by Leigh Kelsey
Rahmi only smirked, going over to the huddle of friends and vague acquaintances in their kitchen area. “Alright, who wants tea?”
“Got any cider?” Gull asked, his head popping up from the sofa.
“You’re hyper enough, Gull,” Harley cut in, shaking her blonde head in amusement. “And you want to add cider into the mix?”
He pouted. “Spoilsport.”
She flicked his forehead on the way to the kitchen. Hard. “Dumbass.”
“Aw,” Kati said quietly to Naia. “Their friendship is so cute.”
“Yeah,” Naia agreed unconvincingly. She twisted her hands into the hem of her SBA jumper, staring at the wall rather than making eye contact.
“If you want him,” Kati whispered, “tell him. Go get him.”
Naia shook her head hard. She left Kati and launched into a discussion of their last history class with Marigold, clearly avoiding the subject of Gull Llewellyn. Kati frowned, but she wouldn’t push the issue. She could be a good, patient, non-interfering friend. She could.
“Are you gonna tell us what happened, or what? I’m bored of waiting,” Alexandra demanded, her eyes fixed on Kati as she prowled over from the kitchen.
“Poor little rich girl,” Kati muttered under her breath, slinging her bag onto the nearest chair and ignoring her. “Life must be so hard when people don’t do what you tell them to exactly when you tell them to.”
“Yes,” Alexandra replied, much closer than Kati expected.
Kati jumped, spinning around, and found Chen’s fierce brown eyes pinning her to the spot. Her heart thudded, though Kati wasn’t sure it was with fear.
“It is,” Alexandra continued, her attention fixed entirely on Kati. “So tell me what happened.”
Kati smirked, even as her stomach squirmed. “On one condition,” she agreed, leaning even closer to get in Alexandra’s face. Something about the woman just made Kati confrontational.
Chen’s eyes darkened, her lips pressed into a thin line. “Fine. What?”
“Ask nicely,” Kati replied with a saccharine smile. “Say please.”
Alexandra’s expression darkened, though she didn’t storm off or laugh in Kati’s face as she’d expected her to.
“C’mon, it’s not that difficult,” Kati teased, enjoying the way Alexandra’s eyes narrowed. “Just one little syllable. You can do it; I believe in you.”
Alexandra’s jaw clenched, her chest rising and falling quickly. “Sarcasm is unbecoming.”
“Well, lucky me, I don’t live in an era of having to worry about what’s becoming or not.”
Alexandra raised to her full height, so close to Kati that their noses almost touched. “You’re such a bitch,” she breathed. It sounded like a challenge, like a compliment, in her low velvet tone. Kati went hot all over.
“Yup,” Kati agreed, her heart beating hard. “So are you.”
Alexandra shrugged, conceding the point. She seemed to struggle with something, her nostrils flaring, and then she grated out, “Please.”
Kati pretended to gasp. “You can say it.” She paused for dramatic purposes, scanning Alexandra’s lithe body. Bad idea. Bad, bad idea. Now Kati was picturing her worst enemy arching beneath her, beautifully naked, her head thrown back. “And look at that, you didn’t turn to stone.”
Alexandra made a sound of disgust, her lip curled in a sneer as she shoved past Kati. “Don’t know why I bothered.”
Kati recovered her wits, shaking the image free, and said quietly, “A psychic voice warned me there were wraiths coming from the lake. That’s how I knew they were there.”
Alexandra paused, turning back around, her brow furrowed as she assessed Kati’s expression. Gull who was nearby, shamelessly listening, gave her a startled look at her confession. Kati scowled until he studiously glanced away. “I warned Prise and Sybil what the voice said, they cleared the field, and that’s the end of the story.”
Alexandra’s mouth thinned. “That’s it?”
“That’s it,” Kati confirmed.
“You made it seem bigger.”
“Bigger than wraiths getting onto SBA grounds again and me hearing voices in my head?” Kati laughed shakily, more than a little off kilter from the … tension between them. She wanted to know where the fuck it had come from, and she also wanted to know what Alexandra Chen tasted like, and that was a problem. Big problem. She’d tried to kill Kati, had made her life hell last term. But she’s not as bad this term, a quiet vice pointed out. Kati ignored it, trying to seem composed and normal as she said, “First sign of madness, right? Hearing voices.”
Rude, Dolly muttered, slinking off to Kati’s bedroom. And why are there people here, Kati? You know I don’t like people unless it’s Prince Charming. I barely tolerate you.
Kati didn’t let her expression change even as pain ruptured something inside her, and she didn’t bother replying to Dolly, whose adoration of Iain had not dipped one bit. She’d growled at him a few times, but she was still one hundred percent in love with/in awe of him at all times.
“Madness or a familiar,” Alexandra agreed with a shrug of her slim shoulders. “But you’ve already got one, so you’re right, you must be losing it.”
Kati crossed her arms over her chest, her mouth thinning. “You know, you’re not very nice sometimes.”
Alexandra loomed closer, her smile snide. The tension returned with a fury and Kati caught her breath, her clit throbbing. Soulsdammit. “You know, you’re not very nice, either,” she replied, her eyes dark as they dropped to Kati’s mouth.
Kati glared, her tongue darting out to moisten her bottom lip.
Alexandra smirked as she drew back. “You want me,” she said, in that smug, entitled way of hers that made Kati want to hex her so badly.
“Dead?” Kati bluffed. “Yeah. Haven’t made a secret of that. Gull, whatever’s about to come out of your mouth, I’d advise you to not.”
Gull saluted. “Roger that, ma’am.”
Alexandra snorted, a flash of genuine amusement and warmth in her expression. She really was attractive, Kati noted with major annoyance.
“I think,” Kati said slowly, an eyebrow raised in judgement, “you’re the one who wants me, Chen. You’re standing awfully close to me. And you keep looking at my lips.”
Alexandra’s gaze had indeed drifted back to Kati’s mouth, but she scoffed and moved away. “In your dreams, Wilson.”
Kati just smirked. Her heart beat hard and fast, adrenaline pumping through her veins as Alexandra retreated, glaring.
Well.
That was educational.
“Was it really wraiths?” Marigold asked, her face pale.
“Yes,” Kati confirmed, shaking off the residual sexual tension as she joined her friends by the kitchen. “It really was wraiths.”
Why Do I Have To Be The Chosen One?
Somehow, Kati’s account of what she’d seen—or rather heard via the psychic voice—turned into an amateur lesson on casting the lunar storm spell, with Kati, Harley, and Alexandra teaching the others. She was just praising Naia on a perfect spell when a knock came from the main door.
The eight of them looked at each other, Hannah Willowswift going pale at the likelihood that she’d get into more trouble—although as far as Kati knew, there was no rule against hosting a homework club in their dorms. Kati shrugged, and since she was the closest, she went to answer it.
“Miz Jardin?” Kati asked with a frown.
Miz Jardin gave her a sunny smile, her round face flushed and friendly beneath a floof of candyfloss-pink hair. Ever since Kati had saved her wife from an attack—one of ghost-possessed Harley’s victims—Kati had been one of Miz Jardin’s favourite people. She could do no wrong in the woman’s eyes. “Would you be a dear and give a statement to Mrs Balham? She’s gathering information about—” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “The wraiths on academy grounds.”
“Right,” Kati said, nodding seriously, her expression innocent as if she hadn’t told
everyone in the dorm behind her about the wraiths. Shit, it was meant to be secret? “Back in a bit,” Kati said, giving the friends in her kitchen a little wave as she shut the door behind herself.
“Do you know how they’re getting through?” Kati asked Miz Jardin as they made their way down the hallway past catgoyles and tapestries, towards Mrs Balham’s office, right beside the potions and poisons classroom. “Is there a way to block them out?”
“That’s the tricky thing,” Miz Jardin replied, knitting her hands together. The beads on her tea dress made a sound like rainfall as they walked, passing the dining hall where cutlery clinked and plates rattled. “They shouldn’t be able to pass the gates. The keys we all have…” She pulled out her own moonstone key, hers identical to Kati’s, though the edges were worn smoother. “They keep out anyone who isn’t meant to be here. Anyone—or anything—with a soul is blocked if they don’t have a key. They aren’t even able to find SBA, let alone enter. Soulwraiths may not have a body, but they’re souls in their purest form; the magic should keep them out.”
“Do you think someone’s changed it? The magic in the ward?” Kati bit her lip, half wishing she’d woken Dolly to come with her. Snarky bitch though she may be, her presence made Kati feel safer.
“No,” Miz Jardin replied, shaking her head as they crossed the lobby, diamond-refracted moonlight making them both sparkle. “That’s the odd thing. Mrs Balham checked it right after she dealt with the wraiths. The shield hasn’t been tampered with at all.”
Kati’s brow wrinkled. “Then it doesn’t make sense.”
“Exactly. It’s a mystery. Here we are then.” Miz Jardin gave Kati a reassuring smile and rapped on the door to Mrs Balham’s office.
“Come in,” the stern woman barked, and Kati took a deep breath and entered.
It was a surprisingly normal office for a woman so severe, dressed head to toe in heavy leather, her face sharp and her cropped blonde hair streaked with red.
“You wanted a statement from me?” Kati asked awkwardly, closing the door behind herself and taking a seat before Balham’s desk.
The teacher and SBA guard was scrawling something on a tablet with a touchscreen pen but she nodded in response to Kati’s question. “Write down everything that happened; everything you heard, saw, smelled, any detail you can remember.”
Without looking up, she pushed a pad of paper across the desk, and with a shrug, Kati scribbled everything she knew. “It’s not much,” she said. “I didn’t even see the wraith. There was just this voice in my head, a warning, and I told Mr Prise and Sybil what he said.”
“He?” Balham looked up, her expression intent. “Any idea who it was?”
Kati shrugged, her hands twisting in her lap. “I wish I knew. The last time I heard a weird voice, it was Dolly, my familiar.”
“I doubt it’s a second one. Only the most exceptionally powerful have more than one familiar.”
Kati nodded. “Exactly.”
Mrs Balham set aside her tablet, scanning Kati’s report with a frown. “Do you know how to ward your mind?”
“Yeah.” She’d read a bunch of books on the subject back when she thought Dolly was a threat to her. “You think it’s someone dangerous?”
“Never rule anything out,” Balham replied, a ring of command to her voice. “Even the most unlikely possibilities could be true.”
“I’ll remember that,” Kati said, starting to get up now that her job here was done.
“There’s one more thing,” Balham said, her voice hardening, and Kati sat back down with a sigh. “Three wraiths got onto academy grounds.”
“Shit,” Kati swore, her eyes flying wide. “Last time there was only one.”
“Yes,” Balham agreed, her eyes sharp and her mouth thinning. “That wraith sought you out, too.”
Kati sat back, her chest tightening. “What do you mean too?”
“That’s what I wanted to ask you.” Balham linked her hands together on the desk and leaned forward, intent on Kati. “This time, we got a chatty soulwraith. It happens; as I’m sure you know, wraiths retain some of their personality unlike demons.” Like the gum-popping blonde teenager Kati had faced off with. “It turns out,” she went on, “these three were sent to capture you.”
Kati’s mind took a moment to process this. Even when the words computed, they made little sense. “Three wraiths,” she repeated, “were sent … to capture me? Me?”
“Yes.”
Kati’s stomach twisted into a knot. She definitely should have brought Dolly with her. “Why?”
“That’s what I’d like to know, too.” Balham frowned at Kati’s report.
“Shit,” Kati breathed, “the other one, the wraith in the corridor. I didn’t happen upon it by accident, did I? It was following me … hunting me.”
“It seems that way, yes.”
Kati sat there for a moment, staring into space, reeling. “I don’t understand.”
Balham sighed, her expression softening. “I was hoping you’d shed some light on this, if I’m being honest. Can you think of any reason why a horde of wraiths would be hunting you?”
Kati wanted to pull her feet onto the chair and hug her knees to her chest. “I can think of a few, yeah. How about my brother’s on the run for ritual murder, and fuck knows who he’s got himself involved with? Or the ghosts who nearly killed me last term mentioned a mistress. Or how about the supposedly-dead dark lady come back to life?”
Balham stood abruptly, and Kati thought for an irrational moment that when she opened a drawer in the dresser behind her, that she’d pull out handcuffs and haul Kati off to Crestfall Prison. But instead Mrs Balham withdrew a crystal decanter, and poured a small glass of opalescent liquid, sliding it across the cluttered desk to Kati.
“Should I be worried or impressed that you keep mass quantities of calming tonic?” Kati joked, downing the liquid without questioning being given it. It tasted like sugar paper, somehow both too sweet and tasteless all at once.
Balham chuckled, her laugh low and smoky. “Should I be worried that you so easily recognise a calming tonic?”
“You could always award me an extra mark on my final exam for it,” Kati tried, exhaling a sigh as the tonic did its work and stress faded from her, leaving her lax and better able to draw a full breath.
Balham snorted.
“Worth a shot,” Kati muttered with a shrug. “So to recap, there’s an army of wraiths who want me kidnapped.”
“Correct.”
Kati nodded, still feeling a bit sick. “Wraiths don’t usually … coordinate like that, do they?”
“No,” Balham agreed.
“So if they’re trying to abduct me … where do they plan to take me?”
“And who do they plan to deliver you to?” Balham added, her eyes sharp.
“This is not a very comforting conversation,” Kati laughed weakly. She was still feeling the calming effects of the tonic, but it hadn’t alleviated all her anxiety.
Balham sighed. “We’ll keep you safe, don’t worry about that.” How, when the wraiths were able to get through the wards and roam SBA as they wished? “Thank you for your statement.”
Kati shrugged as she stood, her stomach sloshing with nausea. “No problem. Will you tell me if you find out anything about the wraiths?”
Balham paused, contemplating. “Alright, then. Resume your extra classes with Mrs Grant so she can teach you more advanced protective spells.”
Kati groaned, dragging a hand down her face. “Sure, I’ll just find time to do that as well as all my extra work.”
Balham gave Kati a stern look, transforming back into the badass who was not to be fucked with.
“Extra lessons,” Kati agreed. “Got it.”
“And keep up your training with Joshua Salazar,” Balham added when Kati reached the threshold, her hand on the door handle.
“How do you know about that?”
Balham raised an eyebrow. “I’m the guard of this academy; d
o you think there’s anything that happens here that I don’t hear about?”
Translation: I know everything you’ve ever done.
Further translation: I know about you and Iain Worth.
“Is there anyone who doesn’t know?” Kati groaned, debating banging her head against the door.
“Nope.” Balham picked up her tablet again. “Have a good night, Kati.”
Kati shut the door behind her with a wince.
So the entire faculty knew about the supposed-to-be-secret relationship she’d had with Iain.
Perfect.
Kati could have gone back to her dorm, but she needed to bleed off all this excess energy, and reinforcing her self-defence skills wouldn’t go a miss, either. She headed for the archway of steps down to the training arena.
Shortcake and Heartbreak
“Shortcake,” Salazar said with a grin when he saw her, despite the fact he was in the midst of an explosive magical battle in the sunken arena.
Kati rolled her eyes, taking a seat on the coliseum-style steps. “If you get hexed to death, don’t blame me.”
His opponent—the woman with the staff and blonde ponytail he’d fought the last time she’d seen him in the arena—snorted. Salazar flicked his wand at her, and a torrent of silver magic shot out of his wand and wrapped around her. But it didn’t hold her for long; Blondie slashed at the net and wherever the tip of her staff touched it, it parted like scissors through cloth. She must have had her wand in that thing somehow. It was the only explanation.
“Still better than you, even when I’m distracted, Lilac,” Salazar taunted her.
She rolled her eyes, dancing back a step. “In your dreams, Salazar.”
Kati smirked and sat back, resting her elbows on the stone step behind her in a way that made her shirt pull tight over her chest, the V neck exposing more than a bit of cleavage. She couldn’t explain why she enjoyed provoking Salazar and taunting him so much, but she did.
Salazar glanced over at her, a brief look that lingered, scorching hot, and Lilac swept her staff and sent him flying onto his ass.
