“That’s it?” he asks. “You harass me for information all night and that’s all you want to know?”
“No, that’s not it,” I say. I press my fingers to my temples. “There are a million things I want to know. Like, okay, how’d you know about my mom being hurt? And The Witch Hunter’s Bible—do you know who took it? And did you use magical powers to lift that bookcase off her? Because it didn’t even look like you were trying and that thing’s super heavy—I should know, I tried to lift it myself and it didn’t budge. And how’d you know to find me at the game? I mean, however you knew that Mom got hurt, how’d you know I was her daughter and that you’d find me at the game? And back on Melrose with Paige, were you following me? And do you by any chance smoke Marlboros?”
Bishop doesn’t appear even slightly alarmed that I’m now out of breath again. He smiles and leans back on his elbows, legs stretched out in front of him. “I guessed she was hurt because I sensed something was off, the Bible was stolen by members of the Priory—Frederick and Leo, if you found Marlboros around; Leo’s a chain-smoker. No, there were no magical powers involved in me lifting that bookcase, just six feet three inches of pure, unapologetic muscle”—he winks—“and I knew to find you at the game because I followed you, and I guess that answers your last question too.”
Frederick and Leo? The Priory? He’s been following me? It’s too much for my brain to handle. “Are you, like, a junkie or something? Please tell me you’re a junkie.”
He laughs. “Okay, why do you want me to be a junkie now?”
“I don’t know. Because then maybe all this would make a little bit of sense. I could put all this”—I whirl my finger in the air—“down to a drug-induced mania or something. I’ve seen this sort of thing on Intervention. You know that episode with the girl who snuffs computer duster? She got so screwed up and was saying the weirdest shit. Please tell me you snuff computer duster.”
“Um, I snuff computer duster?”
I cover my face with my hands and groan.
“Not this again,” Bishop says.
I shoot him a look. “Oh, I’m sorry. Am I not handling the news that you’ve been stalking me as well as you’d hoped?”
He grins.
“And why are you following me? That’s pretty creepy, you know.”
“Thought you’d never ask,” he says. “I was sent by the Family. They’re a group of the most powerful witches and warlocks in existence. They govern the rest of us regular joes. Make the rules, enforce the rules, intimidate—you know, that sort of stuff.”
“Uh, okay, why?”
“Because,” he says, sitting up and wiping dirt off his palms, “witches come into their powers on their two hundredth full moon. And since you have witches in your family, there’s a chance that you could be one too. Can’t have some newbie coming into her powers and accidentally blowing our cover not knowing what’s going on. And then there’s the more important issue of my taking the Bible back to headquarters.”
Witches in my family? I rub the slow throb starting in my temples. “So let’s pretend I don’t think you’re crazy. What ‘moon’ am I at now?”
“One ninety-nine,” he says, matter-of-factly.
I shake my head. “So you’re telling me that on the next full moon, I’m going to turn into a witch.”
“Yes.” He nods solemnly. “You’ll grow a hooknose with a hairy mole at the end, and your hair will turn gray and frizzy—or more frizzy, rather—and your back will grow a hump any camel would envy, and—”
“Be serious for once.”
He laughs. “You won’t turn into anything. You’ll just have access to powers you didn’t before.”
“On the next full moon.”
“On the next full moon. Maybe.”
I look up into the sky, where the moon floats against the star-studded canvas of night. I can’t believe I was ever disloyal enough to Mom to worry, even secretly, that Bianca was right about her. That she was crazy. But the fact that she officially isn’t, that witches exist and the Bible really is a centuries-old relic, is the one glimmer of light in all this darkness. “So my mom’s a witch too? I mean, she’s been saying that since I was a baby, but she’s a real witch?”
He shakes his head, then picks up a handful of stones and starts throwing them over the rock ledge. They land with a distant plink that reminds me of just how high up we are.
“I don’t get it,” I say. “How can I be a witch but not my mom?”
“Maybe a witch,” he corrects, “and your mom just got unlucky in the gene department.”
“Hey! Don’t talk about her like that.”
“I wasn’t being rude,” he says. “The gene for witches and warlocks is recessive.”