I didn’t know how much time had passed before I could suddenly move again—but when I finally stood, Alice was standing in front of me, and Elodie lay, very pale and very still, against the cemetery gates.
I ran to her, and Alice didn’t try to stop me.
Kneeling at Elodie’s side, I felt the damp earth beneath us. Elodie’s face was cool under mine, but her eyes were still half open, and I could hear her shallow breathing.
The wounds at her neck were red and raw, the rest of her very white. Our eyes met and her lips moved, like she was trying to say something.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry, for everything.”
She blinked once, and her lips moved again. Hand.
Thinking she wanted me to hold her hand, I reached down and took her left hand in mine.
She gave a deep sigh, and I felt a low vibration, like a low voltage current.
I felt her magic settle over me, just like she’d described. It felt soft and cold, like snow. Then her hand slipped from mine, and she went very still.
I heard Alice laugh. I turned to see her twirling in a circle, her skirt held out to her sides. “I must say, of all the gifts you could have given me, that one was the best.”
Slowly, I rose to my feet. “Gift?”
Alice stopped twirling, but she was still giggling. “That night you brought her with you, I was sure you had figured out what I really was. It was kind of you to bring her to me and save me the risk of getting caught in that horrid school.”
The magic Elodie had passed on to me still thrummed in my veins, but I had no idea what to do with it. I knew I was no match for Alice, even if we did share the same type of power. She’d had a lot longer to use it, plus I guessed her stint in hell had taught her a few tricks. So the only thing I had going for me were the few paragraphs I could remember from the demon books I’d read, and pure, clean rage.
Alice was laughing again, magic drunk on Elodie’s blood. “Now that I’ve regained my full strength, we’ll be unstoppable, Sophia. Nothing will be out of our reach.”
But I wasn’t listening to her. I was looking at the statue of the angel and the black sword in its hands. Black rock.
Demonglass.
In Defense, the Vandy was always going on about how everyone had a weakness, and I knew what Alice’s was.
Me.
“Break,” I murmured, and with a loud crack, the sword split in half. The jagged stone landed in the grass just in front of me. I picked it up even as it burned hot and its edges sliced my hand. It was heavier than I’d thought it would be, and I hoped I’d be able to lift it high enough to do what I had to.
Alice turned around and saw me holding the shard, but she didn’t look scared, just confused. “What are you doing, Sophia?”
She was standing about ten feet from me. I knew that if I ran at her, she’d flick me into a tree like a bug. But she was so giddy and didn’t think I’d hurt her. After all, we were family.
I closed my eyes and concentrated, calling on my own power and the magic Elodie had given me. A fierce wind whipped around me, a wind so cold that it took my breath. My blood slowed in my veins even as my heart raced. I opened my eyes to find myself directly in front of Alice.
Her eyes widened, but not with fear or surprise. With delight.
“You did it!” she said excitedly, like we were at my ballet recital.
“Yeah. I did.”
And then I hefted the shard of demonglass and sliced her neck.
CHAPTER 32
“So it turns out I’m a demon,” I told Jenna the next afternoon.
We were sitting in our room, or, more accurately, she was sitting. I was still in bed, where I’d been pretty much ever since Cal and Mrs. Casnoff had dragged me back to Hecate. Cal had been able to repair most of the damage done to my feet by my crazy bare-footed run through the woods, but my hand was another story.
I looked down. My left hand was fine, but the right had three long gashes across my fingers, palm, and the heel of my hand. They were puckered and angry looking, the edges of each slash a vivid purplish-red. Cal had done the best he could to heal them, but the demonglass had done too much damage. I’d probably always have scars.
Or maybe Cal just hadn’t had much magic left after trying to revive Elodie. He and Mrs. Casnoff had come crashing into the clearing only moments after I’d cut off Alice’s head and watched her body dissolve into the dirt. Cal had run to Elodie right away, but we’d all known it was already too late. Anna had told me Cal couldn’t raise the dead, but he had tried that night. Only when it was obvious that Elodie was gone did he turn to me and take the blade out of my hand.
On the way back to the school, I’d been pretty out of it, but I remember Mrs. Casnoff telling me that Alice’s body had been buried in the cemetery, along with a few other demons. That’s why the angel had held the blade of demonglass—just in case any of them ever managed to get out.
“You people are more prepared than the Girl Scouts,” I’d muttered. Then I’d fainted.
“I always thought you were pretty evil. I just never wanted to say anything,” Jenna said now. Her voice was light, but her eyes were sad when she looked down at my hand.
I’d gotten most of the story from Mrs. Casnoff that night. She hadn’t lied when she’d told me that Alice had been changed through a black magic ritual. She’d just neglected to tell me that Alice’s ritual had been a summoning incantation, designed to bring forth a demon and make it do your bidding.
I had no idea what anyone would ever need a demon for. Errands? General evil tasks that needed doing around the house?
But demons are tricky, and so instead of becoming Alice’s do-boy, it had stolen her soul and made her a monster. Since she was pregnant at the time, her baby had been a demon too. Lucy had married a human, so Dad was half demon, making me only a quarter demon.
“But,” Mrs. Casnoff had told me as Cal had tried to heal my hand, “even a diluted amount of demon blood can result in enormous power.”
“Great,” I’d replied, my hand on fire as Cal’s white magic raced over it.
Mrs. Casnoff had known what I really was all along, of course. That’s why she hadn’t been able to sense Alice. She thought she was just picking up on my demon vibes.
“So what happens now?” Jenna asked, getting off of her bed to sit gingerly on the edge of mine. “What about Archer and your dad?”
I shifted, wincing as my hand bumped against my leg. “I haven’t heard anything about Archer other than what you told me about how he and his family have dropped off the face of the earth. Apparently there’s a big group of warlocks out hunting for him.”
And what they would do when they caught him. . . ? I didn’t want to think about it.
“Cal thinks he and his family probably ran to Italy,” I continued, trying to ignore the pain in my heart. “Since that’s where The Eye is based, it seems like a safe bet.”
To my surprise, Jenna shook her head. “I don’t know. Something I overheard in Savannah. A few witches were talking about the L’Occhio di Dio contingent in London. There’ve been a few sightings of a new guy with them. Dark-haired, young. Could be him.”
My chest constricted.
“Why would he go there? He’d be right under the Council’s noses.”
She shrugged. “Hiding in plain sight? I just hope they catch him. I hope they catch all of them.” Her eyes were cold as she said it, and a little shudder ran through me.
“As for my dad, I don’t really know. The Council always knew he was half demon, but I guess since he’d never attempted to eat anybody’s face and was super powerful to boot, they decided it was okay to make him Head, so long as no other Prodigium found out what he really was.”
“And Mrs. Casnoff knew too?”
“All the teachers did. They work for the Council.”
Jenna reached up and started twirling her pink streak.
“So you’re not a witch,” she said. It wasn’t a question.
Now my wince had nothing to do with my hand.
I wasn’t a witch. I never had been. Mrs. Casnoff had explained that the powers of demons are so similar to those of dark witches that it’s easy for a demon to “pass” as a witch, so long as she doesn’t do anything crazy, like . . . well, like drinking the blood of a bunch of witches to make herself stronger.
I’d liked thinking of myself as a witch. It was a lot nicer than demon. Demon meant monster to me.
Jenna suddenly reached over and started scratching the top of my head. “What are you doing?”
“I was seeing if you have horns under all that hair,” she said, giggling.
I swatted her hand away, but I couldn’t help smiling back. “I’m so glad my monsterness amuses you, Jenna.”
She stopped playing with my hair and wrapped an arm around my shoulder. “Hey, speaking as one monster to another, I can tell you it’s not so bad. At least we can be freaks together.”
I turned and dropped my head on her shoulder. “Thanks,” I said softly, and she gave me a squeeze in return.
There was a soft rapping at the door, and we both looked up. “It’s probably Casnoff,” I said. “She’s checked on me like five times already today.”
What I didn’t tell Jenna was that the last time we had talked, I’d asked Mrs. Casnoff what all this meant for me.
“It means that you will always be incredibly powerful, Sophia,” she’d answered. “It means that, like your father, you will be expected to use this power in service to the Council.”
“So I have a destiny,” I said. “Crap.”
Mrs. Casnoff smiled and patted my hand. “It’s a glorious destiny, Sophia. Most witches would kill to have your power. Some have.”
I’d just nodded because I couldn’t tell her how I really felt: I didn’t want to be Sophia, the Great and Terrible. That sort of thing should belong to girls like Elodie, girls who were beautiful and ambitious. I was just me: funny, sure, and smart, but not a leader.
Sitting there that night with Mrs. Casnoff, Cal still holding my hand even though all of the magic was out of him, I’d asked the one question that had been buzzing in my brain.
“Am I dangerous? Like Alice?”
Mrs. Casnoff had met my eyes and said, “Yes, Sophia, you are. You always will be. Some demon hybrids, like your father, are able to go years without any incident, although he is accompanied by a member of the Council at all times just to be cautious. Others, like your grandmother Lucy, are not so lucky.”
“What happened?”
She looked away and said, very quietly, “L’Occhio di Dio did kill your grandmother, Sophie, but with good reason. Despite living thirty years without ever harming a living soul, something . . . something happened to her one night, and she reverted to her true nature.”
She took a deep breath and said, “She killed your grandfather.”
There was no sound for a long time until I asked, “So that could happen to me? I could just snap one day and demon-out on whoever is with me?”
And when I said that, all I’d been able to see was my mom lying bloody and broken at my feet. My stomach rolled and I’d tasted bile.
“It’s a possibility,” Mrs. Casnoff answered.
And then I asked Mrs. Casnoff if there was a way I could ever stop being a demon—if I could ever return to normal.
She had studied me for a long time, before saying, “There’s the Removal. But it would almost assuredly kill you.”
Her answer was still sitting like a stone in my chest. The Removal might kill me.
It probably would kill me.
But if I lived the rest of my life as part demon, I might kill someone. Someone I loved.
The door opened, but it wasn’t Mrs. Casnoff standing there. It was my mom.
“Mom!” I cried, leaping out of my bed and throwing my arms around her. I could feel her tears as she buried her face in my hair, so I hugged her even tighter and breathed in her familiar perfume.
When we broke apart, Mom tried to smile at me, and reached down to take my hands. I couldn’t hold back a soft cry of pain, and she looked down.
I thought Mom would cry again when she saw my hand, but she just raised it to her lips and kissed the palm, like I was three and had a skinned knee.
“Sophie,” Mom said, smoothing my hair away from my face, “I’ve come to take you home, okay, sweetie?”
I looked back over my shoulder at Jenna, who was trying really hard to ignore us, but I saw the hurt look flash across her face. If I left, Jenna would have no one. So much for being freaks together.
I took a deep breath and turned back to my mom. I didn’t know if I would be strong enough to look in her eyes and tell her what I had to say, what I’d known I had to do as soon as Mrs. Casnoff had given me her answer.
Then, before I could say anything, I saw Elodie walk by my doorway.
Rushing out, my heart in my throat, I wondered if Cal had saved her after all. Maybe she’d been recovering in the school this whole time, and they just hadn’t told me.
The hall was empty except for her, and she had her back to me. “Elodie!” I cried, running up to her. But she didn’t look at me, and I realized I was looking through her.
She walked on, pausing in doorways like she was looking for someone—just another Hecate ghost stuck here forever. I knew she deserved it, in a way. She and her friends had summoned a demon and paid the price.
I watched her for a long time, until she finally faded into the late afternoon sunlight. We’d never really been friends, but she had given me the last little magic she’d had inside her so that I could defeat Alice, and I would never forget that.
And in the end, it was seeing Elodie that gave me the strength to turn to my mom and say, “I’m not going home. I’m going to London, and I’m going through the Removal.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Writing a book has been compared to crossing the Atlantic in a bathtub, so I’m very grateful to have had the following people on my “crew”!
First and foremost, a HUGE thank you to my agent, the incomparable Holly Root, the first person not related to me to fall in love with Sophie & Co. Your enthusiasm and killer sense of humor make you the definition of a dream agent! Also, to Jennifer Besser, Emily Schultz, and everyone at Disney-Hyperion Books, all of whom are freaking geniuses and made this book so much better than I thought it could be.
Big neuroses-laden hugs to all my writer friends in The Tenners, namely Kay Cassidy, Becca Fitzpatrick, and Lindsey Leavitt. Writing can be a lonely business, and you always gave me a shoulder to cry on (or an inbox to fill).
Thanks, too, to Sally Kalkofen and Tiffany Wenzler, who were my first readers, and whose questions, comments, and encouragement helped shape Hex Hall into something actually resembling a book. And to Felicia LaFrance, whose cupcakes helped me write the last hundred pages. You rock, friend!
Few people are lucky enough to have had the same best friend for more than twenty years, so I am very grateful for Katie Rudder Mattli, who’s been reading my stories since 1987, and is probably even now plotting to sell them on eBay. Thank you for your unwavering faith, and for always “validating” me!
Because I always promised I’d do this if I got published: Hi, Dallas!
Thanks to Crys Hodgens, Alison Madison, Debbie McMickin, and Amber Williams. Y’all are phenomenal teachers, and even better friends.
I was lucky enough to have some pretty phenomenal teachers of my own. Alicia Carroll, Alexander Dunlop, James Hammersmith, Louis Garrett, Jim Ryan, Judy Troy, and Jake York were all mentors and friends, and their guidance is much appreciated.
A special thanks to Nancy Wingo, who made me enter writing contests, and compete in English tournaments, and go to Southern Literature conferences. . . . You’re the best, and this book truly would not exist without you.
So much of Hex Hall is about the power of women, and I know few women more powerful than the formidable WOS—Tammi Holman, Kara Johnson, Nancy Wingo, and my mom, K
athie Moore. You ladies are an inspiration in more ways than one!
For my parents, William and Kathie Moore. I would have to write a whole other book just to express a fraction of how thankful I am to you. You have supported me even when my path took some crazy turns, and I love you more than I can say.
John and Will, you are the brightest part of every day. Without the two of you, none of this would’ve been possible. I love you both “infinity”!
And last but not least, thank you to every student who sat in my classroom from 2004–2007. You guys were the reason I came to work every day, and I’m so thankful that I got to be a part of your lives. This book is for all of you.
Table of Contents
Cover
Halftitle
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Acknowledgments
Hex Hall Book One Page 21
