by Nissa Leder
Then, when the security guard has finished checking on this floor, he disappears up the staircase.
Callum says, “Let’s go.”
“How are we going to get in if it’s locked?” I ask as we hurry to Dean Waters’ office.
“Well, earlier tonight I wasn’t exactly sure. But now that we have this,” he holds up the key to the classroom, “it will be easier.”
He grips the key with his right hand and closes his eyes. “Exbibo.”
The word sparks something in my memory. At first, I think maybe it’s something Professor Belrose taught us. But then the image of the woman having her life drained surfaces. Exbibo is the spell my grandma used.
Callum hovers his other hand over the lock on the door. “Adsimulo.” He repeats the incantation three times then switches the key into the hand that was hovering over the lock. “Conpelo.”
I wait, glancing up and down the hallway nervously. It’s late, but that doesn’t mean a professor can’t be in a classroom. Professor Belrose was. We should have checked the entire hallway.
Callum sticks the key into the lock hole and turns it. He grabs the handle and twist it. “Viola.”
“How did you do that?”
“I drained the spell from the key, then copied the magic in the lock into the key. Only certain keys are capable of holding the type of magic that the school uses to lock stuff up,” he says. “And lucky for us, we were handed that exact type of key.”
“Let’s hurry.”
There’s no point in celebrating any sort of victory until we have our hands on some poppy berry and are back in the safety of my room.
We hustle into her office and shut the door behind us. Instead of risking turning the light on, I create a ball of fire to give us enough to see.
“How do you know about this?” I ask when we get to the cabinet.
“This isn’t the first time I’ve broken in here.” He avoids meeting my gaze. Instead, he opens the cabinet and rustles through the bags and containers of herbs.
My heart pounds in my chest. I thought after getting into the office, my heart rate would slow, but it hasn’t. If anything, it’s even faster now. “How much longer?”
He moves to the bottom right corner area. “Aha!” He lifts up a small bag of purple berries shaped like blueberries. “Not even crushed yet.”
I take the bag from him and count them. There are only five dried berries. “This doesn’t look like much.”
“It’s half dose max.” He carefully arranges all the containers so they look as organized as they did when we got here.
A half dose won’t last me an entire day. And unless I’m lucky, it might not be enough for all my exams.
We make it out of the office and lock it up. Then Callum does the same spell on the key, but this time linking it back to Professor Belrose’s door.
With the poppy berry safe in my pocket and the classroom all locked, up, we head back to my room.
“What was that spell you did to the key first?” I ask as we begin our journey up two flights of stairs.
“Exbibo?”
“Yeah, that one. In one of my visions, my grandma used it on a person.”
“That’s serious dark magic,” he whispers. “Using it on items is a challenging spell, but overall harmless. But when used on a human, it drains their life.”
I remember watching the woman dwindle away from my grandma’s view before she sliced her throat. The memory makes me nauseous, so I push it out of my thoughts.
We make it to my room, and my pulse finally slows.
Without getting caught, we were able to steal some poppy berries, but not as much as I needed. If I can make it to next Friday, I can brew myself a cup of tea and use all my energy on my exams, praying it will be enough to get me through.
No matter what, the fix is only temporary.
Unless I get a lot more, I won’t be able to hide from the visions much longer.
Twenty-Three
An entire semester of learning comes down to today.
My alarm wakes me up at six thirty in the morning, an hour of the day that I used to ban from my life. A warm shower urges me awake, then I spend an entire hour meditating.
I’m not leaving anything to chance.
Once my soft alarm bell dings, I get up, get dressed, and head to the dining room with the last of my poppy berry. Since stealing it from Dean Waters’ office, I’ve crumbled the dried berries into hundreds of little bits, ready to be placed in a tea bag and steeped.
I’m not surprised to find the dining hall relatively empty. If I didn’t need to prepare my tea, I wouldn’t be here either. With tennis-ball-sized nerves bouncing around my stomach, I have zero appetite. And it seems I’m not the only one too stressed to eat.
When I’ve stuck the herbs into a tea bag, placed it into a cup and poured scalding water over it, I head to Professor Simmons’ classroom for the first final of the day. Normally, the class that requires brain power instead of magic would be the one I was dreading the most, but having to use my mind doesn’t seem to trigger the visions, so this one is the least of my worries.
We devoted our last group practice on Monday to studying for this exam.
Professor Simmons gives us all a few minutes to settle down before she passes out the test that will determine whether we pass our sophomore year of Magical History. Unlike high school, where blowing a final could still end in a passing grade, everything relies on this.
The first ten questions are easy, but after that, they grow harder and more specific. By the final five questions, I’m able to narrow the multiple-choice answer down to two, but then I just guess.
Five minutes before class is out, the professor tells us to put our pens down and pass the exams forward.
While we wait for the bell to excuse us to our next class, I sip my tea. One class down. Five to go.
Dueling is next.
Professor Lamberg draws numbers to determine which teams will face off. Like with the end-of-the-year exam, each team member will face off against one member of the other team. Our individual performance will be graded out of one hundred, and the winning team that earns at least three out of five solo wins will each be awarded 10 bonus points per person.
As my luck these days goes, my team gets paired against Callum’s team and called on to go first.
“You have five minutes to choose your order, write it on a paper, and hand it to me,” Lamberg instructs.
Our team huddles up near the door.
“Okay, who should we send out first?” Elaine asks us all.
“Well, what do we think they will do?” Natalia asks.
Everyone looks at me.
Since I’m hooking up with Callum, and friends with Olivia and Micah, I guess I’m the one with the best insight.
“Callum will be their strongest. Then probably Micah.” It pains me to realize the rest of the order. “Then Daniel, Olivia, and finally Leo.” Does placing Olivia fourth out of five make me a horrible friend?
“So, will they start off with the best or save the best for last?” Elaine glances at their team gathered on the far end of the room by the windows.
Even though he’s the newest member of their group, I imagine as the strongest, Callum has stepped up to be leader. That and it’s in his natural personality to take charge.
What order do I think he’ll choose?
“I think he’ll assume we’re going to start with our best or our…weakest.” I don’t want to offend anyone, and that’s the nicest term I can come up with. “And end with the opposite. Which means my best guess is that they’ll start with their middle, so Daniel.”
“So, let’s put our middle in first,” Natalia says.
We all wait to let her rank us.
She groans. “Well, Wren is the strongest. And then Elaine.” She pauses and looks at Van. “Then Van, me, and Garrett. No offense.” She slaps his arm gently with the back of her hand.
“None taken. Dueling isn’t really my t
hing.” Garrett shrugs.
“Then we’ll have Van go first,” Elaine says. “What next?”
“They’ll want to start strong, so I imagine Callum will be second, Olivia third, Micah fourth, and sacrifice Leo to potentially face our best, hoping they don’t need the point anymore.”
“Two minutes,” Lamberg announces.
“Can you take Callum?” Elaine asks me.
“I honestly don’t know.” I wish I could be more confident, or maybe have less of an ego. I want to say yes, I can totally beat him in a duel. But I know the truth. He’s had two more years of magic practice than I have.
“You’re the only one with a chance.” Elaine scribbles down names on the paper.
She hands it to me, and I read it. Van, me, Natalia, Elaine, Garrett is the order. It’s an equal-ranked matchup.
“Time,” Lamberg says, giving us no chance to reconsider our choice. He reads the papers. “First up will be Daniel and Van.”
“You called it,” Natalia whispers to me.
Van and Daniel fight neck-and-neck. Each uses the illusion charm and fire for their attacks. Van’s illusion wins, but Daniel gets a ball of fire to burn Van’s leg. After five minutes when it’s called, Daniel is declared the winner by one point.
After Lamberg announces the first victor, he calls the second pairing. “Next will be Callum and Wren.”
Callum and I meet in the middle of the dueling section and shake hands.
“Did you mean to face me?” he asks.
“Yep.” I smirk before we part to begin our duel.
Callum starts with an illusion snake. The shadow boa constrictor slithers toward me.
When it’s two feet from me, I hit it with a counter attack. “Pereo.”
The snake explodes, earning me a grin from Callum.
“Ardeat ignis.” A ball of fire glows in my hand. I toss it in the air a few times before chucking it at him. He blocks it with the counter spell and throws one back at me.
Just in time, I toss one in front of me to meet it. The two collide and flare before dissolving onto the ground and disappearing.
We exchange a few more attacks, and it seems we’re an even pair. Lamberg gives the one-minute warning, and I’m hopeful I can pull it out in the final seconds.
I focus on the hum of my magic and ready the newest spell we learned, which shoots an ice dagger at an opponent then creates an ice shield to block the next oncoming attack. But as I’m about to speak the spell, I wobble to the right. Wooziness fills me as I search for balance.
Then I feel my limbs lock before I fall to the ground with a painful thud.
Gasps and a few chuckles are all I hear as I send a silent curse at Callum.
I want to break the immobilizing spell myself to regain some of my dignity. It’s a difficult spell, and one I doubt many of my classmates can produce. But it takes more magic than I should use, especially after my dizzy spell.
“Regala,” Callum says from across the room then rushes to me to help me up. “I thought you’d block it.”
"There was a complication.” I take his outreached hand and let him pull me to my feet.
“Is everything okay?” he asks.
Our strange emphasis on words is like our own secret language.
“I think so. I just got a little lightheaded.” I adjust my skirt, no need for any more embarrassment.
Professor Lamberg declares Callum the winner and calls out Olivia and Natalia for the next pairing.
I return to my group and cheer Natalia on. She manages to knock Olivia out of the dueling area in just under four minutes, earning us our first point.
Elaine and Micah are up, and I expect a good battle. The beginning of the duel meets my expectation, but Micah gets too cocky and tries to duck from a fireball attack and it just swipes his shoulder. When he tries to recover, Elaine hits him right in the chest with the next one, knocking him flat to the ground. She digs the nail into the coffin with an immobilizing spell for the win.
We’re tied two to two and, just as I’d predicted, Garrett must face Leo.
The tension the two of them exude as they shake hands is palpable throughout the whole room. I expect them both to pass out from nerves before they even start, but Garrett closes his eyes and takes a deep breath before Lamberg says, “Begin,” and his entire body relaxes.
Leo sends a gopher illusion at Garrett as Garrett generates a bobcat.
As the two illusions fight—which is a quick one since the gopher stands no chance—Leo is distracted, so Garrett immobilizes him.
“We won!” Natalia jumps up and cheers. “Way to go, Garrett!”
Garrett stares at Leo, almost like he doesn’t believe what just happened.
Now that our team is done, we move to the back of the room reserved for the audience and watch the other teams duel.
Callum sits next to me. “You feeling okay?”
I cross my ankles and nod. “Yeah, it was just a flash of dizziness.” At the completely wrong time.
“Sorry, I beat you.” He bumps his shoulder into mine. “But you should be proud it was almost an equal battle.”
“Almost, unfortunately.” If it hadn’t been for the passing lightheadedness, it likely would have ended in a tie. Which, as Callum said, is saying something, considering he’s taken this class twice.
I don’t know exactly how to feel about it. No one on my team argued that I’m the strongest wielder of magic in the group. Being the best at something isn’t something I’m used to. But here at the academy, I’m turning into a leader. Something I never thought would happen.
I take a long sip and finish the rest of my poppy berry tea.
After Dueling is the Combat final, which thankfully, requires no magic. The fitness test kicks my ass, but despite all the cardiovascular demands, I have no more dizziness.
Half the Incantations final is an individual test and half is a group one. I complete a full rock transfiguration, molding the stone into the shape of the plastic frog toy I grab from the bucket of options. As a group, we heal three roses faster than any other group.
Potions and Herbs is an entirely group exam. Each group is given instructions to make a potion we haven’t made in class. Ours is a headache relief serum. When I read the list of ingredients to my team, I about choke on the words, “poppy berry.”
“I’ll go grab the ingredients,” Elaine offers and heads back to the cabinet in the back. A few minutes later, she goes to Professor Abbey’s desk. “I can’t find any poppy berry.”
“It should be there.” Professor Abbey goes to the back and checks. She comes back with a small bag of dried red contents. “It seems we’re out, but you can use these rose petals. It will heal sore throats instead of headaches, but everything else is the same.”
She returns to her desk, and I do my best to focus on helping my team, not worrying about what might happen now that she knows the poppy berry is missing.
When time is up, she takes a small taste of our potion and nods approvingly while jotting a note on a notepad. Hopefully, that means we did well. We won’t have any results until tomorrow when we receive our final report card.
I’m ready for a long nap by the time I arrive at Defensive Spells, the last final of the day. This one is entirely individual, and unfortunately for me, I’m called very last. Professor Van Dale sends three spells at me, and by some miracle, I’m able to block all three.
Finally, the school day is done, and my second year here at Wicklow is complete.
Now all that’s left to do is wait and see if a third year is in my future.
Twenty-Four
“Holy smokes.” Olivia stares at me, mouth hung open. “That dress is gorgeous.”
I step in front of the floor-length mirror and can’t stop from gaping at myself. Thanks to Olivia, my hair has been twisted into a low ponytail that allows my curly front strands to hang loose, and my makeup is the perfect balance of seductive and simple. A little smoky eye with a cat liner and bold lashes pai
r well with the nude lip color.
But what makes me the most astonished with the look is the emerald green dress that arrived in my room while I was at finals. Lucas sent a Sorcery seamstress over earlier in the week to take my measurements. She asked a few questions about my normal style, and she promised to deliver something that met my taste but was Lucas-approved.
And boy did she.
The Emerald green fabric pops against my now pale skin. An intricate flower pattern covers the halter top portion, ceasing where the skirt begins at my waist and falls to the floor. A mid-thigh slit finishes off the exquisite details. Having dresses custom made is nothing new for me, but I’ve never felt as elegant in one before.
As shocked as I was at seeing myself in the mirror, I’m even more shocked when Callum opens the door to his room, dressed in matching dark gray dress pants and jacket.
“Wow,” we say in unison as we take each other in.
“You look very dapper,” I say.
“And you look…wow.” He eyes me up and down, his gaze lingering on the slit long enough to send a shiver through me.
He pinches his jacket together and spins around. “I’ve had suits tailored, but I’ve never had one fit so exactly right before.” Instead of a tie, his shirt is slightly unbuttoned for a somewhat more casual feel.
The Sorcery seamstress took Callum’s measurements after getting mine since he’s my official escort for the night. The thought that, for the first time, we’re on a date makes me a little giddy.
He extends his arm. “Shall we?”
I interlock my elbow with his. “We shall.”
Even though it’s just Beck, Callum, and me, Lucas sent the limo to pick us up.
Tonight’s campaign launch is being held at an event hall in Coast Harbor. I still haven’t explored the Sorcery town much, but from what other people have said, there’s a lot going on here.
We meet Lucas backstage as soon as we arrive. He’s dressed in a black suit, white shirt, and maroon tie. From what Callum has told me, it’s common for those in the Sorcery world to continue to wear school colors as a subtle reminder of where they studied.
