For the next three weeks, I kept a closer eye on Nick and Daisy. There were no more “magic flare-ups,” but it seemed like both of them were drinking more than normal, and every time they sat in on “demon yoga” with me and Dad, they ended up leaving early. After one of the lessons, Dad gave them a copy of Demonologies: A History. I found it later, stuffed in a tall brass urn.
A couple of days before Vix was supposed to leave, Lara drove Jenna, Cal, Vix, and me into London—Dad put the kibosh on any more Itineris travel—and I finally got to do all the touristy stuff. When we went to the Tower of London, Lara gave us these little brochures that talked about the Prodigium history of the place, like how Anne Boleyn was really a dark witch (no surprise there), and that one of Queen Victoria’s grandsons had been held in the White Tower after becoming a vampire.
It was a fun day, I guess. I mean, there was fish-and-chips, and a ride on one of those double-decker buses. But going to London made me realize how accustomed I’d gotten to only ever being around Prodigium. Hex Hall was super isolated, obviously, and so was Thorne. It had been nearly a year since I’d been around humans, and I was surprised by how nervous I felt. I kept waiting for someone to notice the weird brochures, or Vix’s and Jenna’s bloodstones, and realize what we really were. It was an unsettling sensation, and I wondered if that’s how other Prodigium felt all the time. So I breathed a sigh of relief when our car turned down the gravel drive later that evening.
Our next trip to London came two days before my birthday. Not only did we have to take Vix back to the airport, but also Jenna, Nick, Daisy, and I had an appointment at Lysander’s, a super-posh boutique. Lysander was a faerie, but he kept his shop glamoured so the rich human women who shopped there didn’t know it. This day, however, the store was closed to everyone but us.
“The costume is great,” I said to Lysander, “but a crown? Really?”
He glared at me, his black wings beating. I’d only been in his shop for thirty minutes, but I was pretty sure the guy already hated me. “It was my understanding that you were to go dressed as the goddess of witchcraft, and Hecate wears a crown.”
“It’s not really a crown, Soph,” Jenna offered from her spot on a nearby white satin settee. “It’s more like a tiara.” She had her chin in her hand, and there was practically a little black rain cloud over her head. We had taken Vix to the airport, so Jenna was Sulky McSulkerton. Nick sat next to her, with Daisy on the other side. They’d tried on their costumes earlier, and while they’d both looked great—Nick in a white doublet, flowy shirt, and black pants; Daisy in a simple column of purple silk—I had no idea who they were supposed to be.
“Lysander’s right,” Lara added. She was sitting in a chair, her legs demurely crossed at the ankles. “The crown is an essential part of the costume. And besides, it looks lovely.”
I turned around on the little raised platform and studied myself in the three-way mirror. It had been Lara’s idea that my birthday party be “fancy dress.” At first I’d assumed that meant black tie, kind of like the All Hallow’s Eve Ball back at Hex Hall. But apparently in England, fancy dress means costume party.
It has also been Lara’s idea that I go as Hecate, as a nod to the school. I thought that was kind of crappy—it made me feel like I was Hex Hall’s mascot or something—but Dad liked it, and since he was the one footing the bill for this whole thing, Hecate it was.
Still, as I took in my reflection, I couldn’t help but wish I’d put up a little bit more of a fight. It wasn’t that the costume wasn’t gorgeous. Lysander was the go-to guy when Prodigium needed fancy clothes, and he had certainly outdone himself on this dress. It was made of a shimmery black fabric that sparkled with silver in the right light, and despite it covering pretty much every bit of me except for my shoulders, it was undeniably sexy.
And then there was the crown.
Jenna could call it a tiara all she wanted, but it was a filigree band of platinum topped with a diamond and sapphire crescent moon, and it definitely felt crownlike.
I fought the urge to pull at the dress where it fastened around my neck. “It’s beautiful,” I said for what had to be the third time. “It’s just awfully…elaborate.”
Lysander made a disgusted sound and threw up his hands. “It should be elaborate! You’re meant to be a goddess!”
I had no idea how to reply to that, but Nick saved me. Leaping to his feet, he said, “And you do look like a goddess, Sophie.” He took my hand and pulled me off the platform, spinning me. “See? Embrace your goddessness.”
Nick may have been a weirdo and a half, but I chuckled.
Then he pulled me to him like we were going to dance, and the laugh died in my throat. For an instant, all I could see was another dance, another dress, another dark-haired boy holding me, and the sudden pain that lanced through me caught me by surprise. Before I could stop myself, I raised a hand to his chest and pushed him away.
An awkward silence descended over the room. Lara discreetly cleared her throat and said, “Nick, Daisy, why don’t you come with me and let Jenna and Sophie get changed? Lysander, we can discuss your payment.”
Nick and Daisy shot me unreadable looks as they followed Lara and Lysander.
“You okay?” Jenna said once we were alone.
I shook my head, but answered, “Yeah. Just a little freaked out about the party.”
Which technically wasn’t a lie. It seemed profoundly stupid to gather a whole bunch of very important Prodigium plus four demons in one place when things were so scary. But Dad had explained that it was a point of pride with the remaining Council members. “We can’t let The Eye think they’ve cowed us,” Dad had said. Then he’d given me a little smile. “Besides, this will be the first birthday party of yours I’ve ever been to.”
I couldn’t resist that. Still, I was uneasy about the whole thing.
Jenna stood up, coming to stand beside me. She had decided to go as Mina Harker from Dracula, and she was wearing her own Lysander design, a pseudo-Victorian concoction of black lace and pink silk. It even had a cool little top hat and veil.
There were no changing rooms at Lysander’s, probably because faeries tend to be really into their bodies and showing them off, so something like “modesty” is kind of a foreign concept to them. Luckily, Jenna and I had lived in close quarters for nearly a year, so it wasn’t a big deal.
“You looked really beautiful in it, though,” Jenna offered as I attempted to unsnarl the crown from my hair.
“Please. I look like an Evanescence album cover. You look fabulous.” Jenna tipped her top hat at me, which made me smile. “I just hope no pictures of me looking like this ever get back to Hex Hall,” I continued, turning toward the mirror. Maybe if I could actually see where the crown was snagged…“Can you imagine? Dressed as Hecate? And wearing this thing?” I gave another tug. “All my new social cachet would be gone like that.”
I glanced at Jenna in the mirror, but she had her back to me. Weird. I thought that would’ve gotten me at least a chuckle.
“Sucks to think that we’ll be back at Hex in, what, four weeks? Gonna be quite an adjustment after being”—I pulled hard, but my hair refused to let go—“a pretty, pretty princess all summer.” I was joking, but even as I said it, my stomach sank. Thorne definitely had its own issues, but at least I could do magic here.
Jenna turned and met my eyes in the mirror. “I’m not going back to Hecate, Sophie.”
My fingers stopped tugging, and the tiara dangled limply near my left ear. “What?” I whirled around to face her.
“I’m not going back,” she said, her voice firmer now.
“But…you have to,” I said stupidly.
For the first time in a long time, Jenna’s face flushed with anger. “No, I don’t. I don’t have to do anything the Council tells me to. They’re not—”
“The boss of you?” I finished, even as I cringed at how snotty that sounded. But Jenna couldn’t leave Hecate. I was already dreading going back; how could I possibly do it without her?
“I don’t belong there,” Jenna said, pulling off her pink lace gloves. “Vix thinks it’s time we were with our own kind, and so do I.”
A very nasty comment sprung to the tip of my tongue, but I bit it back. In two days I would be seventeen, and I couldn’t act like a toddler with hurt feelings. I touched the tiara and used my magic to make my hair uncurl itself from the platinum band. “But last year you said you didn’t even want to be a vampire. That you wanted a normal life with algebra and prom, and all that.”
“Last year changed both of us a lot, Soph,” she said, not unkindly.
“Yeah.” It was all I could think of to say. We got changed with our backs to each other, and neither of us said anything until we were back in our regular clothes, the costumes up on silk hangers.
“I don’t get why you’re so upset,” Jenna said, taking me by the shoulders and turning me to face her. “This is something I have to do. I thought you’d get that, especially after everything with the Removal.”
I stepped back, and her arms fell limply between us. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“Well, if you had gone through the Removal, I’d have been left on my own at Hex Hall, and that never seemed to bother you.”
“Right, but I was going to do that so I wouldn’t kill anybody,” I said, trying not to get angry but failing miserably. “It wasn’t like I was ditching you at Hecate to frolic with some guy.”
Her eyes flashed, and I thought I saw a hint of fang. “Oh, really? So you’re telling me Archer had nothing to do with why you wanted to get your powers removed, and ditch me at Hecate?”
I gaped at her, even as magic swirled up in me. “What?”
Jenna rubbed her nose with the back of her hand, her voice thick when she said, “Like it never crossed your mind that you could be with him if you weren’t a demon.”
It had. Or at least I think it had. All the reasons I’d wanted to go through the Removal were too twisty and complex to sort out. But still, it hadn’t been the main reason, and how could she…Something clicked.
“That’s why you were all ‘Sophie and Cal, rah, rah, rah!’ isn’t it? You thought if I found some new guy, I wouldn’t want to go through the Removal.”
She didn’t have to answer. The blush that spread up her neck and her lowered gaze were enough.
“I watched Alice murder Elodie, Jenna. I thought I was a monster. That’s why I wanted the Removal, not so I could be with Archer.” My powers were racing around me now, curling inside me. A nearby mannequin rattled, and both mine and Jenna’s hair was fluttering slightly. “The Removal could have killed me,” I continued. “And you’d have to be a total moron to die for a crush.”
Jenna recoiled like I’d slapped her, and I suddenly realized what I’d said. “Oh, Jenna,” I said, taking a stumbling step toward her. “I didn’t mean—”
“No,” she snapped, backing up from me. “I get it. You’re Demon Queen of the World, and I’m an idiot who let a monster kill me.”
“That’s not what I said.”
“You didn’t have to.”
It seemed impossible to believe that just a few minutes ago we were laughing and joking about my dumb costume. “Jenna,” I said, but she just shook her head and walked away.