Junior Witch

by Ingrid Seymour

  Making out with Sinasre had been nice, but the thought of having sex with him made me feel all kinds of wrong.

  Something told me it would be a long time before I’d be able to imagine being with someone else in that way. A while back, I had decided Rowan would be my first, and though I’d been trying to convince my brain that this wasn’t a possibility anymore, the idea wasn’t sticking.

  When the fae got to the Enlightenment Fountain, they stopped at its edge and glanced up at the five statues almost reverently. Water jetted out of them in arches, making small splashing sounds as it reached the artificially illuminated surface. The smell of treated water drifted into the air.

  Disha and I lingered a distance away. We exchanged a glance and a smile. The moment felt heavy as if loaded with the grief the fae must have felt during the separation from their families.

  I tried to imagine what it would be like to be reunited with my mother and father. With Trey. I missed the family we had been before Mom died. I missed Trey and the brotherly love he’d given me when I needed it most. Seeing them again would likely undo me just to put me back together again.

  Lancer was the first one to jump into the fountain. He ran awkwardly to its center, eager to be on his way. Only a few seconds separated him from his home, and he couldn’t even wait that long. With a backward glance at the others, he waved goodbye, then placed his hand at the statues’ base.

  The huge smile he wore remained even as he disintegrated into a million particles, the portal whisking him away back to the fae realm.

  Looking just as excited, Anama grabbed her brother’s hand and tried to pull him along, but he didn’t budge.

  “You go,” he said. “I’ll be right behind you.”

  Reluctantly, she got into the fountain and walked toward the statues, water sloshing around her. When she got there, she didn’t touch the base and opted for waiting for her brother.

  Sinasre extended a hand for me. I took it, and he pulled me closer, glancing down at me with gratitude in his eyes.

  “Thank you, Char-lie,” he said. “How could I ever repay you?”

  “Seeing you happy is my payment,” I said, a blush burning up my neck.

  He placed a hand on my cheek and softly caressed it with his thumb. “I’ll come back to see you if that’s okay. Now that the portal is open to us, it should be no problem, I hope.”

  “Of course, I would love that.”

  “Take care of yourself and… don’t ever change. For anyone.”

  “I’ll try not to.”

  He took a step back and let go of my hand. “I’ll miss you,” he said, then turned, jumped into the fountain, and waded toward his sister.

  Once there, he took her hand. They nodded to each other as if they were counting silently, then touched the base at the exact same time.

  There was a loud pop and a flash of light that made me jump in surprise, then Sinasre and Anama were gone and everything was as it had been.

  “What was that?” Disha asked.

  “I… I don’t know.”

  That wasn’t normal, was it? Of course, I’d always been the one dissolving on one end and appearing on the other—this was my first time seeing things from this perspective.

  “It didn’t do that with Lancer,” Disha said.

  He’d just dematerialized one particle at a time, no pop, no flash. The way it had been for us, I thought. An uneasy feeling unfurled in my stomach.

  What if something had gone wrong?

  As if reading my thoughts, Disha stepped next to me and said, “I’m sure they’re okay, Charlie. Portals can be funny like that.”

  I nodded, trying to let her words ease my worry and telling myself that Sinasre and Anama were home embracing their mom while I uselessly worried about them.

  They were fine. Just fine, and I would soon see Sinasre again.

  Tired, Disha and I walked back to the Junior Dorm. Disha cast a warming spell around us so we could hold our shoes in our hands and enjoy the dew on the grass as we crossed through several lawns.

  My room was on the first floor this year and Disha’s on the second, so we said goodbye in the common area and went our separate ways.

  After undressing and slipping into a pair of warm pajamas, I crashed on the bed, face down. I felt another headache coming on and groaned. Too much excitement tonight. Maybe I would skip class tomorrow. The thought made me relax, and I started to drift off to sleep.

  A loud rap on glass sent my heart into my throat. I jumped to my feet, twisting to face the window, my cuffs glowing in an instant.

  A haggard face was pressed to the glass, and it took me a moment to recognize him.

  Sinasre!

  I frantically slid the window open, and he tumbled inside, hitting his head on the floor.

  “Oh, my God!” I knelt by his side and helped him sit with his back to my bed. “What happened? Are you okay?”

  He winced, baring his sharp teeth. His reddish hair was in disarray as if he’d been in a windstorm, and his entire body was limp, voided of strength. His face was pale and slack. I examined him for injuries but found none.

  “Sinasre, please!” I took his face in my hands and forced him to look me in the eye.

  He struggled to focus but finally blinked and seemed to get a hold of his senses.

  “Anama,” he said in a low keen of pain. His eyes became unfocused again and just before passing out he managed to say, “My sister. She’s gone.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  SPRING SEMESTER

  LATE JANUARY

  Disha, Bridget, and I stood over Sinasre as Nurse Taishi examined him.

  We were at the infirmary after we had levitated the unconscious fae all the way from the Junior Dorm. I bit on my thumbnail, waiting for Nurse Taishi to say something, anything, but he just kept waving his hands over his patient’s body, muttering spells under his breath.

  After Sinasre passed out in my room, I’d almost done the same. Panic and a headache from hell had assaulted me all at once, but, somehow, I’d managed to stagger to the second floor and fetch Disha. The racket had awakened Bridget, so she’d tagged along, too.

  “What’s wrong with him?” I asked, unable to contain myself any longer.

  Nurse Taishi went on with his magical CAT scan and didn’t answer until he was done. “He’s been hit by some powerful magic,” he said. “But I can’t put my finger on what it is. It’s nothing I have seen before.”

  “Is he going to be okay?” I slipped my fingers into Sinasre’s inert hand and regarded his distressed features with worry. Even unconscious, he seemed to be in terrible anguish.

  Nurse Taishi ignored my question, but the expression on his face told me what I needed to know. He had no idea if Sinasre would make it.

  “I will perform some basic healing spells, then I’ll call for assistance. Also his family contacts,” he said. “You should leave now and let me work.” He gestured toward the door.

  I left reluctantly with Disha pulling on my arm as I dragged my feet. Outside the exam room, the three of us sat on a row of chairs that lined the wall. I stared at the floor, my thoughts reeling as a thousand questions fired in different directions.

  Was Anama dead? Was that what Sinasre had meant by saying she was gone? And what about Lancer? Where was he?

  How had this happened?!

  I tried to sift through the mess in my head while Disha caught Bridget up on the events of the night. Their voices were an annoying din that I wanted gone so I could think.

  Without a word, I stood and walked to the end of the hall where a window looked out onto the lawn. I stared at the manicured bushes and the quad beyond. The night had turned windy, judging by the way the trees swayed from side to side.

  Earlier today, I’d heard a few students in the cafeteria talking about a tornado warning. When I was homeless, I used to pay attention to the weather, and it had been my job to drag Trey to the tornado shelter when things got hairy. But here, the buildings were prote
cted by wards, so I’d learned to sleep through even the worst storms.

  As I focused on the weather and not the buzzing questions inside my head, my thoughts began to clear.

  This had all started with that stupid ceremony to honor me. Sinasre had been unhappy serving the witches and warlocks who kept him from accessing the portals, but he’d at least been healthy and now…

  God, this is all my fault.

  If I hadn’t made that stupid wish, none of this would have happened.

  My fists clenched as anger built in my chest. Why did everything I touched turn to shit? I’d tried to help Rowan and he’d ended up a vampire. I’d tried to help him again and his father died. And now this!

  “It’s all my fault,” I murmured between clenched teeth.

  A hand fell on my shoulder. I jumped, startled.

  “It’s not your fault, Charlie,” Disha said, standing behind me.

  “Then whose?” I said.

  Bridget appeared behind Disha. “It sounds to me like something was wrong with the portal.”

  “What could be wrong with the portal?” I asked, raising my voice as if this were Bridget’s fault instead. “That’s crazy. We’ve used it before and nothing like this ever happened.”

  “Well,” Bridget explained, keeping calm despite my outburst, “they were trying to travel to another realm.” She shrugged to indicate she wasn’t sure if that would make a difference.

  I looked to Disha, wondering if she had a better explanation.

  She shrugged too, then added, “I don’t think that should matter, but the portal had been locked to them for a while, so maybe they weren’t supposed to cross. Maybe—”

  “Maybe Nyquist didn’t really unblock it,” I said, feeling relief as I shifted the blame in his direction. “Maybe he wanted them to get hurt.”

  Disha blinked. “That’s a bit extreme, don’t you think?”

  “Is it?” I shook my head. “The subversives want the regents to release the portals so everyone has access to them, but they keep them locked.”

  “And for good reason,” Bridget said, sounding scandalized at my comment. “Can you imagine what those criminals might do if they had access to that kind of power? There’s more to the Academy portals than just traveling from A to B. You know that. That’s why responsible people are in charge of them. You don’t see Regulars allowing just anyone to go into power plants or reservoirs—not when a psycho might decide to poison the water or something.”

  “But Nyquist must have known it would be dangerous for them to try to cross to their realm and, yet, he never said anything. He had to know they would cross at the earliest time possible. Why wouldn’t he tell us it might be dangerous?” I said the words out loud, not sure I meant any of them, but trying them on for size. Unfortunately, they seemed to fit.

  “You’re implying he hurt them on purpose, Charlie,” Disha said, grimacing.

  “That’s exactly what I’m saying.” A righteous feeling built in my chest.

  If Nyquist had done this, if he’d hurt my friends after what I did for him, he would regret it.

  Pushing past Disha and Bridget, I barreled down the hall.

  “Where are you going?” Disha asked.

  “To get the truth out of him.”

  Several hours later, I blinked at my alarm clock from my desk chair. I hadn’t slept all night as I waited for eight AM to arrive. It was seven thirty now, and time was dragging.

  Last night, I’d rushed to the Administration Building, hoping to find Nyquist, but that had been a stupid idea. It’d been late. The building was locked. Of course, I hadn’t been thinking straight because I’d also gone back to Morgan La Fay Hall where I found nothing, not a hint that there had been a celebration just moments before. It had all been magicked away.

  All that was left was the non-wizard servants cleaning up the dishes in the kitchen. Seeing them scrubbing long into the night turned my stomach. If Nyquist didn’t hate non-wizards, he certainly didn’t hold warm feelings for them.

  Now, as I sat in my room waiting, my certainty about Nyquist’s wrongdoing kept growing. What if Rowan had been right all along? What if I was on the wrong side of this fight?

  Well, as soon as the regent’s office hours began, I would find out.

  A knock came at my door. I jumped in my chair and blinked at the sound, bleary-eyed.

  Disha and Bridget didn’t like waking up early. They normally rolled out of bed with barely enough time to grab a muffin from the cafeteria and arrive to class on time, and today our first class wasn’t until nine AM.

  I opened the door to find my Resident Advisor blinking up at me. She appeared freshly showered with her blond hair up in a high ponytail and her makeup fresh and perfect.

  “Um, hi,” I said.

  I tried to think if I’d done something wrong. This RA seemed to only talk to the residents when there were complaints. In fact, I couldn’t remember more than one conversation with her since the start of the year.

  “Good morning,” she said with a huge smile. “I have a message for you.”

  My heart stuttered. Was Sinasre okay? Had things taken a turn for the worst? When I had gone to the infirmary, after my fruitless search of Regent Nyquist, Nurse Taishi told us Sinasre was stable, but that an advanced healer was coming in from Atlanta in an hour and that his father was on the way, too. We’d wanted to wait for their arrival, but Nurse Taishi refused to let us stay. A few of the other fae had arrived, crowding the waiting room. He had told us all there was nothing we could do to help Sinasre and insisted we needed rest, especially me unless I wanted my headaches to begin again. As if they’d ever stopped.

  “Well, what’s the message?” I asked the RA when she just stood there smiling.

  “Oh, Regent Nyquist wants you to meet him in the Dean’s office,” she said.

  What? I wasn’t expecting that.

  “When?” I demanded.

  “Now, of course.”

  Gearing up for a fight, I walked down the long hall headed for Dean McIntosh’s office. As I passed in front of Bonnie’s door, I wondered if she was with Rowan, if she knew things about Regent Nyquist that she could have shared with me, if she had let me trust the old man, knowing that he was capable of killing innocent students. Though maybe I wouldn’t have believed her. Rowan had been trying to get me to listen to him, and I’d shut him down every time.

  When I reached the end of the hall, I frowned at the empty rectangular name placard in the middle of the door. Dean McIntosh’s name had been removed.

  The reminder of her absence felt like a blow to my stomach. My emotions stirred inside of me as if they were inside one of Tempest’s tornados. The headache that started last night pounded a little harder at my temples.

  Cracking my neck and rolling my shoulders back, I knocked.

  “Come in,” Regent Nyquist’s voice came from inside.

  I walked in and froze at the threshold. The office was unrecognizable. All the items that had belonged to Dean McIntosh were gone. The bookshelves, the rugs, anything that hadn’t been damaged during her abduction had been removed and replaced with stuffy furniture that looked as if it had belonged to someone’s great-great-grandfather. Even the air, which had always been fresh and floral, now seemed charged with dust and the smell of old farts. It appeared the regent had made himself right at home.

  Before I could recover from the shock, Regent Nyquist got up from behind the large, carved mahogany desk and came to meet me.

  “Ms. Rivera, I’m so relieved I was able to reach you this early. I got an alarming message from the Board of Regents this morning.” He put a liver-spotted hand on his chest and exhaled as if his heart were giving him trouble. “I wanted to reach you before your fae friends tried to use the portal to go back home. It is crucial that they don’t attempt to do so until we know it’s safe.”

  What? Confusion clouded my thoughts as I tried to process what he’d just said.

  “Sit, please.” The regent went arou
nd his desk, gesturing to a chair across from him.

  My feet moved of their own accord, and I sat, staring at Nyquist with unblinking eyes.

  “From what I was told, there have been some irregularities with the portals in several of our sister academies. Things like people arriving at different destinations than they intended, even someone who… went missing.” The last two words came out in a low murmur as if he were pronouncing a terrible curse.

  Hands shaking, I hugged myself.

  “We fear,” he paused, “that, somehow, the subversives have tampered with the source of energy that feeds the portals. We are…” Whatever he was about to say, he seemed to think better of it, then cleared his throat and continued, “But don’t you worry, we’ll take care of this, and your wish will be fulfilled. The subversives won’t get their way. Evil never wins, Ms. Rivera. For now, at least we managed to keep your friends safe.”

  “But that’s the problem, Regent Nyquist,” I said, doing my best to keep my voice steady. “We didn’t. They tried to return home last night and now two of them are missing and Sinasre is terribly hurt.”

  The regent pressed a hand to his mouth. “Oh, no.”

  “He’s in the infirmary, and Nurse Taishi doesn’t know what’s wrong with him. You didn’t hear?”

  “No one told me.” Nyquist jumped to his feet and shuffled toward the exit. “I must make sure he’s alright.” He opened the door and stopped with his hand on the knob. “Let’s go, Ms. Rivera.”

  I followed him out of the Administration Building. The leather soles of his shoes slapped against the walkway as he moved with ancient determination.

  “We’ll do everything in our power to heal him,” he said more to himself than to me. “Whatever ails him may help us figure out what the subversives have done to our portals.”

  I walked next to him, matching his step. All that he’d said combined with last night’s events and whirled inside my head like water spiraling down a drain. As I quickly organized the jumble of thoughts, I realized that, logically, it all added up. We didn’t ask the regent before we used the portal. The fae had been so excited to go home that we’d rushed into things too soon. And yet, my heart was telling me otherwise. I didn’t believe a word the regent had said.