"I know." Jenna shook her head. "We have this theory that it's her
Portable Portal to hell. You know, she just stretches it out and steps through whenever she needs to recharge her evilness."
I laughed, even as I wondered if Jenna was actually being serious.
"There's also a groundskeeper," Jenna added. "Callahan, but we all call him Cal. I don't see him tonight."
We moved on to the students. I noticed that Archer was sitting at a table with a bunch of other guys. They were laughing at something Archer was saying. I really hoped it wasn't the "Bad Dog" story. "What about that guy?" I asked with forced casualness.
"Archer Cross, resident bad boy and total heartthrob. Warlock. Every girl here is at least, like, half in love with him. Crushing on Archer Cross might as well be a class."
"What about you?" I asked. "You have a crush on him?"
Jenna studied me for a moment before saying, "He's not really my type."
"What, you don't do tall, dark, and handsome?"
"No," she said lightly. "I don't do guys."
"Oh," was all I could say to that. I'd never had a gay friend. Then again, I'd never really had a lot of friends.
Still looking at Archer, I said, "Yeah, well, I attempted to kill him earlier."
After Jenna recovered from the sweet tea that nearly shot out of her nose, I filled her in on the actual story.
"Mrs. Casnoff didn't seem very impressed with him," I said.
"She wouldn't be. Archer was always in trouble last year. Then he left in the middle of the school year for almost a month, and there were all these rumors about him. People thought he went to London."
"Why? So he could ride one of those double-decker buses?"
Jenna gave me a funny look. "No, London is where Council headquarters is. Everybody thought he'd gone through the Removal."
I'd read something about that in one of Mom's books. It was this really intense ritual that took away magical powers. But something like one in a hundred Prodigium survive it. I'd never heard of anyone going through it voluntarily.
"Why would he do that?" I asked.
She pushed her food around on her plate. "He and Holly were . . . really close, and he was in a bad place after she died. A couple of people said they heard him telling Casnoff that he hated what he was, wanted to be normal, stuff like that."
"Huh," I said. "So he and Holly were a couple?"
"You could say that."
I clearly wasn't going to get any more out of Jenna about that, so I said, "Well, apparently he didn't go through the Removal. He's still got powers."
"Yeah, powers over your pants," Jenna said with a giggle.
I threw a roll at her, but before she could retaliate, Mrs. Casnoff rose from her seat. She raised her hands over her head and the room fell quiet so quickly, you would have thought she'd just cast a silencing spell.
"Students," she drawled. "Dinner is now concluded. If this is not your first night at Hecate, please exit the dining hall. The rest of you are to remain seated."
Jenna gave me a sympathetic look and cleared our empty plates.
"Sorry in advance for what you're about to see."
"What?" I asked as the dining hall began to empty. "What's going to happen?"
Jenna shook her head. "Let's just say you may regret that second piece of cake."
Oh my God. Regret cake? Whatever was about to happen must be truly evil.
Everyone was filing out when Mrs. Casnoff's voice rang out. "Mr.
Cross? Where are you going?"
Archer was only a few feet from me and about to head out the door. I also noticed that he was holding hands with Elodie. Interesting. Of course it made total sense that the two people who already seemed to dislike me the most would be dating.
Archer stared down the length of the ballroom at Mrs. Casnoff. "This isn't my first year," he said. The line out the door had frozen, everyone's curious faces turned toward Archer. Elodie placed her other hand--the one that wasn't clutching Archer's like he was a prize she'd won at a carnival--on his shoulder.
"I've seen all this crap before," he insisted.
The shifter teacher, Mr. Ferguson, rose to his feet. "Language!" he bellowed.
But Archer's eyes were on Mrs. Casnoff, who looked calm and cool.
"And yet I don't believe it has sunk in," she told Archer. She gestured to the Jenna's now-empty chair. "Kindly have a seat."
I'm pretty sure he muttered an even worse string of words as he grabbed the chair across from me. "Hey there, Soph ie."
I gritted my teeth. "Hi. So what is this?"
Archer settled into his seat, a grim look on his face. "Oh, you'll see."
And then everything went black.
As soon as the lights went out, I expected that usual thing that happens when a teacher turns off the lights: laughter, oooohs, and the rustling of clothing and squeaking of chairs that tells you people are scooting closer together, probably to make out. Instead the room was silent. Of course, there were only about twenty of us in there.
Next to me, I heard Archer sigh. It always feels weird to sit next to a guy in the dark, even if it was a guy I didn't like. Because I couldn't see him, I was very aware of him breathing, shifting in his chair, even the way he smelled (which, admittedly, was clean and soapy).
I was about to ask him again just what I was in for when a tiny square of light appeared at the front of the room next to Mrs. Casnoff. The square grew larger and larger until it was roughly the size of a movie screen. It hovered there, blank and glowing, until, very slowly, an image began to appear, like a photo developing. It was a black-and-white painting of a group of stern-faced men wearing the black suits and big hats of Puritans.
"In 1692, two witches in Salem, Massachusetts, came into their powers and created a panic that left eighteen innocent humans dead," Mrs.
Casnoff began. "A group of warlocks from nearby Boston wrote to the warlocks and witches in London and created the Council. It was hoped that with structure and resources, the Council could better control magical activity and prevent other tragedies like this from occurring."
The picture faded and morphed into a portrait of a redheaded woman in a green satin dress with a huge hoop skirt.