The ballpoint she hands me feels foreign and heavy in my fingers.
Jeanine slides a sheet of paper in front of me, the signature line clearly marked by a red sticky flag. Words dance, and I try not to look at them, my gaze focused on the tab. It’s the color of blood.
I set the pen against the paper.
The world falls apart.
Dark energy rushes me, overwhelmingly tragic, the power turning my fingers into monsters. Words whisper through my head. Dreadful words. Death. Blood. Mine. I am a prisoner to the pain and the agony. The demons howl, each of them begging me to channel them.
If I could fall to my knees and beg them to stop, I would. A tear slips down my cheek, and I fight, sweat beading up along my brow as I try to drop the pen. Not fighting feels like giving up.
“Please,” I whimper.
“Write it!” One voice is more persistent than the rest. My hand spasms, the world going black. The way it always does.
Jeanine Turner screams.
When I come to, my hand remains poised over the paper, the ballpoint pen having left a line of frantically scrawled words. You will have a place in Hell, Lucas Fox. Cast and chained in the Infernum of darkness. Death to the messenger. Death to those who give her sanctuary.
I inhale . . . or try to.
An invisible vise grips me by the neck, cutting off my oxygen supply, and I claw at my skin desperately. It makes no difference. I belong to a world of darkness.
With little effort, the spirit attached to me lifts me off the chair and throws me across the room.
My head slams against the office’s glass entrance, my vision blurring. Adrenaline and fear pump through my system, dulling the pain. People move on the sidewalk beyond, and I panic even while gasping for air. I can’t let anyone see me like this. First rule of thumb: protect the humans.
Still struggling to breathe, I crawl back across the room, a trail of blood dripping behind me. Jeanine’s screams rise, shrill and deafening, the sound a jackhammer in my head.
The Court is going to kill me.
My knees and hands dig into the wooden floor, my heart racing as I lurch into the back hallway. Two doorways greet me, and I propel myself through the closest one, my body landing on a tiled bathroom floor. Slamming the door, I lock it.
The demon relinquishes me, and I drag in air through my lungs, his words etched into my brain. Death to the messenger. Death to those who give her sanctuary.
Death simply because I wanted something to call mine. Death simply because I wanted to be able to write my own name.
Tears mingle with blood on the floor beneath me. Red on black on white. The story of my life.
Chapter 3
“Harper?”
My aunt’s voice is like a balm on an open wound, and even though I want nothing more than to throw open the bathroom door and run into her arms, I don’t. I remain in a fetal position, my cheek pressed against a floor I hope has been cleaned in the last week. It’s too potpourri-y in here, which is never good. No one uses potpourri this strong unless they’re trying to hide something. Mold. Urine. Germs.
“Harper,” my aunt tries again.
“It’s bad this time,” I tell her, my gaze on the crack under the door. She’s wearing tennis shoes, which means this is serious. Aunt Eloise owns one pair of tennis shoes—a pair of neon yellow Velcro monstrosities—and she only wears them when there’s an emergency and she’s in a hurry. Otherwise, she dons outrageously colored boots or ballet flats. The bright tennis shoes look like caution tape and rightly so.
Jeanine Turner yells something unintelligible from her office.
Aunt Eloise answers her with, “It’s fine. Everything’s okay. She just has a thing for bathrooms.” She raps on the door. “Harper, honey, you’ve got to open up. You’re scaring the mortal.”
I glare at her feet. “This is why you were ‘hmming’ at me earlier, isn’t it? You knew!”
“She flew across the room!” Jeanine roars, her voice rising. “Explain that!”
“Addie, why don’t you take Mrs. Turner out for some fresh air?” another voice breaks in.
I would know that voice anywhere. Saundra Beaumont. A powerful witch of one of the founding families of the Luna Coven. She also serves on the Court of the Sun and the Moon, a court that basically runs Havenwood Falls. All of the members are from old blood and old money.
“I didn’t mean to,” I immediately defend.
A pair of navy high heels joins Eloise’s worn sneakers. Old family blood versus us.
“Calm yourself, Harper,” Saundra says firmly. “We can fix what happened here.” Papers rustle, and I cringe. “As for what you wrote, that’s another story.”
“I’m sorry.” Apologizing is habit for me. I’ve been practicing the art of apology ever since I first entered the Court of the Sun and the Moon. Then, I had been an awestruck child standing in a windowless room in the City Hall’s basement, candlelight flickering off of sympathetic faces.
Oh, how I have fallen.
The message I wrote at five years old isn’t the only message I’ve scribed. I did learn how to read and write, after all. Not to mention it’s hard to completely avoid words, especially as a child, but the Court has steadily protected me and the people I inadvertently threatened while I learned to be what I am now: detached from the world. As far as I know, I’ve only caused one death with my curse.
“I just want the keys to my house,” I say weakly. No potpourri for my bathroom. I will scrub my toilets.
“Come out,” Saundra soothes. “Get medical attention. Go home with your aunt. What’s happening to you is wrong, Harper. No one should have to see their family . . .” She pauses, and I know she’s looking at my aunt. When her voice comes again, it’s closer to the floor, surprising me. I’m having a hard time imagining the silver-haired, suit-wearing woman stooping. “Generational curses be damned. We protect the supes and the mortals, Harper. We made a promise to you and to your aunt. You can’t help what’s happening to you.”
“He’s coming,” I whisper. From the paper she’s holding, she knows who I mean.
“We’ll have someone stronger here to meet him.”
Finally sitting up, I reach over and flip the lock on the door. My aunt opens it, her concerned gaze finding my face. She looks every bit the eccentric with her colorful clothes, tennis shoes, and hoop earrings. Saundra is her opposite in every way.
I stare up at them. “I still want the keys to my house.”
Arching a brow, Saundra lifts her hand, a set of keys dangling from her fingers.
Taking them, Eloise leans down next to me and presses them into my hand. “I didn’t know this would happen. I saw something big, but not this . . . darkness.” She starts to hug me, and then stops. I don’t do hugs. “Let’s get you cleaned up. The Court will take care of the rest.”
Amnesia spells. Wards. Secrets. The Court of the Sun and the Moon runs this town on magic and mystery.