Spell It Out for Me

by Sarina Dorie

  Hex Crimes

  BOOK TEN

  CHAPTER ONE

  Seducing Starlight

  Principal Jebediah Ebenezer Bumblebub had offered me my job back as fine arts and crafts teacher at Womby’s School for Wayward Witches. Now just a couple of days into the start of my third year at the school for at-risk witches, it was a chance to focus on what was important: learning the magic I needed to protect myself and my students.

  I waved to my student Imani Washington to follow me up the stairs. She lingered in the stairwell below, glumly kicking at a clump of dirt as though we were on our way to the gallows.

  “I need you to pick up the pace,” I said in my firmest teacher tone. “We are going to be late.”

  She trudged up the stairs. “Can’t we just say I got sick and couldn’t make it?”

  “You are going to miss a meteor shower and some cool celestial magic. Celestors need starlight for power, so tonight is a special event for you and all the others with your affinity.”

  She made a face. “But I’m not a real Celestor.”

  I glanced at the shadows. The stairwell was dark, save for a few sconces lighting the passage, but that didn’t mean spying students weren’t hiding or out in the open using an invisibility hoodie, as some of my more nefarious students had done in the past.

  I lowered my voice. “No, you aren’t, but you need to keep up the appearance you are. If you don’t, someone will find out. If it isn’t the Fae who kidnap you, it might be rogue witches who want to use you.”

  It wasn’t safe to be born with an affinity all the other Witchkin considered forbidden. But the shunning and shaming—and possible risk of draining by other witches—wasn’t the true danger. It was the Fae Imani and I had to worry about.

  If only the Raven Queen hadn’t discovered who I was related to and what I was. Of course, it hadn’t just been her. There had been Julian Thistledown—ex-boyfriend and deadbeat—and now dead as a doornail. Then it had been Derrick, the love of my life, under the Raven Queen’s spell. After that, it had been Elric, Prince of the Silver Court, who had deceived me.

  It was depressing enough that every man I fell in love with turned out to be evil or used me for my magic, but when Felix Thatch, my friend and mentor had used my magic against me, I had decided it would be best to give up love. I could see how easy it would have been for my biological mother to withdraw from the world and turn evil.

  Not that I was going to become the next wickedest witch in the realm.

  I wondered whether Elric had ever loved me or that affectionate persona had been a ruse to get me to marry him so that I would bear his children. He hadn’t forced himself on me like Julian, but he had wanted me for my affinity nonetheless. He had figured out far before my biological mother had that Red affinities were the cure to the Fae Fertility Paradox. The pain of our breakup during the summer still made my heart ache.

  Every letter he’d sent since our breakup had been platonically friendly and innocuous, not even mentioning our relationship. He asked me how I was and if I needed any art supplies. As if I wanted to ask any favors from him again. I didn’t believe his motivations were out of altruistic interest. If I gave him the opportunity to use me again, he would seize it.

  I wanted more for Imani. I wanted the normal life for her I couldn’t have for myself. If she could keep her magic hidden, no one would tear out her heart and use it for target practice.

  “If you become skilled at learning Celestor magic, you’re less likely to get hurt,” I said.

  Imani pulled the hood of her cloak over her head, her dark eyes hidden from view. Even so, I could see how her lips trembled. “Every time I participate in a g school event like this, my magic goes wrong.”

  I patted her shoulder. “It’s going to be all right. I’ll be there with you.”

  She sighed. “Right.”

  Okay, so I’d had my fair share of accidents too. That probably didn’t make her feel much better.

  A scuff of noise came from behind us. The stone of the wall groaned and rumbled next to us. I leapt back, tugging Imani with me up the stairs and away from the lower landing. The bricks and mortar scraped together, a mass floating out of the wall, revealing Ludomil Sokoloff, the school custodian, wearing drab overalls. He carried a stack of books in his arms, his grouchy expression shifting to surprise when he saw us.

  I had never seen the school’s custodian use that kind of magic.

  “Hi,” I said uneasily, wondering if he had heard any of our conversation.

  He rushed away without another word, taking the steps two at a time as he descended. Although he spoke to other staff, he didn’t usually deign to speak with me. The stone debris shifted back into place to seal the hole in the wall. I tried to see through the cracks into the shadows, but I couldn’t tell where he’d come from.

  “That was weird,” Imani said.

  “Not for the Unseen Realm.” Weird was the norm in this dimension.

  Our footsteps crunched over the grime on the stairs as we made our way to the roof. I tried to hide my nervousness under a poker face I was pretty sure I didn’t possess. Imani was nervous about her magic exploding. I was nervous about my magic doing nothing. I had slowly started to regain my powers. The only thing that would be worse than my students realizing I couldn’t do magic and that they could freely glue me to the ceiling of my classroom was someone recognizing I used touch magic and my affinity was forbidden.

  My affinity had never been publicly tested, so that was in my favor. Some teachers had already hinted that I must have been an Amni Plandai fertility nymph and my magic fell in the range of plant-and-animal magic. The principal thought I was an Elementia because I had struck one of my crazy hex-boyfriends down with lightning. This year the rumor was that I must use celestial energies because of the soul portraits I’d painted last school year drew on the prophetic energies of the stars.

  If I didn’t look like a Celestor, or one of the other more acceptable affinities, people would think I was a fake—which I was. They would want to know how I could do so many unusual kinds of magic. Someone would put together the pieces of the puzzle that revealed I was a Red affinity.

  I had been practicing for this meteor shower. Tonight, I would show the school how normal I was and blend in. I would help Imani look like everyone else. Life would be good. We would live happily ever after. The end.

  I pushed open the door to the roof. It swung open too easily. My eyes hadn’t adjusted from the lit passage to the starry night, and I walked into someone.

  He grunted and stepped back. A wand flared to life, purple light two inches from my eyeballs temporarily blinding me.

  “Hi, Mr. Thatch!” Imani said, a hint of her usual cheeriness returning. “Are you going to teach us Celestor magic tonight?”

  I stared in mortification at Felix Thatch. Wind wafted his shoulder-length hair behind him, the raven locks melting into the shadows. He wore his tweed suit over a shirt with a high collar and a cravat. He looked more handsome than ever.

  No, he did not look handsome. I tore my gaze away from his surprised expression. That longing deep in my chest was not love. It was indigestion from school food. After the way he had manipulated me and deceived me to get me to break up with Elric, I loathed him. He was as bad as the Fae with all his lies.

  If he had only waited for me to understand Elric’s true motives on my own, he wouldn’t have needed to resort to kissing me in front of an entire Fae court, humiliating me, and using my affinity against me. I could probably have forgiven him for trying to drain me in order to keep my magic hidden and protected, but I would never be able to forget the way he’d kissed me and thrown me away without a care.

  I couldn’t forgive myself for falling in love with him.

  “Miss Lawrence.” Thatch spoke in an indifferent British monotone that gave no indication of the irritation he probably felt. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

  I crossed m
y arms. “You left a note in my mailbox. You said I needed to chaperone Imani, so I came.” That was the extent of our communications these days. Notes.

  His face was paler than usual as his gaze swept over me. “You didn’t show up for your lesson, and you didn’t answer the note I placed in your box.”

  Imani looked from Thatch to me.

  During the second half of the summer, Imani had stayed with her friend Greenie and helped on her family’s farm while I’d gone to my fairy godmother’s for a couple of weeks. I wished I could have stayed longer, but with every crow or raven I spotted, I feared it was an emissary of the Raven Court come to attack my fairy godmother and Maddy and snatch me away. At any moment I had expected my returning magic to give me away and draw more Fae.

  I would never be able to permanently return to the Morty Realm and resume a normal life.

  Like it or not, I had asked for magic. Now I had it. I needed to learn defensive magic to protect myself and my students.

  When I returned to the school in August, I had studied magic in private without Felix Thatch’s tutoring. The restoration of my magic was coming along quite fine without his assistance. I’d even managed some rudimentary spells without resulting in pain.

  I would never ask for his help again. He was as bad as the Fae. The price of a favor was always too high. Last time the price had been my heart.

  The events of summer vacation made for an awkward school year. In the past I would have let myself become tongue-tied and felt ashamed for the way I’d fallen for his charms . . . multiple times.

  Instead, I held my head high and swept past him. “Imani, come along.”

  “You’re going the wrong direction,” Thatch said. “The young ladies will be over that way.”

  I turned to find him pointing in the opposite direction. Shadowy figures sat huddled by lit candles. Torches brightened the edges of the ramparts.

  “Look after Miss Lawrence,” Thatch whispered in an unenthusiastic undertone. “We wouldn’t want your favorite teacher to walk off the edge of the roof.”

  Imani laughed.

  He probably did wish I’d fall off the roof. I knew I wished he would. School had only been in session for a week and already it was intolerable when I found him lurking around corners.

  I walked next to the battlements of the roof to the place the group of students and teachers were situated. Wand and candle light moved down below. The students had been divided up into teams based on affinities. Elementia gathered down below in front of the school under the supervision of the head of the department Jackie Frost. Students were divided into smaller groups with other teachers. A crowd toward the back of the schoolgrounds had gathered around a bonfire. I was guessing Grandmother Bluehorse headed the Amni Plandai and the teachers under her supervision. I suspected the other school teams had separated their groups by gender as the Celestors had.

  This was the first time I had joined the Celestor team for a meteor shower party. I didn’t even know why other teams were joining the Celestors when this wasn’t their affinity, and Celestor magic was supposed to be the trickiest to learn. Then again, knowing a variety of magic always seemed like a smart idea.

  Shortly after we joined the group, drumming started up from one of the groups below.

  “It is time to gather,” someone said solemnly from the shadows of the roof.

  Imani and I followed a group of girls holding candles. A group of about thirty teenagers huddled around a figure reclining on what appeared to be a chaise lounge, the kind found outdoors near a pool. Sitting in the chair, flipping through a fashion magazine, was none other than Vega Bloodmire, wicked roommate extraordinaire. She wore a vintage bathing suit from the twenties that showed off her long, lean legs. She sipped from a glass with an umbrella.

  Vega removed her sunglasses and tossed her magazine aside. “For some of you, this is probably your first time collecting this much starlight at once. A few ground rules so you don’t become intoxicated and ruin the experience for yourself or others.” Her gaze narrowed as it swept over the small crowd. “Exposing your skin to the starlight is beneficial to your magic and will prevent wrinkles, but don’t take off all your clothes. In a meteor shower, you’ll likely overdo it.”

  A girl off to the side who I couldn’t make out in the shadows waved her hand. “What about seniors? We’ve handled starlight and meteor showers. Can’t we take off all our clothes?”

  I was surprised the girl asked. This was a school. Then again, we were in the Unseen Realm. Womby’s wasn’t like the public school I’d gone to.

  Vega sighed in exasperation. “What does this look like? A nudist colony? The boys are just over there. If you starbathe without clothes, they’ll spend more time staring at you than looking where they’re going. At least one of them will fall off the roof if he gets an eyeful of female anatomy.”

  One of the girls started to say something, but Vega lifted her hand to silence her. “Don’t ask me how I know. I’m Celestor. I’ve divined the future; therefore I can see the truth.” She pointed a long lacquered nail toward the group. “I know who is going to pass my class and who isn’t. I know whose been naughty and whose been . . . pathetic underachievers their entire life.”

  I tried not to laugh at her flare for the dramatic.

  Vega smoothed a hand over her sleek black bob haircut. “Now, on to the next rule. No pushing anyone off the roof, even if they deserve it. I’m supposed to be babysitting you, but that’s impossible to do while lying here absorbing starlight.”

  Students glanced at each other nervously. I couldn’t tell if Vega was joking or not.

  “I want freshmen to find their senior buddies so your Celestor sisters can help you if you forget the words to the chant. Inferior Amni Plandai use the song and dance as a crutch, but juniors and seniors should be able to draw the stars to themselves without it. At least, you should if you’re worth your weight as a Celestor.”

  A short girl with a round face jumped up and down. “I can’t find my senior buddy. What do I do?”

  Vega groaned. “Who is your buddy?”

  “Brittany Spears.”

  A few students giggled. I felt bad that her buddy had given her a false name and ditched her.

  “We don’t have anyone by that name here,” Vega said. She scanned the crowd, her gaze resting on me. “Ah, Miss Lawrence. I’d forgotten about you when you blend in so well with the rest of the midgets.”

  “I’m not a midget,” a girl said next to me. “I’m four ten.”

  “That makes you a midget.” Vega waved a hand at me indifferently. “Take this one. Make sure she doesn’t fall off the roof as freshmen are wont to do.”

  The students asked a few more questions, which Vega answered tersely.

  “For Celestors who find catching stars easy, you can store some for later.” Vega waved her hand at a box of canning jars. “Last rule: Do not get in my way.”

  Upperclassmen wisely backed up.

  I found out my new charge’s name was Melissa. A little twinge shot through me hearing the name. That was my adoptive sister’s real name. This girl was blonde and pretty, but unlike Missy, she smiled and was chatty in a cute, awkward way. I never remembered my sister being socially awkward or uncool. She’d always been perfect.

  The students spread out and formed separate groups. Imani and Melissa dressed down to undershirts and a pair of shorts. I undressed to a tank top and my skirt. A cool breeze brushed against my bare legs and arms, but it was tolerable after the warmth of the September day.

  After a few more minutes, the lights flickered out all at once.

  Vega clapped her hands, her voice barking out from somewhere nearby. “What are you morons waiting for? It’s time to sing and dance.”

  “Is that lady always like that?” Melissa asked.

  “No.” Imani giggled, losing some of her earlier nervousness. “Sometimes she’s worse.”

  I grinned, not that she could s
ee it in the darkness.

  “Do you remember the words of the spell you learned for the meteor shower?” I asked Melissa.

  “Sort of.”

  “Don’t worry.” Imani took my hand and Melissa’s, her earlier reluctance forgotten as her inner nurturer came out. “I can help you if you forget.”

  I wasn’t sure if her words were directed at the other girl or me. I had just learned the incantation two days before.

  Groups around us started singing. We joined in the song, drawing circles on the stones underneath us with our feet and tapping out a beat. Above us in the cloudless sky, it looked like it was raining down fire across the horizon.

  The human voices around me grew distant. It sounded as though I were being serenaded by the stars above, their voices high and inhumanly sweet. Golden lights left their trajectory toward the earth and danced closer to us. Their pattern was erratic and untamed. A star the size of a basketball drifted down to a young lady at a group nearby who welcomed the star with open arms. The brilliance lit the delight on her face as she caught the star and hugged it to herself.

  Melissa squealed and broke away when one of the stars drifted toward her. Yellow light illuminated the wonder on her face. She snatched it up and pulled it into her embrace, her whole body briefly glowing intensely before the light died away. When she opened her arms to examine her find, nothing was there.

  Imani laughed. “Don’t worry. You got it. The starlight is inside you now. You can use it for magic.”

  More stars rained down, enough to light the roof so we could see almost as brightly as though it were day. Students ran around on the roof, giggling and snatching at teasing drifts of light. Some students were skilled at drawing the stars to them, simply closing their eyes and opening their arms. Lights fluttered around the Celestor teenagers like fireflies before settling on their bare arms or legs and soaking in to increase their magic.

  Some students weren’t as adept. Those were the ones chasing starlight, rather than calling it to them. Imani and I ended up being among those students.