Life's a Witch

by Val St. Crowe

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Life’s a Witch

  Ravenridge College, Book Four

  Val St. Crowe

  LIFE’S A WITCH

  © copyright 2018 by Val St. Crowe

  http://vjchambers.com

  Punk Rawk Books

  CHAPTER ONE

  I popped into existence in the apartment, bringing with me a pile of boxes and bags that I’d teleported up from the bottom level of the building. My stomach roiled. Teleporting always made me feel a little nauseous. I doubled over, grunting.

  On the other side of the room, my boyfriend Logan was shooting skitters that had appeared when I’d teleported. Skitters were these horrible spiderlike creatures, except they were bigger. They were probably half a foot wide, and they walked on long spindly legs. They spat green venom out of an eye thing on their heads.

  Logan had special bullets that glowed green when they hit the skitters and killed them. The skitters’ own venom was deadly to them, so we used it in the bullets. Skitters were another side effect of teleporting. Every time I did my own kind of magic—primal magic—it made creatures appear. I never used to know why, but it turned out that they were from another world, and I was half human and half from that world.

  Typically, I wouldn’t use teleporting for something as frivolous as moving people’s stuff into their apartments for them, but I had decided it was worth it when I’d seen the pile of crap that Professor Fox Willoughby had brought to move in. The professor was a new teacher at Ravenridge College, which was all set to begin in a few days. It would be my second year at the school.

  Logan worked for Ravenridge, too, but he wasn’t a professor. He was more magical muscle. If there was a threat at the school, he helped get rid of it. And, well, the school had its share of threats.

  “There, that should do it,” said Logan, shooting the last of the skitters.

  I straightened, licking my lips as the last of the nausea passed.

  “I can’t thank the two of you enough,” said Willoughby, looking around at all of his stuff. “This ability you have is quite impressive, Petra.”

  I shrugged. “It can come in handy, I guess.” If I hadn’t teleported all the stuff up here, we would have been lugging it up the steps for ages. We’d have been tired and sweaty. Teleporting seemed worth it under the circumstances.

  “She’s pretty amazing,” said Logan, giving me a sidelong look, his eyes full of an adoration that made me feel shivery. Logan was intense, but I didn’t mind. We’d been together for nine months now, going on a year, and yet the connection between us hadn’t faded. If anything, with every passing day, I felt closer to him.

  Logan was a gargoyle, and he looked like a perfect man carved from stone—all rounded muscles and broad shoulders. He had stone wings and he was beautiful. Unlike other gargoyles, though, he could be out and about in the daylight because he had been compelled not to turn to stone with the cycles of the sun. Most gargoyles turned to stone during the day.

  “Well,” said Willoughby, “I hope it won’t be very strange when I have you in class later, Petra.”

  “Wait, you have a class with Fox?” said Logan.

  I nodded. “Yup. Spellcraft. I’ve been brushing up on my Latin all summer.”

  “I didn’t know that,” said Logan. He and the professor had gotten fairly buddy-buddy over the past two weeks, but I had never met the guy. Willoughby would only come in for the day, and I’d been in summer school classes all summer, so I had been busy. Logan had been showing the guy around the campus and helping him get set up and all of that. Logan seemed to really like him. He would talk about him all the time, anyway. I was glad Logan had a friend. I didn’t get the impression that Logan had made too many guy friends in his life. This was good for him.

  Willoughby could have stayed on campus, because lots of the professors did live at the school, but he had somehow come to the conclusion that he would rather rent the open apartment across the hall from Logan. I wondered why.

  “Does that make everything awkward?” said Logan. “Petra, I wouldn’t have volunteered you to help Fox move in if I’d known.” He turned to Willoughby. “I’m guessing you don’t usually socialize with your students.”

  “Honestly, I’ve never been a teacher before,” said Willoughby. “But it’s college, right? And a magical college with a very small student body. I’m sure that lots of the professors are friendly with students.”

  “Um.” I bit my lip.

  “No?” said Willoughby

  “Well, to be fair, most of them are at least forty,” I said. “Or older. I mean, some of them might be hundreds of years old, but we can’t tell because they’ve used magic to slow down their aging.” I turned to Logan. “Did you say that Dr. Latvia was at least ninety?”

  Logan nodded. “True.”

  I turned to Willoughby, spreading my hands. “It’s totally cool, though. Just so you know, as a favor for moving your things upstairs, I’ll expect to be able to skip the first two homework assignments, though, yeah?”

  Willoughby flinched.

  “Kidding,” I said brightly.

  It took him a second, but then he laughed. “Right. Kidding.”

  I looked back and forth between Logan and Willoughby. “Actually, maybe I should go if it’s weird.”

  “Oh, please,” said Willoughby. “Don’t leave. I couldn’t very well kick you out after you went to all this trouble for me.” He gestured at the boxes. “Besides, I want to get to know you, Petra. Logan has told me so much about you. He never shuts up about you, really.”

  I grinned. “Huh, because I could say the same thing about you.”

  Logan shot me a glance.

  “What?” I said. “You’ve been going on and on about this guy for the past couple of weeks. You got him set up as your next-door neighbor and everything.”

  “Oh, but that was my idea,” said Willoughby. “I didn’t want to live at the school. I feel like it’s such a commitment, you know, and I don’t know how long I’ll even be working here. I’d rather keep things loose. I’m not quite in the same place Logan is.”

  “Um,” I said, “you’re in the same building Logan is.”

  “I mean, place in my life,” said Willoughby. “Logan was sharing with me about how he’s ready to put down roots, start a family.”

  I turned to look at Logan. “What?”

  Logan’s eyes widened. “No, no, not like that.”

  “You guys talk about this kind of stuff?” I folded my arms over my chest. “Because you don’t talk about it with me.”

  Logan shook his head. “You’re taking this wrong. If you had heard what I said in context—”

  “What was the context?” I said.

  Willoughby winced. “I seem to have stirred things up between you. I’m very sorry.”


  “Look, obviously, Petra, you’re in college, and we haven’t even…” Logan sighed. “Can we talk about this later?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Actually, I just realized that I need to get a toga for the toga party tonight at Reid’s.”

  “That’s just a bed sheet, isn’t it?” said Logan.

  I headed for the door. “You and Fox have fun, okay?”

  “Petra?” said Willoughby. “You’ll call me Professor Willoughby in class, right?”

  *

  I adjusted the sheet that I had artfully draped over my shoulder earlier and secured with lots of safety pins. It had looked great in the mirror, but it was sliding around all weirdly now. “So, then he said that if I had heard it in context, it would make sense,” I said to Tatum Booth, my roommate and best friend.

  Tatum was also wearing something that passed for a toga, but she hadn’t bothered to be too authentic with it. Hers was just a purple KISS bed sheet that had pictures of the band all over it, complete with Gene Simmons sticking his tongue out. She seemed to have tied it haphazardly around her, but it looked great. I should have asked her to help me with mine. “Context, huh?” she said.

  “Yeah,” I said. “So, what do you think that means?”

  Tatum didn’t answer. We were standing on the balcony at Reid Darkmore’s new apartment, which was huge. It was a three-bedroom in a gated community with a pool and gym. Reid and his sister Estelle shared the place. His family was footing the bill. Reid and Estelle came from money, like most mage families that attended Ravenridge. Tatum and I were charity cases because of our primal abilities. We’d been offered free tuition in exchange for saving the school from monsters. Honestly, now that the monsters were gone, I was fairly sure that the dean, Professor James Norwood, wanted to recant the whole thing.

  I turned and looked behind me, through sliding glass doors into the party, which was fully underway. The place was packed with people in togas, most of them gripping red cups full of foamy beer.

  Tatum turned to look too. “This is a great apartment. It’s really close to the school. And there’s lots of space. Plus, there’s a pool.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I know this, Tatum.”

  “So, you think I should move in?”

  “Reid asked you to move in with him?”

  She nodded. She and Reid had been dating about as long as Logan and I had. She bit down on her lip. “It’s a big step.”

  “Man, I wish Logan would ask me to move in with him, instead of skipping ten steps to us having kids together.” I peered down into my own beer. “Not that I can probably even have kids.”

  “I just don’t know if I should do it,” said Tatum. “It’s like, Reid’s parents pay for this place, and if I moved in, I would be taking their hand-outs. I don’t know if I can do that.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I hear that. I just… what context do you think Logan could have been talking about?”

  “On the other hand,” said Tatum, “it’s not as if I’m not taking the school’s hand-outs.”

  “Whatever,” I said. “We earned our keep there, risking our lives and everything. Hell, I actually did die. And are you even paying attention to me about this Logan stuff?”

  She turned to me, blinking. “Um, yeah, I’m paying attention. Sure, I am. It’s just that moving in with Reid is a big deal.”

  “Yeah, and Logan wanting to make babies isn’t?”

  She squinted at me. “But can you even do that?”

  “Exactly,” I said.

  Tatum looked confused. Her lips parted as if she was about to say something.

  But the door to the balcony opened and Reid came out. His toga was perfectly draped and crisp white. He wore a red sash over it and he had a crown of laurel leaves on his head. He was carrying two bottles of expensive champagne. “There you guys are,” he said. He thrust one of the bottles at me. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”

  Now I had a beer in one hand and a bottle of champagne in the other. I weighed the two of them, thinking about it. Then I downed the rest of my beer and set it down. Problem solved.

  I took a long drink of champagne. Bubbly. I giggled. “Thank you, Reid.” I held out the bottle to him.

  He clinked his bottle against mine. “You are welcome.” He handed his bottle to Tatum. “For you.”

  She took it. “A whole bottle of champagne.”

  “Nothing is too good for my girl.” He kissed her cheek. “I love your toga by the way. The anachronism really works for you.” He raked his gaze over her. “You look hot.”

  I cleared my throat. “Standing here. Standing right here.”

  Reid lifted his chin and spoke in a formal voice. The toga thing was obviously going to his head. “Do you think I care? If I want to make out with my girlfriend on my own balcony, I will do it, and nothing will stop me, not even you, Petra Brightshade.”

  Tatum grinned at him. “Later, okay?”

  He narrowed his eyes. “Definitely.” He turned back to the door and opened it. “Come back inside. It’s a party, girls.”

  “Yeah, we’re right behind you,” said Tatum.

  Reid halted. He held up a finger. “Oh, just making sure, it’s not cool if there’s dice here, right?”

  Tatum furrowed her brow. “Of course it’s not cool. Are you kidding?” Dice was a drug made out of dried dragon meat. It made a person feel invincible and also gave them magic. Tatum was opposed to it on principle. She was also a vegan, and she had sworn not to do any talisman magic, which used parts of dead dragons—teeth or bones or scales—to power spells. Since that was how all mages did magic, it pretty much limited anything she could do at the school.

  “Figured,” said Reid. “That’s why I kicked the guy out who was trying to sell it.” He reached for her bottle of champagne and took a long drink.

  “Dice is horrendous,” said Tatum. “So is drinking dragon blood. I know you guys do it to heal sometimes, but I’m really not cool with it.”

  Reid lowered the champagne bottle. “Yeah, but under certain circumstances—”

  “No,” said Tatum.

  “You don’t mean that,” said Reid. “You wouldn’t want us to let you die. I know it.”

  I shook my head. “Reid, maybe we should change the subject.”

  “I mean, you have to know that we used dragon blood last fall to save you,” said Reid. “How else do you think you survived after that trip to kill Malachi’s father?”

  Tatum stiffened. “What?”

  Reid gave her a look. “You have to know. Maybe you haven’t admitted it to yourself, but deep down—”

  “You guys gave me dragon blood?” said Tatum. She looked back and forth between us. “You did that when you know that I never wanted it? Really?”

  I cringed. Reid and his big mouth. I thought we were operating under an unspoken rule that we wouldn’t tell Tatum about the fact that we’d given her dragon blood all those months ago. We knew she wouldn’t like it, and so we were never going to mention it. Was he ridiculously drunk or what?

  Reid hung his head, letting the hand holding the champagne bottle dangle, threatening to spill the foamy liquid. “Come on, don’t be mad about this. I’ve wanted to tell you for ages. I don’t like there being secrets between us, especially with you moving in—”

  “I never said I was moving in,” said Tatum. She turned to me. “You knew this? You never told me?”

  I looked away too.

  Tatum’s voice cracked. “Get out of my way.” She pushed past Reid.

  “Hey, where are you going?” said Reid.

  She stalked into the throng of toga-wearing partiers, getting lost among them.

  I glared at Reid. “What the hell?”

  CHAPTER TWO

  I caught up to Tatum on the street outside Reid’s apartment. Reid wanted to go after her, but we figured it would be better if it was me, since she might be more likely to forgive me.

  Well, that was what Reid said. He said she would probab
ly conjure a sword and stab him through the gut with it, which was an exaggeration, but he wasn’t wrong that she got crazy mad at Reid. I was her best friend. Maybe I could talk her down.

  “Hey, Tatum,” I called as I ran after her. “Tatum, wait up.”

  “Go away, Petra,” she said, looking straight ahead.

  When I got close enough, I fell into step with her. “You were dying. We didn’t want to lose you.”

  “Well, that wasn’t your call,” she said. “It’s my body.”

  “None of us would have been able to handle your being gone,” I said. “We couldn’t let you die.”

  She walked faster.

  “Come on, Tatum, I know you’re pissed off about this, but—”

  “I don’t want to talk to you right now.” She walked even faster.

  “I know that,” I said. “You probably feel betrayed, and I want you to know that I feel horrible about that.”

  “Right, so horrible that you lied to me for months of my life.”

  I cringed.

  “I mean it, Petra, get out of my face.” She rounded on me, and I’d never seen her have such a fierce expression before.

  I stopped moving, bringing up my hands instinctually, as if to ward her off. “Look—”

  “Stop.” She put a finger in my face. “Stop talking. Stop coming after me. I need to be alone right now.”

  I could tell that she meant it. Man, she was more upset about this than I had thought she’d be.

  She turned and started to walk away from me.

  This time, I didn’t stop her, and I didn’t try to go after her either. I just watched her go. I stood there, staring after her, unsure of what to do.

  We’d given Petra the dragon blood because she’d been badly injured while we went into the other world and killed the emperor of the scribbly things there. He was actually technically my father, and I’d been led there by my half brother Malachi, who’d been killed. We’d been worried that Tatum was going to die too, and it hadn’t been an easy decision for any of us.