The next thing I knew, someone was shaking me, and a shout was echoing in my ears. I had a feeling it had come from me. Disoriented, I sat up, my heart thrumming in my chest.
“Sophie?” Jenna was sitting next to me on the bed, her eyes wide.
“What happened?” I asked, my voice husky. The room was darker than it had been when I’d laid down, and for just a second, I thought I was back at Hex Hall.
“You must have been having a nightmare. You were yelling. Screaming, actually.”
Well, that was embarrassing. And also weird. I never had nightmares, not even after all that had happened last semester. I searched my brain for any image or memory from the dream, but it was like my head was stuffed with cotton. All I could remember was that I had been running, that I’d been scared of…something. Weirdly, my throat was aching too, like I’d been crying. Other than that, all I was left with was that same feeling of dread I’d felt on the ferry, and a strange odor in my nostrils.
Smoke.
I took a deep breath, but even the sunshine smell of my sheets couldn’t block the acrid stench.
I tried to smile. “I’m fine,” I said. “Just a stupid dream.”
Jenna looked less than convinced as she wrapped her arms around her knees. “What was it about?”
“I don’t really know,” I told her. “I was running, I think, and there was a fire somewhere nearby.”
Jenna twirled her pink streak. “That doesn’t sound too bad.”
“It wasn’t, but the feeling that came with it…” I shuddered, remembering that awful sense of loss. “It’s like I was scared, obviously, but I was also sad. More than sad. Devastated.” Sighing, I leaned back against the headboard. “I felt something similar when we left Hecate. Like, I had this super-strong sense that we’d never go back there. Not all three of us, at least.”
One of my favorite things about Jenna is that she’s pretty much unshockable. Maybe that comes with being a vampire, or maybe she was that way before she changed.
Either way, she didn’t freak out about my maybe being psychic all of a sudden. She just chewed her thumbnail with a thoughtful expression before saying, “Is that a demon power? Seeing or sensing the future?”
“How the heck would I know? Alice was the only demon I’ve ever been around. The only thing she seemed to do that regular witches don’t is suck people’s blood, and that’s not particularly impressive. No offense.”
“None taken. Well, maybe you could ask your dad. Isn’t that the point of this vacay? Learning what it means to be a demon?”
I made a noncommittal sound, and Jenna wisely dropped the subject. “Okay, so you had a dream about fire and possibly a psychic sense that we’re all going to die in England.”
“I feel so much better now; thanks, Jenna.”
She ignored me. “Maybe it doesn’t mean anything. Sometimes dreams are just dreams.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “You’re probably right.”
“And if those are the only weird things that have happened to you lately, then why…” She trailed off at the expression on my face. “Those aren’t the only weird things that have happened.”
At that moment, all I wanted to do was slide back down and pull the covers over my head. Instead, I told Jenna about seeing Elodie.
And apparently, that was the one thing that could surprise Jenna. “She looked at you? Like, right at you?”
When I nodded, Jenna blew out a long breath, ruffling her bangs. “What did Mrs. Casnoff say?”
I fidgeted. “I, uh, haven’t exactly told her yet.”
“What? Soph, you have to tell her. That could mean something, and after Alice…Look, I get that living in the regular world for so long gave you major trust issues, but you don’t need to keep any more secrets from Mrs. Casnoff. Or me.”
There was that familiar stab of guilt again. Jenna and I had never really talked about it, but we both knew that if I had just told someone about seeing Alice, then Jenna might never have been accused of the attacks on Chaston and Anna. And, of course, Elodie might still be alive.
“I’ll send her a letter tomorrow. Oh! Or, duh, I can call her. Lara gave me a cell phone.”
Jenna perked up. “Really? What kind? Can we download music and—” She broke off and shook herself. “No. Do not try to distract me with shiny, sexy technology, Sophie Mercer. Promise,” she said, squeezing my arm.
I held up my hand and did what I thought was the Girl Scout salute. Or it could have been that Star Trek thing. “I solemnly swear to tell Mrs. Casnoff that Elodie’s ghost looked at me. And if I do not tell her, I swear to buy Jenna a pony. A vampire pony.”
Jenna tried not to crack a smile, but no one can resist a vampire pony.
I felt about a million times better as we both started to laugh. Jenna was right. There were people I could trust now, people who deserved to know what was going on with me. My heart suddenly seemed lighter, and I decided that, Demon Central or not, Thorne Abbey was as good a place as any to turn over a new leaf, and clean the slate, and all those other clichés about starting over.
I was done with secrets.
“I hate that you had a bad dream, but I’m glad you’re awake,” Jenna said when we were done giggling. “I wanted to talk to you.”
“About what?”
“Oh, I don’t know, maybe about how your dad brought us to Council Headquarters?” Her expression softened as she added, “I could tell something freaked you out.”
“Was it that obvious?”
“No, but as a vampire, I’m able to detect subtle shifts in emotional energy.”
I just stared at her until she rolled her eyes and said, “Okay, you got really pale and looked like you were gonna hurl. I thought you might faint there for a second.” Then her face brightened and she sat up straighter. “Oh my God, you so should have fainted, and then Cal could have caught you, and, like, carried you up the stairs.” She punctuated that last bit with a little squeal and clutched my arm.
“I liked you so much more when you were sulky and angsty, Jenna.”
She just kept grinning and wriggling around the bed like a four-year-old until I laughed. Shoving off my covers, I begrudgingly said, “Okay, I admit that the image of Cal carrying me up that fancy staircase is…nice.”
Jenna gave a happy sigh. “It is, isn’t it? And I don’t even like dudes.”
I snorted at that as I leaned down to fish under the bed for my sneakers. I knew I should probably tell Jenna about the betrothal, but I wasn’t really ready to talk about it with anyone else until I worked out how I felt.
“It wasn’t just the Council thing,” I called up to Jenna. “Did you see those kids at the back of the welcoming committee?”
“Yeah, the black-haired girl, and the guy who looks like Archer.”
I sat up too fast, hitting my head on the bed frame. “What?” I said, rubbing my scalp.
“That guy. He looked a lot like Archer. In fact, I thought that might be part of the reason you looked all vomitish.”
Sitting back on my haunches, I tried to remember the guy without the haze of “Oh, dear God, that’s another demon” clouding my vision. “Yeah,” I said finally. “I guess he did look like him. Similar hair. Tall. Kind of smirky.” My stomach twisted a little, and I wished Jenna hadn’t brought up Archer. “Anyway,” I said, sliding my shoes back on, “that’s not what freaked me out. He’s a demon. Both of them are.”
Jenna’s mouth dropped open. “No way. But thought you and your dad were the only ones in the whole world.”
“So did I. Hence my puking face.”
“What do you think they’re doing here?”
“No idea.”
We were quiet for a minute before Jenna said, “Well, they’re probably lame demons anyway. I’m sure you and your dad are much better at demoning.”
I grinned at her. “Jenna, how are you so awesome?”
She smiled back. “Yet another one of my special vampire powers.” She pushed herself off the bed. “Now come on. I did a little exploring while you took that epic nap. You were out for like three hours. Anyway, I was scared to go too far by myself.”
“You scared? You know you could probably take out anything that goes bump in the night?”
Jenna shrugged. “Yeah, but being a vampire doesn’t protect you from getting lost. I really didn’t feel like wandering around this spooky house for all eternity.”
“Thorne Abbey isn’t spooky,” I said. “Hecate is spooky. This place is just…different.”
“It’s huge,” Jenna said, her eyes wide. “Didn’t you hear what Lara said? Thirty-one kitchens. Just kitchens, Soph.”
My mouth watered at the thought of food. “I wonder which one is making dinner tonight.”
Jenna and I stepped out into the hallway. There were several lamps affixed to the walls, but it was still gloomy. “It’s weird to think of one family living in this house,” I said.
“This wasn’t even the Thorne family’s primary residence,” Jenna said, like she was quoting from a guidebook. “They had a mansion in London, a castle in the north of Scotland, and a hunting lodge in Yorkshire. Unfortunately, they lost most of their wealth after World War II, and in 1951, they were forced to sell all of their properties except for the Abbey. It still belongs to the Thorne family.”
“Dude. How do you know all of this?”
Jenna looked a little sheepish. “I told you. You were napping for a long time and I got bored,” she said. “There’s this insane library downstairs, and they have a whole bunch of books about the history of the house. Some really fascinating stuff happened here. Like those big statues in the foyer? They were commissioned by Philip Thorne in 1783 after his wife committed suicide by throwing herself down the stairs.”
“Gruesome,” I replied, but something was bothering me. It was that name, Thorne. I knew I’d heard it somewhere before, but where? And why did I feel like it was so important?
As we walked downstairs, Jenna rattled off more history about the house. “Oh! One thing I read was really neat. In the late 1930s, Thorne Abbey was a school for girls.”
A faint alarm bell began ringing in the back of my head.
“Really?”
“Yeah. During the Blitz, they had to evacuate a bunch of kids from London, including whole schools. The Thornes figured girls make the least mess, so they opened the Abbey to nine ‘ladies’ colleges.”
And just like that, it all clicked. I knew exactly where I’d heard the name before.