come up to her. The river was loud and the wind blew in his face, but she still should have heard him.

She turned to look at him—and for a moment he would have sworn she didn’t know him. Then her smile filled her face and her eyes came alive. “Sorry,” she said. “I was just trying to remember a song.”

CHAPTER

8

Anna still hadn’t talked to Charles about the weird glitch in her memory by the time they were getting ready to head out for Angel Hills Assisted Living.

After a good night’s sleep, she’d begun to think that she’d made a mountain out of a molehill. Nothing bad had happened. It hadn’t felt like an attack—not like when something had been looking for a way into her head after they’d gotten back from Wild Sign. Maybe it had just been a leftover from her experiences with the Singer in the Woods, a hiccup.

As she got dressed for the day, she decided she’d talk to Charles if she experienced something like that again.

Charles came back into the room after his shower and said, “I think we should keep the rooms here at the hotel until we set out for home so we can leave the grimoires in their room.”

Anna had noticed that he tended to speak about the books as if they were alive, which she found disturbing. She couldn’t see Charles doing that by accident. She wasn’t excited about driving all over Northern California dragging the books around with them like bait for any magically inclined whatsit who happened by.

Still, there were problems with leaving them in the room while they ran around looking for clues. Doubtless Charles knew all of the pros and cons, but she couldn’t help worrying.

“You want to leave them locked in a room that every maid and manager can just waltz into while we’re gone?”

Charles nodded. “That’s a consideration, but they seem a little understaffed here.”

Anna had gone back to the front desk for more towels the night before, because the only person on duty was the teenager at the front desk.

“A ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign should keep their overworked staff out while we’re gone. And if they go in, all they will see is a box and a bag of old books. The warding should be enough to keep anyone from accidentally getting into trouble—and if someone tries to get to them through my wards on purpose . . .” Brother Wolf grinned eagerly. “We’ll have a nice hunt.” Charles dimmed the grin down a bit. “I think it’s unlikely—given that they sat undisturbed in a storage locker for half a year.” He frowned at the wall between their room and the grimoires’. “It’s not ideal, but it’s the best of bad options.”

They left the books behind a door protected by the Do Not Disturb sign and a hotel lock anyone who worked at the hotel could open. None of them were happy about that except for Tag, who was visibly more cheerful the more distance they put between them and the books.

Anna, who had been watching for it, noticed that the old gas station was deserted except for the decrepit Subaru.

Charles must have seen her look, because he said, “It’s early for businesses to be open.”

“I was just surprised it didn’t disappear after we left it,” she informed him. “Like any self-respecting Sasquatch dwelling would.”

“They aren’t the fae,” Tag observed from his sprawled position in the backseat. “It’s too much work. They have to be really trying to impress you to do something like that.”

Something in his voice made Anna suspect that he had been wondering if it would be gone, too.

* * *

*

THEY ATE BREAKFAST in Yreka, then set out for Angel Hills Assisted Living, following the SUV’s GPS.