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“Well,” I said, “we should start the spell, shouldn’t we?”

Before beginning the ritual, I remembered to remove Yves’s summoning coin from my pocket. I turned it over, admiring the lily and thinking of him.

The coin had become more than a means of summoning him. It felt like a talisman. I had thrown it into the harbor because accepting it meant admitting that I might need Yves. Della had nearly drowned bringing it back. Now it represented our newfound trust.

I placed it on Adrien’s desk beside his telescope. As soon as I did, Della landed on the desk and began hopping in a circle around the coin. “Another round! Another round!”

My cheeks flushed with heat, and I gave her a scathing look. “Not funny.”

“What does that mean?” Adrien inquired.

I had no intention of explaining “another round” to Yves’s eight-year-old son.

“Della is always repeating things she hears. Especially when she can see it annoys me.”

My familiar tapped the lily on the coin with her beak as if to prove my point.

“It’s staying right here, where it’s safe,” I told her.

“Now,” I said, talking over her continued tapping, “before we draw the larger ward, the first step is to place protection runes on every entry point.” I lifted the grimoire and showed him the symbol. “You see how the symbol faces out?” I asked.

The vampire nodded.

“Good, because the direction is important. This placement ensures the ward repels unwelcome guests. If the symbols were reversed and faced inward, they would trap something inside. I want you to draw this exact symbol on every doorway, above every window, even over the fireplace.”

While Adrien set to work, I pushed all his furniture back against the wall. He called me over when he finished, and I double-checked each of the markings to make certain they had been drawn properly. Satisfied with his work, I asked him to help me pull his rug away. The heavy carpet resisted us at first, and we quickly realized that several old carpet tacks were still holding it in place. We gave it another tug, and the tacks came loose, bouncing across the floorboards.

I gathered every one I could find into a shallow dish and placed it on the desk beside my familiar, who was bobbing her head up and down and pacing back and forth in front of the coin.

“What’s got you so worked up?” I asked. “It’s just a warding spell.”

I followed her attention to the lead box, but there was no suggestion that anything was amiss.

“Everything is sealed,” I reassured her. The ward was exactly as I had left it.

Shaking my head, I went back to work, using coarse sea salt to create a circle around the room. “Salt of this sea, remember your shore. Know what belongs within this line and what should remain beyond it. Let those who are welcome pass. Turn malice back the way it came.”

From the circle, I extended lines toward the doors, windows, fireplace, and balcony, ending each one with an outward-facing sigil. Once the design was complete, I placed a beeswax candle at every entrance and lit them one by one.

“I light this candle so no shadow can be concealed.”

Adrien leaned over one of the patterns and said, “This almost looks like a constellation.”

I stepped back and glanced at the shape, but I clearly didn’t see what he was seeing.

“I can show you. Don’t move!” he exclaimed.

Before I could ask why, he had grabbed a rolled star chart from the shelf above his desk and turned it until the constellation was facing the same direction as the ward.

“That’s Diana’s Belt. Look how the stars are in the same position as your sigil.” Adrien pointed to two stars. “This is Maris, and this one is Rosa.”

I looked back at the ward, then back at the star chart. The lost little goddess was following me again. The same goddess Yves was sure had chosen me for him. Now his son was telling me her star was hiding inside a ward my grandmother had taught me.

That made little sense, though. Witches of the Darkness did not concern themselves with Diana’s stars or Yves’s missing goddess. We had our own god, our own magick, and more than enough trouble without inviting someone else’s magick into it.

Still, I couldn’t help but wonder whether Yves had not just invented a connection because he wanted it to be true. The possibility made something warm twist beneath my ribs.

“I think that’s an interesting coincidence,” I told Adrien.