I don’t have a lot of time.

When my best friend Iris went missing, my entire life ground to a halt. Forget school. Forget familial obligations. Everything about me ceased to matter anymore. Because I had exactly one hour to save her life.

And I’m already ten minutes in.

I burst through the front door, rush past my mother in the kitchen, and turn on the kettle before I throw open the cabinets.

“Where are they?” I start pulling things out—a jar of Nutella, a box of angel hair pasta—and growl as I push things aside. “I need my tea! Why can’t anyone just leave my stuff where I put it?”

“I put it in the other cabinet,” Mom says. “Really, Hadley, it’s not a big deal.”

I don’t have time to glower at her. I don’t have time to explain that yes, it is a big deal. And besides, even if did have the time, I still wouldn’t tell her. First of all, she probably wouldn't believe me. Second, if she did realize I

was telling the truth, she’d want to do something stupid, like call the cops. And you can’t call the cops on vampires. That’s not how any of this works.

So I abandon the first set of cabinets and begin rummaging through the next. Wien I find my tin of tea leaves, I snap them up and set them on the counter. Then I grab a clean mug from the dishwasher no one ever unloads and place that next to the canister.

I check the flame on the burner to make sure it’s already up. “Our stove sucks!”

“Language, Hadley,” Mom reprimands.

I pace back into the living room and look out the front window, then come back and check on the water. My brother giggles from the kitchen table where he’s doing his school work.

“A watched pot never boils,” he says.

“Shut up, stinkbutt.”

“Hadley!” Mom says sharply.

I raise my hands. “Yeah, I know. Language. But lie’s so annoying!”

“Am not,” he says.

“And it’s categorically untrue, by the way. Watched pots do boil. When the stove doesn’t suck.”

Before mom can grumble at me again, the kettle whistles. Finally.

My brother’s mumbling something to her about me being way too obsessed with tea lately. I could tell him it’s not the tea specifically I’m obsessed with—it’s the answers within the tea that I’m after—but my breath would be wasted.

I put a pinch of tea leaves into my cup, pour the boiling water on top, and then watch the clock for three minutes to pass. I spend these three minutes pondering how much it royally blows that the only want to save my friend is to stand around waiting for tea to steep.

The note that had materialized in my hand had been clear. IRIS'S LIFE OR YOURS. ONE HOUR.

There’d been an address beneath that. One that I intend to go to as soon as I have the right spell. But while other witches have spells recorded for them in a book of shadows, mine can only be revealed through tea leaves.

When the three minutes are up, I drink the tea as quickly as I can, leaving the leaves at the bottom of the cup with a small amount of liquid. Then I bolt upstairs, cup in still in hand, before my mom can tell me, “No drinks upstairs.”

She won’t follow me, though I’m sure she’ll yell at me about it later.

I lock myself in my bedroom and fall to my knees on the thin beige apartment-quality carpeting. “Real” tea-leaf readers would balk at the fact that I ran through my house, disrupting the liquid, but my gift is a little different. Instead of holding the handle of the cup in my left hand and moving it in a circle rapidly three times, I cradle it in my palms, close my eyes, and say the incantation my mentor taught me.

“Show me the spell I most need to tell.”

When I open my eyes, the bottom of the cup glows golden. The liquid swirls itself, creating a slow cyclone around the inside walls of the mug until it reaches the rim. As the droplets levitate, they vaporize, until all that’s left in my cup is the leaves clinging to the sides and bottom.

Please work.

I start at the rim to read the information about the present situation—not because I don’t know it, but because the leaves will help me decide how much of what I know is relevant to the spell I need to defeat the vampires and save my friend.

Vampires. I can still hardly believe they're real— despite what my mentor's told me—much less that I'm planning to negotiate with them.

I see three symbols along the lip of the cup. Ants, which symbolize a bad omen or impending doom. An arrow pointing down, which tells me I’m heading in the wrong direction. And an ‘X’—a warning to stop.

As if that’s gonna happen. I can’t stop.

So I start to read the images in the tea leaves on the sides of the inside of the cup. This is where I’ll get the spell I’m looking for.

An acorn, which means part of the spell I prepare will require making sure I can improve heath if injured—or possibly means my friend has already been injured and will need immediate care. A wheel, which tells me my spell will need to have transformative qualities. And finally, a bird, which tells me I’ll need a spell that will give me perspective.

There’d been some numbers, too—7, 9, 2—but anyone good tea leaf reader knows that not every symbol means something. So I focus on what my gut tells me is relevant right now.

I close my eyes again, this time envisioning the three symbols in my mind. Somehow, they’re connected. The sooner I figure out how, the sooner the spell will reveal itself to me.

I try not to let the pressure of running out of time get to me. Rushing this will only make it take longer. I can’t be distracted. I need to focus.

An acorn. A wheel. A bird.

Come on. Wiaf is it?

My fists clench at my sides as I realize what it’s telling me to do. No. That can’t be right.

But when my eyes spring open, the tea leaves spell the incantation I need to make it happen. The one I need to undergo a transformation I want nothing to do with.

I can’t exactly perform a shapeshifting spell in my bedroom. Not with my family downstairs. Besides, I don’t have everything I need for a spell like that. And I’m not exactly thrilled about where I have to go to get it, because it means dragging more people I care about into this damn mess.

I tell my mom I’m going to a friend’s place, which isn’t technically a lie, and then I hop on my bike and ride down to the edge of town. There are some shops run out of the warehouses on the other side of the train tracks here.

People think it’s just homeless people who live here, and the city has given up on trying to run them off. Mainly because it never works and it costs too much to jail them. That, and no one actually owns these buildings anymore. It’s become a sort of self-sendee homeless shelter.

Except these people aren’t homeless. But only those of us who need the supplies they sell actually know that.

I lean my bike against the railroad crossing sign and then walk down the incline toward the warehouses. People mill about outside, sort of like you might expect at a flea market, but the tables are lined with magic wares instead.

I pass by all of that and head around to the side of the warehouse farthest from the tracks. There’s only one door here, toward the back. It’s my mentor’s shop. She doesn’t really sell anything. More like she teaches things.

Before I reach the door, it opens, and a young man steps out. His gaze falls on mine, and his eyes narrow as if inspecting me.

“Are you lost?” he asks.

I roll my eyes. “No one finds this place by accident. I’m looking for Esme.”

“Is that really such a good idea?”

I cross my arms and take another step closer. This time, I’m the one scrutinizing him. Dark hair, soft brown eyes, and the lightest dusting of freckles on his nose. He can’t be much older than me, though he’s certainly much taller.