Heather split's Arc

Chapter 5 of 6

Heather was still at Bella's table when the phone rang again. Not hers. Bella's. Bella picked it up, listened for four seconds, and set it down. "Cyndi is at the stone circle," she said. "She has a crowd. She has magic she should not have." Heather felt the board warm under her hand. The marker began to tap. She unrolled it. The ink came in one clean line: she took what was in the case. Name it before she uses it. Heather read it out. Goldie stood up. Sierra was already at the door. They drove in Bella's car. Heather held the board flat on her knees. Bella drove without speaking. Goldie sat in the back with her hands open on her thighs, counting under her breath. Sierra watched her sister and matched the count. Heather understood what her sister had done. Cyndi had opened the sealed case in her house and taken the stored magic. She was using it now to call people to the circle and claim a seat she had been refused. The circle was full when they arrived. Cyndi stood at the center in a purple coat, blond hair short and bright. She saw Bella and did not stop talking. "She kept the role by keeping the rest of us small," Cyndi said to the crowd. "I have the proof in my hands." She lifted a vial. The liquid inside was thin. Bella walked to the edge of the stones and set a small device on the top of one. The scanner. She turned it on. A number rose in the air above the vial. It was low. The crowd read it. A few people at the back began to leave. Cyndi's face did not change. She lifted her hand to throw the vial. Bella looked at Goldie. Goldie stepped forward and closed her eyes. Sierra put a hand on her sister's back. The air in the circle went slow. Cyndi's arm moved through honey. Bella walked across the stones, took the vial from her sister's fingers, and stepped back. Goldie let go. Time snapped forward. Cyndi's empty hand finished its throw. Heather stepped into the circle then. She did not shout. She spoke so the front row could hear. "Cyndi Cylendar took what was not hers. The scanner shows it. She is not the keeper. She will not be." The board wrote the words under her prophecy and locked them in ink. Cyndi looked at Heather for the first time. Her face was flat. "You picked," she said. Heather nodded. "I picked." Bella walked Cyndi out of the circle and banned her from the house in front of the crowd. The war Cyndi had tried to start ended before dark. But Heather watched her sister walk to a car with three people she did not know, and she understood the next problem. Cyndi had lost the circle. She still had allies. And now she had nothing left to lose.