Of course I dreamed of him that night.

His face was never distinct enough that I would be able to pick him out of a lineup. Tall, yes, and with sooty dark hair, almost black, longish and pushed back from his brow. Eyes green, but not my brilliant emerald, a shade that invariably had at least one person a week asking me if I wore contacts. No one else in my family had eyes that shade. A gift from my unknown father? Maybe. But the stranger’s eyes were darker and cloudier, like deep nephrite jade, or the layered and shifting hues of moss agate.

We never interacted in these dreams. I would see him standing at the end of the street, or across a crowded room. In my dream I would begin to run toward him, but it was as if my feet were mired in quicksand and I couldn’t move. Or suddenly the street would impossibly lengthen so it seemed as if a mile separated us instead of only a few yards. Either way, I could never reach him, could never get close enough to see his face clearly.

This time I was running, pounding down Main Street, in a spot as familiar to me as my own face. He stood at the far end of the road, just before it curved past the fire station, his profile to me. And he didn’t move, actually seemed to be getting closer…and then from the clear sky snow started to drift down, blanketing the pavement, covering everything in a blurry veil of white. I slipped and fell to my knees, wincing in pain, and began to slide down the street away from him, moving faster and faster, screaming, knowing the ice would kill me just as it had killed my mother.

I sat up in bed, cold sweat gluing my T-shirt to my body, hands trembling as I grasped the covers and pulled them closer to me, trying to erase some of the chill of that nightmare. That’s what this one really had been, the first of the dreams I could call a nightmare. The others had been frustrating, had made me wake almost shaking with need, but not like this.

What had changed?

Shivering, I got out of bed and went to the little altar I had set up on top of my bookcase. Time to light the white candle, to summon the protection of the light. Since no one was watching me, I didn’t bother with matches, but only touched the tip of my finger to the wick. “Spirits of air and light, I summon you,” I murmured, and the candle instantly came to life, a warm glow filling the room and sending the shadows away, bringing with it the comforting scent of vanilla. Somehow that didn’t seem to be enough, however, and I grasped the chunk of iron pyrite that sat on the altar, holding it, allowing its protective influence to surround me and fill me, and keep me from harm.

That was a little better. I still felt cold, though, so I shoved the pyrite in the pocket of my yoga pants, then went to my dresser and pulled out a beat-up old sweatshirt with the legend “Jerome, the Wickedest Town in the West” written on it. I pulled the sweatshirt over my head and made myself take a deep, calming breath. Nothing here could harm me, especially not the lingering dregs of nightmare. Our property, and indeed Jerome itself, was ringed with circles of quartz, charged with powers of protection during rituals shared by all the members of the clan. No one who intended me any harm could intrude here.

That was one of the reasons my world was so narrowly focused. Here in Jerome I was safe, and in Cottonwood down the hill as well, although that town was too large to have the protective circles built there. But it was still within our sphere of influence, and negative forces would have a difficult time gaining a foothold there. The farther afield I went, the more problematic the situation, although Prescott and Payson were still more or less safe as well. Even so, I never went to either of those towns unless accompanied by my aunt, and on longer journeys, such as our semi-annual trips to Phoenix to stock up on things we simply couldn’t get locally, it wasn’t just Aunt Rachel who came along, but Tobias and Margot Emory, the youngest of the clan elders and the one best-suited to handle a long drive.

They weren’t being unnecessarily paranoid. Years and years ago, when Great-Aunt Ruby was the same age I was now, a prima-in-waiting on the cusp of coming into the fullness of her powers, the Wilcoxes had tried to kidnap her, to have her bond with their own primus. Such a pairing would have made the Wilcox clan immeasurably powerful…if it had worked. She’d sensed their ill intentions and sent out a warning. This had happened on Samhain Eve all those years ago, and we thought maybe the Wilcoxes had chosen that day because of the dark power that surged around Samhain. Thank the Goddess they hadn’t been successful.

Things had been more or less quiet since then, but we’d never let down our guard. Not when the Wilcoxes were involved.

Another shiver passed over me, and I reached into my pocket and wrapped my fingers around the chunk of iron pyrite. A small tingle went up my arm, as if the stone was telling me that it was here for me, was lending its powers of defense to those of the quartz crystals embedded in the very foundation of the building, to the prayers of protection my aunt offered up every evening to the Goddess and the Triple God and all the smaller, yet still powerful, entities who inhabited the very trees and stones and streams of our mountain town.

I had to hope it would be enough.

Fridays were always fairly busy in Jerome. People came to spend a long weekend, or drove in from neighboring towns to shop and eat and sightsee. So I knew that sitting in my room and brooding over my failure with Mr. Number Forty-Four was not an option. Probably just as well. At least by working in the store I could keep myself occupied until it was time to go out with Sydney.

The shop had once been a general store, but over the last fifteen years my aunt had transformed it into an eclectic space filled with Jerome-related memorabilia, local pottery and baskets, some antiques, books, music, and jewelry. My jewelry, to be exact.

I was about twelve when I first started playing around with stones and settings. It was easy enough to pick up those sorts of things in Jerome, a place inhabited by artists and artisans. Luis Sandoval, a local designer, though not a member of the clan, began to show me how to work with metal — how to use a soldering torch, to set stones, to twist pieces of delicate wire to make intricate and unique settings. Once I’d mastered those skills, I began to experiment with creating pieces based on the resonances of the stones they contained, of making them harmonious as well as beautiful. After that I also began to make talismans, some of which were purchased by tourists who had no idea of their real power, only that they were somehow attracted to them.

Two or three days a week I would work in my studio — well, a converted spare bedroom — and create new pieces to sell in the shop. Friday through Sunday I helped out behind the counter. Working weekends all the time wasn’t much fun, but I owed my aunt that much. Besides, the shop closed at six unless there was a special event going on that would keep people around later at night, so it wasn’t as if being there Saturdays and Sundays seriously impinged on my social life.

Not that I really had much of a social life.

That Friday was especially busy. October in our part of the world was generally mild and lovely, a good time to sightsee and go antiquing and visit the wineries. I didn’t have much of a chance to chat with my aunt that day, which maybe was just as well. Telling her about a new and somehow frightening twist in my dreams of the mystery man would only make her that much more worried. And what could she do about it? She was a powerful witch in her own right, and had kept me safe for more than twenty years, but even she didn’t have the ability to prevent the dreams from forming.

So I smiled at the tourists, and pulled earrings and pendants and the odd talisman out of the showcases as requested, then escaped at noon to grab some lunch. At twelve-thirty my aunt went to get some lunch, then came back at one, just as we always did. Something in her features seemed troubled, as if she’d seen worry surface in my expression, despite my attempts to act as if everything was fine. Luckily, she didn’t ask any questions. Maybe she would later; the store was way too public to be discussing anything remotely sensitive, and she knew it.

It seemed that she didn’t want to do anything to upset my evening out with Sydney, though. We went home, made a few comments about it being a good day, and then she headed to her own room to primp a little before Tobias showed up to take her to dinner. That was their own ritual — she might cook for him the rest of the week, but on Friday nights he always took her out. Most of the time they stayed right here in Jerome, although occasionally they’d head down into Cottonwood or even Sedona if they wanted something different.

I changed out of my T-shirt and Levi’s into a tighter pair of jeans and a slinky dark green top that Sydney had picked out for me as a birthday present last year. My footwear consisted of cowboy boots and work boots for the winter and flip-flops for the summer, so I had to make do with cowboy boots, but at least they were pointy and shiny black and looked good with the jeans tucked into them. Some turquoise jewelry, some lip gloss, and I had to admit I didn’t look half bad. Not runway-model material, that was for sure, but going out on the town in Cottonwood wasn’t quite the same thing as going out in New York or L.A.

Or so I supposed. It wasn’t as if I’d actually been to either of those places, and I guessed I never would.

“I’m leaving,” I called out as I descended the stairs. “Taking the Jeep!”

“Don’t be too late,” was her reply, but she didn’t emerge from her room.

Considering the shows at Main Stage didn’t even start until nine-thirty, that was a silly request, but I thought I knew what she was trying to say. Be careful, be vigilant, don’t get a wild hair about driving off to Sedona or anywhere except Cottonwood or maybe Clarkdale.

Like I would. It might have been tempting, but I knew better than to go outside the immediate area without backup. That would change once I had found my consort, but until then my world would have to remain as closely guarded and circumscribed as that of the most sheltered nunnery-raised medieval princess.

I went out the back door to the carport where the Jeep waited. My aunt and I shared it, since it was silly to have two cars when we walked to work and only went down the hill for groceries about once a week. Even so, I always experienced a fleeting sense of freedom when I was able to get away alone, to drive down the winding highway into Cottonwood, even if it was only to get gas or pick up some extra toilet paper or whatever.

The sun had gone down behind Mingus Mountain by the time I pulled into an open space on Main Street in the old-town section of Cottonwood. There weren’t too many of those parking spaces left; the tasting rooms stayed open later on Fridays and Saturdays than they did the rest of the week.

I found Sydney leaning up against the bar in the Fire Mountain Winery tasting room, a position guaranteed to give Anthony, the object of her interest, a really good look at her cleavage. It was working, too; I noticed how he kept having to jerk his eyes upward toward her face. Just past her were a couple in their thirties with a selection of the winery’s offerings in front of them. The woman didn’t look too thrilled with Sydney or Anthony at the moment, and I hoped Sydney’s flirting wouldn’t get him in trouble with his manager.

“Hey, chica,” she said, and waved for me to come stand next to her at the bar. “Nice top.”

“Yes, it is,” I said coolly, and turned toward Anthony. “Hi, Anthony — a glass of the Fire, please.”

“You got it,” he replied, clearly glad to have something to distract him from Sydney’s rack.

“You trying to get that boy fired?” I asked in an undertone, and she just grinned.

“Of course not. I’m just trying to get him to ask me out.”

“You know, you could ask him.”

“Hell, no. I’m too old-fashioned for that.”

Since I couldn’t really think of an adequate retort, I settled for sending her a disbelieving stare, at which she only smiled more broadly.

Anthony came back with my glass of wine, giving me the perfect opening. “Hey, Anthony,” I began.

“Yes?”

“What time do you get off work? Because Sydney and I are going over to Main Stage after dinner tonight. Want to come hang out?”

Sydney raised her eyebrows and gave me her best “oh, no, you didn’t” stare, even as Anthony replied, “We close at nine, so I should be able to make it by nine-thirty.”

“Perfect,” I said. “Meet us there?”

“Sure.” He was trying hard to sound casual, but I could tell he was looking forward to it.

At that moment the man from the couple next to Sydney waved Anthony over, so he was spared having to make any other comment.

“What the hell?” Sydney whispered fiercely.

“Well, he’s too shy to make the first move, and you’re just being stupid with that whole ‘old-fashioned’ thing, so I took care of it for you.”

“Oh, really? And what if he thinks he’s going there to meet you and not me?”

“He isn’t,” I told her. “He didn’t look at my chest once.”

She shook her head. “You’re impossible.”

It was my turn to grin. “Well, I try to be.”

We went out for pizza at Bocce after that, and had a few more glasses of wine. Well, Sydney did; I nursed one all through dinner, knowing we’d have more once we were at Main Stage.

“I figured out the perfect costume for you for the dance,” she announced midway through demolishing a piece of pesto chicken pizza.

“What is it?” I asked in guarded tones. Visions of the cheerleader costume Tobias had suggested to Aunt Rachel danced in my head.

Either Sydney didn’t pick up on the wariness in my voice or, more likely, she simply decided to ignore it. “You know how my friend Madison does all that crazy ballroom dance stuff? Well, she can only wear her costumes once or twice, and then she usually sells them on eBay to get rid of them. But she said I could have a couple if I wanted.”

“Aren’t those things really skimpy?”

Sydney let out a sigh. “Jesus, Angela, you’re worse about that stuff than Melanie Baxter, and she’s Mormon.”

Maybe that was true, but I just didn’t feel comfortable letting it all hang out, as it were. Talk about old-fashioned, but there it was. Still, I knew Sydney was trying to help me out, so I asked, “Okay, what are the costumes?”

“I’ll take the skimpy one. I think she used it for a rhumba or something, but since it has sparkly fringe all over it, I think I can turn it into a flapper dress. But the other one she wore when she was dancing a pass double, or paso…paso….”

“Paso doble,” I supplied. She shot me a look of surprise, and I added, “Strictly Ballroom is one of Aunt Rachel’s favorite movies.”

“Oh. Okay, so anyway, it looks like a Spanish flamenco dancer’s dress or something. It’s long. Yes, there’s probably some boobage involved, but that’s historically accurate, isn’t it?”

Maybe. I didn’t know for sure, since historical costume was sort of outside my field of expertise. I could ask Maisie about it, I supposed. Maisie was the “spook” of Spook Hall, one of Jerome’s most famous ghosts. She didn’t like to come out when the tourists were around, but Monday mornings were pretty quiet in Jerome, so I could talk to her then.

I just lifted my shoulders, so Sydney plowed ahead. “And we’re all more or less around the same size, so it’ll work out perfect. You’ll need better shoes, though,” she added, with a dark glance toward the cowboy boots hidden under our table.

“I’ll figure out something,” I said, making a mental note to dig through Aunt Rachel’s collection to see if she had anything that would work. It wasn’t that I couldn’t afford to get myself some shoes for the occasion…more that I really didn’t see the point for something I’d only wear once. Jerome’s uneven streets and steep hillsides made most “girly” shoes even less practical than usual.

She nodded, and we went on to talk about her cosmetology course — she’d be finishing in the spring — and whether she should get her own place once she was working full-time, or whether she should hang on at her parents’ house and save up for a while first. This whole conversation made me a little sad, partly because I was limping my way through an online bachelor’s degree in communications at the University of Phoenix and not enjoying it very much, and partly because Sydney, for all her outward craziness, had a pretty clear plan for what she wanted to do with her life. Finish her certificate, get some experience at a local salon, and then open her own place, preferably in much ritzier Sedona, where she could earn a lot more.

Whereas I…well, I couldn’t even do the one thing that was expected of me, and get a consort in place before my next birthday.

I must have let out a sigh, because she stopped abruptly and laid an encouraging hand on my arm. “It will be fine,” she said. “I know you’re bummed because it didn’t work out with this last guy. But you know, I’ve been thinking about it, and maybe you guys have been going about this all wrong.”

“How so?”

“Well, your aunt is doing all this work finding guys from other clans or whatever, but maybe that’s not where you should be looking. Maybe the answer has been under your nose all this time.”

“If you’re suggesting Adam — ” I began in warning tones, and she shook her head at once.

“I’m not stupid. Of course I know he isn’t the one, or the guy, or whatever you call him.”

“The consort,” I said wearily. Stupid name, really. Made me sound like the Queen of England or something instead of some girl from Jerome, Arizona. Anyway, Adam McAllister was my third cousin once removed. Or maybe it was twice removed. I could never keep that stuff straight. He was two years older than I, and had been convinced from the time he was seventeen and I was fifteen that we should be together, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. That is, I wasn’t attracted to him, and even if I were, it didn’t matter, because he’d goaded me into a “test kiss” not long after my eighteenth birthday, and absolutely nothing happened. Definitely not consort material.

“Right, the consort.” Sydney finished off the rest of the tempranillo in her glass and looked wistful for a second or two, then perked up, as if realizing more would be on the way once we got to Main Street. “Anyway, you’ve been hiding yourself away…barely even talked to a guy during high school…just because you thought this mythical person was going to show up and put the glass slipper on your foot or something. But maybe he’s actually right here in Cottonwood!”

“I doubt it,” I replied. “The prima almost always marries someone from her own clan, or at least a clan her own is connected to by marriage or treaty. They don’t go around marrying….” I trailed off; I didn’t want to insult her by calling anyone not in one of the witch clans a “civilian.”

“Normal people?” she finished for me. “But you said ‘almost always.’ So there’ve been exceptions, right?”

“A few. But it doesn’t happen very often.”

“It doesn’t have to happen often, just now. So maybe that’s why you haven’t met him, because you’ve been looking in all the wrong places.”

It didn’t sound right, but I didn’t know for sure that she was wrong, either. And at this point I was willing to try just about anything. The regular process sure wasn’t working for me.

“Okay,” I said, and finished my wine as well. “I’ll give it a try. Let’s go to Main Stage and see if we can find my Prince Charming.”

At first glance, Main Stage seemed about the last place where I would bump into the man of my dreams. Not that there was anything wrong with the club itself; it was actually pretty classy inside, with its dark walls and low couches and tall vases filled with tree branches accented with white fairy lights. It was definitely not a crummy cowboy honky-tonk or anything like that. But face it, with a population of barely 12,000 people, Cottonwood didn’t exactly boast a large pool of possible candidates.

Even so, I couldn’t help scanning the crowd there, trying to see if there was anyone who remotely fit the bill of prospective future consort. Not anything too promising at the moment; I saw a few hipster-looking guys nursing cheap beers, and the requisite number of barflies sitting at the counter. You’d think they were too old for a place like this, but I supposed Main Stage was just another stop on their tour of the local watering holes.

I let out a sigh, and Sydney poked me in the arm. “Oh, come on — the band doesn’t start for another twenty minutes, and I bet that’s when people will really start showing up. Let me buy you a drink.”

“You don’t have to do that — ”

“I know I don’t have to. I want to. You can buy the next round if you want.”

“All right,” I replied, and followed her over to the bar.

Of course the men sitting there gave her the hairy eyeball, despite most of them being old enough to be her father. She ignored them, and asked the bartender for a couple of glasses of wine. Usually when we went out, Sydney stuck to mixed drinks, but since we’d already had wine with dinner, she appeared to be playing it safe. I had a feeling she didn’t want to repeat the experience of her own twenty-first birthday, when she’d mixed everything but the kitchen sink and then spent half the night throwing up all those mojitos and martinis and beers and tequila shots.

“Here,” she said, and handed me a glass. “I see a free table over there — let’s snag it before it gets too crowded in here.”

I nodded and headed for the table in question. It had four chairs around it, which I guessed we didn’t need. I draped my purse’s strap over the empty seat next to the one I took, and Sydney sat down next to me.

“To fate,” she said, and lifted her glass.

“To fate,” I repeated, although I wasn’t sure if fate had been particularly friendly to me lately. Still, I supposed it never hurt to offer a libation to the gods and hope they might be listening.

The wine wasn’t as good as what we’d had with dinner, but it would do. At the rate Sydney was gulping hers, she’d be done before I got halfway through my own glass.

“Hey, there’s Anthony!” She set down her wine and started waving. “Anthony! Over here!”

So much for her irritation at me inviting him along. I looked where she was waving and saw that Anthony wasn’t alone, that he had someone else with him, a guy around my age, maybe a few years older.

Tall…dark-haired…. I couldn’t see the color of his eyes because of the dim lighting in the building, but even so my heart began to beat a little faster. No way it could be this easy….

“Hi,” Anthony said as he approached the table. “This is Perry. I figured you wouldn’t mind if I brought a friend, so we wouldn’t turn out lopsided.”

“No, that’s great,” Sydney said at once, giving me a significant look. “I’m Sydney, and this is Angela. Hi.”

“Hi,” Perry said, his gaze shifting toward me.

I found my voice. “Hi,” I replied. “Um, let me get that purse off that chair — ”

“It’s cool,” he said. “Looks like you two have already got your drinks, so my man Anthony and I’ll go get our own and be back in a few.”

“Okay,” Sydney and I said together, and the guys grinned and then headed off toward the bar.

Once they were gone, she turned to me. “Oh. My. God. It’s like he was served up on a platter for you.”

It sort of felt that way. “He seems nice,” I said cautiously.

“‘He seems nice.’ For fuck’s sake, Angela, he is totally hot!” She tossed a lock of perfectly streaked dark blonde hair back over her shoulder. “I’m kind of jealous.”

“Anthony is very cute, too,” I pointed out. Most of the people who worked at Fire Mountain Wines were Native American, and so was Anthony, although I didn’t know which one of the local tribes he was from. Yavapai, maybe.

“Oh, I know.” She drank some wine. “You know me…I’m always distracted by the new and shiny.”

“Well, I’d say Anthony falls in that category, considering you haven’t even gone out with him yet. Give him a little time before you dump him and break his heart.”

“I would not — ” she began fiercely, but had to stop as the two guys approached. They were both carrying bottles of beer, but a local brew from Oak Creek Brewery in Sedona, not the cheap stuff. I had to approve.

Perry and Anthony sat down, and although I was feeling sort of awkward and tongue-tied, not sure what I should say, they both started talking about the band, how they’d gone to high school with the drummer. As I’d guessed, they were local but several years older than Sydney and I. Maybe I should’ve remembered them from school, but, as Sydney had pointed out, I’d kept my head down through high school and had barely talked to guys in my own class, let alone an exalted upperclassman. And although she’d been far more popular, even a popular freshman generally didn’t hang out with the seniors.

Slowly, though, I got drawn into the conversation, drinking wine, sharing some laughs about Cottonwood High, until the band went on stage and it got a little too loud to talk. They were good, too, a crazy fusion of bluegrass and punk that somehow seemed to work. I finished my wine, and Perry offered to get me another one. Even though I knew I should be pacing myself, I told him sure, that sounded great. Anthony went along with him to get refills for himself and Sydney.

“Aren’t you glad you didn’t stay home and sulk?” she half-shouted at me.

I nodded, since I didn’t feel like having to scream my reply. But that seemed to satisfy her, since she nodded in return, smiling, a smile that only widened as the guys returned with the next round of drinks.

And that was how the night went, alcohol flowing, music pounding. It felt good to get lost in it, to get carried away by the false euphoria all that alcohol brought. I suppose that was why I didn’t question him when Perry suggested we step outside to get some fresh air, even as Sydney giggled at me from within the curve of Anthony’s arm as he nuzzled her neck.

It had been a mild day, but nights got cold fast in the high country, and I shivered as we went outside.

“It’ll be warmer in my truck,” Perry said, and I nodded. Sure, why not?

He had a big Ford F-250. I climbed up into the cab and shut the door behind me. The temperature in there was marginally warmer than outside, but I didn’t have much time to point out that fact. The second we were alone, Perry sort of launched himself at me, pulling me against him, pressing his mouth against mine. He tasted of beer, which I found I didn’t mind as much as I thought I would. And although I didn’t feel any of the roaring heat of a consort match in our touch of lip on lip, I still thought I liked him kissing me, his hands tangling in my hair.

I wondered if this was how my mother had managed it. Had she gotten herself numb with alcohol, gone out and met some halfway presentable guy and surrendered her V-card, as Sydney put it, so she wouldn’t have to be burdened with the weight of being the McAllisters’ prima? I had no way of knowing, of course, since she was gone before I could ask her a single question or even say my first word.

Maybe that was what I should do — let this Perry, whose last name I didn’t even know, push me down on the bench seat,