Witch Fire

by Laura Powell

  Rather than go after her, Glory caught up with Yuri. The others tended to keep out of his way, but he wasn’t that different from the boys on the Rockwood Estate, and she knew how to handle them.

  ‘It were good what you did for Anjuli,’ she told him. ‘Peters is a pig.’

  Yuri looked at her warily. ‘Pig. Yes. He knew about the marks.’

  ‘How’d she get them, d’you think? The Inquisition?’

  ‘No,’ said Yuri reluctantly. ‘It was the sister.’

  ‘But . . . but why?’

  ‘She was angry. She think a witch-sister, she will stop movie career.’

  Glory wondered how Yuri knew about this . . . until the next morning, when he and Anjuli turned up to assembly hand in hand. Anjuli had tucked her hair behind her ears; in spite of the dull skin and hollow cheeks, it could be seen that her eyes were every bit as large and lustrous as her famous sister’s. Yuri’s scowl was now accessorised by a swagger.

  ‘Love’s young dream,’ Jenna said, curling her lip.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Glory. ‘And Lazovic’s worst nightmare.’

  It was evident the guardians had been told to keep an extra close eye on the pair. Their classmates too were riveted. In the morning’s art class, where they were supposed to be creating ‘mood diaries’ of their emotions in swirls of coloured paint, very little painting was being done because everyone was watching Anjuli and Yuri instead. The lovebirds were mixing colours in a corner, with much whispering.

  ‘The Russian is a clever snake to make the moves so quick,’ Raffi lamented. He put his hand to his heart. ‘Ah, is even more a pity the red girl is no here.’

  ‘Who was that?’ Lucas asked.

  ‘Inglés student, like you. Rosa. Very hot.’

  ‘She was unhappy to be here,’ said Mei-fen in her small, precise voice. ‘She cried. All the time.’

  Glory and Lucas didn’t need to look at each other to share the jolt of recognition. They already knew about a beautiful, red-headed English witch. And now they knew Rose Merle had been at Wildings.

  Chapter 12

  Glory and Lucas didn’t have a chance to confer until after lunch. Sunday afternoons were free time and so the two of them booked a tennis court, on the pretext that Lucas was teaching Glory how to play.

  ‘We might have guessed Rose would have come here,’ Lucas said, testing Glory’s racquet strings. ‘Rich relations, high profile.’

  ‘The timings fit,’ she agreed. ‘Mei says Rose left just over eight months ago. That’s about one month before her brain got fried.’

  He demonstrated a few strokes: backhand, forehand, slice, lob. ‘You think there’s a connection?’

  ‘Anything’s possible. The American bloke who collected Rose from the clinic? He said he was her uncle, but he weren’t family, that’s for sure. Maybe he was someone from here.’ Glory batted a few balls over the net.

  ‘Rose isn’t our concern,’ Lucas said, as they ambled over to pick them up. ‘We can’t get sidetracked.’

  ‘From what? It’s not like we got anything else to go on.’

  Glory glanced at a patrolling guardian, who had stopped to watch them play. She took up the position to serve. She couldn’t compete with Lucas’s years of coaching at the tennis club, but she was a quick learner. They played a short rally, then once the coast was clear, drew nearer to the net to confer.

  ‘OK, so I’m thinking we should take a peek at the files,’ she said.

  ‘Which ones?’

  ‘The student ones, of course. What Lazovic’s got in his study.’

  He gaped at her. Taking advantage of his distraction, she moved back and got in a sneaky kick serve. Lucas lunged, and missed. ‘Hex.’

  ‘Ooooh! Language!’

  Lucas moved round to Glory’s side of the net and took her arm, under the pretext of correcting her grip on the racquet.

  ‘That’s moving on from “observe and report”. That’s breaking and entering.’

  ‘I know. It’ll probably need witchwork too,’ she said airily.

  ‘If we get caught, all hell will break loose.’

  ‘And if we find a smoking gun, we’ll be the heroes of the hour.’ She turned to face him properly. ‘C’mon,’ she whispered coaxingly. ‘Don’t it drive you crazy, not using your fae? Mab Almighty – if I don’t get to do something soon, I’ll go mad.’

  Lucas had to lean in close to hear her. The sun had brought out a dusting of freckles on her cheek. Underneath her collarbone, he could see what looked like a darker freckle. The pinprick mark of her Devil’s Kiss. He remembered how it waxed and waned with the fae, the inky bloom of it. Now, it seemed as if he could brush it away with just a fingertip.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the guardian was walking past again. He gave a warning cough. ‘Better show me your backhand.’

  What Glory lacked in technique, she made up for in bloody-mindedness. She lunged, sliced and swiped, with whoops of triumph or howls of frustration.

  Grey turrets against a blue sky, pine breeze, mountain shadow. And he, Lucas Stearne, playing tennis in a Swiss castle with a coven witch. Mab Almighty . . .

  ‘What’s so funny?’ Glory demanded, pausing mid-serve. ‘Are you taking the piss?’

  He shook his head, unable to explain the joke, but filled with an unexpected happiness all the same. Maybe it was catching, for suddenly Glory started to laugh too.

  ‘Hey, guys. Wanna play doubles?’

  It was Jenna, immaculate in tennis whites, her ponytail as perky as her smile. Raffi was with her, in tight red shorts, and grinning broadly. Glory and Lucas exchanged glances. But the guardian was still watching, and it would be rude not to say yes.

  It turned out that Lucas and Jenna were evenly matched. Raffi was more experienced than Glory, but his smoking habit and lack of fitness meant that they were at about the same level too. They played three sets before the bell rang for afternoon tea.

  This was a Sunday institution, served on the front lawn, and hosted by Principal Lazovic. It was one of several rituals designed to create the illusion that life at the academy wasn’t all that different to a holiday at a grand hotel. As the tennis players made their way over to the tea tables, Jenna came over to Glory and linked arms.

  Jenna was one of those people who never seemed to break into a sweat. Her whites were still daisy-fresh, unlike Glory’s vest top and tracksuit bottoms. ‘So,’ she said. ‘That was fun.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘You and Lucas looked good together. On court,’ she explained. ‘I was watching you kid around.’

  Glory tried to remember if they’d said or done anything that might give them away. She shrugged. ‘He’s not quite as square as he looks.’

  They paused to survey the party. Lucas was offering a plate of biscuits to Mei. After two weeks in the sun, his English pallor had almost gone. Glory noticed his eyes looked even bluer, against the tan.

  ‘Cute too,’ Jenna observed.

  ‘Bit young for you, I’d’ve thought.’

  ‘Hey – are you calling me a cougar?’ Jenna gave her a playful slap. ‘I’m seventeen, not seventy.’ Then, confidingly, she added, ‘Not that I’d, like, get in your way, or anything. If, y’know, you and him . . .’

  ‘I told you,’ said Glory through gritted teeth. ‘Not my type.’

  The ponytail swished. ‘If you say so.’

  It wasn’t just the witchwork ban that was making Glory prickly. It was the stifling atmosphere of the place. All the cream teas in the world couldn’t alter the fact that they were fenced in with wire and guarded with guns. In her blacker moods, she wondered if the whole Endor business was a scam on WICA’s part, just to get rid of them. But despite her best efforts, Lucas continued to oppose direct action. They needed to work on building relationships with the other students and staff, he said. Breaking into the principal’s office should be a last resort.

  Typical Lucas, the teacher’s pet. He’d already got footage of all the students and staff on
his spy-cam, and continued to email coded updates to WICA. Glory wondered what on earth he found to write about. It was even a struggle with her dad. I’ve made friends with an American named Jenna. I’m learning how to play tennis. We went on a walk yesterday and saw an eagle. Patrick’s reply was mostly devoted to describing how he and Rolf had cracked Level Six of Inquisitor’s Creed, their latest computer game obsession. Glory wondered what the censors had made of it.

  Her correspondence with Troy was already petering out, though she’d tried to get Rose into her last message: Apparently there used to be another English girl here, called Rose. She doubted Troy was in a position to do anything with the information, even if it got past the censors. Still, she couldn’t get the girl out of her head. In their brief encounter, Rose had seemed like an apparition from a fae-tale. Hair like fire, skin like snow, eyes the colour of violets . . . A girl like that belonged in a castle like this. But Rose was now imprisoned by her own body, not by stone walls and electric fences.

  Glory knew she mustn’t allow herself to get distracted. Her priority had to be the students who were actually present. So far, she was making the most progress with Raffi. When he wasn’t being a sleaze, he could be amusing company, and had a cheerful disrespect for the academy – and authority in general – that she could relate to. On the Thursday of their third week, she even had the opportunity to talk to him about Endor.

  Although TV at Wildings was strictly rationed, an exception was made for the news. So when reports came in that the Chief Prosecutor of the Italian Inquisition had been assassinated, lessons were suspended to allow students to watch the news on the BBC World Service. Alessandra Giordani had been killed on her way to the trial of the head-witch of a notorious Sicilian coven. It was said she’d been hexed into slitting her own wrists, sitting tranced in an empty field as she waited to die.

  Afterwards, Glory sloped off to join Raffi for a fag outside the gym. Glory was not a smoker, having had her first cigarette at the age of eight. Nate had given it to her, and then laughed when she threw up afterwards. The taste still made her nauseous. But she felt a sneaky puff now and then was appropriate for her Wildings persona. Also, she knew Lucas disliked it, and she was annoyed with Lucas at the moment.

  ‘Well,’ she said, lighting up next to Raffi. ‘There’s one less inquisitor in the world, at least.’

  ‘Poor lady, even so. It was a wicked thing.’

  ‘Who’s to say it weren’t an actual suicide?’ Glory inhaled, trying not to retch. ‘Anything bad happens, it’s witches what get blamed. Journalists, politicians, police – they’re all in it together.’

  ‘In Cordoba, is different. There the police and the covens are often friends.’ Raffi winked at her through the smoke.

  ‘Oh? And what about Endor – do they have mates in Cordoba too?’

  Glory had kept her tone light, but Raffi looked at her askance. ‘With the covens, you can do business. But with the terrorists, there are no deals. No rules. Is very bad for business. Bad, too, for the good life.’

  ‘I dunno about that. Endor want witches on top, calling the shots. Running the show. That ain’t so terrible.’

  Raffi, though, was shaking his head. ‘Glory, seriously, you are not knowing what you say.’ He ground out his cigarette beneath his heel. ‘Endor is for crazy people. They bring only fire and blood.’

  Dr Caron and Lucas were also discussing the headlines. It was Lucas’s twelfth session with the psychoanalyst, as new students had to attend four sessions a week. Glory filled the time by making up incredibly complicated, incredibly graphic dream sequences, all starring Esmerelda Thunderpants. Lucas was trying a different kind of game. He turned question-and-answer into hide-and-seek; his camouflage a blend of truth, lies and evasions.

  ‘What was your first reaction when you heard of the assassination?’ Dr Caron asked.

  Truth: ‘I thought of my father.’

  ‘But not your mother?’

  Lie: ‘No.’

  ‘Even though she was murdered in similar circumstances?’

  Evasion: ‘I never knew her. I was a baby when she died.’

  Alessandra Giordani had been a mother of two, celebrated in the press for her love of designer clothes as well as her dazzling legal career. Lucas wondered if there had been any chance for her mind to fight the invader’s, as the assassin’s fae snaked into her brain. He wondered for how long afterwards she had waited and watched as her life seeped out in scarlet streams. In the final moments, he hoped the witch had the mercy to leave her mind a blank. He hoped this was true for his mother too.

  ‘I gather your godfather will be coming to see you,’ said the therapist, in an apparent change of tack.

  ‘Er, yeah.’ Lucas’s godfather was, in fact, the man from MI6.

  ‘Are you close?’

  ‘We get on pretty well. But he doesn’t know about my condition. He thinks I’m here for behavioural issues.’

  ‘It is a pity your father could not visit.’

  Lucas stared down at the sand. It was all wiggles today, a knot of lines and curves.

  ‘He’s . . . he’s very busy with his new job.’

  ‘Do you think he misses his old one?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe. Probably.’

  ‘He put many witch-criminals away. And sent some to the Burning Court, I believe. You know, there is a theory that witchkind are naturally criminal. That the fae is predisposed to cause harm. What do you think?’

  ‘I think there’s always a choice. Whether to follow an urge, or fight it.’

  ‘So you do feel an impulse?’ Dr Caron was looking at him with new kind of concentration. ‘An urge to harm?’

  Lucas touched the thread of grey in his hair. He reminded himself that he didn’t know what the doctor wanted from him, or what she might be looking for. Truth, lie or evasion?

  He took a deep breath. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Sometimes I do.’

  Chapter 13

  On the Saturday of their fourth week, Principal Lazovic told Lucas he’d been granted an afternoon pass to Blumenwald. ‘Consider it a reward for good behaviour,’ he said.

  Lucas had already visited the village once. There were a couple of gift shops, an outdoor pursuits store, a small hotel and a café. That was pretty much it. But wherever Lucas chose to go, a plain-clothed guardian came too. It wasn’t clear if this was for Lucas’s protection or Blumenwald’s. The villagers might take Wildings’ money, but that didn’t mean they liked living in its shadow. Everywhere he went, Lucas felt eyes on his back. On his last visit, he was pretty sure a mother had picked up her child and crossed the street just to avoid him. It seemed these people had their own extra sense for sniffing witches out.

  Nonetheless, he was pleased to get out of the academy. He hoped a change of scene might help him get some perspective on the place before his meeting with the MI6 agent. He was beginning to think Glory was right, and that unless they did something drastic, they’d have nothing to show for their time here. Maybe there really was nothing untoward going on at Wildings. Maybe the intelligence chatter was just that: meaningless noise.

  After inspecting the gift shop’s selection of cowbells and snow globes, all the while shadowed by Ivan, the guardian, Lucas ran out of things to do. The cobbled street outside the café was crowded with happy families eating honey cakes in the sun. Rather than endure the stares and whispers his presence would provoke, he took refuge in the hotel. The only other customer in the dining room was a whiskery old gent snoozing over his newspaper. It might have been cosy here in winter, with a log fire and snow falling outside. In summer, the abundance of carved wood was overbearingly gloomy. Lucas ordered coffee as Ivan took up position two tables away.

  ‘Hello, Lucas.’

  He looked up to see Dr Caron.

  ‘Oh. Er, hello.’

  The therapist gave one of her melancholy smiles. ‘I hope I am not disturbing you. Ivan messaged me to say you were here. You see, there is someone I would like you to meet.’
>
  ‘Another therapist? I didn’t realise I was such a hopeless case.’

  ‘Another kind of doctor. Please,’ she said. ‘It’s nothing to worry about. I have arranged a consultation, that is all.’

  Lucas’s heart began to thump. His instincts told him something was about to happen, something important. After only a slight hesitation he got up and followed Dr Caron. This was his chance, and he had to take it.

  They went upstairs into a small private dining room. Ivan waited outside the door. The rustic wooden beams and floral drapes seemed an unlikely setting for an act of violence, yet Lucas braced himself all the same. There was a man in a suit at the table. He had a blandly handsome face, square-jawed and cleft-chinned. Spray-tanned too by the looks of it. As he got up, Lucas thought of Gideon, taking out the syringe from his inquisitor’s cloak, advancing with a smile . . . But the man only wanted to shake hands. ‘I’m Dr Claude.’ His accent was American. ‘Great to meet you.’

  ‘How do you do,’ Lucas said automatically.

  Dr Caron and Lucas took their seats. For a few moments they waited in silence. The way the therapist was fiddling with her ring suggested she wasn’t quite as composed as she appeared. ‘Lucas, I have been working with young people with your condition for many years. I believe I have made progress with all my patients, but some have been easier to help than others. More . . . rewarding. That’s why I’ve taken a special interest in you, even though, in some ways, you are the most problematic of the students at Wildings.’

  He frowned. Really? More problematic than Anjuli, who didn’t eat, and Yuri, who liked to hit things?

  ‘You are expert at suppressing your feelings, Lucas. Yet compared to the other students, you are the least reconciled to your condition. In the wellness questionnaire you completed on your first day here, you ranked being “angry”, “dangerous” and “powerful” at the top of the list of reactions to your condition. In our sessions, however, you have talked of fear . . . of being at the mercy of destructive impulses.’