Enchanter Witch Academy

by Paige Stonebank

  “Cornelia.” I heard my name being breathed as a prayer and, before I knew it, I was wrapped in warm arms. I couldn’t help the tears that fell as the headmistress hugged me, holding on to me for dear life.

  Finally, some tears. But it still didn’t feel real. I didn’t have the usual tightness in my throat or the burning eyes. It was as if my eyes were merely leaking. I would have been glad about it, had I not known that I was going to feel the full extent of guilt and sadness later, when I had time to process everything. When I had time to think about what had caused this and how, exactly, each of them had died.

  What was the last thing I said to them? Have I ever even spoken to them?

  “I thought I had lost you,” the headmistress said. “I thought they took you. Oh, my sweet, sweet girl.”

  “It’s okay,” I managed between sobs. “I’m okay.”

  It was, in fact, not okay. Not in the slightest, but I knew that if I told the headmistress what was really going on in my head, she would have scolded me, told me that I shouldn’t linger on things that I could do nothing about. She would have told me that I was being silly for making a fuss. That this was supposed to happen, to start a new chapter in my life. I knew what she was going to say, and I didn’t need to hear it again. Because no matter how much she said it, it wouldn’t have changed the way I felt at that moment—like a villain. A coward.

  “How?” she asked, holding me at arm’s length. It was only then that she noticed Sebastian standing behind me.

  For a moment, I thought she was going to attack him. I expected her to toss me to the side and wring his neck, but she didn’t. Somehow, she knew that he was the reason I wasn’t in direct danger. Somehow, in that weird way of hers, she knew that he was the one who had gotten me out, who would have protected me with his life, if it had come to that.

  It must have been nice knowing nearly everything.

  “You kept her safe?” she asked him, her voice breaking.

  “I think she is more than capable of keeping herself safe,” he replied nonchalantly, pushing his hands into his pockets. I could have sworn his cheeks were turning a little red, though it was impossible to tell in the dim lighting of the moon that shone through the holes of the walls and ceiling. “I just got her away in time.”

  To my surprise, the headmistress reached out and hugged him. He seemed awkward, as if he didn’t know what to do. I could tell that he wasn’t used to it, to hugging and thankfulness. To anyone showing gratitude for something he did. Everything was expected of him and when he did it, he was just doing his job. He received no praise for it, no reward. But now, he got to experience it from one of the greatest witches in history.

  Gingerly, he wrapped his arms around her, too.

  “Thank you,” she said, repeating her words over and over. “I can never thank you enough.”

  When she was done, she let go of Sebastian—who looked a little taken aback—and straightened her skirts. It was time for her to be the headmistress again. The time for playing the doting mother has passed, and she was back to her stoic self in no time. I couldn’t decide which version of her I preferred.

  She looked around at the bodies on the ground, at the nurses who tended to the wounded. “They came out of nowhere,” she started, relaying the events of the evening to us. “They spared no one. The ones that are still breathing are only lucky. I killed four of them in my office, another four in your bedroom. They had someone on the inside.”

  “Mrs. Finnick,” I mumbled, cursing the name. “It wouldn’t surprise me. That woman is wretched.”

  “No,” the headmistress said. “It was Mr. Henry.”

  “What?” My whole world seemed to disappear from beneath my feet. Mr. Henry, the person I had trusted the most. The one who had helped me. The one who knew about things that he wasn’t supposed to know about, and the one who had unlimited access to information straight from the source: me. He knew every extent of my magic, every weakness, every hole.

  “He knew that my magic was dormant,” I said, more to myself than anyone else. “He knew that I was weak, that I wouldn’t have been able to fight back. That was why he came tonight. That was why he came for me tonight.”

  “He led the troops.” The headmistress seemed to scold herself in her head. It was entertaining to imagine her giving herself a lecture—one of those lectures that I have endured many, many times. I would have enjoyed it, if it hadn’t been for the circumstances. “I think he was the one who started the fire, too, in an attempt to alienate you from the rest of the school. If no one wanted anything to do with you, you were easier to take without anyone knowing. But when you weren’t in your tower…”

  “They went looking elsewhere,” I mumbled. The headmistress nodded. It made perfect sense. Sebastian had said there was possibly someone on the inside. If he’d started the fire, he would have gotten me suspended, alienated. But he had defended me… Unless it was because he wanted me to trust him, to confide in him. He’d defended me so I was obligated to trust him. Damien and Mr. Henry could have been the same person.

  “Nina, Wendy, and Patrick,” I said, wiping the tears from my face as I suddenly remembered my friends. “Are they okay?”

  The headmistress shrugged. “I don’t know, dear. I only came down from your tower now. I haven’t had the chance to assess the damage or casualties yet.”

  I scanned the room, finding Wendy furiously digging. My heart sank and I ran toward her. Sebastian was close behind me.

  “Wendy?” I asked, gingerly touching her shoulder. She looked up at me with teary eyes. It was strange seeing her without makeup. I supposed I never really saw her after dinner.

  “Patrick,” she mumbled. Her nails were starting to bleed. I looked over at Sebastian, whose face paled. He knew what the state of his body would be in if Patrick was under the massive boulder.

  I crouched down beside my friend, holding her as she sobbed. Wendy was the tough one, the one who didn’t take crap from anyone. She was the aloof one, the scary one. I never thought I would see her in this state.

  A hand peeked through the stones, a silver ring on its middle finger—a ring etched with the tree of life. Patrick’s ring. I pulled Wendy closer to me, holding her as tight as I possibly could. I didn’t know whether it was because I needed to hold someone, or because she needed someone to hold her, but I held. I held for dear life. I held until her shaking had stopped and her sobs had turned into small whimpers.

  “They’re not going to stop,” Sebastian said, his hand on my shoulder. I leaned my head to the side to touch his hand with my cheek.

  “I know. We have to stop them before this happens to anyone else.”

  “Lia!” Nina’s voice rang out and I could have cried with relief. She ignored Sebastian entirely, pulling Wendy and myself into a tight bear hug.

  I saw Sebastian slip off out of the corner of my eye, leaving us to grieve the loss of our friend in peace. I didn’t know if Damien was coming back, but I chose not to tell the girls about that just yet. They had enough to deal with for one night.

  But tomorrow, tomorrow I would tell them everything, and then I would make a plan. This could not happen again. I refused. I couldn’t let it. This was bigger than I had initially thought. If the Brotherhood went to this extreme to get one girl, I didn’t want to know what they would do to get a world. Millions of lives would be lost, and they wouldn’t care.

  Tonight, I would grieve. I would grieve the loss of Patrick and my best friend. I would grieve the loss of my favorite teacher, and I would grieve the loss of everything in between. And then tomorrow, I intended to wake up with the new dawn, to find a way to take down the Dark Brotherhood, the corrupt council, and every other traitor to our kind.

  There will be no more lives lost for this idiotic cause. I would make sure of that. Even if it was the last thing I did.

  Epilogue

  There was a horrible smell in the air. It reminded Damien of sewer water in the city. He had been to enough rough neighbo
rhoods to know what that smelled like. Actually, he’d lived in enough rough neighborhoods. The smell reminded him of home, of his childhood. He hated it.

  He could sense the magic, feel it in his bones. There was a wrongness to it, the sort of wrongness that made up everything evil in the world. The sort of wrongness that was only read about in books. It made his heart beat faster. It didn’t have the sweet, innocent smell of the magic he was used to. Gods no, this was completely different. He wasn’t even sure if he could call it magic to begin with. It was power, not magic, and this power was something a lot of people longed to have. Damien understood how people could get addicted to this much power. He could understand how this could become a lifelong obsession. Yes, he understood—and he wanted in.

  He stood in the man’s office. The fire crackled in the fireplace, sending long shadows across the hardwood floor. The room was decorated with leather and wood, a few furry pelts strewn across the sofas and floor. Damien took in every inch of his surroundings, marking the exits in his head. If he had to bolt, if he had to run, he needed to know exactly which route to take. Damien was certain he could outrun any grown man, but he wasn’t going to take any chances. This magic was unpredictable. For all he knew, this power could have turned the casters into superhumans.

  “You’re telling me that my son has been feeding information to the academy?” the man asked, his voice rough. Damien saw the resemblance between himself and his son.

  The striking blue eyes and pitch-black hair, the slight accent, the resting face of arrogance. Yes, they were definitely related, but where the man’s son was nothing but wildness and rebellion, this man was collected and calm. His face didn’t show a sliver of emotion, and it unsettled Damien. Had this power stripped it all down? Had this power taken away his ability to feel?

  He hoped so. He hoped that he would one day taste it for himself.

  When the men had found him in the clearing, he had been certain that he was going to die. Those men weren’t the sort to take any captives. But those men weren’t men at all, they were misshapen and mutated. They were ugly and brutish, with teeth that could tear skin from bone as easily as a wolf.

  “Yes, sir,” Damien confirmed, nodding as if his words alone were not enough.

  They’d asked him where the boy was, the one named Sebastian. They’d tracked his magic to the clearing, but the trail had gone cold from there. Damien assumed it was the boy who was kissing Lia, his Lia. The one he had protected and loved since they were children. The one who he had stood up for, every single time. The one that had betrayed him and tore his heart from his chest. He felt hollow now, as if he were only a husk of a human being. A husk filled with only one thing: revenge.

  He told the men what had happened and where they might have gone. When they turned to leave him, he’d begged them, actually begged them, to take him with them. If they were looking for the boy, if they were chasing him, they wanted him dead. It just so happened that he also wanted the boy dead.

  He wanted that guy dead more than he had initially realized. He’d thought he hated the guy when he’d kissed Lia, but when he’d humiliated Damien in front of her? That was when he had started to really detest the guy. And when Lia had done nothing but stand there and watch, when she had attacked Damien like that, she’d made it on his list, as well. How dare she? After everything he had done for her, after all the battles he had fought for her.

  Yes, Damien was hurt, but he was also insulted. Lia wasn’t the girl he thought she was, and she’d tricked him into protecting her, into liking her. She had used him and he’d had enough of it. Now, he would do everything in his power to bring those two down. Even if it meant siding with this wretched smell and the people it followed.

  The man sighed, sitting up in his leather chair. His desk was neat, as if no one even worked there. Damien knew better than to trust anyone with a tidy desk. His own father had always kept his desk neat, but he was the biggest scum of all. Damien’s mother would agree. Or, well, she would if she had the guts to. Perhaps she would have if his father wasn’t around with a waiting fist. No, he didn’t think she had it in her. It had been beaten out of her years ago.

  “And you decided to come willingly with my guards, why? What do you want, boy?”

  “The fire witch,” Damien said, spitting the very mention of her. “She isn’t who I thought she was. I no longer have faith in her cause like I used to. I wish to switch sides. It also helps that your son was the one who seduced her. I want to make him pay as much as I want to see her magic drained from her body.”

  The man nodded, rubbing his chin. “People often disappoint us in the cruelest ways. But I cannot invite you to join the Brotherhood merely because she broke your heart. Oh, don’t look so surprised—I know a broken heart when I see it.”

  Was it a broken heart that he had? Damien wouldn’t have known, even if it hit him in the face. He’d only ever loved one girl and she hadn’t broken his heart until now. He knew what hatred felt like, though, and this was definitely a part of it. But he didn’t argue with the man. He had a feeling that the man didn’t take kindly to anyone who went against his word.

  “I can offer you information,” Damien said instead. “I have been friends with the fire witch for years. I know how she thinks, I know what her weaknesses and strengths are. I have also basically grown up in the academy. I know every tunnel, every weak spot.”

  “I already have inside information,” the man said, pointing to the figure standing in the corner. Damien hadn’t noticed it until now. It was as if the figure had appeared out of thin air. It must have, as Damien had scanned every inch of the office as soon as he entered. There had been no other people in there, other than the man behind the desk. Another effect of the power in this place, perhaps? It wouldn’t have surprised Damien. He had come to believe in the impossible when it came to magic. Especially after Lia had gotten her talking familiar. Even the impossible was possible with the right sort of magic and manipulation. No one could say there was anything that was impossible anymore.

  Damien wasn’t surprised at who he saw in the shadows. He always knew the man was a snake.

  Mr. Henry stepped forward, a sly grin on his face. It was sleazy and dark, and it unsettled Damien. It wasn’t the smile that everyone at the school loved. He had tricked all of them, every last one. Damien smiled back at him, refusing to let his uneasiness show. He didn’t doubt this power had the ability to sense it, but he had to pretend like it wasn’t bothering him. Even if only for his own sanity.

  “Cornelia considered you her closest friend,” Mr. Henry purred, his footsteps even and heavy. “She really must have pulled a number on you. Was it the boy she’s been with?”

  “You knew?” the other man said, his eyes accusatory. Mr. Henry threw his hands up.

  “Hey, I only told you what you wanted to know. You never asked if she had help, so it wasn’t my place to say anything.” Mr. Henry paused, looking at Damien once again. “It seems the secret has brought a new partner our way. You are very welcome, Olaf.”

  He winked at the man in the chair. Something told Damien that no one else would have gotten away with it—not without losing an eye in the process.

  The man shrugged, shifting his attention back to Damien. “I suppose you’re right, Adam. Still, I do not see how you could be of any more use to us than Adam already was.”

  Damien shrugged. “Like I said, I know the academy better than anyone. There’s a difference between a teacher who could go wherever he wanted whenever he wanted, but us students have to sneak around. We have to get out somehow. I know every hidden entrance and exit—something our good professor over here clearly doesn’t know about. If he had, there wouldn’t have been as many casualties on your side as there were.”

  “The kid’s got a point,” Mr. Henry—no, Adam—said. “There’s also the matter of his magic that we need to discuss. It can be of great use to us.”

  “My magic?” Damien’s interest was piqued. No one had ever ta
ken any interest in his magic, not really. Not unless they wanted to study it to see how it worked. Other than that, people were merely afraid of him and his magic.

  Adam nodded. “I have been working on a project. It’s a small one, still in progress as we speak, but I have been missing one ingredient. I think that ingredient might be in your magic.”

  Olaf smacked his hands together, grinning. “It seems we might have lost the battle, but the war is still up for grabs. Welcome to the team, kid.”

  After a brief handshake, he called in one of his guards. “Find my son,” he said, venom lacing his words. “Keep an eye on him until I give the word. Do not engage—and if he is hostile, don’t kill him. I want to do that myself.”

  To Be Continued…

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  Lastly…

  If you enjoyed this book, then I’d like to ask you for a favor. Would you be kind enough to leave a review for this book on Amazon? It’d be greatly appreciated!

  See you in ‘Enchanter Witch Academy’ book 2.

  Thank you for reading,

  Paige Stonebank