by Theresa Kay
Oh shit. I walked right into that one. Of course there’s some rule or regulation about reporting Bitten witches. How the hell do I talk myself out of this one?
I let out a nervous sound that’s half laugh, half cough. “Yes? I—”
“Selene couldn’t have realized the implications of Ms. Martin’s status,” says Tristan. Is he covering for me? For the first time since I got here, he turns toward me, his golden-brown eyes meeting mine. “And in all the chaos that evening, she probably didn’t have time to tell anyone.” His brows twitch upward in an action I assume is meant to tell me that’s the story I should tell.
“Exactly,” I say. “I didn’t have time to report her.”
Callahan looks back and forth between me and Tristan. “If that is the case, then why—”
The door flies open and Basil rushes into the room and right over to the OSA agent, grabbing his hand and shaking it enthusiastically. “Hello, hello. I’m Basil Kostis, Head of Admissions. I’m so sorry for being late. I wasn’t aware of this meeting until only a few minutes ago.”
What is Basil doing here? Relief flashes across Burke’s face, so this must be a welcome interruption, if not a planned one.
“Mr. Kostis,” starts Callahan in a cold voice.
“Do, please, call me Basil,” my tutor replies with one of his signature beaming smiles. His white hair is more wild than normal, leveling him up from ‘eccentric professor’ to somewhere near ‘mad scientist’. “I’m so excited to work with OSA on this investigation. One of our very own students . . . Bitten.” He shakes his head. “How awful.”
“The situation calls for—”
“And to think that I admitted her. I’m sure you’re anxious to interview me about her testing and how something like this got past me,” says Basil. His attention moves to me. “Selene, Isobel has been released from the infirmary. You should probably go check on her and make sure she has everything she needs.” A pause. “You too, Tristan. I’m sure Isobel would love a visit from a friend.”
Tristan? A friend? Basil is fully aware that—
“Of course.” Tristan grabs my hand, intertwining his fingers with mine and pulling me to my feet. A wide smile takes over his face, complete with dimples. If I didn’t know that particular smile so well, it might pass for real. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Agent Callahan. On behalf of the St. James family, I’d like to thank you for looking into this. I have faith that OSA will get to the bottom of the situation quickly so that justice can be served and everything can return to normal.”
Tristan yanks me out of the room before anyone else has a chance to speak and then drags me down the hall, down the stairs, and out the door, his grip on my hand tight and almost punishing. The situation feels very similar to that stupid binding spell Burke forced us into as Tristan stomps across the quad and pulls me behind—well, except this time there’s actual physical contact.
I don’t dig my heels in until we’re almost to the girls’ dorm. “Stop.”
Surprisingly enough, he listens . . . and promptly drops my hand like I’m contagious before turning around.
“Are you stupid?” he asks. I’m still blinking at him, trying to find words, when he continues, “What were you thinking telling OSA you knew about Penny? Do you know what the consequences could be?”
“Frankly, no. I don’t. It’s one more thing that no one has bothered explaining to me.” I cross my arms over my chest. “Thanks for covering for me back there or whatever that was, but you can leave off with the insults. It’s not like—”
“Covering for you? I wasn’t covering for you. I was covering for Desmond.”
Now he’s lost me. I’m aware Burke is a family friend and something like an uncle to Tristan, but I have no clue how me knowing about Penny would affect Burke in any way.
Tristan lets out a frustrated huff, and his upper lip curls. “Your little stunt almost cost him his job. If OSA gets any proof you knew—that Penny’s condition was that obvious—and Desmond didn’t figure it out . . . well, there are worse things than being fired.”
Little stunt? My brain is about three steps behind wherever this conversation is, so it takes me a second to figure out he means rescuing Isobel. Anger twists in my stomach.
“Stunt? You mean rescuing my roommate from your insane mother? How in the world could that possibly—”
He lets out a harsh laugh and shakes his head at me. “You used magic to knock Desmond across the room to prevent him from stopping you and then went on to do something that got a prominent witch—my father—bitten by a fucking shifter. OSA can hold Desmond responsible for not keeping control of his students.” He presses his lips together, and his nostrils flare. “And if they were to get wind that a novice like you was able to take him down, by surprise or not, he can be deemed unfit for his post.”
Probably not a good time to mention I have no idea exactly how I had enough power to knock Burke on his ass like that. So, I deflect. “Prevented him from stopping me? Don’t you mean from stopping us? You were there too. In fact, you volunteered to go. So how is this my fault?” I step forward and stab a finger into his chest. “And, that aside, couldn’t your mommy just snap her fingers and get him reinstated or whatever?”
He pinches the bridge of his nose and chuckles, a dark, dry sound. “Although my mother is the head of the Coven Council, my family has much less influence with OSA than you seem to think they do. And even if she could, I’m fairly certain you can imagine how my mother would feel about doing me any favors right now. Nor Desmond, considering she’s the one who requested this investigation in the first place.” He sighs. “Look, I don’t want to argue with you.”
“Could’ve fooled me,” I say.
He shoots me an exasperated look. “I’m sorry for being a jerk about this, but you don’t know enough about the witch world to navigate this situation blindly and hope for the best. It won’t turn out well for anyone that way, and it’s not just your ass on the line.”
I huff. “I think I did okay in there.”
His nostrils flare, but his next words are tight and controlled with no trace of his earlier anger. “Please, if OSA tries to question you again, make an excuse and go find Basil or anyone who knows what the hell they’re doing.”
“Fine,” I bite out.
His shoulders slump and this time when he meets my gaze, he only looks tired. And stressed. And worried. And all sorts of other emotions he doesn’t normally show.
Impulsively, I grab his hand. “I’m sorry, Tristan. About your dad.”
“Yeah . . .” He gives me a sad smile and squeezes my hand. “Thanks. I guess. Just . . . yeah.”
Then he turns and walks across the quad, leaving me standing here trying to figure out what the hell that meant. I don’t think the boy could be more confusing if he tried.
I make my way back to my dorm room and find Isobel sitting at her desk with a collection of open textbooks taking up most of the surface. Leave it to my studious roommate to hit the books right after getting out of the infirmary.
Her long, dark hair is tied up in a messy bun, and she looks like she’s still wearing the pajamas I brought to the infirmary for her. She glances up, an overly bright smile plastered on her face, and then waves a piece of paper in my direction. “Isn’t pre-potion me so frustratingly cryptic?”
I blink at her, completely lost, before finally recognizing the paper as the note she left for me the night she was kidnapped, the one where she said her research had led her to a discovery that “could change everything.”
“I suppose that would be accurate,” I say, speaking slowly as I walk over to sit on the edge of my bed.
Isobel’s false cheer leaks away as her shoulders slump and she stares at the note as if an intense glare will cause the words she doesn’t remember writing to miraculously reveal their meaning.
“Stupidly cryptic,” she mutters. “What was I thinking?”
“You were thinking that I wasn’t going to accidentally fa
ll asleep and miss our meeting like a dumbass?”
Her lips curl into a wry smile. “Seriously, though. I don’t understand what I was doing, why I didn’t write down whatever I found. I write everything down.” She flings her other hand toward a pile of notebooks stacked in the corner of her desk. “It’s the weirdest thing. There are no notes, no lists, no . . . nothing, as if I spent two weeks researching and didn’t write a single thing down.”
That is extremely weird—and even more, it’s concerning. The idea that whatever the discovery she made about me was the reason someone erased her memories isn’t one I’ve given much thought to, but it sounds an awful lot like someone went through the trouble of making sure whatever information Isobel found would never see the light of day. Not only did someone give Isobel a memory potion, but they must have taken or destroyed all her research notes, because Isobel really does write everything down.
“This is all my fault,” I whisper, shaking my head. “How could I not have seen it before?”
“It’s not your fault,” says Isobel.
I raise my eyebrows. “And how exactly did you reach that conclusion? You were doing research on me and—”
“And there’s no evidence that the research I was doing was at fault for any of this.” She avoids my gaze. “For all we know it was another stupid ranking thing that someone took too far. I mean, if kidnapping is ‘normal’ then thinking someone might dose the competition with memory potions isn’t too much of a stretch, and there are plenty of witches around here who could afford to buy one.”
“But—”
“No. I will not let you blame yourself for this.” She shoots me a strained smile. “We don’t know anything for sure. I probably trusted someone I shouldn’t have and am now suffering the consequences. Remember the spelled donuts? This situation is much more likely to be because of something like that than because of my research.”
I’m not sure why she’s so adamantly against my theory, but even if she’s right, the fact that my bright, friendly roommate wants to brush the whole thing off as if something like this should be expected in the fight for rank here is ridiculous. No matter the reasoning, dosing someone with a memory potion damn sure shouldn’t be considered normal.
Sometimes—or maybe most of the time—I really hate this place.
“Besides,” says Isobel, “there’s nothing I can do about it now except study my ass off and get caught up. I can make my way up the list. It’ll just take time. I may never make it to the top twenty or even the top one hundred, but as long as I graduate, I can be content with that.”
“You shouldn’t have to be content with that.” I clear my throat and stare down at my hands. “Burke gave me contact info for my biological grandparents. I was thinking about calling them. I don’t want their money, but . . . What if they could help you? I could—”
“No,” she says. “Having someone pay my way to the top wouldn’t feel right, especially since at least part of this situation is my own fault for skipping midterms. Besides, you don’t know anything about your grandparents. They could be just as bad as the St. James family for all we know.”
I snort and shake my head. “Great minds think alike. I came to the exact same conclusion earlier.”
“Then why . . .”
I wait for her to meet my gaze. “Because you’re my friend and I want to help.”
Isobel walks over to sit next to me then pulls one of my hands between hers. “I have a crap ton of work ahead of me, I know that, but I know how the witch world has treated you, and I don’t want you doing something you can’t take back. This is a huge decision, and I don’t want you to make it based only on my success or happiness. If you want to have a relationship with them, that’s different. Is that what you want?”
That’s a good question . . .
“I have no idea what I want. Even if my grandparents are wonderful people, in some ways wanting a relationship with them feels like I’m betraying my parents.”
She squeezes my hand. “Do you think they’d see it that way?”
“No,” I say, biting at my lower lip. “They just want me to be happy.”
“What if we can figure out a way to kind of feel your grandparents out to see what they’re like without having to reveal yourself to them? That way if they’re awful, you can just move on as if they don’t exist.”
“How exactly would we do that?”
She shrugs. “I don’t know. Did Burke tell you anything else about them? We could try asking around to see what kind of people they are. Adrian might know something. Or maybe Tristan?”
“I don’t think Tristan’s too interested in helping me right now,” I say, wrinkling my nose.
“I know he’s angry, but it’s not like you bit his dad, and you certainly didn’t tell Penny to do it.”
Yeah, but I didn’t stop her either. And, if I bothered to try, I might have been able to.
Throwing Burke across the room with barely a thought wasn’t the only new ability that popped up that evening.
Something happened when Bernadette hit me with a paralyzing spell—one that should have killed me—during Isobel’s kidnapping. First quarter I struggled to do much of anything with magic except for tossing energy balls in PE class. Sure, I had a few little tricks I’d picked up, so I wasn’t completely hopeless. But after Bernadette’s spell, something unlocked inside me, and a new instinct led me to create a shield that shouldn’t have been possible and helped me break a spell on Tristan even though I shouldn’t have been able to. Who knows what else I could have done if I tried.
But what did I do with my newfound strength? Absolutely nothing. All I did was stand there. Tristan begged me not to let Penny bite his father, and instead of stopping her, I stood in front of her and protected her from Bernadette.
“What is it?” asks Isobel. “Your face just got even more broody.”
I shake my head. “Not brooding. Guilty.”
She cocks her head to the side and quirks her brows upward.
“I could’ve stopped her,” I say after a moment’s hesitation.
“Bitten or not, she’s still a shifter. You’re no match for that kind of strength,” she says.
“I don’t mean by overpowering her physically—I’m not that dumb. I mean with magic.” I give her a brief overview of what happened the night she was kidnapped, Bernadette’s spell, and all the little oddities that followed.
Isobel rubs her chin, a pensive look on her face. “That’s really strange.”
“Yeah. I know.” I clasp my hands together. “Any ideas on what it might mean?”
She purses her lips and shakes her head. “No. I’ve never heard of anything like that.” She returns to her desk and picks up the paper again, staring at the note like it might have all the answers. “I wish I could remember. I have this feeling that whatever it was I was planning on telling you might have had something to do with what you just described. Maybe I could retrace my steps and—”
“No.” I swing my feet over the edge of my bed to stand, walk over to her, and pluck the note from her fingers. “No matter what you say, I think helping me is what got you into this memory potion mess, and I’m not taking the risk of anything else happening to you. Stay out of it. Please.”
She huffs and then scowls at me but isn’t able to hold the expression long enough for me to believe she’s truly all that angry. I tuck the paper into one of her notebooks. “Why don’t we take a break from worrying over all this? We can head to the dining hall for dinner.”
“Fine,” she says as she rubs her temples with her thumb and forefinger. “But I don’t want to stay long. I still need to review my notes from last week for Advanced Spellcasting.”
We grab our jackets and then make our way to the dining hall with our hands shoved in our pockets and our shoulders hunched up around our ears. The fall air already has quite a bite to it even though October is only beginning.
Red-nosed and chilled, we rush into the dining room and grab
a couple trays before making our way through the line. My stomach growls and even the food I can’t stand suddenly looks appetizing—like the brussels sprouts, a vegetable even the addition of bacon can’t improve. Clearly, my diet of stale potato chips and coffee leading up to midterms has affected my brain.
I pull myself away from the cursed sprouts and load up my plate with other, more palatable veggies, then follow Isobel to an empty table in the corner. As I take my first bite, loud laughter pulls my attention to the entryway as the preppy, popular, old-money crowd arrives. In other words, Tristan’s friends are here. But, strangely enough, he isn’t with them. Instead of Tristan being the leader of the pack, a position he holds however reluctantly, Jason Barrington appears to be in charge now.
I don’t know much about Barrington except that he’s an ass who made number one last quarter and he and Tristan have a weird kind of frenemies thing going on. Or at least they did.
Jason’s gaze lands on me, and he leans over and whispers to the guy next to him. Two sets of eyes turn toward me. Noticing my attention, Jason’s mouth curls into a predatory grin, and there’s a glint of calculation in his eyes.
Could Isobel be right about the origin of the potion? Jason did try to trick us with spelled donuts once, and he probably has enough money to buy a memory potion . . .
Jason gives me a flirty wink. I roll my eyes and go back to my food.
“Making friends all over the place now, aren’t you?” asks an amused Adrian as he plops himself into the seat beside me and steals a cucumber slice from my plate. “Hi, Isobel.”
Isobel returns his greeting with a small smile.
“That’s me, Miss Congeniality.” I poke his hand with my fork as the thieving appendage moves toward my plate again. “You know there’s plenty of food up there, right?”
“Of course. But this is more fun.” He slides his other arm behind me as he sneaks a tomato from the opposite side of my plate. I elbow him in the side, but all he does is grin, a couple dark curls falling over his forehead, as he pops the tomato into his mouth. “So, care to explain my new roommate?”