I rolled my eyes as I stood up and walked to Shelf H. "Is it really that hard to figure out? I mean, she got quite a big laugh at my expense the other day, so it's only appropriate that you, as her boyfriend, would also enjoy mocking me. It's so sweet when couples can share hobbies."
"Hey," he snapped. "Elodie's little stunt got me in here too, remember? I tried to help you out."
"So did not ask you to," I replied, pretending to intently study what at first appeared to be a bunch of leaves floating in a jar of amber liquid.
Then I realized they weren't leaves but tiny faerie corpses.
Suppressing the urge to fling it away from me and make some sort of
"NEEEEUUUUUNGGGHH!" sound, I rifled through my pages, looking for something that read "Small Dead Faeries."
"Well, don't worry," Archer snapped, flipping through his own pages.
"It won't happen again."
We were quiet for a moment, both of us looking at our lists.
"Have you seen anything that could be part of an altar cloth?" he asked at last.
"Check Shelf G, Slot 5," I replied.
Then out of nowhere, he said, "She's not that bad, you know. Elodie.
You just have to get to know her."
"Is that what happened with the two of you?"
"What?"
I swallowed, suddenly nervous. I really didn't want to hear Archer wax poetic about Elodie, but I was also genuinely curious.
"Jenna said that you used to be, like, a card-carrying member of the
We Hate Elodie club. What gives?"
He looked away and started picking up random things without really seeing them. "She changed," he said quietly. "After Holly died--you know about Holly?"
I nodded. "Jenna's roommate. Elodie, Chaston, and Anna filled me in."
He ran a hand through his dark hair. "Yeah. They're still really hung up on blaming Jenna. Anyway, Elodie and Holly had been really close when they started here, and Holly and I had been betrothed--"
"Hold up," I said, raising a hand. "Betrothed?"
He looked confused. "Yeah. All witches are betrothed to an available warlock on their thirteenth birthday. A year after they come into their powers."
He frowned. "Are you okay?" he asked. I'm sure I was making a pretty strange face. At thirteen I was thinking about allowing a boy's tongue into my mouth. Getting engaged would've been pretty far beyond me.
"Fine," I mumbled. "That's just weird to think about. It's so . . . Jane
Austen."
"It's not that bad."
"Right. Arranged marriages for teenagers are a good thing."
He shook his head. "We don't get married as teenagers, just betrothed.
And the witch always has the right to refuse or accept the betrothal and change her mind later. But the match is usually a good one, based on complementary powers, personalities. Stuff like that."
"Whatever. I can't even imagine having a fiance."
"You probably have one, you know."
I stared at him. "Excuse me?"
"Your dad is a really important guy. I'm sure he made a match for you when you were thirteen."
I didn't even want to get into that. The thought that there was some warlock out there who was planning on making me his missus one day was too much to handle. What if he was here at Hecate? What if I knew the guy?
Oh God, what if it was that kid with bad breath who sat right behind me in
Magical Evolution?
I made a mental note to ask my mom about all of this as soon as I decided to speak to her again.
"Okay," I said to Archer. "Just . . . go on with your story."
"I don't think anyone realized how much Holly's death got to Elodie.
So we started talking over the summer, about Hecate and Holly, and one thing led to another . . ."
"And you can spare me the gory details," I said with a smile even as something painful twisted in my chest a little. So he really liked her. I'd been harboring this secret fantasy that he was only pretending to like her so that he could publicly dump her in the most embarrassing way possible, preferably on national television.
"Look," he said, "I'll get Elodie and her friends to lay off you, okay?
And seriously, try to give her another chance. I swear she has hidden depths."
Without really thinking, I shot back, "I said spare me the gory details."
For a second I'm not sure I even realized what I'd just said. And then it sank in and I damned my sarcastic mouth straight to hell. Face on fire, I glanced over at Archer.
He was staring at me in shock.
And then he burst out laughing.
I started giggling too, and before long we were both sitting on the dirt floor wiping tears from our eyes. It had been a long time since I'd really laughed with someone, or made a dirty joke, for that matter, and I couldn't believe how good it felt. For a little bit I forgot that I was apparently made of evil, and that I was being stalked by a ghost.