Rounding out the trio was an African American girl who was even shorter than I was. She was prettier than the blonde, but nowhere near as lovely the redheaded goddess in the middle. Still, looking at the plainer of the three, it was like my brain wanted them to be beautiful. My eyes wanted to skip over all of their imperfections.

A glamour. That was the only explanation, but I'd never heard of a witch using one. That was some serious magic.

I must have been looking at them like I was mentally damaged or something, because the blonde snickered and said, "Sophia Mercer, right?"

It was about then that I realized my mouth was literally hanging open.

I closed it so quickly, it made a clacking sound that was really loud in the quiet room.

"Yeah, I'm Sophie."

"Great!" said the short girl. "We've been looking for you. I'm Anna Gilroy. This is Chaston Burnett"--she gestured to the blonde. "And this is Elodie Parris."

"Oh," I said, smiling at the redhead. "That's pretty. Like 'Melody'

without the 'M.'"

She smirked. "No, like Elodie."

"Be nice," Anna admonished before turning back to me. "Chaston, Elodie, and I are sort of like the welcoming committee for new witches.

So . . . welcome!"

She stuck her hand out, and I briefly wondered if I was supposed to kiss it, before I came to my senses and shook it.

"You three are witches?"

"That's what we just said," Elodie retorted, earning another sharp look from Anna.

"I'm sorry," I said. "It's just that I've never met any other witches before."

"Really?" Chaston asked. "Like, never met any witches at all, or just never met any other dark witches before?"

"Excuse me?"

"Dark witches," Elodie repeated, giving Nausicaa a run for her money in the Snottiest Tone Ever competition.

"I . . . um . . . I didn't know there were types of witches."

Now all three of them were looking at me as if I'd just spoken in a foreign language. "Yes, but you are a dark witch?" Anna asked, pulling a piece of paper from her blazer. It was some sort of list, and she scanned it intently. "Let's see, Lassiter, Mendelson . . . here, Mercer, Sophia. Dark Witch. That's you."

She handed me the list, which was titled "New Students." There were about thirty names, all with classifications in parentheses. "Shapeshifter,"

"Faerie," and "White Witch." Mine was the only one that said "Dark Witch."

"Dark and white? What, are we like chicken meat?"

Elodie glared at me.

"You really don't know?" Anna asked gently.

"Really don't," I said casually, but inside I was kind of annoyed. I mean, hello, what is the point of having a mom who's supposed to be some sort of witch expert if she doesn't know the really important stuff?

I get that it's not really her fault, and that most modern witchcraft information is highly secretive since they're so freaked out about being discovered . . . but damn, this was getting embarrassing.

"White witches--" Anna began, but Elodie cut her off.

"White witches do weenie spells. Love spells, fortune reading, locator spells, and . . . I don't know, making bunnies and kittens and rainbows appear out of thin air or whatever," she said, waving her hand dismissively.

"Oh," I said, thinking of Felicia and Kevin. "Yeah. Weenie spells."

"Dark witches do the bigger things," Chaston offered. "And our powers are a hell of a lot stronger. We can make barrier spells, and if we're really good, control the weather. We're also necromancers if--"

"Whoa!" I held up my hand. "Necromancers? Like, power over dead things?"

All three girls nodded eagerly, like I'd just suggested going to the mall instead of raising zombies.

"Ew!" I exclaimed without thinking.

Mistake. Simultaneously, their smiles disappeared, and a distinct chill came over the room.

"Ew?" Elodie sneered. "God, how old are you?Power over the dead is the most coveted power there is, and you're grossed out by it? I swear," she said, turning back to the other two, "are you serious about wanting her for the coven?"

I'd heard of covens, but Mom always said they'd fallen out of favor in the last fifty years or so. These days, it was more like every witch for herself.

"Hold up," I started, but Anna cut in like I hadn't even spoken.

"She's the only other dark witch here, and you know we need four."

"And I have the power of invisibility, apparently," I muttered, but they all ignored me.

"She's worse than Holly," Elodie said. "And Holly was the most pathetic excuse for a dark witch ever."

"Elodie!" Chaston hissed.

"Holly?" I asked. "Like, Holly who used to room with Jenna Talbot?"

Anna, Chaston, and Elodie managed a three-way glance, which is no easy feat.

"Yes," Anna said guardedly. "How do you know about Holly?"

"I'm rooming with Jenna, and she mentioned her. So she's a dark witch too? Did she graduate or something, or just move out?"

Now all three of them looked genuinely freaked out. Even Elodie's perma-sneer was replaced by a look of shock.

"You're rooming with Jenna Talbot?" she asked.

"That's what I just said," I snapped, but Elodie seemed totally unfazed by my attempt at bitchiness.

"Listen," she said, taking my arm. "Holly didn't graduate or leave. She died."

Anna moved in on the other side of me, her eyes wide and frightened.

"And Jenna Talbot killed her."

CHAPTER 5

When someone tells you somebody's been murdered, laughing is probably not the best response. You know, for future reference.

But laughing is exactly what I did.

"Jenna? Jenna Talbot killed her? What did she do, smother her with pink glitter or something?"

"You think this is funny?" Anna asked with a slight scowl.

Chaston and Elodie were glaring at me, and I figured my temporary membership into their club was about to be revoked.

"Well, yeah, kind of. I mean," I amended quickly, afraid smoke might actually start pouring out of Elodie's ears, "not that someone died. That's awful, 'cause . . . you know, death--"

"Yeah, we know. 'Ew,'" Elodie said, rolling her eyes.

"But the idea that Jenna could kill anyone is just . . . funny," I finished lamely.

Again with the three-way glance. Seriously, did they practice in front of a mirror?

"She's a vampire," Chaston insisted. "Can you think of any other way Holly ended up with two holes in her neck?"

All three of them had gathered around me now, like we were in a huddle. Outside, the late afternoon sun had finally disappeared behind heavy clouds, making the room feel even gloomier and more claustrophobic.

Thunder had started rumbling, and I could smell that faint metallic scent that always comes before a storm.

"When Holly started two years ago, we formed a coven," Anna began.

"The four of us were the only dark witches here, and you need four people for a really strong coven, so it seemed natural that we would become friends.

But then Jenna Talbot showed up at the beginning of last year, and she and Holly became roommates."

"Next thing we know," Chaston interjected, "Holly won't hang out with us anymore. She starts spending all her time with Jenna, totally blowing us off. When we asked her why, all she would say was that Jenna was fun.

Like, more fun than us."

She gave me a look that clearly said anyone being more fun than the three of them was impossible.

"Wow," I said faintly.

"Then one day in March, I find Holly in the library crying," Elodie said. "All she would tell me was that it was about Jenna, but she wouldn't tell me what."

"Two days later, Holly was dead," Chaston said, her voice dark and somber. I waited for another crack of thunder, thinking one surely had to follow a statement like that. But the only sound was the soft shushing of the rain.

"They found her in the upstairs bathroom." Elodie's voice was almost a whisper. "She was in a tub, with two holes in her neck, and almost no blood left in her body."

By now my stomach was somewhere south of my knees, and I could actually feel my heart pounding in my ears. No wonder Jenna had freaked when I'd mentioned her roommate. "That's horrible."

"Yeah. It was." Chaston nodded.

"But--"

"But what?" Elodie's eyes narrowed.

"If everyone's so sure it was Jenna, why is she still here? Wouldn't the Council have staked her or something?"

"They did send someone," Chaston said, tucking her hair behind her ear. "But the guy said Holly's wounds couldn't have been made by fangs.

They were too . . . neat."

I swallowed. "Neat?"

"Vampires are messy eaters," Anna replied.

I tried really hard to keep my face blank as I said, "Well, if the Council said it wasn't Jenna, then it wasn't her. Pretty sure those guys wouldn't let a rabid vampire go to school with Prodigium kids."

Elodie was the only one of the three who would meet my eyes. "The Council was wrong," she said flatly. "Holly was living with a vampire and she was killed by someone draining her blood through her neck. What else could have happened?"

Chaston and Anna still weren't looking at me. Something was definitely off here. I wasn't sure why these girl were so determined make me believe Jenna was a killer, but I wasn't buying it. Besides, the last thing I wanted to do on my first day was get wrapped up in some sort of witch/vamp gang war.

"Look, I still have some unpacking to do--" I started to say, but Anna decided to change tactics.

"Forget about the vamp for just a second, Sophie. Hear us out." Her voice slid into a whine. "We really need a fourth for our coven."

"Yeah," Chaston added. "And we could teach you so much about being a dark witch. No offense, but you seem like you could use the help."

"I'll, uh, think about it, okay?"

I turned to leave, but the door slammed shut inches from my face.

Suddenly a wind seemed to blow through the room and the pictures on the walls rattled. When I turned back to the girls, all three of them were smiling at me, their hair rippling around their faces like they were underwater.

The one lamp in the room flickered and went out. I could just make out silvery traces of light passing under the girls' skin, like mercury. Even their eyes were glowing. They began to levitate, the tips of their Hecate-issue loafers barely brushing the mossy carpet. Now they weren't homecoming queens or supermodels--they were witches, and very dangerous ones at that.

Even as I fought the urge to fall to my knees and throw my hands over my head, I was wondering, was this what I was capable of? If I hadn't been busy doing "weenie spells" like Felicia's, would I have looked like this, my skin lit up with silver and my eyes on fire? The power I sensed surging up through them made me feel like I was in the room with a tornado, like I was about to be blown out of that wall of windows and into that scummy pond.

As it was, the energy was enough to send the glass splintering out of three of the framed photographs. One thin sliver sliced my forearm, but I hardly felt it.