“All due respect,” I retort, “I did what I had to do, and I don’t appreciate you speaking to me like that. You aren’t my superior.”
“In this, I should have been!” Sadie replies angrily. “The spell is too important to screw it up now, and no one knows more about it than me.”
“I couldn’t trust you,” I say. “I heard it all go down at the meeting. We are dying, right in front of you, and you don’t care.”
“Shane,” Sadie’s voice catches, and she shakes her head. “I care too much. Surely you can see that. I’m sorry we didn’t tell you earlier. We just wanted to try it one more time—”
“The spell named Hyacinth a week ago,” I reply. “If we tried it again and got nothing, would you have let me go to Hyacinth then?”
Sadie shakes her head a little, and I have my answer. I want to hammer down on this point and fight with her, but I know that deep down, I just want to blame someone else for this.
Because I truly don’t know if I’ve done the right thing. And now, I might have doomed us all.
Chapter 4 - Hyacinth
My thoughts are reeling as shock piles on top of shock. The information is simply coming too fast for me to follow, and I can feel my belief stretching again.
Trina puts her arm around my shoulders and gives me a comforting squeeze, but my focus is still on Sadie and Shane. They are staring at each other with a cold purpose that could easily turn hostile, at least from my perspective.
What’s going on here? Aren’t they on the same side?
Eventually, Shane looks away, and I see a flash of doubt cross his face before he turns and looks at me, his eyes dark and troubled.
Shit. Even he doesn’t know if he’s done the right thing.
“Are you okay?” Trina asks, rubbing my arm and leaning into me. A familiar sense of social pleasantries rises in me, and I feel the urge to simply answer “I’m fine” even though I’m really not.
I shake my head, trying to speak, but my throat is closing in fear. Even if I could talk, my mind is racing so hard, I don’t even know what I’d say.
Let me get this straight… people are actually dying. From a real curse. If I stay, people could die. But if I leave, then they definitely do?
“Hyacinth,” Sadie says, her voice low as if she doesn’t want to startle me. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”
It doesn’t sound like a command, but I have to wonder if there’s magic in it because my thoughts begin to clear immediately and my muscles relax enough that I can breathe again. And hopefully, talk.
“I don’t believe any of this,” I blurt out, and it’s the absolute truth of my heart. “I saw you do your thing with the leaves… maybe it was just a lucky coincidence. The more I hear about this, the worse it sounds. At the moment, it still makes much more sense that you’re all fucking lunatics.”
Trina laughs softly, hugging me again, and Sadie smiles.
“I’ll happily show you a bit more, but I think you’re at a point now where your mind will reject anything,” Sadie says. “Even if you can’t reason it out, you’ll just dismiss it.”
“If Shane could shift, that would help a lot,” Trina says. “Seeing Owen shift the first time blew my fucking mind.”
“Sorry to disappoint,” Shane says through gritted teeth. “I didn’t know I was going to be required to perform like a circus dog.”
“Shane,” Sadie replies soothingly. “No one is blaming you.”
“Sounds like you are,” he mutters.
“Okay, Trina, let’s do another demonstration, shall we?” Sadie asks.
Trina nods and goes to stand in front of her. Sadie smiles, and Trina smiles back. A strange sensation fills the air, as if I’m standing under a feather-light curtain and it’s softly tickling my skin. The feeling increases until it’s almost like the air is humming with electricity, but it’s a pleasant sensation, not uncomfortable.
Trina and Sadie both turn their heads up to the sky, stretching out their arms.
Suddenly, dozens of fireflies appear around them. The little bugs dance, and I quickly realize their movements aren’t random. They are making actual shapes—circles, triangles, stars—tracing them in the air around the two women. Soon, the sparkling lines begin to make me feel dizzy, and I have to step back and close my eyes.
“Okay, okay,” I say, holding up my hands. “Enough. I get it. There’s no way fireflies could do that on their own. You’re right, Sadie. My brain is trying to reject it, but I can’t forget the perfectly symmetrical shapes. It’s just too weird.”
