It’s Edgar’s laugh.
I jolt out of my stupor and jump to my feet. When did I get down here? I don’t remember sitting. Something inside me tries to draw me back to the door, to witness more of whatever it is that’s going on inside. It needs to see how this ritual ends.
And then I hear a second voice . . . and this one sends me hurtling away from the door and further down the dark pathway in search of its source. Nothing shakes the thrall of a spell quite like the sound of another girl making your boyfriend laugh.
The sound is broken and distant at first, but after stopping to gawk through a couple sets of wall eye-holes only to see empty corridors beyond, I finally peek through a pair and catch a glimpse of movement further on.
By the time I reach the next set to peer through, my heart feels like it’s lodged at the top of my throat.
When I look through, it fully stops.
I immediately step back and stare into the darkness for a second, my eyes unseeing. I’m no longer in a creepy dark tunnel not far from an even creepier circle of chanting witches. I’m not even me.
I’m just floating, disembodied, trying to process what I just glimpsed through the wall. It can’t be right, but I have to look again, just to be sure.
So I steel myself up and look again, only for my worst fears to be confirmed.
There, on the other side of the wall, my boyfriend Edgar Evergreen is tangled up in the arms of another witch. They’re just standing there, leaning right up against the very wall I’m inside, sucking at each other’s faces like it’s the very air they need to breathe.
After everything.
Everything I did to just speak to him.
Everything I risked to see him.
Every night I spent worried about him, planning what to say to him, finding a way to be together again.
All for nothing.
This time when I look through, I don’t go numb. This time, I fly into an uncontrollable, unfettered rage.
“You . . . dirty . . . rotten . . .” I beat my fist against the wall in time with each word—once, twice, three times—and finish off by throwing myself against the wall like some kind of snarling, rabid animal. Only, there is no wall to throw myself against. Just as the last blasphemous word leaves my lips, a secret panel opens in the wall and I hurl myself out into the hallway on the other side. “WHORE!”
I can imagine how it appears from the other side. One moment, Edgar and his mystery slut are enjoying some handsy hanky-panky in an abandoned hallway. The next, a screaming banshee explodes out of the wall shouting obscenities.
Oh, and that banshee just so happens to be the girlfriend he’s currently cheating on.
Let’s just say it shouldn’t be such a surprise when that girl also raises her wand and points it directly at them.
I don’t even know who I’m pointing it at. In all the dust and noise as the secret passage closes back up behind me, I can’t be sure.
And I couldn’t care less.
All I know is I want Edgar to hurt. I want him to hurt like he hurt me. So I peel back my lips and I snarl out the first curse that comes to mind.
“Te devo—”
But I don’t get to finish it. Thank god I don’t get to finish it.
Halfway through, Edgar suddenly lunges out of the dust and smacks the wand from my hand. The surprise strangles the final syllable of the word even as my wand clatters to the ground several feet away.
And I guess it’s a good thing too. Even now, as Edgar doubles over from the blisters exploding on his skin, the true horror of what I almost did begins to dawn on me—and I stumble back. I guess all the time I tried to tell myself to think of anything other than the “devour yourself” killing curse, I was just thinking about the killing curse. Over and over until, in the moment of crisis, it was the only spell that came to mind.
When he straightens back up, Edgar’s face is a mask of pain and anger. At his side, his make out partner clutches to his jacket and stares back at me with a face so white, I’m surprised she hasn’t fainted yet.
I take a half step forward, look her in the eyes, and whisper, “Boo!”
I’ve never seen a witch run so fast. It’d be satisfying if, at this moment, I wouldn’t rather see her writing in pain on the floor.
Sheesh, Wren. That’s dark, even for you.
The moment her screams have diminished to a mere echo, Edgar turns furiously back to me. “What the hell were you doing in the wall?”
“What the hell were you doing with her?” I snap back, reaching down to snatch my wand off the ground.
Edgar takes another step back and points at my wand hand. “And that . . . you were going to curse me, weren’t you?”
I freeze for a second. I mean . . . I was, but Edgar doesn’t need to know that.
“No, of course not,” I say, straightening the rest of the way up and crossing my arms across my chest. “What kind of witch do you think I am?”
For a moment, Edgar’s lost for words. Then, suddenly, the boy I know returns all at once. He grabs my arm and starts dragging me down the hall in the opposite direction as the screaming girl.
“We have to get you out of here. D’you have any idea how dangerous it is for you to be here?”
I try to wrench my arm free, but I forgot how strong Edgar’s grip can be. “I know how dangerous it is,” I hiss at him, “but don’t try to change the subject. What the hell were you doing with that girl?”
Edgar skitters to a halt in front of a door and throws it open. He pulls me inside of what turns out to be a broom closet—dirty mop buckets and all.
“I thought that was pretty obvious,” Edgar says defensively as soon as the door slams shut. He drops my arm and I cradle it close to my chest while he plants his hands on his hips and takes a second to catch his breath.
When he turns over his hand, the skin of his palm isn’t nearly as burned as I thought. It’s an angry red color, but nothing so bad as to justify the way he contorts his face when he examines it.
For someone who just got caught cheating, he doesn’t look as guilty as he should. Unless . . .
After a second of watching him, my mouth drops open. “You really think you’ve done nothing wrong.”
He looks at me like I’ve gone crazy. “Yeah, of course not.” He takes another deep breath, and suddenly it’s his turn to look at me funny. “Wait a second, don’t tell me you didn’t know?”
“Know what? What was I supposed to know, Edgar?”
“Unbelievable,” he says, running his hand down the bottom half of his face. “I mean, Wren, come on. This thing,” he wiggles his finger dismissively in the space between us, “it was over the minute I found out you lied about who you are. About being . . . a Dark Witch.” His voice drops to a whisper for the last part, as if just speaking it aloud will summon death and destruction down upon us.
I’m dumbstruck for a minute. “You . . . you think I lied to you?” I throw my hands up in the air. “I didn’t know! I found out the same time you did.”
My arms fall back down to dangle at my sides. “I thought you knew me well enough to know that.”
“Well, sorry, I guess I didn’t.” He huffs, as if somehow this is all my fault. After a second, he steals a sneaky glance my way. “You really had no idea?”
“No!” I say, having to force my voice back down to normal levels. “That’s why I came here.” It’s my turn to glance at the door as if we have eavesdroppers. “This is all some kind of mistake.”
He looks confused. “So . . . you’re not a Dark Witch?”
I throw up my hands again. “No. Yes? I don’t know. I’m still trying to figure it out.” I realize that I’m still holding my wand, and in a gesture of good faith, I stick it back up my sleeve. I have a million thoughts and emotions running through my head right now. All of a sudden I feel very faint and have to steady myself against one of the shelves.
Edgar reaches out to help me, but I swat him away and cover my face with my eyes. I ca
n’t look at him right now.
“Did . . . did you at least try to get in touch with my mother?” I ask, finally. I dare a tiny peek through my fingers at him.
For the first time, he looks a little guilty. “Oh yeah . . .” he starts, “about that.”
He takes out a leather wallet and holds out a tiny, rolled-up note. “That came for you a couple weeks ago.”
My hand drops back down. “Weeks? You’ve had this for weeks?”
Edgar shrugs. “I didn’t know how to get it to you.”
“I—I—” I stammer. “You should have found a way. God knows I did.”
I snatch the note from his hand.
He avoids looking me in the eyes. “Sorry.”
I just glare up at him from over the note still balled up in my hand. “Oh, so now you’re sorry.” He opens his mouth to say something more, but I shoot him a second look so furious that he doesn’t dare.
For a second, Edgar and I just stare at one another. Four years of dating, of shared life, and it all ends here, now, in a musty, cramped broom closet. Well, for me anyway. Apparently, this ‘thing’ I called a ‘relationship’ ended ages ago for him.
There was so much I wanted to tell him. So much I wanted to say.
But now, suddenly, I have nothing to say at all.
I look down at the paper in my hand. I’m shaking so badly, I can barely make out my own name scrawled across the front in my mother’s distinctive handwriting. I can’t even bring myself to read it right now, so I just shove it in my back pocket.
“She’s really nice you—”
Is he really trying to explain to me right now that his new girlfriend isn’t all that bad?
I want to shout at him to shut up. I want to hurt him again. I want to . . . I want to leave. More than anything else, I just want to get out of here. Now.
So that’s what I do.
I turn on my heel and march out, Edgar still mid-sentence. I don’t make it three steps before his iron grip catches me by the upper arm again. His fingers find the same spots as before, digging into my muscles until I yelp.
“What more do you want, Edgar?” I say, and this time, I can’t keep my voice from raising. “What more could you possibly want?”
His tongue darts out to wet his lips. He reaches up to rest his reddened hand on my shoulder, his thumb tracing along the line of my collarbone.
My throat tightens, making it difficult to swallow. I’ve ached so long to feel his touch. I turn to putty in his hands, feel my heart melt in spite of myself as I look up into the golden pools of his eyes.
My weak self is fully prepared to forgive him for everything . . . until his thumb hooks the chain around my neck, and he breaks the clasp as he plucks the necklace off me. He holds the golden locket up to dangle at eye level, his gaze fixed on it for a second before he shoves it into one of his pockets.
“You won’t be needing that anymore.”
The cruelty of it leaves me speechless.
My hand flutters up to my chest. I’ve grown accustomed to the weight of the locket, to the beat of a second heart. Without it I feel like I’m floating, untethered.
Edgar scowls down at me. “What? What’s that face you’re making?”
I gape at him, shaking my head as I try to process all of this.
To think this is the boy I’ve been pining for all these weeks. The boy I thought I loved. The boy I was going to give my virginity to—and nearly did on multiple occasions.
How did he suddenly become to cruel and heartless the minute I was branded a Dark Witch?
Or maybe he’s always been this way.
“Edgar . . .” I finally find my voice and lift my eyes back up to meet his. Any tears that gathered there before have turned to tears of hate. “I’m an idiot. I can’t believe I ever loved you.”
I finally break free from his grasp and shove him out of my way. I leave him standing confused and shocked behind me without looking back. I don’t even pay any particular attention to where I’m going.
All I know is that by the time I’ve reset the digits on the transporter to take me back to the village where I left Nicholas, I’ve found my way back down to the ground floor. My feet echo through those hallways, no longer so sterile and stuffy as before—their walls dotted with holes made for spying.
I’ve been a fool. A terrible, idiotic, fool.
I don’t know what I expected to find here anymore, but it certainly wasn’t this.
Highborne Academy itself is everything I thought it would be. It’s grand, stately, and proud just like the witches in it—at least at first. But there’s something rotten underneath that exterior.
It’s more than Edgar’s flippant dismissal. It’s more than the cavalier way I was able to walk straight in and back out without even being noticed. It’s even more than the weird-ass witches I caught in the even weirder secret passages.
It’s like everything here is pretending to be something it isn’t.
Dark Witches might be a lot of things, but at least they don’t hide who they are.
It’s this thought that’s running over in my mind when I reappear in Summercross village. This time around the cobbled streets and crooked roofs look dilapidated and dated. I don’t know what was so charming about it before.
Maybe at first glance that charm’s still there, but underneath it’s crumbling just like everything else.
I don’t know what to expect, but it doesn’t take me long to find Nicholas. He’s waiting just where I left him, his shoulders hunched up against the cold.
Somehow, I’m not at all surprised to find he isn’t waiting alone.
Puck and Merlin stand at his side. It’s gotten so late that even the humans have cleared the streets for the night. The only sound is the buzz of cheap lightbulbs and a dog barking off in the distance.
I know the minute they spot me because I’ve never seen them so angry.
There, under the streetlamp, the three of them look like they can’t decide if they’re going to kill me or not.
But I don’t care.
Because after everything that’s happened tonight . . . all I can think is how did I never notice before how fucking sexy they all are?
Merlin with his strong jaw. Puck with that elfish face. Nicholas and his big, brown eyes.
Screw Edgar and his cheating ass. He’s the one who threw away the last four years, not me. So I’ll say it again.
Screw him.
I’ve got everything I need right here.
Chapter Twenty-Three
That doesn’t change the fact that once the boys have gotten me back to my dorm and the adrenaline starts to wear off, I spend the better part of the night crying into my pillow.
I’ve been dumped.
There’s no other way to put it.
Suddenly the boy who was my high school sweetheart since I was fourteen is a stranger, and there’s nothing I can do about it.
I’d probably go on crying until I die of dehydration if it isn’t for the gentle knock on my door at some point in the early afternoon, followed by Merlin’s surly face as he lets himself in with a pewter tray.
I sit up in bed, not caring to hide my puffy red eyes and snotty nose. “What are you doing here? I thought none of you was ever going to talk to me again.”
I sniffle pathetically.
Merlin carefully sets the tray on my desk, but he doesn’t look at me right away. His eyes are glued on something outside the window; something beyond the smudged panes, the city streets, even the mountains or the sky.
I expected the boys to be mad at me last night. I was ready for their angry words, their accusations, their disappointment. What I wasn’t ready for was the way they wordlessly transported us back to the school and escorted me up to my room.
The whole time, not a single word. They wouldn’t look me in the eye. Not even Nicholas.
I never thought Merlin’s silence would bother me, but today it eats at the inside of my brain until I can’t take it anymore.
“Please,” I beg, pushing the sheets back and swinging my legs over the edge of the bed. “Please, Merlin, just say something.”
Merlin’s eyes stay trained forward, but after another long second, he does finally speak.
“Do you know what happens to Dark Witches who enter Highborne territory?”
I’m about to answer him, but apparently, it’s not enough. It’s like a wire snaps inside him.
“I said, do you know what happens to Dark Witches who trespass in their cities, let alone their schools?” he says again, this time through teeth so gritted—I’m afraid they’re going to shatter. He turns sharply, his eyes boring into mine as he stalks ever closer.
This time, he doesn’t wait for an answer. “They kill them, Wren.”
I sit back on the bed, shocked by his sudden change. “I thought—”
“You thought what?” he snaps. “That they got some sort of slap on the wrist?”
I shake my head. I mean, I know Warlock Wright hates me, but I guess deep down I never really believed it would come to that.
“Three warnings, right? There’s a—a system. The law states—”
“The law fucking lies,” Merlin says, his voice close to a snarl. He has to stop himself from practically crawling over me on the bed. He starts pacing up and down the length of it instead. “You think Highborne Witches would allow that? Why d’you think you never saw Dark Witches, not once? You think we like being stuck here, in cities like this?”
He waves an arm dramatically at the window. The sky outside is even more gray than usual.
Merlin’s not finished. “And don’t even get me started on the Crusaders. You think you were the only one who thought Halloween was a good night to try to get places they shouldn’t? One nearly got in here last night. Here, through all the magical barriers. The only reason you were able to get in and out is because you’re supposed to be here. God knows how you even got into Highborne. Can you imagine what would’ve happened if they found you there?”
I pull the blankets back up over my knees and up to my chin. I’m starting to regret goading Merlin on to speak. I should have just let him stay moodily silent.
Dark Witch: A Paranormal Academy Romance (Academy of the Dark Arts Book 1) Page 20
