She sighed, and looked back at me. “But that’s not exactly a good way to live, and it can’t be the best way to spend the few years I’ve got this power. If you’re in this, then I am, too. I don’t want to be part of a team just because it’s a team I grew up in. I want to be part of a team because it’s the right team.”

“There’s a risk it won’t be, you know. There’s a risk we’ll find out things we don’t want to.”

She nodded, and that was when I knew she was all in. “Then let’s find out.”

* * *

I knew Jason needed time and space, but that didn’t mean I was thrilled about the fact that he’d walked away. I checked my phone every few seconds, hoping I’d find a text message saying he’d rushed to judgment and was sorry he’d left me crying in the tunnel.

But my phone was silent.

When we made sure the tunnel door was locked up tight, we headed upstairs to bed.

“Long night,” she said after I followed her into her room and locked the door against nosey brat packers.

“It really was.”

“Do you think you’ll hear from Jason?”

“Right now I really don’t know.”

And I was getting so mad at him for walking away, I wasn’t sure I cared.

“You know what we should do?”

“What’s that?” I asked, but she was rifling through her messenger bag. She pulled out a cheap spiral notebook and a pen, then pulled off the cap.

“Are you starting on your novel?”

“Har har har, Parker. And someday, yes, but not today. It’s going to be called The Wicked Witch of the Midwest.”

“Promise me you’re joking.”

The expression on her face said she was dead serious. Which was sad, really, because that title was awful. “It’s, what, like, your memoir or something?”

“It will be,” she said, sitting down on the bed. “But I can’t write it, of course, until people know we actually exist.”

“So they don’t assume it’s just fiction?”

“Precisely,” she said, pointing with her pen. “But that’s not the point. We’re going to do something fun, Parker. We’re going to start a list.”

“That might be the boringest idea I’ve ever heard. A list of what?”

“Just, you know, stuff.” As if to prove her point, Scout flipped open the book and wrote THE LIST in big capital letters at the top of the first page. “It will be like our scrapbook of words. You know, instead of saving ticket stubs and homecoming ribbons and crap like that, we’ll have this list of all our memories, and stuff. You know?”

I didn’t really, but I did kind of like the idea of having a memory book for the two of us. I wasn’t sure there was a lot of my high school experience I’d want to remember—and I was hardly going to forget life as an Adept—but this would just be for Scout and me. Something to look back on in our old age . . . if we made it that long.

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s try out this list thing. What do you want to put on it?”

She flicked the pen against her chin. “I feel like the first thing that goes on there should be pretty significant, you know? Something we’ll definitely remember later on.”

“Firespell? Brat pack? Reapers?”

“All good words, but so . . . common. For us, I mean. No—we need something cooler. Something better.”

“Werewolf? Sanctuary? Enclave?”

She shook her head. “Too specific.”

“You know, I’ve already named all the stuff we do on a daily basis. Pretty soon I’m just going to be listing off nouns in alphabetical order. Aardvark. Antelope. Architecture. Avalanche. Stop me when I’m close.”

She must have thought of something, because she began to furiously scribble. And when she finally showed me the page, she’d listed down all the things I mentioned. But at the top of the list, in her scrawly handwriting, were a couple of simple words that meant a lot.

Best friends.

I bit my lip to keep my eyes from welling with tears again. “Good choice, Green.”

“I know,” she quietly said. “But that’s what this is all about, right? Now,” she said, tapping the paper, “let’s do the Adepts.”

In twenty minutes, we filled three sheets of paper.

14

Classes were bad when you were happy, when the weather was nice, or you wanted to be outside doing anything other than studying.

But they were even worse when you were depressed. When you wanted only to sit in your room staring at your phone and waiting for a call that probably wasn’t going to come. The more you wanted that phone call, the harder you waited for it, the longer it took. The slower classes became, and the more you wanted to fall down into yourself and just make the time go faster.

But, of course, it didn’t. And Jason didn’t call. He didn’t text. He didn’t contact me at all, not even to confirm that we were definitely off for Sneak.

It was total radio silence, and it drove me crazy.

Scout thought it was a good sign he hadn’t called—that if he’d really wanted a permanent breakup, he would have already told me. I wasn’t sure no news was good news, but it wasn’t like there was anything I could do about it. I wasn’t going to text or call him. He’d walked out on me, not vice versa. I’d stuck with him when he told me he was facing down a curse and his family was pressuring him. I could have told him it was too much drama for me, too much risk that I’d get my heart broken later on.