“Piers looks stylish. That’s the only compliment I’ll give him,” Montague said.
“Maybe he won’t be as bad as we think,” Alec said.
“I appreciate your optimism,” Harris said. “But it’s going to be bad. I know my own family. Ruthless social climbers, all of them, except a decent enough black sheep here and there.”
“Decent enough black sheep? Is that your vibe for this year?” I teased him as I pondered two capes. Short cape? Or long cape? Oh, there was also a mid-length cape. I’d never actually seen any guy wear that. Hmm. I slipped it on. It had slits where I could poke my hands out.
“Besides that, he’s engaged to Daisy,” Montague said. “That’s not good. She’s supposed to help us with the Withered Lord.”
“It’s also not good because Daisy’s my friend and Piers is a creep.” I grabbed some very tight pants off the rack and ducked into the dressing room. As I was yanking them up over my ass, I suddenly saw Firian sitting on the bench behind me and screamed.
“Char, you okay?” Alec demanded on the other side of the door.
“Yeah! There was a pin in the pants and I poked myself!” I tried to grab Firian’s muzzle and he bit my hand. You dirty fox, I mouthed to him. Ask permission first.
“Catherine’s here,” he whispered. “I’m here on business. Your ass was just a nice bonus. Or a cruel bonus, considering my circumstances.”
“Catherine, my aunt?”
He nodded. “Just warning you…”
Then he vanished again. I heard the front door of the shop open.
“Is Charlotte here?” she asked. “Is she in the dressing room?”
I’m not sure why I was so nervous. Catherine didn’t know me. And she was a witch. She didn’t want me to use Wyrd magic, but the warlocks kept me here anyway, so she had no say in my life, right?
“Charlotte!” she said.
I didn’t even have time to put my shoes back on. I walked out in the tight pants. They were very tight.
“Yes? I was in the middle of something,” I said.
“I see that,” she said. “But I want to talk to you. You are the only witch in my family, after all. Let’s talk away from all these boys, hm?”
“You turned Firian into a fox,” I said.
“I did what I needed to do to allow you to be the witch you need to be,” she said. “You’ll thank me someday.”
Harris gave me a steely look that seemed to suggest I should just get it over with and play nice. “Let me change.”
“That won’t be necessary.” She waved a slender wand at me and my cape and tight pants transformed into a dress suitable for a 1950s funeral with a long, full skirt in all black. The sleeves were long and the neck was high. She smiled. “That is so much better for a young woman. You really should have been a witch.”
“Better? This is what you wear when you decide the capes from the Handmaid’s Tale are too racy!”
She glanced at a watch. “I came all the way down here and I need to be back in New York by tomorrow for a council meeting.”
I followed her, but I felt very violated by the dress. Sure, it was plain and demure but I felt as bad as I did when Derek Chambers quietly stuck a hand up my shirt in seventh grade and touched my bra. I would never wear this. I felt like she had turned me into a different person just for our meeting and that was more upsetting than I expected.
The uniform shop was in a small, more recently built structure near the main hall. There were a few stores inside, one for books and supplies, another for campus merchandise that never seemed to be open. She glanced around and led me into a stock room for the books, but she waved her wand again and the room transformed. Plush chairs and a desk appeared, and the small bland windows turned into tall, grand windows with long gold curtains.
“That’s better,” she said, sitting behind the desk. She gave me a small smile. “Impressed? This is proper witch magic. Making things beautiful.”
“I have better things to do,” I said.
“Oh, yes. You have my son’s magic,” she said. “So I hear.”
“You think I should be spending my time learning how to make dresses and curtains out of magic instead of learning to—”
“Speak to the dead?” she interrupted. “Summon the dead? Revive the dead?” She rapped her fingers on the desk. “Samuel was my only son and Ina was my only daughter. My children. I pray you never know how it feels to have your children fall under the influence of some dangerous and persuasive person who turns them against you. Thanks to your mother, my children dabbled with demons and dark magic. Of course, I used to warn them, and they thought I was being too strict and traditional. Now, one is crazy and one is dead.”
“Is Ina really ‘crazy’?”
“Yes,” Catherine said. “Crazy as Rochester’s wife and just as likely to start a fire. That is why she is at the Haven for the rest of her life.”
Okay. I’m gonna guess she was never a women’s studies major. I spread my hands. “I don’t know what you want me to say. I’m halfway through to…getting my…degree?” (Did they give out degrees? What did I get at the end of this, anyway? Well, I knew there was a graduation ceremony, so close enough.) “I’m happy here. And I’m good at it.”
“I want to protect you from the fate of your mother and grandmother.”
“I don’t want to be protected.”
“Why not? Do you think you’ll all make it out of this alive?” Her voice raised. “You are twenty years old. You could have your whole life ahead of you.”
This wasn’t the first time I’d been warned that some of us could die. Not gonna lie, it made me nervous every time, but at the same time, one of my high school friends warned me we might all die in a climate change apocalypse. Did I believe her? Kinda. Did I like…do anything about it? Not really.
One thing I felt right now was that she expected me to back down.
Don’t back down.
Before I came here, I would have. But I’d gotten more confident in the last couple of years, and most of all, I had to stick with the people who cared about me. If I let my great-aunt control me, I would be failing Monty and Alec, and most of all, Firian.
“I don’t think I should make choices based on my fear of death,” I said. “I think Samuel lived the life he wanted to live.”
“You didn’t know my son.”
“No. I wish I had. But his spirit has spoken to me a couple times. I don’t think he regretted any of it.”
Now she pounded the desk and it vanished. She looked pissed.
“Where is Stuart?” Her eyes shifted to my wand and I took a step back. “What have they told you?”
“I don’t know. Nothing.”
“Have you had any contact with members of your family? Your grandmother? Her…werewolves? Adia?”
“You never wanted to protect me, did you?” I said. “You want to scare me into a witch school where you can control me. If you think you can bully me into leaving this school with stories to scare me and by turning Firian into a fox, guess what? I’m in this for the long haul. I’m right where I want to be.”
“Are you saying you would die for your beliefs?”
“Are you saying you’re planning to kill me, Aunt Catherine?”
She jerked back and now the entire room’s glamour melted away, and so did the dress.
I had rattled her.
“No, I would certainly never do that,” she said, a faint frown tugging at her mouth. “I’m not out to get you, Charlotte. I want what’s best for you.”
“Okay, then. Well, what’s best for me is staying here where I have true friends and I’m getting more confident every day.”
“I do believe that,” she said, halfway under her breath. “You can go.”
I walked out of the building, feeling more shaken than triumphant. Maybe the fact that we shared family ties meant a little something, but I still knew she was digging for information while I needed her to break the curse on Firian. I wasn’t so sure I�
��d done the right thing if I wanted her to have sympathy for me.
This wasn’t over.
Chapter Ten
Charlotte
“So far, this isn’t too bad,” Alec said, a week later while we were eating our porridge. No kidding. Chef Morris, who was supposed to be giving us wholesome, magic-building food, actually made us eat porridge for breakfast.
“There is nothing more magical than porridge,” he declared to all of us as we grumbled. “Wizards eat porridge. That is a fact. Read a book.”
I mean…I guess. But it was already getting old. At least we were allowed all the butter and cream and honey we wanted, because these were also magical foods. One thing sure hadn’t changed: no vegans allowed at Merlin College.
“I have to get my blood at the infirmary now,” Montague said. “Remember that? There’s a new guy down at the infirmary whose entire purpose is to do this condescending sniff thing when he gives me my pouch. The life of a vampire should be dignified and glamorous.”
“It only works like that if you murder people,” Harris said. “Anyway, Alec, I wouldn’t get too cocky.”
“That’s the only way I know how to be,” Alec said, with a dry laugh.
“Alec, your incubus puns aren’t going to be funny anymore when Piers finds some way to punish you for being a demon,” Harris said. “He has plans for all of you. I can feel it.”
“I’ve barely seen him since the first day,” I said. “Thank goodness. Dude creeps me out, but he doesn’t teach any classes.”
Of course, there was one teacher I wasn’t that fond of, and that was the necromancy teacher who replaced Professor McGuinness. Professor Pacetti was like, a tough guy Italian warlock from New Jersey, which sounded like some kind of joke, but there he was. In private I called him “Professor New Jersey”.
Professor Pacetti was tough on everyone, but he definitely didn’t like me in his class. On the first class after our orientation week, he called me ‘Princess’, for starters.
“So, Princess,” he said, in this voice that just sounded like greasy pizza (I’m really sorry, New Jersey). “I hear you’re some sort of prodigy for summoning the dead? You have the power of ‘Samuel Caruthers’, is that right?”
Montague cleared his throat while Alec lifted a hand.
“Professor Pacetti,” Alec said. “Excuse me, but she’s not your fucking princess.”
Oh damn. It was on.
Pacetti whirled on him, leaning over his desk. “Is she your fucking princess, Lyrman?”
Oh, ewww.
Montague stood up. He looked like he wanted to slam Professor New Jersey into the wall, but he said tensely, “Professor, we’re here to learn necromancy, right?”
Irving looked at the exits with wild eyes.
“Necromancy. Yes. You want to learn necromancy. I’m not going easy on any of you,” Professor Pacetti said. “My class is no fucking nonsense. I met Professor McGuinness. Not impressed. He was one of those clean cut mortician-in-a-suit types you see.” Professor Pacetti was wearing a dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up and jeans, so, you know. Edgy. “Well, necromancy is dirty. You’re dealing with the dead. So, Miss Charlotte, I hear you summoned a dark spirit.”
“It was my mother,” Alec said. “It wasn’t just any dark spirit. Charlotte did it for me.”
Harris glanced at me but said nothing. He had helped me expel Alec’s mom when she got angry at me and wouldn’t leave, and I knew he hadn’t forgotten that.
“Well, if I had been Charlotte’s teacher, she would have been prepared to deal with a dark spirit. I’m going to teach you the most important skill for a necromancer. The ability to purify. This is really bleeding edge magic; nobody’s teaching this yet. You’re the first school to have it.” He strolled back behind his desk. “You take a dark spirit and you purify that spirit, and one of a few options is going to happen. Either that spirit is under your control, or that spirit gets wiped off the face of the earth.”
A burly guy in the back said, “Aren’t they already wiped off the face of the earth?”
“I think you know what I mean, don’t you…”
“Nelson,” the boy said.
“Either you know what I mean or you’re fucking stupid. Which is it?”
“I’m not stupid. I’m a de Brigue.”
“Ohhh. Oh, you’re a de Brigue. I’m sorry,” Professor New Jersey said sarcastically, which almost made me enjoy him for a second. “There are only a thousand de Brigues, I didn’t realize none of you are stupid. Nelson—listen to me. You follow my lead and you will learn how to summon demon spirits and destroy them.”
All of my guys looked uncomfortable. But some of the boys were practically frothing at the idea.
“Destroy demon spirits? Are you serious?”
“I’m serious. If you’re here at Merlin, you’re the next generation of leaders. Well, most of you. So—we’re going to do some groundwork first, and before spring break you’re going to tackle a demon.” He looked at me. “You ought to be interested in that, huh…Princess?”
Now he was daring Alec or Montague to start some shit with him. I glanced at them like, don’t.
“What kind of demons are we talking?” Harris asked, drawing his attention off of me. “I was under the impression that it isn’t so easy to just ‘purify’ a dark spirit.”
“You want to see what I mean?” He glanced at the calendar. “Meet me in the grove on the night of the full moon, if you’re brave enough. That goes for all of you.”
Chapter Eleven
Charlotte
“I feel like this is a bad idea,” I said, lacing my shoes as Alec stepped out of the shower looking as luscious as he always did walking out of the shower, in nothing but a pair of jeans that were just the right amount of tight.
“I agree,” Montague said, as he loitered in the door of the room Alec and I shared.
“Are we not going?” Alec asked. “I wouldn’t mind staying in tonight after all. Waste of a good weekend…” His eyes lingered on me.
“I’m trying to get dressed,” I said.
“I’m not stopping you.”
“You’re undressing me with your eyes,” I said. “And I’m afraid if you keep it up you might actually disintegrate my clothes.” I smirked at him, signaling that assuming we made it out of our night meeting with Pacetti, I was down for that later.
“I wonder if I could,” Alec said. “That would be an interesting experiment.”
“Magic practice,” I said. “Totally legit.”
He reached for his shirt and I held up a hand. “I mean, do you even need that? It’s warm out.”
“Does my princess wish it so?” He was a little sarcastic, playing off the princess thing, but I’m not going to lie, if he wanted to claim the princess thing, I’d like that.
“Your princess demands it!” I giggled. “What would Professor New Jersey say if you showed up to his big spirit purifying ceremony shirtless?”
He shrugged. “Let’s find out. Clothes are overrated.”
“You’re really doing this?” Montague asked him. “Clothes aren’t overrated, Alec, you just dress like a slob.”
“Incubi really aren’t into that many clothes,” Alec said. “If you look at old art of incubi and succubi it’s pretty much just a little strategic fabric. So if I’m embracing my heritage I might as well go all out.”
Montague gave me a look like he didn’t really like this idea. “Clothes are like a secret. If you just tell a secret right away, it’s not interesting anymore.”
Alec snapped his shirt at Montague. “It’s not my fault you need to work on your tan, vampire.”
“No fighting,” I said. “I like Alec’s hot bod and Montague’s stylish wardrobe…equally.”
“That was a deliberate pause.” Montague bared his fangs at Alec and Alec dodged, whipping him with the shirt again. I laughed, enjoying the playfulness between them before we took on whatever was going to happen tonight.
“At least neith
er of you have fur,” Firian said behind me. I shrieked softly, not even realizing he had appeared.
Alec flopped into bed next to me. “Charlotte likes your fur too,” he said. “She doesn’t sleep with her arms around me. I know it’s not your ideal way to interact, but…”
“It sure isn’t,” Firian said.
“But cuddling is a real need,” Alec said. “So I hope you don’t feel like you’re not part of this relationship. We will get you back to normal soon. I swear to that.”
“Aw…” I loved that Alec and Montague had definitely gotten past the standard warlock thinking that familiars couldn’t be a part of the real world. They both seemed to accept Firian now. I had also noticed Alec’s increased confidence lately. Every day, since he’d broken the spell that bound him, his magic had grown stronger and while he was still generally the quietest and gentlest of my guys, his mood had shifted. He was more present, somehow.
I slid over to Alec’s lap and then patted my leg. “C’mon, Firian. Let me have a nice moment. I’m nervous.”
“And you should be,” he said, and I could feel the tension in his body as I stroked his soft fur. “I don’t trust these council warlocks, for reasons that should be plain to see.”
“Why are we going if we all think it’s a bad idea?” Montague asked.
“Well…I think we need to find out what his deal is,” I said. “Especially since I am focusing on necromancy.”
But the real reason? Harris was going, and even if we didn’t go, Harris would still go, and then he would nag me about it later. The Chosen One vs. Exiled One battle was on.
Look, if our rivalry had gone on longer than it should, at least I think we both knew it.
If you’re going to be stupid, at least be willfully stupid.
Sure enough, we walked to the grove under the light of the moon, which was lifting its way into the unseasonably warm sky. Harris was lingering outside, waiting to walk with us.
A Fine Necromance Page 7
