The Sorcery Trial

by J. A. Armitage

  I didn’t know where all the other contestants were, or if they’d made it through all the obstacles, but I’d passed at least three of them, plus the girl on my back, who wasn’t finishing. I wondered how far from the end I was. I let my imagination picture for a moment how amazing it would be if I crossed that finish line among the top six humans. Not that it meant I’d get to join the race.

  Summoning the dregs of my strength, I once again set off into the unknown.

  The sound of screaming drifted towards me on the breeze, but this time it was no scream of pain. It was the sound of hundreds of people cheering and shouting with excitement as a contestant crossed the line.

  The sound spurred me on. I dug deep, quickening my pace.

  The finish line came into view ahead of me, a black and white checked banner stretching across the trail above.

  As I dashed towards the finish line, I saw three things: the wild crowd cheering me onwards, the ambulance waiting to take Blondie, and John—who was looking daggers at me.

  The noise was deafening as I hurdled over the line into the arms of the waiting paramedics, who gently hoisted the girl off my shoulders.

  “Nice job Jacq,” John clapped me on the shoulder and pulled me away from the cheering crowds.

  “Did I place?” I wheezed, my hands on my knees. I was so tired I could barely stand.

  “You came in sixth, but that’s hardly the point. The contestants were handpicked over the past months—carefully curated by the entire FFR team. They’ve been through weeks of interviews, tests, and preliminary rounds. You went in there like a bull in a china shop and ruined everything I’ve been working toward.”

  “But—” I began.

  “You’re fired.”

  I straightened, barely able to comprehend what I’d just heard. “I saved a girl’s life!” I argued.

  “Save it!” he snapped and stalked back towards the crowd, leaving me completely alone and for the first time since I’d turned eighteen—out of a job.

  After the longest hottest shower I’d ever taken, I searched the apartment top to bottom for a bottle of Ibuprofen, only to have my search end in an epic failure. I couldn’t face leaving the apartment to go to the store, so I settled for downing the only alcohol I could find in the apartment, a quarter of a bottle of Christine’s pretentious whiskey, before I fell into bed. Every muscle ached—even some muscles I didn’t know I had. Yeah, I was underage, but my parents had always said if I was going to drink they’d rather me do it at home. I figured this qualified.

  I closed my eyes and immediately fell asleep. I dreamed about Cass. It was the same dream I always had about her. I watched her go over our backyard fence, as I had countless times before. I called out to her as I always did, begging her not to go. I hadn't done that in real life, but I had in every dream that followed. Usually, I woke up at this point, dripping with sweat and trembling, but this time the dream was different. I opened the window and flew to the ground, chasing after her.

  She laughed as she ran away from me, mocking me. She hadn't been laughing in real life, rather she looked frightened. But now she was running and laughing—always out of my reach. The fae male was still with her, at her side as always. I never saw his face in real life and I couldn't now, just the pointy ears peeking out of his thick golden hair. Now he wasn't just holding her hand, he was gripping it possessively. She was struggling to get away from him. Had that happened in real life? I couldn't remember.

  I ran as fast as I could to catch up with her, but she remained out of reach. And then the air was sucked away from me, and I couldn't breathe. The male turned. I was going to see his face at last, but I couldn't breathe. I was choking on his magic.

  And then I opened my eyes and sucked in a deep breath. My heart raced as I took in my surroundings. I was in my own bed in my own apartment, and apart from the terror running through me, I was all right.

  An insistent banging on my door jolted me back to reality and everything that had happened yesterday came back to me. The course. The blonde girl. John’s last words to me. I pulled my pillow over my head.

  * * *

  “Go away!” I croaked. Just the effort of it made my head pound. My body had never felt so sore. Even my eyeballs hurt.

  “Nope!” Christine opened the door and flung herself on my bed. The motion made me feel sick. Maybe downing that whiskey hadn’t been the smartest idea after all.

  “I have a famous roomie!” Christine squealed.

  “Huh?”

  “Come on.” She grabbed my hand and dragged me out of bed. My body protested in agony, but I kept my mouth shut. I wanted to know what she was talking about.

  She plonked me down on the sofa and turned on the TV.

  There I was, running through the trees. I leaned forward, my hand flying to my mouth. A smile crept over me. With the fire behind me and Blondie hanging around my neck, I looked strong. Heroic, even.

  “It’s on every channel, look.” Christine turned the channel once and then again. She was right. I was all over the news.

  “The video’s gone viral. Jacq, you’re famous!”

  I grabbed my phone off the coffee table where I’d abandoned it last night, and goggled. I had twelve missed calls and twenty-seven missed texts. I’d deal with that later. I opened up social media. I had hundreds—thousands of messages. I scrolled through my feed, letting out a little gasp of disbelief.

  I was all anyone was talking about. No one cared about the winners. The twelve actual contestants that would compete in the FFR. The media was completely focused on me, and my epic run.

  I hadn’t been able to find any cameras as I’d gone through the course, but obviously, there’d been plenty of them. They’d caught everything. The crocodile, the flames, the waterfall. Me kicking in the red door, Blondie over my back. I was a meme!

  I looked back at the TV in wonder, where a morning talk show host was doing a play-by-play of my route through the course. Excitement rushed though me. Take that, John. Maybe today wasn’t shaping up to be so bad after all.

  “I’ll pour us a celebratory drink,” Christine giggled, heading into the kitchen. “Do you know where I put that nice whiskey I got?”

  I was saved having to answer by an urgent rapping at the door. I pulled myself off the couch and opened it.

  “Jacq, why aren’t you at work?” John barked as soon as I opened the door. Behind him, scores of photographers clicked away like hungry locusts, getting hundreds of photos of my shocked and rather hungover expression. I smoothed my messy bun, knowing there was little I could do about my Missoula Rodeo T-shirt and polka dot boxer shorts.

  “I…I…”

  “I’ve been trying to call you all morning. Why aren’t you answering your phone?”

  “I was sleeping,” I blustered as John pushed past me into the apartment. Gratefully closing the door on the clicking mass of photographers, I turned to John.

  “You’re the talk of the town!” He grinned, clasping my shoulders. “I always knew you’d be a star. I can smell talent a mile off.”

  “You fired me,” I reminded him.

  “Fired, schmired,” He waved a hand. “Jacq. You’re in.”

  I narrowed my eyes, trying to make sense of what he was telling me. “In what?”

  “The girl you saved—Brittany Carmine. I doubt you knew, but she just so happens to be the chief exec’s daughter. When he saw what you did, he decided to let you go through. Of course, your newfound fame didn’t hurt either. The public is crazy over you.”

  Excitement trilled in me, but caution bloomed even stronger. Things that seemed too good to be true usually were. “But I didn’t run the whole course. I didn’t go through any of the preliminary rounds. Wouldn’t it be unfair to the other contestants?”

  John shook his head as though he was talking to a complete simpleton. “This is show biz. Who cares about fair?”

  “You must not know Jacq at all,” Christine said from the doorway to the kitchen, waving the empt
y bottle of craft whiskey at me, her eyes narrowed. “She’s the epitome of everything fair, except when it comes to polishing off her roomie’s alcohol, it seems.”

  ‘Sorry,’ I mouthed at her and turned my attention back to John.

  “Besides, we timed everyone. If you’d started at the same time as everyone else, you’d have placed third, which is a miracle considering you were carrying another person. No one can deny that you deserve to be in that race.”

  “Oh,” I managed, pride welling within me. I knew I had killed that course!

  “I know it’s a lot to take in, but you need to get packed. The jet leaves from Burbank in three hours.”

  “Jet?” I said weakly.

  John nodded. “The jet that will take the competitors to the training ground in Wales. If you want to go over the Hedge, you better be on it.”

  John’s words finally sank in. Over the Hedge. The Fantastic Faerie Race. I had done it. I was in.

  6

  A sea of hostile faces greeted me as I ducked inside the jet that would take the competitors to the training ground in Wales. I forced my rubbery legs to move me forward and threw my shoulders back. I wouldn’t let myself be intimidated by the other competitors, human or fae. I was in the race now. They didn’t have to like it, but it wasn’t going to change.

  I slipped into a seat near the middle of the plane after shoving my duffel bag into the overhead bin. My packing had been a total disaster. What do you bring when you’re spontaneously summoned to another continent to prepare for a race in a magical realm? I sure as hell didn’t know. Jeans and my toothbrush. That’s about as far as I got.

  I'd been so caught up in the last-minute dash to the airport that I hadn’t even had time to find out who the other competitors were. In the sea of faces that had turned towards me as I boarded the plane, I'd not registered the physical features of their faces beyond their sneers. I wasn't sure I wanted to know even now, but I cast my eyes to the side to see who was closest to me. I felt bad about thinking it, but I hoped it was a human. As it was, it turned out to be an ebony-haired human girl, only a few years older than me. She had her back to me as she was looking out the window.

  Her canvas backpack was perched on the seat next to her, covered in patches. One caught my eye. It was from Whitefish Mountain, one of the popular ski resorts north of my hometown. Was she from Montana too? I couldn’t help myself. I scooted into the seat by the aisle. “Excuse me,” I said.

  The girl turned to me. She had the kind of natural beauty that made the rest of us jealous—smooth olive skin, tilted dark eyes rimmed with long black lashes. But that wasn’t what struck me. I knew this girl. I cocked my head, sifting through memories. “Genevieve?”

  I'd seen her in the trials, of course I had. But it was only now that I was up close to her, that her face clicked into place in my brain.

  She let out a little grunt of confirmation. “I wasn’t sure if you’d remember me.”

  I settled into the seat next to her in a flash, moving her bag to the floor. “What are you doing here?”

  “I should ask you the same question.” She didn’t seem as hostile as everyone else on the plane, but she wasn’t exactly friendly.

  I threw my hands up. “It kinda just happened.”

  She nodded. “I saw what you did. It was really courageous. But…” she lowered her voice. “You better watch yourself in training. Some of these other competitors aren’t happy about you being here. We all busted our asses for weeks to get here, and you just waltzed in.”

  I swallowed. I wasn’t sure I agreed that carrying an unconscious girl through that course from hell was waltzing in, but I took her point. “Thanks,” I said.

  “But seriously, why are you here? Do you still live in Missoula?”

  She nodded. “I’m here for the money and the boon, like everyone else. Our coven disbanded after…” she hesitated. After my sister disappeared, I wanted to say. She continued. “But I’ve still been doing magic. I’ve been learning under our tribe’s medicine woman. And getting good. So I thought I’d try my hand, see if I can show these faeries how it’s done.”

  That’s right. It was coming back to me. Genevieve was part of the Blackfeet tribe. She had been part of my sister’s coven, along with three other girls that my sister had gone to high school with. I used to spy at the attic door, peering through the keyhole as they lit their candles and spoke in strange words. They’d all been questioned by the police when Cass had disappeared, but none of them had known where she’d gone or even the name of the fae male she’d disappeared with. They’d agreed Cass had been acting strange—withdrawn. An image of Genevieve sitting in our kitchen surfaced in my mind—her tear-streaked face blocked by the tan of the sheriff’s uniform. A lump grew in my throat, and I was overcome by the urge to grab Genevieve’s hand, to touch someone who had touched my sister. It was closer to her than I’d felt in a long time. But I couldn’t do that.

  I fumbled for a topic that was safe, that wasn’t Cass. “I didn’t realize medicine magic was the same as…you know…witchcraft.” I winced internally at how ignorant I sounded. I knew nothing about magic. I’d stayed as far away from it as possible. Even when Cass and her friends had been dabbling in it all those years ago, I’d stayed clear, preferring the outdoors.

  “It is, and it isn’t,” Genevieve said. “All human magic uses the same basic principles and the five elements. But the ways to access it can be totally different.”

  “Human magic?” I asked. “As opposed to…” I trailed off.

  “Fae magic?” she said incredulously as if I had just told her I wasn’t sure what color the sky was. “God, Jacq, you don’t know any of this? You’re going to get eaten alive in Faerwild.”

  “I have a month to train, right?” I said weakly.

  Genevieve leaned back against the seat. “You better train your ass off because you can bet that everyone else on this plane knows at least the basic spells.”

  I swallowed thickly. I didn’t even know what the basic spells were, let alone how to cast them.

  “Seat belts please,” a flight attendant leaned over me. “We’ll be taking off soon.”

  “Thanks,” I managed. Genevieve was already closing her eyes, settling in for the long flight. I crept back to my seat across the aisle, trying to ignore the sinking feeling in my stomach and the strange crackle of magic in the air. I had one month. I’d train my ass off. It’d be fine. I’d be fine.

  I could never sleep on flights, so I passed the nine-hour flight watching an action movie marathon and ignoring everyone else. I loved watching the stunts, trying to figure out how they’d done it, trying to imagine all the components that went into getting each shot. To me, this was magic, the way that Hollywood made everything look so real. It was a suitable distraction from my unease, but by the time we landed, I felt strung out from lack of sleep and nerves.

  As I was disembarking the plane, I passed between two fae males conversing in low tones. A jolt of recognition went through me as one of the voices reached my ears. It was the low smooth bass of the guy who had left Blondie bloody in a bear-trap. I craned my head around and froze as my eyes met those of the dark-haired leather-clad male I’d seen the first day of auditions. A shiver went through me, and I ripped my gaze away, hurrying to the exit. I wracked my brain, mentally examining the white-board with contestants’ names and faces that had been up in John’s office for weeks. Orin Treebaum! That was it. Now I had a name for the asshole who left a poor girl to be eaten by a crocodile. He was one to watch out for.

  From the plane, we were hurried onto a bus to take us to Hennington House, where we’d be staying for the month. The huge old house was located outside of the city of Cardiff and had miles of grounds where we’d be training. The house was close to Caerleon, where one of the most famous faerie circles was located. Faerie circles marked portals between the human and faerie world. While the United States had portals, I suspected that John and the other execs wanted the sense of magic
and mystery that came with big old castles, foggy moors, and desolate landscapes. At least, that’s the only reason I could think of why they’d go to so much trouble to rent a big old house in another country.

  I was the last to get off the bus when we arrived in Cardiff, hanging back from the other contestants. So I couldn’t have been more surprised when I stepped down from the bus to find the blond fae prince waiting for me. “Americano,” he said in his deep purring voice. “Fancy meeting you here.”

  It was only then that I realized he’d not been on the plane with the rest of us. Being a prince, he probably had a more luxurious way of traveling—like his own private jet.

  My face heated as I pushed past him. “That’s not my name.”

  He fell into step beside me but said nothing, as if waiting for something.

  “What?” I blurted. His scrutiny made my skin feel too tight—the weird magical aura he projected was too much after hours on a plane and bus.

  “I believe human social convention would require you to tell me your actual name at this point,” he said with a touch of humor.

  “Jacq,” I answered, realizing I was coming across bitchier than I intended to. I couldn't help it. These creatures unsettled me. God only knew how I was going to survive being cooped up in a glorified hotel for a month with them.

  “I’m Tristam. Nice to meet you.” He offered a hand to me, and I looked at it sideways as if it could burn me. He waited a moment longer, and let it drop. “I saw your little run through the obstacle course,” he said. “Not bad.”

  “Thank you.” I should be glad that he was being friendly to me, but I couldn’t help but be on edge. He was a faerie. He was dangerous.

  “If you need any help with your magic, let me know,” he said. “I’ve been told I’m a good teacher.”

  I gulped. My magical abilities hadn’t yet been tested, which was just as well seeing as I didn’t have any. I didn’t like the way he seemed to already know I was hopeless when it came to magic. Maybe he was only offering to help because I was human, but I wasn’t so sure. He hadn’t been waiting for anyone else off the bus.