The rest of the day passes in a blur of angst, calculus and moths. By the time Jules and I find each other after school I’m utterly emotionally exhausted, and that’s without checking in on how the boys are feeling.

“What are we doing tonight?” Jules asks me as we begin our trek home.

“Planning my Grandmother’s wake,” I reply sullenly.

“What are we talking? Flowers? Caterers? Where is it being held?”

“Moonhollow.”

He grimaces.

“It’s the only place big enough to host my giant-ass family.”

We lapse into silence for a while before he asks, “Hey, Dev didn’t like, try anything when you guys went off to find privacy, did he?”

My cheeks heat. “What? No.”

“Good.”

We turn onto our street.

“Why?” I eye him curiously.

“We all kinda made a pact,” he says.

“What kind of pact?”

“A no sexual advances on you pact. Now that we are all so, y’know, connected to you. It’s hard to find out where we end and you begin.” Jules seems a little bit sheepish, like he thinks I’m going to be mad.

I mull it over, trying to decide how to feel about it.

“I know the feeling,” I finally say as we reach my driveway. “Is this like a forever pact?”

“Why, you want in our collective pants, Artemis Adelfi?” he teases, bumping his shoulder against mine.

My face heats even more. “No!”

He holds his hand out for my key so he can unlock the door.

“It’s a for-now pact. Until things settle and we know the parameters of this binding thing. Until you’re older. Until we figure out what’s real and what’s …” He trails off.

“The spell,” I finish for him. I’m surprised to find myself glum.

He nods.

“Losing my V-card would result in the full onslaught of my powers anyway.” I drop my bag by the door and head for the kitchen.

“Say what now?” Jules asks. “I thought you could already use magic.”

“Cursory stuff. I really get the juice when I,” I bring my fingers up to do air quotes. “‘Raze my maidenhead’.”

Jules wrinkles his nose. “It sounds so romantic when you put it like that.”

I snort. “Grandmother was psyched for me to lose it. She’d ask me about it every week. I guess she was a little obsessed with power.” Grief overcomes me for a moment at the mention of her, but I try to reign it in.

All of Mama and my’s plans for the wake are spread across the table. I swallow and try to blink away the moisture in my eyes. Even if she was a power-hungry hag she was still my grandmother and I loved her.

I feel a comforting hand on my shoulder and I give Jules a watery smile.

“I’m fine. Tea?”

He nods.

I take a few painkillers to help ease the throb of my shiner and get us set up with refreshments and then we sit down and start calling possible wake attendees, caterers, florists and whoever else Mama has written down in her delicate handwriting.

An hour and a half later Mama emerges from her bedroom, followed closely by Mr. Monroe. I don’t know why the thought of them sharing a bed is shocking to me. They’ve probably been doing it my entire life.

Jules has a knowing smirk as he eyes them.

“Baby what happened to your face?” Mama rushes to me and grips my chin, looking at my eye closely.

“I got in a fight with a volleyball,” I say glumly.

She blinks, then laughs a little bit. “You scared me. I thought maybe the djinn had found you.”

I shake my head.

She puts a hand over my eye and mutters a few words under her breath, the dull throb recedes a little bit more. “I can’t heal it all the way, but I can help with the pain.”

“Thank you,” I say gratefully.

“Where’re the others?” Mr. Monroe drawls, dropping down into a seat.

Mama heads to the coffee maker.

“Football practice,” I supply, closing the notebook.

“Bet they hurtin’.”

Stolen story; please report.

“Andre,” Mama warns.

The wiley cajun chuckles. “Aint nothin but the truth, Sweet.”

“It’ll get better after the djinn is gone. Right?” Jules asks.

Mr. Monroe chuckles again. “Maybe. Maybe not. Depends on how hard you boys push it.”

Jules’ brow wrinkles in confusion.

“The longer you go without touching, the stronger the need to do so becomes,” says Mama.

“Until what? What happens if we just stop touching her?”

“It’ll become all you can think about. An addiction you’ll never get over. You’ll get weak and forget to eat and just waste away.” Mr. Monroe sounds nonchalant.

At the horrified looks on both Jules’ and my faces, Mama clears her throat.

“It’s because when you all were bound, your life force was tied to hers. When you touch, you kind of generate .. life energy. Refuel.”

“But I thought she drew from us. Like when she fought off the djinn,” said Jules.

“She does, in times of need. It’s give and take. She gives at a constant rate so that she can take in powerful bursts when she needs it.” Mama pours steaming coffee into two mugs.

“Y’all are symbiotic,” Mr. Monroe says.

“So the djinn is wasting away right now?” I ask hopefully.

Mr. Monroe - Andre - looks grim. “Not like a human would. He can get his power ups other ways too. Djinns feed off of people’s dreams. But he is growing … hungrier, I think. You’re hidden from him now, Sweet, but if you take that necklace off…” He gestures to the small vial of protective herbs around my neck that Mama gave me to wear the day that Grandmother was eviscerated.

Absently I bring my hand up and clutch at it. “He’s got to know where I am though. I can feel Brody and Dev at the school right now. These herbs can overpower the bond?”

Mama nods. “They were grown and gathered at Moonhollow. Your ancestral land. There’s power there. The blood that begat their line centuries ago is the blood that flows in your veins.”

I shiver. “How does it protect me from specifically him? And not the guys too?”

“It hides you from those with malicious intent, Sweet. Your boys don’t have that.” Andre takes a long drink from his coffee.

The doorbell rings, making me jump.

Jules rises. “Right on time. I ordered pizza for everyone.” His voice is a little shaky, and I can feel his nervousness at the information that has just been given to us regarding the djinn.

Mr. Monroe insists on paying and just as the food is placed on the table I hear the tell-tale rumble of trucks in the LaTour driveway.

“Go invite them over, baby,” Mama says, giving me a pointed look.

I stand and swallow. I don’t really want to talk to Dev after running away from him this afternoon but I’m going to have to sooner or later so I might as well do it now. Besides, there are five large pizzas sitting in front of me.

When I emerge from the house, Devereaux and Brody are leaning against Dev’s truck, chatting. They look casual enough but I can feel indecision within them. Like they don’t want to head into the dark LaTour house but they’re not sure if they should come over to mine either.

At my approach they both look up, and I can sense stark relief in each of them, although Brody’s is accompanied by annoyance. Like he’s upset about being relieved to see me.

I stop maybe two feet in front of them and swallow. “Mama says y’all should come over for dinner. We ordered pizza. Well, Jules did.”

Dev eyes me almost warily. Like he’s afraid I’m going to run away again.

Brody looks … hungry.

I can feel their need to touch me.

Without warning, I step forward and hug both of them at once, sliding an arm around each of their necks. All I have is this need to assuage the ache inside of them, and me.

They envelop me. They are both slightly damp and freshly showered. Dev smells like his usual spearmint and cedar, and Brody smells somehow like both clean laundry and woodsmoke. Being wrapped up in them is almost unbearably good.

They hold me tightly, like I am their greatest treasure, and breathe me in just like I did them. I wonder what I smell like to them.

“Are you guys hungry?” I ask, but it’s muffled against a letterman jacket.

Brody laughs and it shakes all three of us. “Always, mistress.”

Maddox joins us once he closes up the bookstore for the night and Mama and I once again have a full house. It’s strange to me that in such a short time, this is starting to feel completely normal. Mama with her men and me with mine.

After everyone has at least a slice in their belly, Brody turns to Maddox.

“So how’d the djinn hunting go last night?” he asks.

Maddox’s face falls. “Not well. Rose’s locating spells kept getting thrown off. They would lead us to empty locations, or just go haywire. We had to start over dozens of times. We were considering -” He cuts off, eyes tracking to Mama whose face is withdrawn and angry.

“Considering what?” Jules asks.

“That we might use Emmy to draw him out,” Maddox finishes, his crisp british accent tight.

“Like bait?” Brody asks, pizza paused halfway to his mouth. His lips are turned down in a disgusted twist.

“No. No way in hell.” Dev pushes his plate away.

“She’ll be well protected,” Andre says. “She just has to take off the necklace and he’ll come find her.”

“And we’ll be ready,” Maddox hurriedly adds. “With an arsenal the size of Louisiana. It won’t get past us.”

Mama stands to get herself a glass of water and I can tell by the unease in her shoulders that she doesn’t like this plan any more than Dev does.

I clear my throat. “When?”

All eyes snap to me.

“Emmy, all due respect, this aint happening.” Dev stands.

“Devereaux,” Mama all but whispers. “This is the most efficient way to get this over with.”

“Don’t let your feelings for her cloud your judgement, son,” Andre says.

And then all hell breaks loose because Brody and Jules weigh in angrily and soon everyone is standing and shouting and pointing fingers and I can’t breathe.

Nobody notices when I slip out the screen door and gasp in mouthfuls of cool night air. I drop down onto the porch swing and pull up my knees, listening to the echo of all the people close to me arguing over my safety.

When Mama finds me I’m running the silver of my moon pendant back and forth across my lips, eyes unfocused as I zone out. She sits beside me, breaking me out of my revery.

“What’s the verdict?” I ask.

“We’ve decided to keep hunting the djinn without using you as bait yet. We’re giving it until the wake. That gives us another week. If we don’t find and end him by then we’ll start using different tactics,” she puts a comforting hand on my knee.

I nod. “That’s reasonable, I suppose. I’m sorry I got into this mess.”

“Oh baby, it’s not your fault.” She puts an arm around me, squeezing me against her. “I was angry too. Going back to Moonhollow is exactly what I would have done at your age. And honestly, I don’t think I could have chosen better guardians for you. They just managed to dissuade my stubborn ‘ol cajun and my british taskmaster.”

I chuckle, wondering what my life would be like if I had gotten to choose my guardians. Very different from this. Maybe.

“So the wake is a week from tomorrow night. So that gives us time to… keep trying. And figure things out. Now, why don’t you come inside and have more pizza?”

I nod and stand, heading in.