Entangled Secrets. Pat Esden

      Chapter 1

      Burlington’s flying monkeys. The originals

      were crafted out of steel decades ago.

      I created mine out of car parts and garden

      tools as a gift to my son on his third birthday.

      Truly, if I could have made them fly, I would have.

      —WPZI interview with artist Chandler Parrish

      Chandler set the hand grinder aside and flipped up the visor of her welding helmet. She studied the fist-size heart on the workbench in front of her and smiled, pleased with the results. If she could just find the perfect strands of wire to use for the arteries and veins, the heart would be ready to install.

      She glanced across the workshop to where her latest flying monkey sculpture crouched on a rusty oil drum. It was crafted from scrap metal like its predecessors. But this one was going to be an updated model with a trapdoor in its chest and a heart—a cross between the Tin Man and the flying monkeys of Oz fame.

      “Mama?” Her son’s voice came from behind her.

      “Yeah?” She turned to see what he wanted.

      Peregrine stood in the workshop’s open doorway, silhouetted against the autumn-orange leaves of a maple that sheltered the entry. Dirt smeared his jeans. His wild blond hair was tangled. Her chest swelled with joy. If she could ask the Gods and Goddesses for anything, it would be for his life to remain as carefree as that of the eight-year-old he was right now.

      “Devlin sent me to get you. Some guy’s waiting in the main house.”

      “Who is it?” Chandler asked.

      He shrugged. “I don’t know. The guy saw a shapeshifter turn into a loup-garou. Wish I’d seen it.”

      Chandler pulled off her welding helmet and thumped it down on the workbench. Damn it. Their mystery visitor had to be the journalist. His spotting a shapeshifter transforming in public—illegally, of course—wasn’t that recent of news, but his dogged interest in the event, and his intrusion into the Northern Circle coven’s ongoing issues in general, was proving to be a major pain. Actually, she was shocked he’d showed up here at the coven’s complex. A couple of days ago, two coven members had paid him a not-so-friendly visit at the fleabag motel where he’d been staying to discover if he truly was a threat to the witching world’s anonymity, or if he’d only come across as crazy to the average person.

      “Devlin thinks the guy’s lying,” Peregrine added.

      “Even if Devlin did believe him, he couldn’t tell the journalist what he saw was real, right?”

      “I don’t think Devlin likes him.”

      “That’s because the journalist is a troublemaker.” She walked over to Peregrine and smoothed her hand down his cheek. At twenty-five, Devlin was younger than she by almost four years, but that made him no less wise. He was Ivy League smart, a powerful witch with polished good looks and a kind heart that made him perfect for the Circle’s high priest position. She gentled her voice. “Do you know where Brooklyn is?”

      Peregrine nodded. “She and Midas are making dinner.”

      “I need you to go help them until the visitor leaves. Okay?”

      Peregrine stuck out his bottom lip in a pout. “Can’t I just listen? I wanna hear about the loup-garou. Please?”

      “Not this time.” She crouched, looked him in the eyes, and turned on her mama-dragon voice. “You need to stay away from this man. He’s dangerous. Understand?”

      “He didn’t look dangerous to me. He just talked kinda funny.”

      “No arguing. I want you to hang out with Brooklyn and Midas. I’ll tell you all about it later.”

      Peregrine glanced over his shoulder toward the yard, then his gaze whipped back to her. “What do redcaps really look like?”

      Chandler shook her head. Peregrine’s ability to shift seamlessly from one topic to another never ceased to amaze her. “Where in the Goddesses’ name did that question come from?”

      He tucked his hands into his pockets and shrugged. “Just wonderin’.” He stole another glance behind him. His voice trembled a little. “Do they really dip their hats in blood?”

      Chandler straightened to her full height. Hands on her hips, she followed his gaze. There was nothing unfamiliar or strange in their yard or in the parking lot beyond it, except for an old, lime-green Volkswagen Beetle in front of the main house, undoubtedly the journalist’s ride.

      A spark of fear flickered to life inside her, a fear she’d prayed she’d never have to face. “Did you see something strange?”

      “There was this creepy person-thing next to that guy’s car.”

      In two swift motions, she pulled him all the way inside and slammed the door shut. Heat and the thrum of protective magic blazed up the dragon and monkey tattoos on her arms and across her shoulders. She studied the yard again through the door’s window, hoping to spot a fox or a mangy racoon. Something. Anything.

      Peregrine wriggled in beside her, his breath fogging the windowpane. “It kinda looked like the drawings of redcaps I’ve seen in books.”

      She scrubbed her fingers over the soft bristle of her close-cropped hair. Shit. Shit. Shit. Not this. Anything but this. Peregrine was the age when most witches’ abilities manifested. And—though she rarely thought of him—Peregrine’s biological father possessed the gift of faery sight, an ability to see through the glamour faeries used to make themselves invisible; fae such as redcaps. The gift was rare nowadays because the gene pool of witches with the ability had shrunk to a handful, after eons of them being murdered or blinded by the fae, who preferred to remain concealed. It was an extraordinarily dangerous gift for the few adults who possessed it. But for an eight-year-old boy? For her boy?

      She wrapped an arm around Peregrine’s shoulder, snugging him closer. “Are you a hundred percent sure you saw something?”

      “Yeah. Uh—maybe.”

      Maybe? Her tension eased a fraction. In truth, it could have been nothing more than wishful thinking on Peregrine’s part, combined with an imagination as active as hers. Even if he had seen a faery, it could have been a benign and unglamoured one that Brooklyn had invited into the complex to help with her herbs and concoctions.

      A movement caught Chandler’s eye. Something coyote-size and hunched low to the ground was creeping out from behind the Volkswagen. It slunk along, dragging something—

      Chandler shrieked. A body! A child.

      She pushed