“Look at that one,” Ariana whispered. Vivi followed her gaze to a statue of a little girl standing in a grassy plot bordered by a wrought-iron fence. Everything about her had been rendered in exquisite detail, from the hair ribbons in her curls to the buckles on her shoes. Everything except her large, blank eyes, which seemed to follow Vivi and Ariana as they hurried to catch up with the other pledges.
“Could that be it?” Bailey asked, pointing at a massive mausoleum just past a copse of oak trees. Sure enough, there was a flicker of a torch next to the entrance and a cluster of figures around it.
“Good find,” Vivi said, though she wasn’t particularly eager to discover what awaited them. She hadn’t done much to impress Scarlett during Hell Week, and she was growing increasingly worried about not making the cut.
When they reached the mausoleum, they found Dahlia, Scarlett, Tiffany, and Mei holding candles and dressed in black robes, hoods drawn low over their faces. They were standing underneath the portico of the mausoleum, which had been carved with the twisted, grimacing face of a man with two horns protruding from his temples.
“Welcome, pledges,” Scarlett said, stepping forward. “We brought you here tonight to explain how important sisterhood is and tell you what happens when you don’t take those vows seriously.” She gestured to a simple, knee-height marble tomb with the name WATERS etched into it. “This is Evelyn Waters. Or, rather, the empty tomb dedicated to her memory.” She paused dramatically.
“Why is it empty?” Bailey asked finally, taking the bait.
“Because Evelyn went missing her senior year, and her body was never found.” Scarlett rested a perfectly manicured hand on top of the grave. “Evelyn was a Kappa president. She led the sorority for a year before her disappearance. In her time, the coven was even more powerful, even more important, than it is now. Have any of you ever heard of the Henosis talisman?”
Vivi shook her head, as did Ariana, Reagan, and Bailey. Only Sonali’s eyes widened in recognition.
“Henosis translates roughly to ‘unity’ or ‘oneness.’ The talisman was forged in ancient Greece and discovered during an excavation in the late 1800s. Westerly acquired it for the history department, and a Kappa witch deciphered the tablet that had been buried with the talisman. It was a spell. It explained not only how to share power between witches but also how to permanently take another witch’s power.”
Vivi winced at the idea of someone taking her magic. Although she’d been aware of her powers for only a short time, it was frightening to imagine the feeling of emptiness and loss if they were taken. Because that was what had made the discovery so extraordinary; it wasn’t as if the Kappas had waved a wand and given Vivi magic—they’d simply helped her harness the forces that had always been inside her.
“How can that happen?” Bailey asked. “Don’t—”
“I thought you had to be born with magic,” Reagan cut in. “I was always told a witch could only ever have as much magic as she started out with.”
“True,” Scarlett said. “Naturally. But if we’re speaking unnaturally . . .” She let the word hang in the air. Tiffany went rigid, standing as still as the statues around them, while Mei shifted her weight from side to side. The only older girl who didn’t seem uneasy was Dahlia. Her eyes reflected the dancing flame of her candle, which made them look almost red.
“The spell isn’t easy,” Scarlett continued. “It’s not permanent, either—not without the Henosis talisman. That’s the only object on earth that allows you to store stolen magic.
“With the talisman, you can take another witch’s power for life. Without it, you’re living on borrowed time. Plus, the theft comes at great cost.” Scarlett met Vivi’s gaze. In the moonlight, Vivi could have sworn Scarlett’s eyes looked different. Darker, almost black. “To take another witch’s power, you have to kill her.”
Vivi shuddered as the wind whispered through the trees, making the hair on the back of her neck stand on end.
There was a distant crack in the woods, like a branch snapping. She whipped her head around to follow the sound. Dahlia and Mei didn’t move, but Vivi thought she saw a flash of fear on Scarlett’s and Tiffany’s faces.
“So . . . you think someone killed Evelyn Waters? Stole her powers?” Reagan asked impatiently, clearly unbothered by the noise.
“All we know is that in the spring of Evelyn’s senior year, she disappeared from Kappa House,” Scarlett said, tracing the top of the gravestone with her fingertips. “The talisman vanished along with her.”
“So when we say that sisters need to protect each other . . .” Mei said, speaking for the first time.
“We mean sometimes they must do so with their very lives,” Scarlett finished.
Her words hung in the air as everyone else fell silent. But then a moment later, there was a loud crackling sound as the torch by the mausoleum entrance exploded in flames. The pledges all gasped and stepped back.
“Tonight, you’ll have your first opportunity to work as a team and prove how far you’ll go to protect one another,” Scarlett said. She raised her hands and more torches burst into life, illuminating a stairwell that led down into the bowels of the massive mausoleum behind them. “This is part of a tunnel system connecting much of old Savannah to Westerly’s campus. Once you enter, we’ll seal you inside.”
“We’ve left clues in each anteroom for you,” Mei said. “You’ll have to work together if you want to find your way back to Kappa House.”
“That, or risk being trapped under the city forever,” Tiffany chimed in, her voice full of morbid delight.
“Phones, please.” Dahlia extended her hand to collect everyone’s device. Vivi relinquished hers with trepidation. She could barely navigate with her phone.
Scarlett handed Vivi a worn silver pendant with strange symbols etched into it. “This will help you find your way. Good luck.”
“You’re going to need it,” Tiffany said, then exchanged a knowing smile with Scarlett.
Reagan and Bailey started into the tombs first. Sonali hesitated briefly, then marched after them.
Vivi followed Ariana into the gloom of the mausoleum entrance and barely made it down the first two steps when she heard a loud grinding sound. She turned around to see the heavy door closing behind her. For a split second, she locked eyes with Scarlett. The older girl looked almost worried, Vivi thought, but before she could examine her Big’s face further, the door was shut tight and they were plunged into complete darkness.
As she waited for her eyes to adjust, Vivi reached out to feel the wall for guidance. She grimaced as her hand touched something wet and slimy. The path sloped down, and although the logical part of Vivi’s brain knew that there was plenty of oxygen down here, her natural response was to take shallow, panicked breaths. She couldn’t help thinking about the rusted bells they’d seen next to some of the graves, a relic from the days before heart monitors and brain-activity sensors, when people occasionally awoke from a coma to find themselves buried alive.
“This is fucked up,” Reagan said.
“Agreed,” said Ariana. “They’re going to have a few more empty graves if we get lost down here.”