“Fine,” Addison muttered.
She took something out of the back pocket of her shorts,
and in a flash, her eyes brightened, her cheeks flushed, and the
sweat dried from her brow.
“Okay, what was that?” Verity asked.
Addison feigned wide-eyed ignorance. “What was what?”
“You know what. I saw you do the same thing last night
outside the latrine. You’ve been doing it all afternoon in the
cabin. One minute you look like you’re going to die, the next
minute you pull something out of your pocket and you’re fine.
So tell me, what’s going on?”
“Nothing’s going on.”
Ordinarily, Verity wouldn’t have pushed the matter, not with
someone she barely knew, especially not with someone who radi-
ated popularity like Addison did. But Verity worried that if she
didn’t speak up now, something truly terrible might happen.
Magic was a curious thing, and Verity was sure that it
was at least partly responsible for what had been happening to
them. She didn’t like admitting it to herself because it sounded
crazy, but Pam was gone, the camp was deserted, something
was wrong with Addison, and they were currently following an
invisible current through the woods to find their soul mates,
who had no business being there. There was no other explana-
tion Verity could think of that made sense.
Of course, if that was the truth, what were they supposed
to do about it? In Isis Archimedes, magic was always a thing
that had to be acknowledged. It wasn’t a thing to be played with
or controlled, and it certainly wasn’t a thing to be ignored.
The best you could hope for was to understand it, and pray it
didn’t lay waste to you.
200
