Safe Hex: A Hexy Witch Mystery (Womby's School for Wayward Witches Book 16)

by Sarina Dorie

  I lay awake in bed late into the night. Thatch lay in the bed beside me, as still as a corpse, making slumber look easy. Every time I shifted to try to find a more comfortable position, he stirred, placing a hand on my shoulder.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “I’m fine. Thanks. Go to sleep.”

  I was restless. It might have been grief and regret, or it could have been lingering muse magic. I tried to meditate on my mom’s kind smile, to try to see what my mind wouldn’t let me. If only she were there to hold me and to talk to. Despair bubbled up inside me.

  I couldn’t even visit her. She was rooted to the ground outside the Raven Queen’s castle. I shook with silent tears.

  I forced myself to lie still so I wouldn’t keep waking Thatch. After trying to imitate a log for an hour, I noticed the change in the air, a tingle of magic that washed over my skin. The room was silent, save for the sound of Thatch’s breathing. I thought I heard a plop, not unlike a drip of water in a sink. A faint blue glow came from somewhere behind me.

  Slowly, silently, I turned. The large framed mirror by the wardrobe glowed. A shadowy silhouette crouched down on the floor, rummaging through my laundry. He was spindly and small like a goblin. He had to be a brownie! So Elric’s estate did have brownies. That meant there was a secret passage somewhere. If I found it, I might be able to spy on Thatch and Elric and figure out what was up with all these secrets. I could understand what was ailing me.

  If I caught the brownie, I could convince him to tell me where the passage was located.

  I lunged out of bed and dove for the little guy, intent on grabbing him. I had the element of surprise on my side, but the brownie was fast. I hadn’t even made it halfway to where he stood before he spotted me. He dropped the laundry and bounded toward the mirror with a little squeal.

  I changed course and dove toward the mirror. I didn’t see the stool where I’d set my paint set earlier, and I crashed into it, taking it down to the floor in a clatter. The brownie leapt into the mirror and disappeared. Golden light brightened the room.

  Thatch stood above me, brow furrowed. “What were you doing?” He held a candle in a holder, the yellow light painting his features with flickering shadows that made it hard to read whether his expression was curious or annoyed.

  “Um. . . . Sleepwalking.”

  He eyed me skeptically. “Come to bed.”

  “I can’t sleep.”

  He held out a hand to help me up, and I took it. “I know what will put you to sleep.”

  “A sleeping pill?”

  He sat me on the bed and positioned himself behind me. My husband knew me well enough to predict what would make me sleepy. He brushed my hair and massaged my scalp, just like my mom used to do when I’d been a child and hadn’t been able to sleep.

  Regret tainted the comfort of this experience now.

  I leaned against him. Sorrow stitched my heart together with bittersweet recollections of the past. Despite my growing melancholy, my body relaxed in his arms. He squeezed me to him, reminding me this was why I loved him.

  I slept in, waking to find myself alone in bed. Despite the sunshine, it was an effort to make myself rise. I had once accused Thatch of being gloomy, but that fit my mood these days. I resented that he kept secrets from me. And I hated that he was right.

  I did loathe myself.

  But it hadn’t paralyzed me or made me fall back into a coma. Now that I had a full night’s sleep, I understood what my mom’s capture truly meant. I needed my powers so I could get her back. I needed to make myself strong—mentally, physically, and magically—so that I could find a solution and rescue her for real this time.

  And I needed all the facts so I could do that.

  Breakfast had been placed on the table, but it was now cold. I dressed and ate, meditated and visualized my affinity, and practiced the manual self-expression I had previously used when trying to regain my affinity last time I’d been drained. I would have sex three times a day with Elric if that’s what it took to return my powers faster.

  But Elric didn’t come in. I painted and tried to use my powers to see the Raven Queen, but instead my hand kept drawing dragons, ravens, and trees. I didn’t know whether that was my subconscious telling me I wasn’t over everything I’d learned the day before or the mysteries I didn’t yet know still plagued me.

  I grew tired of waiting around for Elric. I decided to exercise in the pursuit of self-betterment. I started by walking up and down the stairs.

  It was the sound of children playing outside that drew me to the garden. I saw a boy run past a downstairs window. The idea of children on Elric’s estate was out of place.

  My curiosity would be my undoing, according to Thatch. I didn’t let that keep me from investigating.

  No one stopped me from venturing out. I didn’t encounter Vega with her baby outside. As I walked along the path, two children darted out from between a set of hedges and nearly plowed into me.

  “Excuse me,” I said, stumbling back and catching my balance on the base of a tall rhododendron.

  The boy dropped a violin case in the dirt and hurriedly snatched it up. He had pointed ears and looked to be about seven. The girl was older, about twelve years old, wearing a white bonnet that didn’t quite hide the start of antlers protruding from her forehead. They both wore gray uniforms that looked like something from a century ago. The girl caught the boy by the arm and yanked him back from me. They both stared at me with wide eyes.

  “I beg your pardon, miss,” she said.

  “Thorry.” Both the boy’s front teeth were missing, giving him a lisp. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Clarissa Lawrence. Who are you?”

  “You’re Miss Imani’s teacher!” the girl said. “She talks about you all the time. Have you come to pay her a visit?”

  The very breath felt as though it had been stolen from my lungs. “Imani is here? Where?”

  “You haven’t seen her, then?” the girl asked. “She’s just gotten back from visiting friends today.”

  The boy tugged on the girl’s sleeve, whispering. “I bet Miss Imani won’t be vexed with us for being late to our lesson if we bring Miss Lawrence with us.”

  “Is Imani your teacher?” I asked.

  “Our governess.” The girl bit her lip as she looked me up and down. “If we bring you, we’ll have to take the long way to class. That will make us even more late.”

  “You can blame me for being late,” I said, thinking of Imani’s cheery personality and generous smiles. “I don’t think she’ll be mad at you.”

  They walked me along the garden path. The peaceful music of a harp and the sweet soprano of a child’s voice greeted my ears before the class was even in sight. A moment later we came upon a gazebo covered in clematises.

  Children worked quietly inside, some sitting, others sprawled out on the ground. A boy played a harp while a girl sang. Another wrote in a journal. Several children painted or drew. There were a dozen children, each of them occupied with some kind of creative activity. Even the youngest children who only looked to be about three years old and sat with a young woman I didn’t know, made mud pies with the dirt.

  The little boy escorting me ran ahead. He shouted excitedly, sounding so cute with his lisp. “We have a thurprithe for you!”

  Imani stood, her long gray dress like something out of Mary Poppins. “It’s about time someone showed up for lessons.”

  She was as petite as she’d always been, but she looked more grown-up in adult clothes instead of wearing a school uniform. Her gaze shifted from the boy to me walking with her other student.

  “Ms. Lawrence! You’re all right!” Imani stood up from where she sat on a bench, rushing over and hugging me. “No one told me you were awake.”

  “No one told me you were here,” I said.

  “Come meet my class. I’m a governess. Did anyone tell you?”

  “No.” I wished so
meone had told me something. Anything.

  Imani introduced me to her students, explaining their creative talents. Most wore gray uniforms like the first two. All of them possessed an artistic talent, whether in music, theater, or fine art. It made sense that a household with a muse as its master would have artists in it. At the same time, I didn’t know why these children were here. Or why Imani was teaching instead of dancing in some kind of magical ballet, which was what I thought she wanted to do when she graduated.

  “Who are these children? Where did they come from?” I whispered.

  She laughed. “That’s a long story.”

  She turned to her class. “I’m going to talk to my teacher about your education. I expect each of you to continue to work on your lessons for another forty minutes until recess.”

  They all nodded dutifully. She sat me on a bench beside her and removed her wand. She drew a circle around us, creating a bubble that shimmered and glowed. It muffled the sound of the children playing music and birds chittering around us. I recognized the spell from when Thatch had used that soundproofing in the past.

  “Why are you teaching these children? Who do they belong to?” I asked.

  “These are Ms. Bloodmire’s and Grandpa Elric’s children.”

  My eyes went wide. I knew I had been asleep for a while, but this was too much to believe.

  “Adopted children,” she quickly amended. “They’re all strays that Grandpa took in.” It was funny to hear her call Elric “Grandpa,” though it was accurate. “They were orphans without homes, except for those two.” She nodded to two girls wearing matching gold dresses that contrasted with their tan skin. They sat apart from the others, their attire ornate and decadent compared to the other children’s. “Atzi and Patli are the Witchkin children of a Fae noble, a friend of Grandpa Elric. Have you heard of the Court of the Sun?”

  “Yes. I read about them,” I said. “They’re one of the major Fae Courts.” That was all I knew about that family.

  “Prince Tezcocoatl IV is their daddy. He isn’t well-known, a younger prince, and a bit of an outcast like my grandpa. His Royal Sunniness gives Grandpa Elric money to pay me to educate his children, so they can attend lessons with other children like themselves. But those two always behave the worst.” She rolled her eyes and imitated a whiny child’s voice. “‘I get to go first because I’m a princess. I shouldn’t have to pick up my toys because that’s what servants like you are for. This is boring. My father is paying you good money to entertain me. Wah wah wah.’”

  I laughed at her imitation. Now she knew what it was like to be a teacher.

  She leaned closer. “Twice a week the children from the Jade Court join us, and I swear, they’re even worse.”

  A little girl of about five poked at the surface of Imani’s sound-barrier spell with her finger. Her finger passed through the shimmering blue wall.

  “Why are these courts sending their children here?” I asked. “They could hire their own governesses. Why do you teach them?”

  “Think about it. A pureblood Fae with Witchkin children. That’s rare. Fae aren’t having children at all these days.” She gave me a meaningful look. “Most Fae.”

  She was right. Elric was one of the few documented Fae whom Alouette Loraline had found siring children after the industrial revolution. She had noticed the Fae who had children conceived with a Witchkin partner. Alouette Loraline had realized these Witchkin were often Red affinities.

  I gazed at the children. They looked innocuous and ordinary. One of the boys and one of the girls were pretending to fight with sticks. The five-year-old stuck her head through the sound barrier and out again. The rest were engrossed in their creative studies.

  I lowered my voice to a whisper, not that any of them were likely to hear with the sound barrier. “Are all these children . . . Red affinities?”

  “Probably. Most aren’t old enough to tell for sure, but they each had one parent who was a Red affinity, so it’s likely they are. They’re too young to attend a magic school because there aren’t any for elementary and middle school-aged children. And even if there was a school, it would be too dangerous for them. My job is to teach them to control their powers and conceal what they are before they start school at Lady of the Lake or Womby’s. Ms. Bloodmire teaches them wards and protection spells, but they have that lesson later in the day.”

  “How did Elric find them?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. I think Ms. Bloodmire and Mr. Thatch helped him.”

  Thatch was a recruiting agent for Womby’s. He had never known what to do with children who didn’t belong in the Morty Realm but were too young to be students at Womby’s. Like Trevor. Or students who were too dangerous for our school, like Maddy. Or students who would give away that they were Red affinities, like Imani and me.

  “Is this Ms. Bloodmire’s plan for a school?” I asked.

  “Sort of. She had plans to open a bigger school, but it didn’t work out. It’s too small here, and there isn’t room for more kids. Plus, they’re running into the same problem we had at Womby’s. We need to have enough organic, Witchkin-safe food, so Grandpa’s tenants grow it all here. But Grandpa doesn’t have the funds for purchasing more—which is why he found outside students for me to teach. It brings income.”

  “Do you like teaching? Is that what you want to do?” I asked. “I thought you wanted to dance or be an artist.”

  “This is more important,” she said firmly. “I have to do this. But sometimes I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m not a teacher. I never went to school for this like you did. Now that you’re here, you can help me.”

  I nodded. “I like teaching.” It would give me something to do, a purpose other than reading, making art, and practicing sex magic all day.

  The little girl who had been passing in and out of Imani’s sound barrier crawled through.

  Imani leaned forward, smiling at the little girl. “What’s our little Dora the explorer doing?”

  “I’m an exploring!”

  The little girl opened her arms to Imani. My former student lifted the girl into her arms and sat her on her lap. “Dora, do you want to show Ms. Lawrence what kind of magic you can do?”

  Dora shook her head and hid her face against Imani’s shoulder.

  “She’s shy. And very cuddly.” Imani stroked the girl’s dark hair from her face.

  Imani looked so natural interacting with the children. I wouldn’t have known this wasn’t what she had wanted to do with her life, except that I knew her.

  I wasn’t an expert teacher who had been teaching for years like Thatch, but I had always wanted to teach art. It had always been the path I wanted to take. I didn’t like that Imani had been diverted from her passion.

  “You can’t let Elric push you into teaching if it isn’t what you want to do,” I said. “If you want to dance, you have to follow that path.”

  “I still do. I go to dance lessons in the evening, but I can’t perform yet. Not until I can be sure I won’t have any accidents drawing out my affinity.” She squeezed my hand. “I don’t mind teaching. I don’t think I’m the worst teacher in the world.” She grinned. “I haven’t burned down my classroom yet. That’s more of Hailey’s thing.”

  We both laughed at that. I asked her about Hailey and my former students. Greenie was working her family’s farm and hating it. She adamantly wanted to become an artist. The most she could work on her paintings were during the winter when the season was too cold. Hailey had just returned from the Morty Realm where she’d taken community college classes for the summer to try to pick up some techniques for being a teacher. She was proud she hadn’t used magic all summer, except for the times she’d visited the Unseen Realm. Trevor was apprenticing in Elric’s kitchen, which everyone had failed to tell me. Probably he was eating more than he prepared.

  I was almost afraid to ask about Madison Jennings. My stomach flipflopped with trepidation.

  “D
id Maddy have her baby?” I asked.

  Imani’s smile faded. “Yes. Near the end of her senior year. She didn’t get to graduate with our class. It really was too bad. She had to do summer school, but Grandmother Bluehorse and Ms. Bloodmire helped her.”

  Imani didn’t volunteer more. My palms suddenly felt clammy. When I closed my eyes, I could hear a baby crying, feel the weight of that little body in my arms. I saw the blood covering my arms, smeared across the writhing body. An overwhelming urge to protect that baby came over me. I needed to know the truth.

  “Did something happen to the baby? Did the King of the Pacific take Maddy’s baby?” I prayed it was him and not the Raven Queen. With the Crab King, there was at least a chance the baby would live and be raised in a home where he was valued and taken care of.

  “No. Not yet. He sent his people to look at the baby when he was born. The king declared he would take the baby on his fifth birthday.”

  I was relieved. Her baby was all right. I didn’t know about Maddy, though. If the King of the Pacific didn’t intend to take her baby until he was five, that meant it would give Maddy enough time to fall in love with him before she would have to give him up forever. I didn’t know which was worse, that or the idea that the Fae would take her baby right away, and she’d never get to know him.

  “I just came from visiting Maddy at her cottage outside Lachlan Falls,” Imani said. “The King of the Pacific set her up to live next to a river so he can send emissaries to regularly check on her. She gets really lonely with Hailey gone in the Morty Realm in the summer, so I usually visit with her a couple days out of the week.” She frowned. “She seemed depressed when I saw her. Maybe she could visit us for a day this week and see you. I’m sure that would cheer her up. I’d have to ask Grandpa, though. He’s strict about me coming and going. I always have to clear guests with him.” She rolled her eyes as if she thought this was ridiculous. “Especially boys.”

  I smiled. Sitting next to Imani and hearing her talk gave me strength. I didn’t know whether it was because she was so bubbly and genuine, which I needed, or if it was her passive magic drawing something out of me. Sitting beside her, the void inside me didn’t hurt so much. I could feel the energy inside me strengthening. I felt calm and at peace. She was my student and younger than me—I’d often felt protective of her—but being in her presence, I felt safe.