Page 50 of Big Little Spells

“What’s this?” I ask as it drops into my palm.

Nicholas’s gaze holds mine for far too long as something new and strange beats inside of me. “It’s yours.”

This isn’t an explanation, but it somehow makes sense. It feels like mine. But I’ve never seen it before in my life. It’s just a little sphere of a crystal. But it feels weighty and special. And yes, mine.

“Where did you get it? Is that where you’ve been?” Wow, Rebekah, sound more like one of these sad children you’re surrounded by, why don’t you?

“Don’t be late tonight, witchling,” he returns in that voice like silk, and I try not to think about Ellowyn’s mimicry of that term as he walks away. Yes, walks. He executes a very mortal turn and strides off into the crowd that parts before him—and not because he’s using a magic force field.

But because he’s him. Nicholas Frost.

I want to follow, but thankfully my brain and dormant pride remind me that despite all appearances to the contrary, I’m not in fact ruled entirely by my old, childish desires.

Though the horned god of Beltane knows that nothing involving Nicholas feels childish in the least.

I curl my fingers around the ball and force myself to look away from him as he stalks through the gym. I get my bearings, and that takes a minute. Then I look for my people.

Georgie is no longer dancing with her teacher chaperone. Now she and Sage are standing near a wall, talking. Jacob and Emerson are sitting at a table, knees touching as they laugh at something. Nearby, Ellowyn looks better than before and is deep in conversation, but surprisingly enough, it’s with Zander. And they don’t look like they’re arguing. They don’t look like they’re enjoying themselves either, but a duel doesn’t seem to be on the horizon so I have to call that progress.

I stay where I am, alone, as images from all the excitable teens assault me. Hard. And then I hear the last voice I want to hear in my ear. No, not my mother or father. They would be less upsetting right now. Not even Felicia and her sniff of doom.

Instead, it’s Carol.

“Rebekah, you look distressed,” she says, while her impossible hair seems to frizz at me. She gives me that concerned face of hers that everyone seems to believe is real. But I know better. “Is everything all right?”

15

I DON’T WANT TO turn and look directly at the head of the Joywood, but I don’t have a choice. I aim a daisy smile at Carol as I force myself to face her. “I’m actually loving this little frolic through adolescence.”

“You’re all alone,” she says, almost like she’s singing a lullaby in my ear, weaving tendrils of her power into me. “It must be hard to acclimate after ten years of isolation.”

I feel her magic all over me, seeking to draw me out, but I know how to repel her. All my little rebellions in my teenage years gave me the skills to block, and all my recovery time out there in the world taught me how not to lash out with the kind of heedless anger I displayed the night I left. I hope. “Ask my parents how they’re faring in the same situation,” I say sweetly. “I’m sure they’ll appreciate you checking in on them personally.”

She only laughs. As if she’s being friendly. She isn’t.

I brace myself for her trademark snideness when Carol turns her gaze back to me. And worse, smiles. “It’s interesting to see that Nicholas has picked up right where he left off.”

Cold dread ices right through the center of me, and there’s something about the way she drawls Nicholas that’s almost possessive. It curdles in my gut like acid. But I am daisies, I am strength. I work up a faintly confused expression. “Huh?”

“Never trust an immortal, Rebekah. I would have thought you’d know that by now.” Carol shakes her head sadly, but this isn’t the time to be drawn into my usual contemplation of her terrible hair. Not when her gaze feels like it’s tearing into me and her magic is like a rash over my skin. It crosses my mind that the hair is deliberate. It’s there to draw fire while her magic digs in. “He was, after all, one of the main voices in the case against you all those years ago. Nicholas and Felicia were very much on the same team there. I suggested some lenience after your volatile display of power, but they could not be convinced.”

Like hell did this ghoulish woman suggest lenience. Does she think I’m dumb? Does she expect me to crumple before her?

Because I won’t.

I won’t lash out either. I take a breath and realize that’s probably what she’s really after here. But ten years has taught me that I have control of me, no matter what. Grandma’s ring pulses on my finger then, like it’s whispering to me.

Touch her. Touch her. Touch her.

That seems like profoundly bad advice, but my hand lifts of its own accord. I decide I’ve got to commit to this, whatever it is.

I reach out and give Carol a friendly pat on the shoulder. But the moment my palm makes contact with her—beneath the sweeping cape she wears, with the witch’s runes marked all over the mantle—something slams into me. It’s garbled, like all my visions have been lately, but at the center of it is something perfectly clear. I can’t help but reach for it.

Especially when part of that clarity comes in my grandmother’s voice.

Ask her about Skip.

Skip Simon. I’d nearly forgotten about him, the chinchilla incident at our last Beltane prom aside. Which seems odd, now that I consider it. He’s Carol’s only son, is an egregious douche, and has been Emerson’s adversary forever. A constant thorn in her side. But it was like his entire existence has been wrapped up in fog until I hear my grandmother’s voice. As if I didn’t forget him, exactly, but couldn’t quite bring myself to recall him. Even as I think that, the fog closes in again—