Apple pie and potatoes. That’s what Maisey met her with as Luc pulled up in front of the two story, picket fenced house. That, and a bright smile far too warm and earnest for this early in the morning. At least Mason, standing behind her, looked the way Luc felt. Tired.

  “Don’t tell me you’ve been up since dawn making that,” Luc said, shaking her head at the girl as Maisey slid into the passenger seat.

  “Of course not,” Maisey said. “My mom has.”

  “That somehow does not make it better,” Luc said. “Why do you have food?”

  “Because I want to eat breakfast, so I figure everyone else is going to want breakfast,” Maisey said. “Unless you’ve had breakfast.”

  Luc shifted her grip on the steering wheel. Even if there was food at home, she wouldn’t have had a chance to eat. After getting off of work and forcing her mother to actually come home to sleep and shower, she’d stayed up well into the early morning to finish all her homework. Technically she had til monday, but between working at the farm for free and trying to pick up as many jobs as possible while not in school, she doubted she’d have time for it. She’d woken up all of five minutes before she was supposed to leave the house to go and pick up the twins. “No.”

  “So be thankful I brought food,” Maisey said, looking extremely self satisfied for someone who didn’t even make the food herself. If it weren’t for that look, Luc might have been fine with it, but Maisey’s expression smelled too much of charity.

  She wouldn’t eat it. Didn’t need to eat.

  Her body, traitor that it was, didn’t feel the same. Saliva flooded her mouth at the thick scent of roasted apples, stomach rumbling. The last thing she’d eaten were those gummy worms the night before.

  Mason cursed, throwing an old metal car rim into the trunk. “Why the fuck are you carrying around the entire junk yard in your car?”

  “I’m a gadgeteer,” Luc said. “I need supplies to make tools.”

  “I don’t see how these can make anything,” Mason complained. “Or why we couldn’t just drive ourselves.”

  “Because Luc offered,” Maisey said, swiveling around to glare at her brother, as if she hadn’t tried to convince Luc to let her drive the day before.

  “Doesn’t mean we had to accept,” Mason muttered.

  Luc’s eye began to twitch as she threw the car into reverse. “Why are you coming anyway?” Luc demanded. Maybe it was the lack of sleep, or the hunger crawling up her stomach like a swarm of ants, but she just couldn’t deal with this right now. It wasn’t like Mason and Maisey didn’t have a car. She saw them with it all the time.

  “Because Maisey wouldn’t let me go back to sleep,” Mason said.

  “It’s a group outing!” Maisey exclaimed. “We can’t have a group outing without the whole group! That’s just rude.”

  “I’d be okay with you being a little rude, for once,” Mason muttered.

  I’m not sure when we became a group, either, Luc thought, but decided not to say it aloud. Judging by how she’d behaved so far, Maisey would latch onto it and beat it until the horse was dead and cold.

  “Let’s just get this over with.”

  Maisey, the only one actually excited about being awake before noon, reached across to turn on the radio. Unfortunately for Luc, her magic fixed it as much as it did the rest of the car, and soon they had pop music blasting through the old machine.

  They pulled onto a dirt road, rattling their way up the empty driveway until they reached the front of the large farm house. The house was dark, no lights on inside and no cars out front, bringing a frown to Luc’s face.

  “Where is everyone?”

  “Oh, his parents go to the farmer’s market every Saturday,” Maisey said, opening the passenger door despite the fact that they weren’t in park. Luc quickly parked the car and turned it off, hesitant to follow her out. “Toby must still be asleep…”

  “So, what?” Luc asked, leaning out of the car to talk to her. “We just wait?”

  “No, no, I’ll try and wake him,” Maisey said, pulling out her phone.

  “I’m waiting in here until you do,” Mason said, and pulled his hoodie down low over his eyes. Luc thought he had the right idea, but climbed out of the car after Maisey anyway, staring up at the farm house.

  The idea ticked into place with a slowly growing smile.

  “Which window is his?” Luc asked, crossing her arms over her chest as she surveyed the farm house. It was massive, two stories with a porch wrapping around the entire bottom floor, posts running from the porch up to the roof of the second story. Far easier to access than Luc’s own second story roof.

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  “Yes, but why?”

  “He scared the shit out of me when he climbed through my window the other night,” Luc said. “I was thinking of doing the same. If you’re okay with that, of course. I don’t want to cross any lines—”

  Maisey cut her off with a laugh as Luc rushed to explain herself. “Do it,” she said. “You should definitely do it.”

  She grinned back at Maisey, who pointed out Tobias’s window with a look of glee on her face.

  Luc sprinted across the yard, making a bee line for the post closest to his window. She climbed up the outside of the porch, standing on top of the railing and reaching up for the roof. She wasn’t quite tall enough to reach the roof, but she could grab the supports on either side of the load bearing posts. With a grunt, she hauled herself up and swung one hand up toward the roof.

  Her nails caught on the lip of the gutter and she scrambled for a better grip, managing to get a hold of the roof itself.

  She got her feet beneath her, climbing up the pole and onto the slanted roof.

  At a crouch, she walked up to the bedroom window and pressed her face to the window. In the dark interior, she could just make out his bed on the other side of the room, and Tobias lying face down on top of it.

  She sat back on her heels and pressed her hands into the glass, praying it was unlocked before pushing it upward.

  The window slid open without so much as a squeal.

  She twisted around, giving Maisey a thumb’s up before stepping through the window onto his desk.

  An empty mug clattered to the ground with a bang as she accidentally kicked it off the desk, wincing at the loud noise. Tobias jumped, and Luc shouted, sending him scrambling into a panic.

  He flailed off the bed, hitting the hardwood floor with a thud as Luc began to laugh. She laughed as he fully woke up, pushing himself onto his hands and staring at her as the sight registered and his expression shifted from fear and confusion to understanding.

  “Oh,” he groaned, sitting back and leaning against the bed behind him. “That’s not funny.”

  “Imagine how I felt,” Luc said, sitting fully on the desk and crossing her arms over her chest.

  “It’s a little funny,” he amended. “How did you even find my bedroom?”

  “Maisey helped,” she answered with a shrug.

  His mouth dropped open in shock. “She helped you?”

  He jumped to his feet, scrambling over to the window and nearly knocking Luc off the desk as he stuck his head out of it.

  “You’re a traitor, Maisey!” he shouted down at the ground.

  “Love you too!” she called up at him, grinning like an idiot.

  The same expression was mirrored on Tobias’s face as he leaned away from the window. It only faded when he made eye contact with Luc and her smirk, rolling his eyes.

  “You’re evil.”

  “I know.”

  “You’re way too satisfied with yourself.”

  “Now you know how it feels,” Luc said, sliding off the desk. “You can stop climbing through people’s windows.”

  His eyes narrowed. “No, I don’t think I will.”

  She stared at him for a moment before shaking her head, unable to keep herself from smiling. “What is with the windows? Can’t you just use doors like a normal person?”

  “Doors are boring,” Tobias declared, his smile widening. “I will always choose the more exciting route.”

  He walked back over to the desk, crawling on top of it and out onto the roof. Creeping down toward the edge of the roof, he dangled his feet over the ledge and motioned for Luc to follow before dropping to the ground below.

  Luc did not follow.

  It might have been odd to walk through her friend’s empty house, but she had no desire to crawl back out onto the roof. She navigated silently into the hallway and down the stairs, managing to find the locked front door and let herself out.

  Tobias had already recovered from his leap and picked at one of the glass pans Maisey held even as she tried to swat him away.

  “Do you realize you’re in your pajamas?” Luc asked as she trotted down the steps, giving Tobias’s pattern flannel pants a once over. “Also, are those Peeps?”

  “They are,” Maisey said. “I bought them for him.”

  “You have a problem with Peeps?” Tobias demanded, looking down at himself. “These pants are good looking pants.”

  “Any pants are good looking pants on you,” Maisey said.

  “Ew. Get a room. Change your pants.”

  Luc walked away as they kissed, doing her best to ignore them as Maisey giggled.

  “You probably should change, though,” Maisey said. “We’re going to be working.”

  “Fine,” Tobias sighed. “Does anyone want coffee? We can go inside.”

  “I do,” Mason called out, finally climbing out of the car. Luc locked it as he shut the door, making eye contact with him before he rolled his eyes. Apparently he was as fed up with Maisey and Tobias as she was.

  Tobias led his way into the house, the twins making themselves at home like this was just a common thing. Mason started making coffee while Maisey took over the dining table, laying out the food her mother had made before heading into the kitchen for dishes. Tobias disappeared upstairs to change, and Luc lingered at the entrance to the kitchen, feeling entirely out of place.

  Luc shouldn’t be here with them. She should be outside, tracing around the farm and figuring out how she was going to shield it from the natural forces of magic.

  She hadn’t even had a chance to think about it yet, had no idea what she was going to do. Standing here, wasting time, intruding on their friendship…

  Luc took a step backward toward the door. As though she’d been waiting for it, Maisey’s head snapped up, eyes narrowing.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I need to figure out what we’re going to do,” Luc said, pointing over her shoulder. “You can join me when you’re done.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Maisey declared. “You need to eat. And we have all day!”

  “Well…” Luc hadn’t planned on spending the entire day here. She needed to pick up more jobs, see what the commission was offering today and if they’d finally give her something better. They had to now that she was Marie’s rival, didn’t they?

  “She’s not going to take no for an answer,” Mason said, turning around with a coffee pot in hand. “Coffee?”

  Luc stared at him for a moment, fingers drumming against her arm before nodding. “Fine. But then we get to work.”

  “Sure, sure,” Maisey said. “But first, we need to go over the footage from yesterday. And oh, take some food please. Mom always makes way too much of it.”

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