Wicked Sense (22 page)

It doesn’t worry m
e. Even i
f this is madness, I want to be part of it.

I know
I’m probably not behaving like a
n
attempted-
murder victim should
. But Jane’s attack awakened something inside me.

And the conversation with Drake made everything clear.

I had no purpose in life. I was a spoiled princess.
Beautiful
, ri
ch, witch
. Have I ever actually done something
useful
? Helped someone?
Volunteered somewhere?
Goddess, I don’t even do things for
me
.

Besides the Craft,
I have no hobbies, no interests, no passion.
I spend time reading or fiddling with my playlists. But now I know what to do. I’ll find the Singularity and hit back at Jane.

***

I don’t want to, but I have to face
Connor
. I need the information.

I’m finally living up to
the motto I chose
when I moved to Seattle: I won’t feel sorry for myself.

Drake doesn’t say anything when I ask him to drop me off at UW
, I mean, U-Dub
on the way home. I told him
Connor
attends the university.

W
hen we’re close to the parking lot,
Drake
says he’ll wait for me
in the car
. Since I want separation between him and
Connor
, I tell him no. But he won’t budge.

“What if Jane is waiting for you
t
here? She knows him,” he argues.

“I can sense her, remember?”

He shakes his head. “Well, can’t she
do something f
rom a distance?
Like shoot you?
”

I’m just too tired to argue. He tells me he’ll be reading a book in the car. He takes my brand new cell phone from my hands, the one we
got this morning
at
t
he store, and adds
his
new
number to my speed dial.

“Don’t let it get wet,” he tells me.

A light drizzle fall
s
.
I march down Memorial Way again. The first time I did it, I was so scared. Now I feed off the energy of the
trees
, the powerful buildings, the people.

The familiar tingling starts. It’s a good sensation. I like to follow it, feel it diminishing, backtracking, and picking
up
its trail again. The True Sight leads me to the
Suz
z
allo
L
ibrary
building. I walk up
the imposing staircase
. On the
second
floor, I
sense
it
. S
tronger.

Navigating the aisles, I feel like the books embrace me. I
crisscross
the rows until I zero in
on
hi
m
.

He’s
being smothered by a red
head
in jeans and high
heels. It’s a long,
slobbery
,
kiss. They’re very much into it, their hands reaching places.
That’s probably why Connor hasn’t sensed my presence yet.

As I’m about
to
clear my throat and
help them
avoid a public indecency charge, an idea comes to me. There are more entertaining ways of doing it.

“
Connor
!” I yell
.
My cry shatters th
e library
’s stillness
.

They disentangle, startled.

“How could you?” I continue, still loud. Someone on another a
isle tries to shush me. “You leav
e me and the twins at home to suck face with this
skank
?”

The shushes die. The redhead
looks
at him. A couple of students
stare
.

“Skye, I—”

I don’t let him speak. “That’s why I slave every night, waitressing? Paying your tuition?
And you’re here, still using that fake British accent to pick up girls!
”

He shakes his head. The girl is now mad at him, not even caring about me calling her a name. More people gather around us.

“
T
he
twins
don’t have shoes! And you know there’s one more on the
way,” I say, touching my belly,
adding a
slight hint of quivering
to my voice
.

The girl
slaps him. Hard. And struts away. She stops by
my side
to say something to me, but I close my eyes and raise my hand to silence her. She just leaves.

Mum has an Oscar, you know.

Connor
pleads, whispering, “Can we take this somewhere else?”

My hands cover my eyes (because I don’t know how to cry
on cue
), but I nod. The crowd disperses.

After
we leave the library, I start to laugh.
Connor
puts his hands on
both sides
of his head and looks at me as if he’s seeing me for the first time. I can’t stop laughing. Maybe it’s a release from all the tension of the last couple of days.

He takes my arm
and leads me away from people.

When I calm down,
we stop. The rain is picking up, but we don’t care. He
asks me, “
Was that really necessary
?”

I take a deep breath and stare into his eyes. No more fun and games.

“I died yesterday,” I say. “Jane killed me.”

“What?”

“She tried to drown me, but I was resuscitated,” I say, my voice icy.

“How?” he asks. “Why?”

“I’m okay, by the way. Except for the scar.” I lift my hair so he can see the wound, but he barely glances at it.

“What’s going on?” he asks me.

“You tell me. You had to go ahead and shag her, didn’t you?”

He takes a step back. Not a good day to be
Connor
, I have to admit.

“Is that what this is all about?”

“No, you bloody
git
! She tried to kill me! Are you deaf?” I’m mad now, as my falling back to British idiom
s
clearly shows.
I revert to
my
British accent too.

He opens his arms in an apologetic gesture. “
She can be quite dodgy, but violent?
I just don’t understand,” he says. What a leader the Mothers picked. I guess looks aren’t everything.

I sigh. “Just tell me what went down between you two.”

He does that lame duck routine, standing on one foot and scratching his head. He
points somewhere and says, “
Shall
we
get a—”

“Yeah, yeah, go get your coffee,” I interrupt him, making a dismissive gesture.

After a
moment
, I follo
w him
and
order
tea
and milk.
Connor
and I walk around the campus,
until we find a seat outside in a covered area. The tea is a nice defense against the chilly wind. Sometimes a student passes by, but we’re
not so concerned about the Veil
today
.

“I’m going to give you the short version, okay?” He
shoot
s
me
an
expectant
look
. When I say nothing, he looks away, and goes on, “When I arrived I had to organize the operation, visit all schools, assign a Sister to each high school,
and
train them. In a few of the schools, I felt the presence of Sisters; one of them was Jane.”

He sips his
v
enti
-whatever-whatever-mocha. “All t
he other Sisters
here belong to
c
oven
s.
Our coven
in London
contacted them
, and
we all
agreed to collaborate. But Jane
is a free-lancer. The local covens did
n’t have information on her. So I got close and asked if she’d join us. She agreed at first, but she was always asking questions. We end
ed
up getting involved.” He glances at me while taking another sip. “You know her.”

“I know
you
,” I say.

“
Touch
é
,” he says. “Sor
ry to say that, but she is very
persuasive. And she’s into strange things.”

Is he serious? “I really don’t need
the
details,” I say.

“No, I mean, her
Craft. She’s into weird stuff.
She’s much more willing to sacrifice animals for divination, for instance. And her morning rituals are creepy. Once she—”

I raise an eyebrow. “
Morning
rituals?”

He just looks away again. “Goddess, Skye. I don’t know what you want from me. Either we’re adults, and I’m telling what you asked me, or we’re in this jealousy game.”

“Sod
off
,
Connor
!
You’re always twisting things so I look guilty. I want to know what happened, but I’m a person too, you know?
You can tell me
things
and
be considerate.
”

“All right, then. After I told her some things about the Singularity, we broke
up
. She said she’d keep an eye on things, but she was always vague, non
committal
. That’s when I asked the London Mothers to send someone else to cover
Greenwood
High.”

“
What else
are you
not telling me?”

He sighs. “Okay, you need to know that too.
I
just
put the pieces together.
I mean, if she really attacked you. It all makes sense.
Jane’s weird craft, her habits
, her… demeanor.” He stares at me. “N
ow I think she may be a Night
w
itch
.”

Uh-oh. My contempt for him is gone, replaced by concern. “
S
he
does
Night m
agic?”

“Very likely. Not only th
at, but you can’t master Night m
agic alone. She must know other
Night
Sisters, maybe even a Night c
oven.”

This changes things.
Night m
agic is rare.
I knew it existed; I just have never faced it. Connor’s parents are Craft scholars
, though
. He knows what he’s talking about.

Connor continues, “
You know how we always say the Singularity
’s Daybreak happened o
n the West Coast? Well, some Oxford Sisters put their minds together a
nd triangula
t
ed the reports
, based on the intensity and distance, and figured out the most probable area—”

“Seattle. Green Lake neighborhood. I suspected that.
”

“Yes,”
he says, his voice uncharacteristically weak.

“And Jane knows it.”

Connor
looks down and nods.

“The most probable location, Skye,” h
e says, “
Think about it.
That’s why the Mothers sent you here.
Y
our
True Sight Charm is rarer than you think.
If they are right about the location,
you
are supposed to find her.
You.
”

I hunch without realizing it.
It’s as if I can feel the crushing responsibility on me.
S
haking my head, I say, “I can’t.
I’ve been walking the school, the streets. I don’t sense anything besides Jane. Are you sure it’s not her?”

Connor
stares at me. “She isn’t. Trust me.” he says, his tone full of authority now. “
W
e feel her energy. The Singularity’s energy is probably off the charts, remember?
Besides,
if
Jane
had
all that power, she wouldn’t be
in
school,
especially
not with me and you snooping around.”