Page 96 of Rewitched

Ariadne stuck her nose in the air. “You are, actually.”

“And it’s no excuse, but I’ve just had more on my plate than an innocent teenager of thirty years old should ever have to handle by herself.”

“You’re not supposed to handle it by yourself, woman.” Ariadne turned herself on the chair to face Belle. “That’s the point. Our whole friendship is just taking it in turns to be insane. You’re supposed to dump it on me, and I’m supposed to dump it on you, and eventually everything works out okay. You are so bad at asking for help, it’s maddening.”

“I know, I know,” Belle said desperately. “And I will tell you everything, I promise, if I survive tonight.”

Ariadne’s eyebrows shot up. “Survive tonight? What’s tonight?”

Belle waved her hands dismissively. “I just have to go and see a coven about potential overthrow because I suspect that two nefarious magical leaders of huge influence have possibly been trying to kill me. And my mum. So I just had to come back here and make sure that you’re my friend again. I need you to be my friend, always. Otherwise, I’ll have to come back as a ghost to haunt you until you forgive me, and I just can’t be arsed to do it. It sounds like a lot of work.”

“What are you on about? Ow.”

Belle grabbed Ariadne’s arms from where they were crossed over her body and forced her so tightly into a hug that she snatched the wind from both of them. “Say you forgive me.”

“I’ll never say it.”

“Say it.”

“I’ll never…”

“Say it!”

“I forgive you, you deranged lunatic,” Ariadne laughed, squeezing Belle equally as uncomfortably. “Hang on, I really can’t breathe.” They let go of each other. “For what it’s worth, I am also sorry, for not giving you space when I could tell that you needed it. I should have just backed off and waited until you were ready to come to me about whatever is going on. Which I can only assume really is, of course, a coven? And some murder? And whatever else you just said?”

“I’m going to give you a moment to consider how I would come up with something like that if it wasn’t actually true,” Belle called back as she grabbed a towel and headed into the bathroom. “I have never needed a shower so much in my thirty years of existence.”

On the bus back to the flat, leaning her head against the window, Belle had come to the realisation that her biggest mistake of all had been not confiding in Ariadne. Not telling her everything right from the beginning. Of course she should have shared it all that first night of her fifteenth birthday, mid–movie marathon, when everything felt too big and terrifying for one girl to hold on to. That berating, untrusting voice she’d heard in the entryway to Hecate House might have sounded like Ariadne, but it wasn’t her, nor could it ever be.

So it was time to crack the secret open, break it apart with her bare hands and take away the power that it had held over her for so long. If she made it back home, she’d tell Ariadne everything.

“Oh, there were messages on the machine when I got back. Lots of them,” Ariadne told her when Belle emerged from the shower. “I’m assuming you’ve been at Rune’s place, because Violet has tried to call you like a hundred times.”

“I’m on my way to see her right now. That reminds me, you don’t know yet. I quit Lunar.”

Ariadne stopped in her tracks to the kitchen. “You quit?”

“Spectacularly so,” Belle replied, shouting from her room as she shoved her hair half up. “Bridges burned. Shots fired. Took the wagon, hitched up the horses, sped off into the distance.”

“You finally lost it, hey?”

“I think I’ve actually found something. So I’m now going to go and beg for my little, insignificant life from Violet and tell her that I still want to buy the shop if she’ll let me.”

Ariadne blinked, baffled. “What exactly did I miss? I spend a week up north and you’ve gone mad. In a good way.”

AFTER THROWING ON clean tights, a velvet skirt and a top with large billowy sleeves that made her feel as though she had her life together, Belle power-walked straight to Lunar Books. Confronting all of this at a million miles an hour was the only way that she’d be able to stick by her guns without buckling.

“Vi?” She burst through the door of the bookshop, the dainty bell tinkling its familiar sound as she arrived.

“Out back,” Monica called, reaching on her tiptoes to slide a couple of titles onto a high shelf. “She’s got a right cob on with you. As have I.”

Belle grimaced, shrugging off her coat, scuffing her boots against the book-shaped doormat. “Thanks, Mon. We’ll talk, I promise. Don’t hate me. There’s a plan. Sort of.”

She hurried across the shop floor, giving small waves and polite smiles as she shimmied through the regular customers. No sign of Christopher, she noted with relief. She slid open the stock-room door into the space where she’d come face-to-face with Rune what felt like such a long time ago. Violet, feeding a letter through the fax machine, turned on her stick towards Belle.

“Vi. I’m here. I’m so astronomically sorry for missing your calls.”

“Ah, she’s alive after all. Call off the searches, Jim.” He was hunched over a comic book, munching on an apple in the wobbly corner chair reserved for break times. “Give us a minute, will you?” she added, waving her stick in the direction of the door.