for that,” Juliet purred wickedly.
Abel snorted derisively. “You would be.”
“Who asked you?” Juliet snapped back, her magic flaring with a loud pop.
Abel turned his bored gaze on her, and to the untrained eye, it only served to infuriate Juliet further. To someone who'd lived with the wild child and been her friend for nearly twenty years, it was plain to see how much that look hurt Juliet.
Ivy tried to imagine if Uriah threw such a disinterested glance at her, and it was enough to cause her stomach to sour and twist with agony.
Rowena reached over and laid her hand supportively over Juliet's. “Later.”
Ivy cleared her throat softly to get things back on track. “Not an ambush. I was thinking more of a parlay. My mother wrote in her journal that she'd felt like someone had been watching her for weeks."
As quickly and succinctly as she could, Ivy summed up everything she’d learned from her mother’s journal entries. When Ivy finished, Astrid rapped her knuckles on the table top and reached out toward her.
“Give me one of your rings.”
Eager for clarity, Ivy slipped off a thin silver band with a labradorite drop pressed into it and dropped it in Astrid's palm. Astrid shook her hair back and brought Ivy's ring to eye level. There was silence around the room as they waited for Astrid to do her thing.
“There's so much blood. Blood that birthed you, blood that binds you together, blood that's been sacrificed, blood yet to be spilled. Sacred power. Death and rebirth.” Astrid's voice was blank, her gaze fixated on the small stone of Ivy's ring, somehow managing to sound both detached and morbidly curious.
Astrid had one hell of a track record for being perfectly accurate when it came to divination and predictions. Uriah's hands tightened on Ivy's shoulders as a shiver worked through her.
Astrid sucked in a deep breath and shook herself out of the light trance she'd fallen into, offering Ivy her ring back. “There is something about your birthday, Ivy. The power of the day holds special significance to your father.”
Ivy took her ring back with a frown, confusion warring with frustration. Even accurate, Astrid's readings always held a level of vagueness that left much to interpretation, forcing the people receiving the readings to make their own choices as to how their future would come to pass.
“It is strange that we were conceived and born on a solstice day. My mom said the Green Man was disappointed we weren't both boys. It limited his options, apparently.”
“Prick,” Juliet muttered darkly.
“That's not technically true,” Uriah commented, tracing his fingers down the slope of her throat when Ivy tipped her head back to frown up at him.
Kerrigan beat her to the quick, asking the question on the tip of Ivy's tongue. “That her dad isn't a prick?”
“Oh, he's definitely a prick,” Uriah grumbled. “But no, I meant, Ivy and her brother were born seven minutes apart. Ilex at eleven fifty-eight, Ivy at five minutes past midnight. So, Ilex was born on the first, Ivy on the second.”
“Of course!” Callie leaped to her feet and ran from the room, her footsteps pounding up the stairs and after a loud whoop of triumph, back down a few minutes later.
With cheeks flushed and her short brown hair in disarray, Callie held a thick textbook up over her head with both hands. “Okay, you remember that class I took on Celtic Methods of Transmutography?”
Juliet snickered and snatched up a peach from the bowl. “Oh, we remember.”
“Professor Collins is soooooo hot!” Kerrigan cooed in a little girl’s tone of voice, clasping her hands over her heart, eyelashes fluttering dramatically.
“I love the way he waves his wand!” Juliet whined dramatically.
“I'm so hot for teacher. I want to rip that three-piece suit off with my teeth!” Astrid growled lasciviously, clawing her hand in the air.
Ivy joined in with a laugh. “One day, I'm going to be Callie Collins!”
Red as a beet, Callie stomped her foot with a squeal of outrage. “Come on! I was fifteen, and he was the hottest thing on two legs I'd ever seen! I was his best student, and if you want to hear what I have to say, shut your hag mouths!”
“Ladies, please,” Rowena said primly, but her gaze was alight with mirth. “Callie?”
Callie gave a snooty sniff, flipping through the pages of her textbook until she found the passage she wanted. “Yes! I knew that sounded familiar. This passage describes several rituals and myths related to the Fae. 'In times