Witch in Hiding (#1 in the Witches Trilogy) (EDITING)

Thirty: Et Tu, Raelynn?

I have never used telepathy like this before, searching out someone who's far, far away. But determination, imagination and a healthy mix of fear and anger pushes my mind like never before: Rae is impossible to touch—why didn't I realise that before?—but Ver's mind is wide open: young, bright, familiar. I know it's her without asking, and when I do, she's able to help me figure out where she is.

I'm out of the house a minute later.

*

It's past ten by the time I reach Vera's location: an abandoned carpark in a secluded area, overgrown and cluttered. A couple of shelters line the border, apparently intended to be temporary but permanently neglected. It's also empty.

"Vera?" I shout.

"She's fine." Rae's voice makes me jump, and then the girl herself appears out of nowhere. Her arms are folded. She's wearing a dark aviator's jacket, grey jeans and boots, and she melds smoothly into the concrete background. There's something unsettling about her appearance, but I can't quite put a finger on it. "Although I can't say the same about you."

"Well there's the pot calling the kettle black," I say, although the humour falters. "Rae. What are you doing?"

She doesn't move. "I'm sorry it had to come to this."

"What comes to this?" It's darkening, and everything, save our voices, is quiet. There's a sense of foreboding, a sense of melancholy.

She gestures between us. "I wanted this to work out. I wanted to work with you. But I took a long time to realise it was never going to happen."

"I don't. Know. What. You're. Talking. About. Why are you doing this? Why did you kidnap my sister?" It comes out of my mouth before I can stop it, a thought that's been flitting in and out of my mind that suddenly solidified into words out of nowhere, but the moment I say it I know it's true. Raelynn kidnapped Vera, and this is the moment the figurative knife stabs me in the back.

Or, I think of Esther, not so figuratively.

She hasn't answered, her eloquence failing her for once, and I fill the silence. "How could you do this?"

"Easily," Rae says cuttingly. "Betrayal... it's something you'll have to get used to, okay? Magic is like that. It twists people. Makes them do all the wrong things. Makes them..." She hesitates for a moment. "Leave people." Her eyes flash.

"Why did you help me, then?"

"I was serious about wanting you to join us," she says finally, gravely. "They disagreed, but I kept you on the board. They wanted to kill you then and there, but I thought we could use you. Turns out we can't."

"We," I interrupt, "as in, your bad guy club. You, Remiko and Esther. One happy, twisted, psycho family."

Her lips quirk sardonically. "You talk a lot, Vinni. I was intrigued at first, but now I realise it's not boldness, it's sheer bravado. You're overconfident, you're too unpredictable. Too goddamn stubborn. You'd listen to me as long as I was telling you things you wanted to know, but I couldn't be sure you'd continually do the same. You ditched your friends the moment they got less useful. You constantly gripe about no one telling you anything when you're keeping secrets left and right. And you're too freaking good."

Somehow I don't think she's talking about competence.

"You know why you keep getting sick, Vinni? Not just because your body is learning to deal with its newfound power. But because your body is rejecting that power. Because your mind is split. It can't reconcile itself with being able to make people end their own lives. Not only that, you rejected that idea so much you repressed your own memories." Raelynn's fists clench and unclench, the first struggle for composure I've seen in her. "You're as much of a train wreck as I am. The only difference is that you don't want to admit it. And that's why I can't take the risk anymore." Her expression darkens. "And the wand," she says, in a way that makes me feel like this is what she's been gunning for the whole time, "you don't deserve that wand."

I'm probably poking the bear, but I take it out and point it at her. "Why not?"

She starts at the sight of it, physically flinching. She's fighting to restrain herself. "It's mine."

The card, Remiko, Esther, Jess—everything was Rae. All along, Rae. Playing the worst kind of double agent, my teacher and friend turned master puppeteer. "You're doing all this for a stupid piece of wood?" There's anger in my voice, too; I can't keep it down. "Let my sister go and you can have it." The wand hums in protest in my hand, but I don't care. I'm tired. Tired of things going down the drain, tired of constantly having to watch out.

She shakes her head slowly. "It's too late for that. I've made up my mind, Vinni. No one's leaving until this is over."

I hate to ask. "And when is it over?"

She says quietly, "when one of us is dead."