Page 8 of Heart of a Witch
She laughed. “I know.”
“Hey.” Cas walked by us both, messing her hair up when he passed. She slapped his hand away and peered around me toward the fireplace. “Mama, do you want a tea? I’m making one.”
She nodded. “I’ll have a chamomile, baby.”
She was the only one Mother called that anymore. I supposed she was the baby of the family, still attending school. She’d finish school the year she turned seventeen, like we had. Only one more year to go.
“Good night,” I said before climbing the ancient staircase to my room.
Once inside, I kneeled in front of the glass tank, moving the lid. I placed my fingers inside, and Ebony was the first to slither over them, knotting and slinking around my hand. I pulled her out, stroking a finger lightly over her rough, black scales.
“Did you miss me?” I smiled, stroking her as she curled around my wrist like a bracelet. Buttercup’s inky tongue darted from her mouth from inside the tank. I dipped my free hand inside and let her slither onto my hand.
I placed them both on my bed. They slithered along the sheets, creasing the satin as they moved to their favorite place: my bedpost, which knotted up to the ceiling of my four-poster bed. I lay among my pillows and blankets and sighed, feeling one of the snakes move across my thigh and back onto the bed. I remembered when I’d found them, barely hatched. Ember and Alex were the only ones who were supportive of my keeping them.
Cas and Mother were dead against it, mostly because they were black Salvian vianas, Salvius’s most venomous snakes, but they’d never bitten me. I connected with them, like I did with spiders and other creatures—at least the ones people didn’t like much. I was like them in that way. People didn’t like me much, but it was okay. I didn’t like them either.
I had so much to do, but tiredness loomed over me like a storm cloud. I’d need to wear my raincoat out in this rain. The sound of it against my window lulled me deeper into thought. Tonight the ritualhadto work. I needed to cloak our powers from detection until the hunter left, and I still had to feed the snakes. I felt one slither against my black curls scattered out around my head, and I closed my eyes.
I peeled back my eyelids, sitting upright, panic clutching at my chest. I grabbed the standing clock on my dresser, my eyes bulging. It was four in the morning. I rubbed my eyes, then my temples. I must’ve fallen asleep.
I hadn’t had a chance to go out and work on the ritual. The protection spell I’d found in the grimoire could only be done at night. I’d failed at it for a week, but each time I came closer.
My breath hitched and I stood. Ember and Cas had to be back from The Black Card by now. I darted out of my room and ran down the hallway until I reached Ember’s room. The lights were off. What if she hadn’t come back? If the hunter had found them? Throwing open her door, I jolted her from her covers.
“Oh, good gods!” She clicked the lamp on her side table, then peered at me. “Tori?”
“Sorry.” I steadied my breathing. “You usually have a light on when you sleep.”
She placed a hand over her chest. “I got back late and passed out.”
“Good. I was just checking you got home okay.”
She croaked groggily. “Of course I did.”
I stepped inside. “How late was it when you got back?”
“I don’t know.” She checked the time. “An hour ago maybe.”
“Is Cas here?”
She shrugged. “He left before we closed.”
I didn’t like the “we.” I slid my disapproving gaze to the outfit flung over the back of a chair. A green, slender dress glittered atop the red velvet upholstery. “They’ve already given you a uniform.”
She rolled her eyes. “Actually, I chose to wear this. It’s… pretty.”
“Green has never really been your color.”
“Don’t be bitter, Tori.” She rested back against the pillows. “Please.”
I sighed softly, then sat on the edge of her bed. “How did it go?”
Her face lit up. “I met someone.”
I tried not to frown. “Who?”
“His name is Chester. He works there too.”
