“So, I just sit back and let it happen?”
“That’s not what I said. You will fight when the time comes. If the time comes. It’s impossible to know. You will fight until you win or you lose. But that is something to worry about when you get there. It doesn’t help to have planned out your moves, because your moves rely on you knowing the moves of your enemy—and trust me, Lia, you do not comprehend the power of your enemy.”
I swallowed. “And how do you know it?”
“I can sense it. I can feel it in the flames that make me. It’s the same way I can sense what a creep Damien is. The earth is crying, screaming for help, but nothing is coming to its rescue. The Dark Brotherhood is juicing the earth for every droplet of magic it possesses, and corrupting it. They are turning it into something darker, crueler. It’s a fowl type of magic, I can feel it. It’s the sort of magic that would make my stomach churn, if I had one. I can’t even imagine the stench of it. Thank the gods that magic isn’t close enough to smell. Not yet, anyway. I can feel sinister forces at work in the shadows, and I can feel it here, too. It’s not as raw and evil as the magic I can sense far away, but it is darker than the rest. I can’t put my finger on it, but it is here.”
I ignored the jab at Damien. “In the academy?”
She nodded. “I believe that is the reason why the headmistress has told you to keep to yourself. I think she’s trying to find the source, but it’s impossible. There’s a veil over it, dulling the foulness of it. There’s a spell on it that averts the eye as soon as it gets too close. The headmistress is trying to determine some way to break through, but she hasn’t found it yet. I believe that is the reason why she is taking so long with news. She can’t go snooping if there are eyes everywhere.”
“This is all a giant shitshow.”
The ballerina laughed. “That awful magic probably smells like it, too.”
Chapter 12: Silence With a Friend
Sometimes, it felt good to just sit quietly with a friend. It was good to lay on your bed, feet propped up against the wall, staring at the ceiling next to someone you trusted with your life. Sometimes, life became too much—sometimes, it was too much for our minds to handle, and then it was just good to be with someone. Not to talk, not to vent, gossip, or cry. No, you just had to be with someone, sharing stolen ice cream straight out of the tub.
One of the benefits of Fiona being a ghost was that she didn’t eat, which meant there was more ice cream for me. Fiona was no help when I pushed the bed against the wall, but she was a little deviant and got me the ice cream from the fridge. I didn’t know how she managed to sneak it past Cook Magna.
Fiona once explained to me how her ghostly powers worked. She could manifest just enough power in the world of the living to pick up small items. She could go completely invisible, but whatever item she was holding would not follow her visible body to the limbo world where she resided. She basically had three forms in the land of the living; the invisible form, the visible form, and the form that could touch things. That was the closest form to her living body she could get. She was still almost completely transparent, but she had a physical weight, a mass.
I looked at my mismatched socks next to her pale feet. She was barefoot. It always struck me as weird that she was basically wearing a ball gown but went barefoot all the time. I didn’t ask her why this was. I had a feeling it had to do with her death—the details of which she was not yet ready to share with me. I accepted that, though. She didn’t have to tell me anything she didn’t want to. She’d promised that she would tell me one day, and that was enough for me. I just hoped that day would come before I met my inevitable end.
Whether it would be by my own fiery hand or the hand of someone who wanted to control my fire, I didn’t know. What I did know was that my end would come soon, and I didn’t want to die without knowing what happened to Fiona.
“Everyone is wondering where you are,” Fiona said as she adjusted herself on the bed. Her head was hanging off the side of the mattress. I was luckily short enough that it was only the tip of my head and my hair that dangled off the edge. “Your friends are feeling left out. Damien is trying to calm the storm, but he can only do so much.”
“Isn’t the purpose of this exercise to stay completely and utterly silent?” I was annoyed that she’d brought it up. I didn’t want to think about anything outside of this room. I especially didn’t want to think about anything that involved fire, friends, or an unknown evil.
“Hey, you said you weren’t going to talk. I didn’t make the same promise.” She rolled her eyes and flicked my nose. I glared at her.
“Oof, someone has a mean scowl today. Okay, okay,” she said, throwing up her hands in defeat. “I’ll be quiet.”
“Finally,” the ballerina said from the head of the bed. The pillow was indented where she lay and she stretched out, getting comfortable again. I wished I could sleep as much as she did.
“That one is basically a cat, isn’t she?” Fiona pointed toward the ballerina with a thumb.
I snorted as the ballerina gasped. “I am not a cat.” Her nap was forgotten now, and she sat up, crossing her arms and glaring at Fiona. She didn’t take kindly to being referred to as a pet, it seemed.
“It’s not a bad thing,” Fiona said, a grin on her face. “Cats are stereotypically a witch’s familiar, isn’t that right? It would make senses for you to be cat-like. You have the grace, the attitude, the need for attention only when you want it and everyone else be damned.”
Fiona wasn’t wrong. My familiar was basically a flaming cat in the shape of a ballerina. Some nights, I could even swear I heard her purr as she cuddled into the crook of my neck. She wanted constant attention, but only when she felt like it. You couldn’t take it upon yourself to pay attention to her. She demanded attention, received it, and then went back to sleep. That was how she worked.
I had grown quite familiar with her patterns.
The ballerina huffed, laying down again and turning her back to us as we giggled. I could hear mumbling coming from her tiny form, as well. It was hard to tell what she was saying, but her curses were the most colorful thing in the room.
“I’m sorry I haven’t been around much,” Fiona said after our giggling had died down. “The headmistress has me on spy duty. What’s the use of having a ghost in your academy if you can’t use her to spy on people, right?”
I sighed. It seemed like the conversation was headed toward the inevitable, anyway, so I asked, “Have you found anything?”
Fiona shook her head. “Nothing we didn’t already know about. The Dark Brotherhood is on the rise, and it’s not looking pretty. The council has thrown a blind eye their way, and it’s meant that the Dark Brotherhood had all the freedom in the world to plot.”
“Surely the council will be held accountable,” I said. My hands rested on my stomach, and I could feel it turn.
Fiona snorted. “By who? The council’s council? No, they had people on the inside, and once you have someone in the council, you’re pretty much free to do whatever the hell you want. Including stealing the Earth’s resources to build an army of magical soldiers. Even if I can find the rat inside the council, there is nothing we can do. He or she has already brainwashed the rest of them. Even the headmistress can’t go up against that. She would be stripped of her role in the magic community for even suggesting that the council was dirty. It wouldn’t matter how true it was, the council wouldn’t stand for any propaganda that went against them. If the image of the council was hurt, the rest of the magical world would rise against it. Without a council, there will be no laws. The council has been the source of too much suffering in the past. The people wouldn’t want a new council. They’d rather eliminate any sign of resistance before it got out there.”
“So, where does this leave us?” I asked, dreading her answer. I couldn’t imagine having to stay in this room for much longer. I couldn’t stand the thought of being useless for however long it took to find something useful. I
f they haven’t found a single piece of evidence, any clues in the week I have been on lockdown, I doubted they were going to find anything of use in the weeks to come. We had to re-strategize. We had to rethink the situation.
I’d missed out on practice with Mr. Henry—practice that I needed to get a hold on my magic. If they got to me, I would be a sitting duck. At least if I had some sort of handle on my magic, I could defend myself. Things had to be reconsidered and hard choices had to be made. I’d have to talk to the headmistress again, so we could reevaluate the situation together.
I would go to her office in the morning. I would list my concerns and maybe, hopefully, we could find some solution that didn’t involve me being trapped in the tower like Rapunzel.
“Exactly where we started.”
Chapter 13: Stranger Danger
The ballerina and I practiced magic in the confines of my tower. We used the bathroom, based on the logic that there were fewer flammable objects in there. Besides, if things got too hot, I could just hop in the shower and cool off.
But I wanted to practice with Mr. Henry. Not that I didn’t enjoy practicing and delving deeper into my magic with the ballerina; that wasn’t the case at all. I just missed human interaction. I missed the fresh air. And sure, cracking a window was an option, but it wasn’t the same. It wasn’t the same as feeling the sun or the rain on your skin. It wasn’t the same as breathing in the fresh, open air. I also wanted to show Mr. Henry what I had learned. I wanted to tell him about the volcanos and the role of the familiar that everyone had gotten so terribly wrong all these years. I wanted to tell him all of this, but I couldn’t.
Because there was still no word from the headmistress, and it was getting to me. I was still planning on seeing her in the morning, but I had hoped, in some small part of my brain, that I would get news before I had to go to her. Some small part of me hoped that all hope wasn’t gone. I was an idiot for doing so, though. I was setting myself up for disappointment.
I had taken the ballerina’s advice to heart and I tried to focus on other things. I focused on my magic mostly, channeling it and bending it to my will. For the most part, it went well, but in the dead of night when I couldn’t sleep and there was nothing to do but think about what the future held, it got to me. It really did. I could see that monster I had created as a child to give a face to my magic when I closed my eyes. I could see that monster attempting to protect me from an assault by a bigger monster with pointier teeth, but ultimately failing. I saw the monster’s chest still and the other monster grinned at me, mouthing that I was next. My dreams were haunted by the monsters and I didn’t know what to do, other than stay awake as much as I could. It was the best I could do until I spoke to the headmistress.
Still, I couldn’t figure out what was taking the headmistress so long. Even after the talk with Fiona, I had been thinking about what could possibly be holding her up. Her, of all people? She was an ancient, a sorceress who had the world’s knowledge tucked away in her head. Surely it wasn’t too difficult for her. And if it was… where did that leave me? What did that mean for my future? The headmistress had infinite knowledge and contacts; what did that say about the Dark Brotherhood? What did it say if even the headmistress’ resources couldn’t figure anything out?
“Focus on the candle, Lia,” the ballerina instructed, and I glared at her. She didn’t seem affected by the look on my face. I suppose she was used to it by now. I was a constant fuse just waiting to be lit. I was starting to get on my own nerves, but I didn’t know how to stop it. I didn’t know where to begin.
“I am focusing on the candle,” I hissed, my eyebrows creasing as I stared at the wick of the candle. It was still snow white; it was still unburned.
The ballerina rolled her flaming eyes, crossing her arms as she pointed toward the wall. “Tell that to the wall behind the candle.”
I huffed. She was right. I knew she was right, but that didn’t mean I was going to admit as much to her. I’d never thought that lighting a candle would be the hardest part of magic. Large bursts of magic I could do with no problem, but it was the small things, the simple lighting of a candle, that I just seemed unable to manage. It was frustrating. I wanted to scratch my eyes out every time a big ball of fire escaped my hands and hit the wall behind the candle instead. Only a small flame, I just needed a small flame to light it and…
“You know,” a strange voice said. It sounded like walking on gravel, rough and hard. I spun around, my familiar in front of me in an instant, protecting me from whoever stood in the door. “If you didn’t put so much pressure on yourself, it would come naturally.”
The ballerina was covering my face, blocking my view. I peered around her.
In the doorway to my bathroom stood a boy clad in black from head to toe. His hair was short but still managed to look tousled, and his eyes were the color of a bright afternoon sky. He leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed across his broad chest. His leather jacket was straining around his muscular arms. He was tall, much taller than Damien, and had the sort of face you’d expect to find in an underground pit fight. A scar cut over his left eye, as if someone had taken a razor and sliced all the way down from his temple to his jawline. The scar was stark against his golden skin and it made him look rugged and tough. I could see a tattoo snaking up the side of his neck. I couldn’t see what it was, but the tips ended in ink blotches. He was a handsome man, I couldn’t argue with that, but he was a handsome man standing in the doorway to my bathroom, uninvited and unmet.
“Who the hell are you?” I asked, gently pushing the ballerina out of my way to approach him. My hands became balls of fire and my nostrils flared. If the Dark Brotherhood had sent him to take me away, I was going to put up one hell of a fight. I didn’t care how strong he was. I would make sure he remembered me for a long, long time. It didn’t matter how strong he was, either—even the strongest of people were vulnerable to flames.
“Shhh, you’ll wake everyone in the damned wing,” he said, rolling his eyes. He had a slight accent—Scottish, maybe? It wasn’t strong enough to distinguish, and I didn’t care enough to listen more closely. He was an intruder. He had seen the ballerina. He was dangerous.
I had to know who he was, and I had to find out just how much he knew.
“Answer me,” I hissed through gritted teeth. He threw his hands up in defeat, sighing.
“The name is Sebastian,” he said, crossing one leg over the other as he leaned against the doorframe again. “I’ve come to ask for your help.”
“My help?” I laughed. The ballerina came to sit on my shoulder, and he didn’t seem to notice her at all. If he did, he didn’t show any indication of it. He was calm and collected, as if a flaming ballerina was the most normal thing he had ever seen. It was like he was used to the idea. It was either that or he was too stupid to know what she was. The look in his eyes told me that he wasn’t stupid at all. In fact, if a person could have intelligent eyes, he had them.
“The Dark Brotherhood knows about you. They are coming, and they are stronger than anything this world has ever known,” he said nonchalantly. “They need to be stopped at all costs, and you are the only one who can help me do it.”
“You’re crazy,” I accused, my heart hammering in my throat. The Dark Brotherhood… he knew about them and they knew about me. Assuming anything this man said could be trusted.
I didn’t like the doubt that crept into my thoughts, the doubt that he had placed in my head. If he could find me, sneak up on me so easily, the Dark Brotherhood wasn’t far behind. They could be here at any second. Unless he was part of the Dark Brotherhood and he was trying to trick me. There were too many possibilities and I started to feel a little lightheaded.
“Get out of here,” I snapped, “before I—”
“Before you what, hmm? Before you turn me to dust? Before you call for help?” His grin was infuriating. How was he so sure of himself? How was he so certain that I wouldn’t melt his bones right here and now? There w
as no way for him to know, unless he had something I wanted or needed. “I can assure you that none of those options will be beneficial to you.”
“And why is that?” I retorted. If he had information, it would be more than the headmistress could have come up with. If I could find out what he knew, we’d certainly have more than we had a week ago. I had to humor him, and I had to milk him for as many details as I could.
“I have information about the Dark Brotherhood that no one else can give you. I have information on your family.”
My heart seemed to stop, and the world went quiet. The owls stopped hooting; the crickets stopped their recitals. In that moment, it was only me and the mention of my family, hanging in the air like a balloon just waiting to be popped.
“My family? I don’t have a family,” I lied to him. I did have a family, a long time ago. I had a family that I’d lost and had never managed to find again.
“You had one long ago, Cornelia.” My name rolled off his tongue. “A mother and a sister. I can help you find them, or at least, help you find out what happened to them.”
“Why should I trust you?” It wasn’t the first question that popped into mind but it was the most logical thing to ask. What did he know? Where were they? Did they remember me? Did they look for me? Had they abandoned me all those years ago? Did they hope I never found them again? There was list after list filled with questions.
“Why should I trust you?” He raised an eyebrow. I didn’t have an answer for him. “We have a common enemy, and we are the only ones that can stop them. Your headmistress can’t begin to comprehend how much power the Dark Brotherhood has, and I am sure that she thinks she isn’t underestimating them. She is scared, and rightfully so. Everyone in this world should be afraid. They should be very, very afraid.”
Enchanter Witch Academy Page 8
