by S. W. Clarke
Aidan fell into step behind me after grabbing his schedule. “Why the infirmary?”
I sighed as we came through the door and out onto the landing. “I burned Jericho.”
“The fifth-year guardian?”
“That’s the one.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Because I hate Jericho.” We came to the last step, and I took it with uncommon gracelessness, my shoes thudding onto the late-summer grass. “Why do you think, Aidan? It was an accident.”
He blinked, stared back toward the common room. “Wait, it happened in there?”
I didn’t look back; I just walked. “Yeah.”
Aidan jogged up to my side. Around us, the grounds had come into a midday motion—it was the day before classes started, and everyone had returned, students moving back and forth between their common rooms and the dining hall and the dorms.
A horse neighed in the stables—not Noir—and somewhere high up, the familiar sound of fluttering fae wings issued down to my ears. Doors creaked as they were opened and shut. A professor called out to a student in a teacherly voice.
I had missed this. I hadn’t realized it until it was all back.
“But that’s not possible,” Aidan said. “The whole school is enchanted to prevent flame from taking.”
“So it can never be burned down,” I said, realizing it in the same moment.
“Exactly. So how’d you do it?”
I kept my eyes strictly off Aidan’s face. “I don’t know. We were having a duel, and I put my hand up and conjured flame, and it just…burned him.”
“But Clementine—”
“Hold on,” I said as I yanked the infirmary door open. I was grateful we had arrived; questions were off the table for now. “Nurse Neverwink, where’s Jericho?” I said to the fae, who jumped with a hand on her chest at my arrival.
I’d never come into the infirmary and not surprised her.
“Oh, Clementine.” She waved me away, rushing around toward her medical cabinet and pulling out a poultice and gauze. “Not right now. He’s quite badly burned.”
Yeah, because of me, I thought but didn’t say.
As if in response, Jericho groaned from the other room. My eyes tracked the sound to a curtain drawn around a bed; it shuddered with his movement.
“Will he be all right?” I asked, my voice low. I felt suddenly ashamed, like I shouldn’t be here. I was the reason he was in that bed. I was the perpetrator. The villain.
“He’ll be in some pain for a while, but I’m putting him under until the worst of it passes,” she said, rushing by me in a wave of antiseptics. “Third-degree burns are no small matter.”
Third-degree. I had done that.
Aidan came silently up to my side, set a hand on my shoulder as Nurse Neverwink disappeared behind the curtain. We both listened to Jericho’s moans as they died away into a sedated sleep.
“I know you didn’t do it on purpose,” Aidan said to me.
I swallowed. I wasn’t sure. In that moment I’d been so flustered, so agitated…
“Come on,” Aidan said. “You can talk to him later. I’ll teach you how to conjure a fruit basket to give to him.”
I allowed him to turn me around, and when he opened the door for me, I passed through it in silence.
Outside, I went to lean up against the tree the infirmary had been built into. And, in a wave of weariness, I slid down against it until I was seated on the grass, staring up into the canopy and the perfectly blue sky.
I hurt someone, Mom.
“Afternoon, Clementine,” a voice said above me.
My eyes lowered from the sky. Maeve Umbra stood over me, enshrouded by the light. Her long hair hung mossy past her shoulders, her staff’s knob glinting in the sun.
Nearby, Aidan had just walked out of the infirmary and toward me. When he spotted Umbra standing over me, he one-eightied in the other direction.
I pressed my way up the tree; I knew what this was about. “Hello, Headmistress.”
Her eyes flicked to the infirmary’s entrance. “How is Mr. Masters?”
So she already knew. Of course she did.
I tried to keep the shame off my face, keep my eyes on hers. Don’t reach for the key, Clem. “Third-degree burns. Neverwink is seeing to him now.”
She stared at me; I could feel her eyes practically lasering through my head. “Third-degree burns. By your hand, I understand.”
My lips folded, and I nodded. “I...don’t know how it happened.”
“I do,” she said at once.
My heart fell into the squishy organs beneath it. I didn’t dare speak.
“You’re a fire witch,” she said at once. “No enchantment I cast can fully suppress the power of your magic, once harnessed. I simply had no idea you possessed such power already.”
She didn’t mention the key. But surely she suspects…
But Umbra only gazed at me, the riddle of the burns apparently solved. “I’ll go see about Jericho.” She patted my shoulder as she turned away. “Don’t blame yourself, child. But see to it that you take care with your magic. Mr. Rathmore will aid you.”
When she had gone, I slumped down the side of the tree once more, releasing a long-held breath.
Aidan reappeared, sat next to me. “Beautiful day.”
I grunted. That was truer now than ever: I’d somehow avoided catastrophe, and the sky seemed that much bluer for it.
“Glad Umbra didn’t blame you for Jericho,” Aidan remarked into the silence.
I grunted a second time. Until my heart slowed, I couldn’t be bothered with words.
A chorus of shrieks started on the other side of the clearing, and we both watched as Callum Rathmore strode past the amphitheater, trailed by a gaggle of students—male and female alike. So many fluttering wings.
And he didn’t look happy about it.
I pointed. “That guy is a douchebag,” I said, still breathless. Anything to change the subject from what I’d done to Jericho.
Aidan’s shock was a palpable force next to me. “I’ll let that one pass because you’re still new to our world.”
I rolled my eyes toward Aidan. “What’s so special about him?”
“Clementine”—Aidan turned fully toward me so I would understand the gravity of what he was about to say—”that man is the best fire mage in the world.”
Chapter Seven
“When you say the best...” I began.
“I mean the unequivocal best.”
I slid my eyes over to Aidan. “And what has he done to be the best fire mage in the world?”
Aidan began ticking off fingers. “Let’s see, graduated from primary at age fourteen. Graduated from this academy at age eighteen. Joined the fire mages’ council at twenty-one. Became the first mage in a hundred years to master the art of fire riding. Took—”
I made a noise, and Aidan stopped.
“What was that you said about fire riding?” I asked.
He grinned. “Thought you’d be interested in that one. I’ve never seen someone fire ride, but apparently it’s spectacular.”
I wasn’t fully understanding. “But what happens?”
He pivoted the paper, pointed it at me. “He rides...with fire.”
“Sounds totally spectacular to me.”
Aidan just looked insulted on Rathmore’s behalf. “It’s an incredible art. That’s part of why he’s the most powerful—on horseback, he can defeat just about anyone.”
“Except his own ego,” I added.
He shook his head. “You are one oddly baked cookie, Cole.”
I tilted my head, half-smiling. “Apparently you like them oddly baked.” Then, more serious, “I need to ask you a history question.”
He tucked his schedule into his satchel, eyes brightening. “Go on then.”
I lowered my voice, stepping closer. “What do you know about Lucian the prince?”
Even as I said that name in this private space, I felt exposed. Un
certain. Like he might appear again with that massive broadsword, rising straight out of the ground.
But he didn’t. And Aidan didn’t seem to feel the same worry. His eyes glazed as he thought. “I’ve heard of him. A demon who serves the Shade.”
“I looked for information about him all summer in the library,” I went on. “Couldn’t find anything. But Umbra had a book in her office that she briefly showed me back in the spring…”
“The History of Darkness,” Aidan said at once. “There’s a copy in the Room of the Ancients.”
Of course he would know the book’s name on the basis of a single fact. I groaned. “Always that room. Everything interesting is in there.” I paused. “I get access to it now, don’t I?”
Aidan’s eyebrows went up. “I suppose you do. If you can pass Professor Milonakis’s test.”
“Test?” I rolled my eyes. “To make sure I know the library rules? ‘No running,’ right?”
“Oh no,” Aidan said. “It’s quite comprehensive. Sort of like a citizenship test, except for mage history. Once you understand enough about our history, you should have a deep and profound respect for the books contained in that room.”
My eyes lidded. “So basically, I have to get you to ferry me out that book in the meantime.”
“Why do you want to know about Lucian?”
I automatically glanced toward the closed door. Then back to Aidan. He would never believe me if I told him his beloved Callum Rathmore looked just like the demon I’d seen at the gates of Hell.
So I only said, “I think I saw him.”
Aidan’s eyes widened. “You mean, when you were…”
“At the gates, yeah.”
“You never mentioned it.”
I shrugged. “There was a lot of other stuff going on, too. But Aidan, I think he might know something about my sister.”
“Your sister who disappeared when you were twelve,” Aidan said.
Her name is Tamzin. But I hadn’t ever told him that.
I inclined my head. “So, the book?”
He stood. “Library’s open. Let’s go see about a demon.”
Chapter Eight
In the circulation room, Professor Milonakis eyed me with all the skepticism she’d shown me since I’d entered her class late on my first day of my first year. “Ms. Cole,” she said as Aidan and I entered the cramped space. When her massive spectacled eyes fell on Aidan, she warmed. “And Mr. North.”
He was, after all, the favored of teachers and librarians alike. If you looked at us together, Aidan North was objectively my foil: bookish, slow to speak, even slower to impulsiveness. He was destined for a life of responsible adulthood, and you couldn’t say the same when you looked at me.
Point in case: As we passed by, Aidan waved. “Hello, Professor Milonakis. I hope you’ve had a restful summer.”
Meanwhile, I lifted my class schedule and pointed at it. “Look, Professor, you don’t have to teach me this year.”
Milonakis’s eyes shifted between us, her expression sliding between pleased and uncomfortable. She settled on a half-grimace. “Students, before you enter the library, you should know: with the new academic year, we’ve implemented a rule. Books from the Room of the Ancients cannot leave the premises. And they must be requested before you enter the room itself.”
Aidan paused, and I could see his birthmark reddening. I knew he was wondering whether Milonakis had caught on to him “loaning” me The Witching World last year, which I’d taken all the way to Vienna and kept hold of for the next few months.
Technically, I wasn’t even supposed to have access to anything in the Room of the Ancients. At least, not until I passed her test.
“Sure,” I said, to cover for Aidan’s awkwardness. “Any other library rules you’ve imposed to ring in the new school year?”
Milonakis squinted, lowering her spectacles to study me overtop them. “You’ve picked the wrong one, Ms. Cole.”
I set a hand to my chest. “Who did I pick? And when?”
“Me. Today.” Milonakis leaned forward, both elbows settling on her desk. Her slender, dappled fingers came together. “I know what you’ve been up to in this library. And I know exactly which books you’ve touched.”
I slightly turned my head. “Were you creeping on me?”
Her eyes dropped my fingers, still at my chest. “It doesn’t take much oil to pick out a fingerprint. And your clockwise swirls were all over The Witching World when it reappeared after three months.”
When Milonakis’s gaze shifted to Aidan, he made a small noise beside me. He had gone fully rigid. “And you,” she said, “ought to know better, Mr. North.”
“You’re right, ma’am,” Aidan said at once. “It won’t happen again.”
I gave Aidan an elbow nudge.
His eyes flicked to me. What? he mouthed.
The History of Darkness, I mouthed back.
Aidan gave a little shake of the head. Not now, his look said. But when I elbowed him harder, he sighed, came forward to Milonakis’s desk. “Professor, I’d like to request The History of Darkness from the Room of the Ancients.”
Milonakis stared at him. “For what purpose?”
I came up next to him. “We want to read about Lucian the prince.”
One of her eyebrows lifted as her face slowly turned to me. “The demon of legend. And why is that, Ms. Cole?”
So she was going to be like that today. Well, I’d had about enough of professors getting into my business. Moreover, I’d had enough of being judged.
I set both hands on her desk, stared her square in the eyes. “I want to learn everything I can about Hell, about its denizens, and about the Shade. I’m a fire witch, and if I’m going to resist the corruption of flame and save this unappreciative world, I need to know a thing or two about the darkness, don’t I?”
Milonakis didn’t even flinch. For the first time since I’d met her last winter, the ghost of a smile actually appeared on her face when she looked at me.
And in that smile, I sensed a modicum of respect. She liked gumption.
“So you do.” She lifted the pencil tucked behind her ear, sliding it away from her frizz of white hair, and scribbled something down on a sheet of paper. When she lifted it, she didn’t hand it to Aidan. She handed it to me. “There’s the location of it. Mr. North has to retrieve the book. Remember: it can’t leave the premises.”
I took the slip. “It won’t.”
As Aidan and I left the circulation room, her whisper-yell rang out, “Close the door behind you!”
I pulled the door to the main room shut behind us and extended the slip of paper to Aidan. “I think she likes me. Or at least, she doesn’t loathe me.”
Aidan stared at the paper, his birthmark still red. “I don’t know how you do it.”
We were the only ones in the library. My eyes lifted straight to the ceiling, where the group of will-o-wisps still floated. They hovered high, high up, blue lights lending a soft ambience to the place. They seemed so benign, and yet the ones in Umbra’s office had somehow transported me straight to the Shade.
And I still didn’t know how or why. I’d done more research over the summer, with no answers.
I did know I should never try talking to them again. Not until I’d gotten those answers.
I refocused on Aidan. “Do what?”
He sighed, starting toward the Room of the Ancients. “I thought you would be on Milonakis’s bad side forever. And in one little speech, you turned it all around.”
“My goal wasn’t to get on her good side,” I said. “It was just to get the book. I think she likes honesty.”
“Blunt honesty,” Aidan added.
We came to the massive door to the Room of the Ancients, and I waited while Aidan opened it up and went inside. A magical barrier prevented me from entering. But I could see inside: endless bookcases full of old tomes, their spines faintly lit by a magical lantern hanging from the ceiling.
When Aidan return
ed, the book he held was a copy of the same one I’d seen Umbra pull out of her bookcase those months ago. He brought it over to a table, set it down with a dusty thump. “Here we go. Lucian the demon prince, coming right up.”
I began paging through it at once. When I found the section on Lucian, I stared down at the illustration, a portrait of the demon himself.
“He’s handsome, for an evil dude,” Aidan said.
“Aidan,” I whispered, spearing the page with my finger, “that’s Callum Rathmore.”
Aidan moved my finger aside, bent his face low over the illustration. “No it’s not.”
I stabbed the page again, right in the center of his face. “Yes it is!”
Aidan took my hand, placed it off to the side. “Please stop attacking the book. It’s very old.”
“You’re less concerned about that being Callum Rathmore than you are me touching the pages of an old book?”
“Look, Clementine”—he flipped the book to the front cover, pointed to the inside—“do you see the date on this?”
“1608,” I read off.
“1608,” Aidan repeated. “Callum Rathmore wasn’t alive for another four hundred years.”
“So explain to me how I saw Lucian the prince outside the gates of Hell if he served the Shade in 1608.”
“How do you know you saw Lucian the prince? Did he tell you that was his name?”
I stuck my finger on top of the illustration again. “That’s the man I saw. That’s the name on this portrait, is it not?”
“It is.” Aidan stared down at the book, began reading the section. “Well, it says here demons are either immortal or incredibly long-lived. It’s not clear.”
“How is it not clear?”
“It’s written in Faerish, and I can’t tell from the way the author wrote it whether he was uncertain or I’m translating poorly. The point is, Clementine, Lucian the prince could still be alive. But there’s no way he’s Callum Rathmore.”
I sat back, arms folded. “Explain.”
Aidan pulled out his phone, began tapping away. When he turned the screen to me, a series of images pulled from the internet were displayed. All images of the same man.
