This Coven Won't Break - Isabel Sterling Page 0,56

encouraged, but it isn’t against our laws.

“I wonder how Veronica’s pulling it off,” I muse after we’ve refueled the car and merged back onto the thruway. “Her girlfriend, Savannah, isn’t a witch, and they see each other all the time at college now.” A prickle of jealousy dances along my arms, but not because I want V back. I just wish I had the freedom to hang out with Morgan whenever I wanted.

I wish I could so easily forget the threats against us.

“What about you?” he asks. “And Veronica, I mean. I remember things were pretty tense between you when we first met.”

“Things are . . . better.” Out my window, the sky grows grayer as we creep closer to the central part of New York. A place Veronica says is all cows and cornfields. “We’re finding our way back to being friends. I don’t think it’ll ever be exactly like it was, but it’s mostly good now. She doesn’t want any part of what’s going on with the Council, though, which makes it hard to talk to her.”

“So, what do you talk about?”

“Our new girlfriends?”

Cal laughs so hard he nearly misses our exit, and I pretend to be annoyed at his amusement, staring out the window as we travel the rest of the way to Ithaca.

When we finally make it to the college, Veronica is waiting for us in the parking lot nearest her dorm. Despite the warm weather, she’s wearing full-length sleeves. I wonder if she’s actually cold or if she’s hiding the scar from where Benton shot her. Morgan’s parents had offered to heal the wound, but she turned them down.

I never found out if she wanted the scar as a reminder or if she was too creeped out to let the Blood Witches help.

We pull to a stop, and I slip out of the car, standing awkwardly beside the door until Veronica rolls her eyes and hugs me tight. Her embrace doesn’t spark any lingering romantic feelings, and I settle a little more comfortably into her touch.

“You two must be starving!” Veronica says when she slips into the back seat with me. “What are you in the mood for?”

Cal pulls out of the parking lot and drives around the edge of campus. “Something we can take back to the hotel?”

“You did not drive all this way to sit in a hotel room.” Veronica taps at her phone. “I know this great Thai place. We’ll eat there.”

“But—”

“It’s perfectly safe,” she says, cutting Cal off. “I’ve been here for weeks. I don’t want to hear any ‘it’s too dangerous’ nonsense.”

Cal meets my gaze in the rearview. I roll my eyes, hoping he can read the meaning there. Same old Veronica, always pushing until she gets her way. He must take my meaning, because he glances over his shoulder at her and asks, “Directions?”

To Veronica’s credit, the food is fantastic, and we manage to have a good time. She tells us all about life as a first-year college student and her surprise at the constantly gray sky. “I don’t know how I’m going to do all these hills in the winter,” she says as Cal picks up the cost of our food with a card sanctioned by the Council. “They’re ridiculous.”

After dinner, Veronica isn’t ready to go back to her dorm room. She drags us to the Ithaca Commons, a pedestrian area downtown with all sorts of locally owned shops and restaurants.

“This is cute,” I admit as we walk down the blocked-off street.

Veronica glances over her shoulder at Cal, who’s following at a respectable distance so we can chat in relative privacy. “So, what’s the deal with this Caster they sent you to fetch?”

I bristle at her flippant tone. “I thought you didn’t want anything to do with the Council’s plans.”

She raises an eyebrow at my bitter tone. “Excuse me for trying to have a life outside the shit that happened this summer. Not everyone wants to bathe in their trauma every day.”

“That sounds disgusting.”

Veronica pulls me under a small tree that’s draped with twinkling lights. “I’m trying to be here for you as much as I can, but I have limits. You need them, too. No one will blame you if you take time to heal from what happened. You should be allowed to recover instead of letting the Council appropriate your pain.”

“Appropriate my pain? What does that even mean? Who are you and what have you done with Veronica?”

“I’m serious, Han.” She brushes her fingers against the