by S. W. Clarke
I flipped back to the start of the piece, found the writer’s name. Griselda Hawkins. Apparently she didn’t recognize the gall of shaming a man whose mother had been executed by the very same state he refused to serve.
Or maybe she did, but she had a piece to write. Marching orders to fulfill. Witches & Wizards wasn’t my favorite magazine, to say the least.
When I met up with Farrow that night at her home, she had prepared a New Year’s meal for the three of us: a fruit-and-cheese charcuterie board, crackers, a bottle of champagne. For Loki, she’d warmed milk in a wooden bowl.
“Fancy,” I said as I came into her living room. “I’ve never had three kinds of cheese to ring in the new year.”
She offered me warm a look over the platter she carried to the table. “Do you know the first food I learned to conjure was gouda? It was all downhill from there. After that came brie, gruyere, roquefort...”
I took a seat at the table. “How many types of food can you conjure now?”
She chuckled. “As a food-motivated woman, more than I’m willing to admit.”
“I’ll toast to that.”
When the new year came, Quartermistress Farrow and I clinked long-necked champagne glasses as Loki licked himself on the table between us. As I took my first sip, I made a silent resolution. It was the same resolution Eva had made last winter, back when we’d sat in front of the fire in Vienna.
I would pass the trials. I would find the deceiver’s rod, and I would begin my journey toward defeating the Shade.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Winter recess passed in a blur from atop Noir’s back, cantering around the riding ring. Morning in and morning out I rode him, perfecting my seat and our connection. Practicing for the first trial.
We couldn’t be caught in the trial. Above all else, we couldn’t be caught.
I’d begun letting him out when Farrow wasn’t around. It was as easy as allowing him to leap the fence, and together we struck across the frozen earth. His stride was enormous, his gallop so smooth we could have been flying.
I had an advantage over other riders: I didn’t use reins. Noir’s neck wasn’t ever restricted, and so it was the easiest thing in the world for him to stretch out to his length, his neck and head a long, aerodynamic line.
We weren’t technically supposed to leave the riding ring. But I’d never obeyed technicalities, and this wasn’t the time to start. Only a few of the faculty had remained on the grounds—those necessary to its operation, like the quartermistress. The others had left to their parts of the world, to their families and lives and homes.
If I had a home, it was here. Here with Loki and Noir.
With the grounds nearly empty, the wide world open to us, we could finally ride. Really ride. Sometimes Loki came out to the meadow, sat under the winter sun and watched. I’d offered to let him ride with me, but he’d declined every time. Apparently my riding form didn’t give him enough confidence.
Second resolution: before the year was out, I was going to impress my familiar.
The school year resumed in the second week of January. Humans and fae returned to the academy, and almost immediately, the five of us had a congress in the secret room.
We’d decided on the spot to bring Torsten into the fold. He was in House Gaia, and I needed an earth mage to spar with. He was trustworthy, according to Eva, and he wasn’t ever unkind to me when he’d been my combat instructor. I didn’t like news of my plans spreading, but we didn’t have much choice. If I wanted to pass the second trial—the guardian duel—I needed to be able to fight any of the four elements.
Not just fight, but beat.
When I got to the second trial, I’d have to win my fight to pass.
So Torsten sat next to Eva with his big arms folded, looking for all the world like he’d been invited to a meeting of the Mages’ Council in Edinburgh. In fact, when we’d brought him into the secret room, he’d looked around, then met my eyes. When he took my hand in both of his, I knew he was gravely serious.
“Clementine,” he said, “it’s an honor. I’ll keep your secret, and by the time we’re finished training together, there isn’t an earth mage alive who could defeat you.”
I set a hand on his arm. “Thanks, Tor.”
He laughed, his face crinkling. “Tor. I like that.” Then went to sit next to Eva.
So that was the plan: Eva would teach me to fight against air. Jericho against fire. Torsten against earth.
“That leaves water,” I said, leaning back in my seat. “Anybody friendly with Crest?”
Only silence returned.
“Crest’s, eh…” Jericho paused. “They’re kind of weird.”
“How can they be collectively weird?”
He shrugged. “They’re kind of religiously cultish about their element. They think it’s superior to the rest—which we all know isn’t true. Fire’s best.”
Eva snorted. “Care to test that theory outside, Mr. Masters?”
Jericho laughed. “Fight an air mage in the dead of winter? I’ll take a pass.”
Eva sat smugly in her seat, meeting my eyes. She didn’t need to say anything else.
“There has to be someone from Crest who’s a guardians,” I said.
“Yeah, Mariella.” Jericho’s nose scrunched. “She doesn’t defy the stereotype.”
“If she’s a guardian, she’s who I need to train with.” I caught his eye. “Is she trustworthy?”
“As much as any other guardian.” He sighed, nodded. “I’ll introduce you this week.”
Eva had brought along a book to the meeting, one she’d found at her parents’ house in Vienna. It was of children’s stories, and one of them mentioned the Boundless Labyrinth. “It’s a kilometer and a half in span,” she read from the story.
“How far is that?” I asked.
Everyone groaned at me, even Jericho.
I shot a betrayed look at Jericho. “Hey, you’re American.”
“Yeah, one who knows both systems of measurement.”
“It’s about a mile,” Aidan said. “So, a really big labyrinth. No surprise there.”
I made a face. “A mile across, and filled with boggans. At night. Looks like my nightmares are settled for the next decade.”
As to the liar’s key, we decided the best way for me to deal with the labyrinth was to pass deep inside and hope the key would come close enough to the rod to act like a divining rod.
It wasn’t a great plan. It wasn’t even a good one. But it was what we had.
Before the meeting ended, Aidan pointed a finger at me. “Clementine, you’ve got another job.”
My eyebrows went up. “And what’s that, Professor?”
“You need to get Rathmore to teach you fire riding.”
I burst into laughter, sliding halfway down my seat. Then I straightened, folded my arms. “He won’t.”
Aidan’s eyebrows rose.
“He’s ‘uncertain about my temper,’ according to Farrow.”
He blinked twice at me. “And you can’t learn to control your temper?”
I made a face; Aidan’s point was loud and clear, and I hated that he had a good one.
“You might pass the first trial without being able to fire ride,” Aidan said. “But why take the chance?”
I pinched my nose, squeezing my eyes shut. “I get it. I’ll see what I can do.”
I’d rather reassemble an ancient weapon and descend into Hell to battle the Shade than plead with Callum Rathmore to teach me fire riding. But a fire witch had to do what a fire witch had to do.
Convincing Rathmore to teach me fire riding would take a special kind of charm.
I showed up at his home when I knew he’d be in: the evening, just after dinner. He occupied one of the smaller faculty lodgings, the tree not nearly as fat around as some.
I climbed the steps, paused on the landing. Then, before I could turn around and descend back the way I’d come, I forced myself to knock. Three hard knocks, unmistakable in their intent.
The knocks said: I want you to open this door, and I’m not going to leave so easy.
When thirty seconds had passed and no one answered, I knocked three times again. Harder. The whole while I thought of how angry he made me, how much he pushed me, how I resented him for making me wait in the cold.
Finally, noise sounded on the other side of the door. Followed by it opening, and his face appearing with an unseeing, “What?” His hair was unkempt, and he wasn’t wearing his usual robes. Instead, he’d dressed down in a black t-shirt and jeans.
When he did focus on me, his mouth formed a straight line.
And the moment he appeared, I could only think of his profile in Witches & Wizards. The illustrious father, the mother who’d been executed. He was the son of a witch, and his life had been defined by her death.
We had more in common than he knew. He had a story, and I’d be lying if I hadn’t seen him in a softer light after reading that profile.
But then, of course, his brusqueness with me brought on a swarm of retorts. I stood there with the platter of fae rolls in my hand. Whatever I said next, I had to not say what came naturally to mind.
I see you’re in your usual mood tonight. No, Clementine.
Friendly as always. Not that one, either.
Finally, I decided on, “Hey, Professor. Can I come in?”
Simple, polite, direct.
“No,” Rathmore said; he didn’t hesitate. “What is it?”
I drew in a long, yogic breath through my nose. Pressed the plate toward him. “I brought you these.”
He glanced down at the rolls, back up at me. “You want something, Clementine. Tell me what it is.”
He hadn’t even shown gratitude for the rolls. Nobody dissed the rolls.
“All right”—I set the plate down on the landing—“I’ve been polite, and I think you know how hard you make that. The least you could do is treat me with the respect you’d treat anybody else.”
Rathmore gazed down at me a moment longer, eyes traveling over my face. My nose, my lips, my chin, back up to my eyes. He gave a quick exhale, knelt, picked up the plate. “Thank you. Now what is it you’d like, Clementine?”
“I’d like you to teach me fire riding. Farrow told me you believe I have the instincts.”
He straightened. “You do. But you don’t have the temperament.”
I lifted my chin. “And you do?”
He leaned against the doorway. “That’s a bold move, Cole.”
Time to be brave. You’ve got nothing to lose. “Listen, I know we don’t get along. I know I get mad. But you also know why—you know about the Spitfire. And you know what else?”
He gestured for me to go on.
I lowered my voice. “I’m the last witch in the world. You know we’re more powerful than regular mages. If you don’t train me, you’ll never know what I was capable of.”
He laughed. “As brazen as ever.” Then he tilted his head until it rested against the frame. Tore off a bite of the roll and set it in his mouth. “Hmm, this is not bad. A bit heavy on the sugar.”
My eyes narrowed. “You’re mocking me.”
“Not at all. I’m complimenting your conjuration, with a slight critique for the future.”
I folded my arms. “Those were a gift. You can’t critique gifts.”
“That, right there.” He set the plate on a side table in the entry hall. When he turned back, he rubbed the stickiness from his hands. “That’s why I won’t teach you.”
“Because my fae rolls are too sweet?”
His arms folded, too. “Because you can’t handle the slightest commentary on your magic. You deflected it right away. Learning fire riding is dangerous, Clementine. It’s arduous. If you can’t handle a simple criticism from me, you’re not cut out for it.”
As he spoke, I felt like the floor had become unsteady. It was the sinking feeling of an unadorned truth being delivered. It was reflecting on my behavior now and leading up to this moment, wondering if this had always been true.
I was simultaneously building a defense and self-examining. Protecting my ego and wondering—with encroaching dread—if Callum Rathmore was right.
“And being the last witch doesn’t entitle you to anything,” he went on. “Do you know how many people in history have existed with grand potential? Millions and millions. I would rather teach an inferior mage to fire ride, one whose insecurities aren’t so outsized that they can’t handle a single comment on a plate of fae rolls.”
It was the most he’d said to me in an unbroken stream. And god, he’d really let me have it. By the end, I knew he’d plucked the right string, because anger heated my cheeks. I didn’t know who I wanted to lash out at—him, or me.
For his part, he just stood there. Waiting. Watching. Giving me the time I needed.
Finally I turned away, staring out over the grounds to think without the feeling of him staring me down. Around us, faint lights sprinkled through the frozen trees, their branches long and spindly and unclothed in the winter.
“Cole—” Rathmore began after a while.
“Stop,” I said, still turned away.
And to my surprise, he did. He didn’t speak again.
I took a little time to gather my splintered ego before I turned back around, defiance and regret still contending inside me. “You might be right.”
He still didn’t speak. His dark hair was haloed in the light emanating from inside his home.
“Maybe I don’t want to take criticism from you,” I said. “Maybe I feel like you’re always judging me. That you think badly of me.”
His arms uncrossed, and I raised a hand.
“But I can’t control what you think,” I said. “I can only control how I think, and how I behave. And I can do better. I can be better. If there’s a world where you’ll teach me, tell me what I have to do to make that world mine.”
“One pretty speech isn’t what I need, Cole.”
“Then what do you need?”
His eyes trailed out over the forest, and his jaw twitched like he was about to speak, but resisted. A line appeared between his eyebrows, and I sensed conflict. “When I say fire riding’s dangerous, Clementine, I don’t just mean you could fall off your horse.”
“What, then?”
“Some have called it a dark art.” His eyes found mine. “You have to know who you are, through and through, to resist its influence.”
“I know who I am,” I whispered—too fast.
“And who are you?”
I swallowed past a stopper in my throat. I’d spoken before I had really given the answer its due, and now a silence lapsed between us. A damning one. I had the liar’s key in my pocket, and even know I was lying to him—to everyone but a few—about it.
“You’re not ready,” he said, and turned away.
I stood on the landing for ten, fifteen seconds, staring at his closed door as a breeze whipped my hair in front of my face, chilled my cheeks.
I knew he was right. I also knew I had to change that.
Chapter Thirty-Four
The next week I began training with Mariella, the water guardian.
On the morning of our first training session, Mariella lifted her palm, a small ball of water already orbiting in it. “This is your nemesis.”
“What, the stuff I guzzle every day?” I snapped my fingers, and a burst of flame appeared up and down my own hand. “I think I can deal.”
She laughed, and as she did, her blonde hair shimmered under the sun. Behind her, the frozen pond glittered with ice. “You don’t respect the world’s most vital element. But you will.”
Jericho had been right: she had an almost religious reverence for her element, obvious from the moment he’d introduced us earlier that day.
When we’d found her, she had been sitting in the dining hall, whispering words over her cup of water. Her hand had moved over the cup, swirling the water in a mesmeric whirlpool.
I’d seen her before, her curly b
londe hair pooling down her back, the soft, flowing gait. She had an almost disconnected way of existing, and that hadn’t ever attracted me. So I hadn’t paid her much attention.
But she was the only water mage at Shadow’s End Jericho trusted, and she was a guardian. If she would keep my secret and train me, nothing else mattered.
“Come,” Mariella said, standing at the edge of the frozen pond. She’d brought us here, to this secluded spot in the forest, for our first session. “To know the power of water, you must meet the power of water.”
I’d already told her my fire magic could burn through Umbra’s enchantment. Mariella had been warned. But she said only, “It won’t be a problem.”
So I came. I rushed her with a swipe, and the moment I got close, a wave of icy water shut down the fire in my hand. And Mariella pooled away, sliding over the frozen ground without really stepping so much as gliding.
My hand began to freeze almost immediately, and I had to rekindle the fire to keep my fingers from numbing out.
“You see,” she said, “why water is your greatest nemesis?”
I turned toward her. “I’m think I’m starting to.”
“Each of the elements is most easily overpowered by one of the others. Fire is weakest to water. Water is weakest to air. Air is weakest to earth. Earth is weakest to fire.”
My head swirled, trying to process the implications of what she’d just said. I settled on, “Well, ain’t that a bitch.”
Mariella laughed, water appearing in a swirl between her hands like pulled taffy. “You surprise me, Clementine. I think I like you, fire witch.”
This time I lit up both my hands. “Does that mean you’ll share the secret of how to beat water?”
She gave me a coy smile. “Perhaps. After I show you its full power.” With a swing around, her water solidified into spikes of ice. They shot at me in a spray, and I leapt left, landing hard on my shoulder with a groan.
Behind me, the spikes crashed across the surface of the pond with a harmonic whistle.
Mariella came to stand over me. “You’re supposed to fight back, Clementine.”
