by Theresa Kay
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ALSO BY THERESA KAY
The Broken Skies Trilogy
Broken Skies
Fractured Suns
Shattered Stars
www.TheresaKay.com
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2020 Theresa Kay
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Cover design by Christian Bentulan of Covers By Christian
eBook design by Inkstain Design Studio
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
About the Author
Acknowledgements
To Grandma, Christmas isn’t the same without you.
My life has never exactly been normal. As a witch raised by shifters—even if I was supposedly a powerless Blank—things were always bound to be a little weird, but lately my life has resembled a cheesy soap opera. There’s been a secret baby (me), a dramatic kiss, a kidnapping, and, most recently, a roommate with amnesia. I just hope I don’t have an evil twin out there somewhere because then I might have to fake my own death and run off to join the foreign legion or whatever it is that soap opera characters do when they leave the show.
Granted, Isobel’s memory loss is from a potion and not from a brain tumor or someone knocking her upside the head with a candlestick or whatever, so that might make her amnesia slightly less soap opera-y. I don’t know. I haven’t decided yet whether memory loss by potion could be a soap opera plot point.
I suppose my decision comes down to why she was dosed and who did it. Was it Bernadette, the crazy, power-hungry mother trying to make sure her son is top of the class? Or Penny, the Bitten witch hiding in plain sight, trying to keep her secret? Either one of those people is a feasible culprit, but for all I know it really could have been some sort of evil twin since that seems to be the way my life goes lately. I simply don’t have enough information.
And I have no idea what to do next.
Barely twenty-four hours have passed since I banded together with Tristan and Penny to rescue Isobel from Tristan’s crazy mother, and I’ve spent most of my Saturday camped out here in the Ravencrest Academy library, reading every book I can find on memory potions. Which isn’t very many. Potions and spells that affect the mind are, for the most part, illegal, and the books that do more than give those kinds of things a passing mention or acknowledge their existence are few and far between. There might be some in the section of the library reserved for second-year students or in the restricted section reserved for faculty, but I have no way of accessing either.
All I want is to find some sort of solution, some sort of hope, before Isobel gets out of the infirmary. After everything she’s done for me, I owe her that much. Unfortunately, none of the information I’ve found has been at all helpful.
I close my eyes, resting my forehead in my hand and rubbing my temple with my thumb. My stomach is about to eat itself, and my eyes are starting to cross. I’ve been here researching since the library opened—nearly eight hours—and the book in front of me is even less helpful than the last. Sure, I now know the basics of how memory potions work and how there are about a gazillion different kinds, but I’ve learned nothing about how any of them might be reversed—or if it’s possible to do so. The only tidbit of info I’ve found that’s remotely helpful is that memory potions require months’ worth of prep work. Not the type of thing an amateur could pull off.
In the heat of the moment right after Isobel’s rescue, I was so sure the potion was Penny’s doing, but if I’m having this much trouble finding basic information, then the odds of Penny getting her hands on enough knowledge to actually make a memory potion are slim. Of course, that doesn’t completely remove her from the suspect pool. She was a second-year student whose concentration area was potions, and I have no idea of her actual skill level. Clearly she was skilled enough to qualify as a TA. Plus, nothing discounts the idea that she could’ve had outside help, potentially even mine since Penny asked me to activate a potion for her not long before everything happened.
And, like an idiot, I did. No questions asked.
She claimed the potion was her second-year project, a simple sleeping draught that she was having trouble with because her magic was acting wonky. That could have been a lie, but I’m inclined to believe she was telling the truth, at least in part. If nothing else, I believe her powers were failing.
Though how she had magic at all is a mystery.
Everything I’ve ever heard says Bitten witches are stripped of their access to magic, that their powers are simply gone and they’re left with nothing. Even my uncle, Connor Donovan, the Blue Ridge region’s alpha shifter, has never indicated anything that contradicted that fact. Plus, it’s illegal for a shifter to bite a witch specifically because of the whole powers disappearing thing.
But Penny made it through almost the entire quarter before having any issues with her powers, and there’s no way she could have faked it for that long. She definitely still had her magic at the beginning of the school year. I just have no idea how. Another thing the library doesn’t have much of is information about Bitten witches.
I bang my forehead on the open pages of the book in front of me and blow out a loud breath. I’m never going to figure this out.
Even if I could cross Penny off the suspect list, there’s still a number of people who could have made that potion and given it to Isobel, the instructor Penny was TA for and my own Potions teacher, Dr. Nikiforov, among them.
How does someone get a doctorate in potions anyway?
I’d love to blame the whole thing on Bernadette. She’s kind of a crazy bitch who has no love for anyone who upstages her son and is willing to go to extreme measures to knock out Tristan’s competition. But she’s not dumb. OSA wouldn’t arrest her for kidnapping Isobel—which I’m still pissed about—but if she’d been messing around with an illegal potion? I don’t think OSA would’ve been as lenient, and Bernadette would know that. I don’t think she’d take the risk.
So . . . that leaves me with no real suspects, no solution, and no answers.
But does who did it even matter at this point?
No matter who dosed her, my sweet, helpful roommate doesn’t deserve any of this, not getting kidnapped, not losing her memories, and sure as hell not falling so far down in the student ranking that she barely made the cut to remain here at Ravencrest.
Isobel was number one, and now she’s two hundred and thirty-nine, a dangerous place for her to be considering the new policy about dismissing the lowest ten students at the end
of every quarter. Technically speaking, she shouldn’t still be here. A few students dropped out before the end of the quarter, so anyone lower than two hundred thirty-seven should have been dismissed, but Director Burke decided the dropouts would count as dismissals. Whether he’d planned to do that before the whole mess with Isobel, I have no idea, but I’m grateful to him all the same.
I’m not and never will be a star student here, and I don’t give a damn about job placement with OSA after graduation. The only reason I’m here is to keep my adoptive parents safe and, as long as I keep my rank high enough to keep myself from getting kicked out, I don’t care if I’m number one or number one hundred. Not that I’m anywhere near either of those, but Isobel was, and I hate that she wouldn’t be quite so low in the ranks if it wasn’t for me.
Sure, all the stupid rank wars and Bernadette’s crazy kidnapping scheme didn’t help, but it was helping me that sent Isobel to the very bottom of the ranks. She skipped two midterms because of whatever amazing discovery she made when she was researching my past and my magic.
Then, on top of everything else, she’s lost two weeks’ worth of classwork and assignments to the memory potion, destroying what academic edge she had. At an elite OSA academy like Ravencrest, having an academic edge is everything—unless you have enough money to buy your way to the top which, as a scholarship student, Isobel very much does not.
There’s a chance I could help her with that, but it’d require me to reveal myself to my biological grandparents. Before all hell broke loose the other night, Burke gave me their contact information and indicated they might be willing to take part in the whole ‘donation’ to OSA thing to help with student rank. I’d made the decision to call them, not for myself, but for Isobel, and even got as far as picking up the phone before I had second thoughts. Now, I can’t decide whether calling them is a good idea or not.
I know very little about them beyond their names and relation to me, and as far as they know, I’m only some distant relative, not the secret child their daughter, Helen, had with an unknown man and gave to shifters to raise as a Blank. Without any guarantee that they’d help my roommate, I’m not sure I’m ready to meet the uber rich, super powerful witch couple who contributed to my DNA, especially after everything I’ve learned about witch society and the old money families who control it. For all I know, Nikolas and Thea Andras might be just as bad as Tristan’s parents. After all, there has to be a reason Helen hid her pregnancy, ran away, and hid me from witch society. Maybe she was even trying to hide me from her own parents.
I sigh and drag a hand over my face. Life was so much less complicated before I found out I was a witch and was forced to attend this stupid school. I’d give just about anything to rewind to the night of that shifter party and simply walk away instead of stepping into the middle of Penny’s fight with those witches. Not only would I still be at home, Mom and Dad wouldn’t have to hide from the Coven Council who’d like nothing more than to arrest my parents. Because charging the shifter couple who took me in with kidnapping would make so much sense, right?
But that’s the whole problem with the Coven Council. Nothing they do makes much sense, at least not to me. Tristan explained that his older sister was allegedly kidnapped and murdered by shifters over a decade ago, but I don’t understand why his mother, as the head of the Coven Council, is only now trying to push through anti-shifter legislation. Or why OSA seems to be placating her enough to at least consider the idea. Hell, at this point I’m not entirely clear on the differences between the two organizations since, in my experience, both of them are filled with mostly assholes and are so deep into each other’s pockets that OSA wouldn’t even consider arresting Bernadette St. James for kidnapping my roommate.
Witches are so ridiculous . . .
“Excuse me,” someone says softly. I glance over to find a willowy man with large eyes and inky-black hair dressed in a library assistant uniform. “Director Burke has requested your presence in his office.”
Wonderful.
Being called to the director’s office is never a good thing, at least not in my experience. Since I didn’t get much of a lecture in the aftermath of Isobel’s rescue, I assume that’s what this summons is about.
I force a smile and close the book in front of me. “Now?”
The library assistant nods. “I can return the books to their proper shelves if you’d like.”
“Please. And thank you.” I drag myself to my feet and stretch my arms overhead to work out the kinks in my stiff muscles.
The man smiles and dips his chin before gathering the books on my table into a stack.
Might as well get this over with. I exit the library to make my way upstairs to face whatever punishment Burke might come up with. If nothing else, it’ll probably be creative.
Ten minutes later, I knock on the outer door to Burke’s office. Before I even lower my hand, Seth, Burke’s assistant, is here and ushering me inside. He’s missing his normal smile, his lips instead pressed into a thin line.
“They’ve been waiting,” he says.
They?
Seth practically pushes me through the open door leading to the inner office where Director Desmond Burke sits along with two other people.
One of the two people I’d recognize anywhere, even from only the back of his head of dirty-blond hair—Tristan St. James. But the color of his hair is the only recognizable thing about him right now.
This is the first time I’ve seen him since we returned to campus, and obviously the past day or so hasn’t been kind to him. He’s dressed down in sweats and a wrinkled t-shirt, an outfit I’ve never seen him in—or expected to ever see him in. His shoulders are slouched and he’s fidgeting in his seat, one of his legs bouncing up and down. He doesn’t turn around, instead staring resolutely at the top of the desk, the muscles in his unshaven jaw tight with tension.
The second person is a man I’ve never seen before. He’s maybe in his early forties, his short, brown hair sprinkled with gray and his mouth bracketed by frown lines. Considering his presence here, the black suit he’s wearing, and the general air of authority, I’m assuming the guy must be OSA.
Burke glances at me over the top of his wire rimmed glasses as I enter. Elbows resting on his desk, he clasps his hands and dismisses Seth with a curt nod then returns his gaze to me, tilting his head toward the chair beside Tristan.
“Thank you for joining us, Ms. Andras. Please, have a seat. You already know Mr. St. James.” Burke gestures toward the other man. “This is Jay Callahan with OSA. He’s heading up the investigative team assigned to Ravencrest.”
“Investigative team?” This does not sound good.
Burke gives me a pale imitation of a smile. “At the request of Bernadette St. James, OSA will be looking closely into the situation with Penelope Martin and how her presence here went undetected. They are hoping to root out any accomplices she may have had.”
Accomplices? Like maybe someone who knew Penny was Bitten and didn’t tell anyone? As in someone like me?
My stomach twists as Callahan turns his attention on me, his face so expressionless that the effect is more unnerving than if he were glaring. At least then I’d know where I stand with him. “I understand you were friends with Ms. Martin?”
“Um . . .” I look to Tristan for some kind of reassurance, but his gaze is focused on Burke. How much does this OSA guy know? How much have they told him?
Burke dips his chin in the barest of nods.
“Kind of? More like acquaintances really, Officer—”
“Agent,” snaps Callahan. Well, someone’s a little testy about his title. He returns to the bland, modulated tone of his first question. “In our interview with Mrs. St. James, she indicated you appeared to be aware of Ms. Martin’s nature at the time of her shift.”
That’s not a question, but the wording is purposeful, and he clearly expects a response. Word games have never been my thing—too close to the intricate power plays between shifters
—but that doesn’t mean I don’t know how to play them. I’m not going to be tricked into giving more information than I absolutely need to. “What do you mean by ‘aware of’?”
Callahan’s nostrils flare, and a hint of irritation enters his voice “That you weren’t surprised by the fact Ms. Martin changed into a wolf.”
“I wasn’t surprised,” I say. Before Callahan can interrupt, I continue, “But I wouldn’t be surprised by someone shifting. I was raised by shifters.”
His eyes narrow. “Yes, I have been made aware of your circumstances. I’ll rephrase my question. Did you know prior to her shift at the St. James estate that Ms. Martin was Bitten?”
“I . . . I’d recently found out Penny was Bitten, yes,” I say, hesitantly trying to stick as close to the truth as possible.
The man tilts his head to the side and studies me. Tristan’s hand tenses on his thigh and Burke’s lips tighten, both movements so slight that I almost miss them.
“Interesting,” says Callahan. “Director Burke and Mr. St. James were just telling me that no one was aware of Ms. Martin’s condition.”
Crap. The answer I gave was definitely the wrong one . . . but I think I know what’s going on now. This is some sort of ‘pretend the other person already talked’ type maneuver where he’s using me to verify whatever Burke and Tristan told him, and having them in the room while he does so is supposed to make me more inclined to tell the truth. Or maybe I’ve just watched too many human cop shows like that OSA officer—err, agent suggested back at the St. James house.
I don’t want to lie, but this guy is definitely not someone I should tell the whole truth— that I knew Penny was Bitten the first time I met her before I even started at Ravencrest.
“They didn’t know I knew,” I say slowly. “I didn’t tell anyone.”
“Are you saying you failed to report a Bitten witch?” Callahan asks in a flat voice.
