It was so weird to have Archer looking at me but seeing Elodie. His expression was stony and cold, something I'd never seen on his face before. Even weirder was watching him with Elodie's thoughts in my head. She was angry; I could feel that pumping through my veins, thumping inside my stomach. But it was more than that. She was...sad. Hurt.
"Give me your hands," I heard my voice say. He hesitated for a moment and then laid his palms over mine.
As soon as he did, I had an image of those hands cupping my face as he kissed me. No. Not me.
Elodie.
Stop thinking about that!
You think I want to have that memory? she snapped in reply.
"Okay," she told Archer, who was looking somewhere over my shoulder. "I can't make you invisible or anything, but this spell will keep you from feeling the pain and limit any real damage that can be done to you. It won't last forever, though, so I suggest you and Sophie find some way out of here ASAP."
"Oh, great, because that hadn't occurred to us."
"Do you want the spell or not?"
Scowling, Archer nodded and gripped my hands tighter. After a moment, I felt Elodie's magic rain down from the top of my head, spreading down my fingers and into Archer's. As soon as the magic faded away, Elodie dropped his hands, wiping mine on my thighs.
"There," she said.
Archer flexed his fingers, looking at them as he said, "Thanks."
"Whatever" was Elodie's only reply, and then she was gone, leaving me sprawling on the floor.
I'm sure it was very attractive.
I felt firm hands on my shoulders, and the next thing I knew, I was sitting up and leaning against Archer's chest.
"That was weirder than I thought it would be," he said against my temple.
I tried to snort. "You're telling me. How do you feel?"
"Better," he said. "But if this protection is only going to last so long, I think the sooner you talk to Mrs. Casnoff, the better." Unfortunately, that ended up being easier said than done. For the next few days, I only saw Mrs. Casnoff at dinner, where she'd sit in her seat, staring blankly at the wall, and I wondered just how the heck I was ever going to get her alone.
That wasn't the only thing that proved difficult. Jenna and I were determined to search for the grimoire, but between all the "training sessions" Lara forced on us (which were still unbearable to watch, even though I knew Archer was faking pain), and the fact that our doors were locked as soon as the sun went down, we hadn't really had a chance. I'd tried calling Elodie again, but after the spell with Archer, she seemed to be keeping her distance.
By our fifth day back at Hex Hall, I was beginning to go crazy. "We have to do something," I told Jenna that morning as we made our way from the greenhouse.
"We've been here nearly a week and we're nowhere closer to finding the grimoire, we haven't got the first clue how to stop the Casnoffs from turning all the kids here into demons, and I haven't seen Mrs. Casnoff alone since-" I glanced behind me to see that Jenna was frozen in place. She pointed to the pond. "Um, she's alone now." There was a little stone bench by the water's edge. Mrs. Casnoff was sitting on it, her back to us, white hair fluttering around her shoulders.
"Holy crap," I said softly. I'd been wanting to get her alone for so long that I was actually shocked that it had finally happened.
"Go," Jenna said, nudging me with her elbow. "Talk to her. I'll meet you back at the house." I watched the back of Mrs. Casnoff's head and wondered where to even start. I had so many things I needed to say that they all seemed jumbled up.
When I sat down next to her, she didn't even turn her face toward me. "hello, Sophie," she said, her gaze still trained on the water.
"Hi," was all I could say at first.
"She was so quiet," Mrs. Casnoff said, and for a second, I was confused. Then she said, "When we were little. Father was afraid she might never speak," and then I realized she meant Lara. "But I knew. Her mind was always working. Working, working, working. She was more like our father than I was.
"'The ends justify the means'-he said that all the time," she whispered. "The ends justify the means." Impulsively, I reached over and covered one of her hands with mine. Her skin was ice cold and felt as fragile as paper. "You don't believe that," I said. "Hex Hall ...Look, it wasn't my favorite place, but it wasn't a bad place. I know this"-I gestured to the fog, the school, the whole poisoned island-"isn't what you want."
But Mrs. Casnoff didn't look at me. She just kept shaking her head, and murmured, "It's what he wanted. It's what he gave up everything for."
"Who?" I asked, my throat tight. "Your dad?" Then I shook my head. This might be my only chance to talk to her, and I needed to stay focused.
"Why did you bring me here?"
Mrs. Casnoff turned to me, her face tear-streaked and tired. "Sophie Mercer," she said. "A fourth-generation demon. The only one. All the others, too new, too fresh, too...unpredictable. But you." She reached forward and grabbed my face between her hands and I instinctively reached up to pull her off me. "You're our best hope."
"Best hope for what?" I asked.
"It's in the blood," she said softly. "In the blood. Yours, and mine, and my father's, and Alice's..." Mrs. Casnoff trailed off, looking at me but not seeing me.
"What does that mean?" I demanded, but she let me go, her eyes going hazy again. "Mrs. Casnoff?" I reached out and shook her shoulders, but it was like she didn't even feel it. Despair slammed into me, and I fought the urge to shake her until her teeth rattled. What was in the blood? How could I be her hope for anything?
"Sophie," I heard someone say, and I turned to see Call standing behind the bench. "Come on," he said softly, holding his hand out.
I looked at Mrs. Casnoff again, at her white hair and ravaged face. And then I put my hand in Cal's and let him lead me away from her.
"I thought she could help," I said to Cal, once Mrs. Casnoff was far behind us. "That's stupid, I know, but...she cared about us, Cal. She cared about this place."
We walked side by side, and Call eventually dropped my hand. His bent elbows kept brushing mine as we made our way to the house. "She's sick, Sophie," he answered as we crested the slight rise near his cabin. Hex Hall stood before us, looking more forlorn than ever. "Just like everything else here," he said, and sighed. I thought of how much Call had loved this place, the pride he'd taken in it.
"I'm sorry," I said turning to him. His clear hazel eyes met mine, and a tiny bit of humor flickered there.
"You say that a lot."
Tugging at my Defense uniform (which was even uglier than I'd remembered; bright blue stretchy cotton was not a good look on anyone), I gave a little laugh. "Yeah, well, I feel it a lot." Especially where you're concerned, I wanted to add.
Call didn't say anything to that, and after a moment, started walking toward the house. I waited a few seconds before following. There was so much I wanted to say to him, but I didn't even know where to start. Cal, I think I love you, but I'm maybe not in love with you, even though kissing you was pretty boss was maybe one approach.
Or: Cal, I love Archer, but my feelings for you are all con fused because you are both awesome and smoking hot, and we're already technically engaged to be married, which adds to the giant pot of boiling emotions and hormones I've become.
Okay, maybe don't say boiling....
"You okay?"
"Huh?" I blinked, surprised to see we'd come to the front of the house. Call was standing with one foot on the bottom porch step, staring at me.
"You have this weird look on your face," he said.
"Like you're doing really complicated math in your head."
I couldn't help a little snort of laughter. "I was, in a manner of speaking." As I moved past him and into the house, I resolved to talk to Call like a mature grown-up person.
Eventually.
For now, I gave him a little wave and ran away to my room.
Jenna was sitting on her bed when I got there, practically vibrating with excitement. "Well?" I just shook my head. "A bust. Mrs. Casnoff is too screwed up to be any help." To my surprise, Jenna didn't seem to take the news particularly hard. Instead, she leaned forward and said, "Okay, well, that sucks. But, Soph, guess what I saw today."
I flopped across my mattress, toeing my sneakers off. "We're on a cursed island surrounded by killer fog, and ruled by two crazy-ass witches. I really can't begin to guess, Jen."
"Lara, coming out of the cell ar," she said, blowing her pink stripe off her forehead. "And looking super secretive and suspicious. Well, I mean, more super secretive and suspicious than usual."
Ah, the cell ar. A dank, creepy place full of magical artifacts that had a tendency to move around. Archer and I had spent an awful lot of quality time down there last year.
"Anyway, I mentioned it to Taylor, and she said she's seen Lara go down there every day since we got here. Which makes me think-"
"There's something important down there. Like maybe the grimoire," I said, and I could swear my magic did a leap of excitement inside my chest.
Jenna gave a nod, but before I could say anything else, a familiar presence took over. "I was just coming to tell you two the same thing," I heard myself say. "She's definitely hiding something down there because the door is magicked like crazy." Long time no see, I told her.
I've been busy.
Jenna blinked rapidly. It was always a shock for me to suddenly become Elodie. I couldn't imagine how weird it must feel for the people watching it happen. But Jenna went with it. "Could you open the door using your magic?"
"Of course," Elodie scoffed. Sitting up, she went to toss my hair, but my fingers just got hopelessly ensnarled. "Oh, for the love of God," she muttered, trying to untwist the strands from a ring I wore.
There was a knock at the door, and I could feel Elodie about to swoosh on out, when Archer said, "Mercer? You in there?" Go on, I told Elodie, but she didn't budge. Thankfully, Jenna opened the door and immediately said, "Sophie's here, but Elodie's possessing her right now."
"In that case, I'll wait out here," he said.
I could feel... some kind of emotion building up in Elodie. But before I had time to even identify what she was feeling, she was gone.
While I came back to myself, Archer was sitting next to me on my bed, an arm wrapped around my shoulders. Jenna filled him in, both on my pointless talk with Mrs. Casnoff and what we'd learned about the cell ar. "Elodie thinks she can do a spell on the door that will let Sophie in," she finished.
Archer shifted on the bed so that he could look at my face. "I'll go with you," he said.
I raised both eyebrows at him. "Cross, you're the Casnoffs' personal torture guinea pig. It's a miracle they're letting you stay in your room and not, like, chaining you in a dungeon. If they catch you wandering around in the cell ar-"
"If the Casnoffs were going to lock me up, they would've done it already."
"Why haven't they?" Jenna wondered out loud, and Archer shrugged.