“Some of my people are holding them off. The coven thought they had a plan to take down the wards but…” He shrugged innocently. “It’s not quite working for them. Damndest thing.”
“Your people? You look like you’re fifteen.” Lex said.
“I’m a little older than that.” The witch’s gaze met mine, for some reason. “And you’d be foolish to think this is the only academy for supernatural types.”
“I’d like to meet whoever is in charge of your academy,” Piper said.
“He doesn’t want to meet you, though,” the witch said. “If you shifters knew about us, you’d be likely to try to kill us just like you’re trying to kill the covens. We’re choosing to take a more subtle approach.”
“And yet here you are, telling us everything,” Callum said drily. “Why’s that?”
The witch shrugged.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
His gaze met mine evenly. “My name’s Silas Adelphus. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Maddie.”
The way he looked at me sent a chill racing down my spine. “How the hell do you know my name?”
“I’ve met your father once or twice.” He smiled at me, a disarming, bright smile like he was perfectly comfortable on the floor of this room surrounded by people who might like to kill him.
My father? I’d never met my father. I spent a week every summer with my birth mother, Joan. She said he’d left looking for me after I was stolen by the coven that kidnapped me when I was a child. Eventually, he stopped checking in. She didn’t know if he was dead or not.
“Wait,” I said. My voice came out soft. This was the wrong time to talk about this, in front of all these people, but if there was a chance to learn anything about my father, I had to take it.
He checked his watch as if he hadn’t heard my whisper. Maybe he hadn’t.
“I’d like to end this,” he said. “The coven is going to break through those wards in about eighteen minutes. There’s a limit to how long we can delay them without them realizing there are magical forces at play.”
“Why don’t they recognize they’re being controlled by magic?” Kai demanded. “You’d think one witch would recognize another.”
“We have very different magic,” Silas said. “We don’t live here in your world, not full-time, at least.”
He stood to his feet, dusting his hands off on his jeans.
“Are you sure that spell worked?” Arthur asked Callum skeptically.
“Yes,” Callum said. “He’s telling the truth, or thinks he is, at least.”
Silas sighed as Callum’s fingers waved, and then Callum said, “He doesn’t seem to be compelled by anyone but me.”
“This is so tiresome,” Silas muttered. “Believe me, if I had my way, we’d just lay it all on the line and be honest with you wolves and that way, we could avoid these long, repetitive conversations when we need to work together.”
“Repetitive?” I asked softly.
Silas winked at me, a quick flicker of dark lashes.
“We need to get out into the woods,” he said. “I need to borrow some of Maddie’s magic to break the spell. And then I think that coven out there is going to realize that today is not their day.”
“Maddie’s magic?” Jensen asked skeptically. He flashed a look sideways toward me.
“She’s an exceptionally powerful witch as well as a werewolf,” Silas said blithely, divulging the secret that no one was supposed to know. He flashed Jensen a smile. “I’d stay on the girl’s good side, if I were you. She could end you like this.” He snapped his fingers.
Maybe not quite that easily, but it still warmed my chest to have someone say that. Even if it was a witch I didn’t trust.
“I don’t need magic to do that,” I murmured.
“Oh, I think you would,” Jensen disagreed.
“Why the woods?” Arthur demanded.
“Because we don’t want to blow the roof off the building,” Callum said. He nodded to Silas, and Silas nodded back. At least someone understood what the witch was talking about.
As we headed down the hall, trying to look like we belonged there, I slipped next to Lex.
“Are you really all right?” I asked.
“Are you?” He rested his hand on top of my head, like Jensen had, only his touch was comforting. He smiled down at me, although his eyes were troubled. “He came after you. I don’t like that.”
“You wouldn’t want anything impacting the school’s reputation,” I said lightly, filling in his why.
“I wouldn’t want you getting hurt,” he said. “And this whole thing gives me a bad feeling.”
His hand slipped to my shoulder and then fell away entirely, but his words stayed with me anyway. Both because of the way he seemed to care, and because of his sense of foreboding.
11
I kept pace with Silas as we headed across the lawn. Dusk was settling above the pines.
“What do you mean, you know my father?” I demanded in a whisper. I pretended I didn’t care about the man, and I didn’t want Lex or Jensen especially to overhear this weakness of mine. “I thought he was dead.”
“Definitely not dead,” Silas said.
“So where do I find him?” And how come he had never found me? My voice came out hard-edged when I asked where to find him. Good. Anger was better than sounding pathetic, which was how I felt when I asked about him.
Silas glanced at me. “You don’t want to meet him. He’s not a very nice person.”
“What do you mean?” I demanded.
Silas sighed, ducking his head as if he wished he could avoid my questions entirely. “I shouldn’t have said anything. I’m sorry.”
“You’re not saying anything,” I shot back.
“After we lift the spell,” he said, “I’ll sit down with you and tell you everything. All right? I know Piper wants to talk about who we are too. And I’ll tell you what I know about your father.”
It seemed too easy. I stared back at him suspiciously. He bit down on his lower lip, ducking his head. He’d looked so relaxed when he was being interrogated by Callum and Arthur, as if he was in control no matter what happened. So why did he look so abashed when I asked him a simple question?
“You deserve to know,” he said, half to himself.
“I still don’t understand why you’re doing this,” Lex said, taking a few long steps to come up on the witch’s other side. “Why would a witch go to any trouble for a wolf?”
“We need each other,” Silas said shortly.
“Have you tried telling that to your friends?” Callum asked, his eyes flickering deeper into the woods, toward the distant wall we couldn’t see through the trees.
“They’ve been hard-headed,” Silas answered. He stopped and turned to me. Although it was Lex who had asked the question, he spoke to me. “There are worse things coming to this world then witches and wolves and their old war. If we don’t find a way to bond together first, all the supernatural creatures will die together.”
“Then why are you witches keeping yourselves a secret?”
A twisted smile touched his lips. “Don’t we all have orders to follow?”
I wanted to ask him more questions, but he glanced at his watch again. “Three minutes. I need you, Maddie.”
Callum rested his hand on my shoulder. “Don’t worry. We’ve got your back.”
I touched his hand with mine, taking comfort from my adopted big-brother’s touch. He had always looked out for me. No wolf knew magic better than he did. If he trusted Silas for this spell, then I did too. I turned to face Silas.
A sudden, hard breeze shook the trees around us, rattling the leaves violently.
“Just imagine yourself shifting,” Silas said, and he grabbed my hands. “I can help you with the rest.”
When he touched me, the world faded away.
It was just Silas and me.
His bright eyes met mine evenly as the forest went very quiet. The others were gone, a
nd there was no sound anymore of crickets and frogs and the rush of wind. I should’ve been scared.
Instead, I stared back at him as silver lightning crackled between our palms. His gray eyes seemed to reflect that same silver light, eerie and magnetic. His eyes widened. “You’re as strong as they said.”
That was hard to process. “Who the hell are they?”
Around us, dark tendrils of smoke seemed to drift, thick as ropes that hung in the air, winding between the trees, swaying faintly even though the breeze had gone.
“We need to focus,” he said, squeezing my hands. “Show me what it’s like to shift so we can break the spell. I haven’t been able to find my way into their magic…”
His eyes were bright silver now, as bright as moonlight.
I tried to think of what it felt like. I was new to shifting, and thinking of it still brought a shiver of dread and a thrill of anticipation all at once.
Because first, there was so much pain. It felt like the flu coming on all at once at first; muscles aching, skin feverish-hot, head aching. My stomach would tighten and twist like I was going to throw up. Then the change itself came on suddenly: skin bursting open to reveal claws, teeth that felt like they were shattering, muscles bursting and changing as bones re-arranged themselves. As I imagined the agony, remembering the first time I shifted, I could imagine Silas at the edge of the forest where I’d first turned, watching me with those eyes that shone in the darkness.
Then the pain was gone, overwhelmed by the adrenaline spike.
The world would be bright and fresh and beautiful as I padded on my paws across the forest floor.
“Good,” Silas said. He squeezed my hands in his, and I realized the ribbons of smoke had looped around me now, floating inches away from my skin. Usually, if I’d imagined myself shifting like that, I would have begun to turn. The spell had kept me from shifting, and the magic had come to me.
“Creepy,” I muttered, looking at the magic.
Silas murmured in Latin, speaking the words of a spell I didn’t know, as he gathered up the strands of magic in his hands. They bucked wildly, pulling back against him, and his voice grew louder, more insistent, as he drew them toward him. Silver sparks slid away from his palms as he yanked the magic up, gathering it into a spool.
I began to gather it with him, pulling it with him out of the air and winding it around my hand. It was immaterial, but when I imagined myself capturing it, it turned solid in my hands, a narrow ribbon of dark magic that I could fold up. Silas looked at me with surprise written across his face, and delight.
In the distance, witches screamed. The magic suddenly snapped, the ribbons that were still floating loose suddenly breaking free and drifting up into the trees, falling to pieces like smoke in the wind. The magic in my hands suddenly broke apart and fell away.
“Thanks for showing me your world,” Silas said. “I couldn’t have done this without you and your magic.”
“Thanks for helping us stop an attack from the covens?” I asked. “Although I still have questions about why one witch came here to help us stop them.”
His lips quirked ruefully. “I’m not exactly alone. But I overestimated myself. And apparently, I underestimated you. I won’t make that mistake again.”
“That doesn’t make me feel better,” I said.
“It should,” he promised me.
“You said I showed you my world,” I said, my head racing. “Well, show me yours.”
He shook his head. I thought he was going to tell me no, but a rueful smile curved his lips as he took my hands in his again. His fingers were warm and strong, and he held me like we were dancing.
“I shouldn’t do this,” he said, “but what does it matter now?”
Before I could ask what he meant, I was in the corner of his memory, the way he had lurked in the shadows of mine.
He was standing on the lawn in front of a big stone school, surrounded by a dozen other young witches. They all wore the same uniforms of dark, fitted jackets and trousers, with something gripped in their hands. I squinted, sure my imagination was deceiving me.
Wands. They all carried wands. I’d never seen one of the witches in our world with a wand.
“Ready?” One of them called, glancing over his shoulder at the others. “Here it comes.”
The sky seemed to crack open, a dark line that zig-zagged its way to Earth. I could barely take my eyes away from it, but when I dared to look away, I found Silas in the crowd. His eyes glowed that bright silver again, and his jaw was set. But the lines of tension around his eyes and the way he leaned forward, resolute, his hands shaking, made me think that he was terrified.
“Now,” the leader called, and he ran forward toward the crack in the universe as it slammed into the earth. The ground shook under our feet. A monster flew out of the rip, a winged thing with seven heads that whipped back and forth.
No matter how scared Silas was, he ran forward to meet it.
Then the scene was gone. It was just Silas in front of me, still holding my hands.
“Help us, Maddie Northsea,” he said. “We’ll always be here when you need us, but we need you too.”
“What was that?” I asked. “What you showed me?”
“My school. And a rip in the dimension.”
“A rip?”
“The walls between the worlds are wearing thin,” he said.
“So you’re not from around here?”
He grinned in response.
“I’ll tell you when we meet again.” He leaned forward and brushed his lips across my forehead. His lips were warm and soft.
I took a quick step back, releasing his hands as I yanked away. I might not have minded Silas kissing me, but I hadn’t expected that.
“No,” I said. “You told me you’d answer my questions.”
He winked at me. “Did I say it would be today? My mistake.”
“Silas-”
The sound of the wind and the crickets rose around us again. Silas was gone. But I was surrounded by Piper and her men and by Jensen and Lex once again. They all stared around in confusion.
“Where’d he go?” Lex demanded impatiently.
Silas sat on the top of the broken wall. “Sorry. You aren’t going to like this part.”
Callum ran toward him, beginning to incant, as Silas went on.
“When I speak the last word of this spell, you’ll all go your separate ways. You’ll wake in the woods with no memory of how you found yourself there. You won’t remember the witch’s attack, or this battle, or me. Instead, your brain will deduce some reason why you were out here.”
The ground rolled up under our feet.
Lex reached out to steady me, and I caught his forearm in my hand, feeling the ground shift, as I reached for a tree limb to hang onto. I clung desperately to him and the gritty bark under my straining fingertips.
The ground seemed to tilt.
The world fell away.
12
Lex and I stood at the edge of the woods. The breeze fluttered the branches above, which formed a lacy canopy through which the stars shone above us. I didn’t remember coming out here. He frowned back at me, his brow furrowed above his eyes like he didn’t remember either.
Then, it seemed like understanding dawned on his face, and then he smiled like there was nothing strange at all.
“Well, Maddie,” he said, and there was a teasing note in his voice. “What do you think of the academy?”
“I don’t think it’s the school I want to go to,” I muttered, thinking of a school that stood at the edge of the universe, where magic was good and the universe needed to be defended.
Some daydream that was. I couldn’t go there. I didn’t know how to find Silas again or to find the school.
“Oh,” he said, and his lips parted in a smile. “In that case, I can do this.”
Lex leaned toward me, tilting his head to one side. His dark lashes fluttered over his eyes again. I closed my eyes, just a second before
he brushed his lips against mine.
This was why we’d come out here. Now I remembered: Lex and I had slipped away from the prospective student dinner. I couldn’t believe I’d only met him this morning. The connection between us felt like something older, more familiar. It felt like I could trust him to have my back in a fight.
For a second, I was very still. He had seemed so confident, and I didn’t know how to kiss anyone.
Then my lips parted against his.
He stepped in toward me even closer. His hands rested lightly on my hips. I slid my palms up his forearms, feeling the corded muscle even through the stiffness of his school jacket.
He glanced down the jacket, and then he slipped it off, folding it neatly in two before he slung it over a nearby branch. He shook his head at himself, as if this wasn’t like him.
But if it wasn’t like him, why was he such an expert kisser?
“You’re too good for this school,” he said, and his hands slid around my hips again. “And you’re definitely too good for me.”
“You seem like a nice guy to me,” I said, and my voice came out husky, different than I expected it to sound.
“I’m not a nice guy at all,” he said. “Maybe one of the good guys, sometimes. But not a particularly nice guy.”
I didn’t think he knew what he was, for all his confidence. “Shut up and kiss me.”
His grin was a quick flash, like sunshine breaking through the clouds.
When he looked at me like that, I knew I was done for.
I had a hopeless crush on this guy who would be one of my cadre next year, who was supposed to be off-limits.
Then his lips were on mine, and I didn’t care one bit at all about anyone’s rules.
13
Late that night, I dared to take my hand off the wheel to grab my monster cup of Nerd-infused slushie from a fast food stop. Piper didn’t even comment for once. She usually liked to drive when we were in her car, but when I’d offered at our stop, she had handed me the keys without an argument.
“Are you all right?” I asked her.
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