Once we were settled in the living room, surrounded by old, hand-stitched blankets and warm lamps, the interrogation began. Skye clutched at my hand as Aradia and Ezrand asked him questions, trying to decipher if he truly was a good werewolf, or if it was a ploy of the sort that I’d imagined when we’d first met. For his part, Skye’s leg jiggled erratically against the sofa cushions, and he twisted a stray length of his hair around his index finger until the tip went purple. He struggled to meet their eyes, but he held his head up bravely whenever they spoke directly to him. Aradia leant forward in her high-backed armchair, pressing her elbows into the arched wooden armrests and resting her chin on her folded hands. “What is the intention of the Wind Valley pack?” Skye shifted uncomfortably beside me. “To protect the humans in Hawthorn from supernatural threats. Werewolves are drawn to

Entering my room with Skye by my side felt strangely intimate, although it wasn’t the first time he’d seen it. It was as though I’d been stripped bare tonight, and he was seeing me with fresh eyes. Every brushing touch sent shudders rippling through me, and I longed to slide under the duvet with him, to be shrouded in his warmth as we fell asleep together. “I guess we don’t need this anymore,” I grinned, nodding at the spell bag on my bedside table. “It’s all out in the open, now.” “It’s a nice feeling, isn’t it?” Skye smiled back, but it didn’t reach his eyes. I watched him worriedly as he toyed with his fingers, standing uncomfortably in the centre of the room. “It is,” I hummed, kicking off my boots. “But – are you okay?” “Yeah,” he croaked, and then, to my great dismay, a

“I can’t believe it,” I hissed at Rowan.  She shrugged her shoulders at me. “Me neither.” Molly glared at us. She was fat, her heart shaped face framed neatly by her shoulder-length blonde hair. Her rosebud lips curled into a scowl as I opened my mouth, and immediately shut it again. “Sorry, I didn’t realise our meeting was interrupting,” she snapped. “Anything you’d like to share with the group?” Rowan rolled her eyes. “No, Mols. Sorry.” I hadn’t realised how seriously a group of high school students would take planning a Halloween maze. We were in one of the spare classrooms at the far end of the campus, and it smelt like dust and damp mould. I’d spent the majority of the meeting wrinkling my nose at it, as had Kathrena and Skye, too. For her part, Rowan seemed blissfully unaware of the stench, but she wa

“But a demon wouldn’t do something like this, would it?” Rowan whispered. “It’s too – too thought out, too calculated.” “This raven might just be road kill. It might not be connected to the feather…” I said, though I trailed off, uncertainty gnawing at me. I’d never seen a bird get hit by a car before.  “Or maybe you were right earlier, El, and it’s the outcome of another signalling spell,” Kathrena suggested, though she didn’t sound too convinced, either. “We should just go. Right?” I said, looking around desperately. The poor bird was clearly dead – its glassy eye had been staring at us for minutes now, and it hadn’t blinked or so much as twitched a feather  “I guess so,” Skye mumbled, his hand snaking its way into mine. “It feels wrong to just leave it ther

It was only after we’d left that I realised I had, yet again, forgotten to ask either Herb or Grandma Rosie for more information about the fox. I supposed that, for now, it wasn’t high on our list of priorities.  The sense of foreboding was less heavy in the air as we crossed the herb garden, picking our way quickly through the dark. The little solar lamps glowed like moonshine amongst the bushes, but they did little to light our path. Not that any of us needed the light to see – it was a comfort more than a tool of use. Once we were securely seated and belted in to my truck, Skye – from his position in the driver’s seat – gave me a gentle nudge. “Earlier,” he said, “you mentioned that creepy old poem. I don’t know what it means – I’ve never read the whole thing, I just recognised that one line.” “What poem?” Kathrena asked.