by Monica Sanz
The master…
In spite of the pain, Sera struggled onto her elbows, to her knees, and faced the Brother. This couldn’t be her end. She couldn’t let Noah reach other witches, other seventhborns. She looked into his eyes. She would survive this. She had to.
Noting her defiance, he lifted his wand to her throat. The tip was filed to a point sharp enough to slice through skin. He trailed it along her neck, the spike pricking at her pulse.
“It’s a shame the master asked us to collect you. With your reserves, I could get two uses out of you.”
Reserves…
Sera’s mind worked like mad. He knew her reserves. And Portia mentioned she had large reserves as well. How would they have known? What did she have in common with Portia where they would know? Sera gazed up, the Academy spires like shadowy swords against the night sky. Her heart twisted. Of course. Portia had applied for the seventhborn program, where their reserves had been tested and documented, just as Sera’s were documented for school purposes. The Brotherhood didn’t target random seventhborns. They targeted powerful ones, with vast reserves based on the applications for the seventhborn program. It had to be, and Barrington needed to know.
“I’m being kind, seventhborn. Come.”
Sera set her jaw. “No—”
She arched forward with a cry as blistering pain spiked into her body. She rolled onto her stomach and attempted to push herself up. The Brother kicked her arms from under her, and she slammed onto the ground, winded.
Magic thrashed within her, a wild beast rattling the cage of her control. She hooked her fingers into the earth and called to her magic from every part of her being, funneling it until it became a solid thing in her chest, pumping with every heartbeat. Focused, she closed her eyes and felt her pain, used it as fuel to the gathering magic. Her hands trembled; the magic she felt churning within her held the promise of oblivion once she let it go. The last time she’d felt this way, the last time she’d released this beast of magic, she’d collapsed a building around her, nearly killing Noah and herself. Now it rattled for release. Her reserves were greater now; she may not survive it this time.
It was her only choice.
“You will come, seventhborn,” he said. “You wouldn’t want your friend’s death on your conscience, would you?”
A gust blew. Within the wind’s moan and crackling of the branches, she heard it—a grunt. The circle opened, and another hooded figure entered. He held Timothy by the neck, his wand aimed at his head.
Sera winced, yanking back the leash on her magic. She couldn’t unleash it here, not with the possibility of it killing Timothy as well. “It’s me you want,” she said quickly, holding tight to the wild magic within her. “Let him go.”
“No,” Timothy said. “I’m Timothy Delacort, and it’s me they want.”
“Don’t listen to him—”
“You want to know about the Scrolls, no?” Timothy cut above her. “I can help you. Let her go and you have my word. I’ll tell you anything you want to know. My father knows people who can help.”
The Brother chuckled once more. “Yes, your father knows many people. He knew us very well before he abandoned us.”
Sera blinked. Timothy’s father, a Brother?
Timothy’s momentary silence told her he didn’t know this, either. “I don’t know what your past is with him, but he’ll do anything to get me back. Let her go, and I promise he’ll help you.”
“A liar, just like your father,” the Brother said coolly. “No one person has the Scrolls, boy. Had your father not abandoned us, he would have known that.”
The Brother grabbed a fistful of Sera’s hair and yanked her to her feet. “Kill him and set his body on the Aetherium stairs—”
“No!” she screamed.
Timothy grunted and snatched his arm away from his captor. The upward movement knocked off the Brother’s mask. The man stumbled. In the momentary distraction, Timothy snatched his wand and aimed it at the group surrounding Sera. She yanked herself away and lunged to the ground. A trail of heat and light dashed above her and exploded, mixed with screams and the roar of fire. She looked over her shoulder. The group of Brothers was now strewn along the field, some engulfed in flames. Their fiery bodies writhed and speared magic blindly, setting fire to the field and the trees around them.
She spun back to Timothy—
“Timothy, behind you!”
The Brother punched Timothy in the jaw, sending him whirling to the ground and the wand flying from his hand. The Brother snatched up the wand and aimed it at Timothy.
This was it.
Sera released the chain from around the magic she’d siphoned, and with a guttural cry, let the energy pour out of her. Unchecked by a wand, unfocused by desperation, governed by rage. Her wild magic fed out in a continuous flame and melded with that of Timothy’s magic consuming the field. The fire roared, doubled, and devoured, both men and trees burning.
Her gathered magic running out, Sera collapsed onto her knees, her reserves dangerously low. Wracking coughs scraped her insides, the smoke a thick sheet around her. Heat closed in, preceding the angry flames.
A shadow became visible through the vapors.
“Timothy—”
Not Timothy, but the Brother.
He sliced down with his wand. An arched blow of blinding magic cut toward her. She screamed, rolled out of the way, and groaned in agony, her arm seared in the flames. His magic spurred the fire, bringing it closer.
Through the licks, she saw him searching the flames for her, his wand in hand.
She gathered more magic, though much less than before, and lifted a bloody, scorched hand to the fire.
The flames crested and sucked the man into its void. But fire knew not friend from foe and edged closer to Sera.
The Brother lunged through the smoke, a determined hate in his eyes. She’d burned but not killed him, and now he’d kill her. Breath caught, she held up a hand, calling to her magic once more, but with her reserves near depletion and her fear of the surrounding flames, of imminent death, her energy scattered, and she was unable to focus it into another blast.
He clutched her arm and dragged her close. Sera tried to kick him, but her feet tangled in her skirts and never connected with the man.
“You will burn, witchling, but not here,” he seethed, haloed by fire. She craned her neck, hoped to bite his face, his arm, anything to secure her freedom. He was taller, stronger.
The Brother seized her by the neck and whipped binds around her hands and feet. She struggled, but he sent the binds deeper. Her wrists and ankles charred, her magic once again dispersed under pain.
Their small patch of land didn’t burn, but the licks of fire crowded them, sought to reach in and devour them alive. Brothers ran in the raging flames, fiery figures trying to escape a death that had already enveloped them.
Anger bloomed in her again, and unlike the fear that scattered her magic, this rage she could hold on to. She wouldn’t let them leave here alive, not to torture more witches. Hands bound, she grasped the Brother’s arm, dug her fingers through his fire-shredded sleeve, and held on, her legs raw as the flames bit through her dress and sank teeth into her skin. Through the ache, she focused her magic on anger and called upon it to bind them together. A band of white whipped from her hands and wound about his arm. The way they’d done to other seventhborns. And like them, he, too, would burn.
The bands of magic around him burst into flames, and the Brother screamed, his body engulfed in fire.
Tethered to him, Sera cried out at the fiery lashes of his cloak that brushed against her face. She collapsed onto her knees, her fight clipped by pain and her need for air. Still she held on to him with all she had and willed another whip of magic to bridge them together. She hadn’t guaranteed Noah was dead. She would make certain this man was.
Strange pleasure prickled her insides as she watched her skin burn, the men burn, the trees burn. She could not control these fires, but at
the same time she couldn’t bring herself to care.
Their binds severed, and she dragged her arm away from the fire and the dead Brother. But it didn’t matter. Her reserves spent, debilitating fatigue rolled over her body, and she could barely move, barely breathe. Sera rested her head on the ashy ground, welcoming the darkness that tugged her in and out of consciousness.
Shafts of frost washed through the flames. She closed her eyes against the coolness that pricked her seared skin, a painful balm, a blistering relief. The frost climbed over the ground, devouring the lingering fire, and crept over her skin. She turned her head. Brilliant icicles glimmered in the moonlight. Dying wouldn’t be so bad here, she thought, the smoke like clouds and icy grass blades like stars.
White billows curled upward from the earth where dead Brothers were strewn among scorched and splintered branches.
A figure cloaked in black rushed through the field, gazing wildly down at every burned body. He moved unnaturally fast within the smog as though born of smoke himself. Maybe it was Death, she wondered, but the forest smeared around her—brown, blue, and gray smoke—and she conceded that perhaps this stranger was a figment of her fading wits and life.
The smoke folded outward, and she saw him clearly, the image flashing through the vapors and fog. She hauled in a weak breath. “Prof…essor.”
He didn’t hear her and continued his survey of the bodies on the field. She would die before he reached her, before she could tell him everything. She dug her nails into the earth and dragged herself with what strength remained, needing to go just a little farther.
She managed a short distance, but charred arms crumbled beneath her, and she met darkness, her face against the now damp ground. She rolled over and whimpered, unable to move more.
Barrington spun at the sound, the smoke a halo around him. He was beside her in an instant. Horror shaded his eyes as they traveled along her frame. She could only imagine what her body looked like, scalded and bloodied.
“Reserves,” she struggled to whisper. “Seventhborns…”
“Don’t speak,” he ordered and pressed a hand to her forehead, to her temple. “Damn it, damn it, damn it.” To her chest, to her stomach. “No.” Coolness waved through her with each of his touches, but it was faint. He let out a broken breath, and she knew he failed at healing her.
Professors and groundskeepers ran out onto the field, their wands drawn. More voices sounded far away. She struggled to keep her eyes open. Her lids heavy, the world around her speckled behind frosted lashes. Barrington swept her hair back, neared his face to hers. The drain of magic made his skin pale, and in the night, he was phantomlike.
“Seventhborn…program,” she said again. “Brotherhood…reserves.” She met his eyes with the last of her strength, hoping he somehow understood her fragmented words, hoping that other seventhborns could be saved, even if she couldn’t be.
“She must be taken inside,” Mrs. James shrilled, suddenly beside him. She made to reach for Sera, but Barrington swept her into his cold arms and held her close.
“I’ll transfer her to the infirmary. Secure the grounds,” he thundered. And as the world vanished around them and darkness swallowed them whole, the last she heard him say was stay with me.
19
in pain and woe
Sunlight threaded across her eyes, and Sera frowned. This couldn’t be heaven. She never imagined one could have a headache in heaven like the one settled behind her eyes. There was also no way she would ever see any pearly gates, not after the man she had killed—the man she had taken pleasure in killing. For a moment, her mind swam with all the other torturous things she would have done to him, to all the Brotherhood, were she stronger. It was a mad thought, but memory of the slain girls brushed past, and her remorse lessened.
Blinking her eyes open, she lifted a hand to ward off the light. She paused. Her hands weren’t burned. She eased up the sleeve of her white nightdress and turned her arm over, then inspected her other arm. Her skin was fully healed. Only faint, reedy bruises remained where the Brother had bound her, but no burns were to be found. So she wasn’t in heaven, and she wasn’t dead. She lowered her arm and lolled her head sideways to confirm her next deduction.
She lay in a small, scantly furnished room that was not hers. A long table was set before the window, and on it a jug of water and a cup. Beside her bed were two chairs, one with a folded wool blanket on top. A fireplace with the Academy crest above it rounded out the space. She blew out a breath. At least she was still in the Academy, but this wasn’t the infirmary…
“Finally awake, I see,” Mrs. Timpton, the Academy’s nurse, said from the door. She was a severe-looking woman with seedy eyes and a beaked nose, accentuated by gray-streaked black hair that she always wore in a low, rigid bun. She spoke fast, and her tone was harsh, but of all the times Sera had been to the infirmary, she had never found any cruelty in the woman.
Mrs. Timpton rolled a tea trolley into the room, then set it at Sera’s bedside and poured what looked like tea. “How do you feel?”
With the nurse’s help, Sera rose onto her elbows and then to an upright position, and accepted the cup. She inhaled the steam and let the warm mist fog her face, then took a quick sip. The concoction was bitter, and the first gulp felt like jagged stones scraping down her throat. “A bit sore, and my head hurts, but fine otherwise.”
“Good. Great, really, considering all you’ve been through.” Mrs. Timpton neared an illuminated wand tip to Sera’s eyes and nodded to herself. When Sera set down her cup, the nurse took hold of her arm and surveyed her skin, a satisfied smile at her thin lips. “Wonderful. Perfect restoration, and in a matter of weeks. Impressive.”
“Weeks? How long have I been here? Where am I?”
“You’re in a room just off the infirmary. The Academy thought it best not to alarm the other students with details of your…situation,” she said with a knowing arch of her brow. “You’ve been here for two weeks. Burns such as yours take longer to heal, but my mix of comfrey and slippery elm seemed to do the trick. It’s still remarkable for you to have healed so quickly. One would think faeries slipped in here and gave you some other brew. Either faeries or that friend of yours.”
Sera’s heart stuttered. “Mary? How is she? And Timothy?”
She waved a hand. “Miss Tenant is fine. She’s been keeping you company every night since you were brought here. Mr. Delacort was also treated and released, but I heard his father took him home.”
Relief swayed Sera, and she leaned back against her pillows, her pulse finding its rhythm once more.
Voices resounded from outside of the room. Mrs. Timpton rolled her eyes. “They’re like hounds, I tell you. I have to tell them you’re awake,” she said regretfully. “I’ll be glad to have them out of my hair, to be honest.”
“Who?”
Mrs. Timpton lifted the blankets to Sera’s chest and pulled down her sleeves. “The Aetherium. Even the chancellor has come, and as chair to the seventhborn program, Mr. Delacort.”
If meeting the chancellor was nerve racking, meeting Timothy’s father was far more nauseating. Mrs. Timpton walked to the door, and once Sera nodded her approval, she opened it and addressed the men in whispers.
One by one, they walked into the room. The first was a red-haired man, handsome, with an aristocratic nose and bright green eyes framed with thick red lashes. He wore the maroon robe with black trim donned by all Aetherium inspectors.
The second man was unmistakable. Mr. Delacort shared his son’s same curls and features. He met Sera’s gaze and smiled, a perfect smile just like Timothy’s. Although covered by blankets, goose bumps sprouted along Sera’s skin; his expression did nothing to warm his eyes. It was like staring into a pit of ice. Cloaked in black, he towered above the rest of the men, including the last one to enter.
Dressed in a royal blue robe, the chancellor was a feeble man, hunched over and nothing like the impressions she had seen of him in Aetherium leaflets or his po
rtrait hanging in the Great Hall. In those, his white hair had been combed back at either side, and he always looked straight ahead, stern and serious. The man before her didn’t seem like the type who could look at anything for very long. His hair—much frizzier and silver in person—stuck out at either side like extended wings, a horseshoe shape around his head. Sera’s heart dimmed. The newspapers had obviously stretched the truth about his recovery.
He was being helped by a woman she knew instantly as Mrs. York. She held a vase of flowers in her other hand, an arrangement of gorgeous purple hyacinths that matched her dress. Her hard face and high chin made Sera sit a little taller. The men, too, appeared to hold their breath, averting their eyes as she passed and helped the chancellor into a chair. She then placed the vase at the window as the chancellor stared before him, lost in his own world.
“These are my favorite flowers,” she said. With a finger, she parted the arrangement down the middle. “A shame, this one has yet to bloom and looks closer to death than life. I think given a second chance, it will be lovelier than the others.” She nodded as if sharing a secret with the flower, then turned. “I’m Mrs. York, the chancellor’s wife. He has been somewhat under the weather and asked me to accompany him. He also thought you would feel more at ease not to be surrounded by a group of men. I hope you don’t mind.”
“No, ma’am. Of course not. It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Sera said, doubting Mrs. York would’ve stayed behind had her husband not invited her. She didn’t seem the type to care for mending his robes as much as mending political relations.
“Wonderful.” She sat beside her husband, his frail body lost within his robe. “Your file says you wish to become an inspector, yes?”
Sera nodded, confused and nervous at the sight before her.
“It’s a very rigorous and demanding program. It will leave no time for, well, life. Many of our top inspectors never marry or have children.”
“Then it is a good thing I don’t wish for marriage or children.”
