Enchanter Witch Academy

by Paige Stonebank

  Enchanter Witch Academy

  A Paranormal Fantasy Romance

  Paige Stonebank

  © Copyright 2020 - All rights reserved.

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  Please note the information contained within this document is for educational and entertainment purposes only. All effort has been executed to present accurate, up to date, reliable, complete information. No warranties of any kind are declared or implied. Readers acknowledge that the author is not engaged in the rendering of legal, financial, medical or professional advice. The content within this book has been derived from various sources. Please consult a licensed professional before attempting any techniques outlined in this book.

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  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1: Wildfire

  Chapter 2: Spirit

  Chapter 3: Half-Truths

  Chapter 4: Sweet Dreams

  Chapter 5: Past

  Chapter 6: Mean Girls

  Chapter 7: Library

  Chapter 8: Familiar

  Chapter 9: Midnight Meal

  Chapter 10: A New Habit

  Chapter 10: Secrets

  Chapter 11: Talking With Fire

  Chapter 12: Silence With a Friend

  Chapter 13: Stranger Danger

  Chapter 14: Not As It Seems

  Chapter 15: Sore Thumb

  Chapter 16: Mr. Henry and Me

  Chapter 17: Awful Teachers

  Chapter 18: A Date With Mischief

  Chapter 19: Long Leashes

  Chapter 20: Advice from an Old Fool

  Chapter 21: Midnight Visit

  Chapter 23: A Look at the Past

  Chapter 24: Damien

  Chapter 25: Unexpected Field Trip

  Chapter 26: What Happened Here?

  Epilogue

  Bonus!

  Chapter 1: Wildfire

  I watched a single flame dance on my fingertips.

  It was small, the size of a thumbnail all around. It flickered and burned without a source. The color danced animatedly, the body burning so bright it was nearly white before fading to yellow, then orange, then red. It sucked the moisture from the air, leaving dryness and heat behind. The flame flickered again, then took a shape.

  The flame became a ballerina, no taller than my index finger. Her skirts were made of fire, but then again, so was her entire body. The flames that should have been hair were long, dancing in the air as she twirled, jumping from one finger to the other. It was a game to the ballerina. She jumped, and I had to catch her—if I didn’t, she’d fall to the floor of the clearing and set the grass on fire. It was a dangerous game that we were playing, but the ballerina seemed adamant. I could do nothing but play along.

  The forest around me seemed to hold its breath, waiting for something to go wrong. It was waiting for me to mess up, to let the ballerina fall. It only took one flame on the grass to burn down the entire forest, and my stomach turned as I watched the dancer intently.

  This was fine, though. The flame was still small, still too small for me to lose control over. It was when it grew… when it turned my blood to lava and my skin to hot iron. That was what Headmistress Helena said my skin felt like. Like a cauldron that had been sitting over a fire for too long. After my last burnout, the nurses had blisters on their hands for weeks. I preferred not to think about it. Thinking about it gave it power, like how thinking about uncontrollable flames reminded the fire that it could consume me whenever it wanted. No one else spoke of it, either. They were too afraid, the kids at the academy, too afraid of me to mention my mistakes. I could turn them to ash with a snap of my fingers, after all. I didn’t blame them. I would have been afraid of me, too.

  The ballerina paused, cupping her ear and leaning to one side, listening. I did the same. Footsteps sounded in the forest that surrounded the clearing. I didn’t bother looking for the perp; it was too dark in the forest, anyway. No sun could penetrate through the canopy of leaves, it could hardly peek through the heavy, pregnant clouds overhead.

  The air smelled like rain and smoke. But there was another scent, too. A sweet scent. The sort of scent that came with magic. I sniffed again, rolling the taste in my mouth, feeling the magic teasing my own. I didn’t have to see to know who it was. They were watching; the academy was always watching. Always afraid that I would lose control. Again, I didn’t blame them.

  The ballerina raised her eyebrow, her tiny face contorting. She was questioning my decision to ignore the other presence. She grew a little, first reaching the size of my middle finger and then the length of my hand. I scowled at her. These damned flames, with their minds of their own. This was why I couldn’t control my magic—these questioning flames that never seemed to listen to or trust me. It was infuriating, but there was nothing I could do about it.

  The flame grew hotter, burning my eyes and making it hard to breathe. The ballerina morphed into a ball of fire, no longer the gentle, playful thing it was before. No, this was more dangerous, hotter—the sort of thing that people were afraid of. The sort of thing that I was afraid of. I took a step back, instinctively trying to shake the flame from my finger as it singed me. It burned through the protective layer of magic that was supposed to prevent the blaze from consuming me. The fire didn’t seem to get the memo.

  The flame fell to the ground and, to my horror, ignited the grass at my feet. A perfect circle of fire erupted around me, burning my boots, my legs, the hem of my skirt. Panic boiled inside of me, tears stinging my face. I tried to call the flames back into myself—rather it consume me than the forest and the creatures within.

  Then I was drenched in water, wave after wave washing over me. I could feel the liquid evaporate as it touched my skin, but it kept coming. I gasped for air, falling to my knees. The water—sweet, cold water—found its way into my mouth, filling it up with the taste of magic. I choked on it as it finally penetrated the heat, boiling against my skin. Then, there was no heat anymore. Nothing but the waves that extinguished my flames. My heart pounded in my throat; my ears rang. A headache was forming in my temples. Gods damn it all.

  “Didn’t the headmistress tell you not to go into the forest?” The voice was distinguishably male. It wasn’t rough—it was smooth, like honey.

  I opened my eyes to find a pair of shiny black shoes in front of me. I sighed. “Actually, she didn’t.”

  Another wave rolled over me, knocking me over so I was on my back. I looked up at the man smirking down at me from above.

  The professor was one of the youngest at the academy. In fact, I was certain he was the youngest. He was every girl’s dream and every boy’s nemesis. His eyes were the color of his waves: blue, with flecks of green and silver. He had a chiseled chin that looked to have been carved from marble, and a barely-there stubble that gave him a rugged, bad boy look. He was a handsome man, but he was also a ver
y gay one.

  “Feel like lying to me again, Miss Strange?” He raised an eyebrow at me and I heaved another sigh.

  “I don’t know where else to practice. I can’t do it in the dorm, there’s too many people. And the teachers never let me participate in the classes, either. Apart from you, of course, Mr. Henry. How am I supposed to learn how to control my magic when I can’t practice?”

  I’ve had this same conversation with the headmistress, who merely told me to be patient. That I would one day have a grip on my magic, and I wouldn’t have to be treated with caution anymore.

  Mr. Henry shrugged. “Perhaps you should befriend your magic before you try to tame it.”

  I scowled at him. “Well, I can’t do either if no one lets me.” I paused for a moment, staring at the grey sky behind him. “Please don’t tell anyone.”

  “I am no snitch, Lia.” He smiled. “But I don’t like you endangering yourself and the whole forest. If I wasn’t here, things could have gotten very ugly. I could hardly put out the little circle of fire around you, never mind the entire forest. Your magic is too wild to be handled with this little caution.”

  “I know,” I said, sighing again as I took his outstretched hand. A wind blew over us and I shuddered. I didn’t dare call on my flames to heat me up. “Thank you for saving me.”

  “Listen, kiddo, we’ll figure something out, okay? You don’t have to do this alone. I know you feel like you do, but you don’t. The headmistress is the only one who could save the forest if it got worse and I wasn’t here to extinguish it first. If you don’t want to tell her that you’re coming here, at least tell me. Hell, I could meet you here every day after school and we can train for a bit.”

  It wasn’t the first time he had offered to train with me, and every time, I had declined. Why? Because I didn’t want help. I didn’t want to need help. I was the most powerful witch at the academy—surely, I could tame a few flames. But now, now that it had taken me years and I was still nowhere near controlling them, I was starting to see that help wasn’t a bad idea at all.

  “I would like that,” I started, twisting a strand of red hair and watching the water drip from it. “What will we tell the headmistress?”

  Mr. Henry raised an eyebrow. “We don’t tell her anything. She won’t approve, now, would she?”

  “I suppose not.”

  “Now,” he said, crossing his arms and looking up at the sky, “it’s going to rain soon. That could be a good excuse as to why you are soaked. The only question remains is where you were.”

  “Maybe I had to take a walk? She said I shouldn’t practice magic in the forest, but she didn’t say anything about taking a walk.”

  Mr. Henry grinned. “Perfect. Now, if you will excuse me… I may be a water wizard, but I do hate getting caught in the rain.”

  I watched him disappear into the forest, my stomach twisting. Not with dread, no; it was something else. Could it have been excitement? Perhaps, but I couldn’t tell for sure.

  My flames were getting out of hand and I doubted Mr. Henry had offered to help me from the goodness of his heart. No, they were all afraid of me and what I would eventually become. If they could help me control my powers, it was easy enough to control me—if they controlled me, they controlled my fire. Still, there was a flame of excitement in my chest. I wanted to tame my fire. If not to control it, to bury it away deep inside of me. I didn’t want it in the first place. But if I could tame my fire, I could bury it. It was as easy as that. Perhaps I’d be able to live a normal life in the city. Or perhaps that was too much to ask for. Still, I could always hope.

  I smiled as the cloud tore open above my head. The drops of rain soaked into my skin, turning it to ice. I couldn’t feel my fire anymore. I loved water; it was the only thing that kept the flames away.

  I stayed there for another minute or two, making sure that I was drenched completely, snuffing out my flame. It felt good to feel the fire go out inside of me—refreshing, safe, and normal. And that was all I ever wanted.

  Chapter 2: Spirit

  “You’re wet,” a voice said as I entered my room in the tower. At first, I’d been excited to get my own room, far away from the other students. This was until I realized that it wasn’t because I was favored. No, it was to protect the other students from me.

  The west wing was close to being abandoned, with only four classrooms and a handful of teachers who lived here—teachers who could put out my flames faster than I could ignite them. Still, I enjoyed my own space. Every other student had to share with two other people in a room smaller than the top of the tower. Even if I wasn’t a complete social outcast, I would have preferred this. It was quiet and remote, with a killer view of the sunrise.

  I shrugged off my blazer, heading into my en-suite to get a towel. “Thank you, captain obvious.”

  The mirror above my sink rattled as Fiona flew through the wall and the mirror. The transparent ghost hovered next to me, her lips pinched into a smirk. Fiona had the horrible tendency of appearing exactly when I didn’t want her to. It was like she sensed it, drawn to it like a moth to a flame. It annoyed the seven hells out of me sometimes—now being one of those times.

  “I swear, you’re like a pet—staying outside until you’re soaked, and then trudging your way inside like you own the damned place.” She pointed at the wet trail I had left behind. “You look like a snail.”

  “Don’t you have other dorms to go haunt, Fi?”

  Fiona looked disgusted, her white hair floating around her as if she were underwater. “I do not haunt, Cornelia Strange, and you know this.”

  Stripping down to my underwear, I wrapped a towel around my chest, the fabric hot against my icy skin. I shivered. I turned to look at her. She was now lounging in the bathtub, one leg tossed over the side.

  “Could have fooled me,” I told her. “You seem to torment me every chance you can get.”

  “Is that really any way to speak to your only friend?”

  I rolled my eyes. “I do have friends, you know.”

  “But are any of them as good-looking as I am?”

  “Never,” I assured her, chuckling.

  I made my way back into the room, where I rummaged through my closet. There weren’t many options. Most of my belongings came from the headmistress herself, so whatever I didn’t get myself consisted of only uniforms and blazers. “No one can pull off the deathly glow you have going on.”

  “I thought as much.” She grinned as her head popped through the wall of my dresser, examining every item I pulled out and held at arm’s length. “By the gods, honey. You should have gotten rid of that shirt years ago.”

  I scrunched up my face, examining the shirt in my hand. It was the first band T-shirt I’d ever bought. It was a local band, and the backup vocalist had hand-painted every piece of merch they sold. It felt too personal to get rid of, even if it did have more tears than I cared to admit. I pulled it over my head regardless of what Fi thought. She was a 50-year-old ghost—what did she know about style, anyway? Enough to know that torn band T-shirts haven’t been a thing since the early 2000s, the back of my mind told me, but I chose, like I usually did, to ignore it.

  Fiona pulled a face. “It’s a good thing you’re so pretty, because that’s the only thing going for you at this point.”

  “Thanks?” I turned to the mirror on the inside of the wardrobe, the towel now around my hips. I looked into my own eyes, trying to find a sense of normality in them. I couldn’t find it in the gold around my pupils, nor the green it faded into, not even in the blue that surrounded it all, keeping the wealth of colors away from the white of the rest of my eyes.

  I couldn’t find it in the red of my hair, either. It was the color of my flames: oranges, reds and yellows. I thought it was a good idea to spruce up my natural dark ginger hair with yellows and dark reds. It was a spur of the moment thing last summer, and I had regretted it ever since. More than once, I’d considered taking a pair of scissors to it, but Fiona had sto
pped me every time. She said it gave me character; it made up for my lack of personality, apparently. My skin was a whiter shade of pale, a stark contrast against my red hair and dark brows.

  “You gonna wear pants, or are you just going to the dining room with that towel wrapped around your hips?” Fiona was now speaking from across the room, where she had draped herself over my bed as if she owned the place. I sighed.

  “Mr. Henry offered to help me with my magic,” I confessed, completely off-topic as I searched for a pair of jeans that actually fit. Those second helpings of dessert I’ve been indulging in were taking a toll on my hips. I found a pair, then turned around to show it to her and she shook her head. I turned around to locate another pair.

  “And did you accept this time or shoot him down again?”

  “I accepted.” I held up different pants and she shook her head again. I was running out of options.

  “You did? What made you change your mind?”

  Had Fiona owned a physical body, I would have heard her rustling on the bed so she could perch on the end, listing intently. I settled on the first pair of jeans I’d held up for her and pulled them on. I wasn’t about to spend my entire evening letting Fiona decide on my outfit.

  “Lately,” I said, refusing to look at my hands, to acknowledge the magic tingling beneath my skin. It felt like thousands of ants crawling beneath my skin, pinching and biting as they went. It wasn’t unpleasant, though, even if I did want to say otherwise. It was merely uncomfortable—but the sort of discomfort that drove people mad, in time. “The fire has been…”

  “Hotter?” she asked, completing my sentence.

  I nodded. “It scared me today. I was out in the forest, trying to get a hold of the magic, but it got out of hand.”

  Fiona’s face softened, and I knew what she was thinking.

  I reminded her of herself. Thirty-two years ago, she was 18, just like me. Her fire magic had consumed her and caused her inevitable death. Perhaps she was only around to keep an eye on me, to guide me. I didn’t know why her soul was still here. There have been plenty of other deaths in the academy, and no other ghosts were left behind. None but Fiona. Was it her magic that kept her here, or was it something else? Was it her determination to prevent what happened to her from happening to anyone else? Was it her catty personality that had gotten her tossed out of the afterlife? No one really knew.