Dark Witch: A Paranormal Academy Romance (Academy of the Dark Arts Book 1)

by Analeigh Ford

  Thankfully, the Basics of Magic course is on the second floor right beside the great hall, so for once, I don’t get lost. But as soon as I get to the dining hall, I have to stop again. It’s the one time of day that everyone in the academy, students and teachers alike, all gather together in one room.

  Between the sea of students getting up and down from tables, zombie servants carrying platters down the aisles, and at least two dozen bats zooming by overhead carrying messages—I can’t spot Puck anywhere.

  “If you’re looking for the troublemaker, he isn’t here,” a voice says, making me turn.

  Sitting just behind me is the boy from my first class. He’s sitting alone at the end of the tables with a book of spells on the table beside him. It’s obvious he’s trying to make it look like he’s studying, but I can see another, smaller book, peeking out from where it rests on his lap.

  I sweep my eyes around the dining hall once more, but still seeing no sign of Puck, I slump down into the seat beside this boy instead. I lean my back against the table, letting my feet stretch out dangerously across the aisle.

  “Where’d he go? Did you see?”

  He shakes his head. “Never telling with him. What’s he got on you, anyway?”

  I stop searching the room and laugh. I actually, really laugh. It’s been so long . . . I was starting to wonder if I’d ever do that again.

  I shoot some serious side-eye at the boy beside me. In a way, he looks a little like Edgar. Maybe that’s why I feel so comfortable around him already.

  Since it doesn’t look like I’ll be talking to Puck before class starts back up, I carefully pick my feet up one at a time and change directions on the bench without flashing the entire school in the process. As soon as I do, an empty plate appears in front of me and I start loading it up.

  Once I’ve got enough mac and cheese on my plate to feed an army, and half of it’s stuffed in my cheeks, I point at the book he’s trying to hide under the table.

  “What’s that?” I ask.

  He shuffles a little, tucking it further underneath, and shifts the textbook a little closer to me as if I care about that at all. “It’s from earlier today, the copy spell. I was reading—”

  “No,” I say, shaking my head. “The other book? The one you’re trying to hide?”

  His cheeks flush so red, I’m tempted to reach up and pinch them.

  “It’s nothing,” he says, then realizing he’s already been caught, he glances both ways and pulls it out a little for me to see.

  I think I recognize it from one of the human bookstores. Some kind of romance novel.

  He sees the recognition on my face and blushes deeper.

  “Sorry,” he mumbles. “I just like reading about them, you know? Humans are so simple.”

  I shake my head and concentrate on my food. And I thought I was the weird one here. I notice that the witches sitting closest to us keep glancing my way before, one by one, getting up to leave. Soon, we’re sitting alone at the table, just the two of us.

  “Dark Witches really are a friendly lot,” I mutter, reaching for a bowl of something I don’t recognize, but smells like peaches and cream.

  He just shrugs.

  I’m about to grab another bowl when I spot Veronica headed straight towards us across the hall. I’m not feeling another run-in with her, so I just grab my things and straighten up.

  “Well it was nice talking to you . . . uhh . . .” I trail off, looking at him stupidly until he offers up his name.

  “Nicholas,” he says, finally, with a sheepish smile.

  “Alright then, Nicholas. Just . . . don’t let them corrupt you, okay?” I glance up at Veronica, who’s getting closer, and hurry out before she has the satisfaction of cornering me a second time in one day.

  I end up wandering around the halls for a bit, keeping one eye out for zombies turning the corner and the other out for Puck. Every time I pass through the inner courtyard, I make a point to avoid lingering too long around the statue in the middle of the fountain again. Something about the way he looks at me, it just gives me the shivers.

  Or it could be that chill that seems to settle over me too. You know, just normal statue behavior.

  I’m dawdling under the stairs in the great hall, about to give up and just head back to class, when I hear the door to the headmistress’ office open overhead and familiar voices float down to me from the second-floor landing.

  “It simply isn’t possible Abacus. I don’t care who you are, or what people think you are, this is still my academy.” It’s Headmistress Evanora. I should have spotted her empty chair at lunch in the dining hall, but I was too busy looking for Puck.

  There’s the sound of thick-soled boots scuffing the tile overhead.

  “Evanora . . .” Abacus’ voice is low, but the familiarity in it is unmistakable. “Can’t you . . . just this once? You know I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.”

  There’s a slight pause as two more footsteps pass by. I press myself further under the stairs and into the shadows until the group of students walk off towards the dining hall. The voices overhead continue, but they’re so low I have to strain my ears to overhear them.

  “Look, Abacus, it’s simply not possible. I’ve already bent the rules to allow her here. I can’t go breaking any others. Not when so much is at stake.”

  My stomach seizes up. It has to be me she’s talking about. After all, who else could it be?

  But once again, their conversation is interrupted—this time by one of the flying bats swooping overhead. I hear the rustle of paper as it drops a message into one of their hands, and the pause afterward while it’s being read.

  “This can’t wait. I have to go.” Several footsteps, and then I imagine Warlock Abacus turning back to give the headmistress one last look. “I’ll not pretend I’m not disappointed, but I understand. This’ll be the last you see of me, for a while.”

  “Then good luck to you. Dark Lord knows you’re going to need it.”

  Only one set of footsteps retreats into the office. It’s another couple moments of hiding under the stairs before I realize Abacus must have already teleported away.

  I kick myself inwardly for letting him leave without trying to say something first. If I should be asking answers of anyone, it’d be Abacus. Now it’s too late, and he said himself he won’t be back again soon.

  If I’m ever going to get out of this place, I can’t pass up any more opportunities like that.

  I make a promise not to let it happen again.

  Chapter Eleven

  With a little extra effort, I survive my first day of classes at the Academy for the Dark Arts.

  I suppose I didn’t think of it that way at first, but now that I’m actually through—I’m kind of amazed that something truly terrible didn’t happen.

  Well, more than the things that already did.

  Puck was not just missing at lunch, he never showed up to classes either. I waited outside the door to Professor Teatree’s classroom as long as I dared, but eventually had to slip back inside or be marked tardy for a second time.

  The only thing that marks today as something other than a total loss is that I finally got to perform my first spell.

  It took almost the entire period of sternly looking down at the word “copy” written down on a blank sheet of paper and repeating the spell, duplicare, aloud until my throat went sore. It took me a lot longer than most of my classmates, but at long last the word finally appeared at the very bottom of the sheet.

  It was faint, and frankly looked like it was scrawled by a chicken with worse handwriting than Puck’s. It still was at least enough to get me dismissed along with the rest of my new classmates.

  I ended up walking alongside the boy Nicholas to alchemy—which is really glorified gardening out in the greenhouses. More than just wanting to avoid Veronica or any of the other witches determined to shoot dirty looks my way, I think I genuinely like Nicholas’ company. He’s quiet, but he’s sweet.
So far that’s a rare quality at this school.

  Unfortunately, he’s also hopeless at alchemy. We don’t even so much as touch a cauldron and he manages to kill an entire row of belladonna seedlings. I still don’t know how. He just does.

  Lucky for us, the alchemy teacher—who looks something like a plant himself—is too preoccupied with frantically trying to bring the plants back to life to see who’s actually responsible.

  And so with Nicholas at my side, we’re released for study period without so much as a warning.

  That’s what I call a successful first day.

  We’re on our way back inside, my head ducked close to Nicholas as I do my best to explain the exact purpose of memes, when I hear my name whispered from somewhere near the dark pool.

  I stop abruptly, causing a couple of our classmates to mutter a complaint as they step off the path to avoid running into me. Nicholas, meanwhile, takes a couple of steps forward before he realizes I’m no longer by his side.

  He turns back to look at me, but I’m searching the nearby hedges for the source of the voice.

  The school property must take up nearly a square mile in the middle of the city. Behind me, the greenhouse and a couple smaller outdoor classrooms are scattered across the south-east corner of the grounds, while in front there’s the small black lake, a hedge maze, and old wizened trees that would look more at home in a horror flick.

  It’s only September and they’ve already lost all their leaves—if they had any to begin with.

  “Wren!” the voice whispers again, and this time I’m able to pinpoint it as coming from behind a large marble post near the water. I squint closer and catch a flash of silver-white hair.

  “Uh, I’ll catch up with you later,” I say, waving Nicholas on before jogging over.

  When I get to the post, however, Puck is nowhere to be seen.

  This side of the lake is ringed with wide tiles, reaching all the way up to the edge of the water. At the far side the vegetation has overgrown over into the water—leaving it with a wild, unkempt look. The water’s so dark that I can’t tell how deep it is. It could slope gently down—or it could drop right down into a bottomless abyss.

  Here, if I stand right on the edge, I can see myself reflected in the shadowy, still water. With my dark hair, sleepless rings under my eyes, and that all-black uniform . . . the girl looking back is starting to look like she might belong here.

  “Careful now, or you might end up inside it.”

  I start a little and turn around. Puck is leaning lazily against the post now, one hand resting against it and the other holding a bright red apple up to his lips. He takes a bite, letting the juice run down his chin and dribble onto the lapel of his uniform.

  “Where were you hiding?” I ask, stepping carefully away from the edge of the water.

  “That’s neither here nor there,” he says, flippantly waving the apple in the air. “Look, I’m in a spot of trouble, but I wanted to let you know I’m still on the case.”

  I raise an eyebrow at him. “Who are you, Nancy Drew?”

  He gives me a funny look, and I shake my head. “Never mind,” I say, glancing across the grounds. The rest of the students and teachers are already back inside, so as far as I can tell, we’re alone. Still, I keep my voice low. “So, what’s your idea?”

  He takes another bite of apple. “The only scrying instrument that can reach Highborne Witches is in the headmistress’ office.”

  I sigh. “Of course it is.”

  He doesn’t let me despair long. He takes another couple gigantic bites of his apple and then chucks the core out into the middle of the lake. It lands in the center and is swallowed up without so much as a splash or a ripple.

  “Don’t worry, Birdie, all that means is that we have to wait for the right moment.”

  My hand reaches up to touch the locket around my neck, looking for that familiar beat of Edgar’s pulse. “And when’s that going to be?”

  “Well . . .” Puck says, his tone pulling me out of my fantasy, “She actually lives here with the students. So it might be a little while.”

  I knew there had to be a catch.

  “Can’t we just break in during dinner or something?” I ask. “When she’s in the dining hall with the rest of the students?”

  “I like your enthusiasm,” Puck’s mischievous smile broadens, and then falls, “but it’s impossible. Trust me, I’ve tried.”

  He steps over to me and steers my shoulders so we’re looking up at the window above the ballroom. The curtains are drawn back, but the way the light reflects off the windows makes it impossible for us to look inside.

  “You’ve seen how some of the doorways in this place are enchanted,” he says, and I nod. Merlin warned me about it yesterday, and I saw firsthand how jarring it can be to step through a door expecting to be one place, only to find myself in another. “Well her office is the worst. So long as she’s here, at the school, no one gets in unless she wants them to.”

  There’s a slight flicker in the glass, and I wonder if it’s the headmistress moving by the window inside.

  “But don’t worry,” he says, “we’ll get you talking to your boyfriend again in no time.”

  I shoot him a sharp look. “How did you—”

  He points at the locket around my neck. “Aside from the fact that you’ve been fingering that thing constantly?”

  I drop my hand back to my side. I hadn’t even realized I was doing that again.

  A door on the ground floor beneath the headmistress’ office opens and a couple students walk out onto the path leading up to the lake. Puck nods in the opposite direction, and we start walking along the edge of the water away from them. Every so often he casts a sidelong glance in their direction.

  “But come on. There’s only one reason a teenage girl’s going to be so desperate to contact someone. You’re in a fucking magic school with a hundred hot guys who want to date you, and all you can think about is getting ahold of some ‘old friends’.”

  I feel the heat rise in my cheeks. “A hundred guys want to date me, really?”

  He holds up a couple fingers and does some mock counting. “Well, take out a half dozen or so who want to date each other . . . and let’s call it ninety-four.”

  “Yeah, well . . . they’ll just have to be content with Veronica.”

  To that, Puck snorts.

  “Actually, I had some questions about that . . .” I say. The other students have taken a turn slightly in our direction, and I can tell Puck is keeping a close eye on them. What kind of trouble is he in? “Not Veronica. I mean, the other girls. There have to be others.”

  Puck nearly chokes on a laugh. “Did you see any others?”

  So, I was right.

  “I didn’t see Veronica on the fourth floor.” In fact, I didn’t see any signs of life on the fourth floor.

  “So they’ve got you up there, huh?” Puck grimaces. “Veronica probably stays off campus with her family. We don’t get many girls here anymore . . . so they’re kind of a big deal. Get special privileges and all that.”

  We’ve started moving again, but I’m not sure I want to end up in some dark corner far away from everyone else. I know Puck is trouble, but I’m not sure how much trouble yet.

  “I don’t know about that. I’m stuck in the attic with cobwebs and spiders.”

  “That’s probably because you don’t have any family to stay with. Sucks. It’s nice to get out of here once in a while for more than a couple hours.”

  I stop when we reach the edge of the forest. It’s just thick enough with dead, overhanging branches that I can’t see the wall on the other side. I wonder if there’re any Crusaders lurking out there. I haven’t seen any so far today, not outside the front gates at least, but I can’t imagine they’d give up so quickly.

  “I think this is where our journey ends,” Puck says, glancing back over my shoulder. The students are definitely headed in our direction now. “But it’s not the end of this. The
minute Headmistress Evanora leaves the grounds, you and me—we’re gonna break into that office.”

  He turns to go, but I catch him by the end of the sleeve. “How long’s that going to take?” I feel the blush rising in my cheeks, knowing he’s figured out I’m trying to reach my boyfriend. “I can’t wait forever.”

  His hand moves to brush against my wrist, and for a moment, it sends a little tingle up my arm. “Don’t worry, little bird, I can’t either. If it comes down to it . . . we’ll find a way to make it happen. I promise.”

  And with that, he slips off behind a tree and disappears.

  The students catch up to me a moment later. I’ve not seen them before, so I’m guessing they’re from one of the upper classes.

  Both of the boys give me an odd, searching look. One of them is big and burly, so much so that his uniform appears to be stretching at the seams. The other is his exact opposite. He’s so tall and willowy I can see his socks peeking out beneath the cuff of his too-short pants.

  It’s the big one who speaks. “Where’d the bastard go?”

  “That’s no way to speak to a lady,” I say, taking a page from Veronica’s book and coyly flipping my hair over my shoulder. I swear, both boys go immediately into heat.

  The big one’s Adam’s-apple bobs in his throat, and for one second, they look like they’ve forgotten Puck all together.

  It’s the willowy one who finally manages to speak again. His voice comes out broken and small, and his arms move in weird, jerky motions like he doesn’t know what to do with them anymore.

  “Um, well, we need him for something. So, if you see him around . . .” he trails off for a moment, trying to remember his own name, until he finally gives up. “Just tell him someone was looking for him.”

  I wave a hand up over my shoulder dismissively and turn to go. I catch sight of them in the reflection of the pool. They just stand there for a long time, watching me go.

  Normally, I’d be annoyed. But if it gives Puck enough time to get away . . . then I count this as a win.