Gray tensed, a low growl rumbling in his chest.
Della nodded, clutching her own amulet as she looked at Gray. “It did. I followed it. I worried…” She swallowed, hanging her head forward. “I found him, but whoever killed him was gone by the time I got there.”
“Who else heard this voice?” Gray asked, glancing back at the small group that stared at me intently. I swallowed, dreading what was coming.
“I don’t know,” Della admitted, but there was no doubt in my mind that others had heard it call my name. The way they looked at me… They knew it should have been my body lying in the dirt.
“At least they won’t think I’m the killer now,” I said, trying to grasp at the silver lining.
“Don’t tell anyone about this, just in case, Miss Tethys,” Gray said, holding her gaze intently. “Until we know who we can trust, we need to keep this to ourselves.”
“You suspect someone?” she asked.
He nodded. “None of the Vessels do anything without my knowledge. I can attest to the whereabouts of each of them tonight.”
“So it wasn’t one of them. But who else could use compulsion?” she asked.
“The prophecy referred to a daughter of two. If one of those lines happened to be the Hecate line… that witch could compel if she managed the impossible and found Charlotte’s bones,” he said, but my brow furrowed.
That wasn’t possible. Because it certainly hadn’t been me who lured the witch from his bed.
I didn’t speak a word.
29
WILLOW
I walked through the halls, unable to find any sort of rest despite the midnight hour. I knew without a doubt that the odds were great it wasn’t safe for me to be walking through the abandoned halls, but as I dragged my hand over the stone walls of the school, I couldn’t seem to force myself to care.
There was something so peaceful about the halls being empty, something soothing and calming about thinking of my aunt following that same path all those years ago.
Had my dream of her been real? Had it been the exact moment of her death that I’d somehow dream-walked into?
The Hecate line had been known for prophecy and metaphysical magic far more elusive than the more tangible magics of the elements the other lines favored. The cosmic witches focused on divination even more intensely, but the ways they channeled the stars to tell them the stories of the future were far different from the Hecate way of hearing whispers from the ghosts of our ancestors.
From the bones of Charlotte herself.
But I didn’t yet have the bones, had no connection to Charlotte aside from my distant, removed blood that was just as far removed as the Covenant. But whereas my relation to Susannah filled me with some of my greatest shame, the connection to the brave witch who had started it all was my source of pride.
The image of her walking through the forest at night filled me with a sudden rush, her deep auburn hair blowing in the wind as her cloak fluttered about at her feet. She was younger than I’d imagined. Something dark glimmered in the distance in front of her. The figure of a man waited for her at the edge of the trees, and the magic pulsing off him was dark.
Stained with death and decay, he held out a hand for the young witch.
She spun, and her eyes connected with mine in a moment of shock. It was the same feeling I’d had when Loralei stared at me and spoke. Even though Charlotte didn’t speak a word, she nodded briefly once before she stepped into the embrace of an eternal darkness. It choked out the light, flooding the hallways that both surrounded me and didn’t all at once. The sconces lining the halls flickered out, the lightbulbs within them bursting. The sound of glass striking the stone floor jolted me out of the illusion.
I gasped for breath, feeling as if I’d only just returned to my body. My skin felt strange, suddenly foreign, rather than the home that had housed my soul for the entirety of my existence.
For a moment, I’d been weightless. Drifting and free, separated from the flesh and bone that tied me to this plane.
Figures stepped around the corner at the end of the hallway, and I felt a moment of panic that the devil from my vision had seen me. That he’d followed me through the memory of Charlotte and had come to take me, to claim what he’d marked as his. I reached behind me, touching gentle fingers to the marks on my shoulder through the t-shirt I’d tugged on before leaving my room.
Even though I didn’t trust Gray, I was far better off with him being the sole keeper of that knowledge. No one else needed to know that the devil’s eye marred my shoulder.
“Madizza?” one of the men said as he stepped up.
I didn’t recognize him from the legacies I’d spent most of my time with during classes, and a quick glance at the two girls and two boys who accompanied him confirmed that I didn’t know any of them either. The one who’d spoken glared at me, and I swallowed as I prepared for whatever argument was coming.
One of the other guys whispered, his voice low, drawn out, and mocking. “Helloooo, Willoowwww.”
“That’s me,” I said, forcing a smile even as my unease grew. They spread through the hall, surrounding me as they moved, and a chill skittered up my spine.
“Looking for your next victim?” one of the girls asked.
I turned my stare to her, my brow furrowing as I pursed my lips.
“She’s not the killer, Demi. She’s the one who should be dead. Not Shawn,” the first witch said.
“Or maybe she’s just trying to throw us off her trail,” Demi said, raising a brow as she sneered at me.
“I’m not the one doing this. Just because I’m a Madizza, that doesn’t mean I’m safe from whatever this is. I’m one of the thirteen, all the same as you,” I answered, thinking back to the bodies of the two students who had already died. I wished more than anything that there was something I could do to stop the killings, and maybe the best way for me to move forward was to refocus on finding the bones.
To stop delaying what I needed to do. Stop antagonizing the headmaster and make myself malleable.
Become whatever he wanted me to be.
“You expect us to believe you have nothing to do with it? Your blood rejuvenated the courtyard, and the first body was found there within days. You bled on the ground outside today and now Bash is dead too; his body just conveniently left there? You’re at the center of fucking everything that has gone wrong here,” she said, her voice rising as the flat of her palm struck me across the cheek.
My face turned with the force of it, and I raised a hand to touch the blood that welled at the corner of my lip.
“I’m not going to fight you,” I said, shaking my head as one of her friends raised his hands, ready to defend her.
“What are you? Afraid?” the other girl asked.
“Yes,” I said, breathing evenly. “But not of you.”
Her friend struck forward, sinking his fist into my gut and knocking the breath out of me. “Then fight, bitch.”