"Pomeranian...?" Bask offered, bouncing on his toes.
"She's favoring rocking chairs today." To my surprise, Juni yanked her finger towards herself, rather than away. I was pulled by my own mists into her embrace with a startled yelp. She stroked my hair, and the feathers on her hat scratched my cheek. "You care about your Immortals, but I also care about my Princes. You're hurting them, sister in the House of Crows. Just by being here and existing, you endanger them. By coming to life, you risk all the sweethearts who you pretend to love."
"It's not true." Bask tugged on my shoulder, attempting to pull me away from Juni.
Except, in the name of Hecate, it was.
I shuddered, but I didn't let go of Juni, as if she was holding me up, rather than entrapping me in her arms.
Juni's smile was sly. "It's such a shame that you didn't take part in Divination. Then you'd have seen that you're on a tragic path, just like Crown did. He witnessed the terrors that your return would bring, and it haunts him now."
I remembered Lysander's distress in Juni's class and how he'd screamed, arching off the floor. Juni had taken dark enjoyment in reducing Lysander to such fear that he'd needed her comfort.
She loved to be the predator in the room.
I'd just have to show her that the wicked witch would never become the prey.
I dragged my black mists away from Juni’s skin fast enough to give her mist rash, then I straightened, extricating myself from her hold. But I didn't drop my gaze.
"You're lying." My voice was as icy as Willoughby's bed.
"Am I?"
Lysander was a prick of a fae but he'd begged to suffer through the Divination Spell so that I wouldn't have to. What had he seen?
My tongue darted out to wet my lips, before I glanced at Bask. I wished that we could simply be caught in each other's arms again, safe within the womb of my magic. "I'm awfully sorry, but as my familiar would say, we're all out of giving a witching fuck."
Juni’s eyes gleamed with powerful magic, before she clicked her fingers and the tea set shattered. I jumped, shielding my face against the shards of porcelain. The tea sloshed in a brown sea down the counter.
Never forget that she was one of my descendants.
Bask wailed, then his gaze became steely. "Why would you break Willoughby's tea set? Fix it, before you force him to cry or lose the shine to his hair."
I knew that Bask was imagining the stuffing pulled out of Nile. My nails bit into my palms.
Juni studied Bask like she'd never seen him before. "Really, Crave? Do I take orders from students?" Bask dropped his gaze. "My Princes hurt for me, but nobody else harms them. Crown cannot fight his guardian and uncle. Prince Titus runs this academy as much as mother. When you rebel, you harm us all."
I froze. "I'm grateful for your sisterly guidance. Are you done smashing innocent crockery and imparting your pearls of wisdom?"
Juni sniffed. "If all I'm doing is casting pearls before swine."
"How did you discover us?" I asked. Why didn't you tell Damelza? I wanted to add.
Juni prowled to the passageway, but not before repairing Willoughby’s tea set with a click of her fingers; relief washed through me more powerfully than I’d ever have guessed. "It was amusing to see mother's frantic shock when she couldn't sense you within the academy. It was like — pop! — you'd both ceased to exist. Of course, I knew that I'd broken the rules to install a Privacy Spell in these rooms."
I hated to think about why. It couldn't be purely to reward the Princes.
I mock gasped. "Broken the rules? Why, it appears that I'm not the only rebel in this family."
Juni stiffened. "I call it becoming independent. I also guessed that you were here because you're forbidden to enter the East Wing. You're the sort to be precisely where you're not meant to be."
I preened. "Thank you."
Her lips thinned. "Get on with that vanishing trick of yours then. Crave, follow me. I don't trust you with magical transportation anymore, so we'll be taking the long route through the hidden passageways of the castle. What a shame that it'll also give you time to ponder the likely punishment from both the Duchess and the Principal."
I blinked. "Vanishing...?"
Juni twirled away from me, snapping her fingers at Bask like he’d already been transformed into a Pomeranian. "Follow or I'll leash you. And you, wickedest Crow, if you were to go invisible and follow us because you wanted to be present in the study for this meeting but undetected, then I'd easily be able to tell mother that I hadn't seen you."
I stared at Juni. And she called me the Rebel.
Bask snatched my hand in his, resting it against his cheek in a gesture that held intense intimacy for an incubus. "I wish you to be with me. I have to do this, but I don't need to be alone."
I nodded.
Yet could I truly turn myself back to my ghostly state and stand by like Bask wished as nothing more than a witness? Was I strong enough for that?
I could be for my lover.
If Bask thought that I wouldn't find a way to break the hold that the blood contract had over him or the Duchess who'd once forced a bond, however, then he didn't know the strength of my will after so many years trapped in the Dead Wood. I hadn't escaped, only to lose my Rebels now.
I studied the tense line of Juni's back. "Why help us?"
Juni hesitated, and I didn't think that she was going to answer.
At last, she said, "We don't all get to choose who we love, remember? Do you imagine that simply because I'm a witch, I'm free from suffering? I would’ve thought that your own experience had taught you better than that." My cheeks pinked. "Are professors and students so different?"
I snorted. "Since one can be sent to their death on missions and one can't, I'd say a resounding yes."
"I'm offering an olive branch," Juni's voice was deadly. The hairs on the base of my nape rose. "Don't burn it."
"Good advice," I muttered.
I stroked Bask's cheek for one final time. His smile was fragile, and I could see the cracks. But he didn't stop smiling, even as I unwove myself, thread by thread.
I faded, until I was once more invisible.
When Juni gave a final click of her fingers at Bask, he darted after her into the dark mouth of the secret passageway. I floated behind them, keeping close enough not to get lost in the labyrinth within the walls, through the castle towards Damelza's study, the Duchess, and their rage.
Chapter Five
BASK
A slinky incubus of the ancient Night lineage shouldn’t be ignored. It makes his shiny hair go limp. I shuddered because shoved into the corner of Damelza’s study and staring at the shadowy wall, I remembered what it was like to belong to the Duchess.
Invisible. Ignored. Unloved.
Beg me to let you burn yourself…
I shivered. Wow, bad time for thoughts of what my bitch ex-bond would do to me when she dragged me back to the Succubi Court.
Unless that was why I’d been stood here in the first place…?
The displeasure radiating from both the women, who prowled behind me talking like I didn’t exist, cramped through me in waves. For an incubus, displeasure was more painful than a beating.
The Duchess knew that.
They were brutal pissed that Magenta had snatched me and even more pissed that only I had been returned.