Duplicity (Spellbound #2) (16 page)

“Hey,” Raj said when they’d entered the hallway after class.

Lee stopped, and he tilted her head gently before giving her the lingering kiss she’d missed first thing that morning.

Raj was smiling when he pulled back. Lee was sure her eyes were shining. “So, I’ll see you at lunch?”

Still smiling, he shook his head side to side.

Lee frowned. Raj gave her another quick kiss as though that would make everything better.

“Hey,” Lee said as Raj headed down the hall. This was where they split off to fourth period every day after Econ.

Raj turned.

“What about tomorrow night?”

Raj cocked his head to the side. “Tomorrow night?”

“Valentine’s.”

Raj broke out into a wide grin. “You’re not bowing out, are you? I made dinner reservations.”

Lee exhaled and shot Raj a smile before turning for her fourth period class.

How did one extract blood from a crafty and powerful warlock?

Gray sat at the kitchen table with a spiral notebook in front of her as though she would work out the solution like a math problem. Maybe she’d find inspiration if she wrote it out in essay format.

Instead, Gray jotted down words.
Adrian. Magic Shop. Needle. Blood.

The question was how to get him unconsciousness so she could draw blood.

Gray’s pen scratched the paper.
Sleeping salts
. She tapped her pen on the notebook. “Mom?”

Her mom sat on the other end of the table with a Scandinavian novel opened beside her laptop. Every so often her fingers stilled as she mumbled something in Norwegian until she was happy enough with her translation to begin pounding the keyboard again.

“Are there other ways to put people to sleep besides smelling salts?”

Mom stopped typing. “Why do you want to know?”

Gray dropped her pen. “You’re not going to like the answer.”

“Somehow, I didn’t think I would.” Mom sighed. “We’ve both been through a lot. Why don’t you tell me the truth?”

It felt good to tell her everything—all the way back to what had happened after Mom left to meet her contact the previous year. Well, not quite everything. There was no reason to distress her mother by mentioning the morning she’d woken in Nolan Knapp’s bed. It would only hurt her and Gray wasn’t about to let Nolan do any more damage.

She also left out the part about Charlene’s extracted soul. If it were to be recovered before Charlene found a host, what would happen to Gray?

Some of this was no doubt a repeat. Surely, Lee had already clued Mom in on the deal with Adrian and the early morning break-ins to steal their coven leaders’ pendants.

Mom didn’t say a word when she confessed to the break-ins. In fact, she was completely silent throughout the entire outpouring, which only made Gray want to spill her guts more. While she’d fully intended to tell her about Gathering and pretending to be Charlene for Holloway, Gray hadn’t wanted to worry her mother about their visit to see Adrian the day before. But her mom was being so patient and quiet.

The words spilled from Gray’s lips. “And that is why I need a sleeping spell, so I can take his blood and end the hold he has over Kent.”

Her mom blinked several times. “I’ll talk to Adrian.”

Of all the things Gray expected her mom to say, it wasn’t this. “Talk? You can’t
talk
to Adrian. Adrian doesn’t talk. He bargains.”

“Then perhaps I can bargain with him.”

“You have no bargaining chips. Adrian’s getting exactly what he wants at the moment: revenge.”

“Perhaps if he were able to see reason…”

“Mom! This is Adrian Hedrick Montez we’re talking about.”

Mom worried her lower lip. “Well, maybe if someone approached him from a nonthreatening standpoint, he’d hear them out rather than feel the need to go on the defensive.”

“Defensive! He froze Raj and sent Lee floating to the ceiling like a helium balloon.”

Mom folded her laptop cover forward and clicked it shut. “That is why I don’t want any of you going near him again. Let someone with more experience handle The Avenger.”

No way—Gray didn’t like that idea one bit. She was about to say so when there was a knock at the door. Their eyes met. Gray sighed. Mom’s study buddy had come by for another work session, no doubt.

“I wasn’t expecting Daniel this morning,” Mom said. She disappeared behind the entry wall. “Marc!”

Gray’s head snapped up from the table. Before Ryan’s dad stepped inside, she turned herself invisible.

“Hello, Marney. May I come in?” Mom must have hesitated because he added, “this will only take a moment.” Marc looked around as he followed Mom into the dining room.

Gray had vacated her seat in case Mr. Phillips chose to pull it back for his own use.

“Is Charlene here?”

Gray’s heart pounded in her throat. She inched her way along the wall and hovered in the corner. The Beetle was parked in the driveway; obviously she hadn’t left the house.

“She’s sleeping in,” Mom said. “Still jetlagged from her flight home.”

Mr. Phillips stopped behind the chair Gray had occupied seconds earlier. She gave thanks that she’d abandoned her spot. He wrapped his fingers around the top of the seatback.

Mom’s eyes narrowed on his hands. “What brings you by, Marc?”

“Not much, I thought we might catch up. I haven’t seen you since… well, since last year.”

Mom frowned. “You said this would be brief.”

Mr. Phillips released the chair. “Is this any way to treat an old friend? I know you, Marney. I know everything.”

“Everything,” Mom repeated, lifting a brow. There was a hint of amusement in the way she said the word.

It did nothing to deter Mr. Phillips. “I know you tried to bring Graylee back from the dead and that she and Charlene got stuck sharing a body. I know that Charlene solicited the help of Adrian Montez and… with the help of my son, successfully extracted the invasive presence of her sister.” Marc stared hard at Mom as though trying to read her mind. When she didn’t respond he asked, “what happened to you, Marney? You used to be a model member of our coven.”

This time, Mom reacted. Her eyes narrowed to menacing slits. “I lost a daughter. That’s what happened.”

“That’s no excuse and you know it.”

Mom moved briskly to the space between the dining room and the entryway. “What I did is no one’s business but my own. Any parent who has ever lost a child would understand.”

Marc turned but made no move to follow her out of the room. “But it is our business. It was your actions that led to Adrian’s release. You upset the natural order, and there will be consequences. There already have been consequences, haven’t there?”

Gray was tempted to throw one of the apples from the fruit bowl at Mr. Phillips for speaking to her mother that way.

“I think it’s time you left,” Mom said.

This time, Mr. Phillips released the chair. He took his time walking into the entryway. He paused once his feet hit the small squares of tile on the floor. “What would your new boyfriend think if he knew you were a witch?”

Mom’s voice turned to acid. “Are you threatening me, Marc?”

The jerk smiled in response. It gave Gray the creeps that he used to date her mother. Mr. Morehouse was Mr. McDreamy in comparison. Gray followed their voices as they receded to the front door. She steered clear of the tile to keep Mr. Phillips from hearing her steps. When he came into her line of vision, he was still grinning.

“Don’t worry, Marney. I won’t out you. It’s not as though you’re a witch anymore.” He gave her an assessing once-over. “Are you?”

“Leave, Marc,” Mom said. “Leave and never come back.” She slammed the door on Marc the second the soles of his shoes touched the porch.

 By the time Mom turned around, Gray had filled herself in. She gave a little start when she saw Gray. Mom forced a laugh. “Oh, Gray, I forgot you were down here.” Mom patted the spot below her throat where the nazar Lee had given her the night before was hidden under her sweater. “I’m beginning to understand why you and Charlene never wanted to date warlocks.”

Mom moved to the table and opened her laptop.

Gray followed her into the dining room. “What did Mr. Phillips mean when he said you’re not a witch anymore?”

“Marc doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” Mom said. She craned her neck to the left, read a few lines from her book, and began typing.

“Mom.”

Mom kept typing.

“Mom, I told you everything. Shouldn’t you tell me?”

Finally, she stopped typing and looked up. “What do you want to know?”

“Who is your contact?”

“I already told you last year. I can’t tell you. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t.”

“Fine,” Gray said. “What did you have to give him in exchange for my life?”

“What do you mean? I hired someone. That’s all.”

Gray let out an exasperated breath. “Mom, you don’t just hire someone to do a resurrection spell. There has to be a cost—no doubt a high one. What did you give him?”

The chair wailed when Mom pushed it back. She stood eye-level with Gray. “I gave him my powers,” she said. “All of them.”

It took Gray a moment to follow her mom into the kitchen. At first, she stood dumbfounded as Mom filled a tea kettle and set it on the stovetop. Gray walked in slowly and watched her motions for several seconds. “You have no powers,” she said slowly. “That’s why you started using a key to open the front door.”

Mom stilled over the stovetop. Then, she nodded. “That’s right.”

“But… but…” Gray felt like crying. The mere thought of tears brought them into her eyes.

Mom turned and pulled her into a tight hug. It was the first real hug Gray had felt since coming back as a duplicate. She wanted it to last longer, but Mom was already pulling back. “It’s not so bad,” she said.

“Not so bad,” Gray repeated. Magic was everything. It set them apart from the ungifted. A witch without power was like a song without sound. “This is terrible. What can we do to get it back?”

Mom smiled sadly. “There’s no getting it back.”

“There has to be a way.”

“Graylee, listen to me. Magic means nothing to me without you. I got you back. That’s all I ever wanted.”

Gray blinked back tears. “There’s something I forgot to tell you about our encounter with Adrian the other day. He said Charlene was extracted, but not purged, when I came into consciousness. Her soul is floating around France. I suppose she’ll want her body back.”

Mom sucked in a breath. Relief flooded her features. Her mom had no way of knowing her reaction tore through Gray’s replicated soul with a brutality that left her in shreds.

Mom’s expression changed, but it wasn’t because she’d sensed the bitter ache in Gray’s heart. “There’s one problem. Charlene can’t take over a healthy body.” Mom made for the stairs. “I have a contact.”

“As in The Contact?”

“No, a different contact. A soul seeker. She might be able to locate Charlene. Charlene’s a clever girl. For all we know, she’s already figured it out.”

For all they knew, she’d taken on the form of a dude. Maybe she was French now.

Well, France could have her. If Charlene hadn’t gone wacko over her lame-o boyfriend and accidently killed Gray with poisoned chocolates, Mom would still have her powers, Gray would have her real body—the one now rotting underground—and there’d be no duplicates. At this moment, Gray would be at McKinley High meeting her best friend Thea for lunch. It would be Gray, and not Lee, counting down the days till graduation.

But would she have kissed Raj if she hadn’t died?

Before the resurrection, she wouldn’t give him the time of day. It wasn’t until Raj revealed the compassionate and loyal side of himself—his true self—that Gray had started falling for the headstrong warlock.

Meeting Raj after school was a bad idea, but Gray needed someone to talk to. Worse, when she’d sent a text suggesting mochas at The Daily Grind, he’d instantly messaged back: “I’m there!”

Those two words sent Gray’s heart flapping inside her throat.

Dope
, she told herself.

Gray half-expected Lee to walk in beside Raj, but he entered the coffee shop alone. She watched him from the corner table—their table. Gray lifted her hand and waved then dropped it quickly, feeling like a dork. But Raj smiled instantly and lifted his left hand.

“Hey,” Raj said when she joined him at the order counter.

“Hi.”

“Have you ordered yet?”

“No, I was waiting for you.”

The barista pressed her slender, tattooed body against the counter and looked from Gray to Raj. She lifted a pierced brow.