Cole’s eyes about fell out of his head. Jenna and I ex-changed a look, and without missing a beat she grabbed the fabric of his shirt, pulling him closer towards us.
“Jeffries?” the woman asked in a deep, smoky tone.
I could tell that Jeffries wanted to hitch up his pants and start blustering. This woman—though she was only in her twenties—had him sized up in a second, and strode into the room, heels staccato against the floor.
Who is she? Jenna mouthed. I shrugged.
“If you’ll step outside,” the woman said to him, while her eyes slid over us imperiously.
Jenna sat up, even more alert than she’d been before. Neither of us had missed the dismissive curl of the redhead’s lips as she looked us over. Whoever she was, she knew who we were.
Without as much as a please, the woman turned and headed back out into the front office.
Through the gap in the door, I saw another man waiting near the receptionist’s desk, in the same kind of business casual as the redhead. Jeffries gaped for a moment, then all of a sudden he lurched forward, like an automaton brought to life.
Jenna was muttering under her breath when the principal grabbed the door handle on his way out. The door swung closed, but didn’t catch all the way. I crossed the room, nudged it open just a crack, and waited.
The three of us were absolutely still, our ears straining for what was going on out there.
“ … taking them immediately.”
Principal Jeffries cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand what you’re telling me.”
“As long as they remain here, your students, as well as your faculty, are in danger,” the woman said, obviously annoyed at having to repeat herself.
“I’m aware of that,” the principal said in a huff. “Those students started a riot. Or didn’t you notice when you stormed in?”
“Your naiveté is nearly precious,” the woman murmured.
“And who are you exactly?” the principal continued. “You’re not one of their guardians.”
“My name is Miss Virago,” she said, sounding like some sort of crossbreed between stuffy boarding school matron and prissy coed. “And giving you any details about what is coming here, now, is a waste of my time. You won’t remember—or believe—me anyway. The only thing that will help is to get them out of your quaint little farming community as soon as possible.”
“What the hell’s going on?” I whispered. Next to me, Jenna looked pensive.
“Now you’re going to leave with this gentleman,” Virago continued, her voice suddenly cheerful and disarming. “And when he’s done talking with you, the troubles these children caused will be little more than a dream.”
“What?”
There were sounds of movement hidden by the door. “I’ll handle the children’s transport,”
Virago said, all business once again. “Clean up the girl’s mess, and make sure the principal … ”
Her voice dropped, and I missed the rest.
A man’s voice. “What about the rest of the school? The riot?”
The woman exhaled slowly. “I don’t care,” she snapped. “These people aren’t our concern.
Let them sort out their own problems.”
They were going to make us disappear. Take every trace of us and make it vanish: yearbook photos, our houses and things, everything. This wasn’t the first time. This was just a little more thorough, and that made me wonder. How bad was it really?
“Someone’s coming after us?” Cole whispered, looking even smaller than normal. “Again?”
“We don’t know what’s going on,” I said, patting him on the back. “Maybe that’s just what they’re telling people. Y’know, like a cover story.”
The three of us jumped when the door swung open again. The redhead, Miss Virago, came in alone. As usual, Jenna beat me to the punch. “What’s going on? And who the hell are you?”
Virago ignored the questions. She pointed at us with the first two fingers, then pointed to the door. “Take your things. There’s a van waiting on the south side of the building. Don’t stop to talk to anyone, don’t leave anything behind.”
Jenna stood up. Even though the woman was in heels, Jenna’s Amazonian height gave her the advantage. She looked down on the adult. “We’re not going anywhere until you tell us what’s going on.”
“Get your things, Moonset,” the woman spat, making the word into a curse. “And go to the van. You’re being evacuated.”
If the woman knew anything about us, and she knew enough to call us by that name, she should have known not to engage Jenna’s stubbornness. The two of them engaged in a stare-
off that lasted almost a minute before the woman rolled her eyes. “You were listening just now.
Which part was unclear?”
“The part where something’s on its way to Farmville? And all you care about is pulling us out of town? What about the people here?”
“Your concern for your fellow man is touching,” the woman said dryly. “Especially the half-
dozen already en route to the hospital because of your little riot.”
“Better the hospital than the morgue,” Jenna retorted, refusing to give an inch.
The woman’s expression toward us was cool. Maybe a bit mocking. “All the more reason to get your unworthy asses out of town as quickly as possible.”
This would go on for hours unless I did something. “What about the others? Where are they?”
Malcolm and Bailey weren’t with us, and that made me nervous. I didn’t like not knowing where the two of them were. Rule number one: always take care of each other.
There were five of us altogether. Jenna and I were the only two actually related, but I considered all of them my family. My brothers and sisters. Bailey was the youngest, a freshman this year, pixie haired and as light and blonde as Jenna and I were dark-eyed and serious. Then came Cole, almost a year older but still a freshman, who tried too hard and was far too earnest for his own good. Jenna and I were both seventeen, though she was just a few hours older even if she never acted like it. And finally there was Malcolm, the pretty boy who would have left by now, if it had been possible.
“Already evacuated,” Virago said, eyes flicking to me.
“Let’s go, Jen,” I said quietly. She blinked at me, caught by surprise. I shook my head and shot a meaningful glance at Cole, who was watching the goings on with a rapt expression. Fire flashed behind Jenna’s dark eyes for a moment, but eventually she nodded.
We walked out of the office, trapped somewhere between the kind of privilege that required an armed escort and the kind of infamy that required armed guards.
Miss Virago had called us by name. Moonset. The name we’d inherited from our parents, now a slur as bad as any other four-letter word. Even fifteen years after their death, people didn’t use the word Moonset lightly.
Because of it, we had people like Miss Virago following us around. Waiting for the mistake that would push us over the edge from “innocent” to “dangerous.”
Waiting for the day they could kill us, too.
Two
“Before magic, we were victims before the wraiths and princes, the fallen and the blighted.”
The Book of Hours
I was nine years old when I learned what it meant when someone called me Moonset. Malcolm had to be the one to tell me. He was only a year older than Jenna and me, but he told us about our parents the same way he’d broken the news about Santa and the Easter Bunny.
Witches were supposed to work in secret. Secrecy was the first lesson any of us ever learned. There were thousands of us spread out across the world, enough that we even had our own shadow government, a ruling council made up of the most powerful covens and solitary witches.