Spell Bound by Rachel Hawkins

Prodigium, so I had to be executed. Mrs. Casnoff asked to be the one to do it.”
    Now my grip on Jenna’s hand was so tight, it must have hurt her. I imagined Jenna, terrified and shaking, being led upstairs by someone she’d once trusted, knowing death was coming.
    I would kill Mrs. Casnoff. I would blast that stupid hairdo right off her head, once I had my powers back.
    “Thank God for her,” Jenna said, and I blinked.
    “What?”
    “It was Mrs. Casnoff who contacted Byron. She took my bloodstone from me because she said she’d need some kind of proof I was dead. Apparently when you stake vamps, their bloodstones explode. Then she snuck me out of the house using this passage behind—”
    “Behind a painting,” I finished. I’d escaped Thorne Abbey the same way.
    Nodding, Jenna said, “Right. Byron met me at the edge of the property and gave me this.” She lifted the clunky pendant from her neck. “He took me back to his nest in London, and let me tell you, this place has nothing on Lord Freaking Byron’s nest for weirdness. But Vix was there,” she said, smiling a little. Vix was Jenna’s girlfriend and another vampire.
    But then all the amusement faded from her face. “I heard about Thorne. All Byron learned was that your body wasn’t found. For like, a month, there was no news, and I thought…”
    I wrapped my arms around her again. “I know,” I murmured. “I thought the same thing about you for a long time, too.”
    She sniffled and pulled away, rubbing her nose with her hand. “Anyway, then he started hearing these strange stories that you were with the Brannicks .”
    “I was,” I said, and when Jenna widened her eyes at me, I raised a hand and said, “It is a very long story, and I promise I’ll spill all later. Condensed version: my mom is a Brannick, I am the unholy love child of a Brannick and a demon, and the bar for family dysfunction is now set super high.”
    Jenna, to her credit, knew when to just roll with it. “Okay, then.”
    “The more pressing question right now is, why are we back at Hex Hall?”
    Jenna looked around, taking in the unnatural fog, the dilapidated (well, more dilapidated) feel of the house. “Something tells me it’s not for a class reunion.”
    “Did you get pulled through some kind of magic tornado, too?” I asked her.
    “No, I flew in here as a bat. It’s a new thing I learned from Byron.”
    “Ha ha,” I said, swatting at her arm.
    She smiled back and said, “Yeah, same thing, actually. Like being yanked through the air at nine bajillion miles an hour.” Her face grew serious. “What kind of magic could do that? Look around, Soph. There’s like, at least a hundred of us here. All pulled from God knows where at the same time. That’s not just hard-core, it’s—”
    “Scary,” I finished.
    The rest of the group was starting to coalesce around the front of the house, and I had the unsettling feeling that we were all waiting for someone—or something—to come out the front door. Like at any second, Mrs. Casnoff was going to step out, and it was just going to be another school year. Jenna and I stayed close together, and we hung to the back of the crowd.
    Someone on my other side nudged my shoulder, and I shifted closer to Jenna to make room. And then a hand closed over mine.
    Before I even turned my head, I knew.
    “Mercer.” Archer smiled down at me. “Fancy meeting you here.”
    As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t just throw my arms around his neck and kiss the heck out of him. And I really wanted to. So I settled for lacing my fingers with his and pulling him slightly closer.
    Archer here, safe, his hand in mine. And Jenna, pressed tight to my other side. My heart was so full, I could hardly breathe, and even though I tried to keep it light, my voice was strained when I said, “Of course. Everything going to hell, and you turn up. I should’ve known.”
    He shrugged, even though his eyes were burning with the same emotion currently