Callie leaned forward, squinting with one eye closed. “I know I'm drunk, but that looks like Farrah Fairchild.”
“Le Douche's assistant secretary?” Juliet croaked, having choked on her last sip of wine.
“Yeah!” Callie waggled her fingers, her voice rising incredulously. “Only she doesn't look like Farrah anymore. She looks like Le Douche Junior.”
When giggles erupted all around, Rowena waved a hand for silence, before reaching out to touch the chiming crystal.
“Popcorn Puppy Toes... Farrah, to what do we owe the pleasure?”
The young woman with her dark blonde hair pulled back into a ruthless bun, wore what looked like a cape around her shoulders and a pearl brooch at her throat.
Ivy remembered Farrah wearing beautiful designer dresses and styling her hip-length hair in loose curls that shimmered in the sunlight. The harshness of the black outfit she had on now made her skin seem lackluster and her chocolate brown eyes flat and dull.
“Miss Little,” Farrah greeted in a coolly formal voice. “I'm calling on behalf of Headmistress Le Doux—”
“Since when does that old battle-ax foist off her calls when addressing us peons?” Kerrigan interrupted tartly.
Farrah's eyes narrowed, she lifted her pointed chin, and pressed her mauve-colored lips together. That was definitely the Headmistress’s preferred shade of lipstick.
“Three nights ago, the Headmistress was found dead in her office. She was murdered, and at this time the school council has no answers as to who is responsible.”
Ivy felt as though she went through the stages of sobering up in a sickening instant. She hadn't ever liked the Headmistress, but to hear she'd been murdered on the school grounds was... impossible.
With hundreds of students all between the ages of seven and twenty-three, there were layers upon layers of spells preventing magical violence or injuries. Callie's experiments alone had proven them to be one hundred percent effective. Murder couldn't happen, not on the school grounds.
“Farrah... I'm so sorry,” Rowena murmured, reaching out a hand to Juliet, who put down her glass and reached out to Callie, one by one, the six of them joined hands.
Farrah gave a stiff nod, visibly struggling to keep her composure. “Thank you. There will be a ceremony held after the culprit has been caught. Per the Headmistress's wishes, I have a letter and a package to deliver to Ivy Greene. She is still a member of your coven?”
To her credit, Rowena didn't glance away from the crystal or give any indication Ivy was there at the table. Farrah could only see Rowena, but she could hear all of them.
“Yes, she is.”
“Good.” Farrah twisted to the side and reached for a small box, murmuring an incantation under her breath, focusing on the package with a frown. With an audible pop, the package disappeared, and Farrah took a deep breath.
“The package will be waiting at the boundary of your wards, please keep an eye out for an invitation to the Headmistress's funeral service.”
Without so much as a goodbye, the crystal went blank. It took Rowena a moment to re-set the privacy spell, and before she could speak, Avia popped in with the package Farrah sent.
The little Brownie smiled wide enough to show off her needle-sharp teeth, stretching up on her toes to set the box down at Ivy's elbow.
“Thanks, Avia.” She gave a jerky curtsy and hurried off with a rustle of her ruffled skirt. Ivy stared at the box, wrapped in plain brown paper and twine, with a thick cream envelope tucked beneath. She recognized the paper stock and her name written in Le Doux's formal, looping script.
“You gonna stare at it all day, or open it?” Juliet demanded, still pale, her eyes a little wide, clinging to Rowena's hand.
Ivy shrugged, suddenly on fire with nerves. “I guess I'm worried I'll open it and something horrible will pop out.”
“It is weird,” Callie agreed, gnawing on her lip. “You weren't exactly her favorite student—no offense—so why would she leave you anything?”
“Exactly,” Ivy answered, not offended.
“I hated that crone's guts for what she did to you!” Kerrigan declared, grabbing up a bottle of wine to drink straight from the source. “But murdered, right in her own office? That's a whole new level of cold.”
Rowena sat down and rubbed soothing circles on Kerrigan's back. “Kerry, I say this with all the kindness in my heart, but don't you dare go poking your nose in it. I don't want Le Doux's ghost marching around the manor.”
Kerrigan snorted derisively, but after slanting a mean look at Rowena, she sighed and slumped forward in her chair. “I don't want that either. I'll leave it alone.”
Ivy shuddered as she envisioned waking up in the middle of the night to find the Headmistress standing at the edge of her bed, staring at her with those cold eyes.
Uriah wouldn't like that, not one little bit, and strangely enough, thinking about him now gave her the courage she needed to slip the envelope out from beneath the twine.
A hush settled over the table; her sisters gathered closer to lend their strength and solidarity, their curiosity plain in the way they leaned forward with their eyes trained on Ivy.
She took a deep breath, unfolded the thick paper, noticed the date at the top was six months after they had all left Haggara, and began to read aloud.
“Dearest Ivy, if this letter has found its way into your hands, it is because I have passed on.” Ivy pulled a face, mostly because it was strange that the Headmistress had prepared for her death and was calling Ivy 'dearest.'
Immediately it struck her as false and strange to be called that. From the glance she shot around the table, the girls all felt the same.
“As you read on, it may be difficult to understand or to forgive, but please know everything that has been done was to keep you safe.”
“That sounds really bad,” Callie murmured, shifting in her seat uncomfortably.
Ivy nodded in agreement, her stomach churning as she read on. “As the years went on, I saw how terribly hard it was on you to be without your magic. It was always to keep you safe, but I spent many sleepless nights fearing that an even greater damage was done in not telling you why.
“Had your mother lived to see your struggles, I wonder if she would have made the same decisions. It is true, that she was never meant to have children, but it was a carefully told lie on my part to say you had no more magic than a human. The truth is in fact, quite the opposite. Even as a little girl it was obvious that someday your powers would rival your mother's.”
Ivy frowned so hard by this point, she could feel a headache forming. The letter wasn't making any sense. Ivy couldn't ever remember doing magic as a child.
“Do you need me to keep going?” Rowena offered, and Ivy realized she was crying again. But they weren't tears of happiness now, they were tears of frustration and growing anger.
She shook her head, wiping her hand across her face and kept going, “You have been safe within the walls of Haggara since you came to us, but I began to fear the sanctuary of the school would not be enough.
“I spoke harsh words to you, Ivy, in hopes you would leave us and live as a human. That you would take one of the jobs I arranged for you in a large city made of iron and stone, where you would blend like a grain of sand on a beach and remain unseen.