by S. W. Clarke
I took the phone, began scrolling. “So Rathmore is really fond of scowling at cameras. What’s your point?”
“Look how young he is in some of them,” Aidan said. “Much younger than he is now.”
Aidan did have a point. If Callum Rathmore was immortal or long-lived, it certainly didn’t look like it. A few of the pictures showed him as a child. He seemed to age at the same rate as any other human.
“Fine.” I set the phone down next to the illustration. “But you have to admit they look identical.”
Aidan leaned forward, studying both. “I see similarities. But it is an illustration.”
“Whatever.” I folded my arms, feeling a little crazy. This was more than similarities. Did I just see something different than everyone else? “Anyway, does the book tell us anything else worth knowing?”
Aidan read the whole passage while I stared up at the ceiling, watching the wisps. When he’d finished, he straightened. “Only that Lucian is the most powerful of the Shade’s servants. According to this, he was responsible for the deaths of thousands during the Battle of the Ages.”
“What makes him so powerful?”
“It’s hard to parse, but the author wrote about him cutting down a hundred men in a single stroke. I’m not sure what that means.”
A stroke of his blade, I thought but didn’t say, remembering the broadsword from that night. The sword he hadn’t used to kill me when he could have. He could fell a hundred men in one swing, and he’d let me go.
Aidan turned to me. “What was he like? The creature you saw?”
I lowered my face, kept my eyes off Aidan. I stared down at the table instead, wanting to tell him he was exactly like Callum Rathmore. But now I was beginning to wonder if the trauma of that night was messing with my memory. Maybe I was seeing Lucian the prince where he wasn’t.
“He was enormous,” I said. “Wearing steel armor, carrying a two-handed sword in just one hand. He said, ‘You’re the sister.’” I sucked in air after I said it, feeling exposed.
“The sister,” Aidan repeated. “You think he meant your sister?”
I finally met his eyes. Nodded. “Maybe. Who else could he mean?”
Aidan snapped his fingers and conjured up a teapot and biscotti. He picked up the pot, poured its contents into one cup. Then he handed it to me with a biscotti placed on the small plate underneath it.
I accepted both with surprise, set them next to me on the table. “What’s this for?”
“You seemed like you needed it.”
He was right; just the fragrance of the chamomile was unwinding all the coiled muscles in my chest and arms. It was exactly the right thing to do, and it reminded me that he wasn’t a boundary-pusher.
He made me feel comfortable.
I sighed, picking up the biscotti and dipping it into the cup. “Her name was Tamzin.”
“What happened to her?” he asked softly.
“I don’t know. She disappeared one morning when I was twelve. My mom did, too. Never saw them again.”
Silence fell between us. Then, “I’m sorry, Clementine.”
“Yeah, so am I.”
“But you know what that means, don’t you?”
I pressed my lips together. “She was taken by them?”
“Maybe,” Aidan said. “But it also tells me something else.”
“What’s that?”
“She spoke of you.”
A hummingbird burst into flight in my chest, and I stared at him. He was right: maybe my sister had spoken of me. “I want to look for her, but…”
“You don’t know where to start.”
I kept swirling the biscotti in the tea. “I can’t even leave the grounds because I’ll be followed. I can’t even go near those wisps again—they might send me god knows where.”
“But Clem,” Aidan said, trying to catch my eye, “the solution is obvious.”
“And what’s that?”
“The world’s most powerful fire mage has come to our school,” he said. “And he’s going to teach us.”
“Are you saying Callum Rathmore is the solution?”
“No. But he’ll help you get to it.” He fixed me with confident eyes. “You’re a fire witch, Clementine. Once you become strong enough, you won’t need to fear going anywhere in the world.”
I lifted the biscotti, bit into it. I knew Aidan was right—again: I had to get strong enough to leave the academy grounds without fear, and Rathmore was necessary to that.
I had another burning question, and the only way I could get my answer was by telling a truth I’d been avoiding all summer. When I reached into my pocket and pulled out the key, Aidan’s hand went over his mouth, slowly slid down his face.
“That’s right,” I said. “I still have it. I lied, Aidan.”
Chapter Nine
Aidan seemed afraid to touch the key. When I set it on the table, he leaned away.
“It won’t bite,” I said.
“But it’ll transport you to Hell.”
“Fair enough.” I pushed it around the table. “But it only did that when the wisps had possession of it. Never since. I’m not afraid of it, North. It allows me to tap into my power.”
His eyes narrowed up at me. “Umbra took this from you. How do you have it?”
I sighed. “It…came back to me.”
“What do you mean, Clementine? Did you steal it?”
I made a face. “J’accuse?”
“Yes, I accuse. Don’t pretend like that’s below you if you want something badly enough.”
Well, he wasn’t wrong. “Actually, I didn’t steal it. It literally came back to me. I found it in my pocket the same afternoon Umbra took it from me.”
Aidan looked perfectly baffled.
“And,” I said, “if I ever forgot it in my dorm and went out over the summer, I later found it in one of my pockets.”
“It’s bound to you?”
I nodded. “See for yourself.” When I stood up and crossed to the other side of the empty library, the key disappeared off the table. I reached into my skirt pocket and lifted it out, holding it up. “I couldn’t be parted with it if I wanted to.”
He readjusted his glasses, staring between where the key had been and where it now sat in my hand. “Holy crow.”
I came back down to sit across from him. “Yeah. So not a thief. Just a liar.”
When I placed the key on the table between us, he seemed to have lost some of his fear of it. “You didn’t tell Umbra, I take it.”
“Hell no.” I hadn’t spoken to her again since that day in her office last spring; she’d been busy all summer with headmistress things, or maybe she’d been avoiding me. Either way, I didn’t care to divulge any secrets to Umbra. She had kept knowledge from me—I knew it. And she feared me, what I could become.
Bottom line: I couldn’t trust Maeve Umbra.
“She would do the right thing, Clementine,” he said.
“I’m not so sure about that.”
He leaned a bit closer to the key. “Did she tell you anything else about it?”
“It was part of a weapon sundered during the Battle of the Ages,” I recited from memory. “There are five parts.”
“I’ve heard of this weapon,” Aidan said, that hobbyist historian’s thrill entering his voice. “I heard about it somewhere. I think it was called the Backbiter.”
My eyebrows went up. “Backbiter, huh? I’d like to meet its original owner.”
His eyes rose. “I don’t think you do.”
“And why’s that?”
“The weapon was probably sundered for a reason.”
I gazed down at the key, gleaming and idle upon the table. “Where did you hear about it?”
“My grandmother,” he said. “She knows more about the Battle of the Ages than anyone. Lots of obscure facts that aren’t written in any books.”
I flashed him a teasing smile. “A family of history nerds. Color me shocked.”
“Where wou
ld you be right now without a history nerd in your life, Clementine?”
I picked up another biscotti. “Nowhere good. Which is why I want to talk to your grandmother. I need to know more about this weapon, and Umbra sure isn’t going to tell me. Can you get her on the phone?”
He scoffed. “Gods no. She refuses to use phones.”
“So, FaceTime?”
“She hates technology.”
I sighed. “Can you go talk to her for me?”
“Can’t do that, either.”
“And why not?”
“Because she…had a sort of falling out with my mom about ten years back. She refuses to speak to anyone in the family.”
I shrugged. “So go apologize on your mom’s behalf. Bring Grandma some cookies.”
He just gave me a wry smile. “Oh, Clementine. You haven’t met my grandmother.”
“What does that mean?”
He took off his glasses, began rubbing at them with the hem of his shirt. “She’s a proud woman, set in her ways. There’s no way I could get her to even let me in her house, unless…”
I leaned forward. “Unless?”
He finished cleaning, replaced his glasses on his nose. “Unless I had the world’s last witch with me.”
Well, this time I really was shocked. First, what had happened between Aidan’s family and his grandmother that she wouldn’t even let him in her house? Second, someone wanted to meet me? “Why would she want to meet me?”
“Believe it or not, she’s a witch historian. When academics or news outlets need a specialist on witches, they go to her. And, well…” He gestured up and down at me. “You’re a fire witch. She could die happy after meeting you.”
I fluffed my hair. “Are you saying there’s someone in the world who would actually be glad to see me, and she knows about this Backbiter?”
Aidan sighed, stirring his teaspoon in his cup with the kind of agitation I had come to recognize meant he felt anxious. “It’s a moot point anyway, Clementine.”
“Why’s that?”
“You can’t leave the grounds.”
I shook my head. “Oh no, Aidan. Don’t you backtrack on me. If Grandma won’t come to me, I’m going to her.” I stabbed my finger down atop the key. “There’s a reason this thing is bound to me, and if the Room of the Ancients doesn’t have any books about it, and Umbra won’t tell me, then you better believe I’m visiting Grandma North with a witch’s hat and striped socks on.”
He couldn’t help grinning.
“What?” I said.
“The thought of you in that outfit…”
“I’ll do it, you know. I’ll even bring a broom along.”
“Yeah, I know.” He sighed, the smile fading. “I don’t know. It’s a risk.”
“Don’t pretend you aren’t curious, Aidan. You’re the one who thinks I’m destined to save the world, right?” It sounded ridiculous when I said it. Somehow I managed to keep a straight face.
I knew I’d caught him when he groaned. “Fine. I’ll think about it.”
Triumph spread over my face. “For how long?”
Other students had begun trickling in. Aidan stood up, grabbing his satchel and the old book. “For the next week. She only sees visitors on Saturdays, anyway.”
Wow, Grandma North was almost as laced-up as Aidan.
“You’ll need to teach me to conjure that fruit basket before we go see her,” I said as he made his way to replace the book in the Room of the Ancients. “There’s no way she’ll turn down a witch holding a basket of fruit, right?”
“Fruit basket? Oh.” He had suddenly remembered.
I needled one finger into his shoulder before he disappeared inside. “I want to learn tropical fruit first. Pineapples. Bananas. Mangoes.”
He batted my hand away. “I’ll teach you how to conjure the basket when you’re honest with Eva about the key.”
“Hey,” I said. “That wasn’t part of the deal.”
“It is now.” And before I could object, he slipped past the barrier and disappeared into the Room of the Ancients, where I couldn’t go.
When I arrived back at the dorm, Eva was just placing a set of glimmering studs into each earlobe. She stood regal in front of the mirror, her formal black robes on, her lavender hair in draped in layers down her back.
“Oh god,” I said as I threw my satchel onto my bed beside Loki. “You’re so fancy it’s scaring me. I’ve forgotten some formal event, haven’t I?”
Loki lifted his head. “Anything that isn’t Doc Martens is formal to you.”
I pointed at him. “You are…not wrong.”
Eva turned bright, gray eyes onto me. “It’s the welcome feast tonight, Clem. And it’s an important one; we’ve got thirteen new first-years.”
“Is that a lot or a little?”
“It’s the smallest class we’ve had in ages.” She tried to keep her voice even, let a little sadness seep in anyway.
Oh.
I didn’t need to ask Eva why that was. Umbra had already told me, long ago: the darkness was winning.
Eva tapped her way across the room in her white kitten heels. When she picked up a set of robes and handed them to me, I was simultaneously grateful and annoyed that she made sure I was decked out for these things. “Mom and Dad sent these for you.”
I accepted the formal robes, holding them up to my body. They looked perfectly my size. When I lowered them, I couldn’t help a genuine smile. They had basically given me my entire wardrobe last winter. “I’m pretty sure your parents are the nicest fae alive.”
“I know. I told them.” Eva placed a set of low-heeled, forest-green shoes atop the robes slung over my arm. “And Mom said these would match your eyes. She was right.”
I stared down at them, back up at Eva as she returned to the mirror and began applying cat eyes. “Tell me if I’m off target, but I think you’re excited for more than just some spiced mead and balaclava.”
She paused, eyes meeting mine in the mirror. A dash of pink crossed her cheeks. “I’m a festive person. You know that.”
“Your left eye needs a longer stroke,” Loki said, rising to a half-seat on the bed as he observed Eva.
“What was that?” Eva said to me.
“Loki says your left cat’s eye needs more kohl.”
She laughed, pointing the pen at Loki. “I should have asked you all along.”
I came to a seat on her bed, feeling the key press up against my thigh as I did. Not yet. I didn’t want to tell her yet. Not when she was so excited for this evening.
“Evanora Whitewillow,” I said, pinning her with my gaze. “It’s only four in the afternoon, and this dinner can’t possibly start before six. You’ve already got heels on and your makeup did. Who is it?”
She turned wide eyes onto me, flicking the pen between her fingers like a cigarette in a long holder. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I think you do.”
She shook her head, busying herself with a twenty-four-color palette of eyeshadow.
Loki sighed. “She’s been singing Torsten’s name all afternoon, dancing around the room. For the love of the gods, just make it stop.”
A devious smile made its way onto my face as I lifted my eyes to Eva.
Her mouth opened, and she eyed Loki in the mirror. “You told her, didn’t you?”
Loki deflected by urgently licking a spot on his shoulder.
I sat back on her bed. “So, have you kissed?”
Eva’s cheeks had gone pinker. “Kissed who?”
“You know who. Name rhymes with Borsten.”
She sighed. “You’re going to make fun of me.”
“Me?” I pinched the air. “Just a little.”
She slumped into her desk chair. “He doesn’t even know I like him.”
My eyebrows rose. “Seriously? But you’ve been texting.”
“Yeah, about the best fighting styles and combat moves. Like guy talk.”
“And you haven
’t told him you like him?”
“You have to understand, that’s incredibly forward in the fae world. We still operate by the same dating protocol as when we were immortals. It took my parents five years of knowing each other to become more than friends.”
“Five years?” Loki and I exchanged a glance. “In the human world, it takes about five minutes.”
“Trust me, I know.” She glanced at herself in the mirror. “I’m hoping tonight he’ll see me in a different light.”
I sat up. “Oh, he will.” I winked at Loki, who gave me a slow blink back.
Eva shifted wary eyes onto me. “What was that?”
“Nothing.”
“You winked at your familiar.”
“Did not.”
“And he winked back.”
“Untrue,” Loki said. “I blinked.”
She pointed at me. “Clem, do not tell Torsten anything.”
I stood up, smoothing out my skirt. “I won’t.”
She rose with me, following me around the room with soft heel-taps as I uncharacteristically began tidying my side. I could sense her excitement and anxiety rolled up into an electric ball. “You’re cleaning. That’s weird.”
I poured the contents of my satchel onto my desk, began organizing them. “Is it?”
“Yes.” She bent into my field of vision, her wings fluttering. “You’re going to play matchmaker, aren’t you?”
It didn’t sound like she didn’t want me to play matchmaker. In fact, was that a note of hope I heard in her voice?
I paused, lifting a pencil to my chin and tapping it there. “Matchmaker? Not my style.” I smiled at her as I set it in the pencil cup. “But I can’t stop Loki from doing as he likes.”
Chapter Ten
I had imagined the feast would be in the dining hall. But as Eva and I left the dorm and stepped into the dusky evening, a trail of golden lights and voices led into the forest and toward the meadow.
“Come on,” Eva said, fluttering straight off the landing and toward the ground below. “We want to get good seats,” her fading voice carried off as she descended to the ground and touched down one graceful toe at a time.
