**Chapter One

  Hexes & Hairballs**

  The trouble with Tuesdays is that they always feel like something is about to go wrong.

  Mondays carry the blame, Wednesdays steal the drama, but Tuesdays? Tuesdays lurk. They sit in the corner like a cat waiting to pounce—silent, smug, and full of bad ideas.

  Which is why, when the ward over my front door fizzled, popped, and fell off the wall with all the enthusiasm of a fainting goat, I wasn’t surprised.

  “Oh, good,” I muttered. “It’s going to be one of those days.”

  “Correction,” a deep, velvety voice said from the hallway. “It is going to be one of your days. I, on the other hand, intend to nap.”

  Dixie Bell padded into the living room with the majestic gravity only a Maine Coon can muster—thirteen pounds of fluff, muscle, and judgment. Her silver?striped tail swished once, her tufted ears angled like little satellite dishes tracking drama.

  “You’re very helpful,” I said.

  “Thank you. I try.” She hopped onto the back of my couch and surveyed the fallen ward like a general inspecting a battlefield. “Not to alarm you, darling, but your protections are melting faster than your self?control in a bakery.”

  I winced. “That was one time.”

  “One week,” Dixie corrected. “Five bakeries. Three tearful apologies. And a restraining order from the woman who makes the lemon tarts.”

  “That was entirely her fault. She shouldn’t put them in the window like that. It’s entrapment.”

  Dixie blinked at me, slow and unimpressed.

  I sighed, crouching to examine the charred scrap of parchment. It still smelled faintly of lavender and ozone—my signature, unfortunately. A Bell family ward shouldn’t just fall off a wall. They were designed to withstand storms, spirits, and at least two divorces.

  But this one was dead. Drained.

  “Okay,” I said, trying to keep the flutter in my chest from turning into a full anxiety chorus line. “Let’s go through the possibilities.”

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

  “Please do,” Dixie said, settling in. “I’ve been craving entertainment.”

  I counted on my fingers. “One: spontaneous burnout due to poor construction.”

  Dixie snorted. “Your spells are messy, but not that messy.”

  I moved to the next finger. “Two: something pushed through it.”

  “Likely.”

  “Three: the ward sensed a threat I wasn’t aware of.”

  “I will now be sleeping with one eye open.”

  “Four…” I hesitated.

  Dixie’s tail twitched. “Go on.”

  “Someone tampered with it.”

  We were both quiet for a moment. Salem has rules. Old rules. Even the worst covens know better than to break into a witch’s home. It’s rude, dangerous, and likely to end with singed eyebrows.

  I stood, brushing ash from my hands. My fingers trembled, just a little. “It’s probably nothing,” I said.

  Dixie gave me a look that translated roughly to you are a walking disaster and I love you, but no.

  I grabbed my jacket—black, hooded, too many pockets—and stepped into my boots. “We’re going to Witchlight Market. Somebody there will know if something’s stirring.”

  “Finally,” Dixie said. “I was beginning to think you’d wallow all day. Grab my harness.”

  I froze mid?zip. “Do we have to?”

  “Yes. Last time you carried me, you tripped over your own shadow.”

  “It moved.”

  “It did not.”

  “It might have.”

  Dixie rolled her eyes. “Harness, Trixie.”

  I got the harness. It was leather, enchanted, and offended Dixie’s dignity on every spiritual level. But even a magical talking cat needs some plausible deniability in public, especially in a town where tourists photograph everything that isn’t nailed down.

  As I clipped Dixie in, she leaned close and murmured, “I sense your anxiety.”

  “You always sense my anxiety.”

  “Because you wear it like a second outfit.”

  I grumbled. She wasn’t wrong.

  We stepped outside into crisp autumn air. Salem in October always smelled like cinnamon, candles, and the faint metallic tang of magic. Tourists flocked the sidewalks, clutching maps and lattes. A ghost tour guide in a cheap cape shouted historical inaccuracies loud enough to make the real ghosts scoff.

  Dixie sniffed the air. “Something’s off.”

  “Define off.”

  “Like someone opened a window into the wrong century.”

  A chill curled up my spine.

  We turned the corner toward Witchlight Market…

  …and ran straight into the body.

  A man lay sprawled across the cobblestones, face pale, eyes wide, expression frozen in terror. He wore a modern tourist hoodie but clutched something ancient in his fist—a piece of parchment marked with an unfamiliar symbol.

  A symbol that glowed faintly. A symbol that matched the one burned into my fallen ward.

  Dixie’s fur bristled. “Oh, Trixie.”

  “Yeah,” I whispered, heart thudding.

  Tuesdays really are the worst.