by Kass Morgan
“Holy shit,” Scarlett breathed shakily as soon as everyone had dispersed. Then, without a moment’s hesitation, she summoned her magic. Electricity crackled in her veins; her fingertips burned. She reached out, pushing wider and wider until it felt like every drop of water in the atmosphere was singing to her, caught in her expanding web. She knit the molecules together tighter and tighter and then, with a final burst, released them. Immediately a soaking rain began to fall. The flames hissed and sputtered before finally going out. Scarlett fell to her knees, spent.
The charred husks leered at them until Mei cast a spell that caused them to crumble to dust, then she glamoured away the scorch marks in the grass. “That could have been really bad,” Mei said, breathing hard from her efforts.
“Understatement.” Scarlett shook her head as she got back to her feet. “Dahlia, something is really wrong here,” she said, putting words to the mounting feeling of unease that had gripped her body ever since she’d seen the first lick of flame. “First the tarot cards, now this. I don’t think they’re coincidences or harmless pranks. Someone is gunning for us, and they’re getting more daring.”
Scarlett expected Dahlia to argue with her, but the older girl just nodded. “This doesn’t feel like a random coincidence. Someone wants to hurt us—or expose us.”
“Then we have to protect ourselves,” Tiffany said firmly. “We’re witches. We’re powerful. It’s our duty to keep our sisters—and our secret—safe.”
“What about the Hell Week task tomorrow night at the graveyard?” Scarlett asked Dahlia. “Maybe we do something else? We could have the sophomores whip up a graveyard in the backyard tout de suite.”
Dahlia thought about it for a moment, tapping her magically flawless manicured nails against her palm. “No, it stays on. It’s tradition. And we are not going to be scared off by some maniac. Tiffany, Mei, and I will come with you to help monitor.” When Scarlett nodded, Dahlia went on. “Mei, come back into the house with me. I want to check our protective spells. Tiff, Scarlett, please tell the others to be on alert.”
As Mei and Dahlia walked back toward Kappa House, Scarlett turned to Tiffany. “I can send a house-wide text to stay on alert—” She broke off. She’d just seen a flash of black hair beneath a streetlamp at the end of the road.
Gwen.
The girl’s eyes were narrowed, her mouth an angry red slash. As soon as Scarlett caught her eye, she stepped away from the light and disappeared into the darkness.
“Tiff.” Scarlett grabbed Tiffany’s arm.
“I know, I saw her too,” Tiffany said grimly.
A chill traveled down Scarlett’s spine. “You have to admit it’s weird timing. Gwen shows up, back on campus after all these months, right when strange stuff starts happening.”
Tiffany raised her eyebrows. “What are you implying? You think she’s behind it all?”
“Is it really so hard to believe?” Scarlett asked.
“But we cast a protection spell on the house; she can’t step foot on the property without feeling like she’s walking on coals or whatever torture Dahlia added to that spell . . .”
Scarlett knew what Tiffany was doing—she was trying to deny the only explanation that made sense. The only explanation that made this their fault. But Scarlett knew in her heart that somehow Gwen had gotten around the spell and done this.
“I did a spell last night looking for bad intentions on campus.”
Tiffany inhaled sharply and a shadow fell over her face. “What did it tell you?”
“Well, nothing specific,” Scarlett admitted. “The spell kind of exploded, but I know what I felt. It was really . . . dark.”
There was another type of magic, one that was darker and more dangerous than what the Ravens practiced. The kind of magic that involved death and pain.
The kind of magic that could get people killed.
But instead of reflecting Scarlett’s own mounting terror, Tiffany’s expression cleared. “That sounds super-scary, but you said it yourself—the spell didn’t work. And Gwen isn’t even a witch anymore. We made sure of that.”
“I’m serious. Gwen is back for a reason,” Scarlett argued. “What if she’s behind all this? What if she’s trying to get some sick version of revenge for losing her powers? Because if that’s what’s going on, that’s on us.”
Tiffany took Scarlett’s hand. It was clear from her expression that she thought Scarlett had totally lost it. “I love you, you know I do, but even if it is Gwen, what exactly do you think she can do to us? She’s just a pissed-off wannabe witch who lost her chance to be part of a kick-ass coven. She’ll back off eventually if we stop letting her get a rise out of us.”
Scarlett shook her head. “I don’t know. I just have this horrible feeling. What if Gwen figured out how to get her powers back? If she’s trying to hurt the people who hurt her, then we’re all in danger. We need to stop her.”
Tiffany narrowed her eyes. “What exactly are you proposing?”
Scarlett bit her lip. “I think we need to tell Dahlia what happened—what really happened.”
“You know we can’t do that,” Tiffany said, her voice hard. “If we told Dahlia, who knows what she’d do? At best, we’d be sanctioned; at worst, she’d kick us out and bind our powers. We can’t take that risk. We are witches, and no one, not Dahlia, not Gwen, is taking that away from us. We were young and stupid and we made a horrible mistake. I’m the first person to admit that. But think about what you’re saying.”
Scarlett rubbed her arms, trying to dispel her goose bumps.
“Hey.” Tiffany put her hands on Scarlett’s shoulders and looked directly in her eyes. “What happened was an accident. It’ll be all right, Scar. I promise. You and I are the baddest witches around. Nothing is going to happen to us or our sisters. We won’t let it. If it comes to it, you and I will deal with Gwen ourselves. But you saw it with your own eyes: She doesn’t have her powers back. The binding spell worked. Gwen can’t even say the word magic, let alone use it to kill anyone. Don’t let her be the reason you lose your powers too.”
Scarlett looked at her friend, her sister. Tiffany’s eyes were wide and earnest. And she had to admit the truth of her words. Losing her magic wasn’t a risk she could take. Without that, she had no idea who she even was.
“You’re right.” Scarlett let out a slow sigh. “I’m being ridiculous.” But try as she might, she couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that she was missing something. Something painfully obvious.
Something that could get another one of her sisters killed.
Chapter Seventeen
Vivi
Vivi rubbed her arms, less for warmth than to banish the chills she felt from the unsettling events of the past few days. Both her startling encounter with Gwen and the story of the burning scarecrows had left her with a cold, sinking feeling that the Savannah sunshine hadn’t been able to dissipate, and it had only grown worse since she’d entered Bonaventure Cemetery that evening.
The trees in this section of the famed burial ground grew so close together that their branches formed a canopy that blocked most of the moon. The dripping Spanish moss made the oaks appear to be wearing veils, as if they were in perpetual mourning for the bodies buried beneath their shadows. Even the scraggly plants that poked up between the headstones seemed diminished by grief, their drooping leaves and pale petals a far cry from the lush flora Vivi had come to associate with Savannah.
The pledges walked in silence as they threaded their way through the graves. They were supposed to meet the older girls at something called “the Tomb of the Horned God.” Whatever that meant. Internet searches hadn’t turned up anything helpful.
“Look at that one,” Ariana whispered. Vivi followed her gaze to a statue of a little girl standing in a grassy plot bordered by a wrought-iron fence. Everything about her had been rendered in exquisite detail, from the hair ribbons in her curls to the buckles on her shoes. Everything except her large, blank eyes, which seemed to fol
low Vivi and Ariana as they hurried to catch up with the other pledges.
“Could that be it?” Bailey asked, pointing at a massive mausoleum just past a copse of oak trees. Sure enough, there was a flicker of a torch next to the entrance and a cluster of figures around it.
“Good find,” Vivi said, though she wasn’t particularly eager to discover what awaited them. She hadn’t done much to impress Scarlett during Hell Week, and she was growing increasingly worried about not making the cut.
When they reached the mausoleum, they found Dahlia, Scarlett, Tiffany, and Mei holding candles and dressed in black robes, hoods drawn low over their faces. They were standing underneath the portico of the mausoleum, which had been carved with the twisted, grimacing face of a man with two horns protruding from his temples.
“Welcome, pledges,” Scarlett said, stepping forward. “We brought you here tonight to explain how important sisterhood is and tell you what happens when you don’t take those vows seriously.” She gestured to a simple, knee-height marble tomb with the name WATERS etched into it. “This is Evelyn Waters. Or, rather, the empty tomb dedicated to her memory.” She paused dramatically.
“Why is it empty?” Bailey asked finally, taking the bait.
“Because Evelyn went missing her senior year, and her body was never found.” Scarlett rested a perfectly manicured hand on top of the grave. “Evelyn was a Kappa president. She led the sorority for a year before her disappearance. In her time, the coven was even more powerful, even more important, than it is now. Have any of you ever heard of the Henosis talisman?”
Vivi shook her head, as did Ariana, Reagan, and Bailey. Only Sonali’s eyes widened in recognition.
“Henosis translates roughly to ‘unity’ or ‘oneness.’ The talisman was forged in ancient Greece and discovered during an excavation in the late 1800s. Westerly acquired it for the history department, and a Kappa witch deciphered the tablet that had been buried with the talisman. It was a spell. It explained not only how to share power between witches but also how to permanently take another witch’s power.”
Vivi winced at the idea of someone taking her magic. Although she’d been aware of her powers for only a short time, it was frightening to imagine the feeling of emptiness and loss if they were taken. Because that was what had made the discovery so extraordinary; it wasn’t as if the Kappas had waved a wand and given Vivi magic—they’d simply helped her harness the forces that had always been inside her.
“How can that happen?” Bailey asked. “Don’t—”
“I thought you had to be born with magic,” Reagan cut in. “I was always told a witch could only ever have as much magic as she started out with.”
“True,” Scarlett said. “Naturally. But if we’re speaking unnaturally . . .” She let the word hang in the air. Tiffany went rigid, standing as still as the statues around them, while Mei shifted her weight from side to side. The only older girl who didn’t seem uneasy was Dahlia. Her eyes reflected the dancing flame of her candle, which made them look almost red.
“The spell isn’t easy,” Scarlett continued. “It’s not permanent, either—not without the Henosis talisman. That’s the only object on earth that allows you to store stolen magic.
“With the talisman, you can take another witch’s power for life. Without it, you’re living on borrowed time. Plus, the theft comes at great cost.” Scarlett met Vivi’s gaze. In the moonlight, Vivi could have sworn Scarlett’s eyes looked different. Darker, almost black. “To take another witch’s power, you have to kill her.”
Vivi shuddered as the wind whispered through the trees, making the hair on the back of her neck stand on end.
There was a distant crack in the woods, like a branch snapping. She whipped her head around to follow the sound. Dahlia and Mei didn’t move, but Vivi thought she saw a flash of fear on Scarlett’s and Tiffany’s faces.
“So . . . you think someone killed Evelyn Waters? Stole her powers?” Reagan asked impatiently, clearly unbothered by the noise.
“All we know is that in the spring of Evelyn’s senior year, she disappeared from Kappa House,” Scarlett said, tracing the top of the gravestone with her fingertips. “The talisman vanished along with her.”
“So when we say that sisters need to protect each other . . .” Mei said, speaking for the first time.
“We mean sometimes they must do so with their very lives,” Scarlett finished.
Her words hung in the air as everyone else fell silent. But then a moment later, there was a loud crackling sound as the torch by the mausoleum entrance exploded in flames. The pledges all gasped and stepped back.
“Tonight, you’ll have your first opportunity to work as a team and prove how far you’ll go to protect one another,” Scarlett said. She raised her hands and more torches burst into life, illuminating a stairwell that led down into the bowels of the massive mausoleum behind them. “This is part of a tunnel system connecting much of old Savannah to Westerly’s campus. Once you enter, we’ll seal you inside.”
“We’ve left clues in each anteroom for you,” Mei said. “You’ll have to work together if you want to find your way back to Kappa House.”
“That, or risk being trapped under the city forever,” Tiffany chimed in, her voice full of morbid delight.
“Phones, please.” Dahlia extended her hand to collect everyone’s device. Vivi relinquished hers with trepidation. She could barely navigate with her phone.
Scarlett handed Vivi a worn silver pendant with strange symbols etched into it. “This will help you find your way. Good luck.”
“You’re going to need it,” Tiffany said, then exchanged a knowing smile with Scarlett.
Reagan and Bailey started into the tombs first. Sonali hesitated briefly, then marched after them.
Vivi followed Ariana into the gloom of the mausoleum entrance and barely made it down the first two steps when she heard a loud grinding sound. She turned around to see the heavy door closing behind her. For a split second, she locked eyes with Scarlett. The older girl looked almost worried, Vivi thought, but before she could examine her Big’s face further, the door was shut tight and they were plunged into complete darkness.
As she waited for her eyes to adjust, Vivi reached out to feel the wall for guidance. She grimaced as her hand touched something wet and slimy. The path sloped down, and although the logical part of Vivi’s brain knew that there was plenty of oxygen down here, her natural response was to take shallow, panicked breaths. She couldn’t help thinking about the rusted bells they’d seen next to some of the graves, a relic from the days before heart monitors and brain-activity sensors, when people occasionally awoke from a coma to find themselves buried alive.
“This is fucked up,” Reagan said.
“Agreed,” said Ariana. “They’re going to have a few more empty graves if we get lost down here.”
“I don’t know,” Bailey said, her voice echoing off the walls. “It’s probably just some story they made up to scare us. I bet Evelyn Waters wasn’t even a Raven.”
“She was,” said Sonali, so quietly Vivi almost didn’t hear it. “My mother knew her. She really did go missing.”
No one responded to that. The only sounds were their uneven breathing and a steady drip-drip somewhere in the distance.
“Are we going to try and find our way out, or are we going to stand here all night?” Ariana asked finally.
“It’d be helpful to see where we’re going,” Vivi said. “I suppose no one has a candle we can try to light.”
“No, sorry, I left my candle collection in my other purse,” Reagan said.
“I might not need a candle,” Bailey said softly. “I’ve been practicing. Hold on.” There was a slight rustling and then she said, “I call to the Queen of Wands. Show me your might by giving us light.”
The last word had barely left her mouth when two glowing orange flames emerged in the darkness, hovering just above Bailey’s upturned palms.
“Nicely done,” Ariana said. �
��Do you have your cards on you?”
Bailey shook her head carefully, as if she were afraid of jostling the flames. “I guess the practice is paying off.”
“Does it hurt?” Sonali asked.
“No, not at all,” Bailey said, a note of surprise in her voice.
“It takes more than that to burn a witch,” Reagan said with a grin, conjuring a flame in each of her palms too.
The light from the four flames was just enough to form a small wavering circle around the pledges as they continued down the narrow staircase, brushing against the clammy stones that seemed to be closing in on them.
After what felt like ages, they reached the bottom of the stairs and found themselves facing a stone pillar carved with etching that looked like hieroglyphics. Beyond it, three paths branched out in different directions.
“I think it’s a glamour,” Sonali said, running her hand over the carvings. “Look, the symbols aren’t actually carved into the stone. It’s an illusion. These must be the clues Mei mentioned.”
Bailey stepped forward and raised her hands until the light from the flames reached the pillar. “They’re alchemical symbols.” She nodded at an upward-pointing arrow with a line through it. “That’s air. The downward-pointing arrow with the line through it to the left is earth. This bottom arrow is water, and the right-hand one is fire. We learned them in my History of Science class last year.”
“So what does it mean?” Ariana asked. “Are they directions?”
Sonali shook her head. “If this were a compass, then earth should be at the top, pointing north.”
Vivi held up the pendant Scarlett had given her. “Bailey, what’s this symbol?” she asked, pointing at a glyph that looked similar to the symbol for woman but with a crescent moon on top.
