I tuck my head into her shoulder, burrowing into her warmth. Her soft skin and sharp, muscular angles press against my body, filling me with a much-needed sense of comfort. We stay like that for a while, me listening to her breathing until I can almost pretend that everything is okay. “You’re so bony,” I say, adjusting my head on her shoulder.

“Excuse me,” she says dryly. “I can take back this comforting hug anytime.”

“No, that’s okay.” My voice is slightly muffled in her shoulder. “Ana?”

“Yeah?”

“Is it wrong that I still want to win the scholarship?”

She doesn’t say anything right away. When her answer finally does come, her voice is sad. “I still want it too. So I guess we’re both wrong.”

Chapter 35

Click below to learn more about previous Brockton Scholars:

Heather Holt

Sarah Newkirk

Lydia Sackett

Trevor Phillips

Meredith Wick

—The Brockton Foundation website

After my disastrous encounter with Brittany, I’m not sure what to do next. I feel even more lost and uncertain than I did before. At work that evening, Lex and I end up in the back brewing the weekend orders while Pilar helps customers out front.

“So Brittany’s definitely not going to tell the school,” Lex says, leaning across the worktable toward me.

“I don’t think so,” I say. “He’s really got her brainwashed. She bit my head off right away.”

Lex groans, long and loud. I focus on my Nap in a Bottle potion, tuning her out for a moment while I think of the intention I’m going to use to seal the potion. The mood I conjure is the way it felt when I was little to wake up from my afternoon nap, sunlight streaming onto my face. Warm and rested. Happy. I send that intention into the potion. Once the liquid settles, I let out a long breath. Imagining that was a stretch, considering that it is the exact opposite of my current state of being.

“I’ve been thinking . . .” Lex says, her lip curling. “I bet Mr. B’s done this before.” With more force than is truly necessary, she pops a cork into the top of the bottle of stomach-soothing potion she’s just filled.

My heart stops. An image of all the picture frames on his desk flashes through my mind.

The other scholarship winners. They’ve mostly been women.

“Oh my god,” I murmur numbly. “The other witches.”

“I remember the one who won my freshman year. Lydia Sackett. She was one of his, like, special favorites.” She pops a cork into another bottle emphatically. “She didn’t even do drama, and she spent all this time in his classroom.”

I gasp. “What if we talk to them? If Brittany won’t admit anything happened, maybe one of them will.”

“I can do it,” Lex says immediately.