I shake my head.
“A sandwich,” he says. “Get it? Sand. Witch.”
I laugh far too hard. Not at his corny joke, but because I’ve just realized I’m high as fuck. He looks so proud of himself.
I smile as I imagine calling Jackson later and telling him the sigils were meaningless. I can just see his smug face when he realizes his hunch was all wrong. Once I start laughing, I can’t stop, and now Luisa and Rafi have joined in.
“Don’t encourage his stupid jokes,” she says, gasping for air. “They aren’t funny.”
“I have another joke about twin Witches. They are hard to tell apart because you can’t figure out which Witch is…”
Luisa holds out her hand. “Stop,” she says. “Before you scare our new friend away.”
She squeezes my knee, and I smile at her. OK, so maybe this trip hasn’t been totally wasted. I’ll just chalk this down as a mini-break. I lie back on the sand and look up at the stars.
“You’re getting your hair full of sand,” Luisa says, pulling me up and brushing some of it off me.
I make a silly face, tussling my hair wildly and making it stand on top of my head like a scarecrow. “How about now? Am I pretty?”
Luisa laughs. “The prettiest hair I’ve ever seen.”
Ping.
“Rapunzel incarnate,” Rafi adds.
Ping.
I shove at them playfully. “Liars.”
“Right, Verity Witch. I forgot,” she mutters.
“Yup. And what about you? You never did tell me what you are, Luisa.”
A look I can’t decipher passes between Rafi and her.
“I’m a Musemage, mostly. I paint.”
I think back to the Spell Smiths studios at the back of the pharmacy. “God, I forgot how many freaking factions there are! I thought I’d learned them all as a kid, but since I got here, I keep hearing new ones.”
Rafi jumps up and starts waving his hands around. “Show and tell time!”
Luisa wiggles on the sand like she’s getting comfortable, and I lean back, nodding for him to continue.
He points at the ocean and drags a wave towards us. He literally pulls water over like it’s a blanket. Luisa’s hand tightens on my shoulder, and I mouth ‘I’m fine’ at her. I am fine.
Rafi has brought the water up to meet us and is keeping it there like it’s putty that he’s stretched away from the sea. Then, with a flick of his finger, he starts to mold the water into shapes.
A large bubble floats towards us, morphing into an intricate pattern. An eye turned on its side.
“Verity Witch,” I say.
I’m not totally stupid. I do know my own sigil.
“Well done,” he says, like a teacher talking to a class of little kids.
The shape changes, and he shows me the symbols for Brew Witch and Touchmage, and the Silkmage one I saw on Estrella’s door. Then it changes again to three moons and a starburst.
“Pretty,” I gasp.
“Dreamchaser. That’s Beatriz’s. Then you have the Seesages.”
“Fortune tellers?” I interject.
Luisa raises her eyebrows. “Don’t ever call them that to their face.”
I laugh. The water keeps changing, the images getting more complicated.
“What’s that?” I ask, pointing at a swirling dark hole shimmering over our heads.
“That’s the Nox.”
“The ones who see dead people,” I say, remembering Rafi’s earlier story.
He nods. “But we all know the most powerful faction...” Rafi moves the ball of water to the side. With an elaborate wave of his arms, he lifts up the sand, molds it into a symbol of corn and waves inside a circle, then makes it explode into fireworks.
He takes a bow, and Luisa gives a mocking laugh.
“Elementals? As if!”
“Oh yeah? What other faction can do this?”
Before we have a chance to stop him, Rafi drops the ball of seawater onto our heads. It crashes over us, and we’re soaked through. Luisa jumps up with a scream, making me roll to the sand in a sodden heap.
“Torracollons!” she squeals, chasing Rafi across the sand. He runs in zig zags, waving his t-shirt at her like a matador. As he races past me, he sucks the water out of my clothes, leaving me perfectly dry without a grain of sand on me. But he’s refusing to do the same for Luisa.
I’m laughing so hard I’m struggling to stand again. I don’t know if it’s from the weed, his stupid prank, or the fact that tonight is the closest thing I’ve felt in years to hanging out with friends.
“Dry me off!” Luisa’s shouting through her laughter.
“But you look so cute when your leather is all shiny.”
She grabs him in a headlock, pulling him down, but she’s so tiny he simply lifts her up.
“Dry me!” she squeals, laughing.
He plants a kiss on her forehead and, with a quick tap, sucks all the moisture out of her clothes and throws it onto the sand.
She shoves him playfully and returns to where we were sitting.
“Let’s go,” she says, putting on her sneakers and holding out her hand to me. “We don’t want this clown to get any more ideas.”
I pick up my own shoes and take her hand, but instead of letting go, she threads her fingers through mine and squeezes.
I look at my phone. 2.45am and three emails from Jackson. I could call him now; he’d probably be having his dinner, except… I have nothing to report but a failed assignment.
We cross the road, the sea behind us, and head up Las Ramblas towards the Gothic Quarter. All the bars are still open, and I notice the lights are also on above one of the pharmacies.
“Let’s cut through,” Rafi says, making a sharp left down a side street.
It’s quiet down here, nothing but tobacco shops and greengrocers with their shutters down, each road darker and narrower than the last.
Luisa frowns. “I fucking hate this area. It’s seedy as hell.”
A faint breeze is blowing, and she lets go of my hand to run her fingers through her hair. In the moonlight, her cheekbones look sharp and her lips fuller than I realized. She’s caught me staring at her.
“Where are you going now?” Luisa shouts out
