Cackles and Cauldrons

by Sarina Dorie

  Khaba waved his hand in front of him, the surface of the mirror rippling. “We’ll be right there.” His voice echoed, distorted and wavering as his image faded. “Try not to get yourselves in any more trouble.”

  A gentle tap came at the door a moment later. Josie rose from Vega’s bed and tossed one of her yearbooks from the twenties aside.

  “Who’s there?” I whispered.

  “The most handsome sasquatch you’ve ever laid your eyes on,” Pinky said in his high voice.

  I opened the door to reveal Pinky standing there in a kilt nearly the same shade of brown as his fur. He ducked under the doorframe to avoid hitting his head.

  Josie poked her head outside. “Where’s Khaba?”

  Pinky shrugged. “He’s checking out the hallway where you spotted the intruder.”

  “Spotted” wasn’t quite the right term for it. The woman’s voice had been disembodied like a ghost.

  “Oh,” Josie said in disappointment. “I thought Khaba would be with you.” Khaba’s sexual preference didn’t lessen her crush on him in the least. “What if Fae try to kill Clarissa?”

  Pinky stood taller. “I am more than capable of constructing wards to hide you.” He cracked his knuckles, moving his hands through the air in a graceful dance.

  When I relaxed my eyes, I was able to see the trails of light flickering between his fingers. A green afterglow followed his hand. A moment later, he declared it was safe.

  I sat down on my own bed, hoping it was clean. I was so tired, I didn’t think I could stay awake much longer.

  Pinky sat on Vega’s bed, the frame groaning under his weight. “So, are you going to tell me all about these rumors the kids were going on about today?”

  Josie’s demeanor brightened. “Clarissa just told me about all the juicy gossip!” She sat down beside him and took over the storytelling. I closed my eyes and rested my head on my pillow. Their voices drifted around me like notes of faraway music.

  I’d nearly died that night at dinnertime, heard a confession of love from Felix Thatch before a few steamy hours together, and then been threatened by a mysterious enemy who wanted to kill me. How could I not be exhausted?

  “I have an idea,” Pinky said excitedly, breaking through the wall of my sleepiness. “Pillow fight!”

  A soft thump sounded close by. Josie shushed him. “Don’t you dare wake her! She’s had a horrible day.”

  “Thanks,” I managed to mumble. Josie was a great best friend when she wasn’t trying to eat me.

  Blankets rustled around me. Josie leaned close, her fragrance of lemon and herbs wrapping around me as she shimmied the blankets under me. She removed my shoes and dropped them on the floor.

  Sleep pulled me into its depths. I dreamed of my biological mother. Alouette Loraline stepped out of her painting. She didn’t look evil, though. Her eyes were sad. She spoke with a voice that sounded a lot like Vega’s, her tone harsh and grating, not matching the concern in her expression.

  “What the fuck is this? A slumber party?” she demanded.

  Someone roughly shook my shoulder. That’s when I realized this wasn’t a dream.

  Vega loomed over me. “Get your friends out of here. This is my room.”

  I sat up. Josie slept on Vega’s bed. Pinky lay on the floor between us. Vega kicked him in the shoulder.

  Vega jabbed Josie in the back with her wand. “What the hell are you doing in my bed? Isn’t the tower good enough for you? You have to take over my room too, you greedy pig?”

  She kicked Pinky harder. “Men aren’t allowed in the women’s dorms. You are male, aren’t you? I can’t tell under all that fur.”

  Pinky sat up and yawned. “What time is it?”

  “Time for you to leave, bitch.”

  The cuckoo clock on the wall showed that it was almost six in the morning. I would have liked to sleep in on a Sunday, but Vega was the gift that kept on giving.

  A few hours later, I went to tell Thatch what had happened.

  His expression was grim. “Yes, I know. Mr. Khaba informed me.”

  “Did he tell you about the poem?”

  He paused, a wary look in his eyes. “Yes.”

  “That’s what the note with the flowers said. Or something close to it. I thought it was from Vega trying to scare me, but now. . . .” I stopped, taking in his expression.

  His lips had flattened into a grim line. I could already see my mistake.

  “How do you know about that note?” he asked slowly, each word a measured step toward his impending bad mood.

  I crossed my arms. “You mean the note you tried to hide from me in your desk?”

  His tone turned icy. “You went through my desk?”

  “No. Not me.” I gestured to the empty cage. “It must have been Priscilla.”

  “Of course. A little bird told you about the note.”

  I sat on his desk across from him. “What are we going to do about it?”

  He nudged me off with his elbow. “We aren’t going to do anything about it. You will stay out of this and keep a low profile as I investigate the situation. You need to stay in your room at night. Should you have need of being escorted back to your room after lessons, I shall do so. But—” He held up a finger in stern warning. “—I expect you not to wander about the school at night.”

  Irritation settled over me like a fine dust, working its way under my skin. “You agreed you would stop bossing me around and lording yourself over me. You said you would start asking me, instead of telling me what to do.”

  He folded his hands on the desk before him. “Very well.” He spoke with an air of patience. “Will you please stay out of this matter and allow me to investigate the situation—without interfering?”

  “Me? Interfere? You say it like—”

  Unexpectedly, he stood, grabbing me and drawing me into his arms. He kissed me passionately, his lips searing mine with abandon. I leaned into him, drinking in his flavor of cyanide and starlight.

  “Promise me,” he said. “Please.”

  He didn’t say “please” often. He covered my face with kisses, and I melted into him. I was intoxicated by his touch. He knew exactly how to ignite the passion of my affinity.

  He asked me again between kisses, and I agreed.

  “Good,” he said, planting a kiss on my forehead. “I need to speak with Mr. Khaba. If you’ll excuse me.”

  He spun me around and sat me in his chair. He hurried off with quick, confident strides. I stared after him dully, realization blossoming in me. He had just tricked me into agreeing with him. He’d used my weakness for being touched to lower my guard, and then manipulated me.

  I could not believe that devious devil! I couldn’t trust him for a minute.

  Now I wanted to know what he intended to do more than ever. He thought he could talk to Khaba and keep me out of it? He had another think coming.

  I could have gone to Khaba’s office and eavesdropped outside the door. That would only be effective if Thatch didn’t put up a soundproof barrier, and this seemed like the exact kind of thing Thatch would preemptively do. I didn’t know how to break through his magic.

  My next option was the hallway of mirrors. I didn’t know if that would reveal more sound, but I would at least see him. It did cross my mind that going off alone in a secret passage while a secret enemy was after me might not be the smartest thing to do. Mostly it seemed like the Fae presence had made herself known at night. If she was someone in the Raven Court, that might mean her powers were strongest at night.

  Maybe I was safe.

  The hallway where the secret passageway was hidden under a tapestry was busy with students. I waited for the hall to clear so I could slip inside.

  “Hey, Mrs. Lawrence,” Luke Heller said, waving to me. His blond hair bounced up and down as he bounded over. “Are you coming to the big game against Lady of the Lake next week? It’s an away game.”

  “Um,” I said.
I didn’t correct his use of calling me “Mrs.” instead of “Miss.” Students used them interchangeably no matter how many times I corrected them. “What sport are you talking about? Pegasus polo?”

  He pumped a fist in the air dramatically. “Air pelota—only the best game on earth.”

  “Right. We’ll see.”

  After that, it was Hailey and Maddy who wandered by, and then a group of freshmen. At last, the coast was clear. I peeled back the tapestry to find Vega on the other side. I dropped the tapestry and screamed.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Deals with the Devil

  I jumped back from the tapestry. I couldn’t have been more astonished if the fabric had burned me. Vega pushed the tapestry aside, making no effort to hide the passage. She grabbed my arm and yanked me into the shadowy hallway. The light of her wand in her other hand cast purple shadows onto the walls.

  “Be quiet before you draw any more attention to yourself, you dimwit.” She spoke clearly, enunciating each word as crisply as though she were performing a spell.

  “What do you want?” I asked. I didn’t want to know why she was in the secret passage. I could only imagine how she might get her jollies watching other staff members in their rooms.

  “We have urgent business to discuss,” she said.

  I glanced down the empty hallway behind her. Vega blocked my goal of spying on Khaba and Thatch and finding out what they knew.

  I crossed my arms, impatient for Vega to get to the point. “Okay, fine. What do you want from me now? Is this about my bargain with Elric?”

  “You wish.” She held herself taller. She must have been six feet tall, nearly as tall as Thatch.

  I tried to edge back. Maybe the death threats were from her.

  She jabbed a long scarlet fingernail at my chest. “You did something to me, didn’t you? Something perverse and demonic.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I feel different. Ever since I woke up.”

  When my consciousness had left my body, I had glimpsed a shard inside her, something intangible and spiritual, wounding her so that the gossamer soul shrouded around her heart bled. The phantom injury haunted her, each breath stitched with pain and sorrow. Perhaps it had been the past life and past love that she had pined for—or perhaps it was the ghosts of this one. In any case, I had yanked that obstruction free of her and when I had, her heart had stopped.

  It had been an impulsive move on my part. I hadn’t even asked her if she wanted to be free of that fetter weighing her down. Only now that I was faced with Vega before me did I wonder how she might react if I told her the truth.

  “I healed you,” I said. “First spiritually—which resulted in your death—then physically when I brought you back to life.” I had already told her about resurrecting her, but not about the other.

  Vega stumbled a step back, surprise crossing her face. “Healed? I didn’t need any kind of healing—spiritual or otherwise. I’m a powerful Merlin-class Celestor.”

  I wanted to reach out with my awareness and see if her wound was healed and her soul was no longer aching, but I feared I might not be able to return to my body again if I did.

  “Okay, Merlin,” I said. “Believe whatever you want to believe.”

  I turned toward the tapestry, deciding it might be more productive to eavesdrop outside Khaba’s office than in the hallway of mirrors at the moment. I didn’t want Vega to see the hallway if she didn’t already know about it. If I hurried and Thatch was still there, I still might overhear some juicy information.

  “Wait.” Vega grabbed my arm. “Elric told me I owe you a boon.”

  “More like three boons. One for saving your life, one for. . . .” I hesitated. Elric had said I had a right to ask for three favors, but I felt wrong doing so, especially for what I was about to say to prove my claim. “You’ve always wanted to die, haven’t you? Well, I gave you that. I killed you, and then resurrected you.”

  “With necromancy,” she whispered. “Like you did that time with Sebastian Reade? And Galswintha the Wise?”

  I bit my lip. That had been true necromancy, some kind of reaction that my Red affinity had caused in the deceased. Reviving Vega had been a combination of CPR and electrical magic behaving like a defibrillator.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Just between you and me, necromancy.”

  A satisfied smile stretched across her crimson lips. “I want you to teach me how you do it,” she said.

  “No.”

  “I’ll tell everyone you’re a necromancer if you don’t. That’s forbidden, just in case you didn’t know.”

  “I can’t teach you. It’s part of my affinity, and I don’t know how it works. I would sooner resurrect the dead for you than experiment with it again and kill you accidentally.”

  She shrugged. “I didn’t mind. It was peaceful being dead. You can practice on me anytime you want.”

  “I’m not doing it,” I said firmly. “Now, I need you to listen to me. I need you to stop threatening to expose my secrets and Felix Thatch’s secrets. Do you understand? That’s the first favor I’m going to ask of you as repayment.”

  “Technically, that’s two favors—one for you and one for him.” She was a shrewder haggler than a shopper at a Black Friday sale.

  “Fine. My first favor is for you to stop blackmailing me and making my life miserable. The second is to stop threatening Thatch and blackmailing him and making his life miserable. I don’t want you to tell Khaba about our relationship. Or anyone else. Is that clear?”

  She stuck her nose up in the air. “That’s more like four wishes. Maybe five. You haven’t earned that.”

  “Should I ask your Fae boyfriend if I’m in the right? He thought you owed me six favors.” A gross exaggeration.

  Her smug smile vanished. “Leave Elric out of this.”

  “Why? Because you know I’m right?”

  “Because we both know why he’s dating me,” she said coolly. “I don’t need another reminder that he’ll always choose you and your needs over mine.” A flicker of hurt crossed her expression.

  I’d seen Vega jealous of Elric’s attentiveness to me—as well as Thatch’s attention on me—but I’d never seen pain in her eyes before. I wondered whether it always had been there but had been masked by her façade of ennui. Or had removing the shard in her soul opened a path for her to get over her past. It actually seemed like she wanted to pursue a real relationship.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “We don’t need to involve Elric. We can get someone else if we need a neutral party.”

  She snorted, not looking at me. “Fine. Whatever. I’ll grant your two favors. What do you want as your third wish?”

  I considered all the things I could ask for. “You let me believe those poisonous flowers and the poetry was from you.”

  She shrugged.

  “Who is it from? Do you know?”

  She placed a hand on her chest, the image of innocence. “Why would you think I would know?”

  She didn’t deny it.

  “Tell me who those flowers are from. Who wants to kill Thatch and me?”

  “You and Thatch?” Her eyebrows shot up in momentary surprise. “Did she make an actual attempt on either of your lives?”

  “She? Who is she?” A shiver stole over me as I thought of that voice that had slithered down my spine. Deep in my soul, terror lurked under a thousand happy thoughts that the Princess of Lies and Truth would kill me as she had killed my biological mother.

  In the violet light of Vega’s wand, her fair complexion turned ashen. “No one. I don’t know who you mean.”

  “Yes, you do. You owe me a favor. Who wants to kill me?”

  She shook her head. “No one. It was a prank, I’m certain. Just something to scare you.”

  “A prank? From who? It’s my last wish. I want you to tell me the truth.”

  Vega’s eyes were round and mortified. “I can’t tell you. She
made me promise. It was an oath. I can’t undo it, or I’ll lose my soul.”

  I had only seen true fear in Vega’s eyes once—and that had been after she’d trapped me in a coffin. When the storm of electricity raging inside me had almost electrocuted her, she’d been genuinely afraid for her life—and she’d had a right to be.

  All the repairs Khaba and Pinky kept making in the school wards were because of Fae. It might have been because of Vega inviting Elric in—or it might have been Vega allowing someone else to come in.

  “Is she Fae? The Raven Queen?” No, it was unlikely to be her. “Someone who works for the Raven Queen?”

  “I can’t say.” She swallowed. “Please, Clarissa. Ask me something else. I’ll tutor you if you want. I can help you gather unicorn blood or bat testicles or whatever you need for that spell to help with Thatch’s sexual problem.” Desperation shone in her eyes.

  Her reaction chilled me.

  She tried to smile. “I’ll prepare it for you. I can alter that spell to be performed by two people. I only made it so difficult to keep Gertrude from using it with Thatch out of spite—I knew he wouldn’t permit me to be there to help create it.”

  The temptation of the magical condom spell that would permit Thatch to ejaculate without setting fire to curtains—or my body—was certainly hard to resist.

  “Please, Clarissa?” she asked.

  I didn’t doubt Vega was afraid, too afraid to tell me the truth of what she knew. I didn’t want her to lose her soul in the process of revealing to me who the culprit was. But her knowledge was a tip I could pass on to Thatch or Khaba. I would play it cool and pretend I wasn’t as wary as I was.

  In the meantime, I had my third wish.

  “All right,” I said. “How soon can you get that spell ready?”

  By the time I got rid of Vega, and I used the secret passage to look into Khaba’s office, he sat alone, filling out paperwork. It looked like an incident report. The mirror on the wall beside his hot-pink file cabinet was too small to fit through, and besides that, I didn’t want to reveal my secret way of getting around the school undetected. I walked back along the secret labyrinth in the stone corridors to go see him the normal way.