I shifted away and elbowed up. “Stone,” I groaned. “Go out or stay in. Don’t just stand there with the window open. You’re killing my heating bill.”

Stone stood on his hind legs, half his body out the open window, backlit by the streetlights below. His head was tipped upward. He seemed to be watching the sky. Probably fascinated by the moon. He was smart like that.

He made that bag-of-rocks happy sound, and pulled back into the room, dropping on all fours. He, of course, did not shut the window behind him.

He clacked some more, his ears perked up, his wings tucked tight against his back. He seemed happy I was awake. So happy he trotted over to my side of the bed and stuck his big freezing-cold head in the middle of my chest.

I yelped. “Too cold, you dummy.” I pushed at his face and he just ducked under my hand, begging for a scratch.

Zay chuckled.

“You’re no help,” I said.

“He’s your yard ornament.”

Fine.

“One scratch.” I rubbed the ridges of Stone’s eyes. He pulled his lips back in what I could only guess was a smile, even though there were a dozen too many sharp teeth involved.

“Now go. Shut. Window.” I gave him a little shove, and he rubbed the side of his head over my hand for one last scratch, then tromped back to the window, cooing a sort of out-of-tune hum.

“All engines ready to go?” I asked.

Stone clacked.

“Runway clear for takeoff?”

Stone stuck his head out the window again. Cooed, vacuum cleaner-style. His ears were straight up, and his wings quivered. This was a little game we played. I liked it much better than the chew-on-the-chair-legs game.

Zay snorted. “You think he understands you?”

“I’d sing him show tunes if it would make him shut the window. Ready?” I said. “Five, four, three, two, one. Blast off! Go, go, go!”

Stone gathered himself, his back legs dropping, his arms braced outside on either side of the window. He had gotten pretty good at launching himself out the window, his wings tucked tight. With one big push, he shoved out into the night air, his wings catching like a parachute, then beating, stronger than they looked. Yes, they were made of stone and didn’t look aerodynamic, but somehow, he did it—the big lunk of rock and magic really could fly.

And the big lunk of rock and magic did just that.

But the big lunk of rock and magic did not close the window.

Hells.

I groaned. Zay just snorted.

Dragging the comforter with me, I scooted off the bottom of the bed, and shoved the window shut. I thought about setting the lock so the beast wouldn’t be able to get in, but decided against it. I was pretty sure Stone would find a way into my apartment, lock or no lock. And I didn’t want to have to pay for repairs.

Zay stood, stretched, and shook out his arm and hand.

“Arm asleep?” I dug through my closet looking for a sweater. It was freezing in here. How long had Stone had that window open?

“Can’t feel it from my elbow down. You never moved.”

I pulled one of my favorite sweaters off a hanger. With the blanket still wrapped around my legs, I shuffled to the dresser, found panties, bra, and jeans. Didn’t take me long to get into all of them, plus a nice thick pair of socks.

“You could have shoved me off if you didn’t like it.” I found my boots, put them on too, and strode to the bathroom to fix my hair.

“True,” he murmured.

For once, fortune was on my side. My hair wasn’t sticking straight up. I brushed it back, tucked it behind my ears, and took a look at my eyes. Green, but too dark to be just my own. Someone else was looking back at me.

“Dad?” I whispered.

A weight shifted in my head and the entire room slid downhill sideways. I grabbed the sink, braced my feet, and tried not to fall down or throw up as dizziness tumbled through my head.

The storm, my father’s voice said, quietly, as if he were speaking from far away. He sounded concerned, but calm. The same way he had sounded when I was seven and broke my wrist and he’d told me going to the doctor was going to hurt a little. The same way he’d sounded when he told me my mother had left me, left us, for good, but everything would be fine.

I was on my knees now, still holding on to the sink, still trying not to fall down while the room spun and spun. I wondered where Zayvion was, if he was sliding down this dizzying slant too.

What? I thought. Who?

I must have said it out loud, because Zayvion was suddenly there, in the doorway to my bathroom, his smile quickly gone.

He reached for me. The moment he touched my shoulder, the world snapped back into place.

I was sitting on my normal bathroom floor. With my normal dead father silent and distant in the back of my mind.

I looked up at Zayvion. “Did you feel that? The dizziness?”

“I felt magic flux. Not hard, though.”

“Dad pushed at me.”

He exhaled, and knelt in front of me. Even though he took up too much room, I didn’t feel claustrophobic. I wanted him near.

“He must have tried to use magic’s fluctuation to shove me out of the way. Started talking.”

I rubbed at my arms, trying to scrub away the cold. Zay placed his hands over mine and I realized I wasn’t rubbing—I was digging. Like somehow I could dig the cold wrongness of magic out of me, out of my bones. Long red scratches lined my arms, but didn’t ease the magic gone to ice in my blood, biting, stinging, burning.

I leaned the back of my head against the sink.

“What did he say?” Zay asked.

“He said they can’t stop the storm. And that they’ll try to use it, but it’s madness, and that they’ll fail.”

Zay straightened and offered me both hands. “Huh.”

I took his hands and he helped me up on my feet. “You cannot be calm about this.”

He walked out of the bathroom, still holding my hand.

The living room table was taken over by an alphabet-block sculpture. Stone had stacked the blocks in a decent replica of the dual-spired convention center, with something that looked like fork tines stuck up out of the top two blocks. If that big lug was de-tining my cutlery, I was going to take a belt sander to his claws.

I tugged Zayvion off toward the kitchen. I needed coffee.

“Do you think Dad knows something we don’t?” I filled the coffeepot with water while Zayvion pulled the bag of fresh grind—straight from Get Mugged—off the shelf.

“As far as I know, your father couldn’t tell the future when he was alive.” Zay scooped coffee into the filter, and the warm, earthy smell of the grind blended with his pine scent. I loved this, small things like this that reminded me we were a part of each other’s lives, moving like we belonged in the same space, sharing simple things, like we’d been doing this together for years.

With the coffee brewing, I leaned back against the counter. “So you think my dad’s just trying to scare me? I would be perfectly fine if your answer was yes.”

“No.”

Great.

“But we should tell Jingo Jingo about it,” he said. “About you hearing him now, and about you hearing him near Greyson.”

I shuddered. Jingo Jingo was one of my teachers and had been Shamus’s teacher for years. He taught the ways of Death magic just beneath Liddy Salberg, who was the mousy woman I’d first met at my dad’s funeral. I didn’t mind learning about Death magic, but I did not like Jingo Jingo. Sometimes, when I cast the spell for Sight, I saw other things clinging to his heavy body, to his bones—the ghosts of children. And every time that happened, it creeped me the hell out.

“I’ve already told Jingo Jingo about my dad.”

“And you’ll tell him again.”

“Sure I will.” Rock, meet stubborn place.

He just stood there, quiet. Finally, “You’ll do what’s right. Even if you don’t like it.”

“Don’t be too surprised when you find out you’re wrong. Jingo gives me the creeps.”

I pulled a couple mugs out of the cupboard, peered inside them to make sure there wasn’t rock dust in there. Not that Stone shed or anything, but he was getting sneaky about putting away the things he played with while I was gone.

I poured us both coffee.

“Allie—”

“Yes, fine. I’ll tell him. Again.” Not that it will do me a damn bit of good, I thought. “And it’s time for us to go.”

I grabbed my heavy coat off the back of the door, because it was obviously freezing out there, and took the time to stuff my journal in the pocket. With coffee cups in hand, we left the apartment, locked the door, and were down the stairs and outside in short order.

We ducked inside Zay’s car and headed off. We both held on to our coffee cups tucked against our palms. It was cold, February still dipping below freezing, but not quite cold enough for ice. There was something about the cold in Oregon that sank in deep and didn’t let go.

“Maybe I’ll just talk to Shamus instead,” I said, carrying on the conversation from the kitchen.

“Shame can’t look in your head as well as Jingo Jingo can.”

“We don’t know that,” I said. “We haven’t tried.”

“True.” Zay took a drink of coffee.

I thought it over. Shamus was good. I had a hunch he was a lot better at Death magic than he liked people to know. The first time my dad, through my eyes, had seen Shamus, he’d said he was a master. I think the slouchy goth bit was just so he could get out of doing work. Stay beneath his mother’s notice, maybe, or stay beneath his teacher Jingo’s notice.

Shame could probably do the job, but he might not want to.

“Jingo Jingo is a good teacher,” Zay said.

“I didn’t say he wasn’t.” I drank coffee and stared at the wet city lights through the window. “I just don’t like him in my head.”

Zay nodded. “He is . . . thorough.”

I would have said creepy, dangerous, maybe even disturbed , but I still hadn’t figured out why Zayvion felt the need to defend him. Shamus willingly admitted to thinking Jingo Jingo was a freak. Zay kept any strong opinions about Jingo Jingo to himself. Of course, Zayvion kept most of his strong opinions to himself.

“I don’t think I can do much to help with the storm,” I said, switching subjects. “I’m probably the least trained out of everyone.”

“It isn’t just training that makes a person good with magic.”

“True. Blind stupidity and a high pain tolerance helps. Still don’t think I’m going to be all that useful.”

We were on the other side of the river at Maeve’s inn. The drizzle had let up, and the sky was covered by clouds turned webby and gray by the city lights. Zay parked near the tree line by the river.

He didn’t look at me, just stared out the window into the darkness. “You channeled the last wild storm. You tapped into its magic, and used it to heal me. And you didn’t die.”

Oh. Right. That. Magic had taken all my memories of that storm, but Nola—and later, Zayvion—had sort of filled me in on the basics. I may not have died, but I very nearly did. A month in a coma is not a successful magical event, though. I’d paid for that like hell.

“They’re not going to ask me to do that again, are they?”

He breathed in, his nostrils flaring. He still didn’t look at me, didn’t move. “I’m asking you not to do that again.”

I laughed, one hard choke. “Like I would.”

That wasn’t enough for him. He finally looked at me. “I’m asking you to not step in. Not to help. Even if you think you have to.”

I raised an eyebrow and opened my mouth, but he kept going.

“I know you’ll do whatever you want. But there will be many storms in the future. This is the first time you’ll be involved. The first time you’ll see what we can do when we all work together and what damage the storm can do, even if we’re at our best. I am asking—” He paused, thought it over. Maybe he noticed the challenge in my gaze. People didn’t tell me what to do. He of all people should know that by now. “I am asking you, Allie. Don’t be a hero.”

Hero. Was that what he was worried about? “Trust me, I’m the last person in the world who will put on the tights and cape.”

The muscle at his jaw clenched. And I don’t think he was trying to hold back a smile.

“I will,” he said.

“Put on the tights and cape?” I thought about that. With a body like his, he’d look damn fine. “How about leather instead?”

“No. I’ll trust you.”

Oh. That was nice too. I nodded. I wouldn’t promise to stand by and do nothing. But I wouldn’t be stupid. I knew how dangerous magic could be. After a couple months of learning with the Authority, it was clear just how much more I still had to learn.

A tap at Zay’s window made me jump. Shame’s pale face bent into view. “You two kids done bumping boots?”

Zayvion hadn’t turned to look out his window. He didn’t even twitch. What he did was smile. Then he opened the door so quickly, I thought for sure Shame would land flat on his back. Shame sidestepped the move, and made a little tsk-tsk sound.

“So slow,” he said. “You’re getting soft, Z.”

“Want to try it again?” Zay asked.

They, apparently, had done this before.

Zay got out of the car and I did the same.

“You won’t believe who’s at this thing,” Shame said.

“Try me,” Zay said.

The two of them walked around the car, shoes grinding in the wet, loud gravel. Well, Shame’s shoes, anyway. Zay moved like he always moved. Silent as an assassin’s shadow.

“Okay, so, Sedra, Mom, Victor, Jingo, Liddy, you know, the regulars.” Shame nodded at me. “How you feeling?”

“Why?”

“After the well-Hounding bit earlier today. You still look a little . . . tense.” Without waiting for my answer, he turned to Zay. “Jones, this woman is tense. I thought you were supposed to take care of that for her. Getting soft in more than one way, buddy?”

“Shut up, Shame.”

“Just trying to be helpful. I’m here for you. To talk it out, if you need. Or to get you pills for what ails you.”

“Done telling me who’s here?” Zayvion asked. We were at the porch now. My bootheels made a solid thunk as I climbed the stairs and walked to the door.

“Well, for one, Hayden Kellerman is in.”

Zay paused, just a second, a half beat in his normal stride. “Huh. Who else?”

“Oh, you know, some of the Seattle branch.” Shame said that with a little too much forced cheer. “The Georgia girls, Romero, Pham. Maybe a dozen people.”

“Terric?” Zay asked.

Shame smiled, like he’d come down with rigor. “Wouldn’t be a party without him.”

I opened the door and stepped through a ward that had been cast upon the doorway. The ward would probably make me stop cold if I didn’t have an invitation to enter the room. Not exactly screening the participants, so much as letting whoever cast the ward—which, by the sweet Earl Grey tea taste on the back of my throat, I assumed was Victor—know who was coming in, and if they belonged here.

Even in the off-hours, I’d never seen the main room of the inn so quiet.

It wasn’t that it was empty. There were maybe thirty or so people standing or sitting at the eight round tables with clean white tablecloths, arranged so that the area to the left, where a longer table was placed, held the room’s focus. The lunch counter to the right was empty.

I had met half of the thirty or so people present, and could only assume the others were the Seattle contingent. Everyone had a drink: water, or coffee, tea, soda. There didn’t seem to be any alcohol present. Ample baskets of bread and cheeses and olives were ready at each table.

It was clear there wasn’t a regular customer, a non-Authority-sanctioned magic user, in the room. And it was also clear that no one much liked one another. Body language was tight and tense; expressions bordered on civil at best. People were grouped in four sections, probably shoring up with whichever faction they were sided with. Zayvion had been telling me for months that there was a war brewing among the Authority, and that it would break any day. Looking around the room made me wonder if it was going to break tonight.

The last thing I wanted to do was enter a room of angry, trigger-happy magic users. And that was exactly what I had come here to do.

Welcome to the bigs.