“Wow. The look on your face is priceless.” Ivy angled her head, sending a glossy stream of blonde hair over her shoulder.
Statuesque with an athletic frame, Ivy wore black leather pants and a silver dagger strapped to her thigh. A crimson jacket covered a tight black midriff tank top. The pointed heels of her boots looked like a weapon in their own right and had probably seen more action than any blade in my arsenal.
When I remained frozen, locked in some blurry universe where time had ground to a halt, she wrinkled her nose and tucked her cell phone into her jacket pocket.
“So, I guess that’s a no on the coffee. Too bad. We have so much catching up to do.” Her gaze roamed the kitchen, landing on the spot where I’d killed Jake. The ice had mostly melted, leaving behind a slushy puddle of coffee grounds. “What a mess you’ve made. Good thing we took care of the security cameras—you’d probably have to pay for all this.”
Ivy chuckled to herself and snapped her fingers. A man who looked as if he’d just walked off the set of a monster movie stepped forward and flanked her side. His eyes were flooded black, and scars ran down the side of his face. He cracked his knuckles, showing off his meaty hands.
Another crony built like a boulder. Didn’t any of them come in a smaller size?
Ivy gestured to Zoe. “Take the girl and retrieve the book. Leave Elle to me.”
The demon lurched forward and grabbed Zoe’s arm, twisting it behind her back. She yelped as the monster snarled and bared a set of crooked brown teeth. He pushed her toward the swinging doors leading to the storage room.
My mind buzzed with static. I was having an out-of-body experience—the kind where you looked down at yourself and watched the scene unfold from a bird’s-eye view. I felt numb. It was all a lie, a dirty trick, and I had fallen for it like a complete fool.
“You faked it,” I whispered, still staring blankly at my cousin. “You were never really dead. All this time . . . I don’t understand.”
Ivy buffed her manicured nails on her leather jacket and shrugged. “I’m not so different than you, cousin. We are family after all. I had a goal, and I achieved it. My goals just aren’t as academic as yours. I think bigger. Unfortunately, your friend Caden blew the cover on one of our planted allies and created suspicion among the council. I had to get out or risk being discovered as a traitor. It’s kind of epic if you think about it—going out in a blaze of glory, everyone stunned by the tragic loss of such a talented hunter, and yet knowing you conned the brightest minds in the Spellwork Organization. Total ego-booster. Highly recommended.”
The knot in my throat loosened, and my voice grew bolder. “How could you do that? What about our family? Our friends? We all looked up to you.”
Ivy snorted. She placed her hands on her hips and pursed her lips in a pout. “Poor, straitlaced Elle Graves. Did you lose your idol? I thought you’d get a kick out of being in the spotlight for once. I did you a favor! Though, if I’m being honest, I thought you’d be dead by now, and you gave me a little shock when you called my burner phone from Jake’s van.”
“That was you? You hired Jake.”
“Bingo. All he had to do was collect the book and get rid of the professor before she sounded the alarm, but he screwed it up! Men always screw up, don’t they?” She breathed deeply through her nose and made a Zen-like motion with her hands. “If you want things done right and all that nonsense. It’s fine though—we have the book now. The professor’s dead, and you got to live a little. Not too bad, if you ask me.”
A rush of anger flowed through my body at her flippant attitude. My cousin wasn’t the touchy-feely type, but she’d never been this cold. It made me wonder if I ever really knew her at all; if maybe we all saw what we wanted to see and not what was really there, rotting beneath the surface.
I reached for my demon blade. With a flick of her wrist, Ivy sent a jolt of magic into my hand, sending the blade skittering into the shadows.
“Cute, Elle, but cut the act. You got lucky with Jake. That’s all it was. It’s not as if you have the guts to stab me with your dagger. I’m surprised you even know how to use it. Though, you were always a good study, and it seems your promotion has gone to your head.” Ivy shot another stream of magic at me. The spell wove around my limbs, tightening like rope and making me immobile. “Just in case you get any more heroic ideas. Take a seat.” Waving her hand, she sent me flying back a few feet to land on my tailbone.
Her heels cut through the slush as she stepped closer. She leaned over me, a placating smile plastered across her lips. I twisted my arms, struggling to break her spell, but it held fast. I wasn’t strong enough to counteract it. I didn’t have the experience to remove her magic, and she knew it.
Ivy’s eyes narrowed on the silver chain around my neck. She made a tsking sound in the back of her throat and wrapped her fingers around the chain. Giving it a hard tug, she removed the charmed pendant and let it dangle in the air between us.
“I believe this is mine. Thanks for holding onto it for me.” Her mouth curled into a smirk. “It’s kind of fitting, huh? A hand-me-down hunter’s gift for the girl on standby.”
The demon returned with Zoe in tow. He had the Soulbinder in his massive palm. It looked exactly like it did in the pictures: old and unassuming. The kind of book you’d find covered in dust in the back of an old bookstore. But there was the lesson I’d learned firsthand. Evil never looked the way you expected.
Ivy took the book from the demon and slid her hand down the cover. A beam of light glimmered beneath her palm. Satisfied it was the real thing, she snapped her fingers, and the demon holding Zoe shoved her to the floor.
Zoe scrambled to my side. Fear glazed her eyes. Her hand gripped my arm, and I wished I could have pulled her into a hug—something to give her comfort at the end.
“She’s going to kill us, isn’t she?” Zoe’s voice trembled.
Ivy crouched in front of me. “No, I’m not going to kill you.”
For a moment, there was an odd look in her eye. A flicker of the old Ivy—the one I knew as a kid. An image of us bent over a Ouija board, wearing twin braids and matching black tulle skirts, flashed in my mind. We had summoned spirits together, our hands sticky and smelling of strawberry candies. Best friends first; cousins second. As we grew older, we’d giggled over my mother’s tarot deck, asking the cards probing questions such as if we’d marry vampires or if our favorite boy bands could be charmed by a love spell. Innocent fun. Before Spellwork. Before the rigors of training. Before I understood we were different—not only in magic, but in circumstance.
Even now, I missed those days. I missed what we had.
Neither of us was innocent anymore.
She held my gaze, weariness etched into her perfect features. Her tone was almost soothing, most of the snark gone. “It’s over, Elle. Go back to your normal existence and pretend none of this ever happened. For as long as you can. That’s all I can do for you.”
