exploded in my chest. I hissed and breathed through clenched teeth. Memory-me looked up and met his golden stare and my whole body warmed. He really was beautiful, but that was how incubus were. Gorgeous to lure in their prey.
Memory-me turned and charged for the wall with the painting. I sat up straight, trying to watch this part for myself. I saw the painting, my painting, of the hall in Oxford, and then I fell right through it.
Tegan gasped. “You can portal!”
“What?” I shrieked.
She giggled and did a little dance. “Girl. No one in The Coven can do that.”
My face fell.
“I mean, I can. But I’m not a normal witch and my way of portaling is so very different.”
“What are you saying? Am I some kind of abomination? What’s wrong with me?”
“Wrong?” Tegan frowned and the memory movie froze. “Chloe, there’s nothing wrong with you. This is a gift. I told you, your magic is stronger than the others. It’s…old. Powerful. Your family can do normal kind of magic, with normal spells. They’d all need wands and shit. You’ve got a real talent. An ability. I understand if it frightened you, given the way it suddenly came out, but just take a deep breath. Because trust me, I don’t know a single witch who wouldn’t kill to have this ability.”
I blinked and opened my mouth, then closed it. I frowned.
Warmth spread up my arms and then the memory movie started again. When I finally found the door with the rose etched into it and dove through, the images vanished. Tegan pursed her lips and let go of my hands. I shook mine out, then rolled my wrists. Holding on to her was like sticking a metal fork in an electrical socket – not that I’d tried that.
“How do I do it? Go through a painting?”
She tapped on her chin. “I think…if there’s a passageway in a painting, you may be able to use it. But you’ll need to be careful. There are always limitations to our gifts. Will you have control over where it takes you or will the painting decide? You’ll want to test this out cautiously. Find a painting of a place you know well but then when you step through, think of someplace entirely different and see where you end up. Okay?”
I nodded. “And the doorway here from Oxford?”
“Oh, that I have no idea, isn’t that exciting?”
I frowned. “That’s exciting?”
She wagged her eyebrows and nodded. “I can’t wait to go try all those doors.”
“What if it takes you somewhere weird and you get stuck?”
“I won’t. I have many ways of transporting myself, including portaling.” She rubbed her hands together. “But, have no fear, The Coven is going to investigate all of those doors. You just carry on with your life and let us handle it.”
“Carry on— what about that demon?”
“That’s not a demon. That’s a hellhound.”
“WHAT?”
“I want to meet a hellhound.” She gripped the crystal hanging from her necklace and light flashed – and then a big brown leather book appeared in her hands. She pressed her palm to the cover. When she lifted it, the book opened itself and the pages flipped like it knew where she needed to look. Tegan leaned forward and her eyes widened. She looked up at me and grinned as the book vanished back into a necklace. “Come on. Let’s go summon it.”
Chapter Six
Chloe
Bright white light flashed all around us — and then we were standing in the middle of the lawn. I spun in a circle and spotted the tall glass wall that was the backside of the ballroom.
My jaw dropped. “Bloody hell! What was that?”
“My portal.” Tegan giggled. “We’re just outside, still on property.”
I wrapped my arms around myself as a cold breeze rushed over me. I turned back to face her. “Tegan, what are we—” I froze.
Tegan was back in her jeans and boots outfit. Her long purple-tipped hair hung loose, whipping around her body. She stood a few feet in front of me with her arms spread out to the side. Her skin glowed like she had covered herself in glow-in-the-dark paint.
“Tegan—”
“Come here.”
“What? Why? What are we—”
“Chloe.” She flicked her wrist and my feet slid over the cold grass until I landed right beside her. We were almost the same height, so when her pale green eyes looked sideways at me it was unnerving. “I know what I’m doing.”
“You’re summoning a demon,” I hissed and wrapped my arms tighter around myself.
She rolled her eyes and waved her