Alarmed, Greta glanced around. There were students up ahead, but none of them seemed to be paying attention to Binx. “Can you please not do that stuff in public?”
“What’s the big deal? We’re in calumnia mode, right?” Binx finished off the bagel and licked her fingers one by one. “Mmm, butter should be its own food group. Besides, why shouldn’t I use magic to make myself breakfast? Why should I starve because of a law that was created by a bunch of sexist old dudes in the Middle Ages?”
Not this again, Greta thought. “The 1870s wasn’t the Middle Ages. And calumnia doesn’t scramble things visually. We need to be more careful than ever about hiding our identities.”
“Why? We’ve never gotten caught. And even if we did get caught, so what? We can just hang out in detention together. Or, if we get suspended, that’ll give us more time to stay home and practice spells,” Binx pointed out.
Ridley bit her lip and said nothing.
“Yeah, well… I didn’t want to freak you guys out, but just before we met up, I passed a couple of students near the cafeteria, and I think they were wearing Antima shoulder patches,” Greta explained.
Ridley grabbed her arm. “Excuse me, what? Where did they come from? There weren’t any Antima students here last year!”
“Who were they?” Binx asked Greta.
“One of them was Axel Ngata. I think the other one is Orion something.”
“Orion Kong. I know him, and I know Axel, too. They’re total posers. They’re probably just wearing the patch because they think it looks B.A.,” Binx scoffed.
“Still. The Antima are horrible. That poor witch down in Texas… and did you hear about the latest? The police…” Ridley’s eyes shimmered with tears. “The police are letting her attackers go. They claim there’s no ‘evidence,’” she added, making air quotes.
“Seriously?” Binx burst out. “That really is Middle Ages. What’s next, torture chambers? Someone needs to do something about this!”
Greta was about to reply when a rustling in her dress pocket caught her attention. She reached in and extracted a folded-up piece of paper.
She unfolded it and gasped. A cry escaped her lips.
“What’s wrong?” Ridley asked her.
“It’s a shadow message!”
Trembling, Greta held out the piece of paper for Ridley and Binx to see. The handwritten letters were glossy and black, like crow feathers:
YOU AND YOUR KIND NEED TO DISAPPEAR
Ridley stepped back, swiping at her eyes with the back of her hand. She looked terrified. “W-where did you find this?”
“In my pocket. Just now. I don’t think it was there before, but I’m not sure. Do you… I mean, could it be from the Antima?”
“Lemme see.” Binx grabbed the shadow message and squinted at it. “Yeah, no, it’s not from the Antima. It’s from those tea-brewing trolls!”
“You mean Div’s coven?” Greta asked.
“Yeah, it’s totally them. I recognize Mira’s handwriting. This is so annoying.” Binx crumpled the shadow message into a ball and pitched it at a nearby trash can, missing.
Greta rushed forward to retrieve it and placed it inside her backpack in a small recyclable bag containing a rosemary sprig. (She always carried rosemary with her, for such occasions; it had protective properties.) “We should keep it. Just in case it’s not them, and we need to try to use spells to identify the writer.”
But Binx was already texting Mira on her Pokémon phone. “W… T… F… you… think… you… can… scare… us… with… a… stu… pid… NOTE?” she read out loud as she typed.
Greta sighed. Binx had some sort of third-grade inter-coven feud going with Mira and Aysha; they were always pranking each other (which Greta wasn’t entirely happy about because it increased the chance of exposure—but Binx wasn’t one to be told what to do).
Although to be honest, Greta hoped the shadow message was from Div’s girls.
Because if not…
The image of that witch in Texas flashed through her mind. The stretcher carrying her out to the ambulance, the blood gushing from her forehead, news cameras everywhere. An elderly neighbor saying in a disapproving tone, “I didn’t know she was one of them.”
Greta had heard about Antima factions popping up in the South… in the Midwest… in Florida… in California and Arizona.
Had the movement finally reached Sorrow Point, Washington?
3 TECHNOMANCER
Do not dismiss the old ways in search of disposable magic. Trust your power.
(FROM THE GOOD BOOK OF MAGIC AND MENTALISM BY CALLIXTA CROWE)
Even though it was only Day One, Binx already approved of her first-period English class. The room had even better Wi-Fi than the detention room, and she had no problem piggybacking. Also, the teacher, Mr. Dalrymple, seemed super out of it during his lecture on Romantic poetry. He alternated between long, moody pauses and lots of wild gesturing out the window (at the trees? at the delivery trucks? at the blue-gray Puget Sound in the distance?) while talking about unrequited love and the ephemeral nature of life. But all this was just fine because it made him pretty much oblivious to Binx’s nonstop under-the-desk typing and texting.
Of course, she could fool the best of them, oblivious or not; she had mastered the art. She was a technomancer (aka cyber-witch), which meant that she could use magic to enhance and accelerate all computer tech. For example, her phone and laptop automatically interfaced code with spells (like when she’d ordered her virtual genie/assistant Uxie to make her a bagel earlier). She’d developed this specialized form of magic by combining the information in C-Squared’s—aka Callixta Crowe’s—witchcraft book with her own considerable cyber skills.
Binx was good at the little details, too. For this class, she’d chosen a seat in the back row, far corner. Her yellow pleated miniskirt perfectly camouflaged the Pikachu case. She worked the tiny phone keyboard on her lap, her gaze fixed on Mr. Dalrymple; but whenever the teacher had one of his drama moments (“Love is my religion!” “His soul shalt taste
