Текст книги "Bespelled"

Автор книги: Laura Thalassa

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CHAPTER 11

“This is not how I planned to spend my evening,” I say as the two of us enter the Ritual Room.

The windowless room, with its walls and ceiling painted black, was where coven sisters gathered for certain ceremonies. Currently, a circle of partially burned white candles sits at the center of the room, the box they came in pushed off to the side.

“Yes, well, mine didn’t quite look like this either.”

“How did your plans look?” I ask Memnon curiously.

“I expected to be enjoying the fruits of my vengeance. Namely, I thought I’d be married to you and well on my way to eating your pussy out.”

I make a face as I step up to the spelled wall, shivering a little at the thought. I’d like to say the shiver comes from a deep-rooted fear, but that’s not true. Mostly, I’m remembering what being married to the sorcerer was like, which mainly involved lots of love and good sex.

“I see you’re still deluded,” I say.

“Am I now?” he says behind me, and the mocking tone of his voice sets my teeth on edge. He and I both know I have a weakness for his mouth when it’s on certain unmentionable parts of me.

“I still cannot believe you proposed to me by threatening the lives of my friends. Talk about the least romantic proclamation of love.”

Memnon comes around to my front. “Yesterday, I sought revenge,” he says slowly, walking backward toward the far wall. “Today and for the rest of my life, I will seek to make you happy. If it’s romance you want from me,” he says, his eyes too bright, “then that’s what I will give you.”

I scowl. “That’s not what I meant.”

“Isn’t it?” he says. “You want a soul mate who can love you as you mean to be loved.”

I raise my eyebrows, trying to ignore the tug of those words. “This might come as a huge shock to you,” I say, “but I am actually fine not being in a relationship with anyone. Especially you.”

“Mmm,” he says noncommittally.

I can tell he’s disregarded my words as soon as he hears them.

Memnon turns to the wall and places a hand against it. “Ifakavek.”

Reveal.

The doorway fades away, exposing a hidden room and a spiral staircase that descends down from it. The two of us set that spell what feels like lifetimes ago. Good to know it still works.

The sorcerer steps through the opening, then glances back at me. “Coming, Empress?”

I cross the room and step into the small antechamber where the spiral staircase waits.

I turn to face the exposed wall.

“Buvekatapis,” I murmur.

Conceal.

And I seal us inside.

Unlike the last time I visited the persecution tunnels, I’m no longer afraid of what’s down here. Perhaps it’s because then, I was interested in running from those who had hurt me. Now I’m interested in finding them.

My gaze sweeps over the subterranean room where the spell circle was held only two weeks ago. It appears just as it had the last time we visited.

“What are we looking for down here?” I ask.

“Anything at all. We can start with figuring out where the witches entered from,” Memnon says. “The night of that circle, did you notice anyone in your house going to that room above us?”

“The Ritual Room?” I think back to the night in question. I’d waited in the library for Kasey. The rest of the house, however, had been quiet. I shake my head. “I don’t think so…

“Wait,” I say as something comes to me. “Some of the tunnels down here were lit.”

As opposed to right now, when the torches sitting in the sconces are dark.

“Then it’s possible they were meeting somewhere else and then entering these tunnels from that point.”

The trouble is there are so many tunnels that branch in all directions.

“Which way should we go?” I ask.

“I don’t think it matters, little witch.”

I can’t quite suppress the pleasant shiver that endearment evokes.

I decide to head down the same one I took when I last fled this room. We haven’t gone a hundred feet when the tunnel splits apart.

Did I go left or right last time? I’d been so hyped up on adrenaline, I don’t remember.

On a whim, I go right, Memnon close behind me. Then I make a left. Then a right. The torches hiss to life as we go. Eventually, we hit a staircase that lets out into the Everwoods.

We backtrack, then begin again. Ten minutes later, we hit another exit, this one leading into a crypt that smells like mold and old bones.

“Hey look,” I say, nodding to the stone coffin as I drag away a thick web. “It’s my second lover”—I squint at the name—“Ephigenia. I’ll wake her in another year when I get tired of you. I do so like burying my lovers.”

When I turn to look at Memnon, his face is displeased.

Too soon for jokes apparently.

We retrace our steps and try again, the torchlight making our shadows dance. The futility of what we’re doing is starting to set in. I don’t even know what we’re looking⁠—

Thump.

The sound echoes off the walls from somewhere far ahead of us.

Memnon and I look at each other, then we both quicken our pace.

This is probably a bad idea, I say silently.

Don’t tell me you’ve lost all your courage now, est amage.

In the distance, the tunnel dimly glows, the light growing brighter the closer we get. Either we are recrossing our old tracks, or another person is down here.

If someone else is down here, we shouldn’t assume the worst of them, I caution. It could be literally anyone. Maybe Henbane’s staff uses these passageways.

For what? Memnon challenges me. Casual get-togethers? These tunnels were created for illicit purposes.

They weren’t, I argue. They were created to avoid capture.

Yes, Memnon agrees. That would be considered illicit behavior.

Fuck, I guess it would.

The two of us finally get to the previously lit hallway. A little farther down it opens up into another subterranean room similar in size and structure to the one beneath the residency hall. But where the latter room was empty, this one is full.

I pause as I take it all in. It looks almost like a witchy clubhouse. There’s a lit candelabra hanging from the ceiling. Along the right wall is a series of inset cabinets and shelves. On several of them rest moth-eaten grimoires, their clashing magic pooling in the air above us. On another shelf is a crystal ball and a scrying bowl and a bust of a woman with a very large nose and a determined air about her.

Across the room is a massive tapestry depicting an enchanted forest. Beneath it are several chests and an armoire painted with flowers and serpents. A few broomsticks lean together in the corner.

There’s a worn green velvet couch, a plum-colored wingback chair, and a table between them stacked with books. I drift over to the stack and rifle through them, reading their titles as Memnon continues past me, cutting through the room toward another chamber that houses a spiral staircase.

I’ll be back in a minute, he says as he heads up the staircase, clearly determined to find whoever was down here.

“Mmm…” I say noncommittally as I look at the book titles. The Sisterhood: The Dynamics and Culture of Witches; Ancient Symbols and Their Meanings; Into the Dark: An Exploration of Forbidden Magic.

The book titles are somewhat interesting but not revealing in the least. Abandoning them, I wander around the rest of the room, peering at the items. The grimoires on the shelves are old, and their magic has a musty, rotting smell to it, as though it’s unmaking itself. I pause when my eyes land on one of the grimoires. It’s a small, thin tome, its spine mostly gone. Threads of dark magic waft off it.

Before I can think better of it, I pull the book off the shelf. I flip through the spellbook, but there are no bookmarked pages or obvious spells of interest. Only disturbing drawings of dismembered fingers and eyes. Real cozy reading.

I put the spellbook back, wiping my hands on my jeans to get the oily feel of the magic off me. Turning my attention to the cabinets that run along the lower part of the wall, I crouch down and open them one by one.

Inside all of them are baskets filled with bars and snack packs of chips, trail mix and mini bottled waters.

This is definitely a clubhouse of some sort. And while it’s unusual, I’ve seen nothing here that’s overtly nefarious—dark grimoire aside.

Closing the cabinets, I move to the other side of the room, drawn to the armoire simply because the painted serpent and flowers on the front of it are so beautiful. I run my hand over the image of the snake, noting how the phases of the moon have been detailed on its body. Beneath my touch, it seems to come alive for a moment, the delicately painted scales rippling as it slithers a little. I hear a click, and then one of the armoire’s doors swings open slightly.

I did not even realize it would do that.

I nudge the door open wider.

My eyebrows rise.

Dozens of black robes hang inside. Reaching for one, I rub the fabric between my fingers and breathe the material in. It smells faintly of that cloying draught I was given at the spell circle. More incriminating still, there are a few nearly transparent white shifts hanging inside as well. Cara the shifter had worn something similar when she’d been brought to the circle…

I back away from the closet, my pulse pounding loudly in my ears. I mean, it could be a coincidence. There are probably similar robes and shifts stored somewhere in the residence hall as well. These are pretty basic ceremonial regalia.

I turn and take in the room again, my gaze sweeping over the space before settling on the chests.

I move over to one and attempt to open it. The lid doesn’t budge.

I wonder if stroking this one would work?

I try doing just that. When the lid still doesn’t budge and I feel faintly like I committed some sort of sex act against the chest, I focus my attention on the iron latch at its center. There’s a keyhole beneath it, one my iron room key would probably fit—though I left it back in my room.

“Open,” I command in Sarmatian.

My magic unfurls, a thin line of it flowing into the keyhole. I hear a latch tumble, and then my power is pushing the lid up against the wall.

What is the point of a lock if a spell can…

Hell’s spells.

Stacked inside the chest are many, many masks identical to those worn at the spell circle. On top of them all is the high priestess mask.

Well, this is no longer a coincidence. Whoever’s been involved in the spell circle is storing the items for it here.

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CHAPTER 12

I reach inside the chest and lift the high priestess mask out.

“Memnon!” I call.

When I don’t hear him, I lower the mask and glance down the chamber he exited through.

He’s been awfully quiet down our bond since he disappeared up the staircase.

Memnon? I reach for him through our connection.

I’ll be there soon, Empress. I’m almost finished.

Finished? I say, alarm bells going off in my head. With what?

The interrogation.

Oh, fuck.

Dropping the mask, I dash toward the wrought iron spiral staircase. I glance up it, hearing the low notes of Memnon’s voice from somewhere up above.

Bloody boils. I take the stairs two at a time, the structure shivering as I pound my way up it in my haste to get to Memnon.

The stairs lead to a narrow antechamber with an open archway out. On the other side of it, I can see what looks like some sort of teacher’s lounge, and on the far side of the room, Memnon is holding a woman by the throat, her feet flailing as she tries to rip away the sorcerer’s hand. Her pale green magic snaps at Memnon, but whatever spells she’s casting, they’re not deterring my mate in the slightest.

“Memnon!” I cannot leave this man alone for five fucking seconds. “Put the woman down,” I say in Sarmatian.

Memnon glances over his shoulder at me while he reluctantly lowers the woman back to the ground.

“Hello, my queen,” he says smoothly, like he wasn’t just choking a witch out. A witch he still holds by the throat.

I stride forward. “You cannot accost people and treat them like threats,” I say.

I don’t mean for that to be a direct order, but in response to it, Memnon’s hand opens, and he releases the witch, who then tries to bolt. Memnon blocks her escape with his body.

“You may want to qualify that command,” he says, sending his magic to the door the witch is rushing toward. When she gets to it, the handle won’t turn. Her own magic flares out to combat Memnon’s spell. “We might be stumbling on a lot of bad people.”

She knows things, est amage, he adds silently.

Aw man. I can feel a stress headache already brewing.

Fine, disregard my last command. Just be gentle with her.

As soon as I give the order, Memnon’s magic wraps around the witch’s midsection and gently drags her to a nearby couch.

“Stay,” he orders. His magic flows out of him at the command and restrains her against the seat.

Goddess, but I hate that spell of his. I’m also trying not to hyperventilate at the fact that I’m now allowing Memnon to manhandle people on my behalf. Considering we’re somewhere inside the Henbane Coven’s main buildings, this witch is likely an instructor.

My misgivings overwhelm me. I’m about to call the sorcerer off when he speaks again.

“I think you’ll be very interested to hear what Lauren here has to say.”

The woman, who looks to be in her midthirties, glances between each of us, her light brown hair disheveled and her eyes frightened. More of her magic sifts out of her as she fights Memnon’s hold. It’s an exercise in futility.

“Let me go,” she demands.

Memnon folds his arms and tilts his head. “Tell her”—he nods to me—“what you told me, then maybe I will.”

This is so wrong. This isn’t what I meant at all when I asked for Memnon’s help.

Is it not? he responds. I think you needed an excuse to be unleashed, and I’m it.

The witch in front of us interrupts our silent conversation. “I—I was just down in the tunnels restocking it with supplies.”

My brow furrows and I look from Memnon to her. “Why does that room need to be stocked with food?”

The witch, Lauren, shifts her attention to me, and there is a flicker of recognition. Unfortunately, even with my memories back, I don’t recognize her.

“We always keep the tunnels stocked with f-food. In c-case of emergencies.”

Memnon laughs low. “That’s not the reason you gave when I peered in your mind.”

She opens her mouth, but when she tries to speak, nothing comes out. Her shoulders curl inward a little. “I can’t talk about it.”

I frown. That doesn’t exactly scream innocent to me.

“Please,” she says to me, her eyes beseeching, “let me go. You know this is wrong.”

Yeah, this is definitely wrong, I say down my bond.

“Tell her why you cannot talk about it,” Memnon says.

“I c-cannot talk about that either.”

Memnon looks over at me.

Is that supposed to mean something?

Doesn’t that sound like a magical compulsion? he says. Because it is.

My eyebrows rise as Memnon says to Lauren, “Where’s your phone?”

The witch’s eyes dart briefly to a purse sitting nearby. Memnon walks over to it as the witch fights her restraints.

He withdraws her phone and holds it up to her. “Unlock the device.”

Before she can resist, her phone recognizes her face and unlocks on its own. The sorcerer glances down at it, then taps on a few buttons. He takes a picture of something, taps a few more buttons, then I hear the phone in his pocket buzz.

Tears begin to slip down the woman’s cheeks as Memnon returns her phone to her purse. She looks first to my mate, then to me. “You don’t understand,” she says softly. “Thank the Goddess you don’t.”

“But I do understand,” Memnon says dangerously, moving back over to her. “You were there that night Selene was attacked, weren’t you? You helped attack her.”

She shakes her head. “I had no choice.”

The sorcerer looks pityingly at her. “I doubt you did. And you leave me with no choice now either.”

Memnon steps into Lauren’s space and grasps the sides of her head. The woman begins struggling anew.

“Memnon,” I say, a note of alarm in my voice, “you will not hurt her.”

He inclines his head toward me, but that’s the only sign he gives that he’s heard my command.

To Lauren, he says, “You never saw us, and we are not here now. You are going to grab your things and go home.”

He releases the witch and backs up.

Lauren stands, looking somewhat baffled to find herself here. Her eyes sweep across the room, passing over me and Memnon without really seeing us. Her gaze catches on the still-exposed doorway to the persecution tunnels, but only for a moment. She turns, grabs her purse, and heads out the door she tried to escape from minutes ago.

I wait until the sound of her footsteps fade completely.

There’s a bitter taste at the back of my throat. Something about this is off—more off than having my mate pry secrets out of witches.

“I have bad news for you, est amage,” Memnon says, still staring at the door.

I glance his way. “What is it?”

“That woman?” He jerks his head in the direction Lauren departed. “She’s bonded.”

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CHAPTER 13

My head snaps to him so quickly. “What?” I must’ve misheard him. The possibility that merely hours after Memnon and I formed a bond, we run into a witch with a bond of her own…

“She answers to a woman who goes by the name of Lia. She has a weekly call with this Lia where she’s forced to divulge information she has about various witches.” Memnon’s eyes grow cold. “Lauren is a recruiter.”

My breath catches in my throat. “What do you mean by that?”

“She uses her position as an instructor here to scout for witches this Lia might like.” After a moment, he adds, “She was there the night of the spell circle. I watched”—his voice breaks off as he spits the word out like a curse—“her chase you in her memories. She tried to kill you several times.”

I can’t breathe. I must’ve misheard him. “She’s—she’s an instructor,” I try to argue. I don’t want to believe that the instructors here could be in on this.

Memnon continues. “When Lauren finds witches who are promising, she passes along their information to Lia, and in some cases, she arranges for them to either participate in a spell circle or be subjected to it.”

I stare at Memnon’s mouth. “What does that mean?”

“It means,” he says softly, “those women get bonded.”

I press my lips together.

“There’s another spell circle already planned for the upcoming new moon,” he says. “It didn’t look like they’d decided on a location, but they still mean to hold one.”

Suddenly, Memnon’s aggressive tactics don’t seem so overblown. Not in light of what he discovered.

“Selene,” he says, searching my face, “that’s not the worst part.”

There’s more?

His gaze is steady on mine. “This Lia woman is looking for you.”

The two of us step out of the teacher’s lounge and into the halls of Cauldron Hall. Dazedly, I note the doors of various classrooms and faculty offices on either side of us, but my mind is lingering on what we just learned.

These bindings are systemic things. I figured as much, but to hear it confirmed, and that an instructor here at Henbane Coven is involved in it? Suddenly, all the witches here feel marked. Me, Sybil, the witch speaking with her cardinal familiar down the hall, the group of women lurking in front of the massive bubbling cauldron that dominates the main entryway.

Memnon pulls out his phone and dials someone. He places the phone to his ear, but I can feel his eyes on me as we make our way out of the building. I can hear an automated voice placidly ask Memnon to leave a message.

The sorcerer curses and hangs up. “No one answered Lia’s number,” he says, tucking his phone in his pocket. “I’ll try to call it again later.”

But why bother? It’s likely no one will answer. Or maybe someone will. Then what? We threaten them over the phone? Tell them what they’re doing is bad and wrong? Continue to call them until they block us? It’s likely a burner phone or a temporary number or … or …

I am halfway down the marble steps outside Cauldron Hall when I decide to sit down there and then.

Memnon pauses ahead of me, then glances back.

“Selene?” he asks, concerned.

I shake my head, trying to catch my breath, though I haven’t been running. I don’t know why I’m so winded.

I hear his heavy, deliberate footfalls back up the steps. When he gets to my side, he pauses. Then he proceeds to step up next to me and sit down heavily. His leg bumps against mine.

“Please don’t.”

Don’t what? He asks down our bond.

Don’t act concerned. I press my palms to my eyes.

Despite the command, Memnon places a hand on my back. When I don’t immediately knock it off, he pulls me into his side.

I guess his concern is genuine. The realization sours my stomach, even as I lean against him, taking shameful comfort in the warm, solid feel of him.

Because of you, I have to clean up this mess. It’s such a blatant lie; Memnon might’ve taken part in moving the bodies of murdered witches, but he had nothing to do with this.

We’re going to clean it up together, he says, not bothering to call me out on the lie.

My annoyance spikes…along with a traitorous warmth that loosens the tightness in my chest.

Memnon glances out across the main lawn and toward the coven’s main entrance and the thick forest beyond.

You told me not to hurt Lauren, he says. If you lift the order, I can⁠—

If I lift the order, I finish for him, you’ll kill her.

He’s quiet. He knows as much.

After a moment, he says, If I don’t stop her, more witches will get bonded against their will.

I pinch my eyes shut. I know.

Killing her would be convenient, but I can’t just order her death. That takes a sort of coldness that I don’t have.

I shake my head. We need to find this Lia and stop her.

She’s the puppet master pulling the strings here. It doesn’t help that she’s apparently taken a keen interest in me.

We’ll find her, Memnon promises, I was able to get her number off Lauren’s phone. I’ll see what I can do with it. Memnon’s gaze flicks down to me. But be warned, whoever Lia is, if she is truly forcing bonds on these witches and making them recruit more victims, she is probably highly evil and very dangerous.

What he means is that eventually, he will likely have to kill her. I’m glad he doesn’t voice it, because I don’t think I would stop him, and I’m not ready to deal with that awful truth on top of everything else.

Instead, I say, There’s no one worse than you.

His eyes twinkle menacingly.

Est amage, I’m counting on that.

Eventually, we make it back to my room.

Nero has also returned and has ditched his cat bed to instead sleep sprawled on my comforter, letting out adorable little huffs that I think are cat snores.

At least one of us is at peace. I’m still turning over the fact that an instructor at Henbane is luring witches to the same spell circles I was lured to. That this instructor fought me as I tried to escape with Cara, the shifter girl.

I feel Memnon’s eyes on me, and I turn to look back at him. He lingers in the doorway, a lock of his black hair hanging over his eye. Gone is the aggressive, angry man I’ve gotten so used to over the last several weeks. I can still sense his violence—that’s as much a part of him as anything else—but it’s tucked away at the moment.

Instead, I sense the sharp ache of his love through our bond. Somewhere during our evening, his eyes lost their haunted look. But now the hollowness is back.

There is a huge part of me that wants to reach out and touch him just to remove that expression from his face.

Do you want to discuss the murders now? my mate asks.

I’m tired to my bones. And hungry.

“Another night.” I’ll pick Memnon’s brain on this when I’m sharp enough to ask the right questions.

Memnon’s expression has shifted a little. Now he’s looking at me like he’s caught sight of salvation.

Tentatively, he reaches out, his knuckles a hairsbreadth from my cheeks.

“Don’t,” I say.

He swallows, his hand still extended. “I’m sorry,” he says, his voice rough.

I want to tell him that his help changes nothing. That being bound to me changes nothing. That his remorse and even his friendliness and every other disarming part of him changes nothing.

Even if it does.

Instead, I step back from him. “I’m not going home with you.”

I know staying with him would be the safer option, but Memnon is still the man who nearly killed a room full of my friends to force me to marry him, and he’s still the man who made me release my memories against my will, and I’m still rabidly angry at him. I’d sooner stay with a pack of hungry wolves than with him.

Memnon nods pensively, not bothering to fight me on this. Gone is the victorious man from the night before.

His eyes drop to my stomach, and they linger there for several long seconds. The room is so quiet that I catch a single whispered word across our bond.

Child.

I place a hand on my lower abdomen, swallowing. I don’t know what to say about that. It’s one more tragedy between us.

“I cannot believe a child—our child—existed at all,” he says softly, “and that I must simultaneously celebrate and mourn their life.”

I draw in a shuddering breath. This feels so unresolved, and a deep, ancient part of me wants to close the distance between us and grieve this loss together. But while I might’ve lived and died as Roxilana, that’s not who I am anymore, and Memnon is no longer my husband. So I wait for the moment to pass and for the sorcerer to tuck away the pain in his eyes.

Eventually the moment does pass, and Memnon turns to leave. He pauses when his eyes catch on something.

I follow his gaze to the unzipped duffel bag I took from his house. My notebooks are spilling out from it.

“You didn’t truly burn them,” I say. I can’t decide if that’s an accusation or a question.

His look softens as it returns to me. “I know I can be heartless, but even when I thought the worst of you, I never sought to destroy all that you are just to get what I want.”

The silence in the room is so, so loud.

“You could’ve fooled me,” I eventually say.

“I did fool you,” he agrees. “You believed them gone.”

“That doesn’t make you any less cruel.” He still got what he wanted.

Now Memnon does reach out and touch me. He cups my jaw, tilting my head up to his. “What if I told you that I feared one of your enemies would come in here—just as they have—and look through those journals? What if I told you I worried they might find some piece of information they could use against you?”

I give my head a shake. “You did it to prevent the Politia from reading them and finding something that might eliminate me as a suspect,” I argue.

“I did,” he agrees. He searches my eyes, almost willing me to understand. “I also didn’t want them to read your journals.”

“Because it would prove my innocence.”

“Because the corruption in this city runs deep.”

I study him for a long moment. “You think the Politia is in on this?”

He releases my jaw. “Information can be bought from anyone, Selene. Even the authorities.”

I…I think I believe him.

“If that’s true, why didn’t you just tell me?” I could’ve easily hidden my notebooks.

“Because I also wanted vengeance on you,” Memnon says. “Gods forbid my vengeance look like protection.”

I frown, searching his face.

I hate that what he’s saying makes sense.

“Answer me truthfully,” I command him. “Was any of what you said a lie?”

He holds my gaze. “No.” Before I have a chance to respond to that, Memnon’s gaze returns to my stack of notebooks. “Burn those or ward them, but don’t leave any of them exposed here for others to pick through. Because I can assure you, if given the opportunity, they will.”

I walk over to the duffel bag. I don’t really know what I’m thinking when I shove the books back in, pick up the bag, and carry it to Memnon. He’s about as trustworthy as a hobgoblin—no offense to hobgoblins—but…I don’t know. Maybe the evening is getting to me, or maybe it’s feeling overly confident about this new bond of ours. Or maybe it’s simply the fact that even when he was seeking retribution against me, he was still trying to protect me and the things most sacred to me. Whatever the reason, I decide to trust my gut over all the bad blood between us.

“You want to earn back my forgiveness?” I ask. “Then you can start by taking these with you and protecting them like you intended to.” I hand the notebooks over.

Memnon watches me carefully with those smoky, calculating eyes as he takes the bag of journals from me, and I try not to think about what his own sleeping arrangements are. The last glimpse I had of his house was of it on fire. I press my lips together to avoid asking about the state of it or whether he’ll be okay. The sorcerer is nothing if not ruthlessly effective. If the house isn’t okay, he’ll simply find another. It’s everyone else around him who needs to be worried.

Memnon gives my lips a lingering look before backing up toward the door. “Stay safe, est amage. You are powerful and capable, but even that can be bested by treachery.”

I know both of us are thinking about Eislyn and Zosines.

I nod. “I’ll be careful.”

“Reach out to me when you want to discuss the murders—or if you need anything at all,” he says, his eyes lingering on mine. “I am yours to command.”

I frown, not liking how serious everything suddenly is or how my heart feels uncomfortably bereft now that he’s leaving. Ridiculous, foolish heart.

He waits for a moment for me to say something—anything—but I’m ensnared in my own mixed feelings.

“Um, okay…see you later then.” Not sure I could’ve made that any more awkward, but all right.

Memnon gives me one last penetrating look, and it feels like a promise. He raps his knuckles on my doorway. “Later, little witch.” He dips his head and leaves, a trace of his indigo magic lingering in the air after him before it dissipates away.

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