Chapter Sixteen

Exes & Omens

“Sorry about Soren,” I whisper, as I page through Fungi for Fiends. “He’s still growing accustomed to living in a place where he doesn’t have to glare at people all the time.”

“Oh, that’s fine,” Tuesday reassures me. “Page 62, by the way.”

“Thanks.” I flip hurriedly to the section of the textbook titled Root Plants: Ruthless or Sinister, while Professor Spriggs calls out from the front of the conservatory.

“Now, who can tell me what this is?”

Spriggs, her hair decorated with twigs today, presents a large potted plant to the class, drawing an arc with the thing like she’s tempting us with cookies fresh from the oven.

Tuesday leans over conspiratorially. “Is the deal still on with Soren Cain?” she whispers. “What is it that you need from him anyway?”

“I had a little full-death experience on All Hallows’ Eve and Sabbath brought me back,” I answer, matching her low volume.

Tuesday’s mouth forms a little “oh” of surprise.

“Don’t tell anyone, please,” I hurry to say.

“Of course not,” she promises. “That’s impressive. I wish I had known three years ago that Sabbath was capable of that.”

A nice nostril-full of something like earth and sulfur wafts toward me as Spriggs approaches with the plant. “No one? I suggest some of you do the reading in chapter eighteen of Strange Brews. This is sageroot.”

As soon as she moves out of earshot to show the plant off to the other side of the room, my conversation resumes. “Something went wrong with the resurrection,” I confess. “Soren agreed to help me, you know, fully recover. For the price of soul magic.”

“Ah,” Tuesday nods. “Do you still need our help, then?”

“We may have outsmarted him about fulfilling the deal, but Sabbath is still stuck doing the magic. Do you think we could still convince Tomorrow, if Soren goes through with it?”

“Tomorrow is never a lost cause when blood is involved,” Tu shrugs. “And I think she’d be very offended to hear Soren went to someone else when she was so willing to help. I’ll talk to her.”

“Thank you, Tuesday,” I whisper, gratitude written across my face.

“Tu,” she reminds me with a gentle smile.

Gripping the brambling bush by the trunk, Professor Spriggs rips it from the soil, revealing the sageroot’s long tentacle-like roots. “A favorite feast of unicorns, and peppered abundantly throughout Stillwood. Can someone tell me its properties? You, Aden Wong.”

The plant thrashes in her hand, grubby grey roots curling in like an octopus trying to latch onto something, but it makes no headway in Spriggs’ strong grip.

“Sageroots are a powerful additive to potions because they can replicate some of the abilities of thought magic.” Aden Wong sounds tentative.

“Correct!” Spriggs grins, freezing the plant without even a glance toward it—it goes limp in her arms. “It has another secret property. Anyone?”

A quick survey of the room supplies her with an answer; if anyone knows, they aren’t interested in saying. For good reason, apparently.

With a small smirk, Spriggs lifts some of the long thick roots as though she’s lifting the drooping leaves of a willow. Beneath them is a large teardrop-shaped bulb. “The bulb of a sageroot is a powerful aphrodisiac.”

Vicious scrawling behind me ensues, and I turn to see Enzo taking notes for the first time in his life.

At the end of class, we’re assigned an essay on how to properly find and extract sageroot from its natural habitat. I catch Enzo on my way out. “Hey,” I say, interrupting his chat with a curly-haired blonde.

Lifting his gaze, he wiggles his eyebrows at me as she leaves. “You wanna meet at the Comet tonight?”

“Sure,” I nod. “Can we start on the paper? And that assignment Knox gave us yesterday with the rock is sucking, too.”

Enzo slings his books casually under his arm as we walk out together. “Ask Sabbath where the Comet is today and send a bat. I’ll meet you there after dinner.”

I nod, but the air is stale between us, the attraction cool despite years of being together.

“Missed you,” Enzo smiles uncertainly, giving me a small punch on the arm.

“Same,” I agree.

* * *

I’m just in time to catch a couple vacating the couch at the Enchanted Comet, which grows fuller by the minute. Withdrawing a big rock from my bag, I set it on the coffee table.

In alchemy, all objects have a natural essence at their core. In order for something to be primed for a potion, its essence must be “raised.” You can’t just throw any old object into a cauldron and watch it bubble up into something mighty—oh no, you must draw the magic from ingredients like poison from a wound.

Professor Knox has assigned each of us a rock to raise essence on, and it doesn’t take long for me to think he’s done so to break our spirits. One attempt at raising essence on this thing, and I already know it’s going to be a doozy.

Fingers trembling, I try again, feeling for the tendrils of energy emanating from the rock’s depths. Whatever’s deep inside of this seemingly silly rock makes it powerful. My magic is on the cusp of shimmying it to the surface when a body slams down next to me, an arm drooping heavily against my hunched back.

I sigh, dropping my hands in distracted defeat.

“Hey, Mika.” Enzo has a lazy grin on his face, his eyes squinty and red. He leans in for a kiss and when I turn my cheek, he pulls me in closer.

This closeness feels foreign.

“We’re only a week into the school year and guess how many potions we’ve sold, Meeks?”

“I don’t want to know how many rules you’ve broken, no. That would make me complicit.” I’ve broken too many myself and adding the illegal potions trade to my list of indiscretions is not a priority.

“Is everything okay?” he asks, finally noticing me for what feels like the first time since last June.

No, I want to say. You wrote to me one time this summer. You haven’t even noticed that I’m undead!

“Yes,” I sigh. “I’m just frustrated about the rock.” And the weird thing you have going on with Aman—

“Are you sure this isn’t about Amandine?”

“Not everything is about Amandine,” I retort. “Someone should probably get around to telling her that one day.”

“Then what’s wrong?” Enzo pokes my thigh lightly. I shift to face him fully.

“You’re different, Enzo. Since we got into Alchemy Brood. I thought it would be good for us. To have it in common. But…”

“I’m sorry I’m so busy all the time. I’m making good money with the potions,” he says, “and Amandine is nothing. She’s a—a—business partner.”

Inclining my head, I give him a pointed look. “Yeah? How many versions of the new love potion have you tested?”

“Thirteen.”

“And how many of those have you tested with her instead of me?”

As I say it out loud, I realize the potential for its truth. I look away, the full blow of Enzo and Amandine finally hitting me. I have been an idiot.

“Look, Amandine and I have tested a few together, but it was only professional, I swear. We never took it very far. Only enough to see if it worked—”

“Far enough to be responsible for your distance this summer.”

He looks at me sadly. “Mika, you were in America. It was a logistics thing.”

I’ve liked Enzo McNight since the day I stepped foot onto Spellfall’s campus, the legendary château rising up in all its famed glory against the dark silhouette of the forest. Since the moment I stood huddled next to other equally anxious ten-year-olds and heard his adorable British accent for the first time.

Enzo had never had the influence of Amandine and her crowd, but he was always hovering at the peripheral edges of popularity, and when we got together in fifth year, I’d held my breath... waiting for it to be a cruel joke. No way would the guy with the adorable grin and flawless swoopy hair ever go after the daughter of a terrorist. No way.

But he had. And he’d loved me.

I look at Enzo now, and when I take in the dulled, potions-obsessed guy in front of me, I simply don’t feel any of the right things anymore. He’s had a change in priority, and I’ve had a change of heart.

“I don’t know, Enz. I don’t know where we stand.”

“We stand here,” he says softly. It’s almost sweet, except I don’t think he realizes we’re not literally standing.

“What are you on?” I ask, glancing over at his red eyes.

“Makes you feel light as a feather—”

“And let me guess, stiff as a board? Sounds like a love potion for impotent old warlocks. Or something you should be trying out with Amandine.”

“Mika… Meeks,” he consoles as I stand up, gathering my things. Emotions are tumbling through me. Sadness. Loss. Confusion.

“I think we need to be done, Enzo. I’m not in a place to fix all the things that are so massively wrong with us.”

He stands now, too, reaching for my hand. I yank it away because I’m feeling thin now. I need to see Soren so he can draw the rune on me, stat.

“You didn’t even notice”—that I died. That your hand literally just went through my knee a moment ago. That I could not exist right now, and I’d be just as irrelevant as I already am—“my hair,” I finish pathetically.

Enzo’s eyes creep from my face over to my hair, and he reaches a hand up to pluck at a slightly-blonder-than-normal swatch of it as if seeing it for the first time. “Of course, I noticed, Mika.”

“The truth is,” I confess, painting broad, honest strokes with my words. “I’m different, too. I’ve changed. I can’t hold on to the same things anymore.” Like insecurity and disappointment. Like your average pen.

At that moment, a pretty girl who must be in third or fourth-year taps Enzo on the shoulder. She passes him some coins, and he withdraws a vial from his pocket. “Still in testing,” he warns, “but let me know what you think.”

Grinning shyly, she takes the potion and scampers away.

Enzo turns back to me, a satisfied smile on his face. “Where were we?”

I’m so used to that smile making my stomach squirm and my heart leap, but now nothing about me is moving an inch. “Did you give out the Comet’s location so you could trade?” I crinkle my nose.

“Just to a few people. This batch is really good, Mika. We should try it, you and me.”

“To answer your question, we were in the middle of breaking up,” I reply, giving him a sad smile. “You’re great, in, like, so many ways, Enzo. But you are not great for me in the way that I need.”

It takes everything in me to keep from setting a ghostly hand on his cheek. Instead, I leave him standing there, vaguely despondent as he watches me go without a fight.

* * *

Sitting cross-legged on the bed, I stare down at the stupid, fat rock some more.

The door sings with a groan as Sabbath walks in, her eyes wide and hair frazzled. Her Communion With Corpses class is a night class because the Necromancy Brood is infatuated with the drama of doing death magic under a full moon.

“You can give me that vial to cry into now,” she says weakly as I offer her a sympathetic look. “It’s just a lot,” she explains slowly, “all the frogs I’m supposed to sacrifice, and all the mice I have to cut apart. I don’t want to be Necromancy Brood.”

“Just tell them you’re already communing with me. I’m half-dead, I should count,” I say, dropping my hands. “Maybe Thorncaster would let you transfer to Alchemy if you’re so morally opposed to, like, your entire existence. Come to the unremarkable side with me, where we struggle to bring out the essence of old fat rocks.”

Her eyes dart to the bed, a smirk rolling onto her lips. “I’ve always liked the idea of everything having, like, an essence. Even rocks.”

“It does sound very you.”

Leaning back, she stares up at the ceiling. It’s painted a deep azure, with little golden stars scattered across it. “I wonder if we do choose our Brood, deep down. If I chose this for myself because I love making my life difficult.”

“Of course not, Sab. You have big power. And one day you’ll find a way to use it in a way that makes you feel—”

“Safe. Comfortable.”

“No?” I answer, pondering. “I don’t know if people ever really feel safe or comfortable with what they’re fully capable of. But maybe unbroken. Maybe a little right.”

“I don’t know, Mika.”

I twist my neck so that I can face her, her bouncy curls spilling onto her pillow. “You don’t have to know right now. Personally, I think it would be epic if you just, out of nowhere, started participating in all the rituals and everyone’s like, ‘Allll the Omens, Sabbath Winters just ended a rat!’” I whisper, dramatically. “But then! Wait! You bring them all back to life. Every single one of those rats they killed in those very theatrical Necromancy rituals.”

“That’s exactly why people make fun of me, Mika. The hamsters.”

“Right. Only cause they didn’t see it happen. You just need an encore. That sequel would definitely be better than the original.”

A single full-bodied laugh escapes her. “I guess I should cry now. For your tears or whatever. Do you have to see Soren again tonight?”

“Yes.” I sigh, adjusting so that I can hang my head off the bed dramatically. My hair falls around my face like a waterfall, gravity pulling on my mouth as I groan. “We’re meeting soon to make the potion, but the rune he drew on me only lasts around a day. And since I don’t really want to wake up to shadow walkers crawling all over me in the middle of the night...”

“Ew.”

“Right? I don’t know which is more ‘ew’, having to see Soren every day until this potion is ready, or seeing creepy dimensionally displaced people.”

Sab gives me one of her looks. “One is definitely less ‘ew’ than the other. Soren gets to draw on you every day with his”—she waggles her fingers—“digits.”

“What is wrong with you! Why are you suddenly on Team Soren?”

She shrugs, moving her head over the edge of the bed too so that we’re both now upside down. “I’m not on Team Soren. Your guys’ tension is just, like, so palpable. I can’t help but watch. I’m invested now. Can never tell if you’re about to start making out, or if you’re going to murder each other instead.”

“Murder is a very offensive concept to me right now, Sabbath. But, it’d definitely be murder.”

“Pfft. Shut up.”

I reach for a crumbled wad of homework lying forsaken on the floor and toss it at her. She swats at me jokingly, and we both laugh, the sound extra full as it tumbles out of our mouths, at odds with gravity.

“I broke up with Enzo,” I admit. It’s good, to hear the words out loud. They wash over me with relief instead of regret.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah. It didn’t even feel like we were together anymore. Plus, with the whole dying thing, and all the stuff with Soren...”

“I’m sorry, Meeks.” She opens her mouth to say something else, but swallows back her words, thinking better of them.

“What, Sab?”

“Is there something... there? With Soren? Even just the teeniest itty bittiest... thing-thing?”

I react with mock disgust. “The guy you were recently suggesting killed me? Who did, in fact, pull a knife on me last night?”

“The crystal ball said no one means you harm, and supposedly, that includes him.”

“‘The crystal ball said,’” I parrot back.

But I do pause, thinking, as all the blood rushes to my head. “I don’t like the way he makes me feel. Vulnerable, and powerful at the same time. Vulnerable, because of that power. Besides, I’m not sure that crystal ball was trustworthy. It was like five centuries old.”

Sabbath makes a face. “I don’t think Soren Cain would waste any time helping you if he really wanted you dead, though.”

“His eyes say he wants me dead.”

“His cold, dead, beautiful blue eyes!” She sighs dramatically, taunting me. “Ugh. He really is the worst, but as much as I hate to say it... I think he’s right, Mika. I botched bringing you back, because I still don’t even know what I did. This whole situation is my fault.”

“It’s not your fault, Sab! It’s mine.”

Sliding off her bed, Sabbath sits cross-legged on the floor, leaning back against her deep purple bedspread. I join her on the floor. Our beds are close enough together that if we extend our arms out, we can touch fingertips.

“Do you regret it?” I ask quietly. “Not, like, the fact that I’m alive. Obviously.” I bat my eyelashes and she smiles. “Not even the part where you feel like you messed up—”

“But the part where I was a hypocrite.” Sabbath nods, knowing what I’m asking. “I say I believe something, that I want to be a certain way, and I don’t know how not to be what I already am.”

She’s found her hands again. Her shame is always directing her eyes to her hands.

“I don’t know if regret is the right word,” she confesses. “But I’m disappointed. Sometimes I wonder if it was a test.”

“Then it was one you passed with flying colors.”

“No,” Sabbath shakes her head. “A test about where my convictions draw their lines. About how malleable my morals are, the second something I love is taken away. It’s not regret that I feel, but... maybe sadness? I’ve thought my whole life that I knew exactly who I was in some ways, and not at all in others, and it turns out I was wrong about both.”

“It wasn’t a test, Sab. It was me wanting to do a stupid thing.” Remorse is vivid in my voice. “And you being a good friend.”

“What you wanted wasn’t stupid,” she replies softly.

“It was totally stupid. Stupid to try, stupid to think it would work. Definitely stupid to believe that even if my mother had deigned to show up to her daughter’s accidental funeral, she would’ve had something to say that could’ve changed anything. I mean, you heard Soren. She was part of a cult.”

“You never know, Meeks. Every story has a side.”

“Not every side is worth dying for.”

Sabbath sticks her lip out sadly. Most days, we feed off each other’s energy, bantering back and forth, being the sister neither of us has. But when it comes to listening, Sabbath definitely wins. Sometimes she doesn’t have the right thing to say, but usually it works out that those are the times she’s not busy trying to say anything at all.

In moments like this, it feels really tragic that I can’t do soul magic. It means I can’t clone Sabbath so that every broken person in this world gets their very own one of her.

“Sabbath, I don’t know what I would do without you.”

“I don’t know what I would do without you. And for about three minutes there, you had me thinking I was gonna have to figure it out.” She sniffs and wipes her eye.

“Sab, we’re supposed to be saving your tears!”

“Oh, right.” She frowns, expression veering quickly from sorrow to confusion at comedic speed. “That’s so weird, Mika. What do you need my tears for?”

I shrug. “Honestly, I have no idea what kind of potion we’re making. I wonder what its base will be, though. I bet it’s, like, powdered quartz or copper dust... although, I wouldn’t put it past him to be brewing something with dark magic.”

Sabbath rolls her eyes, all hope for more tears completely vanquished. “If you want Soren to leave you alone, just do that tonight. Talk potions. Instant mood killer.”

My pillow flies. Because I throw it at her.

“Oh, did I say that out loud?” she laughs. “I meant, ‘It’s hot. Talk more Alchemy to me.’” Her eyes steady as the laughter fades, the whisper of fear welling up in them. “It’s really scary, the stuff about the Claiming. That the High Council could do that and none of us would know.”

“Yeah,” I agree, a creeping sensation crawling under my skin. “Even Soren thinks there’s something going on... I mean, if we believe him.”

Sab’s eyes grow faraway with her consideration. “I think I do. I think he’s scared of something. And I think if you’re scared, you don’t spread lies about your own... people.”

“Guess all we can do is hope Soren gives us some answers, sooner rather than later. Seems like the wrong thing to wait on, though.”

She shrugs. “Maybe we’ll grow on him.”

“Unlikely.”

“I don’t know how we’re going to get away with this.” Sab shakes her head, sighing deeply. “If we thought the séance was stupid, this is three trillion times stupider.”

“It definitely is,” I agree. “But we’ve set such an impressive precedent for ourselves this year. Why stop now?”

If you went to a magical school, what classes would you want to take? I've always wanted to make potions—as a kid, I had a strange fixation with collecting vials! I would mix watercolors into water and use them to pretend I was brewing up some magic :)

xx Jessa

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