Jane walked all the way to Lenox Hill Hospital on 77th, focusing intently on the steady rhythm of her heels to keep herself grounded. She kept rubbing at the empty place on her ring finger; only the beveled edge of her grandmother’s ring kept the feelings of loss and betrayal at bay.

She couldn’t afford to think about Malcolm. If she thought too much about the last two months, she was afraid that she would fall completely to pieces over her sham of a relationship. And there were far too many things to consider right now to let that happen.

Like the fact that Lynne was a witch—a very evil one. Unlike Jane, who messed up lights when she was upset, Lynne tried to kill girls who pissed her off. The power disparity was too glaring to ignore. Lynne had probably passed the flickering-lightbulb stage before she’d hit puberty. Whereas Jane had only been aware of her power for a month, and she’d spent the bulk of that time trying to ignore it in the hope that it would go away.

She laughed wryly to herself. She’d played at being normal, hiding her magic away, worrying that it would cost her her new family. And it turned out that her magic was the only thing that had won her that family in the first place. Her fairy-tale romance with a modern-day prince had been just that: a fiction. She’d been nothing more than a puppet, with the wicked witch of the Upper East Side pulling all the strings.

“Magic can be passed on, but it can also be stolen,” Malcolm had told her. Gran had willingly bequeathed her magic to Jane almost six years before she died, and Jane suspected that the “stealing” option was usually a little more fatal, probably involving that “last breath” Rosalie Goddard had mentioned. And, if the overwhelming and uncontrollable rush of magic in the days that had followed Jane’s acceptance of the ring was any indication, then she had an awful lot of power to steal. She was a walking target for power-hungry witches, and until tonight she had foolishly assumed that no one would notice.

She could never go back to the mansion, obviously, but she didn’t know whom to turn to, whom to trust. Gran hadn’t left any clues about that.

Jane reached the hospital at last and stepped into the brightly lit waiting room of the ER. Her eyes locked on Harris immediately, his lean face drawn and pale. He looked as though he was sorely tempted to hit her. “Get out,” he growled.

Jane stepped forward and placed a tentative hand on his crisp white sleeve. When he tried to shrug her off, she could tell by the set of his shoulders that he was close to crying.

“I only found out tonight,” Jane whispered, feeling him go rigid at the words. “I know what she did, and I’m done. With all of them.”

Harris’s eyes went wide and round, as his sister’s always did, and he started to step around Jane. She followed his gaze over her shoulder, noticing an older man wearing surgical scrubs waving him over.

“Mr. Montague,” the doctor said in a reedy voice. “Your sister’s going to be just fine. We have her resting in the ICU for now, but her vitals are steady, and there’s no reason she can’t be moved out of intensive care in a couple of days.”

Jane’s breath rushed out of her all at once, and there was no time to recover it before Harris pulled her close and crushed her against his ribs in a wild bear-hug.

“You’ll be able to see her in a few hours, but I should warn you that her injuries are extensive. I’m sure you’re excited, but try to keep things calm and let her rest,” the doctor finished.

“We promise,” Harris said solemnly into Jane’s hair. “Thank you.”

“She’s okay,” Jane breathed in disbelief, trying to get the information through to her brain.

“Thank God,” Harris said, letting her go and sitting heavily in one of the sturdy waiting-room chairs. Jane followed suit in the seat beside him. They sat silently while the clock overhead clicked away a few hundred seconds.

“You must be freezing,” Harris declared after a while, and Jane jumped a little. She glanced down at her strappy heels, her toes an icy blue beneath her pedicure. Had tonight really started with a party?

“I’m okay.” It was true: she was far too wrapped up in her thoughts to feel any physical discomfort.

“Don’t be ridiculous.” He pulled her to her feet. “You need to warm up. We need coffee. And privacy. Now.”

Oh, right. I may have admitted to knowing that magic was real, a few minutes back. Jane trailed obediently after Harris down the antiseptic hallways. It was her first time in an American hospital, and it was much more sterile and anonymous than the cramped clinic Gran had taken Jane to when she had broken her arm climbing a tree in their backyard.

After a few twists and turns down seemingly identical corridors, Harris led Jane into the cafeteria. The room smelled of instant mashed potatoes and burned gravy. The fluorescent lighting was dimmed to a flat gray, and the only other person in the room was the chubby man behind the cash register, who rang up their tepid coffees.

Harris located a private nook in the cafeteria and kept his voice carefully low as he explained everything that Malcolm just had. “It’s a whole network here, a clique really.” He traced a crack in the plywood table with his thumbnail. “We all attended the same schools, went to the same parties. We know everything about the other families—and sometimes even intermarry to keep our powers viable—but we never, ever trust one another.”

Jane nodded numbly and took a sip of the coffee. It tasted like sludge.

“The number of eligible witchy bachelorettes had sharply declined in the last couple of generations,” Harris went on, “so these awkward alliances have become even more desperately important. Even though Maeve and I are a full generation removed from any kind of magic, Maeve has received six marriage proposals from concerned aunts and grandmothers trying to reignite their line’s magic.”

“How long have you known all this?” Jane asked, thinking about Gran’s letter. She had dedicated her entire life to keeping Jane hidden, and here was a whole society of witches flourishing in New York. After tonight, though, Jane realized that her grandmother probably had the right idea after all.

“Mother explained all this when I was ten,” Harris murmured, casting an eye to the cash register. It looked like the old man had fallen asleep. Sure enough, a light snore carried across the otherwise empty room. “She wanted me to understand why my girlfriends’ mothers would practically be throwing their daughters into my bed. We had to be so, so careful our whole lives; everything was a manipulation.”

“There’s so much I don’t know,” she told Harris, quickly sketching out her background. “I don’t know the full extent of my powers, and I can’t control the ones I do know about. I’m not even in the same hemisphere as Lynne.”

“I can’t do magic myself,” Harris said, running his hands over his coppery curls. “Maeve never even wanted to learn. She thinks the whole idea is lame. But our grandmother could, and she used to tell me about it. I might know something useful—I might be able to help.” He cast his eyes down, looking suddenly shy. “If you want.”

Jane blushed: she wanted. She thought about what Malcolm had told her, how magic called to magic. That definitely explained the pull she felt when she was around Harris, the latent sparks. Damn it. Was she ever going to get to just choose someone without supernatural help?

Malcolm.

She shuddered. Harris’s openness, his clear and honest green eyes, made Malcolm’s ability to deceive her even more frightening. How could someone be so two-faced? How could he have lied to her over and over? And it wasn’t just with his words, but with gestures, smiles, touches . . .

And Malcolm’s deception had led to the horrible events of the night, to Maeve lying broken in a hospital bed somewhere above them, fighting for her life.

“Thank you, but no.”

“Look.” He leaned across the table and grabbed her wrists. “I know what you’re thinking. But you can’t do this alone.”

Tears filled Jane’s eyes. “Maeve is here because of me.”

Harris shook his head stubbornly. “No, she’s here because of Lynne. She’s always had it in for us. You were just an excuse, but she’d throw either one of us under a bus just for sport if she thought it wouldn’t make headlines.”

“Is that supposed to make me worry less?” The corner of her mouth curled up in a bitter half-smile. After a moment, his quirked up in a matching one.

“Seriously.” He leaned in closer, his eyes dancing just a little. “Did Mae ever tell you about the spring break when we ran into Malcolm and Blake in Rio?” He launched into an involved story about a nude beach, three underage models, and a taxi driver who smuggled parakeets on the side.

After a few moments, she relaxed under his grip.

“Jane,” he murmured in a softer tone, stroking her palms with his thumbs. “I’m just saying that there’s history,” he went on gently. “You just walked into this, but we’ve been sparring for generations. My cousin Mary set Blake up to get thrown out of prep school for cheating. Lynne’s aunt—the twins’ mother—tried to poison my grandfather when he was ten years old. We live with danger and distrust all the time; we’re used to it. Mae assumed you were playing her when you first met, but she decided to go along and see where it led. She knew she was getting into something dangerous. It may not have been for the reason she thought, but she knew what could happen.”

Jane bit her lip, hard. The metallic taste of blood seeped onto her tongue.

“I can help you. And trust me, you need help,” he finished earnestly. He stood up, slid around to Jane’s side of the table, and put his arm around her. She rested her head on his shoulder, utterly exhausted.

She had to admit that Harris was making sense. Going it alone would be stoic, to be sure. But was it realistic?

“Stay,” Harris whispered into her ear, sending shivers down her spine. Magic calls to magic, she thought grimly. She sat up straight and shrugged off his arm.

“I can’t stay here, it’s not safe for anyone,” she said resolutely. “But I will be in touch.” She rested her hand on Harris’s for the briefest of moments, then stood. Harris looked baffled, and concerned, as she made her way out of the cafeteria. But no matter how appealing Harris’s offer of help was, Jane had brought enough trouble to the Montagues already. She would have to go into hiding and build a brand-new life from the ground up. She would have to start immediately . . . and alone.