The Beautiful and the Faultless | Cami O'Connell

Chapter 25

Making friends was not easy here.

Ingrid honestly wasn't sure how she'd ever made friends in her entire life. Well, when Dahlia was still around, she had no friends. Josh, she sort of just unofficially befriended and now he was practically Irene's father figure. Vincent had been her therapist, now that that was not as big of an issue, they hung out and drank all the time. Marcel and Lucien were her friends, too, she supposed, even though she rarely talked to Marcel and had barely begun getting to know Lucien.

What she didn't know was how to approach these Strix girls.

Especially when one had just been killed.

She'd gone home after her initiation, unable to tell Cami how it went. But Cami had been okay with asking her if all was well, and with Ingrid's nod, she knew she must be telling the truth.

When she showed up at the Davilla Estate the following morning, she found out Elijah had killed the seer that Lucien had been talking about. Apparently, Tristan must have brought Elijah in after she left to see if the girl could piece together what the weapon was. She figured her cousins had figured out the riddle if Elijah had been so quick to kill the girl, who had been named Ariane.

"Ariane discovered the weapon that can kill an Original," Tristan told the witches once Ingrid had been given a cloak to wear, and they were standing around the dead girl's body. "Your task— channel her. Search her mind. Find the weapon. I imagine," he gestured to Ingrid, "you're particularly knowledgeable in this form of spells."

She didn't admit that it likely wouldn't work, considering how much time had elapsed since Ariane's death.

"Madison," said Tristan, facing a dark haired girl, who looked to be the oldest aside from Ingrid. "You will lead. If Ingrid wishes to offer expertise... you will allow her to."

"We can't trust her," said Madison scathingly.

"Hey," said Ingrid sharply. "I am bound by a blood pact that prevents me from spilling Strix secrets to anyone, even my girlfriend. It's not like I can tell anyone anything. You can trust me."

Tristan seemed pleased to hear this. He left them to begin their spell. Madison rolled her eyes and motioned for them to form a circle around Ariane, though she made sure to stay next to Ingrid. The witches all linked hands, and Madison led the chant, "Ak ti ves de kono. Ak ti ves de kono. Ak ti ves de kono..."

Ingrid knew this was useless. Ariane's body had been dead too long. Her soul would have left it already. But she followed the chant, over and over again for what felt like three hours.

"We're getting nowhere," said Madison at last, growing frustrated. "Take some time, gather your focus. We'll reconvene in an hour." She seemed to glare at Ingrid, "And we won't stop until we get what we need."

"You do realize I have no desire to be involved in teenage drama, right?" said Ingrid dryly.

Madison crossed her arms. "You know something. Or, you're up to something. I can tell by the look of your face."

Ingrid rolled her eyes. "And why would I lie to my new sisters now, hmm?"

"We're not sisters," said Madison flatly. "After all, the weapon that we're looking for will probably be used to wipe out a whole sireline, including some of your vampire friends."

"Tristan says he's had you all working on the sireline de-linking spell for quite awhile now. I don't really care about the weapon. We won't need to care about it if we focus more on unlinking the Strix from Elijah. It's what Tristan wants. Unlink himself... unlink his sister..."