“What’s up?” Vivi asked, slightly out of breath. She was sweaty from dancing, and although she hadn’t had anything else to drink, the world was spinning slightly at the edges of her vision.
“Nico wants to show us the pool room,” Ariana said with a giggle, leading her toward a staircase at the back of the house, where Reagan, Bailey, and Sonali were standing.
“Who’s Nico?” Vivi asked.
“The guy I was just dancing with. Didn’t you see him? They don’t make ’em like that where I come from. These Savannah boys can really rock a tux. Now come on.” Ariana tugged on Vivi’s arm. “He and his friends are waiting for us downstairs.”
Vivi was buzzed, but not so buzzed that she didn’t hear the alarm bells sounding in her mind. “I don’t think we should. Scarlett told us not to leave the main party under any circumstances.”
“Oh, come on,” Reagan said, sounding both amused and slightly irritated. “It’s not like they’re strangers. This is our brother frat.”
“She’s not saying it’s dangerous.” Sonali looked nervously from Vivi to the others. “She’s saying we shouldn’t disobey Scarlett.”
“Trust me, you do not want to make her angry,” Vivi said with a shudder.
“Whatever. I saw Dahlia, Tiffany, and Mei disappear upstairs thirty minutes ago,” Ariana said. “They’re not even following their own rules.”
“Are you girls coming?” a cute boy with messy blond hair asked. He brushed past them and disappeared down the steps.
“Yes!” Ariana said firmly; she grabbed Sonali’s hand and pulled her after Reagan, who’d already started down the stairs.
“What do you think?” Vivi whispered to Bailey.
“I don’t know,” she said uneasily. “I don’t like letting Scarlett tell me what to do, and playing a few minutes of pool doesn’t sound like a big deal. But then again, I’ve never pissed off a witch before.”
The stairs led down to a windowless room with a dingy tiled floor where a handful of PiKa boys were playing beer pong. Vivi’s stomach lurched when she realized that one of them was Mason.
He caught her eye for a moment and smirked, then returned his focus to the game.
Vivi frowned. Something about his expression felt off. The smirk didn’t seem to belong to the sweet, playful boy who’d carried her bags and helped her make waffles. His eyes seemed harder, and the laugh she heard from across the room had an almost cruel edge to it. Then his mouth opened wider and twisted into a strange, unnatural shape, as if his jaw had become unhinged. Vivi watched in horror as his skin began to droop like melting wax—just like the faces of the other boys.
“What the hell?” Bailey muttered, her words drowned out by Ariana’s scream.
The boys’ faces and bodies continued to melt and re-form until, a few moments later, Tiffany, Scarlett, Dahlia, and Mei stood in their place. Dahlia was looking at them sternly, her arms crossed, while Mei had a mischievous smile on her face as she pretended to inspect her nails. The whole thing must have been one of Mei’s glamours, Vivi realized, although she hadn’t known Pentacles magic was strong enough to change elegant Ravens into frat boys.
“As you’ve probably realized by now,” Scarlett said, “this was a test. And you failed it.”
“I told you,” Sonali muttered under her breath.
“You’re witches,” Scarlett continued. “You’re more powerful than most of you realize. With that power comes a responsibility to protect yourselves and your sisters. If we tell you to stick together, to stay with the group, then that’s what you do. It doesn’t matter who’s trying to persuade you—a group of charming frat boys or an ancient demon you accidentally summoned through sloppy spellwork.”
“Wait. Demons are real too?” Bailey asked.
“You’ll find out soon enough,” Tiffany said with a bordering-on-evil grin. “Y’all have earned yourselves cemetery duty.”
“What does that mean?” Ariana asked, still trembling from the sight of the gruesome transformation.
The four older girls exchanged knowing looks. “Oh, you’ll see,” Mei singsonged.
Scarlett wiggled her fingers at the pledges, then headed upstairs with the older girls. “I just hope you’re not scared of the dark,” she called. “Or the dead.”
Chapter Fourteen
Scarlett
The morning after the mixer, Scarlett lay sprawled on the main green with her head pillowed on Mason’s chest. Students wove all around them, rushing off to classes or to meet friends. A clump of boys tossed a Frisbee back and forth. A group of women were hanging a banner for an upcoming student-gallery opening. Scarlett took comfort in the bright normalness of it all. Lying here with the steady, soothing thud of Mason’s heartbeat pulsing in her ear was exactly what she needed right now.
She’d barely slept last night. She hadn’t been able to stop thinking about the spell that had exploded in her room before the mixer. She’d never seen magic react that way before. Magic had an energy to it, an effervescence. It might exhaust you, but you didn’t feel like it was devouring you from the inside out. When her spell had exploded, it was like a hungry, angry force was trying to invade her body. She’d spent all night worrying about what the spell meant, but here, in the bright light of day with the sun shining and Mason’s fingers threaded through hers, it was hard to believe anything ominous was afoot at Westerly College.
And last night hadn’t been all bad. She’d managed to enjoy shocking the pledges when she and the others had glamoured into the PiKa boys. The horrified look on Vivi’s face was enough to make Scarlett smile even now.
“What’s so funny?” Mason asked, his chest rumbling beneath her head.
“Just thinking about the mixer last night. It was fun, right?”
“I guess,” he said. She felt him shrug.
“Not entertaining enough for you, Mr. Gregory?”
“I mean, it’s a mixer. It’s the same shit as always. Jotham spent half the night trying to win Molly back and then the rest of the night making out with one of her best friends. Benjamin threw up in the pool after everyone left. And the pledges, I swear, are clones of our class. Same bros, different color polo shirts. It’s boring.”
“Nice way to talk about your house’s party.” Scarlett frowned. She’d made a point to pull Mason onto the dance floor so that they would have some time together. He had looked like he was having fun, but had she misread it? Had she misread him? Sure, he hadn’t worn a tux like he was supposed to, but he’d told her he’d forgotten to pack it after his vacation, and she’d taken him at his word. Now, though, she saw something else. Maybe he’d just chosen not to wear it. And, yes, maybe there were a few too many PiKas ordering their Solo cups “shaken, not stirred.” But that was just part of Greek life, laughing at dumb expected jokes with your friends. With Gwen back, Scarlett wished the worst problem the Kappas faced was getting bored.
“Honestly, I don’t know if they’re going to be my house that much longer,” Mason said.