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  “Great minds think alike,” Freya said, nudging Ingrid.

  Norman sighed. “I bring other news as well. The Council has been aware of your flagrant and repeated violations of the magical restriction that has been in place since the Salem trials.”

  “Oh, great.”

  “What are they going to do?” Ingrid asked fearfully.

  “It’s very simple, really,” Norman said. “To live in this world, you must continue to abide by its rules and the laws of its citizens, just as we have always done. If no charges are brought against you, the restriction will be lifted and you may continue to practice magic as long as you do not draw any more attention to your supernatural abilities. This will apply to all of our kind who are still on this side of the Bofrir bridge.”

  Freya exchanged a smile with Ingrid and Joanna. They could practice magic again! Before they could celebrate, Norman raised a hand. “But if you are arrested, tried, and proven guilty in a court of law, you will be found in breach of the restriction and you will both be sent to the Kingdom of the Dead for ten thousand years in service to Helda.”

  “So if nothing happens, we’re free. We can be witches again, all of us.” Freya smiled, thinking of everything that had been denied them for hundreds of years. She would have to get her broom out of storage and find a decent cauldron that could stand up to the potions she was eager to create.

  Her father nodded. “Yes.”

  Ingrid shook her head. “But if they bring charges against us and we’re convicted, we go to Helda as slaves.”

  “Correct.”

  “But what about Loki? He’s still out there.”

  “The Valkyrie will find him.”

  Freya thought of the woman who had visited the bar looking for Killian right after the holiday, and realized she was from the same tribe as the woman whom she had seen in New York talking to Bran. She remembered how nervous Bran had been that evening, how eager to get away from the Valkyrie. She did not feel as bad now that she knew Loki had been able to fool the fierce warrior maidens as well.

  Killian squeezed her hand, but she wasn’t thinking of him or their love right then. Nothing was decided yet. Their fate, once again, was in the hands of the human realm.

  chapter forty-seven

  Law and Order

  The annual library fund-raiser was held at the back garden of the main building, in front of the view that had almost doomed the library’s existence. However, there was no more threat of that happening, as the new mayor was more interested in preserving North Hampton as it was than creating new development. Blake Aland was now building his new condominiums on the far side of town.

  Ingrid walked through the party, smiling at her guests, feeling pleased and happy. The exhibit had been praised by art and architectural historians as a significant survey of architectural work. Every major house and project was represented, in prints that were elegantly framed and set on the walls. Freya had talked her into wearing a bright-colored dress with a low neckline, and she wore her hair down for once. She felt light-headed without her strict bun and was surprised to find how long her hair had gotten.

  She waved to her sister across the room. Freya was in a liplock with Killian; the two of them were planning a wedding sometime next summer. They should really get a room. Libraries were not hotels.

  Her parents were standing politely next to each other by the punch bowl. At least they were being civil. Ingrid wondered how old she would be before she stopped wishing they would get back together.

  Her friends were all there: Hudson was roaming the party offering champagne, while Tabitha manned the dessert table with a beaming smile.

  “Ingrid?” Matt Noble looked crisp and handsome in a khaki-colored suit, much sharper than his usual rumpled wear. “I almost didn’t recognize you.”

  She did not blush and took his hand instead. “It’s so good to see you.”

  “Likewise.”

  “I just wanted to say—”

  “Don’t, please,” he said. “You don’t have to keep thanking me every time you see me. I didn’t do anything really.”

  Hardly. A few weeks ago the murders had been solved. First, Maura Thatcher had fully recovered and retracted her statement. She had no idea why she had said Joanna Beauchamp had attacked them. Killian had turned in the bloody cap worn by Bill Thatcher, as well as a bloody pile of clothing that he had found in the basement near the incinerator in Fair Haven. The jacket and pants were unmistakably Bran’s, and they were splattered by blood that matched Bill’s and Maura’s.

  Molly Lancaster had been sexually assaulted and beaten, just as Derek had confessed. However, intrepid detectives discovered that cell phone records showed that the last number Molly dialed was to an account owned by Todd Hutchinson. And when the DNA tests came back, it was his DNA that was found on her body, not Derek’s. The poor boy had broken down and provided a false confession as part of his attorney’s plan to pin the blame on Freya.

  It all came out then: Molly Lancaster and Todd Hutchinson were having an affair. When Freya had seen the mayor masturbating to online porn, he was actually watching Molly on the screen. After sexually harassing her all summer, he had carried on a sexually abusive relationship with the young intern. Files retrieved from his computer confirmed it, as well as e-mails from Molly that said she had broken up with him right before the July Fourth holiday. Her diary, which she kept in a secret code online, documented the entire sordid affair. She had written that she was going to the North Inn that evening to meet someone new, someone her own age.

  Her phone showed a series of texts from the mayor demanding her whereabouts and ordering her to wait for him on the beach. When he got there, he killed her out of jealousy, as he had seen her kissing someone else.

  Freya had not been able to read the mayor’s desires; they had been blocked by Ingrid’s fidelity knot: the sisters’ magic had canceled each other’s out. A week later he ran away and went into hiding. He told his wife to meet him at the motel. When Corky arrived she found him hanging from the ceiling, with a note confessing to the whole sordid mess. When she cut him down, she fashioned a knot around his neck similar to the one she had received from the witch. No one knows why Corky Hutchinson wanted to pin her husband’s death on Ingrid, but her lawyer was pleading insanity due to shock and sorrow.

  Molly’s murder and the mayor’s suicide had nothing to do with magic. Or a vampire. Or a zombie. If Azrael had taken a human hostage, it was not one from North Hampton, and out of their jurisdiction. But Ingrid was sad about Emily and Lionel. Lionel’s body turned up in a meadow and they had buried him with a small ceremony at the local cemetery. Emily was moving out of town, after the death of her animals and her partner; North Hampton was not the same for her. Ingrid would miss her, but there was nothing she could do now. She tried to find comfort in the fact that Lionel was now resting in peace, embarking on a new journey of his own and not damned for eternity.

  Only after everything was over did Ingrid find out that far from leaving them to their fate, it was Matt who had pressed the police to look for more evidence and drop the interrogation. He had been working all along to help them. Now he was standing before her holding a glass of wine and smiling.

  “Matt!” Caitlin came between them. She looked ravishing in a red dress and high heels. “There you are. I want to . . .”

  Ingrid felt her heart beat a little faster, but she kept the smile on her face. So they had gotten back together after all. Perhaps Romance Weekend on Martha’s Vineyard would happen again soon. She excused herself and walked away.

  A few minutes later Matt appeared by her side again. “Hey.”

  “Oh, hey.”

  “Listen . . . Caitlin and I—”

  “You don’t have to say anything, really. I’m happy that you and Caitlin got back together.”

  “Really? Because I kind of wish you weren’t,” he said with a frown.

  “Excuse me?”

  “If you’d let me finish a sentence o
nce in a while,” he said, gazing into her eyes, “you’d know.”

  “Know what?”

  “Caitlin and I aren’t together. She wants to, but . . .” Matt shrugged.

  Ingrid could feel a ray of hope begin to bloom in her heart. “But?”

  “But I don’t,” Matt said, putting down his drink and shoving his hands into his coat pockets like a little boy. “Look, you remember that time . . . when I asked you . . . if you could help me ask someone out?”

  Of course she did.

  “I don’t know what came over me, but you looked so angry and put out that I just said the first name that came to mind. And then you didn’t seem bothered that I was dating Caitlin, but . . .”

  “But?”

  “I should have just been honest from the beginning. About who I really wanted to go out with. It’s just . . . you never seemed to like me. For a while there I thought I really annoyed you.”

  Ingrid was embarrassed at her actions. She had been mean to Matt, and for no reason other than she liked him; and because she had never felt this way about someone, it unnerved her.

  “But then, Hudson said . . .”

  “What did Hudson say?” Ingrid asked eagerly.

  “He said you were really happy to hear that Caitlin and I broke up, so I thought that I might have reason to, you know, hope again.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “We’re awful, aren’t we?” Matt put his hand below her chin and Ingrid could feel her entire body tremble from his touch. He had helped her. He had pressed the police to find something—had argued for concrete evidence. He believed her, he believed in her. “I mean . . . I’ve liked you a long time, Ingrid. I’ve read all those awful books you keep making me read. Don’t you think that maybe . . .”

  Then it was Ingrid’s turn, and she put her hand on his face. And in the middle of the party, in front of everyone at the gala, she kissed him.

  Matt grinned.

  Ingrid blushed. “I don’t know what came over me,” she said.

  He grabbed her hand and held it. “I don’t know what you are, Ingrid Beauchamp, if you’re a witch or not, but I’m hoping that you’ll go out with me sometime.”

  Then he kissed her, and in the middle of their kisses, she murmured, “Yes.”

  Ingrid did not know what the future would bring. She had never been in love before, and with a human no less. But for once she did not want to find out. She would just let it happen, as Freya liked to say, and enjoy the ride.

  Epilogue

  Her shift ended at midnight, and Freya walked out to the parking lot. Just as she reached into her handbag for her keys, a hand came out of the shadows and clutched her wrist. She wanted to scream, but when she saw who was holding her she could not speak. She could not believe it.

  The boy in the shadow put a hand on his lips. He was golden-haired and beautiful as the sun. Looking at him was not unlike looking in a mirror.

  “Fryr?” she whispered. “Is that really you?” Her twin brother. “You’re back! Mother will be ecstatic!” She reached to embrace him but something in his drawn face told her it was not a good idea.

  “No!” he warned. “No one can know I’m here. Otherwise I won’t be able to have my revenge.”

  “Revenge? What are you talking about?”

  “I was set up. That day the bridge fell, when I went there, it was already broken. Someone else had taken its power.” His face darkened. “Freya, if you love me you’ll help me find the one who is to blame for everything. The one who destroyed the Bofrir and who left me to rot in limbo for eternity.”

  “If you mean Loki, he is gone and the Valkyrie will find him.”

  “No, Loki is nothing but a fool. I have no quarrel with him. I am looking for Balder. In this world he is known as Killian Gardiner. He was the one who took the power of the Bofrir for himself and set me up to take the fall. Help me kill him, Freya. If you love me, you will help me destroy him.”

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you to my husband and collaborator, Mike Johnston, without whom my books would simply not exist. Thank you to Mattie, for being so patient when Mommy is “on deadline” and who wants to grow up to be a “bookstore writer.” Thank you to my family and friends, who put up with not seeing me for weeks and months while I am writing. Thank you for being there when the writing is done.

  Thank you to the fabulous team at Hyperion: Ellen Archer, who believed in the book from the first moment; Barbara Jones, Kristin Kiser, Marie Coolman, Bryan Christian, Sarah Rucker, Maha Khalil, Katherine Tasheff, and Mindy Stockfield. Special thanks to my editors: Jill Schwartzman, Elisabeth Dyssegaard, and Brenda Copeland. Thank you to Richard Abate, agent, friend, and advocate.

  About the Author

  Melissa de la Cruz is the author of the New York Times and USA Today bestselling series Blue Bloods, which has three million copies in print. She is a former journalist who has contributed to many publications, including Glamour, Cosmopolitan, Harper's Bazaar, Allure, and Marie Claire. She spent many summers on Shelter Island, which served as the inspiration for the fictional town of North Hampton. She lives in Los Angeles and Palm Springs with her family and is hard at work on the second book in the Beauchamp Family series.

  Copyright

  Copyright © 2011 Melissa de la Cruz

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher. For information address Hyperion, 114 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10011.

  The Library of Congress has catalogued the original print edition of this book as follows:

  De la Cruz, Melissa, 1971-

  Witches of East End / Melissa de la Cruz. - 1st ed.

  p. cm.- (The Beauchamp Family book ; no. 1)

  ISBN 978-1-4013-2390-5

  1. Witches- Fiction. 2. Good and evil- Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3604.E128W58 2011

  813'.6-dc22

  2010052857

  eBook edition ISBN: 978-1-4013-0378-5

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  Cover design by Laura Klynstra

  Cover photograph by Marta Bevacqua / Arcangel Images

  First eBook Edition

  Original hardcover edition printed in the United States of America.

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