I must have had another nightmare and fallen out of bed again.

That's the first thought I have as awareness comes creeping back. There's a hard surface beneath me, a dull ache behind my eyes, and my shirt is damp with sweat.

It's a condition I've awoken in too often since my parents' deaths.

I just hope it's not morning yet, so I can pick myself up and go back to sleep for a bit.

Then I open my eyes and see not the familiar sloping slats of my cramped attic space, but a high, ornate ceiling of fancy molded tiles in a strange, book-filled room.

Memory slides into place, and I bolt into a sitting position, heart hammering in my chest.

I'm at the Spellwrights' party.

I found my Sign.

And now I'm royally fucked.

As I unclench my fist and stare at the slender silver pen in my hand, my mind starts to race as fast as my heart.

Maybe it isn't a Relic. Maybe it's just an imitation Relic, and the real Relic is somewhere else, in a vault or something. I mean, what family would keep a Relic—an Ancestral Relic, no less—lying out in the open like that? Then again, the Spellwrights aren't just any family. No one in their right mind would dare steal from them because—

My mouth goes dry with fear as the thought takes form, like a dark shape emerging from smoke.

They'll kill me if they find out.

And not in a hyperbolic, euphemistic way, like when people say 'my mom will kill me if she catches me smoking' or 'my boss will kill me if I don't finish this on time.'

I mean they will literally kill me and dump my body in Harbor City Bay.

If the rumors are true, it wouldn't be the first time they'd solved a problem that way.

As with any valuable, rare commodity, there's a black market for Relics, and the Spellwrights run it. When Crafters mysteriously disappear, or turn up dead, there's always suspicion that the Spellwrights are to blame—that the victims crossed them somehow, or were killed for their Signs.

There's no way they'd let a nobody like me—a Lovecraft, no less—disrespect them by taking their Ancestor's Relic as his Sign.

Which brings me back to my first thought: maybe it's not a Relic, or maybe it's not my Sign.

As far as I know, a Relic can't be a Sign, and finding your Sign isn't supposed to hurt like being hit with a wall of bricks.

When Lyssa found her crochet hook, she'd just smiled, picked it up, and had little sparks jump from her fingers as she touched it. She'd showed it to our mom, and that was that. The antique-shop owner hadn't even charged her for it, as is customary. A Crafter can't help finding their Sign, and can't leave it behind once they have. If the object is for sale, or belongs to someone else, it's expected that the owner will give it to the Crafter as a courtesy.

In my case, I do not expect the Spellwrights to uphold this tradition.

Ancestral Relics are priceless and hold enormous significance and power. If this Relic is my Sign, then that power would become mine—and that, I'd wager, is a problem the Spellwrights will want to solve.

So, if it is my Sign, I'll have to steal it.

Before I do anything, though, I have to be sure.

Pushing myself to my feet, I cast about for something to write on. Finding nothing, I pull a book off a shelf at random and flip to the back where, thankfully, there are a few blank leaves.

The pen is the sort that has to be dipped in ink, though, and there's no ink in sight.

It shouldn't matter what I write with—or even if the words are visible—so, with silent apologies to Griffin, I wet the tip with some spit, and write my name. It's not a spell, but names naturally hold power, and it's good for a quick test.

As soon as I set the tip of the pen to the paper, a surge of heat blooms in my chest and races down my arm, tingling to my fingertips. Rather than spit, a line of what looks like liquid fire flows from the nib of the pen. The letters of my name glow briefly, as if lit from beneath by molten gold, before fading to a dark, brunt brown.

It's definitely magic.

My magic, channeled through my Sign. Which means that—Relic or not—the pen is mine.

I slip it up my sleeve, shut the book, replace it on the shelf, and take a few deep, shuddering breaths as I invent a quick plan.

I'll say I'm not well (true—and believable, since I'm sure I look like shit), and that I need to leave (also true). Lyssa will hardly be able to argue with that.

Peeking into the corridor, I find it mercifully deserted. I'm not sure how long ago, exactly, I'd fled the grand hall, but it can't have been more than ten minutes, judging by the time on my phone. Hopefully, no one noticed me leave, no one has noticed my absence, and no one will remember me at all by the time someone realizes that Griffin Spellwright's pen has disappeared.

Smoothing my hair and straightening my shirt, I return to the door through which I'd fled, and rejoin the party.

To my immense relief, there's no sign of Marcus or his brother, and everyone is being entertained by a live band.

I don't recognize them, but judging by how wild all the girls (and a fair number of boys) are going as the musicians bounce around on a stage at the other end of the hall, they must be something big.

Oddly, I spot Lyssa leaning against a pillar, frowning at her phone.

Maybe she's not a fan.

As I approach and call her name, she looks up at me and her eyes go wide.

"Sylas? What the hell?"

"I'm not feeling well," I say. "I'm sorry, Lyss—we need to leave." I reach for her arm, but she pulls away from me.

"Good. I'm done with this party anyway."

Despite my own crisis-in-progress, I note her unhappy tone and the angry light in her eyes.

"Hey, are you okay?" I ask. "What happened?"

She leads the way around the outer edge of the hall, heading for the door, and shoots me a decidedly blame-laden glare over her shoulder. "Why don't you tell me."

Alarmed, I trail after her, worried that, having failed with me, Marcus might have gone after my sister, instead.

A few of the other party-goers turn and cast us curious glances, whispering to each other as we pass.

"What do you mean? Lyssa!"

I grab for her arm again as she continues stalking towards the door, and she whips around to face me, blood-black eyes flashing with barely contained fury.

"Marcus Spellwright has been telling everyone how you tried to get in his pants," she hisses. "On your knees and panting like a dog. His impressions were quite something."

I feel the blood drain from my face. There's a buzzing in my ears, and I can hardly find my voice. Marcus must have wanted to discredit me before I had the chance to tell anyone what he'd said. Not that I would have.

"Did you... believe him?"

"Of course not," she sneers. "There are corpses with more passion in them than you, Sylas. But it's what everyone expects from a Lovecraft, isn't it?"

"Lyss—"

"That's not all he said," she cuts me off. "Why didn't you tell me, Sy? Why didn't you tell me it's their fault Mom and Dad are dead? Do you think I'd have wanted to come to this party—to have anything to do with them—if I'd known that?"

She turns and stalks towards the door, head held high, and I follow with my heart in a vice.

I catch up with her outside. She's facing away, but I can tell she's crying and approach with care.

"Lyss... I'm sorry. I didn't find out right away, and then I didn't want to complicate things for you. Yeah, Mom and Dad died trying to remove a curse someone had placed on the Spellwrights. And, yeah, the Spellwrights blamed Mom and Dad's 'incompetence' for the accident and refused to pay any compensation. They're assholes, but they're still the most powerful family in this city, and I know how much you—"

"Do you really think so little of me?" She turns to face me, her exquisite eye-makeup running down her cheeks. "Yes, I'm ambitious, and I enjoy having friends, and I love a noisy crowd and all this showy shit," she gestures at the Spellwrights' mansion, "but I'm as much a freak as you are, Sylas, in my own way. We're outsiders, and we'll always be outsiders, but at least we have each other. That's what I thought, anyway."

She's right.

If we can't trust and rely on each other, then we're truly alone.

And if I've fucked that up in the past, I'm about to fuck it up a lot worse, because leaving Lyssa on her own is exactly what I have to do.

"I'm sorry, Lyss," I repeat, spreading my hands in a gesture of helplessness. "I should have told you."

She continues to glare at me a moment, holding my gaze, but then her expression softens and I see something uncomfortably like sympathy in her eyes.

"Fine," she says, looking down her pert little nose at me, "you're forgiven—this time. Now let's go home."

✧ ✧ ✧

I call a ride. Ten minutes later, a plain, mid-sized SUV pulls up and the driver salutes us, I climb into the back seat with a sense of crushing relief. Lyssa gets in on the other side, buckles herself in, and then turns to study me.

"Are you sure you're alright?" she asks as we pass through the quiet dark of night-abandoned streets. "You look terrible. What really happened, anyway?"

I tell her about Marcus' weird accusations and his 'advances,' and about my panic attack.

I don't tell her about the pen hidden up my sleeve, or about the fact I may shortly have a large price on my head.

"Shit," she swears, her precise pronunciation making the word sharp. "Marcus is the hot one, too. Why are the hot ones always the worst?"

"I don't know," I sigh, gazing out the window and watching the streetlamps flash past—kind of like the highlights of my probably short life. "You're not, though. The worst, I mean."

"Are you saying I'm hot?" she asks, brows raised.

I make a face. "Not to me, obviously. But in general, to other people... Yeah, I'd guess so."

She's silent a long moment, and then she reaches over and touches my arm.

"Hey... Sy? I'm sorry. I know that whatever you did, you did it for me. And I know you didn't want to go to that party, anyway. So... what can I do to help?"

I shut my eyes, absorbing her words. They mean a lot—more than she knows—and melt a bit of the shock-induced ice that has formed at my core.

I turn towards her, hoping my eyes don't betray my fear and desperation.

"Do you think you could stay with friends tonight?" I ask. "I can't tell you why right now, but... Well, there's something I have to do."

✧ ✧ ✧

A quick text conversation later, our ride drops Lyssa at a friend's, and then leaves me in front of the multi-level townhouse in which we rent our rooms. I let myself in, run up to my freezing attic, shut the door at my back, and slide to the floor.

I can sense tears, waiting to be shed, pressing against my closed eyelids.

I can't afford to indulge them right now. For Lyssa's sake, what I need to do now is disappear.

Rising, I cross to my tiny closet, pull out the old backpack I once used for school, and begin stuffing it with essentials: clothes, toothbrush, toiletries, wallet.

Then, as I stuff the last essential items into the corners of my bag—a roll of parchment and a bottle of India ink—I realize I have nowhere to go.

Our only living relatives are a few Mundane cousins in Atlanta, and a weird uncle no one talks about who lives down south in LA. They're basically strangers, and not people I can rely on to take me in if I show up at their door.

In Harbor City, I'm on my own.

The sum of my emotions catches up with me, and I can't keep it together anymore. I stumble to my bed, fall onto my back, and press my arm across my eyes. Somewhere between one breath and another, I fall asleep.

A loud banging wakes me, and I startle upright, knocking my head against the slope of the low ceiling above.

Rubbing my forehead, I check my phone. It's 4:45 a.m.

"Lyssa," I groan, getting stiffly to my feet. "For love's sake."

She must have worked herself up and decided to come home and 'save' me, or something.

Stumbling to the door, I open it, expecting an angry Lyssa on the other side.

It takes me a moment to clear the fog from my brain and realize my mistake.

Lyssa is slight, graceful, and feminine. The person before me is tall, well-built, and emits masculinity like intoxicating fumes.

They have one thing in common, though.

I'd expected Lyssa to be very unhappy with me.

And Jaxon Spellwright looks very unhappy indeed.