Chapter Two
“Have you seen the new kid yet?”
Evan Cohen asked, coming up behind Lily and Sonia Kim as they entered Ms. LaPlant’s math classroom.
“I haven’t seen anyone yet.”
Lily tossed Sonia a disdainful look, and her best friend shrugged sheepishly.
Lily liked getting to school early, especially on the first day. But she’d given Sonia a ride, since Sonia didn’t have her license yet, and she had basically dragged Sonia out the door and made her finish doing her hair in the car. They’d barely arrived on time. If they hadn’t been inseparable since preschool, Sonia would be finding another method of transportation this year.
“Boy, girl, enby, or unknown?”
Sonia asked.
“Boy.”
Sonia’s face lit up with interest, and Evan’s fell a touch. Lily refrained from rolling her eyes. The two of them had been on again, off again since freshman year.
“Witch or mundane?”
Lily asked under her breath. That was the most pertinent question, and she couldn’t not think of her tarot reading from last night and the Knight of Wands.
There were only six witches in their grade and twenty-three in the whole high school. Thornhaven Island was one of a mere handful of witch enclaves in the States, its large magical population only large in the relative sense. Her brother had dated witch and normie girls both, and her parents had never seemed to care, but Lily suspected that was because they hadn’t anticipated any of those relationships lasting beyond high school. Lily, however, expected her unknown boyfriend to be a witch, too. Perfect, after all, meant perfect in every way.
“Unknown,”
Evan said.
Normally, the odds would be against it, but witches were drawn to live in Thornhaven. Magic ignited magic. A witch’s power shined brighter here, their magical flame flaring until it was as powerful as the midsummer sun. And the more witches who gathered in one place, the more powerful each of them became. Witches had huddled together on the island since the 1600s, and because of that long history, the air fairly shimmered with enchantment. Many witches who were born and grew up in mundane places never experienced the true extent of their power until they visited. Once they did, they moved.
The normies felt it, too, to a degree. In the summer, they mostly visited Thornhaven for the beaches, the sailing, and the pirate history. But in October, they came for the legends about witches. For the atmosphere of something being just a little wild, a little off, a little mysterious in a way that most of them would never be able to quite place, even if they saw something impossible. They didn’t know it, but that was one of the island’s defenses—non-witches could never quite remember the real magic they experienced.
The weirdness, though? That would remain with them. Or it would unless they stayed too long, at which point the weird would become their normal and therefore go unnoticed.
Since the classroom was starting to fill, there could be no more magic talk, and Lily scanned the chairs, assessing the seating options. She preferred to sit up front, which would annoy Sonia, and that was only fair since Sonia had almost made them late. But as Lily started toward her chosen desks, a vision in black set her backpack down on one of them.
Damn Chrysanthemum.
She was like a walking hex. How did she know where Lily was heading?
With that option gone, Lily led the way to a less satisfactory area, dropping into her suboptimal seat and glaring at the back of Chrysanthemum’s head as she got out her supplies.
Despite the early-September warmth, Chrysanthemum wore sturdy black boots and black jeans with a rip in the knee that was probably not made for fashion. Her black shirt hung loosely off one shoulder, exposing a shockingly pale patch of skin, and Lily had the urge to take a black Sharpie to that spot and color it in until it matched the rest of her. Even Chrysanthemum’s hair was black, and the memory of how it had gotten that way still burned Lily with a mixture of humiliation and rage.
It had all started back in ninth grade when Chrysanthemum had moved to Thornhaven. Lily hadn’t paid her much attention at first; Chrysanthemum had looked like a soft goth who was trying too hard, nobody of consequence. If Lily hadn’t known she was a witch, she’d have assumed Chrysanthemum was one of those poser normies who came to the island and claimed to feel its power while blathering on about ley lines and moon phases.
Then the unthinkable had happened. Chrysanthemum had beaten her in the witches’ annual student magic fair that year. Beaten her seemingly effortlessly with a spell to turn her hair black. Not a glamour or an illusion, which was fairly simple as far as magic went. But permanent change. The kind of spell that even fully trained adult witches could struggle with. Lily, who had entered a glamour spell that she’d been extremely proud of up until that point, hadn’t been so humiliated in defeat since she’d tripped during a ballet recital when she was ten. (Coincidentally, the last year she’d done ballet.)
Three years later, Lily remained vigilant when it came to competing against Chrysanthemum. She’d beaten her in the magic fair the following year, but last year the judges had proclaimed a tie, which was just insulting. Lily had worked on her spell for months—she’d charmed a pen so that when she wrote on one piece of paper, the words appeared on another piece. No one else in her year had performed such a complicated spell until Chrysanthemum had managed to charm a pen so that its writing could only be seen by the person intended to view it.
It was infuriating. Not only had Lily expected to win, but Chrysanthemum’s spell was so similar it was like she’d chosen it on purpose. If Lily hadn’t been determined to hide her anger, she would have accused Chrysanthemum of cheating.
The only thing that had lessened Lily’s fury was that she’d won the school’s academic award for having the highest GPA in their class that same spring. Chrysanthemum hadn’t looked her way during the awards ceremony, but Lily had looked at her as she’d walked to the stage and taken great satisfaction at Chrysanthemum’s stiff posture and barely concealed scowl.
Their rivalry burned hot to this day, and their mutual enmity was intense.
Meanwhile, Chrysanthemum had left her hair black, as if taunting Lily with the reminder of what she was capable of when she put her mind—and her magic—to it. That hair ensured that there was nothing bright or cheerful about her. Except for her eyes, which were like a crystalline arctic glacier. Lily had never met anyone with eyes like that before, such a pale, icy blue that they practically glowed.
Witch eyes, if ever there was such a thing.
“Good morning, everyone, and welcome back!”
Ms. LaPlant swept into the room, her long skirt swinging and earrings jingling as she shut the door behind her.
Lily sat up straighter and smiled, Chrysanthemum forgotten for the moment. Ms. LaPlant was one of the only teachers at the high school who was also a witch, and she was going to be Lily’s witch school teacher this year, too. The quintessential earth-witch type, Ms. LaPlant had always been kind and patient. Starting off the year in her class had to be a good omen. Her classroom windowsill was covered in greenery, and her room was decorated with discreetly disguised charms that ensured no one cheated on her exams.
Before Ms. LaPlant could speak again, the final bell rang and the classroom door burst open. Lily turned, ready to laugh at whoever was late on the first day, but surprise wiped away her amusement.
“Sorry I’m late. I went down the wrong hallway.”
Lily had never seen the newcomer before, so he had to be the new student, and he didn’t sound sorry at all. Rather, he carried himself the way most boys did—with total confidence, as though they knew they’d won the gender lottery and were playing the game of life on easy mode.
That kind of confidence could be attractive or obnoxious, depending on the situation, and Lily eyed the boy, curious as to which she’d find. He was tall and cute, with perfectly curled blond hair, and built like an athlete. Basketball, obviously, given his height. Nothing about him screamed witch, but nothing didn’t, either. (Then again, Lily had learned the mistake of prejudging anyone’s magical ability with Chrysanthemum.)
He smiled at Ms. LaPlant with just a hint of trepidation, as though he knew he was unlikely to actually get in trouble but thought he should act otherwise. When he did, a dimple appeared on his left cheek. Sonia inhaled sharply.
Poor Evan.
New Boy was objectively cute, but Lily’s stomach didn’t do so much as twitch in response to the dimple. (That was typical for her.) What was more important was that he bore a resemblance to the picture of the Knight of Wands in her tarot deck. Could this be him? The card wasn’t just about a boy but about change, and it made far more sense for the boy in question to be new than someone she’d known for years. Where was the change in that?
Lily’s heart beat faster.
She could already see how her reading was playing out. Sonia was smiling broadly at the boy, as were a couple of other girls in the room, and Isaiah Thomas had leaned forward with interest. By the end of the day, the competition for the boy’s attention would be fierce. That could be the conflict part of her reading. She’d have to fight her way to the front of the pack.
If her interpretation of the cards was correct (and how could it not be when they were so clear?), then it was odd that she herself wasn’t swooning already, but surely, true love could take time. Just because Lily wasn’t losing her head yet didn’t mean she wouldn’t eventually lose her heart. She needed to have faith in her reading and follow through with the actions she could control.
Ms. LaPlant smiled patiently.
“You must be Luke Goodman, our new student. Welcome to Thornhaven. No assigned seating in my class, so pick a desk.”
There were still five empty desks in the classroom, and seventeen pairs of eyes watched Luke assess his choices. Lily wished she’d picked a spot that had left an empty desk next to her.
Luke bypassed the empty seat in the front row next to Isaiah and went to put his backpack down on …
This could not be for real. Lily almost choked on her own breath.
He chose the desk next to Chrysanthemum? Why, of all the options available, would he choose her? Was it her perma-scowl? The black nail polish? The boots that said, I will step on your bare, sandal-footed toes and enjoy it?
Chrysanthemum seemed as flummoxed by this as Lily, but the confusion on her face registered for only a flash before disappearing behind her usual indifferent mask.
“All right, let’s get started,”
Ms. LaPlant said, and the class settled down, heads returning toward the front of the room.
Lily’s did not, and she narrowed her eyes at Chrysanthemum. This was unfathomable. Was she truly a demon? Lily wasn’t entirely sure demons were real, but legends claimed that a witch who cast too many hexes would be consumed by the evil they spread and become one. (Although you probably had to have been hexing people for a long time before that happened, so, you know, it was an unlikely fate to befall a seventeen-year-old.)
As if she could feel Lily glaring at her, Chrysanthemum glanced back, and Lily quickly fixed her gaze on Ms. LaPlant, her pulse speeding up. Stupid of it. She wasn’t afraid of Chrysanthemum, and she had no reason to feel guilty.
She just didn’t want Chrysanthemum to know she’d been looking her way.
With her potential Knight of Wands sitting so close to her enemy, Lily didn’t dare antagonize Chrysanthemum right now and make the situation worse.
Honestly, having a nemesis was exhausting.