The Legend of the Eight: The Charmed (Book 4)

16: My Father's Daughter

SIXTEEN: MY FATHER'S DAUGHTER
OCTOBER 10
KATE DIAMOND

EYES RACING ACROSS THE PAGE, Kate sat at a table in the Dining Hall, studying a spell until she was sure she could recite it forwards, backwards, and upside-down. It was the lineage spell—the one she planned to use to track down her secret half-sister. The one that would only work with two similar sources of magic. The one she still hadn't told Wil about.

"Hey, pretty girl," Liam sat down with a tray of chicken fingers and fries—a pregame tradition for him—and then eyed the paper she was staring at. "You're still working on that spell? We both know you have it down perfectly."

"No spell is ever perfect," said Kate, a line from Charms, Enchantments and Spells by Asher Arnold.

"Maybe not, but you know that one enough to use it. Which means the only reason you're still memorizing it is because you're fixating. You're trying to distract yourself because you haven't talked to Wil yet. Have you?"

Kate rubbed her sweater-covered arms and then groaned quietly. "No, okay? I haven't. You know how she is. How am I supposed to tell her something like this?"

Liam shrugged, his aqua eyes kind and soft. "I wish I knew what to tell you, Kate. I really do. But you have to talk to her. You're out of time."

LIAM WAS RIGHT. SHE WISHED he wasn't but he was. So right before the game, Kate made her way to her sister's dorm and rapped three times against the door. The brass number four on the door was the only one of three that remained perfectly intact while the zero wobbled wherever there was movement and the six hung on by one screw, flipping it upside-down so it read as a nine.

Moments later, Chloe opened the door and smiled when she saw Kate standing there. Her hair was plaited down her back in two long braids and she was wearing sweats in a faded pastel color, perfectly comfortable.

"Kate, hey. What's up?"

"Is my sister here?" Kate asked, her voice shaking. She rubbed her hands together and shifted her weight between her Tory Burch flats while she stood there, rehearsing again and again what she was going to say when it was time.

"Katie," Wil sing-songed from inside the room and Kate walked in to find her reclined in the lap of Sir Oliver with an open notebook and half-written history paper.

Oliver gave a friendly wave and Wil grabbed her Nikon before turning it on them and snapping a few pictures of the cozied-up couple. She looked so happy. In fact, Kate hadn't her sister like that since she was with Damon. How was she supposed to ruin that? She would be responsible for the hurricane that her sister would evidently become as soon as she found out about their father's infidelity.

"What's up, Katie?" asked Wil, ever so nonchalant. "Is the world in peril?"

Kate made a face, unsure if her sister was joking or not, and then chose to ignore the comment altogether.

"I, uh, I need to talk to you," Kate managed to spit out, looking everywhere around the room except at Wil. "It's important."

Wil took one last picture and then set her camera aside, before rolling out of Oliver's lap and off her bed.

"Okay, okay." She stuffed her feet into a pair of moccasins and tugged on the waist of her skinny jeans. "Come on," Wil said, waving Kate to follow her out of the room. "Let's talk."

"I HAVE NO IDEA HOW to tell you what I have to tell you and I've been trying to figure it out for weeks. So I'm just going to blurt it out. Okay? I'm just going to say it and it's not going to be pretty or eloquent. It's just going to be... Said."