a tidal wave and collided head-on with Tiffany and Scarlett’s new spell. The magic slammed together and exploded, blowing everyone and everything in the immediate orbit away.
Before anyone could move, before Scarlett even had the chance to take a breath, the sound of metal bowing rent the air, and the balcony cleaved right off the side of the house; it crashed to the ground with a thunderous clang. Gwen and Harper were thrown to the ground like rag dolls.
Harper died instantly, crushed on impact. Scarlett could still see the blood pooling around her on the concrete patio. Scarlett had raised a shaky hand to stanch the blood, but Tiffany pushed it down.
“Someone will see,” Tiffany hissed, eyes wide and wild.
“We have to help them,” Scarlett said, not caring about appearances, not caring about anything but her injured sisters. She raised her hand once more and began to chant a spell under her breath, but Tiffany pushed it away once more.
“They’re gone,” Tiffany whispered, hugging her friend.
At that moment, a boy checking Gwen’s pulse let out a shout. “She’s still breathing,” he exclaimed.
Gwen was rushed to the hospital in critical condition.
Scarlett was stricken and frantic with guilt. She only kept it together for Tiffany; she’d never seen her friend look so shaken. Later that night, before the all-hands house meeting, Tiffany had made a confession of her own. “Scarlett, do you know what Gwen and I were fighting about?” she said. “I found a deer heart and a wicked grimoire in her bedroom. She didn’t want me to tell Sadie, and as much as I don’t like her, I didn’t want to rat out a sister. But she was using evil magic. If Harper hadn’t interrupted her, who knows what Gwen would have done?” Tiffany broke down in tears.
Scarlett felt sick to her stomach and she began to cry too. Her mind was swimming with if-onlys. If only Tiffany had told her about the heart. If only they hadn’t pulled that stupid prank . . . but it was done. They were the most powerful witches in the country, but they couldn’t bring Harper back.
“We screwed up, Scar. We didn’t start this, but we have to stop it. We have to stop Gwen,” Tiffany said.
“Gwen can’t hurt anyone anymore,” Scarlett said, thinking of the unconscious girl getting wheeled away by the paramedics.
“She’s a witch. She’s stronger than me. What do you think she’ll do to us?” Tiffany said.
Scarlett opened her mouth to protest, but Tiffany was trembling, the air around them in the room picking up speed with her emotion. “We can’t tell. And we can’t let her hurt anyone else!”
The window of the room blew shut from the force of her feelings.
Scarlett relented. “We won’t tell. We won’t let her hurt anyone else,” she repeated.
Immediately the wind died down and Tiffany collapsed on her bed, spent.
After the meeting, they’d told Sadie and Dahlia what Tiffany had seen in Gwen’s room, and everything that happened after that went exactly according to plan. The sisters bound Gwen’s powers that very night. The administration had blamed the balcony collapse on faulty construction and spent the summer reinforcing all the balconies on campus. And no one was any the wiser about why Gwen had freaked out and done that spell in the first place.
For two years Scarlett had told herself that it wasn’t her fault. Not really. Gwen was the one who’d lost control. Gwen was the bad witch, the one going down a dangerous path. She and Tiffany had been right to stop her. But deep down, she’d always known what they’d done.
Now she recounted the incident to Vivi in a wooden tone. When she finished, she looked up at her Little. “Don’t you see? We blamed it on Gwen, but it was us. We’re the reason Harper is dead. If we hadn’t played that stupid prank on her . . .”
“Oh, Scarlett.” Vivi looked stricken. “That’s awful. Really awful. But you didn’t kill Harper. You said it yourself—it was supposed to be a harmless prank.”
“But it wasn’t. We told ourselves back then that we were protecting the Ravens from Gwen. But we created this,” Scarlett argued.“If we hadn’t done it, Harper would still be alive. And Gwen . . .”
“And Gwen would still have her powers,” Vivi finished, realization dawning in her eyes. “Do you think she wants them back?”
“Wouldn’t you?” Scarlett said.
“And now she’s on campus again.” Vivi sat back in her chair for a moment, as if to let the