“I don’t know that many other sorcerers.”

“But you know some.”

“Sorry-in-the-Vale,” Henry said, and hesitated. “People talk about it like it’s a law unto itself. The other sorcerers might want to keep away from it, like they always have.”

“But if you talked to them,” Kami said. “Lillian Lynburn doesn’t want this any more than you or I do. If you could make them understand that there are sorcerers here who don’t want to go back to the old ways or the old laws, do you think they might help?”

“I could try,” Henry said at last. “We’re not a community like the Vale sorcerers, but there are a few of us who try to keep in touch. I can ask.”

“Thank you,” Kami told him. She hoped he could hear how much she meant it.

“Good luck, Kami,” Henry told her. “I really will try.”

Kami said to the dial tone, “That’s all I ask.” She slipped her phone into her pocket and looked up at Jared. “Well?”

He was just looking at her; she couldn’t quite read his expression. “ ‘My best friend beat Rob Lynburn half to death with a chain’?” Jared asked. “I thought you said you were going for subtle.”

Kami opened her mouth and closed it, so overcome with indignation that she could not speak.

“But you really pulled off effective,” Jared added with a grin.

Kami remembered how the feeling that provoked that grin had felt, his amusement rippling through her. She could not help smiling back. “Less of your sass, Lynburn. Nobody likes a tavern wench who gives them backchat. It’ll be hell on your tips.”

“My tips are extremely good,” Jared noted. “Mrs. Jeffries from the post office seems to like how I wear a pair of jeans. Or possibly she’s waiting to like how I wear Perfectly Luscious Plum Lip Gloss.”

“I think you should try it. I bet it would suit you.” Kami hesitated. She’d told Jared about Henry, and interrupted him with Holly. She couldn’t think of any other reason to stay.

“Come back inside,” Jared said. “It’s freezing out here. And as the resident tavern wench, I can score you a hot toddy.” He held open the door for her.

“Yeah,” Kami said, and smiled up at him. “All right.”

“I will, however, be expecting a tip.”

“Why is it always saucy o’clock for tavern wenches, that is what I want to know,” Kami said, passing into the bright warmth of the bar. Then she stopped so abruptly that Jared walked into her. He jerked back as soon as they touched.

Kami barely even registered it.

Sharing a bench in the Water Rising, leaning into each other whispering and flirting, were Rusty and Amber Green. Rusty, and one of Rob Lynburn’s sorcerers.

Chapter Seventeen

The Montgomery Secret

Kami did not know how to tell Angela about her brother’s decision to date evil.

The next day, The Nosy Parker came out, with the article Kami had written to explain sorcery to her brothers in it. The article did not specifically mention magic, or Rob Lynburn’s demands. It talked about Sorry-in-the-Vale being under threat, the temptation to do nothing, and the absolute necessity of standing against evil.

Kami left the table in the front hall of the school stacked high with newspapers, and when she came back with Angela before her first class, the table was bare.

“You realize this means you have to photocopy some more in your free class,” Kami instructed Angela sternly.

“I like to think of it as my nap class,” Angela said. “I’m a very advanced student, but I’ve got to keep in training.”

“We have to spread the message of rebellion.”

“I don’t know how you expect me to fight evil while insufficiently rested,” Angela complained.

They were walking down the hall together. Angela was swinging her messenger bag and there was a multicolored scarf flying blazing colors from her neck. She seemed, insofar as one could tell with Angela, happy.

Angela changed the direction of her sphinxlike smile suddenly, and Kami glanced around to see Holly approaching in a cloud of bright curls and fuzzy pink jumper.

“Hi, Angie,” Holly said, and in a more subdued manner: “Hi, Kami.” She fell into step with them, walking on Kami’s other side, and said, “I got you some of my parents’ things.” She pressed a little bag into Kami’s hand, like a peace offering.

“Thank you,” said Kami.

Her hope that they could leave it at that died when Holly said, “So we should probably talk.”

“I have no objection to talking, ever, at any time at all,” Kami said. “You most likely know this about me already. But if you’re thinking of what I think you’re thinking of, we don’t really need to talk about it. I mean, it’s none of my business. Though I’m sorry about my amazingly awkward timing.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Holly said. “It wasn’t anything, I swear. I don’t want to have caused any trouble between you guys.”

“There’s always trouble between us,” Kami told her. “But none of it is your fault. We had a talk after you were gone; I think it went okay.”

“Oh, good.” Holly glanced at Angie and bit her lip. “I wanted to say I was sorry.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” Kami said firmly. “But if you have any free classes today, please photocopy some extra copies of the paper and I promise to love you always and forgive you for any evil you ever do. Some say love cannot be bought, but mine is available at this time for anyone with a good heart and the ability to use a photocopier.”

Holly looked uncertain, but Kami kept a stare of laser-like focus on her and she gave in. She dropped the subject, and offered, “I do have a free class after lunch.”

“So do I,” said Angela, and did not mention napping.

Kami gave her a betrayed look, which Angela deserved for being one of those girls who was willing to go above and beyond in the cause of fancying people and not in the sacred name of friendship. “Also, I have some good news,” Kami said, and then saw Amber Green go into the ladies’. “Which I will tell you later! Go on ahead without me!” she finished brightly, and darted after her quarry.

Kami was in luck. There was nobody else in the bathroom. Amber was in front of the mirror applying lip gloss. The little tube clattered into the sink when Kami came in and leaned against the door.

Kami saw her face in the mirror, eyes wide and lips parted. Then her expression shut down, every feature clicking into place and forming a mask.

“Hey, Amber,” Kami said. “I want to talk.”

Every tap in the bathroom glittered as they all turned at once. A half dozen streams of water were in sudden hissing unison, like a chorus line of snakes. “Well,” Amber said, “I don’t.”

Kami looked at the sinks splashing with water. “Is that meant to intimidate me?”

Over Kami’s head, the skylight splintered. She looked up and saw the sudden cracks, reflecting rainbow points, racing to join together and form a spiderweb. Then the skylight imploded, sending shards raining down on her shoulders and hair.

Kami closed her eyes and waited for the glass to stop falling. When she opened them, she saw Amber standing with her back to the sinks, hands behind her back gripping onto the porcelain. Amber was standing in a flood with her shoes getting wet. She didn’t seem to notice. She was staring at Kami.

Kami saw her own face in the mirror. There was a cut on her cheek, and the rising red of blood.

“Maybe you killed some animals,” Kami said with growing confidence. “But we’ve known each other since we were born. We sat together in class for five years. You got in trouble for talking during a test once when you loaned me a sharpener.”

“I’m not your friend,” Amber told her sharply. “We were never friends.”

“I know that,” Kami said. “But you know me. And you’re not going to kill me.” She took a step forward and Amber’s body tensed. The memory of Sergeant Kenn’s thorns slicing into her arms came back to her. She could get really hurt if she was guessing wrong. Kami stepped forward again, and Amber’s eyes dropped.

“What are you doing with Rob Lynburn?”

“What are you thinking, standing against him?” Amber asked softly. “Don’t you realize he can—we can do magic? This town was built for sorcerers to rule. What makes you think you can stand against us? What are you, stupid?”

“Is that what you want?” Kami asked. “To rule?”

Amber flushed, color contrasting sharply with the fox fire of her hair. “I’m a sorcerer. I don’t want to live in a city, getting sick every autumn because the year is dying and I don’t have enough magic to thrive. Sorry-in-the-Vale is where I belong, and it’s going to belong to Rob.”

“It doesn’t have to. What if—”

“What if I said no, and he killed someone I love?” Amber demanded. “Have you even thought about what the cost of standing against him would be?”

“Have you even thought about what the cost of not standing against him would be?” Kami asked.

Sorcery had turned the bathroom into its own self-contained pool with the water rising. The broken glass was floating now, so much sharp, glittering debris.

“It’s all right for you,” Amber said. “Your family were always the Lynburns’ pets. What’s the plan for you, that you’ll just be passed from one Lynburn boy to another as a source? Or are you hoping to become the next Matthew Cooper, and have them both? You’ll always have something to protect you. And you’re not a sorcerer. Once Rob gets what he wants, once the town is back to the way it used to be, things will be relaxed. The people who want to keep the benefits of Sorry-in-the-Vale will stay, and those who don’t will leave. You can go away. But I can’t.”

Kami thought suddenly of Henry Thornton, skin sickly gray in his London flat, confessing on the phone that he didn’t know many sorcerers. Sorry-in-the-Vale offered a sense of community for sorcerers like Amber. It was made for her, in a way. “If you don’t want to leave,” Kami said, “surely you want this to be a place worth living in?”

“I can live with what Rob wants,” Amber said. “It comes with all kinds of advantages for me. There’s no guarantee of living on your side. You should think about that. It’s less than two weeks until winter solstice, and the other Lynburns are going to lose. There’s no guarantee, even for you.”

“I’ll take my chances. What does Rob Lynburn want with Rusty?”

Amber blinked, then smiled a very careful, cool smile. “Why would you think he wants anything to do with Rusty? He’s not magical. Maybe it’s me who wants something to do with Rusty,” she said, a faint touch of slyness in her smile. “He’s very good-looking. Perhaps you’ve noticed that already.”

“Jared, Ash, and now Rusty?” Kami asked. “This is a frenzied romantic merry-go-round I’m on in your imagination. I’m kind of flattered. And don’t you have a boyfriend?”

Amber had always been that girl, the one who seemed to have been born with a boyfriend. Now that Kami knew Ross and Amber were both sorcerers, the idea that Amber had been born with a boyfriend was disturbingly close to the truth.

Amber shrugged. “Ross and I aren’t exclusive. It doesn’t matter. He knows how I feel about him. He knows I don’t take Rusty seriously.”

“You can tell Ross, and anyone else who’s interested,” Kami said, “that I do. I take Rusty extremely seriously. If anyone has any plans concerning him, if anyone even thinks about hurting my friends, I will—”