A Witch’s Beating Heart

by Kasey Mackenzie

  Most of the college’s other buildings were made of the same impressive gray stone, and some even had towers and gargoyles of their own. But none came close to inspiring the same sense of grandeur.

  “Hey, Crys?” Misty called from behind, which surprised me because her legs were so much longer than mine. “I think our dorm’s the one down this path to the right.”

  I forced my gaze away from the building that had hypnotized me and glanced over my shoulder. Misty had already started down the tree-lined walkway I’d passed without noticing.

  Scurrying to catch up, my eyes met those of our big brother, Luc. His shaggy red hair and matching eyes spoke of the passionate, forceful way he attacked his spellcraft. Just like Mama and Daddy, he’d worked his way through a magical trade school and internship rather than attending an academy like this one. Only a fool would think he wasn’t equally brilliant and magically talented, however. He’d followed in Aunt Blanche’s footsteps and strength, claiming his Infernal familiar two years ago and promptly being recruited into private security. Also just like our beloved aunt.

  He wiggled his eyebrows in that gently mocking way he had. “This place sure is fancy.”

  Understatement of the year. I wrinkled my nose and rolled my eyes. “You should know fancy, considering the company you keep these days.” Okay, so he was working for the kind of people who sent their kids to this school rather than actually rubbing elbows with them. “But Mama likes to say that all kinds of fancy trappings can hide rotten on the inside.”

  Luc grinned and winked. “Too true, little sis. Best you keep that in mind over the next few months.” His face sobered as he cast a glance to the majestic building that had earlier captivated me. He knew just how dangerous this academy could prove, since Mama and Dad had taken him into their confidence once he became a fully-familiarized witch. He’d known the truth of our heritage before we did. Not that I truly minded. Having one more guardian watching our backs made me feel a little bit better. “And never forget that the door of my apartment will always be open to you both. It’s only five minutes away.”

  Versus the 30-minute trek to the trailer park. Wouldn’t want to place the riff-raff too close to this school that catered to the supernatural creme de la creme. Luc only had an apartment nearby because his rich-witch clients offered it as part of the compensation package so they could ensure their security team lived in close proximity to their mansion.

  “Don’t worry,” I returned with a wink of my own. “I’ve got a pretty good memory.”

  “Yeah, Daddy’s little valedictorian,” our father teased as we finally caught up to Misty, who stood staring up at one of the most imposing buildings I’d ever seen.

  Rather than the dark gray of most of the other buildings in the area, this one had been hewn out of deep, unyielding black granite. It stretched up four stories, and four towers stood at each of its corners. Those went up at least another four stories. The gargoyles snarling down at us were snarling wolves and fierce women holding bows nocked with arrows rather than the more typical gargoyles. Their faces had been etched with so much detail that it almost felt like someone had frozen beasts and women in rather than carving them from stone.

  “Did we take a wrong turn and end up on the set of the Addams Family?” I nudged Misty’s back with the box balanced in my arms.

  She set her own box on the ground to get a temporary break and shrugged. “Stranger things have happened. I’m sure we’re going to meet all kinds of creepy and kooky types here.”

  I shivered and forced my gaze to keep examining my new home-away-from-home. Huge windows bearing deep crimson shutters lined up along each of the dorm’s floors at precise intervals. The only other adornment that broke up the black-and-red monotony were several blue-and-silver Eternal Academy banners attached at strategic locations and a large, elegant sign hung next to the huge double doors directly in front of us. Artemis House.

  Just seeing that name helped reassure me in a way the building’s intimidating facade did not. Artemis had always held a special place in my heart. Goddess of the hunt, wild animals, and the wilderness; and more important, a moon goddess. Badass with a bow and arrow, so a woman after my own heart. Having our dorm be named after her made this all feel more like it’d been fated by the deities rather than forced on us by the wicked Witch Queen’s actions. Hopefully they intended us to make it back out of here alive…

  Forcing aside shivers, I tapped Misty with the box again. She grumbled as she picked up her load once more. We trooped up the wide stone stairs, and I’d just started to wonder how we were going to open the door when magic tingled against my skin. A simple but powerful entry ward that catalogued our magical auras, checked them against our identities in the system, and deemed whether we were on the approved list.

  We must have passed muster. The solid mahogany doors emblazoned with a moon and howling wolf on the left and Eternal Academy’s symbol of a dragon shaped like a figure eight devouring its own tail on the right swung open. Chaos reigned in the large, open atrium that was revealed. A magnificent glass dome hung over the room, sending prismatic beams of light shining down on the tiled floor. Arrangements of sofas, chairs, and coffee tables peppered the room, with several large doorways leading off three of the four walls. The atrium was cavernous, echoing with tons of noise. Dorm residents and relatives moved to and fro, voices rising steadily as more students arrived to add to the cacophony.

  A harassed-looking guy a few years older than us stepped over, expensive magic-infused tablet in hand and Eternal familiar perched on his shoulder. It had taken on the shape of a falcon, except that its feathers were the same neon yellow as its witch’s spiky hair and eyes.

  ((She,)), an annoyed voice whispered into my mind. ((And I’ll thank you not to misgender me or my witch. Who is also a she.))

  Heat burned my cheeks, and I bowed my head in apology. One couldn’t always go by first impressions when it came to gender identity. Something I damned well knew. Familiars rarely spoke to strangers except in emergencies. I understood why this one had and was grateful she had prevented me from offending her witch and embarrassing myself in public.

  ((I’m so sorry. Thank you for the correction. Really!))

  The falcon regarded me with piercing rainbow-colored eyes (the tip-off that she was an Eternal familiar and not Infernal) and nodded.

  “Welcome to Artemis House,” her witch said, none-the-wiser to my mental faux-pas. Her neon yellow hair and eyes were striking against her well-tanned white skin. She stood a few inches taller than Misty and had a relatively square jaw, with attractive features that I had incorrectly interpreted as being masculine rather than feminine. A mistake I would try not to make again.

  “My name is Stephanie Magee, and I’m the Senior RA for this dorm. The entry ward identified you two as—” she peered at her tablet, “—Misty and Crystal Gibbs, freshmen, but I just need to verify your IDs before I have someone show you to your suite.”

  Misty set her box down to get another break and turned on the million-dollar personality that had gotten her elected senior class vice-president and captain of like every sports team she’d ever been on. “Hi, Stephanie! It’s so nice to meet you, and wow! This dorm is something else, isn’t it?”

  Stephanie, even frazzled as she was, could resist my twin’s charisma no better than anyone else. She brushed back a lock of hair—short in the back but longer on the sides—and gave a much more sincere smile. A flirtatious note touched her voice, and she wouldn’t be barking up the wrong tree to flirt with Misty. My sister had left exes from both genders (and a few nonbinary ones) back at Gloaming High.

  “We’re pretty proud to belong to one of the Academy’s original three dorms. Hopefully you will be, too!”

  “I’m sure we will. Oh! Here’s my ID.” Misty murmured the charm that revealed the magical tattoo on the back of her hand so Stephanie could scan it on her tablet, and then I did the same. Once the RA nodded in approval, we concealed our IDs once more and
waited.

  “Okay, so the bad news is that freshmen are always stuck in the four towers, which means they’re the farthest away from the action and have to schlep the most steps when the teleporters are down. Which happens more than you might think. The good news is you two scored a suite at the top of the northwestern tower, so you’ll only have to share a bathroom with each other thanks to recent remodels rather than with another suite.”

  “Sweet!” Misty exclaimed, causing the three of us to snicker at the inadvertent pun. My sister then tossed me a smirk. “And we’ll be on the opposite side of sunrises, perfect for grouchy-in-the-morning people who like to sleep in on the weekends.”

  I stuck out my tongue as everyone laughed. Three of them because they knew me well, and one because she seemed smitten with my sister. A thought I kept tightly locked down to avoid a certain falcon’s mental ears.

  Stephanie gave our shoulders and then general vicinities a quick once-over. “I assume your Eternals are juicing up on rainbows and butterflies?”

  That had me giving a smile of my own. “Yeah. Funny how they just happened to pick moving day to make themselves scarce.”

  Witches were the product of Eternal and Infernal races intermarrying with mortals. We had both created and now inhabited these Shadow Realms that combined the best of all three Primary realms. But working any high-level spells here depended on channeling energy from the two magical realms. Thus why we linked ourselves to familiars, who provided the perfect conduits through which we could draw vital magical energy from their birthplaces.

  Stephanie winked at me. “My Rosalie is different, of course, but I’ve noticed that some familiars have a talent for avoiding manual labor. Anyway, just make sure you check them in with an RA once they arrive. The entry ward will lock them out after a few days if you don’t.”

  We nodded, and Stephanie consulted her tablet again. “Okay, so the rest of today is yours for settling in, but there will be a mandatory dorm mixer tomorrow at noon. We’ll be providing lunch and going over some ground rules, all of which you’ve already been emailed, but some not-so-bright freshies try to claim otherwise once they get dinged for something. Just meet down here in the atrium. After that, we’ll take you by Administration to confirm your schedules and uniform orders. There will be an Academy-wide assembly and then a Welcome-slash-Welcome Back BBQ starting at 6 pm.

  “Your IDs will get you in to all of the appropriate buildings, but the security system will automatically lock you out of any restricted areas. Students caught trying to bypass those restrictions will be suspended for a semester at first offense and expelled for life at a second. Assuming they survive. Questions?”

  My throat went dry at that warning, so I just shook my head. Misty gave a cute little smile. “I think we’re both good. Can we let you know if any questions pop up later, Steph? I’m sorry. Can I call you that?”

  Stephanie nodded with stars in her eyes, and man. I was going to have to warn Misty about the sheer stupidity of flirting with our Senior RA. The last thing we needed was drama. Misty couldn’t help her sparkly personality, but it had caused her trouble more than once. I’d just like to make sure that trouble didn’t come to roost in our new home.

  “Of course! I’m always here for you! I mean, for all the Artemis residents. Not that I’m not here for you specifically. Um, uh, oh! Trey! Now that you’re back, can you escort these two to Northwest? Suite 8H. And this is Misty and Crystal Gibbs. Freshmen. Of course.”

  A handsome guy with dark brown skin maybe a couple years older than us turned a megawatt smile our way. “Yeah. I guessed as much by the fact they’re banished to the top of Northwest. An ivory tower it may not be, but let’s sweep you two there pronto anyway!”

  Stephanie flushed and jerked a nod, casting a longing glance in Misty’s direction before turning toward a student who’d just entered the front door. Rosalie unbent enough to give me a friendly chirp far more like a parakeet than a falcon.

  And you damned well better believe I kept that thought locked down tight.

  “Sooo…” Misty drawled as she picked up her box again, and we trooped after Trey as he led us down the nearest hallway. This one was surprisingly empty compared to the chaotic atrium. Either the Northwestern wing’s lower-level residents had yet to arrive or had somewhere else to be. “This is a co-ed dorm, I take it?”

  She was asking more for informational purposes than anything. Most supernaturals were far less puritanical about sex and relationships than mortals, so it wasn’t a huge surprise to find co-ed dorms. Neither Daddy nor Luc commented negatively at her question—something that demonstrated our differences from humans. No sexist threats of shotguns or curses here.

  Trey noticed Misty’s box slipping slightly—deliberate, I was willing to bet—and he reached out a well-muscled arm to help steady it. “Need a hand?” he asked with a friendly smile.

  Misty laughed ruefully. “Nah, but thanks. I like to carry my own weight.”

  And bam! There was the reason she’d let her box slip. Not an attempt to get a big, strong man to carry her box; but to draw attention to the act she could carry her own boxes. Comments like that helped her weed out the guys who had the whole I only date damsels in distress complex going on. She ate those types for breakfast. And neither of us could stomach guys like that for friends or otherwise.

  Trey grinned appreciatively. “I can respect that. And you two are in luck! Northwest’s teleporters are in tiptop shape today.”

  “Thank the deities,” Luc declared dramatically from behind.

  I tossed him a sardonic look over my shoulder. “Is his little back sore already?”

  He smirked right back. “Nope, but yours is about to be if you don’t be nice. I didn’t have to show up for moving day.”

  “Pfffttt!” I stuck my tongue out. “I heard Mama giving you the typical guilt trip. What was it she said about you better not ditch your sisters for overtime or you are cut off from baked goods for a month?”

  “Six months!” he responded sadly. “One measly month I could have handled.”

  Daddy shot him a consoling expression. “You say that, son, but I went a month once and it was sheer hell.”

  My eyebrows shot up. “Wait. Mama stayed mad at you for a whole month? What the heck did you do?”

  Given that our mother was as forgiving of those she loved as she was Infernally stubborn, it must have been a doozy. Daddy got a stubborn look of his own and clammed up. Before I could pester him for more info, Trey caught my attention.

  “Here we are. The key to avoiding eight flights of stairs. One of the few days you have ironclad certainty these things will all be working correctly. Every other day is a crap-shoot.”

  We stood in a rotunda at the end of the hallway. Tall, ornate stained-glass windows depicted all three of the primary Eternal races, all three of the primary Infernal races, and famous scenes from witch history every few feet along the circular wall. Ancient suits of armor—each wrought to fit a different magical race—filled the empty spaces. A large circle decorated the floor before the suits of armor, each a different color and bearing a number in their center.

  That had me furrowing my brow. “What, are the teleporters haunted or something?”

  Trey snickered. “Or something.”

  He logically enough led us to the deep purple number 8 etched onto the floor in front of the nearest suit of armor on the right. The circle had seemed barely large enough for one person when we were farther away; but by the time we stepped onto it, magic had expanded it enough to accommodate all five of us. Once we all were safely on the circle, Trey held up his ID to the suit of armor. “Northwest Tower RA Trey Kenyatta escorting residents Misty and Crystal Gibbs to their quarters, accompanied by two guests. Please teleport all five of us to the eighth floor.”

  The suit’s eyes—or rather eyeholes—glowed the same deep purple as the circle, and a disembodied voice echoed from the space where a mouth would have been on a person. “Access granted. No shen
anigans, you savvy?”

  That bit of snark had me barking out a laugh. “Someone around here is a Pirates fan!”

  Trey rolled his eyes. “What someone around here is, is a geek who loves to mix their fandoms. Pirates and knights? I’m not sure whether to say Ahoy, matey! or Kneel before King Arthur, you knave!”

  “Why not both?” Misty and I deadpanned in unison.

  Trey laughed. “Okay, you two are definitely twins. Even if not identical.” He turned his attention back to the knight. “We savvy, sir knight, and solemnly swear that we’re up to only good.”

  My mouth opened in a delighted smile at the homage to Harry Potter, but the teleporter kicked on before I could say anything. Slight disorientation hit as our molecules were ripped apart and then hastily reassembled mere seconds later; this time at the top of Northwest 8.

  Hopefully our lives would follow that same trajectory now that we were at Eternal Academy. All we had to do was stay off the Witch Queen’s radar until we mastered our powers.

  Easy peasy demon squeezy…

  Chapter 4

  Moments later, Trey showed us how to scan ourselves into our suite door, located along a similar rotunda with eight doors standing where the suits of armor did on the first floor. Whereas below the rotunda itself was all imposing empty space, this floor had an amazing common area that resembled a cross between a library, living room, and kitchenette. A ninth door caught my attention, situated where the hall leading back to the main dorm area on the first floor was. Another suit of armor stood a few feet away from that. Obviously the ride back downstairs.

  Trey gestured when he caught my attention on the door. “That leads to the guest bathrooms for when visitors are hanging out in this lounge.” He gestured toward our own door that had swung open. “Welcome to your new home sweet home!”