Of Curse and Covenant: A Reverse Harem Academy Romance (Arcane Arts Academy Book 0)

by Elena Lawson

  A sudden sinking in my stomach reminded what happened the last time I went into this house uninvited. I wouldn’t do it again.

  “Hello,” I called into the warmth of the Abbey, noting how many things had been restored and upgraded in the past hundred years.

  Just then, a woman rushed through the foyer, a heavy-looking suitcase in her right hand. She startled at seeing me in the doorway and dropped the case. It hit the marble flooring with a loud thump.

  Recognition flitted in my mind, and I saw the same thing register in her eyes, too.

  “You,” she choked out, regaining some composure.

  “Dolores?”

  9

  Without being asked or invited, I stepped inside, and the door fell closed behind me. It was like seeing a phantom. We studied one another for what felt like an age, but I was sure was mere moments. When I was convinced, she was, in fact, real, I began to process what exactly that meant.

  The last time I saw her she was barely twenty. And now she looked barely thirty. She’d aged even less than I had… in over one hundred years.

  Impossible.

  “How?” I breathed, my mind attempting to work through what I was seeing.

  She shook her head, lifting her case once more. “What are you doing here? Did someone send you to finish what you started? Is that it? Because if it is, you better get it over with—I’m in no mood.”

  “Dolores, how—”

  She stopped me with a look. “Why are you here?”

  Even though my mind was still reeling, I thought that a fair question given the circumstances. “I—well, I heard Alistair was running for a seat on the council. I came to see if I could help,” I explained. “I work at the Department, you see.”

  She cocked her head at me, her green eyes considering—squinting in confusion. As though I’d just said the most ridiculous thing in the world.

  “Is he home?” I added.

  Her jaw clamped shut, and I saw a crack in her stony gaze. Behind the mask of bravery, I saw pain. Worry.

  “Dolores, I’m sorry, but is everything alright? Should I leave?”

  Leaving was the last thing I wanted to do, but this wasn’t my house. What I did want was an explanation. Why was she here? How was she still alive? And where in the world was Alistair?

  Seeming to decide something, she lifted her chin. “He lied to you,” she said, and then paused, taking a long breath. “That night—”

  She was interrupted by the high-pitched wail of… of an infant crying.

  Dolores rushed up the stairs, muttering something in her wake.

  A dark shape scuttled across the floor to follow her up the stairs. I recognized the animal at once. It was Alistair’s familiar, though it’s eyes were milky, and it’s full sparse and dry from age.

  Had I stepped into another dimension when I walked through that door? I felt so hopelessly confused and needed answers. In a hazy state of disbelief, I followed Dolores and the animal up the stairs. Followed the sounds of the child.

  I came upon a room at the end of the corridor and discovered it was a nursery. The walls and wispy curtains white. A dark wooden crib at the far end, and a dresser just inside the door. Stuffed things and small wooden toys littered the floor to the far right. And in the middle of the room stood Dolores, a babe swaddled in a pale pink blanket in her arms.

  She rocked the child back and forth, holding a pacifier gently to it’s lips as she made a soft shhhh sound over and over until the red-haired infant was soothed. Even with the red tinged wisps of hair and what looked to be greenish eyes like it’s mother, there was absolutely no mistaking this was Alistair’s child. The slope of her nose, and the shape of her face. It was him reincarnated. Beautiful. Precious.

  I hadn’t realized I was covering my mouth with a hand until I went to speak, my eyes damp at the reality of what I saw. Of what it meant.

  He lied to you, Dolores had said.

  And in that instant, it made clear, painful sense to me what exactly she meant.

  She’d never left. Alistair had only made me believe she was leaving. He knew I’d confront Nico, and that Nico would believe me when I said she had gone because I, too, believed it.

  Alistair never lost Dolores. He merely traded me for her.

  Sometimes I hated how quickly I could see through a problem. Cursed my own level of intelligence. I often wished I could be vapid and aloof like so many other women I knew.

  I was surprised I hadn’t caught on before. I’d known something about their argument seemed… off, but I’d shrugged it off.

  She’d been living with him in this house all this time in secret.

  But could I blame him for cutting me out? Since it was my own fault their relationship was jeopardized in the first place.

  Noticing me standing there, Dolores slowed her rocking, an apology in her gaze. Gingerly, she placed the babe back down in its crib, and tip toed out the door and into the hallway with me. The wolverine tucked itself in close to the crib, laying protectively at it’s front.

  “You have a child,” I said, more to myself than to her.

  Surprising me, Dolores placed a delicate hand on my arm, and I met her steady gaze, finding something buried deep there. “Do you still feel for Alistair like you once did?”

  I recoiled at her words. Shocked at her boldness. Wondering at why she would even ask such a thing.

  “I—”

  “If you do. If you have any care for him at all, then I need your help.”

  I saw it in that moment. The emotion I couldn’t place before—the one she’d been trying to conceal—it was panic. Raw and unchecked. It made her hands shake at her sides and her chin quiver.

  Narrowing my eyes, I looked to her and back to where the babe was dozing peacefully back in its crib, remembering the suitcase she’d been carrying when I fist came inside. Had she been leaving?

  “What is it? What’s happened?”

  A tremor of worry raced down my own back. Alistair.

  I knew before she said a single word. Was he hurt? In some sort of trouble? Had someone found out about them? Witch-mortal relationships were still frowned upon even after all these years. Illicit romps with them were permissible. But this—what Alistair was doing with Dolores, it was still illegal. She wasn’t supposed to know about us. And the council certainly wouldn’t like the fact that he’d allowed our pure Alchemist bloodlines to mix with her kind.

  But, wait… her kind? Humans didn’t live half as long as witches. And I knew of no way—alchemically speaking—that Alistair could prolong her life. At least not without using blood magic—and it was the most forbidden of all.

  She pulled me down the hall, away from the nursery, and looked to the little white room and back up to me. “He—he sent me a whisper. Alistair—he told me to take Harper and leave. And not to come back unless he came for me.”

  A whisper? That was impossible—that magic was lost a millenia ago with the Codex. How had he figured it out? In all the years since Emeris, not one Alchemist had managed to recreate that original bit of magic.

  I shook my head—that wasn’t what was important right now.

  “Why—”

  “I don’t know!” she said, her voice raising before she was able to check herself. “I don’t know,” she repeated more quietly. “He said he had to do something, and that there were people—witches—high-up witches that wanted to stop him. I think—” she paused, and I knew she was having a hard time getting the words out. “I think he’s in danger. I think whoever it is that he’s afraid of—I think they mean to kill him, and it’s probably all my fault.”

  She buried her head in her dainty hands and wept, her body wracking with each forceful sob. My breath caught in my throat. I wouldn’t comfort her. And I couldn’t tell her that whatever was happening with Alistair wasn’t her fault, because what else would he be in trouble for? But this time I wouldn’t stay out of it. He needed me, and I intended to be there for him.

  “You should
do as he said,” I told her hollowly, thinking to myself that if he died for this—this woman in front of me, how much of an absolute waste it would be. Alistair was one of the strongest witches of our generation. Though it’d been years and years, I knew he never would have lost his sharp tongue, his quick wit, or his cleverness. Chances are he wouldn’t even need my help, but he had it now, whether he liked it or not.

  And perhaps if I forgave him for his lies --for cutting me out—he would forgive me, too.

  Dolores peered up at me from under wet lashes, aghast at my suggestion. “You would have me abandon him?”

  “No,” I replied, more sternly than I’d intended. “You asked for my help. I would have you listen to him and do as he’s asked you—for the safety of his child—and to let me find him. I’ll bring him home,” I said. “But first, I’ll get you far away from here.”

  She looked at me incredulously for a single charged moment before she spoke. “You still love him—even after all these years?”

  I didn’t reply.

  “You need to leave,” I told her. “Take your child and go. If you don’t hear from him directly…” I paused, unable to fathom the thought. I had to entertain every scenario, though, and the truth was I had absolutely no idea what Alistair could have gotten himself into. “Don’t come back.”

  10

  The babe hardly stirred as Dolores finished filling a small suitcase with the barest of necessities and several enormous stacks of American hundred dollar bills and scooped her up to leave.

  “Do you have a place to go?” I asked her, readying myself to open up a portal from within Alistair’s home. I liked to think that given the circumstances, he’d be alright with me breaking the rules just this once.

  Dolores chewed her bottom lip, considering as she cradled the infant closer to her breast. “Yes—well, maybe. Can you get me to Georgia?”

  I racked my brain, trying to think of a safe portaling zone I could’ve used there. The Department occasionally sent us to retrieve documents and other archives all around the world. In the ninety years I’d worked at the Department, I thought I’d been almost everywhere.

  “I do know a place there that I can get you, but it’s a place meant for witches, and it’s a ways from Georgia. A meeting spot. It will almost definitely be vacant—I don’t think it’s used much, but you’ll have to leave the area right away—before you’re seen… and it’s a long walk to get to the nearest shelter.”

  She nodded once, terse.

  “Alright.” I drew the sigil and the doorway into the wall, letting loose a breath of relief when I saw the little patch clearing at the northeastern edge of the woods was clear of other witches. It was cold, though. And the wind was biting. The ground coated in a thick layer of ice and snow. The babe…

  “Wait,” I said, moving to stop Dolores. Ready to run for an extra blanket to keep little Harper warm when I pulled back, gasping as my skin made contact with hers. In the thin cardigan she wore, Dolores was somehow piping hot. And even as the cold and wind swept into Alistair’s entryway from the portal, the babe she held was warm and comfortable. She didn’t so much as stir.

  Alistair’s wolverine limped out into the cold next to her, keeping tight to her legs. It would protect her in Alistair’s stead. At least until Alistair’s last breath—for it was his magic, and his own lifeforce that allowed the creature to live as long as it had.

  Dolores turned back to give me a sad smile before she pulled away.

  “What are you?” I asked her, my voice so quiet it was nearly lost to the howling of the wind.

  But Dolores only bowed her head, whispering sweet nothings to the child in her arms. When she raised her head again, her eyes were wet with tears, and she was looking past me, at the home she was leaving behind.

  “Thank you,” was all she said, and in her voice I heard the unmistakable doubt that she would ever see me again. That she would ever return to the place she’d called home since 1872.

  I wasted no time after the portal closed, shaking my head to clear it of the strange sinking feeling gnawing there. I pushed my shoulders back and strode into Alistair’s office.

  “Where are you,” I whispered, mostly to myself. “Where are you?”

  I spun in a circle, noticing all the things that’d changed in the space since I’d last been there—and all the things that’d stayed the same.

  I’d never find what I needed fast enough this way.

  Taking a sharp breath, I closed my eyes at the center of the floor, concentrating. I lifted my hands and pictured the objects I required to do the locator spell, and spoke the incantation forcefully, “Desiderio revelare.”

  When I opened my eyes, an old map dropped from a high shelf to my right and floated down to me, and a crystal pendulum shot from the top of his desk like a whip, making me catch it in midair.

  Unrolling the map, I set it down against the wooden floor and knelt before it, positioning the crystal pendulum over top with my left hand. I sent a silent plea to the heavens that this would be enough to find him. There were few reasons a locator spell wouldn’t work, the most common of which being that the witch you were looking for was dead. This sort of magic only worked to find live subjects—one’s who still had a connection to the magic of the earth.

  I breathed out through my mouth, readying myself for the worst. My right hand shook as I lifted it over the map, drawing the sigil that would help me find him over the parchment. “Invenium,” I whispered, feeling the raw energy pass up through the floor and into me, using me as it’s divine conductor. It pulsed out through the sigil and vociferated through my voice. And then it was gone, directed into the sharp-tipped crystal pendulum now ripped from my hand to punch a pin-sized hole in the paper.

  Knocking it out of the way, my brows furrowed at where it landed. I knew the place. I’d frequented The Cellar for years after what happened with Nico. Drowning my sorrows in Psy’s Blue Moon Punch. And then later, as an adult, I began to frequent the main bar, Sigilante.

  The upstairs room where the jazz music played. It wasn’t as stuffy as I thought it would be, or nearly as prestigious. It was simply an adult witch only lounge. Though I was generally one of the rare female witches in attendance. They made exceptions though, because of my parentage and work at the Department.

  What could Alistair be doing there?

  I hurried to open the portal, the image of the alleyway easy to conjure—I’d been there only a few weeks ago.

  When I stepped through , the light of the sun as it set over the city jabbed at my eyes, and not for the first time I damned the disorientation of time difference when using portals so much. The sunset was blinding, tinged with that burnt reddish orange I was convinced only happened to the sun in New Orleans.

  The portal shut behind me and I made my way over the familiar cobblestones, past passersby on the street, and then, when the coast was clear, into the run-down building that had been a haven of freedom to witches for as long as anyone could remember.

  The reality of what lie inside was revealed to me once I passed over the threshold. The marble flooring gleamed at my feet, and the curving staircase leading up looked freshly polished. Not much had changed since I the last time I’d been here with Alistair except for the plumbing. There was still no need for electricity—since witch-light was used to light the space and always had been. And they’d kept it looking rather the same.

  The door going down to The Cellar was still red, though they’d changed the hue to a color closer to the deep crimson of rose-petals just before they were ready to fall. The new wallpaper was tacky, though.

  But I couldn’t see Alistair—at least not in the entryway. Judging by the map he had to be here. There was nowhere else he would go in New Orleans, was there?

  The veridity of what I was doing hit me, and my arms came forward to wrap around myself. It was a habit I still had yet to break. The retreating into myself.

  I realized what I was doing and forced my spine erect, shov
ed my shoulders back.

  I was going to see him. After all these years. Would he be glad to see me? Happy that I’d come to his aid?

  It was too late to think about that now.

  An image of Dolores, her eyes wet with tears as she held the infant in her arms, ready to make her way over a landscape of ice to do what Alistair asked of her—to keep her babe safe… I could do this.

  I could face him again if it meant preserving the life of something so precious, even if the child wasn’t my own.

  I clenched my hands at my sides, using the bite of my nails into the soft skin of my palms to keep myself focused.

  Find Alistair.

  I’d been through the entire building; I was sure of it. He wasn’t anywhere, it seemed, and the longer I looked and didn’t find, the more and more frantic I became. I needed to do the locator spell again. make sure he didn’t leave. He could be home already, sending a whisper to Dolores to tell her he’s safe and to come home.

  Yes, that was probably it.

  He was home—safe, and it had all been a misunderstanding. He didn’t need my help after all.

  I would just go back to the Abbey and check up on them. Make sure both he and Dolores and the child got back alright, and then I would disappear from his life again—if that was what he wanted.

  “Long time no see,” the smooth voice said from somewhere behind me. I was almost back out onto the street, but turned, recognizing the slight accent.

  “Psy?”

  I hadn’t been down to The Cellar in ages, and I’d just assumed he’d quit, or, I don’t know, maybe died. But there he was, looking young as ever—younger than me even though he had a solid fifty years on me. He must’ve noticed my widening eyes because he cocked his head and said, “Don’t tell me you didn’t recognize me.”

  “No, I—um, I did. I’m just surprised to see you here.”

  “They can’t get rid of me.”

  I laughed, though the sound was strained. “Well, it’s good to see you.”