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Emmy’s mouth fell open. I handed her a glass of wine. The summons seemed to have relaxed a tad in its anxious fluttering since it’d been opened. I’d been sent a stream of letters over the last couple of weeks, each one more aggressive than the last. I was still getting over the little scratch on my ass from one particularly nasty note. A note which had met a very fiery death on one of Emmy’s Bunsen burners.
“You have to go,” Emmy said. “They’re not going to leave you alone unless you do.”
I shrugged. “Just because my bloodline says I’m a witch doesn’t mean I need to attend these stupid meetings.”
Emmy’s eyes widened further behind her goggles as she kept reading. “This isn’t any meeting. They’re announcing the new candidates for the wildcard election. You have to go! Not just anyone gets an invite to these things.”
I took a gulp of wine. “I mean, I got an invite, so yeah—they do invite random people.”
Emmy quieted, and I realized in my annoyed state I’d accidentally hurt her feelings.
“I’m sorry, Em,” I said. “I didn’t mean anything by it.”
“No, no, it’s okay.” Emmy snapped off her googles with a vicious flair. “It’s totally cool that you don’t care at all about your witchy-bloodline which gets you access to the most exclusive events of the decade.”
“I don’t make the rules,” I said softly. “Nobody’s doubting that you deserve to be invited more than I do, hon. I’m sorry. I think the rules are stupid too. You’re the hardest working witch in The Hollow by far.”
Emmy shook her head. “It’s not your fault. It just sucks sometimes.”
Emmy was a new witch, meaning that she’d been born to two human parents and had only discovered her affinity for magic as a teenager. Once she’d figured it out, she’d thrown herself fully into her magical education.
She studied day and night. Emmy had single-handedly put herself through paranormal undergrad, and now she was working on a bout of intense research that she hoped would help her get into one of the best magical graduate schools in the country.
Unfortunately, Emmy was absolutely right. It wasn’t fair that I was invited to these sorts of things and she wasn’t. Emmy loved magic, was thoroughly charmed by it. I detested magic and stayed as far away from it as I could. Yet I was the one with an envelope up my ass about attending the latest meeting called by The Circle—the magical council that ruled our paranormal sector in New York.
“There’s an easy way to solve this,” Emmy said. “Let’s just go together. We can both tell them their rules are stupid.”
I raised my eyebrows. “You’re going to tell The Circle their centuries old rules are stupid?”
Emmy shrugged. “Someone’s gotta do it.”
I shook my head. “It’s not me.”
“But—”
Just then my phone rang. I answered with a sigh. “Hi, Grandma Betty.”
“Answer your summons, sweetie.”
“But—”
“Do you want to die?” my grandmother asked easily. “Because if you keep repressing your magic and ignoring summonses, that’s what’s going to happen.”
I sighed, took another sip of wine. I added “threats from grandma” to the list of things I was trying to forget about tonight.
“Gram, that’s not what’s going to happen.”
“Have you released your magic yet?” she asked. “I can feel the summons from here. How many have they sent that it’s triggering a magical reaction from your entire female bloodline?”
“Thirteen summons at last count.”
“Thirteen?” she clucked. “RSVP before you die, Trixie.”
“I’m not going to die, Gram.”
“Your mother...”
“I don’t want a lecture about Mom tonight.”
