The Ravens

by Danielle Paige

The embarrassment on Vivi’s face faded away, replaced by a glare. “Let me guess: I have to do it with nothing but a toothbrush?”

  Scarlett stared at the girl, deadpan and unamused. “No, Vivian, you’re supposed to use magic.”

  Vivi stood there an extra beat, hesitant.

  “Don’t worry, Moaning Myrtle isn’t in there,” Scarlett said. She saw a flash of concern cross Vivi’s face, as if she was seriously expecting the ghost that lived in the Hogwarts bathroom to have taken up residence in their sorority house.

  She waited until Vivi had tromped up the main staircase before she traded grins with Tiffany, who was sprawled across the sofa next to her. Tiffany slow-clapped for her.

  “You’re wicked,” Tiffany said.

  “Why do you think we’re friends?”

  Tiffany swatted her arm. “What’s in store for Little House on the Prairie, anyway? Did you go with blood or bugs?” Tiffany asked, looking up the stairs.

  “Mold,” Scarlett said, feeling a little embarrassed now for giving her a softball. If Gwen hadn’t shown up on Tuesday night, Scarlett would have probably created a scary spell instead of a tedious one, like spell something Vivi was afraid of to climb out of the toilet. But given everything that had happened the other night, she just . . . couldn’t.

  Tiffany crinkled up her nose in judgment. “Don’t tell me you’re going soft, Winter.”

  “Never. I just want to lull her into a sense of security before I pounce,” Scarlett said. Tiffany nodded, not looking entirely convinced. “Where’s your Little?” Scarlett hadn’t seen Ariana all day. The other pledges had been busy running errands for their individual Bigs—all of them except Bailey, who’d really lucked out to score Etta as her Big. The two had spent all day together in the kitchen, giggling and mixing up some new hair-relaxing potion Etta had been eager to try.

  “Sent her to hex the boys over at Alpha Tau Pi.”

  “That’ll piss off Dahlia,” Scarlett pointed out. Dahlia was the type of president who wanted to know—and control—everything that was going on in the house. If you were planning to go off script, it was understood that you would tell her first. “Unless they did something to you that you’re retaliating for . . .”

  “Relax. The spell I gave her is a dud.” Tiffany smirked. “All it’ll actually do is make her hallucinate blood all over her hands for the next hour.”

  Scarlett snickered. “You are the wicked one.”

  Her best friend donned an innocent expression. “I’m just trying to teach my Little early on about the importance of magical law. If you curse someone else, there’s almost always an unintended rebound on yourself.”

  Scarlett sighed. “When you touch evil, it touches you.” She could still hear Minnie’s voice in her head after all this time.

  Tiffany darted a glance around the living room. But they were alone. “Scar,” she murmured. “You need to stop fixating on that. It’s in the past.”

  “But it’s not, Tiff. The present is right here, on this campus. Gwen is back. I can’t stop thinking about her face the other night. She looked so out of control, so desperate.” Scarlett frowned. She thought of all the strange things that had happened since she’d arrived back on campus. The necklace on her balcony. The footsteps following her in the forest. The tarot cards on the door. Was it possible that it was all Gwen?

  “After her . . . fit, there is no way she will dare come near us again,” Tiffany said firmly. She tightened her ponytail. “I’ll never understand why she was admitted to Kappa in the first place. Anyone could see that she was a serious bitch.”

  But Tiffany’s words only made Scarlett’s frown deepen. Scarlett had actually liked Gwen at first. She didn’t have the years of polish that Scarlett had. And her style was more earthy than Southern belle, but she was smart and powerful and she had a caustic tongue that always made Scarlett laugh—until she turned it on Scarlett’s best friend. Gwen was also a Swords and she and Tiffany were always in some unspoken competition to be the strongest Swords in the house. It had gotten really ugly by the end.

  “I can’t stop picturing her; it was like she was being strangled.” Scarlett winced. “Our magic did that.”

  “You do remember what she did to me, right?” Tiffany grumbled.

  “I know, Tiff.”

  “If we hadn’t stopped her, who knows what else she would have done, who else she would have hurt?” Tiffany grabbed Scarlett’s hands. “Scar. What happened to Harper was awful, but thank God no one else got hurt.”

  Scarlett’s memory raced back to their freshman year, to an ordinary party at Psi Delt. To the day she tried never to think about. To the day that Harper died. It had started like any other. Gwen had been standing on the balcony overlooking the frat’s backyard and Harper had joined her.

  It all happened so fast. There had been so much magic. So much terror. And then . . .

  All she remembered was Harper’s face. Her terrible scream. The fear in her eyes as the balcony plunged to the earth.

  A minute later, she was dead.

  And it was all Scarlett and Tiffany’s fault.

  “It was an accident, Scarlett,” Tiffany whispered. “Nothing would’ve brought Harper back. And we made sure Gwen could never hurt anyone again.”

  And that she could never tell what we did.

  Scarlett sighed. “I just . . . sometimes I can’t help wondering—” When you touch death, it touches back. “Maybe we should have kept her here,” she finished.

  Tiffany gave her an incredulous look. “Where? Locked up in the basement? You really are wicked, sister.”

  “No, I mean we could have cast another spell, banished her from campus. Or—”

  “If we’d heaped any more magic on her, I don’t think she could have survived it,” Tiffany cut in.

  “But what if what we created is worse than what she was before?” Scarlett asked, giving voice to her fear.

  “Not possible,” Tiffany said firmly. “You worry too much, Scar. Maybe you’re the one we should cast a spell on.”

  “What?” Scarlett looked up sharply.

  “You’re having nightmares,” Tiffany said in a gentler tone. “Maybe a little forgetting spell would take the edge off.”

  Scarlett shook her head. As much as she wanted to forget, she didn’t want to be caught unaware. If Gwen showed up again, Scarlett needed to see her coming.

  “All done,” Vivi announced loudly from the top of the staircase.

  Scarlett startled—she’d forgotten all about her Little—and rose to her feet. “Let’s see it.”

  She flashed a backwards glance at Tiffany, who was already getting to her feet. Most likely to wash some magical blood off her Little.

  “Hey, Scarlett. Just try and chill, okay? Nothing’s going to touch us.”

  Scarlett gave Tiffany a small nod before heading upstairs to join Vivi. To her surprise, her Little wasn’t kidding. The whole bathroom was spotless from top to bottom. The clawfoot tub sparkled, its brass fixtures shiny as gold. The sink was missing its usual collection of smudged beauty products around the circumference, and even the mirror had been polished so brightly that Scarlett’s reflection in it seemed to glow.

  “Well?” Vivi bounced nervously at her elbow, clearly looking for a pat on the head and a reward.

  She wasn’t going to get one from Scarlett. “You missed a spot,” Scarlett said.

  “Where—” Vivi started.

  But Scarlett was already concentrating her strength, tapping into her sisters’ Pentacles magic. With a whisper, she brushed her hand along the tiled wall next to the bathtub, and mossy green mold sprang up beneath her palm. It followed the trail of her hand all the way along the wall to the doorway.

  “When you’re finished, get ready for the PiKa mixer tonight,” Scarlett called over her shoulder. “And do me a favor: do not show up looking like JoJo Siwa. There’s a point where someone is so adorable, you just want to kill them, you know? Think magical glow-up, okay?”

  Techn
ically it was Scarlett’s job to make over Vivi for the mixer, which was James Bond–themed, which meant tuxes for the boys and glam for the girls. Some Bigs dressed their Littles up like they were their own personal Barbies, and Scarlett knew it was her responsibility to make sure that Vivi looked a lot less, well, like Vivi for the party. But truthfully, all she wanted to do was make Vivi disappear. A voice in the back of her head—Minnie’s voice—knew it wasn’t right. Knew that it wasn’t how Scarlett herself had been treated back when she was a pledge. Knew it wasn’t what a real leader did.

  When Scarlett was a freshman, Dahlia had taken her upstairs to her room to make her over for her first mixer. Dahlia had raised her hand, then lowered it at once. “Don’t tell anyone I said this, but I wouldn’t change a thing. Winters are as advertised. Perfection.” After a beat, she added, “Time will tell if you are as powerful as you are pretty.”

  If only she really knew. Scarlett left Vivi in the bathroom, went to her bedroom, and crossed to the small altar she had set up beneath her window box. Whatever Tiffany might say, there was something more to Gwen’s return. She must have tried to come back to Kappa House for a reason. And Scarlett couldn’t stop thinking about the horrible choking sounds Gwen made.

  What was she trying to say? Was she trying to . . . tell?

  She plucked the pure black onyx scrying bowl from her altar. Next to it, she kept a jug of water collected from the stream that ran behind the house and charged under the full moon. She filled the bowl and sat cross-legged before her altar, eyes closed, breathing in through her nose, out through her mouth, as she visualized golden light cleansing the space.

  After a few more deep breaths, she opened her eyes and gazed into the bowl that she cradled between her palms. The onyx bowl slowly warmed beneath her touch, and the surface of the water rippled from her breath.

  “I call to the Queen of Swords and to the Star,” she whispered to the magic in her veins, the crackle in the air. “Reveal my enemy’s thoughts from afar.”

  For a breath, nothing happened.

  And then, all at once, the lights in the room were extinguished. There was just enough light seeping in through the windows for Scarlett to see, all too terribly, what was happening.

  Something crept up her hands where she gripped the bowl.

  With a shout, she dropped it, and oozing liquid splashed from it, staining her carpet. It looked dark and bloody, like viscera. As she watched, it spread, leeching into the carpet, staining the walls, her hands, her arms.

  With it came a horrible, icy feeling. It gripped her wrists, burrowed deep in her veins. As much as it scared her, Scarlett recognized this feeling. She’d brushed up against it before, though never this fiercely. It went deeper than anger, deeper than hatred.

  This was loathing. Pure and simple.

  “What is that?” Vivi asked, her voice a mixture of wonder and fear.

  Scarlett gasped and pushed back against the magic, breaking its hold. The illusion shattered. At once, the lights flickered on overhead. The cold sensation melted away, and Scarlett trembled in its wake. The bloody stains on her carpet and hands vanished too, leaving only clear spring water soaking her floor. And there was Vivi in the doorway, apparently having seen it all.

  “Are you all right?” Vivi took a step closer, brow furrowing with concern. “Do you need me to get help?”

  “I’m fine,” Scarlett rasped, her voice low in her throat, almost a growl. She coughed, shook her head as if to clear it. She shouldn’t have been so impatient. She should have waited for Vivi to be out of the house before she tried the spell. This was the second time Vivi had seen something she shouldn’t have. And this time it could have been avoided. She wouldn’t make that mistake again. She turned away. “Go. Get ready,” Scarlett commanded.

  “Scarlett—”

  When she turned around, she found Vivi still lingering, a worried look on her face. For some reason, that infuriated Scarlett more than anything else. Maybe because Vivi’s expression edged just a little too close to pity. “I said go!”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Vivi

  PiKa House looked exactly how Vivi had always imagined a frat house would look. The exterior was a stately red brick with thick white columns and Greek letters stamped prominently above the portico. There was a green, spray-painted bench on the lawn, a half-crushed Ping-Pong ball in the grass, and what looked like a pair of boxers tangled in the bushes that lined the front of the house. The air wafting through the open door smelled faintly of stale beer and boy, and music pulsed through the windows.

  Vivi took a deep breath and steeled herself. She had now officially been to one party, but this was the first one with actual college boys. The mixer was for four of the most prominent frats and sororities: Psi Delta Lambda, Kappa Rho Nu, Theta Omega Xi, and PiKa, which Vivi had learned was Mason’s fraternity. The thought of seeing him again made her stomach twist with a combination of excitement and lingering shame. Had he been able to tell that she’d been doing her pathetic best to flirt with him? Was that why he’d acted so strange and hurried off once Scarlett arrived? For a moment, the thought of crossing the threshold of PiKa House felt more daunting than performing magic for the first time—if she couldn’t manage a conversation with one boy without embarrassing herself, what would she do with a whole houseful of them?

  Yet, while this was her first coed party, it was also her first time walking into a room with all of Kappa at her back. The second Vivi stepped inside with her new sisters, she understood what real power felt like. The whole party went quiet and every pair of eyes in the room swiveled to them. But it wasn’t the angry, mistrustful stares Vivi was used to receiving as the perpetual new girl. People looked at them with desire. Like they’d give anything to be them.

  Scarlett had gone MIA during the party prep, so before leaving Kappa House, Mei had pulled Vivi into her room and surveyed her critically. “Is it hopeless?” Vivi asked nervously, glancing down at the outfit she’d chosen after consulting with Ariana. “Work your magic—give me whatever I need.”

  Mei smiled. “It’s not that dire. Trust me.”

  Vivi gave her a skeptical look. “Sure, as long as I don’t stand next to you at any point tonight.”

  Mei closed her eyes and her elaborate makeup and hairstyle melted away, leaving her still beautiful but barefaced and unglamoured. “This is the skin I was born in,” she said, then reached out to touch Vivi’s arm. “This is the skin you were born in. Embrace it. Wield it. Change it at will. It is your instrument, but you are not defined by it—you define it, you can choose. That’s what it means to be a Raven.”

  In the end, Mei had given her a quick “polish,” as she called it, using simple glamours to lengthen Vivi’s lashes, add extra shine to her hair, and alter her jeans so they clung more closely to her hips and legs. It was nothing that Vivi couldn’t have conceivably achieved on her own through expensive trips to the salon and the tailor, but she’d never had the money or inclination to do anything like that. To say nothing of anyone to go with. But these simple changes were enough to make Vivi feel like a completely different person. Instead of shuffling with her eyes down, trying to avoid attention, Vivi entered the party with her head held high.

  Two Theta pledges Vivi recognized from her biology class smiled and waved, bright-eyed with hope. When Vivi smiled and raised a hand to them, they giggled and whispered to each other, like they’d just been greeted by a celebrity. Next to her, Reagan was pretending to ignore the PiKa brothers ogling her from the couch as she made a show of tossing her long red curls over her shoulder.

  Bailey’s eyes were bright behind her glasses, and even the normally reserved Sonali seemed to relax as the girls moved through the front room. “I could get used to this,” she whispered to Vivi as she began to move her hips in time to the thrumming music.

  “Me too,” Vivi said, trying to ignore a prickle of uncertainty. “If I flunk out of Kappa, I hope I still remember how cool I felt for this one week.”r />
  “Oh, come on,” Reagan said with an exasperated smile. “You’re not going to flunk out.”

  “I don’t know. Scarlett is on a one-woman mission to get me to de-pledge.”

  “It’s not personal. It’s just Hell Week. Tiffany made me hallucinate blood,” Ariana said, shivering slightly.

  “I wonder how she did that,” Bailey said curiously. The reveal that magic was real had short-circuited her scientist brain and she seemed to be treating the whole rush process like one big experiment.

  “How are things going for you, Reagan?” Vivi asked. Of her four fellow pledges, Reagan was the hardest for Vivi to get a read on. She was from a prominent family of Southern witches who hadn’t attended Westerly but who wielded substantial power.

  “Fine,” she said with a shrug as she surveyed the room, clearly more interested in the frat boys than in talking about her training. “I’ve been doing these sorts of spells since I could walk.”

  “Lucky. Scarlett sicced her bathroom mold on me.” Vivi hesitated as she recalled what had happened in Scarlett’s room. She hadn’t been able to banish the image of Scarlett’s terrified face as the strange stain spread up her arms. Just thinking about it made the back of her neck prickle like it used to when Daphne left her alone in the rambling Victorian house they once rented in Baton Rouge, and Vivi heard strange noises coming from the attic. “I saw something a little . . . weird. Scarlett was working on this spell and I think it backfired or something. It almost looked like blood was creeping up her arms?”

  Sonali’s eyes widened. “Are you sure? That sounds like wicked magic.”

  Wicked magic. The words perfectly described what Vivi had felt in Scarlett’s room, the strange combination of menace and power, as if the air were full of thousands of invisible snakes waiting to strike. “I don’t know. Would Scarlett really perform wicked magic?” Vivi asked. Her Big certainly had a mean-girl streak, but the fact that she was a bully who put more effort into her hair than training her Little didn’t mean she was evil.

  “Only if it got me a discount at Lilly Pulitzer,” a falsely cheery voice said.