“Okay,” Jenna replied before shyly leaning over and brushing a brief kiss on Vix’s lips.
We watched Vix practically skip back to the house. I bumped Jenna with my shoulder. “Your girlfriend is soooo dreamy.”
Jenna turned back to me, her face glowing. “I know!” she squealed, and we both laughed.
When we’d settled down, Jenna pushed her hair out of her eyes and said, “Okay, so there are some deep thoughts going on in that head, Sophia Alice Mercer. What’s up?”
“What’snot up is a better question,” I told her. “Things are getting…intense with The Eye.”
Jenna watched me. “How intense?”
I sighed and kicked out one foot, sending up an arc of water. I didn’t want to tell her about Council Headquarters, or the dead Council members. Apparently that was so secret even Vix didn’t know about it, and she worked for the freaking Council. “Intense enough that Dad really, really doesn’t want me to go through the Removal.” I wiggled my fingers at her. “It seems demon powers might come in handy if a bunch of people decide to kill me.”
“Don’t say that,” Jenna said sharply.
“Sorry,” I replied, laying my hand on her arm. “I just…I’m really freaked out.”
Her expression softened and she covered my fingers with her own. “I know. The joking in the face of death thing kind of gave it away. But, Soph, please tell me this means you’re for sure not doing the Removal.”
I had to look away as another image of Alice crouching by Elodie, her silver claws puncturing Elodie’s neck, filled my brain. But then I thought of Dad’s face, so sad and scared. For me.
Squinting up at the top of the fountain, I took a deep breath and thought of my first night at Hecate, giggling with Jenna in our room. I flicked my hand, and immediately, the water turned bright pink. “Nah,” I said. “If I didn’t have powers, how could I do cool things like that?”
I’d meant to make Jenna smile. And she did, but it was pretty wobbly, and there were tears in her eyes as she reached over and hugged me. “Yay.”
“Yay,” I agreed, squeezing her back.
When we pulled apart, Jenna scooped her hair off her neck with both hands and tilted her head back, eyes closed. “Did your dad say anything about Nick and Daisy?”
“He—” I started. Then I caught a blur out of the corner of my eye, and something landed in the fountain with a resounding splash, drenching me and Jenna in a wave of pink water.
Nick surfaced, tossing his head back and sending droplets flying. If a demon and a vampire both staring at him with identical looks of “WTF, dude?” bothered him, he didn’t show it.
Instead, he gave his usual creepy grin and asked, “Did one of you lovely ladies say my name?”
“Yeah,” I said, glaring at him as I wrung water out of my braid. “We were just saying, ‘Man, I wish Nick would fling himself into the fountain like a nut job and totally ruin our clothes.’ So thanks for that.”
“Sophie’s right,” Daisy said, coming to stand next to the fountain. Apparently, wherever Nick was, she was right behind. “Tell them you’re sorry.” Her words might have sounded sterner if she hadn’t been looking at Nick like he was something tasty to eat. God, they were weird.
Nick sloshed through the water until he was right in front of me and Jenna. “That’s actually why I came out here, my darling,” he said to Daisy. “Sophie, I was a jerk to you yesterday.”
He didn’t actually say “jerk,” but another word that was way more accurate. I just raised my eyebrows and waited for him to continue.
“I’d heard all these rumors about you and that Cross guy, and I got the wrong impression. But the way you dropped those Eyes last night…” He shook his head. “I was wrong about you. And I hope we can start over as friends.”
He thrust his hand out at me. I hesitated before taking it. There was something about Nick that was like being around a wild animal. He was smiling and friendly now, but it felt like at any minute he could turn snarling and scary again. It reminded me of…well, Alice.
Still, I put my hand in his, meaning to shake it. But as soon as we touched, I felt magic crackle over and through me, so strong that I tried to jerk my hand back. But he held tight until, finally, the crackling sensation stopped. My hand slid out of his, and I leaped up from the fountain. “What the hell was—”
Then I looked down and realized I was completely dry. Not only that, but my demure black dress had been replaced with…well, another black dress, but this one was a lot shorter, sparklier, and also rocking a very low neckline. Even my hair was different, transformed from a soggy braid to silky brown waves.
Nick winked at me. “That’s better. Now you look more like the Demon Who Would Be Queen.” He heaved himself out of the water and grabbed Jenna’s hand. Within seconds, she went from drowned rat to hottie, her soaked clothes replaced with—what else?—a pink sundress. Of course it showed a lot more skin than anything Jenna would have picked for herself.
“Oh, lovely, Nick,” Daisy said, rolling her eyes as he wrapped an arm around her waist.
“What?” he asked once he laid a smacking kiss on her cheek. “They look better like that.”
Without thinking, I reached out and grabbed Nick’s free arm. His wet white T-shirt and jeans rippled, and suddenly he was wearing a Day-Glo yellow tank top and acid-washed jeans. “And you look better like this.”
I wasn’t sure if it was the ridiculous sight of Nick in those clothes, or the fact that I’d done a spell so easily—with absolutely no explosions—but I could feel my lips curving upward in a smile. As Daisy hooted with laughter, Nick narrowed his eyes at me. “Okay, now you’re in for it.” He waved his hand, and suddenly I was sweltering. When I glanced down, I saw that it was because I was now dressed like the Easter Bunny. But with the flick of one fuzzy paw, I’d transformed Nick’s jeans and tank top into a snowsuit.
Then I was in a bikini.
So Nick was wearing a particularly poofy purple prom dress.
By the time he’d turned my clothes into a showgirl’s costume, complete with a feathery headdress, and I’d put him in a scuba suit, we were both completely magic drunk and giggling.
My clothes shifted and slid until I was wearing a blue T-shirt and Capri pants. I sagged back to the edge of the fountain, the stone hot against my palms. Nick stood over me, back in his regular clothes. “Truce?” he asked, and I knew he wasn’t just talking about our magic duel.
I shaded my eyes. “Yeah,” I replied. “Truce.” Something about Nick still bothered me, but as buzzed as I was feeling, it was hard to remember why.
I tipped my head back, sighing as my hair brushed the back of my arms. Magic rushed over and through me. With the water splashing pleasantly and the sun warm on my face, the threat of The Eye seemed very far away.
Someone’s thigh brushed mine, and I opened my eyes to find Jenna sitting next to me. Nick and Daisy were sauntering back to the house, their arms around each other.
“You look like yourself again,” Jenna said with a soft smile.
I closed my eyes. “Ifeel like myself again.”
We sat there for a while in companionable silence. “I remember the last time I saw you this happy,” Jenna said.
Dropping my head onto her shoulder, I said, “Yeah, the day you got to come back to Hecate was a happy occasion.”
She snorted. “No, not that day. You were happy to see me, but you were also all freaked out and sad. I was thinking about the night before the All Hallow’s Eve ball. Remember, we raided the kitchen and you turned all the mashed potatoes into ice cream sundaes?” She giggled at the memory. “And all the beets into maraschino cherries. God, I think I gained ten pounds that night.”
“I was trying to cheer you up.” That had been right after Chaston had been attacked, and most of the school had blamed Jenna for it.
Jenna rested her cheek on the top of my head. “I know,” she said. “And it almost worked. But you were in such a good mood that nigh
t. Seriously, you were like, glowing.”
That was because just hours before the kitchen raid, I’d been on cellar duty with Archer. On that particular night, one of the pieces of magical junk we were supposed to catalogue was a cursed pair of gloves that had a tendency to fly around like a demented bat. We’d chased those darn things for twenty minutes before wrangling them into a jar. It had taken both of us to hold the lid on, which meant we’d been standing very close to each other, our hands overlapping. I could still feel how warm he’d been, pressed against my side. We’d laughed through the whole thing, and I remembered how badly my cheeks ached as I’d smiled up into those dark eyes.
“If the spell on these gloves means I get to be this close to a pretty girl, I’m totally stealing them,” Archer had said, waggling his eyebrows at me. We’d laughed again, and Archer had just been a boy I liked, and I’d thought the only secret between us was just howmuch I liked him.
This time when I closed my eyes, it was to keep tears from spilling onto Jenna’s shoulder. “Yeah,” I finally said. “That was a good night.”
chapter 20
Jenna and I hung out in the garden until early evening. Once we were back at the house, she went in search of Vix while I decided to go hang out in my room for a while. As I climbed the stairs, Lara met me coming down. “Oh, Sophie, I was just looking for you,” she said, forcing a ginormous brown book into my hand. “Your father wanted me to give this to you. He asked that you read as far as you can tonight.”
I read the title stamped on the cover:Demonologies: A History.
“Oh. Um…yay. Thanks for this.” I tried to lift the book in a kind of salute, but it was way too heavy for that. In fact, when I got back up to my room and tossed it on the bed, the mattress creaked in protest.
I opened my laptop and mindlessly surfed the Internet for a while, but my eyes just drifted over the screen without reading anything. There was something else on my mind.
Snapping the computer shut, I walked over to the nightstand and opened the drawer. I stared down at the coin, but before I could pick it up, Jenna came flying into my room, Vix in tow.
I slammed the drawer, hoping neither of them noticed my pounding heart.
But Jenna’s attention was on the book on my bed. “Wow, Soph, that’s some heavy summer reading right there.”
“Yeah,” I said, walking over to pick it up. I winced slightly as I hefted it into my arms. “Just some demon homework from Dad.”
“We were just about to head down to dinner,” Jenna said. “You wanna come with?”
I glanced back and forth between the two vampires. I’d had Jenna all to myself for most of the afternoon, so it’s not like I minded sharing. Still, seeing them beam at each other and throw “we” around reminded me just how crappy my love life was. “Nah, I actually think I’ll just chill up here tonight. Get started on some of this reading.”
Jenna raised a pale eyebrow. “Sophie Mercer, turning down food for homework?”
“Yeah, it’s the new, lamer, more Britisher me.”
Jenna and Vix laughed at that and, after making me promise to hang out with them tomorrow, practically waltzed out the door. I felt like there should have been rainbows and rose petals in their wake or something.
Ugh. That was catty.
Jenna deserved rainbows and rose petals, I reminded myself as I flopped back on my bed, Dad’s book bumping painfully against my sternum. After everything she’d been through, Jenna had earned an eternity of nothing but good stuff. So why did seeing her with Vix make me want to brain myself withDemonologies: A History? I looked at the nightstand again and sighed. Then I opened the heavy book and tried to make myself read.
For the next few hours I made a valiant attempt to get through Chapter One.
For a book that was supposedly about fallen angels running around and creating havoc with their super-awesome dark “magycks,” it was awfully boring, and all the weird spellings definitely didn’t help.
Sighing, I settled deeper into my pillows. As I shifted the book, trying to rest it on my upraised knees, a sheet of paper fell into my lap.
I cringed, thinking it was one of the pages, but then I realized the paper was a lot whiter, and not nearly as musty smelling.
It was a note.
I recognized Dad’s handwriting immediately from all the impersonal birthday cards he’d sent over the years. They’d always been pink and glittery—and I now realized that Lara must have bought them—and he’d always just signed them “Your father.” Never a little message or even his own “happy birthday.”
This note wasn’t much warmer. All it said was, “Be prepared to discuss this book and all that you have read tomorrow—Your father.”
“Yeah,Father, I’ll be sure to do that,” I muttered, rolling my eyes. Did he really need to write me a note to tell me that? And why had he’d stuck it around page three hundred? Because if he thought I was reading that far tonight, that was pretty freaking optimistic of him.
I sighed and was going to crumple up the note, when suddenly the words on the pagemoved. Vibrated, actually.
I rubbed my eyes, thinking I’d been reading for too long, but when I looked back at the note, the letters were still shaking. And then they started sliding around. A lot of them slid down to the bottom of the page, but the rest gathered together to spell out an entirely different message:
The bookcase. Five a.m.
It was Dad’s handwriting again, and as I watched, the discarded letters slipped up the page until the original message was back in place.
“Cryptic Dad is cryptic,” I muttered. There was no doubt in my mind which bookcase he meant—the one holding Virginia Thorne’s grimoire. But why the spells and secrecy? We’d hung out all morning. Was there no time in there he could have said, “Oh, hey, meet me at the magical bookcase at the butt-crack of dawn tomorrow, cool?”
And what the heck did he want to do at that bookcase?
By now, my eyes felt like I’d rubbed sand in them, and it occurred to me that between the Prodigium club, Archer, and everything with Dad today, this was turning out to be the least relaxing vacation ever. I looked around my palatial room, and for just a second I wished I were back at Hecate Hall, sitting on my tiny bed, laughing with Jenna.
But Jenna was down the hall, either hanging out with Vix or sleeping, and I was on my own.
I put the book on my nightstand, surprised that the weight of it didn’t break the tiny piece of furniture. Mom always said there are few things in life that can’t be cured by a hot bath, and I decided to test her on that advice.
A few minutes later, I was up to my chin in hot, soapy water.
I ran my big toe over the faucet, which was made to look like a golden swan. I guess it was supposed to be classy, but it just looked like the swan was vomiting water into the tub, which was a pretty gross thought. Plus, baths always made me think of Chaston, nearly bleeding to death in one of the creepy tubs at Hecate.
Despite the heat of the water, I shuddered. I hadn’t seen Chaston again after that night. Her parents had come to get her, and they’d pulled her out of school for the rest of the year. I wondered what she was doing now, if she even knew about Anna and Elodie.
I was just reaching for my towel when I heard a muffled thump from my bedroom. My fingers froze and the hair on the back of my neck prickled. In scary movies, this was always the part where the naked girl called out, “Hello?” or “Who’s there?” or something equally stupid. Butthis naked girl wasn’t announcing her presence to anyone. Instead, I soundlessly pulled my towel off the rack and wrapped it around me before creeping to the door and pressing my ear against it.
Other than my own heartbeat, I couldn’t hear anything. I rolled my eyes as I grabbed my robe from the back of the door. Clearly, the bath—and thoughts of Chaston—had spooked me. If there was anyone in my bedroom, it was probably just one of the army of servants fluffing my pillow. Maybe leaving me a chocolate mint.
Knotting the robe’s sash a
round my waist, I opened the door. My room was empty, and I blew out a long breath.
“Way to be lame, Sophie,” I muttered as I crossed the bedroom to the dresser. This place was like the Prodigium version of Fort Knox. The idea that anyone would be in my bedroom, being all nefarious, was completely—
I heard the sound again—another thump, this one a lot louder. And then I realized that it was coming from my nightstand.
Blood pounded in my ears as I ran over to the small table and yanked open the drawer.
Sure enough, the gold coin was thumping around in there like it was alive. How the heck did this work? Archer had said he’d use it to find me, but it suddenly occurred to me that I had no idea what that actually meant. Maybe the coin was a type of portable portal, and he was about to poof into my bedroom in a cloud of smoke or something.
That thought—Archer literally putting himself in the middle of a whole bunch of people who wanted to kill him—was too horrible to contemplate. I closed my fingers around the coin, drawing in a sharp breath at how hot it was.
Suddenly, it was like a screen fell over my eyes, and I could see the abandoned corn mill. The alcove that led to the Itineris. Archer was sitting there next to it, in the low windowsill.
Waiting for me.
Dropping the coin on the bedside table, I turned toward the dresser. I’d grab a pair of jeans, that long-sleeved black shirt I’d brought. If I were quiet enough, I could probably get out of the house without even trying to come up with an excuse—
Then I thought of Dad, pale and serious, telling me how important it was that I never see Archer again. I thought of how proud of me he’d been today, of what might happen to him if anyone caught me sneaking out to see an Eye.
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