Page 40 of Calling Quarters

Frankly, it scared me as well.

Could I be wrong about Storie, then?

I chuckled, waving my hand in the air dismissively. “You’re right. That sounds ridiculous.”

He relaxed into his chair, then attempted to take control of the conversation once again. “Maybe you boys should be focusing on how to make the disaster you’ve created right with your coven, instead of going on wild goose chases.”

“That’s probably true.” My sarcastic tone clearly flew over his head when his lips lifted in a smug smirk as I stood up and walked to the door.

I didn’t bother saying goodbye or waiting for him to dismiss me before walking out of his office. The hallway was bright and airy, reminding me that it was still mid-morning. I immediately reached into my pocket for my phone and called the others, telling them to meet me at the library as soon as possible.

I took a detour through the kitchen in an attempt to find Julia, but Marta stood at the sink alone. There had to be consequences for Julia and her friends. The members of Watchtower have grown far too comfortable, acting out in the absence of order that was usually kept in place by our High Priest and Priestess. Yet, the Forbes have taken a back seat on all coven matters and allowed our clown mayor and Rayner to send the town running rampant.

I wanted to know why.

And I wanted to know why Julia targeted Storie. How did the Rists tie in with my family, and what did it mean that where Storie lit my bones on fire every time she was near, Julia had barely made an impression on me before any of this?

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“What are we supposed to be looking for?” Enzo asked as I rifled through the town’s old birth records.

“I don’t know, exactly. The Rists have practically been our housekeepers since the beginning of time. Maybe try to find the records for anyone your family keeps under their employ. We can sort through them from there.”

“This seems like a lot of work for a hunch,” Rhyse whined.

“It’s not a hunch. I’m telling you, my dad tensed up the minute I brought them up.”

“What even made you think to mention them?” Lux asked. He was the only one kneeled on the ground beside me pulling out files.

I paused, unsure of how much I wanted to share. It wasn’t possible to tell them what Julia had done without admitting what happened after with Storie and that I thought she might be my Counter. That we'd spent more time together in the past few days than I was able to tolerate spending with anyone else in years.

“Julia said some weird stuff about our families. I figured anything was worth exploring, especially after my dad acted so cagey when I mentioned finding our Counters.”

It was only half a lie.

“That was a lucky shot.” Lux eyed me doubtfully, but still continued with his task.

Enzo and Rhyse finally began sifting through the files on the top shelves, and within an hour, we had every birth record of every person our families employed spread out across three tables.

“This is insane,” Rhyse muttered in disbelief as we compared their records with our own.

The Bishops, Foleys, Whittles, and Rists were all employed with our families since they came to Beacon Grove. Coincidentally, each family produced a child at the same time the Quarters produced their heirs.

I somehow stumbled into the truth without even realizing it.

“The correlations end with our fathers, though,” Lux pointed out. He had written down each Quarter's name and their corresponding employee's birth as we discovered them.

“Yeah, something changed with their generation,” Enzo agreed. “But what? These bloodlines must stretch back at least two hundred years. What could cause such a huge shift?”

I was worried that our new discovery would prove me wrong about Storie. It wasn't that I wanted her to be my Counter, but if she wasn't, then that would mean there was some other reason we were so drawn to each other.

Instead, these files only pushed me further in the direction of proving my theory to be correct. That would also explain why Julia was so hostile toward her. She wanted to know why her family role was stripped away.

“These are useful, but they only lead to more questions,” Rhyse said in a defeated sigh.

“It's more than we had three hours ago,” Lux pointed out.

“It’s more than we’ve had in a while,” I added just as the sour-faced librarian approached us.

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