Chapter 6
SECORA REED CLEARLY DESERVES IT
ELLIOT
There is something wrong with Secora Reed, and it’s not just that she’s an escaped murderer. It’s a feeling I get when I look at her. Like she’s a lie. Like there’s something twisted in her soul, meant to be unraveled, but too vague to name. I look at Secora Reed, and I see a complete stranger.
Not a former classmate.
Not a friend’s spare sister.
Not Harrison’s killer.
She is a stranger I’ve never met, and I can’t make sense of that.
She is pretty and sharp and alive. I should have memories of her.
I would have spoken to her in school. At the very least, I would have noticed her from afar.
And yet, no matter how hard I try, I can’t come up with a single, solid memory of this woman.
“I don’t have a guest bedroom,” she says. She glances back at me, and if she sees the panic on my face, it doesn’t phase her. She stops at an unmarked door, the last in a ridiculously long hallway of them.
“Are those rooms all full?” I ask, tilting my chin in the direction we came.
“They’re empty,” she says. She pauses, hand on the doorknob, to look up at me. Her large eyes are a deep shade of brown. Her mouth is wide. Only her nose is small, and it makes her look a bit like a porcelain doll. Beautiful. Too delicate for a murderer.
With that, my mind snaps back to the situation at hand. Now is not the time and she is not the person.
“I’ll stay in one of them then,” I say. “No offense. I’m sure you’re great company—”
“They’re not warded,” she says, shoving open her door. “So unless you want vampires attacking you in your sleep, I’d recommend staying in mine.”
She strides through her doorway and doesn’t look back to see if I follow. I’m not sure if this is another bluff. Maybe, if I start for a different room, she’ll chase me down like before.
Or maybe she’ll let me go, I’ll get eaten, and I’ll never make it back to the Day Realm.
With a stiff sigh, I force myself into the woman’s quarters.
They’re as dreary and unpleasant as you’d expect for a murderer.
The furniture is black. The kitchen is littered with incomplete potions and a sink full of dishes.
Stepping farther into the room, I can see an array of rotted plants across from the kitchen.
They’re alive though. Magicked to look dead while thriving.
Yes, I think. There is something very wrong with Secora Reed.
She stands in the kitchen, her back to me.
It’s a stupid move for a wanted criminal.
I could disarm her before she turned around, have her tied up and thrown over my shoulder before she could retaliate.
But then, I’d be faced with getting us back to the Day Realm, a feat I’ve accepted is impossible. Clearly she knows that too.
“I’m not used to company,” she says. Then, “I only have green tea.”
“Honey?” I ask.
Secora stills, her entire body clenching at once. As if honey is somehow an offensive request.
“No,” she says finally. “No, I don’t. Sorry.”
“It’s fine,” I say. I watch the tension ease out of her shoulders. Slowly, she starts making a single cup of tea.
“I’ll take one,” I say. She never offered, but it felt implied.
“You drink green tea?” she asks. Only now does she turn around, one of her dark brows stretching for her hairline.
“Yes?” I say. It comes out more like a question.
I’m not sure why she looks shocked. Maybe she forgot tea is a universally loved beverage in the Day Realm.
I don’t think I’ve met a witch who doesn’t drink it.
We all have our preferences, sure. Green tea isn’t my favorite, but I’ll drink any kind other than black.
“Oh,” she says. She looks frazzled now, dropping her eyes as she turns back to the counter. “Sure. Of course.”
Then she’s rattling through cupboards for another mug. They’re all mismatched. Many are black, but there are colorful ones too. Red and orange and green. She returns her focus to the tea, and I stand awkwardly near the doorway, just watching her.
“Shut the door,” she says without turning.
“I thought it was warded.” I don’t know why I don’t simply close the door. Or maybe I do. Maybe it’s the same reason I’ve yet to take my eyes off Secora as she makes my tea.
“I’d rather no one know you’re here,” she says.
“You’re a murderer,” I say. Blurt is a more accurate word. But somewhere between shut the door and her not wanting anyone to know I’m here…I can’t bear the tension surrounding us. Surrounding me, at least.
I expect Secora to tense again, but for all the grief I got asking for honey, she doesn’t so much as flinch now.
“Yes,” she says. She swirls both teas, but releases them to face me. Behind her, the spoons continue stirring. Without even looking, she’s controlling them by magic.
Powerful, my brain warns me. More powerful than she looks.
It’s her height, I decide, that makes her look unassuming. That, paired with her large, doll-like features, makes her look innocent. Like something in need of protection.
“The guy you killed,” I say. My voice chokes as I speak, until my words are almost too garbled to understand. “He was my best friend.”
Harrison Iyle had been my best friend from the time I could walk until the day he died.
We’d grown up together. Been more like brothers than friends.
He spent most weekends at my house. Taught me how to play groundball.
Made me laugh so hard my stomach hurt for days.
He could be an asshole, sure, but he didn’t deserve to die.
He didn’t deserve to be murdered by this five-foot-nothing woman. She’d only been fifteen at the time. What kind of fifteen-year-old murders her classmate?
“Yes,” Secora says again. She leans back, crossing her arms over her chest. The movement shifts her black sleeves, revealing her wrists. Her very bare wrists, where golden bands used to trap her magic.
She should be balking at the realization I was Harrison’s friend. At the very least, she should look apologetic. She doesn’t, and that lack of remorse makes her hideous. She is a monster without chains, and even those weren’t enough to protect Harrison.
“I’m not going to hurt you, Elliot,” she says, following my gaze on her wrists. Her voice is unsettlingly gentle as she looks over me. “If it’s any consolation, I haven’t really killed since I was fifteen.”
“It’s not,” I snap. “I don’t believe you, for one thing. But for another, even if I did, it wouldn’t make me feel better. You killed my best friend. Plus three other innocents.”
Her eyes narrow, and I wait for her to say something against me. That they weren’t innocent. That they deserved it.
If she does…I’m not sure what I’ll do. I clench my fists, feeling an unexpected flare of magic in my palms.
She’s powerful, but how powerful? Enough to take me down? Enough to kill me?
I run my tongue over my teeth, debating. This could be the win the witches need, a way to step back into power after the vampires’ recent victory over us. Secora’s death would certainly hurt the vampires. She’s the only reason they’ve won anything in the past twenty years.
“I could kill you,” I say. The words don’t come out half as threatening as I intend. I don’t believe them, and by the way her face softens, she doesn’t either.
“You’re not a killer, Elliot.”
“You don’t know anything about me,” I say. I hope, because maybe she did. Maybe she stalked Harrison for months before killing him. Maybe she stalked me too, and the only reason I’m still alive is because she had to flee the Day Realm.
“I know enough,” she says simply.
My lip curls without permission, desperate to argue with her. She’s right though. I’m a healer by nature, and the simple thought of hurting someone makes my stomach turn. I’ve never been one to get in fights, not even when people deserve it.
But Secora Reed clearly deserves it.
She surprises me by turning once again, facing our teas. I’ve lost count of how many times she’s given me her back. This time is objectively worse. She knows I’m debating killing her, and she’s still acting like I’m not a threat.
If she remembers me from school—and she’s certainly pretending to—she would know I was top of our class. I could have her unconscious already. Could have her lifeless body at my feet in seconds. Just because I’m not quick to violence doesn’t mean I wouldn’t be good at it.
“Even if you were a killer,” she says lazily.
She turns back to me, and I feel a flare of shame that I wasted my opportunity.
She holds our teas in either hand. “If you killed me or kidnapped me or whatever you’re thinking…
you’d die for it. Trust me. Sebastian doesn’t take kindly to people hurting his own, in case you’ve forgotten what happened with Grace. ”
Now I do snarl. That night left far too many dead. It’s what initiated the sickness in my mother. Secora may not have been the one to seal the curse, but she undoubtedly played a role in it.
“Here,” she says. Remaining at the kitchen counter, she floats my drink across the room. The pale blue teacup hovers in front of me, but I don’t touch it.
I shouldn’t have asked for it. I don’t know why I did. I’m obviously not going to drink tea from a known murderer. Doesn’t matter if I watched her make it. She could have all too easily poisoned it—
“And here I thought I was the stubborn one,” she says on a sigh. Her lips tick into a barely-there smile. When I blink, the expression is gone, and I decide I imagined it.
Elliot Lyrie
age 12
Ochre Primary School
“Do you see her?” Harrison asks. He crashes against my side, hard enough I stumble into the tree I’d been using for cover.
Because, yes, I do see her.