by Sarah Piper
“The attacks are a symptom,” I say. “She knows nothing of the deeper meanings of the prophecies, or her importance here.”
“So, here’s a thought.” Baz steps away from the wall, joining us at the altar again. “Which, feel free to ignore, but… Is anyone planning to, you know, clue the little bird in? Or are we just going to let her stumble blindly through, hoping she doesn’t unleash hell along the way?”
“She’ll be informed if and when the need arises,” Cass says. “The less she knows right now, the safer she is. The safer we all are. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” Ani and I say.
Baz sighs. “Yeah, okay. I agree. But for the record, I don’t like it. Feels like we’re leading her to the slaughter.”
“Nothing could be further from the truth,” Cass says.
“I’ll do what I can to guide her research,” I say. “Keep her away from anything that could endanger her or the mission, beyond the prophecies and whatever resources she needs to understand them.”
“Excellent.” Cass looks to Ansel. “Ani, I’d like you to reach out to her as well, student to student. Offer her some support, a shoulder to lean on. She could use a friend here, too.”
“I’ve got it covered,” I say. “She already knows me.”
“As a spy and traitor,” Baz points out. “No offense.”
The accusation stings, but that’s only because it’s true.
“Yes,” I say, “things were a little rocky after she found out about my involvement with the Academy, but we’ve talked it out. I think she’ll come to trust me.”
“It’s not about trust,” Cass says. “It’s about proximity. You’re a graduate student, Kirin. She’s a first-year. Aside from your work together at the library, you won’t have an opportunity to keep a close eye on her.”
“She’s a first-year,” I repeat. “Exactly. So Baz and Ani won’t be in any of her classes, either.”
“We’ll make sure they are,” Cass says. Then, to the duo in question, “You boys up for a little do-over on your core curriculum? I’ll have Trello work something out with the other professors, head off any questions.”
“No problem,” Ani says.
Baz flashes a thumbs-up and a big, goofy grin. “Education is my middle name.”
“Dickhead is your middle name,” I grumble, but ultimately, Cass is right. This isn’t about my pointless little crush anymore—feelings that can only lead to more trouble. It’s about keeping Stevie safe. It’s about honoring our oath.
“Operation Friend Zone starts now,” Ani says with a mock salute.
“Friend Zone?” Baz looks mortally wounded. “Why rule out the possibilities before we’ve even—”
“Mr. Redgrave.” Cass levels him with a deadly glare. “Behave yourself. We can’t risk this mission on account of your insatiable appetites. Particularly where Miss Milan is concerned.”
His tone is harsher than usual, a hot, protective ire swirling in the wake of his words that makes me wonder just how close he and Stevie got on their post-prison road trip.
Before I can let my imagination run too far down that path, Cass shakes his head and says, “There’s more. It seems she’s already bonded with a familiar. A snowy owl.”
“Shit. I’ve seen it,” I tell them. “A snowy owl appeared outside her tea shop seconds before the police arrived that day. It felt like a warning. I knew it was magickal, but didn’t think to associate it with a familiar. Stevie can barely conjure witchfire.”
“That’s… concerning.” Baz glances at Cass. “I thought you said she was totally uninitiated?”
“She is,” Cass confirms. “A familiar is unexpected at this early stage, but it’s not unheard of for a spirit-blessed. I don’t believe she can conjure it at will, though, and the bond isn’t yet strong enough for it to tune into her instincts with any reliability.”
“She’s a ticking time bomb,” Baz says. “That much power, no idea how to wield it, how to rein it in?”
“We’ll do our best to guide her,” Cass says. “Until then, we can’t reveal too much. She’s overwhelmed enough as it is.”
I rub my forehead, tension throbbing behind my eyes. Stevie thought her arrest turned her life upside down, that being forced to leave Tres Búhos was the worst thing to happen since her parents’ deaths.
But the poor woman has no idea how much darker and deadlier things are about to get.
“You should’ve relocated her when you had the chance,” I snap. “At least then she might’ve had a fighting chance.”
Cass doesn’t take the bait, just places a reassuring hand on my shoulder. “We need her here, Kirin,” he says gently, and when I look into his eyes, I see the same concern that I’m feeling. The same fears. “You’ve known that from the start.”
“Doesn’t make it any easier to swallow,” I say.
“At least we can protect her here.”
“Can we? We don’t even know where the danger will ultimately come from. Only that it will come. And we’re no closer to figuring this out than we were a month ago. A year. Five years.”
“But we are closer,” Ani says. “She’s here, right? And Trello seems to think she can unlock the prophecies. So for now, we hold on to that. Deal?”
We all agree, the tension falling away once again.
Ani’s got a gift—the man’s like living sunshine. Hard to stay wound up when he’s around, spreading that perpetual optimism.
“We need to exercise extreme caution,” Cass says. “I don’t want anything provoking her familiar-response magick. If she feels threatened or backed into a corner, if her life is endangered in any way… Hell, even if she’s upset or anxious about something, the magick could surface and attempt to protect her. That’s fine in situations where her life is truly at stake, but right now, she has no control over it whatsoever.”
“Good point,” Baz says. “Last thing we need is her blowing up the dorms because she finds one of Chef Milbey’s cat hairs in her meatloaf.”
“It’s just seasoning,” Ani and I say with a laugh, repeating one of Chef’s oft-quoted responses.
“But it is a good point,” I say. “We need to keep her relaxed, focused on her work, and safe.”
“Right,” Cass says. “I don’t want anyone to know how powerful our witch truly is. Including the witch herself.”
“A familiar. Fuck me.” Baz shoves a hand into his hair, scratching his head. “How can she be so powerful, and so… so fucking ignorant?”
It’s all I can do not to deck the guy. A common feeling where Baz is concerned, but one I’m in no mood to indulge in tonight. We’ve got bigger concerns.
“She was kept in the dark her entire life,” I say, a bit defensively. But what the hell does Baz know? He’s spent all of five minutes with Stevie, most of that time staring at her breasts. “Her parents told her just enough to whet her curiosity, then forbid her from ever practicing her magick or even so much as cracking a book on the subject. And then they died. I get the feeling she’s spent every day since then trying to resist the temptation. And now she’s got no choice. She has to learn magick. To open up all the old Pandora’s Boxes her parents tried to nail shut. So ease up on her, okay?”
Baz raises a curious eyebrow, his eyes dancing with some new light.
“Interesting,” he says.
“If you took the time to talk to her instead of just hitting on her, you might learn something interesting about her, too.”
Baz rolls his eyes. “So Webber’s got a thing for the jailbird, and we’re supposed to just trust—”
“I don’t have a thing for her. I’m just saying we shouldn’t make assumptions about her past or judge her for something she had no control over. She’s smart as hell and she’s eager to learn. And from what I’ve seen, she’s going to make one hell of a witch. One we’re all going to be thanking one day for saving our asses.”
Baz opens his mouth, thinks twice, shuts it. After a beat, he shakes his head and says, “I don’t get
it, man. Her parents were basically Academy royalty. What the fuck happened? And why did they hide all this from her? They had to know it would come out eventually. She’s a spirit-blessed witch, for fuck’s sake. It doesn’t just go dormant.”
“I’m sure they believed they had no choice,” Cass says. “I don’t know the details of the situation here, what drove them to leave. Trello refuses to give more than the barest of sketches. But her parents… I’m sure they were looking out for her.”
“Looking out for her?” Baz laughs, but there’s nothing teasing or lighthearted about his tone now. His eyes, red and menacing in the torchlight, spark with a smoldering danger I feel all the way down to my bones. “Then they should’ve done everything in their power to keep her away from here.”
With that ominous end, Cass packs up the book in silence, and we file out of the Fool’s Grave and into the darkness, our minds echoing with the part Baz didn’t say.
Stevie’s parents should’ve done everything in their power to keep her away from us.
Twenty-Two
STEVIE
Wow. Declaring oneself a badass witch-queen is a surefire way to work up an appetite. After saying goodbye to Jessa, and—okay, fine, practicing a few Wonder Woman poses in the bathroom mirror—I abandon my crackers-and-peanut-butter dinner plans and head down to Smash, one of the Iron and Bone cafés.
It’s a mashed potato bar. Seriously. With a dozen kinds of potatoes and at least a hundred different stir-ins and toppings. And, the pièce de résistance, a big-ass golden chalice overflowing with five streams of melted gourmet cheeses.
Let that settle in.
Five. Streams. Of melted. Gourmet. Cheeses.
No wonder non-magickal humans want us dead. Clearly, witches and mages are fucking next-level geniuses poised to take over the world.
I load up a plate, starting small with just three of the twelve potato options—brown sugar sweet potatoes, scallion-and-walnut white potatoes, and red potatoes whipped with dill. For toppings I’ve got sour cream, bacon, buttered corn, buttered peas, and some sunflower seeds for good health, along with a smattering of things I can’t even identify but holy balls, do they smell amazing.
I’m all about the adventure tonight.
I’ve just gone two rounds with the fountain, cheese dripping over the sides of my plate, when I nearly run smack into two women who’ve just loaded up at the toppings bar.
“I’m so sorry!” I swivel my plate around just in time to avoid a collision. “I guess I’m just distracted by all the cheese.”
“Yes,” one of the women says with a big, friendly smile, her braids practically bouncing with cheer. She’s wearing a pendant in the shape of a teardrop, and when she laughs, it winks against her dark brown skin. “We heard you moaning all the way across the café and had to come say hi. Clearly, you’re our people.”
“I should probably feel embarrassed about the moaning,” I say, “but I don’t. Not one bit.”
She and her friend both crack up.
“I’m Isla,” she says. “This is Nat. We’re first-years, too.”
“Hey,” Nat says, balancing a plate piled with sweet potatoes and toasted marshmallows. She’s got shoulder-length hair, dyed silver and shot through with streaks of bright purple, blue, and teal—the kind of haircut that just screams, “I’m way more fun at parties than you are.”
I immediately like them both.
“Is my utter newbie-ness that obvious?” I ask.
“They say the moaning subsides by year two,” Nat says.
“We’ll see about that.” I laugh, even as cheese drips all over my hands. “I’m Stevie.”
“Come sit with us,” Isla says, and—with my promise to Jessa fresh on my mind—that’s all the invitation I need.
We settle into a corner booth beneath a huge framed painting of two foil-dressed potato people kissing, and I reach out for the women’s energies, confirming my earlier assessment. Warmth and kindness, a genuine desire to meet new friends. If they’d just come into Kettle Black, I’d offer them a cup of chocolate lavender tea dusted with crushed vanilla bean, the brew rich and calming, perfect for sipping over long conversations with friends.
“Is today your first day on campus?” Nat asks me. “We haven’t seen you around.”
“Yeah, it was a last-minute decision,” I tell them. “It’s… it’s kind of a crazy story, actually.”
So crazy I don’t even know where to start.
“Ooh, cliffhanger,” Isla says.
“It’s my way of keeping you coming back for more.” I give them a playful wink. “I’ll have to dole out the details sparingly—a little more each day, until I’ve totally reeled you in.”
I pop a spoonful of gouda-drenched sweet potatoes into my mouth, trying to buy myself some more time. These are the first friends I’ve made here outside Kirin and Doc, and truthfully, the jury’s still out on whether Doc is actually friend material. I don’t want to scare Isla and Nat off before we’ve even exchanged numbers with tales of murder charges and prison breaks.
“Right now,” I tell them, going for the diversion, “my plan is to basically make out with these potatoes, then figure out my shopping list. I’ve got jack in the way of clothing and school supplies, and classes start on Monday.”
“We’re planning to hit the Promenade tomorrow after breakfast,” Nat says. “You should come with us.”
“Yeah?”
“Come for breakfast, too,” Isla says, sweeping her braids behind her shoulders to keep them out of her potatoes. “Meet us at Broken Yolks at nine—it’s the diner over at the Breath and Blade dorms. Gotta start strong if you want to keep up with Nat on a shopping excursion.”
Jessa would totally laugh at me if she could see this. I hate shopping—truly. Back home, my wardrobe consisted mostly of jeans and Kettle Black T-shirts, and I got all my groceries delivered from the café suppliers.
But then I think of the sleek black credit card sitting on top of my dresser upstairs, and suddenly the idea doesn’t sound so bad. I’ve got a feeling shopping is a lot more fun when you’re doing it with someone else’s money.
“Alright,” I say. “I’m in.”
“Stevie! Hey, girl!” Across the café, Carly Kirkpatrick waves at me from the entrance, flanked again by her minions—the cute redhead, who’s now wearing a rather un-cute scowl, and the other woman I saw on the path earlier—a pretty Latina who looks like she could be Jessa’s taller, snobbier sister. There’s a fourth woman with them now, too, with pierced eyebrows and pale pink hair twisted into a messy bun.
“Oh no,” Nat whispers, rolling her eyes as the quad saunters our way. “It’s the Claires.”
“Claires? I thought her name was Carly?”
“It is,” Nat says, “but they’re all—”
She cuts off as the group descends upon us in a cloud of expensive perfume and a collective mojo that can only be described as peak superbitch.
“Stevie, I’m so glad I ran into you here!” Carly slides her ass onto the edge of our table, forcing Isla to move her plate out of the way or risk a butt-cheek imprint in her guacamole-infused mashed potatoes. “I think we may have gotten off on the wrong foot before. I was super PMS-y, and Baz has a way of pushing all my buttons, if you know what I mean.”
She laughs and tosses her glossy black hair over her shoulder, the ends of it dragging through Isla’s dinner.
“Carly, do you know Isla and Nat?” I ask with a pointed glare, hoping she’ll take the hint and get her perky little butt off the table.
Carly glances down at Isla and nods, but doesn’t move or say hello or even crack a smile.
Turning her gaze back on me, she says, “The girls and I were wondering if you’d thought about pledging a coven this semester?”
“There’s no pledging here,” Nat says, grabbing Isla’s plate and moving it away.
“There is now,” Carly says. “We can’t let just anyone into the coven, Matt.”
“It’s Nat
,” Nat and I say at the same time.
“So anyway,” Carly says, “our coven has certain standards, magickal and otherwise.” The way she says standards makes it clear she thinks this table is lacking in that department. “We expect each member to bring her own natural gifts to the sisterhood, and pledge complete loyalty.”
“Oh yeah?” I ask, feigning interest. Call me cynical, but something tells me the more I can find out about these women, the better I can defend myself. “What are your natural gifts?”
Carly lights up as if I’ve just offered her her own reality show. “I’m clairsentient, so I basically know things before they happen. I’ve been that way since I was born. Literally—I predicted my own birthday in the womb.”
“Isn’t that something?” I ask Nat.
“It’s something, alright,” Nat grumbles. “Not sure what, but something.”
Plowing on, Carly nods at the redhead standing beside her and says, “Amelia is clairvoyant, so she sees things, like movies in her mind. Emory hears things.”
“I don’t hear things, Carly,” the one who reminds me of Jessa says, clearly annoyed. “It’s called clairaudience. Aural premonitions.”
“Right,” Carly says, then thumbs at the pink-haired woman with all the eyebrow rings—at least six on each side, as far as I can count. “And Blue here—”
“Your name is Blue?” I ask, blinking up at her pink hair.
“Is that a problem?” she replies, the challenge obvious. She’s definitely gunning for a fight, even though she looks like she weighs about a hundred pounds at most, twenty of which is the hardware in her eyebrows.
I’m pretty sure I could crack her between my thighs like a walnut, but I’m not much for fighting. Besides, I’m not about to ruin my cheesy potatoes over this middle-school bullshit.
“It’s a cool name,” I say with a smile. “That’s all.”
“Anyway,” Carly says, “Blue can taste things. Clair—”
“Clairgustance,” I say, familiar with the term. I’m pretty sure my mother had a bit of that power. She used to wake up sometimes, dreaming of her late grandmother, tasting the woman’s lemon meringue pie. “Sounds like you’ve collected the whole set.”