The Ex Hex (Ex Hex #1)(38)

Charm and authority, usually a winning combination, but Vivi saw Dr. Arbuthnot’s expression harden. “A mishap,” she repeated, her voice flat, then busied herself with collecting papers on her desk. “Well, this mishap has apparently released a ghost from a very powerful binding spell, so I suggest you fix it as soon as possible.”

“A binding spell?” Vivi leaned forward. She’d heard of those before, but they were intense magic, far more serious than anything she’d ever attempted. “The ghost we saw today had been bound?”

The corners of Dr. Arbuthnot’s mouth turned down, but she nodded. “Piper McBride, back in 1994. One of our best students. Unfortunately became too interested in the darker arts, and when she attempted contact beyond the veil, she ended up accidentally sacrificing herself. This is why we’re so strict about certain types of magic being forbidden. Mess with the wrong thing, it kills you, as Piper learned, sadly.”

Dr. Arbuthnot placed the papers back on her desk, her expression distant. “And when a witch dies as a result of shadow magic, we have no choice but to bind their spirit.”

Vivi had never heard of that, but it made sense. Magic was energy, more or less. Do too much, it could drain your life force right out of you. And if you died doing something especially powerful, that energy had to go somewhere.

Like making a ghost.

“But now,” Dr. Arbuthnot said, her tone brisk again, “the magic binding Piper’s spirit is broken, so she’s free to wreak havoc. Which is obviously of concern to us.”

Linking her fingers, Dr. Arbuthnot placed her hands on her desk, studying Rhys and Vivi. “The normal parts of the college and the more . . . specialized parts live in harmony. Something I think you know very well, Ms. Jones. But ghosts in the library are obviously going to be very upsetting to the administration.”

Vivi actually felt like a tiny piece of her soul was withering under Dr. Arbuthnot’s gaze. “Absolutely,” she agreed. “Which is why—”

“Which is why you will fix. This,” Dr. Arbuthnot replied, biting off the words, and Vivi nodded so eagerly, she almost spilled her tea. “Yes. Yes, of course we will.”

“Good.” She stared at them for a moment, then waved one hand toward the door. “You can both go now.”

Both Rhys and Vivi put their teacups back on her desk so quickly they rattled, and made for the door.

Once they were back across campus and safely ensconced in Vivi’s office, Rhys took a deep breath, flopping into the chair opposite her desk. “All right, I see your point now.”

“Thank you,” she said, pressing one hand to her chest like that might stop her heart from galloping out of it. “They’re intense, right?”

“Extremely. And how exactly are we meant to rebind a ghost?”

Shaking her head, Vivi walked around the desk and sat in her chair. “No clue. But we have to.”

An idea occurred to her then, taking shape so fast she could almost see it. “Rhys,” she said, laying both palms on her desk.

He eyed her suspiciously. “Yes?”

“This is what we have to do. It’s going to take us a while to figure out how to break the curse, but while we do, we can at least solve all the issues the curse caused. Like how we fixed things at the store last night.”

Rhys was looking at her like she’d grown another head. “We didn’t fix that, though. Your aunt did.”

Vivi just shook her head, some of that god-awful guilt finally abating. They could do this, between the two of them. Right the wrongs they’d inadvertently caused. “But you were able to convince those girls that nothing out of the ordinary was happening. That could’ve been an absolute shit show, but it wasn’t.”

“First of all, it was definitely shit show–adjacent,” Rhys said, shrugging out of his jacket and hanging it from the back of his chair. “And secondly, Vivienne, we can’t just put out fires left and right. Especially when we don’t even know what those fires might look like.”

“Maybe not,” Vivi said, leaning back. “But we can try.”

“I enjoy your optimism, Vivienne, I really do.”

She pulled a face. “Don’t be cynical, Rhys. Not about this.”

“I’m not usually,” he said. He blew out a breath, scrubbing a hand over his hair. It flopped perfectly back into place, absolutely doing The Thing, and Vivi groaned inwardly. It really wasn’t fair. All the bad parts of the curse, and none of the silly bits? What kind of trade-off was that?

A complete bullshit one as far as Vivi was concerned.

Rhys’s phone suddenly buzzed in his pocket, and he pulled it out, with a frown, muttering, “Ah, bugger it all.”

“What is it?”

“Something’s gone tits up at work,” Rhys said, not taking his eyes off his phone as his thumbs moved frantically across the screen.

There was a cold sensation in the pit of Vivi’s stomach all of a sudden. “Is it because of all this?” Is it because of me?

“’Course not,” Rhys replied immediately, glancing up briefly to flash her a smile. “Shite happens in the travel business.”

He was lying. Vivi knew that. For one, he wasn’t very good at lying, his eyes somehow giving him away, and two, she knew that part of Rhys’s magic involved luck. What better skill to have when you planned trips for people? If something was going wrong, it was because of the curse, which meant it was indeed because of her.