I can hear Memnon’s pleasure in his response. I can even feel warmth in his words. That warmth goes against every other aspect about him, and yet something about it makes me want him in an entirely new way, one that has nothing to do with his sex appeal.

I exhale, trying to calm the turbulent storm of my emotions. I focus on what I want to say to him and push it down our…bond.

I don’t understand any of this, but I believe you. I take another deep breath and finish the thought. You’re my soul mate, and I’m yours.

Memnon’s initial response isn’t a sentence, it’s a feeling: hope. There’s some other emotions mixed with it—triumph, and maybe a touch of regret? It all flitters by too fast for me to make sense of, especially on top of my own tangle of emotions.

Est amage, I have yearned to hear you say those words. I am coming over…

A wave of panic washes over me.

Wait.

I am still processing the fact I’m actually a soul mate at all. I’m not really ready to face Memnon or deal with the reality of what being his mate actually means. Especially considering that the last time I saw him, he had just gone down on me, and that alone has my nerves and my heart all jumbled.

I want to talk, but my head is a mess, I admit. Can you come over tomorrow instead?

I may at least have some things sorted out by then.

From Memnon’s side I sense a massive amount of emotion being tamped down.

Tomorrow then…he agrees. After a moment, he adds, Sweet dreams, little witch…

No more sex dreams! I send back down our bond.

In response, I hear an echo of his laughter, the sound of it opening an ache in me so sharp, it’s hard to breathe around.

Memnon’s presence recedes from the bond, and though I’m sure I could still pass messages to him, it’s a clear signal that he’s giving me the space I just requested, space that now feels gapingly lonely.

I rub my forehead.

Memnon and I are really soul mates.

Fuck.

The next morning, right as I’m about to leave my room and head down to breakfast, I step on an envelope someone must’ve slipped under my door.

I bend and pick it up. It smells like rosemary and lavender, and the loopy scrawl of my name is written in iridescent ink.

Pretty.

I open the envelope and read the brief message inside.

You’ve been summoned to the private chambers of the high priestess of Henbane Coven. Please forgo your scheduled classes and come at once.

This…can’t be good.

In group-led witchcraft, there’s often a priestess, a witch who leads the spellcasting. Covens too have a version of this, and the witches who lead these regional groups are known as high priestesses.

I’ve never met Henbane’s high priestess before, but I’ve caught sight of her house several times since I was accepted into the coven. It sits like a castle in the woods to the north of campus. Climbing roses and wisteria cover the sides of the pale stone walls. Birds and butterflies flitter around it. It’s the definition of enchanting, though there’s an eeriness to it because it’s too enchanting, too lovely. It mesmerizes the eyes while unsettling the heart.

Magic, no matter how benevolently used, has that effect.

I step up to the large wooden door, Nero at my side, and reach for a knocker held between the fanged teeth of some primordial goddess. Before I can touch it, the knocker cackles.

“No need for that, Selene Bowers. We’ve been waiting for you,” the knocker says around the metal in her mouth.

Goose bumps break out across my skin at the small show of magic. The hinges of the door groan, and then it swings inward of its own accord.

I don’t know what I expect when I step inside—to be honest, I don’t know why I’m here at all—but I’m surprised to see the bare stone walls and smooth floor, the only decoration another primitive goddess figurine sitting in a nearby alcove, her arms raised above her head. Most witches tend to be maximalists, cluttering their walls and spaces with every conceivable knickknack. The lack of it all is strangely unsettling.

There are arched doorways and a myriad of rooms branching from the entryway, but it’s the stairway directly in front of me, the one cut like a slash into the floor of the foyer that has my attention.

“Down here,” a woman calls from below.

The high priestess.

I can tell it’s her without even seeing her face or knowing her name. There’s power folded into her words.

I take the stairs down, Nero at my side. Despite my familiar’s soothing presence, my nerves are set on edge. Dread has long since soured my stomach. I must be in trouble. Maybe it’s the murders. Or perhaps this is about the fight in the Everwoods. Or Nero poaching on lycanthrope territory.

I honestly have a lot to account for.

But I try to push those worrying thoughts away.

I reach the bottom of the stairs and enter a subterranean room whose floors and walls are covered in the same pale stone as the rest of the house.

Directly across from me, on the other side of the room, sits the high priestess. She’s a crone, her skin wrinkled and paper-thin. Her dark brown eyes shine like gems, and there is something beautiful and strong about her—perhaps it is her power alone that makes her hard to look away from.

Magic loves old things most of all.

She wears white robes, gold clasps holding the garment together at her shoulders. Her hair lies like unspun yarn over her shoulders and down past her breasts. A white raven sits on her shoulder.

“Sit.”

I don’t think the high priestess used any compulsion on me, but I swear my ass has crossed the room and lowered itself into the seat across from her before the echo of her voice has quieted.

She folds her hands under her chin, leaving only her index fingers out to tap ponderously against her mouth.

“You don’t seem like a murderess,” she says thoughtfully, “but then again, the guilty often don’t.”

What?

“What are you talking about?”

She gives me a knowing look. “You don’t think I’m so big a fool that I’m unaware the Politia suspects your involvement in the recent murders.”

The silence that follows those words is thick and ugly.

“I didn’t kill those women,” I say softly.

She leans back in her chair, her eyes moving to Nero, who sits next to me.

“I have long found comfort belowground,” she says, switching topics. “My own magic is particularly potent when drawn from deeper earth. Bedrock, in particular, is a very grounding, very powerful substance to draw from. Wouldn’t you agree?”

She levels those dark eyes on me, and it’s as though she can see me entering the subterranean rooms below the residence hall to join that spell circle. As though she can even see me entering Memnon’s forbidden crypt.

I twist my hands together. “I don’t think I follow…”

“Don’t play coy with me, Selene Bowers. You have lost your memory, not your wits. The oldest, most eternal parts of the universe call to you. Water, stone—even the moon.”

How does she know about my magical aptitudes? Even I can only vaguely remember them.

“Many people consider these cold, lifeless things,” the high priestess continues. She leans forward conspiratorially. “They call to me as well.”

She resettles in her seat, her white raven turning its head and inspecting me with one of its dark eyes.

“Supernaturals—even other witches—worry about those of us bewitched by such things because…well, we are more prone to dark enchantments and perverse magic.”

Ah. So that’s what this is about.

“I didn’t kill those women,” I say again, more forcefully this time. “Please, use a truth spell on me if that’s what it takes.”