The Black Witch

by Laurie Forest

  I walk over to her bed and run my hand over the silky down comforter, feeling a stab of jealousy over the luxury she basks in every night. The jealousy digs its claws deeper when I spot a small ceramic portrait on her night table.

  Lukas Grey.

  It’s a good likeness—handsome as sin.

  I hear a terrified squeak behind me and jump, the portrait falling from my hands, landing on the tile flooring with a sharp crack that sets me wincing.

  It’s Olilly, one of the Urisk workers from the kitchens. Like green-skinned Bleddyn, her coloration stands out there, as she’s not the usual rose-white, but lavender. She’s framed by the doorway, hugging a pile of clean, folded sheets to her chest.

  “Beg your pardon, Mage,” she forces out, ducking her head as if I might swipe it off.

  “It’s all right,” I stammer, heart racing. “It’s fine.”

  She’s a fragile slip of a girl with a sweet, easily frightened nature, barely a day over fourteen, if I had to guess. I notice her amethyst eyes are a sickly red around the edges.

  My eyes flick to Lukas’s portrait, which is now split right down the middle.

  Oh, Ancient One. Fallon cannot come back to find this broken.

  I pick up the cracked portrait of Lukas, smile at Olilly as if nothing is amiss and stuff the pieces into my cloak pocket.

  There’s the jostling click and small creak of a door being opened, a flurry of troubled murmuring and then a familiar voice rises above the others.

  “Holy Ancient One! She is such a filthy animal!”

  My heart drops through my feet and straight to the ground.

  Fallon.

  I recoil back behind the door, my legs quickly rendered to jelly, the breath sucked clear out of my lungs.

  What will she do to me? My heart feels as though it will pound straight through my chest. I glance through the slit by the door frame to see Echo, Paige and Fallon standing in the room, and another spasm of fear shoots through me. Tierney is frozen by her desk, regarding them with barely concealed panic.

  Olilly eyes me with abject horror, quickly realizing that I’m not supposed to be here.

  “I can’t do this anymore!” Echo cries with a morally outraged wave of her hand toward the naked Diana. “She’s disgusting. Look at her! We can’t be expected...we’re Gardnerians! Not filthy, heathen whores!”

  Fallon throws a blanket roughly over Diana. Diana snorts a few times, turns over and resumes snoring. “There,” Fallon says to Echo. “Better?”

  “No, Fallon. No,” Echo rejoins. “Only her leaving here for good would make it better.”

  Fallon laughs and throws her cloak onto a nearby chair. “She sounds like a snuffling pig.” Fallon’s smile disappears as she takes in Tierney’s frozen expression.

  “What are you looking at?” she demands. “Ancient One, you’re like a ghoul.”

  I shrink farther back behind the door.

  Fallon glances around, as if sensing something amiss, her eyes lighting on Olilly. Her face goes hard. “What are you doing here?”

  Eyes wide with terror, Olilly opens her mouth but no sound emerges.

  Fallon sighs as if she’s dealing with an unruly dog. “Get over here,” she demands, straightening and pointing to a spot on the floor before her.

  Olilly rushes to her, head down, hugging at the sheets.

  Fallon narrows her eyes at the girl, slides out her wand and lets it rest in the palm of her hand. “What did I ask you to be?” she asks calmly.

  The girl mumbles something, her eyes on the floor.

  “I can’t hear you,” Fallon says.

  “Invisible,” the girl mumbles.

  “What’s that?” Fallon asks, holding a hand to her ear.

  “Invisible,” Olilly mumbles a hair louder, her voice choked with fear. “I beg your pardon, Mage Bane, I didn’t expect you...”

  “No, no, no,” Fallon grinds out slowly. “To be invisible, you have to sound invisible. Do you sound invisible?”

  “Y...yes, Mage Bane. I mean, no, Mage Bane,” the girl stammers.

  “Well, which is it?”

  The girl just stands there, mired in confusion.

  “Get out,” says Fallon, sounding bored.

  Fuming, I glower at Fallon, watching her through slitted eyes. Wishing I had a wand and the power to use it.

  Hugging the clean sheets, the girl flees.

  Fallon blows out a sound of disgust and leans back against a desk. She lifts her wand, murmurs a spell and absentmindedly creates a roiling, blue ball of smoke that whooshes to life over the wand’s tip.

  I cringe at her casual showing of power. The ball morphs into a sapphire swirl and then into a puff of gray smoke.

  Fallon turns to Echo with a sly smile. “Did you hear about Grasine Pelthier?”

  “No,” Echo replies.

  Fallon’s grin turns malicious. “She’s to be fasted. To Leander Starke.”

  Tierney’s hands freeze on the vials.

  Who’s Leander?

  “The glassmaker?” Paige chimes in. “He apprentices with Tierney’s father, doesn’t he?”

  Pain slices across Tierney’s features, the soft rain outside hardening into a pelting downpour.

  “Oh, that’s right,” Fallon says to Tierney with mock concern. “I heard something about your fancying him.”

  My neck burns with frustrated outrage.

  Tierney doesn’t move, doesn’t look up at Fallon. Muted thunder rumbles and the heavens open up, a sheet of rain now obscuring the window’s view.

  “He kissed her,” Fallon crows to Paige and Echo.

  Tierney’s head rises, hatred burning in her eyes. Lightning flashes, and the rain beats down harder.

  Fallon sighs. “She said he has lips soft as silk.”

  Lightning flashes again, the windows rattling as if they’ll blow in. Tierney grasps at the desk’s edge, her eyes as dark as the storm. I worriedly look toward the window and wonder if Tierney’s distress is somehow influencing the weather.

  “Don’t worry, Tierney,” Fallon croons. “Fasting’s soon to be mandatory. I’m sure the Council will even find someone for you.” Fallon turns to Echo and Paige, fighting back the laughter. “Someone they want to punish.” Fallon can’t help herself; she laughs openly and glances sideways at Paige, who’s fighting back a giggle. Echo shakes her head as if they’re being impossibly childish.

  Disgust wars with surprise inside me.

  Fasting soon to be mandatory? When was that decided?

  Losing interest in Tierney and ignoring the storm that’s blown up out of nowhere, Fallon grabs up the package she’s come in with. “Look what I’ve got,” she crows. She pulls off the wrapping paper and brown string.

  A new military uniform spills out. The darker gray of a Lead Apprentice; no more lower apprentice gray. Five wide stripes of silver are embroidered around the sleeve.

  “Oh, Fallon,” Paige gushes. “You’ve got your new uniform! The cloak, too?”

  Fallon hangs her uniform on a wall hook, then unfurls a new cloak edged with another five stripes of silver.

  Fallon throws the cloak on and swirls around.

  Envy jabs at me as I take her in.

  She looks dramatic and powerful and beautiful—the image of everything the Black Witch should be.

  Fallon grins smugly. “And they’re promoting me to full soldier at year’s end. Twelfth Division.”

  “Oh, and that’s Lukas’s division!” Paige giddily enthuses. “You’ll be together again!”

  Of course they will be, I think bitterly. A perfect match in both power and cruelty.

  “I’m not surprised they’re promoting you early,” Echo says with approval. “We need our Black Witch. And you’re o
ur best hope. Someone needs to put down that awful Resistance movement before it gets any more out of hand.”

  Out of hand? I wasn’t aware the fight against the weak and shadowy Resistance had escalated.

  “They attacked the Sixth Division Base only last week,” Echo continues. “Dressed as our soldiers!”

  Fallon spits out a dismissive laugh. “Oh, we’ll take care of the heathens’ little Resistance,” she boasts, her hand jauntily on her hip. “We’ll roast a few Keltic villages if they keep it up. The Resistance will be routed out and struck down soon enough.”

  My heart thuds high and hard in my chest.

  Fallon swirls again, then grows petulant and plops down on Paige’s bed. “He left today.”

  “Oh, how can you bear it?” Paige cries.

  “You’ll be fasted in no time,” Echo assures her. “All that worry about Elloren Gardner for nothing. I told you to ignore the rumors.”

  Fallon glares at Echo accusingly. “Well, you were certainly friendly with her for a time.”

  Echo purses her lips at Fallon. “Yes, well, that was before I realized she was intent on being friends with a half-breed.”

  A spike of outrage over the slight to Gareth cuts into my debilitating fear.

  Fallon pulls out her wand and sends up a puff of ice crystals from it. “What I would give for an excuse to freeze her blood.”

  Fear renewed, I shrink back against the wall.

  “Fallon!” Echo chastises her sharply. “Don’t joke so. She’s a Gardnerian.”

  “She smells like an Icaral,” Fallon snipes back with a smirk.

  Diana snorts, still asleep, and kicks off her blanket.

  Echo eyes Diana with horror. “She’s so...disgusting! And arrogant!”

  “And the way she tosses her hair!” Paige puts in, eager to be included.

  Fallon rises, picks up a set of shears from the desk and grins at Echo. “I think it’s time to teach the Lupine bitch a lesson.”

  Paige chews at her lip nervously. “Oh, I don’t think that’s such a good idea...”

  Grinning widely and moving as stealthily as a cat, Fallon slides off her cloak and creeps toward Diana. I hold my breath as she kneels down on one knee, takes a thick bunch of Diana’s hair and places the shears around it...

  Fast as a blur, Diana leaps out of bed and slams Fallon to the ground. Paige lets out a scream, and Tierney and I fall back.

  The next thing I know, Fallon is belly down on the floor and Diana is astride her, grasping both of Fallon’s wrists in one hand, the shears in the other. Fallon cries out as Diana wrenches her arms behind her back and throws the shears toward the wall to impale Fallon’s new uniform with a sharp thwack.

  “You dare attack the daughter of an alpha?” Diana snarls. “You fool! Do you not think I can sense your attack? Even in my sleep?”

  Diana holds her free hand in front of Fallon’s face, and we all watch in complete horror as her hand morphs into a wild, hairy appendage with curved claws.

  “If you ever try to attack me again, I will mark you. To remind you what happens to those who challenge the daughter of an alpha.” Diana morphs her hand back, reaches under Fallon and grabs hold of her wand. “And your attempts to use your pathetic stick magic bore me!” She takes the wand in hand, snaps it in two and tosses it aside.

  Fallon cries out as Diana gives her arms a final wrench, then, in another blur, Diana is off Fallon and looming over her. Fallon forces herself quickly to her feet, her face red and furious. She grasps at her forearms, wincing in pain.

  Fallon shoots Diana a murderous look. “I’ll be back for you!” she cries before fleeing from the room with Echo and Paige.

  Diana tosses her blond mane over one shoulder and pads over to her bed. She grimaces at the blanket, throws it to the floor, then plops down onto the bed and curls up, her naked back to us.

  Tierney turns toward my hiding place, her voice hoarse. “She’s gone.”

  “Of course she’s gone,” Diana mumbles into her pillow. “She’s a coward without her stick. You can come out now, Elloren Gardner.”

  My head jerks back with surprise. I look to Diana with dumbfounded awe.

  “Elloren.” Tierney pushes a box of vials toward me as I come back into the room. She gestures at the door with her chin, her eyes urgent.

  Legs unsteady, I take the vials and let Tierney tug me out of the room.

  * * *

  “Who’s Leander?” I ask Tierney once we’re back in the deserted lab.

  Tierney’s work is uncharacteristically sloppy and slipshod as we rush to finish our project, topping off each vial with warm syrup.

  It’s full dark now, the apothecary lab’s arching windows black as slate.

  “Nobody,” she says testily, not looking at me.

  I wait, unmoving, until she finally relents.

  “He works for my father.” She shrugs, her mouth trembling. “He’s...nothing to me.” Her mouth turns down and she begins to cry, then sob, shoulders heaving, her head bent low. “He’s nothing. I don’t care... I don’t care what happens to him...” Her arm comes up to cover her eyes, and she’s momentarily unable to speak coherently through her tears. “Why did they do it?” she moans. “Why did they have to make me so ugly?”

  Suddenly, water explodes from the few open containers in the room, flying to Tierney, swirling around her in a great rush.

  My hands fly up to ward off the liquid. The swirling lines abruptly fizz into a great cloud, obscuring the view before me.

  I can just make out Tierney’s ghostly face in the white haze. She’s staring at me, wide-eyed and terrified.

  Fae. She’s full-blooded Water Fae. That’s the only explanation.

  And someone “made” her ugly. Which means someone glamoured her. Her real hair is probably blue. Her skin, too.

  And I’m bound by Gardnerian and Verpacian law to turn her in. Sheltering Fae is punishable by imprisonment.

  I force the idea from my mind as the cloud falls to the ground in a thin puddle.

  Maybe she isn’t Fae. Maybe she’s like me. Like Gareth. All of us Gardnerian, but with some Fae blood, maybe. That’s all. Her Fae blood is just...extraordinarily strong.

  No, I finally admit to myself, the crushing truth settling in. She’s Fae. She’ll be sent to the Pyrran Isles if she’s discovered.

  And she’s done nothing to deserve any of this.

  “Elloren...” Tierney starts, her throat hoarse. Gone is her usual guarded cynicism. She looks small and lost and afraid.

  “No.” I cut her off, bringing my hand up to stop her. “You don’t have to explain yourself to me. Let’s just not speak of it. Whatever it is.”

  I meet her eyes, and her face is an open book, filled with overwhelming, stunned gratitude.

  Something shifts between us in that moment, and I can feel the beginnings of real friendship start to take root.

  “Here,” I say, grabbing a rag. “Let me help you clean this up.”

  Tierney nods stiffly, and I can see her fighting back more tears. She wordlessly picks up a rag, stoops down and together we clean up the floor.

  * * *

  Outside the rain has stopped, and a cold mist hangs in the air. As we start to walk away from the lab complex, we’re approached by a young Gardnerian military apprentice with the tree insignia of the Twelfth Division.

  He bows and hands me a letter. “I’m to give this to you, Mage,” he says. He bows again stiffly and takes his leave.

  I look down at the letter. My name is written on it in clean, elegant script. I break the wax seal, the Twelfth Division’s River Oak, and pull the letter open as Tierney looks on over my shoulder.

  I’m to rejoin my division at Essex.

  I’ll be back for you. At Yule.
>
  Lukas

  My heart speeds up, warmth flushing my face, then indignation.

  The sheer arrogance of him.

  How could he possibly think, after what happened with Ariel, that we could still go to this dance together? And yet...it’s flattering that we could be so at odds, and still he’s trying to pursue me.

  “At Yule?” Tierney queries, pulling my thoughts back to the present.

  “There’s a dance,” I explain, conflicted. “I promised to go with him.”

  Tierney’s brows fly up in amazed surprise. “Oh, ho!” she crows, wickedly delighted. “Looks like Fallon Bane’s going to wish she’d frozen your blood after all.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Diana Ulrich

  Diana Ulrich slams her books down on the Chemistrie lab table, and Aislinn and I both jump, our eyes snapping up.

  It’s early the next morning, class about to start, two sleepy Kelt scholars shuffling in, followed by a straight-backed Elf.

  Diana falls into her seat with a loud huff. Her brother looks over at her, raising his eyebrows.

  “You would not believe what I had to deal with this morning!” she cries to him, her voice as loud as usual.

  The Kelts turn and blink at her, the Elf shooting her a quick look of annoyance.

  “What happened?” Diana’s brother asks her calmly.

  “I’ve been put on warning!”

  “But why?”

  Diana snorts indignantly. “Because of Fallon Bane, that stupid Gardnerian I am being forced to live with against my will!”

  Aislinn and I shoot each other quick looks of surprise.

  “I don’t understand,” Jarod says.

  “Last night,” Diana snipes, “Fallon Bane thought she would amuse herself by cutting my hair off while I slept.”

  Jarod whistles to himself and laughs softly. “Poor Fallon.”

  Diana’s whole posture stiffens. “Poor Fallon?” she exclaims self-righteously. “She’s a bully!”

  Jarod makes a valiant attempt to rein in his amusement and look serious. “And I can just about imagine how you reacted,” he says, suppressing a smile.