by Eva Chase
Corrupt Alchemy
Book 5 in the Royals of Villain Academy series
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner without the express written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
First Digital Edition, 2019
Copyright © 2019 Eva Chase
Cover design: Christian Bentulan, Covers by Christian
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-989096-50-5
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-989096-51-2
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Contents
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Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Next in the Royals of Villain Academy series
Dragon’s Guard excerpt
About the Author
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Chapter One
Rory
Since arriving at Bloodstone University, I’d been told a whole lot of things I’d found hard to believe—not least of all that I was the sole surviving member of one of the five ruling families of fear-based magic. I wouldn’t have thought anything could surprise me at this point. But now I found myself tensed on the end of my bed, the warmth of the midday sun that streamed through my dorm-room window made suddenly distant by the thudding of my heart, unable to do anything but stare at Lillian Ravenguard as I struggled to process her last words.
“You think my mother is still alive,” I repeated. The birth mother who’d supposedly died when I was two, seventeen years ago.
Lillian, who’d told me she’d been one of my mother’s closest friends, looked as discomforted with the idea as I felt, though probably for different reasons.
“The small team of blacksuits who’ve been working on this with me haven’t been able to confirm it for sure,” she said. “In the past month, I’ve noticed a few subtle but unusual occurrences around possessions I have that she gave to me. The other day I took a tiny sample of your skin—I’m sorry for the subterfuge, but I didn’t want to say anything until I had more concrete evidence to go by—and using that we were able to see a resonance in a seeking spell that suggested a genetic relative.”
The other day? Oh, the day she’d come to see me here on campus, asking if I’d seen any unusual effects and brushing her fingers over my arm with a brief pinching that I’d wondered about afterward. I rubbed my wrist instinctively.
I didn’t trust the woman in front of me, no matter how much a fixture she’d been in my family’s life when I was too young to remember. She was high up in the blacksuits, the fearmancer law enforcement organization that had killed my adoptive parents in front of me this past spring and arrested me on a false murder charge just a couple weeks ago. A few minutes ago, my familiar had identified Lillian as the actual murderer of my friend and roommate, Imogen.
But I couldn’t see why the woman would lie about this, especially in private. I had enemies high up in the fearmancer community who wanted to crush my spirit and get me under their control, and she appeared to have allied herself with them, but nothing about her suggestion or the way she was acting felt like it played into one of those schemes.
Of course, there were plenty of other reasons to question the idea.
“I’ve seen the report on the attack where I was kidnapped,” I said. “There are photos of the bodies—my mother’s and my father’s—”
“I know,” Lillian said, her gaze dropping to her hands. “I took part in the investigation. That’s behind some of my hesitation to share this possibility with anyone, including you. My best guess would be that the body we took to be your mother’s was a conjured replica. It was burned so badly we couldn’t definitively identify it as her, but everyone else who’d been in the building was accounted for, and the basic details matched up…”
“Who would have made the replica?” I asked. “You think the joymancers did that during the attack?”
“Given the other information we have, that’s the only conclusion that makes sense.” Lillian swiped a hand across her mouth. It didn’t dislodge her frown. “They took her prisoner at the same time as they kidnapped you, and they conjured the replica so we wouldn’t come looking for her. Maybe they meant to do the same for you, but our forces got to the scene too quickly. I’m not sure.”
“And then the joymancers, what, took her away to some prison?” It was hard to wrap my head around that idea. My mother had been the most powerful person in the building at the time of the attack—possibly the most powerful person in the entire fearmancer world. The Bloodstones were considered the highest family among the barons. It’d have been hard enough for anyone to overpower her. To risk taking her prisoner…
True, I’d learned enough about joymancers in the last few months that I no longer assumed they had to have good intentions. The mages who got their power from provoking joy in people could be just as vicious as those who got power from fear. But even without assuming good intentions, what would be the point in capturing one of the fearmancer barons and holding her captive for years on end?
They’d shown no qualms about killing the other fearmancers who’d been there during the attack. What would they have wanted her alive for?
“That’s the only plausible possibility,” Lillian said. “That is, if she is alive and the signs haven’t misled us. They must have her locked away somewhere with her magic so tightly contained that it’s taken her all these years to find a way to reach out to us at all, and then only faintly.”
I wasn’t sure if that made the situation better or worse. The joymancers hadn’t slaughtered my mother like they had my father. They’d only shut her away for nearly two decades with no access to friends and family? Separating her from me, her child who’d been only a toddler when all this had happened? That was pretty sadistic torture right there.
Had she known that I’d survived the attack and was being raised by joymancers, or had she been told that I was dead like everyone had believed she was? Both of those options sounded pretty torturous too.
A pang of homesickness ran through me, familiar even if the sensation had been rising up less often as I’d adjusted to my new life. Growing up, I hadn’t realized I’d once had any other parents at all. I’d loved the joymancer couple I’d known as Mom and Dad, and I still believed they’d loved me too. And right now I couldn’t help wishing I could turn to them and ask them what the hell I was supposed to do with this news.
Had they known my birth mother was alive the whole time? Oh God.
“So what happens next?” I asked, curling my fingers into the bedspread to hold back the urge to hug myself. That wouldn’t look very dignified. “Why are you telling me now
if you’re still not sure?”
Who else had she told? Did the older barons, the heads of the ruling families who had full authority over the community, already know? What would they make of this news?
They were the ones who’d instigated most of the horrors I’d faced since arriving at the university. Would they want to see my mother returned to them after all that?
“We’re still keeping this information confidential to select members of the blacksuits until we have definite confirmation,” Lillian said, which I supposed mostly answered my silent questions. “But to get that confirmation, we could use your help, which is why I’ve come to you. A strong genetic tie, like child to parent, can make certain types of magic easier, especially if you’re consciously participating. We’d first want to prove that the presence we’ve sensed is definitely your mother, and then narrow down her location.”
“So you can bring her back the way you brought me,” I filled in. My stomach twisted at the thought.
It’d been awful for the joymancers to treat my birth mother the way they had, but given how the top fearmancers treated even their own, I could imagine how the opposing mages might have seen it as justified. And the blacksuit version of a rescue operation had resulted in a lot of bloodshed in my case. Getting my mother out of whatever facility the joymancer Conclave had trapped her in would probably require getting through a hell of a lot more people, some of whom would have had no say in or might not even know what they were guarding.
“That’s what we’d hope, naturally.” Lillian exhaled slowly. “I know this is a lot for you to take in, Rory. I’m sorry I had to spring it on you like this, especially so soon after the ordeal you’ve just been through with the hearing. After seventeen years, I’d just like to see your mother home again as soon as we can reach her.”
That was fair. Whatever happened after, I did need to know whether my birth mother was even truly out there.
“All right,” I said. “Let me know how you need me to participate in those spells, and I’ll do what I can.”
I drew my back up a little straighter as I spoke, calling on the inner strength that had served me well over my time here at Blood U, which had been far from easy so far. The joymancers weren’t completely off when they called the place Villain Academy. But I’d made allies here now; I’d come into my magic. I was the heir of Bloodstone, and if my mother was alive somewhere in the world, I wasn’t going to leave her rotting away in a prison cell.
I just might have a few things to say about the exact method we used to get her out of that prison cell.
Lillian nodded approvingly. “We have a few preparations to make, and there’s been a pattern to the times when we seem most likely to reach her presence. I’ll call on you within the next couple days, with as much advance notice as I can give you. Your professors will understand if you need to miss a class or two on blacksuit business.”
“Got it.” I had a little time to absorb this development, then.
Lillian seemed to realize I needed that time. “Thank you for your help,” she said, moving to the door. “I hope we’ll have good news about your mother soon.” Then she slipped out with barely a sound, leaving me alone.
Well, not entirely alone. As soon as I flopped back on the bed, my familiar came scurrying out from her hiding place to join me. Deborah nestled her small mouse body next to my arm.
I hesitated for a second before saying anything to her. She’d been with me for years, though I’d only discovered that we were magically connected—and that she could communicate with me like a person, if only telepathically—after the fearmancers had wrenched me from my home. But the human spirit that resided within the animal had been a joymancer in her original life, and Deborah had been resistant to any criticism of her former colleagues.
The Conclave had arranged for her to reside in the mouse, and for that mouse to be bound to me as my familiar, so that she could keep an eye on me and warn them if I started showing the magical abilities they’d meant to suppress. The magical abilities the joymancers had kept secret from me for my entire life, letting me believe I was just a Nary—a regular person with no supernatural abilities at all.
Deborah said her job was also to protect me… but the more I learned about the mages who’d stolen me away, the less sure I was that she was being entirely honest about that.
“You heard all that?” I said, keeping my voice low. The dorm’s walls were thin. No one else here knew I had a joymancer’s spirit inside my familiar—I might be arrested for treason if they found out.
My ears are pretty sharp, Deborah said, the dry voice of a woman who’d have been in her sixties trickling into my head. After what that woman did to your friend, I’m not sure you can trust anything she says.
“She admitted she wasn’t sure whether the presence she’s sensed really is my mother. It seems like a strange thing to lie about.” I paused. “So you never heard anything about the joymancers keeping the Bloodstone baron prisoner?”
That’s the sort of information the Conclave would have kept extremely restricted, I’d imagine. I didn’t even know who you really were, you remember, only that you were a fearmancer of some sort. I certainly never encountered anything that would suggest the story is true.
“But that doesn’t mean it isn’t.” Although if Deborah hadn’t heard about it, probably my adoptive parents hadn’t known either.
Just be wary, Lorelei. These people have never had your well-being in mind. Have you arranged for that illusion spell to be placed on your necklace? That might be useful as they begin these ceremonies, to make sure the results are real.
“Yes, I talked to my Illusion professor this morning.” Professor Burnbuck had agreed to cast a spell that would let me distinguish an illusion from reality, at least across a certain number of uses until I drained the magic. “He said he should have it ready by tomorrow.”
That’s something, then. I’ll keep my ears perked around the building as usual.
I glanced at the time and sat up with a groan. I had a seminar to get to in fifteen minutes, even if the last thing I wanted to do while all these thoughts were colliding in my head was perform for an audience. As I grabbed my bag, the questions kept battering me.
What would I do if my mother was as dead as we’d always believed and this was all some bizarre trick?
What would I do if it wasn’t?
Chapter Two
Rory
I did my best to appear alert and attentive during class, but apparently my acting skills weren’t up to par. Connar Stormhurst fell into step beside me right as I left the room.
“Are you all right?” he asked as we headed down the stairs of Nightwood Tower, where nearly all of the university’s classes were held. “Has anyone been hassling you today? You seemed like you were struggling a little.”
I grimaced. “Was it that obvious?”
He tucked one of his brawny arms around my shoulders in a sideways hug. “Only because I know you pretty well.”
He did, in more ways than one. Connar was one of my fellow scions, the heirs to the fearmancer baronies. When I’d first arrived at the school, he’d been the only one who’d ended up accepting me… until his loyalty to the other scions, who hadn’t felt so friendly, had driven him to push me away. But he’d more than made up for that brief period of hostility, even though standing by my side meant standing against his vicious parents, who only saw me as an obstacle to their plans.
He’d defended me and supported me when I’d needed it, and just the brush of his fingertips over my arm sparked a flutter of desire low in my belly. My feelings for the Stormhurst scion definitely went beyond friendship, as did his for me.
There were just a couple problems with that fact. One was that over time, I’d found myself drawn to all of the four guys who were meant to rule alongside me one day. So far they’d been willing to accept that I wasn’t ready to decide between them and even to share some of our intimate moments, maybe because of the second problem.
Thanks to my position as the only heir of Bloodstone, whoever I took as a permanent partner would automatically have to become a Bloodstone too, meaning they couldn’t become baron for their own family. I couldn’t imagine asking anyone to make that sacrifice. Even if my mother was alive and returned to take up the barony for now, at her age and with my father gone, it didn’t seem likely she’d be having more kids.
For now, it didn’t matter. For now, we were college students enjoying each other’s company and forming bonds that would hopefully work to our benefit when we ruled together, and the rest we could worry about later.
“I found out something unexpected,” I told Connar. “Something big. Not necessarily bad, but… we should probably all talk about it together.”
I didn’t need to tell him that by “we” I meant the scions. He nodded, his arm sliding across my back so he could clasp my hand as we left the tower. And it turned out we didn’t need to go far to start setting up that meeting, because the oldest of the scions, Declan Ashgrave, was already striding across the green between the main campus buildings to meet us.
The Ashgrave scion’s expression looked typically pensive. Along with being the oldest, Declan was the closest of us to being full baron, since his mother had died in the same confrontation that had supposedly claimed both of my parents’ lives. He’d been sitting with the older barons in their pentacle for years now and would be considered a full member when he finished his schooling in a few months—and he took the responsibilities of that position very seriously, especially since he didn’t agree with a lot of the older barons’ attitudes.
