Page 33 of Bedeviled

Still alive!

This was the agreement she and I came to after she learned of some (but definitely not all) of the shenanigans happening on campus that directly or indirectly involved me. She wanted to leave the extended trip she and my dad were taking around Europe, and I didn’t want that. So now I send her proof that I’m alive and she can blithely drink her way through several foreign countries. My mom texts back:

Mom

Smartass

Also, cute kitty

“Awww, she thinks you’re cute,” I say aloud to my panther.

Nero gives me a supremely annoyed look, then proceeds to shift out of my arms so he can lick his own butt.

I guess that’s how he feels about that. Another message comes in.

Mom

Soon you won’t have to send me these texts—we’re coming home in two weeks.

I nearly drop the phone. Two weeks?

See, the thing is, there’s a lot that I still haven’t told my mom.

Like the fact that I no longer lose memories when I use my magic. Or that I lived a whole previous lifetime I can now also remember. Or the fact that I can now recall all of this is because a two-thousand-year-old sorcerer I woke from enchanted sleep lifted the curse I accidentally placed on myself all those years ago. Oh, and that sorcerer happens to be a bloodthirsty warlord who also assumed I betrayed him, so as payback, he framed me for murder and forced me to marry him, but not before I made him my magical servant for a period of time.

Oh, and we’re soul mates.

And that’s not even touching on what’s been happening on and off Henbane campus.

I glance at my ring askance.

I should’ve fucking taken the annulment when it was offered to me. How am I possibly going to explain this to my parents? My stomach knots up as I send my mom a final text.

Selene Bowers

Can’t wait

CHAPTER 7

My period comes like it’s out to get me.

Naturally, it happens right in the middle of Wards.

I groan, then fish a tampon from my book bag and slip out of class while my instructor drones on about the potency and longevity of protective spells.

It’s only once I’m in the bathroom stall that I see the extent of the damage. In the minute or so it took to get here, I’ve bled through both my underwear and my jeans. Far more than what I’m used to when it comes to periods.

Despite the loads and loads of unprotected sex I’ve been having, I’m not pregnant. I exhale a shuddering breath.

I use a cleaning spell to scour away the bloodstains and make the decision to head into the on-campus health clinic and apothecary later.

I step quietly back into class and head to my seat. The room is sparser than ever, and there’s still that pervasive air of melancholy around me that seems to match the dull gray sky outside.

I slip into my seat and pick up my pen.

“Intention, intention, intention,” Mistress Wormwood emphasizes, pushing her thick spectacles farther up the bridge of her nose. “That is what makes a ward strong. Grind up all the rosemary you want, burn all the sage in the world, it will not help you more than your own heart will.

“With that, I want everyone to pull out a piece of paper and write a message on the front. Then fold your paper, ward it against fire, and when you do this, really mean it. Once you’ve completed the spell, I want you to remove the spellmark. This is your magical signature that gets left behind—it can look like lines or script. It is essentially a magical fingerprint, and I will teach you how to remove yours. Once you’ve done all this, drop your paper off in this basket.” Wormwood lifts the picnic basket next to her.