tendency to fly around like a demented bat. We’d chased those darn things for twenty minutes before wrangling them into a jar. It had taken both of us to hold the lid on, which meant we’d been standing very close to each other, our hands overlapping. I could still feel how warm he’d been, pressed against my side. We’d laughed through the whole thing, and I remembered how badly my cheeks ached as I’d smiled up into those dark eyes.
“If the spell on these gloves means I get to be this close to a pretty girl, I’m totally stealing them,” Archer had said, waggling his eyebrows at me. We’d laughed again, and Archer had just been a boy I liked, and I’d thought the only secret between us was just howmuch I liked him.
This time when I closed my eyes, it was to keep tears from spilling onto Jenna’s shoulder. “Yeah,” I finally said. “That was a good night.”
chapter 20
Jenna and I hung out in the garden until early evening. Once we were back at the house, she went in search of Vix while I decided to go hang out in my room for a while. As I climbed the stairs, Lara met me coming down. “Oh, Sophie, I was just looking for you,” she said, forcing a ginormous brown book into my hand. “Your father wanted me to give this to you. He asked that you read as far as you can tonight.”
I read the title stamped on the cover:Demonologies: A History.
“Oh. Um…yay. Thanks for this.” I tried to lift the book in a kind of salute, but it was way too heavy for that. In fact, when I got back up to my room and tossed it on the bed, the mattress creaked in protest.
I opened my laptop and mindlessly surfed the Internet for a while, but my eyes just drifted over the screen without reading anything. There was something else on my mind.
Snapping the computer shut, I walked over to the nightstand and opened the drawer. I stared down at the coin, but before I could pick it up, Jenna came flying into my room, Vix in tow.
I slammed the drawer, hoping neither of them noticed my pounding heart.
But Jenna’s attention was on the book on my bed. “Wow, Soph, that’s some heavy summer reading right there.”
“Yeah,” I said, walking over to pick it up. I winced slightly as I hefted it into my arms. “Just some demon homework from Dad.”
“We were just about to head down to dinner,” Jenna said. “You wanna come with?”
I glanced back and forth between the two vampires. I’d had Jenna all to myself for most of the afternoon, so it’s not like I minded sharing. Still, seeing them beam at each other and throw “we” around reminded me just how crappy my love life was. “Nah, I actually think I’ll just chill up here tonight. Get started on some of this reading.”
Jenna raised a pale eyebrow. “Sophie Mercer, turning down food for homework?”
“Yeah, it’s the new, lamer, more Britisher me.”
Jenna and Vix laughed at that and, after making me promise to hang out with them tomorrow, practically waltzed out the door. I felt like there should have been rainbows and rose petals in their wake or something.
Ugh. That was catty.
Jenna deserved rainbows and rose petals, I reminded myself as I flopped back on my bed, Dad’s book bumping painfully against my sternum. After everything she’d been through, Jenna had earned an eternity of nothing but good stuff. So why did seeing her with Vix make me want to brain myself withDemonologies: A History? I looked at the nightstand again and sighed. Then I opened the heavy book and tried to make myself read.
For the next few hours I made a valiant attempt to get through Chapter One.
For a book that was supposedly about fallen angels running around and creating havoc with their super- awesome dark “magycks,” it was awfully boring, and all the weird spellings definitely didn’t help.
Sighing, I settled deeper into my pillows. As I shifted the book, trying to rest it on my upraised knees, a sheet of paper fell into my lap.
I cringed, thinking it was one of the pages, but then I realized the paper was a lot whiter, and not nearly as musty smelling.
It was a note.
I recognized Dad’s handwriting immediately from all the impersonal birthday cards he’d sent over the years. They’d always been pink and glittery—and I now realized that Lara must have bought them—and he’d always just signed them “Your father.” Never a little message or even his own “happy birthday.”
This note wasn’t much warmer. All it said was, “Be prepared to discuss this book and all that you have read tomorrow—Your father.”
“Yeah,Father, I’ll be sure to do that,” I muttered, rolling my eyes. Did he really need to write me a note to tell me that? And why had he’d stuck it around page three hundred? Because if he thought I was reading that far tonight, that was pretty freaking optimistic of him.
I sighed and was going to crumple up the note, when suddenly the words on the pagemoved. Vibrated, actually.
I rubbed my eyes, thinking I’d been reading for too long, but when I looked back at the note, the letters were still shaking. And then they started sliding around. A lot of them slid down to the bottom of the page, but the rest gathered together to spell out an entirely different message:
The bookcase. Five a.m.
It was Dad’s handwriting again, and as I watched, the discarded letters slipped up the page until the original message was back in place.
“Cryptic Dad is cryptic,” I muttered. There was no doubt in my mind which bookcase he meant—the one holding Virginia Thorne’s grimoire. But why the spells and secrecy? We’d hung out all morning. Was there no time in there he could have said, “Oh, hey, meet me at the magical bookcase at the butt-crack of dawn tomorrow, cool?”
And what the heck did he want to do at that bookcase?
By now, my eyes felt like I’d rubbed sand in them, and it occurred to me that between the Prodigium club, Archer, and everything with Dad today, this was turning out to be the least relaxing vacation ever. I looked around my palatial room, and for just a second I wished I were back at Hecate Hall, sitting on my tiny bed, laughing with Jenna.
But Jenna was down the hall, either hanging out with Vix or sleeping, and I was on my own.
I put the book on my nightstand, surprised that the weight of it didn’t break the tiny piece of furniture. Mom always said there are few things in life that can’t be cured by a hot bath, and I decided to test her on that advice.
A few minutes later, I was up to my chin in hot, soapy water.
I ran my big toe over the faucet, which was made to look like a golden swan. I guess it was supposed to be classy, but it just looked like the swan was vomiting water into the tub, which was a pretty gross thought. Plus, baths always made me think of Chaston, nearly bleeding to death in one of the creepy tubs at Hecate.
Despite the heat of the water, I shuddered. I hadn’t seen Chaston again after that night. Her parents had come to get her, and they’d pulled her out of school for the rest of the year. I wondered what she was doing now, if she even knew about Anna and Elodie.
I was just reaching for my towel when I heard a muffled thump from my bedroom. My fingers froze and the hair on the back of my neck prickled. In scary movies, this was always the part where the naked girl called out, “Hello?” or “Who’s there?” or something equally stupid. Butthis naked girl wasn’t announcing her presence to anyone. Instead, I soundlessly pulled my towel off the rack and wrapped it around me before creeping to the door and pressing my ear against it.
Other than my own heartbeat, I couldn’t hear anything. I rolled my eyes as I grabbed my robe from the back of the door. Clearly, the bath—and thoughts of Chaston—had spooked me. If there was anyone in my bedroom, it was probably just one of the army of servants fluffing my pillow. Maybe leaving me a chocolate mint.
Knotting the robe’s sash around my waist, I opened the door. My room was empty, and I blew out a long breath.
“Way to be lame, Sophie,” I muttered as I crossed the bedroom to the dresser. This place was like the
