Page 31 of Hallowed Bones

It’s wrong, that statement, but I know what he means. Psychopaths. Serial killers. The possessed. The magic-addicted. There have been plenty of humans who’ve found out about the world of witches living right beneath their noses. Many more who’ve taken things filled with magic that should never go to mortal hands. Sometimes grudges develop a life of their own, and Salem is not exactly a coven placed high in terms of the witch elite.

It’s entirely possible that a powerful coven has passed a hex onto us to get rid of the outcasts once and for all. If that were the case, a Veil creature might follow its master’s wishes in framing witches like us to human authorities.

I clench my hands into fists, but before I can say anything, Reyes replies in a quiet and firm tone, “I’ll double-check the body to make sure there’s nothing to worry about.”

Ezra nods, his face a mask of frigid coolness. Together, we wait as Reyes returns to the body and goes over it quickly, quietly, and efficiently. When he’s done and sure there’s nothing on Jonah’s corpse that will impact us, we move away from the body.

Turning from the others, I stalk for the woods.

“Hey, where are you going?” Ezra calls out.

“To call the cops from the house,” I snap. “And to tell Dimitri—” I pause and look back. “Unless you want to be the one to tell him we have a dead body on the property?”

Ezra doesn’t blanch. He never does. If I said he needed to be the one to inform his uncle of the mess we’re in, he would, without hesitation. When he inclines his head to me, though, I know he’s going to stay behind and talk to Reyes.

I don’t think before I shift into a run. My clothes disintegrate back into fur as I hit the ground on four legs and take off.

Whether it’s a hollower or a hexer, the only one now who knows who killed Jonah is the dead man himself, and dead men always take their secrets to the graves.

CHAPTER 12HAVEN

I’m sorry, brother, but I cannot fulfill your request. Jenn’s pregnant. It’s a girl. Though I’m sure she can’t be mine—the Gods wouldn’t allow it—I already love her as a father should. My soul craves to protect the two of them. I won’t abandon them, not even for our coven. Not even for you.

—EXCERPT FROM LETTER WRITTEN BY ALEXANDER WARDWELL TO MICHAEL GOODE

There is music in the early morning of nature. A hush over the world that underscores the song of birds and distant waves. Ipswich College is close enough to the ocean that if you strain your ears, you might be able to hear water lapping against rocks that have been there for centuries, if not millennia. Sometimes it’s the only place and time that I think I can actually breathe and exist without the past crushing me.

It’s on a morning like this that the news of Jonah Montgomery’s death reaches the students and local towns. Despite the fact that he hadn’t been a student at the college, the announcement is so disturbing that classes are canceled for the day. What few details are published in the daily newspaper are unnerving. Elodie is inconsolable, and no matter what I do to try to comfort her, the loud, racking sobs break my heart.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to stay with you?” I ask.

Elodie sniffles. “I just really want to be alone,” she confesses. “It’s nothing against you. I’m just…” She shrugs helplessly and brings the tissue in her hand up to her nose to blow it again. Even with her face a mess, eyes swollen and puffy, flushed nose, and dry, cracked lips—she’s still pretty. She hasn’t said as much, but Jonah was definitely more than just a friend to her.

I hesitate, not sure if leaving her is the best course of action, though she’d asked for time alone. Then I remember what I was like after my parents’ deaths.

Loss has a way of changing a person’s needs. The most detached of people will seek out affection, comfort. And the bubbliest and most social will want nothing more than time with their own sorrow and thoughts. Before my parents’ deaths, I’d been more like Elodie. I’d had lots of friends—all of whom I’d lost when I’d moved to Manhattan to live with my aunt. If silence and quiet are what Elodie thinks she needs, then what kind of selfish person wouldn’t listen?

“Okay, but if you need anything, just call me and I can come right back,” I tell her.

Elodie offers me a watery smile and nods. With one last look, I slip out of the dorm and head across the courtyard toward the school library. The stone corridors are nearly empty despite it being the middle of the week. Jonah had been fairly popular at the lake party. If many of the students at Ipswich had known and befriended him, then I suppose it makes sense that there’s a heavy cloud of mourning over the entire place.

Ipswich’s library is set somewhere on the west side of campus. I push open the heavy oak door after swiping my ID card at a small black box set into the exterior stone wall. The door groans on its hinges like something alive, ancient, and temperamental. Stepping inside, the light noises of birds and wind rustling disappear into near deafening silence.

There’s an old man seated at the checkout counter that looks more like a repurposed Catholic-style pulpit than a desk. The white, frizzy hair sticking out of the top of his head is practically all I can see as I walk deeper into the heart of the library.

The scents of dust, old paper, and the sharp bite of something colder infiltrate my nose. Not mildew. Not decay, but something that I can’t name.

The stained glass windows bleed blue, gold, and crimson light across the floor as I walk. A few other students have taken refuge here among the stacks. There’s at least two in the center of the space studying or reading quietly in a wooden cubicle or on a flat table and another couple moving through the bookcases, their arms laden down with volumes.

The quiet inside is heavy, and high, vaulted ceilings loom overhead like the ribs of a cathedral. I turn my attention to the rows upon rows of dark mahogany shelves that stretch before me, a labyrinth I’m more than happy to lose myself in. It’s beautiful in the kind of way that makes your skin hum.

Libraries have always been sanctuaries for people. Young. Old. Poor. Rich. Libraries don’t discriminate. They are places of knowledge, education, and safety. This one, somehow, feels even holier than the church it once was.

I move slowly, fingers brushing over leather-bound spines, titles in gold leaf and Latin. I’m not here for a book. Not really. I just need the peace that comes with the quiet. A place to think. About Elodie. About Jonah.

Jonah.

His name feels wrong now. Empty. I’d met him only once, but it’d been so recent that I can’t quite make it click in my mind that the nice guy I remember isn’t there anymore. He’s dead. Unlike my parents, there was no fire. He wasn’t old or sick. He was young, healthy, and in his prime. No one’s saying it outright, not the papers, not the school when they’d sent out the mass email about classes being canceled, not even Elodie, but this isn’t normal. This isn’t right.