Hexbound

“Chloe Neill has written an incredible cast of characters and her heroine, Lily, has a wonderful, engaging voice.... Fans of urban fantasy, paranormal, and young adult will definitely want to pick this one up and lose themselves in the magical underground that is Chicago.”

—Fresh Fiction

“If you crave a story full of intrigue, mystery, magic, and a bit of romance then this is your book.”

—Bookstack

“Exciting teen urban fantasy.”

—Genre Go Round Reviews

“In a genre laden with boarding school dramas, how can one possibly stand out? Ask Chloe Neill. She did an excellent job of making
Firespell
stand out above all the others. How? you may ask. By writing exceptionally interesting, fun characters.”

—Pure Imagination

Praise for Chloe Neill’s Chicagoland Vampires Novels

“With her wonderfully compelling reluctant vampire heroine and her careful world building, I was drawn into
Some Girls Bite
from page one, and kept reading far into the night.”

—Julie Kenner,
USA Today
bestselling author of
Good Ghouls Do

“If you loved Nancy Drew but always wished she was an undead sword-wielding badass, Merit is your kind of girl.”

—Geek Monthly

Novels in the Dark Elite Series

Firespell
Hexbound

SIGNET

Published by New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

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Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices:
80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
First published by Signet, an imprint of New American Library,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
First Printing, January 2011

REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

PUBLISHER’S NOTE

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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eISBN : 978-1-101-47674-1

http://us.penguingroup.com

For SHB, because sometimes you find the greatest things when you least expect them.

“Diamonds are forever. Magic, not so much.”

—Scout Green

I stayed absolutely still, my eyes closed, the sun warm on my face. As long as I didn’t fidget too much, the noon sun was just strong enough to cancel out the chilly October breeze that blew through our part of downtown Chicago.

I guess there was a reason they called it the Windy City.

It was a Sunday afternoon at St. Sophia’s School for Girls, and I was squeezed into a tiny square of sunshine on the lawn with my friend Scout. She sat beside me with her arms stretched out behind her, eyes closed and head tipped up to the sky. I sat cross-legged, art-history book open in my lap. Every few minutes we’d inch our legs a little farther to the left, trying to take in the last warm bit of fall.

“This totally beats sitting in class,” Scout said. “And wearing uniforms.”

Scout was dressed in a black skirt and shirt she’d sewn from two White Sox T-shirts. It was quite a change from the navy-and-yellow private school plaid we usually wore. And then there were the shoes (Converses she’d coated in gold glitter), the hair (a short blond bob with dark tips), and the silver nose ring. There was no mistaking Scout Green, even in the uniform, for the average “St. Sophia’s girl.”

“You are totally rocking those clothes today.”

Scout opened an eye and glanced down at her jersey skirt. “I appreciate your appreciation of my obvious good taste. Besides, someone had to rock it out. This place is like a dismal swamp of
bleh
.”

I put a hand over my heart. “Thank God you’re here to save us, Saint Scout.”

Scout snorted and crossed one ankle over the other, her shoes glinting in the sunlight.

“And now I know why I keep finding glitter on my bedroom floor.”

“Whatever. My shoes do not shed.”

I gave her a dubious look.

“Seriously. That’s just . . . um . . . horn dust from the unicorns that braid your hair while you sleep.”

Scout and I both looked at each other. Unfortunately, while I didn’t remember waking up with any mysterious braids, we couldn’t exactly rule out the unicorn part.

Oh, did I mention Scout could do magic?

Yeah, you heard me. And I know what you’re thinking: “Lily Parker, there’s no such thing as magic. The tofu is starting to go to your head.”

You’re going to have to trust me on this one. See, as it turns out, Chicago is home to an underground world of magicians battling it out while the rest of the city is asleep. And those magicians included the girl, who was now humming a song from
High School Musical 3
, beside me.

Scary, right?

Millicent Green, aka Scout, was actually an Adept and a member of Enclave Three.

And here’s the second twist—so was I.

See, I was actually from upstate New York, but when my parents decided to head to Germany for a research sabbatical, they figured St. Sophia’s, deep in the heart of Chicago, was the best place for me to spend my junior and senior years of high school.

They said parents knew best. To my mind, the jury was still out.

I didn’t come to Chicago with any powers, at least not that I was aware. And my parents certainly weren’t doing magic in their free time.

Again, at least not that I was aware. But with a secret trip to Germany? Who really knew? I’d been told by Marceline Foley, the headmistress of St. Sophia’s, that their work had something to do with genetics. She’d changed her tune later on, but there was no unringing that bell—or the fact that their European vacation was related to a place called the Sterling Research Foundation. For their safety, I’d made a promise to let my parents’ secrets, whatever they were, stay secret.

Anyway, it took a trip into the basement of St. Sophia’s—and a shot of magic from one of the bad guys—to trigger my own magic.

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