Page 178 of Bedeviled

“Where, exactly, are we going?” I ask.

“Back to Ravensmeade,” Sybil says, as though it’s obvious. I guess technically it is, all things considered.

We must walk for a while, considering where we entered from, but it feels as though only mere minutes have passed when we finally reach the chamber beneath our residence hall. The wall sconces in this room are already lit, and wax weeps from the flickering candles.

My shoes squeak against the marble floors as Sybil, Nero, and I cross the room. We pass the lamassu standing guard, and I make sure to run my hand over one of their heads as we reach the spiral staircase out.

“Hi there, strangers,” a coven sister calls out from above.

I glance up to see eight witches peering down from the small space at the top of the staircase.

Among them are Olga, Mai, and Evanora.

My heart pounds at the sight of them. Goddess, this is real. They’ve all come here for this coven meeting.

“I forgot that we’re locked out of Ravensmeade,” Mai says sheepishly as Sybil and I climb up the stairs. “Rosemary is trying to untangle the threads of the spell, but⁠—”

“Actually, I got this one,” I say as I join the women in the small, crowded room. It feels like a lifetime ago that Memnon and I spelled this doorway to keep it closed.

I move to the wall now and place my hand on it. “Ifakavek.”

Reveal.

The wall shimmers into empty air, and Olga, who had settled herself against it, now falls through.

“Ungh!” she cries out.

From the other side of the wall several women gasp, and as the Ritual Room comes into view, I realize that even more coven sisters have gathered, including Cordelia.

I suck in a breath as I take them in.

“You’re alive!” one of them says, breaking the silence. “Blessed be.”

I hear another witch cackle, and then I’m being swarmed from all sides.

Coven sisters hug me and squeeze my hands—sisters I didn’t know well but who still decided to show up tonight, largely for me. They don’t even seem to mind that I brought an overgrown panther to the reunion.

My gaze moves over them.

“I don’t know what to say.”

“I do,” Sybil says, quieting the room. “Everyone here understands how you have helped—and are continuing to help—stop our sisters from being trafficked. Many of us have seen enough of that life to know that the people who captured us are powerful and evil, and we know that maybe even because of us, your life is now in peril. So we’re here to help in any way we can.”

My lower jaw trembles, and my throat has seemingly closed up.

For most of my life, I yearned to have the sisterhood of a coven. From my mother’s early stories of her time at school to my own experience at Peel Academy, the supernatural high school I attended, I wanted it, and I knew the bonds between us were strong enough to live and die for. It’s what the world is scared of—our power as witches, as women, when we are united.

Since I came to Henbane, that promised sisterhood was twisted by the malevolent schemes of wealthy supernaturals with too much power and too little conscience.

But now, I finally, truly get it.

My eyes prick. “Thank you,” I whisper.

Rosemary reaches out and pats my shoulder. “We’ve got you. For better or worse, you’re never alone.”

“Definitely for worse,” Mai chimes in as she hauls in tapered candles from a supply closet in the hallway, “but you’re still stuck with us.”

“Alright, sisters,” calls out Cordelia, a witch with dark hair, thin lips, and a dusting of freckles over her very pointed nose, “let’s prep the room for a spell circle.” She calls out a few more orders for specific coven sisters, and all around me witches jump into action.