The Ravens (The Ravens #1) - Kass Morgan Page 0,104

a rush of pain at the mention of Mason and Vivi together, this time it was coupled with a surge of gratitude toward Mei for being on her side, especially since she knew how much Mei liked Vivi, if for no other reason than being an incredible Before in her inevitable makeover. But it should have been Tiffany who was offering to hex Vivi into oblivion, not Mei.

“Are you okay?” Mei asked. “Maybe you should get some rest. You look beat.”

“I can’t.” Scarlett took a deep breath and held it for a second, hoping it would steady her racing pulse. “Mei . . . Gwen is dead. I just found her body. It looked like she’d been cursed.”

Mei’s eyebrows shot so high they disappeared under her razor-straight bangs. Scarlett watched as her pretty face went through a strong cycle of emotions: Denial. Acceptance. What-the-effness. “Oh, man . . . she was evil, but still . . . that’s awful. But then she couldn’t have—”

“Kidnapped Tiffany? No. Doesn’t look like it.” Scarlett crossed her arms. “I have an idea for how we can find her. But I need everyone’s help.”

Mei hesitated, her gaze drifting past Scarlett toward the front door, but only for a moment. “Dahlia isn’t here.”

“If she were, though, I’m sure she’d agree with me. Wake the Kappas. Have every witch meet me in the greenhouse. Now.”

* * *

“What’s going on?” Juliet squinted blearily around the greenhouse, clutching Jess’s hand. In the dark, with only half the taper candles lit, the trees threw gloomy shadows across the girls’ sleep-deprived faces.

Scarlett had never led the sorority in a spell like this before. She felt the weight of it like a physical presence. Help me, Minnie, she thought, looking at her sisters. She hoped they were up to the task.

“Sisters, I need your help. Tiffany needs your help. But I can’t command it. I am asking for it. Anyone who’s not up to it can leave now.”

Scarlett looked at her sisters, all in various states of undress. None of them budged.

“All right, then. This is higher-level magic. I need all your focus. We’re casting a new spell to find Tiffany. Reagan, can you give us some light?” Scarlett gestured toward the candle in the center of the floor. Reagan stepped over to touch the wax base. A few heartbeats later, a flame flickered to life on the tip of the wick. Scarlett flashed the girl a grateful look and left her to light the remaining tapers.

“Should we wait for Dahlia and Vivi?” Jess asked, reaching for her cell as Scarlett stepped back into the circle of Ravens. “Do we need their power too?”

“We don’t have time. Dahlia wants to find Tiffany just as much as we do.” Scarlett crossed her arms and studied the girls ringed around her, one by one.

“In Kappa,” Scarlett said, “we put our sisters first. And right now, one of our sisters is out there in grave danger. If we can help, we have a duty to try. Are you still with me?”

For a moment, her voice echoed in the greenhouse space. Then Mei stepped forward, eyes locked on Scarlett’s. “I trust you,” she said.

Etta bowed her head next. “Me too.”

Around the circle it went, some people just nodding, others assuring her in words that they were on board. By the end, even Juliet, after flicking a glance at Jess, offered a gruff nod of her own. Jess twined her fingers through Juliet’s and squeezed once.

“Earlier, I was looking at the sky,” Scarlett said, “and I was thinking that even though we can’t see the moon tonight, it doesn’t mean it’s not there. It still exists; it’s just a shadow of itself.” A few girls nodded. A slow smile spread over Etta’s face; she clearly understood where Scarlett was going with this. “When something disappears, it doesn’t just fall off the face of the earth. It has a history. It leaves a trace. A shadow.”

When Scarlett was younger, Minnie had spoken often of old magic, of the ways things were before witchcraft was formalized into grimoires and covens and written spells. Spells helped focus the magic, but that narrowed focus meant you lost something—the feeling behind it, the desires that couldn’t be put into words. Everything in this world had an energy, an essential essence, and people left behind a little bit of themselves in everything they touched. Whoever had taken Tiffany had blocked every one of the Ravens’ commonly used spells to locate her physical body,