Page 2 of Hopelessly Teavoted
“Bye, Az,” she said. “Miss you already.”
All he had to offer her in return was a weak smile.
He should have run to her then, but the window was rolling up, the car away, and then it was over. She was gone.
Vickie’s stop here was the real goodbye, and his parents and sister had said farewell the night before in an embarrassingly overaffectionate dinner in their family dining room.
He checked his watch.
Az had a plane to catch. There was nothing he could do besides trudge reluctantly up the sweeping cobblestone path toward the gated entrance of Hart Manor.
Twisting the gleaming silver doorknob in his hand, Az grimaced at the chill that ran through him upon touching it. Carved like a church door, the mahogany behemoth was so imposing that at times in his childhood, his sister teased him about the way it made him jump. But he swore it was more animated than the rest of the house; the moaning noises the door made did little to dispel the suggestion of something supernatural inside. The door grumbled now as he advanced but made no louder groans that might promise ghoulish behavior afoot.
The tingling sensation in his hands alerted him to the trap before the door swung completely open. It took no more than a lazy snap of his fingers—the Hart family signature magic—to turn the pile of gravedirt rigged to fall on him to harmless soap bubbles, which shone purple and popped, like his dreams of running off into the sunset with Victoria.
A titter of teenage laughter followed, and he sighed, rubbing his temples.
“I take it you didn’t tell the beautiful Vic-to-ree-aahhh how you feel?” Prissy sang it like the Kinks, and to retaliate, he snapped, shooting a volley of the soap bubbles at her, this time filled with rose-gold glitter dust. When they burst, she frowned, shaking the festive sparkles off her braid and her black vest.
“Fuck you, Azrael. I’ll look like a devil-damned My Little Pony for the rest of the week. You know how hard it is to get rid of glitter.”
He smiled wickedly now. “I do, sister dearest. Just as youknow how hard it is to shake the truth curse of gravedirt. Imagine going off to your first week of college being literally forced to answer everything truthfully for seven days.”
She crossed her arms, blowing black bangs out of her eyes, which glowed golden brown like their father’s. “It would have eased up after a day or two,” she retorted. “By day three, you would have been able to swallow the truth back down. At least, some of the time.”
“Still. Prissy,” he said. “Not cool.”
Even in a family of witches, Azrael was the odd one out. His curly hair and hazel eyes came from his maternal grandmother. The siblings differed in more than appearance; at two years younger, Priscilla was always willing to give her opinion. Or pull a prank. Azrael kept to himself, mostly. He loved his family, even though he would never fit in with them completely.
Maybe he had no place in the magical or the mundane world.
“It would have been funny in hindsight,” she said, sulking.
Ironically, had she pranked him just a few hours earlier, the gravedirt could have worked out perfectly for him to finally be honest with the one person hemightfit with.
Either that or it would have forced Azrael to bare his entire soul to the girl he worshiped, only to have her reject him. All the moments over the past few years when he’d mustered the courage, only to stop short when he finally got his chance. All the poems he’d written and burned. All the daisies he’d magicked into existence and then quickly pushed away before she could see them.
Rubbing his temples, he decided it was better this way. To pine desperately for what might possibly be rather than deal with the crushing reality if she didn’t love him too.
Which she didn’t. He was almost entirely sure.
Priscilla studied him, and he must have looked more wrecked than he realized because she didn’t attempt another prank, but patted his shoulder instead, leaving a few trace specks of glitter.
“Come on,” she said. “I’ll help you finish packing.” She snapped her fingers, and his suitcases appeared on the landing, undoubtedly packed with the precision of Prissy’s magic.
On their way upstairs, Azrael spotted the guillotine, but Prissy didn’t make a move toward it, and she casually pulled him out of the way of a swinging axe that sliced the air above the staircase. The under-stairs apparition cackled at her caution, but they both knew better than to engage with it, for neither of them could see ghosts, and it was harmless, other than scaring the occasional visitor.
“Thanks, Priss.”
“Don’t mention it. You get a reprieve since you’re both heartbroken and leaving for college, possibly forever, to become some kind of sunshiny, strange normie.”
He grimaced. “I’m not heartbroken,” he insisted. “And California’s notthatfar away from Vermont. Some witches go international, you know.”
“Azrael Ashmedai Hart!” The rasping voice echoed across the upstairs hallway like sandpaper against wood. His father stood, as always, in a three-piece suit with a starched white dress shirt and a bow tie, in a deep shade of merlot today. Benedict Hart ran a hand through snow-colored, shoulder-length hair in a nervous tic that Az recognized all too well. With his golden-rimmed eyes, he was the family member who was most obviously a witch, at least to a trained magical eye, though his mother and sister certainly dressed the part enough to leave the townsfolk speculating that the Harts were the weird kind of wealthy.
It was a wonder the mundanes didn’t figure them out immediately. And yet, here Az was, nineteen and about to leave for college, and no one in all of Hallowcross, save Vickie, knew that the Hart family didn’t just dress like they belonged in his mother’s eclectically witchy tea shop in the middle of downtown, theyweremagical.
Pausing for a moment at the top of the stairs, Az looked down at his father expectantly.
