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“Some witches can summon portals.” I hesitated. “It’s not exactly my strong suit. I only know how to travel through established ones.”
He fought a grin. “Is it really that painful? To admit you don’t know how to do something?”
“Yes,” I said quietly.
He chuckled, and I lightly swatted his arm. He held up his hands in a ‘don’t shoot’ gesture. “I’m sorry! It’s just funny. You can literally create tornados and dancing shadows with magic, but you still think you have something to prove to me. You don’t.”
I was so busy staring into his earnest gaze, I nearly tripped.
I never tripped.
I cleared my throat and continued. “I could use astral projection, but I want an inside look on what’s going on with the wolves. We’re usually allies, yet they’ve rejected our requests for in-person strategy meetings since the first witch went missing. Something is amiss.”
He pondered my words, and we walked in companionable silence for a few minutes. Though I wasn’t known for my patience, I appreciated these quiet moments. It was rare to come across someone who truly thought before they spoke.
“You think they’re behind the dead witches?” he finally asked.
“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. “I hope not.”
I thought of Ryder. Surely, he wasn’t angry enough over our ended dalliance to let such a thing happen without telling me. Wolves could be possessive creatures, which was exactly why we’d ended our relationship, but Ryder hadn’t cared that deeply. We’d even remained friends these past months, up until the witches disappeared.
If the werewolves were behind the deaths, we’d have very little help fighting them. I pulled my head away from my worries—there would be plenty of time for them after we discovered just how screwed we were.
“So,” Walker drawled and pushed a branch aside. “Josephine said something about being old enough to remember my family when they were still hunters. I hope it’s not rude to ask, but what’s a witch’s life span?”
“Recently?” I said. “Not terribly long.”
He grimaced, and I laughed brittlely.
“That was a shitty joke,” I admitted, “but to answer your question, anywhere from six hundred to a thousand years. Our connection with magic grants us longer lives than humans.”
“How.” He cleared his throat. “How old are you?”
I chuckled. “I’m eighteen, Walker. Just a hair younger than you. We went to school together, remember?”
He sighed with visible relief. A flush crept up his neck.
“What is so embarrassing?” I asked.
“Oh nothing,” he said and adjusted his hat. “If you were seventy or something, I was just gonna tell you, you look great for your age.”
Unexpected laughter burst out of me. It felt so nice, it dawned on me that it’d been a while since I was genuinely amused.
Walker was more comfortable traipsing over fallen limbs and swatting away branches than I thought he would be. He was more comfortable in nature than some witches. He lifted a stick to swat away a huge spider web in his path.
I spoke too soon.
“Wait!” I yelled.
He paused and raised an eyebrow at me.
“You wouldn’t want someone to destroy your home,” I pointed out, “especially a home so beautiful.”
I studied the delicate network of the web. Sunlight reflected off it with a gentle sheen. On the bottom corner of the web, minding her own business, was the home’s creator. A sac clung to the wolf spider’s body.
“She’s a mother,” I noted, “and she’s not even poisonous. We can walk around her.”
Walker’s jaw went a little slack at my display, but I ignored him. After a few heartbeats, he fell into step behind me.
