She shrugged, but her gaze had turned intense again, and a bitter taste in the back of my throat warned that she might be playing the game, too.
I laid a finger on the cup and shivered as Margo’s finger brushed against mine. Her face was paler than usual, and her eyelashes looked white against her blue—Wait, blue?
I looked again, but her eyes were shut, and she was breathing heavily, her hands trembling as the rest of the group rushed to touch the cup.
“Margo?” I whispered. “You okay?”
She nodded, her lips pressed tight together, but the skin on her hand was ice-cold next to mine.
I took her free hand in mine, making an effort not to recoil from her touch. She squeezed so tight, her knuckles whitened.
“Oh, spirit world,” Emma said in a patronising tone. “Hear our calls on All Hallows’ Eve, the night when the walls between worlds are at their weakest.”
“What did you do?” Mara asked nastily. “Memorise that from a film?” She only said that because it was something us ferals used to do to learn how to fit into the real world. It never worked.
“Shut up,” Emma hissed back. “Nobody cares where I got it from. If it works,” she tossed her blond curls over her shoulder, “then it works.”
I rolled my eyes and waited, my shoulders tense. The chill that Margo expended was increasing. Maybe it had something to do with her fear. Maybe she naturally shielded herself when she was afraid or—
“Spirits of the… spirit world.” Some snickers followed. “Hear our calls. Are you out there?”
The cup moved slowly to the word yes.
“Shocking,” I murmured.
Somebody shushed me, and Emma continued asking dull questions with yes or no answers.
“What do you need?” Margo said out of the blue.
“Hey,” Emma said indignantly. “This ismy—”
Somebody must have opened the front door because a breeze ran around the room, brushing all of us with its touch. Instinctively, I let go of the cup and put my arm around Margo. She leaned against me, impossibly cold. The cup moved again, this time frighteningly fast. It spelled out a word.
“Help?” Chloe murmured, looking uncomfortable.
The cup kept moving, so fast that the others barely kept their fingers on top of it. One by one, they broke away as more letters were used, spelling out “help me”. It kept going, reaching an M, an A, an R. I glanced at Margo right as the board was flung up into the air, the cup hitting the ceiling and cracking before falling back down at Emma’s feet. Her scream was authentic, full of genuine fear, but the shock in Mara’s eyes wasn’t fake either. I couldn’t figure out who had done it.
The lights flickered off and on, and the windows flew open then slammed shut. Half the room was screaming by then. But Margo’s eyes were wide open, and everywhere she looked, something else happened.
“Are you… doing this?” I asked as books flew across the room.
She blinked a couple of times and looked at me in confusion. Her eyes were grey again. “Doing what?”
The chairs and coffee table lifted then jerked across the room. A chair knocked Adam over. He fled, screaming incoherently. People ran out of the house after him, pushing each other, shouting for help. A book flew across the room. Margo and I ducked, and it sailed over our heads.
“Let’s get out of here,” I shouted above the howling wind.
Still holding her hand, I yanked her to her feet. She stumbled after me. Chloe lay trapped under the coffee table somehow, frozen into place in fear. I lifted it to free her. She didn’t even thank me. She just got out of there. I whirled around to find Margo. She was the only one left in the room, and she was standing in front of a heavy bookcase that was violently shaking of its own accord.
I jumped over the sofa as the bookcase began to fall. I righted it in time and looked at Margo who was still staring, her face almost unrecognisable in its strangeness.
“Stop this!” I shouted. “Whatever you’re doing, stop it!”
She blinked, her expression so normal that I doubted myself. “What are you talking about? You’re the ones playing a stupid prank.”
“This isn’t—” I heard the crack a split second before I reacted. I grabbed Margo, held her against my chest and turned my back as the window smashed and covered us with glass. A couple of shards pierced my skin, but I barely felt the sting in my anger. I shook Margo. “You’re going to get somebody hurt.”
“Dorian,” she whispered, reaching up for my cheek. “You’re bleeding.” She touched me, and my sight went black. Something was in my body, sharing space with me. My inner wolf howled and squirmed and fought, and together, we pushed the new presence out of us.