Page 77 of A Heart of Bluestone

I look him up and down for a moment before I nod, sharp. “You have a deal.”

He winks before he turns his back on me, then jogs over to the pews. He trips a sophomore on the way, makes sure to shout “watch out” before he barges into him, sends the poor guy flying.

Before Oliver reaches the rest of the Snakes, I look over at Dray. Always best to keep an eye on him.

He watches me already, but there’s nothing intense about his stare. It’s a frown, a slight crease of the brow, a twist to his mouth, and it’s as though he’s merely considering me.

He lowers his gaze from my face to the coat that drapes me. The hem reaches down past my hips, and the hue is a lovely cream to match the fur hat tugged onto my head.

Both of these items, Dray himself picked for me.

Two winters ago, when our families shopped a day away in the heart of Milan, Dray picked the hat and the coat, then put them on mytrying-onpile.

That doesn’t mean anything, though.

He picked out something for Serena, too.

It’s just another of our ways, another way to wear our masks.

But before his gaze can lift back up to my face, I push from the steps—and not a second later, a snowball goes flying by me.

I flinch.

Instinct cringes me into the railing and I half-drop into a crouch.

But the snowball whacks Melody square on the back instead. Wasn’t meant for me.

I didn’t even see her there, on the path. Looks like she’s coming back from the village, what with the two paper shopping bags she has huddled in her arms.

Melody and Mildred must be fighting again.

Sisters, just two years apart.

Melody curses, loud enough that it echoes once, twice. Then she drops the bags to the path with a thump. She lifts her gloved hand and sticks her middle finger up, stiff—and aimed at her grinning sister.

Shoving from the steps, I duck around her, then scurry my ass out of there.

Snowball fights are banned, that’s a one-way ticket to detention, but that doesn’t mean they don’t break out from timeto time, and with the Snakes a lot of snowballs end up having stones and pebbles in them. Mysterious, huh?

Mildred’s snowballs hit extra hard.

My mouth was bust open from one back in fourth year. Split my lip and cut my gum. That strike was enough to send me slamming to the path.

Mildred turns the snowballs into ice. Not completely, but solid enough to do some damage.

She can control water as an element. It’s considered a fairly common print. At least a dozen in a coven of elemental witches is needed to wipe out a town with a tsunami. But Mildred makes one heck of a snowball and I am not keen on being around that.

I take the trail that winds around the dead, frosted trees, and I head to the rockpool.

I made the right call. Before I turn around the whitish trunks, a cry splits the air and I stagger around in time to see that Melody has run over to the pews and she’s throwing a parade of punches right at her sister’s face.

Don’t know what she’s thinking.

Mildred got the muscle in the family. She got the stocky build, the solid arms, the legs like pillars. She stands almost as tall as the guys.

And Melody is a slender thing.

Maybe I’ll start a rumour that Mildred stole Melody’s food or something when they were kids. There’s something there that I can use.

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