Royals of Villain Academy 6: Foul Conjuring

by Eva Chase

  “Your performance has been adequate,” Viceport said stiffly, which was about the highest praise I ever got from her. From the awed stares from a few of my classmates during our last conjuring session, I was pretty sure I’d handled myself more than “adequately,” but arguing with my mentor about it wouldn’t do me much good.

  “You have the benefit of a wide range of strengths,” she added. “That will allow you to increase your skills more quickly, but you shouldn’t let yourself become complacent simply because some of the basics come easily to you.”

  Did she really think anything I’d worked for since coming here had been easy? For what felt like the hundredth time, I bit my tongue against a snarky remark.

  “I won’t,” I said, and moved to stand up. “I didn’t have anything I needed advice on. If that’s all we have to talk about—”

  “Hold on a moment, Miss Bloodstone,” Viceport said, raising her thin hand. “We only have these sessions once a month. There’s no need to rush out before we have a chance to cover every concern.”

  What other concerns did she have? I sank back down, watching her quizzically, but she simply gazed back at me with her icy eyes. Did she want me to continue the conversation? I’d just said I didn’t have any other questions.

  “Was there something else you wanted to go over?” I prompted after several seconds of silence.

  She steepled her fingers in front of her. “You seem very confident in yourself.”

  I wasn’t sure about that. It was probably just that I’d gotten a lot less willing to ignore other people’s bullshit over the last couple months. And yeah, I now knew that I could accomplish quite a bit with my magical abilities. That didn’t mean I was over-confident.

  “I’ve been here almost half a year now,” I said. “I’m adjusting, getting used to how things work. That’s normal, right?”

  “I suppose it depends on where that confidence leads. Your position is certainly more secure now that you don’t have the pressure of the barony looming over your graduation.”

  “That’s true.” Where was she going with that, though? I still didn’t understand what she was trying to get at.

  “Perhaps you’ll request a different mentor, since you don’t seem entirely satisfied with the guidance I can offer,” Viceport said. “No doubt you’ll get what you ask for too.”

  I stared at her for a second, speechless. Then my tongue loosened, a little more than was probably wise, but I’d had it with all her passive-aggressive comments and insinuations.

  “The only reason I’m at all ‘unsatisfied’ with your mentoring is that you keep taking jabs at me like that. I’ve been trying my best to live up to being the mage everyone thinks I’m supposed to be in all my classes, including yours. I can’t help that I wasn’t better prepared. I really don’t know what it is you want from me that I’m not doing or why you have such a problem with me, but I can’t do anything about it if you won’t actually tell me.”

  My mouth snapped shut, and heat crept up my neck, but everything I’d said was true. Professor Viceport blinked at me, apparently lost for words herself. Well, this meeting had turned into a bit of a disaster, hadn’t it?

  I grabbed my purse and stood up. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have said it like that. I think we’re done here.”

  “Miss Bloodstone—”

  I met her eyes, my jaw tight. “Do you actually have anything you want to talk to me about, or are you just going to make more vague comments that don’t seem to really lead anywhere? Because, as you pointed out, I do have plenty of work to catch up on.”

  She faltered and then flicked her hand toward the doorway. “Off you go, then.”

  I walked out with a knot in my stomach. I’d rather she had told me what her issue with me was rather than just send me off, honestly. But right now I had bigger things to worry about.

  As I crossed the green, a group of students meandered by—half of them with gold scholarship pins winking in the mid-morning light, the others fearmancers. That was strange. Maybe one of the general instruction courses had just let out?

  They stuck together as they headed past Nightwood Tower toward the west field, though. And there was Professor Crowford, my Persuasion instructor, ushering them along from behind. He might have taught one of the general instruction courses as well as his magical ones, of course. I didn’t have time to dwell on that either.

  I’m out, I texted to Declan and Malcolm as I headed into Ashgrave Hall. I hurried down the stairs to the scion lounge and found Jude waiting for me there as planned.

  He motioned me over to the far side of the bar cabinet. “I figured this would be the best spot for you to be staked out. The cabinet will partly hide you, and there’s nothing on the wall there to interfere with the illusion, but you’ll still have a clear view of the action.”

  “Yeah.” My gut clenched all over again at the thought of what that “action” would entail.

  I stepped back against the wall. The bar cabinet was a tall one, looming about half a foot over my head, but it was so shallow no one could have missed me standing there if I had no magic on me. A faint sour odor tickled my nose from the bottles of alcohol.

  Jude stopped in front of me, his dark green eyes searching mine. “Are you ready?”

  I nodded. “I just… really hope this goes okay.”

  “As we all do, Ice Queen,” he said, using his old nickname for me with such tenderness that it softened the edge on my nerves.

  I touched the front of his shirt, and Jude took that cue to ease closer, dipping his head as his mouth found mine. For a second, I lost myself in the feel of his lean body and the peppery coriander scent of him. Jude knew how to kiss as if he were pouring his whole heart into the gesture, as if no one in the world existed but the two of us. My heart was thumping when he drew back, but it wasn’t just from anxiety then.

  There wasn’t time for anything else. He murmured his casting words under his breath with waves of his hand to help direct the magic. My skin tingled as the energy settled over me. The spell he’d cast was one I’d used on myself to blend into my surroundings, but it was based on illusion, and no one could do a better job with that than the guy in front of me.

  When he was finished, he stepped back and glanced over me and the space around me with critical consideration. His gaze didn’t quite meet mine, probably because he couldn’t see anymore where my eyes were.

  “That should do it. Stay still, and we’ll make sure he doesn’t come over too close. I don’t think there’s any chance he’ll catch on, no matter how cautious he’s being with us.”

  “Got it,” I said, willing my breath to stay even and calm.

  Jude texted the other guys to let them know we were ready. He poured himself a drink—just a Coke, whether because he’d decided it was too early in the day for liquor or he just wanted his head as clear as possible, I wasn’t sure—and sat down on the sofa with it. After a few restless shifts, he clicked on the entertainment system’s audio and started a playlist of classic rock playing at a low volume. I could see his own tension in the set of his shoulders.

  It was another few minutes before footsteps rapped against the stairs outside the door. Malcolm strode in first, with Connar and Declan right behind him. Connar stopped just inside, crossing his brawny arms over his chest, his pale eyes taking in the room with a sharp wariness that wasn’t at all like the guy I knew.

  My heart squeezed as his gaze passed over me. He obviously didn’t see me at all, but the thought of how he’d react if he did was unsettling enough.

  Jude clicked off the music and stood up. Connar studied him too and then turned back to Malcolm. “What’s this really all about?”

  The Nightwood scion held up his hands in an appeal. “It doesn’t have to be a big thing. I’m just a little worried about you, Conn. When we talked the other day, I got a sense of something I didn’t like. We know that various people have been targeting our pentacle in different ways. I wanted to make sure there aren’t an
y hostile spells acting on you right now.”

  Connar’s jaw tightened. “I think I’d have noticed if there were.”

  “Not necessarily,” Declan said in the measured tone that had served him well as a teacher’s aide. “Our enemies have a lot of skill—enough to work magic it’d be difficult to detect if you’re not looking for it. But between the three of us, we should be able to tell for sure. It’d just take a minute to check you over for spells.”

  The Stormhurst scion didn’t budge. “If you really think someone’s been casting on me, I should go to my parents. A baron will be able to deal with that kind of treachery better than anyone.”

  Connar in his right mind would definitely never have said that. I thought I saw Malcolm restrain a grimace. “Your mother also has lots of other things to occupy her,” he said smoothly. “I might just be paranoid. I haven’t seen anything definite, but I want to be sure. If we pick up on something, you can have your parents handle the rest. Including the punishment for whoever thought messing with you was a good idea.”

  Jude swept his floppy dark copper hair back from his eyes. “We could already be done by now if we just got on with it,” he said in a bored tone, as if none of this mattered all that much to him.

  Connar glanced at each of them, clearly debating what to do. Then he scanned the room again. The spell working on him made him wary of anything that could have to do with me, but in the absence of any signs that I was involved with this request, his shoulders started to come down. His parents would have wanted him to keep a decent relationship with the other guys where I wasn’t involved.

  He took a couple steps farther into the room. “Fine. Just make it quick.”

  The other three scions formed a loose circle around him. Thanks to my earlier insight work, they knew where the construct holding the spell was probably located, but they had to make a show of an overall examination. I braced myself where I stood by the wall.

  We wouldn’t have risked having me present at all, except I was the only one in the group who’d ever unraveled a bodily-bound spell like this before. Once the guys confirmed its location, we’d want to tackle it as quickly as possible. My experience would hopefully speed that process along. Then all we’d have to worry about were any aftereffects that might be triggered by the spell’s destruction—like the violent rage Professor Banefield had flown into after I’d cured him of his magically induced illness.

  Each of the guys intoned a casting word, and Connar held stiffly still. I waited for the signal that they’d identified the spot. The seconds slipped past, and then Malcolm started to raise his hand. “There’s somethi—”

  Connar jerked away from the three of them with a sudden ragged breath. “What the fuck?” he said. “Get the hell away from me!”

  The guys stared at him, obviously as startled by his reaction as I was. “I hadn’t done anything,” Malcolm said, his smooth voice gone outright cajoling. “But I’m sensing—”

  “You’re trying to screw me over,” Connar snapped, shoving himself even farther away from them. Shit. His parents must have included an aspect of the spell that would set off his defensiveness if any other magic touched that spot.

  Unfortunately, he’d shoved himself toward the bar cabinet. I cringed back, flattening myself against the wall as well as I could. Jude’s eyes had widened. All three of the guys moved tentatively toward Connar, Malcolm circling to the right so he could usher him in another direction, but Connar was backpedaling too quickly, his face flushed with anger.

  “You tell me you want to help me, and then you try to pull something like this?”

  “We weren’t pulling anything,” Declan said. “I swear it, Connar. We’re just trying to help you.”

  Connar spun around without warning, just a couple feet from where I was standing. His gaze jarred against my form. His expression went rigid, and he spat out a casting word that shattered the magical quivering that had been clinging to my body.

  At the rage that wrenched across his face, I scrambled off to the side. I opened my mouth and hesitated, not sure if speaking would only make things worse, no matter what I said.

  “What the fuck is she doing hiding away in here?” Connar whipped back around to face the other scions. “Did you know? Is that part of the whole plan? You fucking assholes.”

  “Connar,” Malcolm started, his mouth slanting at a pained angle, but the Stormhurst scion didn’t give him a chance to say anything.

  “You can all go to hell,” Connar said, and stormed out of the room with enough fury and thunder to more than live up to his name.

  “Well,” Jude said with an expression as sickly as I felt inside, “I think we can safely say this attempt was not a success.”

  I hugged myself, just barely stopping myself from shaking. Malcolm and Declan exchanged a wince of a glance. After this, what were the chances Connar was going to trust any of us again, let alone enough to try to break through that spell?

  Chapter Eight

  Rory

  As Declan pulled into the small parking lot next to the handful of other cars already there, I peered through the windshield at the building ahead of us. A craggy structure of dark stone rose from the wild grass, three stories high and narrow enough that you could almost have called it a tower. The gray clouds congealing overhead gave it a gloomy cast, but I had the feeling it’d have looked ominous in any weather.

  “Welcome to the Fortress of the Pentacle,” Declan said grimly.

  So, this was where the barons held their meetings. Seeing it didn’t make me feel any more at ease about the current pentacle. I couldn’t imagine how Declan must have felt every time he’d needed to walk into that place to face the three older barons who saw him as more of an obstacle than a colleague.

  I couldn’t make too overt a gesture when there was no telling who might be watching, but it seemed safe enough to scoot my hand across the seats to grasp his, just briefly. Without looking at me, Declan ran his thumb over my knuckles in a fond caress.

  “Whatever happens with your mother, the other barons should back off now,” he said. “They’ll see it as her responsibility to set you straight where they assume you need it—and if she doesn’t, they’ll focus on her, not you, since she’s their peer. I don’t think they’d dare to outright attack you behind her back, no matter what Malcolm’s sister overheard.”

  “Small comforts,” I said, but that knowledge was a bit of a relief. As cruel as fearmancer parents could be, it had to be better to only be dealing with one baron, even one with familial authority, rather than three who definitely had it out for me. “I’m not even sure why she wanted me to come.”

  “I suppose she’ll tell you once we get in there. We probably shouldn’t spend too much time talking first.”

  He let go of my hand with a note of regret in his tone. Declan had been the first of the scions to really support me, and thinking of the risks he’d already taken on my behalf made my heart ache. The barony wasn’t even that important to him—he’d fought to hold onto it not out of a desire for power but to keep the heavy responsibility and the dangers that came with it off his younger brother’s shoulders.

  If the other barons found out he wasn’t just a neutral party in the conflict between them and me but intimately involved with me, the backlash he’d face might be severe. Even though our relationship didn’t break any official rules, we were keeping it quiet. My mother had wanted all the barons present for my visit to the Fortress, though, and it’d made sense for Declan and me to drive together when we were coming from the same place.

  “How’s your brother healing up?” I asked as I stepped out of the car into the damp air.

  “No permanent damage from the prank. A few hours of magical intervention, and his leg was almost good as new, just a little sore. Not the way I’d have wanted him to learn that lesson about how much to trust his supposed friends, though.”

  “Yeah.” None of us got off easy at Blood U. If that was how his brother got treated when
he wasn’t even the scion himself, no wonder Declan was worried about protecting him from the role.

  I walked up to the front doors with him without allowing myself to show any further hesitation. A crawling sensation ran over my skin alongside the impression that this building might swallow me whole, never to release me again. We were just a few feet from the door when it swung open to reveal my mother.

  She looked as steady and composed as she had when I’d called on her at the main Bloodstone residence not long ago, with an extra glint of energy in her eyes. She was glad to be back at her work, obviously.

  “Persephone,” she said, brisk but pleased. “Right on time.” She inclined her head just slightly to Declan in acknowledgment. “Thank you for giving her the drive, Mr. Ashgrave.”

  “I was happy to help,” Declan said with a careful smile. He wouldn’t be fully Baron Ashgrave until he graduated from the university in a few months’ time. I wondered if the aunt he’d mentioned would be here today too. She’d served as his regent when he was younger and still had a place at the table until he took complete control of the barony.

  He stepped inside past my mother and headed off to wherever the barons usually met, I guessed. My mother touched my arm to guide me with her. “I understand this is your first time coming out here.”

  “Yes,” I said, with a flash of memory back to the one time Baron Nightwood had requested my presence at a meeting of the barons. When I’d declined, he’d magically frozen me in place and warned me about my lack of respect. Good times. “I wanted to get a better handle on how fearmancer society works and on my own magic before I dove into the politics.”

  “Wise to have some patience about it,” she said with obvious approval. At least she was on my side in that one case. She led me down the high-ceilinged hall, pointing out rooms as we passed. “Each of the barons has their own small office space here, although it’s generally more convenient to hold our private meetings on our own properties, unless we want to particularly emphasize our authority.”