Good Witches Don't Cheat (Academy of Shadowed Magic Book 2)

by S. W. Clarke

  The next night—a week before winter recess—the Solstice Ball would be held in the snow-covered meadow. She and Torsten were going together, of course. And, as I’d learned throughout the week, people had apparently been asking each other to the ball for some time now.

  Not that I cared—

  A knock sounded at our door. Eva and I met eyes. Hers flashed with delight.

  “Expecting someone?” I asked.

  “No.” She crossed to the door, opened it to find Jericho standing on the other side. She pressed herself up against the door. “Why hello, Mr. Masters.”

  I backed away, bumped into Eva’s desk. Jericho’s eyes had already found me, of course. And I knew the moment the door had opened what he was here for.

  His lips parted, eyebrows lifting as he took in the full extravagance of my dress.

  And though Jericho said something to Eva, I was already halfway to the bathroom. By the time I’d gotten inside, their muffled voices were calling out to me.

  “Clem, you aren’t shy like this,” Eva was saying.

  She was right.

  I clambered out of the dress as fast as I could. It wasn’t hard; the single piece of silk dropped like liquid to the floor, pooling in vibrant green.

  I did and didn’t know why I’d run away.

  The dress made me feel exposed. If I felt weird wearing it around Eva, then I felt weirder around Jericho.

  And, too, I didn’t have an answer for Jericho. I knew exactly why he’d come. As soon as I’d seen his face, a strange dissonance hit me. It was flattering to be asked, but to a dance… That was an intimacy I didn’t know if I wanted.

  When I’d gotten my jeans and shirt back on and came into the room, the two of them turned to me. And I spotted a flower in Jericho’s hand. I didn’t know flowers, but this one was in the full of its blood-red bloom.

  “Hey, Jericho.” I cleared my tight throat, passed the green dress to Eva. Then forced my eyes onto him. “How’s it going, Guardian?”

  It was the first time I’d seen him uncertain. He was brown-eyed and handsome and when he smiled, it was with the kind of sincere gentleness I’d seen in the guys who had been interested in me in the past.

  When he lifted the flower, extended it toward me bloom-first, my chest caught. This was exactly what I’d thought.

  “Hey, Clementine.” He stepped close enough for me to take the flower from his hand, if I so chose. “I know it’s last-minute, but it took me some time to build the nerve. I came tonight to ask: Would you be my date to the Solstice Ball?”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Early the next morning, I took Noir out for a ride. I needed the clarity of the sun, of the horse’s canter under me, of the new-fallen snow that had turned the world white overnight.

  We were the first to break the snow; his hooves sank right in. When I encouraged him into a trot, he snorted a plumes of crystallizing air from each nostril and swung his head.

  This snow was good for Eva’s ball, apparently. The moment we’d woken up this morning, she’d been crowing about it. “Not a solstice without some white, right?” she’d said with arms thrown out from the landing of our tree.

  Every time Noir and I came around the ring, I was tempted to encourage him to leap the fence. To take off through the forest and the meadow.

  It was the familiar old urge to run. To be safe. To have control.

  I just didn’t think a school dance would trigger it.

  Of course I’d said yes to Jericho. Asking me with a flower was sweet, and unturndownable. And Eva had already tailored me the dress. And her hands had been clapped together behind Jericho, her eyes bright like only a fae’s could be.

  I had to go. And that was why I rode the horse now, fantasizing all the while about bolting.

  Don’t be stupid, Clem, I told myself. It’s just a dance.

  We had worked up a heat when I heard a voice from the far side of the ring.

  “Your seat’s unsteady.”

  As we came around, I slowed Noir to a walk. There, with forearms resting atop the fence, stood Callum Rathmore. Black hair loose to his chin, maybe unbrushed, eyes on the horse.

  He was disturbingly casual in his leather jacket and jeans, his regular-person black boots. He looked like he might part the veil and walk onto a London street.

  As Noir and I came past him, I didn’t stop the horse. We walked right on by. “What’re you doing here so early?” I asked over my shoulder.

  “I have a meeting to attend off the academy grounds. I came to meet with the quartermistress before I left.”

  My lip twitched. “She’s not around for another half-hour.” Then, “My seat’s fine.”

  I heard a muted chuckle. “If you say so.”

  As we came to the next bend in the ring, I glanced at him on my left. “You just going to keep staring?”

  He didn’t break eye contact. “If you want me to decide if you’ve got the instincts for fire riding.”

  My chest caught, my spine going straight. “Farrow’s teaching me.”

  “Are you arguing with me? I thought you wanted this.”

  I kept my eyes ahead. “What changed your mind?”

  “You controlled the Spitfire during our last lesson. Made you pass out, but you managed it.” He hadn’t moved, still surveying my form from the fence line. “Show me your gaits.”

  My chest blossomed with pleasure; I worked hard to keep my scowl on. I pressed Noir into a trot, and we went a single lap before I heard “Good,” from the fence line. “Now a canter.”

  By the time I’d come around for a second lap, Rathmore had climbed the fence and now stood in the middle of the ring. He waved me over.

  I brought Noir to stand in front of him. I thought we’d be looming, but Rathmore came nearly to Noir’s head.

  “So,” I said. “Pretty good, huh? Lots of fine instincts in that riding.”

  Rathmore ran a hand down the horse’s mane, and Noir nickered with uncommon friendliness.

  I made a face. “Careful. He’ll bite you if you get overeager.”

  This elicited a small smile, his eyes on the horse. “I don’t think so.” His black eyes shifted to me. “It’s not clear yet.”

  My eyes lidded. He was holding fire riding up like a prize, teasing me with it.

  He nodded at Noir. “Will you let me ride him?”

  My left eyebrow rose. “Nobody rides him but me. And that’s not possessiveness—he won’t let anyone else ride him.”

  “Oh, you might be surprised.”

  I hesitated. “Why?”

  He came to stand right beside me; I could feel the feather-touch of his jacket against my boot. “To demonstrate a good bareback seat.”

  “I thought you had business off the grounds.”

  “After I talk to Farrow.” His head tilted, hair curling at his neck. “She arrives in a half hour, right?”

  I shrugged. “Your funeral.” When I climbed off, I dropped next to him in the snow. My eyes lifted in a way I meant to be facey, but instead I just found my eyes rising in what felt like an unavoidable glance up at him.

  Just one glance.

  He was looking back down at me, umber-brown eyes on mine. And here in this crisp, white world, standing so close, his scent came into relief. Smoke and pine and something indescribable and his.

  I took a step back. More than ever, I wanted to get back on the horse. To leap him over the fence. To bring us back through the forest, all the way to that cliff.

  Rathmore swung himself up onto Noir’s back in a far more efficient, elegant motion than I’d ever managed.

  “How?” I said as Noir stood utterly still for him. He sat the horse like he’d ridden him a thousand times. “He doesn’t let anyone…”

  Rathmore’s fingers wound up in Noir’s mane, and he squeezed the horse to a walk, circling around me. “Seems I’m an exception.” Then, with a click of his tongue, he was riding the horse to the fence line. “I’ll show you three gaits, and then it’ll be y
our turn.”

  I stood in the center, arms folded, as he demonstrated a steady seat. First at a trot, then at a canter. He was a far better rider than me—by order of multitudes.

  But that wasn’t what I couldn’t get out of my head.

  It was the smell of him. Heady, intoxicating. I’d wanted to run to get away from the urge to step closer.

  I still wanted to run. I still wanted to step closer.

  That day, the five of us met in our secret room for the third time. Loki sat in the center of an array of conjured food, including my fae rolls (which I’d gotten deliciously proficient at).

  It helped me get my mind off Rathmore, who still hadn’t decided by the end of our impromptu lesson whether I had the “instincts” for fire riding.

  Eva had found a chalkboard in the storage room and pulled it inside. Now, the rest of us sat around the table as Jericho chalked out a general map of the Boundless Labyrinth.

  “Is it really a square, though?” Eva said. “It’s all made of vines and bushes.”

  Jericho shrugged. “Everywhere I looked were right angles, and I went from beginning to end.”

  I circled a finger. “What about the center? You’ve left it blank.”

  “I didn’t go near the center. Umbra tells us to stay away from it—that the boggans become more aggressive if you go near the center.”

  “Why?” Eva asked.

  He lifted one shoulder. “She didn’t say.”

  I made a face. “She does that.”

  Since we’d been studying the labyrinth, we’d learned a few crucial facts, which were written on the side of the chalkboard:

  1. boggans lived in the center of the labyrinth. They were active only at night.

  2. The labyrinth wasn’t exactly boundless. People had gotten stuck in there when they fell to their basest instincts—an effect of the boggans’ power—and they got turned around and around, losing all sense of logic and rationality.

  3. The labyrinth was hidden. The only person at the academy who knew its location was Umbra herself, who would cut the veil and place you at the start of it. She was also the only person who could rescue you if you got truly lost.

  4. Umbra only sent you in there at night. You had to escape before sunrise.

  The last two had been guarded secrets, Jericho told us, which you only knew if you made it to the third round of the trials. He had been forbidden from sharing his knowledge of the third trial, of the labyrinth, with anyone but other guardians.

  But he had decided the prophecy was more important than that.

  “So to beat the trial, you have to find an exit,” Eva said. “That’s it?”

  Jericho shrugged, flicked the end of his chalk. “That’s it. Except most people who go in there don’t find their way out before the sun comes up.”

  “Because of the boggans’ influence,” I murmured, crossing my arms tight. I was singularly ill-suited to avoiding my basest instincts.

  Jericho cast me a sympathetic glance. “We’ll figure out a way to keep your head on.”

  “Yeah, that’s me. Always with her head on.”

  Eva set a hand on my arm. “Don’t worry—you’ll be with me.”

  At some point Eva and I had made a pact we would be together through the trials, that we would get into the third trial and enter the labyrinth side by side. What she didn’t know was how much I’d come to think of that as a reality—as the only reality.

  “You’ll have me, too.” Loki sniffed at the plate of tilapia he’d already half-decimated. Decided he’d had enough. “Of course, mostly I exist to remind you that you’re my peon.”

  I half-smiled at him. “Of course.”

  Eva stood, crossed to the chalkboard. “So that’s the path you took from beginning to end. But you never saw anything along the way approximating a rod.”

  “Nothing,” Jericho said. “Of course, it was nighttime. And I wasn’t exactly looking.”

  “Isn’t Spark at a distinct advantage in that place at night?” Aidan said.

  “You’d think so.” Jericho tossed his chalk; it flipped twice in the air before he caught it. “But people find ways to make the light they need.”

  I sat back in my chair. After all this time, we were no closer to figuring out where the deceiver’s rod would be located in this labyrinth. We didn’t have a single lead, not from books in the Room of the Ancients or Jericho’s subtle questions put to other guardians.

  I might be able to pass the trials, but that didn’t mean anything if I didn’t find the rod.

  “Could it have something to do with the key?” I pulled the liar’s key from my pocket, set it on the table. “Maybe one signals to the other.”

  “Like a homing beacon?” Jericho gave a crooked grin.

  “You laugh.” I sat forward, tapping a book I’d brought. “But I think I know what the weapon was made of.”

  That week, I’d come across a fable about the Shade in an old tome. One line in particular had stood out: She swung the orichalcum chain and smote her enemies.

  Of course, then I’d looked up orichalcum. And that had led me to the book sitting on the table right now—a compendium of rare metals that only mages could extract from the earth.

  And orichalcum was the rarest of them all.

  “If this key—and the rod, and the chain and blade—are made of orichalcum, it’s the hardest element in the world,” I said. “Basically unbreakable.”

  “Except by great magic,” Eva whispered.

  I nodded at her. “And when it’s broken, it loses its glow. But the most interesting thing about it is how it gains its glow.” I paused, but none of them seemed to know. “Orichalcum draws toward itself. Not only that, the more of it you place together, the brighter the glow.”

  Aidan picked up the key, staring at it. “I don’t suppose there’s any way to identify what metal this is without any other orichalcum around.”

  Jericho set the chalk on the board’s tray. “Actually, I may know someone.”

  All attention went to him.

  “He’s kind of a weird guy,” he prefaced.

  I waved a hand. “Weird’s fine. Better than dangerous.”

  “Who is he?” Aidan said.

  “A friend.” Jericho rubbed a hand over the back of his neck, nervous like I’d never seen him. He didn’t want to meet my eyes. “I’ve never actually met him, but he’s obsessed with rocks. Got his degree in Magical Elements, and he’s a researcher in a lab in the middle-of-nowhere Midwest.”

  “The US?” Aidan said.

  Jericho nodded.

  “How haven’t you met him?” Eva said. The same question I’d had in mind.

  “Uh, well.” Jericho still wouldn’t look at me. “We met online years ago. Back when I used to game a lot.”

  “Oh,” Loki said. “He’s that kind of weird.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  It was agreed: during winter recess, we would take a trip to meet Jericho’s online friend. That was, of course, assuming I made it through the Solstice Ball.

  Later that night, I sat on my bed in the green dress, my hair done up just the way Eva had envisioned. Tendrils hung by my face, and silver teardrop earrings hung off each lobe. A green cloak sat over my shoulders, which I pulled close around me.

  I still felt exposed. But not as exposed as I had been this morning, so I supposed it wasn’t really down to what I wore.

  It wasn’t that at all.

  Loki was purring next to me. “You’re warm.”

  I set a hand on his head. “I give you warmth, but what do you give me?”

  He started kneading biscuits on my cloak. “Excuse me, but when did you get the idea this was a reciprocal relationship?”

  “Maybe when I learned what a good relationship is.”

  “There is no reciprocity between master and servant.”

  I snorted. “Yes, Master.” I straightened the green bowtie at his neck. “Can you please not rip it off for at least the first twenty minutes?”r />
  He groaned, sat back. “I’d almost managed to put it out of my mind. This is the greatest indignity you’ve ever put me through.”

  “Listen, I can’t be the evil fire witch if you walk in next to me wearing a bowtie. It’s not possible. Just walk in with me—please?”

  “Fine.” He went to scratch at his neck, paused, lowered his leg. “But then I’m shredding it. It’s an itchy bastard.”

  “I’ve overdone it.” Across the room, Eva stood in front of the full-length mirror. Where her white slip-dress caught the light, it shone a faint lavender. Her hair sat in soft curls atop her head, offering an unbroken sight of the line of her spine, the spread of her gauzy wings.

  When she turned around, her makeup couldn’t have been more elegant. A faint silver shimmer on her eyelids, a light pink on her lips and cheekbones. She was a portrait, neck sloping to soft shoulders and arms, chest tapering to waist, her hips caressing the edges of the dress.

  Torsten had no idea.

  I stood, testing my weight on the heels she’d given me to wear. Just over two inches; I could handle that. “What could you possibly have overdone? You’re perfect.”

  Her rosebud of a mouth widened to a smile.

  A knock came at the door. “The escorts have arrived,” came a sing-song voice from the other side.

  Eva swept her white cloak off the wall, brought it around her shoulders. When she opened the door, Torsten and Jericho stood together in dress robes. It was hard to decide which of them cut a more dashing figure; they were both, to put it succinctly, built.

  “Evanora Whitewillow,” Torsten said in his deep voice, “you are the most breathtaking fae who ever graced this wide world.”

  Well, kudos to Torsten.

  Eva swept through the doorway to Torsten with a laugh, both hands going to his. He turned her in one of those cinematic circles, her wings brushing against him.

  Meanwhile, Jericho just stared at me.

  “Hello, escort.” I came to stand in the doorway. Jericho’s mouth had opened when he spotted me, but words didn’t form. “You’re looking exceptionally handsome.”

  “I… You…” He cleared his throat. “Clem, green wasn’t a color until you wore it.”