She dragged one of her suitcases to a bed and unzipped it, wondering when her roommate would arrive and what the protocol was for claiming a side of the room. Before she had the chance to take anything out of her bag, a window blew open and a gust of warm, fragrant air filled the space, sending the papers in her orientation folder flying. The window had been latched closed when she walked into the room.
Vivi gathered up the papers with a sigh, reminding herself that a significant temperature difference between the air in the room and the air outside could create enough pressure to push the window open. That phenomenon was just one of many Vivi had memorized over the years to explain the strange things that always seemed to happen around her.
That was when she noticed the single tarot card positioned neatly at the head of her bare mattress, as if placed there by a careful hand.
It was the Death card her mother had given her.
The skeleton leered up at her with a gruesome smile, and for a moment, it almost looked like its eyes glowed red. Vivi shivered, despite knowing that it was a trick of the light. I told you. Westerly isn’t a safe place, not for people like you, Daphne’s voice whispered in Vivi’s ear.
A door slammed down the hall and the sound of laughter from the quad floated up through the window. Vivi shook her head, coming back to herself. Here she was, free of her mother for one day, and she was already looking for signs from the universe. Daphne would have almost been proud.
With a dismissive snort, she shoved the Death card into her desk drawer and shut it tight. Vivi didn’t need signs. She didn’t need magic. She didn’t need her mother’s voice in her ear. She just needed to make a normal life here.
Starting with that rush party.
Chapter Four
Scarlett
Kappa House had transformed. The modern metallic gray wallpaper had faded into the pale pink that had once graced the walls, and the low-slung velvet couch had become a gilded chaise. The room was almost unrecognizable. Only the music blaring from a Bluetooth speaker revealed that they were still in the twenty-first century. The recruitment party was in two hours, and every sister was hard at work—the sophomores were in charge of décor, the juniors were dealing with food and drinks, and the seniors were scurrying around making sure any trace of magic was safely out of sight.
After they finished giving instructions to the catering team, Scarlett and Tiffany went upstairs to change into their dresses. Tiffany’s room was two doors past Scarlett’s and she peeked inside as she passed.
“Oh my God, I can’t believe you still have this,” Tiffany said, coming in and grabbing a decrepit three-legged elephant from Scarlett’s dresser.
Scarlett laughed. “I should probably put that away before the rush party.”
“First impressions are everything,” Tiffany agreed.
The first time Scarlett met Tiffany, it was at their own recruitment soiree two years ago. Even though she’d been born and bred for Kappa, Scarlett had been fearful all the same—afraid she’d be found lacking, afraid she’d disappoint her family. But then Tiffany stood next to her and gestured at Dahlia’s perfect slope of a nose and whispered, “I’d bet you my whole trust fund that nose is a glamour.” Scarlett didn’t laugh, but she’d wanted to. Suddenly their membership chairwoman didn’t seem so imposing and Scarlett’s nerves melted away. It turned out Tiffany didn’t have a trust fund, far from it, but she was rich in magic, spontaneity, and irreverence. Scarlett hadn’t known just how much she’d needed those last two until she met Tiffany.
That year, the theme had been a black-and-white ball, and they’d danced the night away in their floor-length gowns, barely caring that, come dawn, the white hems were smudged with dirt. Later that morning, Scarlett had taken Tiffany to her favorite antiques store downtown, the one that the tourists and other witches hadn’t discovered yet. They walked through rows and rows of dusty furniture and lamps, tiny figurines, and old coffee-table books, and Tiffany stopped at the kids’ aisle with the excitement of a preschooler. “Stuffed animals and dolls are the best—so much pure energy. So much pure love,” she gushed.
Scarlett picked up an elephant whose leg was missing. “So much pure something,” she said with a laugh, and Tiffany joined in. But Scarlett knew what she meant.
“Thanks for sharing your spot with me,” Tiffany said softly, pulling a well-loved Elmo to her chest for a hug.
They’d gone home with dozens of objects perfect for spells—and they had been inseparable ever since. Tiffany was the kind of sister Scarlett had always wished she had. They balanced each other well. Scarlett was bound to the norms of magic, while Tiffany liked having fun with her gift. The Kappa motto translated to “Sisterhood. Leadership. Fidelity. Philanthropy,” which Scarlett always took to mean that they were supposed to rule and save the world. But Tiffany didn’t think of witches as superheroes only. “What’s the fun of being a witch if you can’t use magic to make the Starbucks line move faster?” she always said. Scarlett saw her point; what good was helping the world if you couldn’t help yourself, too?
Tiffany’s blue eyes glittered whenever she had one of her brilliant ideas or used the lightest touches of magic to even the scales of small, daily injustices, like magically spilling the drink of a frat boy who stared a little too long and hard at a sister or giving a truth serum to a sexist professor who gave only boys As. She was smart and funny and just the right amount of mischievous. Tiffany was the one person who got Scarlett out of her own head and reminded her of the joy, not just the duty, of being a witch. And usually when they were together, Scarlett felt at once at ease and excited for whatever they would do next.
The tarot might have explained their connection—Cups and Swords were always fast friends—but Scarlett liked to think that she and Tiffany would have been connected with or without magic. Right that moment, though, she felt suddenly apart from her.
Scarlett took a deep breath, remembering what Dahlia had said earlier. “Tiff, do you ever think about Harper?”
Tiffany stiffened. “We agreed to never talk about that.”
“I know, but what if it ever got out—”
“How could it ever get out? We’re the only people who know,” Tiffany said.
That wasn’t entirely true, though. Gwen, another girl from their pledge class, also knew the truth about what really happened. But Gwen was long gone, and they’d made sure she could never, ever tell.
“Everything is fine, Scarlett. Trust me, we’re golden,” Tiffany said firmly, shoving the elephant into Scarlett’s closet and smoothing down her dress.
“Knock-knock,” a deep voice said.
Scarlett whirled around. “Oh my God, Mason! I thought you weren’t back until tomorrow.”
“I got home early,” he said with a smile.
If he hadn’t been her boyfriend, he would have been irritatingly good-looking. His mouth quirked up on one side, as if he were always on the brink of laughter. His skin was a deep, golden tan. His hair was longer than it usually was, twisting in curls at his temples, and his T-shirt couldn’t hide his well-defined muscles.
Tiffany cleared her throat. “I will leave you two to it . . . See you downstairs, Scar,” she said, waggling her brows.