Page 8 of The Beginning (Covert Moon, #1)

Marigold

The Human Realm

* * *

I knew something was wrong the moment I woke up this morning in my sister's room.

The wrongness hit me before I was fully conscious—a bone-deep unease that made my skin crawl and my stomach clench. It was like waking up in a house where all the furniture had been moved three inches to the left while I slept. Everything looked the same, but nothing felt right.

Last night had been fine, with binging on old television shows and too much Chinese food and way, way too much cake.

There had been no reminders of why I hated this place.

Calyx and I had laughed until our sides hurt, sprawled across her bed in our pajamas like we were kids again.

It felt like… well, like old times. The way things used to be before Mother's political ambitions consumed everything, before the distance between us started growing wider each day.

This morning, however, was different.

Everything felt wrong.

The silence in the room was too complete, too heavy. Usually I would hear the soft sounds of Calyx getting ready in the morning—her shower running, music playing softly, the gentle thud of drawers closing. But now there was nothing. Just an oppressive quiet that seemed to press against my eardrums.

I stretched in her bed, my muscles stiff from sleeping in an unfamiliar place, and immediately noticed the chill in the air.

The window was open. Calyx never slept with the window open—she was always cold, always complaining about drafts.

The curtains fluttered in a breeze that carried the scent of morning dew and something else, something heavy and musty I couldn't quite identify.

Calyx was not here, and her room was an absolute disaster.

But it wasn't the normal teenage disaster of clothes thrown everywhere and makeup scattered across the vanity.

This was different.

Calculated. Her dresser drawers hung open at odd angles, and there were gaps in the clothing where specific items had been pulled out.

Her favorite jeans were gone. So was the vintage band t-shirt she'd stolen from me years ago and refused to give back.

Her lucky earrings were missing from the jewelry box on her nightstand.

Someone had packed in a hurry.

The first real clue, though, was my necklace.

It was the first thing I reached for when I woke up—that had been my habit since we'd gotten them.

Every morning, my fingers would automatically seek out the familiar weight of the gold chain around my neck, an unconscious reassurance that all was well in my world.

But this morning, my fingers found only tangles.

It was a simple nameplate with Marigold written in scrolling gold letters, the kind of jewelry that looked delicate but was actually quite sturdy.

The ornate curlicue at the front of the M had somehow wrapped itself in my hair during the night, pulling and twisting until the chain had snapped.

As I worked to untangle the mess, strands of my long pink hair came away with the broken links.

This should have been impossible.

Calyx had one with her name written just like mine.

We'd gotten them on a family trip to Italy years ago, when Calyx was nine and I was thirteen.

I could still remember that day perfectly—the narrow cobblestone streets of Florence, the overwhelming heat, and Mother's irritation when we'd dragged our feet outside a small jewelry shop with hand-lettered signs in the window.

"Five minutes," Mother had said, tapping her watch with one manicured nail. "We have reservations."

But five minutes had turned into twenty as Calyx and I debated over designs and fonts, our heads bent together over the jeweler's catalog.

The old man behind the counter had been patient, switching between broken English and gestures as he explained the different options.

Calyx had been enchanted by the idea of matching necklaces, something that would connect us even when we were apart.

"Like friendship bracelets," she'd whispered to me, "but prettier."

Father had ultimately paid for them without complaint, amused by our excitement. Mother had stood outside, smoking a cigarette and checking her phone, clearly annoyed by the delay. But we hadn't cared. We'd worn those necklaces every day since.

We had charmed them together with a protection spell as soon as we'd gotten home from that trip. It had been Calyx's idea, and she'd insisted on doing it herself. "So they would always be safe," she'd said, her small hands steady as she traced the runes we'd learned from our tutoring sessions.

She'd worried about breaking the chain, about losing the necklace.

Things had just started getting prickly between Mother and me around that time, and Calyx didn't know how to help.

She was still young enough to believe that love could fix everything, that the right gesture or spell could smooth over any problem.

Any spell we did on the jewelry would only protect the necklaces themselves, but I knew Calyx meant for me to feel that I would be safe too. She'd wanted to create something that would keep us connected, a tangible reminder that no matter what happened, we'd always have each other.

The charm we'd woven was simple but effective.

We charmed the nameplates, the result of which was that the necklaces themselves became surrounded by an invisible little bubble of safety where they would never break or bend, or have any harm come to them.

No matter how hard we were on them—and we'd tested this extensively as kids, pulling and twisting and even hitting them with hammers—they wouldn't ever break.

The gold would remain perfect, the chains would stay strong, the clasps would never give way.

Yet mine was now broken.

I wove a spell over the broken chain and made it whole again, fastening it around my neck. I gave it a little protection spell, even though nothing I did would connect it to my sister's without her weaving her own spell alongside mine.

"What is going on, Calyx?" I asked out loud, my voice sounding strange in the empty room. Was there a spell muffling the sound in here?

My thoughts went back to the necklaces, how they'd become so much more than just matching jewelry over the years.

She was always doing sweet things like that, finding ways to bridge the growing gap between us and the rest of the family.

I know she did those things to make up for the way Mother treated me, though she'd never come out and say it.

Once Calyx had realized what was going on—even if she didn't understand or experience it herself—she'd changed.

She'd appointed herself my protector in small, quiet ways.

The necklace protection was a silly thing at the time, brought on by a rather prickly fight I'd had with Mother the night before we'd cast the spell.

I couldn't even remember what the fight had been about now—probably something trivial that Mother had blown out of proportion.

But I remembered the way Calyx had watched from the doorway, her dark eyes wide with worry as voices were raised and doors were slammed.

Calyx hated when Mother and I argued. Our fights usually started because of something I had done that Mother perceived as an embarrassment, or some slight against the family name.

They usually ended with me storming off to my room and slamming the door hard enough to rattle the windows.

I'd throw myself onto my bed, my hands clenched into fists as I raged over the unfairness of it all, hot tears of frustration burning behind my eyes.

It wouldn't take long before my necklace would grow warm against my skin, a sign that Calyx was rubbing her own necklace in her room down the hall.

It was her way of sending me her calm reassurance that all would be well again soon.

She couldn't fix Mother's coldness or Father's indifference, but she could remind me that someone cared. Someone saw me.

Sometimes we'd have entire conversations that way, using the necklaces like a private telegraph system. Three quick touches meant "Are you okay?" A long, steady warmth meant "I love you." Short, steady pulses meant "Come find me." It was our secret language, invisible to everyone else in the house.

But now my necklace was just an ordinary piece of gold jewelry, repaired now, but the magic was gone completely—I could feel the absence of it like a cold spot in my chest. The protective bubble that had surrounded it for years had simply... vanished.

The only way that was possible was if one of the people who had cast the spell had deliberately broken it. Magic didn't just fail like that, not when it had been so carefully woven and reinforced over time. Someone had to actively unravel the work we'd done together.

And I hadn't done a thing.

Which meant Calyx had destroyed the spell herself. Intentionally.

The realization took my breath away, making me feel suddenly dizzy. Why would she do that? What could possibly make her want to sever that connection between us? The necklaces had been sacred to us, our most precious shared secret. For her to break that bond...

This wasn't some teenage rebellion or a fight with Mother that had spiraled out of control. This was something else entirely. Something planned.

And I was starting to realize that I had no idea what my sister had gotten herself into.