“You’ve gotten close to them.”
“Sure. They’re not in this anymore. It’s my turn to ask a question. Is your plan still to marry me to Archer?”
“That was merely a way to raise you here. Since you’re now present, there’s no need for such a façade. Besides, turns out, you’re not his type.” Her cold eyes flick to my chest and back up to my face, chuckling at her own joke. “It’s also not an option anymore.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means, our time has ended.” She lifts to her feet, and the chair disappears in a cloud of black smoke. “Give any thought into joining us?”
“I’ll join you in helping save the witches, but I won’t go Dark.”
Her lips curl up. “Shame.”
The room becomes obscure with her exit.
Some unknown time later,light flickers again, only this time two figures instead of one enter the space.
Archer takes up a spot by the entrance, while Adalyn strides forward, literally looking at me from beneath her nose. “You’re a mess, Brooks.”
“It’s Hargrove,” I counter from where I’m seated in the farthest corner, making my body as small as possible, because apparently heat is a privilege Sloane isn’t granting me, and with the cuffs on my wrists, I can’t cast my own warming charm.
“Nah, you’re a Brooks through and through. You’re a fucking pain in the ass like she was.”
“Fuck you.”
She glowers before flicking a string of magick towards the lock on the cell door. It opens with another wave, and she steps away. “Come. Mom’s requested your presence.”
I don’t budge from my corner of safety. “Why?”
Adalyn huffs through her nose before crossing her arms. “You want to fit in here? Don’t question your High Priestess. Clearly things are run differently at Highridge, but here, we respect authority.”
Laughter bubbles in my throat because “fitting in” is literally the last thing I want to do. “In Highridge we understand that being High Priestess doesn’t make them better than the rest of us. If living under a tyrant is how things are run here, then I pity you.”
Adalyn’s face flashes red, and she launches at the cell’s entrance. “You?—”
Suddenly, Archer’s sliding between the cell and her, pushing Adalyn away. A quick wave has her magick nullified, forcing her arm to her side. He mutters something I don’t hear, but her responding look is a threat on its own.
She stomps to the other side of the room like a child who didn’t get her way, and Archer takes her place, propping himself against the cell’s doorway. “You really shouldn’t antagonize her. She’s a bite-first-ask-questions-later kinda witch.”
“Fuck you both,” Adalyn barks.
Their tension seems little to do with my presence. “Good thing I’m well versed in bites.”
His facial piercings shift with his smirk when he glances at my neck. “Indeed. Either way, you do need to follow, or else Adalyn will drag you there by your hair.”
“Don’t test me,” she mutters behind him.
If Sloane’s requesting my presence, she’s either decided she’s waited long enough to turn me Dark or it’s something else. More bad news for me to hopefully drag home with me.
Moving sluggishly and pretending to hesitate more than I am, I climb to my feet and cross the cell.
But as my foot crosses the threshold, an alarm blares through the space, kicking the two siblings into action. Adalyn sprints out the door and through the numerous barrier spells while Archer shoves me back into the cell and locks it with a slam.
“Wait—what’s happening?” I lurch through the bars; my fingertips just shy of his shirt as he turns away.
“The barrier’s been breached. Based on how we found you, I think we can all guess who’s here.”
He follows his sister, leaving my arm falling limp. “No…”
