CHAPTER 13

The week following my move-in flies by in a blur. I fully settle into my new room, Nero forms a routine with coming and going from the house to the woods around the coven. My bookshelves are finally all organized with my old notebooks, and my current one is filled with my class schedule and maps. I’ve picked up my course textbooks and even flipped through a few of them.

I’m ready for my first day of classes tomorrow.

I clomp down the stairs now, Nero prowling next me like a shadow. From the hall to my right, Sybil chats with another witch.

When my friend sees me, she calls out, “Selene! Where are you going?”

I should definitely be doing a better job of getting to know the witches I live with, and now is an opening to do so. I’ve already chatted with a few of them, and I’m embarrassed to admit that when I’ve been able to, I’ve written down their names, their familiar’s species, which rooms they live in, and anything else distinct about them, like some sort of obsessed stalker.

I mean, it does work.

“I’m going to take pictures of the different buildings on campus and put together a map.”

“Didn’t you do that yesterday?” she says.

I hesitate now. Did I?

Sybil uses my hesitation to head over to me. “Babe, you can chill out on the studiousness,” she says quietly.

Over Sybil’s shoulder, the witch she was talking to now eyes me curiously.

I lower my voice. “You know I can’t.”

I wish it were different. I wish I didn’t need to work harder just to be treated normally by my peers. But it is what it is, and Sybil of all people knows this.

She frowns. “It’s just, we’re finally under the same roof, and yet I haven’t even gotten to hang out with you since you moved in.”

I swallow, feeling this tension forming between us. I don’t want that. I’m adamant about proving my worth here at Henbane, but I also don’t want to strain my relationship with my best friend.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I just…don’t want to screw this up for myself.”

Sybil’s expression gentles. “You won’t. You’re brilliant.” She lets out a breath, then nods to the door. “Go ahead then. Map out the coven, and when you get back, let’s hang.”

I sit on a stone bench at the back of Lunar Observatory, the northernmost building on campus, as the sun dips below the horizon. One of my notebooks lies open on my lap, this one detailing all sorts of information about Henbane Coven, from my class schedule, to notes on where things are, to what times certain buildings are open and closed. There are also notes on the idiosyncrasies that certain buildings have, like the fact the chairs in Cauldron Hall are prone to levitating, thanks to a prank that was never fully reversed.

I smooth my hand over the pictures of Lunar Observatory that I’ve taped to the page, lingering on the glass dome atop the building that’s supposedly spelled to make the heavens appear closer than they are.

There’s a thrum building in my veins and tightening my chest. At first, I think it’s simply me wishing I had an astrology class this semester—I don’t—but…the feeling is persistent. It lingers even after I finish scribbling notes and close my journal. If anything, it seems to grow as I slip my notebook in my bag and glance up at the twilight sky.

I stand just as the lamp in front of me flickers on. I’m slinging my bag over my shoulder when magic brushes against my skin, the touch like a stroke of a hand.

Empress…I have found you.

I suck in a breath, snapping my head up. I glance around, but there’s no one in this section of coven property. Yet now that I’m focusing on it, I swear I can feel those smoky-ale eyes on me.

There’s a pressure forming in my chest, right over my heart. I move my hand to it, trying to massage the tension away.

Right as I do so, that familiar indigo magic billows out from the tree line bordering the buildings, slithering in my direction.

Last time that magic coiled around me, it knocked me out and left me trapped in a tomb.

Can’t let it get to me again.

My feet move before I fully form the command in my mind.

Run.

I’m sprinting, my arms pumping and my bag banging against my side as I force my legs faster and faster. Past All Saint’s Hall, past Morgana Hall. My thighs burn, and my breath is already ragged. The wind howls in my ear as I push myself harder.

He followed me back.

Goddess above, he followed me back.

It was one thing to hear his whispered voice carried on the wind. But to see his magic again and to know he’s on the other end of it…

My nausea rises, and I force it down. Barf later, once you’ve escaped.

I feel rather than see a plume of inky-blue magic wrap around my waist like a phantom arm. I cry out, even as more of Memnon’s—and it must be Memnon’s—power fills the air around me, until it obscures the forest and buildings and the darkening sky.

Come to me, my queen…

I’m breathing harshly as I stop. I feel the tug of his power already, seeping into my skin and slipping into my lungs.

You left me before, but not again…never again…

The compulsion to follow that voice builds within me. I can’t tell what sort of spell this is, but it must be one.

I follow the line of indigo magic back to the tree line. It continues deep into the Everwoods forest. I take a step toward it, even as my rational mind screams at me that I’m being enchanted.

But my blood is heating, and my skin throbs at every soft brush of Memnon’s power.

Don’t be a fool, Selene! It’s just his magic lulling you into some false sense of safety.

I pinch my eyes shut, keeping my feet rooted in place.

Return to me, Empress. We have been parted for too long…

There’s something sensual in those words and that voice, something that reminds me of the Memnon from my dreams. It breaks my resistance altogether.

I take a halting step forward. Then another. It’s hard to fight that voice when my deepest, most innate senses are coaxing me toward it.

I think I’m being bespelled. That has to be what this is. I wish I hated it more than I do.

I make it to the tree line, my eagerness mounting. The longer Memnon’s magic grips me, the more intoxicating it becomes.

About fifty feet into the woods, the smoky magic dissipates.

I tense, glancing around. My flesh prickles with awareness.

Memnon steps out from the darkness like some nightmarish vision. Only, fuck, this man is real. And he’s even more devastatingly beautiful than in my memories.

My gaze moves over his tall frame, and it sweeps over his broad shoulders. I can see the tattoos running down his sculpted arms. Even in a T-shirt and jeans, this man looks all warrior.

My eyes move to his face, and if I weren’t still ensnared by his magic, I would’ve staggered back.

In my dream, Memnon’s intense beauty was heightened by desire and flame. Now, however, in the darkness where the shadows are deep and unforgiving, Memnon simply looks brutal—his cheekbones sharp, the curve of his lips cruel, and those luminous eyes wrathful. It’s a small mercy that I can’t see his scar. I don’t think I could take seeing that violence on display right now.

He steps forward, moving with a menacing sort of grace. “Did you really think I was done with you?” he says softly in that old language, his voice rolling and guttural. I understand him with alarming clarity. “That I would leave you in that tomb to rot as you left me?” He shakes his head slowly. “No, no, no.”

My pulse quickens. “Why did you follow me here?” I demand in English.

“Speak to me in our tongue, Roxilana!” he snarls.

“I don’t know ‘our tongue’!” I shout back in another language. The words welled from somewhere deep within me just as they did back in Memnon’s tomb.