Scott Tracey - Moonset

I got the impression that he wasn’t supposed to be telling me all this. There was a difference between admitting the truth about the Congress’s plans, and then there was admitting the places where the Congress was weak.

A car door slammed outside. Jenna and the others were home, finally.

“I won’t ask you not to say anything,” Quinn said as he pushed himself off the counter. “But just be careful what you say. You are under guard, Justin. Whatever the actual intent was to bring you here, I can promise you that you’re safe.”

I wanted to believe him. I nodded, let him walk away as I waited at the table for the inevitable crowing that would come with Jenna’s arrival.

Safe. From what, I had to wonder. The warlock? Maybe. But was he really the biggest threat to us? What about the Congress? What would they do if it came down to a fight? Would they save us, or would they wait until the warlock was done and then swoop in to save the day?

Their track record spoke almost as loudly as Jenna’s did.

“Now is the time for sacrifice. There is blood in the water. And it isn’t ours.”

Sherrod Daggett

From a speech to his disciples

It wasn’t Jenna who came inside, though. Malcolm came in like the head of a parade. Cole was right behind him, and behind them were the boys from magic class, Kevin and Luca. It had barely been an hour since I’d seen them, but I was still caught off guard. Unfamiliar people in our house. We never invited people back to the house.

Luca. Seeing him and Malcolm in the same room was even more disorienting than seeing him at school. Mrs. Crawford had been right, they had the same look. The same eyes, the same hair color, but Luca was much shorter—only a little taller than Cole. My eyes flashed to Mal.

“You … he … ”

“Yeah, we figured that part out already,” he said. He glanced over his shoulder, but I saw the way his eyes skidded over Luca’s head. There was a strange pit in my stomach that lightened when I saw the stiff lines of Malcolm’s shoulders. Knowing he was tense and uncomfortable made me feel better. Part of me didn’t want to admit it, but knowing Mal had blood relatives freaked me out. We were only a family because we had no other options. Mal, who always had one foot out the door anyway, now had options. So to find out that the reunion wasn’t a thing of instant harmony relaxed me.

“They look like brothers,” Cole chimed in, ever helpful. “Even more than we do.”

“That’s because they’re actually related,” Kevin said, hands tucked into his jacket. It didn’t sound like he was trying to be mean, just stating a fact. Kevin seemed like kind of a dick, but at least he was really polite about it. “Sort of.”

“Whatever,” Luca said, scuffing his feet. “I don’t even know why we’re here.” He wouldn’t actually look at any of us, instead focusing his attention on the decorations sparsely spread around the room, as if they were absolutely more fascinating than any of the people. I eyed him, still mulling over what he’d said to me in the office.

“We wanted to see how you were doing,” Kevin said, turning towards me. “Everything got totally out of control in there. Even Maddy felt a little bad about it afterwards.”

Maddy felt bad? She hadn’t bothered to hide the fact that she didn’t like me very much.

“Really?”

Kevin’s lips quirked. “I said a little,” he admitted. “There’s a much bigger part that’s happy that she basically won the debate and proved you were a danger to the rest of us.”

“I thought you were going to deck me for a minute,” I admitted.

“I was,” he said. “Don’t get me wrong, what Mrs. C did was messed up, and Maddy didn’t help matters any, but I thought you were going to hurt someone. You were all red-faced and spitting. You looked insane.”

“I wasn’t insane,” I said.

“You looked like it,” Kevin said. Luca made a noise of agreement. “And if it came down to defending the crazy guy or the people I’ve known all my life, well … you know how it was going to end.”

That I did.

“Maddy doesn’t know we’re here,” Luca put in quickly. “She’d probably be really pissed if she did.”

“I thought she was friends with Jenna,” Cole chimed in, hopping up on the kitchen counter.

“Jenna doesn’t have friends,” I said automatically.

Kevin smirked. “I was going to say the same thing about Maddy.”

“None of us have friends,” Cole said, pulling one of his knees up and resting his chin on it. Oh great, maudlin Cole. It didn’t happen very often, but when it did, Cole was even worse than normal. I glanced at Malcolm, but he was too busy ignoring Luca to pay attention to me.

“We move around a lot,” I explained.

“Well, yeah,” Kevin responded. “Makes a lot of sense. It can’t be easy to keep the Moonset kids under the radar, right? And now you’re here, and … ”

“ … and there’s a warlock already here looking for us,” I interrupted. Malcolm and Luca both stiffened, and again the resemblance was too strong to miss. “Do they tell you guys anything?”

Kevin shook his head. “Not much more than you, I bet. We get a lot of ‘Don’t do dark magic’

PSAs, though. And every time he attacks, we have a curfew for about a week after. Like after last night and then the drawing in the classroom today, they’re not taking any chances.”

“Not that it does any good,” Luca pointed out. “They can’t figure out what he’s doing.”

“What happened last night?” Mal asked, grabbing an apple out of the bowl.

Kevin shrugged, looking to me.

I sighed. “The guy we saw in the diner? The crazy one? He killed himself last night. They think the warlock might have had something to do with it.” There hadn’t been any time to talk to Mal and catch him up with what had happened since yesterday. Suddenly, the tension in his shoulders wasn’t just about his cousin being in my house.

It was hard enough trying to keep everything straight, but harder still to remember what I’d told him or what I’d told Jenna. I’d become too good at holding things back, and every tiny oversight was a huge drama.

“Don’t worry,” Cole said, correctly interpreting the sudden shift in tension, “Justin doesn’t tell me anything, either. He doesn’t tell anyone.”

“Cole,” Mal said, his voice a warning.

“What? It’s true. Everyone lies to us lately.”

“That’s enough!” Mal snapped.

“How long are you out for?” Kevin asked, trying to steer the conversation back to something less personal.

“A few days.” I grabbed one of the apples, too, but instead of devouring it the way Mal was, I tossed it nervously back and forth between my hands. Just to give them something to do. Cole huffed and hopped down off the counter. He crossed the room and headed into the hallway, Luca following after a few moments later.

“He’s not a bad kid.” Kevin watched me as I watched them. “Luca’s got a rough deal. His dad never could cope with what his brother did. I don’t think he ever intended to have kids, either.

Luca was an accident.”

So it wasn’t any easier being from the “good” half of the Denton line. Malcolm was watching them, too, but I wondered if he watched for Cole, or for Luca.

“So if you guys are still around in the fall, you should try out for football,” Kevin said to Mal.

That started a whole conversation about school sports and college teams, and my head couldn’t take it anymore. There was aspirin in the cupboard by the microwave, and I shook a couple into my hand and dry swallowed them as Kevin’s sports talk got a more energetic tone out of Malcolm than I’d heard in days.

“Who’s having the best day ever?” Jenna announced when she swept in a moment later.

“Really, though, Justin. A murder threat?” She laughed, and added in a conspiratorial tone, “It’s much better if they don’t see it coming.”

I sunk down onto the kitchen table. Gloating Jenna wasn’t helping the pounding in my head.

“Get it all out now,” I said, dropping my head onto the table’s surface. Cold, I thought in relief, the wood like a balm against my head.

“What are the Odd Couple doing here?”

I shrugged, but since my head was currently resting against the table, I imagined the effect was wasted. “Don’t know.”

“So you threaten unholy murder and carnage, and that gets you a visit from the welcome wagon?” Jenna rapped her fingers against the table, knowing full well it would aggravate me. It did. “Maddy really must not be in the running for Miss Congeniality.”

“The teacher went psycho and used magic on me.”

“I heard,” she snorted. “It’s not turning out the way she expected, I’m sure. His grandfather is another big deal. They probably should have warned us that this place was preppy central.

Everyone’s got a relative who was some sort of mystical war hero or Moonset veteran.”

Which was something else to worry about. Why now? Why put us in a room with people who had every right to hate us? Moonset had targeted the magical elite, the witches with the most knowledge and political power. “Wait, what do you mean it’s not turning out the way she expected?”

Jenna looked surprise. “Baby brother’s the victim, haven’t you heard?” Her smirk widened into something that would have been a smile on anyone else. Jenna’s smiles were few and far between. “She wanted to make you look unstable, and instead, she made you look sympathetic. People are talking about how poor little Justin was taken advantage by someone he was supposed to trust.”

“They’re saying that?”

She nodded in the direction of Kevin and Mal. “That’s what he told his grandfather, at least.

Even Maddy mentioned that it wasn’t entirely your fault. But then, she’s also claiming that you forfeited the debate, so there you go.”

Maybe things were looking up. If we weren’t the scapegoats that everyone always tried to make us out to be. Even Jenna seemed halfway composed today—and we’d already made it through the first few days of school without her setting something on fire or staging a mutiny.

Luca slunk back into the kitchen, one hand stuffed inside his jacket.

“Where’s Cole?” I asked, lifting my head at his approach.

He shrugged, turning until he was facing Kevin. “We should go. I have to be home before my dad comes back,” he said softly. “He won’t be happy if he knows I was here.”

“I told you,” Kevin said, sounding like he’d repeated this several times already, “no one’s going to find out, okay? Besides, it’s not that big of a deal. If he finds out, just tell him we were forced to come by the school.”

Luca shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Whatever,” he sighed. “Can we go now?

“We’re going,” Kevin said, annoyed now. What was Luca’s problem, anyway? He’d been fine when he left the room with Cole.

Cole, I sighed. “He didn’t say anything to piss you off, did he? Cole doesn’t always think before he talks. He doesn’t mean anything by it.”

“I’m still here!” a voice shouts from the other room, his irritation audible.

Jenna sighed, standing from the table. “I’ll deal with him. But you should probably get them out of here anyway.” She strode from the room, and I could hear muted voices from the front of the house. Then the front door opened and slammed shut. Cole storming out. An audible huff.