But Alex’s mouth just twisted meanly, and she said: “Yes, well, you’d know all about making a fool of yourself. Wouldn’t you, Felicity?”
It felt like all the air had been sucked out of the room. The party went silent; the feeling of all eyes on me made my skin itch.
“We’re going home. Now.” I started toward the door, but I didn’t get far.
Alex’s voice cut through the thick air between us like hot steel. “Everyone knows you’re crazy,” she shouted. She was drunk, the words coming out slurred and uneven. She was drunk; she didn’t mean it. But she said it anyway. “All this bullshit about witches and magic and dead girls. We all know the truth.”
I spun on my heel and stalked back to where Alex stood, weaving on her feet. I could smell the liquor on her breath from a foot away. “And what’s that, Alex?” I said. “What’s the truth?”
Alex took in a sharp breath. Don’t say it, I urged her mentally. Don’t say it.
She was going to say it.
I could see it in her eyes, because I knew her—I knew her—and Alex was the kind of person who was never cruel on purpose but who was inevitably cruel regardless. She just couldn’t help herself.
“You’re obsessed with magic because you can’t stand to live with yourself otherwise. Because if you don’t have witches to blame all your shit on, if you can’t pretend that you’ve been chosen by Margery Lemont or whatever, then that means nothing you do is magic’s fault. It’s just you.”
I laughed. It came out cold and callous, like the laugh of a villain in a children’s movie. “You want to talk about taking responsibility for your own actions, Alex? Really? Or do you just want me to reassure you one more time that you’re perfect and Tes started it, and if you broke her nose, then it’s her own damn fault?”
I went too far.
I knew that before I even finished saying it, but I said it anyway, and it hit Alex like a bullet hitting its target. She reared back, the color drained from her face. All at once she didn’t look angry anymore, or cruel-aggressive-violent-mad.
She just looked scared.
“Alex…，” I started, but it was too late.
She flung her glass onto the floor, where it shattered into a thousand pieces against the marble. I yelped and flinched back, and that was all the head start she needed. Alex shoved her way past the gathered crowd toward the front door, and I was behind her—too far behind her—so even when I had broken out of Boleyn and onto the quad, she was already a distant pale speck running toward the lake.
“Alex!”
I sprinted after her. It couldn’t end like this; I couldn’t just leave her alone after…after saying something so terrible. She was unstable. I knew that. She’d been off ever since what happened over the summer with that other climber, and if I left her to her own devices, she might—
I didn’t know what she might do.
Alex was a world-class athlete; she was too fast. By the time I made it up to the cliffs, I was heaving for air, one hand pressed to the stitch in my side.
She stood on the ridge, silhouetted against the white moonlight and still. I approached slowly, half-certain that any sudden movements would fracture her.
“Alex,” I said again, once I had the breath to speak. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”
“Yes, you did,” she said. She had her back to me, both hands clenched in fists at her sides. “You meant every word of it, just like I did.”
I gritted my teeth and shook my head. “Please. Let’s just talk about it. Okay? Let’s go back to Godwin House. We can…I’ll make tea, and we can talk.”
Alex turned at last to face me, her hair tangling in the wind in front of her face. She looked wild and feral, like a creature out of legend.
“You were right,” she said. “I haven’t taken responsibility for what I did. But I was right, too, you know. This whole witch business has gotten to you. Like, sometimes I don’t think you even hear yourself properly. Fucking…séances, Felicity? Dead girls and curses and demonic possession?”
I recoiled. It wasn’t demonic—I’d never said anything about demonic possession. But I had confessed to Alex one night, both of us curled up in her bed together, that I thought Margery Lemont’s spirit was trapped in our world after that Halloween night. That because we didn’t do the closing ritual properly, Margery had no way to leave our world. I had said that I knew Margery’s intentions were evil. That she might use us to do evil things.