Chapter 3 Cha

It took a long time to scrub the dried blood from my skin. I was bruised in countless places, but thankfully, I was only cut on my lower lip. Healing spells didn't work on me for some reason-not that I was eager to use magic again so soon, with only eight hours passed since my last run-in with those thoughtless things. It had been one hell of a night, finding four different places to stow the unconscious strangers. I'd have broken into apartments if I'd had time, but I settled for inns. They were usually packed, keeping prying eyes away-and hopefully keeping the thoughtless things away too.

Those creatures hadn't come after me again after they'd sucked me dry and left me in the street, so I figured magic didn't radiate from me when I was out. The same should hold true for those four strangers. I'd ended up staying in the room with the last guy I'd dragged inside. The bathroom was cramped, but it did the job, and forty minutes after I turned on the shower, I came out looking as clean as I was going to get.

I'd avoided thinking too hard about the situation, but now, as I sat on the floor, eating pizza and watching the guy sleep soundly on the bed, I couldn't dodge it any longer. Who were these people? Why had the thoughtless things attacked them? Could they really be like me?

In my world, there are four kinds of witches-well, three now. Blood, Bone, and Green. Hedge witches used to exist, but they were infamous for being power-hungry and drove themselves to extinction a few decades back. I was born and raised in a Blood family-a lineage of powerful witches. My parents, wealthy snobs who could barely stand the sight of me, sent me to a special school in Washington for troubled witches because handling me took too much effort. They hoped the academy would coax a little magic out of me before the ritual.

Witches are born with magic, though some more than others-it's just luck. We only receive our powers at eighteen, through a ritual performed by our parents. Girls inherit their magic from their mothers, boys from their fathers. After that, you're considered a witch. For Blood witches, magic comes from blood; for Bone witches, from bone; and for Greens, from Earth. Hedges had been strongest at dusk but were weakest in daylight. That's why they were easy to kill off.

When my family prepared me for the ritual to ignite the magic in my blood, they were thrilled. I was terrified-terrified because I knew it wouldn't work, while they believed it would. Needless to say, I was right and they were wrong.

I remember my first attempts at magic as a kid-I couldn't manage even a spark. My brother and sister, only a year younger than me, could create little fireworks or make flowers bloom, the typical tricks eight-year-old witches could do. But not me. I tried like hell and cried for a week afterward. My parents noticed but refused to accept it. They scolded me for being weak-willed and locked me in my room. They held a grudge against an eight-year-old, for God's sake. People really should have to pass a test before they're allowed to have kids because my parents were terrible at it.

That was about the time I started acting out. I broke things, stole things, fought my siblings every chance I got, and pretty much cut myself off from everyone. I was jealous, hurt, and confused, like any kid would be, but I had no one to talk to. I never stopped trying to do magic, though.

The first time I noticed something odd, I was sitting by the pool at home. It was two in the morning, and everyone was asleep. I was trying to make sparks-supposedly the easiest thing for a witch to do. I got so mad I refused to go inside, even when it started raining. The harder I tried, the angrier I got, and the heavier the rain fell. Call me crazy, but it's true. I proved it to myself by doing it every night for three months straight. I was the one making it rain, stirring the wind, and sometimes, there'd even be distant lightning.

Ten years later, I'd be able to summon lightning from my own hand, but that's a story for another time.

By thirteen, I could feel magic under my skin. It wasn't like what the others described, or like what my father's books said, but it was something. I was proud of it. I could summon gusts of wind as I pleased, but I still couldn't make those damn sparks.

At eighteen, I performed the ritual with my mother, who barely spoke to me by that point. After it failed, I moved to Manhattan alone. My family was fine with it-happy, even. As long as I stayed away, they'd keep sending me money and pretending I didn't exist. I took what I could get and made peace with it.

Until now.

The guy on the bed looked completely ordinary. Broad shoulders but not quite broad enough for a werewolf. Not a vampire, either. Not a fae-their eyes were violet, their ears pointed, and this guy's ears were quite round. So he was a witch. But what kind?

As if reading my mind, he moved his hand. I swallowed, the pizza slice wedged halfway to my mouth. Nine hours had passed since he'd been sucked dry. I'd never woken up earlier than twenty-four hours after one of their attacks. At first, I thought he was just shifting in his sleep, but then he turned his head. Slowly, I set the pizza slice back in the box and stood up. My weapons lay on the small desk by the door. I walked over, keeping my movements slow, and picked up two throwing knives, just in case.

Holding my breath, I watched his chest rise and fall, his hand twitching slightly... until he turned his face toward me, and his eyes opened.

I managed a smile, though I didn't feel it. My fingers were sweaty, and the knives slipped slightly in my grip. His brows shot up as he took in my damp hair and glanced down at himself. It took him a moment to realize he was bound to the window bars.

Uh oh.