Good Witches Don't Curse (Academy of Shadowed Magic Book 3)

by S. W. Clarke

  And I would know—I had said it a few times.

  I put her out of mind. Nothing mattered more in this moment than getting on Noir’s back and making for the leyline outside the grounds.

  As I came to the clearing, a small black form with tail upright crossed paths with me, began jogging alongside.

  “Good timing,” I said down to him.

  Loki huffed. “The worst timing. I was woken from my afternoon nap.”

  Oahu. One boy, thirteen, Umbra’s voice murmured into my mind, followed by the brief image of a long tree-lined road, leaves swaying, a moon half-obscured by clouds.

  In the next second, the image was gone. “Saw it, Loki?”

  “Yeah. We’re going someplace warm.” He leapt onto the half-door of the stables. “Finally.” Then he disappeared inside.

  When I opened the door, Fi and Mishka were already inside.

  Once again, those two had beaten me to the punch. Someday I would be as quick as them.

  The moment I entered, Mishka came forward, pressed her thumb to my forehead. I felt a brief moisture from her water magic, and then the connection.

  The tiniest smile appeared on her face as she spoke into my mind. Don’t burn me.

  I pressed my own thumb to her forehead, incanting the spell in my mind with a pale flicker of flame. And then she was gone, headed to her horse’s stall.

  I found Fi saddling Siren. She came to the stall door, and we pressed our thumbs to one another’s heads. After several weeks of practice, none of us had to attempt it twice any longer.

  Loki sat on Noir’s stall door, watching me. His eyes flicked to Akelan as he came into the stables, and the two of us came at each other with raised thumbs. When we touched, I felt a strange, electric synchronicity in the stables; three other minds were capable of speaking into mine.

  Siren’s hooves came out over the aisle, followed by Fi’s voice in my head. The fae will come to you.

  I brought Noir out, mounting him as Akelan and Mishka went on saddling in their stalls. A second later, Loki leapt from the stall door, landing on my shoulder.

  We rode out after Fi, turning sharply in the paddock and leaving through the gate toward the clearing. As we passed through the grounds, Keene appeared ahead of me, flying straight at us.

  He slowed enough to keep pace with Noir’s canter, flying backward, his thumb going out to my forehead. I did the same with him, and a moment later, the two of us were connected.

  As we rode out, the other fae flew by—Circe, Isaiah, Elijah, Liara—and each of their thumbs had touched my forehead by the time we arrived at the leyline.

  Fi was already there. We’re starting in diamond formation.

  The diamond formation. That put Miskha and me—the two ground chasers—in the center, Fi and Akelan at each side, and the fae at fore and aft above us.

  I nodded.

  Once everyone had arrived, Liara darted forward and parted the veil for all of us. Elijah and Isaiah, the forward point of the diamond, went through first. Then Mishka and me, followed by the others.

  We came into balmy night on the exact road Umbra had shown us, the horses’ hooves clattering over asphalt. A soft, fragrant breeze pressed my hair back, and in a heady moment I realized I had fulfilled one of my sister’s dreams.

  Tamzin had a childhood dream of going to Hawaii. She’d wanted to surf.

  If only she had known she was a witch like me, she would have been able to travel here with a simple slice of the hand.

  I squeezed my eyes shut, blocking out the old pain. When I opened them, I was surrounded by the other guardians. It was time to rescue a mage.

  “Clem,” Loki said, claws digging in.

  “What is it?”

  “The Shade’s creatures are not far ahead of us.” His nose sniffed the air. He turned on my shoulder, back arching. “And not far behind us.”

  I shouted one word into everyone’s head. Move.

  I urged Noir into a canter down the road, and the others followed. Soon enough Fi and Akelan were at either side of Mishka and me, the fae in front of and behind us.

  Clem, what is it? Fi asked.

  I pushed Noir into a gallop. Loki says we’re followed.

  Circe, with me, Fi said at once. We’ll hold them off. The rest of you forge ahead.

  I glanced over my shoulder. Fi and Circe dropped back, and as they did, I spotted the creatures.

  Two of them on all fours, running along the road not a hundred feet behind us. As though they’d planted themselves at the leyline. As though they’d known we would come.

  Fi’s open hand shot out behind her, and she raised a wall of earth. A moment later, the creatures climbed over it. One was knocked away by Circe’s blast of air, but their attack hadn’t been coordinated enough to stop either one of them.

  But it wasn’t my job to interfere with their protection.

  I had to chase.

  I leaned close to Noir’s neck, squinting down the length of road until it curved around a tall, tree-covered slope. When we passed around the curve, three came into view ahead, two of them on all fours and the one on the middle running like a bipedal creature.

  And as I stared, I saw why.

  It carried a person. I could see his white shirt flapping in the breeze.

  Spotted them, Liara’s voice said into my head. Three. Middle one’s carrying the boy.

  Go for it, Fi said. Mishka and Clem, if she misses, be ready.

  Liara raced ahead, a streak over the road in the moonlight. She half-disappeared for ten agonizing seconds, and then a bolt of her lightning illuminated the road and the creatures, nearly blinding me.

  And it hit a tree, setting it on fire.

  She’d missed.

  They’re headed to the ocean, Liara said. Clem, Mishka, you’ve got maybe a minute.

  We won’t make it, Miskha said. Not with two of them chasing us.

  As if a testament, the earth rumbled behind us, and I looked back just in time to see Fi attempt to entrap one of the creatures by grabbing its leg with the earth. It leapt over the reaching ground, throwing itself at Siren.

  The horse shied, whinnying as it skirted sideways, nearly throwing Fi. She managed to keep on the horse, but now she was the one being chased.

  Defend Fi, Elijah said, slowing above me. Fall back.

  No.

  I wasn’t going to fail again. Not with the little boy still in sight, his white shirt like a beacon in the night.

  “What do you think, Loki?” I whispered. “Turn back?”

  “No.” He pressed close to my neck. “We can save him.”

  I knew there was a reason I loved that cat.

  Mishka, I said. Keep with me.

  No, Clem. She was already slowing Minibar. You heard Elijah. Fall back.

  She disappeared behind me, and then it was just me, Loki, and Noir galloping toward the ocean-bound road. If it was just me and my fire magic, then I couldn’t kill the creatures. But maybe I could knock the middle one off his feet, get the boy free of them long enough to save him—

  Faster, fire witch, a voice said into my head.

  My eyes lifted, and above me, Liara flew alongside. Lightning crackled along her fingertips. Are we doing this or what?

  Of anyone, I’d never have thought it would be Liara Youngblood who’d be by my side on this Hawaiian road. But life never gave you the people you expected, or even wanted. It gave you the people you needed.

  My mouth set, and my fingers tightened in Noir’s mane. We were closing on the creatures. I’ve got an idea. Wait for my call.

  Better be brilliant. She kept pace with me. You’ve got thirty seconds.

  When you see me standing in the road, I said, blast the middle one.

  I could feel her staring at me as she flew beside us. I knew if I looked up, confusion would be written across her face. But I didn’t have time to explain.

  I reached one hand out, slipping it into the tangibly manipulated space inside my cloak. When I retrieved th
e deceiver’s rod and held it in my hand, I knew I could pull this off.

  We’d practiced, and I was ready.

  For the first time in goddamn years, we weren’t going to let them take a life.

  My eyes went lidded as I spoke the words for the deception, just as I had hundreds of times by the pond.

  And up ahead, my likeness appeared in the center of the road. She faced back at the creatures. When I lifted my own arm, pointing the rod, she raised her arm, pointing.

  Flames lit on my fingers, and flames lit on her fingers.

  Liara’s gasped, and the creatures ahead of us slowed. Not a lot, but enough.

  Now, I shouted to Liara. Don’t miss.

  In the same moment, three spears of magic shot toward the center creature.

  The flames from my hand.

  My likenesses’s fake flames from the front.

  Liara’s crackling lightning.

  They converged on the middle creature, striking him in the back. I couldn’t tell if we’d hit the boy—god, that would make this all for nothing—but as the flames dissipated, Liara raced ahead.

  The boy’s alone in the road, she said.

  Meanwhile, my eyes were still seared. I slowed Noir until we spotted the white shirt in the road. We came to a stuttering halt next to him and Liara, who knelt by him.

  She looked up at me, eyes glassy. “He’s alive.”

  My hand began to shake, my fingers still tight around the rod, emotion tightening my chest. After a year of this—of preparation and failure and practice and more failure and exhaustion and grief—we had done it.

  We’d saved a life.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  The next day during our celebrations, a drunk Circe swayed toward me in the guardians’ common room. She raised her fluted glass, waiting for me to clink mine with hers. When I did, a smile graced her face. “Clementine Cole. No offense, but I never thought it would be a fire witch who’d bring us our first successful rescue in years.”

  Around us, the other guardians laughed, chattered, all of them either buzzed or on the other side of inebriated. Mishka dug into a plate of balaclava as she and Loki meowed at each other. Elijah and Isaiah horsed around in front of the fireplace.

  I half-smiled into my drink, taking a sip. “Neither did I.”

  After we’d managed to take down the creatures who had kidnapped the boy in Hawaii, we were able to circle back around for the ones chasing us. In all, we’d taken down five of them last night.

  And still nobody except Liara and Loki fully understood how we’d managed to save him. They were the only ones who’d witnessed the likeness deception.

  That was fine. I didn’t want anyone else knowing what I was capable of, and I especially didn’t want it getting back to Ora Frostwish.

  When Liara approached me later, she tilted her head with a small smirk. “You know what that rescue meant, don’t you?”

  In front of us, Loki rolled onto his back in front of the magical fire, all four paws in the air. “Our job is done?”

  She ticked a finger. “Higher expectations. Now that we’ve had one success, nobody will be happy until we’ve had more.”

  “So be it. We were never happy about our failures.”

  “But we had grown accustomed to them.” Her fingernails tapped on her glass. “And now we won’t be. You can’t use a hex every time, either. Not unless you want the whole academy to know.”

  I dropped into an armchair. “You really know how to suck all the air right out of a warm, cozy room, don’t you, Youngblood?”

  She swigged the last of her mead, set her glass on the end table beside me. “Air is my specialty.” She turned away, paused to glance back. “Tonight, the pond. We’re training.”

  I leaned my head back, keeping her in view. “No rest for the fire witch.”

  “Not until you’re dead, or she is.”

  Liara was right: one of us would die. The Shade, or me.

  So I showed up at the pond that night, and the night after, and the night after that. I trained in the hexes we knew: paralysis and the likeness deception. I repeated the words so many times they became like a childhood jingle, popping into my head at totally unrelated times.

  Liara tried them herself, but found she couldn’t manage either. And for a prodigal fae, that sent her into a few hilarious tantrums. Balled fists, pulling at hair, stomping around.

  I needed the humor, so I just watched and laughed until she remembered the urgency of what we did.

  We had until the summer solstice to perfect my grasp of hexes. It wasn’t long at all.

  The horn sounded three more times during April, and twice in May. Nearly once a week, and I rode out for every rescue. We got good at defending ourselves from the creatures, but Liara and I were never alone again during a chase, and I couldn’t use the likeness deception.

  We failed four times. Four lives lost.

  But on the fifth time, Liara and I managed to coordinate our magic just right. We saved a teenage girl in Fushan, and suddenly we had become heroes to the entire student body.

  It was the last thing I wanted. All the first-years in my riding class became shy around me, afraid to mess up for different reasons. Not because I would bake them in an oven, but because I was a minor celebrity. People looked at me again—not because I was a witch, but because I was a guardian who successfully guarded.

  I’d rather be distrusted. It was all I knew.

  “Clem,” Eva said the night before the first guardian trial in late-May, “do you have a second?”

  I’d been sitting in bed reading Fae Customs and Culture. I was about to ask her about the “fae rite of goodness,” which was some sort of ancient pact. Apparently if a fae swore on the rite, they would be cast aside from the path of goodness for breaking their oath. The author described it as a “death knell” for fae.

  When I looked up, Eva’s eyes were wide with fear and anxiety. She’d been picking at her face, and she hadn’t healed it. A particularly brutal, bloody spot shone under the overhead lamplight.

  “I wonder,” she said, “if someone like me could become someone like you.”

  She’d trained for years for this. Ever since she’d come to Shadow’s End Academy she’d wanted to be a guardian. And here she was, the fae who’d sacrificed her chances in the first trial last May so I could pass, wondering if she could be like me.

  I hardly knew what to say. I had to do this right.

  I closed my book. “You do not want to be like me. Do you know how hard it is to get a brush through this frizz?”

  She gave a soft laugh as she ran both hands through her unkempt hair, pushing it back. “I don’t know if I should enter the trials.”

  I slipped my feet onto the floor, turning to face her. Set one hand on Loki’s back. “My very wise familiar thinks that would be a terrible idea. Know why? Because you’re going to pass all three trials. God knows you’ve trained your tiny tush off.”

  Loki grumbled in his sleep.

  She stared at the floor. “Do you know how many times you’ve come back with injuries? Bloody and bruised?”

  I took a quick mental survey. “Enough for you to notice, I guess.”

  “Twenty-two times.” Her gray eyes met mine. “You’ve been too busy this year to blink, but I’ve counted.”

  Twenty-two times. I hadn’t even realized. I sat forward. “This job will bust your ass, Eva. You know that better than me—your parents are guardians. Is that what you’re worried about?”

  A muscle in her jaw twitched. “I’m afraid, Clem. I’m afraid I’ll fail you when you need me. Whether it’s on a mission, or when we go to get the chain…”

  “The cursed chain? Eva, that’s one risk I’m not expecting you to take.”

  She made a face. “I’m going with you. Unless you’d prefer Liara.”

  Ah. So even the very best of us were susceptible to jealousy.

  I stood, went to sit next to her. My arm went around her shoulders. “If you never d
o another thing I tell you, do this: enter the first trial tomorrow. You’re going to astonish them. And when we go on our first mission as fourth-years, you know what I’ll say to Liara?”

  “What?”

  I jerked one thumb over my shoulder. “You fly back there. Evanora’s my sidecar fae.”

  She burst into melodic laughter. “What does that even mean?”

  “You know what it means.” I kissed the side of her head, mussed her hair as I stood. “Now sleep, or else Professor Fernwhirl will destroy you in the first trial.”

  The next morning, I rode Noir out into the meadow and met up with the other eight guardians and a group of professors. Loki wasn’t allowed to ride with me; it would have been too easy for him to sniff out the other students, giving us an unfair advantage.

  So it was just me.

  Today I was a hunter, and twenty-nine other students were my prey.

  The makeshift stands were full to the brim with students, including Aidan and Loki together. A few of my first-years called out my name as I passed by. I shot them the evil eye with a pointed finger, and they pretended to be afraid.

  I was losing my edge.

  When I reached the corner of the meadow, I wasn’t at all shocked to discover who was leading the group of hunters.

  “If it isn’t the uncatchable witch.” Fernwhirl stood in the middle of the group with folded arms and a wry expression. “Good of you to join us, Clementine.”

  I stopped Noir among the others. Mishka, Akelan, and Fi sat atop their horses, and the fae guardians hung together in a cluster. Also present were Frostwish, Goodbarrel on a big bay horse, Quartermistress Farrow atop Minibar, and a professor from House Crest who swirled a globe of water in his hand, his fingers curling around it like a stress ball.

  I patted Noir, winked at Fernwhirl. “We wouldn’t miss a chance to outrace you again.”

  Circe snorted behind her hand.

  The fae professor seemed to grind her teeth with something like ire or competitiveness. No doubt she remembered well how many times I’d evaded her last May.

  Fernwhirl turned to the group. “Remember, all of you: you’re forbidden from hunting down anyone you have good feeling toward. Professors, if you see one of your students, alert someone else to do the tagging. Guardians, don’t hunt your friends. You’ll never catch them.”