Slayer (Slayer #1)

Honora started laughing. “Oh gods. These are the greatest spells I’ve ever heard. Would you like to hear them?”

I was only half listening until I recognized the words. And then I froze.

“ ‘Your lips are a promise / I’d love to keep / They haunt me when waking / And tease when asleep.’ ”

No. No no no.

A few months before, I had run out of notebooks and found a dusty old magic book that was mostly empty. So I filled it with the best of my poetry, enamored that my love was written like spells in a leather-bound book. Whenever I wrote one in there, I pretended like it was an actual love spell that would make Leo see we were meant to be.

Rhys paused in his training. “What is this?”

I crawled to the balcony and watched, numbing with horror, as Honora read poem after poem, each more embarrassing than the last. But maybe she wouldn’t say who they were about. His name was written only in a few of them.

Honora was in performance mode, standing on a bench in front of Leo and Rhys and reciting each poem with the relish of a Shakespearean performer. She wouldn’t say his name. She wouldn’t. But then she looked up—right at me—and winked.

She knew I was up there. She had the whole time.

“This one,” she said, “is the best. It’s an acrostic. Please imagine the letters going down the side, starting each sentence.” She cleared her throat. “ ‘And when / The days are too / Hard / Endless in knowing I will / Never be / Anyone important—’ ”

She paused. “That’s ATHENA, for those of you too dumb to spell on the go.” She lifted an eyebrow at Rhys. I wanted to run or scream at her to stop. My body wouldn’t do either.

“ ‘Looking at you gives me / Optimism / Very real and true / Everything will be okay / Someday.’ ” Honora smiled, baring her perfect white teeth. “Rhys, what did that one spell?”

Rhys looked at the floor. “You shouldn’t be reading those.”

“Give it here.” Leo held out his hand, but she lifted it out of his reach.

“It spelled ‘loves,’ ” she said. “And here’s the grand finale: ‘Love is / Everything I feel when I think of you . . . / Orgasmically.’ ”

“That’s not what it says!” I squeaked. Everyone looked up at me, my face pressed against the balcony railing bars, tears streaming down my face. What I had written was “Love is / Everything I feel / Over the fear.” She had not only taken the most embarrassing thing possible—she had made it worse. So much worse.

A door banged open. “Okay, today we have— Nina? Nina, are you okay?” Artemis set down her trays and ran up the stairs to me. Honora slammed the book shut, her face bright red from laughing.

Leo raised his sword at Rhys. “Second and fourth forms,” he said, as though nothing had happened. As though Honora hadn’t just read my entire heart out loud in front of him. As if I weren’t suffocating from shame and panic. He didn’t even care.

After that I pretended I was sick and didn’t get out of bed for a week. One of the mornings, someone left an oatmeal-chocolate-chip cookie outside my door.

I ground it into crumbs.

Leo had gone right back to practice, shrugging off the worst moment of my life. He wouldn’t fix it by offering me a cookie.

I finally worked up the courage to leave my room when I heard that Leo and his mother had been shipped off to an assignment in South America. Not long after, Honora graduated to full Watcher status and was assigned fieldwork monitoring demon activity in Ireland.

Rhys never pushed the subject. When Artemis asked why I was so upset that day, I asked her why she failed the test. Neither of us answered, and we never spoke of it again. I prayed Leo was gone forever and tore up every scrap of paper I had ever desecrated with my stupid crush.

• • •

Our history trails from me like smoke as I stomp back to my room. So Leo’s back. Whatever. I refuse to care. That’s another problem Buffy had. She always made her relationships with her Watchers so personal. I can treat Leo as a coworker. Calm. Cool. Collected.

Except I’m none of the three. And I can’t afford to be calm, not with everything going on, not the least of which is the demon I left in my friend’s shed. Once I start training it will be harder to sneak away. Forget changing—I need to check on the demon.

My room is fortunately empty. Artemis must still be out with our mother. I try not to be bitter about this. I know it’s weird to be jealous of having to patrol with our mother, but I’ve always envied how needed Artemis is. My days are filled with empty spaces between studying and doing my chores around the castle.

But I guess that will change now too. At least in secret.

There is one way Artemis could have helped out today. I could have begged her to go back to the training room in my place. Leo would think she was me, be so impressed that he’d decide I don’t need training, and then he’d leave. Walk away. Walk off a cliff, preferably.

I sneak out of the castle. The light is lovely and soft in the dawn glow. There’s a storage shed where we keep the weapons and tools that aren’t in regular rotation. It waits for me under the shadow of forest trees yearning to reclaim our land. I consider the heavy padlock securing it.