by S. W. Clarke
Her eyes dropped elsewhere; she began tugging at her bed’s duvet. “He mentioned it.”
“We were dueling, and he got too aggressive.” I sat up fully. “Yes, I got angry with him. Yes, I lost control for a second.”
Eva’s eyes drifted up to mine. “He said you were like a different person.”
That had been the Spitfire. He’d seen the Spitfire emerge—but Aidan had also tackled me, held me down even after I told him to get off.
I hated being held down. Controlled. That was my anger, too. It wasn’t just the fire’s influence.
Right?
I pressed down the old feelings about myself. I was better than this—I had to be better than every fire witch in history. They were going to make me into a guardian tonight, for god’s sake.
“You trust me, Eva.” I paused. “Don’t you?”
Her lips pressed together. She nodded.
Loki cracked an eye open from atop my pillow at the head of the bed. “Can you just do a few trust falls so the cat can sleep undisturbed?”
I ran a hand over his back. Glanced over at Eva. “Umbra believes I can do this. She must, or else she wouldn’t have let Frostwish teach me.”
And yet you haven’t told Eva what Rathmore said.
Don’t trust Frostwish.
Truth was, I had planned to try dropping out of the class some way or another. Play hooky, plead my case with Umbra.
That is, until Frostwish had hexed me in the meadow.
I wanted that power. I needed it. And it was about more than just hexing my enemies.
“Eva,” I went on. “Remember the part of the prophecy about the chain?”
Her eyes unfocused. “Something about tethering…”
“‘A hex will tether the cursed chain,’” I recited. “A hex, Eva.”
“Oh my gods.” She set a hand to her mouth, whispering between her fingers. “And you think this is that hex?”
“What else can it be?”
“It makes total sense. But doesn’t it all line up too easily?”
I nodded. “I was thinking the same thing. Just after I get the deceiver’s rod—and now need to find the cursed chain—I’m enrolled in Frostwish’s class to learn hexes.”
It’s too perfect. I wondered if Frostwish knew more than she should.
“Rathmore told me not to trust Ora Frostwish,” I said.
“Callum Rathmore told you that? When?”
“The night he left the academy back in May.”
One of her eyebrows rose. “And you didn’t think to tell me?”
“I didn’t really think about it. It didn’t matter until now.” My fingers tightened on the duvet. “Why would he tell me that, Eva?”
“I don’t know. Frostwish is a wonderful professor. There’s nothing she’s ever done to make me wonder.”
“I can smell your nervousness,” Loki groused from his pillow. “Would you please take a shower before you smoke us all out of here?”
“And when was the last time you bathed yourself?” I said. “I’m not the only one being initiated tonight.”
“Ten minutes ago.” He gave me a withering look. “I’m a cat.”
Eva glanced between Loki and me, looking for a translation.
I stood. “He says I’m sweating from nerves.”
“About the prophecy?” Her eyes flicked to the clock on her desk. “Oh, you have to go, Clem. You’ll be late.”
I was already crossing to the bathroom. “I’ve got four hours to put on one dress,” I said. “But I know how you feel about lateness. We’ll reconvene to gossip about Frostwish later. At the end of class she told me she’s going to visit her dear old mentor, who thinks the formalists are rubes. Wonder who this edgy mentor is.”
“Mentor, you say?” A glint had entered Eva’s eyes. “Where?”
“I think he was in Inverness.”
“Four hours is quite a bit of time.”
I stopped, faced her. “Evanora Whitewillow, are you suggesting we do something underhanded?”
“Rathmore said we can’t trust Frostwish, right?” Eva leaned forward. “Let’s see for ourselves.”
I pointed at the clock on her desk. “You were just telling me I’ll be late.”
She flipped the clock onto its face. “There’s a priority to things, Clem. Getting fresh is lowest on the list. Somehow you can do that in ten minutes—I’ve clocked you.”
I just stared at her. This was a new Eva.
“Loki?” I said. “Do you want to go to Inverness?”
He cracked an eye. “I want you to go to Inverness so I can sleep.”
Eva understood that well enough. “So?” she said. “Do you want to find out more about Ora Frostwish, or don’t you?”
I did. I absolutely did.
Ora Frostwish walked with the kind of feline smoothness that made me wonder if she had joints at all. In fact, she didn’t walk—she pooled toward the leyline outside the academy grounds.
A minute earlier, she’d flown from the landing of her home, high up in a tree—which Eva and I had been hiding at the base of—and off into the forest. We’d followed her blue hair as fast and soundlessly as we could, but hadn’t caught sight of her until she’d landed.
That was when she’d pooled. She moved bonelessly.
She made a picture of a fashionista as she stopped in front of the spot where the leyline crossed invisibly under the ground outside the academy: blue-black bob without a hair out of place, the fine lines of her neck exposed down to a loose linen powder-blue jacket, which she wore over a knee-length dress and heels.
She was certainly dressed to see someone important to her.
Frostwish cut an unsurprisingly perfect line in the veil from her head to the forest floor as Eva and I crouched behind a far-off tree. We glimpsed a street streaked with sunset pinks and oranges as Frostwish stepped through.
“That’s the high street,” Eva said to me. “I’ve been there.”
“You’ve been to Inverness?”
“When your parents can part the veil, why wouldn’t you visit every country in the world?”
I had no good answer to that. “You’ve been to every country?”
“My parents wanted me to be able to get anywhere I needed to go in the world.” She started forward to the spot where Frostwish had stood. “We have to be quick, or else we’ll lose her.”
Eva made an unsteady cut in the veil, but it did its job. When she pulled it aside, the sunset poured over the high street and through the opening. Its beams even touched the forest floor on our side.
Frostwish had taken to the sidewalk, her heels clicking.
I turned to Eva. “Are my curls showing?”
She tucked a stray hair into my hood, which had been pulled up over my head. “You’re good.”
“I have to say, I do like this Evanora.” I started through the veil and felt her close behind.
“I’ve always been the same Evanora.” She came to my side once we were on the high street, and the two of us crossed onto the sidewalk behind Frostwish. “I trust you, and you trust Rathmore. If he told you not to trust Frostwish, then we need to investigate.”
We kept our distance, always keeping Frostwish in sight but never coming too close. She turned a corner, then another. Soon enough we were headed into a residential section. “Who do you think her mentor is?” Eva asked.
“She was into hexes as a student in Edinburgh, right? So I’d guess a professor.” But we certainly weren’t in Edinburgh, or headed toward a university. Then it hit me. “Her mentor’s probably old and retired. We’re not going to any school...”
Eva got it. “We’re going to a house.”
We hit an upscale street brimming with elegant houses with yards. I knew by now that space—a yard especially—was a sign of wealth here. No better sign of money than owning things whose only purpose was aesthetic. Time with Aidan’s family in London had taught me all sorts of things.
The sun had finally fallen below the horizon, which made
following Frostwish easier. In the blue hour we were hardly visible, especially as we avoided the streetlamps. On and on she went, deep and deeper into the neighborhood.
“She sure can walk in heels.” I stopped to swivel one ankle. “My feet hurt in these sneakers.”
“Oh, Clementine.” She leaned close. “Do not underestimate the art of walking in pumps.”
I gave a silent laugh, then went stiff. “She’s stopped.”
We stopped, too. Up ahead, Frostwish stood before an iron gate, pressing a buzzing button. Faint words were exchanged, and then she opened the gate and passed through into the yard of a very fancy old two-story home.
We crept closer as Frostwish passed toward the front door. A rectangle of light appeared, and a dark figure stood there to greet her. A moment later she had gone inside, and the door shut.
Eva and I exchanged a look.
“Sneak over the wall?” she offered.
We couldn’t be stopped by a bunch of bricks stacked on top of each other. Not when one of us had wings and the other had a sketchy record from childhood. “Sneak over the wall.”
I managed to climb it with ease. Eva flew up and crouched atop it, pulling me up until I’d crested it. We dropped into the grass on the other side, snuck toward the dimly lit window of the house.
We stood at either side of the window, pressed to the side of the house, and I turned my face to glance in.
Inside, a beautiful, marble-countered kitchen lay clean and empty and only faintly lit.
I nodded at Eva and gestured for her to follow. We moved around the side of the house toward the back, where another window glowed like a beacon.
Again we pressed to the side of the house, and when I peeked through the glass, I glimpsed a stately sofa and armchairs. Bookcases lined the high walls, filled from end to end. A fireplace announced itself against one wall, not burning but promising an enormous fire if the occasion were to call.
And sitting in one of the armchairs was Ora Frostwish. She faced mostly away from me, but I’d recognize that geometric bob anywhere.
I didn’t know the older man sitting in the armchair opposite her, but a vague familiarity registered in my brain. Something about the shape of his jaw, his brow, the scrutinizing dark eyes.
Their lips moved through the glass, but I could only make out muffled half-words.
I whispered to Eva, “Can you hear?”
“Yes.” She ducked beneath the window to my side. “Ora keeps calling him ‘William.’ Who do you suppose that is?”
I glanced in through the window again, intending to take another look at his face, but my eyes wandered. And they fixed on a family crest over the wooden mantel. Black and red, with two crossed swords at the center.
Beneath them, an engraved name I recognized:
RATHMORE.
Chapter Seven
I ducked back, leaning hard against the outer wall as much for support as to keep myself hidden.
William Rathmore sat inside that room.
Callum’s father.
“What is it?” Eva mouthed to me.
“Look above the mantel,” I said without moving. “The family crest.”
When she had done so, she turned back to me with gray eyes like small moons. “Professor Rathmore’s father is Ora Frostwish’s mentor. What does that mean?”
I shook my head; I didn’t know.
Rathmore’s profile in Witches & Wizards returned to mind. His father had been a professor at the University of Edinburgh and on the Mages’ Council there. He must have retired to Inverness, or maybe this was his vacation home.
This I knew: William Rathmore was a powerful man. And yet Callum had disappeared for years, forsaking his seat on the council. There must have been a rift between them. Bad blood.
This connection also explained how Ora and Callum knew each other. If she was his father’s mentee, no doubt their relationship—whatever it was—had existed before he’d come to Shadow’s End.
But he didn’t trust her.
Eva had gone back to listening, her ear next to the glass but still just out of sight. After a time, she squeezed my hand. “They’re talking about you, I think,” she whispered. “I heard mention of the ‘new witch.’ Then they said your name.”
The new? But I was the only. I was the last.
I still couldn’t hear a thing; curse her sensitive fae ears. Well, not curse curse.
Eva listened a time longer, then nestled closer to me. “They’re getting up,” she said, pressed tightly out of view. “They’re walking out.”
I squeezed her shoulder. “Tell me everything.”
“Once we’re out of here.” She glanced at me, eyes wild with intensity. “They said some strange things, Clem.”
The front door of the house opened, and Frostwish’s heels clicked on the front stoop. Words were exchanged, pleasantries, and then she clicked her way down the front walk toward the gate.
We waited until she had gone down the road and her heels were fully out of range of Eva’s hearing before we snuck back over the wall. When I crested the top, I sat there for a moment, staring back through the window into the kitchen.
William Rathmore stood at the counter, buttering a crumpet and brewing himself tea. He was tall like Callum, his hair fully white but nicely combed. Except, even from here, I could see the hard set to his mouth.
I’d bet money he had spent a lifetime making sure his lips folded that way—downturned. Severe. Maybe even cruel.
He knew about me. He’d said my name, and I suspected not in a nice way. Was he a formalist? If he was on the Mages’ Council, I had almost no doubt.
William Rathmore didn’t seem like a good man.
But there he was, making himself an evening snack in his late sixties. That was the way of the world sometimes: bad men took what they wanted, afforded themselves nice homes and security. Self-sacrificing good men often didn’t end up as fortunate.
“Clem,” Eva called up. “What are you doing up there?”
I dropped down to the sidewalk without answering her question. There, we deliberated.
“We should head back,” Eva said. “You have your initiation.”
“We’ve still got two hours.” I didn’t move. “If I’m late, they’ll wait for me. At this point Umbra can’t rescind it, can she?”
“She’s the headmistress. She can do anything she wants.”
“She won’t.” There weren’t many guardians, and they needed all the qualified people they could get. “We need to go somewhere secluded and sit until you tell me everything you heard.”
“Fine.” Eva turned a half-circle, then pointed toward the high street. “This way. There’s a pub my parents took me to that should still be open.”
We arrived at Wetherspoons after a ten-minute walk. It was mostly empty, just a couple unconcerned young men seated at the counter, watching rugby with their pints.
It was perfect.
We took a table in the back corner, the two of us sitting in armchairs with sodas. Eva kept sipping, her eyes going unfocused, until I leaned forward. “So tell me.”
She glanced up at me. “A lot was said I didn’t understand. I definitely heard your name, then ‘new witch.’ They talked about hexes and what kind of progress Frostwish was making. Frostwish said something like, ‘I doubt she could ever become as capable as Murkwood.’ Who’s Murkwood?”
I set my soda down with a clink of ice. “Raven Murkwood?”
“They didn’t say.”
“The full name is Raven Murkwood. She was a witch in the 16th century who wrote The Witching World. It’s the only book the academy has on witches. She was powerful.”
Eva gasped. “The 16th century? But…”
My eyebrows went up, waiting for her to finish.
“They kept talking about Murkwood like she was alive,” Eva finally said. “They were talking about Murkwood’s plans, and what she’d last said, and when they would see her again.”
“Maybe they meant an
other Murkwood,” I murmured, though I felt doubtful. “Or a descendant.”
But that wouldn’t make any sense; Murkwood’s descendant would be a witch, and I was the only witch. At least, that was the story I’d been given.
On the other hand, Raven Murkwood still being alive after so many centuries made even less sense.
Unless she’s the Shade. That was a possibility. But it was one I really didn’t want to consider, seeing as how I’d read The Witching World more than once.
“Anything else?” I said.
“Rathmore talked about a ripple.” Her brow furrowed. “That he thought Callum had caused a ripple, and he wasn’t sure about his loyalties. It remained to be seen where he would land.”
A tremor. I sipped my drink; Umbra had talked about ripples of magic when it came to abductions. I didn’t quite understand about ripples, but I did understand about loyalties. And I knew I agreed with Callum: I had no loyalty to Ora Frostwish.
We returned to the academy with just enough time for me to get into the shower for the initiation. Even then, the getting-ready process took a little direction from Eva.
“Don’t forget to wear the dress from Mama,” she called as the bathroom door closed behind me.
The dress from Nissa Whitewillow was a deep purple and had been altered to fit me with stunning exactness. The sleeves came right to the caps of my wrists, the shoulders not even a degree outsized, the neckline demure and the length—just past the knees—perfectly suited for an initiation.
When I put it on in the bathroom and tied my hair away from my face, I stared at myself in the mirror.
I was about to be Clementine Cole, guardian.
If only my pervy boss Corner Mart Grocery could see me now... Actually, nevermind that.
When I came out, Eva sighed with gleaming eyes, came over to hug me. “You deserve this,” she said as we separated. “I know you doubt that. Please don’t.”
She knew exactly what had been written on my face. I pulled on my cloak and put on my best smile. “Down, doubt. Down.”
“Are you talking to your feelings like a dog?” Loki trotted over to my legs, staring up at me in obvious judgment. “I don’t know whether to laugh or be appalled.”
