The Ex Hex (Ex Hex #1)(7)

Wells folded his arms on the bar, leaning in. He had their father’s slightly austere features and a sort of resting glare face that Rhys had always found a little alarming, but his eyes were the same clear blue as Rhys’s own. “Maybe you won’t even see her,” Wells offered. “You’ll just be there for what? A day, maybe two?” His smirk turned wry. “That’s about the maximum you can give to one location, correct?”

Ignoring the jab, Rhys nodded. “I’m going to leave tomorrow. Founder’s Day is the day after. Get in, charge the lines, get out.”

“Easy-peasy, then,” Wells said, spreading his hands, and Rhys nodded again even as another vision of Vivienne’s tear-stained face seemed to float in front of him.

“The peasiest.”





Chapter 3




The stack of papers on Vivi’s desk was screaming.

Well, wailing, really, a sort of high-pitched shriek.

Frowning, she turned away from her computer and the email she’d been sending her department head to study the papers there on the corner as they emitted a high sort of wailing sound.

With narrowed eyes, Vivi reached for the essays, tossing one after another onto her desk until she found the one she was looking for. Not only did it appear to be shrieking, but the typed letters were slowly bleeding into red.

“Cheater, cheater, pumpkin eater,” she muttered as she checked the name typed in the top corner.

Hainsley Barnes.

Ah yes, Mr. Lacrosse. No shock there, then. He’d missed her last few classes, and apparently no one from last semester had bothered to tell him that Ms. Jones was particularly good at sussing out cheaters.

Being a witch had so many unexpected perks.

Smoothing her hand over the paper, Vivi removed the spell, watching the words turn back to black as the piercing whine slowly faded away, then flagged it with a red Post-it before tossing it in a drawer.

“What in god’s name was that sound?”

Vivi’s favorite colleague in the history department, Ezichi, stood in the doorway, wrinkling her nose, and, as the paper continued to whimper in Vivi’s desk, she gave the drawer a discreet punch.

“Alarm on my phone,” she answered as the sound abruptly cut off. “Reminding me that I was supposed to wrap up here, uh . . .” She checked the time on her computer.

Shit.

“Thirty minutes ago.”

It was the third time this week she’d been late for the family dinner her aunt Elaine was so fanatical about, but such was midterm.

Vivi shot up from her desk, grabbing her jacket from the back of the chair and her purse as Ezi pointed at her.

“Girl, do not disappoint the woman who makes my favorite bath salts,” she said, and Vivi reached into her bag, pulling out a small muslin sack.

“Speaking of, she said to give these to you, so thanks for reminding me.”

Ezi took the bag from Vivi like it contained precious gems, holding it to her chest and taking a deep breath. “No offense, Vivi, but I love your aunt more than I love you.”

“None taken,” Vivi said. “She’s magic.”

Literally, not that Ezi knew that. Vivi had made the decision when she’d finished her undergrad at Penhaven College that she’d do a master’s in history. Regular, human history, and that she’d teach regular, human kids, as opposed to the witches that took Penhaven’s other, slightly more secretive classes.

So far it was a decision she hadn’t regretted even if she did suspect she worked a lot harder teaching Intro to World Civ than she would have if she’d been teaching Ritual Candle-Making.

As Vivi jogged up the steps and out of the basement that housed the history department’s junior lecturers’ offices, she pulled on her jacket and attempted to text Gwyn at the same time.

Runing latr.

As soon as she hit the doors, her phone pinged in her hand.

I speak Vivi, so I know that means you’re running late. Don’t text and drive. Or text and walk, either.

Grinning, Vivi headed out into the quad. It wasn’t dark yet, and the October night was pretty mild even up here in the mountains.

Nestled in the valley, Penhaven College was a little gem of redbrick buildings and green grass, tall oak trees and neatly trimmed hedges, and Vivi loved it more than a person should probably love her workplace.

But she did love it. Especially now with the first hint of fall in the air, the leaves orange, the sky purple. Penhaven was always at its best in the autumn.

So was all of Graves Glen. Vivi noticed that the decorations for tomorrow’s Founder’s Day, the beginning of Graves Glen’s big Halloween season, were up. There were the electric candles in the window of The Written Wyrd, the town’s bookshop, and plastic pumpkin decals stuck to the door of Coffee Cauldron. Of course, Elaine and Gwyn’s store, Something Wicked, was all decked out, and Vivi was pretty sure she even spotted a dangling bat in front of her accountant’s office.

She hadn’t grown up in this little slice of perfection in the North Georgia mountains. Her parents had lived in Atlanta, and while Vivi missed them both a lot, she’d always be grateful she’d landed here in this spot that felt tailor-made for her somehow. This perfect small town where she could balance being a witch and a regular woman. Best of both worlds.

Elaine’s house was set high on a hill at the end of a winding road, and as Vivi drove up under the bright orange and red leaves, her tires bumping on the dirt road, she felt her shoulders start to relax a little, and once the cabin came into sight, she actually sighed with happiness.