I paused, my fingers hovering over a book entitled Love, Lust, and other Longings. It wasn’t the kind of thing I usually went in for, but I was feeling all mushy that morning, so I pulled it off the shelf and curled up on the floor, leaning up against the bleachers. Before long, I was immersed in the book, fantasizing about trying some of the spells on Justin. There was one in particular involving feathers and cinnamon that I thought would be interesting, and I made a mental note of the page. I was totally focused on memorizing the spell when someone coughed.
“Oh, good, you’re studying.” I jerked my head up to find Aphrodite sitting next to me.
I exhaled in surprise. “I really wish you would stop sneaking up on me! You’re going to give me a heart attack.”
“You’re a Red Witch, Darlena. Toughen up!”
I closed the book with a snap. “Are you here to lecture me?”
She looked genuinely surprised. “No, I’m here to see if your spell has worked yet.”
“How did you know about that?”
“Darlena, when will you learn that there is little about you that I do not know?” Her words grated on me, but I tried to keep my temper.
“Well, if you know so much, you should know if it’s worked or not.”
Aphrodite eyed the dusty book on my lap and glanced around the room. “I’d say not, unless you’ve hidden your boy somewhere in the bookshelves.” She stood up and crossed to the nearest shelf. “Come out, come out, wherever you are!” She searched around for a moment, then looked at me and smirked. “Nope. I was right. You aren’t hiding a boy in here.”
I glared at her, fighting the urge to blush. “It will work. I’m just waiting to be around when it does.”
“Child,” Aphrodite chided, “you are sworn to a goddess of love. You of all people don’t have to mope around wondering if a boy will call. He will call.”
I turned an even brighter shade of red. “Fine. While I’m waiting, maybe you can teach me something. We haven’t had many lessons yet.”
“You’re right.”
I was surprised that she agreed so quickly, so I stuttered, “Can you teach me how to bind the spell so it lasts?”
She looked at me for a moment, her face expressionless. “Are you so sure that you want it to last? It is not in the nature of love to be unchangeable.”
I paused, trying to put my thoughts into words. “It’s just that, in the past few days, I’ve felt like I’m totally alone. My parents don’t remember anything about me being a Red, and now Justin stopped talking to me because—” I broke off, not sure I wanted to say anything to the goddess about my suspicions, but of course she could read my mind.
Her eyes grew wide and her face flushed in anger. “Someone has been using your image to work magic?”
I protested quickly, even though she’d just voiced my own deep fear. “Maybe not. Maybe Cindy just saw someone who looked like me, and in the chaos after the fire, she wasn’t thinking clearly.” I felt a sinking sensation in the pit of my stomach as I realized my theory wasn’t plausible. Someone had posed as me. I just had no idea why.
“I am beginning to understand.” Aphrodite’s comment took me by surprise. She went on. “You said you feel isolated, and now because this boy thinks you are lying, you have lost his support, too. Someone is trying to make you vulnerable, Darlena. It is easier to attack one who stands alone than to target a person surrounded by love.”
“But I don’t understand. Who would want to attack me?”
Aphrodite narrowed her eyes. “Don’t lie. You know exactly who is behind this.”
I saw Hecate’s flashing yellow eyes in my mind, and I swallowed. “Yes.”
“What I don’t understand,” she continued, “is how she is going about it.”
“What do you mean? She’s the Queen of Witches!”
Aphrodite shook her head in irritation. “The gods are bound by different laws than mortals. You may remember our part in the Trojan War.”
I thought hard, and grasped a scrap of memory. “You pushed the mortals to act, but when it came to the actual fighting, all you could do was watch from above and hope that they would carry out your conflicting wishes. Does that mean that you—any of you—can’t actually do anything in the real world?”
She looked down and nodded. “I have always hated the fact that I am, essentially, powerless when it comes to the lives of men. I may manipulate, I may plan, I may cajole, but in the end, I may not act for myself.” She clenched her robe in her fists. “For all that I am, a goddess, possessed of powerful magic, I am sometimes helpless without the assistance of my sworn mortals.”
I thought about what she had said. If the gods couldn’t act on their own, the attention of the various Red goddesses suddenly made a lot more sense to me. Filing that piece of information away to think about later, I asked, “So you’re saying that Hecate isn’t behind all this?”
She shook her head. “Not at all. I see her hand clearly. But she is not able to carry out these actions without mortal assistance. Someone”—she spoke softly—“has betrayed you.”
Aphrodite spent the morning teaching me to shield my thoughts. “I hate to see you learn to close yourself from me,” she said regretfully, “but it now seems imperative that I offer you whatever protection I can.”
I agreed. Secretly, I wasn’t as thrilled as I had expected to learn how to block my mind from invasion. It was irritating when the goddess read my mind, but her ability also meant I didn’t have to waste time explaining things every time I saw her.
“Like any spell, this isn’t permanent, but until you discover who means you harm, it would be best for you to shield your thoughts at all times.”
“Even when I’m at home?” I argued.
“Especially then. Hecate would have no scruples about turning your own family against you; in fact, it would suit her purposes to not only weaken you through her magic, but also leave you betrayed by those you love most.”
“But what does she want?”
“I believe that her hope is, once you are weakened, she will be able to influence you again.”
I shuddered, remembering the satisfaction I had seen in Hecate’s eyes the day of the car accident.
Aphrodite continued, making my stomach turn over. “If she can, she will wield you as a weapon of chaos. It would be best,” she added wryly, “if you do not allow this to happen.”
I felt a stab of guilt at her words. Even though I had not allowed Hecate to use me, I felt as though I had given her the advantage when I stopped actively trying to avert chaos. Since the hurricane, I had only focused my efforts on learning love magic. If I had continued to work with the more powerful Red forces, would Hecate have been able to gain a foothold in my life so quickly?
I didn’t know the answer. I only knew that I had to prepare myself to stand against the goddess I feared most. Even my horror of Kali paled in comparison to the calculating appetite for death I had seen in Hecate’s eyes. I worked hard at the spell Aphrodite showed me, and I had just sealed it with a careful knot when I heard the library door open behind us.
I spun around, hurriedly thinking of an excuse to justify my presence if the intruder was Snout, but I needn’t have worried. Justin was crossing the court, peering at the bookshelves for a moment before he spotted me. I glanced back at Aphrodite, but she had vanished.
He walked up to the bleachers where I sat and bounded up them two at a time. All at once, he was there beside me. I grinned at him and tried to resist the urge to fling my arms around him. First, I needed to see if my spell had worked.
“Darlena.” He whispered my name as if it were a prayer, and I felt a ripple of goose bumps cascade down my arms. Then his lips were pressed to mine, and I melted into his warmth. I forgot everything, savoring the sensation of his kiss.