Page 106 of No Charm Done

“Holy shit,” one of the Earls breathed from somewhere behind them.

The cameras zoomed in. The chat went absolutely insane.

Then something moved in the periphery of the gazebo.

Not stepped into view. Appeared. A figure that shouldn’t exist—too tall, too thin, edges blurring like smoke. Its face was wrong, features indistinct.

Luna’s breath caught. Whatever that thing was, it wasn’t human. Wasn’t even close.

Several of the Oak Haven witches took an instinctive step backwards.

The creature bent in Burke’s direction and—spoke? Made some kind of communication? Luna couldn’t hear it, but she saw the old man’s expression leap from sour disapproval to incandescent rage. She could feel the anger all the way across the green. Burke said something to Vex, who went pale.

“What? But we’re in the middle of⁠—”

Burke was already vanishing, the smoke-creature dissolving with him, both of them winking out of existence like they’d never been there at all.

The portal to Malibu Beach flickered, glitched—suddenly showing a parking lot, then a forest, then something organic and disturbing—before collapsing entirely with a sound like ripping fabric.

Vex stood alone in the gazebo, looking like a man who’d just been abandoned mid-tightrope walk.

“Technical difficulties!” he said, voice cracking slightly. “Just give me a minute . . .”

Vex’s minions frantically double-checked equipment and tapped furiously at laptops. The chat was a river of question marks.

“What the hell was that thing?” Delilah whispered.

“I don’t know,” Luna said. Her heart was hammering. “But Burke left in a hurry.”

“Something’s wrong,” Mama said.

“He looked pissed,” Scarlett noted happily. “Wonder what made him so mad?”

“Or who.” Luna could only think of one person who could make Burke that angry.

* * *

Shaw was on his third circuit past cage 6B—meaning he was officially lost—when the temperature dropped even further than he thought possible. Beyond the manufactured cold of the server room. Something else. Something that made his bones ache and every instinct scream run.

He pressed himself against a rack and watched.

About ten feet ahead, the air shimmered. Then tore. Then spat out Burke like the universe was coughing up something unpleasant. There he was, in the middle of the aisle. Perfectly pressed suit, perfectly rigid posture, a man who’d just discovered someone had the audacity to exist without his permission.

Behind him, one of those shadow bastards—a sentinel—flickered into being and immediately dissolved back into nothing. Message delivered, apparently.

Shaw’s mind raced. He was trapped between Burke and whatever sentinels were hunting him from the other direction. No exits. No advantages. No⁠—

Wait. There was always an angle.

Shaw was lost. Completely, hopelessly turned around in this maze of identical metal boxes. He’d been trying to find cage 7B for what felt like hours.

But Burke wouldn’t get lost. He’d built this whole network. He’d know exactly where every rack was, every cage, every ward. Including the one Shaw had marked with a burgundy tie.

Shaw took a breath and stepped out from behind the rack.

“You again.” Burke spoke in the tone of a man identifying dog shit on his shoe.

“Me again. Fancy meeting you here.”