by Cara E Holt
I lie awake in bed unable to switch off, my mind racing with all the horrible possibilities. She had to be alive, right? I mean he hadn’t killed any of the other witches, only drained them of their magic. None of the students had been taken before though; they had all been left here, drained but safe.
Drayce rolls over in the bed and lies on his side.
“I can hear that mind of yours racing from over here little raven.”
“I can’t sleep.” I tell him with a weary sigh. “We have to find her Drayce.”
Drayce reaches out and touches my shoulder. “We’ll find her Raven, I promise you. Let me do a sleep spell for you. You need to get rest.”
I nod. I was exhausted and he was right, I needed to rest and then tomorrow I could start looking for my friend. Drayce recites the spell and I feel myself start to drift off.
She was Always Watching.
I wake in the morning and for a second I forget, for a second all is okay with the world, and then it hits me. My best friend was missing, taken from the safety of the academy grounds to god knows where. I know I hadn’t known her that long, but the day I met her, I just knew we were soul sisters and would be friends from that day forward. I sit up in bed and magic my dressing gown over to me. Drayce wasn’t in bed, so I make my way into the living area and find him stood over his desk, analysing a bunch of papers.
I walk over to him and look down at what he is studying. One is a map with all the locations of where the students were found, another is a list of the times and dates of the attacks.
“What’s all this?”
Drayce pulls his gaze from his desk and looks at me. “I’m trying to see if there is any kind of pattern or something that might give us a clue.”
“Thank you.” I say, as I lightly brush my hand over his.
Drayce surprises me by pulling me into his embrace and holding me. “I’m sorry you are going through all this Latimer.”
I look up at him and offer him a brave smile. “I’m okay Drayce.”
Nodding he continues to hold me, and I rest my head against his chest and listen to the steady sound of his heart beating. When did Drayce and I go from enemies to two people who hug and comfort each other? Somewhere, somehow, things had changed between us. Drayce was still an annoying arse at times, but he had qualities that I had been blind to before. He was fiercely loyal and strong and he had a calming influence on me. As I stand here in his arms, I have the startling realisation that I may be starting to fall for Drayce Black, but I couldn’t let myself fall for him, because once all this was over, I would end this engagement. I was a hybrid and I could not marry into a family like Drayce’s and cause them more scandal. My heart physically ached with that knowledge.
Drayce kisses the top of my head. “Let’s go eat and then we can go and get an update from Mistress Isolde.”
I nod in agreement, even though I have no stomach for food. Ten minutes later we walk hand-in-hand into the dining hall. There’s a sombre mood across the room, everyone is tense and wondering who will be next. Drayce guides me over to get food and I just let him pile food on my plate, not caring what he chooses. I look over to Norah’s table and my heart drops into my stomach when I see all the others and her usual seat empty. I squeeze Drayce’s hand to get his attention.
“I’ll follow you over in a minute. I need to go speak with my friends.”
Drayce nods in understanding and I make my way over to their table. Selene offers me a sad smile as I take a seat beside her.
“Hey guys.” I greet them flatly.
Cas looks up from the cup of coffee he has been staring at and he sighs. “We’ve been down here since seven. We needed to be together.”
“I know. Anyone heard anything?”
Ayla shakes her head, her face marred with worry. “Nothing.”
Xan, who has until now remained quiet, slams his fist down on the table making everyone jump and the tables around us go silent.
“I should have been with her. I was her date for hectate’s sake and I was too busy chasing pussy.”
Xan is boiling over with anger, regret and worry. I reach across the table and put my hand over his.
“We’ll find her Xan.”
Frowning he nods and finally looks up and meets my eyes. “You were right you know? I couldn’t see it. I guess I fought it, but I do care about her.”
His eyes express what he is feeling, like an open book. Losing her had made him realise how much he wanted her.
“I’m going to go eat, then Drayce and I are going to go get an update from the principal. I’ll come straight back here and fill you guys in.”
They all nod and thank me, and I leave them with their thoughts as I make my way over to Drayce’s table. Everyone falls silent when I arrive there. I’m rendered speechless though when Drayce takes hold of my waist and pulls me down on to his knee rather than me sitting in my usual spot beside him.
“You okay?”
I bob my head side-to-side in response and lean myself back against him. Drayce pulls a plate full of food in front of me. “Eat Latimer.”
With a sigh I pick up a piece of toast and bite into it. My stomach was still churning with anxiety and I had the feeling this food wouldn’t stay down very long, but I would humour him.
Twenty minutes later we are outside Mistress Isolde’s office. We knock twice before the door is opened by Remus, head of the academy security. He ushers us inside where we find Isolde, coach Gray and another man who I haven’t seen before.
“Elara, Drayce please take a seat.” She gestures for us to sit, so we take our seats and I look at her expectantly, willing her to give me a slither of good news.
Isolde shakes her head sadly. “There is no news Elara.”
I squeeze Drayce’s hand hard, as I try to accept what she is telling me.
“I’d like to introduce you to captain De Meath; he is head of the council guards and Norah’s uncle.”
Norah’s uncle stands and offers me a hand before he nods in greeting to Drayce. “Drayce, good to see you again.”
Norah’s uncle is a tall and imposing man, he has short cropped black hair that is shaved at the side and wears his guard uniform like armour. He has eyes the same dark brown as Norah’s and stubble across his jaw line that gives him a rough edginess to him.
“The council has asked that I lead the investigation into my niece’s disappearance. My team will be calling in all students at the academy to have memory examinations to see if they saw or heard anything.” He looks solely at me. “We are going to start with you and Xander Alden first, given it looks like you two were the last ones to see her.”
“Can we do it now?” I ask him eagerly. I wanted them to stop dilly-dallying and get things moving.
Captain De Meath gives me a knowing smile. “We are getting set up in the hall and will make a start shortly, I promise you Miss Latimer.”
“What about the mirror portal? Is someone trying to find a way to track where it took them?”
Captain De Meath nods. “I can assure you we have the best of the best working on my Niece’s disappearance. If my team cannot find her then no one will.”
I nod, feeling somewhat reassured that the situation was in hand. “I want to help. I need to help.”
Mistress Isolde looks at me like she is going to say no, but Drayce jumps in before she can reply to me.
“How about Elara and I just help with doing the running around for the captains team, fetching them documents or anything they need?”
Mistress Isolde looks to Captain De Meath and he gives her a quick firm nod. “Okay, you can help the team, but Elara, no heroics.” She warns me firmly. “No thinking you can go off and save your friend, understand?”
“Of course.” I reply. It’s blatant lie because if I heard a whiff of where she might be, I was going.
We are dismissed and told to make our way to the great hall where we will both undergo memory spells that will show them our memories from last night.
I am spelled first and my memories play out of me dancing with Norah and Xan and then Norah stating she didn’t feel great and was going for a sit down. Then my memories move from then to me starting to look for Norah and bumping into Lorelai, to finding Drayce, and him helping me to search for her.
As I sit recovering from the spell with a cup of witches brew, I play through the events of last night and my mind keeps going back to Lorelai. Her arm had been injured last night, burned and the scene where we found a piece of Norah’s dress there had been clear evidence of some sort of struggle involving fire magic. I should wait for Drayce to finish his memory examination, but I am too inpatient. Dumping the witches brew on the table beside me, I quietly sneak out of the great hall and hurry over to the dorms of house air. I have no idea which room is Lorelai’s, but I am sure if I ask someone they will point me in the right direction. A second year student tells me she is in room 135 and I eventually find myself stood in front of her door. Taking a steadying breath I knock twice and wait for a response. No one answers. I look up and down the corridor and there is no one around. Quietly, I whisper the spell and the lock in the door clicks open. Taking another look up and down the hallway, I enter her room and close the door behind me. Lorelai’s room is disappointingly normal. There are no weapons or pictures of the attacked students pinned on her wall like I was hoping. I walk around her room slowly, taking in every detail. I knew in my gut that she was involved somehow; I just needed evidence to prove it. I run my hand along her grey bed sheets, as I think about where I would stash something I didn’t want anyone else to find. I get down on my knees and look under her bed and hope sparks in me when I see an antique wooden box under there. Leaning down I reach my hand under and struggle to reach it.
“Veni ad me.” I command, and the box moves to my reach. I pull it out and for a few seconds stare at it. What if there was nothing in here? What would I do then?
Blowing out a big breath, I lift the latch and raise the lid. Inside there is one solitary green jewel stone. Carefully I reach in and take the stone in my hand. Suddenly my vision goes black and an eerie hissing sound is all I can hear until my vision clears, and I see a large snake that hisses angrily at me, before my vision clears again and I feel a rushing of magic run through me. My vision blackens, and I see Norah, her eyes wide with panic and her arms bound behind her back. As quick as the vision comes it disappears. I startle, as I hear voices coming down the corridor. In a panic I throw the stone back in the box and shove it back under the bed. As I stand to my feet something catches my eye near the door. Walking over I bend down and I’m shocked to find another torn fragment from Norah’s dress. I listen at the door until the voices tail off and then I open the door and sneak back out into the hallway. I close the door behind me and spell it to lock again. I knew I was right. Lorelai had something to do with Norah’s disappearance. Angry and wanting answers, I make my way out of the air dorms, briefly stopping to ask a student if they had seen Lorelai. I am informed that she is in the great hall waiting to be questioned.
I rush into the great hall and my eyes scan the room looking for her. I see her standing in one of the queue’s waiting to have her memories examined. Striding across the room, I reach her and yank on her arm.
“Where is she?”
Lorelai looks from my hand on her arm, to me and looks at me in puzzlement. “Where is who, Elara?”
“Norah. I know it was you. Your arm was burned last night.” I grab at her sleeve and forcefully push it up her arm. The burn mark is completely gone.
“I don’t know what you are on about Elara. I haven’t burned anything.”
“How do you explain this then?” I hold up the scrap of purple material. “This is from her dress.” I grab Lorelai by her tie, anger and frustration getting the better of me. “Where is she?”
Lorelai’s face changes then from the innocent and puzzled look she was just giving me to a vicious smirk.
“You think you’re so special Elara Latimer, but you have no idea who you are do you? Walking around the academy like you’re the queen bee, engaged to the almighty Drayce Black.” She sniggers as she side glances and see’s Captain De Meath and Mistress Isolde walking our way. “I wonder how the Black family would feel if they knew the truth? That all this time a Bennett witch has played them. All she had to do was get you to fall for her.”
I feel Drayce come up behind me, his hand at my lower back. “A Bennett witch?”
Lorelai nods and grins in delight. “Elara’s a Bennett witch. Test her blood and see for yourself. You’ve been engaged to the very family that cursed your coven Drayce.” She chuckles, this slightly deranged look on her face, as she steps back out of my grasp. “Yes, I know where Norah is and I helped drain all those stupid students. I hate the council. They imprisoned my father for something he didn’t do. A new dawn is coming though. He’s going to bring them all down, you’ll see.”
“The stone.” I say as realisation hits me. “What does it do?”
Lorelai sniggers and shakes her head. “You really are stupid Elara. The stone is the eye of Ouroboros it can take any witches magic away.” Loreali takes another step back. “I’ll tell Norah you send her regards.” Lorelai releases some sort of powder into the air just as Mistress Isolde shouts out.
“Opsepio.”
A strange film surrounds Lorelai, stopping her from doing whatever it was she intended to do.
Mistress Isolde addresses all the students in the room, clapping her hands together loudly. “I want everyone to return to their lessons immediately.”
Students reluctantly start to file out of the great hall, but as they pass by they look from Drayce to me with interest and intrigue. Captain De Meath walks behind Lorelai and whispering the word ‘Incarcero.’ Handcuffs of iron appear around her wrists. Iron can suppress a witches magic to a point where she is not able to cast.
Lorelai’s face remains impassive as she continues to stare at me. “He will come for you soon Elara Bennett.”
“Take her away.” Captain De Meath orders his guards. Lorelai is marched out of the great hall. She smiles a wide a creepy grin as she passes me. The girl was clearly crazy. “I will start our interrogation here and then we’ll have her transported to chamber prisons.”
Mistress Isolde nods and Captain De Meath takes his leave. I’m still sat on the floor clutching at the piece of Norah’s dress.
“Is it true?” Drayce demands, making me look up at him. “Are you a Bennett? Was this all planned?”
“No.” I tell him shaking my head, still reeling from finding out that Lorelai was the monster all along. “I’m not, I don’t know..,”
Drayce looks at me with a look of hate. “And to think I almost.., never mind.” He turns abruptly and strides out of the room, not giving me a backward glance.
I let out a sob as the door closes behind him, placing my head in my hands.
“Come on Elara.” Mistress Isolde says softly. “Let’s get you to my office. You are in shock. A good witch’s brew should help.”
Crying silently, I let her help me up and guide me the short distance down the hall to her office. Once there, she sits me down in front of the warmth of the fire and places a blanket around my shoulders before she pours me a warm brew and hands it to me.
“Are you okay?”
I shrug my shoulders. “I knew there was something odd about her. She was always watching me, always hanging around, like the evening I found her near the restricted section in the library.”
Mistress Isolde sits down beside me and sighs, holding her drink between her hands. “She had us all fooled Elara. What I don’t understand is how she is so powerful at such a young age.”
“Do you think she is right? About me being a Bennett witch?”
Mistress Isolde pauses for a second before replying. “I don’t know Elara, but we can find out, that is if you want to know.”
I scoff. “He thinks I knew, but I honestly had no idea until recently that
my parents were not my real parents.”
Mistress Isolde offers me half-smile and pats my hand. “I know that Elara, it was clear that day that you had no idea. I think Drayce is just blinded by years of hatred, ingrained in him by his coven. Deep down he knows that you didn’t know. That is if she is telling the truth.”
“How do we confirm it?”
“A blood spell.” She stands and places her empty cup on her desk. “I can ask Kavan to give us a blood sample and then if you two are of the same blood then the blood will merge together, if you are not the blood will stay separate.”
“Good. Can we do it now?”
Mistress Isolde holds out a hand. “Let’s slow down a little. You need to finish your tea and rest for a while. But then I promise we will do the blood spell and you will know once and for all.”
Over half an hour later there is a knock at the principles door and Kavan is invited into the room.
“Thank you for agreeing to this Kavan. We do appreciate it.”
He smiles in response and then turns his attention to me. “Elara.”
Mistress Isolde instructs him to sit down at the table next to me and she holds out a knife to him. Kavan takes the knife and slices across his palm, cutting into the flesh and releasing his blood. Mistress Isolde then offers me another knife and I do the same. Leaning over the glass bowl that sits in a small pentagram drawn in chalk on Isolde’s desk we both squeeze our palms and blood drops down into the bowl.
“Mother nature, mother true, what links one by blood links two, Blood of one coven binds together, so mote it be.”
The two blood samples swirl around in the bowl before they both start to move towards one another, as they meet, it is as if they dance around each other, before they both converge together and become one sample.
“Well, there is our answer. You are indeed by blood, a Bennett witch.”
I feel Kavan’s eyes on me as we both heal our palms. “How is it possible? No female has been born for years; the spell stops any being born.”
