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

by Analeigh Ford

  She mimics vomiting and giggles wickedly.

  “Babe, are we just going to keep talking about another girl . . . or are we going to . . . you know?”

  I freeze as a hand reaches out to stroke her upper thigh. Veronica giggles again, but this time it’s low and sensual.

  Oh crap.

  If you’ve never heard the sound of two horny teenagers doing it in a bathroom, you’re not missing out. There’s a lot of skin squelching on damp countertops and feet slipping on the wet tile. That and, well, Veronica isn’t exactly subtle in the love-making noise department. She’s like a red-headed squeaky toy.

  I lean back and close my eyes to keep from accidentally seeing anything from between the cracks in the stalls. That doesn’t mean I don’t sneak the occasional peek just to see if they’re getting on with it already. I’ve got to hand it to Veronica, that girl can contort her body into shapes I didn’t even think were possible.

  After what must be hours, after both my legs have gone fully numb, they finally let out one last obnoxiously loud groan and start fumbling to get each other’s clothes back on.

  I have half a mind to stride out right now and let them know I was here the whole time. There’s two problems with that, however. I’m pretty sure I’d just be branded a pervert for staying, and Veronica probably wouldn’t even be a smidge embarrassed. I mean, after that impressive display of fake orgasms, who could be?

  The moment the door swings shut behind them, I gasp in a lung full of air. I must’ve been barely breathing for however long it took them to do the nasty. The air in here is thick with that sex smell, and I can’t even bring myself to go anywhere near the counter. I saw what they did on there. I don’t think I can ever use this bathroom again.

  Dinner’s basically over by the time I escape the prison of their impromptu love-shack. It’s all well anyway, since the last thing on my mind is food right now. As it is, I barely have time to make it to my first night of detention.

  It’s a true sign of how close I’m cutting it when I spot Puck already sitting at a desk in the back. His left leg continues to bounce uncontrollably, another side effect of his mis-brewed potion. The only other student in the class is Merlin. He sits at the very front with his hands clasped together in the middle of his desk. He’s just staring blankly ahead at the wall in front of him like he’s competing for a spot as the new statue in the middle of the courtyard fountain.

  “Wow, I’m surprised they let you out of the infirmary looking like that,” Puck says as I settle down beside him.

  I shake my head. “It’s not me,” I say, leaning in closer. “I just got stuck in the bathroom while Veronica and some dude bumped uglies.”

  His jaw drops open. “Are you serious?”

  I grimace. “I wish I wasn’t.”

  “Could you two just shut the hell up for once?” Merlin snaps from the front of the room. “It’s you that got me into this mess. I’d like to get through it without you causing another scene.”

  “Well,” I say, getting snippy. “If you were listening, which I guess you were, you’d know I wasn’t the one causing the scene.” I sit back, adding, “Not this time.”

  Puck snorts beside me. “Yeah, I bet Veronica was thinking of you in that bathroom, Merlin.”

  Merlin stiffens in his seat. “Shut up.”

  But Puck doesn’t shut up. He starts making loud mock kissing sounds.

  I can’t tell for sure, but I think Merlin’s ears go red.

  By the time we finally get out of detention, I am actually jealous of Nicholas’ potion mistake now. Two hours of turning my distorted conversation with Edgar over and over in my head has left me more drained and frustrated than before.

  Puck still has boundless energy, so I leave him to run laps around the grounds and head up to my dorm. I’m tired, dehydrated, and more than a little disappointed with how today played out.

  In my head, I was so sure Edgar would be happy to see me. It’s all I’ve thought about all week.

  Just five days ago we were supposed to go off to school together. As soon as I think it, I can’t believe it.

  Just five days?

  It already feels like an age. We had so many plans.

  I didn’t think that this . . . detour . . . would change things, at least not so quickly. Now I’m not so sure. I know I have to see him in person. That’s the only way to sort this out.

  But scrying on him was one thing. How am I supposed to get all the way from wherever this place is, to the Highborne Academy of Witches?

  And more importantly, since I don’t want to spend the rest of my life stripped of my powers and working in a factory or something, how do I do it without getting caught?

  Chapter Seventeen

  I didn’t realize how desperately I just want to get out of these academy walls until I wake up on Saturday and spot students heading out the front gate into the city beyond.

  Thanks to the terms of our detention, I wouldn’t be allowed to leave even if I wasn’t on house arrest thanks to the burn-happy witches out for my blood.

  Though the Crusaders were eventually banished from their post at the front gate, I swear I still spot one sometimes when I look out at just the right time. If it wasn’t for that occasional flicker of white stepping down an alley or slipping into a shop, I’d already be looking for a way to sneak out.

  It might not be the village where I was raised, but it’d be nice to get a little lost in the winding streets. It might just make me feel a little less . . . trapped.

  Trapped is better than dead, but trapped is exactly what I am right now. And it’s what I’m going to be until I find a way out of this whole mess.

  Puck promised to spend the weekend with me, but he’s conspicuously missing at breakfast. It doesn’t take me long to get bored without him to keep me company. I can’t stop thinking about what Edgar might be doing right now, and how I might find a way to get to him.

  The easiest solution would be to teleport to Highborne Academy, but that’s a pretty advanced spell—third year, I think. Even if that was possible, Highborne’s got to have safeguards in place to keep that from happening. You can’t just teleport into their school from Dark Witch territory, at least, not without getting caught.

  Magic leaves a trace wherever it’s cast. Some spells are worse than others, and teleportation’s the worst. It basically leaves a link between the two locations, connecting them and making it easier for other witches to follow. It’s great for getting from one place to another but it’s no good for sneaking around.

  It’s why Abacus didn’t just teleport me here after the initiation rites. There’s got to be some spells over the city making it difficult for Highborne witches to slip in and out as they please, but a teleportation spell would’ve made that too easy.

  I’m fairly certain there aren’t any classic spells that’ll allow me to get there on my own—at least, without shredding myself into a million particles or getting immediately caught.

  But now that I’m a Dark Witch . . . there’s a whole other world of magic opened up to me. Maybe there’s a curse or a demon I can summon to help me.

  I mean, it doesn’t seem very likely, but it’s worth a shot. If all else fails, maybe I can find and “convince” Arachna to drive me in his magic car. Blackmailing him might prove difficult however, since I don’t know what spider-people could possibly be afraid of.

  Nothing, I decide.

  Merlin’s expedited tour of the school on my first day didn’t take me by the library, so I’m a little overwhelmed when I step inside. It’s roughly the same size as the dining hall, with row upon row of shelves so tall each one has a ladder attached, as well as a full second floor ringing the outside walls.

  There’re no windows, just books. Thousands and thousands of books. There are certainly more than any of the witch libraries I’ve visited. But then again, those libraries were restricted from carrying books on any of the darker magics. From the look of things, the dark arts make up roughly ninet
y percent of all magic.

  Right off the bat I spot a restricted book on poison potions just sitting out on a table for anyone to read. A book like this would’ve required special permissions to borrow back home. Here, it’s sitting right next to a feast-time cookbook.

  Those Highborne witches don’t know what they’re missing.

  Just to check, I browse through the tight-packed aisles until I find the section on curses. I find the most dangerous book I can find, a tome on ancient killing curses, and gingerly pull it from the shelf. Half of me expects a loud alarm to go off, or for a librarian to come running along to tackle me before I can commit a most capital of crimes.

  But no. A librarian does walk by, pausing a second to see what I’ve pulled from the shelf before she carries along on her own business.

  The first random page I open up to shows a graphic depiction of a curse that makes the affected being tear itself apart. The author was kind enough to enchant the diagrams to move, so I get a nice, horrifying image to store away for the next time I’m left alone in the dark too long.

  That one peek is enough.

  Since apparently curses are my specialty, I don’t want to learn something I might accidentally use on Puck the next time he sneaks up and grabs me.

  With no better idea on how to find what I’m looking for, I start here. There’s plenty of curse books on everything from turning my neighbor’s garden brown, to making their ear hair grow longer, to how to make sure they never see another lick of rain. Actually, there’s a lot of curses about neighbors. Dark Witches must really not like neighbors.

  As many curse books as there are about neighbors, there doesn’t seem to be anything about untraceable travel. At least, not in the first shelf I look through—which takes me the better half of the morning.

  It doesn’t help that most of the books aren’t properly labeled. They’re old and beat-up, and half of them have vague titles like “curses for the cursed” and “curses to cure”. Maybe I should start with some sort of finding spell and let it do the work.

  My mother was prone to losing things, so that’s one particular spell I’m pretty familiar with.

  I wait until the librarian passes by me again before I take out my wand. I’m not sure if we’re allowed to do magic in the library, but either way, I’ve never tried the spell before and would rather not have an audience if it epically fails.

  I close my eyes and try to concentrate on mimicking the way my mother spoke the spell and the way she held her wand. I distinctly remember her pointing it upward, like a beacon calling the lost object to her.

  “Libre invenire . . .” I start, trying to think of the closest Latin word for teleportation, and finally just finish off with, “itinerantur.”

  I hear a scraping sound somewhere several rows over, but when I poke my head around the corner, all I find is a heap of travel guides about Dark Witch territory. That’d be useful if I planned on walking to Highborne on foot, which I’m not.

  Several other iterations of the spell bring me no more luck. I finally give up when my last attempt, “Libre invenire iter”, pulls nearly every book in the library from the shelves.

  Luckily, I’m near the exit when that happens. I slip back out in the midst of an explosion of rustling pages before the librarian, who I can still hear shouting profanities from down the hall, sees who’s responsible.

  I won’t pretend I’m not proud the spell worked—even though it didn’t exactly do it the way I meant it to.

  My grumbling stomach leads me back to the dining hall, which I’ve never seen so deserted since I got here. From the little bit I’ve overheard in classes, most of the other witches are off doing god-knows-what to celebrate the end of our first week.

  I just wish Veronica was one of them.

  As usual, her voice carries across the room faster than her obnoxiously red hair catches my attention. She spots me coming in and starts loudly mimicking the sound of vomiting, making sure to catch my eye in the process.

  I shouldn’t mess with her, but I’m getting pretty sick of this petty one-way rivalry. If she’s going to keep being an asshat, I might as well give her a reason.

  So, against my own better judgment, head straight ahead to sit beside the one person that will make her the angriest.

  Merlin looks up at me with surprise as soon as I slump into the seat in front of him. The moment is brief, however, and his usual impassive expression returns.

  “What do you think you’re doing?”

  I hold up a finger and lean in closer to the metal jug between us on the table. It’s a little hard to tell from the distorted reflection, but I think it’s safe to say she’s pretty pissed. Hopefully the momentary satisfaction it brings me is worth the inevitable lash back.

  “What are you—” he tries again, but I hold my finger up until I’m absolutely certain she’s gotten a good look, then I let it drop down to the table. I motion for him to finish what he was saying.

  His mouth works wordlessly for a moment, before he finally stutters out, “Is—is this some kind of joke?” Suddenly he straightens up, his head swiveling back and forth almost violently. “Where is he? What’s he doing?”

  I have to cover my mouth with both my hands to keep from bursting out laughing. “What the fuck are you doing?”

  He freezes, still sitting like he’s about to take off in flight with the rest of the bats swooping overhead. “I just thought . . . Puck . . .” He takes one last cursory look over his shoulder then relaxes back to his usual impeccable posture. Really, I’m amazed it was even physically possible for him to straighten up any further.

  “Did you think Puck was going to shiv you or something?” I ask.

  Merlin picks up his fork and shoves it into the middle of a meat pie while maintaining unwavering eye contact. The force behind it is actually kind of impressive.

  “Well forgive me for being unable to imagine any other reason you’d be sitting here right now,” he says, motioning to my current position.

  I sneak another look into the reflection in the jug, trying to catch another glimpse of Veronica’s signature red locks.

  “If you’re looking for Veronica, she left right after you sat down.”

  “Oh good,” I say, slapping both of my hands down on the table and standing up. “Well if you’ll excuse me . . .”

  I don’t see Puck anywhere, but I think I spot a couple second-years who haven’t made it overwhelmingly obvious they hate me yet. I start swinging my leg over the bench to go join them.

  “Wait,” Merlin says, loud enough to make the closest students to us glance our way. He drops his voice down a little, and his eyes avert momentarily from mine. “You don’t have to go.”

  Normally the idea of spending more than fifteen seconds in close proximity to Merlin would be close to repulsive, but something on his face compels me to sit straight back down.

  I pick my fork up and twirl it awkwardly in my hand. “So . . . about the weather we’re having.”

  “We don’t have to make small talk,” Merlin says, going back to eating his pie. “Also, that’s not your fork.”

  I glance down at the already food-caked utensil in my hand and let it drop down to the table, my appetite temporarily abated. “So then, um, what do you want to talk about?”

  “How about what exactly you and Puck were doing with that crystal ball in Evanora’s office?”

  Yeah, that didn’t take him long.

  I lean across the table. “That’s none of your business. You’re just sour you’re stuck here with us.”

  “Actually, I planned to stay on campus to study.”

  “Why?” I ask. “Your dad doesn’t want you home or something? Isn’t he like, the local judge or whatever?”

  Merlin sighs and sets his fork on the side of his tray. “The clouds here are always gray. It’s the mountains.”

  “Oh, so we’re . . .” I stop and point at him. “Right. You know, we don’t have to talk at all.”

  I might ima
gine it, but I think he almost smiles.

  I wish I could say that my little lunch with Merlin makes him less prickly the next time we meet, but that’s not the case.

  And he’s not the only one.

  Puck promised to be my partner in crime over the weekend, but from the moment we were let out of detention on Friday he’s been nowhere to be found. I even convince one of the older boys to show me how to send a bat message to him, but it comes back with no reply.

  I’m mostly pissed that I showed the boy my bra for nothing.

  Then again, it’s not every day you get to see the look on a boy’s face the first time he sees a pair of boobs in real life. Edgar will just have to forgive me. I mean, I’m doing this all for him—to get to him. Besides, it’s not worse than summoning demons, right?

  Without Puck or Nicholas around for the weekend, I spend half my time in my room trying to figure out how to make just one paperclip straighten out at a time, and the other half trying to coax out a nonexistent demon from a jar. I try exploring a bit once, but I swear I see a spider-zombie hybrid and decide it’s a good idea to lie low for now.

  So, call me crazy, but I’m not exactly thrilled when Puck waltzes into class on Monday morning and slips into the seat next to me grinning like he didn’t just disappear all weekend. The worst part is that somehow, he smells like outside. He carries the damning evidence like a cologne of car exhaust fumes and city streets just to mock me.

  While Puck seems completely oblivious to the looks, or rather lack of looks I’m giving him, Nicholas has the good sense to subtly scoot his chair ever so slightly away.

  Puck sticks his stupid legs out into the aisle and stretches his arms up over his head. “You have to hear what Percy got up to this weekend.”

  Since it doesn’t seem obvious enough that I’m not speaking to him, I make sure to open my book and flip through the pages extra aggressively. Puck just leans back a little further so that the chair tilts with him and lets out another dramatic sigh.

  “Ah man, I guess you just had to be there.”