“Here.” He thrust an envelope into my hands, and hurried off before I could ask any of my questions, leaving me with my jaw hanging open. I snapped it shut and flipped the envelope over, pulling the single folded sheet from within.
Ms Eldridge,
Please join me in my office forthwith.
Head Instructor Marston
Forthwith? Who used words like forthwith? And more importantly, why did Elias want to see me? It wasn’t like he hadn’t known about Raphael being my– well, being related to me. And he couldn’t kick me out over that. At least, I hoped not.
One thing I did know was that when Elias busted out words like ‘forthwith’, I’d better get my backside to his office in a hurry. I crammed the letter back into its envelope and shoved it into my pocket, then reached the door and hesitated. I wasn’t wearing my cloak, on account of it being the weekend, and academy wear not being required. Elias might be expecting me to wear it. He’d never struck me as the sort of guy to stand on ceremony before, but he’d also never struck me as the sort of guy who ordered people around forthwith.
I decided against it. My cloak was in my room, which was the opposite direction to Elias’s office, and I figured he’d rather have me there sooner than wearing official clothing.
I headed straight there and knocked on the closed door.
“Come,” he called from inside.
“You wanted to see me?” I said, pausing at the threshold.
“Ah, Lyssa. Yes, come in, shut the door.”
He gestured to the seat I’d sat in last time, and I obediently sunk into it. I hoped these visits weren’t going to become a habit – I kinda thought I’d left all that behind at Dragondale.
Elias settled back into his own seat and regarded me across the desk.
“I asked you here because of Raphael.”
This was totally unfair. I hadn’t done anything wrong. I’d put up with more than my share of crap since coming here, but this was a step too far.
“But you knew about my relation to Raphael before you offered me a place here. It doesn’t affect my ability to do this job, and I don’t see why something I have no control over should even matter. You can’t kick me out because of that, I–”
Elias held his hand up, and I clamped my jaw shut, cutting off the words tumbling out.
“I’m not,” he said.
“You’re not?”
“No. It wasn’t because of your relation to Raphael that I called you here. I don’t much care who your father is.”
“Oh.”
“Though I understand some of the other trainees are giving you a hard time about it?”
I shrugged. “I can handle it. Wait, if it’s not my relation to Raphael you wanted to talk to me about…”
“Why are you here?”
I nodded. He met my eye unapologetically.
“I received word from Head Councilman Cauldwell a little under an hour ago. Raphael has asked to see you again.”
“Well, he can forget it. I didn’t sign up for monthly visits.”
“Councilman Cauldwell wants me to tell you that if it’s about the money, he’ll authorise another payment.”
It took all my self-control to stay in the chair and keep my voice somewhere below a shout, and it still came out a little snippy.
“You think that’s what this is about, the money? Do you really think so little of me?”
“No.” Elias shook his head. “Those were Cauldwell’s words, not mine. You don’t strike me as the mercenary sort.”
I slumped back in my chair. “But you still think I should go?”
“I think,” Elias said, steepling his fingers, “it’s your decision, and I’ll support you either way. You’re one of my trainees, and you have my backing, and the academy’s. But Cauldwell will want a reason.”
I didn’t have one. Not a good one, at least. I hadn’t slept for three days after my last visit, but if I told Elias I was too scared to go, I’d just be proving everything Xavier and all his cronies had been saying was right. Being afraid didn’t make me a coward. But letting that fear make choices for me – well, that would make me a coward. I closed my eyes briefly, took a deep breath, and then opened them again.
“I’ll do it,” I said. “When do I leave?”
“Better to get it over with, don’t you think?” He raised an eyebrow. “Unless you have any unapproved races you need to take part in?”
Damn, gossip travelled fast here. I shook my head and forced a cocky grin that felt completely alien.
“It’ll wait. And I won’t just be taking part, I’ll be winning.”
He laughed.
“I like your attitude.” Abruptly, his face grew serious. “There is one more thing we need to talk about.”
I’d been about to get to my feet, but at his words, I slumped back into my seat. I had a feeling I wasn’t going to like where this was headed.
“You’ve been here three weeks and you haven’t bonded a familiar yet.”
“No. But I’ve got plenty of time, right? I mean, I’ll be here for three years.”
“I don’t think you understand quite how serious this is. I’ve never known a druid take this long to bond a familiar, and Iain tells me you haven’t even made an initial connection yet.”
It was true. After that first visit, I hadn’t so much as glimpsed the jaguar cub again. Everyone else in my year had already bonded, even Zara and Kyle, though they tried not to rub it in.
“It’s not my fault,” I said. “I’m trying. But every time the familiars see me, they run away. But I’ll work it out. Eventually.”
“You don’t have three years, Lyssa.”
“What?”
“You sit assessments at the end of next semester. That’s May. Fail any of them, and you’re out of the academy.”
“What about resits? And repeating years?”
Elias shook his head. “You’re not at Dragondale anymore. There’s no repeating the year if you fail. We take the best of the best. If that’s not you, you’re out. You should already know this.”
He was right, I should. I needed to pay more attention to what was going on around me. Not least in Spellcrafting, because I was a whole load behind everyone else. Just as well I’d agreed to the extra sessions with Glenn. Elias was looking at me like I still wasn’t getting it. I frowned my confusion.
“Lyssa, you can’t sit a Familiamancy exam without a familiar.”
Oh crap. I was screwed.
Chapter Thirteen
It wasn’t the first time I’d travelled in a car since I’d learned to portal, but it was the first time I’d travelled in one with another druid, and it struck me as strange.
“Portals can’t be opened within ten miles of Daoradh,” Cody explained, when Elias portalled me out to some remote part of the country, and I found the enforcer leaning against the side of a black Honda. “It was all a little short notice, so there wasn’t time to disable the wards like last time. And we get to have a catch up without you throwing fireballs at me.”
He grinned as he opened the passenger side door, and I returned the look with a healthy side-serving of sarcasm as I slid inside. I had no idea where the prison was, and I knew that no-one would tell me if I asked. The location of Daoradh was a closely guarded secret. It made break outs harder – apparently. It hadn’t stopped a couple of unclassifieds busting out of there a couple of months back, but the man responsible for that was behind bars. And waiting for me to visit him.
“So, how’s Krakenvale treating you?” Cody asked, slipping behind the wheel and starting up the engine. I stared out the window for a while as the countryside rolled past.
“Good as that, huh?”
I shrugged, and then turned to him.
“How long did it take you to bond your familiar? You have one, right?”
“Of course. I bonded within an hour. But it’s not a competition, right?”
He shot a grin at me, and this time I didn’t return it. I really was t
he only enforcer trainee who couldn’t bond. What was it the familiars didn’t like about me? There had to be something I was doing that scared them off – but I did exactly the same as everyone else.
“Do you think… Do you think they can sense things about us? Like who our parents are?”
Could they sense something evil inside me? Maybe I was more Raphael’s daughter than I knew. Cauldwell had thought so, last year.
“Can they sense things? Sure. But I don’t think they know about your bloodline. Not before you bond, at least. I don’t think they’d care, either.”
A shiver ran through me before I could stop it. Cody reached over and flicked the heating on.
“It’s normal to be nervous about meeting Raphael again,” he said, misunderstanding my reaction. “I’m a fully trained enforcer, and he still makes me nervous. But we’ll protect you.”
“What do you want me to say to him? I mean, I assume Cauldwell didn’t just agree to his request out of compassion.”
Cody exploded with laughter. I cast a nervous glance at the road, ready to grab the wheel, but somehow, we didn’t take any unscheduled detours into the trees lining the tarmac.
“No,” Cody said, swiping one hand across his eyes. “Pretty sure he doesn’t know the meaning of the word.”
“Yeah, that’s what I figured.”
“We need more intel.” He glanced at me and back at the road. “What you got last time, it wasn’t enough to break the rage spell.”
“Of course it wasn’t.” I’d known, deep down, that they would need more than that to go on. I’d just been, you know, hoping I was wrong. My face creased in a frown. “Wait, does Kelsey know?”
“Given her role at the circle? Yeah, I’m sure someone’s told her by now.”
What he meant was, he was sure someone had tried to use it to undermine her position. Not everyone in the circle had been keen on a hybrid joining their ranks. Felicity Hutton’s father, for one, and he was a pretty senior member of the council. If I couldn’t get what they needed to break the spell, she could lose everything she’d worked for over the last three years. I set my jaw. I wasn’t going to let that happen.
“What can I offer him?” I asked. It was pretty clear after my last visit that he wouldn’t be giving anything up for free.
By way of response, Cody tossed a book in my lap – presumably the sequel to the one I’d seen him reading last time I visited. I thumbed through it.
“Seriously? Who’s churning out this trash?”
Cody shrugged and swung the car round a corner. Nothing looked different, but I felt the moment we passed through the outer wards. The air crackled with energy, and I knew nothing electronic could possibly work here surrounded by this much magic. I guess that explained the beaten-up old car we were driving – nothing too complicated to go wrong.
We rode in silence for the rest of the way, my own thoughts swirling around inside my head and blotting out everything else. What hope did I have of getting Raphael to talk when no-one else could? All I had to bargain with was a paperback, and I was asking him to give me the cure to a spell he’d thought was already broken. I frowned and my fingers stopped drumming on the book cover. Cody shot a look in my direction.
“Problem?”
It was all I could do not to laugh at that. This whole thing was one big problem, sitting on top of a dozen smaller ones, with Raphael, the mother – or father – of all problems perched on top of the lot.
But that wasn’t what Cody meant. He was asking if I’d changed my mind about going through with this. If I was the coward that Xavier and his friends thought I was. But fear wasn’t why I’d frowned.
“Raphael is one of the most powerful druids in this country.”
“In the world,” Cody amended, and glanced at me again. Yeah, now he definitely thought I was having second thoughts. I carried on after a second, turning the thought over in my mind.
“Do you really think someone that powerful wouldn’t know the effects of his own spell?”
Cody grunted as the car’s front tyre hit a pothole, and he hauled it back on track.
“He was one step ahead of everyone,” I pressed. “Hell, a dozen steps ahead – but somehow he didn’t know what would happen to his spell when Kelsey bit someone?”
“Not much is known about half– I mean, hybrids. Not even by him.” But he didn’t sound convinced by his own words, and he wasn’t the only one. “What are you getting at?”
I slumped back in my seat.
“No idea,” I admitted. “It just seems like maybe he planned this. Part of his whole war idea. But you’re right, it doesn’t help us.”
Cody shook his head as he steered the car round one last bend. Ahead, I could see Daoradh squatting on the landscape. The parts of it that were above ground, anyway.
“It all helps,” he said. “The more we know about him, the more we can work to undo the damage he’s done.”
“And whatever damage he’s still planning to do.”
“He’s in Daoradh now.” Cody gave me a smile that I suspected was meant to be reassuring, but he seemed a little out of practice at that. “He can’t do any more harm to anyone.”
“Unless,” I said grimly, “they walk right into his cell.”
Cody brought the car to a halt beside the looming building, and I tried to shake the ominous feeling. The last thing I needed to do was prove Xavier right. I would prefer that my newfound nickname didn’t follow me around for the next three years.
We headed inside and spent a few minutes getting passed security. They’d been expecting us, but they were thorough nonetheless, even flipping through the pages of the book – the one possession either of us were carrying – to make sure nothing was concealed inside it. When they were satisfied, one of the guards escorted us through the building onto the lower levels and past the cells of the other prisoners incarcerated here, many of them for life. A shiver ran through me – when I’d first learned about Daoradh, I’d thought to myself that death might be kinder than life. Nothing I’d seen of this place since then had changed my mind.
We stopped outside the same door as before, and the guard deactivated several of the complex spells warding it. Cody made to step into the room in front of me, and I raised a hand, blocking his path. There was no point. Raphael would only insist on him leaving before he spoke to me. Cody met my eye and dipped his chin in a curt nod.
“I’ll be outside.”
I crossed the threshold, and the door shut behind me. Raphael regarded me through amused eyes from his bench.
“Ah, Lyssa. How lovely to see you again. You’ll forgive me if I don’t get up, I hope. My knees aren’t what they used to be.”
“And you’ll forgive me if I’m not overcome with sympathy,” I replied. “My compassion isn’t what it used to be.”
He chuckled – oddly jovial for a man who was locked in a cell dozens of feet underground.
“You’re more like me than you know.”
“Oh, I know, alright.” I leaned against the wall beside the door, aiming for casual but probably not pulling it off. The book hung loosely in one hand, and I drummed it against my thigh. “But don’t worry, I’ll find a way to cut that part out of me.”
His face tightened – he’d always been quick to respond to a slight – but he smoothed it back out again and pasted a slight smile in its place.
“With no more effect, I’m sure, than you cut me from your life.”
“Oh, this will be our last visit, I can promise you that.”
“You ought not make promises you can’t keep. Your mundanes should have raised you better than that. I realise it’s not their fault you grew up without knowing about your true heritage – they cannot help being lesser – but really, I’m disappointed they could not at least have gotten that right.”
My jaw clenched, and I pushed off from the wall before I caught myself. Point to Raphael.
“Ah, there it is. It’s like looking in a mirror.”
I
drew in a slow breath and resolved not to let my temper get the better of me again. There was no point in making it easy for him. I’m not him. I forced a smile.
“I’m less like you every second.”
“On the contrary. The part of me within you grows with every passing moment.”
I shivered, and his smile widened.
“Are you done with the creepy old man act?”
“Ah. Is this the part where you tell me I don’t frighten you?”
“No, Raphael.” I shook my head. I wasn’t here to play games. “I’m terrified. But I’ve been scared before. I was scared when I faced you under the Tilimeuse tree. It didn’t stop me doing what I had to do, then. It won’t stop me now.”
“Oh? And what is it you must do?”
I crossed the small cell and sat on the opposite end of his bench.
“How about we stop this little dance and get down to business?”
“As you wish.” He sounded amused. “I take it that’s my bribe?”
I glanced at the book in my hand. I was pretty sure that I was the bribe, but whatever. I flipped the book open to the last page, trying to distract myself from my hammering heart.
“Want me to read you a story?”
“I had not imagined you the sort to gloat, nor ruin an old man’s one remaining pleasure.”
“Maybe you don’t know me as well as you think.”
“Perhaps. Shall we remedy that?”
I laughed, short and sharp, and tossed the book on the bench.
“Is that what you think is going to happen? I’m going to come and visit you every month like the dutiful daughter and we’re going to get to know each other?”
“I have much to teach you.”
Presumably about how we druids were inherently better than every other magical and non-magical race, and it was our right to rule over and suppress them. I wasn’t really interested in learning about that. But there was one thing I needed to know.
“Okay, Raphael, teach me. Teach me about transference of curses.”
Familiar Magic (Druid Enforcer Academy Book 1) Page 9
