Sabrina ducked, trying to hide, but Sinora only strode forward with more vigor. She grasped Sabrina by her delicate wrist and tugged her down the four porch stairs.
“You will get a choice!” Sabrina yelled over her shoulder as she was being dragged away.
“A choice?” I asked. “What choice? Please just tell me what’s happening!”
Sabrina said, “There is a wrong one.”
Maintaining a tight grip on her sister, Sinora spun to look at me, then swiveled and lifted her lens up to Sabrina. The longer she peered at her through it, the more her shoulders sagged and her eyes dulled. “Sabrina thinks you need to see Hel,” she said after putting the lens down.
Hel.My ears prickled at the sound of her name, my body tensing with the sudden sensation of reaching my hand into a slimy sink to unclog the garbage disposal. I wanted to see Helen about as much as I wanted to get punched in the stomach.
I took a drink from my flask and frowned. “I can’t.”
“Don’t be silly, now. We only have a short window to catch her at the Allwitch temple before she heads to Odessa Hall for the trial.” Sinora let go of Sabrina to drag me down the last porch step, and she was so determined about it that when she let go, I stumbled.
“TheforbiddenAllwitch temple?” I protested. Dewy grass swiped at my ankles, and my flats got a coat of mud from themushy ground. I wiped them off on the path. “Nope. Can’t do it. It’s not worth the risk.”
The Allwitch temple was the last place I needed to be seen before my trial. And why, of all places, would I see Helenthere?
Sinora made a dismissive, dry, spitting sound, and yanked me toward the bridge. “There’s something you need to know about her. You’ll be safe. We’ll be hidden by my Shadowcover, better than Invisibility if you ask me. Hel won’t know.”
“She really won’t see me?” I followed, reluctantly at first, only picking up my pace after I started to feel bad for continuously making Sinora and Sabrina turn backward.
“She can’t. Hurry, now. That’s it, pick up your feet.”
We arrived downtown, hidden in Sinora’s Shadowcover, showing up as dark silhouettes on cobblestone. We were humble shadows, not like Jaxan’s Shadowcurrent, but like small shadows formed in the path of the sun. Sabrina hummed giddily, until we reached Varanus Street, when Sinora pinched her arm and told her toshush.
We slinked along brick-front buildings, our shadows overlooked. Everyone knew about Shadowcover, but maybe they didn’t see enough Dark Witches in Hartik’s Hollow for it to occur to them that Sinora was using it. Or maybe it was another slight. Shadows glide by. Light witches refuse to look. Whatever the reason, I was happy to go unnoticed, particularly when I’d walk by a cluster of witches and catch an earful about the half witch trial. Some called it the eradication. And they sounded soeager.
Farrah hadreported that I was the Shadowrealm. Casting Shadowcurrents. Taking Aspirants. As if I’d had the capacity to do anything besides drink moonale.
We slipped through the gate, our shadows passing right through it. Then we climbed the crumbling steps that cut through the hill, all the way up to the towering stone pillars adorning the terrace, where Sabrina hissed at a land dragonstatue.
We ducked behind a gigantic, fluted pillar to eavesdrop, hushed voices filtering through my ears. Helen was with the Echelon Dashell Eldridge, whispering passionately. I recognized his straw hair, tied low on his neck in a long ponytail, a few strands tucked neatly behind his ears.
“She will destroy Everden,” said Helen. “I’ve seen it.”
“She is just a girl!” replied Dashell.
Helen paced. “Vote. Against her.”
There was a small deliberation, but eventually, Dashell agreed. My head jerked back in surprise when he kissed her tenderly. I turned to my aunts for answers, almost missing his fingertips sparking with the blue light of quantum magic to vanish them in a Teleportation spell. Mid-embrace, they disappeared.
I needed to sit. All this time I’d been under the impression Helen was with Jaxan. Their personalities were compatible. She lived with him. She was on his ceiling. I’d assumedtheywere bonded, that Helen was the reason Jaxan could access Blackburn wards. But then, Sabrina was the one who got upset whenever she heard Jaxan’s name, so perhaps not.
“Helen’s not with” — my voice cracked — “Helen’s with Dashell?”
Sabrina nodded profusely, her wide, brown eyes bulging.
“Is Helen with” — I was trying not to upset her — “twopeople?”
Sabrina shook her head.
“Why the temple?” I asked. “And why does she live — not where I’m staying — if she’s with Dashell?”
“They always meet here,” Sinora explained. “Private. They Teleport directly to the terrace so no one sees their approach. Virtually undetectable unless you’ve got two nosy sisters, which she does. The living arrangement with you-know-who is . . .” She choked. “I can’t tell you.”
There was an enchantment spell, Tongue Binding, which kept certain words from coming out of a witch’s mouth, and judging by the way they had toshowmeHelen and Dashell, Sabrina and Sinora were definitely Tongue Bound.
