“Yeah, yeah,” I said as I put my arms through the life jacket.
“Here,” she said, reaching out and clipping the top buckle. “Let me.”
I was pretty sure a three-year-old could manage the giant plastic buckles, but when she stepped into me, crowding my space, all my protests vanished from my lips. Sabine yanked on the fabric, tightening my jacket and tugging me toward her. I pressed my lips together, surprised by the intimacy of the action.
“I know you can do it,” she said, lowering her voice to a whisper. “I just like strapping you in.”
My mouth fell open, my throat going dry at the insinuation, but before I could say anything more, Faith came romping up the dock.
“Ready!” she sang. “You good to go?”
“I bet she is,” Sabine added with a wicked grin. Oh god, she was punishing me for letting Astrid win, wasn’t she? This was pure, unadulterated torture. Dante’s got nothing on me.
I groaned, scrubbing a hand down my face. “Yep,” I said, popping my P. “Let’s go.”
I shot Sabine a warning look, but she just winked at me.
So incredibly wink-y all of a sudden.So this was how we were going to play it?Fine.
“I’ll hold the canoe. You get in first,” I said to Faith, bending over and pointedly sticking my ass in Sabine’s direction as Faith climbed in.
I was rewarded with a choking sound from behind me.
My smile widened as I climbed in and paddled off, feeling the weight of a certain witch’s eyes tracking me all the way across Lake Nevermore.
15
Sabine
There was one thing witches had in abundance, and that was really, really good wine. Iris had used a spell to snag some of Dagmar’s stash from the cabin on the hill.
My sister and I sat on a bench by the edge of the lake, hidden between two tall maples as we watched the sun set. I took another swig and stared at the obsidian bottle. The label was handmade, with a note written in wax about the moon cycle the bottle had been corked under.
“How old do you think this wine is?” I mused.
Iris grabbed the bottle from me and drank it. “I don’t know. Probably over a hundred years, I’d guess,” she said. “We like old things in our coven.”
“The older, the better,” I agreed.
“Speaking of?—”
“There’s no way you’re attempting to use that statement to segue into prying questions about my love life.”
“Watch me,” Iris said, waggling her eyebrows at me.
“Iris,” I bemoaned. “Don’t.”
“You’ve been sulking for weeks,” she pointed out. “I see the way you look at that new witch with the Amélie bob. Gwen, was it? She’s hot. Why not just ask her out?”
She wasn’t wrong. In the few weeks that Gwen and I had been trying to avoid each other for the sake of our individual plans, I’d been moodier than a redcap who’d lost his bloody cap.
“Ask her out on what? A date to the firepit?” I grumbled, kicking the leaves beneath my sneakers.
“I don’t know, a romantic rendezvous in the forest, maybe?”
“Need I remind you, it wasyouwho warned me against sleeping with campers,” I said pointedly. “Tell me, Iris, how many years have you added to your counselor tally for sleeping with fellow witches, hmm?”
My sister shot me a look. “Did you really get Stockholm syndrome and decide to return year upon year? Those extra years weren’t really volunteering, were they?”
