CHAPTER THREE

Calla braced herself to climb up the rusty ladder that was precariously hung on the side of her old stone apartment building. Its metal rungs were so cold she thought the blood still rushing in her veins might freeze. Her key had been in the inside pocket of her forgotten cloak, so the window it was.

As she stepped onto the ladder, she discovered that climbing the questionable piece of metal was going to be much more difficult with the Witch’s Die still firmly clutched in her hand. That, and her muscles felt like gelatin since she had depleted her entire reservoir of Rouge magic. She made it halfway up before her left foot slipped on a rung, and she frantically reached out for balance—causing her fist with the die to momentarily loosen. She cried out with a hiss, quickly tightening her hand closed around the small cube as the die seared itself into the skin of her palm, its magic refusing to allow her to drop it.

When she finally managed to regain her balance and get all the way to the top, she slid open the window and swung herself legs first through the small space. As the ladder creaked beneath her, she prayed to the Gods that the stressed groan of the metal wouldn’t be the last sound she heard. She shimmied herself all the way through, her voluptuous figure making it a tight squeeze, before tumbling down onto her bed, which, thankfully, sat right beneath the opening. She listened as the window slowly slid shut with a click behind her.

Calla lay there for a moment and mulled over the night’s events, her hand still stinging from where the die had burned into her skin. Her labored breathing soon steadied until all she heard was Ezra’s last words echoing through her mind.

She wasn’t shocked that Myrea knew where she was. Mostly, it was the notion that Myrea had hired Ezra to trick her into making another roll that frightened Calla more than anything. She’d let out a small groan and lifted herself into a sitting position on the bed, when the door to the bedroom kicked open.

“Calliope!” Hannah exclaimed as she rushed over. “We thought we heard something—”

“What’s wrong with you?” Delphine inserted as she stepped up behind Hannah.

Calla sighed as she scooted herself off the edge of the mattress and made to smooth out her rumpled appearance, knowing her torn shirt would be the first thing Delphine would notice. The girls were perusing her unkempt state, their faces wrinkled with concern. Well, Hannah’s was concerned. Delphine’s expression seemed to say What in the Hells? more than anything else. Confirming Calla’s thoughts, the siren gave Hannah a side-eye glance, and Calla watched as the two girls had an unspoken conversation.

A Siphon, a Rouge witch, and a siren. The three of them made quite the ostentatious trio, which was perhaps why they were constantly finding trouble. Or trouble was finding them. Delphine alone was hard to miss. The girl’s silver eyes, which perfectly matched the color of her sleek bob, sparkled like Estrella’s stars. Her ice-blue skin shimmered slightly in the sun, but that effect wasn’t nearly as bright as her smile. She was built lithe and athletic, her muscles prominently toned, a stark contrast to Hannah’s softer, petite form and Calla’s thick curves.

Delphine finally flicked her eyes back to Calla’s face expectantly, interrupting her unabashed perusal.

Time to get this over with.

Calla took a deep breath as she thrust her hand out. Delphine lifted a silver brow in question until Calla finally unfurled her palm to reveal the glistening red die and the slow-healing burn that sat beneath. The siren’s face went from its normal ice blue to a sickly shade of periwinkle.

“Oh, Calla, how on earth did you end up with that?” Hannah said as she lifted a hand to her mouth. “Did it spawn near you?”

Calla shook her head. It had been a long time since she had witnessed any Witch’s Dice magically appearing around Illustros. After the birth of a new witch, the Fates would subsequently create six dice that could appear anywhere a witch inhabited. The caveat being: Any witch close enough to the spawn site was magically bound to seek out the die and take it—unless someone else got there first. Since Calla had left the Witch Realms, such an occurrence wasn’t something she worried about anymore.

“It was Ezra,” Calla admitted, her voice still slightly raspy from him choking her.

“Ezra? What were you doing with him?” the siren asked, though Calla detected that there was far more concern than judgment in her tone.

“He left me a note asking to meet him at the inn tonight, and I thought that maybe he wanted to talk, to apologize,” she said with a groan. “We ended up gambling instead. The only silver lining is at least I won enough money to pay off rent?”

No need to tell them yet that it won’t be this place’s rent, a small voice in her mind whispered. That can wait until tomorrow.

Calla lifted the satchel off her body and tossed it over to Delphine, who easily snatched the heavy bag out of the air. Hannah folded back the cover to peek inside, brushing her flaxen blond hair out of her face to get a better look.

“My Gods, how did you win all of this?” Her violet eyes widened as she peered inside.

“More importantly, how did you end up with that?” Delphine pointed to the die, steering the conversation back on track as she often did when Hannah got distracted.

“Ezra bet it as his ante,” Calla answered irritably before recounting the events of the night.

“As soon as I dropped an ace, he accused me of cheating and then it all got out of hand so quickly,” she finished.

“Were you cheating?” Delphine asked.

“Of course I was cheating! He bet a Witch’s Die.”

Hannah understood; the witch’s bright eyes shone with sympathy. Calla’s eyes flicked down to Hannah’s own arm, trying not to wince at the sight of all six of the girl’s rolls. The blond had left her coven as soon as her final roll was completed and never looked back. Not that distance would stop Hannah from doing anything the Rouge Queen ordered her to do now that her rolls were complete, but Calla knew if anyone understood, Hannah did.

Delphine delicately pinched the bridge of her nose. “Well, at least we’ve got rent money for the next”—she glanced back in the bag—“three months?”

Hannah nodded in confirmation before looking back to Calla’s hand.

“Are you going to roll now?”

Calla swallowed. “I suppose I should. The hour is almost up, and it’s already burned me once.”

She gestured for them to sit on the floor, and they huddled there, together in a circle, as Calla shook the die in her fist.

“Anything but a six!” Hannah exclaimed unhelpfully, and Delphine turned to glare at her.

“Why would you jinx it?”

“Jinx what? Fate is fate.” Hannah shrugged.

Calla paused her shaking. “Do you really believe that?”

“Sure.” The blond gave another small shrug. “I think whatever numbers you’re going to roll are already set. It’s just up to you when you roll them.”

Calla didn’t like the thought of that—the thought that your own fate was so uncontrollable. She had always preferred to think that your fate was ultimately in your own hands. That it didn’t matter what was predestined by the Fates because the only thing that could truly determine your destiny was the choices you make for yourself. A fool’s hope perhaps.

She took a deep breath and finally released the die, and this time, with intent behind it, the cube fell from her hand without fuss. The die tapped sharply on the floor, bouncing a few times before rolling noisily to a stop. The bloodred cube started to glow, and all three girls leaned down to see the result.

Six.

Hannah’s and Delphine’s breath caught.

Calla’s left arm began to burn, and she jerked it up in front of her to watch as the fourth set of six black dots slowly appeared on her forearm. The die’s glow dulled right before the entire cube shattered into thin air, its magic spent. She felt numb.

“If I ever see that wretched Onyx witch again, I’m going to rip out his throat,” Delphine growled.

Hannah quietly stared at where the die had just disappeared before reaching out to squeeze Calla’s hand.

“Cal, you don’t know if you’re going to be the sixth. There’s still a possibility—”

Calla jerked her hand out of the witch’s grasp, and a hurt expression flitted across the blond’s face. Calla’s eyes softened a bit, though her words still rang clear: “You and I both know the truth, Han.”

Delphine sighed and, reaching out an elegant blue hand, she brushed away a few stray strands of Calla’s long waves from her shoulder.

“The only thing that matters is that Myrea still has no idea exactly where you are. All she knows is whatever that bastard from your coven told her about your rolls. You just have to be extra careful now—no more gambling with Witch’s Dice.”

Calla looked away guiltily. She didn’t think she needed to reiterate that Myrea having even an inkling of her rolls was bad enough, and tonight she didn’t have the energy to tell them that the Rouge Queen definitely did know where she was—and that they would probably have to get ready to move again soon. Or that it was Myrea who was responsible for Ezra giving her that die in the first place. Delphine was already disappointed enough in Calla’s romantic delusions, and Calla wasn’t ready to admit exactly just how foolish she had been about Ezra. Not yet.

“No more gambling with Witch’s Dice,” Calla repeated.

Delphine gave a satisfied nod before murmuring, “C’mon, Han.”

The two girls left the room so Calla could have some privacy. She numbly stripped off her sweat-soaked clothes and changed for bed.

As she tucked herself in, she wasn’t sure how she would ever be able to sleep after the night’s events, but Hannah and Delphine’s hushed whispering had quickly quieted in the other room. She turned to her side and watched the dancing shadows on the wall made by the candles on the bedside table. In the firelight, she could still make out the scratches and dents in the paint from when Ezra had attempted to teach her how to throw a knife at an apple. Eventually, after enough prodding, Ezra had allowed her to try out the fancy jeweled dagger he always wore at his hip—Heart Reaver, he called it. A disastrous idea on both their parts considering Calla had hit the wall more than the fruit, and the dagger had done much more damage than the dull cutlery the girls kept in their kitchen.

That had been only a month ago.

It seemed like years ago.

When Ezra had asked her to meet him earlier that night, Calla had been secretly ecstatic. Her traitorous heart had fluttered at the prospect of seeing him again, though it had only been two weeks. Two weeks since the night they had come back to the apartment after winning a game of cards and drunk a bottle of rum. Two weeks that she had been miserably lying around the tiny apartment ignoring Delphine’s probing remarks to either forget him or let me kill him.

She felt pathetic.

Yet, when Calla found his note wedged beneath her window, it was as if her entire body relaxed; like she had been going through withdrawal without realizing it. For the past three months, she had seen the Onyx witch almost every single day. They had been together so much that Calla’s magic had started recognizing his—like it did with Hannah’s. The same warm hum spread through Calla’s body whenever she felt their familiar presences nearby.

Calla groaned in embarrassment as she turned over to smush her face into her pillow. The thought that she had become so comfortable with his presence that her magic had gotten attached made her want to cringe and only added to the embarrassment over his double cross.

She lifted her left arm to her face to glare at the brand-new dots embedded there. Her magic had finally completely healed the burn on her palm, but she swore she could still feel the die scorching into her skin. She remembered how there was once a time in her life she had been so desperate to make a roll. How she couldn’t wait until she turned thirteen so she could have her Initial Roll ceremony and receive her Rouge magic. It was something the Witch Queens enforced, anyway, but Calla had been so eager to try and cover up that she was a Siphon by embracing her witch blood instead. Her youthful naivety pained her now.

Here in her room, alone in the flickering firelight, she was ashamed to realize that it was not panic or fear she felt over this fourth cursed roll—though a fourth six undoubtedly meant she would be a walking target. Rather, it was the sadness of what she had lost tonight. Tomorrow she would have to tell the girls that they needed to start packing up to leave yet another home. If she settled their rent for this month in the morning, it would give them at least a week to get everything together before they would have to travel to another city in Estrella—if there were any left that they hadn’t already been run out of. This felt worse than the time she forgot to glamour her eye color and sent an entire apothecary into a frenzy when they realized there was a Siphon in their midst. It killed Calla that something as painfully small as forgetting to hide her mismatched eyes could uproot her friends’ lives. At least that had been an accident, though. This time she had voluntarily gotten herself into trouble.

Flipping over to her back, she breathed in the comforting scent of lavender and ocean salt that clung to the sheets on the bed.

One day, she promised herself, I will make up for all the trouble I’ve brought them.

She took another steadying breath.

One day I will forget to think of Ezra Black.

***Download NovelToon to enjoy a better reading experience!***