I stared at him for a minute. My cheeks were hot, and I was glad that he couldn’t see how embarrassed I was in the darkness. “Why?” My voice sounded whiny, and I winced.
“We’re young. There’s no reason to rush into this.”
I forced a laugh. “You sound like a stupid Non.”
“Lena, you know I love you.” He leaned toward me, but I pulled away and stood up.
“No, I don’t. If you loved me … ” I trailed off, trying to get my emotions under control.
“There’s more to love than sex, Lena.”
“But I want you.” I hated myself as soon as the words were said, and I turned away from the river and began walking fast. I couldn’t bear for him to know that he was the one thing that made me vulnerable; Justin had often teased me about being unstoppable.
“Lena, wait!” I heard him scramble to his feet behind me, but I didn’t look back. I sped up and whispered a spell to keep him from catching up to me. I walked all the way home, ignoring the stars overhead as I listened for his footsteps. But at some point he must have stopped following me, because when I turned onto my street, I was alone in the night.
I didn’t cry that night, but the next morning when Justin didn’t call, I dissolved into embarrassed tears. We broke up after that, sort of. I never actually told him I didn’t want to see him anymore, but I started ignoring him at school. He took the hint and stopped pestering me, but over the summer, he had started hanging around again. Not like a boyfriend, though; I assumed he wanted to try just being friends. I didn’t have the energy left to tell him that every time I saw him smile, I felt a knife go through my gut.
So we tried to be friends. After the strange thing with Hecate, I really wanted to call him. I started to dial his number, but then I felt a bubbling of blame. If that night in the woods had ended differently, I’d still be with Justin and none of this would have happened. When Hecate had appeared, I probably would have declared Green, to please him and my parents. My face felt hot, and I thought about how he’d let me down. I scowled at my phone and dropped it to the floor. I put my arms around my knees and dropped my head down, curling into a tight ball. The events of the evening replayed again and again in my mind, and I shuddered.
A thought flicked through my mind that filled me with anxiety. What would my parents say when they got home? Would they even believe me?
At dawn, I woke in a sticky sweat, visions of a blood-washed field still fresh in my memory. I thought there had been a castle in the distance, and the sound of strange chanting, but all I remembered for sure was the blood. I took a long, hot shower, trying to cleanse myself of the awful night. Mom and Dad were both already at work when I left the house, and I was grateful that I didn’t have to talk to them about Hecate just yet. I’d almost managed to convince myself that the whole thing was a twisted nightmare. Why would the Queen of Witches bother asking me to pick a path? And even if she did, why would she allow me to choose something that didn’t exist? I was almost cheerful with my delusion as I walked to school.
Passing beneath the ancient arch, I laughed to myself. Our school gave every appearance of being an old, private Catholic academy: ivy-covered walls, Gothic arches everywhere, and even that name, Trinity School.
It certainly was a private school, but we weren’t Catholics. Trinity ran all year, offered a full curriculum, and consistently sent students on to some of the best universities in the country, but in addition to standard courses, Trinity offered training in Witchcraft. Most of the students were legacies, Blood Witches like me whose parents had attended in their own time. Every now and again a Dreamer would make it in. Dreamers were those with magical talent but no magical heritage. Trinity quietly recruited Dreamers from central North Carolina, the area immediately surrounding the school, and due to the large number of people who had moved here in recent years, my graduating class boasted a record number of five Dreamers. Rochelle was one of them. Costs to attend Trinity were high, but the alumni were fairly active and money never really stood in the way of a student who sought admission there.
I hated everything about it.
My parents were both Green Witches, and they had met at Trinity when they were teenagers. Dad managed a research company in Raleigh and Mom was in charge of various community projects. Her latest crusade was creating a community garden in our city, Durham, and she and Dad both traveled easily among Witches and Nons. They assumed I would have the same easy time of it, but schooling at Trinity had only made me feel more isolated. I hardly trusted Blood Witches or Dreamers, so what made them think years of private school would enhance my trust for Nons? I couldn’t wait to graduate and leave home. I didn’t have any kind of future planned, but I knew I couldn’t be the kind of Witch my parents expected. I guess the previous night proved that.
I hurried toward my first class, suppressing a yawn. The night before had been pretty awful, and the nightmares I’d had after seeing Hecate kept me from getting much sleep. I’d have to try extra hard to stay awake for classes, but the topic written on the board when I walked into my history class made me want to drop into a coma right then and there. Magical Ethics. Could Ms. Minch pick any topic that was more boring?
Rochelle rolled her eyes at me as I slipped into my desk beside hers in the back corner of the room. “Can you believe it’s another ethics lecture?”
Trinity was always trying to remind us to be good little Witches, and frequent ethics lectures popped up in every class. The ethics of alchemy, the ethics of magical literature, even the ethics of gym class. I shook my head at Rochelle. “If we haven’t figured out how they want us to act before now, I doubt this lecture will be much help.”
She nodded, examining her fingernail. “I’m getting really sick of these stuffed shirts telling me how to handle my magic.”
Before I could respond, Ms. Minch rapped on her desk with a ruler. I dragged my eyes to the front of the room, and I heard Rochelle sigh loudly beside me.
“Magical Ethics.” Ms. Minch looked sharply around the room, making eye contact with a number of students before she continued. “Why do we follow the rules that we follow?”
There was an uncomfortable pause. Finally, Justin raised his hand. “Ethical behavior is just common sense. There’s no reason to do anything harmful just because we can do magic. Besides, the payback isn’t pleasant.”
Ms. Minch nodded once, but her lips were pursed and she looked disappointed in his answer. “The Rede is important, I’ll grant you that, and the threefold law guarantees that your magic will rebound on you with a magnified effect, regardless of the intention of the spell. But that isn’t what I want this discussion to be about.”
In every ethics discussion at Trinity, they harped on the importance of following the Rede, and I was sick of it. What’s the point of magical power with boundaries? At least Ms. Minch didn’t seem to want to talk about that today, but I still didn’t want to be there.
“Miss Agara.” Ms. Minch’s voice pulled me out of my reverie, and I jerked my head up to meet her gaze. “Would you tell us another component of the ethics of magic?”
Everyone turned to look at me, and I heard Rochelle snicker under her breath. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Justin smiling from the front of the room, but I didn’t want to think about him.
“Miss Agara, anytime, please.”
I glared at Ms. Minch. “I guess there’s the fact that we don’t show off in front of Nons.”
“Can you elaborate on that, please?”
I shot her a dark look, but her stare was unwavering. “Nons can’t know about us, so it’s better if we use our magic only when we’re around other Witches.”