BESPHINXED

A NOCTURNE FALLS UNIVERSE BOOK

ALETHEA KONTIS

Besphinxed

A Nocturne Falls Universe Story

Copyright © 2018 by Alethea Kontis

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from the author.

This book is a work of fiction and was made possible by a special agreement with Sugar Skull Books, but hasn’t been reviewed or edited by Kristen Painter. All characters, events, scenes, plots and associated elements appearing in the original Nocturne Falls series remain the exclusive copyrighted and/or trademarked property of Kristen Painter, Sugar Skull Books and their affiliates or licensors.

Any similarity to real person, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author or Sugar Skull Books.

Published in the United States of America.

Cover design by Keri Knutson

CONTENTS

A Note from Kristen Painter

Prologue

1. 1

2. 2

3. 3

4. 4

5. 5

6. 6

7. 7

8. 8

9. 9

10. 10

Epilogue

Want to Know More About Heather’s Guardian Angel?

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Also by Alethea Kontis

A NOTE FROM KRISTEN PAINTER

Dear Reader,

Nocturne Falls has become a magical place for so many people, myself included. Over and over I’ve heard from you that it’s a town you’d love to visit and even live in! I can tell you that writing the books is just as much fun for me.

With your enthusiasm for the series in mind – and your many requests for more books – the Nocturne Falls Universe was born. It’s a project near and dear to my heart, and one I am very excited about.

I hope these new, guest-authored books will entertain and delight you. And best of all, I hope they allow you to discover some great new authors! (And if you like this book, be sure to check out the rest of the Nocturne Falls Universe offerings.)

For more information about the Nocturne Falls Universe, visit http://kristenpainter.com/sugar-skull-books/

In the meantime, happy reading!

~Kristen Painter

For my dearest Mary B. Rodgers,

fairy godmother, parade comrade, and sister in magic

PROLOGUE

Midwinter Masquerade

Heather Hayden’s life was soooo difficult.

Unlike the preternaturally gorgeous nymphs and mermaids and shifters at Harmswood, Heather had to actually work at being beautiful. As a witch, she could have just whipped up a simple glamour for the evening, but that sort of unapproved spellwork wasn’t allowed at school. Plus, since the whole Nashville incident—when she’d accidentally cursed Kai Xanthopoulos’s stupid wolf boyfriend, long before he even was Kai’s stupid wolf boyfriend—the administration was watching Heather like hawks. She couldn’t pull the “forgiveness instead of permission” card like she had in the past. With all these limitations imposed upon her, it was excruciating work to maintain an ordinary level of beauty and attention, never mind an extraordinary one.

Mother hadn’t understood why Heather had wanted a new dress for the Midwinter Masquerade, but that wasn’t a surprise. What with Taylor (the sister who could do everything) about to get married and Katy (the sister who couldn’t do anything) causing the usual amount of trouble, Ambrosia Hayden simply didn’t have time for her middle daughter. She’d poured another glass of white wine and instructed Heather to choose something from Taylor’s massive closet full of gowns. Heather had borrowed Daddy’s credit card instead.

Not that Daddy cared about her needs any more than Mother did. But if there was a problem that could be solved by money, Daddy simply solved it, and the world kept spinning.

Deciding on her attire for the Midwinter Masquerade had been especially challenging because everyone dressed to the nines. Mildly attractive students that normally flew under the radar were elevated by the “wow” factor. On top of that, everyone wore masks. The obvious way to rise above the crowd was to possess the most ostentatious mask of all. The more subversive route—which Heather preferred—was to make her mark by being completely understated.

She’d chosen a silk dress—black, of course, her signature color, to stand out against the wintry landscape of the gymnasium, with its frost-lined paths and silver birch trees and snow globe-topped ice pillar centerpiece. Heather’s dress covered more than it revealed, hugging her curves like a 1940s pinup model. She accessorized with strappy dominatrix heels, her star-and-moon choker, an elegant mask made of feathers from a black swan…and Polaris Brighton.

The second she’d seen the lanky winter elf walk through the gymnasium door she’d made a beeline for him, past the snow globe in the middle of the room, as fast as her designer heels could carry her. Bright was an old family friend, the heir to his father’s fortune and the brother of the guy her perfect older sister was about to marry. He was practically family! Sure, he was also aloof and a bit of a recluse, but that only added to the mystery of him.

Heather loved the looks on her friends’ faces when she pulled her celebrity almost-brother-in-law-ish over to the trees to meet everyone. But she was only halfway through introducing Bright when that fae-trash girl he’d walked in with rudely interrupted.

“Owen, you know Taylor, right?”

Owen Liddell, nobody cat-shifter from nowhere, was suddenly shoved in Heather’s face.

“It’s Heather,” Heather snapped. The fae girl was obviously crazy. No one in their right mind ever mistook her for Taylor.

“I know,” the girl snapped back with equal fervor. And then she grabbed Bright’s hand and dragged him away.

Heather gaped. This sort of embarrassment did not happen to her in public. She needed to find a way to save face, and quickly.

Her momentary shock gave Owen time to recover.

“Sorry,” he said, a perfect example of that wow-factor handsomeness. He smoothed his tuxedo and straightened his ridiculous cat-eared headband. Wasn’t he a cat-shifter? Why didn’t he just half-shift?

He took Heather’s outfit in from head to toe and gave her a rakish grin. She probably should have cringed, but Heather appreciated being…appreciated. Besides, her mask hid most of her facial expressions. She could always tell her friends that she had cringed. They would believe her.

“Wait.” Owen squinted at her, and the grin faded. “I know you.”

This time, Heather did grimace. “Of course you know me. Everybody knows me.”

“The Godawful Gothwitch of Harmswood herself.” His accent was so British, it sounded fake. “I’d say I was pleased to meet you, but I know what you’re about.” He sucked his tongue and wagged a finger at her. “Naughty little witch.”

“Yes. I’m horrible and evil. I know.” She held her chin high. Owen was Kai Xanthopoulos’s best friend. Whatever he thought he knew about Heather, he’d learned from Kai’s biased lips. The low-class local girls were always making up lies about Heather. They were jealous of her wealth and beauty and power—the power that her popularity afforded her, if not actual magical power.

“No,” he said dismissively. “I’ve met evil. You’re nothing of the sort.”

Heather was prepared to argue with Owen just for argument’s sake, when she was interrupted by the imposing form of Duko Bardou. Duko was a senior, a wolf-shifter, and quarterback of the Harmswood football team. All those muscles, combined with a mass of dark hair and brows that arched dramatically over piercing gray eyes, made him the most gorgeous guy in school.

Duko was also a massive jerk. But Heather’s popularity could not afford to dismiss his status or beauty over a little thing like that. Heather put up with a lot in her life. Duko was by no means the worst. Just the most recent.

“Dance with me,” he said. Duko Bardou did not ask for things; he demanded them.

“I thought you’d never ask,” lied Heather. She immediately turned her back on Owen and tried to lose herself in the music. Tried, because Duko’s hands were all over her. She used the dancing to subtly move away from him, but he rubbed up against her like he had an itch, and she was a tree. She closed her eyes, pretending to enjoy being manhandled, while she waited for the song to be over. She felt him lean in and sniff her hair like the wolf he was. His breath stank like he’d eaten something rotten.

“HEAR YE, HEAR YE!” The unmistakable voice of Hubble Hobson rang out across the gym. Oleander, who’d always preferred DJing to dancing, stopped the music so that Hubble and his misfit friends could make some announcement about their latest school-sponsored crapfest.

“Drama freaks,” muttered Duko. He dropped his hands.

Heather stepped back, sending up a silent prayer of thanks to the goddess. When the music started back up again, it was a waltz. She instinctively held out her right hand—muscle memory from her coming-out ball.

She may as well have been offering Duko a bouquet of Hello Kitty pencils. “Seriously?” he sneered.

In a flash, Owen was suddenly between them. He took her outstretched hand in his and placed the other lightly at her waist.

“I’ve got this,” he said, deftly spinning her away from Duko and the rest of her friends.

Heather waited for Owen to continue their argument, or to put his hands all over her as Duko had, but he did neither. He kept their bodies a respectable distance apart and simply danced with her in silence.

He knew how to waltz, too, a thing Heather would not have expected a guy of his poverty level to know. He danced and he stared at her, his green-gold eyes utterly expressionless.

Heather went from feeling threatened to wondering what Owen expected from her. But as his silence continued, that feeling began to diminish as well. If he planned to make a move on her, he would have done so by now. If he planned to make Kai jealous, he would have held Heather a lot closer.

Owen had told her she wasn’t evil. He’d obviously witnessed Duko’s version of “dancing.” Had Owen stepped in with those cat reflexes to save her from the wolf?

Heather had never been anything but horrid to Kai. Owen had no reason to be nice. Was it possible his intentions had simply been…honorable?

Did boys like that even exist in the twenty-first century?

Owen continued to stare at her, as if those green-gold eyes could see into her soul. As if she were the only other person in the world. As if she was important. The longer they danced, the more Heather felt something she hadn’t felt in a long time, possibly ever.

She felt safe.

She resisted the urge to cry, or to thank him. She just wanted to go on dancing in silence forever. But he must have noticed something, because the muscles in his hands and arms suddenly became stiff. His brow furrowed slightly. In the next step, he turned them both so that his body was between her and the snow globe.

Heather was not watching the snow globe when it exploded. She was staring into Owen’s eyes.

He was on top of her in a heartbeat, his body covering the length of her. Through him, Heather could feel the blast of magic slam into Owen’s back. And yet, almost as quickly as they’d hit the deck he was standing again, offering her his hand. She took it.

“Are you all right?” she heard him ask over the ringing in her ears. The snow globe—and half the pillar on which it had stood—was gone. Students were sprawled on the floor around them.

“Heather? Are you all right?” he asked again.

She nodded, not wanting to break the silence between them.

He cupped her cheek in his hand and then turned to run into the heart of the chaos—presumably to find Kai. The back of his suit jacket was covered in glitter and fake snow. Heather looked down at her own dress, still completely clean.

Owen had protected her.

1

Five Months Later

All in all, Owen liked school.

Education had been a luxury beyond his family’s means back in 1912. When Owen was barely seven years old, his doughty mother had scrubbed him red and dragged him by the ear all the way to London to meet the noble Lord James Liddell, Baron Greymere. She’d been armed with nothing more than her wits and the feeble tale of a weak family connection, but luck was on her side. Just that morning, the baron had decided to pursue his dream of archaeology in North Africa, and he had particular need of a companion. That a poor young boy had shown up on his doorstep with neither agenda nor prospects was more than simple providence. Dubious relation or no, the baron declared Owen a gift from the ghosts of the kings they were destined to discover beneath the shifting sands.

Owen never saw his family again.

A decade later, the baron had discovered little of significance, the mass of his fortune had been stolen by a deceptively beautiful descendant of Arachne, and Owen had been bewitched into the form of a cat for all time. Or until he found a legendary Fury, which he had, last year. That Fury had manifested inside his best friend, Kai Xanthopoulos, and she had unmasked him for the cat-shifter he now was.

The crux of the matter was, his orders had been to kill the Fury once he discovered her. Murdering Kai would release Owen from the Great Sphinx’s spell entirely, turning him back into the young man he’d been once upon a time. But in the time they’d known each other, Owen had become emotionally invested in Kai. He cared about her too much to finish the mission to which he’d been assigned.

And then Kai had found her soulmate in wolf-shifter Finn Kincaid.

Stalwart, loyal Owen refused to give up on Kai. There might not have been a romantic future for them, but that didn’t matter. Owen would never, ever betray Kai. She was his best friend and he meant to keep it that way, for as long as they both lived.

Historically, Owen had not been lucky with friends. A financial barrier—and then a language barrier—had separated Owen from boys his own age. As much as he’d loathed getting to know Kai’s companions—and having to share Kai with them—he’d come to realize that he actually enjoyed having them around.

Not that he’d ever admit it.

Owen followed Kai and Finn down the right-hand side of the Family and Consumer Magics classroom and claimed a desk directly behind them.

“I wonder what adventures are in store for us today?” Owen asked mischievously.

Kai laughed. Even Finn cracked a smile.

According to Professor Mayfield, every day was an adventure. Some days were adventures, like the day the professor had taught them how to sew magical bags of holding, and Duko Bardou had used one to smuggle his friend Zev into the girls’ locker room. Some days were great failures, too, like the time they’d tried to spin straw into gold and ended up with nothing but blisters. But Professor Mayfield was a well-meaning, jolly old sort, so the students always played along.

This day, however, it was not Professor Mayfield who entered the classroom.

Professor Blake, Head Witch of Harmswood, walked through the door instead. With her wiry salt-and-pepper hair pulled back in a tight bun, she looked more severe than usual. She stood between the iron stove and the spinning wheel at the front of the room and cleared her throat. When Duko Bardou kept talking, Professor Blake raised her hand and pinched her fingers together. Duko’s lips promptly pinched shut, and he gave her his undivided attention.

“I’m sorry to report that Professor Mayfield has taken ill,” said the Head Witch. There were murmurs of dismay in reply. The announcement surprised Owen—Professor Mayfield was not young by any means, but he had seemed quite hale when they’d left him the previous day. “I would like to introduce his temporary replacement: Miss Debbie Sunshine.”

That was a real name? Owen could not stop himself before a snort escaped. Kai leveled him with her stare. Owen shrugged and motioned to the rest of the snickering room.

The laughter stopped when Miss Sunshine entered. She wore a fitted purple-gray business suit buttoned casually over a cream silk blouse. The skirt of it fell to right above the curve of her calf. Her bronze skin was flawless, her generous smile equal parts plump red lips and perfect teeth. Her large brown eyes were framed by black-rimmed glasses, and her chestnut hair fell in massive waves to the small of her back.

It was a wonder that Miss Sunshine had chosen teaching as a profession—she could have easily beaten out Gal Godot for the role of Wonder Woman. (Yes, it was the only moving picture Owen had ever seen as a human, but that was beside the point.)

The next thought to occur to Owen was that Miss Sunshine was the second most beautiful woman he’d ever seen in his very long life. The most beautiful had been Arachne Salamis. A hundred years ago, Arachne Salamis had defeated the baron and dared Owen to stare into the eyes of the Great Sphinx before ordering him to assassinate a Fury.

Debbie Sunshine bore a remarkable resemblance to the woman. Too remarkable.

Against his will, Owen’s body began to tremble. Sick to his stomach, he tore his eyes away from the woman standing next to Professor Blake. He diverted his attention to the rest of the room, where the other students gaped at the glorious Miss Sunshine.

Well, every student but one.

At the opposite end of the room, Heather Hayden studied his expression.

Owen was having trouble breathing, but he forced himself to remain stoic. He refused to reveal his fear to anyone, least of all his best friend’s mortal enemy.

Heather’s ice-blue gaze never wavered.

They had stared at each other like this once, last year, during the Midwinter Masquerade. He’d been torn away from Kai’s side, as he knew he would be one day, by none other than Bellamy’s peculiar older sister.

But there had been a moment—a moment the length of a dance—in which a victimized Heather Hayden had sought solace in Owen’s arms. Privileged and arrogant as she may have been, Owen’s heart had gone out to the young witch. She was not the first person in his very long lifetime to make a few bad decisions. Kai had not needed him in that moment, but Heather had. For one dance she was not a Godawful Gothwitch wreaking havoc over all of Harmswood, she was simply a fellow student in need of an ally.

When the Goblin King’s magic killed the snow globe, Owen’s moment with Heather was over. As soon as Owen had protected Heather from the blast, he’d returned to his place next to Kai. Where he belonged. Neither he nor Heather had ever mentioned the dance again.

Right now it was Owen who needed refuge. He felt himself wishing for that moment on the dance floor again, that feeling of peace. He wished there was a way to let Heather into their circle without betraying Kai, but it was a pipe dream. Kai would never allow Owen to be friends with Heather.

Heather, surrounded by her rich friends and hangers-on, would never have allowed it either.

On a normal day, Owen would have pretended not to care. This was not a normal day. If the Arachne sisters had found him, there would be a reckoning, and soon.

“Jeez, why don’t you take a picture or something? It will last longer.”

All heads turned to Heather in response to her snide comment, breaking the spell Miss Sunshine’s presence had placed over them. The left side of the classroom jeered in solidarity.

“There are enough photos of you in the world already,” Owen shot back. “Surely we don’t need another one.”

Kai wasn’t the only one on the right side of the room who giggled at his retort.

“Children!” Professor Blake clapped her hands together. “Enough of this nonsense, thank you very much. I trust you to treat Miss Sunshine with the same respect you give Professor Mayfield.” The Head Witch turned to Miss Sunshine. “I leave them in your very capable hands, my dear. Best of luck.”

Owen wanted to cry out after Professor Blake and beg her not to leave, denouncing Miss Sunshine for the imposter she was. But it had been a hundred years. What if he was wrong? What if Miss Sunshine was simply a lovely woman from one of those rectangular states out west? On top of that, being a hundred year old cat-shifter didn’t make Owen anything special. At this school full of extraordinary individuals, he was just another teenage voice in the crowd.

“Good morning, class,” said Miss Sunshine. Her voice was thick and rich, like cold honey. The Arachne he’d met in Egypt had a voice that was higher pitched, with an affected Middle Eastern accent. This woman sounded one hundred percent American. “In light of the fact that Professor Mayfield will be out for some time—”

“Is he really sick? Like, bad sick?” Bellamy asked with honest concern. She was the sort of fairy who wrote thank you notes to the teachers at the end of every semester and encouraged the rest of her friends to do the same. Owen had blamed his failure to do so on his terrible penmanship. Cats didn’t write thank you notes. Cats never wrote anything down. The art of speaking cryptically was one of Owen’s favorite aspects of being a cat.

“I don’t know all the details,” Miss Sunshine said with perfect innocence. “I was given to understand that he might not return before the end of the school year.”

Six weeks? If Miss Sunshine really was one of the Arachne sisters, Owen would be dead before the end of term. Or Kai would.

Owen wanted to throw up again.

Miss Sunshine pulled what looked like a small rug from her bag and unrolled it so that it dropped down the front of Professor Mayfield’s desk.

Bellamy gasped from her chair in the front row. “A unicorn tapestry,” she said reverently.

“You expect us to make that?” Heather asked with her usual brashness. “From what, fresh unicorns?”

The left side of the room chuckled.

Miss Sunshine’s lips formed a perfect moue as she stared down at the tapestry, but it was obvious that her distaste was over Heather’s suggestion. “It’s true, the skill level to recreate this piece is incredibly high,” she said with that sultry voice. “My forte is fabric crafts. But I was told that Professor Mayfield covered that topic last semester.”

There was a sigh from Bellamy, no doubt devastated over the fact that she wasn’t about to be given a unicorn as a homework assignment.

“To that end,” continued Miss Sunshine, “any student who chooses to attempt a recreation of this tapestry will get extra points that will count toward their final grade. The best replica will receive the most points.”

Owen tried to swallow, but his mouth was dry. The original Arachne had challenged the goddess Athena to a similar contest and won. A bold move, considering that the gods were notorious for being bad losers. As punishment for Arachne’s boasting and then shaming a god, Athena turned her into a spider. Arachne and the rest of her spider-shifting descendants had been doomed to weave until the end of time.

Every descendant of that first Arachne (that Owen knew about) was female, and every one called herself Arachne. The Arachnes wanted a Fury’s feather because it would supposedly grant them their proper revenge on Athena. Sure, it could be argued that Athena was in the wrong, but one did not mess around with gods.

Owen should know—the Great Sphinx who had bespelled him was older than the denizens of Olympus themselves.

“Dear Professor Mayfield, please get better soon.” This prayer came from Poppy Flanders, one of Heather’s closest confidants and the second Gothwitch. Oleander Nerium was the third. Where Poppy was bright and bubbly, Oleander was dark and dry. They complimented Heather perfectly. Her own personal coven, the students called it. Hayden witches liked things in threes, they said.

Not that Poppy or Oleander had bothered to rescue their friend the night of the masquerade.

“None of you are obliged to try, but the opportunity is there if you wish to take it.” Miss Sunshine picked up a binder and flipped through a few pages. “Now, it seems that the lesson plan Professor Mayfield filed for this spring concentrated on food preparation.”

Yes, since returning after winter break Owen and his friends had burned popcorn, killed yeast, and discovered the hard way why soups should never be made in reclaimed cauldrons. Having spent the majority of the last century eating out of garbage cans, the slightly-off taste of the soup hadn’t bothered Owen at all, but every student in Consumer Magics had sprouted rabbit ears that day. It had taken the school nurse a week to break the spell.

“The assignment for all Professor Mayfield’s classes is to create hors d’oeuvres for the Zombie Prom.”

This time, both sides of the classroom groaned.

“Can someone tell me exactly what this ‘Zombie Prom’ is all about?” Miss Sunshine asked. “I’m assuming no true zombies are actually invited, as it would cause a substantial risk to the students.”

Your presence causes substantial risk to the students, thought Owen.

“We just dress as zombies,” Bellamy assured her. “It’s terribly fun.”

“It’s the function that marks the end of our school year,” Kai said helpfully.

“Only the best prom ever!” Poppy chimed in.

“Speak for yourself,” droned Oleander. “Though the music is always on point.”

“All of Nocturne Falls takes part,” added Bellamy. “It’s a huge celebration.”

“Ah,” said Miss Sunshine. “This makes sense then. It seems Professor Mayfield wanted his students to contribute to the festivities. I will be breaking you into pairs. Each team will be assigned one food item to be served at the Zombie Prom. You have until that time to create and perfect your dish to the best of your abilities.”

“Does this count toward our final grade?” asked Tinker, Bellamy’s nerdy goblin boyfriend.

Miss Sunshine smiled. “Yes. I do believe this project is meant to be a large part of your final exam.”

“And the other part?” Oleander asked as if she cared.

“So far, the other part consists of you not getting on my nerves.”

“Yes, Miss Sunshine,” Oleander mumbled dutifully. She could dish out the disdain, but she was horrible at taking it from others.

“Wait. You are going to assign the pairs?” Heather asked skeptically.

“I am,” said Miss Sunshine. “I couldn’t help but notice that this room seems to be divided for some reason. I’m not sure what defines the line between the two sides, but I hereby dissolve it.” She moved in front of the desk and raised a hand. “Pretend that the room is a piece of paper, and that this imaginary line I’m drawing is a fold in that paper. Whoever is your mirror on the opposite side of the room will be your partner for the remainder of the semester.”

There was no groaning this time, because the students were too busy staring at each other in shock. Did Miss Sunshine honestly think by matching them up like this they’d suddenly get along? If days and months and years of existing in the same rooms and hallways hadn’t encouraged the elite to mingle with the bourgeoisie, how on earth was one Consumer Magics class going to change that?

If Miss Sunshine’s ultimate goal was chaos, she was about to get it. This plan was destined to go nowhere but pear-shaped. The only question was when.

Owen quickly did what every other student in the classroom was doing, counting desks to see who had been doomed to spend the rest of the school year with whom. Bellamy and Zev—that might not turn out too badly. Tinker had been paired off with Oleander. A goblin and a pessimist—how utterly depressing. Kai would be with Poppy Flanders. Kai worked at a bakery, so her team had already aced this test….unless Poppy decided to sabotage something along the way. Finn was more than a match for Duko Bardou, assuming the two wolf-shifters didn’t kill each other first. And Owen would have to put up with…

…Heather.

Of course.

“Oh, crap,” Kai whispered when she, too, realized Owen’s fate. “You got screwed.”

“You said it,” Owen replied. “Consider it my taking one for the team.”

He took a deep breath. He could do this. He could juggle Heather and Kai. And Miss maybe-Arachne Sunshine. And any other darkness that chose to rain down upon him.

Unsurprisingly, Heather had no intention of moving. Owen stood and shuffled past the other reluctant students to the opposite side of the room. He slid a vacant desk over to hers until the two clicked and morphed into one solid tabletop. Most of the desks at Harmswood had this property. The first time he’d seen it, he almost hadn’t believed it. Casual magic was used in town only if it could be disguised as technology. The sort of everyday magic at Harmswood would have baffled the sharpest human mind.

“What’s the matter with you?” Heather asked the question accusingly, as if Owen had slammed the desks together in anger, which he had not.

He slid into the chair beside her so that he would not have to meet her eyes. Part of him wanted to tell Heather that he suspected their substitute of being a member of a cult of women who’d damned him for a century and intended to kill his best friend. Part of him just wanted to sit quietly in a safe, silent bubble.

In good faith, he could not do the former. Kai would never forgive him for telling Heather such vital information. Heck, she’d never forgive him for telling Heather anything.

Owen would find a way to handle this on his own. He had to. For the safety of his friends, if not himself. In the meantime, he needed to continue to play the part of Kai’s Best Friend Who Always Takes Her Side No Matter What. A role that included not being chummy in any way with abusive, power-hungry Heather Hayden.

“What’s wrong with me? I have to deal with you for the rest of the semester,” he said. “That would set anyone’s teeth on edge.”

Heather almost looked insulted, and he wished he could take the words back. But the expression disappeared almost as quickly as it had come.

“I’m allergic to cats,” she said quickly.

“No witch is allergic to cats,” he said. “Try again.”

“I’m allergic to idiots,” she said.

“Not judging by the company you keep,” he said. “Got any more?”

“I’m allergic to poverty,” she said.

Owen took in her flat-ironed hair, custom black dress, and boots with more buttons than the ladies’ boots on the Titanic. “Now that I believe.”

Bellamy, who had cheerfully volunteered to pass out the assignments, handed a card to Owen. “Good luck,” she whispered.

Her wish wasn’t just about the recipe. If only Bellamy had sprinkled a little fairy dust on that card, Owen might have stood half a chance. With everything.

Heather snatched the card out of Owen’s grasp and flipped it over. “Chocolate chip cookies,” she read aloud. “Bah. Piece of cake.”

Owen decided not to point out to the witch that cookies and cake were two entirely different things. Not that it mattered.

However he sliced it, he was doomed.

2

“Something is wrong with that substitute in Professor Mayfield’s class,” Heather said as she pushed past the freaking oak tree that was the door of Professor Blake’s office. “I recommend you get rid of her at once and replace her with someone more suitable.”

“Is that so?”

The Head Witch did not look up from the open folder. Her enormous desk was piled middling high with its usual refuse: papers, pens, quills, and a stuffed raven named George. In actuality he was probably a Percival or an Alastair or something equally as pompous, but “George” was the name Heather had chosen so that piercing blank stare didn’t seem quite so nevermore-ish.

“Yes!” Heather tossed her hand-stitched bat-winged backpack to the floor and plopped down in the oversized leather chair on the opposite side of the desk. Professor Blake remained fascinated by her papers. Granted, she was not required to look at Heather during their mandatory weekly chats; Heather usually preferred it when she wasn’t the focus of the professor’s attention.

But if the professor did not pay the proper amount of attention to Heather’s current complaint, Heather would invoke the names of her parents. No one dared incur the wrath of the Great and Powerful Haydens. The mere threat of their presence was enough to stop most people in their tracks before action was required. Which was good, because realistically, Heather would have had to move heaven and earth to get her parents to so much as blink on her behalf.

For now, Heather waited. If anyone was brazen enough to call her bluff, it was Professor Blake.

“That woman obviously has no idea what she’s doing,” Heather went on. She refused to say the substitute’s ridiculous name out loud. “Debbie Sunshine” sounded like something pulled out of a first grade reading primer. Were high school students honestly expected to take her seriously with a name like that? “She gave us some ridiculous cooking assignment as our final exam. Professor Mayfield never would have approved.”

“Is this the Zombie Prom project?” asked Professor Blake.

“How do you know?” Heather frowned. Theodosia Blake was the granddaughter of a necromancer. She could animate—or silence—a human body with a wave of her hand. But as far as Heather knew, necromancers weren’t psychic.

“I’m the Head Witch. I know everything.”

Heather scoffed.

Professor Blake struck through three lines on the paper in front of her with a red pen. Then she flipped the page over and went on to the next. “Every instructor at Harmswood has to file their lesson plans with me before the school year even starts. Professor Mayfield always meant for your final exam to be the Zombie Prom project, just on a more advanced magical scale.”

Heather wished they’d left the magic element in, no matter how advanced. Baking cookies from a spell—an approved, school-sanctioned spell—would have been a breeze. Baking cookies from scratch would be a nightmare.

“In light of his absence, I decided that Miss Sunshine should bump up the project’s start date so that she and everyone else would have ample time to settle in and get to work. I never would have accepted such a lenient final exam under normal circumstances. You students should consider yourselves lucky.”

Lucky? Professor Blake might have been aware of the facts, but she had no idea what had happened in the classroom after she left. Heather decided to enlighten her. “She paired everyone up with someone they hate. I can’t see how that’s lucky at all. Or productive.”

“Did she now? Hmm. Interesting. And rather clever, actually.”

“You’re kidding.”

Professor Blake ignored Heather’s outburst. “Though I must admit, I didn’t realize so many of the students at Harmswood hated other students.”

“Then you haven’t been paying attention,” said Heather.

“Hate is just such a strong word. That so many enemies happen to share the same class…what are the odds?” Professor Blake drew another red line. Circled something. Squiggled through something else. Sketched some sort of rune. “Out of curiosity, who did you get paired with?”

“Owen whatshisface,” Heather said with as much contempt as she could muster. “The Mummy’s Diner busboy. Kai Xanthopoulos’s lap cat.”

“I know the one. And you hate him?”

“Next to Bellamy, Owen is Kai’s best friend,” Heather explained. “And Kai still hasn’t forgiven me for that thing that happened last year. She hates me, so Owen has to hate me too. Those are the rules. Maybe that’s not how it worked back in the Stone Age when you were in school, but that’s how it works now.”

“Hmm.” Professor Blake said again. She took off her glasses and pinched the bridge of her nose. She did that sometimes when Heather dropped massive loads of information and it took her time to unpack it all. “That ‘thing’ last year?”

Heather squirmed a little. “You know, the thing with the curse and the feather. The whole reason I’m here every week until I die of old age.”

“I have faith that even you will graduate before that time, Miss Hayden,” said the professor. “So, Kai hates you because you accidentally cursed a boy you didn’t know at the time?”

Professor Blake had a knack for spinning Heather’s words around and making them sound ridiculous. And why did she keep saying “hate” like it was a curse? “Whatever. Kai loathed me long before then anyway. She’s never been my friend.”

Professor Blake opened her mouth to reply and then closed it again. “We’ll come back to that. You said Owen can’t be your friend because of how Kai feels about you?”

“I said he hates me,” Heather clarified. “He has to hate me.”

“Right. So…then you have to hate him back?”

This time, it was Heather who wasn’t sure how to respond. She should hate Owen, but she didn’t. Worse, she didn’t want to hate him. As long as he remained Kai’s bestie, there were no circumstances on earth under which Heather and Owen were allowed to be friends. Those were the rules.

Whose rules? said a voice in her head.

The school rules, thought Heather. Before the voice could argue that there was nothing in the Harmswood Handbook about such things, she added, My rules.

So change the rules, said the voice.

Professor Blake replaced her glasses, sliding them down her nose so that she could peer at Heather over the rim. If she noticed Heather’s little internal war with herself, she gave no indication.

“Witches and cats have a long history of working very well together,” said the professor. “Plus, Owen’s background gives him rather a unique perspective on…well…everything. You could do worse than give him a chance.”

“A chance at what?” Heather crossed her arms over her chest. Mother had taught her that there was only one thing boys would ever want from her. Two, if you counted her family’s fortune. And what sort of background could Owen possibly have that would make him worth knowing?

“A chance to be your friend,” said Professor Blake.

“Puh-lease,” said Heather. “I have enough friends, thanks. And even if I didn’t, I could do a lot better than Owen Litterbox. Being seen in public with him would be social suicide.”

Professor Blake’s face became hard. “What have we discussed about being careful with your words?” She shook her head. “Words contain incredible amounts of power, Heather. In the short time you’ve been in my office, you’ve mentioned hate, death, suicide… I’d remove that last one from my vocabulary completely if I were you. Heather, you should not dismiss life so casually. Especially someone like you.”

“You mean someone like me who is on the universe’s hit list,” said Heather.

“No, child. I mean that someone like you—an intelligent young witch capable of harnessing immeasurable power—should have learned by now to think before she speaks.” Professor Blake shook her head. “You should know better.”

After months of these meetings, Heather was bone tired of always being careful about this, or tiptoeing around that. She’d had no idea that she’d accidentally cursed Finn and his cousin in that bar back in Nashville. Okay…maybe she’d suspected something. But there was no way she could have known that Finn’s cousin was about to walk into the woods and get killed by a random bear. Nor could she have imagined that Kai Xanthopoulos would suddenly come into her powers and turn into some wrathful Greek Vengeance Fairy whose feathers could dole out ultimate justice. A feather that now, for better or worse, had Heather’s name on it. Heather could kick the bucket at any moment, if Fate decided she deserved it.

“Fine,” said Heather. “I’ll give Litterbox a chance. But the second he barfs up a hairball, our partnership is officially over.”

“Thank you, Heather.”

Heather’s lip curled. Great. Now she was doing pity favors for the Head Witch. Her friends were going to treat her like she had leprosy. She was the unluckiest witch in the world.

“Give me a talisman,” she told the professor. “Something that will keep my life from sucking so bad. Something that will turn me into a better person. Something that will keep me safe.” She hadn’t meant to add that last one, but she couldn’t take the words back once they were said.

She really did need to get better about that.

“I gave you one.” Professor Blake pointed to the silver crescent moon-and-star pentacle that hung in the hollow of Heather’s throat.

Heather reached up and rubbed the cool metal of the star with her fingers, a habit she’d gotten into since receiving the pendant. “I don’t think it’s working.”

Professor Blake smirked. “You’re not working.”

“What?”

The professor sighed. “I really was hoping that you’d figure all this out on your own in time, but it’s been months now. I swear, you’re the stubbornest, least responsible witch I’ve ever met.”

“Thank you,” Heather said instinctively. It was the reply she always gave when Mother said the same things about her.

“Don’t thank me,” said the professor. “I lied to you when I gave you that pendant last year. It’s not really from a third century ritual headdress.”

Heather blinked. The Head Witch lied to a student? When her parents heard about this, they were going to eat Professor Blake for breakfast. “Do tell.”

“I got it off the internet. It was supposed to be a gift for my niece, but you and I had our first meeting that day. You came in looking so defeated and vulnerable…and the necklace had just arrived in the mail… I decided you needed it more than Karyssa did.”

Heather remembered that day. She had prepared the whole “vulnerable” act in advance so that Professor Blake would feel sorry for her and go easy on whatever punishment she’d planned. Apparently, Heather had played her part a little too well.

“What did you get for your niece instead?” Heather asked, feigning concern.

“I bought her something else. That’s not the point. You didn’t learn the lesson you needed to learn.”

“Which was…?” Heather attempted, in the hope that Professor Blake would fill in the blank and move this meeting along. The cheer squad was meeting in the gym soon to start rehearsing the Thriller zombie flash mob. As squad captain, it would be nice if Heather arrived a little early.

Professor Blake narrowed her eyes at Heather. “If you can point out the most powerful talisman in this office right now, you are welcome to walk out with it today.”

Heather’s brows rose in surprise. Was she serious? Professor Blake was a great witch who no doubt possessed objects ten times more charmed than anything the average witch had lying about the house. This was an incredible offer. Too incredible.

There had to be a catch.

Heather scanned the professor’s messy desk and the shelves behind her laden with knick knacks. This task was like trying to find a needle in a haystack. Which gave her an idea.

The most powerful object in the room was probably not something flamboyant and obvious. It would be something more like a needle, plain but at the same time sharp and useful. That ruled out the scrying mirror and the crystal ball…and probably anything else made out of crystal, for that matter. It had to be “…something of little or no value. Something with a story behind it. Or lots of stories. Something that had a life of its own before settling here.” Heather realized she was speaking aloud again, without thinking.

This time, Professor Blake did not scold her about it. Instead, she looked hopeful. “You’re on the right track.”

“Are you hiding it in a drawer?” Heather asked.

“No.”

Heather scanned the office frantically for something old. Something traveled. Something that had been worn down by time. Something that was no doubt…staring right at her. She pointed at the raven and enthusiastically exclaimed, “George!”

The professor looked to the heavens for a moment, and then hung her head. “No.”

Heather threw up her hands. “Can you please just tell me? Otherwise, we’ll be here all day.”

“It is my job to teach,” said Professor Blake. “I feel like I have failed you.”

Heather, who usually had an answer for everything, couldn’t think of any way to respond to that. So she said nothing.

Finally, the professor sighed. “It’s you, Miss Hayden. The most powerful talisman in my office right now is you.” She shook her head gently. “I just wish you believed in yourself enough to recognize that.”

Heather couldn’t believe her ears. It was like she’d been lifted up and taken down a peg at the same time. She was a talisman? She had a decent amount of power, yes, but when it came to power, Professor Blake had more, surely. Besides, how could someone be their own talisman?

“Do you want the necklace back?” Heather whispered. She had hundreds of pieces of jewelry in her room, all of them more valuable than this cheap piece of whatever Professor Blake had bought with her teacher’s salary. But Heather had grown accustomed to the soothing feel of the metal beneath her fingers, the soft curve of the crescent moon, the sharp points of the star…

Professor Blake waved a hand in the air. “Keep it,” she said. “It was my gift to you, which already classifies it as a charm. It’s more useful around your neck than it is lying in a box somewhere. May it serve as a reminder of what you should really be concentrating on. And speaking of”—she glanced at the hourglass-shaped clock of bones on the wall—“it’s time you start your meditation.”

Still stymied, Heather responded only with, “Yes, professor.”

From out of nowhere, Professor Blake lifted a lucite box and set it at the front of her desk. “You know what to do. I’ll set the timer. And please, no backtalk or I’ll just reset it.”

Heather simply nodded. She pushed the leather chairs aside to reveal the rune-lined circle printed in the carpet. When she had settled in the middle of the circle with her legs crossed, back straight, and hands on her knees, Professor Blake flipped the clock upside down and resumed her paperwork.

Heather closed her eyes and took three deep breaths to center herself, inhaling through her nose and exhaling through her mouth.

“Words spoken in anger, beware,

A blessing is spoken with care.

A witch-given gift is a charm,

And ever we pledge: do no harm.”

Heather said the chant so softly that she barely felt the words in the back of her throat. She repeated it three times before opening her eyes and staring at the object inside the lucite box.

The feather.

The feather that could seek vengeance upon anyone. The feather with the ability to take a life for a life. By all rights, Finn could have asked for Heather's life in exchange for his pack-brother's, but he had not. The feather was her responsibility now. If it was used to do harm in any way for the rest of Heather’s life, it would snuff out her life in less than a heartbeat.

For all anyone else knew, the ragged, silver-gray thing might have fallen out of an aged pelican. But to a witch’s trained eye, it pulsed with magic. Even suspended in a vacuum inside that clear lucite box, the power of it raised goosebumps on Heather’s skin. The silky down along the quill shaft slowly waved in a nonexistent breeze. The sharp silver edge of the feather winked at her, reflecting a light in the room that had not moved.

What kind of witch am I? Heather asked the feather.

The feather did not answer.

That nagging voice inside her head responded instead. You’ve been staring at that stupid feather for months, asking it the same question, and you still don’t have an answer. Why do you think the outcome would be any different now?

I must persevere, thought Heather. I have to believe that one day this will work. Reluctantly she added, I have to believe in myself.

Puh-lease, the voice mocked. You? You don’t believe in anything.

Maybe I should, said Heather. Maybe if I keep staring at this stupid feather, one day I will.

Nope, said the voice. You have to actually want to change before anything like that will ever happen.

Maybe I want to change, Heather fought back. I can, can’t I? Professor Blake said I was my own talisman. If that’s really true, then maybe I can change myself. Maybe I can protect myself. Maybe I can make my own luck. Just thinking those words felt ridiculous.

You’re on the right track, the voice said, quoting the professor.

I hate you, thought Heather.

Hate is just such a strong word, the voice quoted again.

Stop being a pain in the butt, thought Heather.

I’m not in your butt, argued the voice. I’m in your head.

Then say something useful! Heather thought-screamed.

Fine, the voice said in a huff. If Fate decided to use the feather and stop your heart today, right this very minute, what about your life would you miss the most?

Heather knew what she was supposed to say: Family, friends, school…that sort of thing. But this conversation was happening all in her head right now. Professor Blake couldn’t hear a word. The office was shielded; no one beyond that door could read her mind. So for the first time in a very long time, Heather was honest.

I would miss cheer squad, Heather answered. I would miss lunches with Poppy and Oleander. I would miss dancing. Not that she particularly cared about school functions, but they did afford her the opportunity to dance. Unbidden, the dance with Owen sprang into her mind. Heather allowed herself to relive the memory. Professor Blake and her office faded away, and Heather reveled for a moment in Owen’s peaceful embrace.

The professor didn’t have to know about that either.

I would miss all the life I haven’t lived yet, thought Heather. I’ve never been loved. I’ve never been anyone’s sun and moon and whole world. Maybe I was to my parents, once, briefly, in that year before Katy was born, but I was too young to remember it. How fair is that? If this conversation had been taking place in the real world, Heather might have shed a tear. Thankfully, it was not. I don’t even love myself, she added.

Which is the biggest shame, said the voice. As a bellwether, you are admired by many. But until you know what you are and love yourself for it, you won’t be able to recognize that love in anyone else.

Heather had no idea what the word “bellwether” meant. To the best of her knowledge, she had never heard the term before in her life.

So…how could it pop up in a conversation she was having with herself?

Heather felt soft fingers brush her cheek, where a tear might have been had it fallen. Heather turned her head and saw a woman sitting beside her. She had dusky skin and long black hair. Broad shoulders, long limbs, and big hands. Everything about her was streaked in silvery gray.

Who are you? Heather asked without words.

The woman smiled. Your guardian angel.

“Time’s up.” Professor Blake’s voice pierced the silence. Heather blinked.

The woman was gone.

“Did you learn anything today?” Professor Blake asked as Heather lifted herself off the carpet.

“I…I don’t know,” said Heather. “Maybe.” Maybe there hadn’t been a woman after all. Maybe Heather had fallen asleep while meditating and dreamed the whole thing. Maybe spores from George’s preserved carcass had gotten into her bloodstream and caused her to hallucinate.

Stranger things had happened at this school.

“Better luck next time.” Professor Blake moved the feather box back to wherever it had been hiding behind her desk. “See you next week.”

Dazed, Heather picked up her book bag and slipped out the enormous oak door. She took a moment in the hallway outside Professor Blake’s office to turn on her cell phone and compose herself.

What had happened in there?

Before she had a chance to think about it, her phone immediately started buzzing with saved texts. In her absence, Poppy and Oleander had carried on quite the conversation about Miss Sunshine’s incompetence. Instead of bothering to reply, Heather headed directly to the gym.

Guardian angel or no, she didn’t want to be late for dance practice.

3

Owen decided to hide in the gymnasium.

He’d never been particularly athletic. Sure, he’d enjoyed playing stones and cricket with the other boys in Egypt, but never during the day. It was just too bloody hot. The baron, as kind as he was eccentric, never complained about the length of time it took Owen to fetch his coffee or his hat or anything else, just as long as it arrived in the end. Owen enjoyed savoring life. Slowly. Preferably with good food and lots of naps.

Life as a cat had only enhanced that enjoyment.

He’d slipped out of Consumer Magics class quickly, with the knowledge that “Miss Sunshine” would be trapped teaching other classes. The only reason he was off to the gym now was because the school day was officially over, and that’s where Kai and Finn and Bellamy and the rest of his friends were headed.

It was the last place anyone would look for him.

“So what exactly happened in your Consumer Magics class?” Hubble Hobson asked aloud. “The rest of us didn’t have it until fifth period—by then everyone was buzzing. Did Miss Sub-shine really partner the Sith with the Jedi?

As usual, Owen had no idea what Hubble was talking about. The rest of the group simultaneously burst out with vehement replies.

“Poppy Flanders is a complete nitwit!” said Kai.

“At least she’s enthusiastic,” said Tinker. “Working with Oleander is like working with a slug. In a coma.”

“If Duko calls me a dog one more time…” said Finn.

Kai laughed. “He’s one to bark!”

“I know y’all think I have the patience of a saint, but Zev Gunnolf is gonna make me lose my religion,” said Bellamy.

Owen wondered offhandedly exactly what the fairy religion was…and what it might take to make a fairy lose it. Especially one as upbeat as Bellamy.

“I’d be more than happy to stab him for you,” Maya said cheerfully. “Just say the word.”

“Me first,” said Tinker.

Bellamy kissed the back of Tinker’s hand and batted her eyelashes. “My hero.”

Owen laughed at the exchange. There was enough of a ruckus that his lack of comment regarding the partnership with Heather went unnoticed.

“What food were y’all assigned?” Bellamy asked Kai.

“Ladyfingers,” said Kai. “Ones that look like actual fingers. Delaney Delectables’s sells something very similar—we’d have this in the bag if Poppy would shut up long enough for me to get a word in edgewise. You?”

“Cake pop eyeballs,” said Bellamy. “But if Zev touches my wings without permission one more time I’m gonna pop out his eyeballs.”

“I’ll do that,” said Maya. “After Tinker stabs him.”

“Deal,” said Tinker.

“My, y’all seem extra stabby today,” said Bellamy. “More than usual.”

Maya batted her eyelashes at the fairy. “It’s just that we love you so much. The bloodshed is merely a bonus.”

“Duko and I have to make mummy-dogs,” Finn growled. “How’s that for irony?”

There was silence for a moment, before everyone burst out laughing. It was a fitting assignment for the two most notorious werewolves in their grade. Owen rather thought the canines deserved each other.

Still smiling, Kai asked Owen, “What food did you and Horrible Heather get?”

“Chocolate chip cookies,” he said with a chuckle…and then realized he was the only one laughing.

“That’s it?” Finn asked.

Owen nodded. “Like chocolate biscuits, yeah?”

“Not where I’m from,” said Bellamy. “The South Carolina biscuit is a thing of beauty and a joy forever.”

“Oh, hush, Bell.” Kai waved the fairy away. “You know they call cookies ‘biscuits’ across the pond.” She turned back to Owen. “You sure that’s all the card said? That doesn’t sound zombie-themed at all.”

Owen shrugged. “That’s all we got. If we don’t have to worry about making them zombified, we’re a bit of all right, aren’t we? Anyone can make a proper biscuit. Can’t they?”

Kai bit her lip. “Chocolate chip cookies can be deceptive,” she said. “So much depends on the ingredients, and the temperature of the ingredients, and the order in which you mix them, and the way you place them on the sheet…”

“This is sounding less and less fun by the minute,” said Owen.

Kai patted him on the back. “Don’t worry. I’ll help you out. I’d never let Horrible Heather hold you back.”

Owen bent his head to her shoulder. “Thanks, love.”

Immediately, annoyingly, Finn stepped between them. “We all need to help each other out, if we’re going to get through this project with our sanity intact.”

No matter where Finn placed his stinky wolf-bum, he was never going to stop Kai and Owen from being friends…a fact about which Owen loved to remind the wolf-shifter as often as possible. “Explain to me what’s going on here again?” Owen asked over Finn’s head. “This flash flood thing?”

“Flash mob,” Kai corrected.

“It’s so cool,” said Bellamy. “At first, it just looks like a bunch of random people walkin’ around. But then a song starts over a loudspeaker somewhere, and surprise! You’re smack dab in the middle of a musical number!” Her long pony tail bobbed up and down and her wings trembled with excitement. Bits of fairy dust slid down her flared skirt and scattered along the path as she walked.

Owen did not think that sounded cool at all. In fact, he thought it sounded rather horrific. Judging by the expression on Finn’s face, the werewolf agreed.

“It’s actually kind of fun,” Tinker assured them. “When you’re in the audience, there’s this moment when you think everyone around you has suddenly gone insane. Then you realize what’s going on, and you can’t wait to see what happens next.”

“On the other side, when you’re part of the mob itself, it’s fun to watch the audience,” said Kai.

“The most fun is when everyone gets to watch it later, online,” said Sam, the were-sloth. He and his sister Natalie were recent transfer students from up north, but they weren’t quite as out of touch with the modern world as Finn and Owen. Finn had spent most of his life in the woods of Tennessee, discouraged from making contact with civilization. Owen had spent most of his life in trash cans and dumpsters.

“It’ll be a blast,” Hubble said with enthusiasm. As the president of the drama club, the kobold said everything with enthusiasm. “I convinced Ausrinne to go through the rag bin and see what she could salvage for our zombie costumes.” Owen thought the bright red pants and jacket the kobold was wearing looked rather like a costume already, but he refrained from saying so.

“Hubble!” Natalie, also part of the drama club, was the one person who had no qualms about taking her director to task. “You really need to stop using Ausrinne as your personal tailor.”

“Please. She loves it! The woman lives and breathes fabric! Besides”—Hubble cleared his throat and lowered his voice—“I promised to take her out to dinner after tonight’s dance rehearsal.”

There were encouraging hoots and hollers from the group in reaction to Hubble’s statement. Tinker, Finn, and Sam took turns patting Hubble on the back. Kai and Maya smiled at each other. Bellamy clapped her hands. Natalie seemed to be reserving judgment. During her time at Harmswood, Natalie had become known as quite the warrior. It was in her nature to be overprotective of her friends. Especially the ones with whom she had traveled to the goblin kingdom last winter.

“I’m just looking forward to dancing again,” said Maya. “I don’t care what the reason is.” Like Heather, Maya Cordova was a witch. Unlike Heather, Maya’s family lived in Nocturne Falls, and therefore had more in common with the other locals.

Or, as Owen liked to call them, the “popular unpopular” crowd.

The snooty rich kids might be under the impression that they ran the school, but Kai and her friends were more approachable. As locals, they were literally the kids next door. If any of them needed anything, the student body of Harmswood would rally. And had, at least once that Owen knew about.

Truth be told, Owen was currently more concerned about the dancing than he was about the Arachne discovering his whereabouts. From what he could gather, it sounded like the goal of this flash mob was some sort of intricately choreographed chorus line. Owen didn’t have the first clue about twenty-first century dancing. At the Midwinter Masquerade, he’d feigned a bit of bopping about before leading Heather in a waltz—a classic dance he’d managed to learn back when he walked on two legs during the last turn of the century. Old Owen knew how to foxtrot. New Owen recognized that no modern teenager listened to ragtime.

It wasn’t often that Kai or her friends made Owen feel out of place, but Owen knew in his bones that he was about to embarrass himself.

The bleachers in the gymnasium had been dematerialized—the same had been done for the masquerade, and various other functions. But there were no decorations this time, only a large white screen that had somehow manifested on one of the walls. Owen was confused for a moment. Were they here to dance, or watch a moving picture?

There seemed to be twice as many students on the floor as there had been during the masquerade. Owen’s heart fluttered. Either every single person at Harmswood was about to witness his failure, or no one would notice him at all. He sincerely hoped it was the latter.

“I’m gonna tell the rest of the squad that we’re here,” said Bellamy.

“Knock ‘em dead, babe,” said Tinker. The fairy stood on tiptoe to kiss the tall goblin on the cheek and then bounced away into the crowd.

Shortly after Bellamy left, the lights dimmed. What had once been a lull of conversation turned into ghostlike moaning, shrieks, laughter, and cheers. A few of the weres howled.

Sam rubbed his hands together. “Ooh, this is going to be good!”

Hubble popped the collar of his red jacket. “You have no idea,” he said, his dazzling blue eyes full of mischief.

A moving picture flashed up on the screen, with the word THRILLER in giant red letters. A car drove onto the screen. The girl in the car wore an outfit much like Bellamy’s. When her boyfriend transformed into some kind of were-being, all the weres in the gymnasium cheered.

Owen cheered along with them.

When the scene changed to modern day, Hubble began to hop and spin around the other students on the gym floor. Owen understood the red jacket now—the singer on the screen was wearing something very similar. Some of the students poked fun at Hubble. Some pretended to dance with him. Hubble danced with a few and ignored the rest, making his way up to the front of the gym.

When zombies appeared on the moving picture screen, zombies also appeared in the gym.

There were more shrieks and jeers. Owen strained to see what was going on when one of the zombies came up from behind and bumped right into him.

It was Heather.

“Nnnnnnn,” she moaned unintelligibly. Her black clothes were in tatters. Her hair was a stringy mess. Her skin looked pale and bloodless, and much of it was covered in gaping wounds. The only unmarred things about her person were the sun-and-moon choker and her button-up boots.

“Are you all right?” Owen whispered.

Heather moaned again before shuffling on. Had she winked at him?

And then the zombies began to dance, both on screen and off.

The crowd went crazy.

Owen watched the dancing, mesmerized. To his astonishment, a few of the steps seemed very familiar to him. That one looked like the cakewalk. That one was definitely a modified grizzly bear. The dance went on, and on. And on. There were spins and gyrations and more grizzly bear, with a bit of spastic fit thrown in.

Hubble looked to be having the time of his life. Bellamy was up there too, with Heather and the rest of the cheer squad all dressed like zombies. Suddenly, Natalie and Sam also broke into dance steps and joined the dancing throng at the front of the gym. Owen laughed out loud. He shouldn’t have been surprised at their participation, but for a moment, he was.

“This is a flash mob,” Kai said to him.

“Fascinating!” Owen called back over the music. “And a little terrifying!”

Kai patted his hand. “You’ll be fine. I promise.”

The song was long, and the dance did seem rather complicated, but if anyone in the group was a hair out of step, no one noticed. The whole production was sheer delight. No matter where you stood in that room, you were part of the show.

At the end of the song, the dancers turned their backs to the audience. The lights stayed dim. The film continued to play out. And when the singer turned around to look out from the screen, the dancers turned as one to look back over their shoulders. The singer’s eyes glowed yellow. The Harmswood dancers’ eyes all glowed yellow too—with the exception of Hubble, whose eyes burned with that eerie blue light. The soundtrack’s ominous laughter reverberated throughout the room, its echoes finally dwindling to silence.

Every student in the gymnasium burst into thunderous applause.

The cheering went on for a good long while. Even Owen was the smallest bit excited at the prospect of being a part of something so fantastic. Slowly, the gym lights flickered and came back to life. Heather stepped to the front of the company of dancers and put a finger to her throat.

“Thank you, everyone!” Heather’s booming voice silenced the rowdy assembly. Yet another example of the casual magic of Harmswood—using a spell to amplify one’s speech instead of a microphone. “Now just imagine all of us doing that down Black Cat Boulevard the night before Zombie Prom!” More applause answered her.

“Horrible Heather sure can put on a show,” Kai whispered to Owen. “Too bad it’s all fake.”

Owen’s brow furrowed. Was it fake? He absolutely believed the stories of abuse that Kai had suffered under Heather’s reign, but he saw no artifice in Heather’s current demeanor. Her face was flushed from the dancing, and her clear tone conveyed nothing but excitement.

He remembered a nursery tale from his childhood about a boy who cried wolf. The prankster frightened the shepherd by yelling “Wolf!” so many times, that his warning was not heeded when a real wolf came to call. Heather had been disingenuous so many times, there was no telling who the real Heather was any more.

Only…Owen had seen the truth of her once. That scared girl who had sought safety in a dance—she had been real.

There was a mumble of words from someone in the crowd.

Thankfully, Heather repeated the question. “Will we break any records? Well, the largest Thriller dance on record was held in Mexico, and there were more than ten thousand people there.” A few gasps rippled through the audience. “But Dragon Con did one in Atlanta a few years ago—we’d love to break the Georgia record!”

Cheers again. Smart girl, thought Owen. Everyone loves a challenge.

“Now I realize there is a lot of choreography, but I don’t want you to be discouraged. When we break it down into smaller parts, you’ll realize just how manageable it is. But first, we’re going to do a bit of warm up. Get your bodies moving. DJ Oleander, can you give us something with a beat?”

“But what if we don’t know how to dance?” Owen asked under his breath. The gym went silent. Instead of sotto voce, his question had been amplified and projected to the entire room, as if he’d had a microphone spell on himself. Which he most certainly did not.

How did you do that? mouthed Kai.

Owen shrugged, completely perplexed. So much for surviving this event unnoticed.

“I can help!”

At first, Owen thought it was Bellamy who piped up and offered herself as tutor. When the sea of students parted to reveal the frosted pink pigtails of a perky Poppy Flanders, he was more than a bit surprised.

“You know how to skip, don’t you?” Poppy asked him.

Owen had visions of a thousand teen zombies popping up and down like hop-scotchers on sugar. “I…maybe?”

“Come on. It’s easy!” Poppy began hopping on one foot, then the other, in a circle all around him. Owen watched her in fascination, unsure what any of her gymnastics had to do with dancing.

“Poppy, sweets, you’re losing a lot in translation.”

Poppy stopped skipping as soon as Heather walked into view. The students around them instinctively stepped back to watch what was about to happen. Owen felt Kai step forward, ready to come to his rescue, but he caught her eye and shook his head slightly. He could deal with this on his own.

In point of fact, he would rather deal with Heather on his own.

They stared at each other for a moment, with what felt like leagues of space between them. Was this the spot on the floor where they’d danced all those months ago? Had they been standing in these exact positions when the snow globe had exploded? Without the decorations, it was hard to say.

He wondered if Heather was thinking the same thing. Briefly, he wished he could communicate telepathically with her, like he sometimes did with Kai. If he knew how this scene was about to play out, his heart wouldn’t be beating quite so rapidly.

Heather raised a finger and tapped twice on the opposite side of her throat. “Oleander, give me a beat.” Her words were not broadcast to the room—Owen assumed this version of the spell sent her instructions directly to the person whose name she spoke. Fascinating.

A thumping bass line filled the room like a heartbeat. Owen tried to slow his own to match it.

“Listen to the beat,” Heather said. “Count it out. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four.”

Owen did so, silently in his head, so as not to accidentally amplify anything else. One, two, three, four.

“Now clench your fists. Grit your teeth. Make your entire body tense, every muscle. Got it?”

Owen nodded.

“Now relax. Relax every muscle until you’re ready to melt into the floor.”

Behind Heather, a sea of faces relaxed simultaneously. Her instructions had merely been spoken to Owen, but the rest of the student body unconsciously followed her lead.

“Count the beats again. Count to four. Then tense up and relax again.”

One, two, three, four. Tense. One, two, three, four. Relax. They did this three times. By the third time, Owen could feel the bass pulse through his chest. One, two, three, four.

“Now I want you to tap out the beats with your heel. No, not your toe.”

Owen realized what he was doing and shifted his weight accordingly. It felt awkward at first, but the longer he did it, the more comfortable it became. Like an afterthought.

“Your shoulders are already moving with the beat. Can you feel that? Go with it. But stay relaxed.”

“What if my head wants to move too?” Owen risked asking. Happily, his voice did not seem louder than that beat. One, two, three, four.

“Go with it,” Heather said again. “Any part of you that wants to move, let it. Don’t move to the music. Let the music move you.”

Owen realized he was moving. And there was music. At some point, Oleander had added a bit of melody to the bass line, and he hadn’t even noticed. The students around them were undulating too, in their own ways, but all to the beat of that bass line. One, two, three, four. Heel stomp. One, two, three, four. Shift to the other heel. One, two, three, four. Owen closed his eyes and tried to shut out the other students, tried to stop himself from thinking about whatever they might be thinking about, or whether or not he looked silly doing whatever he was doing. If he couldn’t see what he was doing, he couldn’t be embarrassed by it. He concentrated on the beat and on the music, letting them both move him.

When he opened his eyes, he saw three things. Firstly: the whole gymnasium was dancing together. Secondly: he was dancing with Heather again. Thirdly: Kai had noticed.

Kai’s body moved only slightly with the pulsating beat. She looked from Owen to Heather and then back again. Her dark eyebrows went from curious to concerned.

Is this a thing now? Kai’s voice echoed inside his head, through their special bond that afforded them the luxury of not speaking aloud.

Owen wanted to explain, take the time to tell her the whole story, but there were too many other things rolling around in his brain that he wasn’t ready to share with Kai yet.

“I’m dying for the loo,” he said to no one, before quickly elbowing his way through the dancing students and out the gymnasium door. He took a deep breath and leaned his head back against the building. He could feel the bass from inside the room reverberating in his bones. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four.

“Greetings, Owen,” said the Arachne.

One, two, three…blast.

4

“I need some air,” Heather said to Poppy. “Take over for me.”

“What?” Poppy’s pink ponytails bobbed up and down. Her black-rimmed eyes became saucers.

Poppy was a great cheerleader, but not at all cut out for a leadership position. Oleander would have been a slightly better choice, but if Heather wanted to find out why Owen had suddenly run away, there was no time like the present to go after him.

“Let Oleander help you. Or Bellamy and the rest of the squad. Or Hubble. He knows how to direct, sort of.” Heather needed to lay out all the options that might never occur to Poppy herself. “Or just let everybody dance a few more songs. I’ll be right back.”

Heather would not be right back. She would be back when she felt like it, and Poppy knew that.

Why did she even care about Owen?

Heather told herself it was to preserve her grade in Consumer Magics. Whatever had been wrong with Owen in class today, he obviously hadn’t gotten over it. Maybe it was a lazy cat thing. Even so, if she went home with another C on her report card, Daddy wouldn’t let her get the new car she’d had her eye on.

Well…he would. But that wasn’t the point.

And how had he hijacked her magic microphone? That sort of weird connection just didn’t happen. Ever.

She took one step forward before she noticed Kai Xanthopoulos trying to stare a hole into her. Kai obviously knew something was up. But Heather didn’t need to explain herself to Kai or anyone else. If Kai wanted to know what was going on with her feline BFF, she could ask him.

In the meantime, Heather didn’t want to make it look as if she was running around after some low rent boy—a boy she wasn’t even supposed to care about—so she stuck her nose in the air, pivoted on her heel, and made her way to the girls’ locker room instead. She could exit out the door there.

Heather caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror as she sped by, once again impressed by her ensemble. Teased out hair with temporary lowlights, black glitter in the pigment around her haunted eyes, strategically ripped couture and smart boots…she could strut down a Paris catwalk in this outfit. Being undead never looked so hot. Maybe Zombie Chic would be her parting gift to the student body this year.

Squinting into the harsh daylight, she sped along the outside wall of the gymnasium, peeking around each corner before sprinting to the next. In the heat of the late Georgia afternoon, she was glad she’d opted for a miniskirt. Mostly, she felt like a thief. A stupid, ridiculous, well-dressed thief. And yet…she stopped herself before turning into the courtyard.

Heather could make out two voices. One was definitely Owen’s. Crouching behind a bush, Heather risked peeking around the corner of the building.

“I saw a photo of you once,” said Miss Sunshine. “You have not changed a bit.” Her words dripped with irony.

Heather quickly crouched down, completely out of sight. Branches caught in her teased hair and already-run fishnet stockings, but she didn’t care. Not only did Miss Sunshine know Owen, she obviously knew enough about him to make some sort of snide joke that Heather didn’t get.

“I spent a hundred years in the body of a cat,” said Owen. “I’ve watched people come into this world, and then leave it again. I’ve witnessed empires fall. I’ve walked beside orphic families as they made a foothold in this country. That’s more than enough change, I’d say.”

Heather’s brain quickly ran through everything she knew about animal shifters. None of it included anything about extending one’s life expectancy beyond that of the average healthy, long-lived human. Was Owen not a true were? Plenty of stories existed about were who had not been born so—like that podunk town in northern Virginia where Sam and his annoying sister Natalie came from. Their entire population had been changed into weres back in 2012.

A few years ago. Not a hundred years ago.

And what on earth were “orphic” families?

“You have not commented on my appearance. Surely, you recognized me too.”

Heather clapped a hand over her mouth to stop herself from laughing out loud. That woman must seriously be insecure, if she cared what some high school boy thought about her looks.

“Of course,” said Owen. “All you Arachnes look alike.”

“So you know what I have come for.”

“Just as you know I have no intention of giving it to you.”

“Only my sisters and I have the power to free you from the Great Sphinx’s curse. If you refuse to help us, you will remain a cat for all time.”

“Fine.” Heather could hear the shrug in Owen’s voice. “I’ve found a community of similar individuals, and I’ve made a home. Being a cat is virtually commonplace here. It is no hardship to me.”

Miss Sunshine made a noise at that—a sound no human could make. It had not occurred to Heather until this moment to wonder what type of paranormal creature their substitute might be. She had supposed Miss Sunshine was a witch, since so many of the teachers were, but it seemed that she was something more. Something dangerously more.

“Tell me who the Fury is, and I will kill them myself,” said Miss Sunshine.

“Never,” said Owen.

What exactly was an Arachne? And why did she and her sisters want to kill Kai? Whatever conversation Heather had been expecting to overhear, this was not it. Her gut told her to protect herself immediately, however she could.

Listen to your instincts, said the voice in her head.

Heather bit her lip. She took note of her surroundings; another errant branch scraped her cheek as she did so. She’d moved off the stone path and was kneeling on the ground beside the bushes. Excellent. Using the first two fingers of her right hand she drew a circle of protection in the dirt around herself, as all young witches at Harmswood were taught to do their very first year. She wished she could extend that protection to Owen, but her skills were not at that level. If such a thing were even possible.

If she leapt up now and made her presence known, it was possible that she might frighten Miss Sunshine away, but she also might prompt the sub-beast to do something worse.

Or, Heather would say the wrong thing and end up cursing everyone in the courtyard, including herself.

She pressed the moon and star of her necklace between her fingers…and scowled. The charm was as useless as she felt at the moment. It held no more power than the belief she’d had in it until this afternoon.

She was her own talisman, Professor Blake had said. She needed to believe in herself.

Heather took a calming breath. She closed her eyes and thought of Owen, thought of a safe place.

Vermont.

She imagined him standing beside her in the circle, as if they stood beside a roaring fire in a cabin at the top of a snow-capped mountain, far away from the rest of the world.

“If you will not tell me, I will simply find out for myself.”

Miss Sunshine’s voice sounded deeper now. Heather recognized that tone: it was one burdened with power. Heather’s mother’s tone dropped like that right before she performed a spell—usually in anger. Heather wondered if Owen had any clue what was about to happen.

“You will get nothing from me,” Owen said defiantly.

“Let’s see about that, shall we?”

The mental image of Heather’s mountain paradise shifted. The walls and floor of her imaginary cabin turned to shifting sands. The heat of the fireplace became that of the burning sun. The slate hearth transformed into a different kind of stone, rising up, up into the heavens. Heather leaned back and squinted into the sky. Looming far above her was a giant stone face. The face of a king. A face with no discernible nose.

Heather tried to open her eyes—her real eyes, back in the real world, the ones attached to the body kneeling in the dirt at Harmswood—but she couldn’t. Her every muscle seized in terror. She wasn’t in the Harmswood courtyard anymore.

She was in Egypt.

An Owen stood next to her, but it was not the Owen she had imagined into the protective circle with her. This Owen’s skin was two shades darker; his hair two shades lighter. His shirt and trousers were plain cotton or linen. Both were the same color as the sand, but if they had started out that way or become that way from wear, Heather couldn’t tell.

The most remarkable thing about this Owen was his energy. It was the same never-ending banked-fire type of energy that the rest of the teen boys at her school possessed. Heather hadn’t truly considered the difference until this very moment. The Owen she knew was…calmer? Serene? Nonchalant? Definitely more catlike.

Not that she knew Owen very well. She didn’t know him at all, really. But she knew enough to know that her Owen, the Harmswood Owen, was a different sort of animal.

This Owen, who had also been looking up at the great monument, turned and smiled at her excitedly. Heather gasped. He couldn’t have seen her—it took her a moment to realize that he must be looking through her apparition to someone standing behind her. The reason it took her a moment was because his eyes were so strange.

They were brown.

Harmswood Owen’s eyes were not brown. This was one thing Heather most definitely did know. She had stared into them for the better part of a waltz, right up to the moment when he’d saved her life. Her Owen’s eyes were green. Pale green, like jade dipped in gold.

“It’s spectacular!” Brown-eyed Owen shouted his appreciation for the carved behemoth through Heather, to the person she now turned to see.

Owen hadn’t been wrong. All the Arachnes—who or whatever they were—did look alike. Same dark hair and eyes, same perfect skin. The only difference between this woman and Miss Sunshine was her clothing. Egypt Arachne wore a sort of navy uniform, skirt loose to the mid calf and belted tight around the waist, with a scarf knotted much like a necktie and a flat, wide-brimmed hat. Heather coveted her boots.

“Be sure to stand back far enough that you can see the pharaoh’s face in its entirety.” While beautiful, this woman did not sound quite like the sexy substitute at Harmswood. Was she Greek? Arabic? Egyptian? Heather had never heard an Egyptian accent before.

Brown-eyed Owen took a few steps back from the monstrosity, his bare toes sinking into the sand.

“They say if you stare into the eyes of the Great Sphinx, you will learn all his secrets,” said the Arachne.

“Imagine the things he has seen in all the centuries he has watched over this land.” Owen’s voice was filled with wonder. “So many secrets,” he breathed.

Heather could also see the temptation. Knowledge was its own kind of power. Everybody knew that.

“Knowledge is power,” the Arachne said predictably. “But I know you young boys. You do not have the patience required to sit and stare at one thing for a very long time.”

“I could,” said Owen, almost to himself. “I could stare at this majestic beast until I turned to sand myself.”

Boldly, the Arachne laughed at him. “You are a sweet boy, but I’m afraid I do not believe you. Come, now. Your uncle will be waiting.”

It was the laugh that did it. Heather had used that same laugh more than once to get a guy to do a job he was unmotivated to do. Fix a broken parade float, dress up for Halloween, participate in a school-sponsored choreographed flash mob. Laugh at a man, and he will instantly work as hard as he can to prove you wrong about anything.

“The baron is waiting for some forgotten pharaoh’s tomb to suddenly pop up beneath his feet. He’s certainly not waiting for me.” Owen glanced up at the Great Sphinx’s head again. “Let me try. If I can unlock these mysterious secrets, perhaps one of them will tell me where the baron should dig next. We can all go home rich as Croesus.”

“I couldn’t leave you to do this,” lied the Arachne. “Even if I could, you don’t have enough water to last you through the night.”

“Give me your canteen.” Owen’s imperial tone sounded a bit more like the Harmswood Owen. “Come back for me at daybreak.”

“No.”

“Do it, or I’ll tell the baron that you’re not who you say you are.” Owen smiled wickedly. “I might not know all the Great Sphinx’s secrets yet, but I know some of yours, Miss Salamis. If that is even your name.”

Feigning reluctance, the woman handed over her canteen and left in a huff. Owen lifted it to his lips and took a huge swig. Then he stepped back a few more feet, sat down on the sand, crossed his legs, and stared up at the sphinx with all his might.

The scene sped up after that. Day shifted into night like some sort of time lapse video. Owen stared at the Great Sphinx’s head rising from the sand, and Heather stared at Owen. He finished the canteen, his skin grew dry and his lips cracked, but brown-eyed Owen’s gaze never left the unblinking stare of the stone beast.

Sometime around daybreak, those eyes turned green.

Heather thought it was a trick of the light, but the higher the sun rose, the greener they became. It wasn’t long before the boy’s sand-covered flesh shifted into that of a small, tawny pixie cat.

“Well, that was stupid of you, wasn’t it?” Heather almost felt bad for the brazen boy who’d let himself be tricked into a curse.

Cat-Owen yowled, a sound that seemed to pierce Heather’s ear drums. She clapped her hands over her ears, but the screech went on and on inside her head. The scene slipped and slid around her, like the sands in Professor Blake’s hourglass clock. Heather tried not to be sick.

When the world stopped spinning she was in a small room. The yowling cat was on a table. The Arachne stood over him, with her loose hair swirling about her and a face like Helena Bonham Carter in one of her madwoman roles.

“Cry all you want! You will find the Fury and—dead or alive—bring one of her feathers back to me, or you will remain a cat for the rest of your life. Your very long, and very humble life that you will live as long as the Great Sphinx that cursed you—ai!”

Cat-Owen had bit the Arachne’s finger. Hard.

“Good for you, cat!” Heather cried.

The cat leaped off the table and sped out the door. The Arachne screamed after him.

The world spun again. The scenes shifted faster and faster. An old man—presumably the baron—dying. Arachne, slipping a ring off the dead body’s finger and placing it on her own. A city on fire, the sky black with smoke, women and children crowded together on the docks, spilling into the water. Only women and children, and screams. A young woman being pulled out of the water onto the deck of a ship. A poor farmhouse. Another sea voyage. Back alleys and gutters. Wooded areas and suburban streets. A restaurant. But not just any restaurant.

Mummy’s Diner.

Heather felt a glimmer of relief. She might be stuck in this nauseating Dickensian montage of Owen’s life, but at least she was back in Nocturne Falls.

The world stopped again in front of a house on a hill. The scene lasted more than a moment, so she took a deep breath and walked closer. A cat darted through the bushes around to the side of the house. Owen, no doubt. Heather followed him.

The cat peeked through a small window in the foundation—some sort of basement. Heather crouched down next to him and took a look of her own.

Mesmerized, Heather watched as Maya Cordova turned a giant mirror—and then herself—black. She saw Kai Xanthopoulos’s mother shift into a being of flame. She saw Finn’s face morph from wolf to human again, his reflection in the mirror surrounded by a vile green haze.

And then Heather saw herself in that mirror.

So that’s how they’d known. That’s how Kai and her friends had discovered that it had been Heather who’d cast that stupid curse.

Kai was the last to change form, turning into the legendary Fury that Heather had only heard whispers about. She recognized those silver-gray wings, watched as Kai pulled one feather out before collapsing onto the floor. The feather that should have taken Heather’s life. And still could.

Heather didn’t realize she was crying until a tear hit the skin of her arm. She didn’t realize she was shaking. For the millionth time, she wished she could go back in time and undo the stupid decision she’d made the night she’d cursed Finn.

She gasped and fell back into a sitting position, away from the window. Cat-Owen turned and looked at her with those cursed green eyes of his. But he couldn’t have been looking at her. There must have been a lizard or a mouse or a bug or something in the trees behind her that had caught his eye. It was strange, though. The way he seemed to focus on her was simply uncanny.

“Get out of my head,” Cat-Owen said with a growl.

In a blink, Heather was back beneath the bushes in the courtyard at Harmswood. She clapped her hand over her mouth to stop herself from gasping the breaths her body wanted to take. She felt the streaks of tears on her cheeks—the salt of them stung the scrape there.

“A-ha!”

Disoriented, it took Heather a moment to place Miss Sunshine’s voice.

“I have seen into your mind! The Fury is that friend of yours. Kai something…the one with the Greek name. It makes sense.”

Owen said nothing.

Heather strained to hear better. Whatever magic Miss Sunshine had done to see inside Owen’s mind, Heather had somehow been swept up in it too, like a hitchhiker.

“Now that I know her identity, I will kill her myself.”

Heather was glad her hands were already over her mouth. She didn’t like Kai Xanthopoulos, but she didn’t want her dead.

Owen…laughed.

This reaction upset Miss Sunshine as much as it surprised Heather. “You think I won’t do it?” Miss Sunshine asked.

“I want to see you try,” Owen said languidly. “If you could get past Kai’s parents—which you won’t—you’d still have to fight half the population of this town to get to her. Nocturne Falls looks out for its own.”

Nocturne Falls never looked out for Heather. But then, Heather wasn’t really from here. For half a second, she almost wished she was.

Miss Sunshine’s growl was inhuman. “I’m not going anywhere. Eventually, I will get what I want. Or I will just kill you.”

Heather listened to the dwindling sound of Miss Sunshine’s chunky heels on the stones before straightening. She stepped around the bushes.

“See all you needed to see, little miss stowaway?” The anger remained in Owen’s voice.

Heather moved closer to him. She wanted to see his eyes.

Yes, they were still green. And tired. There was no innocence left in these eyes.

Owen was so very different from her. He came from another place—another time. He had all the wrong friends, and less than no societal status. Until recently, he’d called a dumpster home.

And yet, so much about them was similar. Heather knew the exhaustion that came from living a life that wasn’t entirely one’s own. The powerlessness of it all.

Owen’s finger traced the line of dried blood on her cheek—the only wound on her person that wasn’t zombie makeup. Almost like he cared about her.

Overwhelmed by emotion, Heather took another step forward…and kissed him.

If he was shocked, he didn’t show it. His lips were soft and gentle. Heather put her hands on either side of his face, but he didn’t touch her in return. He just let her kiss him. It was a brief kiss, but not awkward in any way. On the contrary—it felt like the first right thing Heather had done in all her life.

And that scared her to death.

Her whole body trembling now, Heather broke off the kiss. With one last look into those golden green eyes, she turned and ran.

5

Kai was waiting for him in the diner.

Owen had taken his sweet time getting back from Harmswood. After his encounter with the Arachne…and Heather…he’d biked straight back to the Xanthopoulos house. When he saw the light in Kai’s room on, he shifted into a cat and went to hang out in the woods for a while. He hoped the space and fresh air and extra time would help him think things through.

They didn’t.

When his stomach started to growl, he wandered down to Mummy’s Diner. He and Kai had both taken the night off work because of the Thriller rehearsals, so the chance of running into her was pretty slim.

He was wrong about that too.

Not that he had any intention of complaining about the presence of a beautiful young woman who knew him so intimately—as intimately as he’d allowed anyone to know him—and who genuinely cared about him. A beautiful and powerful young woman, whom no one would ever dare cross lest they face the wrath of her fury. Because she was a Fury.

Owen wasn’t afraid for his best friend. Secretly, Owen almost hoped the Arachne was stupid enough to try and take on Kai. He’d pay to see such a thing. He’d sell tickets. Kai would turn the Arachne to ash on the spot. Assuming Kai’s mom didn’t get there first.

For Owen, finding Kai alone was a treat. Ever since she’d fallen for that werewolf, they seemed to be attached at the hip. Owen missed the days when it was just Kai and him. He missed the fighting and the teasing and the marathon petting sessions. Their friendship hadn’t been the same since Finn showed up and Kai’s powers blossomed. The change had also allowed Owen to finally shift out of cat form—a thing he’d not done for almost a century, thanks to the curse. Everything had changed.

Owen supposed he should be grateful that he and Kai were still friends at all. He was certainly grateful that Kai’s parents had offered to let him stay with them, helped pay for his school, and given him a job as a busboy at the diner. The entire Xanthopoulos family had done so much for him.

But so far, none of his face-to-face conversations with his best friend were as satisfying as their face-to-cat conversations had been. Before she’d gone full Fury and discovered his true nature, Kai used to spend hours talking to Owen. She had shared with him the secrets of her every emotion, getting excited about school events and her new job at the sweet shop, venting about parents and teachers and little sisters…and Heather.

Owen suddenly remembered the pressure of Heather’s lips on his. Surely one kiss couldn’t erase the years of friendship he’d built with Kai. He would never betray his best friend.

He just prayed Kai didn’t make him choose between his love for her and his…whatever…with Heather.

Owen sauntered to the back booth by the kitchen and forced the defeat he felt into a teasing smile. He wanted to pretend it was just like the old days for a little while longer.

“Has anyone ever told you how gorgeous you look when you’re angry?”

“The snakes do, every time,” she said. Kai's Fury form, the one with the wings full of legendary vengeance feathers, also came with wolven facial features, fingertips of fire, and Gorgonian hair snakes. Kai had only taken her true form once that Owen knew of, to avenge Finn.

Stupid werewolf.

“Does having all those extra brains writhing around help solve problems…or is it just a giant boost to the ego?” Owen asked.

“Interesting question.” Kai raised an eyebrow. “You looking for either?”

“Your presence is always a boost to my ego.” Owen smiled again.

Kai wasn’t fooled. “What is going on between you and Heather?”

Owen deflated into the booth seat opposite Kai. “I don’t know.”

“But there is something between you two?”

Owen searched his mind again for an answer—any sort of answer—and came up with nothing. He touched his traitorous lips, fearful of each word he was about to speak. “I don’t know.”

“Sweetie, this isn’t very helpful.”

Owen snapped his fingers and pointed at Kai. “Now that I know.”

Kai laughed a little at that. Owen had missed the sound. Not just the laughter itself, but because it was prompted by something he’d done to make her smile.

Owen opened his mouth and tried to speak. Twice. He ran his hand through his hair a bit like he did when in cat form. Resisted the urge to lick his paw and do it again. “I don’t even know where to start.”

“Don’t worry,” said Kai. “Just start, and we’ll take it from there.”

“It’s doubly hard because I know for a fact that the topic of Heather is something you do not want to discuss. I know that my talking about her will make you angry. Like I can tell you’re angry now. Your face has that lovely flush and it’s gone a degree or two hotter in here.”

“It could just be the kitchen.” Kai put her hands over her brazen cheeks.

“French fries?”

Owen sat back as José placed a steaming plate of fresh, hot fries between them. With all the fretting about the women in his life—the good, the bad, and the complicated—he’d almost forgotten how hungry he was. His stomach rumbled again madly; he barely managed to stop himself from drooling.

“Thank you, José, but we didn’t order these,” said Kai. “Are they supposed to be for another table?”

Owen spun around in the booth to look back over the restaurant. The only other customers in the diner had long since finished their meal.

“Changed the oil,” said José. “Had to fry up a test batch. Let me know how these—”

“Haaaaaaht,” Owen said with his mouth full of burning fry.

“Pig.” Kai pulled the plate closer to her side of the table and grabbed the ketchup.

“Caaaat,” Owen corrected, mouth still on fire.

José tousled Owen’s hair and went back to the kitchen. Owen growled after him, but it was all for show.

The diner employees were the first family Owen had had in…well, ever. He barely remembered his own mother’s face. What memories he had of her had been reduced to flashes of mousy blonde hair and stale dish water. As for the baron…he’d been as much an employer as a guardian.

Once upon a time, Owen had been sacrificed for his family’s well-being. For the decade afterward, he’d attended to the baron’s well-being. His continued lengthy existence was purely for the Arachne sisters’ well-being. In a hundred-plus years, no one had cared about his well-being.

Until now.

Kai picked up a fry, blew on it with those perfect lips, and dipped it in the ketchup. “How did you even know who Heather was? I mean, apart from when I pointed her out to you on your first day of school.”

Owen remembered. The Gothwitches and the Goon Squad: what Kai had named the popular kids who had taunted and tortured both her and Bellamy for most of their school years.

“I actually saw her before then,” Owen admitted. “In the basement that day. I was watching from the small window over the bookshelf. Her face appeared in the mirror.”

Kai paused with the next fry halfway to her mouth. “If you saw her that day, then you saw me, too. As the Fury.”

Owen took the fry from her hand as if she had offered it to him. “I did.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

He swallowed and shrugged. “Finn carried you upstairs after your fainting spell, and I stayed by your side until you woke up. You explained the whole thing to me in fairly great detail. Told me how Heather had been revealed as the one responsible for the wolf’s curse…and what sort of magical creature you’d finally realized yourself to be… Admitting I’d already seen it all for myself seemed redundant, really.”

“And this prompted you to get to know Heather on a more intimate basis? Behind my back?” The fry she was holding burnt to a crisp. She didn’t even notice.

“Oh, absolutely,” Owen said without pause. “I did it all on purpose because I am a horrible person. And a fantastic schemer. Second to none.” He offered her a fry in return for the one she’d charred to death. Kai smirked, but she took it. “We just keep getting thrown together,” he added. “You know how awkward I am in those sort of situations. Or any situation that requires my having to be human.”

“Funny, I’ve managed to avoid Heather for years. I rarely find myself ‘thrown together’ with her.”

Owen was tempted to bring up Finn’s curse, or Bellamy’s adventure. Heather had been present both times.

“I try,” he said. “The more I avoid her, the more we keep crossing each other’s path. It’s uncanny.”

“Right. Uncanny.” Kai’s cheeks were flushed again. Owen tried to calculate the odds of devouring the rest of the fries before she incinerated the plate.

“Milkshake?”

Owen looked up into José’s round, smiling face, with its thin mustache and all those bright teeth. “What?”

“I’m trying out a new flavor. Triple dark chocolate.” The glass he placed in front of Kai was a rich brown, topped with a gorgeous swirl of whipped cream, a dusting of what was probably chopped hazelnuts, and two picturesque cherries. The glass he sat in front of Owen was plain vanilla, no toppings. “I only had enough for one,” said José.

Owen didn’t mind—vanilla was his favorite anyway. Kai was the one who liked all that bitter chocolate nonsense. Shame about the cream, though. “Cheers, José.”

“Yes, thank you,” Kai said with a grin at the ridiculous confection. “I appreciate it. Really I do. But Owen and I are kind of trying to have a—”

“The fries were good, yeah?”

“Yes,” Kai answered.

“I don’t need to change the oil again?”

“The fries were delicious,” said Kai. “Evenly crisp. The oil is perfect.”

“Excellent,” said José, with an even bigger smile than before, if that were possible. “I’ll leave you kids to it then. Enjoy.”

Kai watched the stout cook walk cheerfully back to his kitchen. “I know what he’s doing,” she said under her breath.

Owen was too busy downing half his milkshake to care. Blended ice cream was truly the most amazing of inventions. “Doing?”

“He’s trying to keep me calm,” she said.

“Why?” Owen asked around his straw. It’s not like José was the one admitting feelings for Kai’s sworn enemy. Besides, trying to keep Kai calm these days was sort of like asking the wind not to blow.

Kai spun her straw in the whipped cream. “He can tell that I’m arguing with you,” she said.

“Are we arguing?” Owen asked casually.

Kai ignored him. “He’s probably worried I’m going to go full Fury and rip your face off.”

Owen paused mid-sip. “Could you do that?”

“Maybe? Probably? I don’t know.” Kai took a sip of the thick shake. “Wow this is good. That man is a genius in the kitchen.”

Owen continued to stare her down.

Kai swallowed. “No, I’m not going to rip your face off, okay? Even if I could. Not intentionally, anyway.”

Right. The rest of his story could wait until she’d had a bit more triple chocolate therapy shake and the flush in her cheeks had dimmed.

“The first time it happened was at the dance,” he said finally. “The Midwinter Masquerade. After the Goblin King stole Tinker, and Bellamy rallied us all to figure out how to get him back.”

“Hmm.” Kai licked whipped cream off the side of her glass with that lovely tongue. Owen was rather jealous that he hadn’t gotten any whipped cream. And then he imagined having his face ripped off and remembered just how much he had to thank José for already.

“I did wonder why you didn’t let Finn tear her throat out after the dance. She was in exceptionally high Gothwitch form that evening. And did you notice her dress? She didn’t have a spot of glitter on her. It took me a week to get all the twinkle out of my hair—I swear I don’t know how Bellamy puts up with that dust on her wings every day. Was Heather even in the gym when the snow globe exploded?”

“She was,” Owen said into his empty glass. “She was dancing with me.”

Kai didn’t look at him. She toyed with the cherry on top of her whipped cream instead. “You were dancing with Heather?” She said it all so calmly. Too calmly. “How did that happen?”

Owen decided to spare his best friend the details of his dashing rescue, so he stuck with the basics. “It’s sort of a blur. One minute I was dancing right beside you, and the next I was yanked away by Bellamy’s pushy older sister. What’s her name?”

Kai froze. The cherry landed on the table in a plop of wasted cream. “Oh, crap.”

“That was definitely not her name,” said Owen.

“Merri,” said Kai. “Her name is Merri.”

“That’s the one,” said Owen. “She pulled me away, and next thing I knew, I was being shoved right into Heather’s face. Only Merri didn’t know Heather’s name. She called her…Taylor?”

Kai sighed. “Trust me, Merri knew her name perfectly well. Taylor is Heather’s older sister. Back when they were in school, Taylor was to Merri a bit like Heather is to me.”

“Ah,” said Owen. “Selfishness runs in the family, then. So, throwing me at Heather and calling her a different name was some sort of…vendetta on Merri’s part?”

Kai’s dark brows furrowed. “I’m not sure, exactly. I’d have to ask Bellamy. But I do know one thing.”

Owen recognized the look on her face. Nurses had that look when their patients coughed up blood. Officers had that look when they informed a mother that her son wouldn’t be returning home from war. Sea captains had that look when they rescued a skinny cat from a gang of ship rats.

Pity.

As if he didn’t feel doomed enough already.

“Bellamy told me once that whenever Merri and Bright played their epic pranks, a side effect was that they invariably created a couple out of two incredibly unlikely people.”

“What?” This time it was Owen’s turn to be shocked.

“I assumed that the match Merri and Bright made that night was Bellamy and Tinker…or their own match. But now that I think about it, those pairings weren’t unlikely in the slightest. They were both bound to happen one way or another. You and Heather, however…”

“Are you telling me I’ve been cursed? Again?” Owen clung to the empty glass. He felt the milkshake start to curdle in his stomach.

Kai reached across the table and took his hand. “It’s not a curse, I promise. It’s not even a spell. It’s more like…destiny on fast forward. Merri and Bright are a catalyst. They are so powerful together that they clear a path between two people who might have taken forever to end up together—or might never have taken the chance, due to their extreme differences.”

“Two unlikely people,” muttered Owen. “Highly, highly unlikely.”

“If you think about it,” said Kai, “Heather’s a witch and you’re a cat. It kind of makes sense.”

Owen could hardly believe his ears. “You’re actually taking her side? Have you gone mad?”

Kai shrugged. “I would happily fight Heather until the day I die. But no Greek in her right mind fights destiny,” she said. “That’s just the way of the world.”

Owen caught a twinkle in Kai’s eye right before a cheeseburger appeared on the table in front of him.

“THIS IS A REALLY BAD TIME, JOSÉ,” Owen growled.

“Some lady ordered a hamburger and I accidentally made a cheeseburger by mistake. I didn’t want it to go to waste. And you’re always hungry.”

“There’s no one else in the diner!” Owen seethed.

“It was a carryout order. Totally my bad.”

Owen resisted the urge to yank every last tooth out of that perky smile.

“Owen thanks you, José. Don’t you, Owen?”

Owen growled again, this time without words.

“It’s sweet that you don’t want me to be upset,” Kai told the cook. “But you really don’t need to worry. Owen’s my best friend. I promise I won’t kill him.”

“It’s not just you, Miss Kai,” said José. “Your mother is an Ara and my wife is a Huntress. None of you suffer fools. Especially male fools. And it’s only me here tonight to clean up. Owen’s arrogant, and lazy, and not the best busboy in the world, but despite all of those things, he really is more use to me in one piece.”

Kai chuckled. “I promise not to add to the stress of your workload. Or your marriage.”

“Thank you, Miss Kai.” As José walked away, he added to Owen, “You mess with her and I will hurt you.”

Owen picked up the cheeseburger and saluted the cook. “Get in line,” he said before sinking his teeth into the bun.

“I’m going to say something now that your mouth is full,” said Kai.

I don’t need my mouth to talk to you, Owen sent through their psychic link.

Shut up. I’m trying to make a speech, she thought back.

Shutting up now. Owen took another happy bite of the burger and praised José for every mistake he’d ever made—intentional or not.

“Look, I don’t know what Heather’s deal is. I’ve never wanted to know, since she has a history of being pretty much the most horrible person ever. But I know she’s not an idiot. Stupid people don’t usually wield as much power as she does.”

Really? I never really considered that, he thought to her as he chewed. I’m sure there are exceptions.

“Not many. Just look at Poppy and Oleander. Poppy is a ditz and Oleander is lazy. Their power is nothing compared to Heather’s. The point is, I’ve always known there was more to Heather than what she lets other people see, but I’ve never wanted to care. Now that I know she’s tied to your destiny—ugh, I hate saying those words—”

Hearing them’s no picnic either, he said.

“—I will give her a chance. A small, begrudging chance. Because I love you, and Mom and Dad made it my job to look out for you. And when all is said and done, I want you to be happy.”

“Thank you,” he said.

“But honestly, Owen, I can’t imagine Horrible Heather making anyone happy. She’s got to want to change…”

“I think she does, deep down.”

“…and if she hurts you, I have no qualms about ripping her face off. Let me make that clear right now. I care about your happiness. Not hers.”

“I know.”

“And you really suck at the whole shutting up thing.”

Owen merely grinned in response.

“So are we good?” Kai asked. “For now, anyway? I mean, apart from the fact that you still have to make chocolate chip cookies for your Consumer Magics final.”

There was a burst of laughter from the kitchen. “Dude, you are so screwed!”

Owen looked up at the ceiling. “José, have you been able to hear everything we’ve said this whole time?”

There was a pause. And then, “Yes.”

Owen shook his head. “I love you, man.”

“Right back atcha,” José called from the kitchen. “And good luck. You’re going to need it.”

“Are chocolate chip cookies truly that hard to make?” Owen asked Kai.

“They’re hard to make well,” she replied. “I can’t imagine having to try and make them with someone as…challenging…as Horrible Heather.”

“We should probably stop calling her that.”

Kai sighed. “I know. That was the last time. Maybe.”

“And speaking of Consumer Magics…”

“Hold on.” Kai took another giant sip of her milkshake, closed her eyes, and swallowed. “I need to brace myself if we’re going to keep talking about Heather.”

“This isn’t about Heather,” said Owen. “But you won’t regret the whole bracing thing. Turns out, our new substitute teacher is one of the Arachne sisters. They’ve found me.”

“Oh, crap,” Kai said again.

“Indeed.” Owen finished off the burger, in case it was his last meal. Every meal he ate from here on out might turn out to be his last meal. He intended to relish every one of them. Fitting that, after so many years of borderline starvation, he should end his very long life as an employee of the best diner in town.

“Does she—they, whatever—still expect you to kill me?” Kai asked breathlessly. “Does she—they, whatever—plan on killing me?”

Owen licked his fingers clean. “I told her good luck trying.” There was a guffaw from the kitchen. “José knows what I’m about.”

Kai cocked her head. Owen could tell she was contemplating hair-snakes, her mother, her friends, the town, and other equally deadly assets. “True,” she said. “But Owen, what about Heather?”

Owen dried his fingers on a napkin. “You said you didn’t want to talk about Heather.”

“I don’t. But Finn gave her the Fury’s feather, remember? As punishment for the curse she put on him. He wanted its presence to…I don’t know…loom over her or whatever. Be her conscience. Threaten her to do better.”

“For the rest of her life? Isn’t that a bit much? Finn was only cursed for a few months.”

“He only had to be cursed for a day before his cousin died.”

Owen grimaced at the harsh truth. “So Heather has the feather now?”

“Professor Blake took it,” said Kai. “She said she was putting it in the vault—you know, the one in the lower library. She said it was too dangerous otherwise.”

“Well, if it’s in the vault, it’s safe, right? No need to worry about it.”

“He doesn’t get it,” José called from the kitchen.

“No, he doesn’t,” said Kai. “You’re adorable, cat, but you can be seriously clueless sometimes.”

“Help me out then, oh great and powerful Snake-Headed One.”

Kai shook that head, as if her long brown hair might suddenly rear up and speak in tongues at any moment. “I wish I could put you in a vault, doofus, but I can’t. And as fun as it would be to lock Heather up, we can’t do that either. You’re both in danger until we figure out how to deal with this Arachne chick.”

“And that means…”

Kai shook her head. “That means, until further notice, you’re going to need to be Heather’s knight in shining freaking armor.”

“Oh, crap,” said Owen.

“Now you’re getting it.” Kai sucked down the rest of her milkshake.

José stuck his head out through the service window. “You’re a good kid. Try not to die.”

“I’ll do my best, José,” said Owen. “The odds aren’t exactly on my side.”

“Yeah,” José called back. “But we are.”

6

Heather lingered behind while Professor Blake opened the lower library vault. There wasn’t so much as a creak of hinges as the enormous stone door swung open. The cool air that escaped from behind it was musty and had the metallic tang of old magic. Strong magic.

Ambrosia Hayden had summoned for her daughter, so the professor was obliged to trot down all those stairs (considering the massive amounts of money Heather’s parents had donated to the school over the years, you’d think they’d have installed an elevator or three) and dust off the magic mirror. Thankfully, the Head Witch no longer made scolding remarks to Heather in reference to her mother’s flagrant disregard for school rules. Ambrosia Hayden listened to the Harmswood administration as little as she listened to her middle daughter.

“Come in, Miss Hayden. It’ll be just a moment while I get the spell calibrated to the location your mother specified in her summons.”

Heather hadn’t been called home to the lonely house in Massachusetts, thank the goddess. She was going to Vermont.

Vermont.

Just thinking about it made Heather’s heart feel ten times lighter.

Impatiently, she scanned the shelves while she waited. When students spoke about this vault it was in whispers, as if it were some architectural wonder that Indiana Jones might discover, full of columns, stained glass, elaborate carvings, and mysterious treasures. How disappointed they would be if they could see the dank and dirty thing first hand. It was little more than an oversized stone closet. Or a tomb.

A crypt for mysterious treasures.

She could make out a block, some sort of egg, and a winged spherical thing…most of the items slept like corpses under a thick layer of dust, rendering them all bland, ash-colored lumps. Except that annoying feather, of course—the silver-gray of its edges twinkled in the shaft of light that slipped in through the open door.

I wonder if I’m the most powerful talisman in the room now, thought Heather.

Doubt it, answered the voice in her head.

On the off chance that any of the magical objects around her were remotely active, Heather closed her eyes and wished the feather out of her life, once and for all. But when she opened her eyes again the feather remained there in its lucite box, cheekily wafting in that invisible wind.

No such luck.

“That should do it,” said Professor Blake. The magic mirror shimmered with a silver blue light. “Are you ready?”

She doesn’t want the truth, said the voice.

“Yes,” Heather told the professor. “I’m ready.”

“Please give your parents my best,” Professor Blake lied in return. “And be sure to send me another summons when you’re ready to come home, so I’ll know to meet you.”

It wouldn’t be the first time Heather had arrived back at Harmswood to an empty vault. She always wore a pashmina and packed a protein bar in her purse when she traveled this way, just in case.

She did not want her deep breath to be obvious, so Heather inhaled slowly, touched the not-a-talisman at her neck, and stepped into the mirror. There was another rush of cold wind—it smelled like fresh-cut grass and sugar this time. Tiny bolts of energy shot like warm needles through her skin. When her foot touched down on the other side, it was the hardwood floor of the dress shop in Pinetree. The mirror behind her now was just like all the other mirrors in the place, only this one had her reflection in it. The rest of the mirrors had the honor of beholding the image of Heather’s most excellent mother.

Heather slowly, quietly, exhaled. “Hello, Mother.”

“It’s about time.” Ambrosia Hayden’s blood red nails curled around what was surely not her first glass of champagne. “Every time I have to deal with your Head Witch, I have half a mind to have that woman fired.”

“Fine with me,” said Heather.

“But her reign will end at the end of term, just like all Head Witches,” Mrs. Hayden went on, as if Heather hadn’t spoken at all. “Shame, really. I don’t have time to educate yet another administrator on the nuances of keeping my wayward daughters in line.”

Every move her mother made looked like a pose from the cover of a magazine. Every inch of her was flawless: soft, white gold curls, Hermès scarf, ivory silk blouse and pants, rose gold Jimmy Choos. Taylor, Heather’s older sister, sat prettily on the brocade settee across from the bank of mirrors. No one took center stage when Ambrosia Hayden was present, but it didn’t take a trained eye to see that Taylor was cut from the same (very expensive) cloth. She wore pink flats and a sundress covered in yellow peonies, and her hair was strawberry blonde where Mrs. Hayden’s was paler than lilies, but everything about Taylor was still immaculate from head to toe.

More precisely, everything about Taylor was just a little bit better than anything about Heather. No matter how hard Heather tried, Taylor had been there and done that, and was three hundred times more successful. After seventeen years of attempting to be a perfect daughter, Heather had long since become resigned to second place.

The only reason she hadn’t given up altogether was because of Katy. Rebellion was Katy’s domain. Heather didn’t have the stamina to play second fiddle to both of her sisters. So she remained lovely and less-than-perfect, unheard and invisible.

“Hi, Taylor,” Heather said to her sister. “Congratulations.”

Taylor skipped the greeting. “You haven’t seen Katy, have you? We need to fit you both for bridesmaids dresses today, or the whole wedding will be thrown off schedule.”

Seriously? Part of Katy’s rebellion was refusing to go to Harmswood. At what point was Heather supposed to have seen her? “No,” was all the answer she gave. And then she spotted the mug in Taylor’s hand. “Is that cider? Can I have some?”

Heather didn’t miss much about up north while she was away at Harmswood, but she missed real apple cider. Hot, cold, frozen, in donut form…she didn’t mind how it came, as long as it was fresh from the mill.

“No time,” said her mother. “We can’t wait all day for Katy. You may as well start trying on gowns. If we find one that suits you, it will be her loss. Emily? Show my daughter to the dressing room.”

As if by magic, a plain shop girl in a dress the color of dead leaves appeared to usher Heather into an adjacent salon. Seven gowns hung on separate hooks around the small room. They were all sleeveless halter tops in varying shades of pastel, save for one that was a beautiful, rich turquoise. That was the dress. But it wasn’t Heather’s choice to make.

Three witches. Seven dresses. Apples. The voice inside her head laughed. This place sort of feels like a fairy tale, doesn’t it?

Heather scowled into the mirror. She’d been hearing the voice in her head more and more since that meeting with Professor Blake. She’d written it off as her subconscious or something…something who called itself her guardian angel and spoke words Heather didn’t know the meaning of.

Heather tossed her black pashmina and purse on the bench and lifted a mauve dress from its hook. If she put the turquoise one on first, Mother would dismiss it immediately. Heather had to be strategic about this.

“I’d like some cider, please, Emily,” she asked the shop girl. Based on past events, Heather knew that no one else would see to her refreshment if she didn’t do it herself.

“I’m afraid there’s none left,” the shop girl said quickly.

Heather might have been powerless inside her messed-up family, but the same could not be said outside of it. Heather turned and gave the shop girl her iciest stare. “Then send someone down to the mill to fetch it. Someone other than you, because you will need to come back here and zip me up.”

Emily’s eyes widened. “Yes, miss,” she said, and then scampered away.

Heather shimmied out of her own short black dress, but left her shoes on. They were sandals—adequate for a Georgia spring, but completely inappropriate for both a bridesmaid’s dress and Vermont’s mud season. If she’d worn boots, Mother would have suspected that Heather wanted to stay—she’d brave whatever nonsense her family threw at her and ruin a decent pair of sandals for the chance to spend the night at Brighton Lodge. If she’d worn heels, it would have looked like Heather was trying too hard. Mother would have made countless snide remarks about Heather’s lack of fashion sense. Sandals were the wisest option—Mrs. Hayden would simply call her middle daughter stupid and move on from there.

Preparing for Hayden family gatherings gave Heather the edge in every mind game. It was also incredibly exhausting.

It’s not supposed to be like this, you know, said the inner voice. Most families aren’t this difficult. Even families full of witches.

Every family is unhappy in its own way, Heather responded. She remembered a professor quoting something like that from a book during one of their lessons. I know my family, at least. That makes it easier.

Does it?

Instead of answering the voice, Heather grinned at her reflection in the mirror. The mauve dress looked terrible on her. She took out her severe ponytail and finger-combed her hair while she waited for the shop girl to return. As soon as Heather felt the zipper slide up her back, she walked out of the dressing room.

“Ben!” It was so nice to see a handsome face in the shop that wasn’t part of her family…yet. “Is Bright with you?”

“Took you long enough,” Taylor said.

Heather crossed the shop to greet the groom and ignored her sister, the usual response every time Taylor tried to act like their mother.

“Hey there, little almost-sis!” Ben caught Heather up in a bear hug. The strength and unconditional joy of his embrace made her feel amazing. “Bright is parking the car.”

“That color is awful,” said Mrs. Hayden. “Thuban, put the child down so she can try on the next dress. I’d rather not be here all day. And Heather, your choker is all wrong for that neckline. Take it off.”

Dutifully, Ben gently lowered Heather to the floor and adjusted his glasses. With his dark hair, square jaw and gray eyes, Ben reminded Heather of every incarnation of Clark Kent she’d ever seen. He even had a newspaper job and everything.

The Brighton elves and the Hayden witches had spent almost every major holiday of Heather’s life at Brighton Lodge. Taylor, Heather, and Katy grew up right alongside Polaris, Thuban, and Alrai—or Bright, Ben, and Ali. The nicknames the girls had given the boys stuck all too easily. They’d made up games, chased each other through the woods, huddled around campfires, rolled down grassy hills, ate apples fresh from the tree…every wonderful childhood memory Heather had originated here.

As soon as Ben and Taylor got hitched, Heather would have a reason to keep coming back to Vermont forever. Few things in life brought her joy, but this was one of them. Brighton Lodge was so huge that Heather could choose almost any room and hide away forever. Taylor would never even know she was there. And vice versa.

It made sense that from these two affluent families, at least one of the boys and one of the girls had ended up together. The crazy part was, Ben was so nice. He knew very well just how insane the Haydens were, but he’d chosen to tie himself to them anyway. Taylor was pretty enough, sure, but Heather couldn’t imagine anyone loving her big sister that much. Heck, Heather couldn’t imagine anyone loving anyone that much.

“Do you have to get back to school right away, or can you stay tonight?” Ben asked. “We can do it up right, light the fire pit and everything.”

Heather couldn’t just accept the invitation. She had to play her cards right in order to make it happen. “I don’t know,” she said slowly, as if taking time to consider his offer. “I didn’t bring anything, and I didn’t really dress to stay…”

“It’s Saturday! And there are clothes at the lodge. Come on, Mrs. Hayden, what do you say? Can Heather stay?”

Mrs. Hayden sighed. “As it will probably take that long to finishing this fitting…fine.”

Heather and Ben exchanged smiles. The Brighton boys usually got what they wanted, and this time was no exception. But some small part of Heather wished it had been her sister who’d wanted her to stay with such enthusiasm.

“Thank you, Mother,” she said on the way back to the dressing room.

Heather handed the next dress to Emily as she unclasped her choker. As soon as it was gone, she felt more naked than she had without the dress on. The necklace might have been technically useless as a talisman, but Heather wasn’t yet strong enough to face her family without it. She wrapped it around her wrist instead, holding her arm out for Emily to secure the clasp.

By the time Heather emerged in the sea foam green dress, Bright was sitting in the lounge with his own glass of champagne. “I hear we’re waiting for you to model the perfect dress so the groomsmen can match you,” he said as he kissed her cheek. “No pressure.”

“The next two are better,” Heather whispered in his ear. “This one is—”

“Sort of mermaid-y,” said Taylor. “What do you think, Mother?”

“Washes out her complexion,” Mrs. Hayden announced. “Onward, Heather.”

“Really quickly though, Bright, I have to ask you something.” Bright was easily the smartest person she knew, apart from Professor Blake, and Heather wanted to catch him before he was shuffled off to his own fitting. “Do you know what a bellwether is?”

“A trendsetter,” Ben answered for him.

“Sweetheart,” said Taylor. “Did you transfer over to the fashion desk and not tell me?”

“As thrilled as I know you’d be by that prospect, my dear…no.” Ben gave his fiancée a quick kiss. It was so incredibly sweet that it made Heather jealous down to her toes. She wanted to be the reason someone smiled like that. A real smile, triggered by actual happiness.

“‘Bellwether’ is used a lot in politics,” Ben explained. “A bellwether state is one whose outcome often predicts how the rest of the country will vote. The term originates in farming, if I remember correctly: the bellwether is the lead sheep in a flock.” He turned back to Heather. “Is that where you heard it? Government class?”

“Yes.” The lie slid easily off her tongue. Lying to her family was like riding a broom. And now was not the time to admit that the voice inside her head had a stellar vocabulary. “It confused me a little. But I was sure one of you gentlemen knew what it meant.”

“Are you having a tough time?” Of course kind, gentle Ben would ask her such a question. “Do you need me to help you with your schoolwork? I remember my own Harmswood days. Some of those classes were pure torture.”

Nothing compared to Hayden family reunions, said the voice.

Heather couldn’t argue with that.

“I can handle it,” Heather said with a shrug. “I’m more worried about Consumer Magics this semester, if you can believe that!”

She had expected them to laugh—not her mother and sister, but Bright, at least, or Ben.

“She’s kidding,” said Taylor. “Consumer Magics is the easiest A on the planet.”

Oh, Heather, why did you have to open your mouth? But she couldn’t seem to stop herself. “Our regular teacher has been replaced by this nutball sub. She came in and gave us all a bunch of weirdo projects and paired us up with the most horrible…”

Heather let her rant trail off into nothing. She sounded ridiculous, even to herself.

Mrs. Hayden set her champagne flute on the table next to the settee. “If you’re having trouble in school, Heather, maybe it’s not a good idea for you to stay in Vermont. You should go back and study.”

Heather wanted to argue that one didn’t study for something as stupid as making chocolate chip cookies, but she kept her mouth shut. She’d said too much already. The moment she started fighting this fight would be the moment she lost. The only way out of this was if Ben or Bright stuck up for her. She looked at them both with pleading eyes.

Ben looked to his brother.

“Vermont is always a good idea,” Bright said matter-of-factly. “All this fresh air. Clears the mind. Often recommended by doctors for working out the kinks behind weirdo projects and strange pairings. And speaking of strange pairings…Merri Larousse and I are engaged.”

Heather had to hand it to Bright. It was quite possibly the longest speech he’d ever given, and a topic shift that no one expected. It succeeded in taking the focus of the conversation off her. Heather gave the elf a crooked grin of thanks. His left eyebrow raised ever so slightly…the sign that he acknowledged her gratitude.

She scampered back to the dressing room while the rest of the company was distracted. She could still hear most of the conversation through the thin walls. Taylor was the first to chime in with her congratulations, which had apparently shocked Ben.

“You don’t seem surprised in the least,” Ben said to his fiancée.

“Please,” Taylor’s voice rang out like silver on crystal. “I’ve known they belonged together since our senior year. It took them long enough to come around to the idea.”

“I’m a slow mover,” said Bright.

“Brother, you’re an iceberg,” said Ben.

“We’ve actually been engaged for a while,” said Bright. “I just didn’t want to say anything and steal your thunder.”

“It was the Midwinter Masquerade, wasn’t it?” Taylor asked, and apparently Bright answered in the affirmative. “I knew it! Oh, that’s just too perfect.”

Speaking of perfect…with everyone in high spirits about Bright’s announcement, Heather decided it was time for the turquoise dress. She passed it to Emily. Fingers crossed.

“Larousse…that fairy family from down south? With all those children?” Heather could almost hear her mother stick her nose in the air. “Really, Polaris. Her status is so far beneath yours. Are you sure about this?”

“Look at his face, Mother,” said Taylor. “It’s true love!”

“I’m just being realistic,” said Mrs. Hayden. “Does this young woman have any clue what sort of challenges await her as a Brighton wife?”

Heather considered her own situation as she wriggled into the turquoise dress. Mother could easily say worse things about Owen. She would never approve of her daughter dating a cat-shifter with such a dubious history. And if Owen thought Heather was a handful, he would never want to take on the rest of her family.

“I’m not worried in the slightest, Mrs. Hayden,” said Bright. “Merri and I have always made quite a unique partnership.”

“Always?” Ben was still mystified. “Did you two even speak in high school? You didn’t really talk to anyone back in those days.”

“He barely talks now,” said Taylor.

“Merri and Bright…who’d have thunk…” Ben mused. “Merri and Bright. Merri and…NO WAY.”

Taylor laughed hysterically.

“I never understand what you children find so amusing,” said Mrs. Hayden.

Heather wasn’t sure she understood this one either. She held a finger up to Emily and leaned her ear against the door of the dressing room.

“Did you really only just figure it out?” Bright asked his brother.

“Of all people, I thought you’d have guessed by now,” Taylor said with great delight. “But this is so much better.”

“I am such an idiot!” yelled Ben. “Merri and Bright! Harmswood’s very own Mad Bandits!”

Now that was something Heather did know about. The Mad Bandits were the most infamous pranksters in all of Harmswood history. They pulled epic stunts…like driving Asher Larousse’s pumpkinmobile up to the roof of the library…which made a lot more sense now that Heather knew the perpetrators. They were also—though completely unintentionally—notorious matchmakers.

Heather’s mind flashed back to that last Midwinter Masquerade, when Merri Larousse had shoved Owen into Heather’s face and pulled Bright away into the crowd. Heather hadn’t truly seen Owen until that moment.

Oh, no.

Oh, yes, answered the voice inside her head.

Almost in a trance, Heather pulled open the dressing room door and stumbled into the lounge.

“Now that one has potential,” Mrs. Hayden said predictably. “What do you think, Taylor? Ignore the ridiculous sandals, of course. Why she chose to wear those when she knew she’d be trying on full-length gowns I’ll never know…”

Even if she did care what her mother was saying, Heather was too focused on the story. “You and Merri Larousse—Bellamy’s big sister—you are the Mad Bandits?”

“Were the Mad Bandits,” Bright confessed.

Taylor, who knew about the pumpkinmobile, burst out laughing all over again.

“Really, darling, I need your undivided attention,” said Mrs. Hayden.

“I like this one too, Mother. Let’s go with this color,” said Taylor.

“Wonderful,” Mother said in that tone she used whenever things went her way. It was the closest to “cheerful” that Ambrosia Hayden ever got.

“Did any of the couples you got together ever break up?” Heather asked Bright in desperation.

“Not that I know of,” said Bright. “But I haven’t really followed…”

“They didn’t,” Taylor confirmed. “Trust me. Your record remains untarnished.”

But Heather would not be dissuaded. “Who did you match up last year?”

Bright chuckled. “Ourselves, I guess. Why, did you hear about anyone else?”

Heather wasn’t sure how to answer that question, but it didn’t matter. At that moment, Katy came barreling through one of the sitting room mirrors. Ben managed to catch her before she flew headfirst into the settee. The champagne flutes on the side table were not so lucky. The lounge filled with the sound of breaking glass.

“Emily,” Mrs. Hayden called to the shop girl. “We’ve had a spill.”

The timid girl in the crushed-leaf dress scurried to attention with a brush and dustpan.

“Is your name even Emily?” Katy asked the bustling shop girl.

“No, miss,” she answered.

Heather hid her clenched fist in the folds of the voluminous skirt. She should have picked up on that detail, but she had missed it. This whole time she might have had an ally. Instead, Heather had ordered “Emily” around like a servant.

Just like her mother.

Don’t throw up, cautioned the voice. We like this dress.

“Good job, Mom,” said Katy. “Way to keep living in that precious little bubble you’ve got there.”

Some days, Heather wished she had half of Katy’s gumption. Katy was the only one who called Ambrosia Hayden “Mom.” She showed up when she wanted—if she wanted—wearing whatever she wanted. Today it was combat boots, striped leggings, a mini skirt, a faded t-shirt, a jean jacket riddled with holes, and a ratty newsboy cap. Each item was a different color of the rainbow. But none of that mattered because of—

“Kathryn Hayden, did you pierce your nose?!?”

—that.

“Thank you so much!” Katy said, as if she’d just received an award. “I love it too. It’s just the tiniest slip of bling. Almost like glitter.”

Another point for Katy. Ambrosia Hayden hated glitter.

“Now: hello to everyone, kisses and congratulations all around, let’s get this over with.” As she scanned the room for the dressing area, she finally noticed Heather. “Nice dress, sis! Love the shoes.”

“It is a good color, isn’t it?” said Taylor.

“We’re thinking of going with that one,” said Mrs. Hayden.

Heather instantly wished she hadn’t.

Katy’s eyes were already twinkling. “Excellent choice. It’ll match perfectly.”

“Match what?” Mother made the mistake of asking.

Katy put a finger to her cap before ripping it off to reveal a spiked mass of bright, rich turquoise hair.

Mother’s nostrils flared. “I’m not going to be able to look at that dress now without remembering you and your little stunts.” She pointed at Bright. “Did she learn this from you?”

Katy held up a hand to stop Bright—or anyone else—from answering. “No, Mom. I became a jerk all on my own.”

As she did with everything she didn’t care for, Ambrosia Hayden ignored her youngest daughter. “Heather, try the lavender next. And see if you can persuade your little sister not to glamour her skin to match this time?” She took the new flute of champagne that not-Emily had freshly poured. “I swear you girls can’t take anything seriously for more than five minutes.”

Heather glowered and frog-marched Katy straight back to the dressing room. “A pleasure, as always,” Katy said as they walked away.

“I hate you,” Heather muttered under her breath.

I think I hate her too, said the voice in her head. If it’s any consolation.

Oddly enough, it was.

7

Owen painstakingly scraped off each plate before stacking it next to the sink. Technically this wasn’t his job. He could have been topping off ketchup bottles and sugar dispensers, but there was still plenty of time for that.

Dina was the dishwasher tonight. She’d be starting her shift soon. If Owen took the time to make her job a little easier, then Dina would most likely sing while she worked. Her exquisite undine voice always made the night better. Owen preferred working at the diner when everybody was in a good mood. When he saw Dina’s name on the schedule that afternoon, he’d decided to make the extra effort.

“Order up,” Nikki called as she hung her latest ticket in the window. “Hey, hon,” she called through to Owen. “Pretty sure there’s someone here to see you.”

“Pretty sure?” Owen asked.

Nikki shoved the pencil back in her loose bun—her personal trick so that she never lost it and no one ever stole it. “I thought maybe she was one of Kai’s friends, but she’s been staring at the kitchen door since she sat down. I doubt she’s looking for me or José.”

José made a show of smoothing down his mustache. “Bite your tongue, woman.”

“She?” The hairs on the back of Owen’s neck stood at attention. “Man or beast?”

Nikki swore she didn’t have psychic abilities, but after all the years she’d spent as a waitress in Nocturne Falls, she had a sixth sense about who was a tourist and who…wasn’t. “Witch,” she answered matter-of-factly, and then went back to checking on her tables.

Owen closed his eyes and thanked the stars. He checked his reflection on the side of a soup tureen and smoothed his hair down. “Do I look okay?”

“Pffft,” José said as he flipped a burger. “Get out of here, Romeo.”

Nikki had sat Heather in the booth at the back of the restaurant, commonly referred to as the “family booth.” Unless the diner had a waitlist, this booth was reserved for diner-family business. Owen sat at this booth to eat a meal while on shift, or to talk to Kai or her parents. This was the first time anyone outside the Xanthopoulos family had been sitting there for him.

Heather wore all black, as usual, but she looked…less put-together than normal. Her hair was windblown. Her pashmina was wrinkled. The charm she usually wore as a choker was wrapped around her wrist, as if in afterthought. And she was alone. It was rare to see Heather not surrounded by her hangers-on.

“Just you?” Owen asked as nonchalantly as he could muster.

“Me is all I have energy for right now,” she said. “I just got back. I should be in bed—between traveling through the magic mirror and dealing with my family, I’m exhausted. But I have to tell you something I learned, and I’m kind of hoping you won’t freak out about it.”

Owen’s muscles went tense. Had she put two and two together and realized the Arachne could be after her?

“I know who the Mad Bandits of Harmswood are. Were,” she said, as if that meant anything to him.

“Mad Bandits of Harmswood? Sounds like a fairy tale.”

“More like a legend,” said Heather. “And close friends of ours, apparently. I’m not sure if you’re familiar with Polaris Brighton, but you definitely know Merri Larousse.”

“Ah,” said Owen. “Merri and Bright. Yes, Kai told me a little about that particular legend.”

“The pranks and the matchmaking?”

“I think she covered everything,” said Owen. “Wait, you believe in it? That suddenly you and I are somehow doomed to end up together because of two meddling people we happen to know?”

Heather sat up in the booth. “You don’t?”

“Not as much as you and Kai, apparently,” he said. “Look, Heather…you’re lovely, and you seem to wield a fair amount of power, but I’m not that guy. I’ve never been that guy.”

Heather’s perfect eyebrows furrowed. “What guy?”

“The hero in the fairy tale. I’m not the someone that people count on. I’m an instigator. A wingman. The idiot serving boy who gets turned into a cat and refuses to break his own curse. When the going gets tough, I run. I’m no savior.”

“Really,” Heather raised one of those brows. “I seem to remember you saving me once. Maybe it meant nothing to you at the time, but it meant something to me.”

The only person Owen had ever meant something to was Kai. And she was spoken for. As much as Owen might have yearned for real love after that, he knew he’d never have it.

He had no idea how much he could trust Heather, so he took all her words with a grain of salt. “If you’re lucky, you’ll never need me to save you again.” Owen shook his head. “Unfortunately, I don’t think we’re that lucky.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means that we can’t let the Arachne—Miss Sunshine, whatever—find out about your feather.”

He let his words hang in the air, waiting for all the pieces to come together for her. When it happened, she raised a hand to her mouth.

“Oh, goddess,” she said behind her manicured fingertips. “You think she wants to get her spidery hands on my feather?”

“The Arachnes want to get their hands on any Fury feather,” said Owen. “They see nothing but their own need for vengeance. A Fury’s feather is a means to that end. And if Miss Sunshine doesn’t have to kill the Fury to get one, all the better for her.”

Heather’s porcelain complexion went even paler. “What happens to me if she uses my feather to exact her own justice on someone? If someone else loses their life because of some stupid mistake I made…will I die too?”

“I don’t know,” said Owen. “I’m not sure anyone knows—not even Kai. This is uncharted territory. But if anything happens to you…”

Heather reached across the table and took his hand. Kai often did the same thing, at this same table, but her touch didn’t elicit the same kind of electric shock that Heather’s did. Owen assumed it was because of their connection through the feather, or that time she’d stowed away in his memories.

“I’m not asking you to rescue me. I’m a clever girl. I can hold my own.”

Not only was Kai powerful, but she also had a village of people that supported her. Heather had not once mentioned her parents, her sisters, or any of her so-called friends. Had she been facing every problem of her life to this point all by herself?

“You shouldn’t have to do anything alone.” Owen didn’t let go of her hand. “I want to help you. It’s just…I’m no good at this.”

Heather laughed a little. “How would you know? We’re in uncharted territory, apparently. But I’m game to bring the thunder if you are.”

Owen shook his head. “You’re going to be disappointed.”

“Fine,” said Heather. “I’ll expect disappointment. That way, when this is all said and done, I’ll either be right, or I’ll be pleasantly surprised.” She squeezed his hand. “Try to surprise me, will you?”

Those eyes of hers were like bright blue glass.

“Why are you so nice to me?”

Heather shrugged. “Fate’s already got a gun pointed at me, and her finger’s on the trigger. If she has tied our lives together for some unknown reason…well, I don’t want to cross her if I can help it.”

Kai had said much the same thing.

Owen summoned enough courage to entwine his fingers with Heather’s. “You know, here in this booth, without anyone else around, I kind of enjoy the thought of us together.”

“I know,” whispered Heather. “But if you tell anyone, I may have to kill you.”

“Is it a rule that every girl who sits here must threaten the life of my busboy?”

Owen yanked his hand out of Heather’s. José’s talent for popping up unnoticed was unmatched.

“What do you want, José?”

The cook slid a gray plastic tub between them. “I want you to clean the three tables that emptied out while you’ve been having your little chat. And then I want you to bring your girl in the back. I have a surprise for you.”

“I’m not his girl,” Heather said quickly.

“Really,” José scoffed, with the same intonation Heather had used earlier. Owen had forgotten that José could hear every word spoken at this table from his vantage point in the kitchen. Now Heather knew, too.

Owen bussed the tables quicker than he ever had before in his life. He plopped the plastic tub down beside the sink, gave humming Dina a quick peck on the cheek, and sped back to the booth where an exhausted Heather waited.

“After you, madam,” he said, only mostly out of breath.

The surprise José had waiting for them in the kitchen was counter space, a hot oven, and a bunch of ingredients. “It’s a slow night,” he said. “Thought you might want to try screwing up a few batches of cookies while there’s no one here to smell them burn.”

Owen turned to Heather. “I’m game if you are.”

Heather ran a hand over her eyes. “I don’t know…”

“This kitchen is my domain,” said José. “While you’re back here, you can pretend that you’re the only two people in the world, free to do as you please without worrying about what the future holds, or what any other teenager in Nocturne Falls will think. You are safe here.”

“A safety bubble,” said Owen.

“That’s what I’m offering,” said the cook.

Heather smiled at José, put a gentle hand on his shoulder, and nodded. “Okay.”

Owen smiled too. Everything they needed to work on and a space inside which no one else mattered? José was a god.

Then again, Owen was unsure about many of the staff’s paranormal natures (it was rude to ask, Kai had said). It was entirely possible that José actually was a god.

Owen took Heather’s hand and kissed the back of it playfully, because no one ever had to know. But then he dropped her hand completely. Tonight was not about making out; it was about trying to see if they could work together without killing each other.

“What do you say, magic girl? Me, you, and a few terrible batches of cookies?”

“You’re on.” The idea of freedom—even if only for the next hour—had lifted her spirits, too. “Let’s make a mess.”

But first, they had to prep. Owen started sorting through the ingredients and taking inventory while Heather looked up recipes on her phone. She sat on top of the counter, legs swinging like a schoolgirl. He snuck peeks at her while she was distracted. If he’d never met her before this moment, he’d think she was just a sweet, fun, enthusiastic and helpful girl. A girl who liked him. And he liked her. Later tonight, they could go back to being an attack witch and a scaredy cat. Right now, he just wanted to exist in the moment. Enjoy it. Flirt, even.

Great Scott, did he even remember how to flirt?

His stomach did a backflip. Flirting was a human interaction. He had to stop putting things in the context of human interactions. In order to process this, he needed to think like a cat. Cats were mercurial, yes, cryptic, definitely, but above all, they were lovers. Successful, affectionate lovers.

The way Owen figured it, if he assumed Full Cat attitude and then dialed it back by about a billion, that would be the human equivalent of harmless flirting. He could do that. He hoped. He didn’t want to be another Duko Bardou.

Heather groaned.

“Don’t tell me you’ve given up on me already,” said Owen.

Heather shook her phone at him. “I was prepared for there to be several dozen different recipes for chocolate chip cookies. What I didn’t count on were even more secrets on how to make our cookies the best.”

“Looking up secrets on the internet,” said Owen. “Isn’t that cheating?”

“Maybe if it actually helped,” said Heather. “Five hundred ‘secrets’ that no one seems to agree on doesn’t sound like a shortcut. It sounds like a rabbit hole.”

Owen snapped. “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” he said. “I got that reference.”

Heather bit back a laugh. “Goddess, you’re adorable. And really distracting!” She turned back to her phone. “I don’t know which of these secrets to believe. Any thoughts? Can we maybe ask José?”

“That would be cheating.” Owen gave the matter some consideration, once she finished pushing a strand of flaxen hair behind her ear and he could concentrate again. He wasn’t the only distracting one in the room. In the background, Dina sang a tune in undine language that sounded like a love song. That didn’t help either.

“Maybe we should make a list,” he suggested. “We could put tick marks next to which secrets were mentioned most often. Then we try the most popular secrets first.”

“How very scientific of you,” said Heather. “But that’s so much work. Since tonight we are expressly here to ruin a few batches, which I am confident that I will do, why don’t we just pick one and go? We’ll just worry about chilling and creaming and whipping and frothing next time we….what?”

Owen shook it off. “All of that sounded really dirty and I’m trying to focus on the task at hand.”

Heather pat him on the head. “Good kitty.” She hopped down from the counter and put on one of the old Mummy’s Diner aprons José had left out for them. Owen was mildly surprised that she didn’t flinch at donning a stained, worn-out apron that had seen more than its fair share of kitchen disasters.

Here in their bubble she was not head cheerleader or the rich-witch Princess of Harmswood, she was just a girl named Heather. Owen really, really liked this Heather. The crazy thing was, Kai would have really liked her too. But he couldn’t think about Kai. As tough as it was to let them go, thoughts of Kai weren’t allowed in the bubble.

He stuck his finger in the flour and dabbed it on her nose. “There,” he said. “Now you’re ready. What’s first?”

“Make sure the oven’s at the right temperature and grease those cookie sheets.” She looked down at her phone. “I’ll throw all these ingredients together and see what happens.”

Any other time it might have angered Owen that she’d barked orders at him like he was a member of her cheer squad. To be fair, he had asked. Just this once, Owen didn’t mind letting Heather take the reins. As she measured out and stirred the first batch, a small part of him was concerned that she’d nail it the first time. Then they’d have no reason to come back here and try again.

There was no need to worry.

Half an hour later, they had a bunch of extremely flat cookies in varying shades of overdonness. They didn’t smell too badly, so they hadn’t completely screwed up.

Heather took a bite of one of the cookies that was least burnt. “It tastes like nothing,” she said. “I mean, I guess it tastes like a cookie, but not a good cookie. It’s not necessarily bad…”

“If it tastes like nothing, that’s bad. Granted, I’ve had worse in the dumpster out back.”

Heather chuckled. “Even your compliments are disgusting.”

“We could always use them for weapons against the Arachne.” Owen took one of the cooled cookies and tapped it against the side of the oven. “A few of these are substantial enough to break teeth. If we threw them hard enough…”

Heather folded her arms across her chest. Normally, when she made a move like that, it was cause for concern. Anyone within earshot braced themselves for whatever vile thing was about to spill from Heather’s mouth when she stood that way. But tonight, Owen was not afraid. She shoved the empty bowl at him. “All right, mister. You think you’re such a cool cat? Next batch is yours.”

Obligingly, Dina washed out the bowl for Owen. “Good luck,” said the undine. One of her watery blue eyes winked at him, and she began softly warbling a new song. Thankfully, this seaborn ditty was a little more upbeat.

Owen had been watching Heather closely that first time, and not just because she was pretty. Her cookies had been spread too thin. He’d put a giant lump of batter on the cookie sheet this time, and maybe turn the oven heat down. Bake them for longer. As for tastelessness, he decided to increase the quantity of sugar and chocolate.

“Interesting tactic,” she said as he generously spooned the batter onto the sheet.

“At least they’ll be edible,” he said. “And far tastier than yours.”

They did not taste better. Nor did they spread out into a uniform thickness while baking. The edges were burnt and the middle was undercooked. Owen could tell they were a disaster the moment the timer went off and he pulled the cookie sheet out of the oven.

Heather pursed her lips and studied the ruined mess. “Magnificent,” she said in mock seriousness. “You should open a shop! Give Delaney a run for her money.”

“You’re a brat,” he said.

“Born and raised,” she shot back and grabbed a new mixing bowl off the counter. “My turn again.”

“You seriously think you can do better?”

There was a wicked gleam in her eye. “This time we are going to cheat.”

The hair on the back of Owen’s neck raised again, accompanied by chills of both fear and excitement.

Heather wiped the counter clean, then sprinkled a light dusting of flour across its surface. She closed her eyes and placed her fingertips to her chest, whispering something as if in prayer. She raised her hand to the sky, finished whatever she was saying, and then opened her eyes. In the flour on the table she drew a circle, perfect and closed. Inside she drew a star, each point reaching the edge of the circle. On top of the star she placed the mixing bowl.

“Eggs,” she said to him.

One by one, he brought the ingredients to her. One by one she added them according to the recipe, leveling off each measuring cup and spoon before dumping them into the bowl. When she stuck the large wooden spoon inside the bowl, it stood up on its own and began mixing itself, like magic.

Exactly like magic.

Owen understood now. Magic was the cheat. Heather was a witch, and magic was her wheelhouse. Goodness knows she looked lovely doing it. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were overbright. Her chest rose and fell in deep, even breaths and her hands danced in the air around the self-mixing spoon. Standing over the bowl in that worn-out apron, in the kitchen of a place he now called home, Heather Hayden was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

And she felt more out of his reach than ever.

Heather was leagues above him in power, money, looks, popularity…the list was never-ending. He was a cat-cursed street rat out of his element—out of his own time. What were his worldly possessions? A bunch of school books and a few Mummy’s Diner polos. Who was his family? A handful of diner employees that had not asked for his presence. What were his powers? He could shift back and forth into the form of a cat…but who knew how long that would last once the Arachne sisters were done with him. If they were ever done with him. The only thing he’d used his power for was to spy. Hide. Run away. He had nothing to offer her but what…his devotion? Her friends gave her more than enough of that. He refused to give Kai up, so he couldn’t even offer his loyalty.

The woman in front of him was a goddess, and he was pathetic.

Was there really supposed to be some grand plan behind them being brought together by Merri and Bright? No way. Fate was taking the Mickey Bliss. He had no business with Heather. Fate should have known that. Kai certainly did.

When these cookies came out of the oven, Heather waved her hand over them and whispered something. Then she plucked one right off the burning hot sheet and lifted it to his mouth, offering a bite to him like a lover might.

As badly as Owen wanted to indulge in their perfect little romantic bubble, he knew he shouldn’t.

Owen took the cookie from her hand and shoved it in his face. It was the perfect temperature, perfect consistency, perfect taste, perfect everything. “Sublime,” he said. Because it was. Lost in the ecstasy of the cookie, he groaned and took two more.

Heather laughed and took a bite of her own. “Oh, yes. This is more like it,” she said. “We may not be able to use magic to make the cookies for our project, but now we at least know what they’re supposed to taste like. Except…”

“Are you kidding?” Owen said with his mouth full. How could anyone find fault with this exquisiteness?

“…this chocolate is terribly sub par.”

Owen rolled his eyes.

José appeared beside the table. “Only a stupid chef would let neophytes practice with the good chocolate,” he said. “I am not a stupid chef.”

“Want a cookie?” Owen offered the pan to José, only because he knew there was a full sheet still left in the oven.

“Later,” said José. “My dear, I believe your friends are here for you.”

Her eyes locked with Owen’s. “Bubble over,” she said, with what almost sounded like regret.

“Bubble over,” he replied in the same tone.

José packed up a dozen or so of the cookies in a to-go bag for her. Reluctantly, they exited the kitchen together.

The other two Gothwitches stood by the door, hands on their hips. Every item of clothing they wore from head to toe was black, just like Heather, as if it were a uniform. Poppy’s pigtails were tied with black ribbons. Oleander wore sunglasses, even though it was the dead of night.

“You were supposed to come straight back to the dorm after your trip,” Poppy said to Heather. “We’ve been looking all over for you.”

“Didn’t realize you’d be slumming it downtown with the hoi polloi,” sneered Oleander.

“It’s this stupid project,” Heather said. “If it weren’t for that ridiculous substitute, this would be a non-issue. But I can’t let my grades slip. You know how Daddy is.” She retrieved her purse and pashmina from the booth in the back, passing by both Owen and José without so much as a glance. “Wait until I tell you about the insanity my sister pulled this weekend…”

The front door chimed and closed behind her as the three witches exited the diner.

“She forgot her cookies,” said José. “And she didn’t even say goodbye.”

“Bubble over,” Owen repeated, with more sadness than he’d felt in a very long time. It was time for a lot of things to be over. “Thanks, José. For everything.”

José pulled a cookie out of the bag and took a healthy bite. “Thank me by clearing table fifteen.”

8

Heather couldn’t sleep a wink.

She was bone tired and exhausted to the core of her being, but her mind rocketed through the night like a magic missile.

Poppy and Oleander, on the other hand, had far too much energy between them. Oleander had used her family’s account to hire a Ryde to drive her and Poppy to the diner. The three of them took the same route back to Harmswood. The chatter had been non-stop the whole way.

“It’s all Poppy’s fault,” said Oleander.

“The Brighton brothers sent you a package to welcome you back from Vermont,” Poppy told Heather. “It was maple candies. I maybe had one.”

“Or five,” said Oleander.

Poppy stuck out her tongue. “But you weren’t back, so I asked the resident advisor on our floor to do a locator spell on you. I was positive that stupid mirror had dumped you halfway around the world or something. But then when Laddany said you were already back in Nocturne Falls, we didn’t know what to think.”

The pressure Heather had been feeling behind her eyes from the moment they’d left Mummy’s Diner was now a full blown headache. “You didn’t try to call first?”

“You didn’t answer,” said Oleander.

“Which means I was busy,” Heather snapped. “You know the drill.” Heather pulled her phone out of her bag.

It was off.

She always turned it off before she traveled through the mirror. She’d accidentally left it on once—passing through the magic field had drained all her battery, rearranged her apps, and deleted a random assortment of very important music, photos, and contacts. She never wanted to go through that again. But she always turned it back on when she arrived. Always. Except this time, apparently. The one time anyone cared enough to welcome her back. The one time her life was more complicated than usual. The one time she’d stepped inside a bubble and allowed herself to have fun with…someone she shouldn’t.

But she wasn’t about to apologize to her friends for not turning her phone on. Apologies opened the door to let someone else take control of a situation. Heather preferred to be the one in control.

“Vermont wiped me out,” said Heather. “My sisters were both complete jerks.” Everything was fine as long as Poppy and Oleander restricted their questions to her trip and the stupid traveling spell.

They didn’t.

“So what’s the deal with cat-boy, anyway?” Poppy asked. “I mean he’s pretty, but most shifters are. I just didn’t think working class guys were your type.”

“Unless you’re training him to be your servant,” said Oleander. “Oh, please tell me we’re going to have our very own servant.”

Heather clenched her hands into fists beneath her pashmina, where her friends couldn’t see them. Not just because she didn’t want to talk about Owen, but because Oleander sounded—

Yes. That is how you usually sound, said the voice in her head. Wretchedly elitist. Almost as snobbish as your mother.

Heather tried not to throw up at the thought. “Shut up.”

“What? What did I say?” asked Poppy.

Oleander sniffed. “Someone’s a little touchy about the stray she was forced to take in.”

You are who your friends are, said the voice.

“Everybody, just shut up!” Heather yelled.

Poppy and Oleander went quiet.

You want things to change? The voice was annoyingly persistent. Then you have to change.

The car drifted to a halt in front of the school.

Oleander scowled at Heather. “What’s your damage?”

Heather shook her head. “I told you, I’m really tired. Can you please just tip the driver so we can go to bed?”

Thankfully, Oleander did as she asked.

Poppy placed a comforting hand on Heather’s arm. “Yes. Sleep sounds good. Let’s do that.”

Heather reached for the door handle. She couldn’t get out of that car fast enough.

The trio had gone up to the room they shared and changed into their pajamas—as black as everything else they wore. They performed their usual nightly rituals and made an early night of it. Poppy and Oleander both fell asleep almost at once, but Heather’s racing brain hadn’t stopped.

After listening to Oleander’s soft snores and Poppy’s little wheeze for what must have been an hour, Heather got back out of bed. She rummaged in her medicine bag and pulled out the precious vial of sleep dust she’d stolen from her mother’s cabinet. But instead of using it on herself, she sprinkled a tiny bit onto the foreheads of her roommates. She didn’t want to wake them.

It was time Heather and her guardian angel had a conversation.

She pushed aside the coffee table in the common room and stared at the empty carpet, unsure of what to do. In Professor Blake’s office, there was already a sigil. If she drew a fresh one here, some alarm would probably go off in the Head Witch’s office, alerting her that Heather was performing an unapproved spell on school grounds.

Heather stepped closer to the large picture window of their tower room and took a moment to look out over the moonlit forest that surrounded Harmswood. Protected it. That forest was protecting her too, in a way. Heather wriggled her bare toes in the square of light cast on the floor. She looked up into the clear sky. The moon was almost full…and there were thousands of stars. She removed the choker that had been wrapped around her wrist and held it up into the light.

She didn’t need a sigil. She had everything she needed right here.

Reclasping the choker around her neck, she settled, crosslegged into the light on the floor. She rested the backs of her hands on her knees. Stretched her neck. Closed her eyes. Took three deep breaths and prepared to start her chant.

“So tell me about this boy.”

Heather peeked out of one eye. The angel sat beside Heather in the moonlight, looking as substantial as if she’d just entered the room and plopped down next to her. She was old, but not elderly…maybe Professor Blake’s age. There were laugh lines around her eyes and mouth. Her thick hair floated to her brown shoulders in waves. Her irises were dark, but sometimes green and sometimes blue…and they sparkled like starlight. Her eyes were the only otherworldly things about her; if Heather hadn’t known better, she might have mistaken the woman for a nanny. Or a cleaning lady. Or José’s mother.

If José’s mother was a ghost.

Heather didn’t bother trying to ask the woman who she was again. “You sound like Poppy and Oleander,” she said instead.

“Oh, Koukla,” the woman said with great pity. “If you were any other girl, you would have said I sounded like your mother.”

Heather didn’t know what a “Koukla” was—she assumed it was some sort of endearment in angel language. She felt a tear slide down her cheek, but she did not bother to stop it. This woman lived inside her head. It would have been futile for Heather to hide any feelings from her now. “Why is everything such a mess?”

“Life is messy,” she said. “Love is messier.”

Heather hiccuped a laugh. “Now you sound like a fortune cookie.”

The woman reached out to Heather as if to touch her, but stopped herself. Like a ghost, her guardian angel couldn’t make physical contact. “You told me before that you had never been loved.”

Heather thought about the kids at school. “Admired, maybe. Feared. Tolerated.” She thought about her family. “Ignored, definitely.” She looked out the window. The black sky there felt almost comforting. “I’m not even sure I know what love feels like. If someone ever loved me, I don’t know if I would recognize it.”

“Part of love is allowing yourself be loved,” said the angel. “What about me? Could you let me love you?”

Heather smirked. “If you’re my guardian angel, aren’t you supposed to love me anyway? Isn’t that in your job description or something?”

It was the angel’s turn to laugh. “Maybe. But I would rather love you out of desire than duty.”

“I think I’d rather you did that too.” Heather looked into the woman’s kind eyes. “I don’t even know your name.”

“Efthimia,” said the angel. “But you can call me Effie, if you like.”

The name suited her. She looked more like the sort of woman who would be hauling around babies and bags of flour rather than flitting about weighing hearts or playing a harp. Heather bet she probably knew how to make cookies without magic. Or a recipe. Blindfolded. The next time some artist drew a waifish pale thing and called it an angel, Heather would laugh.

“Okay. Effie it is.”

“So,” Effie went on. “Do you think you could let that boy love you?”

“Wow. You don’t beat around the bush, do you?”

“I’m a meddler,” Effie said proudly.

“Not the only one in my life, apparently,” said Heather. “I don’t even know what to think about Owen. He’s part of the messiness.” A stray cloud went over the moon and the image of Effie went hazy and silver around the edges. Heather decided to be bold and ask the hard question before she disappeared again.

“Effie, why are you here?”

“To help you,” Effie answered. “To guide you.”

“Yes, but why me? What makes me so special?”

“You are a bellwether, my dear. A catalyst. Not only do you make things happen, but things also happen around you. Important things, always coming together and tearing part. You are an instigator of change.”

Of all the things Effie might have said to Heather, this was the least heartening. “So you’re telling me I’m the Tower card in the tarot deck. The breaker of eggs. Destined to screw up everything.”

“You’re so much more than that, Koukla. You are a force of nature.”

The idea that the rest of her life would hold nothing but chaos was even more exhausting. And depressing. In her mother’s eyes, Heather was good for nothing. Maybe she was right. Heather couldn’t see good in any of this.

“Do I get to be the eye of the storm, or do I have to sit inside it the whole time?”

“You can learn to separate yourself from it all and be the eye if you wish, but why would you? And let everyone else have all the fun? There is something to be said for getting your hands dirty. Leading the charge. Dancing in the rain. Kissing on the edge of a volcano. Flying into the wind.” Effie spread her arms wide. “I flew once.” She leaned closer to Heather. “What would happen if you let go? Lost control? Embraced the chaos?”

Heather knew exactly what would happen. “I’d become Katy.”

Effie waved a hand in the air, as if flitting the idea away like a gnat. “Your little sister uses chaos as a weapon. Your older sister chooses to remain in the eye of the storm. Plays it safe. You, Goldilocks, have the power to do both. It is a great power, if you choose to use it properly.”

“What’s so great about it if I can’t even get out of the mess I’m in now?” Heather asked.

“Can’t you?” Effie raised an eyebrow.

“If there is a way out, I can’t see it.” Heather shook her head. “I just want to be happy. Is that so much to ask?”

“It is not,” said Effie. “The harder question is: What would it take to make you happy? Most people achieve happiness by surrounding themselves with the things they love. What do you love? I asked you before.”

“Not quite,” said Heather. “You asked me what I would miss if I died.”

Effie waved her hands in the air again. “Practically the same thing.”

Was it really that simple?

“Yes,” said Effie, who could apparently still read Heather’s mind while the image of her lounged in a pool of moonlight. “It really is that easy. Find what makes you happy in this world, and then try to put those things first.”

Heather was skeptical. “That sounds selfish. I’m accused of being selfish enough as it is.”

“Ugh!” Effie grimaced. “I really want to reach through the ether and hug you, but I can’t.” She sighed then, her broad shoulders relaxing a bit. “At some point in your life, someone should have taught you the difference between ‘being selfish’ and ‘self-care.’ What we’re talking about right now—the you being happy part—that’s caring for yourself. That’s not a bad thing.”

“I still don’t see the difference,” said Heather.

“Selfish people don’t care about others, right?”asked Effie. “They don’t help others in any way.”

“Right.”

“But how can you care for someone else if you’re too broken or hurting or—”

“—dead?” Heather finished.

“That’s extreme, but yes,” said Effie. “If you think about other people a hundred percent of the time and never think about yourself, you could do yourself great harm.”

Every thought in Heather’s brain did feel like it always belonged to someone else. What did her friends think about this? How would her mother react to that? What would Professor Blake blame her for this week? She was always so worried about what other people would do or think or say that she’d given away any power she’d had over her life. She was so used to thinking twelve steps ahead, that she let all those possible circumstances dictate her every action.

It was time to take her life back.

But if she did what Effie was suggesting—if she figured out what things in her life made her happy and put those first—it was possible that the life she created would look very different. Because…

She liked Owen.

The time they’d spent in that kitchen tonight was the most fun she could remember having in a long time. If she died tomorrow, she would miss every other opportunity she would have to get to know Owen better. But if she let that happen, she ran the risk of losing the friends she had now, the elite group she’d worked so hard to forge.

On top of which, Kai Xanthopoulos might kill her, if the feather didn’t do it first.

“The great thing about being a bellwether,” said Effie, “is that you take your flock with you wherever you go. Don’t be afraid to lead them into unfamiliar waters.”

Uncharted territory, Owen had called it.

“But you’re going to have to believe in them,” Effie added. “Trust that your friends will remain beside you when you change direction.”

Heather wasn’t sure she had that much faith in any of the people she knew. “And if they don’t?”

“Then they probably weren’t your friends to begin with.”

Heather closed her eyes. She knew Effie was right, but she didn’t trust that her friendships were true enough to withstand a reinvented Heather. She couldn’t be sure they really liked her that much. She wasn’t sure she liked herself that much. If the designer shoe was on the other foot, it probably would have walked away.

Poppy and Oleander might stick with her. Well, Poppy, anyway. Duko and his werewolf pack could go either way. Their loyalties were to each other, not anyone else. But Heather was responsible for leading the cheers for every sports team they were on…

There was just no good answer. Heather wouldn’t know for sure until she made a change.

She warred with herself over this dilemma until dawn. At some point Effie had disappeared, maybe when the moon set…definitely before the sun rose. Heather stood up and stretched her legs, looking out over the forest as the orange-pink dawn kissed the tops of the trees. Her head hurt from inventing possibilities all night. She could see no way to play this game to achieve the desired outcome.

Maybe this was what Effie meant by letting go. Embracing the chaos. Big Things happened around Heather, and she needed to accept that.

She just hoped that somewhere in the wake of the storm, she wasn’t left standing alone.

She slid the table back into place, got dressed, and headed down to breakfast before Poppy and Oleander were awake. She needed more time to think.

Unfortunately, time didn’t seem to help. Before she knew it, Poppy was sliding a latte in front of her.

“Thank you,” said Heather.

Poppy and Oleander exchanged looks, and then sat down on either side of her.

“You never say ‘thank you,’” said Oleander.

“Are you feeling all right?” Poppy asked.

“Not especially,” said Heather. “Is that okay?”

“What?” asked Poppy. “Of course it’s okay.”

“I don’t feel all right pretty much every day,” said Oleander. “You two never seem to mind.”

The pessimistic show of solidarity made Heather smile. “Can I ask you guys a question?”

“Of course,” Poppy chirped.

“If I did something crazy, would you stop being friends with me?”

Oleander raised one of her severely arched eyebrows so high that it almost disappeared behind her straight black bangs. “How crazy are we talking? Like, not wearing black anymore kind of crazy?” She took a sip of her coffee. “Because if you started dressing in rainbow colors, that would definitely be a dealbreaker.”

Poppy leaned in and whispered, “I would wear colors with you.”

The laugh that burst out of Heather surprised her so much that she almost spit coffee all over the table. “I love you guys.”

Heather felt the looks again.

“You never say ‘I love you’ either,” said Oleander.

Poppy put a hand on Heather’s forehead. “What happened to you in Vermont? Should we be worried? Do you have three days to live or something?”

Maybe. Heather shook it off. “I’m fine. It’s just…my sisters are unbearable.” She raised her cup. “You guys make much better sisters.”

Poppy and Oleander raised their cups too, joining Heather in the toast. “Yes we do,” they said in unison, and then the three of them dissolved in giggles.

Heather suddenly felt much better about the future.

The next step was confronting Owen. She had no idea what to say to him. If anything. Heather and her school-sisters took their sweet old time getting to Consumer Magics, in an effort to spend as little time in the classroom as possible. But the alarm rang anyway, so Heather moved to her seat.

Owen wasn’t there.

Heather breathed a sigh of relief, until she realized Miss Sunshine wasn’t at her desk either. But then the door opened and the substitute walked right in, just like it was any other day.

“Good morning, class. If you’d like to spend this hour working on your final projects, that’s fine. Everyone else is welcome to watch a weaving demonstration I’ve prepared for you.”

More weaving. Just like a good spider was meant to.

Heather pulled out her notebook and her phone. There was no way she’d be participating in any sort of trap “Miss Sunshine” might lure her into. Now was as good a time as any to make a list of all those secret hints, like Owen had suggested the night before.

Thinking back on their little bubble made her smile. He’d acted so sweet and innocent the whole time. If Duko had been there, his suggestions would have gone from flirtatious to salacious in about five seconds. Heather glanced up to see what Duko was doing. He seemed to be growling it out with Finn in an argument about…biscuit dough?

Heather looked around the room. No one had taken Miss Sunshine up on her offer. Every single person in that class was working on their project whether they liked their partner or not.

And she had started it.

Bellwether, said Effie’s voice. Or maybe it was just the memory of her voice.

Miss Sunshine walked up and down the aisles, monitoring the class’s progress. When she came by Heather’s table, she stopped.

“Where is Mister”—she pretended to check the attendance roster—“Liddell today?”

Heather wanted to punch the Arachne right in her beautiful smug face. Instead, she decided to try a different tactic. “None of your business,” she said, loud enough for the adjacent tables to hear.

“Excuse me?”

The snide air of her mother was all too easy for Heather to adopt. It fueled her onward.

“Even if I did know, I wouldn’t tell you. That’s privileged information the school is not allowed to give out.”

It wasn’t completely a lie, but it was certainly a stretch. She wanted to test this bellwether power. Would the rest of the class stand with her against a common enemy?

“She’s right, you know,” said Poppy, predictably.

“Completely confidential,” added Oleander.

Then, wonder of all wonders, Kai Xanthopoulos piped up. “You should ask Professor Blake.”

It was working! And it felt really good.

“In fact,” said Heather. “Perhaps we should ask Professor Blake to find out what’s really wrong with Professor Mayfield.”

“What is wrong with Professor Mayfield, anyway?” asked Duko.

“We’d all like to sign a get well card for him,” said Bellamy. “I’ll ask Professor Blake for his address.”

Heather stood. “Perhaps we should drop by his house for a visit. He might appreciate some help.” She could imagine the poor man trapped in some cocoon, waiting to be eaten. If he hadn’t become spider food already.

The rest of the students in class stood as well. Miss Sunshine’s eyes widened as she realized she was surrounded by very curious—and very powerful—students. She hissed loudly in Heather’s face and then fled out the door.

“What kind of beast did she say she was, exactly?” asked Tinker.

“She didn’t,” said Finn.

Heather gathered her things and shoved them into her bat backpack.

“Where are you going?” asked Poppy.

“Lower library,” Heather answered. “You guys good here?”

Oleander nodded. “We’re good.”

“Let us know if you need anything,” said Poppy.

“Yeah,” said Oleander. “Make sure your stupid phone’s on this time.”

“It’s on,” she promised, and then scurried out the door. For the first time ever, Heather felt as though it might be possible to survive in the maelstrom of her life without being torn apart. And in order for that possibility to remain, she needed to stay alive.

She had to get her hands on that feather and destroy it, once and for all.

9

Owen knocked on the door.

When no one answered for a minute, he knocked harder.

He’d been a little surprised that his school badge had let him into the boys’ wing before dawn, but he probably shouldn’t have been. Harmswood was supposed to be a sanctuary for young paranormals, and sanctuary knew no visiting hours.

Owen prayed that Sam would answer the knock and not his flatmate. Ace, also known as “Stoneburner,” was a gargoyle. He was a giant even in human form. Ace wasn’t someone you wanted to meet in a dark alley, and Owen had seen his share of dark alleys.

The door opened to reveal a stone face with half-lidded stone eyes, a wide stone nose, very large stone fangs, and a stone snarl.

Owen winced.

“Cat,” the gargoyle grumbled, “you knock on this door one more time and I will squash you so flat that you’ll be jealous of pancakes.”

That gave Owen an idea. “Ace, if you let me in to talk to Sam, I’ll give you free pancakes at the diner for a week.”

The gargoyle’s eyes narrowed, but the snarl vanished. “A month.”

Ace was the star linebacker of the Harmswood American football team. A solid month’s worth of pancakes would take Owen the better part of a year to work off.

“Every weekend for a month,” said Owen. “That’s the best I can do.”

“Deal.” Ace opened the door a little wider and stepped back. Light from the hallway spilled into the dark room, falling upon Sam’s soundly sleeping form. “Good luck.”

“Sam,” Owen whispered, to no avail. “Sam!” Owen poked him in the shoulder. “Samuel!” Owen had no idea if his full name was Samuel or not, but Sam didn’t answer either way. Owen turned to Ace. “Is he dead?”

“May as well be,” Ace’s deep voice rumbled from beneath his coverlet. “The kid’s a were-sloth, after all. He could sleep through the Panic Parade.”

“Doesn’t he have class this morning?”

“Nope.” Ace yawned. “We both have the morning off. At least…we did.” The yawn ended in something of a growl. Owen chose to ignore it.

“What about the other days? Doesn’t he have an alarm or something? You’re his flatmate. Don’t you know how to wake him up? Ace? Can you help me?”

More rumbling. “You said you wanted to talk to him. Nothing in the deal about him having to answer back.”

“Come on, Ace,” Owen pleaded. “Sam works in the lower library, and I need to use his key to get into the vault down there.”

A large sigh emanated from beneath the lump of bedsheets. “What is it with you goonies and that stupid vault?”

“It’s…a long story. Just trust me. It’s a matter of life and death.”

“Nope.” Ace rolled over. “Don’t trust you.”

Owen took a deep breath and said, as fast as he could, “A hundred years ago I was cursed by a spider woman into the body of a cat until I got her the feather from a Fury’s wing. Well, Kai turned out to be a Fury, and now the spider woman is back and subbing in our Consumer Magics class and still wants me to kill Kai, which I won’t do. And she can’t either, because Kai’s pretty much unkillable. But Heather Hayden got one of Kai’s feathers back when she accidentally cursed Finn and killed his pack-brother, and if the spider woman finds out about it she’s going to get a hold of it and kill a god and maybe Heather too. I have to get to it first and destroy it before that happens and save Heather, so that we can make it to the Zombie Prom. And the feather’s in the vault, which is why I REALLY NEED SAM RIGHT NOW!”

Owen yelled the last part of his speech right into Sam’s face. The were-sloth didn’t so much as move a muscle.

Ace, however, started to laugh. And laugh. And continued laughing so hard he couldn’t seem to stop.

“Did I miss something?” Owen asked. “What was the funny bit?”

“You…and Heather Hayden…at prom…” Ace sat back up in bed, just so he could double over with laughter again. “Cat, that is possibly the most hilarious thing I have heard all year. Thank you for that.”

“You can thank me by helping me—get—Sam—up.” Owen yanked on Sam’s arm until he fell out of bed. Sam curled back up into a ball on the floor, happily snoring away.

Ace threw back his own covers. “How about I thank you by getting you into the vault instead?” He shifted into a more human form and pulled a pair of sweatpants over his boxers.

“You?” Owen asked. “But how…?”

“I work in the library too, fuzzbutt.” Ace pulled a Harmswood Athletics tee down over his massive washboard abs. “What, you think all jocks are too stupid to read?”

“At this moment, my good fellow, I believe you to be the very opposite of stupid,” said Owen.

Ace opened a drawer in his bedside table and got out a set of keys. “We pull this off and you owe me two months of pancakes.”

Owen prayed José would be merciful. “You got it, Ace.”

The early birds of Harmswood were starting to stir—it was later than Owen thought. He’d miss Consumer Magics class. A shame, because if this went pear-shaped, he would have liked to see Heather one last time. Then again, the timing was probably a good thing, since “Miss Sunshine” would be too busy with students to go poking around in the bowels of Harmswood.

They passed the cafeteria and headed to the back stairwell. Ace’s stomach growled like a feral beast. “You owe me so much for this, Cat.”

“I am well aware,” said Owen.

Ace paused on the stair. “You’re also aware that Heather’s a cheerleader, right? Head cheerleader?”

“Yes, Ace.” Owen skipped right by him. Was the idea of them as a couple really so strange?

Apparently so. “Does she even know you exist?”

“Yes, Ace.”

“Seriously? She’s said more than two words to you?”

Owen sighed. “Yes, Ace.”

Ace thundered down the steps behind him. Owen had no idea how many hundreds of years old this section of the building was, but the fact that there was not so much as a creak beneath Ace’s hulking form spoke volumes for its craftsmanship. “What on earth makes you think you have a shot with her?”

Owen remembered something Kai had said to him. “Witches and cats, my friend,” he said. “Stranger things have happened.”

“Even still.” Ace shook his head. “She is seriously out of your league.”

“I know, Ace. I know.”

The gargoyle fiddled with his key ring. There were two oversized, ancient looking keys there—he used one of them to unlock the door. Owen assumed the other was for the vault.

Unlike Harmswood’s main library, with its opulent stained glass windows and high tech computer system, the basement library in this wing of the school was dank and unremarkable. He had no idea how far underground they were—the lack of windows brought to mind the deep-level air-raid shelters he’d heard about during the blitz. He’d left London long behind by then. There was a card catalog here in lieu of any computers, and the circulation desk communicated with the main library by way of pneumatic tube.

Owen’s old soul felt at home in this library, as did other students whose paranormal natures made them uneasy around technology. Where some students might have felt that working shifts in this library was a punishment, it made sense that a stonebeast and a sloth would be comfortable here. It also made sense for this library to house a vault full of dangerous old magic that no one talked about.

Owen glanced up at Ace. Well, no one outside his circle of goonies, apparently.

Once the library door closed behind them, they were engulfed in darkness.

“I don’t suppose you thought to bring a flashlight,” said Ace.

It probably should have occurred to Owen to grab one of the emergency torches from the diner. “Can’t you just turn on the lights?”

“I don’t exactly want to advertise that we’re open for business while we’re busy breaking into stuff.”

“Fair point,” said Owen. “Well, follow me, then.”

“Follow you?” Ace asked. “Why? I still don’t trust you.”

“Then trust my eyesight,” said Owen. “Cats have marvelous night vision.”

Ace put a large hand on Owen’s shoulder and followed him slowly across the room. In the pitch black, the gargoyle walked into a chair, a table, and one of the stacks almost immediately.

“You trying to put yourself out of commission?” Owen asked.

“Not on purpose,” said Ace.

A moment later, a small, blue orb of light appeared over the circulation desk. “Good job, mate,” said Owen.

“Wasn’t me,” said the gargoyle. “That’s Marisol.”

Owen looked around, but the library was still empty but for him and Ace. “Mari-who?”

Ace sighed. “Marisol. A ghost that apparently only I can see. Thank you, Marisol,” he said into the air.

The blue orb danced a bit, and then settled in beside them.

Owen knew the library had ghosts—all libraries had them. Most lingered in the biography section. But as far as Owen knew, if one person could see a ghost, everyone else could see them, too. He’d never heard of a ghost that only appeared to one person. But it seemed that this Marisol was no stranger to Ace, so Owen assumed her spirit was benevolent, if invisible.

Marisol’s blue light cast strange shadows as they walked through the stacks to the back of the library. Fairy wings and tentacles and flying ships appeared on the wall where there should have been nothing but shelves and books. Owen guessed that these dynamic shades were echoes of the contents of the texts, but in the half-darkness it was difficult not to imagine that monsters lurked around every corner.

Without warning, the library door swung open and shut once more. Owen and Ace both jumped at the sound.

“Dude, I thought you locked the door,” Ace whispered.

“You’re the one with the key!” Owen snapped.

“Chillax, scaredy cats. It’s just me.”

Heather’s beautiful face was suddenly illuminated by ghost light.

“No way,” said Ace.

“What are you doing here?” Owen asked.

Heather shrugged. “Great minds think alike, I guess.”

“We need to destroy the feather,” said Owen.

“I couldn’t agree more,” said Heather. “Now let’s hurry up and do that so we can get back to class.”

Ace’s stone-gray eyes went from Owen to Heather and then back again. “I seriously can’t believe what I’m seeing.” The blue ball of light spun around, as if agitated. “Well, I can see you, so I believe in you, obviously.”

“Who does he believe in?” Heather whispered to Owen.

“A ghost only he can see,” Owen answered.

“That’s a thing?”

“Apparently,” he told her. “So, Ace, are you in or out?”

“Oh, I’m in,” said the gargoyle. “I’m all in. If only to see how this plays out.”

Owen was fairly sure Ace wasn’t referring to the vault.

The gargoyle took up the other ancient key on his ring and shoved it into the lock on the vault door.

Heather was close enough to Owen that he could smell the sugar and chocolate that still lingered on her skin. Had she not showered or slept since last night? Her hair was still a mess, but the choker was back in place around her neck. The ghost light cast dark shadows under her eyes. She looked tired. But she also looked ready to get this over with. Owen knew, because he felt very much the same.

Had she been anyone else, Owen might have reached out in the darkness and taken her hand. But he didn’t. He didn’t want to pressure her one way or another. But it meant the world to him that she was by his side right now.

Ace’s impressive arm muscles tensed as he pulled the massive vault door open. A waft of musty cold air greeted them.

“I’m learning to hate that smell,” said Heather.

“You come here a lot, don’t you?” Ace asked.

“Every time I’m summoned by my mother,” said Heather. “The closer we get to my perfect sister’s wedding, the more often I go.”

This must have been what she’d meant at the diner when she told him she’d “just gotten back.” It also explained why she’d looked as exhausted then as she did now. “Sorry,” was all Owen could think to say.

“It’s all right,” she said as they walked into the vault. “The up side is that I know Professor Blake keeps the feather right…here.”

The spot Heather pointed to was empty. The blue light followed Heather’s finger, running down the vault shelf as if searching. When the light reached the far wall, something silver glimmered in the shadows.

“There it is!” cried Heather. “But I have no idea why…”

“Don’t you?” Miss Sunshine said as she stepped into the ghost light.

Behind them, the vault door slammed shut.

Ace started to scream.

The blue orb left Miss Sunshine immediately and fled to Ace, who was now covered head to toe in spiders.

“I figured the girl would lead me to you, Owen, but I did not bargain for this.” Miss Sunshine held up the feather in its clear box. “You can imagine my surprise.”

Ace fell to the floor, still screaming and writhing beneath the blanket of spiders.

“Don’t hurt him!” Owen pleaded.

“It’s not me you need to ask,” said Miss Sunshine. “But do not worry. My sisters won’t kill him right away. First he will be paralyzed and wrapped in the finest silk. Then, only then, will we feast upon his liquefied insides.” She looked down at the gargoyle. “He’s quite large. We will be able to sustain ourselves with his flesh for a very long time.”

Ace’s face contorted in pain. He swiped and swatted at the spiders, but as soon as he removed some, more swept in to take their place. Marisol’s blue orb shook and shimmered around in circles before flying into Ace’s wide open, screaming mouth. His chest began to glow a bright blue, and then his entire body. The vault filled with the sound of tearing clothes as Ace turned to stone, his face locked in a paroxysm of fear.

“Pity,” said Miss Sunshine. “I had such high hopes for that one. But no matter. We have you.”

Before Owen could open his mouth, he felt a pinch on the skin between his thumb and forefinger. He raised his hand to find that it, too, was covered in spiders.

“No!” Heather screamed.

Owen could already feel a tingling sensation in his arms and legs. He sat down before he could fall down. “Your sister said you would break my curse.”

Heather turned to scream at Miss Sunshine. “You have the feather! Why are you doing this?”

“My sister said you would not have to live as a cat anymore, and now you don’t.” Miss Sunshine shrugged. “And now that I have the feather, I no longer require your services. Goodbye, Mister Liddell. And thank you.”

Owen plopped onto the cold floor of the vault. The soft light still emanating from Ace’s stone body illuminated the ceiling. Someone, at some point during this vault’s creation, had thought to etch a moon and stars into the stone up there. Owen wondered if the artistic mason who did that knew that one day, some dying teenager would be all too appreciative of that work.

He heard Miss Sunshine shatter the lucite box into the floor. She lifted the feather high into the air, laughing maniacally.

“Finally!” she cried. “Vengeance will be mine!”

Owen blinked a few times while he still could. Tears rolled down either side of his face. Heather came into view, with those beautiful blue eyes. Her hair fell down and created a golden curtain all around them. “Stay with me, Owen,” she whispered. “Please don’t leave me.”

Owen wanted to answer. He wanted to tell Heather how much he cared about her, and that he would stay beside her always. But he couldn’t. He was supposed to be the one to save her, and he had failed.

“I’m so sorry,” he tried to say, but his paralyzed tongue wouldn’t let him.

“Stay with me,” she said again. This time, the tear that slid down the side of his face came from her eyes. Those gorgeous sky blue eyes he wanted to stare into until the day he died.

He just never imagined that day would be today.

10

Heather watched her tear fall onto Owen’s face. Hands balled up tight and teeth clenched, she could feel the rage in her cheeks. She was ready to turn and beat Miss Sunshine to death with her fists if she had to.

And then something happened. An eerie calmness washed over her. With a last caress of Owen’s cheek, she slowly stood. When she reached her full height she was no longer a distraught cheerleader who had just witnessed the fall of a friend…and the boy she liked.

She was Miss Heather Hayden.

And she did not suffer fools.

“You are an idiot,” Heather said to Miss Sunshine. Her voice was icier than the stale vault air.

Miss Sunshine—Arachne Whatever—tilted her head. “I’m sorry?”

“Yes,” said Heather. “You are. Allow me to outline for you just how much of an idiot you are. And I’ll try to put it in simple terms you can understand.”

Miss Sunshine’s cheeks flushed. Good. Heather’s condescension was having the desired effect.

“You have just attacked—and possibly killed—two innocent young men under the protection of Harmswood. And, like an idiot, you’re still on school grounds. Do you honestly think the administration is going to just let you walk out of here?”

Miss Sunshine feigned as much bravado as she could. “My sisters and I are legion,” she said. “At least one of us will get out alive. That Arachne will still have this feather. And our revenge!”

“Is that so?” Heather put a hand on her hip. “Why wait? Do it now.”

“I…what?”

“Why would you even bother trying to escape? Go on and take your revenge right here, right now. What are you waiting for? Athena’s a god, isn’t she? Well, give her a ring!”

“One d-doesn’t just…call…a goddess…”

Heather’s feeling of triumph swelled.

Miss Sunshine was stalling.

Heather was beginning to see why Finn had given her the Fury’s feather as a punishment for her crime. It was one thing to have such a dangerous item in one’s possession—whether you wanted it or not—but it was another thing entirely when you were forced to actually do something with it.

Miss Sunshine looked at the bright feather in her hand. Heather would have bet her Book of Shadows that the Arachne was currently wondering how far she wanted to take this fight that was started by someone else, ages ago.

Heather crossed her arms over her chest. “Time’s a-wasting, sweetie.” She nodded to the traveling mirror. “You know what that is, don’t you?”

“Yes,” said the far more timid Miss Sunshine.

“Then let’s do this thing already.”

Miss Sunshine narrowed her eyes at Heather. “You are little more than a child,” she said. “You haven’t the first clue how to call an ancient goddess.”

Heather might have been a child, but the angel inside her certainly wasn’t. In the waning ghost light emanating from Ace’s stone form, Effie’s image sprang forth.

“She might not, but I do.” Effie turned to the mirror. “Pallas Athena, hero of heroes—”

“No!” cried Miss Sunshine. “Not yet!”

“—warrior of wisdom and gray-eyed daughter of no one, we seek an audience.”

The mirror blazed to life, this time with a golden light. The smell that accompanied it was a combination of honey, fire, and steel. A sandal-clad foot emerged from the mirror, and the rest of the woman attached to it stepped through.

Athena, ancient warrior goddess of Olympus, was nothing like Heather had expected. There was no helmet, no shield, no spear. There was no toga. There was no accompanying owl or procession of gorgons. The woman that stood before them now was short and curvy, with chestnut hair that fell to her hips in waves. She wore loose white drawstring pants that might have been linen, and a matching tank top.

She looked like she’d come fresh from yoga…not a battlefield.

Effie got on her knees and bowed low before Athena. Heather bent her head politely, not wanting to let the horrible Miss Sunshine out of her sight.

“Efthimia.” Athena helped the angel to her feet. “It is good to see you.”

“Always a pleasure, my goddess.”

“What have you been up to these days?” Athena looked over to Heather. There was lightning in her bright eyes. “Haunting this girl, I see?”

“With respect, my goddess, I would first direct your attention to a more urgent matter.”

Effie motioned to the rest of the room. Ace lay on the floor, stone and still, softly glowing with his ghost’s blue light. Owen’s body remained stiff as a board, but his eye were fixed on the goddess, which meant he was still only paralyzed.

Miss Sunshine stood as far back away from the mirror as the small vault would allow, clinging to the feather for dear life, and looking for all the world like she’d been caught with her hand in the cookie jar.

“Oh, Arachne.” Athena shook her head. With a wave of her hand, every other spider in the room was gone. “Have the sisters learned nothing in all these years?”

“A-apparently not,” stammered Miss Sunshine.

Athena’s gaze fell to the feather clasped in Miss Sunshine’s hand. “And what are your intentions with that?”

“The plan was to seek vengeance upon the goddess Athena for turning us all into spiders.” Miss Sunshine blurted out the words as if she’d just taken some sort of truth serum.

“And do what?” Athena asked. “Turn me into a spider instead?”

“To kill you,” Miss Sunshine said reluctantly.

Athena laughed, and it felt like sunshine bubbled up from inside the pit of Heather’s stomach. It spread out to her limbs and made her happy too. “Silly Arachne. Didn’t anyone tell you? You can’t kill a god. Especially not with a feather from one of her own Furies.”

Athena plucked the feather from Miss Sunshine’s fingers and dropped it. By the time it hit the ground, it was nothing but dust. Heather would have let out a great sigh of relief if her friends still hadn’t been in mortal danger. But it was difficult not to feel some giddiness at the fact that her time with the feather was now officially over.

But wait…what did this mean for Effie?

Heather wasn’t ready to lose her guardian angel just yet.

Athena held up a finger in front of Miss Sunshine’s face. “You will release that poor teacher from your web and then you will leave this town, never to return. Understand?”

“Y-yes, goddess.”

“And if you or your sisters ever threaten me again, I will turn you all into dust mites!”

Athena waved her hand again and Miss Sunshine was gone from the vault before another “Yes, goddess” could escape her lips.

“Now, about my fallen warrior.”

Heather thought that Athena was talking about Owen, but she walked right past his body and knelt beside Ace.

“I am all too familiar with stonebeasts, and men who have been petrified by other means.” She put a hand on his chest, now barely glowing blue. “Your ghost friend has kept you with us, I see. You will, perhaps owe her more than simple thanks.”

Heather wasn’t sure Ace could hear what the goddess was saying, but his form shifted back to that of a very large teenage boy, though his clothes looked as if they’d been worn by the Incredible Hulk. He sat up and gaped at the goddess. She removed her hand from his chest and cupped his cheek.

“Well fought, my warrior,” she said, and then kissed him on the forehead. Like Miss Sunshine, Ace disappeared before he could say a word.

Athena turned back to Owen, and then looked up at Heather. “You want to get that one, or should I?”

Heather didn’t have the first clue what the goddess was talking about…and then a second later her mind filled with the answer. She knelt beside Owen, bent down, and placed a soft kiss on his lips.

At first, it was like kissing a statue. But after a moment his lips warmed, and he began kissing her back. When his arms unfroze, he put a hand in her hair and deepened the kiss. When the rest of his body thawed, he sat up and held her tightly.

“Thank you,” he said.

Heather grinned. “Thank the goddess.”

They both turned to Athena, whose beatific smile fell upon them both. “Fate can be a pain in my tuchis, but she does do some great work. Now, young man. I believe we need to discuss the lifting of this spell Arachne tricked you into.”

“Yes, ma’am. Goddess. Athena. Your Grace.” Owen wobbled as he got to his knees.

Heather helped him to stand. She wasn’t sure how well his legs would hold, so she encouraged him to lean into her. Not that she minded. She seemed to fit into Owen’s shoulder as if they’d been made for each other. And maybe they had.

“Hmm.” Athena examined Owen from head to toe, cocking her head this way, and then that. “Silly Egyptians, putting a king’s head on a cat. What were they thinking? Now, if you’d been cursed by one of the Greek sphinxes, her spell would still be strong as iron. This one, though…well, it seems it’s run its course.”

“Does that mean I won’t be a cat anymore?” Owen asked.

“Don’t you want to be?” said Athena.

“With respect, goddess, I’d like to stay a cat-shifter. But a mortal one.”

“Done,” said Athena. “Since that’s what you pretty much are now, anyway. Trying to extract the cat from you would have been a lot harder, considering how much more time you’ve spent as a cat than a human.”

“Good,” said Owen. “I’d like to keep the cat.”

“Me too,” Heather whispered to him.

The arm he had around her for support squeezed her extra tight in happy response to that.

“Wonderful!” said Athena. “Everything’s all squared away. Come on, Efthimia. Let’s leave these kids to it, shall we?”

“About that, mistress…” Effie started.

“Seriously?” Athena asked.

Heather and Owen both bit back a laugh. In that moment, Athena sounded just like a certain head cheerleader.

“She still needs so much guidance,” said Effie.

“She’s right,” said Heather. “I do. I’ve gotten so lost, and I’d really love some help getting back on the right track. And my mom…well…she’s not really a mom in the traditional sense. If that makes any sense.”

“It makes a great deal of sense,” said Athena. “I don’t really have a mom either.”

After a moment of what seemed like deep consideration, Athena turned and nodded to Effie.

Effie walked right up to Owen and Heather and took them both in her large, warm embrace. Heather hiccuped a sob, tears immediately springing to her eyes. She was overjoyed that Effie would be staying with her, but she never for a moment thought that she’d actually be able to hug the woman. And now that she was, she couldn’t seem to stop crying.

Effie released them and wiped Heather’s tears away. “It’s all right, Koukla. I’m not really going anywhere.” She touched Heather’s forehead. “I’ll always be in here.” She placed a palm on Heather’s heart. “And here.”

“I know,” Heather managed to say between sniffles. And then, in a flash, Effie was gone, too. But she wasn’t really gone. Heather felt a wave of tears overcome her again, but she fought it back.

“Thank you,” she said to the goddess. Because every time she prayed to a goddess in the future, she knew which one it would be.

It was Athena’s turn to step forward and touch them both on the forehead. She spotted the charm on Heather’s necklace, and she touched that too. “Be good,” she said with a smile, and then disappeared.

The shimmering golden mirror instantly went black, and the rest of the vault plunged into darkness right along with it.

“The door’s still closed, isn’t it?” Owen asked.

“Yup,” said Heather.

“Do you think Ace will come back down to fetch us?”

“Probably,” said Heather.

She felt him turn his face—his mouth was so close to her ear that she could feel his warm breath. “What do you suggest we do now?” he asked softly.

Heather smiled, even though he couldn’t see it. “Enjoy our bubble.”

Ace didn’t waste much time getting back down to the vault, and he brought Professor Blake with him. He pretended to get the key stuck in the lock, though, which was very kind. Heather and Owen had enough time to disengage and straighten themselves out before the door opened.

As soon as Heather saw Ace—who had also taken the time to change into clothes that weren’t ripped at the seams—she threw herself at him and gave him a huge bear hug. “I’m so glad you’re all right.”

He hugged her back so tightly she almost lost her breath, but she didn’t mind. “Cheer extra hard for me at the next game, willya?”

“Deal,” she said.

“You poor dears,” clucked Professor Blake. “Is what Ace told me true? Miss Sunshine was a trickster in disguise?”

“She was,” said Owen. “It’s all my fault. She was after me.”

“She was the one who got you spellbound?” asked the Head Witch.

Owen nodded.

“Let’s just thank the goddess it’s all over. And I hear we know which one to thank.” Professor Blake’s eyes fell to Heather’s necklace. “I guess that trinket became a true talisman in the end, didn’t it?”

“I guess so,” Heather said proudly.

Professor Blake patted Heather’s shoulder. “I’ve already dispatched someone to Professor Mayfield’s house, and in a moment I’m going to take over his class for the day. But I wanted to check on you children first and make sure you were all right.”

“We’re fine, Professor Blake,” said Heather.

“Fine and relieved,” said Owen. “So very, very relieved.”

“Well goodness knows you dears have had a time of it this morning. I hereby dismiss all three of you from classes today so that you can rest up from this taxing ordeal. I have a car waiting for you whenever you are ready to go home, Mister Liddell. In fact, why don’t you take Miss Hayden with you? I’m sure she could benefit from some fresh air and a change of scenery.”

“That would be nice,” said Owen. “Cheers, Professor Blake.”

“Yes, thank you,” added Heather.

They slowly walked back through the lower library. The world seemed strange now that it wasn’t lit by blue ghost light or golden goddess light. As they made their way up the stairs, Owen turned to her.

“You know I live with Kai and her parents,” he said. “I’ll understand if you’d rather go back to your room instead.”

Heather shook her head. “Professor Blake is right,” she said. “I need to get away from this school for a bit. And I’m going to have to apologize to Kai sooner or later; it may as well be sooner. Plus, I don’t particularly want to leave your side just yet.” She slipped her hand into Owen’s. “If that’s okay.”

He squeezed her fingers. “That is extremely okay.”

They didn’t say anything on the ride to the Xanthopoulouses’ house, just held hands in silence. They had left all the kissing and the discovering back in the dark of the vault, but somehow, the bubble was still with them.

Mr. and Mrs. Xanthopoulos welcomed them both with open arms. Heather tried to imagine herself in a family like this, but she couldn’t manage it. She was glad Owen had it, anyway. After a hundred years of nothing at all, he deserved it. Heather had only been through seventeen. And now she had Effie, so life was looking up.

“Owen, introduce us to your friend,” said Mr. Xanthopoulos.

“This is Heather,” Owen said obligingly. “Heather, this is Mr. and Mrs. X.”

“Welcome, Heather,” said Mrs. X. “Are you a friend of Kai’s too?”

Heather shot a glance at Owen before deciding to answer honestly. “Not really,” she said. “But I look forward to getting to know her better.”

“Bravo,” said Mr. X. But Owen’s smile was the best reward.

“Come in, already,” said Mrs. X. “I need to get to the diner, but Professor Blake told us you would be coming back home so I made sure to fix you a little something to eat first.”

As they turned into the kitchen, Heather’s mouth fell open. Every flat surface was covered with trays of food, as if they were about to host a party. Like any warm-blooded teen shifter boy, Owen loaded a plate full of food and started tucking in. Heather was a bit more hesitant. Mostly, she had no idea what half the things were, or where to start.

Mr. X laughed at her expression. “You’re in a Greek house now, Koukla,” he said. “You will never be hungry again.”

The adrenaline had been wearing off ever since they’d gotten in the car, but Heather perked up at the sound of that word. “Koukla,” she said. “What does that mean?”

Mr. X seemed confused that she’d found the word familiar. “It means ‘doll’ in Greek,” he said. “Like ‘sweetie.’ My little beautiful doll. I call Kalliope that sometimes. Are you sure you’re not friends with Kai?”

“Positive,” said Heather.

“My grandmother used to call me that when I was a boy,” he said. “And she learned it from her mother. The first Fury in our family. She was an extraordinary woman, a defender of women and children during a time of great catastrophe. Kai inherited her powers, you know.”

Yes, Dimitri. She knows, Effie said.

It all made so much sense now. Heather had started hearing Effie’s voice after she’d been given the feather and forced to meditate upon it. Somewhere from deep in the DNA of that feather, Kai’s great-great—how many greats?—grandmother had emerged from the ether to help guide Heather onto a path that didn’t lead to self-destruction.

“Her name was Efthimia,” said Mr. X, though of course Heather already knew that.

She was afraid to say more. What if the Effie in her head was the wrong Effie? Efthimia could have been as popular a name as Mikayla or Amber for all Heather knew. And if it was the right Efthimia…what if Kai’s father got angry that the ghost of his great-grandmother had chosen to squat in the head of someone who was a hundred percent not Greek?

Relax, Koukla, said Effie. Every conversation in this house is not a land mine. Don’t overthink it.

But Heather still had doubts. “What does that mean?” she asked instead. “Efthimia. Does the name have a meaning?” Some names didn’t. Some names were just flowers, like hers and Poppy’s and Oleander’s.

Mr. X smiled. “It means ‘cheerful.’”

All the events of this morning came flashing back into Heather’s mind all at once, and she was unable to control the sobs that burst from her again. Mr. X took her into his arms as if she were his own daughter, just as Effie had only hours ago.

Mrs. X passed her a handful of tissues and a plate of food. “What can I get you to drink?” she asked.

Heather was sure she looked as confused as she felt.

Mr. X nodded solemnly. “We’re Greek,” he said. “This is very important.”

Heather laughed as she wiped her tears. “I’ll take a Coke, if you have it,” she said to Mrs. X. And then to Mr. X, “I have a story to tell you, if you have time.”

Mr. X grabbed a plate and settled in at the counter beside her. “Koukla, I’m all yours.”

His undivided attention made Heather’s heart want to burst with joy.

This is it, said Effie. Welcome to the family.

EPILOGUE

Heather wore a red dress to Zombie Prom.

All the girls wore red that night. Owen was sure there wasn’t a bolt of crimson fabric left in the whole of the United States. The teachers called it a brilliant show of Harmswood solidarity, but Owen knew it for what it was: a truce between Heather and Kai. A burying of the hatchet and old, bad blood. And when Heather did something, every teenager in town jumped to do it, too. Especially these days.

Plus, as Heather pointed out, red looked amazing against everyone’s zombie makeup. Made the gaping flesh wounds really “pop.”

The flash mob the night before had gone off without a hitch. They didn’t break any records, and Owen missed more than a few steps in the choreography, but none of that affected the enormous amount of fun that was had by all. They’d stayed up into the wee hours of the morning, watching as video after video popped up on social media and got shared around the world.

They’d all stayed. All of them. In the cafeteria. The popular kids and the popular-unpopulars, not that the difference mattered anymore. Even Ace joined the group. Bellamy and Poppy invented a silly zombie cheer routine using Oleander, Kai, Maya and Natalie. Hubble, Tinker, and Sam put on an impromptu variety show. Duko and Finn didn’t kill each other. Heather sat beside Owen the whole time, and no one cared.

They were alive.

And that night, they dressed like the living dead.

Kai helped Owen put the finishing touches on his makeup. His eye was now blackened, one eyebrow was split, and there was a ragged latex tear down the edge of one cheek.

“There was a time Finn would have loved to do this to my face,” he said into the mirror. “For real.”

“Stop talking or you’ll have fake blood all over your face. Not that it would matter, I suppose.” Kai put the brush down. “There was a time I would have liked to do this same thing to Heather’s face. Many times.”

“It’s weird, right?” Owen asked. “Weird…in a good way.”

“Weird in a good way,” Kai affirmed. “That’s pretty much our town motto.”

Owen straightened his bowtie. “Do I look okay?”

Kai pulled the bow out completely and loosened the stiff collar of his shirt. “Better,” she said. “Like death warmed over.”

“The one time when that’s actually a good thing,” said Owen.

Kai laughed. “Come on. Mom’s driving us to school. We need to get there as early as we can to help set up the tables.”

“And the cookies?” he asked.

“Dad’s got mine and yours all packed up downstairs. I told him not to use the fancy catering trays from the diner, but he wouldn’t listen. He vowed to sign a waiver for Professor Mayfield saying they were all homemade and not purchased. Not that any shop in town makes bleeding chocolate chip cookies…yet. Delaney wants to know where on earth Heather found red chocolate chips.”

“You know Heather,” said Owen. “She has her ways.”

“And Daddy’s credit card,” Kai said with a heavy dash of snark. Then she stopped herself. “Sorry. Trying not to do that. Old habit.”

Owen put a hand on his best friend’s bloody arm. “And yet, in this case, I’m afraid it’s absolutely deserved. Delaney might not want to know how much it cost to fly in a brick of red chocolate.”

“Oh, she’ll want to know,” said Kai. “She’ll want your recipe, too. The cookies are delicious. You guys seriously aced this project.”

Owen remembered the hours and hours of joyously failed attempts and grinned. “It was a labor of love.”

“You are such a cat,” Kai said exasperatedly. “Come on then, lover boy. Don’t want to keep your zombie princess waiting.”

Heather was already in the gymnasium when they arrived, but she wasn’t exactly waiting. She had a finger to her throat and was barking orders like…well…like a head cheerleader. Her floor-length gown was such a deep red that it might have been made of blood. Silk blood. She’d straightened her hair to accentuate the giant hole in her head, from which tendrils of brain spilled out and were woven into tiny braids among the golden strands. The gash in her arm looked to have been badly stitched with golden thread—a nice touch—and behind her sparkling earrings Owen could make out a bloody wound at her throat.

“You look ravishing,” he said.

She turned to greet him, and her face practically glowed with excitement. “Oh my gosh! So do you! I’d give you a hug, but I don’t want to mess up my makeup. Or yours.”

Owen brushed her hair back over her shoulder and planted a careful kiss just above her neck wound. “Save me the first dance?” he asked softly.

“Try and stop me,” she whispered back.

“So where can I put these?” Kai asked in an overly loud tone of voice. Finn stood beside her, dutifully holding the stacks of cookie platters.

Heather pointed. “Desserts, right? That table where Bellamy and Poppy are standing.” When Kai was out of earshot, she turned back to Owen. “Someone sounds a little jealous.”

Owen knew exactly how Kai felt. He’d felt the same way when Finn had come into their lives. “She’s just not used to it yet.”

“Tell me about it,” said Heather. “All of us hanging out together is just…weird.”

“Weird but good,” said Owen.

“Exactly,” said Heather. “Weird but good.”

Reluctantly, Owen released her so that she could finish making everything perfect. He helped Hubble and Sam with the disco ball, found Ace to thank him again, and snuck two more blood-chocolate cookies. He found Tinker standing with his goblin buddy Quin Merchero. Both of them wore crowns that made it look like exposed brain underneath. They discussed fake blood and prosthetics until the lights went down.

There was a tap on his shoulder and he turned to see Heather.

“May I have this dance?” she asked.

“Of course, love, but the music hasn’t started yet.”

Heather’s hand flew up into the air, a signal to someone. Owen looked over to see Zombie Oleander in the DJ’s booth, with the headphones on. A long, mournful tone issued from a lone violin…and then the waltz began.

There were a few expressions of confusion in the crowd, but Owen knew what he was about. He took Heather’s hand in his, put the other at her waist, and began twirling them both around the dance floor. Eventually, he stopped staring into her eyes long enough to notice that Tinker and Bellamy had joined the dance, as well as Hubble and Natalie. Even Poppy and Quin were making a go of it.

“Waltzing,” said Heather. “Waltzing and Zombie Chic. Those will be my gifts to Harmswood this year.”

“And most importantly,” said Owen. “No more lines of popularity between us.”

The grin Heather gave him was mildly condescending. “Dear Owen, you give me too much credit. No one can completely erase those lines. There will still be young and old, paranormals and mundanes, kings and paupers. I may be a bellwether, but I can’t truly change how people think. I promise I will do what I can, when I can. For my part, anyway.”

“You’re right, of course,” Owen shook his head. “I’ve lived over a hundred years—it’s hard to believe those trivial things still matter so much to some people, but it does. I mean, just look at Tinker. He’s a former king of a ramshackle kingdom without a penny to his name, and I’ve never seen someone happier.”

“I wouldn’t say he doesn’t have a penny,” Heather pointed out. “And he’s still a king.”

“So what?” said Owen. “I’m technically a baron, but that doesn’t mean anything.”

“What?” Heather made a face. “No you’re not.”

“I am,” said Owen. “James Liddell took me in as his ward and then died with no issue. Technically, I am Baron Greymere. But that was a hundred years ago. There’s no Greymere left to be baron of, I’m sure.”

“Are you, though?” Heather asked. “There might be some land or something…”

“To do what with?” Owen asked. “America has been my home far longer than England or Egypt ever were. I’d much rather have land here in Nocturne Falls.” He snapped his fingers. “I bet Kai’s family would bequeath the dumpster behind the diner to me. ‘Baron Dumpster’ has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?”

Heather laughed at that, and Owen suddenly wished he could make her laugh like that for the rest of her life.

“Have you ever been to Vermont?” she asked him.

“No, why?”

“I think you’d love it,” she said. “It’s my favorite place in the world.”

“Isn’t it always snowing there?” Owen asked. “I’m not sure I’m up for that much cold. I prefer warmer climates. Hot, even. Egypt hot. Georgia hot.”

“It doesn’t snow all the time, silly,” she said. “It even gets hot in the summer. Like…this summer. I thought maybe you could be my date to my sister’s wedding.”

As challenging as Heather had been to get to know, Owen wasn’t sure he was ready to take on the rest of the Hayden family. “Are you sure?”

“Well,” said Heather. “You’ve survived a curse, beaten a mythical spider woman and her sisters, and been blessed by a goddess. I can’t think of a better training for meeting my mother.”

When she put it like that, the idea of meeting Heather’s haughty mother and volatile sisters almost seemed like a walk in the park. He lifted her into his arms and spun her around on the dance floor. When he set her back down, he looked deep into those bright blue eyes, ready for adventure.

“It’s a date,” he said.

WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT HEATHER’S GUARDIAN ANGEL?

I have this thing about wings. I love them. They’re incredibly difficult to sketch, and fascinating to read about. It’s possible this love originated with Irrylath, from Meredith Ann Pierce’s Darkangel, or the angel mythology in Sharon Shinn’s books about Samaria, but I’m guessing it probably goes back to all those fairy tales about golden geese and swan brothers. And we all know what a sucker I am for fairy tales.

Heather’s guardian angel Efthimia (eff-thee-MEE-a) is based on two fairy tales—a real one, and one I invented.

The real fairy tale comes from my own family history. In the fall of 1922, the great city of Smyrna in the Ottoman Empire was set on fire, in an effort to burn all the Greeks and Armenians out of what is now the country called Turkey. The men (like my great grandfather) were led away on death marches, and the women and children (like my great grandmother Theodosia and her children: Despina, Kalliope, Xanthos, and Sotos) fled to the water, trying to find an escape.

I’ve often wondered about how that must have looked, a whole city on fire, the air full of flames and smoke and ash and screams. The mythological Furies were particularly vengeful when horrors were perpetrated against women and children. I absolutely believe they might have been invoked that day.

That same year, right next door in Egypt, Howard Carter discovered King Tutankhamun’s tomb.

Big Things were happening in this area of the world. I couldn’t think of a better place for an unfortunate young English boy to end up the victim of an ancient curse. History set the stage—Owen was just along for the ride.

I chose the name Efthimia after a family friend, since I had already named Professor Blake after my great grandmother. Both of these strong women look after Heather now, in their own way.

As for the other fairy tale…

Lord Death and his Angels of Feathers and Fire have been making cameos in my writing since 2013. I’m not even really sure where they came from, but when I thought about what sort of companions my Lord Death would have, these angels popped out of my head as fully formed as Athena.

The obvious analogy for Feathers and Fire is Heaven and Hell, but—like many a myth—these angels are so much more complicated than that. They aren’t just passive entities; these angels work on behalf of Lord Death. They judge souls, weigh hearts against feathers, and decide who gets punished and who doesn’t.

In my mind, the Fury that surely rose from the ashes of Smyrna would have entered Lord Death’s employ as an Angel of Fire. But what sort of woman would she have been before that transformation? Strong-willed. Passionate. No nonsense. A seeker of justice long before she was tapped by any sort of deity.

I tell the tale of the very first Angel of Fire in my short story “For Angels to Fly.” The story was a departure from my usual epic fantasy adventure world—since Lord Death knows no time, I decided to set it in contemporary New York City. I got to be snarky and funny and pay tribute to Idris Elba and Ed Sheeran.

It’s possible I had way too much fun.

(If you listen to the audio, feel free to make as much fun as you like of my Idris Elba impersonation!)

Much like Besphinxed, Annaleigh’s story in “For Angels to Fly” is also about second chances. Not all of us are cut out to be Angels of Feathers, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t still angels in our own way. That doesn’t mean we are not strong, passionate, and chock full of gumption and faith.

Just like Efthimia. Or my great grandmother.

When you become an angel, what will your wings be made of?

Click here to read “For Angels to Fly.” And please let me know what you think!

xox

~Alethea

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Huge thanks as always to the inimitable Kristen Painter, for opening the door to her incredible Nocturne Falls Universe and letting us host a parade there.

Massive thanks to Keri Knutson, for another AMAZEBALLS cover. Also to my assistant, Princess Sarah Simpson-Weiss, for being witchy enough to completely geek out over the first draft with me.

A thousand thanks to Lillie James for helping me brainstorm the outline for this book…while trapped with me in the car in the middle of the Catskills during peak leaf season…on our way to see the real Professor Blake.

And to my dearest Casey Cothran, always to Casey, for editing this book…and for teaching teenage me that kindness knows no clique.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Alethea Kontis is a princess, a voice actress, a force of nature, and a mess. She is responsible for creating the epic fairytale fantasy realm of Arilland, and dabbling in a myriad of other worlds beyond. Her award-winning writing has been published for multiple age groups across all genres. Host of “Princess Alethea's Fairy Tale Rants” and Princess Alethea's Traveling Sideshow every year at Dragon Con, Alethea also narrates for ACX, IGMS, Escape Pod, Pseudopod, and Cast of Wonders.

Alethea’s YA fairy tale novel, Enchanted, won both the Gelett Burgess Children’s Book Award and Garden State Teen Book Award. Enchanted was nominated for the Audie Award in 2013 and was selected for World Book Night in 2014. Both Enchanted and its sequel, Hero, were nominated for the Andre Norton Award. Tales of Arilland, a short story collection set in the same fairy tale world, won a second Gelett Burgess Award in 2015. The second book in The Trix Adventures, Trix and the Faerie Queen, was a finalist for the Dragon Award in 2016.

Princess Alethea was given the honor of speaking about fairy tales at the Library of Congress in 2013. In 2015, she gave a keynote address at the Lewis Carroll Society’s Alice150 Conference in New York City, celebrating the 150th anniversary of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. She also enjoys speaking at schools and festivals all over the US. (If forced to choose between all these things, she says middle schools are her favorite!)

Born in Burlington, Vermont, Alethea currently lives and writes on the Space Coast of Florida. She makes the best baklava you’ve ever tasted and sleeps with a teddy bear named Charlie. Find out more about Princess Alethea and the magic, wonderful world in which she lives here: https://www.patreon.com/princessalethea

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Connect with Princess Alethea Online!

www.aletheakontis.com

akontis@gmail.com

ALSO BY ALETHEA KONTIS

The Truth About Cats and Wolves

When Tinker Met Bell

Besphinxed

Haven, Kansas

Fish Out of Water

Wild & Wishful, Dark & Dreaming

Diary of a Mad Scientist Garden Gnome

Tales of Arilland

Enchanted

Hero

Dearest / Messenger

Trixter

Trix and the Faerie Queen

AlphaOops: The Day Z Went First

AlphaOops: H is for Halloween

The Wonderland Alphabet

Beauty & Dynamite

The Dark-Hunter Companion (w/Sherrilyn Kenyon)

The Simi’s ABCs (w/Sherrilyn Kenyon)

Table of Contents

Copyright

Table of Contents

A Note from Kristen Painter

Dedication

Prologue

1. 1

2. 2

3. 3

4. 4

5. 5

6. 6

7. 7

8. 8

9. 9

10. 10

Epilogue

Want to Know More About Heather’s Guardian Angel?

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Also by Alethea Kontis