Spell It Out for Me

by Sarina Dorie

  “We can still go, and we can still be friends. I just won’t be here with you.”

  “This is that bag of dicks’ fault, isn’t it?” She used her pet name for Thatch.

  “No.” I could already see where this conversation was going.

  A spider scampered across Josie’s lavender witch hat. I inched away.

  Pinky stuck his shaggy head into the room. The sasquatch had to duck under the doorframe to fit. “Is everything all right? Jo, what’s wrong?”

  “Thatch got Clarissa fired.”

  “No, he didn’t!” I shook her shoulders, trying to get her to look at me and listen. “He tried to stop Jeb from firing me.” At least I thought he had. Now I wasn’t so certain.

  “Yeah, right. He’s been out to get you from day one,” Josie said.

  I gave them a brief explanation of what had transpired and Jeb’s reasoning.

  “If it wasn’t for you, more students would have died and been taken as tithes when King Viridios came here when our wards were down,” Pinky said. “Doesn’t that count for something?”

  Josie patted me on the back. “And Prince Elric’s magic was what saved those students when that clay golem attacked.”

  “But that was my fault. I built the kiln, and I was the target of the golem. The students wouldn’t have gotten involved if it hadn’t been for me. With King Viridios, our wards wouldn’t have gotten messed up if it hadn’t been for that new dean Jeb hired—which wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t freed Khaba.”

  Quietly Josie said, “If you hadn’t exposed Julian Thistledown for being the monster he was, he would still be preying on innocent girls. Jeb should give you an award.”

  I stared down at the floor as a spider scuttled toward Josie’s foot. “I’m sure Jeb would try to find some way to blame me for that one too.”

  Josie and Pinky hugged me and consoled me for over half an hour before Pro Ro and Grandmother Bluehorse bustled in. The other teachers looked just as surprised as Pinky and Josie had been by the news.

  Grandmother Bluehorse asked, “What’s this I hear from Miss Bloodmire about you being fired?”

  “I miss curfew all the time.” Pro Ro said. “What’s this really about?”

  At this rate, I didn’t know if I would have a chance to tell Thatch about my dismissal before I was booted out the door.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Vises and Virtues

  By the time I made it down to the dungeon it was well past dinner. This was going to be the most difficult goodbye. I couldn’t help feeling like I had failed Felix Thatch, not being clever and witty enough to save myself from the principal’s wrath. I hadn’t been sensible enough to stay out of trouble. Most of all, I hadn’t been wise enough to keep my mouth shut.

  I ventured into the dungeon, passing through his alchemy classroom that resembled a chemistry lab, through the room decorated with what was supposedly historical and ornamental torture equipment, a smaller torture room with chains on the wall used for detentions, and on to Thatch’s office. He sat at his desk, correcting papers.

  I studied the elegant slope of his nose, his thick, dark eyebrows, and his somber expression. The waves of his black hair gleamed blue in the light of the chandelier. He was beautiful in the way many Witchkin were with our Fae ancestry.

  Priscilla, his raven, rustled in her cage in the corner.

  Thatch looked up. He stood, the gesture old-fashioned and deferential. “Miss Lawrence, I wondered when you would show up for your first magic lesson.” His sardonic smile faded. “Why so grim? It’s not going to be torture.”

  “I, well, maybe you already know. Do you know?” I swallowed the lump in my throat.

  “Know what?”

  “Last night—today—my meeting.” I tried to get the words straight in my head. “Thank you for trying to convince Jeb not to fire me, but . . . it wasn’t enough. He told me to pack up my bags.”

  He didn’t correct me for thanking him for once.

  He fell back in his chair, forehead wrinkled in consternation. “Are you certain? He wants you to leave today? He isn’t even giving you until the end of next week?”

  I’d never seen him so crestfallen. “I’m sorry. I know you tried. I really do appreciate it.”

  He jumped back up. “No. Unacceptable. I will not allow it to happen. I’ll bewitch him into complacency, and he’ll have to listen to me this time. Then you may express your gratitude and owe me a favor if you wish.”

  I shook my head at him, trying not to laugh. It was hard to tell if he was being serious. “I’m pretty sure bewitching someone is illegal. And I doubt it would work. He’s a Celestor, right?” That meant Jeb’s affinity used some of the most complex and difficult kinds of star magic. He had to be crazy powerful.

  Thatch came around the desk, momentarily pausing before he took my hands in his. This was phenomenal. He’d voluntarily touched me two days in a row. True, he hadn’t hugged me like Pinky, Vega, or even Pro Ro, who I had thought would forever hate me because of the infamous turban incident, but holding my hands was really something for Thatch.

  “I will speak with him again on your behalf, but the old man is senile and can be set in his ways. This might be your last day at Womby’s.” Thatch wet his lips. “That being the case, what is left for you to do here?”

  “I don’t know. Buy a ticket home?”

  “You don’t have to worry about the bus. I’ll take you home.” He waved me off dismissively. “What do you need to know before you leave here? What business is left unfinished?” He gazed into my eyes.

  Did he mean us? My gaze flickered to his perfect lips and then away. I would not go down that rabbit hole of thoughts. He and I definitely had unfinished business, but this wasn’t the right time. And as attracted as I was to him, I wanted to be with someone emotionally available. Even if I hadn’t made this bargain with Elric, I was certain I would have chosen to date him because he was capable of feeling love and wasn’t afraid to show it.

  Thatch squeezed my hands. “How would you like to spend your last moments here? With your favorite students in the last Art Club meeting of the year?”

  I smiled at the suggestion.

  “With your closest friends at a pub in Lachlan Falls having one last party together? I’ll make it happen if that’s what you want.”

  I looked away, thinking over his words. It was sweet of him to offer to organize either. Both options were tempting, but I had already said goodbye to my closest friends. The students I would regret not saying goodbye to, but I feared a party with them would lead to embarrassing questions. I didn’t want to admit to them I had been a dumbass, and I’d gotten fired for missing curfew—or all the times I’d endangered them.

  “What does your heart most desire?” He lifted my chin. The gray of his eyes was calm, lacking the storm of anger I’d seen the night before. “Do you want to spend the evening with me?”

  My heart seized in my chest. Thatch had never said anything so forward before. I did want to spend the evening with him. Even if I was in a relationship, and I should have felt more guilt over the idea of spending an evening with another man, this was my last chance to sit and talk with him. The fantasies I kept locked up might have wanted to ravish him, but the logical part of myself knew that he and I would simply be friends because that was the smart move.

  “Is this the ultimate temptation? I’ve found your true weakness.” His eyes twinkled. “Indeed, I see I have discovered it. I’m sure my offer is many a young woman’s weakness. Who wouldn’t wish to spend the evening in a cold, damp dungeon possibly being tortured by boring magic lessons?”

  Some of the hope in my heart sank. Oh, and here I had thought he was being romantic for a moment. I should have known. He was far too practical for that.

  I laughed, uncomfortable and feeling stupid by what I thought he had been offering. Friendship? Romance? I had a boyfriend whom I had fallen in love with. What was wrong with me?
/>   “You do want to learn magic, do you not? That’s your greatest desire?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said, half relieved this is what he’d been meaning all along. “You told me you would tell me how to restore my affinity on my own. It looks like I’m going to need a crash course because I’m not going to get any help from this point on, am I?”

  “Not in the Morty Realm. I would have to bring you somewhere safe, like the school . . . if Jeb should permit it.” He gestured to the seat across from his desk. I sat in the metal chair, the cold seeping through my clothes. I would have dressed more warmly if I had known I would be in the most uncomfortable meditation chair that had ever been invented.

  “You need to be aware of your affinity, changes in your affinity, and be able to control it before it consumes you like you did last night. If you had come to me immediately after your . . . magical orgasm, I believe we could have prevented that.”

  My cheeks flushed with heat.

  “Each time you are intimate with Elric, it will rekindle your affinity. If you take each of those instances as an opportunity to harness that energy, the power inside you will last longer and strengthen until becoming permanent.”

  “How many times do I need to meditate after being intimate?”

  “Everyone is different. It might take a dozen times or a hundred.”

  “Okay, meditation, focusing on my energies, and pain control. Got it. What else?”

  “If you want magic—if you intend to use it and control it and you’re certain you wish to regain it—you need to block out time to meditate every day.” He cleared his throat. “I haven’t time to be polite and allude to private matters, so I’ll be direct. You need to force your affinity to spark every day. This needn’t be done with Elric. You can manually stimulate yourself without him. In fact, sexual self-gratification without him would be preferred because it will be easier for you to meditate afterward, and thus you can prevent another painful episode like what occurred yestereve.”

  “Just to be clear, you’re talking about masturbation? I thought you said that wouldn’t work.”

  He shrugged. “I didn’t say that, precisely. The reason doing this on your own won’t work is the lack of training and knowledge of what to do afterward. It would be preferable for you to come to me following instances when you orgasm so that you can meditate here with my guidance in case something goes wrong. Unfortunately, you will have to master these studies without an instructor.”

  Heh. He said master. Masturbation. He probably didn’t even realize the pun he’d made.

  “How do you know all this?” I asked.

  He steepled his hands in front of him, his long fingers arching upward. I wondered if he was trying to be sexy or it just came naturally to him. I pushed the thought away.

  I asked, “How did you restore your affinity after Loraline drained you? Miss Periwinkle said you recovered miraculously fast—within a year.”

  He snorted. “It was miraculously fast. But it wasn’t within a year. It was within a couple of months.”

  “You lied to her?”

  “She assumed. I never told her the details.”

  “So? How did you do it? Did you have wild sex with a lot of hot Witchkin babes?”

  He rolled his eyes. “No, that would work for you, but not me. Our affinities aren’t fueled the same way.”

  I thought about his pain magic and that time I’d seen him cutting himself through the mirror, the tattoos, and all the torture equipment in the dungeon. Did he use that to punish himself? “Have you ever read The Scarlet Letter?”

  He smiled. “Indeed. If you must know, self-flagellation is not my weapon of choice.”

  “What is?”

  He folded his hands on his desk, his smile like a patient teacher indulging a child.

  “Sorry. I’m being nosy. You don’t have to answer.”

  “It’s a valid question. Perhaps if I satiate your curiosity, for once you won’t go to extreme measures that endanger yourself to discover my secrets. Perhaps you won’t feel the need to lie to me about all your secretive adventures if I’m honest with you.”

  “I don’t have any secret adventures.”

  “Oh?” He raised an eyebrow.

  The guilt, heavy in my heart, sank me into my seat. He was probably talking about the Ruby of Divine Wisdom and the Pit of Lost Souls. And Alouette Loraline’s diary. And resurrecting the dead. And following him into the woods that time he’d tried to hide those books from me. And going through his desk and looking at his drawings. And spying on him and Gertrude Periwinkle.

  I did have a lot of sneaky adventures under my belt.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  He inclined his head. “I don’t need to be privy to your secrets, especially not now that you won’t be employed here any longer.”

  “Yeah. I wish I had done a few things differently.” My heart felt as though it were breaking when I thought of no longer working at the school. Of no longer seeing him.

  Felix Thatch was peculiar. At times he’d even been creepy. But there was no doubt he and I had grown closer. I would miss him.

  “All things being considered, this is your last day here. There’s no reason to keep information from you any longer.” He coughed. “If I am forthcoming with you, do you promise to be forthcoming with me?”

  “I’ll try.”

  “I’ll show you my . . . vices.” His lips quirked upward in a sardonic smile. “Wait here.”

  He left through the door to his private chambers. I sat in the torture chair, trying to memorize the mahogany of his desk, the comfy ergonomic chair made of plastic and other non-Witchkin-friendly materials behind his desk. Files were stacked neatly and his quill rested next to the blotter pad. Priscilla rustled in her cage, watching me.

  He brought back a box about the size of a standard sketchpad, though thicker. He set it on the desk before me and opened it. I held my breath, anxious about what I might see. Cushioned in velvet were an array of small clamps and miniature versions of vises like what my father used to own in his tool cabinet.

  Apparently when he’d said his ‘vices,’ they were actual vises.

  “Oh,” I said.

  He leaned against the desk. “When I lost my affinity, I used these every day. They’re more practical than other methods. You can get a reasonable amount of pain out of them without breaking bones, or even breaking the skin.” He selected one and held it up, casually as if he were holding up an everyday tool.

  My palm started sweating. I fought the urge to lean away. I didn’t like sitting so close to him while he held an instrument of torture in his hand. Not that I thought he would use it on me. He wasn’t evil. At least, I didn’t think so.

  My voice came out a whisper. “How does pain magic work? Do you always use those on . . . yourself?”

  “I think what you’re asking is, do I ever use these on other people? No. I could obtain magic that way, but I don’t.”

  “So all those jokes about you being the dungeon master and torturing students for pleasure. . . .”

  He laughed, the sound harsh. “It comes dangerously close to the truth, doesn’t it? The best way to hide behind a lie is to make it believable. But no, I don’t ever use pain magic on students. I prefer to torture students with homework.”

  I giggled. “Spoken like a true teacher.”

  “When I chain up a student like Balthasar Llewelyn to the walls of the dungeon and subject him to fire, it trains his winter affinity to resist his weakness. It’s much like pain does for your pleasure affinity.” He waved at me with the vise as he spoke.

  My gaze remained locked on the tool in his hand. My weakness. He had said he was going to give me a magic lesson, and I had to control pain.

  He’d also said he didn’t use those tools on other people.

  He replaced the vise in the box, and I breathed a little easier. I didn’t want him to know how much his affinity frightened me.
I didn’t want him to believe I thought he was a freak or scary as other people would see one with his affinity. Like people saw our affinity.

  He folded back the foam from the top to reveal an array of needles. Oh God, he had even more torture devices?

  “I have learned to fuel my magic through other means besides pain. I use starlight most of the time since I am supposed to be a Celestor. I use plant, animal, and elemental magics because most Celestors have mastered the ‘lesser’ affinities. But I use my affinity on special occasions, when I need more power or I need magic more quickly.”

  “And razor blades. You use that too.”

  He quirked an eyebrow upward. “Sometimes, but mostly when I need blood magic to strengthen a spell.”

  I held my breath, afraid he might ask how I knew. He was being honest with me. If he asked me, I would feel obligated to tell him the truth about that time I had spied on him through the hallway of mirrors. That would lead to more questions. He would want to know all the occasions I had spied on him. I didn’t want to tell him about the time he’d been with Gertrude Periwinkle.

  He smoothed his fingers over the vises with loving care. “Any more questions about forbidden affinities?”

  If this was the last time I was going to ask him questions, I might as well make it count. “My biological mother used this magic on you?”

  “Yes.”

  “What about Miss Periwinkle? Did the two of you . . . um. . . .” My face grew hot. I shouldn’t have asked.

  “No. She knew what I was, and she was willing, but. . . .” His voice trailed off and gazed into the distance. “It wouldn’t have been a wise idea.”

  “Why?”

  “Consider how you feel when someone touches you and sets off your magic. It’s addictive. Once you have a taste, you don’t want it to end. Pain magic is the same way, only stronger. Your magic is dangerous because you’re still learning how to control it and we want to make sure you don’t accidentally harm someone. My magic is dangerous because I might hurt someone on purpose.”