Chapter Twenty-Two
What the hell had she been thinking by agreeing to this?
Chrys had assumed they’d be stuck at the Historical Society until all hours of the night cleaning up the mess, but Mr. Stephens had sent them away for their safety. Chrys wasn’t at all certain that leaving the building was safer than staying, but she also hadn’t looked forward to the extra work. So here she was, twenty minutes later, as cleaned up as she could get in a Society bathroom, walking to Black Cat Coffee with Lily.
She hadn’t had any caffeine yet, but her hands were jittery, and it was only partially due to having witnessed a bunch of powerful wards burning out and surviving a book tornado. (Chrys’s heart hurt when she thought of the poor damaged books.) She worried she might truly be somewhat responsible for what was happening and worried even more that if she admitted it, Lily would get her in such big trouble that Chrys could be kicked out of the Historical Society.
Trying to ignore these thoughts, Chrys glanced toward the town hall. The ominous clouds and the circling birds had vanished. The sky was a clear, sunny blue over Thornhaven’s downtown. These blocks were stuffed with two- and three-story shops with their quaint historical New England facades, weathered brick abutting brick and brightly painted trim struggling to maintain its color in the face of the harsh Atlantic weather. Heavy wood signs hung above the doors—THE CAULDRON SUPPLY, THE BLUE MERMAID TAVERN, BLACK CAT COFFEE—and warmly colored leaves carpeted the cobblestone sidewalk beneath them. Chrys loved everything about the atmosphere, but given that flecks of dried paint she’d missed were making her cheek itch, the scenery and weather were of little comfort.
The bell over the door jingled cheerfully, and a warm, coffee-and-cinnamon-scented breeze brushed Chrys’s nose as they entered. The shop smelled of perfection, the first calming moment of her day. As much as she loved coffee, she rarely allowed herself to indulge at Black Cat. Everything on the island was expensive, and the downtown catered to tourists as much as to the locals, which made it extra pricey. But Lily had suggested they come here to talk, and Chrys had decided she’d earned a hot drink. Not just for surviving the mess at the Historical Society, but also because if she had to deal with Lily outside of school multiple times in one week, she deserved to treat herself with some of that money she’d made over the summer. It might be the only way she could get through the conversation.
A few minutes later, she carried her pumpkin spice latte over to the secluded table where Lily was breaking off a piece of a very familiar-looking confection. Chrys considered telling Lily her mother had made those chocolate gingerbread cookies, then thought better of it.
“So?”
Chrys asked, taking the chair across from Lily and really looking at her for the first time all day. Or, well, the first time when her mind wasn’t clouded by panic.
Lily wore a deep maroon Thornhaven High sweatshirt that brought out the red in her hair. And in her lips. Chrys told herself that it made Lily look like one of the sugar maples outside, but that didn’t explain why she stared at the bite of cookie Lily popped in her mouth. A couple of dots of white paint stuck to Lily’s neck like birthmarks, and Chrys curled her fingers around her mug.
This was such a mistake. The need to have their conversation not be overheard warred with Chrys’s desire to keep her distance.
Perhaps Lily shared her thoughts, because she took the lid off a ceramic mug that was sitting next to her drink, and suddenly the din of other conversations, the espresso machine, and the music drifting through the speakers vanished.
Chrys blinked.
“You carry around a mug with a silence charm on it?”
“It’s the shop’s,”
Lily said.
“You can rent them for private conversations.”
“Oh.”
She’d had no idea, since she so rarely came here, but Lily’s tone suggested she thought Chrys was painfully a normie for not being aware. Chrys bit the inside of her cheek and took a sip of her drink to cover for her lack of a scathing retort.
Lily wrinkled her perfect, tiny nose as she inhaled deeply.
“Is that pumpkin spice?”
“Yeah?”
Looking confused, Lily tilted her head to the side and wrapped her hands around what appeared to be a giant mug of hot chocolate.
Chrys stiffened, the latte no match for her growing impatience. “What?”
“You didn’t strike me as a PSL kind of person.”
“What do you think a person like me drinks? Battery acid?”
Wasn’t it enough that she curated her entire aesthetic to convey a back off attitude? Did she have to watch what she ate, too?
Lily shifted.
“I don’t know. Black coffee? To match your clothes?”
There was some logic there, Chrys supposed. Then she wondered why she was giving Lily credit for insulting her and why the absurdity made her want to laugh. No wonder Lily usually ignored her. She was unintentionally hilarious when she tried to be cruel. The kids Chrys had known before she moved to Thornhaven could really have given Lily some lessons. It was almost like Lily was missing that killer instinct, but that couldn’t be right.
Honestly, trying to understand the witch princess’s brain had to be an exercise in futility. It was probably filled with pink glitter and singing animals and assumptions of her own superiority.
“I don’t drink my clothes,”
Chrys said, fighting down her laugh.
“I guess not.”
Lily’s fingers rubbed the notebook in front of her, and it dawned on Chrys that Lily was as anxious as she was. But why? She assumed Lily didn’t want to talk to her any more than Chrys wanted to talk to Lily, but Lily was the one who had insisted.
Chrys took another sip of her too-hot coffee and let it burn her tongue. She did not care what Lily was feeling. She barely cared what Lily was thinking, but since that was why she was here …
“What’s left to talk about that you didn’t accuse me of on Wednesday?”
Chrys asked.
To her surprise, Lily winced.
“I wasn’t accusing you of anything. Stop being so dramatic.”
Chrys snorted.
“I am hardly the dramatic one here.”
“Sure, you don’t dress in a dramatic fashion at all just because you look like you’re always ready for a good funeral.”
Lily rolled her eyes, but she plowed on before Chrys could object.
“I’ve been making notes about what’s going on at school. Since we’re the only two people who can see the black lines, I thought it would be helpful to hear about where you’ve spotted them. I also still think we’re connected to what’s going on.”
Be calm, Chrys reminded herself. Lily opened her notebook, and predictably, it was neat and organized. Chrys took back what she’d thought about Lily’s brain and glitter. No way would Lily tolerate glitter; it was too messy. Pink sequins, on the other hand …
Still, part of her was impressed by the effort Lily was putting into this, and seeing pages of Lily’s handwriting was making her more curious. If Lily had suspected Chrys was behind the magic, surely she’d have gone to Ms. LaPlant by now. That they were sitting here, that Lily wanted to share her observations instead, was suggestive. Of what, Chrys wasn’t sure, but it couldn’t be as straightforward as she’d assumed.
“Okay, go on,”
Chrys said, trying to hide her curiosity and the fact that she was the teeniest bit impressed by Lily’s efforts.
Over the next few minutes, Lily described all that she’d observed throughout the week. Chrys had already heard much of it, gathered in bits and pieces if she hadn’t been around to witness the particular event. But Lily had more details, as well as plenty of questions about what Chrys had experienced. Lily wrote everything down and chewed on her pen thoughtfully.
“Here’s the thing,”
Lily said at last.
“We can’t count math class because Ms. LaPlant has wards around the room.”
“As we now know, wards are not infallible,”
Chrys pointed out.
“True, so we should keep that in mind, but Ms. LaPlant’s room is unusual. And if we ignore that nothing has happened during her class, there’s a pattern. First, the incidents have always happened when one of us is present, except for the bio class. But I was in the classroom next door to the lab when it happened, and you were in the room almost directly above it. The bio lab was the midpoint between us. Most importantly, the incidents are always more violent when we’re near each other—the cafeteria, the bathroom, and today in the library.”
Chrys pulled her feet up onto the chair so she could hug her knees. The total number of incidents was small, and calling any of them violent was a stretch, but coupled with her and Lily seeing the lines … she hated to admit it, but she could see why Lily thought it was a pattern.
She searched her brain for an argument to refute the theory, but she could feel Lily watching her, and it made thinking difficult. Chrys wished she were wearing a hoodie so she could hide her head inside it. Instead, she tugged down her flannel’s sleeves and buried her hands in them, wishing she could disappear completely.
It was ironic, after all that time she’d spent wanting Lily to notice her. Finally, Lily had, and Chrys longed to fade back into the shadows. She didn’t know what was wrong with her. Besides the obvious—she didn’t care if Lily noticed her anymore.
Right. Didn’t care. Exactly why she was trying to hide in her shirt and escape Lily’s very, very intense gaze.
Clearing her throat, Chrys dropped her feet back to the floor. She could figure out what was wrong with her later. For the moment, the trick was acting like she was fine.
And damn it—she hadn’t found a serious hole to poke in Lily’s theory. She wanted Lily to be wrong, and instead she was forced to acknowledge that Lily might be clever.
“I still don’t understand why we’d be involved,”
Chrys said, since it was the best defense she had.
Lily cast her gaze to her unfinished hot chocolate. “The hex—”
“Was small, to the point, and thoroughly removed.”
“Yes.”
Lily sighed heavily.
“But what if, somehow, some of that ill intent lingered?”
“I’ve had lots of ill intent toward you. Don’t see why that would make a difference now.”
Shit. Chrys dug her nails into her palms, silently cursing herself for letting that slip. Lily wasn’t supposed to know that she’d cared. She wasn’t supposed to have cared—period. Chrys had bound up those hurt emotions from ninth grade and burned them during a waning moon. It was as simple and classic as a banishing spell could get.
Fine, maybe she’d missed some. Maybe her intent hadn’t been strong enough and instead of releasing the hurt, she’d buried some of it in her chest. But she’d been able to ignore it for years. And it shouldn’t matter anyway, because if Chrys was responsible, she knew what had done it. It wasn’t merely ill intent and pain slipping out from the binding around her heart. She’d released it, purposely.
She expected Lily to look triumphant, pleased that she’d gotten Chrys to admit that she cared enough to harbor ill intent. But while Lily did look like she was feeling vindicated, she also looked miserable.
Lily closed her eyes and shoved her mug away. When she opened them, she kept her gaze focused on her thumbs, which she rubbed together over her notebook.
Chrys waited, angry at herself for her slipup and angrier for not hating Lily in this moment. For Lily forcing her to slip up by making her feel things. Lily seemed so fragile; not a sturdy and strong sugar maple at all, but a girl fading into the orange-toned wall behind her, swallowed by something bigger than she was. Chrys wanted to grab her hands and pull her back before she vanished completely. Instead, she tucked her own hands deeper in her sleeves.
“What if the problem,”
Lily whispered.
“is that while you were putting out ill intent, I hexed you? And those two negative energies collided?”
It took a couple of seconds for the words to make sense, for them to shatter the moment of empathy Chrys had been having.
“You what?”
“I’m sorry!”
Lily’s hands flopped to her sides.
“I was furious about getting in trouble for something you did, and so I hexed you, and don’t act all superior because you did it to me first, and—”
“Seriously?”
Chrys was grateful for the silence charm. There was no way she could have kept her voice down.
“After your whole ass-kissing moment with Ms. LaPlant about why this is a dangerous time of year for working negative magic?”
Lily scowled but said nothing, and although she hadn’t meant it as such, her silence served as a rebuke to Chrys. She was a damn hypocrite to be lecturing Lily, wasn’t she? But she hadn’t intended to hex Lily that night. She wasn’t even entirely sure she had. Yet Lily’s theory made some sense. Not the way Lily was thinking of it, because Lily didn’t know what Chrys had done, but overall. The veil was weak; magic could be hijacked or twisted. Two badly done hexes aimed at each other—it sounded like a recipe for disaster.
“What are you thinking?”
Lily asked after a moment of uncomfortable silence. Then, when Chrys didn’t answer, she pushed her advantage.
“You think I’m right.”
Chrys closed her eyes. Her blood was pumping quickly, yet still she managed to feel utterly deflated. It had to be guilt.
“Not exactly.”
Lily was staring at her, her face pale, making her lips redder and her eyelashes darker. Chrys’s stomach twisted. Definitely guilt.
“I said something that night, too, and in retrospect, maybe it felt a bit like a spell.”
The admission had to be dragged from somewhere deep down inside her, and it left her mouth filled with the taste of acid.
“You just yelled at me, but you hexed me, too? Again?”
“It wasn’t a hex.”
Chrys slid her chair back an inch as she caught a whiff of Lily’s shampoo, the one that left her lightheaded.
“It was just words said in anger. I don’t think it should have done anything, but …”
But clearly something had happened, and it made more sense that verbalizing her loathing for Lily was responsible than any nebulous ill intent.
Lily swore.
“It’s fine,”
she said, waving her hands around.
“I mean, it’s not fine, but I guess we’re even.”
“If what I did is partially responsible, we’re not, because I hexed you twice.”
Lily paused mid-wave to consider this.
“True. I appreciate your honesty.”
Chrys shrugged.
“Maybe I just like pointing out when you’re wrong.”
Lily blinked, and her hand smacked her mostly untouched mug. She stared at Chrys for a moment, looking seriously confused.
Oh shit. Despite everything, Lily’s expression was too comical to resist, and Chrys’s lips twitched ever so slightly. No, no, no! She fought down the smile. Why was she such an emotional mess today?
“Whatever,”
Lily said, but she seemed more confused than she had a moment ago, and Chrys had a bad feeling that Lily had seen the smile itching to break across her mouth and had misinterpreted it as friendliness. And if she’d done that, she might be thinking Chrys’s comment was teasing instead of purely spiteful.
For the record, absolutely neither was true. Chrys was determined to be full of spite and empty of compassion. She dug her nails into her palms again, trying to focus on channeling her disdainful attitude. Normally it was easy.
“So,”
Lily continued.
“we have a problem, and I think we need to be the ones to fix it. Remember, Ms. LaPlant said that the Society could work faster if they knew what had caused the magic to go weird. Since we’re the ones who know, we need to figure it out.”
“To be clear, this means we’re not telling anyone what we think is responsible?”
It sounded like that was Lily’s point, but Chrys needed to hear her say it. She’d have thought Lily would want to run to the Society and tell the truth, trusting that her family would protect her from consequences. That she didn’t was interesting. The witch princess wasn’t as perfect as she pretended, and Chrys wasn’t sure how to feel about that.
Lily’s eyes opened wide.
“We would get in so much trouble. You don’t want to tell them, do you? Look at the trouble we’re already in.”
Chrys took a second to delight in the fearful way Lily watched her before she shook her head. Unlike Lily, she could deny placing a hex if someone wanted to cast a truth spell on them, and it might save her. But Chrys didn’t really want to find out.
“I don’t know how to fix this,”
she said.
“Do you have any ideas for that in your notebook?”
“I hadn’t gotten that far. But I do think the first thing we should do is plan to stay as far apart as possible at school. Agreed?”
Chrys let herself smirk this time.
“Such a hardship. Agreed. Besides math and history, I think lunch is the only time that might be a problem, but I can hang out in the library.”
Lily seemed to relax.
“That works. Let me know if you want to trade off days.”
“No, I’m good with the library.”
Books were always better company than people anyway. She’d just have to think of an excuse for ditching her friends.
“Okay, well …”
Lily glanced down at the notebook like she was hoping it had filled with more information.
“I also think we need to sneak into the Historical Society’s restricted room and search their books. I doubt they’d leave anything with useful information about evil magic out in the main library for anyone to read.”
Probably not, which was just as well, seeing what the current condition of the library was. Restricted books and other items, however, were located in a separate room in the back. Chrys had tried to check it out once, but the door had been locked.
“It might be a while before we can get into the library to get to the restricted room,”
Chrys said.
“What would we look for, anyway?”
“Ways to undo hexes that have gotten out of control,”
Lily said, and her words were punctuated with an unspoken duh that Chrys thought was uncalled for.
“Is that the problem—an out-of-control hex or two? Or is it more complicated, like two hexes meeting in the night and pooling their power to create a mutant baby hex? Or is it hexes that were hijacked by malevolent spirits that are slipping through the veil? Or—”
“Okay, enough.”
Lily rubbed her head.
“I don’t know. I guess we’re just researching hexes for now, unless you know all about them already.”
“Because I dress in black?”
When Lily said nothing, Chrys snorted.
“I don’t know anything about hexes. I made up the one I cast. I wasn’t sure it would work.”
“Fine,”
Lily grumbled.
“I just meant it would have been helpful if you did.”
Chrys sighed. This partnership was off to a great start.
“So when do we try this? The building’s crowded before witch school on Wednesday, but there’s no way we can do it today. Half the Society’s probably been called in to fix the wards.”
“What about now?”
Lily asked. Chrys could only imagine her face, because Lily rushed on.
“Things seem to be getting worse, and I’m worried. Aren’t you?”
Yeah, kind of, if she was being honest with herself. But Chrys didn’t know if she could stand spending more time with Lily today. One minute, she was feeling empathetic and soft, and the next, she wanted to hex Lily all over again.
“I just said we can’t go back to the Society.”
“We have some books at home that we could start with, if you want to come over.”
Go to Lily’s house? Be around Lily in her princess palace? There was not enough coffee in this shop that Chrys could reward herself with for enduring that kind of pain.
On the other hand, they were going to have to be very careful in their research at the Historical Society so they didn’t get caught. Chrys could, unfortunately, see a reason for doing what they could elsewhere.
Was it possible to cast a spell to make yourself emotionally indifferent to someone? Banishing her feelings apparently hadn’t worked all that great.
Not that she still had those kinds of feelings, Chrys clarified to herself. Lily’s snobbery had taken care of them. This was about feelings in general so she wouldn’t get annoyed with Lily. It would be hard work to undo a hex when she kept wanting to send another hex.
Chrys pretended to check the time on her phone.
“I don’t know. I could use the extra time today to do homework.”
Lily groaned.
“You’re right. How are we supposed to do both?”
“If we worked on homework together, it might go faster. Then we could research.”
Chrys heard the words slip out of her mouth, unable to stifle her tongue. If they’d been a mug of coffee, she’d have tried in vain to stop it from tumbling over, her fingers flailing and catching only air.
This was bad, but Chrys assured herself it was also understandable. She was stressed, and Lily was stressed, and Chrys was not an evil person. Empathy was natural, and stress wore down the defenses. If any of these weird moods were indicative of feelings being revived in her chest, no one could blame her.
Besides, there was no reason to worry about her suggestion being taken seriously, because surely Lily hadn’t been serious, either. She’d also want to take advantage of her extra Saturday free time. She was popular. Chrys didn’t know what that was like, but she assumed popular kids always had busy social calendars, especially on the weekends. Lily would decline, and they could put this off to a reasonable time. Like never.
“That’s a good idea,”
Lily said, and it took Chrys a second to realize what Lily meant, and that she wasn’t reading her thoughts.
“We can fit your bike in the back of my SUV.”
Crap.