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“Jess,” I said. “There’s something you need to hear.”

She looked at me, and her whole body leaned away by an inch. That’s when I saw she already knew, and she was bracing for the sting of facing it.

“Soren’s one of them.”

Priya covered her mouth. Callie tried to stifle a gasp.

There was a long, tense silence. My chest and neck were burning hot. Jess sat still, peeling off the label of the wine bottle in one long strip while she allowed herself to hear it.

I wished she would cry. I wished she would do something other than stare at that wine bottle.

“I’m so sorry,” I said, almost whispering.

She didn’t say anything. She just nodded, slowly, and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

“Jess—” Callie said.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said. “I get it. It was all a lie and I was stupid.”

“We were all stupid,” Callie said.

There were more questions. More pain and fear and worry passed around us like cards dealt from the same terrible deck. The room felt smaller than it had an hour ago. Before we knew it, the wine was gone.

“Okay,” Priya said slowly.

“Okay what?” Jess said.

“I’m just trying to keep up.”

She looked at her palm and began counting on her fingers.

“Coven.” She moved to the next finger. “Consorts,” she said, like the word itself was obscene. “Ancient entity. Human sacrifice.” She looked up. “At this point, honestly, recruit Vivienne.”

I paused. “There’s another part.”

“What?”

“What?”

I cleared my throat. “We need to summon the dead.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

After sunset, the four of us climbed into my car, Callie in the front and Jess and Priya in the back. For the first five minutes everyone talked too much. That was how I knew they were scared.

“So are we a counter-coven to the coven?” Jess said.

“I guess,” Callie said.

“What are we named?” Priya asked.

I tapped my thumb against the wheel. “The Brides.”

“The Brides,” Callie echoed.

Priya sat back. “The Brides it is.”

We left the polite part of town behind. Callie commented on the fog. Priya asked if anyone wanted gum. Jess said she’d forgotten how creepy Eureka could look at night.