“Professor Wallace?” I asked, lifting my head.
“He’s not here,” Dash grunted. “Not yet.”
I pushed up onto my elbows and surveyed the empty room. We had just barely avoided the coffee table situated between Wallace’s leather armchairs and ugly plaid couch. Or maybe we hadn’t. The back of my head throbbed with pain, and as Dash sat up, he rubbed his shoulder and grimaced. I touched tentative fingers to my skull. A lump had already risen, but at least it was dry.
“Meena?” Dash leaned forward, laying a hand on my shoulder. His thumb brushed my bare neck just above the leather jacket’s collar, and I could feel his magic pounding with his pulse. My palms began to buzz.
“Don’t touch me!” I rolled away from him and scrambled onto my hands and knees. “Why did you bring me here? We can’t just leave them!”
Dash’s full lips parted, and then closed. He had nothing to say for himself. I vowed then and there that he would never get another kiss out of me again.
“You left him on purpose,” I hissed. “I’d think you were jealous if you hadn’t made me do the same thing to my wand.”
He winced, and when his brown eyes re-opened, they were full of hurt. “Yes, Meena, it is clear to me now where your affections truly lie, but I would never—” He sighed and shook his head. “It wasn’t possible. Not in his current state. I’m sorry.”
“If you’re sorry, then take me back.”
“I can’t do that.”
I lunged forward, bunching the lapels of his cloak in my fists. “Take. Me. Back.”
Dash covered my hands with his own. The same sense of calm his aunt had imbued me with on my first day here radiated from his gentle fingertips. My racing heart slowed. My ragged breaths settled.
Furious, I flung his hands aside and stuffed my own into the deep pockets of my new jacket. Castle’s jacket. “Take me back,” I pleaded. “We can’t leave them like that.”
Dash leaned against the coffee table, propping one elbow on top of it and resting his forehead in his palm. “And what do you propose we do? Put collars on them and lead them back to campus? They’re animals now. They’re… better off out there.”
“I propose we change them back,” I snapped. “This is your fault, you know. If you hadn’t put your hands under my freakin’ shirt, I could have kept it under control.” I paused, hearing myself, and then snarled, “And don’t think that’s because I enjoyed it.”
“I know you didn’t enjoy it,” Dash snapped right back. “And I do apologize for violating your personal space, but I couldn’t let Yates see what I was doing.”
“Well, you shouldn’t have done it all! I had it covered.”
“I only wanted to help. Contrary to what you seem to believe, I didn’t want Braden to die either, and that maniac was losing patience.” Dash frowned. “I can’t believe you thought he was me.”
My jaw tightened. “I think that was an honest mistake.”
Dash heaved himself to his feet, sprinkling the rug with forest debris as he shook out his cloak. “Then I’m not sure you and I have anything more to say.”
“Excuse me?” I jumped up. Our eyes were level, telling me that, once again, he had shrunk. “I don’t think so, bucko. If you’re so innocent, then why were you out there in the first place?”
Dash rolled his eyes and groaned. “To rescue my girlfriend, obviously!”
“Almost girlfriend,” I corrected. “But not anymore.”
“I know.” He dragged the word out slowly, ending it in a huff. “But at the time—”
I shook my head, disgusted. “Why does that even matter? You wouldn’t have rescued me if I were just a friend?”
“No! I mean, yes! I mean—” He turned away, raking his hands through his hair. “That’s not what I meant. I would have come for you no matter what.”
“But you had a mask.”
He shot me a withering look over his shoulder. “I’m an artisan, Meena. I can make anything I want. When I saw them coming, I knew I couldn’t fight them, not with my aunt keeping me like this—” He motioned at his small frame. “So I joined them.”
I thought back to the dozens of roses he had sent to my room earlier that afternoon. If he could really do all that, then I supposed it was plausible that he could whip up a bird mask on the fly.
“Wait.” I narrowed my eyes. “What do you mean your aunt keeps you like this?”
Dash buried his face in his hands. “This is the glamour, Meena. It’s only effective on campus. When I leave, you can see the real me. But as long as I’m here…” He waved at himself again. “My aunt keeps me like this.”
My mouth fell open. “Why… why would she do that?”
“To make me less appealing to power-digging witches like Serenity.” He shook his head. “It’s not important. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“Dash…” I found myself reaching for him. “That’s… you know that’s insane, right?”
He gently pushed my hand away. “Perhaps we should avoid physical contact for a while, yes? Until I can get my futile feelings under control?”
I dropped my hand to my side. “I’m sorry, Dash. I never should have led you on. That was… very wrong.”
He shrugged and looked away. “I must go to my aunt now. Try to explain this in a way that doesn’t come back on you.”
“Come back on me?” I scowled. “I’m coming with you.”
“No,” he said sharply. “It’s not safe. What you did tonight… witches can’t do that, Meena. Yates won’t be the only one who wants to drain you.”
“Drain me?”
“Of course.” Dash’s eyebrows knit together. “You didn’t honestly believe he was going to let you and Braden walk away, did you? He only wanted to prove that you could do it. Then he meant to kill you both and take your power for himself.”
I closed my eyes. Why did everything only seem obvious to me when it was too late? Much like I should have gone looking for my wand instead of visiting my father, I should have just used my magic to set Braden and Castle free instead of taking the mad man’s bait. Then we could have at least made a go of fighting our way out. As readily as most of Yates’ followers fled, we might have done so, too. Especially with Dash there to supercharge my power.
Pressing my fingers into my pounding temples, I groaned. “I’m an idiot.”
Dasharath broke the rule he had just made and rested his hands on my shoulders. “Meena, you did the right thing under the circumstances. Braden and Professor Castle are still alive—”
“Last time we checked,” I scoffed.
“Yes, and last time we checked, Yates is most likely dead. His followers—”
“Are trapped in the dome!” I grabbed his arm. “Dash, we have to go back. Either the animals are picking them off one by one, or they’ve ganged up on the animals.”
Dash shook his head. “Without Yates, the dome would dissipate. His followers are probably all up trees. And the animals would be full now anyway…”
I grimaced at the thought, and then a worse one occurred to me. “I didn’t see what happened to Leia or Serenity.”
“Me either.” Dash shrugged. “But they brought that on themselves.”
“I guess.” My stomach churned. Nobody deserved to be eaten, and Leia had been—or I thought she’d been—my friend.
What would I tell Oliver? Or did Oliver already know? Had he been one of the other masked figures with a penchant for human sacrifice?
“Magic is not for the faint of heart.” Dash offered me a sad smile. “Shifters even less so.”
“But if the dome is gone, then Braden and Castle could be anywhere… How will I turn them back if I can’t find them?”
Dash cut his eyes toward the large window nestled between Wallace’s floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. “There’s no guarantee you could turn them back if you did. And trust me, in their condition, they’re safer in the woods than on campus. Professor Phorm—”
“What about him? What do you
know?”
“Not enough. Only that he keeps trapped shifters as lab rats. And when Lucas Billings set one loose…” Dash drew a finger across his throat.
“So it was Phorm,” I muttered. “You know this for a fact? Your aunt knows this? And Phorm still works here?”
Dash made a face. “Meena, my aunt is—as you’ve already pointed out—insane. Phorm’s experiments have her full approval, as does whatever he believes he needs to do to protect his work.”
I swallowed hard. “Including murder?”
Dash closed his eyes. “So much murder.”
Chapter 10
An hour passed and then crept into two. I sat on the ugly plaid couch and then each of the two leather armchairs. I kicked my feet up on Wallace’s massive wooden desk. I investigated the strange vials and beakers on his shelves and pulled books at random to peruse. The oldest and mustiest of the tomes were written in a pictographic language I couldn’t understand or even intuit. Almost like Egyptian hieroglyphs, but full of even stranger, supernatural-looking figures.
Finally, I posted myself by the large window overlooking the campus, keeping watch for any signs of commotion that might clue me in on what was happening out there. Dasharath had gone to make his report to Chancellor Singh. He had promised that Professor Wallace would soon come for me, but with every passing minute, my doubts grew.
The courtyard grass glimmered with dew under the stars, but the sidewalks remained empty, the dorm windows dark. I’m not sure what I expected. A full-scale activation of the Martial Magic Department? They were the ones most likely to be compromised by Yates’ influence. Or was that just another dumb assumption I was making? Leia had been a healer, and yet somehow she had been sucked into his bloodthirsty sphere.
I stuffed my hands deep into the pockets of Castle’s leather jacket.
They kept going. All the way up to my elbows. And still, I felt no seam in the fabric to tell me I’d hit pocket bottom.
Furrowing my brow, I turned the jacket flaps outward, expecting to see my arms protruding from two giant holes. But no. I couldn’t even see their outline on the other side of the jacket’s herringbone lining. I wiggled the fingers of my right hand in what felt like an enormous empty space. I could have sworn I felt a breeze brushing gently over my skin.
Something hard and smooth and oddly shaped bumped into the palm of my hand, as though it had been floating by. Curling my fingers around the object, I pulled my hand from the infinite pocket and held my strange find up to the window’s light.
A toy car. A red convertible, to be exact. I spun the wheels with my thumb, smiling at the soft whirring noise it made. Dipping my hand back into the pocket, I opened my palm and the toy floated away. I swished both hands through the empty space on either side of me, wondering what else Castle might have hidden in here. Is this why the jacket was necessary to end the war?
The door creaked open, startling me so badly that I yanked both hands out of the pockets and clasped them guiltily behind my back. A cloaked figure slipped into the room, closed the door, and touched his wand to the knob. Then he tucked the wand into its holster and hurried toward me without bothering to turn on the lights.
“Meena.” Wallace grasped my shoulder as though he wanted to pull me into a hug but refrained. His faced looked older in the pale light of the stars. Older and haunted. “Dasharath has bought you some time. We must act quickly.”
I frowned, pulling away as his grip tightened. “What are you talking about?”
“You removed your class ring, Meena.”
My mouth fell open. “That’s what you’re worried about?”
Wallace’s eyes filled with sadness. “The Chancellor did warn you.”
“But… but…” I sputtered. “You’re the one who implied you would look the other way if I opened a breach!”
Wallace stepped back, pushing a weary hand through his silver hair. “Something for which I have many regrets. But what’s done is done. Dasharath has sworn to his aunt that you already escaped after the… disturbance in the clearing.”
“What are you saying?” I clasped my head, too exhausted to keep up. “Escaped? Why do I need to escape?”
“You removed your ring,” Wallace repeated. “If Singh finds you, you’ll be expelled.”
“Expelled.” I stared at him. “Okay. So I get expelled. That sounds… ideal, actually.”
Wallace shook his head fiercely. “Oh, Meena. No. No, no, no. Expelled is… well, one might say Lucas Billings was expelled.” He lifted his eyebrows pointedly.
Dash’s words rang in my head. “So much murder.”
“Because I took off the stupid ring?”
“No ring, no control. No control, no magic.”
“But no life? You can’t be serious.”
Wallace folded his lips inward. A pitying smile. “You can’t strip a witch of their magic, so there’s not much choice. We can’t have untrained mages wandering the streets.”
I backed up, pressing my shoulder blades against the window. “This is insane.”
He shrugged. “This is magic.”
“So let me get this straight… I removed my ring, got kidnapped, was forced to do dangerous magic by a professor of this academy, and I’m the one that needs to be murdered?”
“I am well aware of the absurdity of the situation, my dear, but there isn’t enough time to make a sweeping institutional policy change before dawn. You have to leave now. While the Martials are gone. Come, I’ll open a breach to the diner where I found you. But from there, you’ll have to run.”
Wallace grasped my arm and pulled me away from the window, but I dug in my heels. “What happened to Braden and Professor Castle? I’m not going anywhere until I know.”
“Meena, if Singh returns and finds that Dasharath lied—”
“She’ll murder her nephew, too?” I screwed up my face in disgust.
“Perhaps not. But nonetheless, it won’t be pleasant.” Wallace tugged again. “Time is of the essence if you care about him.”
“Of course I care about him,” I snapped, jerking out of his grip. “But I care about Braden and Castle, too.”
Wallace pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “They were captured alive. Serenity and Leia, too. Singh turned them over to Professor Phorm, of course.”
“Take me to them.” I set my jaw. “I can fix them.”
My advisor laughed without mirth. “It’s too late, Meena. But, if it makes you feel better, makes you leave faster, know that Phorm will keep them alive.”
“Yeah, but for what?”
Wallace grimaced. “For the science of magic. In the name of the war.”
Visions of painful and invasive experiments filled my mind, clouding my judgment. I couldn’t let that happen. There was no chance in Hell I was just going to run away and save my own skin when, because of me, my friends didn’t even have their own skin to save.
“Where am I even supposed to go?” I asked. “Where won’t she find me?”
“Ah, yes.” Wallace cast a nervous glance back at the window and toward the locked door. “Listen closely, Meena. This is very important. There is another academy.” He paused and bit his lip. “An academy of shifters.”
“An academy of shifters?” I repeated slowly. “So, like… a werewolf school?”
“Yes. Precisely.” Wallace smiled. “The Gladwell Academy. You must—”
“But don’t shifters also want to murder us?”
Wallace wobbled his head from side to side like, eh, maybe.
“So why even bother running away?” I glared at him. Was this some sort of trick? Had I put my faith in the wrong person yet again?
But my own grandmother had told me to trust him…
“There is a woman there… she has ties to our kind. She will protect you.”
“Shifters killed my mother!” I exploded, angry magic brewing in my palms. “Her own best friend told her to jump off a cliff! I’m not going to ask them for help!”
Walla
ce stared at me. He dropped his hand from my arm and paced away, muttering as if in the middle of a conversation with someone else. Finally, he turned and stalked back over to me, gripping me by the elbows hard.
“That is not what happened to your mother,” he said firmly. “Rhea would never let her come to harm. And if I’m right, and you follow my instructions and head for Gladwell, then you’ll catch up with her there. She can tell you that story herself.”
I eyed him warily. “How do you know that’s where she’s going?”
Wallace cocked his head, looked up and off to his right. His lips tightened, as though hearing something he didn’t like. I followed his gaze, but there were only books on the other end of it.
“She has ties there, too,” he said simply.
“With this other woman?” I asked. “The one you claim will protect me?”
“Of a sort.” Wallace lifted his eyebrows as though he were in on some joke. “Her name is Cherish Belhollow. Remember that. Trust no one else.”
“What about you?” I lifted my chin. “Why should I be trusting you? You barge in here—”
“To my own office?”
“You barge in here in the middle of the night, all alone, telling me I have to run away to werewolf school? Because if I don’t, I’m going to be murdered over removing a stupid ring?”
Wallace sighed. “The ring is just an excuse, Meena! You possess forbidden magic that could turn the tides of this war. Laila Singh wants that glory for herself.”
“But she’s a healer,” I whined. “Does that word not mean what I think it means?”
“And you think every doctor in your world does it for the love and not the money? Pshh! You can’t be that naïve!” Wallace scowled, grasping my hand. “Now, enough of this. You must go.”
He drew his wand with his free hand and traced a pattern around his office doors. The cracks around the edges began to glow. The all-too-familiar sounds of sizzling grease and clattering dishes wafted through from the other side.
“And how will I find this shifter school?” I scrunched my brow, buying more time. “What did you call it? Who am I supposed to find?”
“You impossible child,” he muttered. “The Gladwell Academy. Cherish Belhollow. No one else. Understand this time?”
Broken Wand Academy Page 37
