“Carmelina. Jessamine. Make certain no one comes in.”
Angie glanced at the door. The girls’ hair was growing back, a short stubble, but clearly visible. They smirked at her, hate in their eyes, and left her alone with Dr. Jenkins.
The woman touched a carved stone chicken on the necklace she wore. Aprivacyworking opened over them in a six-foot diameter dome.
When she spoke again her voice was dull, muffled like a soundproofed studio. “Don’t play games with me, child. You were working raw magic.”
“I was medit—”
Jenkins slapped her again. Angie barely blocked the worst of the strike. She fell over the bunny and wrapped her magic around the marble sculpture.
“Tell me,” the administrator demanded.
Adjusting her weight as Koun had taught her, Angie stared at Dr. Jenkins through her tears. The woman wasn’tangry. She was cold and determined. That was the worst kind of opponent.
Angie had no attack magic, and no weapons except the floppy-eared stone bunny . . . and a pricklystone-shapingworking wrapped around it, the power that had been creating the extra-long droopy ears. The energies were Carm’s and Jessa’s residual magics, each touched with the thread she had attached to their bunks. Themarkingmagic had weakened since she had changed her heart from the intent to curse to peace. Her own power was clean and bright, as if she had braided sunlight, air, and water, creating lightning and rainbows and fierce summer storms.
A third slap slammed into her ear and spun Angie to the floor.
She twisted as she fell, holding onto the magic in the bunny.
She landed hard on the concrete. The bunny landed beside her. Cracked and broke.
Ear ringing, head drumming, Angie lashed out with a thread of her magic and spun it around Dr. Jenkins’ legs. Part-net, part-lasso. She yanked it tight and rolled beneath the table. She threw the magic lasso around the table legs. Blinded by tears, she whipped in her magic—rainbows and summer storms—drawing it inside.
Prickly, biting, stone ear magic came with it. No time to fix it.
Fall, she thought.
Dr. Jenkins landed on the floor, her face two feet from Angie’s. The woman pulled back her fist.
No attack magic. No weapons.Secrets.
Desperate, Angie tossed the raw, prickly energies at Dr. Jenkins.
The woman froze for what seemed like forever. Her body arched, mouth open, eyes wide. Dr. Jenkins screamed. Long pink things sprouted in her hair, grew from her head. Thick and limp to the floor. Hair sprouted on them. Short and stubby, black and white.
Bunny ears.
The working shot toward the front doors, searching for their creators.
“Oh, oh,” Angie whispered.
Feet appeared around the administrator. She was hauled upright and disappeared from view.
Mud bent and stared at Angie under the table, her eyes wide enough to pop right out of her head. Mama’s face appeared beside Mud’s. Angie burst into tears and threw herself at her mother.
???
“Blythe is gonna be okay?” Angie asked. “Not in trouble?”
Mama said, “Blythe and all the girls in Cabin A are in a great deal of trouble, with the camp’s board of directors, with PsyLED, and with their families and covens. But since they are cooperating with law enforcement and the Dark Queen’s people, they won’t suffer as severe a punishment as Carmelina and Jessamine and the board members who were—” Mama stopped and closed her mouth into a thin line.
Angie knew she had just missed out on learning something important about the secret magical working the three rogue board members had been creating. Meagan Cassowary, Rachel Ravencroft, and Ermaline Cornwall had vanished, taking personal belongings, their money, and passports. All Angie knewso far was that a coven called the Rus Clan had been trying to create a new working that had everyone worried.
Some of the girls were whispering that the secret working was about summoning and controlling demons, but demons weren’t beings who could be controlled, so that was just silly gossip. Angie hoped.
She peeked at Mud, whose entire head was covered with a gorgeous crop of leaves.
