I snorted. “Why does nothing about this story surprise me?” I asked, but Rhi and my mother were lost in their mutual laughter, and I couldn’t get another word of sense out of them.
“Okay, well, I guess I’ll head up,” I said, giving up. “I’ve got some homework to do anyway.”
“Homework?” my mom asked, momentarily distracted and wiping tears of mirth from her cheeks.
I smiled and pointed at Rhi who added, still chuckling, “I found another book on affinities in the library. I’ve put it next to your bed. You can start on that one after you finish the one I gave you this morning.”
I gave Rhi a military salute, which made her giggle again, and trudged up the stairs. The pageant would be a good distraction from all the anxiety about my magic and the Darkness. I needed a project, something I could turn to with confidence, something I knew I could handle at least as well, if not better, than those around me. If I could feel like an asset rather than a liability in this one little thing, I might just get through this summer. I let my imagination begin to wander again, teeming with images of woodland nymphs and frost fairies. It was like Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream —we had to enchant our audience, like Puck and his love of magic, only hopefully a bit less chaotic. Could we even add a touch of real magic? Was that even allowed? After all, we had a cast full of real witches…
I was so distracted when I opened my door that I’d tossed my stuff onto my bed, and was halfway through pulling my sweatshirt off before I realized I wasn’t alone.
Someone was sitting in my desk chair, staring at me from out of the darkness.
8
“GAH!” I shrieked, the sweatshirt still pulled halfway over my head. My glasses, catching as I tugged, skidded across the floor, and landed at the feet of the unexpected figure.
“Calm down, Vesper, it’s only me!” hissed a voice. “Stop shouting before someone comes running!”
Though it was hushed and tense, I knew that voice. I extracted myself from the sweatshirt, tossed it aside, and switched on the light.
“Nova? What the hell are you doing here? You scared me half to death!”
Nova Claire bent her silky blonde head, scooped up my glasses, and held them out to me. I took them and thrust them back on my face, my heart still beating so hard I could hear it in my own ears. Nova was one of the last people I’d ever expect to find just sitting in my room unannounced, not least because I wasn’t entirely sure she even liked me.
“How did you get in here?” I asked. I couldn’t see my mom or Rhi letting someone into my room without even telling me, although I wouldn’t have put it past Persi.
But Nova cocked a thumb over her shoulder at the open window, around which the curtains were billowing in the saltyevening air. “Through the side garden, up the rose trellis, across the porch roof, and in through your window. You really should lock that, you know.”
“Clearly,” I said, sinking on to my bed as my breathing finally began to slow down. “You could have just come down to the meeting at the playhouse if you wanted to see me. It would have been slightly harder to scare the shit out of me, but I’m sure you could have managed it, if you wanted to.”
“Look, I’m sorry about lying in wait like a stalker, okay? It wasn’t actually my first choice. I was planning to go down to the playhouse, but something came up.”
As my eyes adjusted and I was able to see Nova—reallysee her—my heart leaped into overdrive again. “What’s wrong?”
“Wrong?” she snapped. “Why should anything be wrong?”
I would have laughed if I wasn’t so startled at her appearance. Nova was usually the epitome of cool and unconcerned, a walking poster child for designer ennui. But tonight, in the yellow light from my bedside lamp she looked… well, freaked out. Her eyes were wide and ringed with the purple, bruise-like shadows of sleeplessness. Her hair, usually silky and perfectly straight, was pulled into a messy bun on top of her head, and the strands that had escaped the hair tie hung limply around her face. Her eye makeup was smudged, like she’d applied it yesterday, and hadn’t bothered to wash her face. She was also wearing sweatpants in public—I mean it was probably a $500 matching sweatsuit from a well-known designer, but still.
But most startling of all was the spun glass fragility she was trying to hide behind a truculent scowl. She was vulnerable, and she was pissed about it. I thought about what Eva had told me at the cafe the previous day, about how rumors were flying about me and the Claires. I would have expected Nova to face them defiantly, middle fingers flying, but the Nova in front of me looked totally beaten down. She was also sneaking intomy bedroom at night, so this was hardly going to be a casual, friendly chat.
“Nova. Seriously. What’s wrong?” I repeated.
Nova bit her lip, and jumped up from the chair, starting to pace. “Dammit,” she muttered. “I shouldn’t have come here. This was a stupid idea.”
“Why don’t you tell me the idea, and I’ll decide whether it’s stupid or not,” I suggested, sitting down on the edge of my bed. I was burning with curiosity, but I did my best to appear very calm and collected, as a counterpoint to her almost manic energy. It seemed to help. She looked at me as she was pacing, and gradually her steps slowed. She let out a sigh, and leaned against my windowsill, sagging.
“I need your help,” she said, the words eking their reluctant way out between her clenched teeth.
I managed not to let my mouth fall open in shock, but it was close. Nova Claire, admitting she needed help? And from a Vesper? If I’d been a less sensitive person, I would have whipped out my phone and recorded the moment for posterity. Instead, I swallowed back my shock and said, “With what?”
Nova pursed her lips, clearly wishing she didn’t have to elaborate. Then she blurted out, “It’s my mother.”
“Okay…”
“You know what she’s like. Well, no I guess you don’t, but her reputation precedes her in this town, which makes me think you probably have a pretty good idea of what she’s like. The Claire name is all that matters to her—protecting it, lifting it up, keeping it polished and shiny and pristine. It’s like… a generational trauma response. We fucked up so badly in the lead-up to the Covenant that the Claire matriarch of every generation since has made it her life’s work to make up for it. You’d think, over time, they’d get less fanatical about it, but it’s only gotten worse.”
I experienced a flash of memory of the first time I’d set foot in the Claire family home. There’d been a locked bookcase in their library, where every book on dark or malevolent magic was kept. Nova had told me her mother kept them locked up, because Ostara didn’t trust anyone around them. At first, I’d thought Nova was just being melodramatic, but I’d learned better since.
