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.
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.