Slayer(73)

“High as a kite. I left him in my room to rest. In the meantime, I’m going to class, where you can fill me in on what you and my boyfriend have been up to.” He doesn’t sound happy with me. I don’t blame him. I violated his trust and put Cillian at risk.

“I’m sorry,” I mutter.

“Class,” Rhys snaps.

It feels tremendously unimportant, but Leo didn’t follow me out of the residence wing, so I can’t train with him. I could go out and search for Doug, but Artemis is watching me, perched like a hawk ready to swoop in. And I don’t want Rhys any madder at me.

“Great.” I force the words out. “Let’s go to class.”

Artemis slips into the library a few minutes after us, not sitting next to me. Her arms are folded, her lips forming a tight, stern line. Rhys is scribbling in a manner that can only be described as aggressive. Poor Imogen stumbles through her lecture on the difficulties of translating runes into verbal language.

I’m churning with anger too. Honora. My mother. Cosmina. Maybe it’s selfish of me—definitely it’s selfish of me, knowing what I do about Cosmina’s life—but I don’t want her here. First boarding school, now a new Slayer. My mother is determined to make sure I have no place in the castle.

I flip through my notes but pause when I get to my last entry. It was the prophecy translation assignment. My eyes bug out as I read it.

Child of Slayer

Child of Watcher

The two become one

The one becomes two

Girls of fire

Protector and Hunter

One to mend the world

And one to tear it asunder

When all else ends, when hope perishes alongside wonder, her darkness shall rise and all shall be devoured.

Suddenly it’s personal. “Child of Watcher, Child of Slayer” didn’t mean anything before. But now I know the truth of my family history. My father was a child of a Watcher. My mother wasn’t.

And my father mentioned a prophecy in his diary that seemed of personal concern to him and my family.

I stand. “Artemis.”

Imogen stops midsentence, alarmed by the expression on my face. “Is everything okay?”

“I need to talk to Artemis. Now.” I grab my notes and hurry out of the library. Artemis is behind me. I’m relieved. I worried she wouldn’t come. When we get back to our room, I slam the door and throw my notes onto the bed. “Look at this prophecy.”

Artemis rubs her forehead. “With everything else going on, I hardly think me helping you cheat on translations is a priority.”

“No, that’s not— The prophecy! It’s about a child of a Watcher and a child of a Slayer having two girls who will go on to break the world!” I jab my finger at it. “Gods, Artemis, look at it. It could be—it might be—it could be us. There’s no timeline, but we should at least talk about it.”

Artemis gives me a flat stare. She’s always the first to support me. But she looks like our mother again. “There’s a demon loose and you’re worried about some musty old prophecy?”

“I found a reference to a prophecy in Dad’s diary. I’ll bet it’s this one.”

She looks like I’ve struck her. “You read it without me.”

“You didn’t want to read it. I never said I didn’t. I came straight here to talk to you after, but you were getting cozy with Honora, and I wasn’t about to share personal information with her!”

“This isn’t about Honora!”

“It is!”

Artemis kicks over the stack of books I stole from the library for Doug research. “Nothing is about Honora! You need to get over this grudge. People could die because you decided you would rather punch it out with her than listen to someone with way more demon experience than you’ll ever have!”

“What’s that supposed to mean? Just because I’m not a Watcher-in-training, my instincts don’t matter? I’m a Slayer!”

Artemis throws her hands in the air. “Oh, good. Let’s bring that up! Because you discovering you’re a Slayer—two months after the change happened—makes you an expert in everything!”

I flinch at her tone. All my anger dries up, leaving only hurt in its wake. It’s not like I didn’t know something had happened to me. I was afraid to face what it was. “Why are you being like this? I’m asking for your help.”

“Of course you are. That’s what you do. That’s what everyone does.” She spits out the words. “We have hundreds—thousands—of prophecies in that library. If this one mattered, someone would have said something. This is the last thing we should be worried about now. You’re trying to find something else to distract me from the fact that you hid a freaking demon from me.”

It hits me hard. She’s right. She’s absolutely right. This isn’t a priority now, but I want it to be. I want anything that brings us together to be a priority. I latched onto this prophecy as soon as I saw it because it was easier to think about than everything else. It was easier than sitting in class, easier than making things up with Rhys. Easier than talking about this growing chasm between my sister and me. “That’s not it at all,” I lie. I step toward her.

She steps back.

“What about you?” I ask. “What was Honora talking about, saying you gave up your chance at being a full Watcher for me?”