by Emery Belle
I turned and gave her my best smile. “I can’t think of a single thing.”
Chapter 8
My stomach was in knots when I arrived at Lady Winthrop’s office. The door was slightly ajar, and I could hear her speaking to someone inside in hushed tones, so I backed up against the opposite wall and waited. The voices were low and jumbled, and though I kept one ear cocked for the sound of my name, I couldn’t make out anything they were saying. An elderly witch who worked in the academy’s front office walked past me, shooting me a suspicious look.
“Is there somewhere you need to be?” she asked me, loudly, rudely, but before I could respond, I heard chairs scraping inside the office. The door was flung open to reveal Lady Winthrop framed in the doorway, arms crossed over her chest, face strained as she tried and failed to give me a tight smile.
“Miss Winters. Do come in.”
She moved aside to let me pass, and when I walked into the office, the sight of Glenn sitting across from her desk almost stopped me in my tracks. And not just because Clementine, his new mannequin friend, was slumped in the chair beside him, looking as glassy-eyed as ever. She turned her head ever so slightly as I dropped into the seat beside him and raised her arm in a clumsy wave.
“You’re getting so good at that, Clemmy!” Glenn said, beaming proudly and giving the mannequin’s knee a fond pat. “And you didn’t even lose a hand this time! Clever girl.”
I heard a snort of disapproval coming from behind me as Lady Winthrop shut the door with a snap and crossed the room toward her desk, casting Clementine a mistrustful look before turning to face me. “Miss Winters, thank you for meeting me on such short notice. As you can see, I’ve also invited Mr. Gulley here today, both because I’m aware of your close relationship and because he shares my concerns about your well-being.” Clementine, who had perked up under Glenn’s lavish praise, turned to wave at Lady Winthrop, whose nostrils flared with impatience as she gave Glenn an exasperated look.
I sat up a little straighter in my chair, my heart rate kicking up a few notches. “What do you mean?”
Lady Winthrop removed her glasses and rubbed her temples, looking weary. “Miss Winters, I was born and raised on the island, and therefore I have known since infancy that I possess the gift of magic. My parents were born here, and my parents’ parents, and, well, you get the picture.” Her eyes pierced mine, and I looked down at my hands. “Therefore, I cannot imagine what it must have been like for you, finding out your true identity when you were well into adulthood. The shock must have been all-consuming.”
By true identity, did she mean…? I darted my eyes toward Glenn, but he was giving Lady Winthrop his rapt attention, his face impassive.
“Students handle the news in different ways, of course,” Lady Winthrop continued, picking up a smooth piece of pink sea glass from her desk and turning it over and over in her palm, worrying at the edge of it with her thumb. “But I’ve noticed a regression in you that, quite honestly, I find concerning. When you arrived, you were excited, eager, talented, and a quick learner.”
She paused, and her expression turned grave. “In the past few weeks, you have become sullen, argumentative, and unbalanced with your magic.” Her face softened, and in an uncharacteristic move, she leaned forward across her desk and pressed her fingers against the back of my hand. “I—we—are worried about you, and are here to help.” She turned to Glenn. “Isn’t that right, Mr. Gulley?”
As she was speaking, I noticed that Glenn had suddenly become very interested in a loose button on his orange leather pants. When Lady Winthrop addressed him directly, his head snapped up and he nodded fervently, though I noticed he still wouldn’t meet my eyes.
“Wren means a great deal to me,” he said in a soft voice, keeping his gaze on Lady Winthrop’s face. “And I would do anything for her… whether that be helping her with her studies outside of class, lending an ear when she wants to talk, or”—he cleared his throat—“keeping her secrets should she choose to share them with me.”
It hit me then. He knew. He knew. He’d known all along, from the very beginning, and he’d kept my secret, and his silence.
Lady Winthrop stared at him. “I don’t know if keeping secrets is quite what I had in—”
“Clemmy!” Glenn interrupted, clapping his hands enthusiastically. “Did you do that all on your own? You’re going to be outsmarting me soon enough; I’d better watch out!”
I leaned forward to see that the mannequin had slid Glenn’s wand from his pocket and was studying it with great interest. He plucked it out of her hand with a soft tsk tsk, then moved it out of her reach. As he glanced up again, he caught my eyes, slowly and deliberately, and winked.
Lady Winthrop still looked baffled, and I took the opportunity to redirect the conversation. “I appreciate your concern, Lady Winthrop, I truly do. You’re right that I haven’t been myself lately. I suppose I’m feeling a bit… overwhelmed.”
That was the understatement of the century.
“And I sincerely apologize for being difficult in class—my head is all out of sorts, but I’m working on it, I promise.” If working on it meant stewing in my room for hours on end without taking any concrete action, but that was on a strictly need-to-know basis.
“Excellent.” Lady Winthrop’s tone was back to all-business. “And I think Mr. Gulley’s tutoring suggestion is something we should consider, if your problems with your magic don’t clear up soon. In the meantime…”
She opened the top drawer of her desk with a wave of her hand, and a pile of notes floated out. Thumbing her glasses up her nose, she flipped through them for a few moments, then said, “Ah, here it is!” before snapping her fingers.
The note she’d been reading disappeared and reappeared quite suddenly in my hands, startling me. I glanced down at it warily to find an unfamiliar address scrawled across it, followed by a date and time.
“I know we’ve discussed this in the past, but as it has not yet come to fruition, I have taken the liberty of contacting my friend Homer Vale and setting up an appointment on your behalf.” She smiled at me. “As a favor to me, he has even agreed to conduct your first session entirely free of charge. A rare gift, I might add, especially since his waiting list is typically several months long.”
She drew her shoulders up proudly and gave me an expectant look, clearly anticipating that I would be falling all over myself thanking her for the favor. And though I managed to give her a tight smile and as sincere a thank-you as I could muster, my skin was crawling at the thought of visiting the mind-healing elf. It felt… invasive. My mind was my own, and I didn’t relish the idea of someone poking around in it, uncovering all of my deepest, darkest secrets, of which I had plenty.
Noticing my hesitation, Glenn piped up. “Brunhilda, I don’t know if that’s necessary…”
But he was momentarily distracted by Clementine, whose eyes had lit on his wand once more. She lunged across him to reach for it, flopping her hands uselessly in the air, and as Glenn wrestled her back to her seat, Lady Winthrop turned to me.
“Contrary to Mr. Gulley, I believe this is necessary, and, as such, I am requiring it of you. If you do not attend the session, Homer will report back to me, and I will have no choice but to discontinue your studies at the academy until further notice.” When I opened my mouth to protest, she shook her head. “I will entertain no arguments about this, Miss Winters. The subject is closed.”
She stood up from her desk, ignoring Glenn’s yelp of pain as the mannequin whacked him over the head with her foot, which had come loose during the struggle. “Now if you’ll come with me, spellcasting class is about to start.”
She swept over to her office door and ushered me out ahead of her, and we walked in silence through the academy’s long hallways, which were crowded with students shouting to each other and practicing their magic as they waited for the bell to ring.
“Excuse me for just a moment,” she said as we arrived at our classroom, practically shovin
g me aside to avoid being hit by a broomstick that was hurtling down the hall toward us. “Mr. Fry,” she shouted at the top of her lungs, storming after a stout teenager with bright red hair and a mischievous grin. “How many times do I have to tell you, NOT IN THE—”
The broomstick smacked into her back, sending her glasses flying off her nose and cracking into the opposite wall. When she whipped out her wand, her eyes blazing with fury, I took that as my cue to step inside the classroom and close the door firmly behind me.
Hunter and Garnet, who had been conversing in whispers at their desks, heads bent together, jerked apart as I entered, looking guilty. I stared from one to the other. “What?”
There was a long pause, during which Hunter became very interested in a smudge of ink on his desk and Garnet chewed the ends of her hair while trying to avoid my eyes. I crossed the room and stood squarely in front of them, tapping my foot on the ground in annoyance.
“What’s going on? Spit it out.”
They exchanged another glance, and finally, when they could ignore me no longer, Hunter tipped his head to Garnet. “You tell her. You two are better friends.”
My heart skipped a beat. “Tell me what?”
Garnet shook her head adamantly. “No, you. You’re the one who saw it.”
Hunter winced. “Fine.” He took a deep breath, and when he met my gaze, I saw that his face was soft with sympathy. “I was out to lunch with a coworker of mine from the real estate office, and I saw…”
His eyes slid to Garnet, who nodded her encouragement. He cleared his throat. “I saw Sebastian with… with a woman. And they looked pretty cozy.”
Garnet’s eyes were round. “I’m so sorry, Wren. He’s a real jerk.”
I let out a relieved breath. Was that all?
“This woman,” I said, addressing Hunter, who looked confused by my reaction, “did she have long black hair, turquoise eyes, and a completely inappropriate outfit?” When he nodded, I laughed. “That’s his cousin, Tamara.”
Hunter’s eyebrows disappeared into his hairline. “His cousin? Wren, I don’t think, based on how she was behaving—”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought at first too.” I slid into my chair and pulled my spellbook from my bag. “But she’s apparently a huge flirt, and sometimes she forgets who she’s with.” I gave both of them a genuine smile. “Thanks for looking out for me, though. I really appreciate it, guys. It’s nice to know you have my back.”
I could tell based on Hunter’s expression that he thought I was in denial, but when he opened his mouth again, Garnet shot him a shut-up look before turning to me with an extra-bright smile. “So, how was your meeting with Lady Winthrop? I’m assuming everything’s okay?”
“Dandy.” I paged through my spellbook until coming to the chapter on conjuring spells. Before she could ask any other questions that I really didn’t care to answer, the classroom door burst open and Lady Winthrop stomped into the room, looking mutinous.
“All right, class, open your books to page seventy-two and read the section on conjuring items over twenty pounds,” she snapped, yanking out her desk chair so hard she tipped it over. As she bent down to right it again, I cringed when I noticed that she had a bruise the precise width of a broomstick handle emblazoned on her cheek. It seemed like my morning wasn’t the only one off to a bad start.
With the help of Sebastian, who had briefly spoken to her while piecing together Auggie Atwater’s obituary for The Islander Gazette, I decided to have a chat with Meryl, Auggie’s fiancée. She was a plump, pretty, rosy-cheeked witch who led a series of popular broomstick-guided tours of the island, and Sebastian’s connections at the paper helped him snag two tickets for a highly coveted sunset flyover of all the best sights.
When we arrived at the designated meeting spot, Sebastian surprised me with a handwoven scarf in the most beautiful shade of violet. “I can’t have my best girl getting cold,” he said, wrapping it around my neck tenderly and knotting the two ends together.
He bent down to give me a kiss, his soft, warm lips a contrast to the already chilly evening air. When he pulled away from me, his eyes were sparkling in the waning sunlight. “You’re going to hang on tight to me, right? And remember—don’t look down. Not on your first flight, at least.”
I glanced nervously at the row of sleek broomsticks propped up against the nearest building and swallowed hard. I was simultaneously wild with excitement and completely terrified at the prospect of being hundreds of feet up in the air, with nothing between me and certain death but a few inches of wood.
Luckily, non-flyers were required to ride a broomstick with a licensed flyer, and from the looks of it, I wasn’t the only inexperienced person in the tour group. A couple of vampires with fanny packs and cameras slung around their necks were eyeing the broomsticks with mistrust, and a stout lady dwarf was sitting on the sidewalk, head between her knees, hyperventilating, as her male companion patted her on the back and spoke soft words of encouragement.
Meryl, who was bundled up in woolen gloves, a thick red cape, and a winter cap, was busy checking flying licenses and making sure every non-flyer had a buddy. I’d been surprised to hear that she was still leading tours in the wake of Auggie’s death, and when I heard a flutter of laughter coming from her as she returned Sebastian’s license, I narrowed my eyes. Sebastian had convinced me to wait until we were back on solid ground after the tour to interview her about Auggie’s murder—as he so intelligently pointed out, we didn’t want her to be so distracted by my questioning that she flew us right into a building—but I was itching to hear what she had to say.
“Ready?” Sebastian said, grinning as he returned with an extra-long broomstick and set it on the ground at my feet. “I was able to snag a double-seater—told you it pays to show up early.”
My stomach gave an unpleasant little jerk as I toed at the broomstick, but I didn’t have much time to consider whether I wanted to make a break for it before Meryl, holding her own broomstick high over her head, waved her hands and blew on a whistle to get everyone’s attention.
“Okay, everybody, listen up!” she called as the tour group fell silent and congregated around her. The hyperventilating lady dwarf and her friend were nowhere to be seen, but otherwise, the turnout was impressive. “A couple of ground rules before we get started.”
She held up a finger. “One, absolutely no flying without a license. I don’t care if you’re Harry-freaking-Potter playing quidditch for the first time, you’re not sitting at the helm unless you’re fully qualified.”
A second finger shot into the air. “Two, if I catch anyone fooling around up in the air—and that includes trying to outfly a passing dragon—I’ll have you arrested faster than you can say ‘broomstick.’”
One more finger. “And third”—her face broke into a smile—“everybody have fun up there, okay?” She mounted her broomstick to the sound of clapping, then kicked off into the air, hovering a few feet above our heads as she waited for everyone to catch up.
“Ready?” Sebastian asked, swinging one leg over our broom. When he saw my hesitation to climb on, he dismounted, then gently moved me into position, his fingers lingering on the nape of my neck. “I’ll keep you safe, I promise.” He waited until I nodded, then mounted the broomstick in front of me, reaching behind him to locate my arms and wrap them securely around his waist.
I held on tight as he squatted low before kicking off, and I let out an involuntary squeal as we went airborne, our feet dangling into nothingness. As I clung to Sebastian’s waist for dear life, the wind whipped my hair into my mouth, but I didn’t dare loosen my grip to remove it. The vampires were rising into the air on either side of us, each riding with a broomstick-licensed witch Meryl had hired for the tour, their fangs on full display as they whooped with delight.
Sebastian was a careful, courteous flyer, constantly checking behind him to make sure I was comfortable and at ease, and after a few minutes, I started to relax a little and enjoy the view. Th
e island looked spectacular from up above—a pink and gold sunset melting into the darkening turquoise water that stretched as far as the eye could see. At one point, Meryl blew her whistle, and the group came to a halt, bobbing up and down in the air as a trio of dragons soared overhead, their scales glittering in the last of the evening’s light.
We flew over Sparrow Manor, and Ignis and Glacies, the fire-and-ice dragons that guarded the coven’s headquarters, spread their wings and roared to the heavens as we passed by, the blast so powerful it reverberated in my ears. But the shiver that passed through me then was nothing compared to the full-body tremor I experienced when we soared past the black marble courthouse; a light was on in the High Court’s chambers, and I knew that he was in there, working late into the evening, writing laws that would affect the islanders for years to come, writing laws that would lead innocents to the death chamber. As his long fingers gripped the pen and his cold, unfathomable eyes scanned what he had written, did he spare a thought for her, or for me?
“Are you okay?” Sebastian asked me a few minutes later as we swept down into a smooth landing and dismounted. “You got pretty quiet at the end there.” His eyes searched my face as I unwound my scarf and stretched my legs, which felt stiff and clumsy after the long flight.
“I’m fine, just taking it all in.” I managed a small smile, though he didn’t look convinced. “Now come on, let’s go talk to Meryl before we miss our chance.”
I looked around for the pretty witch, spotting her a few feet away, deep in conversation with the vampires, who were expressing their exasperation over being unable to obtain a broomstick license of their own while she listened with a sympathetic smile.
