Текст книги "Bewitched"

Автор книги: Laura Thalassa

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CHAPTER 25

The moment he vanishes from view, I sprint back to my house, Nero following at my heels.

I haven’t heard Kane’s voice since he called out to me that once, and while I feel reassured that he survived the fall, I’m frightened by the silence that’s followed.

I get to the edge of the forest, and through the trees, I can see my residence hall. I choke on a cry when my eyes fall on Kane’s slumped form lying on the lawn between it and me. He’s exactly where Memnon dropped him, and he doesn’t look like he’s moved.

I race to him and fall to my knees, Nero joining me a moment later.

Kane is slumped on his side, his eyes closed.

“Kane?” I say. “Kane?”

He doesn’t respond.

I place my hands on his chest, not bothering to check his pulse or rouse him again. Unless he’s beyond saving, what I’m about to do should work.

Closing my eyes, I call on my magic. I’ve never done this before, but I have enough power and determination to give it a shot.

“Seal punctured flesh, mend broken bones, staunch the unbidden bleeding, and heal the wounds within.” I speak the words in Sarmatian, and though they don’t rhyme, the power of them—power steeped in age and obscurity—adds a sharp potency to the spell.

My palms tingle, and then thick, viscous magic seeps from them. It settles over Kane’s skin before being absorbed into his body.

I sense it healing him, but I don’t see the results right away, not until his crumpled form seems to expand, and it looks unnervingly like a balloon inflating. I can only imagine what sort of internal damage would cause his body to collapse in on itself in the first place.

Kane grunts as one of his legs untwists, and I have to stop myself from wincing on his behalf. I know shifters are used to their bodies rearranging themselves, but this looks violently painful.

A minute goes by, and I’m drawing in ragged breaths, my magic taxing me. I can feel a prickling throb in my head as memories are siphoned away. I won’t think about how many memories this has cost me.

Kane moans, then lets out a weak cough. Before he even opens his eyes, he calls out, “Selene!”

I release a shaky breath, my relief almost palpable.

“I’m right here, Kane,” I say soothingly, smoothing a hand down the side of his face. “I’m healing you. You were thrown a long way down.”

The shifter’s brows come together and he forces his eyes open. As soon as he sees me, he reaches for my hand. “You’re healing me?” he echoes.

I give his grip a squeeze. “Yeah.”

A muffled wet sound comes from his body as my power repairs something. Kane makes a pained low growl.

“I’m sorry,” I say softly. “So sorry.” Not just for the pain my magic is bringing him—pain he might be able to manage if he could shift and heal himself—but also for the fact I brought this upon him. I’ve known Memnon is a threat ever since he first confronted me.

A threat I kissed only minutes ago.

Ugh, what is wrong with me?

Kane closes his eyes. “I just want to know”—he swallows—“that you’re okay.”

“I’m fine, Kane. As long as you’re okay, I will be too.”

His hand squeezes mine.

You touch that boy, and he dies. Slowly.

I draw in a deep breath, trying to calm my nerves because I have been touching that boy, and screw that sorcerer because I will keep touching him until he’s better. I want to rip Memnon apart from shoulder to hip. The fucking audacity he has to threaten me.

Kane’s eyes flutter. “Who was that who attacked us?” he asks, his voice hoarse. “And how did you get away?”

I glance over at the tree line, my skin still tingling from all the places Memnon touched it.

“It’s a long story,” I say. “He’s”—I was a king and you were my queen—“an old enemy.”

Briefly his eyes slide to my familiar, who stares back at Kane with a bored expression, as though he’d rather not be here. Which, he probably really would like to return to harassing cute little forest creatures, or whatever it was Nero was doing in the Everwoods.

I face my familiar. “You can go back to the woods, if you’d rather not stick around,” I say.

Nero tears his gaze away from the shifter to look at me for several long seconds. I don’t know what the look is supposed to mean, but the big cat proceeds to step into my space and rub his body against my own, his tail sliding along my neck as he does so.

Once he’s done, Nero prowls away, retreating into the darkness and leaving me and Kane alone.

The shifter returns his attention to me, and I think that maybe he’s going to comment on Nero, but instead, he says, “How does someone as nice as you”—the shifter sits up, grimacing a little as he does so—“have enemies?”

I wrap an arm around Kane’s back as he sways a little. “You okay?” I ask, ignoring the question.

The lycanthrope grits his teeth. “Good enough—thanks to your magic.” He sits up. “You can stop healing me now. I’ll do the rest myself.”

I do stop, the tendrils of my power snaking back into me. All that’s left of my effort is the unnerving throb of it beneath my skull.

“Do you still have your phone on you?” he asks.

I nod.

“Good,” he says. He leans forward, getting on his hands and knees, his blond hair hanging a little in front of his face. “Call the Politia and report this.”

I don’t think Kane used any magic in the order, but I feel a strange compulsion to promptly do as he says.

Maybe that’s why I hesitate. Or maybe it’s that I don’t really believe the Politia is going to stop some ancient sorcerer from doing as he pleases when it comes to me.

Kane’s pauses to gaze at me. “Selene, please. Call them. This man can’t think to abduct you from your home whenever he wants.”

He has a point—and that’s not even touching on the fact this same man threw Kane from a three-story window.

“Okay,” I say quietly.

The shifter’s back ripples in a way that’s not natural, and he groans. “If you’re squeamish about nudity,” he bites out, “you may want to look away.”

I feel a pang of regret that this topic even has to come up. If Memnon hadn’t been the world’s biggest cockblocker, this man would be several inches deep in me and I would have seen every last bit of him.

I sigh regretfully.

I don’t turn away, but I do use the moment to pull out my phone from my boot and call the Politia.

“Hi, this is Selene Bowers. I’d like to report a break-in and an assault at the Henbane Coven residence hall …”

My words die away as, out of the corner of my eye, I see Kane’s form shift. I nearly drop the phone as pelt replaces bare skin, and Kane’s face extends, his teeth sharpening, a snout replacing his nose. His hands and feet become paws, and his torso narrows and rounds.

When it’s done, all I can see of Kane in this animal are my crush’s ice-blue eyes, and even those…those eyes don’t look human.

Holy shit, I have to blink several times to make sense of the wolf standing before me. I go still as its gaze locks on mine.

“Hello, miss? Miss? Miss?” the officer on the line says.

“Please come quickly,” I breathe, and then I end the call.

I don’t move. It’s all I can do not to panic as I stare down a larger-than-life gray wolf.

The animal sniffs the air in my direction, and why, oh, why did Kane decide to shift right next to me? And why did I not have the good sense to get the hell away from him before now?

The werewolf approaches me, and he’s still scenting the air like I’m his next meal.

“Don’t,” I say, putting power behind my voice. I don’t know how much of Kane the man is in control of Kane the animal’s mind.

The wolf stops, his ears flicking, and he shakes out his head like he can throw off the magic.

Just as I’m bracing for him to approach me again, shifter magic thickens around the wolf, and then the transformation is happening all over again but in reverse—limbs lengthening and widening, fur retreating—until a very naked Kane is on the ground on all fours, panting from the exertion. I can see his muscles trembling from the effort, and his skin is covered in a sheen of sweat.

“Sorry,” he says. His voice is more of a growl than anything else. He clears his throat. “I wasn’t thinking. I forgot you weren’t”—he glances up at me—“pack.”

I exhale. I think that was supposed to be a compliment, but considering the fact I nearly shit my pants a few seconds ago, I’m having mixed feelings about the entire thing.

Why does every supernatural have to be so damn scary?

“Lycanthropes don’t hunt humans,” he adds. “Not, at least, to kill.”

When then would a wolf shifter hunt a human?

I’m not brave enough to ask.

Instead, I nod. “How are your wounds?”

“Better,” Kane says, sounding more like himself. He grabs his clothing and begins to put it on. “I think I’m almost completely healed. One more shift should do the trick, but I’ll do that back on pack lands.”

I give him a small smile.

I can hear sirens in the distance. Must be the Politia.

Once Kane is dressed—well, mostly dressed, as he’s still shirtless—he comes over and sits at my side, wrapping an arm around my shoulders. His embrace is so comforting that I can’t help but lean my head against him, Memnon’s threat be damned.

“I think we’re doomed to just be friends,” I say softly, hating the admission but feeling the truth of it.

“What?” Kane looks down at me. “Is this about that asshole?”

I nod against him. There’s no point in lying.

He’s quiet for a moment.

“And is that what you want?” he says, frowning. “To just be friends?”

I take a deep breath. “I don’t know what I want,” I say wearily. “I do know that I was ready to have really fun, wild sex with you.” I’m not even embarrassed to admit it at this point.

“That’s not off the table,” Kane cuts in, skimming his lips along my temple.

Those lips feel wrong there. Fuck, why do they feel wrong there? I want to carve out my own thoughts because they’re all twisted up.

I straighten, pulling away a little from the shifter. “The man who attacked you, he’s…been stalking me, and he’s made it clear he’ll hurt you if we do anything more.”

But that isn’t the full truth, is it? I kissed the sorcerer, and it felt right in a way nothing else has. And now I’m noticing all the ways other touches don’t stack up.

And you are my Selene, my eternal soul mate.

Kane’s hold tightens on me. “Fuck him. Some sicko doesn’t get to tell you how to live your life.”

Yeah, this is true, but the sicko in question apparently overthrew an entire kingdom just to get his girl a summer palace.

That’s not the sort of man I want to go toe-to-toe with.

Before I can form a response, two Politia officers, a man and a woman, come around to the back of the house, their flashlights moving over the lawn.

I wave to them, just to get their attention.

The two come over to us.

I pull away from Kane, putting some needed distance between us.

“Are you Selene Bowers?” one of the officers asks.

I nod.

“Would you like to tell us why you called us out here?” the other officer asks, her eyes moving over me and Kane.

For the next thirty minutes, Kane and I recount what happened to the two Politia officers. I covertly glance at their name tags: Officer Howahkan is the man and Officer Mwangi is the woman. They contact Kane’s pack to inform them of the incident, and then I take the group of us inside my residence hall.

When we pass the house’s library, we catch sight of a witch who sits passed out on one of the wingback chairs, her legs spread and her skirt around her waist. Another woman—a shifter, I think—kneels before her, her head on the witch’s thigh. She too appears to be passed out.

Officer Howahkan clears his throat, clearly not cool with what he’s seen.

He’s obviously not attended too many events with witches. We really do party hard.

I lead the group upstairs, toward my room, skirting around a witch sitting on the landing while singing a bawdy drinking song to her fox familiar, her magenta magic swirling around her.

We head down the third-floor hallway to my room, and once I let the group inside, the officers look over the broken glass, the rumpled sheets, and Kane’s discarded shirt. And then Kane and I recount the evening’s events all over again, starting with the foiled bang session and ending with Kane shifting. The entire time we recount the events, the coven sister in the room next door has really loud, enthusiastic sex.

Good for her. Should have been me, but good for her.

We all eventually head back downstairs, passing that same witch on the landing, only now she and her familiar have fallen asleep together. The couple in the library is still passed out, and honestly, they’ll probably be there until morning.

Officer Mwangi shakes her head at all of it.

I hurriedly escort them out to the front porch before closing the door behind me and giving my sisters their privacy.

“Well, I think that’s all we need for now,” Officer Howahkan says to me and Kane. “We’ll let you know if we apprehend your attacker.”

Officer Mwangi scrutinizes me as her partner turns to her, clearly ready to wrap this up.

Her eyes, however, are fixed on me. “Weren’t you the same girl who reported the last murder?” she asks.

Um…I have zero recollection of meeting this person.

I swallow delicately. “Um. Yeah.”

Kane glances over at me, his brows rising. Officer Howahkan too stares at me with unnerving intensity.

“What a coincidence,” Officer Mwangi says, though the way she says it makes it clear she’s thinking it’s not a coincidence at all. She gives me a once-over, like I’ve just gotten way more suspicious.

I feel my hackles rise.

“Whoa,” Kane says, lifting a hand in a placating gesture. “Tonight wasn’t Selene’s fault. A man broke into her room and attacked us.”

Officer Mwangi’s attention moves to Kane, and she gives him a look like he’s gullible.

I hear an ominous growl low in Kane’s chest. I glance at him, remembering how he reacted when I ordered him around earlier this evening. And now he perceived something else as a challenge.

Just where in lycanthrope hierarchy does Kane fall?

Because he’s acting like an alpha. A possessive one too.

Officer Mwangi dips her head, and I don’t know if she means for it to be a submissive display, but it seems to satisfy Kane’s wolf, who quiets at the action.

But placating gestures or not, the damage from the officer’s words has already been done. I can sense it in the air like a sick sort of magic itself.

Somehow, between stumbling upon a corpse and getting accosted by an ancient sorcerer, the Politia has determined I’m suspicious enough to take note of.

Goddess, I just hope it doesn’t come back to bite me.

When I wake up the next morning, I smile at the sound of birds chirping in the tree outside, and for about two seconds, life is utterly blissful.

Then last night comes rushing in.

I put my hand over my eyes. Make it all go away. There are bits of yesterday I can’t remember either—getting ready, that’s gone. And there are some lost memories from the party last night, but I’m not sure if alcohol or magic is to blame for that.

Still, I remember enough. And in the sobering light of day, one detail in particular catches my attention, one I didn’t spend much time musing on last night.

We are soul mates, little witch.

I scramble off the bed, cursing when I step on broken glass from my window.

“Broken glass, stop being a bimbo. Repair yourself and mend this window.”

Really need to work on my rhymes…

As the glass levitates off the floor and fits itself back into place, I make a beeline for my bookshelf. My fingers skim over the spines of my journals.

Being a soul mate isn’t just some offhand thing. It’s an aspect of a supernatural that manifests when their magic Awakens. One that’s formally recorded and acknowledged.

So, if I were a soul mate, I would have written that down somewhere before my mind stole that information from me. It would have been too important not to.

I pull out the notebooks one by one, and frantically flip through them.

Nothing, nothing, nothing.

Of course there’s nothing. There wouldn’t be because I’m not a soul mate. Not to that brutal bastard.

Still, I spend over an hour sitting on the floor of my room, notebooks scattered around me, flipping through page after page of notes I wrote years ago, looking for any clue that I may be a soul mate. It’s only as I get to the earliest of my journals that I realize I didn’t keep good records until about halfway through my junior year at Peel Academy, months after my Awakening.

Regardless, what I do have is thorough enough. And not once do I find any mention of my being a soul mate.

I exhale. I know I should feel relieved, but there are those few damnable months that are unrecorded. And then there’s the fact I no longer have the memory of my Awakening, when I would’ve first learned of whether I’m a soul mate.

I rub the skin over my heart, frowning. The more I focus on it, the more I swear there may be something there.

It was just the sorcerer’s trick, nothing more.

There’s one other place I could check that would know for certain.

Peel Academy would have files on hand about my Awakening. They have them for all supernaturals who attend their boarding school. I just need to get a copy of mine.

I open my laptop and head to my email account. Once there, I send out a quick request to Peel Academy’s Records Department to forward me my official results.

Goddess, but I hope this settles things once and for all. I’m still holding on to that damnable hope that I’m right.

Otherwise, I’m screwed.

OceanofPDF.com

CHAPTER 26

Bzzzzzzz.

The sound of my phone has me rising from my computer chair. I’m not sure where it’s coming from, but it’s not on my nightstand, where it should be.

Bzzzzzzz.

I follow the sound, pawing through the remains of my outfit from last night.

Bzzzzzzz.

I snatch up one of my boots and flip it over. My phone tumbles out before hitting my floor with a thunk.

I have time to see the caller is Sybil, but as soon as I snatch it up, the call ends.

I’m about to call her back—half dreading all I’m going to have to tell her—when I realize there’s a nauseating number of texts and missed calls on my phone that I must’ve slept through.

Oh Goddess, is Sybil all right?

I panic scroll through them.

Did you have a fun night last night?

Was Kane everything you ever dreamed of?

Okay, I’m assuming you’re asleep from a night of raging sex, but please text me.

Holy fuck, WHAT HAPPENED?

WHY AREN’T YOU ANSWERING?

IF YOU DON’T TEXT ME BACK NOW I’M COMING TO YOUR ROOM.

Okay, I was totally a stalker and I peeked into your room and you’re passed out and snuggling your familiar like he’s a body pillow and it’s so damn cute.

Beneath the text is a picture my creep of a best friend took of me asleep with Nero.

It is kind of a cute picture.

Okay, I’m going to let you sleep, babe. Find me when you wake up.

PS I’m going to let you sleep *a little*. Might start calling you if I get impatient.

Now that I know my friend is okay—despite the fact I freaking left her behind last night to go bang a werewolf (come on, Selene, do better)—my whole body relaxes, the tension seeping out of me.

She’s good. No murderer is keeping her hostage. She’s just worried about me.

As I hold the phone, another text pops up.

PPS I passed on your number to Sawyer who’s passing it along to Kane. Whatever happened last night, he’s still super into you.

I groan. There’s no way in hell Kane is still into me. As for me, setting aside Memnon’s threat, in the harsh light of day, after all the booze and bad decisions, I’m not actually sure how into Kane I am.

A worry for another time.

I text Sybil back that I am alive and okay and that I will find her and fill her in about what happened as soon as I can.

After I finish typing out my response, I notice another text from last night, one from another unknown number.

I stare down at the text message on my phone, trying to make sense of what I’m reading.

Hey, this is Kasey. Can’t wait to see you at the circle tomorrow. 10 P.M. Library.

Wait, I agreed to do a spell circle, didn’t I?

Shit. Is that tonight?

I grab my notebook and flip to the notes I have written down for this day. Sure enough, I’ve written Spell Circle in red and circled it several times.

I groan.

Goddess, I hope I don’t regret agreeing to this.

At 10:00 p.m., after most of my coven sisters have either made their way back to their rooms or headed out to another party this weekend, I sit in the house’s library, flipping through a book on Indigenous witchcraft in Peru, jiggling my leg a little.

There are no windows in here, but even without looking, I know the new moon is all but invisible out in the night sky, and I try not to let that spook me too much.

In spellwork, a new moon is good for illusion, hiding the truth, and cloaking enchantments. It also happens to be good for dark magic, when the goddess’s third eye has wandered away from the earth.

I hear the soft pad of footfalls, and I set my book down just as Kasey enters the library.

“Hey, good to see you,” she says, nodding to me. “Ready to go?”

Nope. Not one bit.

“Yeah,” I lie, getting up and crossing over to her. “Where are we going?”

“You’ll see,” Kasey says cryptically, giving me a wink, as though this is all in good fun and not at all unnerving.

She leads us out of the library and walks down the hall opposite the kitchen. I haven’t gone this way much, though on the left is a small attached greenhouse, where even now a witch is watering plants.

We pass it, then continue. I feel the sharp absence of Nero, who is out gallivanting in the woods, too busy being a fluffy forest creature’s nightmare to attend some spell circle. That cat, as moody as he is, is my rock. Without him by my side, my nerves are just a pinch more frayed.

At the end of the hall is a door to the Ritual Room. It’s where house meetings and official ceremonies are held. We had a brief welcome-back meeting here during my first week and another one about a week ago, so I’m not totally unfamiliar with the space.

Kasey enters the room ahead of me, walking confidently down the makeshift aisle, brushing her hands along the chairbacks nearest her.

I hesitate, looking beyond her at the dark room. The walls and ceiling are painted black, and there are no windows; even the wall sconces and the iron chandelier barely give off light. It’s not exactly the room I want to be hanging out in at night.

Not that I’m doing any of this for the fun of it.

Reluctantly, I follow Kasey in, our footsteps echoing around us. Like the rest of the house, various wards and enchantments cloak this space. But in here, with the dark walls that feel like they’re closing in on you, the magic feels a bit suffocating.

“Are we meeting other people here?” I ask, eyeing the rows of empty chairs that have been left out after the room’s last meeting.

“Not exactly,” she says, offering nothing else.

Her cryptic response sets my frazzled nerves further on edge.

Kasey doesn’t stop walking until she reaches the back wall of the room.

She pulls out a vial from her pocket and pours a powdered concoction of herbs and who knows what else into the palm of her hand.

She lifts it to her face. “Reveal yourself,” she whispers, then blows the powder at the wall.

Where a moment ago there was solid, unbroken wall, now there is a simple black door.

I’m speechless at the hidden door.

Kasey turns to me with a mischievous grin. “Pretty neat, huh? This coven is full of secret stuff.” She grabs the doorknob. “Ready to see more?”

I nod, struck by the sight—and the realization that there’s more.

Kasey opens the door, and on the other side of it is a small white room. The only thing remotely interesting about this room is that it houses what looks like a spiral staircase, one that twists below my line of sight.

Once the breathtaking nature of the illusory magic has worn off, my unease returns. But now it’s not just this situation that isn’t sitting right; it’s the fact there’s a hidden door that leads to a hidden staircase that leads to another hidden chamber, and all this is connected to the house I sleep in.

Going to have to ward my room biweekly, just to feel safe.

Kasey steps across the threshold, then turns to face me. Before I cross into the room, I stare carefully at the wall, looking for the spells that hid this room. The magic that covers the walls is complicated and made by many separate hands. It only puts out the faintest shimmer—and I know there must be even more spells that are themselves cloaked from even witchy eyes.

It’s honestly beautiful and fascinating, and I wish I had a notebook to jot down all that I see.

Kasey shares none of my wonder. The moment she sees I’m getting distracted, she heads for the staircase.

“C’mon,” she says, “they’re waiting for us.”

Right. The rest of the spell circle.

“How did the rest of them get here?” I ask, entering the room and shutting the door behind me. “Are they also coven sisters?”

“Don’t worry about it,” she calls over her shoulder. “That’s not really what this circle is about.”

That didn’t give me any sort of reassurance.

I need the money, I tell myself—because it’s the reassurance I need to follow through on this.

I head down the staircase after Kasey, the air getting cooler as we go. We descend to a level practically glowing with amber light. When I step off the staircase, my eyes move to the narrow hallway ahead of me, the walls covered in stone masonry, the floor fitted with marble.

It all looks like something made at least a century ago. There’s a musty smell in the air that no amount of magic can banish.

My power loves it, even if the rest of me feels trapped down here.

Fitted to the walls are sconces with flickering candlelight, the wax weeping down their sides.

“What is this place?”

“A persecution tunnel,” she says. “One of many.”

I forgot all about persecution tunnels, but they’re a big part of supernatural building plans; they are, in essence, a literal way to escape persecution.

“Henbane is full of these things,” Kasey continues. “You know how witches are,” she says, lifting a shoulder.

Cautious. Too much of our history has been full of violence against us not to warrant it.

In the distance, I hear low murmuring. As my pulse spikes, so does my curiosity.

The hall curves, then opens into a wide chamber. At its threshold rests another set of stone lamassu, keeping guard, and beyond them is a room full of supernaturals.

I lovingly move my hand over the head of one of the lamassu as we pass them, and then we enter the massive circular room. Like the hallway before it, the walls are covered in gray stone, and the floors, in polished marble. Several other hallways branch off this one, leading to who knows where.

The space itself is filled with masked and robed supernaturals—all of them witches, I presume, though I can’t be positive since no one’s magic is giving them away.

One of them wears the mark of the triple goddess on her, the triple moon symbol painted onto her mask’s forehead. She must be the priestess, the witch leading the circle.

When she sees Kasey, she picks up what appear to be two folded sets of black robes and pale masks, then approaches us.

“Hey, girlie,” she says from behind the mask, and I’m not at all expecting the soft, youthful notes of her voice, nor her familiarity with Kasey, whom she hugs.

The priestess passes over a robe and a mask. “We’re just about ready.”

Then the priestess nods to me. “Hi there. Glad to have you.” She hands me the other robe and mask. “You’ll need to put these on—the robe can go over your clothes—then join the circle. We’re waiting on the guests of honor, but I think we’ll begin before they arrive. They can join us when they get here.”

It takes me a moment to realize I’m not one of these guests of honor. And then, of course, I feel sheepish because I wasn’t expecting to be treated as some special star. I’m just a bit destabilized is all.

The priestess wanders away from us then, leaving me to unfold the robe and pull it on over my T-shirt and jeans.

“Shoes will have to go too,” Kasey says, tugging her own robe on. “It helps with grounding and channeling the magic.”

“Are you going to tell me now what we’re doing?” I say, removing my Chucks and then my socks before setting them aside. I feel slightly better, now that I’ve met the witch leading the spell circle.

“It’s just a spell circle. We’ll be holding hands, chanting a little, and joining our power.”

Yeah, but for what purpose?

I stare down at the mask, running my thumb over its lower lip; it’s obviously meant to give us some anonymity.

Why would that be important? Why would someone pay for robes and masks and the presence of two dozen witches? If all of us here are getting paid five hundred dollars, then that’s roughly ten grand. What sort of magic costs ten grand?

I glance over the other masked members to see if anyone shares my concerns. I can’t see any faces, but nobody else appears bothered. I try to gain some confidence from that.

Exhaling, I pull on the mask, settling the linen hair covering over my wavy locks, hiding them from view.

Kasey has already moseyed over to the forming circle, though I’m not sure which one of the robed individuals she is.

I join the circle myself, and the girl next to me—not Kasey, judging by her green eyes—nods to me but does nothing else.

Once the circle is fully formed, the priestess moves to the center of it, a chalice gripped in her hands.

“It’s time, sisters,” she says. “Join me in tonight’s spell circle.”

My nose wrinkles then as I notice the smell in the room. What I assumed before was simply the smell of a dank subterranean room is…is something else, something vaguely familiar.

Before I can focus any more on it, the priestess lifts her mask just enough to take a drink from the chalice. Once she’s done, she lowers her mask again and hands the drink off to a robed witch on the far side of the circle. That witch lifts her mask and takes a small swallow, then passes it to the person next to her. The goblet moves from witch to witch, each one taking a sip before handing it off.

“What’s in that?” I ask the green-eyed witch next to me.

She lifts a shoulder as if to shrug it off. “Just a bit of witch’s brew—plus a few spices to help heighten our magic.”

Spices? Is that what we’re calling drugs these days?