Chapter 2
Bryn’s mouth dried up utterly, obliterating any notion of speaking.
Amelia Hexford. Hotter at twenty-four than she had been at eighteen—and oh boy, oh goodness …
Bryn realized she was standing there with her mouth open and quickly shut it, but that was all she could do before Amelia reached her, grabbed her arm, and called back towards the castle, “We have a lot to catch up on! We’ll just take a walk around the grounds! ”
Then, to a still-stunned Bryn, Amelia said, voice strained and totally in contrast to her grin, “I’m so glad you’re here, you have no idea. I desperately need your help.”
She steered them towards the gardens and Bryn, shocked but also not about to resist the pull of her high-school crush, could only say, “You remember me?”
This time Amelia’s smile was real. “How could I forget you?”
Umm, do I faint, die, or kiss her? But Bryn didn’t do any of those things. Instead, she managed to ask, “How can I help?” And her voice hardly even trembled.
“Wait.” The false smile returned, firmly (and unnaturally) in place. But Amelia’s eyes—blue, but gone lilac in the pink reflection of dusk—were serious and intense.
A girl could swoon. Bryn felt herself flush with remembered humiliation and way-too-current arousal.
Down, girl. She could feel Amelia’s quick breaths, the heat from her body, the subtle pulse of magic radiating from her.
Years of unrequited love (lust?) surged through Bryn, but she fought it back, and forced herself to focus on the humiliation instead, that feeling of being an ugly toad from nowhere amongst beautiful princesses from magical backgrounds.
That was who they were, who they would always be.
Except, Amelia’s hand on her arm was warm, tingling, and so, so immediate. Bryn wanted both to lean in and pull away, in almost equal measure.
Then they rounded the corner towards the pool and Amelia dropped her arm, pulling out a phone and a wand. She cast a quick, familiar spell above the phone—a spell Bryn knew because she’d created it herself and published it in her spell collection.
Amelia Hexford, cleverest witch of Bryn’s entire time at Grimoire Academy, had read her book? Not just read it, but actually used a spell from it? She opened her mouth to ask, then thought again and went with, “Why do we need a sphere of silence spell?”
“I think someone’s been spying on me. I know that sounds bananas, but …
” Amelia gestured with her phone hand, but Bryn, now on alert, grasped her wrist and held the device between them, stepping in closer and accidentally inhaling a sudden burst of jasmine that seemed to be coming from Amelia’s skin.
At Amelia’s startled blink, she explained, “I designed the spell for phone calls, not in-person conversations—politeness more than privacy. So we need to be … close for it to work.” She gulped, aware suddenly that she was taller than the other woman.
Not by much, but this close together, Amelia had to tilt her face up a little.
Kissing distance, Bryn thought, feeling herself blush. Oh gods, I’m standing in kissing distance with Amelia Hexford.
Then Amelia spoiled this thought by saying, “Something strange is going on and I need your help. I had them make up a guest room for you.”
“A guest room? But I can’t stay, I—”
Amelia stepped in until her phone hand, where the spell was centered, was the only thing keeping their bodies from pressing together. “I’m aware we don’t know each other, but I know you’re smart, and I know you’re here. Please say you’ll help me.”
The naked need—No, don’t even think the word NAKED this close to Amelia Hexford—in her voice was hard to resist, but there was no way Bryn was spending the night in the castle.
She wasn’t a child. She’d left. She’d moved on.
Hell, she’d moved hundreds of miles away.
She didn’t owe Amelia, or the school, or anyone in this town a damn thing.
“Professor Herringbone left you a note.” Amelia’s voice was just above a whisper, like she didn’t quite trust the spell. Or like she was afraid. “I swear, she knew more than she told me, but maybe now that you’re here we can figure it out.”
“A note?” Bryn remembered the professor’s scrawl with a pang of grief.
“It’s in her rooms.” Amelia grasped Bryn’s wrist, so they were standing there entwined. “Please, Bryn.”
Bryn, with the distinct sensation she was stepping off a cliff, said the only thing she could: “Uhhh …” Then, bracing herself, she nodded. “Fine. One night. That’s it.”
Amelia’s relief was immediate and it manifested as an awkward one-armed hug. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”
The hug was very nice, but Bryn’s brain was mildly distracted by the alarm bells now ringing loudly. What have I done?
The strangest thing about walking at Amelia Hexford’s side into the main castle was how much more three dimensional she made everything feel.
No longer a memory: now Bryn was walking through this ghost of her past. The entrance hall seemed somehow brighter or lighter than it used to be, but it still smelled the same.
The same mix of stone and chill, with a sweet undercurrent that she knew came up from the kitchens.
It still smelled—again, to her irritation—something like home.
She’d spent four years in and out of these corridors, these rooms, and while those years may not have always been happy, they were definitely impactful.
“This way,” Amelia said softly.
Bryn, feeling unaccountably annoyed, snapped, “I know the way to her office.” She immediately regretted it when Amelia murmured a low, “Sorry.”
Amelia did seem sorry, and she was clearly very stressed out. Bryn bit her tongue. There was no need to be so sharp, especially after all this time. It wasn’t Amelia’s fault that she had been the epicenter of the most humiliating moment in Bryn’s life.
And then there had been that much more recent moment when they stood so close together that she could feel Amelia’s breaths …
No, stop it. Schoolgirl crushes were to be left at school, or at the chronological timing of school—or whatever.
Bryn brushed off all these thoughts and determinedly kept up with Amelia as they walked the familiar corridors to Professor Herringbone’s rooms. Most of the professors lived either in cottages on campus or in town, but Professor Herringbone was one of the few who’d resided in the castle proper.
She hadn’t been part of the residence staff tasked with looking after the students who occasionally boarded there, but her constant presence had been familiar and comforting to Bryn when she’d been at school.
She frequently arrived early and stayed late, and the professor had always been there; her rooms had been a sanctuary.
Judging by the sight that greeted them once Amelia swung open the door to the classroom, the professor had continued this habit.
A young witch was sitting in the professor’s desk chair, feet not quite touching the floor.
For a split second, Bryn was almost offended, until she recognized the behavior.
Not this particular witch—a young girl with dark skin and closely plaited hair—but her attitude.
Hadn’t that been Bryn not so long ago? Hiding in the professor’s rooms as the only safe bastion?
She wouldn’t have sat in Professor Herringbone’s chair, who back then would have been around to sit in her own chair; in a world deprived of the professor herself, maybe Bryn would have sought the comfort of that familiar seat and the sphere of calm that she associated with it.
“Circe,” Amelia said in surprise. “What are you doing here?”
The girl’s eyes darted up, then away, but she didn’t speak.
“Are you doing an after-school program of some sort?” Amelia followed up, but the girl only gathered her things—a bulky backpack, a hoodie in aubergine with silver piping, the school’s colors—and then held them in front of her like a shield.
“Get something to eat before you go back to the dorms,” Amelia called after her, as she started to walk quickly down the corridor.
“What was that about?” Bryn asked.
Amelia shook her head. “One of my second-years. The transition to the school has been rather rough for her. She’s not from a witching family.” Amelia glanced sidelong and then away.
Bryn felt herself flush as if her own non-witching background was a source of some embarrassment or shame, which it wasn’t.
It could be complicated, especially at the big witching schools, which had only begun allowing those from non-magical families towards the end of the last century.
In the time Bryn had been at Grimoire Academy, she’d been one of maybe ten witches from non-witching families.
She glanced down the hall, wondering what else she shared with this young, silent girl, but Circe was gone.
“Should you go with her?” Bryn asked tentatively.
“I’ll check on her later. She boards here in the dorms, so while she technically shouldn’t still be in the castle, as long as she’s checked in with the resident advisor, I won’t be too concerned.” After a self-conscious pause, Amelia said, “Anyway, that’s not what you’re here for.”
“No.” Bryn glanced back down the corridor, but this wasn’t her business. This had nothing to do with her.
She was here for one reason and one reason only: to collect her inheritance from the professor. And definitely not to kiss Amelia Hexford, which wasn’t even an item on her list, she assured herself.
The second she entered the rooms, scent memory seemed to impale her, and she knew she’d failed to prepare herself.
The slight sweetness from the kitchens rising up from below had triggered feelings of home, but the smell of Professor Herringbone’s office made her come to a complete stop.
She caught her breath and closed her eyes.