Chapter 1

One

They called it the Shadow War, and it had raged for centuries. Magical families pitted against each other, vying for dominance and power, tearing artifacts and powerful spells from each other's death grips. It was brutal, and it was fought in secret, away from human eyes.

My family, the Ethera, are one of the four great families that remain in the city of Boston, along with the Divergents, the Recondites, and the Diaboli. There are no minor families left—they were all destroyed during the Shadow War.

Destroyed, or absorbed.

Those who didn't kneel to the Diaboli were sacrificed to their dark masters, or worse, bound by their infernal magic and twisted into demonic monstrosities. The Divergents pillaged and burned all they didn't take and slaughtered whoever stood in the way of their lust for conquest and power. And the Recondites… they were the worst of them, because they hid their immorality behind masks of good intentions.

To this day, they insist they were touched by some celestial being and told to lay waste to others of their kind, all in the name of some greater good. They thought they were purging the unworthy, and in doing so, purifying the magic we all used, bringing us all closer to their celestial patron.

These days, a tentative peace has fallen over the streets of Boston. My family wrote up the Codex Magica Treaty, the accords were struck, and the city's magical families have kept their hands and their offensive spells to themselves since.

For thirty long, quiet years, there has been peace.

When I was old enough to ask the question, what about our family, my parents told me we had blood on our hands as well, only we never took what didn't belong to us or killed anyone who didn't deserve it.

It was a convenient story which painted our family as having had a mostly defensive part in the Shadow War, culminating in our writing of the very treaty that called an end to centuries of violence. It was too clean a story for me to believe, not when faced with cautionary tales of demonic beasts and holy crusaders.

Having said that, I had yet to see one of either, so maybe the stories I had been told as a child were exaggerated, or at least embellished a little.

If the Diaboli, the Divergents, and the Recondites were so bad, why would we want peace with them? More importantly, why would they want peace? It sounded to me like what these magical families wanted was to be the last one standing, so something must have happened to bring an end to the fighting.

That story, weirdly, was out of my reach—tucked away under lock and key.

I had to admit, it made me a little uneasy sometimes, to think there was something my family wasn't telling me. The older I got, the more I was starting to lose sleep over it, to wonder, to question. Tonight was another sleepless night, but this time, it was for a different reason.

"We're going to get caught, Bee," Max hissed.

Maxwell, my younger brother, was the only person in my family who called me Bee. To everyone else, I was Beatrice Patricia Aurelian Ethera, and I hated it.

"Not if you keep quiet," I said, as I prepared to make my next move.

Max was turning twenty-one at the stroke of midnight. My parents had thrown him a party with candles, and cake, and dull music. There had been an exchange of gifts; a fancy pen, a bathrobe with his initials engraved into it. Old people gifts. I hadn't given him one. Later, when he asked why I hadn't gotten him anything, I pulled him aside, shoved him out of a window, and dragged him out into the night with me.

"This", I told him, was my gift to him—though I had yet to tell him exactly what this was.

It was already late. A shining, fingernail moon hung high in the sky, which was clear of clouds. The coast was clear, the garden was empty, and the topiary allowed us to move from one piece of cover to another to avoid detection.

The only thing I would need to contend with on the way out and back into the grounds were my family's defensive spells.

It was worth it for a night on the town, though. Max had barely been to the city. We generally weren't allowed out of the mansion except on official, family business, and even then, only under strict supervision. My twenty-first birthday had sucked worse than Max's.

I was determined to buy him his first drink.

"How are we even going to get out of here?" asked Max. "And even if we did get out, how are we going to get back in without being detected?"

"Will you relax?" I asked, throwing him a cocky grin. "I've done this a hundred times."

"A hundred?!" he shrieked.

I wrapped my hand around his mouth. "See? That's exactly the kind of thing that'll get us caught. Just follow my lead, and keep quiet, okay?"

Max looked more than a little unsure. He tried to mumble, but I didn't release his mouth.

"Do you trust me?" I asked.

Finally, he nodded.

"Good. Now, let's move."

I pulled Max through the grounds, zipping from one carefully manicured structure to another. When I thought we were in the clear, I told him to make a run for it. We reached the outer walls panting, but also laughing.

"You're insane," Max said between breaths. "You're gonna get into such deep shit."

"I'm not letting your first drink be that old stuff dad likes to drink."

"You mean whiskey?"

"Guh. I don't know what it is about his whiskey, but it tastes like old socks. No, you're going to drink something colorful, and fun, and then we're going to dance. With real people!"

"That sounds dangerous."

"It's your birthday, Max. You're twenty-one. It's time to live a little."

He seemed a little less unsure now than he had been a moment ago, but his eyebrows still furrowed. "Alright, fine. But how are we going to get out?"

I reached into my top and pulled out the amulet hanging from my neck. It was a beautiful, golden amulet, ornate and made up of lines and curves that resembled a pentagram with a fingernail moon running through it. At the heart of the amulet sat a purple stone, which shone with whatever light touched it.

"That looks important," said Max. "It also looks like something you definitely shouldn't have."

"This used to belong to Aunt Persephone," I said. "When she died, she left it to me… but mom and dad decided I wasn't ready to have it."

"And it's in your hand right now… because?"

"Because they don't lock their safes carefully enough."

"Okay… so, what does it do?"

I took Max's hand. "Are you ready to find out why our family name is Ethera?"

"Ooh boy, I don't like the sound of—" I didn't let Max finish. Instead, I wrapped the amulet in my other hand, shut my eyes, and pushed a trickle of my own power into it, activating the magic inside.

In an instant, my entire world fell away—or more specifically, I fell away from it. My stomach lifted, as if it had suddenly become lighter than air. My skin prickled and turned cold. I felt airy, and light, and when I opened my eyes, everything was different.

It was like standing at the bottom of the ocean, if the seabed was flooded with pale green light instead of being infinitely dark. I could see my family mansion, the garden, even the moon in the sky, only these things were more like impressions than solid objects; impressions that swayed, and shifted, like underwater weeds.

Here, in the Ether, there was no physical matter. The wall behind me wasn't a wall, but the suggestion of a wall. I could see all the way through it to the road on the other side of it; from the streetlamps to the benches, to the city lights twinkling far beyond. When I glanced over at Max, he looked a little more real than everything else, but the features of his face swam, and shifted, and swayed just like the rest of this strange, ethereal world did.

The poor guy looked horrified. His eyes were wide, he had clearly opened his mouth to yell, but I couldn't hear him. I hadn't figured out how talking worked in here yet. But I had learned I could move through solid objects, which I did, with Max in tow—pushing through the solid wall separating our mansion from the world beyond.

But that wasn't all I could do while I was in here.

I looked over at Max and mouthed the words are you ready, but he only gave me a look like he wanted to throw up. I decided to do this quickly, then, and with another pulse of my power, funneled through my amulet, I made the world around us shift once more.

I didn't bring us back into the material world, though; not yet. First, I hurled our nearly weightless forms through the Ether, toward the city. From our perspective, it looked as if we were standing perfectly still, and Boston was speeding toward us, its city lights growing larger, and larger, like stars zooming toward our direction.

Once the city reached us, we zipped through its streets, alleys, and boulevards, crossing entire districts in the blink of an eye. The first time I had tried this, I had ended up nearer to Salem than I would've liked, and miles off my intended target. But so long as I visualized the destination firmly in my head, I learned my instincts would guide me to it, and warn me when I was close.

As soon as I felt that urgent tug, I stopped us in our tracks, and pulled us out of the Ether all in one quick move.

The weird, almost soundless Ether gave way instantly to the hissing of car tires on asphalt, to horns honking, to the chatter of people on the street just beyond the alley I had brought us into. Max let go of my hand, headed for the nearest dumpster, and promptly threw up beside it.

I grimaced. "Sorry!" I called out, "It was like that for me at first, too. You'll get used to it!"

Max wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "I don't think… I ever will…" he said. "I just threw up. Gross."

"If I have my way, that won't be the first time you throw up tonight, baby brother."

When he was done, he walked back over to me. I slipped the amulet into my top and took a deep lungful of city air. It was different, out here. Dirtier. Grimier. I didn't mind it. That tang in the air meant I was free… for a while, at least.

"Where are we?" Max asked.

"We're here."

"And where's here?"

"A nightclub I like to come to sometimes."

"Sometimes? You've been here more than once?"

"I have."

"And you've never been caught?"

"As long as I move through the Ether, I can get past our family's defensive spells. All I have to do is make sure I don't use the amulet near mom and dad, just in case."

"In case?"

"They'll probably notice me using it if I'm too close to them." I shrugged. "Anyway, enough of that. Let's go get you that drink."

I started walking toward the mouth of the alley, where the people were. Already I could hear the thump of the bass coming from one of the side doors into the building to our left. I could've snuck us in through that door, but I felt it was better for Max if I gave him the whole going out in public experience.

When I realized he wasn't standing next to me, I turned around. "What are you waiting for?"

He was standing where we had been a moment ago. He had a smile on his face. "Have I told you you're insane yet?"

"You have."

"Have I also told you what an amazing sister you are?"

"That one, no. Not yet."

"Well, you are," he said, approaching. "This is crazy… but I appreciate it."

I placed a hand on his shoulder. "Save the mushy stuff for now."

Max frowned. "Why?"

"Because in about an hour all that mushy sentiment is going to ooze out of you, and I need to get at least one colorful drink in me before that happens."

"Alright, fine," Max grinned. "Let's do this."

"Atta boy," I slapped him against the shoulder. Grinning, I added. "Welcome to Boston."