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“I’m okay. Busy.”
“With the guys.”
I shrug. “Yeah. And you? Hanging out a lot with Ophelia these days?”
She laughs. “That can’t make you jealous, I don’t think.”
“You’re right, it doesn’t.”
“It’s… interesting,” Brianna says. “She and Zoey seem to be besties right now, when a few months ago they couldn’t stand each other. She has promised Zoey something she wants, I’m sure of that. Only way she’d be so chummy with her.”
“Is she like the girl you knew from before?”
“Actually… No. She seems harder, somehow. Different. And acting weird, stealing things.”
I frown. “What do you mean? Stealing what things?”
“Well, she’s now wearing an earring I’m pretty sure I saw on Emrys before. A hanging earring with a blue gem.”
I freeze. “She’s gathering items from the boys? Why?”
“How should I know? Some weird fetish?”
I shake my head. It has to be for the enchantment. It sounds as if, somehow, she’s not getting what she wants, not enough. She’s trying to reinforce the net. It makes sense.
Did she manage to get anything from the other boys? I have to go ask them.
“Wait.” Brianna is watching my face. “Sit down for a bit. These rushed conversations are not cool.”
Reluctantly, I sit down across from her. How does one make normal conversation? I never got the hang of it at the Church—not many people around to talk with—and here, I’ve mostly ever talked with the boys, or with Ophelia and Melissa, none of it your usual chitchat.
“Tell me how you’ve been,” Brianna says. “It’s all been kind of a whirlwind. You and the boys, your cousin’s arrival—”
“She’s not really my cousin. I was adopted.”
Her brows go up. “Oh. Sorry. I mean, I’m not, it’s just—”
“It’s okay.” I dredge up a smile for her. Brianna helped me when I needed help the most, when I had no friends. “I know a lot has happened. I thought Ophelia was dead but in name, so it was a shock having her back. A good shock, of course.”
Brianna leans forward. “Is it, really? She says awful things about you.”
A vise closes around my heart. “Like what?”
“That you’re a slut and always were, since you were little, that you slept with every man who visited the Church—”
“No.” I’m on my feet like a shot, my heart thumping hard, hurt in a way I didn’t expect. “She’s lying. Why is she doing this to me?”
“Shush, sit down.” Brianna motions for me to sit. “Not true, then?”
“No, of course it’s not true. You think Father and Mother wouldn’t notice if I had? They’re so strict. With magic, too. No magic allowed at home.”
“But I thought you were a witch, too.”
I shrug. “I don’t know. I’m not sure… It’s complicated.”
“It always is.” She shoots me a sympathetic look. “Families are like that. Zoey is my cousin, too.”
“She is?”
