Sybil is busy typing away on her laptop, but when she hears me, she glances up.

“Selene!” Sybil’s face blooms into a smile. “I didn’t realize you were here. I was going to grab dinner in a few minutes. Want to join?”

“Oh.” I hadn’t even considered it. But I’ve already broken curfew. What’s the harm in lingering a little longer?

“I would love to come to dinner with you,” I say to Sybil.

“Yay!” she says.

I reach down my bond to Memnon. I’ll be out late tonight. Don’t wait up.

It feels weird checking in like this, as though I’m somehow answerable to him. But Goddess forbid the man worries about me. Heads might literally roll.

From the other side of the bond I feel Memnon’s warmth. Hello, Empress, I’ve been missing you, he says, and damn him, but I get butterflies at his words. After a moment, he adds, I might also be late. I’m now involved in a whole new arm of the organization and, Selene, I have so much to tell you.

My breath catches. Memnon has clearly learned something new, something that will probably shed light on the murders. It’s also clearly meant to entice me to return to his house.

I’ll see you later then, I say.

Stay safe, Memnon says. And kill anyone who crosses you.

Not going to address that.

I pull away from the connection in time for Sybil to come up to my side. Her eyes flick over me. “You were talking to Memnon just now, weren’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, what did you two chat about?” she says.

“That I’ll be staying late here.”

My friend’s expression brightens. “That means you can come to the bonfire.”

“The bonfire?” I echo.

“It’s a small party happening at the beach. I assumed you wouldn’t be able to come because you’ve been cautious and staying with Memnon, and I didn’t want to make you feel bad for missing out.”

I make a face, annoyance flaring in me. Just because shitty people exist in the world doesn’t mean I need to stop living.

Caution be damned, I am not prey, and I’m not about to start acting like it.

Setting my jaw, I say, “I would love to go to the bonfire tonight.”

Two hours later, Sybil and I step onto the back patio of the residence hall, the two of us wearing dresses, tights, and combat boots. Sybil slathered a store’s worth of gold glitter around my eyes and hers, and honestly, it is cute as shit.

Resting near an overgrown love-lies-bleeding bush are two brooms. There’s nothing particularly special about them, except that they look old and handmade, their bristles uneven and their handles worn with age.

I side-eye Sybil. “You’re not thinking…”

“Yes. We’re going to fly to the party! The wards for curfew apparently don’t extend higher than the buildings on campus, so if we fly above them we can get past them unnoticed.”

My lips part. “But…I haven’t learned how to fly.”

“No one taught you half the spells you regularly use. You just wing it.”

I have a 62 percent success rate with winging it—which means I’m only a little likely to eat shit flying this thing.

And you know what? Caution. Be. Damned. I grab one of the brooms.

“It’s second nature,” Sybil adds, grasping the other broom. “See, watch. With air I lift, with wind I fly. Keep me airborne in the sky.” Once she finishes the incantation, the broom rises up and levels out. Sybil swings a leg over it, her dress hiking up with the action.

I turn to the remaining broom, a thrill running through me. Sybil’s right. I can do this.

I open my mouth to incant in Sarmatian when I hesitate. It’s one thing for my best friend to know there’s this ancient side to me, and it’s another to openly display it. So at the last moment, I slap a spell together.

“Broom, fly high and carry me far.” Shit, what rhymes with far? “Steer me onward toward the star…sss.”

My broom leaps upward, and I have to throw myself on it.

Sybil snickers. “Goddess, you may have gotten your memories back, but your spells still suck.”

I adjust myself on my broom, a thrill running through me when it levels out next to hers. “Your dad didn’t think so last time I saw him.”

She cackles from where she sits. “Fuck you, Selene. What did my dad ever do to you?”

I shift my weight as the broom floats slowly up. Seriously, why are flying brooms still a thing? There is literally no room for my ass cheeks on this thing.

“Better question is what didn’t he do⁠—”

Sybil screams and clutches her ears. “Don’t end that sentence.”

Now it’s my turn to cackle.

Sybil brings her hands back to her broom and throws me a look. “Bet your fiancé wouldn’t like hearing you talk about other men like that.”

I lift a shoulder. “He’d probably just spank me. I think I’d enjoy that. I might even call him ‘Daddy,’ just like I did your⁠—”

Another scream, and then Sybil’s off, racing ahead of me. Which leaves me to figure out how to follow her.

Most magic is intuitive. It knows what its caster wants; spells just help funnel and fine-tune that intention. So I envision myself following after my best friend.

I’ve no sooner willed it than my broom shoots forward, propelled onward by my magic and my shitty spell. And maybe it’s that shitty spell that causes it to bank sharply upward.

I use every last ounce of my upper-body strength to hold on as it rapidly ascends. Once I’m far above the buildings on the coven’s campus, the broom levels out, and I exhale.

Holy Goddess, I’m flying.

Beneath me, the lamps of Henbane Coven glow softly, casting the campus in soft, warm light. To my right, I can see Cauldron Hall. Behind them, I see Beldame Library and the domed roof of the Lunar Observatory. And with a quick glance over my left shoulder, I catch sight of the illuminated conservatory. It all looks particularly magical at night.

Ahead of me I can barely make out Sybil’s dark form before she’s swallowed up by a cloud. I follow her, the wind whipping my hair behind me.

The cloud envelops me a moment later, and for a heart-stopping few seconds, I can’t see anything beyond swathes of mist. But then I break through to the other side of it, and the sight before me is…unreal.

There’s a blanket of pale clouds beneath me, and the moon and stars hang above me, gleaming like gems.

“Hey, freak!” Sybil calls out from ahead of me. She’s come to a stop, her broom hovering in the sky. “Incredible, isn’t it?”

I nod, not trusting my voice.

“We’re almost there. Follow me!” With that, she takes off again, her broom arcing back down into the cloud cover.

I will my magic to follow hers and begin my descent. Not for the first time, I stare in awe after Sybil. I thought I was throwing caution to the wind, but it’s my friend who is downright fearless.

That point is only further driven home when I cut through the clouds once more. The experience isn’t as jarring as it was a minute ago, but as soon as I clear the clouds, I can see the ground far, far below me.

Fuck, why is it so far?

But it’s a rhetorical question. The coastal mountains that Henbane is nestled among descend rapidly, ending right at the ocean. Most of the coastline here is inaccessible since it’s bordered by the sides of these mountains. But every so often, there’s a crescent-shaped section of beach, which is perfect for intimate parties, such as the one I can see below me, illuminated by a bonfire and several orbs of light.

It’s hard to see much beyond that, however, because a hazy cloud of magic hangs over the party, partially cloaking the supernaturals below it.

Ahead of me, Sybil drives her broom straight for the magical cloud. I can hear her peals of laughter as she cuts straight through the gathering, and I can imagine her parting the crowd of partygoers and possibly colliding with a few of them.