by Katie Cross
“Camille was the first person to be nice to me at school,” I said, feeling a twinge of guilt, however subtle.
Leda scoffed. “Camille can get sucked into Priscilla’s controlling gravity if she wants, but she better not expect me to chum up with her.”
I echoed the same sentiments. I’d had enough dealings with conniving, beautiful witches for the rest of my life. But I couldn’t deny that I watched the two of them from the corner of my eye. Perhaps Priscilla had changed but felt scared to approach all of us on her own.
The rest of us finished our meal in an awkward silence.
We’ll See
“How did the Eastern Network visit go?” Leda asked that weekend. “Sorry we never had a chance to discuss it when you returned. I’ve been so busy between work and school I’ve hardly been in the Witchery at all.”
“That wouldn’t have anything to do with Priscilla being around the Witchery now, would it?” I asked with a knowing grin. Leda ignored me. Although Priscilla didn’t speak much to any of us except Camille, she’d been lurking around the turret, helping Camille study or talking about the latest fashion trend from the Ashleigh Covens. Leda’s presence there had been almost nonexistent.
Leda and I sat on two thick stumps deep in the heart of Letum Wood. Lounging beneath the winter deadfall relaxed me. While beautiful, the charms of the Eastern Network held no sway over my heart. My soul belonged to the forest.
“The Eastern Network was … interesting.”
Leda cocked an eyebrow. I rarely had anything to say that Leda found engaging or intelligent. “Do explain,” she said.
“Hey girls,” Camille said, arriving breathless and apple-cheeked, wearing a long red cloak with white and black fur around the hood. “Sorry I’m late. Did I miss anything?”
“No,” Leda said, motioning to a vast field before us. “Sanna hasn’t introduced Nicolas to the gray dragon yet. It’s still lurking in the trees.” She cast me an offhand glance. “I think it’s just annoyed by Bianca and won’t come out.”
“Good!” Camille cried. “I didn’t want to miss it.”
A dragon circled lazily in a silvery gray sky, the familiar scales blending in with the clouds. We sat far away near the woods because the dragons had a special wariness of my presence. Last winter my volatile magic made me both unpredictable and powerful. Dragons, I learned, did not like unpredictable, powerful things. Although my powers flared up less frequently now—they hadn’t abated completely, as I still mourned Mama—the dragons remained uneasy about me. Some wouldn’t come near me.
Camille sat on the third stump next to us, wrapped her arms around her knees, and hummed under her breath.
“As you were saying?” Leda asked, motioning for me to continue with a twirl of her hand.
“Diego is pompous and arrogant,” I said, catching Camille’s attention. They listened to me recount the visit, and I told them the entirety of my discussion with the High Priestess Isobel.
“What did your father say about Diego when you reported back?” Leda asked, thinking, as ever, about politics. I shrugged.
“He wasn’t surprised. We’ll keep moving forward with our plan. You don’t think Diego was right, do you?” I asked, relying on Leda’s strange knack for understanding the political world in a way I never would. “We aren’t overreacting by preparing for war?”
“I think there’s a chance Diego’s right,” she said. “Derek is a new High Priest, after all, and there’s pressure for him to prove himself to the Network. He may be overly cautious.”
“But Miss Mabel used Almorran magic. She had Clavas. There’s no disputing that.”
Leda shrugged. “Maybe she just found lesser scrolls and not the Book of Spells.”
“Seriously?”
She rolled her eyes. “I’m just stating what others have said.”
“Others meaning Clive.”
“Others meaning educated scholars and politicians,” she retorted. “Diego’s opinion was just an opinion. Which means it’s not necessarily right or wrong. It’s nothing for you to take personally. It’s politics. Something you may want to learn for future meetings.”
I shrugged it off. “I doubt I’ll be invited back to any meetings.”
Leda snorted. “Not after taking your shoes off with the High Priestess and going against the wishes of the High Priest.”
“Hey!” I cried. “She took her shoes off too!”
“Doesn’t matter. That was a clear breach of etiquette.”
“Thanks, Miss Scarlett.”
“You shouldn’t have told Isobel about Miss Mabel,” Leda said, chewing on her bottom lip. “Clearly Diego didn’t want her to know for a reason. Her lack of knowledge was an advantage for us that you just removed.”
I bit my bottom lip, refraining from telling Leda that I’d sent Isobel a Chatham Chatterer newsscroll so she could read the news herself.
“I’m glad you told Isobel and became her friend,” Camille piped up, joining the conversation for the first time. “She sounds lovely. I’d like to meet her.”
“Diego didn’t want her to know because she’s sick, that’s all. I liked Isobel.”
“I want to ride her Volare!” Camille cried, eyes shining. “Can you imagine? It would be romantic, don’t you think?”
The gray-toned dragon swooped into the field, landing softly next to Michelle. His black and silver scales glinted in the winter sunlight and his breath puffed out in great clouds of steam. Michelle laughed when it nudged her back with its massive head.
“How did it go with Brecken’s family, Camille?” I asked, hoping to turn the subject away from Isobel. For whatever reason, I didn’t want to share her. It felt like I had a grandmother again. Since I’d already lost mine, I wanted to hold Isobel selfishly close to my heart.
“Wonderful!” Camille said, lighting up like a new torch. “Tabby and I got along so well, you just wouldn’t believe it. I think she likes me better than her daughters-in-law. His father didn’t say much, but then again, I didn’t really stop talking with Tabby long enough to speak with him.”
I tilted my head back and laughed. Camille would be the one to talk another witch into silence.
“Quiet!” Sanna bellowed from the other side of the field. A necklace of black dragon scales bounced on her chest as she waved a fist at me. “You’re distracting the dragons.”
The gray, apparently agitated by the sound of my voice, pranced uneasily, dancing back toward the forest. I shut my mouth lest Sanna send me away or set a hex on me, like last time.
Sorry, I mouthed.
Sanna’s eyes had gone dark long ago, but she was spry for being over one hundred and twenty years old, and willing to wallop any young witch over the head if she felt it needed. I’d found myself underneath her cane several times.
“Don’t make another noise or I’ll set the boils hex on you!” Sanna waved a knobby fist at me. I grimaced. The boils hex had lasted for a miserable three days.
“I hope I die before I get that old,” Leda muttered, her nose wrinkled. “What if my mind disintegrated and I couldn’t think? I wouldn’t want to live.”
I smirked. Who would Leda be if she couldn’t be self-righteously smarter than everyone else?
Nicolas, a sweet, tall, round fellow with giant hands as gentle as a kitten reached out to the gray dragon and calmed it with a touch.
“Brecken’s mother is younger than I thought,” Camille continued idly. “She married Brecken’s father when he was in his early thirties. Can you imagine? Anyway, she started having babies at seventeen and had them every other year until she just couldn’t stand it anymore. Brecken is the youngest.”
“She sounds like the mother you never had,” I said, crossing my ankles.
“It felt like having a mother again, and that was wonderful. Oh, it’s been so long since I’ve felt like I was part of a family! Wouldn’t it be just wonderful to marry Brecken, have babies, and see her every day? What a dream!”
I nearly cho
ked on my own surprise, so Leda pounded my back with a heavy hand while I sputtered for air. Camille often daydreamed about how handsome Brecken was or pondered what he would wear on their next date. We were used to her prattling excitement over that. But marriage and babies?
“What?” I finally gasped. “Babies?”
Camille let out a sigh. “Oh, I don’t know. It’s just a dream. I’d love to get married and settle into a family. I don’t care about a career like you and Leda.”
I reached over Leda to grab Camille’s arm. “Camille, have you spoken with him about—”
“Bianca, hands off,” Leda said, plucking my arm off Camille. “Jikes. Your emotions are as hot as a burned potato some days. You better calm down before your magic flares and Sanna curses you. Listen, Camille, if you want to marry Brecken and have his babies, great. I think you should. But you need to understand what it’s like to be the wife of a Guardian. You won’t live in one place all your life. Brecken works here, right? That means you’ll have to live in Chatham City.”
Camille’s eyes widened in a moment of horror, then she calmed. “Brecken can just transport to work every day,” she said. “Or I can transport to see his mother during the day whenever I want if he insists on living here.”
“I don’t think he really has a choice,” I muttered, thinking of Tiberius’s strict rules over his Guardians, even Captains like Brecken who enjoyed a little more freedom. Sanna barked orders in the background while Leda lectured Camille on the difficulties of Guardian life that she, herself, knew nothing about by experience.
“I don’t really think it’s Camille you’re going to have to worry about getting married and moving away,” Leda said, nudging me out of my reverie. Her eyes rested on Michelle. “Looks like Michelle may beat her to it.”
I glanced away, not wanting to entertain the thought of my friends getting married. I’d always have Leda—who had no desire to get married and give up her career—though the thought wasn’t all that comforting.
“We’ll see,” I said, remembering Merrick’s mention of Nicolas and Michelle. “We’ll see.”
The Darkness Has Come
Let my daughter go.
A gaping black monster of flame and brewing evil loomed over me, growing with every breath I took. Fire spurted around its feet, which stood on a familiar cobblestone road. Miss Mabel stepped out from the midst of the great beast wearing a dress of bright red that pooled around her like a puddle of blood.
You took what is mine. I want her back.
The monster dissolved into a thousand pieces, scattering on the air. When the dream progressed, I was standing on top of Chatham Castle, looking down on Chatham City. Bits of the monster fell over the city and burst into flame.
Let my daughter go.
I jerked out of the nightmare, sweaty and panting, to find nothing but the darkness of my canopied bed around me. My chest heaved.
Light from outside filtered through my bedroom window. I’d fallen asleep on top of my bed without a blanket. My fingers felt stiff from the cold when I pressed my palm to my eyes. Instead of dispersing into uncertain vapors in my mind, the dream replayed itself with frightening clarity.
Explosions. Fire. A wall of heat. Screaming and darkness. Chaos. The close streets and buildings of Chatham City filled with smoke. In the strange quality most dreams possessed, everything had been elongated. The stretched shadows had come alive, screaming. Witches streamed past, their hair smoking, their bright clothes on fire.
Angelina’s voice whispered through my room on a sudden breeze.
Now I take from you.
Bright clothes, I thought with a grip of fear. The gypsies.
“Papa!” I screamed, shooting to my feet. “Papa, wake up!”
Papa came running out of his bedroom, half awake, sword in hand, and shirtless. Seconds later a massive boom ricocheted from Chatham City and rolled outward in a cloud of gray smoke. I pressed my palms to the cool glass of the window. Flames were already visible, even from this distance, blooming into an A on the city landscape.
“The gypsies,” I whispered. He took the scene in with calculating eyes, standing next to me with his dark hair sticking up on end.
“Stay here,” he said, pressing a heavy hand on my shoulder. “Don’t leave.”
He murmured something under his breath, and his eyes changed to a light hazel. His hair shortened, then disappeared as if he had sucked it all inside, leaving a bald, shiny head in its wake. His shoulders shrank, and his hands grew small, and suddenly a witch I didn’t know at all stood before me.
“I’m serious, Bianca,” he said, holding up a stubby, hairy finger in warning. “Stay here.”
“Papa, no!” I cried, grabbing his arm. “You can’t go out there! It’s Angelina! She’s doing all this. What if she’s waiting for you? Maybe she orchestrated this just to draw you out!”
“Go wake up Stella, explain what happened, and tell her I’ll come back within an hour to check in. If I don’t, let Zane know.”
“But Papa—”
He had already transported away, so my cry echoed in my bedroom. I hesitated, glanced down to find I still wore the dress I’d worn all day, then transported to Stella’s personal chambers.
Stella kept her calm as usual, but switched into High Priestess mode the moment I sputtered out the last of Papa’s message. Despite the midnight hour—she was clad in a nightgown with her hair in a silvery braid down her back—she was still as graceful as ever. Within minutes, she’d roused most of the Council, summoned Tiberius and Marten to her office, and sent two contingents of Guardians to the scene.
Marten arrived with a grim face. “Bianca,” he said, acknowledging me with a nod. “Glad to see you’re already here and ready to help.”
I didn’t tell him that my promptness for work had nothing to do with an active choice. Drawing attention to myself wasn’t my plan for the evening. Finding my friend Jackie—a beautiful gypsy girl that had attended Miss Mabel’s with me as a first-year—was my priority.
Stella murmured something in Marten’s ear and he disappeared, which gave me great relief. It would be easier to slip away without him around. Sensing that Stella had forgotten I was there, and knowing they wouldn’t let me do anything anyway, I left the room without a sound, then transported away.
While I wasn’t at all gifted with precise transporting, I could get close to where I wanted to go, and tonight was no exception. I landed several blocks away from where Jackie lived with her father to find an exact replica of my dream.
Witches ran past me, screaming. The smell of burned flesh and silk hung heavy in the air. Several gypsies sprinted by, hands flailing, wailing in the odd way unique to the gypsies. Smoke clung thick and fast to the buildings, and I could barely breathe. A palpable darkness, stronger than the cloying smoke, threatened to suffocate the breath from my lungs.
Burying my nose in my elbow, I squinted and rushed into the smog. Gypsies struggled into the street, trying to get out before their own homes caught fire. An older woman stumbled and fell before I could catch her. I rushed to her side and gently pulled her to her feet. I stifled a gasp when our eyes met. How well I knew those old eyes.
Nan, Jackie’s grandmother.
Behind her came Jackie, appearing from the depths of a darkened house. She skidded to a stop when she saw me.
“Bianca,” she said, breathing heavily. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m here to find you!” I said, transferring Nan to Jackie’s waiting arm. “What can I do?”
“Go home!” she replied, her dark skin flickering in the light of the flames that moved down the street. “It’s not safe! The fire is moving too fast.”
Most of the wood on the gypsy side of town had been rotting for ages, so it burned with wild abandon. Buildings fell in plumes of smoke and ash.
“Is your family safe?” I asked, flinching when an explosion of sparks burst from a house across the street. She hesitated.
“Leave!” Nan
screeched, pointing to the sky. “The darkness! It has come.”
Through the haze I could barely make out the wings of five dragons flying over Chatham City. My brow wrinkled. Dragons. At least one had flown around Chatham Castle at all times since Miss Mabel’s attack, but so many? Surely the fire wasn’t drawing them, for they were forest dragons. The only thing that would draw them with such surprising thickness was Almorran magic.
“My father,” Jackie said, fear in her chocolate eyes. “I had to leave my father while he went after my two baby brothers. Can you make sure they get out of our house?”
“Yes. I’ll go find them.”
“His name is Ijet. My brothers were staying three doors down from our home, in the house with the green shutters. They’re just small boys! I-I can’t go myself. Nan is our only elder. I must make sure she’s safe or we’ll have no one.”
“The darkness!” Nan cried again, trembling.
Whatever Nan saw was not of our world, for the streets burned bright and hot in the inferno. I put a hand on Jackie’s shoulder.
“I’ll run back and make sure they’re safe,” I said. “Get Nan out of here.”
I didn’t waste another moment. The hungry fire had moved so close I could feel the heat on the backs of my arms. Guardians moved toward us, pulling witches from their houses, carrying small children, and supporting the elderly, but they hadn’t moved in as far as Jackie and I yet. It would be too late to check on Ijet soon.
Following her directions, I ran to the end of the street. Beads of sweat formed between my shoulder blades as I approached a dilapidated house with green shutters on the left. Flames shot out of the upper window of the small hovel next door.
“Ijet!” I yelled. The smoke was so thick I could barely see. “Ijet? Are you here?”
No call answered me, so I ripped part of my skirt free, wrapped it around my face and plunged into the smoky room. In the poor light I could just make out a few pieces of furniture against the wall. Smoke poured down a staircase at the rear of the house.
“Ijet?”
