“A black mass?” I said. “For me? You shouldn’t have!” I hugged him.

“If I’d really set up a black mass, you wouldn’t be hugging me. You’d be on the phone to Paige, telling her I’ve been possessed again.”

“Mmm, not sure I’d call Paige. Remember what you tried to do when you were possessed?”

“That was not me. And don’t remind me. I’m still creeped out.” He walked to the symbols. “Okay, so take your place at the north point and we’ll begin.”

“Begin what?”

“Does it matter? You trust me, right?”

I knelt by a censer of vervain and lit it. Once it was going, I blew the smoke in his face.

“Cut it out,” he said between coughs. “I’m not possessed, okay? I was kidding about not telling you. Well, I did think it would be nice if I could spring it on you without the explanation, but the ritual requires active participation.”

“What ritual?”

“A Savannah Special. I’m going to give you back your powers.”

I stared at him.

“I’m . . . going . . . to . . .” he enunciated slowly.

“Give me back my powers? You can do that?”

His grin was so dazzling I swear my knees weakened. Then he rubbed it away.

“Sorry. Got a little carried away and forgot the qualifier. I’m going to attempt to give you back your powers. I wouldn’t get your hopes up if I didn’t think the ritual would work, but I can’t promise anything, of course.”

“You found a ritual . . .”

He strode to a stack of books on the desk and picked one up. “It starts here. An account of a family of witches in ancient Greece whose powers seemed to be drying up from lack of use. When increased practice didn’t help, they spent twenty years searching for a cure and finally found it here.”

He pointed to a ritual written in spidery strokes. “Not your situation, I know, but it was the starting point. From there, I found two other cases that referenced the first.” He lifted two books. “Both are only partial accounts. In one a sorcerer gave up his spellcasting in a demon pact. The other sorcerer swore he didn’t, but either he was lying or tricked. They both adapted the earlier ritual. One sorcerer’s worked, the other’s didn’t.”

He pushed the books aside. “Still not quite right, so I branched out from there—”

He kept going, referencing and cross-referencing accounts until my head was swimming.

Finally he turned to me. “So that’s it. If this works, we’ll have your powers restored in a couple of hours.”

I looked at the pile of books, and I couldn’t imagine how much work this had taken. Then I looked at the circles under his eyes and the faint lines by his mouth, and I could imagine it.

“I don’t know what to say,” I said.

“I’ll settle for a thanks and a beer if it works.” He paused. “Maybe a few beers.” He led me back to the ritual circle. “Before we start, though, I want to say that I didn’t do this because I think you need your powers back. You’d be okay without them, Savannah. Just not as safe. And not as happy.” He looked at me. “I know how much they mean to you, and I want you to be happy.”

I glanced at him, and I thought of what he’d done here. Of all the hours he’d spent digging for an answer, even when he’d been furious with me. He’d done this for me. Because it was what I wanted. Because it would make me happy.

No boyfriend had ever done anything like that for me. None had even come close.

My feelings for Adam weren’t some romantic fantasy my inner twelve-year-old was clinging to. I loved him, and I was never going to love anyone else the way I loved him, and if I didn’t take a step—just a tiny step—and find out if this could ever possibly go anywhere, then I deserved to be alone and miserable for the rest of my life.

“You look like I hit you over the head with a baseball bat,” Adam said. “What? You think just because you piss me off, I don’t want you to be happy?”

I shook my head dumbly.

“Well, then, take a seat and let’s get this show on the road. The longer the buildup, the bigger the letdown if it fails.”

I lowered myself in place on the ritual circle.

“The case studies suggest demon blood is a better conduit than spellcaster blood for this particular ritual.” Adam lowered himself to the floor. “I think that’s because in those cases, a demon was clearly responsible. If that’s the case here, I should be able to do it. If not, though, we’ll call in Paige and Lucas. I haven’t told them yet, because they’ve been busy and because, well, I’ve been begging off on actual investigative work by saying I need to do research, when the truth is I’ve already done all I could. Or I had, until you got this immortality angle.”

He paused. “That doesn’t sound good, does it? But I figured I can justify it, though, because having you back as a full-powered investigator and fighter is worth more than a couple days of research. And now I’ll stop yapping and get casting. Sorry. Just a little nervous.”

Having you back as a full-powered investigator and fighter.

While he prepared, his words kept repeating until they pierced the fog.

“I can’t do this,” I said.

“What?”

“I can’t get my powers back. Not yet. You were saying before that there was no good reason why anyone would take them. I think there is. To teach me.”

“Teach you a lesson, you mean? No, Savannah. If there’s a lesson to be learned about not counting on your powers, you’ve learned it. And if you’re thinking this will undo the deal you made, and Paula Thompson will go to jail, we’ll monitor the situation and Lucas will get involved if—”

“It’s not that,” I said. “Watch this.”

I took a pinch of dried herbs from a censer and put them on the carpet. Then I concentrated until they levitated.

“So your powers are already coming back? That’s great. But why not speed it along—”

“They aren’t coming back. I can bring them back if I work at it, though.”

“Okay, but—”

“I didn’t tell you everything that happened in L.A.”

I explained about the two supernaturals trying to kill Cassandra, and what I’d done.