by Elena Lawson
“I’m not going anywhere,” I said, casting an apology at Elias.
“What do you want?” I directed at Sterling.
The Headmaster’s dark eyes fell. “It isn’t what I want,” he replied in a deadpan voice. When he raised his eyes to meet mine again, they were churning with something like torment. Narrowed with fury. “It’s what must be done.”
I shook my head, taking a step closer. “No, please. You don’t have to—”
“Does my niece know anything about this? Does anyone else?” he interrupted, his grip on Elias tightening. Elias cringed and I caught sight of the spark of magic at the fingertips of his left hand. He was mounting for an attack of his own.
No! I wanted to shout at him. Don’t try to be a hero, you’ll get yourself killed! My chest and throat tightened.
Distract him. I had to distract him if Elias had any chance of succeeding.
I stepped closer again, and Sterling stiffened, his jaw flexing under his salt and pepper beard. “No,” I said. “They know nothing.” And suddenly I was so relieved I hadn’t told Bianca. Cringing to think of what he might’ve done to his own niece if I had.
“Good,” he replied, and I could see his mind became made up. He fell silent.
“You won’t get away with it,” I blurted, my gaze darting to Elias.
He gave me the slightest nod. Keep going, he seemed to be saying. A sigil grew from his palm, glowing bright violet.
“You’ll—you’ll pay for what you did to my father. You’ll rot in Kalzir!”
Sterling sighed, hanging his head. “No,” he said, and sounded almost disappointed. “I don’t think I will.”
Elias attacked. With bared teeth and every muscle in his body taught, he fired the spell at Sterling. The Headmaster released him and raised his arm. A hastily conjured shield blocked Elias’ blow, but sent him sailing backward. He crashed into the wrought iron table, struggling to right himself.
The sigil he’d had in his hand pulsed with blazing light.
Elias came barreling toward me, and I barely had time to process what was happening before my body was airborne and we landed hard in the tall grass outside the cabin.
The door was blown off its hinges a split second after we’d passed through it. Bits of singed and broken wood rained down around us.
Elias shielded me from the worst of it, shuffling to his feet. He hauled me up with him, and I cried out. My hip twinged when I tried to put weight on my left leg and my elbow stung when the cold night air met raw skin.
“Go!” Elias bellowed, releasing me and turning back to the cabin, sigils forming around his hands. The feel of his power awakened my own magic back to a violent roar. The savage force of it rushed in my ears. Near deafening.
“Not without you!”
He muttered something under his breath, but I didn’t catch what it was. Sterling appeared in the doorway, magic at the ready, dancing along his fingers. Elias didn’t hesitate. He catapulted an attack spell at Sterling. It rocketed through the air toward him in a twisting spiral of multicolored light.
Sterling met Elias’ attack with one of his own. The two sigils collided in mid-air. Exploded in vivid color, throwing sparks into the night.
Elias attacked again. And Sterling countered. I watched as the force of the headmaster’s advances pushed Elias. His feet dug into the ground with the effort of trying not to be blown back.
I drew the sigil for shield and rammed my forearm into it, effectively binding it to me just in time to shield myself from a barrage of magical debris crashing over me like a wave. We wouldn’t last long like this. Not without me knowing how to defend myself.
Come on! I urged my powers, trying to visualize lightning raining down from the sky and onto the silver-haired head of Atticus Sterling. But I’d never been able to control when my magic went haywire, or what it did. Hell, I didn’t even believe I could conjure a storm, no matter what Ms. Granger and Bianca said.
A flash of silver and I saw Fallon slinking around the edge of the cabin, looking for a change to attack Sterling. “No!” I hissed at the fox, and it lifted it’s narrow face to hiss back at me. The fox would only get hurt. It would die if it tried to intervene, and Elias could be distracted. “Get out of here,” I shouted at it over the crackle and boom of traded magical attacks. “Go find help!”
I didn’t think the fox would listen, or understand what I meant, but it looked from it’s bonded witch and back to me and then took off toward the academy. Smart animal.
“Help!” I shouted back through the trees at our backs, toward where the academy peeked through the branches, looking down us.
Someone should’ve heard us by now. But not a single window shone with light. And no one came.
A bolt of magic snaked out from Elias and Sterling’s traded volleys of attack and I saw it. A warding spell surrounded the cabin, stretching at least twenty feet in each direction in a dome-like circle. I was in such a rush I hadn’t noticed when I’d passed through. I’d been too panicked. Frantic to get to Elias.
It didn’t matter how loud I yelled. If I screamed. No one would hear me. No one would come to help us.
Elias cried out and I turned in time to see him fall. He was blown back by the strength of Sterling’s spell. Stunned. His head connected with the earth and snapped back. His eyes closed.
Sterling lifted his hands to deliver the killing blow, charging up the amber sigil he was about to let fly.
Time slowed.
I bolted toward Elias and it was as though I was running through deep water. Unable to make my legs move any faster. Sterling hurtled the sigil at Elias and I dove.
The spell struck my shield and I had to clutch onto Elias to hold myself and my shield in place, a broken scream tore from my lungs at the burning sensation biting at my raised arm. I fed more power into the shield. I needed it to be stronger.
It had to protect us both. Elias laid still beneath me. His eyes sealed and his face streaked with soot and dirt. Flashes of light illuminated him with each attack launched at us.
Tears blurred the image of him. I felt hopeless. And furious. Completely unhinged.
The sky groaned overhead, and the earth buckled beneath my skinned knees. A tremor rolled over the earth. It was like an opening. As though someone cleaved my chest in two and all the magic inside came pouring out.
Somewhere deep in the woods trees fell, dropping to the earth with resounding booms and crashes. Lightning snaked across the sky above, forking out in all directions—Illuminating the paled face of Headmaster Sterling as he stared in awe of the coming storm, widening his stance to keep his balance on the shaking ground.
A lancing pain shot through my skull, and my shield weakened. But Sterling had already stopped the assault, and now stood staring at me in absolute horror.
Another stab of pain had me curling my hands into tight fists. My fingernails carved little half-moons into my palms. A hot liquid dripped over my lips and when I swallowed I tasted the coppery tang of blood.
Elias’ eyes fluttered open, but they remained unfocused. He was coming to. He was alright! I could’ve shouted with joy. Wanted to burst into tears. But I couldn’t do either of those things because Sterling was advancing, moving his hands around a three-dimensional sigil as it built in size and strength.
It looked like a sigil within a sigil within another sigil. I’d never seen anything like it. But I didn’t have to know what it was to understand that my shield wouldn’t withstand it.
I grabbed Elias’ limp hand in mine and whispered, “I’m so sorry.”
“You really are your father’s daughter,” Sterling spat, stopping only a few meters from where I knelt over Elias in the grass. He looked disgusted, but not at me, or at Elias. His face was reddened and twitching. His eyes shone with tears.
He didn’t want to do this.
But there was firm intent there, too. He’d already made up his mind. No loose ends... The Magistrate had ordered him. And he would comply.
Another wave of magic left me and I recoiled at the release. The earth split around me, fracturing out in every direction except the one I wanted it to go. I couldn’t control it. I couldn’t save us.
This whole mess happened because I wanted to know what happened to my father. And now I was going to die without even knowing?
Fuck that.
“Why?” I hissed at him. “Why did you kill him?”
Sterling was breathing hard, and the pulsating orb between his weathered hands was nearly ready to be wielded. He wouldn’t be able to hold it much longer. Power like that couldn’t be contained. I should know.
Lightning struck the ground near the academy, and the atmosphere came alive with light and electricity. The sky opened up and rain fell, thick and heavy, pounding the dirt around us. Soaking through my clothes in seconds and chilling me all the way to the bone.
“He always was too curious for his own good,” Sterling shouted over the steading rushing of the rain. “A family trait I think,” he added, staring pointedly at me, lowering his brows. “Even his cousin couldn’t mind his own damned business. Cost me a history professor in the middle of the year!”
But the history professor who taught here before Elias had died of a heart attack, hadn’t he? I was so certain I remembered Elias telling me that. And Bianca telling me how every student in the academy turned out for his funeral. She said he was everyone’s favorite. And he was my relative?
A loud gasp ending in a strained sob cut through the sound of the rain, and I whipped my head around to find her standing near the trees, at the edge of Sterling’s ward.
Bianca had both of her hands clamped over her mouth as though holding back a scream. Her shoulders shook and tears poured freely from her darkened brown eyes. Her fluffy white housecoat was three inches deep in mud, and the mascara had run all the way to her chin in the rain. Her usually voluminous blond waves were weighted down with water and looked raggedy and thin. “You killed Mr. Simmonds?” she breathed, removing her hands to let them hang, shaking at her sides.
How long had she been listening? Had she seen her uncle attacking Elias and I?
“You killed Harper’s dad?” she asked, her voice edging in a shout. Her hot breath clouded around her face in the frigid air. She seemed unbothered by the fact that he held a death-sentence worth of magic in his hands.
Sterling went green. His magic waned, and his chin quivered at the sight of her. He looked like he might be ill.
“Answer me!” Bianca cried. Her voice a high-pitched, blaring scream.
I shook Elias. “Wake up,” I whispered. “You need to wake up!” He choked a little, whimpered, but was still unable to move.
Sterling bent his head. His hands trembled around the glowing amber orb. Then they turned to claws and he growled, baring his yellowed teeth as he shouted. “This is all your fault!” His crazed voice echoed through the air, and he set his sights on me.
His eyes glinted in the moonlight, exposing the madness dwelling deep within. He raised his hands and I fell to cover Elias’ body with my own. Bracing for impact.
But a feral growl pierced the wind, reverberating deep in my core.
I saw him a fraction of second after I heard him. Adrian’s wolf came barrelling through the ward and launched himself at Sterling. His strong hind legs propelled him through the air like a loosed arrow. He was a blur of coiled muscle and grayish silver fur.
One second Sterling had a throat. The next, he didn’t.
20
His lifeless body slumped to the ground.
Cal loped into view behind Adrian, snarling, his hackles raised high along his spine. Bianca dropped to her knees like a stone and vomited into the grass. Cal growled at her, but I shouted at him. “Cal!” He turned, his ears pricking. “Leave her.”
The pounding in my chest began to slow, and with it the rain also slowed. Stopping entirely after only a few seconds.
“Bianca,” I called, not wanting to leave Elias’ side. In truth, I wasn’t sure I could make my legs move even if I wanted them to. My entire left side throbbed, and my legs felt as though they were made of lead. As though they’d sprung root and attached themselves to earth. No, I wouldn’t be moving any time soon.
Bianca held up a hand to silence me, and I saw her body racking with sobs. She needed space. She needed to process. And then after, I would tell her what I knew. Explain the ugly truth to her in as much detail as she wanted. Or not at all if she asked.
Elias’ eyelids fluttered, and a ragged breath left his lips. He was coming to.
He was going to be alright, I could feel it. His body was already healing. We just had to get him inside and wake Granger. She would know what to do.
Elias’s eyes blinked open and his pupils constricted at the onslaught of moonlight. “Hey,” I said as calmly as I could, brushing the stray dark hairs away from his face. “It’s over. We’re safe... we’re safe.”
He drifted back out of consciousness, sighing as he went as though giving in to the dark only because he now knew I was alright.
Adrian came closer and I shied away at first, seeing his muzzle matted with still-wet blood. He whimpered, and bowed his head, nuzzling against my side. Cal came to join his pack mate. His green eyes roved over me, sniffing the air around my body to check for injury, growling every time he found one.
It took a moment, but once the buzzing of raw power that had been coursing through me ebbed away, seeping back into the earth from where it came, I felt it. Relief flooded every neuron in my body. And when Cal bowed his head to me, I realized what it was.
They’d accepted the bond.
I looked into a set of large glowing golden eyes, and a set of green, and saw something I never thought I’d be able to see in my familiars. Devotion. Hope. And something like desire.
I turned my attention squarely at Adrian and leaned my head against his, feeling his thick fur against my forehead. “Thank you,” I whispered.
21
It’d been a week since the carnage outside Elias’ cabin.
So much had changed since then. So many things had happened. Elias was back to his regular brooding, infuriatingly handsome self after only two days of missed classes. My familiars had come to check on me only once since they left the day after the incident.
They were trying to figure out a way to tell Atlas, their Alpha, that they’d been bonded to a witch without having him want to kill me. So far, they hadn’t managed to come up with anything.
I was so glad they’d accepted the bond—accepted me, but they were still under the rule of their pack leader. They had to follow his command, whether they liked it or not.
I told them I’d find a way to tell people, too, as soon as everything calmed down at the academy. I couldn’t have my familiars being attacked if they were seen on the grounds. It wouldn’t stay a secret forever. But, to keep my sanity, I needed it to for at least a few more days.
All that mattered to me right now was that they’d decided to stay. To accept the bond. It brought me so much inner peace. And when I’d seen them on Tuesday, they’d seemed in better spirits, too. Relief was evident in the soft set of their shoulders. Adrian actually smiled. He was quick to cover it up, but I saw it, just for a second.
Don’t get me wrong. They weren’t happy by any stretch of the word. We fought most of the time they were here.
They still loathed witches, and on some level resented the bond and what they perceived it as. That wouldn’t change overnight. But they were trying, and that was all I could ask.
I analyzed the formal letter in my hand for the umpteenth time.
I still wasn’t sure if I’d made the right choice. Something told me to keep my mouth shut about the Magistrate’s involvement in the murder of my father and his cousin, Mr. Percival Simmonds. And in the attempted murder of me and Elias.
It was one thing to accuse a dead man of a crime. It was quite another to accuse the Magistrate of the Arcane Council of being the one who orchestrated
the attacks. So, I told the Arcane Authorities when they came that Atticus Sterling admitted to killing my father and he tried to kill me, and I didn’t know why.
Both Bianca and Elias corroborated my story.
I was the only one who knew of the Magistrate’s involvement—though I was sure Elias suspected something—and I would keep it that way. For now.
The Arcane Authorities had taken my statement and told me to prepare for trial before the Arcane Council. And that the Enduran shifter who’d ‘lent his assistance’ would have to attend trial, too. They had no idea the real reason Adrian killed Sterling was to save the witch he was bonded to.
Hell, I still had absolutely no idea how to even begin to tell people that...
But it seemed the Magistrate had no intention of allowing this case to go to trial. The letter Bianca and I received the day before explained the trial had been canceled. It stated the council had found enough evidence to support our testimonies and the issue would be laid to rest.
It was signed, Godric Montgomery. The Magistrate himself.
I threw the letter into the trash bin beside Bianca’s vanity, my stomach turning in disgust. A soft knock at the door sent a tremor down my spine, and I rushed to open it.
Elias stood solemnly on the other side, that worried crease in his forehead deeper than ever. His raincloud eyes were sympathetic. From behind him stepped Ms. Granger and I swallowed hard. It was time.
I closed the door quietly behind me, not wanting to wake Bianca.
“Are you sure you’re ready for this?” Elias asked me, his hands twitching as though he longed to reach out to me but couldn’t.
I nodded and righted my navy-blue headband, tucking a loose strand of red hair back in.
“It can still be put off,” Ms. Granger added, her voice full of strength and authority.
The woman was ready to take on the world. Since the death of Sterling, the council had appointed her temporary headmaster in his stead. It seemed she was the most qualified for the position, which was the criteria they used in such circumstances.
