“Oh,” I said. “Uh…yeah, I was practicing with Dad. But I’m fine now.”
Throwing himself down on the bed next to Daisy, Nick folded his arms behind his head. “Ah, yes, all the breathing and focusing stuff.”
“Such a waste of time,” Daisy murmured, tracing her finger over an illustration of Mary Lennox wandering the halls of Misselthwaite.
I let that go. “Well, as you can see, I’m fine. Thanks for worrying about me.”
Nick made quite the production of getting off the bed. “I think we’re being dismissed, my love,” he said to Daisy before pulling her to her feet.
“But we didn’t get to talk to Sophie about the party,” she said, a hint of whine in her voice.
“What party?” I asked.
Nick smiled. “Your birthday party. Apparently, the Council is throwing quite the shindig.”
Thanks to all the moving around Mom and I had done, I hadn’t had a birthday party since I was eight years old. That had been at Chuck E. Cheese. Something told me the Council had something more elaborate in mind.
“They don’t need to do that,” I said, shoving my hands into my pockets. “Especially with all that’s going on right now.”
Nick flashed me a wolfish grin. “That’s Prodigium for you. Very ‘fiddle while Rome burns.’”
Daisy looped her arm through his. “Besides, it’ll be fun. They’ll go all out for—” She broke off suddenly, and her smile turned into a grimace of pain. All the blood seemed to drain from her face, turning her ivory skin ashen. She dropped her head, and Nick caught her elbow.
“Daisy?”
Her hands clutched the footboard of my bed, and she took several deep shuddering breaths. Then she raised her head and opened her eyes. I half expected them to be violet-red, like Alice’s had been the night she’d killed Elodie, but they were her usual light green. “I’m fine,” she said, but her voice was tight. “Just a little…magic flare- up. Nothing to worry about.”
Nick’s face creased with worry, but Daisy waved him off. “I’m fine,” she said again, steering him toward the door. “Now let’s let Sophie get some rest. She looks a bit rough.”
I couldn’t have looked any worse than Daisy, but I didn’t say anything as she and Nick left. Only once they were gone did I catch that familiar scent of burning wood in the air. But this time, it was no hallucination.
There, in the footboard of my bed, were two singed and smoking handprints.
chapter 24
For the next three weeks, I kept a closer eye on Nick and Daisy. There were no more “magic flare-ups,” but it seemed like both of them were drinking more than normal, and every time they sat in on “demon yoga” with me and Dad, they ended up leaving early. After one of the lessons, Dad gave them a copy ofDemonologies: A History. I found it later, stuffed in a tall brass urn.
A couple of days before Vix was supposed to leave, Lara drove Jenna, Cal, Vix, and me into London—Dad put the kibosh on any more Itineris travel—and I finally got to do all the touristy stuff. When we went to the Tower of London, Lara gave us these little brochures that talked about the Prodigium history of the place, like how Anne Boleyn was really a dark witch (no surprise there), and that one of Queen Victoria’s grandsons had been held in the White Tower after becoming a vampire.
It was a fun day, I guess. I mean, there was fish-and-chips, and a ride on one of those double-decker buses. But going to London made me realize how accustomed I’d gotten to only ever being around Prodigium. Hex Hall was super isolated, obviously, and so was Thorne. It had been nearly a year since I’d been around humans, and I was surprised by how nervous I felt. I kept waiting for someone to notice the weird brochures, or Vix’s and Jenna’s bloodstones, and realize what we really were. It was an unsettling sensation, and I wondered if that’s how other Prodigium felt all the time. So I breathed a sigh of relief when our car turned down the gravel drive later that evening.
Our next trip to London came two days before my birthday. Not only did we have to take Vix back to the airport, but also Jenna, Nick, Daisy, and I had an appointment at Lysander’s, a super-posh boutique. Lysander was a faerie, but he kept his shop glamoured so the rich human women who shopped there didn’t know it. This day, however, the store was closed to everyone but us.
“The costume is great,” I said to Lysander, “but a crown? Really?”
He glared at me, his black wings beating. I’d only been in his shop for thirty minutes, but I was pretty sure the guy already hated me. “It was my understanding that you were to go dressed as the goddess of witchcraft, andHecate wears a crown.”
“It’s not really a crown, Soph,” Jenna offered from her spot on a nearby white satin settee. “It’s more like a tiara.” She had her chin in her hand, and there was practically a little black rain cloud over her head. We had taken Vix to the airport, so Jenna was Sulky McSulkerton. Nick sat next to her, with Daisy on the other side. They’d tried on their costumes earlier, and while they’d both looked great—Nick in a white doublet, flowy shirt, and black pants; Daisy in a simple column of purple silk—I had no idea who they were supposed to be.
“Lysander’s right,” Lara added. She was sitting in a chair, her legs demurely crossed at the ankles. “The crown is an essential part of the costume. And besides, it looks lovely.”
I turned around on the little raised platform and studied myself in the three-way mirror. It had been Lara’s idea that my birthday party be “fancy dress.” At first I’d assumed that meant black tie, kind of like the All Hallow’s Eve Ball back at Hex Hall. But apparently in England, fancy dress means costume party.
It has also been Lara’s idea that I go as Hecate, as a nod to the school. I thought that was kind of crappy—it made me feel like I was Hex Hall’s mascot or something—but Dad liked it, and since he was the one footing the bill for this whole thing, Hecate it was.
Still, as I took in my reflection, I couldn’t help but wish I’d put up a little bit more of a fight. It wasn’t that the costume wasn’t gorgeous. Lysander was the go-to guy when Prodigium needed fancy clothes, and he had certainly outdone himself on this dress. It was made of a shimmery black fabric that sparkled with silver in the right light, and despite it covering pretty much every bit of me except for my shoulders, it was undeniably sexy.
And then there was the crown.
Jenna could call it a tiara all she wanted, but it was a filigree band of platinum topped with a diamond and sapphire crescent moon, and it definitely felt crownlike.
I fought the urge to pull at the dress where it fastened around my neck. “It’s beautiful,” I said for what had to be the third time. “It’s just awfully…elaborate.”
Lysander made a disgusted sound and threw up his hands. “It should be elaborate! You’re meant to be agoddess!”
I had no idea how to reply to that, but Nick saved me. Leaping to his feet, he said, “And you do look like a goddess, Sophie.” He took my hand and pulled me off the platform, spinning me. “See? Embrace your goddessness.”
Nick may have been a weirdo and a half, but I chuckled.
Then he pulled me to him like we were going to dance, and the laugh died in my throat. For an instant, all I could see was another dance, another dress, another dark-haired boy holding me, and the sudden pain that lanced through me caught me by surprise. Before I could stop myself, I raised a hand to his chest and pushed him away.
An awkward silence descended over the room. Lara discreetly cleared her throat and said, “Nick, Daisy, why don’t you come with me and let Jenna and Sophie get changed? Lysander, we can discuss your payment.”
Nick and Daisy shot me unreadable looks as they followed Lara and Lysander.
“You okay?” Jenna said once we were alone.
I shook my head, but answered, “Yeah. Just a little freaked out about the party.”
Which technically wasn’t a lie. It seemed profoundly stupid to gather a whole bunch of very important Prodigium plus four demons in one place when things were so scary. But Dad had explained that it was a point of pride with the remaining Council members. “We can’t let The Eye think they’ve cowed us,” Dad had said. Then he’d given me a little smile. “Besides, this will be the first birthday party of yours I’ve ever been to.”
