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I never got to the bath. I showered instead, then went straight to my phone, where the group chat had exploded. I braced myself.

Priya: Marlowe if you weren’t my fire-demon sister I’d kill you

Priya: where did you buy this fucking tea. my intestines are at war

Callie: OMG the purge is hell. Marlowe what did you do

Callie: I’m going to die. I’m seriously going to die. something foul is leaving me

Callie: Kai sent me a thirst trap mid puke. the timing of men

Priya: do not tell him anything! remember our pact

Callie: ok ok

Jess: it hasn’t hit me yet

Callie: then you’re not human

Jess: I take that back. oh god

Priya: oh and did I mention my skin is SALTY because this hit me in the tub

I’m so sorry, I typed. it will get better. you’ll be fine in the morning.

Priya: I better be

I may have apologized, but I didn’t feel guilty. I was just relieved that they’d drunk it.

While I was on my phone, I opened a new Instagram account under a fake name, added a generic profile picture of a beach, and navigated to Aurora’s account. I clicked on her latest post.

It was a photo of Aurora in a white linen dress, standing on the black sand of the cove. The image made me shudder.

There is one night a year when the veil over the water is thinnest, the caption read. June 21. The longest light.

Some of you called your flame this spring. Some of you are still calling. You all belong here.

The Deepening · Summer Solstice

One night. One fire. One ocean.

My loves: someone heard you

On the solstice, we gather where the land gives way to the sea, and we finish what the fire began. Moonrise immersion. Union work at the source. Come as you are. Leave as you were always meant to be.

By application only. Link in bio. #TwinFlame #TheDeepening #SolsticeCeremony #SacredFlame #DivineUnion

The post had 847 likes.

I’d spent years living with a sense of dread. Dread that Vivienne would finally snap and hurl Italian glassware at me. Dread that she’d fire me and leave me destitute. Dread that I’d finally wake up and realize I’d already wasted my adult life serving an emotional vampire in alpaca who sold candles at a six-hundred-percent markup.

I was really, really, sick of dread.

I was sick of feeling helpless, and in that moment, with olives and sea salt repeating on my tongue, I realized the only thing more dangerous than a demonic force and a woman in a maxi dress was my own consent.

I rolled my neck, stretched my shoulders, made some chamomile tea, and told myself I’d do whatever it took to get out of this. If I’d known then what “whatever it took” actually looked like, I’d have needed something much stronger than chamomile.

Chapter Eighteen