Page 111 of The Witch They Fear

I drop my hand. I swear my cheeks are beat red. I look at the ceiling because looking at Nellie's face right now is more honesty than I can pay for.

"And that's the list."

A small movement, across the room: Margo, without seeming to do anything in particular, closes her anatomy textbook. She doesn't look up, doesn't speak. Just sets it down on the arm of the chair, glasses still on, and folds her hands in her lap like she’s done pretending like she’s uninterested in what I’m saying.

On the rug, Shandy has set her book face-down on her thigh. She hasn't looked up either, but it’s clear they both want to know more.

"Cal." Nellie's voice has gone smaller.

"Don't."

"I'm not doing anything."

"You look like you’re, like proud. I can feel it. Stop."

"I'm proud of you, Calypso."

"Nellie."

She doesn't stop. She's laughing, soft, tucked against my shoulder—a laugh that's mostly relief. Margo reaches over and pats my shoulder as if she feels my pain. My own best friend, giggling at my stupidity. So rude.

"Wait, three?" Tess's voice comes from the open doorway of her room. I thought she was still on the phone, too tied up to hear our conversation. Apparently not.

"Three!" Nellie calls back, grinning into my shoulder.

“STOP!” I shout but I’m fighting a smile. Because it is as insane as it sounds but it also feels good to get it off my chest.

Tess pads into the common room in her socks, phone tucked under her chin. "I'll call you back," she says into it. "Something's happening." She hangs up. "Cal, I love that for you. I love that for the whole vampire population of this academy, actually. They have no idea what's coming."

"Tess, please—" I whine, pinching the bridge of my nose.

"So when’s the wedding?" Nellie asks between giggles.

"I will leave this dorm."

"Details," Margo says, mildly, from her armchair. Her glasses are still on. She isn't looking up but her textbook is still closed. "Not negotiating with you. I just have a few clarifying questions. Clinical, you could say."

Shandy, from the rug, without looking up from her book: "Mm."

"Don't Mm us, Shandy, you probably already saw this when you read her cards, didn't you?" Nellie says.

"I have not. I would never." A pause. “An honest witch never reads another witch’s card without her consent.”

"Shandy," Nellie chides. “Don’t lie to her! She just met you and will think that you’re a good person.”

I'm laughing. My face is hot. Margo's glasses are pushed up on her forehead now and she's grinning at her own knee. Shandy is laughing into the pages of her book. I haven't laughed like this in—I genuinely don't know.

Nellie, still grinning, knocks her knee against mine. "Okay. Properly. One sentence on each, at least. I want to know what they did to you to get you all tongue-tied."

I take a breath and groan. Ugh. I’m really going to have to spill.

"So Aamon," I say.

I don't know what to say next. The room waits.

"He's frustrating," I say, eventually. "He's so calculated and impossible to read. He spends most of our sessions calling me Miss Dellaby like I'm a tax form, and then he—he held my hand in the infirmary after I was attacked. He didn't have to, but he did. And he keeps—he keeps doing that. Shutting the door and then opening it for like half a second when he thinks I'm not looking, and then shutting it again. Slamming it in my face actually. Like he's afraid of something. Like there's something on his side of it too. And I don't know if I'm imagining it or if he's actually—" I stop. I do not have a word for the thing I am trying to name. "He puts it away every time. But he puts it away like it costs him."

A pause.