Chapter Seventeen
Chrys hadn’t seen the black veins again after lunch (nor had she smelled anything off), but she wasn’t convinced they’d disappeared. Every now and then, while sitting in her afternoon classes, she thought she caught movement from the corner of her eye, like a shadow slinking over the walls. But whenever she turned her head, nothing would be there.
Still, it was eerie … and given everything going on (she’d heard rumors about dancing frogs), she was looking forward to school on Wednesday even less than usual. Which was saying something.
Despite that, she arrived early, determined to tell Ms. LaPlant what she’d seen at lunch the day before. Waiting until witch school that night was out of the question.
After she’d locked up her bike, Chrys’s fingers toyed with the piece of quartz she’d stuffed in her jacket pocket. Last night, she’d performed a basic protective spell on it. If any negative magic in the school focused on her, the crystal should absorb it.
Or some of it.
In theory.
Chrys wouldn’t know if her spell worked until it was tested, which she’d prefer it not be, and—logically—she had no reason to believe it would be. As far as she knew, there had been three incidents of abnormal, seemingly uncontrolled magic. Only two of them had happened around her, and neither of those had been solely directed at her. But it was better to be safe than sorry, especially when she still had to deal with her Lily problem. All her usual defenses—her aesthetic, her glare, her snark—had been calibrated for mundane attacks. It had never occurred to her that one day she might need to prepare for magical ones, and in retrospect, that had been shortsighted.
Even so early, the school was lively when Chrys entered near the theater hallway. Several music groups met before classes, and none of the normie students seemed at all deterred by the fact that magic was going haywire around them. That normality was comforting for all of a minute before Chrys noticed that something wasn’t right.
The veins were back.
She hadn’t seen them at first because they stretched across a busy expanse of wall, one that showcased student artwork and photographs of previous years’ music and theater productions. But now that Chrys did notice them, she didn’t know how she’d missed them initially. Like yesterday, something about them seemed vaguely … alive. She suppressed a shiver and removed the quartz from her pocket.
The crystal remained clear. With a sigh of relief, Chrys put it away before anyone saw her, and she stepped closer to the wall to inspect the veins.
There was something slightly iridescent about the blackness. It gave Chrys the sense that it had split the wall open—magic pushing its way into the material world from the metaphysical one. Chrys raised a finger toward one of the lines, wondering if she could touch it, and it shuddered as though sensing her presence.
Chrys jumped back. The vein she’d gotten closest to thrummed, but the others faded until the wall was whole once more. With a quick check to make sure she was still alone, Chrys pulled the crystal from her pocket again and shook her head in confusion. The quartz was clear. That could mean her spell hadn’t worked as she’d intended, or it could mean the way the veins reacted to her was a coincidence, or it could mean …
The vein moved. Like an optical illusion that challenged her brain to keep up, it slid down the wall and stopped at the corner. In her pocket, Chrys tapped the crystal with her fingers.
Well, what the hell. She’d been about to touch it. Following it was no riskier.
As soon as she approached the corner, the vein took off a second time, picking up speed as it went. More confused than ever, Chrys chased after it. Down another hallway, up the stairs—the vein paused around corners, as though waiting to make sure she kept coming.
The rational part of Chrys told her that allowing some clearly chaotic—if not downright evil—magic to take her for a walk was a bad idea, but so far the vein wasn’t leading her anywhere she didn’t already want to go. The more information she could share with Ms. LaPlant, the better, and the vein was heading toward the math classrooms.
Chrys kept right up with it until it slithered through a girls’ bathroom doorway. Ms. LaPlant’s classroom was mere feet away, and Chrys considered heading straight there. Ms. LaPlant was not going to tell her she was smart or brave for following some creepy magic.
On the other hand, it was just a bathroom. What was she likely to find in there—a demon?
Chrys flung open the door and found something equally nauseating.
Lily.
A squeak erupted from Lily’s throat, but she quickly stifled it, shooting Chrys an annoyed glance. Chrys barely registered it. She couldn’t even find it in her to laugh at Lily’s surprise; her own was too great.
The walls around Lily were covered in more veins, a whole spiderweb of them crisscrossing the bathroom’s hideous cinder block walls.
Judging by the fear on Lily’s face, she could see them, too.
Had the vein she’d been following ended up among that mess? And if so, why? Chrys strained to see if she could find it—as though she’d be able to identify one black line from another—and when she bent closer, what she witnessed caused her to shiver all over again. More veins were forming in the wall as she watched, spreading out around her body like another web.
“Shit.”
Chrys took a step closer to the center of the bathroom, to Lily.
“You can see them?”
Lily whispered. She stood up straighter, haughtiness erasing some of the fear on her face, but her voice wavered, giving her away.
Chrys tried to smirk but couldn’t manage it. Thanks to her crystal, she’d been feeling pretty sanguine about the situation a minute ago. She wished she could find it amusing that Lily was afraid, but there were so many veins. Lily wasn’t wrong to be concerned.
For that matter, why were the veins fixating on Lily, too? Chrys swallowed, pushing down her questions and the worries that were gaining control over her muscles.
“Of course I can see them. I am a witch.”
Lily scowled and glanced away. Then she seemed to resign herself to something and sighed, facing Chrys again.
“Evan can’t see them.”
“Oh.”
Chrys’s fingers twirled the quartz more violently in her pocket. Her list of questions was growing, but she didn’t feel like confessing her ignorance to Lily. Asking questions would give Lily one more thing to look down on her for.
Besides, the veins around Lily were multiplying, and that didn’t seem great. Especially not when Chrys glanced over her shoulder and saw that the ones surrounding her were doing the same. The spiderwebs were stretching toward each other, and Chrys wasn’t sure she wanted to be in the middle when they met.
“Um …”
Chrys attempted to point this out, but the manner in which Lily was scrutinizing her was making her self-conscious. This was so not the time to regress to her fourteen-year-old self who got all flustered being in the same space as Lily, but here they were, here were the veins, and words were sticking in Chrys’s throat. For lack of better coherence, Chrys pointed, hoping that would both divert Lily’s attention and get the message across.
It didn’t, not immediately, and Chrys finally managed to shout Lily’s name as she gestured with increasing franticness toward the wall above the sinks. The veins had almost met.
Lily turned, but it was too late. Chrys tried to run for the door, but that was also too late and her feet felt stuck in place. Two of the veins melted into each other and …
Nothing happened. Chrys’s shoulders sagged with relief, and she dropped her arm.
And then water exploded out of the taps.
Lily shrieked, and Chrys’s feet remembered how to move. She dashed for the door with Lily on her heels as the spray drenched them. Lily slammed the door shut, and they both collapsed against the wall.
Chrys swore, pushing wet hair out of her face, and scanned the hallway with a pounding heart. No veins were anywhere in sight, but that did not make her feel much better.
Lily whimpered as she blotted water off her cheek with a tissue. Chrys could practically feel her hesitating, internally debating whether to say more about what had happened.
Unsure whether she wanted to hear more, Chrys dropped her gaze to her clothes, assessing the damage. It was just water, but until she dried off, she was going to be cold and uncomfortable. It was easier to focus on that than on what she’d seen, and it allowed her to ignore Lily. Or pretend to.
The first bell would be coming soon. The hallway was growing noisy, and it would be only a matter of time before someone approached them with questions about why they were wet. Lily must have been having similar thoughts (coupled with a desire to not be seen talking to Chrys). As Chrys more closely inspected her backpack’s contents (all fine, luckily), Lily abruptly rose and strode away.
Chrys sighed, torn between relief, frustration, and—most disturbingly—a sense of disappointment.
Stupid. Lily probably didn’t know anything more than Chrys did, not really. Therefore, nothing useful could come from talking to her about this, and Chrys had no reason for being disappointed about losing the opportunity. The only person Chrys should talk to was Ms. LaPlant, and she was running out of time for that.
Before she did, Chrys reached into her pocket and pulled out the quartz. It had turned a dull gray.