“It won’t bite me, will it?” I ask. She crosses her arms and I pull off the lid. Inside is a necklace. It’s a glass vial filled with salt strung on a chain.
“It’s so you won’t forget salt again,” she says. “Practical and cute.”
“Thoughtful,” I smile.
“I’m sorry, Penelope,” Connie says. “I know how much you wanted this.”
I know she means the Enforcer exams. “It’s okay. I have a new plan.” I’d come up with it while running. Running’s good for thinking.
Connie straightens. “Tell me.”
“There’s an office right above the training room that will put you close enough for me to use your magic,” I say. Based on all my research and interviews with other people who took the tests over the last few years so I could prepare myself for it, the magical ones happen there, too. No matter which direction I move, it will be within our limits. I’ll be able to pass.
“They won’t think it’s weird that I’m up there?” she asks.
“I thought of that. It’s the Reporting Unit.” The Reporting Unit is where other witches can go to report demon sightings, strange behavior by other members of the community, and Nons who might have seen them do magic. “You remember the time in middle school when Shira Plum thought that Non kid saw her use magic in the bathroom at Chuck E. Cheese’s?”
Connie nods. “Yeah, but it turned out the kid was just staring at the pizza stain on her jeans.”
I laugh. She made a big deal about how much trouble she’d be in when they found out she’d ruined magic for all of us, and it turned out the little girl was only staring at her pizza-ass. “Maybe a Non saw you in the bathroom.”
“Got it,” she says. Her nose crinkles. “Does it have to be a bathroom?”
“Use your imagination,” I say. “Just be there on Thursday.”
Her phone plays Thomas’s ringtone from her room, and with a smile she’s gone. My sister, ladies and gentlemen: practical and cute. Gran would be pleased.
Next Thursday sorted, I can’t stop thinking about the last twenty-four hours. Today alone I’ve expelled a demon, failed to have magic again, witnessed Enforcers in action, and met a boy who illegally tracks demons. Tomorrow already feels lacking and full of one thing: waiting. Waiting for Monday when Enforcer examinations start. When I’m closer to finding my demon. And I still have a lot to figure out with my magical exams now that Connie won’t be in the same room as me. I can’t fail if I want to be whole again.
I reach under my bed and pull out the white box that’s lived there for three years. Removing the lid, I spread out the pages and pause on a picture of my parents from their wedding. I’ve been collecting as much information as I can about getting my magic back. It started when I was fourteen, because that was the year I heard the story about the Restitution—the ritual that could supposedly restore magic. I was at a sleepover with a girl named Kelly, my only friend aside from Ric back then, and her older brother told us stories that night. I thought it wasn’t real—we all did—but then I started thinking that maybe it could be and I started researching.
I found a few things over the years, and most of it’s lore, old stories that mention the Restitution alongside the Loch Ness Monster, King Arthur, and dragons. The biggest breakthrough was when I found a description of items needed and how it works.
The Restitution ritual requires a demon captured by iron and fire. Then it’s a matter of the right incantation, some herbs—most of which I can’t get without clearance—and some magical weapon that will release magic back into the atmosphere before it dies. There isn’t much information about the weapon outlined in the books, and no mention of what kind of weapon it is.
After that, I stopped finding information. It was all a dead end. I knew that meant I should stop looking because the only time things are locked away it means the Triad doesn’t want us to know. They lock all the “dangerous” information away in the library of the Nucleus House. But I won’t stop. I can’t. The only way I can start looking for anything about my magic or my demon or the ritual is there. The Enforcer examinations are my first chance to get clearance to enter the library and start finding the demon. One step at time.
I lower my parents’ picture and pull up the information I’ve written about our demon. I don’t know much about it. I know it had orange eyes, like a pumpkin. But I’ve found a reference that could match that, and a name to start researching: Azsis.
According to lore, Azsis was the one who discovered the power that could be accessed through a witch’s essence. He also supposedly fell in with Lucifer. Others say Lucifer created him when he became Satan. Who knows. Aside from that, there’s nothing about Azsis, not anywhere I can reach, right now. In two days I will have new clearance for the library. Then I will be able to find what he is, where he is, and how to get my magic.
“Penelope Grey!” Ric calls, bursting through my door. I shove everything back into the box and barely get the lid on before he comes in. He raises an eyebrow when he sees me. I tell Ric everything, but not this. He’s a rule-follower, and Ric wants to be an Enforcer almost as much as I do. To prove something to his dad, to honor his brother, and I’ve always felt like that connected us.
But he can’t know this. I can’t make him keep my secret. Enough people already are. There are too many variables, and to explain this would mean I had to explain everything. I only have to keep it all a secret a little longer, and then I’ll have my own magic back, and nothing to tell.
“What’s up?” I ask with a smile.
“I had the worst text from Brian. Why do I date assholes?”
I sigh. “If only you’d had a warning.” I told him not to date Brian, or John before that, or Riley before that, but he never listens to me. I don’t talk to him about boys anymore for this reason exactly.
“Yes, but then I would’ve had no fun,” he says. “Also, it smells like heaven in this house.”
“It always does,” I say. I’m glad he appreciates it, though. I do too. Cooking is not a skill I inherited. He moves toward me on the bed, and I hold the box closer.
He raises an eyebrow. “What are you doing in here?”
I shrug. “Thinking.”
“About?”
“My parents,” I say. It’s not a lie. Directly.
Ric hmms. He never pushes me on them, just like I never push him on his brother. Sean was an Enforcer on a mission that went wrong, one of those really freak demon attacks that no one can explain. Or maybe they don’t want to.
“What’s in the box?”
“Pictures,” I say. I bite my lip and look away from him, before I slide it under my bed. “Ready to eat?” I ask, moving toward the door before he can answer.
He looks at me when I close the door. “Why do I feel like you’re being shady?”
“I’m never shady,” I say.
He chuckles. “You’re always shady.”
“You still love me.”
Ric puts his arm around my shoulder. “I do. Especially when you feed me.”
“You mean you love Gran.”
“Same thing,” he says. He gasps suddenly. “I heard James McEllory is in it this month.”
Ugh. I have calculus with James, and at least one class since middle school. He is not pleasant. He’ll never make it through to the Pairing. “James is a pompous brat who still picks his nose.”
“He could end up being your partner,” Ric says. “Could you imagine being Paired with James?” He gasps, imitates stabbing himself in the chest with an invisible knife, and I resist the urge to punch him. “What if you fell for him? Then you’d be Mrs. McEllory. The wife of the teenage nose-picker.”