The way he had kissed me.
I lowered my eyes to the table. “I don’t know,” I finally said.
Jenna sighed, but she didn’t say anything more about it. After a moment we started talking about the trip again, and I made Jenna laugh by wondering aloud if there was such a thing as vampire high tea. “And when you ask for Earl Grey, you actually get Earl Grey,” I summed up, sending Jenna into another fit of giggles.
I felt better as we left the dining hall, and Jenna must have too, since she looped her arm through mine to walk up the stairs.
But the thought she’d put in my mind refused to die, and I fell asleep that night seeing Archer’s eyes and hoping with most of my heart he wasn’t in England.
Even as a not so tiny part of it hoped that he was.
chapter 4
Three weeks later, I left for England.
Mom and Mrs. Casnoff walked down to the ferry with the four of us late in the afternoon. Mom’s eyes were red, so I knew she’d been crying, but she tried to seem cheerful as she helped Jenna and me load our luggage. “Make sure you take lots of pictures,” she told me. “And if you come back using words like ‘queue’ or ‘lorry,’ I’ll be very upset.”
We stood on the deck, the sea breeze ruffling our hair. Jenna had already claimed a bench in the shade, and Cal was talking in a low voice to Mrs. Casnoff. I saw her look over his shoulder at me, and wondered how she felt about me leaving for the summer. She was probably pumped, or as pumped as Mrs. Casnoff got. God knows, I’d brought nothing but trouble to Hecate Hall.
I also wondered if I should have told her about Elodie’s ghost. Actually, Iknew I should have. If I’d told her about Alice when she first appeared to me, maybe Elodie wouldn’t be a ghost. It was a thought that had burned at the back of my brain for months, and here I was making the same mistake all over again.
Before I could think about that any more, Mom wrapped her arms around me. We were about the same height, and I could feel her tears at my temple when she said, “I’m going to miss your birthday next month. I’ve never missed your birthday.”
My throat was so tight that I couldn’t speak, so I just hugged her closer.
“Sophie,” Dad said, appearing at my elbow. “It’s time to go.”
I nodded and gave Mom one last squeeze. “I’ll call lots, I promise,” I told her as we pulled apart. “And I’ll be back before you know it.”
Mom wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand and gave me one of her dazzling smiles. Dad drew in a sharp breath next to me, but when I glanced over at him, he had turned away.
“Good-bye, James,” Mom called after him.
Cal, Jenna, and I stood at the railing as the ferry pulled away from the dock. Mrs. Casnoff stood on the shore, watching us go, but Mom was already walking back into the woods that surrounded the beach. I was glad. It was a miracle I hadn’t started sobbing already.
The ferry chugged out into the brown water. Over the trees, we could make out the very top of Hecate Hall.
“I haven’t been away from this place since I was thirteen years old,” Cal said softly. “Six years.”
I’d never asked Cal what he’d done that had landed him at Hecate Hall. He just didn’t seem like the type of guy to do the dangerous spells that usually got warlocks sent to the school. He’d decided to stay on after his eighteenth birthday, although I’d never been clear on whether that had been by choice. But the farther we got from the school, the more troubled he looked.
Even Jenna, who usually acted like she was composing a thesis on all the ways Hecate sucked, looked wistful.
I stared at the bit of roof I could see against the blue sky, and a strong sense of foreboding came over me, as though the sun had gone behind a cloud.
The three of us will never come back here.
The thought was so startling that I shivered. I tried to shake it off. That was ridiculous. We were going to England for three months, and we’d be back at Hecate by August. Premonition isn’t one of my powers, so I was just being paranoid.
Still, the feeling stayed with me long after Graymalkin Island had faded in the distance.
* * *
“Being a demon should make you immune to jet lag,” I mumbled hours and hours later as a sleek black car carried us through the English countryside.
The long flight from Georgia to England had been pretty uneventful. Except that Cal had sat next to me.
Which was fine. Really.
It wasn’t like I’d been hyperaware of his presence and jumped the three times his knee bumped mine. And after that third time, he definitely hadn’t shot me a kind of disgusted look and said, “Chill out, will you?”
And when Jenna gave us both a quizzical look, we hadn’t snapped, in unison, “Nothing!” Because all of that would have been weird, and Cal and I weren’t weird. We were cool.
“You’ll feel better soon,” Dad said. For the first time since I’d met him, his eyes were bright and he actually looked relaxed. I guess being back in the motherland will do that to a guy.
Jenna was practically bouncing with excitement, but Cal looked as tired as I felt. I hadn’t been able to fall asleep on the plane, and I was paying for it now. My eyes felt gritty and hot, and all I could think about was collapsing into a bed. After all, my poor body thought it was six a.m., but in England it was nearly lunchtime. Plus, we’d been driving for what felt like hours.
When the plane had landed in London, I’d assumed the car would take us to a house in the city, or maybe to Council Headquarters so Dad could do business stuff. But the car had driven out of the crowded streets and past small houses all clustered together that reminded me of a Dickens story. Gradually, the brick buildings had given way to trees and rolling green hills. I saw more sheep than I thought existed.
“So we came all the way to England just to hang out in the middle of nowhere?” I asked, leaning my aching head on Jenna’s shoulder.
“We did,” Dad replied.
Cal smiled. Well, of course he’d be thrilled to be stuck on some British farm all summer long, I thought grumpily, my visions of Big Ben and Buckingham Palace and Tower Bridge crumbling. Probably all sorts of English plants to heal—
Then I caught sight of a house.
Although, calling it a house was like calling theMona Lisa a painting, or Hecate Hall a school. The term was technically correct, but it didn’t even begin to sum up the reality of the object.
This house was one of the biggest buildings I’d ever seen, and made of a light, golden-colored stone that looked warm to the touch. It sat nestled in a lush valley, an emerald green lawn stretching in front of it, while a forested hill rose in the back. A thin, shining ribbon of water curved gracefully along one side of the property. Literally hundreds of windows glittered in the sunlight.
“Wow,” Cal said, leaning over to look out the window.
“This is where we’re staying?” I asked.
Dad just smiled, looking way too satisfied with himself. “I told you there would be room for all of us,” he said, and I caught myself smiling back. We held each other’s eyes for a second, but I broke away first, nodding toward the house. “Don’t houses like that always have a name?”
“More often than not,” he answered. “This is Thorne Abbey.”
Something about that name was familiar, but I couldn’t think why. “It used to be a church?”
“Not that actual house. It wasn’t built until the late sixteenth century. But there was an abbey on the land.”
He went into lecture mode, talking about how the abbey had been razed under Henry VIII, and the land given to the Thorne family.
But to be honest, I wasn’t really listening. I was watching several people walk out the front door of the house. Then I spotted a pair of wings and wondered who exactly Dad’s friends were.
The car rumbled over a stone bridge and pulled into a circular drive. Dad got out of the car first, and as he opened my door, I suddenly wished I’d worn something nicer than a fa
ded pair of jeans and a plain green T-shirt.
Impossibly wide steps led up to a terrace made of the same golden-colored stone as the rest of the house. There were six people standing there, two dark-haired kids who looked about my age, and four adults. I guessed they were all Prodigium. Well, the faerie was obvious, but I could sense magic hovering around the rest of them, too.
The day was warmer than I’d expected, and I felt a few beads of sweat pop out on my brow. The gravel crunched under my feet, and in the distance I heard birds singing. Jenna appeared at my elbow, her earlier excitement gone, her fingers moving over her bloodstone.
Dad placed a hand on the small of my back and steered me up the steps. “Everyone, this is Sophie. My daughter.”
Suddenly I felt something surge in my blood. Something like magic, but darker, more powerful. It was coming from the two teenagers near the back of the crowd. They were the only ones not smiling, and the boy—who looked weirdly familiar—was glaring at me.
Realization slammed into my chest, and it was all I could do not to gasp.
They were demons.
chapter 5
I stared at the demon kids, numbness seeping through me. Dad and I were supposed to be the only demons in the world, so how—
A sudden, horrifying thought came to me: holy hell weasel, were these kids my half-siblings? Had Dad dragged me all the way to England to play out some twisted version of the Brady Bunch?
“What is this?” I choked out, meaning the other demons.
But Dad smiled proudly. “This is Council Headquarters.”
Behind me, I heard Cal let out a long breath, like he’d been holding it, as a woman with dark blond hair stepped out from the group and offered her hand. “Sophia, we’re so thrilled you’ll be with us this summer. I’m Lara.”
I shook her hand, even as I shot a glance at the demon kids. They were whispering to each other.
“Lara is a Council member, and my second-in-command, you might say,” Dad said.
Lara didn’t let go of my hand right away. “I’ve heard so much about you, both from your father and from Anastasia.”
“Mrs. Casnoff?” Oh, God, if that’s where this woman had gotten her Sophie Mercer gossip, I was surprised she’d greeted me with a handshake instead of an exorcism.
“Lara and Anastasia are sisters,” Dad said.
“Okay,” I replied, trying to process that. Then something else occurred to me. “I thought Council Headquarters was in London.”
A deep vertical line appeared between Lara’s brows. “It is. Due to some unforeseen events we’ve decided to relocate for the summer.” Now that I knew she was Mrs. Casnoff’s sister, I could see—and hear—the resemblance. I wondered if the demon teenagers were the “unforeseen events,” or if there wasmore messed up stuff happening. Wouldn’t have surprised me.
I turned to Dad, “You said we were going to a friend’s house. Why didn’t you tell me you were bringing me here?”
He met my gaze. “Because if I had, you wouldn’t have come.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the demon kids break away from the group and head for the massive double doors just past the terrace. The girl shot me one last look before they slipped inside.
“Sophie, this is the Council,” Dad said, drawing my attention back to the Prodigium standing there.
“That’s it?” I heard Cal say under his breath, and I had to admit, I was surprised, too. All this time I’d imagined the Council as this huge, shadowy group of Prodigium who wore long black robes or something.
I don’t know if he heard Cal, or if he could just read the looks on our faces, but Dad said, “There are normally twelve members, but now there are just the five of us currently at Thorne.”
“Where are—” Jenna started to say, but she was interrupted as one of the men stepped forward. He was older than Dad, and his white hair gleamed in the sunlight. “I’m Kristopher,” he said, his voice thick with an unidentifiable accent. “It is a pleasure to meet you, Sophia.” His eyes were icy blue instead of gold, but he was definitely a shifter. I could feel it.
Wondering if he turned into a husky dog, I turned to the next guy, craning my neck to look up at him. He must’ve been nearly seven feet tall, and his huge wings reminded me of water in oil: they were black, but they still swirled with every color, from green to blue to pink.
“Roderick,” he said as my hand disappeared into his. The woman was Elizabeth, and with her soft gray hair and little round glasses, I thought she looked like someone’s nana; but when I went to shake her hand, she yanked me to her and sniffed my hair.
Great. Another werewolf.
Dad said something about speaking with all of them later, and then, finally, we headed inside.
Jenna gasped as we moved into the foyer, and if I hadn’t still been reeling from the one-two punch of the Council on the steps, plus the demon teenagers, I probably would have too. It was one of those spaces where you felt like you could look forever and still not see everything. Hecate could be overwhelming as well, but it was nothing like this. The black-and-white marble floor underneath my feet was shiny enough to make me glad I hadn’t worn a skirt, and I was nearly blinded by the acres of gilt that covered every surface. Like Hecate, the main entrance was dominated by a staircase, but this one was a lot bigger, and carved from white limestone. The steps were covered in a carpet as red as spilled blood.
Overhead, the curved ceiling was covered in a mural, but I couldn’t quite make out what was being depicted. From the looks of it, it was violent and tragic. Other paintings around the room showed the same kind of scene: stern-faced men pointing swords at weeping women, or men charging into battle while their horses’ eyes rolled in fear.
I shivered. Even in June, it was impossible to believe you could ever be warm in a room like this. Or maybe my goose bumps were from all the magic, as though five hundred years’ worth of spells had seeped into the stone and wood.
“They have statues,” Jenna said. “In ahallway.” Sure enough, two bronze statues of veiled women guarded the massive staircase, where even more people were now lining up. They were all wearing black uniforms, and had nearly identical smiles plastered on their faces.
“What are those people doing?” Jenna whispered to me.
“I don’t know,” I replied through a frozen grin, “but I’m afraid a musical number might be involved.”
“This is our household staff,” Dad said, sweeping his arm toward the group. “Anything you need, they’ll be happy to help you with.”
“Oh,” I said weakly, feeling like my voice echoed in the cavernous room. “Great.”
Beyond the crowd, at the top of the stairs, was a large marble arch. Dad nodded toward it and said, “Our temporary offices are through there, but we can see those later. I’m sure you’d like to see your rooms now.”
I caught the edge of Dad’s sleeve and pulled him away from the group. “Actually,” I whispered, “I’d like to know where those other demons came from. Are they—they’re not my brother and sister, are they?”
Dad’s eyes widened behind his glasses. “No,” he said. “Dear Lord, no. Daisy and Nick are…We can talk more about them at another time, but no, they’re no relation to us.”
“Then why are they here?”
Dad frowned and rolled his shoulders. “Because they have nowhere else to go, and this is the safest place for them.”
That made sense. “Right. Because you guys could take them out if they went all super-demon.”
But Dad shook his head, puzzled. “No, Sophie, I meant it’s safer forthem. Nick and Daisy have already had several attempts made on their lives.”
He didn’t even give me time to react before raising his hand and waving Lara over. Her heels clicked on the marble as she strode toward us. “Sophie, Lara has prepared some lovely rooms for you and your guest. Why don’t you go get acclimatized? We can talk later.”
It obviously wasn’t a request, so I just shrugged and said, “Sure.”
Lara led us across the foyer to a tall stone doorway housing yet another set of steps. As she led us up the dim passageway, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was walking into a tomb.
As we walked, Lara rattled off statistics that I only half listened to. They were unbelievable anyway.
Over a million cubic feet of living space. More than three hundred rooms, thirty-one of which were kitchens. Ninety-eight bathrooms. Three hundred and fifty-nine windows. Two thousand four hundred and seventy-six lightbulbs.
Jenna was shaking her head by the time we reached the fourth floor, where the three of us would be staying. Cal was shown to his room first, and Jenna burst into giggles when we peeked over his shoulder. The room could not have been less Cal. I mean, I guess the hunter-green bedding and drapes were kind of masculine, but the spindly gold-and-white furniture was definitely not. Nor was the giant ruffled canopy over his huge bed.
“Wow, Cal,” I said, feeling a little bit like myself for the first time since I’d walked into this crazy house. “You will be able to have some awesome slumber parties in here. All the other girls are gonna be so jealous.”
Cal shot me a half smile, and I felt some of the weirdness between us dissipate. “It’s not so bad,” he said. Then he flopped down on the bed, only to sink out of sight in the middle of it. As Cal drowned in a sea of fluffy coverlets and throw pillows, I couldn’t help but crack up.
Lara looked offended. “That bed originally belonged to the third Duke of Cornwall.”
“It’s great,” Cal said, his voice muffled. He gave her the thumbs-up, which only made me and Jenna laugh harder.
Frowning, Lara led us down the hall a little ways. She opened a door, and there was no doubt this room had been set up for Jenna. There were pink drapes, pink furniture, and even a deep rose-colored bedspread. The room overlooked a small, private garden. A breeze from the open window carried the scent of flowers. I had to admit, I was impressed. And a little surprised.
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