Page 27 of Resting Witch Face
Glass crackled behind me, and I spun around to watch cracks spiderweb all over the windows. And the building kept rocking while books spilled from the floor-to-ceiling shelves like a waterfall. Someone was calling my name, but the voice was faint and easily ignored.
In the middle of it all, I still laughed.
Lines zigzagged under my feet, splitting the stone in random asymmetric patterns. The voice that kept calling my name was joined by others, all of them shouting. That didn’t make things worse, but it didn’t calm them either.
Then they used magic to enter the library.
Whatever monster I had in me lost its shit when magic prodded the air around me. It all happened so fast that I had no time to prepare or brace for impact. Puffs of frosted air clouded in front of my face the same way they did in the middle of the winter. My galloping heartbeat slowed, and a sense of calm washed over me, erasing the trembling of my limbs. It was like the earth itself was holding its breath for a long, suspenseful moment.
Magic exploded out of the center of my chest, bursting windows, walls, and the domed ceiling above me, spraying it outward. All the books bloomed in bright flames, filling the air with ash and floating cinders while my hair whipped around my face on an invisible blast of wind. One second, the magic was exiting my body, and the next, it snapped right back in, and then I sailed through the air, taking broken parts of obsidian walls with me as I flew.
I was dumped in the middle of a destroyed office where, by some miracle, the large desk had survived. I recognized it immediately when my eyes uncrossed from the impact a second before Sissily materialized next to me from out of thin air. My ears were ringing, and I could only watch her mouth move because I couldn’t hear a word she said.
“What in the Hecate’s name did you do, stupid girl.” Shadowblood’s snarl of indignation was the first to pierce the thudding in my ears. It figured I would end up on my ass in his damn office, boobs out and pants ripped to resemble hot pants that barely covered my ass.
“Oh, shut up, Shadowblood,” I hissed at him, covering my chest as well as I could with one arm. At least I could make a dash for it before Danika found me.
“Hazel Byrne,” my grandmother gasped from somewhere, and I buried my face in my hands.
I was royally screwed.
14
“Anything we can salvage?” my grandmother asked, but I could tell by her tone she didn’t expect it, though she hoped for it nonetheless.
River shook his head and wouldn’t meet her gaze as he weaved his way to a pile of debris he used as a chair. We all did the same when Danika marched us to what was left of her office. Shadowblood stuttered accusations when my grandmother found me playing a half-naked glow stick in the middle of the High Priest’s office, until a part of the domed ceiling dropped on top of him—I swear I had nothing to do with it … I think—and no one was sure if he would wake up from the coma or not. As much as I disliked the old witch. I didn’t wish him death, although Danika didn’t seem bothered by his vegetative state at the time.
The coven building was … a mess. Those looking from the outside were left speechless, while humans on their news screamed about meteors hitting Cleveland and gods punishing us for daring to use their powers. I had no energy to worry about their stupidities because for the last couple of hours, Danika had been my judge and jury.
First, she yelled, something she rarely did in principle because she had a gift for drilling her point without raising her voice. Seeing my grandmother lose her cool was not something I thought I’d experience in my lifetime, so it kept me silent. While she barked very loudly at me for being childish, reckless, and plain stupid, to which I had nothing to say since it was all true, her gaze kept flicking to the blinking sigils on my exposed skin, and each time she saw them, her face lost more of its color.
Danika raged for a long time, and that was the reason most of our covenmates bolted as far away from the destroyed building as they could. When only a handful stayed to try and clean up some of the mess, River decided to join us, drilling my skull with his intent stare, which I of course avoided like the plague. As soon as he joined us, my grandmother asked him to do the silent spell, and we ended up squatting in her broken office ever since.
“What in the Goddess name are you smiling about?” Danika’s incredulous tone snapped me out of my thoughts.
“Nofin.’” It came out muffled. I was biting my cheeks on the inside, mortified when I realized I had a huge grin plastered on my face.
“It better be nothing, Hazel, or so Hecate help me, I will skin you where you stand.” My mouth opened to tell her I didn’t appreciate her yelling at me when I didn’t do anything on purpose, but her murderous glare glued my lips shut. “With my bare hands.” Danika snarled at me. Snarled!
“This was not Hazel’s fault.” Sissily tightened her arms around me where she’d been hugging me ever since she found me in Shadowblood’s office. “I was with her all night and went to get coffee. That was ten minutes max she was alone in the library. No one could do that much damage in such a short time.”
If anything, Danika looked more pissed.
“Honest,” my best friend continued, undeterred by the scowl aimed at her. “And she has no magic. This is the work of a witch. Someone put a spell on her. On your granddaughter.” Sissily stressed that tidbit. “You should hunt them down instead of yelling at her. She’s been through so much.”
My lips folded on their own while I attempted to bite back a laugh. Bless Sissily and her undying loyalty. My best friend was ready to bite Danika’s head off for me, and in the middle of the disaster that was my life, warmth spread through my chest. Before guilt stabbed me. Would she defend me the same when she found out what I did? That my stupidity was the reason I was a magical glow stick she held in an embrace?
The sigh coming from my grandmother was heavy enough to ruffle the short hairs that curled around my face. She pressed her fingers to the bridge of her nose and squeezed her eyes shut, no doubt praying to Hecate for patience. River’s eyes were locked on me, not that they’d stayed away for longer than a second, but I watched Danika with rapt attention.
“What does this mean?” Flinching from the husky, strange tone in my voice, I swallowed the bile burning my throat.
When Danika opened her eyes, her emerald irises swirled with an emotion I couldn’t name. It only pushed the acid of my stomach further up to the roof of my mouth. I’d never seen lines on her face, her skin seeming airbrushed at all times of day or night, but they were there now. For the first time, my grandmother looked tired to the marrow of her bones, showing her age.
“It means everything I did, all the deals I made to protect you are null and void. All for nothing.” Her hand reached up to tuck the silky hair away from her face, and my heart stuttered to a stop seeing it shake.
It was fear.
The emotion swirling in those emerald depths was fear, and that more than anything else made me regret every Goddess forsaken day of my whole life. I wanted to throw myself at her feet and beg her to forgive me. I wished I had the power to turn back time and never step foot in the library. At one moment, I dared wish the Rakshasa had killed me and the whole thing was my personal hell instead of real.
