Page 53 of Uncharmed

Chapter Twenty-Four

SERPENTS

A nnie gathered up her skirts as she pushed through the throngs that flooded the dancefloor, a labyrinth of locked shoulders and sharp elbows.

She broke through the crush and pushed open the theatre’s rear saloon doors, gulping down a rush of cold air that cooled her bare shoulders.

A long corridor, green walls lined with dark damask wallpaper and portraits of centuries of Sorciety members.

Her heels clicking against the floor felt like ticking seconds, a countdown to match the beat of her quickening pulse.

She elbowed open the bathroom door and stopped short. ‘Ruby?’

Ruby was slumped against the sinks, her knees pulled up to her chest, back rigid against the porcelain.

Her hands were tightly clasped around her legs, head buried low.

Annie was so taken aback by the sight that she had to consciously make her body move, to rush to Ruby’s side.

It was as though she’d been transported back to Arden Place, seeing Maeve in that exact fragile state, bundled up as small as she could make herself when she was afraid.

But this was not Maeve. It was Ruby. Her friend, Ruby, who had, in the short time they had known each other, so often stood up for her and unwittingly acted as a shield.

Tripping over her gown, Annie knelt in front of Ruby and grasped her shoulders.

‘What is it? What’s wrong?’

Ruby peered up from resting her forehead against her folded arms and glanced at Annie with swollen red eyes, mascara streaks staining her face in blotches. She rubbed her nose against the heel of her hand.

‘This place, the pressure...I don’t know how you do it, Annie.’

Annie struggled to understand. ‘Do what?’

‘The Sorciety. They’re kicking us out – my family. Me, my brothers, my parents. They’re throwing us away, like we don’t even matter, and it’s all my fault.’

Annie felt her heart plummet to somewhere around her guts, fires of empathy being stoked in the most ferocious way.

She knew that feeling acutely well – the rejection, the questioning, the tender hurt.

But there must be some mistake, for them to have decided that Ruby Wrathshade wasn’t good enough?

It made no sense. Ruby was one of the most vivacious, bright rays of sunshine that Annie had ever met.

Her family were kind and humble and generous, keen to include everyone in the same ways that Ruby had with Annie.

Perhaps that was the problem.

‘I couldn’t care less what they think about me – never have, never will.

But my parents? They just wanted to find their people, feel settled, and I’ve ruined that chance for them.

How am I supposed to tell them? They’ll be devastated,’ Ruby said more quietly, barely able to make it to the end of the question before her words gave out to big, sorrowful sobs.

‘I don’t understand,’ Annie said, shaking her head. ‘How do you know? And why would they expel you? You’re...You’re wonderful! Your whole family is wonderful.’

‘Glory summoned me for a “delicate conversation”,’ Ruby said with added air quotes.

‘Apparently someone told the Heralds I was disgracing myself, embarrassing Sorciety members. Not matching the standards that they expect the spellborn to exhibit. But...’ she sniffed.

‘I don’t understand what I did wrong. I’ve just been myself. ’

‘Oh, Ruby,’ Annie said, feeling her heart break in an identical, mirrored crack with Ruby’s.

She took a seat beside her on the floor, wrapping her up tightly so that she could rest her head on her shoulder.

At least there had been a solid, tangible reason for Griffin and Cressida to be expelled.

This was just plain snobbery and malice and judgement.

‘You didn’t do anything wrong, please don’t think that you did. ’

‘Annie, I can trust you, right? We’re friends?

’ Ruby, usually so certain in herself, so confident in her mannerisms and presence, so unfazed by the opinions of others, looked impossibly vulnerable as she asked the question.

And something flipped in Annie as she saw it.

The Sorciety was bringing out this exposed, sensitive part of a woman who, until she became an unwitting part of it, had probably never had to ask that question before.

Annie hated them for it, for doing that to Ruby.

It made her wonder what it had done to her, too.

‘We’re friends,’ Annie said, giving Ruby a smile that she hoped was as reassuring as she could manage.

‘I thought so,’ Ruby said, returning the weak smile, wiping her nose again on her fluted sleeve. ‘I don’t know how to fix this for my family. There must be a way. They let you back in, right?’

Annie smoothed Ruby’s hair, staring out at the bathroom. ‘They did. But for how long this time? It’s all so...superficial. So precarious. You can’t make people like you, Ruby. That’s a cold, hard truth that someone tried to teach me recently.’

‘Well, that sucks.’

‘Kind of,’ Annie nodded. ‘But the other side is that it makes the people who do like you, the ones who really understand you, feel like magic.’

Ruby was shaking her head, half-listening. ‘ Precarious . What is it about that word? It comes up all the time around here. That’s exactly right,’ Ruby said, shaking her head. ‘I’ve felt like I’m swimming upstream this whole time. I’m exhausted. It’s damn awful.’

‘It is. But the right people don’t feel precarious,’ Annie said. ‘They feel solid and steady. They feel infinite.’

Hal flashed across her mind.

The bathroom door flew open and crashed into the wall behind it, so loud that Annie and Ruby both jumped.

Romily, Vivienne and Harmony all stumbled in together, paused for a moment as they took in the scene and then promptly folded into fits of laughter.

Romily was the first to compose herself, batting Vivienne, who promptly sent the gesture down the chain, smacking Harmony even harder.

‘What in all the realms has happened in here?’ Romily asked, unconvincing concern appearing on her face.

‘Oh, darling Rubes, have they run out of finger food?’ Vivienne said, pouting out her bottom lip.

‘Annie, there you are! We were wondering where you’d gone, thought you might have fallen in,’ Harmony added brightly, a slight slur to her words.

They writhed against one another, like snakes. The sheen of their glittered skin caught the chandelier candlelight so brightly it was as though they too were made of gleaming, immaculate glass.

Annie got to her feet, determinedly pulling Ruby up with her.

‘Mummy finally broke the news, I take it,’ Romily said, turning her attention straight to Ruby. ‘Such a shame, we’re all heartbroken, Ruby, honestly. But sometimes things just...don’t work out.’

‘Right,’ Ruby said coldly.

‘No hard feelings. Many witches have discovered that the Fortune Four have found them lacking. Most have lived to tell the tale,’ Vivienne said, with a look so gleeful it burned Annie’s skin.

‘Speak for yourself. This is all news to me,’ Annie replied. She didn’t dare let any part of it show on her face, but she felt a deep-rooted anger take over everything else as she held Vivienne’s gaze.

‘Of course it is. Let me tell you, Annie, there’s a lot that you don’t know. You’re not privy to as much as you think you are,’ Vivienne hit back. ‘You’d do well to remind yourself of that sometimes.’

‘Oh shut up ! It was you three, wasn’t it?

You’re who had me thrown out,’ Ruby shouted defiantly, although her voice cracked ever so slightly.

It broke Annie’s heart all over again and she tightened her grip around Ruby’s shoulders.

There had been no doubt in her mind who the ‘somebody’ had been who betrayed Ruby to Glory; the smug look on Vivienne’s face confirmed it in crystal clarity.

But Annie felt her friend stiffen at her side, as though forcing herself to stand taller.

‘Of course it was. Y’know, the three of y’all are batshit bonkers. ’

‘Well, that’s rude,’ said Harmony, incredulous. ‘What did we ever do to you?’ She faltered. ‘Oh, right...the frenemies thing.’

‘If it had been up to me, we would never have fraternized with someone so bewilderingly vulgar in the first place. But philanthropy is a huge part of being such a good person, it’s the least we could do.

It’s how Annie’s stuck around like a bad smell, too,’ Vivienne said, a lazy smirk draping itself across her lips.

‘I can’t stand to look at you three witches any longer,’ Ruby grimaced. ‘I’m out of here.’ She rushed from the bathroom, shoving her way through Romily, Vivienne and Harmony.

‘Ruby, wait...’ Annie called.

All she could do was stare at them, astounded. It felt like standing face to face with three complete strangers. Perhaps they were. Perhaps she’d never known them at all, just a version of them that she had convinced herself of.

‘Freak,’ Vivienne cackled to Romily.

Suddenly Ruby was Maeve in the canteen all those weeks ago, and Maeve was Ruby, in all of her brilliant unique ways.

Everything felt blurry. Annie could only identify a feeling of terrible, molten, defensive rage.

She felt her magic crackle. It took everything in her to hold herself back, not to shove Vivienne in the chest, send her toppling into Romily.

She could see their hierarchy of importance, one that she had always remained at the bottom of.

It was a sharply contrasting relief to the fairness and patience and support that she had found herself held by at Arden Place.

She had suspected for a long time what her so-called friends were capable of. She had experienced bumps and scrapes from their impact her whole life. But seeing it so plainly felt like a bright, sharp, stinging slap.

She turned to Romily, trying to find a trace of her old friend, the younger version who was kind and compassionate and believed in something more than outward appearances.