Persie Merlin and the Witch Hunters - Bella Forrest Page 0,18

to pick.”

She grinned. “Hmm… we’ll see about that.”

“You never know, you might like my taste.” I resisted the urge to move my hand and grasp hers, afraid to spook her. This was the closest thing to physical contact we’d had in six months, and I didn’t want to burst this bubble with a potential rejection. I decided I would be content just to spend time in her company until I was sure that she wanted what I wanted.

Her fingertips stopped an inch shy of contact, and her mesmerizing gray eyes locked on mine, a world of unspoken words and mysteries hiding within them. “Stranger things have happened.”

Five

Persie

The last shards of crimson, cobalt, and burnished orange saturated the clouds outside my bedroom window, and the clock on my desk read five to nine. I’d just signed off a video call with my mom and dad, checking in on how things were going back home. “All good” appeared to be the general consensus, but my parents had gotten better at hiding their work troubles from me over time, and this time, they had avoided the subject completely.

“What do you think? Did they look worried to you?” I asked the pixies, who’d made the video call… interesting, to say the least. Cynane was in the middle of creating a Picasso-esque masterpiece in my sketchbook, dragging my best lipstick—or rather, my mom’s best lipstick, which I’d rammed into a coat pocket and forgotten about—over the pages. Spartacus was slow dancing on the windowsill with my Thread Bear, and Boudicca had put on the show to end all shows, using the desk as her stage to mimic everything my parents had said in her usual brand of contemporary dance.

Boudicca shrugged and walked over to Cynane’s makeshift art studio, scooping up a handful of lipstick from the bullet and streaking it across her cheeks and body like warpaint. She whirled around, contorting her face into a terrifying mask, then began to creep up on an innocent pencil. She leapt on it, dragging her victim to the edge of the desk before dropping it off the edge.

“You think more magicals have gone missing?” I tried to interpret.

She chattered agreement. To expound on her thoughts, she stretched her lips in a manic grin and batted her long eyelashes. I understood immediately.

“They were acting overly casual, right? I thought so, too.”

Boudicca pointed to herself and puffed out her chest, then jabbed a finger at my phone and pulled a sour face, swiping her hands through the air in a big cross.

I laughed. “They’re not as good at acting as you are?”

She grinned and nodded. At this, Spartacus flew over, with Thread Bear dangling from his embrace, and started to perform a dramatic scene of loss and love. Evidently, he wanted in on the acting accolades. When he was a few seconds shy of a Hollywood kiss with my childhood teddy, I grabbed the bear and held him to my chest before he could suffer any further indignities at Spartacus’s overeager hands. Cynane, who’d paused in her drawing, cackled at Spartacus, which led to a high-pitched argument that would’ve come to blows if Boudicca hadn’t launched a teaspoon at Spartacus’s head.

Did I bite off more than I can chew? I’d taken the pixies out of the Repository before, many times, but the idea of having them in my care for an entire day suddenly felt daunting, especially since I’d decided to stop using Inwalla on them. I’d learned that the hypnotic-obedience effect only lasted until the next sunrise. After that, it had to be repeated—or else the spell broke and the pixies went back to listening as and when they wanted. Naturally, things were far easier when they were under the influence of Inwalla, but it felt wrong for me to wrangle them like that. I preferred the trust-and-friendship method to mind control. It wasn’t an exact science, but the four of us were making it work.

“I wonder if news has filtered through to my parents about Charles Burniston yet?” I sank back in my chair, speaking mainly to Boudicca and Cynane, since Spartacus was busy rubbing his skull and pouting.

Cynane snorted and shook her head, emitting a doubtful squeak.

I sighed. “You’d think that after a few global threats, everyone would’ve learned to work together by now.”

Boudicca gestured slyly at Spartacus, as if to say: “You just have to look at us to know that’s not true.”

I folded my arms across my chest and thought about Charles, the missing research