Page 15 of Spelling Disaster

“Mom? I don’t understand,” I hiss out. “They’re sending me away?”

She still refuses to look and there’s deep knowing inside of me that says I’ll never have her attention again.

Even when I should be an adult in charge of myself, I’ve been given up. Sentenced to be sent away to some place I’ve never heard about.

A sick heat rises from my gut and my throat closes, cutting off anything else I might have said.

“What about Remi?” I ask. “I need to know if Remi is okay before I leave. Let me see her. Please?”

I have to see her. These people, the coven members I’ve always felt at home among, have turned their back on me, but they should at least tell me what happened to my sister.

“The fate of your family is no concern of yours any longer,” the High Priest tells me. There isn’t a hint of kindness in his voice and his words are an anchor dragging me down so far into bleak and horrible feelings, I’m not sure how long it will take me to get back to myself.

“You used magic that threatened us all.” Lark, usually so soft spoken and kind, the embodiment of the mother energy, bites out her words. I feel them in my marrow like ice-cold shackles. “You fought the ceremony and brought darkness to us.”

“Until such time as she is sent to the academy, she shall be shunned,” Eli finishes. “Yasmine is ousted from her place within the coven. As it is decreed…”

“So mote it be,” the rest of the room says as one. There, I realize numbly. There is the drop of the ax I’ve been waiting for, and it’s as swift and deadly as I imagined.

ChapterFive

The rest of my days in the mortal world pass in a blur.

I have very little stuff to move, so when Lark escorts me to a chamber on the other side of the ritual room, it’s basically only me and the bed. The dresser stays practically empty except for a few essentials, mocking, and the small window is set so high up on the wall so as not to allow me any kind of view. Chamber, right. It’s a cell, while they wait for the arrangements to be made at Andora.

Eventually, several of the other members bring in changes of clothes they must have purchased for me, along with a few items saved from the fire. Things I cling to when night falls and I’m too tired to cry into my pillow.

There’s the book, with my hero in the Scottish Highlands. There’s a framed picture of me and Remi from her tenth birthday where she’d pushed my face into her cake once she blew out the candles.

It’s just enough to fill a suitcase and, although the clothes aren’t mine, whoever brought them did a good job of nailing my aesthetic.

Old lady chic.

It’s more than I deserve considering what I did to the library.

The more time passes, the more I convince myself it’s true—the first was my fault.

I take care of myself, I feed myself. I’m isolated. When I’m sick of my own company, I head to the living room, and no one I pass in the hall acknowledges my existence.

I’ve cried myself to sleep so many times my eyes are permanently swollen and I’ve got nothing left inside of me.

The days tick down, however, and by the end of the week it’s time for me to leave for the academy.

I stare at the suitcase on the bed, too exhausted to even start to worry what it will be like there. October…I’ve missed the first part of the semester, coming in just a little before halfway.

“What can they possibly teach me that Mom didn’t cover?” I ask out loud, if only for the sound of a voice. I flick the zipper on the side of the case. “Not like I even know where I’m going. I’ve never had a chance to research it, either.”

No one has told me anything about the place and I’ve been cut off from access to books. Like I’ll somehow use them for kindling or something equally destructive.

I drag the zipper closed and shut away any link to my old life.

I get that the coven is trying to be cautious, I really do. And under normal circumstances I might have mustered a little excitement for an adventure. Something completely outside of the future I’d been prepared for my whole life.

Going to an actual magical school will give me a chance to hone my skills further and to make friends. Besides my sister and my familiar, I’ve never had friends before. My life is too isolated.

These aren’t normal circumstances though. They are utterlyabnormal. This is different.

I roll the suitcase down the hall to the front porch and the waiting car.

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