Plus, I finally had King’s attention. Granted, we didn’t spend as much awake time together as I’d hoped to. His resistance to sleepovers was frustrating, but that had made me hyperaware that I needed to be at home sleeping in my bed every night. We didn’t dreamwalk every night, but it was enough that I didn’t want to be caught unaware, having a sleepover with my cousin and maybe doing or saying something in my sleep that would freak him out.
“Yeah, okay. That makes sense. Darn. I have a couple of new jobs coming up, but I promise I’ll clear a couple nights this week so that we can hang.”
He grinned, easily pacified, and my heart hurt a little. That was the thing with my cousin. He might be famous, peoplethrowing themselves at his feet and dying for a sliver of his attention, but he knew that all they wanted was Ego, the popstar. Not the real him.
Not the man whose inner-child still wanted to know why his family hadn’t wanted him. Hadn’t treated him with loving kindness. But he did have me, and I needed to do a better job of showing him that he had every right to want more of my time—that I wanted to give it to him—since we really didn’t get much.
Skipping back, I pulled him into a tight hug. “I love you, cuz.”
He squeezed the stuffing out of me, laughing. “Love you more.”
We slapped each other’s backs, and I left. As I pulled the massively heavy stone door closed behind me, I saw him standing right where I left him, staring at the floor, looking lost and lonely.
Drat.It wasn’t like I could ask him to go with me. What if the ladies wanted to discuss magic? Ego didn’t know anything about any of those things. I needed to speak with Chance. Maybe we could at least say the place was haunted without giving away that Chance was a psychic medium or that ghosts were part of our found family.
My frustrationsover my cousin faded away as soon as I saw Elyse helping Gran out of her car. Parking quickly, I jumped out and ran over to help.
“Sky,” Gran said happily.
“Hi.” I kissed her wrinkly cheek, then turned to Elyse—who thankfully looked way less annoyed at me—and kissed her cheek as well. “What’s the occasion?”
“We need to discuss your training,” Gran said. Her gaze slid past me, and a bigger grin broke out. “Oh, good. He got away.”
Chance waved as he pulled past us to park. “I didn’t know Chance was coming, too,” I said, excited my bestie was joining us, but also wondering if I should’ve texted them back and asked if Ego could come with me. If this was just a friendly get-together, there was no reason my cousin couldn’t have come.
Elyse smiled at her son as he hustled over. “I’m guessing Scotty convinced you to let him handle the guests.”
He nodded. “Between him and Harry, there was no way they were letting me stay.”
Gran huffed and patted his cheek. “Harry knows. We need to find you a couple of more workers, I think. Ones who know about the supernatural. You’re actually all going to be much too busy to run the everyday operations of the B&B yourselves.”
She turned, leaning on Elyse’s arm, and walked toward the sidewalk. Chance and I exchanged confused glances, and even Elyse looked back with an arched eyebrow that clearly said,what the fudge? I mean, seriously, what else did Scotty have to do? He didn’t have any gifts that we knew of.
All thoughts of her ominous statement were pushed to the back of my mind by the sheer hilarity of Cassi’s face as Gran stepped through the door into Witch’s Brew. Cassi was usually the grounded, stable one to Carli’s flighty giddiness.
The sheer disbelief on Cassi’s face turned to pure joy as she rushed around from the back of the counter and stopped before Gran. “High Priestess.” She bowed her head.
With a low cackle, she tilted Cassi’s face up, then clasped their hands together. “Cassi Hart. Child, I’m so happy to meet you. It felt like you and your bride would never get here.”
Carli, who’d been coming around the counter, stopped with widened eyes. “You know who we are?”
At this, Elyse’s tinkling laughter rang through the coffee shop. “Considering she’s stronger than me, she must since I knew exactly who you were the second you stepped into town.”
Gran gave Elyse a smug look over her shoulder. “Oh, honey. Stronger is relative.”
Elyse startled at that. As the four women got better acquainted, Chance whispered to me, “Do you feel like we’re missing things?”
“All the things,” I said back in just as low a voice. “I’m not sure we’ve even scratched the surface.”
“You haven’t,” Carli said in a booming voice so unlike her normally sweet soprano. Her eyes darkened to black pinpoints with a silver ring around them and rolled back. “You have enjoyed your time here in Willowhope. Seen things and learned things you never expected to know. But the time for crawling is over.
“You were brought together for such a time as this. Picked since the creation of time to go further than your predecessors. They have carried the burdens, but now you must begin. Take your places, Chance Chancellor and Skylar Reign. Be who you were created to be.”
As her booming words faded, Cassi caught her wife as she slumped into her arms, lowering her gingerly into the chair behind her.
“Um.” I glanced at Elyse and Gran, who both appeared completely unsurprised by Carli’s proclamation. No…not Carli’s, but someone else.
“Can someone please flip the sign on the door to closed and turn the lock?” Cassi asked while tenderly wiping her wife’s damp hair off her forehead.
