Moonset

I was nine years old when I learned what it meant when someone called me Moonset. Malcolm had to be the one to tell me. He was only a year older than Jenna and me, but he told us about our parents the same way he’d broken the news about Santa and the Easter Bunny.

Witches were supposed to work in secret. Secrecy was the first lesson any of us ever learned. There were thousands of us spread out across the world, enough that we even had our own shadow government, a ruling council made up of the most powerful covens and solitary witches.

All of that was threatened, nearly destroyed, because of Moonset.

They’d been an ordinary coven, nothing special. But something set them on the path to dark magic, and soon there was nothing dark enough, no power too forbidden.

Moonset’s first strike was the most brutal—the equivalent of a nuclear assault that decimated the heart of the Congress, the ruling body that kept order. The papers called the Manchester bombing an accident, citing a gas leak that stank of a cover-up. Even with the threat of war on the horizon, keeping magic secret was still the first priority.

Hundreds died—specifically, the hundreds who were strong enough and smart enough to end the Moonset threat. Weeks went by, with no one stepping forward—until our parents did. Even as the acts of terrorism continued, they released statements and appeals. A cult began to form, worshiping the charismatic leader of Moonset, drawn to the movement that fought back for the disenfranchised and the ignored.

At first, it wasn’t even a war. It was slaughter. Moonset engaged in terrorist acts all over the globe, destroying covens, libraries, anything and everything that could have risen up as a threat to them. The magical world had to fight a war on two fronts—fighting against Moonset while also fighting to keep the rest of the world ignorant of what was really going on behind the scenes.

Moonset was winning, but then they surrendered. No one really knew why. Theorists suggested they had a moment of clarity, momentarily freed from the dark powers that had overtaken them. But no one knew for sure, because though they were tried and executed quickly, they never spoke a word about the war and no record of their plans was ever recovered.

We were the only things they left behind.

“I don’t like this,” Jenna said under her breath at my side.

“You’re crazy!” The principal’s strident, nasal voice carried all the way down the hall. “I’m not just going to go off with you. In case you haven’t been paying attention, there is a riot going on.

I don’t have time for this.”

“Sir,” his escort tried. And then again. “Sir.” But the principal kept going on in a rant that devolved into references to tailgating and a lack of school pride. The principal’s escort glanced back, as if looking for aid, but Virago ignored him.

She sighed, shaking her head in irritation. Then she froze, staring straight ahead at a man who I would have sworn wasn’t there a moment ago. With his arms folded and head down, he could have been sleeping. “I’ve got this,” Virago snapped, eyes narrowing to little slits.

“You should have had this a week ago when you first heard something was coming,” the man said, lifting only his eyes, “instead of waiting until one of them broke the rules. Your boss still denying everything, huh?”

They’d known there was a threat, and they’d been waiting? Unbelievable.

Virago’s gaze swept over the three of us, hardening like this was somehow our fault. Even if we didn’t know what this was. I decided to hang back to wait and see how things were going to proceed. Virago wasn’t acting like we were in danger, but the man before us definitely gave off a vibe of dangerous.

“Who are you?” Cole asked, suddenly belligerent with his chest puffed out. I gestured to

Jenna, and she grabbed him by the back of the shirt. He tried to squirm away, but she kept a hand on his shoulder, her fingers digging into the shirt’s fabric.

“I’m Quinn,” the man offered, pushing himself up off the wall. Quinn was like a black-and-

white film brought to life: dark black hair and pale white skin. Bela Lugosi with a Bowflex, and he moved like someone who had been in the military.

“Hello, hotness,” Jenna muttered under her breath, eyes alight and mouth curved. Oh, fantastic, I thought to myself.

Because Cole never met a situation he didn’t like to make more awkward, he looked away from Jenna and Quinn, and decided to bark. Even worse, he barked like one those tiny dogs, the ones that yiff instead of ruff.

Jenna increased the pressure on his shoulder until Cole started to drop. “Ow, ow, sorry, ow!”

She held him for a few seconds longer, then released her grip. Cole rotated his shoulder, glaring up at her. “Bully.”

“Enough,” I said quietly. I took over Cole duty from Jenna, coming up behind him and resting one hand on his shoulder close to the neck. Prime strangling position, if I needed it.

“I know, kids,” Quinn said sympathetically. “It’s awkward when Mom and Dad fight in front of you. Don’t worry, it’ll be over soon.” He probably wasn’t much older than Virago, but I instantly liked him better, even though my instincts were still on edge.

“You’re here to evacuate us?” I asked.

Quinn gave me a brief once-over. “Justin, right?” I nodded, and he smiled in a way that was probably supposed to be charming. Rule number two: never trust adults. And never, never trust anyone from the government.

“I’m here to make sure everything goes off without a hitch,” he continued. “Malcolm and

Bailey are already secure; now we just need to get the three of you.”

Hearing it from Quinn put me a little more at ease. I wasn’t so much worried about Mal—he could take care of himself—but Bailey was the youngest. Leaving would already be hard enough on her.

“We don’t have time for this,” Virago said with a roll of her eyes. “Move,” she huffed at us, setting a brisk pace down the hall towards where the principal was still arguing with the other government mook.

The principal’s office wasn’t far from the front of the building, and that was the way that

Virago decided to take us. The school was a hodgepodge of new additions tacked onto a side and renovations to make it look seamless on the outside. The only way to the south side of the building was to walk all the way down the length of the building and turn at the end. Otherwise, the school was a mess of aborted hallways and layouts that folded in on themselves.

I shook off the twinge running up and down my back, like there were strings sunk into my skin and someone was pulling them for the first time I could remember. I looked at Jenna, then

Cole, but neither of them seemed to notice anything.

At first.

Jenna slowed, touching my arm. “Do you hear that?”

Nothing jumped out at me right away, so after a few more steps I stopped entirely, pulling

Cole to a stop with me. Jenna had her head cocked to the side, and she was still. So very still.

But she was right. There was something. A hissing. Faint.

“What is that?” she asked, lowering her voice. Cole’s nose was wrinkled up, but he stayed between us.

“Stop stalling,” Virago said briskly, turning to glare us down again.

It sounded familiar, like the hiss a of a snake, only softer—but I just couldn’t place it. The hall had grown still around us, without even the sounds of the riot leaking in. Like we were the only six people for miles.

The sound was getting louder, or rather it was coming from several directions at once now.

“Gas leak?” I asked.

Jenna considered that, then shook her head. “I swear I’ve heard that somewhere before.”

“When you said there was stuff coming,” Cole piped up suddenly, turning back to Quinn. “Did you mean someone? Or some thing?”

Quinn hesitated just long enough for Cole’s eyes to whiten all around.