He had blinked before he said, “You’re an odd whelp, whelp. I’ve sold some already, but didn’t give them a price. A normal potion, single dosed goes for $10 to rich kids and $5 to the poor kids I also like. I’m thinking one free dose and $15 after that.”
“That seems steep,” I said doing the math in my head. “A dose really will only last for a day. Less if you have a bit of an energy potion problem.”
“The vast majority of our peers at this school are stupidly rich,” he replied without apology.
“Perfect,” I grinned rubbing my hands together and imagining my savings account balance. “How much do you think we can sell?”
“I think we’ll make an easy 4-5 grand a month.”
That would be a car. That would be a plane ticket for Bran to visit. That would be a trip to Egypt or Europe!
“What about anti-hex items?” The glee was back in my voice at the money that seemed to flow before me. “Better than yours? What about…”
Chrysie came back into our room, and we instantly stopped talking.
“Hey,” she said looking wan. “I’m not kicked out.”
“They don’t kick out freshmen who haven’t even started to flunk out yet,” Felix said, socking her on the shoulder lightly. “Take a deep breath, fresher. You’ll be all right. You’ll be all right regardless. You’re a Hallow.”
“Barely,” Chrysie said. “Being a Hallow is being cursed when you’re not particularly good at magic. Or rich. Or perfect like the others.”
I paused. I was a Hallow. But that didn’t mean anything right? If you meet another Allen or Smith, you don’t assume you’re related. Even if you were at a school founded by the Hallow family and where being a member of that family guaranteed you a scholarship which we both had.
Yup. We were definitely not related at all.
“It’ll be okay, Chrysie,” I said having no idea if I was even close to being truthful.
My phone started to ring my mother’s ringtone again. I stared at it, wondering if I could get away with not answering and knowing the answer was no. Sorry, I mouthed, palmed a bottle of nail polish, and then lifted my phone to my ear.
“Hello Veruca, how is college?”
The words were weighted.
I nodded at the other two and walked towards the fire escape at the end of the hall where you could get a breath of fresh air without having to climb a million steps.
“Oh, you know. Learning all sorts of things.”
Mother’s pause was meanly amused. I knew her too well and said nothing else.
The phone was awkwardly silent for several minutes as we waited to see who would speak first. I started to pick the fingernail polish from my nails and pulled the bottle out of my pocket. As soon as I applied the first swipe of polish, she said, “I assume you’ve spoken to your counselor or advisor or whatever they’re calling them these days.”
“Yes,” I said, not elaborating.
“Louisa was impossible before middle age,” Mother said. "I can't imagine that menopause has improved her."
My eyes narrowed, and then I said carefully, “That is an awfully personal statement.”
I didn’t, however, disagree.
“She was a bitch as a student when we were at school. Power wouldn’t become her.”
“That’s funny,” I said without a hint of amusement. Fury rushed through me so hot and brilliant, I was about to accidentally set the oak grove alit. “Louisa’s alma mater is St. Angelus.”
“Yes.” Mother’s voice was unapologetic.
“So those who hate you from your college years now get to take it out on me? Since when did you go to St. Angelus?”
Mother said nothing.
“Did you think that this information would be unwelcome before I made my college selection? You graduated from Grace College.”
“I thought you should listen to me and go to Grace College in Maine. I spent my final year and a half at Grace.”
My teeth grit and I had to ground a reply, “Oh look, I have to go now. I’m unable to take the classes I want, so I have to study those on the side. Since you didn’t tell me anything I would have wanted to know until it was too late.”
“Don’t be rude,” Mother said idly as if my mental and emotional breakdown meant nothing.
Which was when, for the first time in my life, I hung up on my mother.
*
I stayed on the fire escape until I didn’t feel like steam was coming from my ears. I wasn’t honestly sure if I was safe around other living beings. I hadn’t been violent before, but there was something about thinking I was free and having Mother teach me otherwise that had left me in a crazy fury. Mother didn’t call me back, but then again, I didn’t expect her to. She’d get even another way. Just like she’d quietly watched me go to a school she disapproved of without ever offering the information, I am certain she knew I’d want.
After I could breathe again without my chest jerking, I walked towards my room. It was possible I’d dozed on the fire escape. I was chilled to my core, and I had no idea what time it was. The lights were out, so I reached into the door of the room, felt around for the shower bag I’d hung over the end of my bunk and made my way to the bathroom.
There was one bathtub, and I scrubbed it out and then settled in for a shave, a mask, and a prepping for a more thorough manicure and pedicure—I’d ruined the paint job I’d started when I was talking to my mother. I even deep-conditioned my hair with a potion that came from the family spell book. Everything about the moment was peaceful, but despite that, there was something crawling down my spine. I assumed it was continued anger until I stopped long enough to recognize that my uneasiness wasn’t anger—it was fear.
And I was freezing. All of my instincts were telling me to run. I didn't usually ignore my instincts. Except I was naked. I dressed as quickly as I could, leaving my hair in the conditioner and one leg unshaved. My breathing was coming in jerky gasps as I called Felix from the bathroom.
“Yo,” he said, still wired.
“Something’s wrong,” I whispered.
“What? I can’t hear you.”
“Something’s wrong,” I whispered again, slightly louder. I was sidling along the side of the bathroom wall—not touching since who knew the last time those were cleaned—but with shivers running up and down my skin. Something was very, very wrong. The lights flickered, and I could see that the shadows bent the wrong way.
Oh Hecate, I thought, I am not ready to die.
“Don’t play games with me, Rue. I feel like my heart is finally slowing down.”
“Oh,” I whispered. “I’m not. I am freaking out.” I poked my head out into the larger bathroom where the shower stalls, toilets and sinks filled the room. I was alone.
Then I caught sight of a barefoot trailing blood.
“Oh my hells,” I said as I followed the foot up the leg to the torso and finally to the face. The pale, dead face with a golden pixie cut.
“Don’t play games with me, Rue!”
“Oh Hecate no,” I choked out. Chrysie’s dead gaze met my own. “It’s Chrysie.”
Then, I turned and ran.
* * *
Chapter 7
As fast as I could go, down the hall toward Felix as his door opened. I jumped, pushing past him and shoving him towards the door. I needed something between me and the ghost...or her murderer. And I was fine with that obstacle being Felix.
“I saw her ghost. I saw Chrysie’s ghost.” My voice was a hoarse rasp.
“Stop it, Rue.”
“I am not joking! This is not a joke.” I sat down suddenly and dropped my head between my knees. “Oh my hells, oh Hecate, oh man. Oh my goodness. Oh, no.”
I took in a deep shuddering breath and shoved it back out.
“Is this some sort of joke,” a snide voice asked from the bed. I looked up and met the gaze of a pretty girl. Clearly, she was older than me. Given her perfect weave of dyed hair and bespellled, anti-hex, solitaires in h
er ears, she was one of the uber rich kids who went to St. Angelus.
“I am not joking,” I told Felix, ignoring Richie Wench. “I am not joking. I am not joking. I am NOT joking.”
“Are you a necromancer?” His gaze was focused on mine.
“Technically,” I admitted. “I didn’t know it was a big deal for St. Angelus until after I met with my advisor.”
He nodded, seemingly unsurprised.
“Felix.” This time my voice cracked. There was no doubt in my mind that my sweet, worried, roommate, Chrysie was dead. “She’s dead.”
He nodded, face serious. And I had a moment of mystification. He hadn’t seemed to be the type who could turn responsible in a mere second.
“She’s lying for attention,” the girl in the bed said. “Obviously. I am a necromancer. A good one. I don’t see a ghost.”
“You got to go, Mon,” Felix said, without turning.
“Are you kidding me?”
But Felix had already pulled out his phone to call someone. “It’s Felix in the Andromeda Building. There’s another one. Veruca Jones saw the ghost. We haven’t disturbed the body.”
The body. Oh, sweet Hecate, Chrysie was a body now.
As soon as he hung up, he said again, “Really Monica. You need to at least get dressed.”
Felix looked up, his eyes sad as he started to think about the things I was realizing. Chrysie who was nice and sweet was gone. Someone had murdered her. I started to cry as Monica dressed. She was wearing a shirt and underwear, so she slammed on her jeans and shoes.
“This is ridiculous.”
“It’s real, Monica,” Felix said with a slur of exhaustion. He must have burned through the last of the potion, and now only adrenaline and horror were keeping him awake. But only barely given the potion aftermath. “Rue wouldn’t make that up.”
“She’s a fresher from home,” Monica snarled. “People don’t get murdered in dorms. This is the stupidest thing I have—”
There was a quick knock on the door and a man and a woman in black suits came into the room. They had the shark gaze of investigators.
“Presidium,” I whispered as I took them in. I instantly wanted my mother. Yes, she was awful. But people didn’t mess with her. Or me when she was around. Wouldn’t she love to know that? I knew I was focusing on the wrong things, but I also knew that if I turned my full attention to what was happening, I was going to lose it. Except I was losing it.
I didn’t lose it. I kept it together. What in all the hells was wrong with me? And with that thought, I pulled myself together and my tears dried up. Someone had murdered my roommate while I was taking a bath. Fury such as I had never known rushed through me.
The woman nodded once, and the man jerked his head down the hall. “Which room?”
“They’re in 417,” Felix said. “Rue was in the bathroom when she saw the ghost.”
“You haven’t touched the body?”
“I haven’t seen a body,” I said, my hands starting to shake. “I haven’t been in my room since Felix, Chrysie, and I were talking except to reach in and grab my shower bag.”
“How long ago was that?”
I blinked and realized I had no idea. I shook my head and shrugged.
“You didn’t look at a clock?”
“She’s been pretty sleepless since she’s been here,” Felix said for me. “But I was in there around 8:00 pm.”
I nodded. “My first time away from home.”
My voice cracked again. A tear slipped down my cheek. It was starting to hit me harder and harder. I wasn’t going to be able to box this up much longer. But this wasn’t me. What was happening? I mean…this was terrible. And way too close to home. But I didn’t know Chrysie. Something else was happening, I thought. Something was happening to me right now.
“Let’s check it out,” the man said, and the two of them headed towards my dorm room.
“Is this for real,” Monica asked as she stared after them and then asked me. “How did you know they were Presidium?”
“A couple of people got arrested in my hometown by Presidium. I saw them when they took the couple off the island. My mother brought me down and made me look, so I’d know what they were like.”
“What happened?” Felix asked.
I considered for a second and then said, “A woman was murdered by Necromancers. They found her body a few years later. The locals figured it all out, but they called Presidium when they realized it was a magic murder and who had done it.”
“Were you involved in that one too?” Monica asked. She seemed about ready to step away from me as if I were contagious. But she also...she also seemed as if she were frustrated. Her fingers were flying on her phone. No one acknowledging her status update?
I shook my head. My mother had been a suspect back then. And my mother had been lifelong best friends with the victim. Supposedly. My mother didn't have friends, but that didn't mean that Jill Martin--the chick who had died--had ever realized it about my mother. Even still, no one needed to know any of that. I sniffed and shook my head again.
“Rue isn’t involved in this one. She just met Chrysie today. Rue just got the bum hand when it came to roommates and you know…murders.”
I wanted to smile at Felix for defending me, but I felt too sick to do anything other than stare towards my room where the supernatural type cops were finding the body of my roommate.
“Could you tell how she died?”
When Felix asked the question, I wanted to lash out. But that was a ring of fear in his voice.
I didn’t want to think about it, but I did. And the answer was no.
“She had bloody feet. I got a look at her feet first.” My voice was a whisper that carried through the silent room. Monica and Felix were absorbed by my words. “I could see blood on her clothes, but I couldn’t see where it came from. I met her gaze, and she didn’t seem to realize she was dead. It was like she wasn’t all there.”
“Oh man,” Felix said. “Oh man.”
Monica cursed and texted some more. What could be so important that she would need to text someone right after a person had died? I mean...even if you needed to tell someone. You didn’t need to be so overt. It made me so angry. And when I realized that, I was super surprised. I cataloged my feelings and realized that it was like someone had done something to me. They had stolen my roommate as I realized that I thought I would like her. I wasn’t a cold-hearted cow like my mother.
But this need to wail. That wasn’t me.
Something felt askew.
I told myself it was the murder, but I wasn't quite sure I believed it.
Finally, I asked the question that was burning on the edge of my tongue, "Why would anyone kill these girls?"
Felix looked at me for a long time before he said, in an exhausted voice, "People sometimes don't like the Hallows. They're kind of the elite at St. Angelus. They get preference for everything."
Oh gods, I thought. Oh, gods and monsters. I'm a Hallow.
* * *
Chapter 8
“Veruca, we’d like to speak with you please.”
I felt my mouth go dry. The full attention of the Presidium investigator's gazes were turned on me, and it was terrifying. Something was wrong with me—I had shivers, an impending sense of doom, and an actual desire to call my mother, and now I was going to be interviewed. By Presidium cops. I nodded because I wasn’t sure what else to do, but I wanted to both run and demand my mother. Instead, I followed them quietly down the hall trying to convince myself they were trying to get a handle on the case. They had chosen an empty workroom. It had been rented, and there was a box in the corner, but no one had moved in.
"Hello, Veruca," the male investigator said. “I'm Jefferson Maxwell and this April Hill."
I nodded as if I wasn't freaking out.
“What can you tell us about Chrysanthemum,” the woman said. She smiled and seemed to almost reach out and hold my hand as if to give support. But the shark hadn’t l
eft her eyes, and I was certain what I was seeing here was the “good” cop.
“Um, nothing. I didn’t know her.” I glanced between them as their gazes met. They were having an unspoken communication and I wondered what they were saying.
The two investigators had looked at each other before they asked me, “We’d like for you to take a truth serum.”
I stared for a long moment. I could hardly believe that I was hearing them ask me to take one. I despised truth serum. I despised being on it. I hated the very control it gave others over you. I wanted to shout no at them. I wanted to scream at them and stomp my feet, and I wanted to run away because that sense of doom had not gone away. But I could do none of those things.
They weren't asking me to take a truth serum because they thought I might fib a little. They were asking me to take it because I--Holy Hecate--must be their best guess at the murderer. I considered this in a flash of a second and then realized the only option to end their focus on me and get back my life was to take the truth serum.
“All right,” I said, sniffling.
When they pulled out the vial and I felt that familiar rush of fury at being asked to take it, I reminded myself that I had a skill set that few could duplicate when it came to this serum. Again, I could thank my mother. I had been truth serumed so often, I almost craved that soothing liquid.
Instead, I took it and asked, “Does it need to be added to something?”
It didn’t. But they didn’t need to know how well I knew that.
“Here’s an orange juice,” Jefferson Maxwell said, giving me a consoling grin. This isn't so bad, it seemed to say.
I barely prevented myself from telling him what I thought of their methods. But as I gazed at the orange juice I remembered my last glass of it. The citrus in the orange juice upped the abilities of the truth serum. The jerks. Maxwell, the shark, had said it so nicely and considerately.
Then he added, “Some people don’t care for the taste of the serum.”
Some people, I thought, didn’t care for everything. That statement was a generalization entirely without value since it was so general. Which meant, they’d get the obvious truth serum trick.
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