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“Thanks for this useless detail,” Jason mutters.
“Maybe it isn’t useless.” I button up a borrowed pair of pants that Ashton gave me and reach for the gray T-shirt he left for me on the bed. “Maybe Zoey arranged for Aurora to vanish from the school, did you think of that?”
“She claimed she had nothing to do with it, that Aurora probably asked for a transfer.”
“Well, Miss Worthy should know if that much is true.” The T-shirt is soft and smells of vampire—which, strangely, isn’t disgusting. It smells faintly of wet rocks and rain.
“But if Aurora is this Ophelia, Ophelia Apollinari, Mia’s cousin and a witch… then why did she use a fake name?” Ashton mutters.
“To avoid harassment?” Emrys says. “But why should we believe Mia anyway? Why should we believe that Aurora and Ophelia are the same girl? This is bullshit. I tell you, Mia got scared because we are on to her and made up the whole story.”
I’m not convinced. The passion in her voice when she said those things, when she spoke of her cousin, the loathing when she addressed us… She wasn’t faking it.
Whatever the truth is, she believes what she told us.
“This is important.” I sit down beside Jason. “We have to clear this up because she’s our Queen.”
“Why the sudden belief that she is the Queen Witch?” Ashton glares at me. “I thought you didn’t even trust her up until today. Didn’t even believe that a Queen Witch existed. Stop thinking with your dick, fairy boy.”
Such idiots. “Believe it or not, I’m using my head, unlike the rest of you. You felt her magic and yet you prefer to deny it. She brought us back from half-shifted states, helped us pull back our elemental side. Not just any witch can do something like that.”
“So maybe she is a witch,” Jason says. “That doesn’t make her the pinnacle of witchcraft, the most powerful witch of her generation. Also, if it escaped your attention, according to Mia herself, she’s not a witch at all.”
“Yeah, that’s… perplexing,” I mutter. “But it can’t be true. I know what I felt. I know what elemental magic feels like.”
“We have to find out what happened to Aurora,” Jason says. “And we need to talk to Mia. Because she’s hurt and confused.”
“And because she’s out to destroy us, or did you miss that part?” Ashton lifts his head. “If she’s been digging up dirt on us…”
“…she’ll find it,” I finish. “We’re no angels.”
Nobody contradicts that. You can spread gossip about innocent men and the mob will tear them to pieces. Do the same to guys like us, bastards who deserve whatever we get, and we’re in big trouble.
No, we can’t take her out of the way.
Because we need her.
And because welikeher, even Emrys, no matter what he says. He likes her a lot and he’s angry that he can’t hate her.
Just like the rest of us—this club of socially inept, mentally-scarred assholes who can’t control their magic anymore.
We need our Queen back. Our girl. It’s the only way we can stop a tragedy from happening, and we’ve all had enough of that in our lives.
25
MIA
Wiping angrily at the tears that keep running down my face, I make a beeline for the refectory. It’s dinner time, isn’t it? I need to find Melissa and Vanessa, talk to them, steel myself to make my move.
Maybe it was stupid, telling the boys the truth, but I couldn’t lie anymore. After all, they didn’t believe me. It didn’t matter how I told myself that I’m so close, that if I lied and convinced them then I’d have more time to find out about these killings Melissa and Vanessa mentioned.
It’s time.
They didn’t care about hurting my feelings. They don’t care about me.
Remember that, Mia.
But Brianna is the one who stops me. “Mia! Where have you been? I’ve been looking everywhere for you. Zoey—”
