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

by S. W. Clarke

  Before I’d made it past the amphitheater, a voice sent chills like well water over my skin. “Cole.”

  I stopped, turned. Callum Rathmore stood under one of the outdoor lanterns, a black jacket on and the same jeans I’d seen him in that one morning he was traveling. A strange feeling came over me; he wore a different expression than I’d ever seen on him.

  The angles of his face passed under the light as he came closer. When he came to stand in front of me, I faced him, waiting for him to speak first.

  “You did it,” he said.

  “I’ve done a lot of things.” That had come out harsher than I’d meant it, but I couldn’t take it back now. Not with him.

  One corner of his mouth curled. “You called the Spitfire today. But you were in control. It was impressive, Cole.”

  “Thanks, Rathmore.”

  He gazed down at me in the ensuing silence, and a thread of urgency wound its way into my chest as I stared back. He was telling me something without telling me—I could see it in the twitch of his jaw.

  “I won’t be here when you retrieve the deceiver’s rod,” he bit out with uncommon harshness. “I have to leave the academy.”

  “You can’t stay another day,” I said, not a question.

  “No, I can’t.”

  Now I understood. The jacket. I noticed now his hair was pulled back. “So you’re leaving.” I paused. “I’ll guess I’ll see you in the fall. By then I’ll have the rod, and—”

  “I won’t be back, Cole.”

  Now annoyance wound its way through that urgency. “Not in the fall?”

  “I’m done here. I’m moving on.”

  “But you’re my teacher. You’re supposed to teach me…”

  He studied my face. “Teach you what?”

  “How to use my power. To fire ride.”

  “I already have.”

  I threw a hand out. “But you’re the prodigy, the genius. There’s probably a million things you haven’t taught me.”

  He shook his head. “Parlor tricks. They pale in comparison to what you’ve already learned. What matters is you can harness the power inside you without letting it become you.”

  “What about the prophecy, then?”

  He sighed. “I want nothing more than for you to fulfill the prophecy. You won’t understand why, but you’re better off reassembling the weapon without me here.”

  He was right: I didn’t understand.

  What I couldn’t tell him—what I wanted to tell him—was that I finally felt like we were on the same team. Like we could actually have a real partnership from here.

  I wanted him to stay.

  But that was an impossible thing to ask. I had no power there.

  So I turned away, a picture of petulance. “Goodbye, then. I have to sleep. Tomorrow’s the last trial, and I’m sure Professor Frostwish is waiting for you.”

  His hand caught my arm. Not in the rough way he might have during our training. This grip had give, but urgency, too.

  I could have pulled away. That was the difference.

  When I turned back, he wore real pain on his face. “Frostwish?”

  I stared, my arm still in his grip. Then I stepped forward. “You’re always with her.”

  His eyebrows lowered. “Frostwish was my colleague, and not one I’d advise you to trust. Keep your guard around her.”

  His colleague.

  “But you talked to her constantly, went places with her.” I shook my head. “And yet she isn’t trustworthy?”

  I’m sorry, Cole. I can’t explain more, but I...” He didn’t finish; he sounded miserable.

  “What are you sorry for?”

  His Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat. “Everything.”

  Nebulous as always. Everything seemed to contain a lot more than what I could conceive of. His face carried the weight of too much pain and regret for “everything” to be simply this—leaving the academy, leaving me behind.

  But in that moment, the tendrils of his scent enveloping the space around me, the haze of the bare facts—I was a woman, and he was a man—seemed to buff away everything that had come before and that would come after.

  My breathing had quickened. My heart had tumbled over itself.

  “Your thumb,” I said up at him.

  “What about it?” he whispered.

  “It’s rubbing my arm.”

  He stopped, his breathing audible through his nostrils. I could see it all in his eyes—this moment, this pull—and, too, the perfect angles of his cheeks, his jaw, the line of his nose. His handsomeness wasn’t even the part that did it.

  It was his heat. His presence.

  “Cole,” he murmured. “Please be careful.”

  So I tilted my face up, almost without realizing what I was doing. And my own voice came out husky, hardly recognizable. “You know me—always careful.”

  The next morning, I stood in front of the full-length mirror in our dorm, settling my cloak over my shoulders. When I set the clasp at my neck, Eva came to stand behind me. “You look ready,” she said.

  My eyes met hers in the mirror. “As I can be.”

  When I turned around, she extended her arm, bent at the elbow. “May I walk you?”

  I took her arm. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.” Glanced over my shoulder. “Loki, you sufficiently bathed?”

  He stretched on my bed, leapt off and floated with catlike grace to the floor. “Mostly. Either way, it’s go time.”

  We came out onto the quiet grounds at midday. Normally I spied the sun through the wispy curls of my hair, but this morning Eva had gone to great trouble to braid it all back into an intricate design I would never replicate if I lived another hundred years.

  I wore simple clothes: a black shirt, black leggings and brown boots with the laces tucked in behind the tongue. Nothing would slow me down.

  The key was in a pocket sewn into the back of my pants, courtesy of Eva’s regular stitching skill. Of all places, no one was likely to notice a key back there, and I had easy access to it.

  We walked through the clearing, past the amphitheater. Aidan met us halfway, evaluated me with an up-down and an approving nod. “You look good, Clem.”

  “Is that the understated Aidan vote of confidence?”

  He chuckled as he walked alongside me. “It absolutely is.”

  We passed through the forest, heading down the path toward the leyline nearest to the academy grounds. It was the same leyline we used every time we came or went, but this time it didn’t feel so benign.

  Today, it would take me somewhere I didn’t want to go. Somewhere I’d have to escape.

  Then again, that was most places in my life after the age of twelve. And I’d survived them all. What was another one, except with a few boggans?

  Voices sounded ahead. As we drew near, we found Umbra standing amidst the other four students who had passed the second trial.

  “Ah, Clementine and Loki,” Umbra said, the others turning to face us with her acknowledgment. “You’re almost precisely on time.”

  “Always my aspiration.” I released Eva’s arm as we came to stand in the circle.

  Umbra eyed Eva and Aidan. “Now say your goodbyes, you two. I’m afraid this trial is only known to those who have passed the first two—and I know you, Evanora Whitewillow, would someday use that knowledge to your advantage.”

  I turned to Eva. Little did Umbra know, I’d happily tell Eva anything that would help her pass the third trial. In fact, we already knew far more about it than we were supposed to, courtesy of Jericho.

  Instead of saying anything, Eva only hugged me hard. She squeezed tight, pulled away with surprisingly glassy eyes. We exchanged a look, and she gave me a tight nod.

  It was all she needed to do.

  I turned just as Aidan took a deep breath. “Clementine, good luck. Not that you’ll need it—you make your own.”

  My smile was real. I couldn’t tell him that he was part of my luck; that wasn’t a line I co
uld ever say without laughing at myself. So I only said, “I expect a fruit basket on the other side.”

  He half-smiled. “You bet.”

  When they had gone back to the grounds, Loki and I stepped into the group of students. Liara and Maise both glanced at me, but only one of them smiled.

  Umbra cleared her throat. “Welcome to the third trial, you five. This is one I do not share knowledge of with anyone except those who make it this far in the guardianship trials, for many reasons that you wouldn’t care to hear about. Suffice it to say, before you enter, all knowledge of the place I’m about to send you must remain yours and yours alone. Do you all agree to this?”

  We all agreed with nods, some vocally. Umbra made sure she got assent from each of us before she moved on.

  “Shortly, I’ll part the veil to a place known as the Boundless Labyrinth. It’s a hidden place in the world that only a select few of us know about, and it is guarded by boggans. What they guard is not for you to discover—your objective is simply to pass from one end of the labyrinth to the other unmolested, and to do so before sunrise. Is that understood?”

  We all indicated we understood.

  Loki and I met eyes, the obvious question passing between us: Is it the rod they’re guarding?

  “The boggans should not bother you unless you bother them, and I shall place each of you at separate spots far away from them. Further, while the maze is deep and perhaps confusing, there is a path through. There’ll be no flying allowed among you fae. When you arrive at the other side, I will be waiting for you to take you back to the academy.” She reached into her robes, removed five silver whistles. “Each of you will wear one of these. If you encounter dire trouble, blow into it and I’ll come for you.”

  “What do you mean by ‘dire trouble?’” one student asked.

  Umbra paused with her hand outstretched. “Mortal peril. It is not enough to fear for your life—you must be truly afraid you will lose it before you blow the whistle. Every guardian will fear for their lives in the face of the Shade’s army. That is a guarantee of your service, if you should pass this trial.”

  The whistles remained in her palm, and she stared at us all as though daring us to reach out and take them.

  By doing so, we would be entering a covenant: we would only blow into them if we thought we were about to die.

  I stepped forward, reached out and took the first whistle; I had long ago known of and agreed to this. I placed the leather thong around my neck, and Umbra nodded.

  One by one, the other four took their whistles.

  “Brave souls, each of you.” Umbra took a quick breath, turned away from us and raised one hand. “Prepare yourselves now. Once I part the veil, you must enter straightaway.”

  Chapter Forty-Five

  She sent us through one by one, parting and restitching the veil each time. Liara and I were the last two, and I gestured for her to go ahead of me.

  Her only response, after shifting her black-eyed gaze off me, was to step up to Umbra. I imagined those translucent wings on her back could give brutal paper cuts.

  She passed through with simple grace, fearless and unhesitant.

  Finally, Loki and I came to Umbra.

  She took a deep breath, evaluating him and me in turn. “I wish the world’s last witch well.”

  That was an odd way to put it. But I didn’t have the capacity to consider it now. “Thanks, Umbra.”

  Loki meowed up at her, tail upright. She didn’t know he’d said, “Let’s get on with it.”

  Or maybe she did.

  She turned toward the leyline, cut a deft line from four feet up straight down to the ground. For a woman of her age, her hand was perfectly steady; the line couldn’t have been more precise.

  On the other side, blackness. I couldn’t make a thing out.

  “Loki—” I began.

  “I know, I know. Follow me.” He went first, disappearing through the parting.

  I didn’t have time to hesitate; I ducked through after him, straightening into a pitch-black chill.

  In this place, the dead of night pressed in like a vise.

  The veil closed behind me, cutting away all traces of ambient light.

  “Loki,” I whispered, arms going automatically over my chest.

  “Here.” There wasn’t even light to see his eyes in the darkness, but I felt his small body rub against my leg. “We’re inside the labyrinth, Clem.”

  “If we weren’t, then I’d be scared.” I hadn’t even tried yet to take a step. “What do you see?”

  “High walls covered in vines, a ten-foot path between them. We’re at the center of an almost perfectly geometric crossroad.”

  Around me, leaves rustled in a faint breeze. An unfamiliar scent clung to it, musky and thick and vaguely unpleasant. I could hear nothing else, smell nothing else.

  It took every bit of my self-control not to light a fire in my palm. Even if the boggans ignored someone else using their magic, my one foul experience with the academy’s boggan had taught me how little fondness they had for fire witches.

  “Which way?” I breathed.

  Loki remained against my leg. “Hell if I know. All four directions smell the same to me.”

  This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.

  My hand slipped around to the pocket sewn into my pants, unzipped it to remove the key. It was cold and inert in my hand, even when I lifted it to the air. “The key isn’t helping.”

  Loki sighed. “So we pick a direction. Which one do you vote for?”

  “The one that smells the least boggan-like.”

  His paws padded over the dirt ahead of me, and I could hear him scenting for a good thirty seconds. “Straight on, then.”

  I took one step, then another, the key tight in my grip. This was terrible, disorienting, like passing through a black void. Every moment I felt like I’d run into a wall or drop into a pit; there was no way of knowing.

  “Umbra said the boggans are guarding something,” I said to him.

  “Yeah.” Loki’s small feet continued padding ahead of me. “The rod, no doubt.”

  “Would be too much a coincidence otherwise, wouldn’t it?”

  “Yeah. But how would she know about the rod?”

  I shrugged for no one to see. “Maybe she doesn’t. Maybe she just knows they’re guarding something.”

  He huffed. “In this case, you give Umbra less credit than she deserves.”

  “Probably.” I continued with my tentative steps forward, a little faster now. “You’ll tell me if I’m going to run into a wall, won’t you?”

  “Of course. I can resist my catlike desire to see you suffer for my amusement when need be.”

  I snorted softly. God, was I glad to have him here with me. Even so, my free hand had unconsciously gone out as a shield, palm feeling the air for anything I might encounter. At one point it swung left, and the moment I touched the cold leaves of the vines, I recoiled.

  “Just the wall, scaredy cat,” Loki said. “I’ve always wanted to say that.”

  My hand went out again, brushing along the vines. “Isn’t that denigrating to your own species?”

  “And making me wear a green bowtie isn’t?” he snorted. “We pick and choose our battles.”

  He had a point. “What’s ahead?”

  “We’re turning right in ten steps. There’s a root sticking out of the ground two steps ahead.”

  To his credit, he led me valiantly through the turn and over anything that might trip me. We continued this way for a timeless stretch, making conversation in our softest voices.

  “Where do you think we are?” I said.

  “A labyrinth.”

  “In the world, smartass.”

  “Could be anywhere it’s dark right now. The air doesn’t feel humid, so I’d guess the northern hemisphere.” He paused. “Anyway, what does it matter? We are where we are.”

  Fair enough. It was my own human obsession with orienting myself in the world that led
me to want to be somewhere besides just the labyrinth. I wanted to be in a country, on a continent. Somewhere mentally recognizable to my former self who lived in a world without magic.

  After a time, we came to another fork.

  “Left or right?” Loki said. “They both look the same.”

  “What do you smell?”

  A pause. Then, “Something’s to the left.”

  “What the hell is ‘something,’ Loki?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t make it out.”

  I stood a time, listening to his feet padding nearby. A chill had slid over my arms, taken up residence in my shoulders and neck. “Right, then?”

  The padding stopped. “I think that’s for the best. Three steps forward, then turn right.”

  I had taken the three steps forward when a sound cut through the air from somewhere far, far off.

  The long, shrill note of a whistle.

  My chest caught, and I stared blankly in the direction it had come from. The note continued on and on, dying away to a frail thread before it vanished entirely.

  Silence resumed, but the noise still rang in my ears. A second later, lightning ricocheted from the sky a long way off, illuminating the labyrinth in forest-greens and gnarled branches and walls some twenty feet high.

  Umbra.

  I stood staring at the spot, my vision seared white. Neither Loki nor I spoke for a time, even though the leaves were once again the only sound to be heard.

  “That whistle’s only supposed to be blown in mortal peril,” I said.

  “Do you suppose they got scared and jumped the gun?”

  I shook my head. “No. Not these students.”

  “Then what do you think happened?”

  I squeezed the key in my hand. I couldn’t help but feel my presence in this place was the difference. I couldn’t stop the flashes from my house sorting, when the boggan had tackled me into the pool, pressing me down, down, down through the water. Trying to drown me for being a fire witch.

  Surely Umbra had rescued the student; she was immensely powerful.

  But one truth stood: only four of us remained.

  I ignored Loki’s question. “I think we need to move faster.”