“Honey, I’m sorry you heard that.” She stared at me for a long minute, rubbing my face.

  “What aren’t you telling me? Is it because of what I almost did? Would I be in danger of … like … getting my head cut off by a hunter or something?”

  “Oh, no, sweetie,” she crooned. “By hurt I meant … upset in any way. I promised you that you would have peace here. I don’t want you worrying about their problems. Emma has issues to deal with. Paul is spoiled and doesn’t think. And I don’t even know what to say about Remi. I want you to be happy, and I worry they will ruin it.”

  Oh. I closed my eyes. I’d missed the obvious reason.

  She didn’t want me to be upset. She knew what I was like when I was angry. Murderous.

  She wanted to protect them from me.

  “Sophia,” I said, sitting up in a hurry, ready to spill what I’d ruminated about for hours. “Can you do the cleansing with me? The candles and all of it? Just like you told Emma, I need to live in the light.”

  She grabbed my hand and rubbed the back of it with her thumb. I took a deep breath, ready to do magic on purpose. The creepy, intense magic I’d witnessed earlier. She surprised me by chuckling.

  “You do not need to cleanse. You haven’t done anything wrong in your entire life,” she said.

  “What are you talking about? You saw. That’s why you came.”

  She chuckled again. “You almost did something. You don’t have an ounce of darkness in your heart, angel. Your challenge is cheering up. My challenge is making sure that happens. Nothing more.” She pulled at my arms until my head was on the pillow. I felt like a toddler. I wasn’t tired until then. “Just sleep, sweetheart. No more talk about cleansing or magic.”

  My eyes fluttered before I could protest.

  I slept past noon, but I wasn’t any more rested than I had been before. I wanted to believe Sophia knew me better than I knew myself, but apparently, she couldn’t hear my mind like I couldn’t hear hers. She didn’t know how close I’d come before that moment after the fire alarm. The many times I’d wanted to kill, actually planned it.

  She’d missed those sins.

  She wouldn’t help me cleanse, but I hadn’t needed her help to do any of the magic I’d done before. I could try it on my own.

  She called at one, asking if I’d gotten out of bed and if I’d eaten. I lied about both. I felt bad about it after, and I went downstairs to make a sandwich.

  Remi was sitting on the counter, her back to the door, with her phone to her ear. “I know,” she said. “It’s Sophia. She always knows where they are because she tells Emma to stay away. Before we moved here, she’d call a few times a week to tell her where not to party. It’s going to be harder to get Emma to disobey her now, but friends come and go.” She chuckled and turned around. She smiled and winked her ice-blue eye at me. “I have a new friend. He’s much better looking and doesn’t have an annoying accent. I’ll call you back.”

  I walked into the kitchen like I hadn’t been eavesdropping. I made my sandwich in silence. I could feel her eyes on me. She didn’t mention last night, and I really wanted to forget about it, so I definitely wasn’t bringing it up.

  “Hi, Nathan,” Remi said. I hadn’t heard him come in. He waved to her.

  “Hey, sleepy head,” he said to me. “Did I keep you up too late?” I shook my head, smiling already. “I had to do yard work today. It was fun. You missed it.”

  He pointed at the bread, and I slid it to him. He held out his hand. Assuming he wanted the peanut butter I’d left open, I reached it to him, and he smiled; I’d guessed right.

  “You really did miss out on a treat. He was shirtless and flaunting his sexy abs,” Remi said. I hummed awkwardly, like my tongue had deleted what was sure to be something embarrassing and had only left the sound. Nathan laughed and hummed too, copying me and making the moment less awkward.

  “Did that bother you, Leah? Me talking about Nathan’s body?”

  I smeared jelly on my bread, still void of words. Then I realized my silence could be interpreted as a yes or a no.

  “It bothered me,” he said, before I could choose which one I wanted it to be.

  Remi chuckled, and Nathan hunched his shoulders like he didn’t get why she was laughing.

  “Okay, kids. I’ll leave you alone,” Remi said. “Don’t forget our lesson at three, hottie. Come without a shirt.” Remi laughed, jumped from the counter, and left the kitchen.

  “She likes you,” I whispered, completely downplaying how Remi must feel about him – strong enough to threaten me.

  “I doubt that. This morning, she told me she hoped I died before three so we didn’t have to have a lesson.” He twirled his fingers around his temples and crossed his eyes, calling her crazy. I didn’t laugh or smile. I was the last person who could criticize someone’s sanity.

  “She said … okay, if I tell you something, will you not mention it?” I asked. He nodded on his way to the fridge. He held out a can of soda to me, asking me if I wanted it with his eyes. “Thanks. And … Remi.” I cleared my throat. “She told me that you’re hers.”

  “What?! Gross!” I chewed on my lip to stop myself from smiling and showing how pleased I was that he didn’t agree with her. “She called me a mutt about fifty times yesterday, told me I was a jackass to like being a shifter, and suggested that I should play in traffic. I’m not her anything.”

  He nodded towards the door with the sodas in his hand. I grabbed our plates, loving that my friend wasn’t Remi’s anything, in his mind anyway.

  We took our lunch by the pool. I tried not to watch him as we ate, but that was impossible. He was unnecessarily beautiful. He could get a girl with his muscles or how nice he was, but no … he had to have a flawless face as well. Complete overkill.

  “Why isn’t your fur black like your hair?” I asked, when he caught me staring. I’d really been looking at the sharp lines of his jaw, not thinking about his fur at all.

  He mumbled something with his mouth full that I couldn’t understand, then swallowed.

  “At first, I thought it was because of my skin, but I don’t really know. It’s the first thing that changes when I shift. I can do it for you … like just change my hair.” My eyes widened, excited. He smiled and bowed his head. His shoulders shook slightly and his hair turned as white as Sophia’s. He tousled his white locks with his hands, looking enchanting and slightly goofy. I squealed as the white drained from his hair, leaving it black again, amazed at his magic but still afraid of mine.

  “That’s really cool. And that too,” I said, pointing at his toes. It decided to actually be winter in New Orleans today, but he was barefoot and not shivering like me. “You’re not cold?” I asked.

  “It has to be snowing for me to be cold. Blizzard style. That came in handy as a homeless guy.” I huffed and pouted. I’d thought my life was hard. At least I’d always had a roof over my head. “Christine, I am going to push you in the pool if you don’t stop pitying me.”

  “I’m sorry, but you’re my friend. I can’t help that I care about you.” I wanted to push myself in after I realized what I’d said. “I’m sorry. That was so creepy. I just met you. I have zero social skills.”

  He chuckled and snatched the last piece of PB&J from my plate. He tossed it in his mouth and winked at me. “Who needs social skills?” I laughed. He really had a way of making me feel comfortable and normal. “And I care about you too. That’s why I don’t want you to be sad because of me. No more pity?”

  “No more pity,” I agreed.

  We sat in silence for a while. It wasn’t weird. His eyes were on the pool, but his mind seemed to have floated somewhere else. I was wrapped up in how different lunch was from a few days ago. I wasn’t alone, wasn’t hiding from Sienna or crosses. Or suffocating in the silence of the courtyard.

  My teeth chattered, and he stood on his bare feet and reached for my hand. As he pulled me up, I closed my eyes, allowing myself to enjoy the feel of his warm, soft skin for the quickest moment. I was tempted to follow him around all day so I didn’t have to think about the cleansing, but I had work to do and he had a nap to take.

  “Later, Chris.”

  “Chris?” I said, halfway up my stairs.

  “Just something I’m trying out,” he said, chuckling.

  I smiled big, glad he couldn’t see me. “Okay … Nate.”

  “I like that,” he said, just before I heard his door close.

  His face and my new nickname distracted me as I did my mandatory schoolwork. Most of what I read during the four hours would have to be redone tomorrow.

  “Tomorrow,” I whispered with hope. I wrapped my arms around my stomach, feeling the dull ache in my muscles that had always been there, a pain I’d thought I deserved to have, a trait I’d thought I couldn’t change. “Things will be easier. I’ll live in the light with my friend.”

  I didn’t know why I was shivering. It was only words over candles, a pledge to be better. Like the millions of prayers I’d sent up to heaven. But I wanted to do something more, in case magic was out of His jurisdiction.

  The only kink in my plan would be if Sophia popped in and tried to convince me that I didn’t need to cleanse. So I called her so I’d know when to expect her home.

  The phone rang three times then noise cut in from the other end – laughing and music.

  “Hey. It’s Paul,” he said.

  “Oh. Is Sophia here?”

  The music flared in my ear, so loud I should’ve heard it from my room. “Uh … no. We’re at my parents’ house. My brother is having a thing. Hold on, I’ll get Nana for you.” Paul must have walked through a crowd. He stopped and greeted several people who thought he should cut his hair. Then I heard Sophia’s laugh, a graceful sound despite the phlegm, and what sounded like something sizzling on a stove. “Phone. It’s the only number you told me to answer.”

  The only number she wanted to answer was mine? Strange.

  “Hello, dear-heart,” she sang, the phone ruffling against something, maybe her head.

  “I didn’t mean to interrupt. I thought you were at work,” I said.

  “No, love. My grandson made partner and he asked me to make his celebratory dinner.”

  I waited until the laughter died down in the background to speak. “Partner?”

  “At his firm. He’s a lawyer.” A wizard lawyer? God did I have the wrong idea about life. Someone snatched Sophia’s attention from me. She instructed them on how to measure the perfect rice to water ratio with the lines on their finger. “Sweetheart, you there?”

  “Yeah. I just wanted to know when you were coming home. No rush.”

  Please, don’t rush.

  “I’ll be there soon. I’m only starting the meal and his mother can finish. I would have invited you, but ... you understand, don’t you?” I um-hummed, completely understanding. A family gathering wasn’t the best place for her kidnapping victim. “I’ll be there to make you dinner. I was thinking meatloaf.”

  “You’re missing the party?”

  One of her daughters yelled, “Mom, Dad wants a cupcake.”

  “Tell him the cupcakes just – sweetie, one moment – Amelia, tell him the cupcakes just came out of the oven, and he’ll have to wait. Sweetie, still there?”

  Before I could answer, Amelia asked her another string of questions. It seemed liked her husband was back from being “away” like she’d told me. Maybe I’d be meeting him soon.

  “That must be Emma,” her daughter, or another woman demanding her attention, said. “You have on your Emma voice.”

  “Emma is here, Amelia. This is another of my friends. Paul! Paul! Go find where Emma’s hiding. See if she’s in a better mood.” And that was my cue. The house was empty of at least the three of them and could be for a while. And the hair on my arms rested flat against my skin.

  “Sophia, I can get my own dinner. I’ll eat and go right to bed anyway. Please stay there. Will you? I don’t want to pull you away from your family.”

  It wasn’t a total lie. It took another minute and some really convincing yawns to persuade her to stay at the party. Which shouldn’t have been a hard decision, considering it was for her grandson and she’d only met me a few days ago.

  Did giving her ten thousand dollars make me the queen of the universe? Or was Sophia just nice? Maybe she just liked me. But I didn’t like me very much, and I was about to fix that.

  I checked the locks on my door and filled my arms with the ten candles by my bed.

  I placed them in a circle on the wood floor in the sitting room. I sat in the center like Emma had. I didn’t bother looking for matches or trying a spell. I imagined fire moving around me, igniting the wicks, and it did. It swirled around the circle, catching on each candle, before fizzling out.

  “Um … I want to take the darkness from my heart and pledge to live in the light,” I whispered, feeling odd.

  I held my hands over the two closest candles, close enough to feel the warmth of the flame. I imagined Emma had thought about what she’d done to the hunter at this point, so I dredged up my sins to confess them, starting with the worst of them.

  “I want to be cleansed for every time I’ve wanted to kill Sienna Martin. Burn her hair, break her bones. Whitney too.” I paused, thinking of a particularly shameful one. “The time I wanted to possess Whitney and have her stab Sienna for me.” My lips trembled, thinking of a darker moment. “When I wanted to barricade the gym with all the students inside and hear them being tortured.”

  I ran through as many evil desires as I could remember. Minor ones. Dramatic ones. Ones directed at one person. Ones intended for mass destruction. Ones intended for myself.

  When I found myself apologizing for things so minor I wouldn’t be too embarrassed to say out loud, I waited for the candles to shut off. To tell me I’d been heard. To tell me the darkness was gone.

  Nothing happened. Minutes passed, and I was still sitting in the middle of a lit circle after confessing every stain I had on the soul I’d just learned about.

  Maybe it was too much to be forgiven for. Maybe I was doing it wrong. Or maybe it required my blood like I’d seen this morning.

  I didn’t want to move and disturb the circle, so I opened my hand in front of me and said, “Knife.” A small one, identical to the one I’d used to chop vegetables for the soup, appeared as easily as fire did.

  I pressed it against my thumb. It burned, not just across my skin, everywhere. In my chest the most.

  The blood dripped from the wound, warm with magic. My heart stammered in the dead silence of the room, and the stream hit the fire.

  Nothing happened. Orange light just flickered on the cream candle as drops of red pooled around the wick.

  Where was the purple mist? Where was the magic?

  I forgot about the cleansing then. Fire was the ultimate test of magical blood. I’d seen it with my own eyes. Emma’s blood had flooded her circle with purple smoke that sung of what she was. What we were.

  But my blood … did nothing.

  The knife shook in my hand as I cut into my middle finger, deeper this time. The blood rushed out fast and thick as I prayed for it to change the fire. Praying to be what I knew I was. What I’d thought I was.

  Still nothing. No magic. I tried every candle in the circle, filling in the spaces with my blood, like a twisted game of connect the dots.

  “What the-”

  Knocks on my door startled me and cut me off.

  “Chris,” Nathan said. “It’s me.” I just sat there with my bleeding hand leaking on the floor. “Uh … I can come back if you’re busy. I probably should’ve called first.”

  His tone struck me. He sounded wounded, like little Nathan would’ve in the house with his parents. His first friend should never make him feel that way. Unwanted, like a pest.

  “Wait,” I said. “It’s um…” I looked at the gory scene around me, unable to find the words to describe it.

  “Are you okay? Let me in.” I blew out the candles, like that was the only weird thing happening in the room.

  I opened the door. I didn’t feel the knife in my hand until his eyes moved from mine to it. And my blood, my wrong, confusing blood, dripped from the knob and splattered all over the floor.

  “Jesus! Are you okay?”

  I just stood there, staring at my friend, feeling him slip away as he saw how insane I was. How would I say goodbye to him? With words? A bloody hug?

  He stepped into my room and closed the door behind him. He looked over my shoulder and groaned.

  “Chris, can I have the knife please?” He didn’t wait for me to answer. He slipped the knife out of my hand without taking his eyes from mine. “Thank you. Is your bathroom through there?” he asked, pointing to the arched doorway.

  I nodded, and he took my healthy hand and walked me there. He sniffed the soap on the counter and shook his head. He did the same to the bars by the tub and in the shower as I bled into the sink.

  “This one will sting the least,” he said, holding up the white bar from the tub. I winced when the water hit the cuts. He did too, holding my hands like they were fragile. Looking at me like I was too. He lathered both of my hands, blood still gushing from the second cut. “I’m going to have to squeeze this one.”

  “Okay,” I whispered.

  He held it between two fingers, testing it. The third time, no blood gurgled from the wound.

  “Do you know any healing spells?” he asked.

  “I don’t use magic,” I said. I meant, I don’t think I have magic to use. His big green eyes said what his mouth didn’t. It sure looks like you were using magic in there. “I was trying to recreate something I saw Sophia and Emma do this morning. It involved blood and fire.”

  He opened his hand and held his pinky close to my eyes. A pink scar stretched from the tip to the middle. “I was tested with a group. Colors swirled everywhere. Like a rainbow. Just a few drops of my blood filled the room with royal blue smoke.”

  Why didn’t my blood do that? “Everyone had a color?” I asked.

  “Yep. I was blue. The wolves were green. The witch was purple. They even tested the obvious ones. A bite sized pixie fogged the whole room with yellow.”

 

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