Starlight Web (Moonshadow Bay #1) - Yasmine Galenorn Page 0,45

see what it has to say.” I opened it.

it’s about time you returned to moonshadow bay. we’ve been waiting for you.

I stared at the paper, then looked at Ari. “All right, what the hell is this?” Bewildered, I set the note on the table and slid back on the sofa, bringing my legs up beneath me.

“That’s weird. Who all knows you’re back?” She picked up the letter and held it for a moment, then shivered. “The magical signature on that is so strong it almost burned my fingers.”

“Well, Millie knows I’m back, and Teran, and you. And whoever the three of you happened to tell. Killian’s new in town, so I doubt if he had anything to do with this.”

“I told Meagan, but I didn’t tell her it was a secret so she may have mentioned it, though I’m not sure who she’d tell. What about your aunt?”

I grabbed my phone and called Teran. “Did you tell anyone I was back in town?” I asked.

She laughed. “Good evening to you, too. I’ve been waiting for you to call.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re my niece and I love you? I just meant that I haven’t called you so that you’d have some time to get settled.”

“Can you come over?” I wanted to get her take on several things, including my new job.

“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

As I put the phone down, I returned my focus to the note. I wasn’t usually easily spooked, but combined with the day’s events, the words threw me. I glanced at Ari, who was fiddling with the fireplace, laying a fire.

“Thanks,” I said. “I need to get back in the hang of building a good fire. We had a gas fireplace back in Seattle and I lost track of how to do that.”

“It’s simple. Remember—paper, kindling, a couple dry logs. Give everything room to breathe but make sure it’s stacked so that it won’t fall apart. Come on, help me get this thing going while we wait for Teran.”

As I knelt beside Ari, I felt so grateful to have her for a best friend. She knew exactly when I needed to take my mind off my worries and she always seemed to have something in hand to do so. But then, she was an empath as well as a witch, and even though she could be startlingly abrupt, she also could read people like a book.

“Say, how about when I start my private practice, you join me? It’s going to be a sideline, so we can work it around both our schedules. I think we’d make a good team.” I watched as she deftly set the fire going.

Ari paused, glancing over her shoulder at me as I sat on the raised hearth. Marble, it jutted out from the fireplace by a good eighteen inches and was perfect for putting decorations on.

“Are you serious? You want a partner?”

“I think we’d make a great team, and since it’s a side business, we won’t be all stressed out when we don’t have clients.” I held out my hands as she set the kindling to blaze. The flames crackled and popped, catching hold as they gobbled up the paper and set the thin wood shavings ablaze. A moment later and the flames licked at the logs, which were tinder dry and caught immediately.

“I like the idea. After what you told me about the asylum today, I was kind of antsy with you taking on a side business involving evicting unwanted presences, too, but together, we can keep each other safe. And if it’s only a side gig, we won’t get too overwhelmed.” She glanced up as the doorbell rang. “That’s probably Teran.”

I jumped up, heading to the door. My hips and glutes were still sore from being tossed around that morning, but I’d hurt worse—like the time I tried to go bungee jumping and instead of freefalling gracefully, I had gotten myself tangled up in the cord somehow and had bruised several muscles and sprained my butt. I got a lot of laughs, but unless you’ve ever sprained a glute muscle, you have no clue how much it can hurt.

Aunt Teran swept through the door, a bottle of peppermint schnapps in hand. “Make some cocoa and we’ll spike it with this,” she said, thrusting the bottle into my hands as she shrugged off her coat, and pulled off her gloves. She was wearing a long sweeping dress covered with candy canes, reindeer, and conifers. “It’s colder than a witch’s tit out there—and