“It wasn’t believable,” Sissy said soggily.

“I should have believed you anyway,” Tanya told her. “And I read that letter, too. I could have made some connections.”

“It’s still weird witch shit,” Sissy told her. “I promised to keep it to a minimum. I broke my promise.”

“That was just a joke,” Tanya told her. She looked up at Anna. “She’s been having nightmares. Ever since she hiked to Wild Sign. That’s why I came down to stay with her.” She shook her head. “Rosemary’s Baby, huh?”

“You aren’t leaving me?” said Sissy—and Anna was pretty sure the reserved woman was going to writhe later when she remembered that Anna had been in the room for that. Or maybe not.

“If you don’t cheat on me, don’t lie to me, you aren’t ever getting rid of me,” Tanya vowed. It had the sound of a well-used phrase.

Sissy stepped back and let out a sound that might have been a laugh if there had been any happy in it. “So a complete stranger comes over and tells you that Satan raped me—and suddenly you believe her?” Her voice was a little caustic.

“Not Satan,” Anna said, though she didn’t think either of them was listening to her. “This is going to take a while. You really should sit down.”

She went to the table and got a chair. By the time she brought it back, the other two women had taken a seat on the narrow couch.

Tanya frowned at Anna. “I wish you’d dropped in to tell me this last night before I did my best to blow my marriage out of the water.”

“Sorry,” said Anna. “We only just worked it out ourselves this morning. And if Tag hadn’t figured out that Sissy was pregnant, I wouldn’t be here now.”

“Tag?” Dr. Connors asked, frowning.

“Henchman,” Anna reminded her. “The huge guy with the orange hair. He has a better nose than most of us do when we are running around looking human. He didn’t think anything of it—we’re used to getting all sorts of irrelevant but private information from our noses. It’s rude to use it against people who aren’t actively hostile.”

Sissy gave a jerky nod—then her eyes widened and she bolted back up the stairs. Anna could hear her throwing up.

“Is she safe?” Tanya asked urgently, while her wife couldn’t hear the question or its answer.

“Yes,” Anna told her. Leah had had a child and survived, after all. And they were pretty sure that Mercy’s conception was similar to what the Singer was trying to do with Sissy and the witches. Mercy’s mother was still alive. But all they really had were educated guesses, and Anna didn’t know what the Singer planned on doing with the mothers of its children. And “safe” meant more than survival.

She tempered her initial answer. “I think so, anyway. We’ll try to find out—we are still learning about this creature, too. But I think anything else I have to say should wait until Sissy is able to listen.”

“While we are waiting for her to revisit her breakfast and lunch—and possibly anything she has eaten this year—there’s something you should have.” Tanya got up and went to the little kitchen, coming back with a couple of sheets of lined paper filled with graceful, rounded letters.

“Sissy’s brother had the code key,” Tanya said. “She translated it last night. I’m not sure I’d have believed you about”—she nodded upward to indicate Sissy, her eyes worried—“if I hadn’t read this letter first.”

* * *

*

THE FEEL OF Carrie Green’s spell casting and the weight of the grimoires had dissipated from the storage unit when Charles and Tag opened it again.

Charles nodded at Tag’s raised eyebrows.

The whole unit was ten by thirty, a little larger than a single-car garage. Originally it had been packed in a dense but tidy fashion.

“What a mess,” said Tag, looking at the room that had been a miracle of organization before the two of them had happened to it yesterday.

They had not worried about being either tidy or organized when they had moved boxes, furniture, and bins until they’d gotten to the grimoires yesterday. Then, wanting to get the books somewhere safe, they’d shoved everything back in with more haste than order. There was a pile of loose stuff, towels and clothing mostly, near the door where they had emptied boxes and bags to carry the grimoires in.

“How do you want to do this?” Tag asked.

“Can you find magic that a witch has tried to hide?” Charles asked. He had hunted with Tag before—Tag was very nearly the best tracker in the pack. But Charles hadn’t had the opportunity to look for magic with him. Da didn’t let Tag off pack land very often. And very few witches made it onto pack land.

Tag smiled. “My specialty.” He tapped his nose. “What are we looking for?”

“I can make guesses about spellcrafted things, but I’m not a trained witch,” Charles said. “I don’t want to leave anything that could hurt someone.”

“I can’t tell anything other than it’s been witched,” Tag agreed. “So we need to take anything with a hint of magic and sort it out later.” He looked into the depths of the unit and said, “At least she was a white witch—we aren’t likely to run into anything too awful.”

Charles couldn’t help giving him an ironic look.

Tag shrugged. “Had enough horrible for seven lifetimes,” he said. “I don’t like adding anything to it unless I have to.”

They worked in silence. Tag wasn’t naturally quiet, but he was a little afraid of him, Charles knew. That was all right. His reputation, even among his own pack, was another weapon that Charles could use. And Tag was not wrong to be afraid.

Charles had paid for the entire contents of the storage locker, but he had told the manager that once they had gone through everything for what they wanted, he was welcome to sell the remainder. Charles had thought at first that they had been lucky, given that the check was six months old, that the manager hadn’t already garage-saled or auctioned off the contents.

Then he’d shown them the locker. The manager hadn’t even been able to get his hand near the lock. Charles had managed it, using the manager’s key. Charles sent the unhappy manager, who had hoped to get a look at the contents of the unit, back to his offices before dealing with Carrie’s spells so they could open the door safely. Working with her magic, and seeing how she’d dealt with Daniel Erasmus, had made Charles move from respect for her to outright liking.

Going through the unit now—without the driving need to pin down the grimoires—only reinforced his opinion. He didn’t know if he’d have liked her if he’d met her in person—he liked very few people.

But her magic reminded him of the computer code written back in the early days, when memory space was at a premium. Programmers back then created elegant script without a wasted symbol to complete the necessary task. Carrie hadn’t had a lot of power, but she’d made good use of what she did have.

Not that he knew how witchcraft worked—he wasn’t a witch by anything except raw ability. His father had offered to teach him once, but that offer had been full of such . . . horrific hidden emotions that even as a child he had known to refuse. He couldn’t have reproduced Carrie Green’s work, but he could feel its delicacy.

“Here,” called Tag.

Charles found him crouched over a plastic bin filled with smaller boxes. He held one of the boxes in his hand and offered it to Charles.

The box was lined with silk and filled with dozens of charms. Handmade bracelets and necklaces crafted from inexpensive wooden beads. Each one marked with a paper tag that read Health and $15.

Together he and Tag sorted through the boxes of charms. Health, Joy, and Luck accounted for all but two of the boxes. One of those boxes held a single necklace, a jade bead strung on a silver chain. Protection from Evil had a price tag of two thousand dollars. And unlike the smaller charms, this one held real power. Made, he thought, after Carrie had been given more power by the Singer. He couldn’t be sure that it was labeled correctly, but her magic had an honest feel about it. He supposed that this necklace was imbued with the same magic as whatever she’d had that kept her grandfather from torturing her for her power. It wasn’t that one—Underwood had said it had been made with moonstone, and this necklace felt unused.

The final box held a bone shard strung on leather. Its label read Death. There was no price. He thought at first it was a murder weapon. But there was no feeling of darkness to the magic.

“Don’t touch that,” said Tag. “It’s a cyanide pill.”

“She didn’t wear it,” murmured Charles. “Unless she made a second one.”

“It’s not the kind of thing you’d make two of,” Tag said. “One is useful, but you can’t commit suicide twice. She left it here in the end. I hope she didn’t regret that.”

“I thought you said you could detect witchcraft, but you didn’t know anything about it?” Charles asked.