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The sandwiches and fruit in the middle of the table are all gone and I think my stomach is trying to digest itself from hunger. After a shift, you need so much food to recover your energy it’s frightening and I think we could all do with a proper meal. Meat would be perfect.
But Ophelia has left with her buddy the Headmaster to perform some task she didn’t reveal, leaving the four of us like caged beasts in her room. At least we’re not in beast form and won’t eat each other—though doing homework is also a joy.
Yeah, I’m being sarcastic. I don’t know how she got me to copy half the French book in my fucking notebook but as I stare at it in faint surprise, I see that my handwriting hasn’t improved any with the exercise.
I glance at the others. They’re stirring slowly, as if after a hibernation sleep, in degrees, moving fingers, then hands, their expressions shifting.
“She’s gone,” I say, not sure what it has to do with anything—but deep inside knowing it does. It’s as if something has released me and I can think again. “She’s not here.”
Emrys pushes back his chair and stands up with a groan, then braces his hands on the table. “What the fuck are we doing here?” he growls.
Ashton stretches like a cat in his chair, joins cracking, his T-shirt riding up his chest. “I was going to ask the same question. Damn.”
Sindri’s hands clench into fists on the table.
“When we’re with her, it’s as if some sort of net closes around my head, muddling my thoughts,” Ashton says, shaking his head as if to clear it.
“An enchantment,” Emrys whispers, sweeping the empty trays off the table and staggering away. “I need to take a goddamn piss. With her fucking permission, of course. Hear me, bitch? Taking a piss!”
Ashton snorts but his eyes are dark with anger. “Can any of you remember what happened? How we got here?”
“We shifted,” I say, slowly getting up, too. My legs are stiff like planks. My spine cracks, one vertebra after the other, a cascade of small pains. Scars on my chest ache—a knife wound, I think, still healing. An arrow to my shoulder, now a red starburst. The older scars on my back and shoulders pull. “All four of us.”
“I remember that,” Ashton says thoughtfully as Emrys emerges from the bathroom, rubbing at his face. “We were by the lake. She summoned us there.”
“Ophelia,” I whisper.
Ashton growls. “Who else? She’s had us under her thumb for a while. Emrys is right, it has to be an enchantment.”
“Fucking awesome. How do we break her hold on us?” I glance at Sindri but he’s silent, his lashes low over his eyes. He’s breathing hard and I’m worried about the blood on his shirt, but Emrys distracts me by coming to the table and banging his fist on it.
So dramatic, these demons.
“What is she planning?” he demands. “Sucking magic from us, making herself stronger. She wants to become powerful—but for what?”
“Rule the world. It’s what every baddie wants, right?” Ashton says.
“You read too many fantasy books, Ashton. But you’re probably not wrong.”
“Gee, thanks, Rys.” Ashton frowns. “Dammit, my books. I wish I had my books. There might be a counterspell.”
“Pft, books.”
“And how do you propose to do it, then?”
“With sex,” Emrys says, deadpan, dark eyes flashing, his anger seeming to turn to something else entirely as he looks me over. “What say you, wolf?”
“Flattered,” I mutter, “but that method has failed to fix anything.”
“We need Mia,” Sindri says quietly and at the sound of his voice we all turn to look at him. He gets up, lifts the art pad from the floor. “We have to find Mia.”
“Mia. I know that name,” I whisper.
Mia. Gentle hands and soft eyes, soft lips, soft everything—and yet always there, a strong presence, fighting to keep us safe, taking care of us, smiling and laughing and teasing. Mia… How could I forget her?
“Sin, that drawing you made,” Emrys says slowly. “That’s not Ophelia. That’s Mia, isn’t it?”
He nods. “Ophelia must have realized. That’s why she threw it to the floor.”
