by Larisa Long
I raise my fingers and start to spin them around. “What was that you said again?”
Dray realizes the threat and becomes more rational. Just kidding. He smirks at me again and then blows me a kiss. “A whore just like your mother.”
I don’t have to look at Professor Sway to know he’s a second away from shifting.
“Apologies to those who have eyes.” I say the strip spell again.
Dray is stripped yet again as shifters bust out laughing and pointing. He grabs a book and tries to cover himself.
I shake my head. “Could have just grabbed a paperclip and been done with it.”
Shifters trip over themselves laughing.
Dray runs out of the class, and we hear screams as he makes his way down the hall.
I shake my head. “You just can’t unsee that.”
The other witches and warlocks glare at me. Fex fumes. “Did you have to do that?”
I think about it. “Yep.” I raise my fingers again. “Anyone else want to pixie me off?”
Fex stomps out of class.
My body takes a slight hit as one of the warlocks casts a spell. “Huh.” I look down at my necklace as it vibrates. That had to be a powerful spell, but they don’t need to know that. “I think you need more protein.”
I instantly cast a spell that protects the shifters in case the warlocks get too twitchy. The necklace the King gave me will protect me. Hopefully.
One of the witches with purple eyes mumbles something.
I shake my head and tap on my necklace.
She directs the spell to the shifters.
I divert it back to her, and she flips out of her chair and onto her ass.
“Way to go, Zalia.” Liam practically high fives the shifters around him.
Professor Sway steps forward. “Everyone calm down.”
“Why would you protect the beasts?” Purple eyes smirks as she jumps up.
I shrug. “I like them better than I like you.”
She glares at me, and then returns her attention to the shifters. Her hands are already preparing for another spell.
“Actually …” I have to get her attention away from them before she realizes how to work around my protection spell. “I like everything more than you. Dust.” I pause to make sure her glare has returned to me and another isn’t starting something. “Mites. Saws. Fungus.”
The shifters laugh as another warlock directs another spell towards them. I manage to deflect just in time and send it back to him in the form of a very painful whiplash. He jumps up and wipes blood from his nose. “You’re going to pay for that.”
I shake my head. “Nope. You can’t attack anyone without cause. Even a warlock knows that.” I make sure to enunciate warlock just for effect and because it pixies them off.
Purple eyes looks at me like she can see into my soul. “Wish you weren’t our kind.”
I nod. “I think they have a form for that in the office. It’s called the Zalia. Might need to photocopy the original.” I roll my eyes. “Again.”
They stomp out. Okay, they glare, take their time gathering their things, hiss, toss their desks over, jut their chins in the air. I have no idea what that was supposed to do. No spell connected to that. And then they all leave and slam the door shut.
The shifters start to relax, but I point to the door. “Not yet.”
A second later, Fex Penn stomps back in, glares at me again, kicks another desk over and grabs the book he left behind. “That necklace won’t protect you forever.”
“What did you just say?” Blist tries to step closer to the warlock, but the shifters step in front of Blist to block him.
“Fae off, Penn,” another shifter yells.
Fex doesn’t acknowledge anyone else. He only glares at me.
Blist tries to step forward. “I asked you a question, warlock.”
Fex grunts something which I can’t quite make out and smirks again.
“Hey, faehead,” Liam hisses. “Answer Blist’s question or answer my fist.”
“I don’t mind warlock,” Harst, the alpha wolf shifter says, pretending to get something out of his teeth. “They’re gamey, but doable.”
Fex grins at me. “Go ahead and wallow with your beasts. We’ll get to you soon.”
This time the shifters have to hold Blist back. “Did you just threaten her?”
What the bullies usually forget is that witches, even good witches, can use magic to retaliate if they’ve been threatened. There will be no consequence if there is just cause. Me being pixied is just enough cause for me, but I was also threatened. It’s a witch thing. I have to. It’s a matter of honor. Besides, there’s this whole citation thing that fate will haunt us if we don’t even the score. Provide a balance. Whatever.
There’s a good witch fate and a warlock fate. Supposedly they get into this whole thing if one side out does another. I don’t know if it’s a slap fest or just a bunch of word carnage.
Fex plants himself and slowly folds his arms over his chest. The smirk on his face is disturbing. “What are you going to do, whore?”
Blist’s eyes change to full shift.
I have to act fast. Blist and the rest of the shifters are losing it.
“Faeries?”
They appear everywhere quickly. I think about what I’m planning on doing, and they giggle. “Ready?”
They nod.
I snap my fingers, and Fex is suddenly half the size of the faeries. The faeries stuff him quickly inside a round cage and lock the door. They take turns kicking the cage and even toss it about like it’s a ball. It bounces off desks, the ceiling, Liam’s head, the floor before the faeries catch it again.
One of them ties a ribbon to it so they can all throw it like it’s a boomerang. Another ties the ribbon and ball to a stick, and they play a round of tetherball.
I think Fex is screaming or swearing or throwing up or something. I don’t know. I don’t care. “Have fun.”
The faeries disappear along with their new toy.
Professor rushes to me. “You alright?”
I nod, and he studies all the shifters. “He’s gone. Everyone alright? No one shifted?”
“The fae was that?” Liam asks still holding onto Blist.
Ash tries to keep it together and calm himself. “Another second of that faehead, and I was going to split him in two.”
“Curse Number 18 is gone so the witches can see me, but Curse Number 2 is raging.”
Professor Sway nods. “They truly hate you.”
“It was better when they couldn’t see me.”
“Agreed,” Professor Sway says.
Liam finally lets Blist go.
“They ever talk to you like that again …” Blist steadies himself against the desk. “I almost shifted. That’s never happened before in a classroom. I didn’t even care.” He looks at me. “I just wanted to gut them.”
I flinch at that. The warlocks know how to push the shifters. That’s not good.
“We all almost shifted.” Professor Sway glances around to make sure there are only shifters left. “One of our own was threatened …” he looks at me. “That’s what happens.” He grabs at his heart. “It’s shifter protocol.”
I wonder if I almost shifted or will ever shift. I clasp onto the shifter necklace Blist gave me, but I can tell just by running my fingers over it that it still is only a jaguar. He told me that his shift and my shift would merge into the locket. I know I’m not a jaguar.
Blist is still shaking. “Any of them ever threaten you again …”
“How could you tell they were throwing out spells?” Professor asks.
I shrug. “It’s in their eyes. Their bodies tense. If it’s a warlock, they smirk. If it’s a witch, there’s regret if there has been no cause.”
“Will you get into trouble for …” Professor Sway tries to figure out the words. “ … making him so …”
Liam snorts. “As tiny as his brother’s—”
“No,” I say q
uickly before Liam can finish. It’s bad enough to have the image of Dray burned into my brain. I don’t need the corresponding words. “I had to retaliate. I would have gotten into trouble if I didn’t.”
Ash frowns. “Wouldn’t he know that? I mean it’s Fex, but still …”
I take a deep breath. “Yeah.” He would have known, but their hatred of me is more powerful. That faes. “B1 said she removed some of the spells. So glad she took down the one spell and left the hatred one intact.” I think about it. “That was considerate, wasn’t it?”
“I can think of another word for that.” Professor Sway says, as the shifters nod. “You need to stay close to shifters at all times.”
“Is that safe?”
Blist gets as close to me as he can. “We can protect you,” he says, still out of breath.
I motion around the classroom with tossed chairs and desks. “Wouldn’t it be better if I was far away from all of you?”
All of the shifters shake their heads. Blist glances around and smiles at me. “You’re one of us, Zalia. We’re with you no matter what.”
“Besides, I want to see what else you do to them,” one of the shifters says. “You’re a powerful witch who can make faehead warlocks super tiny.”
“Did you see how small he got?” One of the shifters asks to laughter all around.
“I could put him in my pocket,” another one screams.
“A pocket warlock,” Liam says, to more snorts and yelps. “What if I put him in my back pocket and accidentally sat on him?”
The entire classroom explodes in laughter again.
“What will happen to him?” One of the shifters asks.
I shrug. “The faeries will have their fun …” I think about that. “Maybe volleyball, baseball, basketball, soccer.”
Harst snorts. “All with him as the ball?”
I nod.
Even Professor Sway laughs at that.
“Then he’ll be given back once his family has been notified and Warlock’s Fate makes amends to Witch’s Fate.”
Professor Sway shakes his head. “Witches have such strange rituals. Does any of this get back to you? Like an apology or amends?”
“Nope. It’s all left to the fates.”
I notice Professor Sway studying me.
“Your mother would be so proud.”
I close my eyes as another origin story appears, but I refuse to acknowledge it. I think about what just happened. The shifters, without exception, have my back. I have a family who actually cares if I’m alive or just a bad smell in a petri dish. “No matter what?”
Blist nods and takes my hand.
I try to squirm away, but he holds on tight. “You don’t have to prove anything to me, Blist.”
“I know.”
I get lost in his green eyes. “I’m glad I’m part shifter.”
The entire room of shifters takes a deep breath, and there isn’t a single sound that could be heard. Not a heartbeat, a sigh, a gasp.
I smile. “Respect.”
The shifters yelp in unison. “Respect.”
Chapter 6
“Okay,” Professor Sway says. “I think it’s best if Zalia studies in either the underground dorms or the caverns.”
“Yeah,” Liam snorts. “No witch or warlock would dare enter those areas.”
There are murmurs as a few shifters shove him. He quickly looks at me. “Except for Zalia, but she doesn’t count because she’s a good witch and shifter.”
Ash shakes his head as he looks at Liam. “Good try, Liam.”
Liam puffs his chest out. “Right?”
“I don’t understand why it went so bad so quickly.” Blist studies me. “They haven’t always said those things to you, have they?”
“No. They avoided me.” I think about that. “Good times, but King Philock got all snippy with B cubed, and B1 snapped her manicured nails and eliminated some of the curses.”
Professor Sway sighs. “I know he’s your uncle.”
“So are you.”
He nods. “But …”
I can tell he’s struggling with something. “You’re not going to offend me.”
“Yeah,” Harst says. “Zalia hates them as much as the rest of us.”
Hate? Such a strong word for witches. I can’t hate. Not as a good witch. Then I think about B cubed languishing in a spider web about to be devoured, and my head feels like it’s splitting open.
I squeeze my eyes shut and grab the special combo stone I made last week in crystal class for just this occasion. It’ll be only my forth time using it. Today. I quickly place the bluish, greenish, purplish stone of lapis lazuli, sugilite, green aventurine and green fluorite over my forehead. It molds to me and seeps into my skin.
“What the fae?” The shifters say in unison.
I look at them and then remember. “Oh, it’s a combo of crystals that’ll hop in, fix what’s wrong and then jump back out when they’re done.”
The shifters just stare at me with wide open mouths.
“It’s all good. Crystals are natural, made of …” I stop with the explanations because the shifters stare at my forehead like the crystals are going to catapult out any minute like violent boomerangs.
Blist smiles. “That’s my Zalia. She can absorb crystals and stones.”
I frown. To me, it’s normal. I guess to a shifter, it’s a bit odd.
Even the professor watches me. “Can all witches do that?”
I shrug. “Only the good witches, and you must have only good intentions otherwise the crystals will tell you to fae off.”
“Curse number six.” Blist nods. “You thought something about B cubed.”
I nod. “Always worth it.”
“What was it?” Liam leans forward with a look on his face that I usually get while waiting for chocolate cupcakes to cool.
I grimace. “They were small like Fex, and caught in a spider web with a hungry spider approaching.”
Liam laughs. “I’d give you all my meals for a week to see that.”
“And how would that work?” Blist looks at him waiting.
Liam thinks about it. “Oh yeah.” He takes a deep breath. “Sorry.”
I study him and then look at all the shifters who can’t look me in the eyes all of a sudden. “You all know, don’t you?”
Professor Sway puts his lips together and shrugs. “Sorry, the dreaded curses.”
“A pygmy goat with dragonfly wings and three eyes?”
Blist shakes his head as he laughs. “Nope.”
Professor Sway looks back and forth between us. “What in the realms?”
Blist smiles. “She gets one guess a day.”
“What if she guesses right?”
I wait for Blist to say something, anything that will give me a clue, but he only shrugs.
The door flies open, and the shifters react by getting into formation. Each gives everyone shift space just in case.
The banshee from the half birthday party rushes in. She looks at Professor Sway and the rest of us. “Sorry, I needed to talk to you.” She looks sheepishly at the other shifters but notices Blist and I. “I know you both.”
Professor Sway clears his throat. “We can reconvene in the dorms.”
Blist and I look at each other, and the memories return. It’s like they were in a mist, but as soon as we saw her, they solidified.
“At the party,” I say.
Blist nods. “I didn’t remember until now.”
Professor Sway opens his mouth like he’s going to say something but doesn’t. He looks down at the ground like he’s thinking things through.
The shifters don’t let their guards down. “Who is she?”
“A banshee,” Blist says.
The shifters growl.
Professor Sway sighs. “Can someone guard the door.”
Harst marches to the door, opens it, closes it again and nods. “I’ll stand here.”
Not remembering the banshee crashing our party wasn’t
part of my curses since Blist didn’t remember either. I can’t figure it out. “Why didn’t we remember until now?”
The banshee looks at the professor. “They don’t know, do they?”
The professor shakes his head. “There’s much that is kept from the students at the Academy.”
“But we were there.” Blist motions to me. “Zalia. Xury. Me. The faeries.”
Professor nods. “Yes, whenever something is amiss, the witches …” he looks at me quickly. “The good witches do a cleansing spell.”
The shifters look at me for clarification. I think about it. “It would work. It would have to be powerful and have fate’s blessing, but why?”
“Do you like it here?” He asks everyone, not just me.
We all look at each other and nod.
“That’s why. You’re safe. You’re secure.”
“Except the witches and warlocks who hate Zalia,” Liam grunts.
I nod. “Only on the days that end in ‘y’ fortunately.”
The shifters laugh.
Professor Sway doesn’t laugh. He’s serious. “The Academy is dedicated to the security of …” again he glances at me.
“Witches and warlocks,” I answer.
“Nothing can upset them while they are choosing whether to remain good witches or become warlocks.”
“Why?” I think about it. “Why witches and not pixies or shifters or banshees or faeries?”
The banshee and Professor Sway share a look. He looks down and then takes a deep breath. “The realms beyond the walls of the Academy is a very different place.”
“We’re being captured and sold,” the banshee hisses. “My kind.”
Blist frowns. “Why?”
“If you can control a banshee, you can control their death knell and determine who lives or dies.”
“That’s how that works?” Blist asks the Professor who nods.
“Pixies are disappearing. Faeries are almost gone. They’ve retreated to their original realm, except for the ones still at the Academy.” The banshee takes a breath while looking at the room of shifters. “And shifters are hunted for sport.”
The shifters groan and grumble. “I’d like to see someone try to hunt me,” Liam says, as other shifters murmur. “I’ll rip them into shreds. And Vax?”
Everyone nods. “Try to hunt her.”
