“And what are we supposed to do against power that no one else can stop? We’re only two people, and to be honest with you, I can’t even sense your magic.” It had been bothering me since he’d introduced himself. He didn’t have a magical presence. There was no sweetness in the air, save for my own. He didn’t have magic; he was human. What could he possibly bring to the table?
“That’s because I am hiding it from you,” he said, shrugging.
“Why?”
“It seems you are not very fond of fire.”
I wasn’t sure what that was supposed to mean. “What?” I asked, my face contorted with confusion. “What is that supposed to mean?”
He sighed, rubbing his eyes with two fingers as if he was losing patience. Good, so was I. “Promise me that you won’t do something stupid? Promise me that you won’t freak out and make me chase after you, because I will catch up with you and then we are going to have a problem.”
“I won’t,” I said, curious but also a little afraid.
“Promise me,” he repeated.
“I promise.”
He nodded, then looked back into my bedroom, toward my window. Was that how he had gotten in? Was that how he got into the academy without anyone noticing?
“Aodh,” he said simply, his voice clear and commanding. The ballerina stiffened when he called out the word. She looked at me, wide-eyed, before forcing herself to look at the door again. When I joined her, I gasped and stumbled backward.
The full force of his magical aura crashed into me, taking my breath away. I doubled over. It sucked the air from the room and made my ears sing. I’d never felt anything like that before in my life. When I regained my balance, I looked through watery eyes to see what was on his shoulder. Aodh wasn’t a word at all; it was a name.
It was the name of a flaming phoenix that now sat on his shoulder.
It was the name of his familiar.
Chapter 14: Not As It Seems
“I want to help,” was the only thing I said as I barged into the headmistress’ office.
She tilted her head to one side, setting down her pen on the desk, followed by her reading classes.
“I thought I told you to stay out of sight,” she said, evenly and calmly. It was the worst tone of voice she could have used, to be perfectly honest. It was the voice she used when she was irritated, annoyed, fed up with whatever was going on around her. It was the voice she used when I’d screwed up and she was angry that she didn’t have more control over me. Yes, the headmistress was a control freak, and I was the one person that no one, not even I, could control. It made for very, very good arguments.
“And I did,” I said, nodding. “And you didn’t come up with any information so far. Well, information found me, and it’s much worse than we initially thought. It is much, much worse.”
“And where exactly did you get this information?” she asked, knotting her fingers together. Her usual smile was replaced with the tight line she pressed her lips into. It was unsettling.
I tried to recall anything the boy said to suggest I couldn’t tell the headmistress, but came up empty-handed. Still, I didn’t want to tell her anything that would break his trust in me. I needed his information. I hadn’t realized just how badly I wanted to find my family, or even find out what happened to them. My past was a mystery to me, and I’d locked it far away. That strange boy was the one thing I needed to unlock it.
He also possessed the exact same magic I did. There were so many things that I needed answers to. He could tell me things about my magic, about familiars. He could help me control it like he controlled his own power. There were so many possibilities with this boy, so many ways he could help me. I couldn’t mess that up. I couldn’t mess up my only opportunity to get answers. But he hadn’t said anything about not telling people about him, so I told her.
“There was a boy in my room last night; he came out of nowhere,” I began. “He said that there was a storm coming and that he needed me to fight it with him. That he needed the school’s help to fight it. He said the Dark Brotherhood already knows about me, and that they are on their way to come and get me. They don’t want me for my magic, they want me because I can stop them.”
“There was a strange boy in your room, and you’re only coming to me now? Lia, what were you thinking?” She got up from her chair. There was a cringing screech, and I winced. I was about to get a stern talking-to. If luck was on my side, I might just leave with my life. “What makes you think you can trust this boy?”
“I have a feeling,” I admitted. It sounded much more stupid when I said it out loud than it had sounded in my head.
It was hard to explain. I just had a feeling about him. I knew that I could trust him with my life. I didn’t know why or how. I didn’t know how he had gotten me to calm down so fast and listen to him, either. He seemed too honest, too forthcoming to be a liar. I knew what liars looked like, and he wasn’t one. Besides, he had a familiar… a flame familiar, just like I did. He was like me. He was exactly like me.
I bit my lip. I knew that my reasons for trusting him were flimsy at best, but it was the best thing we’d come up with so far. We had no other leads, no more information. I had no choice but to trust him. “There’s one more thing.”
The headmistress sighed. “What is it?”
“He has fire magic, just like me.” I was quiet for a moment. The headmistress didn’t say a single word, and I took it as a sign to go on. “And he has a familiar, too.”
“Wait, what?” The headmistress came around her table to stand in front of me, her hands on my shoulders. Her touch wasn’t as gentle as it usually was. “What did you say his name was?”
“Sebastian,” I answered, moving to take a step back, but her hands were firm on my shoulders. Her nails lightly dug into my flesh.
“You stupid, stupid girl,” she said, shaking me slightly. Her eyes were wide with panic.
I yanked my shoulders free, rubbing them as I looked at her. I’d never seen her like this. She seemed panicked and overwhelmed. Still, her insult didn’t sit well with me. “Excuse me?”
“That is Olaf’s son,” she whispered, a hand on her forehead. She started pacing the room. “He’s the heir to the Dark Brotherhood throne!”
“What?” It felt as if the rug was pulled from under my feet. “No! He said he wanted to take down the Dark Brotherhood. He said that—”
“The Abernathy men say a lot of things, Cornelia. What they say and what they do are two different things—they are two completely different things. They’ve found you. They know about you.”
Her pacing was making me anxious, and my mouth had gone dry. Stupid… I was so, so stupid.
“What do we do now?” I asked, my voice shaking. I was an idiot. I was a damned idiot. The first sign of someone being like me and I’d lost all of my senses. The first sign of someone understanding me, and it was as if a blindfold had been tied over my eyes. Anyone could trick me into believing anything if they showed me what I wanted to see. They gave me what I wanted, only to take it all away when I least expected it. I had been certain he could be trusted. I had been so, so certain. How could I have been so stupid?
She turned to me again, and it was as if a lightbulb had flickered to life in her head. “If he comes around again, you pretend not to know who he is. You tell him that you will help, and you tell him that the school will help him, too. You get close to him; you try and find out as much as you possibly can.” The plan was a bit insane, but it seemed better than mine: believe the first person that came along and let him lead me to my doom.
“He’s not going to tell me anything if he’s really out to get me.”
“Lies are better than nothing.” Her pacing stopped and she went back to her desk, sat down, and put her reading glasses back on. It was as if nothing had happened. “He’s bound to mess up, and when he does, you will be there, listening intently.”
“All this sounds a little dodgy to me,” I mumbled. She picked up her
pen and set it down again.
“He was right about one thing, Cornelia. You truly are the only person that can stop the Dark Brotherhood if they actually rise to power. You are the only one with enough raw magic to take them on. If that boy has even half the power you do, none of us stand a chance.”
“Okay,” I said, nodding. I wasn’t going to go against her again. Look where that had gotten me.
“You can get back to class. If they already know about your existence, there’s no use in hiding anymore. This might just be enough to get their attention and lure them into a trap.” It made sense. Let them think that we suspected nothing; let them think we were being careless. If they came, we’d be ready for them. And although the chances of us beating them were slim, having the element of surprise was better than nothing.
I nodded, then turned to walk away. “Have the familiar with you at all times,” she added. The ballerina’s head shot up and she got to her feet, holding onto my hair as she turned on my shoulder to face the headmistress. This was the first time the ballerina had reacted to anything the headmistress or I said. “She will protect you, if anything were to happen.”
“With my life,” the ballerina vowed.
I stopped when I reached the door, turning around before I addressed what was bothering me. “You knew who Sebastian was. You knew when I mentioned that he had fire magic. You told me that I was the only one of my kind when clearly, there was another out there. Another with the same extent of magic I have, one that has a familiar. You knew all of this. Why did you tell me that I was alone?”
“It was easier to tell you that you were alone than to tell you there was someone else like you out there, but he was the one destined to ruin the Earth as we know it. How do you tell a child that the one thing she is so terribly afraid of might be the thing that kills everything she has known? How do you tell a sweet little girl that she has a direct opposite—a wild and unruly boy with a mirror image of her magic?”
“That’s easy,” I said, tears stinging my eyes. “You tell the kid that she is not alone, that there is someone else out there that has the same fire. You tell her that there is a boy that she should never trust, never get mixed up with. You tell her the truth. Maybe, if you had, that little girl wouldn’t have possibly gotten herself and everyone around her killed.”
Chapter 15: Sore Thumb
If I thought I stood out like a sore thumb before, I had another think coming.
I’d been walking back and forth in front of the big doors that led to the dining hall, contemplating my options back to front and front to back. I had to go in regardless. Every option I had included me going to dinner tonight, and back to school tomorrow. My excuse would be that I had been terribly sick, and the notes from the headmistress would confirm this. However, there was one little problem—in the shape of a ballerina on my shoulder.
I couldn’t lie, I was nervous. I knew they would find out about her eventually. I couldn’t leave her in my room every day until I was done with classes. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust her, but I didn’t trust myself without her. I didn’t want to feel that hollowness in my stomach ever again. I couldn’t be separated from her. So, they would find out no matter what, but did I announce her existence tonight in front of the whole academy, or did I wait and take it one class at a time?
I realized that I wanted to announce her. I wanted everyone to know she existed. I wanted to show her off. Not only because of the trap we were trying to set, but because I was sick of hiding. I was sick of hiding who I was. I hadn’t realized it until then. I’d always wanted to be normal, always wanted to blend in, but now that I had the chance to, I didn’t want it. Getting my familiar gave me a new sort of confidence that I didn’t think I could ever have possessed.
It was strange, too strange to explain. In just one week, my entire life had been flipped on its side. Everything I thought I knew, everything I thought I was, was wrong. I was not some out-of-control witch who wasn’t skilled enough to control her own power. No, I was an elemental with the power of summoning, of creating a familiar—a familiar with a personality, a voice, a spirit. The spirit of my magic.
This familiar was my magic. All my life, I had been ashamed of it. I’d tried to tell myself that I was afraid of it, but that wasn’t the case. I was ashamed. I was ashamed of my lack of control. The flames have never been what really scared me. The fire has always just been a part of me, trying to protect itself. But I wasn’t ashamed anymore. I had done something none of them could dream of. I’d done it the first time I tried. I wanted them to see it. I wanted to see their faces as they saw the flame on my shoulder.
But then again… What would they think? Wouldn’t it just cast me out even more? Was this even permitted in the academy? We weren’t allowed to play with magic outside of the classroom, but did this count? The headmistress knew about me practicing with Mr. Henry. That wouldn’t have been a problem. She’d told me to do this. But the rest of the school? My friends? I didn’t know how they would react. Were they going to be scared of me? What was worse: them thinking I was a coward, or them being afraid of me?
Wendy’s voice rang in my head, louder than it was when she actually spoke to me. It was time for me to man up. I was sick of being the outcast, sick of being the one everyone pushed away. I was the person everyone read about. My magic was what myths were made of. My magic—not theirs, not anyone else’s. I deserved to let it show.
In a way, this was me showing the Dark Brotherhood that I wasn’t afraid of them. That they could come for me and I wouldn’t care. It wasn’t true, of course, but it felt good to think about it like that. It felt good to imagine myself as a hero, as someone who wasn’t afraid. I wanted to be that person, and pretending to be that person was the first step to becoming her. Perhaps, if I pretended enough, I would convince myself that I wasn’t afraid.
“What are you waiting for?” the ballerina asked, crossing her arms.
“I’m thinking,” I said.
“What’s there to think about? You have a familiar, they don’t. You have the power of the sun, they don’t. It’s just how it is.” She shrugged.
“I’ve always been more of a hider than a shower.”
“What do you think witches do at an academy, Lia? They learn. They become stronger. They want to become stronger. They want to be the strongest.” She opened the palm of her hand and a little version of herself stood there, like an action figure. “You already are the strongest. Don’t hide it. Everyone wants to be you.”
I grinned at her. “When did you become so wise?”
“It’s all the teenage dramas we’ve been watching,” she groaned, and I chuckled.
With my newfound confidence and a very proud-looking ballerina on my shoulder, I pushed the doors open and walked toward our table as if nothing was different. I had texted Wendy earlier to grab an extra plate of food for me. In some way, I’d thought that going straight to the table would be better than standing in line to get my dinner. If I went to the table, I wouldn’t be alone for longer than was necessary. If I went straight to the table, my friends wouldn’t have the opportunity to realize what was going on and leave. Even with the confidence that the ballerina gave me, I needed the comfort of knowing that my friends were there. Even if only for a few seconds.
The room fell silent. There were no whispers, no muffled laughter. No, the room was quiet. The only sounds were my boots on the floor and the flickering flames on my shoulder. I could have sworn the ballerina grew brighter. The little minx wanted to make an impact. She wanted people to see her. I fought a smile. It worked. I didn’t look at anyone and for a moment, I nearly thought that I was alone in the dining hall. But I wasn’t, because I saw my friends, grinning like bloody Cheshire cats. They were smiling. Not running, not whispering. They were grinning, as if I had finally done something they’d all known I would do eventually.
I took my usual seat, bidding everyone a good evening before I examined the food in front of me. Beef stew on rice. It
wasn’t macaroni, but it was better than nothing. I dug in and when I noticed none of them were talking, I lifted my head. “What?”
“You have something on your shoulder,” Patrick pointed out, examining the ballerina. She sat perfectly still, the complete opposite of the gymnastics that were taking place in my stomach. I couldn’t decide if it was excitement or nerves. Either way, it was there, and it wasn’t going away anytime soon.
“Indeed, there is.” I nodded, taking another bite of my food. I feigned nonchalance when, in reality, I was dying to know what they thought. I was dying to know what they would say if they knew anything about what I had learned about my magic—about the volcanos, the role of the familiar, the darkness that was coming.
“Um,” Nina said, her eyebrows creasing, “is that what everyone has been talking about?”
“The demon I talk to?” I asked. The stew was better than normal. I had to find out who was on duty tonight. It was better than anything Cook Magna made. Nina nodded. “If you want to call a familiar a demon, sure.”
Patrick burst out laughing, shaking his head as he reached out toward Nina, Wendy, and Damien. “Pay up. I told you it was real.”
“You said the demon was real,” Damien said, narrowing his eyes at Patrick. “This isn’t a demon. Besides, I knew about her. Why would I bet against myself? The demon doesn’t exist, which means you owe us, man.”
“You knew? That’s not fair!” Patrick exclaimed, glaring at Damien. Then, he looked at me. “How long has this brother known?”
I opened my mouth to answer but Damien responded before I could. “Like, a week.”
“That’s not fair, bro.”
“Hey.” Damien grinned, his hands behind his head. “I don’t make the rules, man. We never said we couldn’t bet on things we knew.”
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