8
FOR THE NEXT HOUR, Alice Ansley delights and confounds her audience. Twice, I swear she looks directly at me. My palms go slick with cold sweat, but she always looks away. I can only hope that the spotlights in her eyes blur my features beyond recognition. For her final trick, Alice disappears in a puff of smoke, leaving the crowd standing and cheering in her absence.
I don’t have time to be awed by her skill or to wonder how she accomplished each seemingly impossible feat. This mission is so beyond screwed.
“What do we do?” Morgan whispers as the crowd ebbs and flows around us. We lose Sarah in the rush of bodies, and Morgan keeps one hand on my elbow as we maneuver to the stairwell and slip back into the hotel. “Is there any chance she won’t recognize you?”
“The Caster Witches tried to strip Alice of her magic. I’m fairly certain she’ll remember me.” I take the next doorway, emerging into an empty hall. This isn’t our floor or Alice’s, so we should have a few minutes before Sarah comes looking for us. “If the Council finds out what happened that weekend, I could lose my magic. Alice, too.” Every witch who was there is guilty of using magic against another Clan. None of us would look innocent before the three Elders.
“But the Elders need you. Do you still think they’d punish you?”
“I honestly don’t know.”
When Veronica first invited me to hang out with the trio of Caster Witches—Tori, Lexie, and Coral—I didn’t want to go. But she begged, and I thought dating her meant I had to do whatever I thought would make her happy, so I went.
That night was . . . not great, especially when a Blood Witch—when Alice—attacked. I managed to help run her off, but when I realized the Casters wanted to illegally strip Alice of her magic, I tried to distance myself from them and focus on the school trip.
The next day, I went to Central Park with the rest of my class. I tried to have fun with Gemma, but Veronica wanted to talk. Except talking turned into fighting, and the next thing I knew, I was lost and alone in the middle of the park.
I’m still not sure how exactly Alice found me there, whether she was following me or my luck was truly that terrible, but she recognized me from the Casters’ apartment and attacked. She was so distracted that the Casters—who had come to the park to meet with Veronica—were able to capture us both. Alice thought I wanted to strip her magic like the rest of them, despite my protests, and there’s no reason to think she’ll change her mind about my guilt now.
What the three Casters tried to do is unforgivable. Even what they managed to accomplish—kidnapping Alice and binding her in potion-soaked ropes that dampened her power—is bad enough. Not to mention the fight that broke out between Tori and Veronica before we managed to escape. That kind of inter-Clan fighting is unforgivable under Council law, and I don’t know if Elder Keating’s plans for Alice and me are enough to save us from punishment for what we did.
But at the same time . . . I can’t not try to recruit Alice. There’s too much at stake with the Hunters’ drug wiping out magic from entire covens in a single night. “We still have to talk to Alice. There has to be a way to convince her to help and not tell anyone what happened. We need her.” I peer out into the hall and look at the door numbers. “She’s two floors up. We stick to the plan. You and I will try to talk to her. I’ll text Sarah and tell her we want to go alone so we don’t overwhelm Alice.”
“You don’t think Sarah would get you in trouble with the Council, do you?”
“She’s family, but I’d rather not put her in the position to have to choose.” I lead Morgan up the stairs, texting Sarah as we climb.
When we reach Alice’s floor, Morgan peers down the hall. “How are you going to get Alice to open the door? What if she recognizes you?” Doubt colors Morgan’s tone, and I try not to take it personally.
Down the hall, someone left a discarded room service tray for housekeeping to collect in the morning. An empty bottle of champagne lays next to a bucket of melting ice. “I have an idea.”
Two minutes later, Morgan stands outside Alice’s door. The bucket is freshly stocked with ice, and the champagne bottle is tilted back to hide that it’s empty. Sarah responded to my texts, giving us thirty minutes to try on our own before she shows up for reinforcement.
Morgan glances at me and smooths the skirt of her dress so it falls effortlessly to her knees. I gesture for her to smile. She rolls her eyes and blows out a slow breath, raising her hand to knock. Time seems to slow with her fist poised to bring me face-to-face with the Blood Witch who fueled my nightmares for months.
She knocks. We wait.
A weary voice calls out. “Who is it?”
“Uh . . . room service?”
There’s movement on the other side of the door. I hold my breath as Morgan raises the ice bucket so Alice can see it when she looks through the peephole.
“I didn’t order anything.” Alice’s voice is muffled but close. So close.
A tremor of fear covers my skin in goose bumps. I remember her strength, her grip tight around my throat. The bloody runes she sketched along the Casters’ walls.
I gesture for Morgan to say something. Anything.
“It’s a gift,” she says, scrambling. “A fan . . . from your show . . . he, um, he asked us to send it to your room.”
One beat of silence. Two.
The chain lock glides free and the door swings open. Alice stands there, still in her suit, though she’s discarded her tie and braided her pink hair so that it falls over one shoulder. “You can put it on the desk.”
Morgan casts me a worried look, and Alice follows her gaze. Confusion creases her brow, but I see the moment she places my face, her hands curling into fists. “You.”
“Don’t freak out.” I lift my arms in surrender. “We just want to talk.”
“Eat shit, fire bitch.” Alice slams the door.
I rush forward and shove my foot into the frame as it’s closing. Pain shoots up my leg, and I try to push my way inside. “I can’t leave until you hear me out.”
The door swings open, and Alice moves faster than I can track. She hauls me inside and closes her fingers around my throat. She squeezes tight, lifting me up the wall until my toes barely scrape the ground. “I have nothing to say to you.”
The worst kind of déjà vu consumes me. Alice’s grip cuts off my air, stealing my reply with no care for the consequences of using her magic against another witch.
“What are you doing?” Morgan drops the bucket of ice, and pieces slide over the wood floor. She slams the door closed behind her. “Put her down.”