“No?”
“I’m not doing this.” I gestured to the circle on the floor. “This is wrong. You’re playing with something you shouldn’t, and yeah, maybe a few of you haven’t gotten hurt, but others have. People are dead, Jonathan. My friends. They’re dead, and I know it’s because of what you’re doing here. You’re invoking something, and whatever it is demands payment. Maybe not your life, but the life of someone else. You don’t just get free magic. You need to stop, before someone else gets hurt.”
Jonathan studied me for a long moment.
“Kaira, I wasn’t expecting this from you. Surely you see you’re being irrational?”
“This can’t go on,” I replied. I looked around the room, to Tina and Kai and the other musicians and artists I knew only by face. “You guys . . . you’re toying with something you shouldn’t be messing with. Kids are dying. And they’re dying because of you.”
“I think you should leave,” Jonathan said. “Normally, I wouldn’t have invited someone in like this, not without a more thorough screening. I’d thought you were a little more open-minded than the rest, but seeing as you’re already leading a witch hunt . . .”
He turned and walked toward the door. I didn’t move.
Why didn’t they see? How could I get them to stop? I wanted to rip my hair out. This was it. This was the key. And no one seemed to give a shit.
“You guys . . . you’re killing people. I know you think you aren’t, but you are. I’ve seen it. First hand. What you’re doing is wrong. You have to stop. Please.” It wasn’t until I reached the end that I realized there were tears in my eyes. But the kids weren’t having it. Tina actually looked sad.
“I thought better of you,” she said. “We’re all sad about Mandy and Jane. That’s partially why we’re here. To connect with them. To honor them. I wish you could see that. I wish you weren’t so blinded by your own fear.”
I opened my mouth. I wanted to slap her.
But how could I show them I’d seen the other side? I’d toyed with these powers and felt the full backlash.
“Nothing is free,” I said. “Everything you’re doing has a price. And you’re making other people pay it.”
Jonathan’s hand was on my shoulder. He led me to the door and unlocked it for me.
“I’ll tell them,” I said. “I’ll tell them what you’re doing.”
“And I’ll tell them you’ve read too many fantasies.” He said it with remorse. That was the worst part—he wasn’t vengeful or power hungry. He thought I was actually in the wrong. “I don’t want to play these cards, Kaira, but if push comes to shove I’ll have to recommend you graduate in absentia. After all, with your thesis and the stress you’re under, it would be an easy connection to think you might be inclined to suffer delusions. I don’t want it to come to that. So for both of our sakes, pretend you weren’t here. I’m sorry to have believed in you.”
Then, before I could rebut, he closed the door and locked it.
I wanted to scream. I wanted to kick and pound on the damn door until he opened it. I wanted to do anything I could to interrupt their stupid little ritual. If they went through it again, someone would get hurt. If they were invoking something darker, they might not know what was going on. They might not actually know the price other people were paying. And that ignorance was more dangerous than willful evil.
I stood there for a good fifteen minutes. I couldn’t hear anything on the other side of the door and had no clue if they were waiting for me to leave or had already started. Leaving felt like admitting defeat; worse, it felt like taking responsibility. If something went wrong, if someone got hurt . . . it would be my fault. Because I hadn’t stopped it.
What happened to not getting involved? What happened to graduating and going to college and living a normal life?
The questions were transparent. They didn’t matter, not anymore. I had to stop this. But no one in their right mind was going to believe me. I needed someone at my side to help convince the faculty to make Jonathan leave, or to shut this down. Maybe, if I called my mom, she could do something about this. I needed her, needed someone who could actually take Jonathan down, prevent him from hurting someone else.
Or you need me. The voice wasn’t Munin’s. It was the violet-eyed girl, the goddess with no name. I felt her hands on the back of my neck, a gentle caress. But it wasn’t just her hands. It was Brad’s, as he pulled me close, as he whispered in my ear and pushed her image down.
No one will believe you about this, Brad said. Just like why they would never believe you about me. You didn’t fight against me; you won’t fight against this. You will let them die, Kaira, because you will never stand up for yourself.