Page 29 of Dance With Death

Unless something violent or a highly charged emotional scene happened close by, the items aren’t likely to hold onto memories.

No past images from the junk at least proves Viktor never took Holly to his place. Dorian locked down the renovations and the owners, the Brightgrove witches, suffered a lot of questioning. He continues to harass Cornelius Whitegrove for answers, who’s invoking his position and loudly pointing out that Dorian’s greatly insulting his family name. The man is amassing sympathy.

Dorian checked Marci and her friends’ backgrounds, again, but nothing untoward showed up in records.

Having missed her chance to catch the shifter, Violet now borderline stalks Marci, which I explain will have the opposite outcome to what she wants. How can Marci hold a secret meeting if Violet appears everywhere she goes? Begrudgingly, Violet pulls back on the surveillance. Give things a few days to settle, and Marci and co. might start up their activities again.

Marci knows that I’m watching her along with Violet, but equally, she’s watching me. Interestingly, she continues to avoid us, which Violet sees as Marci’s guilt. We’ve checked out the coven’s room beneath Pendle House, but even the candles and runes Violet saw at the so-called committee meeting have gone.

I can’t picture Marci as someone who’d kidnap and assault another student. Or is she involved in secrets deeper inside the academy as well as those within her coven? How are the brooches connected?

It’s taken some persuasion to stop Violet from launching herself blindly into the world in search of Holly. She’s beginning to accept that finding a witch as powerful as Viktor won’t be easy, and that clues to where he might be will come from other sources.

When the moment finally arrives where Dorian mentions anything close to a lead, we’ll need to tie Violet down to stop her from rushing thoughtlessly into something. I bite my lip—the only thing that’d ever restrain Violet are the shadows. That’s a topic I do not like being brought up. The further the shadows are from my mind, the less of a possibility that Dorian might pick up on the magic each time we meet.

No. Instead, we insist that Violet focuses on the academy, and whatever’s happening that we’ve only touched on so far. The new fashion for so-called protective silver brooches could be something or nothing, but I’m inclined to believe they mean something. I’ve casually mentioned Leif could return the Willowbrook stone to me, but was met with an emphatic no, due to the shadows’ response to the item, and how they’re growing within me.

Violet is pissed about the shifter, doubly so that the creature hasn’t appeared on campus since. She avoids all classes that Marci doesn’t attend, and the relationship between Violet and Darwin House has returned to the strained early days. At least Violet has enough awareness to watch her tongue, especially after the slip up when we encountered the students hunting the shifter.

Violet and Leif met with Eloise today, Eloise attempting to locate and break the spell in Leif’s head. The last witches failed; all they could see is the same as Violet the day she looked—splintered memories that Leif is gradually piecing together. I asked Violet why Eloise didn’t help originally, and she quietly told me that Eloise worried she’d damage his mind. When Leif told me that Dorian was bringing in the big guns, and Eloise would try today, I forced a smile and wished him luck. Hopefully she doesn’t blow his head off.

Leif hasn’t felt well since that session with Eloise, and I worry how ‘unwell’ because I’ve heard of people losing consciousness for a day after intense mental magic intrusion. Apparently, Eloise had to stop before she’d finished working on his mind, worrying she might cause damage as the magic is glued. Violet assures me that Leif is fine, and that his massive migraine should subside soon.

Poor guy. He never asked for all this. Violet blames herself, as she does with Holly, but I remind Violet that Leif wasn’t even connected to her when Viktor put the spell in his mind. The witch is tracking Leif for more than one reason. Hopefully, not any longer. Time will tell if Eloise managed to neutralize the whole spell before stopping.

Naturally, Violet won’t drop her shifter search tonight, Leif or no Leif. This will become a regular activity until Holly—or the shifter—are found. I’m not complaining about one-on-one time with Violet because that’s rare recently, although our meetups are always unpredictable and recently uncommon. Is this step backwards due to my stopping her heart? Violet hasn’t mentioned that incident again, but something is wrong. I mean, it’s not the best thing to do to the girl you’re in a relationship with and then expect everything to be okay.

Will tonight involve more traipsing around campus looking for invading shifters despite Leif taking a break? Or can we stay inside for once? Although, building furniture is definitely not on Violet’s mind either—we’ve barely touched. That’s the last thing I spoke to Holly about, the morning we prepared to leave for Scotland. Not sex, but the reason why Holly described things in that way. Holly isn’t keen on talking to me, but when I quizzed her, she took delight in expanding the metaphor. My last image of Holly? The back of her curly head as I called out, “I don’t need instructions.”

My phone sounds.

I’d like to go out tonight

A step in the right direction? As long as she doesn’t take me hiking like she did Leif. My worst nightmare.

sure, should we still meet at my room?

no

My lips purse. To avoid coming here?

You’re already late what happened?

I’m on the bench in the cloisters, left of Pendle entrance

okay…

Be quick

To clarify, Rowan: I’m okay I just saw something

The shifter?

no come here now

My navy hoodie lies on my bed, so I grab hold, and prepare to meet the only person in the world who’ll ever talk to me like that.

Violet waits in the covered stone walkway, barely visible in the dark, and she rises from the bench as I approach. Without gauging her likely reaction, I draw Violet to me and kiss her.

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