PROLOGUE
“What do we see, sister?”
“I see the fruition of Magdala’s prophecy about to come to pass.”
“Do you? That’s been sitting idle for years. It is meant for Magnus and another. But it has never had a name inscribed.”
“It does today. It does today. It says Kevin.”
“Only Kevin?”
“Yes.”
“How are we to find him?”
“Our pet will do it, won’t you, Moon Cat? Find the boy and make the prophecy come to be.”
“Our pet? That’s a stretch. He comes and goes as he will. He likes to visit when he’s not busy.”
“He likes to be involved.”
“Yes, sister.”
Moon Cat looked up at them and mewed before scratching his ear. Then, within the blink of an eye, he vanished through an opening in space and time.
“Will there be death and destruction?”
“Perhaps, sister. Choices must be made to see what the conclusion is. But for now, we have to wait.”
The first one clipped a thread with her scissors.
“Another one bit the dust, huh? Why do these mortals jump through the sky?”
1
LANDON
Iwanted to make Myles pay for every smile he had ever given me – every sweet word he ever said. I wanted to twist them into something dark and painful. The trouble was they already were painful and dark – for me. The mere thought of him broke me in two, and no matter how hard I tried to think of anything else, it was his face that haunted me.
It was a stupid face.
Stupidly handsome like he just stepped out of some Instagram ad.
I had to move on. But how was I supposed to do that when I woke up every morning still expecting to find him beside me in bed? He wasn’t, and my heart broke once again – every morning. Then every afternoon when we would work in my garden, my heart shattered – every dinner that he no longer shared with me made me cry.
I hurt, and I needed to make him hurt too.
I should have studied harder. A balanced witch is a witch who understands both the light and the dark. That’s what Annelise had told me as I learned under her strict tutelage. It had always scared me, though. Some powers and spells onlycaused hurt, and I had never wanted to… I had never needed to… Until now.
Now I wanted to wrap the darkness around me like a shroud and fill the air with poison and pain until everyone else felt the same way I did.
I had come unmoored from the code I had sworn to live by.
Alright, maybe I was being a tad overdramatic. I hadn’t done anything. I just wish that I could.
I had become woefully impolite, but thoughtful enough to stay inside where I didn’t need to see anyone. Myles had taken most of our friends with him except for Dandelion, my crow. He was incredibly unhelpful. All he did most of the time was stand on his branch and curse at me for being so sad.
There was also Bernadette, or Bernie, as I called her. We had been friends for about as long as I could remember, and she, of course, chose me. She also wasn’t the most helpful. All she wanted to do was either get me laid or bitch about the problem. I was tired of thinking and bitching about Myles. I just wanted to stop feeling or remembering any ounce of our happiness.
