Mud and a witch her age were walking toward the far field for archery class, talking. Pivoting on her walking stick, Mud glanced back once in question.
Angie gave her a thumbs up and Mud offered her a rare, big grin. But the short exchange slowed Angie down just enough. By the time she got to a safe place where she could work at unbraiding the thread of dark intent—a quiet corner to the side of the greenhouse door—the intent was gone. Angie couldn’t see the dark thread attached anywhere. Which meant one of twothings: it had lost power, broken free, and disappeared, or it had merged with her magic.
Currently, the greenhouse was empty, so Angie took a chance, opened the unlocked door, and slipped in. On tables and the sloped concrete floor were the flowers, herbs, and veggies the sixteen- and seventeen-year-old earth witches worked on, teaching plants to do new things—grow bigger fruit, ripen faster, be less water dependent. There were also dwarf trees and bonsai, and stone sculptures all over the place. Instantly, Angie spotted the table used by the girls from Cabin A, the familiar residual magic a pale haze around the flowers and the stone sculptures. Angie walked around the table, knowing that Mud could probably name every flower, tell her what its medicinal qualities were, what nutrients it needed to thrive, and probably its Latin name. Mud was way better at some forms of earth magic than regular witches were.
Some of the girls had also been experimenting on stone magic workings, as evidenced by the small stone statues on the bench. A fist-sized black marble bunny had recently been altered to have long floppy ears, an onyx pig had six tails, several fish had been carved from geodes, and a dog had been carved from some white striated rock. The bunny was coated with Carm’s and Jessa’s residual magics. Its ears were crooked and showed evidence that they had worked multiple times to straighten them.
Thoughtfully, Angie slipped out, her shadow of dark intent behind her, following.
???
Along with the other girls from Cabin L, Angie and Mud were sitting together at breakfast, their assigned picnic style tableloaded down with pancakes and waffles, juice, and Mud’s side bowl of fruit. Mud ate more healthy than the rest of them did.
Across from them, on the other bench, and facing the big front doors of the barn-like meal hall, were the girls of Cabin H. Suddenly their table mates went silent, all eyes on the open doors. Mud swiveled in her seat and whispered, “Shit. Shitshitshit.” She put her mouth to Angie’s ear and said, even softer, “What did you do?”
Angie twisted around and saw them, the girls of Cabin A. All of the girls from Cabin A. The mean girls. All of them were bald-headed.
Angie’s mouth fell open. Her head shook back and forth all by itself. “Not me,” she whispered back. Cabin A marched forward like an army, faces furious, their magic ringing and spitting from them in a display so bright most of the young witches could see it even without aseeingworking. The silence spread out like a wave, and the witch girls at their table grabbed their breakfasts and scuttled away, all except Mud.
Angie’s breath came fast and hard. Her fingers formed fists in her lap. Her hair tingled and stood up on her neck.
The mean girls were angry, their power full of rage, their magic dancing with vivid orange mist and sparks. And they were looking at her.
The bald-headed girls surrounded the end of the table, blocking the aisle. They didn’t have eyebrows. Or hair anywhere Angie could see. Angie pushed away the thought that their baldness might be tied to her shadow intent.
The weird silence stretched, falling over the entire dining hall. The only sound was the mean girls breathing, hard, raspy. The girls were powerful, both magic-wise and in terms of witch politics. They were at their final magic camp before being inducted into their family covens. They were VIPs. Andsomehow they believed?—that Angie had cast the bald-headed spell on them.
The girls shuffled closer, Carm putting her knee on the bench and leaning into Angie. The girl’s magic was bright green with traces of purple, but a single thread of Angie’s twistedmarkingworking wove a pale red filament through them. The snake killer was leaning over her.
Behind Angie, Mud banged her oak walking stick hard on the floor, the thump ringing though the hall. She pressed the stick against Angie’s back like an offering. Mud had no witch magic. No protection. But she was standing up for Angie. Tears threatened and a weird laugh scratched at the back of Angie’s throat. Angie was little but she could use Mud’s stick. She had been taught to fight by the queen’s guard, by Koun, Mud’s crush. And Angie had magic. Which she was forbidden to use.
“What did you do?” Carmelina demanded, the same accusation Mud had made, but her words somehow hissed.
Angie shook her green-haired head. Denials froze in her throat, the laughter blocking them down.
“Alopecia universalisworking,” a voice trilled through silent hall. “Gone wrong. Just like the hair working that turned Angie’s hair green.” The administrator, Dr. Jenkins, walked down the hallway, her heels crisp and sharp in the silent room, the stones on her stone-magic necklace rubbing together, clacking softly. “Whose hair were you planning to make fall out, girls?Alopecia universalisis a curse working that results in an autoimmune illness, and curses often rebound on the caster. In the same way, the healing working to repair the curse and the illness has been known to spill over, resulting in Hypertrichosis, making the healer hairy all over. Is that what you planned for Angelina Everhart Trueblood? Your mothers and clans would be so disappointed in all of you, right now.”
Administer Jenkins stopped at the table, her presence forcing the girls from Cabin A back. Her eyes roved over all the girls, including Angie and Mud, her lips pursing.
One eyebrow went up. Angie’s Uncle Leo could do that, lift just one eyebrow. Uncle Leo was a vampire and when she was a kid, he scared people, practically paralyzing them with fear with his voice and eyebrow thing. Everyone but Angie, who had called him Unca’ Leo and smiled at him with her magic. Dr. Jenkins had the same terror-inducing effect and Angie didn’t dare use magic on the powerful witch.
The administrator reached out a hand and lifted the red energy strand of Angie’s magic from Carm.
Angie’s stomach dove into her guts and her body went cold.
Unerringly, Dr. Jenkins lifted an orange energy thread from another girl. Jessamine.
Angie’s breath stopped totally and she thought she might puke.
“Interesting.” The administrator dropped the strands. “Carmelina. Jessamine. My office. Now. The rest of Cabin A will take their breakfasts to their cabin and remain there until I send for them.” Her eyebrows now level, she turned her considering, evaluating expression to Angie and Mud and frowned. Her eyes like glaciers, she called out, “As you were.” She walked away.
Shooting Angie glares of hatred, Carm and Jessa followed the head witch of Magic Camp out of the dining hall. The other girls from Cabin A scurried to the food line to pick up their breakfasts. Without their gang leaders, their hatred of Angie was less visible, and three of the girls who had participated in the working to cast baldness looked downright worried as they filled plates and left the room. If they got caught for breaking rules this late in the year, it could reverberate onto their families and covens. And onto their own futures.
The rest of the witches were looking back and forth between the mean girls and at Angie and Mud. Angie’s body tried to look small, her shoulders wanting to draw in but she resisted the fear reaction and sat straight, rotating on the bench, back to her breakfast.
Mud accused loudly to the retreating backs, “My waffles are gonna be cold.”
Eventually the sense of dark silence lifted and the murmuring began again, but no one returned to their table. Mud and Angie sat alone, Mud eating, Angie all but choking on her food.
