The love I had stumbled into wasn’t a delicate rose garden.

It was a buzzing field of wildflowers where thistles and thorns sometimes hid beneath the surface instead of lying in plain sight but once you knew your way around, it was so much better than soft petals and straight paths, better than fiction, better than I had ever dared to dream. It wasn’t perfect; it was real, and it was ours, and that made all the difference. I was only pulled out of my daze when the door next to us suddenly opened and a woman stepped out. “Ashley Danell and Evelyn Greene, if you’d please follow me inside?”

Noelle breathed a quiet sigh and reluctantly let go of me.

When she leaned back, the smile was still on her face and though she looked drained, her chin was raised high. “Let’s get this fucker behind bars.”

I took her smile and her words and my newfound knowledge and tucked them into my pocket for safekeeping as the woman ushered us into the room. Somehow, our conversation in the flickering neon lights of the stuffy police department seemed like the beginning of a new chapter—a new book, even. And God, I already knew I was going to love this one.

26

Evelyn

Before we knew it, we’d stumbled into December. Suddenly, the halls were decked with holly, and branches of mistletoe hung from the arched doorways, much to the delight of the younger students, who screeched each time they found themselves beneath one of them. The weather was freezing now, a chill creeping in through the old windows, but the fire crackling in the common room and the cups of tea and hot chocolate that were given out in the Great Hall each afternoon helped combat the cold.

It had been almost two weeks since what we only referred to as that night, and since then, a few things had happened.

One: our parents were notified about what had happened, leading to a bunch of panicked phone calls and lectures. The longest conversation had been between Elle and her mom. To all our relief, Crystal was perfectly fine and, as the police told us later, had at no point been in any danger, as Kyle admitted that the alleged hitman had never existed.

Which brought me to number two: Kyle was now behind bars and probably would not be free again any time soon. The knowledge had visibly lifted a weight from Elle’s shoulders; she was still shaken, quieter at times, but she didn’t have nightmares anymore and didn’t constantly look over her shoulder when she roamed the castle.

Three: Jasper had returned from the hospital. Right after, he had still seemed a little bit rattled, but after a few days of being nursed by Seth, who barely spent a second apart from him, he was doing much better and was willing to tell anyone who would listen about his heroic near death—the whole thing had gotten a bit dramatized in hindsight.