use, maybe as a retreat for an artist or a writer, someone who needed a distraction-free place to work. Distraction-free it certainly was. The only furnishings were a wooden desk, a pullout sofa, a bookcase, and a coffee table. The desk was empty, and the bookshelf held only cheap reference texts.
I surveyed the bookshelf’s contents, then peered behind the unit.
“Please don’t tell me you’re looking for a secret passageway,” Cassandra said.
I turned to the sofa, grabbed one end and pushed, but it was as heavy as most sofa beds.
“Could you—?” I said, gesturing at the far end. “Please.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“Cassandra, please. Humor me. You know I’m not leaving until I move this sofa, so unless you want to be here a while—”
She grabbed the end and hoisted. We moved it forward just far enough for me to roll up the area rug and look underneath.
“I’ve always said you were practical, Paige. Whenever someone in the council questioned your ideas, I said ‘Paige is a practical girl. She’s not given to flights of fancy.’”
“Huh,” I said, heaving up the carpet. “Don’t remember hearing that.”
“Well, you must not have been around. The point is that I have always given you credit for common sense. And now, here you are, searching for a secret room…”
The floor under the carpet was a checkerboard of wood panels, each roughly three feet square. The gap between most of the panels was less than a quarter inch, but one groove looked a shade wider. I ran my fingers along it.
Cassandra continued. “If Edward and Natasha were into alchemy, which I doubt, they would have rented storage space in the city for their experiments. They would not be digging secret rooms under a run-down cabin in—”
My fingertips struck a catch, and the door sprang open.
I peered into the darkness below. “Strange place for a root cellar, don’t you think?”
I cast a light spell, then tossed the ball into the hole. Along one side was a ladder. As I shifted to step onto the first rung, Cassandra grasped my shoulder.
“You’re not invulnerable, Paige. I am. It might be trapped. I’ll go first.”
I suspected this offer had more to do with curiosity than concern, but I stepped back and let her go through.
Appetite for Art
AS I STEPPED ONTO THE LADDER, MY VISION CLOUDED FOR a second, like a mental stutter.
“Someone’s coming,” I whispered into the hole. “My perimeter spell just went off. I cast one across the front of the property.”
Cassandra blinked, as if shocked by this show of foresight. She motioned for me to come down and hide there, but I shook my head, hurried to the door, cracked it open and peeked out. A young man headed toward the cabin. He struggled to carry an armload of supplies, and could barely see where he was going, let alone see me. When Cassandra peered over my shoulder, I pointed out a path along the left side of the cabin, behind the overgrown bushes.
Cassandra took the lead, as usual. This time, though, it made sense. A vampire’s stealth is partly preternatural and partly hunting experience. By following in her footsteps I could move almost as quietly as she could.
Behind the cabin, the land was a patchwork of forest and meadow. The forest alternated between stands of evergreens and deciduous trees. Even the meadow itself seemed uncertain what form it should take, with patches of long grass interspersed with brush and brambles.
“Should we wait it out or come back later?” I whispered when we’d walked far enough.
“Wait it out.”
“I’ll phone Lucas, then. He’s probably wondering where we are.”
It turned out that Lucas and Aaron didn’t need our help. The house had required little more than a quick sweep, and revealed nothing. With the news of our find, Lucas promised to hurry over and help us.
As I hung up, Cassandra glided out from a stand of trees. I hadn’t noticed she’d left.
“This isn’t going to work,” she said. “He’ll be there for a while. He’s an artist.”
“Artist?”
“He’s set up in front of the cabin with a half-finished painting of it, although why on earth anyone would want a picture of that in their living room is quite beyond me.”
“Wonderful. Well, since it doesn’t look as if he’ll leave on his own, we’ll have to give him a supernatural push. Think a hailstorm would persuade him to call it a day?”
“I’ll handle this. Wait here.”
Cassandra slipped away without waiting for an answer, which was a good thing because I had no intention