My heart, which only seconds ago had been racing, suddenly seemed to stumble in my chest. I immediately dropped his arm and moved ahead of him. “I don’t want to talk about that,” I said as I walked quickly down the beach.
I had no idea where I was going, but at that point, walking straight into the sea didn’t seem like such a bad idea. For months I’d been torturing myself, wondering if Archer kissing me had just been part of his act. But he was right, he hadn’t kissed me. I had kissed him, and he’d just…responded. God, I was a moron.
Archer caught up with me, but I kept looking straight ahead.
“Mercer—”
“Look, forget it,” I said. “Just show me whatever it was you dragged me out here to see.”
“Fine,” he replied, his voice clipped.
We walked down the beach in total silence. In the moonlight, our shadows stretched out before us, almost touching.
Finally we reached a small cove, and Archer turned right, back up the hill and into the forest again. Once more, the trees were so thick, I could barely see anything.
We were only a few feet into the woods when Archer said, “I just thought we should talk about it. Isn’t that what you were getting at?”
I turned toward him, but all I could see was his silhouette. Maybe it was the darkness, the fact that I couldn’t see his face, but suddenly, six months’ worth of anger, confusion, and sadness spilled out of me. “No, Cross, it wasn’t. Okay, so we kissed for, like, three minutes. I knew you for months before that. We—we were friends. I asked you all that stuff about demons, and you knew what I was. Don’t you get why that might be a little upsetting?”
He didn’t reply, but then, I didn’t really give him a chance to. “All that time we were down there in the cellar, and I was telling you stuff—real stuff—about me, you were just, what? Lying? Casing the joint? Taking mental notes for your bosses? Is there any part of the Archer I knew that actually exists?”
Breathing hard, I stared at his dark form, trying to read anything in his body language. He didn’t move, but after a few moments, he blew out a long breath and said, “Okay. I’ve lived with The Eye for as long as I can remember. Ever since I was about two or three.”
“What about your parents?”
He shouldered past me, walking deeper into the forest. “Killed, but no one knew by what. Whatever it was, it drew the attention of The Eye. They got word of a dead witch and warlock, and went to investigate. Found my parents’ bodies, and then when they were searching the house, me. I guess no one felt comfortable about killing a toddler, so the team took me back to La Reina. That’s what they call the leader of L’Occhio di Dio. Well, when it’s a woman, at least. She saw the potential in raising a warlock as an Eye.”
A branch brushed against my cheek, and I ducked around it. “Where did all this happen?”
I could practically hear him shrug. “Don’t know. They never told me.”
“So you don’t know where you’re from?”
“I don’t even know what my real name is, Mercer. La Reina was the one who called me Archer, after an Eye who’d just been killed in battle. Anyway, she let me live, and gave me to a warlock she’d recruited, Simon Cross. He was the one who decided I should infiltrate Hecate, and—what are you doing?”
I had stopped as soon as he’d said “warlock she’d recruited.”
“There are other Prodigium who work with The Eye?”
Now he went very still. “Why? You planning on telling Daddy?”
I scowled, even though I knew he couldn’t see me. “No, the cone of silence has firmly descended over this entire night. I just…they think you’re the only one. That’s why they’re so gung ho about killing you.” It also meant that while Archer hadn’t planted the exploding birthday gift, another Eye might have. Yay for more complications.
“There aren’t many, but they’re out there. Who do you think told us you were at Shelley’s that night?”
Well, that certainly made things more interesting. And scarier. “Keep going,” I said.
He started walking again, holding a branch out of the way so I could duck under it. “Simon trained me as a warlock and as an Eye, and I spent summers in Rome with L’Occhio di Dio, learning sword fighting, attack maneuvers, that kind of thing.”
“No wonder you always kicked my ass in Defense,” I muttered.
“The Eye had been looking for ways to get into Hex Hall for years, but the screening process for teachers was too intense, and they didn’t have any Eyes young enough to get in as students. Until me. When I was fourteen, I turned my middle school gym invisible. Bam, instant ticket to Hecate.”
“What did they want you to do there?”
“Nothing as awful as you’re probably thinking. Listen, mostly. Observe and report back.” He stopped and turned around. Even though I couldn’t see his face, I knew he was studying me. “This is weird,” he said. “I’ve never said this stuff out loud to anyone before.”
“That’s because I’m using a demon compulsion spell on you.”
“Seriously?”
“No, you dork. So keep going. What about Holly and Elodie?” And me? I thought, and even though I didn’t say it, I could feel the words hanging in the air around us.
“The betrothal with Holly was all aboveboard. Simon and her father arranged it.” He took a couple of steps back, and I heard a faint metallic clunk as he leaned back against a tree. “It was part of my cover, but I liked her. She was sweet. Quiet. It’s not like we had this great love or anything, and I obviously had no intention of actually marrying her, but…I don’t know. It wasn’t hard spending time with her. Elodie was a different story, especially after what she did to Holly.”
“So when you left Hex Hall after Holly died, that wasn’t because you were the grief-stricken fiancé. You were going back to The Eye.”
“Yeah. I told them that I thought Elodie and her coven had raised a demon, so we decided I should get close to her, see what was really going on.”
“And you decided to get really close to her.”
He laughed softly. “I can’t see you, but I have a feeling you’re cute when you’re jealous, Mercer.”
Crossing my arms over my chest, I said, “It’s not jealousy you’re hearing, it’s disgust. You dated a girl you didn’t even like just to get information out of her.”
His laughter died, and his voice sounded weary when he said, “Trust me, a lot of my brothers have done much worse.”
There was so much more I wanted to ask him, but it’s not like we could sit out here all night passing the sharing stick or whatever. Time to cut to the chase.
“So did The Eye tell you to get all Mata Hari on me too?”
There was a long pause before he answered. “I was supposed to watch you, yeah. They thought it was weird that Atherton would send his own kid to Hecate, so we wanted to keep an eye on you. No pun intended.”
He kept doing that, using “we” and “they” interchangeably when he was talking about The Eye. Not like I could blame him for being all schizo. It had to be bizarre to live two lives for as long as he had.
He pushed himself away from the tree. “So yeah, you were part of the job. Don’t get me wrong, Mercer, I like you. You’re smart, fluent in sarcasm, and, Bad Dog incident aside, pretty kick-ass at magic. And it’s not like you’re hard to look at.”
“Be still my beating heart.”
“But to answer your question, no part of the Archer Cross you knew at Hecate exists. That day in the cellar, I kissed you back because it was my job to stay close to you. If that’s where you wanted to take things, then that’s where I was going to go. I kissed you because I had to. Not exactly the hardest assignment I’ve ever had, but an assignment nonetheless.”
I stood there absorbing his words like blows, my heart aching. But it wasn’t what he said that made me feel like I’d been punched in the chest.
It’s that I knew he was lying. That speech came out way too quickly and way too smooth, almost like he’d been practicing it in his head. The same way I’d been practicing what I’d say to him if I ever saw him again.
I couldn’t even begin to handle that right now, so instead I just said, “Okay, then. Yay for honesty. Now that we’re done with the confessional part of the evening, why don’t you tell me why we’re here.”
There was another pause, then he started walking again. I followed, leaves crunching under my feet.
“Like I said, Hecate Hall has always made The Eye nervous.”
“Why? Are they allergic to plaid?”
I thought he might laugh, but instead, he said, “Think about it, Mercer. One place where Prodigium round up their most powerful members? Don’t tell me that’s not suspicious.”
That had never occurred to me. I’d always just thought of all us at Hecate as giant screwups, but in a way, Archer was right. We’d all been sentenced to Hex Hall because of spells that were powerful and dangerous. I thought of Cal saying I created “too big.” Wasn’t that what just about everyone at Hecate had done?
Still, the idea that the place I’d called home for nearly a year was actually some evil farm for powerful Prodigium was unsettling to say the least. “Hecate isn’t like that,” I said weakly, almost more to myself than to him.
“Isn’t it? Do some kind of illumination spell.”
I raised my hand, and within seconds, a glowing orb of bluish light had appeared. It lit up the surrounding area, and I gasped. This section of forest looked like a meteor had landed here. We were standing at the edge of a crater that was about eight feet deep and thirty feet in diameter. All around us were flattened trees, lying broken like matchsticks. The trees that were still standing were scorched and blackened.
But it wasn’t just that. Dark magic, darker than anything I’d ever felt, crackled over everything. It was like the whole area was marinating in it. It seeped up from the dirt under my feet, and I could practically taste it in the air.
There was a large flat rock at the base of the crater with something carved into it. I wiggled my fingers and the orb grew larger and brighter until I could see the markings.
I’d only seen writing like that one other place—the grimoire.
“Now you see why I wanted to show you this,” Archer said quietly. “Whoever is raising demons is doing it here. At Hecate.”