I looked down at the bundle of glass. “I’m going to find who made you.”

First things first—I needed one of Liora’s books. She’d given me several when I’d left, along with some of her most valuable supplies, and they were my prized possession. They made me one of the best potion masters in the world, and that had changed my life. It had given me the freedom I needed to keep living in the city I loved.

I set to work gathering ingredients and lighting a tiny magical fire under a little silver cauldron. This was precision work, not quantity work.

My mind went blessedly blank as I began to measure out the ingredients into the little pot. When it was all bubbling and fragrant, I picked up one of the broken pieces of glass and made sure it had an oily sheen on the inside.

“You’re mine, you bastard.” I dropped it into the potion and grabbed the book, waiting for the liquid to start smoking. Within a minute, a sparkling green mist unfurled from the top of the liquid. It shimmered with an almost oily texture. Quickly, I flipped through the book, which was indexed by smoke color, and finally found a match.

“The Ageratina potion?”

“The Agerawhat?” My friend Mac’s voice sounded from the door, and I jerked my head out of the book.

MacBeth O’Connell stood in the doorway, her jeans ragged at the knees and tucked into black leather motorcycle boots. She wore a plaid shirt open to reveal a tank top, while her short blond hair was messy around her head. She was tall and slender, and as usual, looked like a female hipster lumberjack. A hot one.

It was a weird look, but it worked on her.

“Mac. What’s up?” My heartbeat thundered in my ears. I wanted to see her—I loved Mac—but I was right in the middle of my own personal secret hellscape.

“Not much. I think I should be asking you that.” She pointed to the smoke. “What’s going on there?”

My mind spun. What the hell to tell her?

Part of me wanted to confess. Desperately.

I played with my necklace, a horrible nervous tic whenever I thought about my lies.

She would keep my secret. I loved Mac, and she loved me. But I’d never told her, and now it had been years. At first, I hadn’t trusted anyone. I’d been on the run for so long that I didn’t know how. And now the secret had slipped out of control.

I reached for a partially unwrapped chocolate bar that sat on the counter between a few bottles of potions and chewed, not caring that it had been sitting open for weeks, most likely.

“Stress chocolate?” Mac asked. “What’s wrong?” She walked forward, frowning at my neck. “What the heck is that?”

I touched it, chewing frantically and debating another bite. “Um…it’s a collar.”

“What kind?” Her tone was wary as she stopped in front of me and held her hand in front of my neck. “I can feel the magic inside.”

“Yeah. About that…” I hesitated for half a second, then let it all spill out. Not my past or my true species, but the murder and everything. The Alpha. The deadline to prove my innocence.

When I was done, she rocked back on her heels, her face pale. “So the shifters want you for murder.”

I nodded. “It’s bad.”

“Really bad. They’re a law unto themselves. The Council of Guilds can’t step in and make sure that they follow the rules. No one can touch them.”

“I know.” I shivered.

“Don’t worry. We’ll get you out of this.”

“It’s too risky for you to get involved.”

“What the hell else are we supposed to do? We’re not going to sit around and let you go down for this.”

My heart seemed to swell inside my chest. “You guys are the best.”

“Well, I won’t disagree there.” She looked at the green smoke that still spilled out of the cauldron. “Are you working on solving the mystery now?”

I nodded. “That’s the Ageratina potion. It was used to kill Danny.”

“And now you want to find who made it and get them to tell you who they sold it to.”

“Man, you’re good at this.”

“I am a seer, you know.” She grinned. “Also, it was obvious.”

“I may need help finding the potion maker.” I dug into my pocket and pulled out my mobile. “It’s a difficult potion to make, but I think there are at least a few people capable. I’m going to text a friend who might know.”

Quickly, I typed out a message to Liora, hit send, then looked up at Mac.

“Why were you at Pandemonium?” she asked. “I’ve never known you to want to hit up a fight club.”

I said the first thing that came to mind. “A date.”

Her eyebrows rose. “You’re having me on. You haven’t gone on a date in years.”

I was an idiot to think she’d believe me. “Yeah, well. It was time. But I never met him. Danny was murdered before it happened.”

“Uh-huh.” She nodded, clearly suspicious.

“Think what you like. By the way, have you seen a raccoon besides Cordelia hanging around?” I wanted to know, but I also wanted to distract her.

“No. They shouldn’t even live in England. Now we’ve got two?”

“Yeah. I think Cordelia might have a boyfriend. He keeps stealing my sweets. I’ve even left food out for him but he ignores it and goes straight for my stash.”

“Little bastard.”

“My thoughts exactly.” On the table, my mobile buzzed. I grabbed it and looked at the screen. “It’s my friend.”

Liora had written a list of four names, but she didn’t know where any of them lived.

Shit.

That would take a while to track down. And four was a lot. I looked up at Mac. “We need to narrow this down further. Can you try?”

“I can try, but no promises. You know I’m better at reading people.”

“I just need to know who made it.”

She nodded and held out a hand. I gave her a piece of the broken glass, and she closed her eyes, focusing. Her magic flared on the air, bringing with it the scent of a misty morning by a river. A moment later, she opened her eyes. “I’m getting nothing. We need to try Carrow.”

I nodded. Our friend wasn’t a seer, exactly, but she did have a skill for picking up images from objects. She’d turned the skill into a career as a magical PI of sorts, and it would be good to have her input on this, anyway. “Where is she?”

“The Haunted Hound. Quinn is working, and she had something to drop off with him.”

The Haunted Hound was the pub where Mac and our friend Quinn worked. It was also one of the portals to human London.

“I’ve just got to do one thing.” I went to the side table where I kept my premade stash of potion vials and refilled my cuff with a bit of everything I might need. “Right, done. Let’s go.” I grabbed my jacket and shrugged into it, then stuck my mobile in my pocket and picked up one of the shards of glass, wrapping it carefully in a piece of kitchen roll. The rest I left behind, knowing they would be safe here.

Together, Mac and I cut through town to reach the gate that led to the Haunted Hound. There were several gates that led in and out of Guild City, each one enchanted to carry us out of our protected magical zone and into regular London.