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every glass at the table. That’s also hard for anyone but a Binai to pull off.”
    Dya’s people made the most sophisticated potions known to the sidhe, which meant they were very sophisticated indeed. But the Binai were few and lived in the sidhe realms, and the two Queens came down really, really hard on anyone in their realms who so much as spoke the Great Bitch’s name. None of the Binai would knowingly give aid to
her
.
    All of which made it, as Cullen said, damn unlikely. “So what—ah. At last.” Lily started for the restaurant’s front door.
    It had opened to admit five people. The one in the lead was a tall woman, what some might call statuesque, others lush. An insurance chart would likely peg her as thirty pounds above optimum, but she wore those pounds the way another woman might wrap up in a sarong.
    Miriam Faircastle reminded Lily a bit of Nettie Two Horses. They were about the same age, two self-assured, forty-plus women who’d never married or seemed to feel the need. Mostly, though, it was the hair. Miriam’s was every bit as long and frizzy as Nettie’s and a similar shade of coppery brown. Their styles were vastly different, though. Miriam liked color. Lots of color. Tonight she’d pulled her hair back with a blue scarf. She put that with a floaty turquoise skirt, an orange tee, and a second scarf wrapped around her hips, that one mostly yellow with some green and blue. To make sure she didn’t leave any part of the spectrum feeling neglected, she’d added several strands of bright red beads around her neck.
    Lily had met three of the people with Miriam. The fourth was new to her—a short, square little woman with thick glasses and a blond braid. Lily gave the group a nod. “I know Jack and Gail and Warren,” she said, “and this is—?”
    “Abby,” Miriam said and clasped Lily’s shoulders in her hands, looking down at her with dark brown eyes. “Abby Farmer. You haven’t worked with her before. She’s new to the coven and is an extremely strong and capable Earth witch. Lily, I am so very sorry about your mother.”
    Sympathy affected Lily the way peanuts did some people. Her throat closed right up. She nodded stiffly. “Thanks. She’ll be okay. Now, I’m sure Ida or Ruben briefed you, but—”
    “It has to be terrible for you, working this as if it was just another case. Anything I can do to help, I will. We all will.” Miriam glanced at the others, who murmured agreement or nodded.
    She could start by not looming over Lily. Miriam’s personal space dial was set to Italian or something. She always stood too close. “Thank you,” Lily said again.
And if you hug me, I’m going to belt you.
“We need to know several things that I hope you can help with. First, though, I need you to certify that . . . damn.” The electronic gong muffled by Lily’s pocket was a ring tone she didn’t hear often. Grandmother did not like talking on the phone. “I need to answer this,” she said, pulling out her phone. “Cullen, could you brief Miriam and the others?”
    “Sure. Here’s the deal, Miriam. Once you’ve run the basic tests for the record, I’d like to try a variation on a seek spell with . . .”
    Lily stopped listening, moving away as she thumbed the answer button. Her heart pounded. If it was bad news, surely it would be Rule calling, not Grandmother? “This is Lily.”
    “Do not be alarmed,” Grandmother said crisply. “Julia is resting. However, there is disagreement about her treatment. I may revoke my approval of doctors. You are needed here.”
    * * *
    R ULE had always known his people were at war.
    Long before his First Change, he and Steve and the others in their age cohort had killed thousands of dworg
.
Dworg made satisfying monsters because they were not wholly imaginary. Extinct, yes—or so everyone believed—but the clans had fought the real thing in the Great War. Sometimes Rule had died heroically in those battles, like Arnos of Etorri, but