by S. W. Clarke
“Can’t you, though?” Aidan said to me. “You met my grandmother.”
I’d done more than met Aidan’s grandmother—I’d set her hair aflame. Still no regrets. “Yeah, and the disowning should go the other way around.”
“Anyway, Mum and Dad have done fine for themselves,” Aidan said. “They’re happier than my grandmother ever was or will be, hoard of wealth or no.”
I’d never met my own grandparents. My mother always said they’d died long before I was born, but that they were good people. I wondered now how true that was; after all, Charlotte North hadn’t once badmouthed her own mother in my presence.
I guess it was a reflection of what kind of people my mother and Charlotte were, that they only spoke well of people who couldn’t answer for themselves.
“You’re going to be a guardian,” Aidan said as we walked. “How’re you feeling about that?”
I joshed him with my elbow. “That’s how I feel about that.”
“It’s something to be proud of, Clementine.”
“Does that mean you’re going to embrace your gift and become a guardian?”
He avoided my eyes, his attention on a cat in someone’s garden. “I haven’t decided. I quite prefer reading old books and drinking tea to burning people alive.”
As we passed by, Loki came to the gate to sniff. In the garden, the white cat sent up a ferocious hiss.
Loki strafed away, blinked up at me as shocked as he’d ever been. “I’ll tell you what: that cat is no familiar.”
I bent over, swept a comforting hand over his head and back. “But you’ve got much better control of the everflame,” I said to Aidan. “Way better than that one afternoon…”
“Can we please not talk about the afternoon we went to visit my grandmother?” Aidan said with pleading eyes on me. “I’d much rather pretend it was a dream.”
“Fine by me.” We reached the cross-street, turned. “Anyway, North, the point is this: I’ve only got Liara Youngblood and a bunch of strangers to watch my back. It would be real nice having you there on missions.”
“I’ll think about it,” he said with the kind of finality I knew meant Aidan was done with the conversation. More than done. Pressing him would only make things worse.
Soon we struck into the field, high-stepping through the unmown grass toward the spot where the leyline ran under the ground. Aidan was most familiar with it; he’d come and gone by this spot his whole childhood.
Me? You could have set me in the center of that field and I would have spent the next two weeks trying to find the right damn spot.
We hadn’t gotten very far in when Loki stopped, black tail upright like a signpost sticking out of the grass. “I smell magic,” he said in his low, serious voice.
Aidan hadn’t noticed; I had to get his attention. Then I nodded at Loki. “Someone’s around.”
And by someone, I meant a mage.
Aidan went stiff, staring around the wide field to the lanes beyond, the houses and their curtains totally still. A car passed down one road, a breeze tickled the grass, a cloud passed over the sun.
The world darkened, chilled, my skin goosepimpling.
“Where are they?” I asked Loki.
“I don’t know,” Loki said. “It’s strange, but I can’t figure out a direction. It’s powerful, though.”
I’d had a similar experience to this in the fae market in Vienna, standing with Nissa Whitewillow. Someone with powerful magic had been watching me then. Someone with ill intent.
“I don’t see anyone,” Aidan said, turning a circle.
“Loki can’t tell where it’s coming from,” I said.
Aidan and I met eyes. This summer had put us more or less on the same page; we had gotten very good at telling each other’s thoughts from one gesture, from a single expression. In a second, we had come to the same conclusion: We should move.
I started forward, faster than before. “We’re going, Loki.”
My familiar didn’t object. Loki fell into a trot beside me as Aidan took my hand, and the three of us struck across the field toward the leyline.
When we arrived at the spot, the ground began rumbling from the far side of the field.
I turned, staring. I couldn’t see any difference except the swaying grass and the nearing sound of the earth shifting. It carried toward us with lightning speed, vibrating under our feet and then just as quickly passing onward to the other end of the field.
And like that, the world went as still and regular as it had been before. Except the cloud still remained over the sun.
I spun in slow a circle, expecting an earth mage and seeing no one. “What was that?”
Aidan had also turned a circle, hands up. “It was the leyline, I think. Whatever that rumbling was, it followed the leyline’s path.”
“What does that mean? Like a faultline?”
He shook his head. “Seems that way.” When he turned, he raised his finger to cut the air. “But we need to leave this place, get to the academy.”
Loki pressed close to my leg. “I agree.”
Aidan made a swift incision in the veil, not sparing any time for straight lines. Without pause, he nodded at me. “Go on. I’ll follow.”
I didn’t hesitate. I pressed the veil aside, ducked through. But when I stood up on the other side, we weren’t in the forest outside the academy.
We weren’t in a forest at all.
I stared with wide eyes at an enormous, half-frozen lake and the barren tundra beyond. Here and there, snow streaked across the land. The air felt fifty degrees colder. And the sun lay low on the horizon.
This wasn’t the academy.
“Aidan—” When I turned, Aidan had already come through and straightened behind me. In his wake, the veil was already reseaming itself. Not that I wanted to go back to where we had been.
Aidan’s eyebrows rose high above his glasses as he took the place in. His quick breath crystallized in the air. “This…”
“Isn’t Shadow’s End,” Loki finished for him.
I swept a hand out. “Why did you take us here?”
“I didn’t.” Aidan pulled his cloak tight. “The leyline must have.”
“That’s possible?” I asked.
Aidan took a few steps over the hard ground toward the lake, staring out. “I’ve read it’s possible. Never had it happen to me before.”
I turned after him. “And why would a leyline take us somewhere else than we wanted to go?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know, Clem.” He glanced back at me. “But you heard what happened right before we went through.”
Of course I’d heard it. Every creature in a mile’s radius had heard it—and probably felt it. Including Aidan’s parents.
“I heard it.” I paused. “We should go back for your family.”
“No.” Aidan’s voice was as adamant as it ever got. “My parents are under an enchantment. They’re experienced mages—more than us. And most of all, they wouldn’t want us to go back. Not right now.”
“And you’re just willing to accept they’re all right on faith?”
Aidan pulled his cellphone out of his cloak, waved it in the air. “I can use technology, you know.”
“Oh, that.” My arms had gone across my body for warmth, and I turned back to the leyline. “I’ll part the veil this time, take us back to the academy.”
Aidan’s eyes wandered the landscape, not quite focusing on me. “If the leyline will let us.” But he didn’t move; the wind caught his hair, blowing it wild.
Loki leapt onto my cloak, crawled up to my shoulder. He perched closed to my neck for warmth. “Just an FYI: I’m ready for someplace that isn’t a cold, barren wasteland.”
I set a hand on Loki, but kept studying Aidan. He was deep in thought. “You’re wondering why we ended up here, aren’t you?”
Aidan’s eyes snapped to me. “There’s got to be a reason.” He glanced down at his phone, began tapping the screen.
“
What are you doing?”
“Getting coordinates.” A few seconds later, he replaced his phone back in his pocket. “Just in case.”
I turned toward the spot we’d stepped through. “Let’s hope this try doesn’t drop us into lava.”
Aidan stepped up to my side. “Here’s trusting the fire witch.”
I raised a finger, poising it in the air. It had been a few months since I’d cut the veil, but for the first time, I felt the humming power before me as my hand went out toward the leyline.
This was a place of power.
I couldn’t yet see a leyline, but I could sense it like the faintest radio signal. And there it was, the proof I’d been seeking all summer: I was growing. I was becoming more powerful.
I drew my finger down, slicing through the veil toward the ground as I imagined the forest outside the academy. This time I pressed it aside before stepping through; on the other side, I recognized a familiar set of trees.
When I glanced back at Loki, he stepped closer, sniffed. “Smells vaguely like horse dung. This is the place.”
I gestured for Aidan to come through. “Loki’s given his toe-bean stamp of approval.”
“Good enough for me.” Aidan ducked, passed through to the other side. Loki followed.
I remained crouched with the veil pressed aside, hesitating.
When I looked over my shoulder, the wide, sunset expanse of the lake and the tundra greeted me again. What a beautiful, barren part of the world. It felt untouched, completely natural.
There was a reason the leyline had brought us to this place.
“Clementine?” Loki said from the other side.
I refocused on my familiar and Aidan, both waiting for me. When I came through the veil and stood, Aidan was on his phone again, fingers tapping away.
A second later, he gave an enormous relieved sigh. Looked up at me. “Mum and Dad are fine. They heard a rumble, but nothing else.”
We started through the forest. “Did they have any ideas what it was?”
“Mum supposed earth magic, but she couldn’t know for sure. Apparently a mage of any sort can touch the ground and imbue it with their magic.”
“Interesting,” Loki said from beside me. “They thought it was mage-made.”
“So it wasn’t the leyline itself,” I said to Aidan.
He shrugged. “Hard to say. Best we get to the academy first, talk later.”
Minutes later we passed through Umbra’s enchantment around the academy grounds; for the first time in three months, a weight I’d grown used to lifted from my chest, allowed my lungs to fill.
I had never realized how safe I felt here. I had never realized how badly a childlike, primal part of me wanted to feel safe.
When we came to the campus and I saw my first set of fae wings, I was already looking for Eva’s face. But she wasn’t attached to them.
Only about half the student body had arrived. We were early—Aidan was early to everything, and as a result, so was I—for a school year that wouldn’t start until tomorrow.
“We should tell—” Aidan began, but I had already struck a hard left and was jogging toward the stables, Loki following me at a jog.
Yes, we should tell Umbra about what had happened.
Yes, we should be responsible young adults.
But as I came to the stables and opened the half-door and saw Noir’s handsome face appear over his stall door, I knew I’d made the right choice.
“Someone’s been eating well,” Loki murmured.
I came up to Noir and set my hands under his velvety chin. He inhaled my scent with wide nostrils, and here in this simple place with my cat and my horse, I’d found home.
“Oh,” a sharp voice cut into my moment. “You again.”
Chapter Three
Quartermistress Farrow stood with folded arms, her body lit from behind in the open-air aisleway, that whiplike braid over one shoulder. She scrutinized me with the same hard eyes as the first time we’d met.
I half-turned, ran a hand over the side of Noir’s face. “Missed me that much?” I asked her.
Faint humor appeared at one side of her mouth. That was as much as anyone ever got from her. “I’ll tell you one thing, I’ve missed you cleaning stalls. That one in particular makes an awful lot of shit.”
I scratched under his jaw, observing the inside of his stall and spotting a flake of prized alfalfa. “I think he charmed you, Farrow.”
“Please.” She came to my side, observing Noir. “His idea of charm is banging the stall door when he’s peckish. Or wants to be scratched. Or he’s bored.”
“So, all the time.”
“All the time.”
Loki hopped up onto the stall door in front of Farrow, perched there and meowed at her.
She obliged by petting him. “This year you’ll be riding Noir through the veil.”
My gut cinched. She was referring, of course, to guardian missions. “You think he’s ready?”
Farrow went on petting Loki. “You saved his life. That horse will go anywhere and do anything you ask of him.”
I hadn’t heard that kind of sentimental talk from her before. “You think horses can feel gratitude.”
“The first guardian trial showed me all I needed to see.” She sighed as if caught in memory. “I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a stallion move like that. You’re suited to him, too.”
Those were the nicest words Farrow had ever offered me. I didn’t know how to respond, so I only said, “I’ll be back to mucking stalls tomorrow morning.”
“Oh no.” Farrow almost chuckled. “You’re a guardian now. That’s it’s own job.”
“But she excels at shoveling poop,” Loki’s eyes taunted me. “I would know.”
I snorted. “What if I want to keep my job here?” I said to her.
Farrow set a weighty hand on my shoulder. “Trust me, Clementine, you’ll have your hands entirely full. Your head, too.”
“She has no idea how dirty that sounds,” Loki whispered.
I grinned at him. Then, to her, “Were you a guardian?”
She shifted her eyes off me, around the stable’s interior. “No, but I’ve seen the guardians come and go on the horses. I’ve seen for twenty-three years how it affects them—the stress of it, the adrenaline.” She paused, meeting my eyes. “It’s a sacrifice you make, every time. I won’t have you cleaning these stalls.”
That sounded final. I tilted my head with the smallest smile. “Who’ll ever be able to replace me?”
Farrow flicked a hand through the air, turned toward the stall opposite Noir’s. “Come meet the new mare. A two-year-old paint, lovely little thing for the right rider.”
I followed Farrow to the stall, found a horse around fifteen hands staring back at me from under long lashes. She nickered when she saw me, came forward to sniff my hand. “What’s her name?” I asked.
“Minibar.”
I laughed. “I knew there was a reason I hung around you, Farrow.”
A half-hour later, I left the stables for the dorm Eva and I shared. When I came to the room, I found it empty and musty. If Eva had gotten back—regardless of whether she’d cleaned at all—it would smell of vanilla and freshness.
Loki came in, stepping with high paws. “Ugh.”
I pressed film off my desk. “Forgive me, Lord. I don’t have any fae dust to sprinkle.”
“Let’s be honest, you’ve never lifted a finger in the name of cleaning.” He hopped onto my bed, and regular old dust lifted visibly into the air. “But I tolerate you anyway.”
I stepped over to Eva’s full-length mirror, rubbed it clean with the hem of my cloak. “Thank you, Your Graciousness.”
I’d heard from Aidan that Eva and Torsten were arriving this evening from Iceland. Until then, Loki would have to live in squalor.
Meanwhile, I had responsibilities. One in particular.
When I came down from our dorm and crossed the clearing toward Umbra’s office, the big double doors
opened, and Aidan stepped out.
“Did you already tell her?” I asked him.
“I told her.”
Well, at least I didn’t have to bother. She’d probably offer me marmalade and more half-truths. “And?”
“She asked if my parents were all right.”
“And?”
“I told her they were all right.”
“The leyline, Aidan. What did she say about the leyline?”
He shrugged. “Like she’d tell me. She just grabbed a tome from her bookcase and shooed me out.”
“Ah.” I twirled a finger toward Umbra’s double doors. “Welcome to the Academy of Shadowed Magic, where there are more shadows than light.” I threw an arm around his shoulders, redirected him toward the library. “You know what they say.”
He groaned. “This is going to be another thing that only you say, isn’t it?”
I ignored him; this punchline had simmered for a whole ten seconds. “If you can’t get your answers from unreasonable professors, you can occasionally get them after hours of scouring old books.”
His pace increased. “I am itching to get back into the Room of the Ancients.”
“And after we do this, we duel.” I dug a finger into his side, pulled him close when he tried to wriggle away. “Because six hours of sitting in a library makes me itchy to light fires.”
Aidan laughed, shoved me off. “Fine, we’ll fight. For every two hours in the library, we duel for one hour.”
We had agreed over the summer that we would learn all we could about the last two pieces of the weapon. And so we went into the empty library—where not one other person wanted to be right now, even Milonakis—and spent the next four hours studying leylines.
Finally, I looked at Aidan overtop my book. My fingers were getting twitchy. “It’s time.”
He adjusted his glasses, clearly disappointed to go. “I haven’t found anything useful.”
“Neither have I.” I clapped my book shut. “But if we sit here any longer, we risk blood clots.”
We got up to head toward Spark’s common room for our duel. On the way out, I nudged him. “We’ll be back to your moth-riddled tomes before you know it. We’ve still got a prophecy to research.”
