Page 24 of Everything She Does Is Magic (Fableview #1)

Darcy

The spiral staircase creaks with every step, groaning under the frantic pace we’ve adopted.

In the attic, the walls lean in until they reach a point, covering us in a triangle of wooden slats.

There is only a bed, a clothes rack, and a mirrored dresser up here.

A single black sheet doubles as a curtain covering the sole window.

The clothes rack shows Anya’s limited collection of black apparel, with a small chest beside it that must contain her underwear.

I don’t know why my mind goes there, to wondering what she wears beneath her clothes.

It must be my burning desire to get further under her skin.

To keep peeling back the layers of her and know more, more, more.

Up here, alone with her, I can’t help but remember what it felt like to lie on top of her.

How she was so warm, comfortable but unfamiliar.

It’s all I have to hold me in place as I make sense of the last few minutes—telling my parents about college, then Anya’s aunt mentioning something about me being a protector. And a romantic interest.

“Every coven is different,” Anya starts.

There’s a pronounced waver in her voice.

“In our family, the initiation happens on your eighteenth birthday. In order to join officially, you need to name a mortal protector who promises to look after you. My family thinks that will be you, because I told them it would.”

She must see the way this startles me, how my face can’t help but contort into something frustrated, put off.

“I had to say something ,” she continues. “They knew I didn’t have friends anywhere I’d lived, and the clock was ticking on my choice. So I said you, because you were the first person I thought of. I’m always thinking of you, in some way or another.”

I want to be charmed, but my confusion’s winning out.

“My parents immediately wanted to meet you,” she says. “So I just kept getting further and further into the lie. But Aunt Cal has a rule against romantic interests being named as protectors, and somehow, she knows about us. I think she had a vision about it.”

“When were you going to tell me I was your protector?” I ask. It comes out like an accusation.

Maybe it is. There’s a part of me that’s hurt. Deeply. Not by her being a witch. But by the plan she’s made for me—a plan in which I’ve had no say. A plan that would keep me here in Fableview, when she knows that’s the last thing I really want.

“You’ve had all this time to talk about it with me. If you were worried about someone else overhearing, we couldn’t have been more alone out by the creek.”

The memory burns now, fire licking the edges of what was once so perfect. The truth has changed every interaction, darkened all the sweetness.

Anya’s stoic. It’s a stark contrast to the tears streaking down my face, fast and hot, and my hands, which move along with my every word.

I need to keep myself in motion, because to stop is to fall apart, and I’m not ready for that.

“All this time, you’ve been making up my future without my input.

You of all people should know why that would hurt. ”

“I do,” she says, still unmoving. “I wish I had a better reason. I never thought you’d actually do it. I just had to give them an answer. I was scared.”

“I’m also scared!” I argue, my voice rising against my will.

“All of this is new to me too. Just because I dated Kyle Holtzenberg doesn’t mean I understand how to do this with you any more than you know how to do it with me.

But I was the one who assumed you’d know me enough to know I’d want to be included in any plans you were making, even if you didn’t expect those plans to come true. It turns out I was completely wrong.”

Her face falls. I wish it didn’t give me any satisfaction, but the wounded animal inside my heart appreciates that she’s got her own wounds to lick.

“I’m so sorry,” she says.

“I know you are,” I say back. “But it doesn’t change that it happened. It doesn’t undo it.”

My dad appears in Anya’s room, the concern on his face a strange contrast to his silly pumpkin tie. “We have to go,” he says to Anya. “Thank you for having us.”

I make a move to protest. There is still so much we need to sort out. We can’t leave it here .

But my dad says three words he’s never spoken to me before, and they’re so foreign, so strange, I have to ask him to repeat himself, just to make sure I’ve understood him right.

“Darcy, you’re grounded.”