She looked like a daughter of Lilith, the kind of succubus you’d want creeping into your bedroom at the dark of the moon. And she smiled at me like a secret, the slightest curve to the corners of her mouth.
Even caught up in the mantle’s heady magic, I couldn’t make myself stop looking at her.
After a lengthy pause, Igraine Blackmoore stirred impatiently, clearing her throat from where she stood at the crowd’s edge.
“Arbiter Harlow?” she called out, all but tapping her foot. “Perhaps you would like to carry on?”
I managed to peel my eyes from Talia, both annoyed and slightly abashed.
“I would indeed,” I said snippily, and this time I sounded a little more like me than like the eldritch chorus of the Arbiter’s voice. Bending back to the Grimoire, I searched for the next legible line. “Combatants, come, and pledge your intentions upon the wreath.”
The three of them drew together seamlessly, almost as if they’d been expecting this; the other family Grimoires must have held their own Gauntlet instruction for their scions. Talia’s hand landed on the wreath first, followed by Rowan’s and Gareth’s piled on top. All three of them paused for a count, and then called out in the same breath, “Upon my honor and my undying witch’s soul, I intend victory for my House!”
As their voices died away, the wreath melted down into a burst of brilliant blue light, racing up the combatants’ arms like a living flame before launching into the sky. High above us, it shaped the tripartite sigil that designated the Gauntlet, before fracturing into a fireworks display—a flower unfurling to reveal an armillary sphere, which deconstructed into orbs that cycled through the lunar phases before dispersing. Raining sparks down on the gathered families like a cascade of falling stars.
As everyone erupted into a tumultuous cheer, I felt the Grimoire pulse where my hand still rested against the page. I looked down and read the final phrase, my voice ringing out like a canon of church bells.
“As Harlow Arbiter and the voice of Thistle Grove, I declare this tournament begun!”
8
Because You Left
In the Avramovs’ grand ballroom, maroon velvet wallpaper clung to the walls, its tattered edges rippling in a faintly chilly breeze even though the room had no windows I could see. A gothic masterpiece of an iron chandelier, lit by real candles fat with strata of melted wax, swung ominously from the ceiling’s embossed copper tiles. To top things off, a portrait of sloe-eyed Margarita Avramov hung above the red-veined gray marble fireplace, overseeing the proceedings with an air of vague contempt. The founder of House Avramov looked like she wouldn’t mind making the Blackmoores eat some salty crow.
It all straddled the line between elegant and decrepit so seamlessly that the ballroom seemed custom-made to host your more vintage vampire ball. It looked like a room that should have a name, something classy yet sinister.
After I shed the mantle and the younger Avramov siblings ushered everyone inside, my parents had downed a courtesy drink and shortly thereafter hightailed it out, crowded social gatherings having never been their scene. I would have loved to leave, too, but I refused to grant Gareth the luxury of forgetting that I was here. Talia and Linden must have been hidden within one of the knots of guests clustered along the walls, so I stood alone, increasingly aware of sidelong looks flung my way, ranging from the hostile to the merely curious.
I might not really be an interloper here, but after so many years away from Thistle Grove, maybe some of them felt that I no longer belonged. And maybe they were right—wasn’t that what I’d intended, after all, by leaving without looking back?
When one of the tarnished silver trays bobbing through the air hovered to a stop in front of me, I gratefully snagged a goblet of red wine, a little unsettled by the magical aerodynamics of the thing. The tray seemed less enchanted, and more like some invisible server must be carrying it. It left me wondering whether I should say thank you just to be safe; maybe conjuring an entourage of spectral waiters was part of the Avramovs’ uncanny repertoire. I made a mental note to ask Talia about it when I found her, a giddy thrill whorling around my stomach at the idea of seeing her again in that clinging dress, her hair up just like I’d hoped . . .
“Emmeline,” a thin, familiar voice said behind me, banishing any further pleasant thoughts.
“Delilah,” I said flatly, tossing back the remainder of my drink as I turned around to meet my cousin’s prissy face.
True to form, Delilah wore our traditional dove gray and white family robes, the hems embellished with some subtle arcane embroidery that she’d probably added herself. Delilah had always gone hard on the “craft” in “witchcraft,” mostly as an excuse to crochet or needlepoint to her introverted little heart’s content. And because she was so very deeply extra about all that came with being a Harlow witch, speckled feathers—the tawny owl being part of our family crest—were woven into her hair, which was nut brown and curly and even longer than mine had been back in my Thistle Grove days.