Tide - By Daniela Sacerdoti Page 0,31

by her talking on the phone in the library.

“Do I have to remind you that you can’t take calls in here, Miss Midnight?” Mrs McGough began. “The school has a very strict policy about the use of mobile phones.”

“Sorry,” interrupted Sarah, and stepped out – but she hesitated and turned, her long hair brushing the boy’s arm, her eyes searching his, finding them, locking him to her stare.

A hint of the Midnight gaze – just a hint.

I’ve never seen eyes as green as this, the boy had time to think, just as the pain hit him. He pressed his hands against the sides of his head, sudden agony exploding right in the middle of his forehead.

“Ouch!” he murmured, staggering slightly. The librarian took a step towards him, then turned to glare at Sarah, as if something told her where the boy’s distress was coming from.

But Sarah was gone. The boy managed to open his eyes in time to see her striding down the corridor, her long black hair down her back. He blinked over and over again, as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing – there was a girl following her, a little girl with blonde hair, wearing a blue pinafore – a little girl who hadn’t been there a second before. He blinked once more, and she was gone.

11

Crown of Thorns

Because I never thought

It could be different.

Sarah needs time alone. She needs time away from me.

Very calmly, very coolly, Nicholas slipped the phone back into his pocket and let a silent fury sweep through him. Certainly she must see that this was a mistake. There was no reason they should be apart that night, no reason at all. They could only be apart when he decided. There was no sense in Sarah being on her own, or with that girl, Bryony.

I’ll start tonight. I’ll start with Bryony.

Nicholas closed his eyes and prepared himself to speak to his father. He knew the King of Shadows would rejoice in his son’s fury, his desire to kill.

The Surari heard their summoning from a long way away, deep within the Shadow World. One of Nicholas’s favourite species, the ancestral predators – those who fill human beings with primitive terror and awake memories of being torn limb from limb. Sarah’s house would be their target tonight.

Nicholas would be there to protect the girls, of course, and he would do his very best. But one of them would be beyond salvation, and Sarah’s breaking would have properly begun.

12

Scrying

If I came close to you

Would it be the way

It used to be?

Or would I know at last

That what was there is gone?

Sarah was in the basement where her parents kept all their magical and hunting equipment, the door safely locked, kneeling on the duvet spread on the floor. Open in front of her, the wooden chest that held their precious maps, some new, some so old they looked as if they would crumble under her touch. Sarah chose a modern map of Edinburgh from the stack and spread it carefully in front of her. She’d also laid out Sean’s protection charm, one of her mother’s silver bowls and the sgian-dubh that used to belong to her aunt Mairead.

Sarah unclasped her silver bracelet and took off her earrings, one by one, slipping them inside her jeans pocket – her mother’s diary had told her that metal interferes with magic. She sighed, summoning her courage. The scrying spell she was about to cast made her uneasy. Frightened, even.

The last time she’d tried one, she’d ended up being possessed by something that spoke through her, announcing the return of the King of Shadows – not to mention being thrown against the wall and getting badly bruised. It was unlikely that this attempt would go without incident. Which is why she had prepared for a soft landing – spreading two duvets and a few pillows on the basement floor.

She lit the white candle, signalling the beginning of the spell. The blade was cold against her skin. She flinched as her blood gushed red and copious into the silver bowl – she had sharpened Mairead’s knife and the cut was deeper than she’d intended. Her arm hurt and trembled as she lifted the bowl over the map; her heartbeat was furious and her breathing shallow as she closed her eyes and waited. The little red pouch started vibrating softly.

The air shifted around Sarah, a strange, electric feeling – and she knew the spell was working. She opened her eyes