“Like what?”
“I don’t know.” Zara looked at the glass. “Something I haven’t felt before. I can’t put my finger on it.”
Ramona took a sip of hers. It tasted like the first day of spring, like something was about to happen.
She didn’t say that out loud.
The night movedthe way good nights at The Grimalkin always moved — slowly at first, then in a flurry of excitement. Felixgot emotional telling a story about the time Ramona had helped Posey move in two years ago, and how she’d carried an entire bookshelf up four flights of stairs and not complained once, and that he’d known then she was a keeper. Ramona told him he was being embarrassing. He said embarrassing was his love language and ordered another round.
Kashvi explained to Zara, at length and with significant hand gestures, the entire taxonomy of Thornwood Academy’s most insufferable faculty in the department where she’d studied history in her first witching years. Zara listened, asking clarifying questions, filing things away. “Professor Aldric sounds structurally unsound,” she said at one point. “Both as a scholar and as a person.”
“Oh, completely,” Kashvi said. “Ooh, my sparks just went gold.”
“Delight?” Zara clarified.
Kashvi beamed, nodding while finishing her third drink.
“I’ve noticed the correlation,” Zara said. “Green tends to be frustration. Blue is surprise.”
Kashvi stared at her. “I’ve been doing this my whole life and I didn’t know blue was surprise.”
“It’s very brief. You’d have to be watching closely.”
There was a pause. Ramona watched the interaction, an invisible hand inside her chest squeezing her heart. She looked up at the ceiling.
Posey, who had said relatively little all evening, leaned over at some point while Felix was at the bar and put her hand over Ramona’s. “Hey. How are you doing? Actually.”
“I’m fine.”
Posey gave her a look.
“I’m terrified,” Ramona said quietly.
“Of the ritual?”
Ramona made a choked noise she hoped signaled affirmation.
“Of everything going wrong?” Posey asked.
“Of everything going right,” Ramona clarified.
Posey nodded, understanding Ramona’s meaning. Didn’t push. Squeezed her hand once and let go. “You know we’re going to be there, right? Whatever happens after. We’re not going anywhere.”
Ramona’s throat tightened. “I know.”
“Good.” Posey sat back, picked up her drink. “Just wanted to say it.”
The jukebox shiftedwithout warning into something slow and slightly mournful, the kind of song that made everyone’s conversations pause for just a second. Felix looked at it suspiciously. “That’s pointed.”
“The jukebox has opinions,” Cammie said. She’d been watching Zara all evening with the quiet, evaluating attention of someone building a file. “Zara. Can I ask you something?”
Zara’s eyes slid to Cammie, but her body leaned away, as if involuntarily.
“Why don’t you like me?” Cammie asked.
Ramona interjected. “Cammie?—”
Zara studied Cammie for a long moment. “I don’t dislike you,” she said quietly.
