Basics of Spellcraft (Ember Academy for Young Witches Book 1)

by L. C. Mawson

  “She never played Sith. Or evil characters in general. She could never stand how mean the dialogue choices were.”

  It took me a moment to realise that the words had come from my mouth.

  I probably wouldn’t have realised at all if everyone hadn’t started staring at me.

  I had no idea why I’d said it. Why I’d talked about Queen Freya as if...

  Pain crashed through my skull before I had the chance to finish that thought, blood dripping from my nose once more as I gripped my desk, my knuckles white.

  “Amelia,” Natalie said, reaching over to hold my arm, her grip tight before she suddenly let go, pushing herself back.

  Right. I was bleeding in front of a Vampire. That probably wasn’t the best plan.

  If she said anything after that, I didn’t hear, the fire in my head drowning her out.

  Even her hand on my skin – when it had been there – had barely registered through the haze of every one of my nerve-endings screaming.

  Eventually, I made out a single word.

  “...nurse...”

  Something finally broke through the pain, bringing part of my awareness back.

  A chill down my spine.

  “I’ll take her, Natalie,” Mr Stiles said. “Can I trust you to keep an eye on the rest of the class while I’m gone?”

  Natalie hesitated for a moment before answering. “Of course.”

  “Amelia, can you hear me?”

  I nodded.

  “Can you stand up?”

  I pushed myself up from my desk, not wanting Mr Stiles’ assistance.

  “I’m going to put a direction spell on you. I know your awareness isn’t great right now, so all I need you to do is follow the pull.”

  A moment later, I felt a soft tug and stepped to the side, away from my desk.

  I only realised that we’d made it out into the corridor when I heard the door close behind me.

  “I’m sorry,” Mr Stiles said as we made our way down the corridor, all my concentration on staying upright. “I can feel your pain, and I know it’s a lot, but it will be over soon. I would do something to help, but I don’t think it will help without dealing with the source, and I don’t want to touch such powerful magic.”

  “But the nurse can help?”

  His silence chilled me.

  “How good at healing magic are you?” I barely managed the words through gritted teeth, but I managed them, and I had to know.

  Maybe his silence was just a lack of expertise.

  “It’s another of my specialties. My best, actually.”

  Or not...

  “But you still don’t want to risk it?”

  Again, the silence was deafening, and the agony coursing through me did the impossible.

  It got worse.

  I staggered to the side, my hands going to the wall to steady myself.

  “Shit, you’re too far gone...”

  I wanted to ask what that meant but couldn’t.

  “Amelia, I need you to listen to me. You need to remember.”

  “Remember what?”

  “That’s the problem, anything too direct might...”

  He turned away, muttering something that sounded not unlike “Fucking Angels.”

  He turned back to me. “You know, the thing about Human families is that it sucks leaving them behind. You become so different and you live so much longer, you forget them, in the end.”

  “I’m not going to forget my parents,” I growled.

  “I’m sorry, Amelia. It’s inevitable.”

  “Why are you telling me this now?!”

  “Because the one hope people have when they leave their families behind is that a younger sibling might follow.”

  “I don’t have any siblings.”

  Pain burst through me once more and I gasped, my legs collapsing out from beneath me. I stumbled forward, a corner in the wall giving me something to brace against to stay upright.

  “Amelia...”

  I felt him approach, and my hands moved to stop him.

  And lightning shot down my arms.

  He hit the far wall with a sickening crack, and I stared for a moment, unable to comprehend what had just happened.

  Had I done that?

  Had I hurt him?

  The lightning continued to crackle both over my skin and his. Except the lightning was dark, seeming to draw in light, rather than give it off.

  Dizziness overwhelmed me, the wall I was leaning on barely keeping me upright as the corridor spun.

  Sparks still played across my skin, and I had no idea if they were hurting me or not, the agony coursing through me still blocking out almost everything else.

  I could be on fire and not know it.

  And I couldn’t find the energy to care.

  I just needed the pain to stop.

  “Amelia!”

  I didn’t recognise the voice right away, though I did recognise the mass of red hair as Willow approached.

  “No, don’t, I might...”

  “It’s okay, Amelia. But we need to get you to your aunt.”

  “No, I... I don’t... What’s happening...”

  “It’s okay, you’re just breaking through. But Amelia, if you don’t stop, you’re going to exhaust yourself and magical exhaustion is dangerous.”

  “I don’t... How do...”

  “Amelia, you need to focus.”

  I heard her words, but I didn’t process them as my breath came in shorter and shorter bursts, my gaze stuck on the sparks dancing over my skin.

  “Amelia!”

  I glanced up to look at her.

  And I couldn’t imagine looking at anything else.

  She was... She was radiant. Every freckle on her skin just highlighting her ethereal beauty, making her impossible allure seem real.

  Almost touchable.

  “Amelia, you need to follow me.”

  I nodded, knowing that my mouth was agape but not finding it within myself to care.

  Not when the radiant beauty in front of me was asking me to do something.

  To follow her.

  I’d follow her anywhere.

  She turned and walked down the corridor and I followed as swiftly as I could, paying my pain and exhaustion no mind.

  The only thing that broke through my focus on Willow was the fact that the sparks dancing over my skin were now white, illuminating the hallway.

  All too soon, we were at my auntie’s house.

  “Amelia!” she said as soon as she saw me, ushering me inside.

  Though she then turned to Willow with a frown. “Is there a reason you’ve dropped your suppression magic, Willow?”

  “Sorry, Ms Bennett. Amelia was panicking, and I was worried that she would exhaust herself. I’ll put it back up now that we’re here.”

  And just like that, the radiance that had blinded me was gone, and Willow looked just as she had this morning.

  My attention turned back to the fact that I was still sparking, the lightning turning dark once more.

  Auntie Jess turned to me and approached, though she didn’t bring her hands to touch me.

  No, she was too scared to.

  And after what I did to Mr Stiles, who could blame her?

  “Amy, stop, you need to calm down. You’re fueling your magic with your emotions, but you’re going to run out of Energy. At this rate, you should have already run out. If you do-”

  I didn’t hear the rest of what she was going to say, as the ground fell out from beneath me and the world went dark.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Can I play with you?” I held the doll in my arms tight to my chest as I pushed open the door to my sister’s room, the heavy wood sticking on the thick carpet.

  She was sitting on her bed with her two friends next to her, and I worried that she would say no.

  She’d been away for so long, and now she was back, but I was afraid that she would leave again.

  “We’re watching movies,” Freya t
old me.

  “Okay,” I said before making my way over, climbing onto the bed next to her.

  “I refuse to watch any Cbeebies shows,” her blue friend, Mel, warned. “They give me nightmares.”

  Freya grinned. “Even Balamory?”

  “Especially Balamory.”

  Freya rolled her eyes. “We’re fine as long as we don’t watch a fifteen or anything. Star Trek is all-ages friendly.”

  They moved the pizza boxes to the end of the bed before all sitting at the top. Freya put a movie on, and then grabbed me around the middle and put me in her lap.

  I snuggled into her. I’d missed the familiar feel of her magic.

  Mummy and Daddy didn’t feel like that.

  Didn’t feel like me.

  “I’m sorry,” Mel said quietly to Freya once the movie had started.

  “Sorry? About what?”

  She shrugged. “You just got back, and we were supposed to be helping you this morning. Then we got caught up in all of my Mermaid bull...”

  I turned to her with wide eyes. I’d never realised before. “Oh! That’s why you’re blue!”

  Mel blinked, clearly startled. “Yep, that’s why I have blue hair. Don’t tell.”

  “And your scales!”

  Mel turned to Freya, alarm in her eyes.

  “Amy, didn’t Auntie Jess tell you about not talking about magic?”

  “But your friend started it!”

  Freya turned to Mel, who was giving her a confused frown. Freya’s other friend, Sarah, was still watching the film, having missed the entire exchange.

  “Ryan’s mother and sister are both Witches,” Freya told Mel. “It looks like Amy takes after them.”

  “But her parents are Human.” She sounded almost... scared.

  Why?

  Freya’s arm tightened around me. “I’m keeping an eye on things. And she hasn’t broken through yet, so it’s fine. Children say strange things all the time, her parents won’t realise what’s really going on. And she can hang out with your coven once she’s old enough to break through.”

  “Freya, all Witches-”

  “I know. Just... Let me handle things for now, okay?”

  Mel sighed. “Okay. I won’t tell anyone.”

  I AWOKE WITH A GROAN, every muscle aching.

  I tried to sit up, but it was too much effort.

  I barely managed to open my eyes, realising that I was on my auntie’s sofa, while she sat on a chair next to me, her wand in hand as it glowed a soft golden colour.

  I looked down to see that I was also glowing, and as I focused on it, I realised that it was easing my pain and giving me energy.

  I wasn’t sure how I knew that, but I did.

  It had a feel to it, like a whole new sense that I hadn’t been aware of before.

  “What happened?”

  Auntie Jess smiled at me as she lowered her wand. The spell didn’t break, but the glow lessened so that I could see her more clearly. “You finally broke through.”

  “How long have I been asleep?”

  Auntie Jess cringed. “About twelve hours. I sent Willow home soon after you passed out. She was worried about you, but I assured her that you would be fine. You just needed rest.”

  “If I still feel like this after twelve hours, how much more rest am I going to need?”

  “The rest of the week, at least. But that’s fine. You can stay here with me until Monday.”

  I nodded, relaxing a little. Though that didn’t last long as my dream came back to me.

  Along with years of memories that had been suppressed for over a decade.

  I turned to my auntie. “I had a sister, right? Freya. And... Well, she looked a hell of a lot like the portrait of Queen Freya in my Political Histories of Magic book.”

  Auntie Jess sighed. “So, your memories are back.”

  “Yes. I saw Queen Freya’s portrait in the book this morning, and my nose started bleeding. Mr Stiles then brought her up again this morning, and I... I knew things about her. I remembered, we used to play games together. She would take the controller when it got too hard for me, but only when I asked. And she always let me make the choices.” I looked down at my hands, balling them into fists as I remembered the sparks. “That’s when my magic came through.”

  Auntie Jess leaned forward. “I didn’t think you would be exposed to things so fast. I thought keeping you out of magical lessons would allow the block to wear down in its own time. But I suppose that was a foolish thought. What were you doing reading a magical history book?”

  “I was sick of being behind everyone else.”

  “I’m sorry, Amy. I should have seen this coming. But the block’s gone now, and I suppose there’s no harm in telling you the truth.”

  I waited for her to continue, and she took a moment before doing so.

  “You know that your parents struggled to get pregnant, right? Well, a few years before you were born, they decided to foster a child. Freya. They had no idea that she had magic, that she was an Angel, but your father is what we call Sensitive. A Human with enough magical blood that they don’t shy away from it like other Humans do. I think it was Freya’s first real home.

  “Then you were born, and your parents decided to officially adopt Freya. You used to follow her around everywhere.”

  “And then what?”

  “Well, then things started to get complicated. She tried to stay out of magical politics, she really did, but she came into her full powers under difficult circumstances. Up until that point, there were just rumours that an Angel existed. But then everyone knew, and until she chose a side, she was a threat to both. She went into hiding, but that only lasted a year before she returned home, and things went back to normal. At least, for a while.

  “She never knew who her father was, just that he was a Demon. But one Demon Lord figured it out. And he knew that as long as there was no heir to the throne, he could take over from the dying Demon King. But if said Demon King’s long-lost daughter showed up...”

  I frowned as my mind went back to the whispers I’d overheard early one morning when staying at Auntie Jess’ house.

  Whispers I had heard before Freya had come into the room, covered in bruises and scars.

  And then she’d said that she was just stopping by.

  She’d asked to take my hand.

  The look in her eyes... I should have known that she was saying goodbye.

  And then I had forgotten her.

  Until now.

  “That Demon Lord. He attacked our parents, didn’t he?”

  Auntie Jess nodded. “You were, thankfully, staying with me that night, and Freya was out on a date. But she came home to find that a group of powerful Demons had broken through her protections on the house and had taken your parents hostage.

  “She scared the Demons off, but they almost killed her, and they now knew her weakness. They’d already broken through her strongest protections, so she had to do something more drastic. She had to rely on the fact that magical beings all believe that once you leave your Human family behind, you forget them.”

  “She erased our memories of her and left.”

  “Well, she erased your parents’ memories. And it didn’t stick with your dad. But she suppressed your memories, instead, knowing that it would be safe for you to remember once you came into your powers.”

  “But she didn’t just suppress my memories. She suppressed my magic as well.”

  Auntie Jess nodded. “She did. Though, I don’t think that was intentional. She’d been worried for a while about what would happen when you came into your magic. As I’ve told you, you never would have been able to stay at home. Not without Freya there to help you. She wanted you to have as much time at home as possible, so I think she accidentally suppressed everything.”

  I frowned. “So, what? Now that I’ve come into my magic, her enemies are attacking me again? Is that why those Demons cursed Mum?”

  “No. She defeated the Demon Lord after
her.”

  “But she never came back home?”

  Auntie Jess shrugged. “By that point, she was Queen of the Underworld. She’d found her father – the old King – and he’d died. There was no going back for her.”

  “So then why did those Demons attack?”

  “The remnants of the Demon Lord’s forces have been wandering aimlessly for years. We think that when Maria Brown escaped, she gave them a leader and a purpose.”

  “Attacking Freya? Why would an ancient Witch care about her?”

  “She doesn’t. This isn’t about Freya, Amy. It’s about you.”

  “Why? What is so special about me?”

  “You’re strong. Stronger than you should be for someone with so much Human blood. And the most likely explanation for that is something to do with Freya, but we’re not sure what. All we know is that Maria Brown always had a fascination with the unusual magic of Angels.”

  “And I might be a by-product of that magic?” I phrased it like a question, but it wasn’t really.

  No, I could feel my auntie’s magic now, and it was familiar to me, but not like Freya’s had been.

  There was some connection there that went beyond blood.

  “Possibly. But you don’t need to worry about that, Amy. You’re safe here. Just don’t mention your connection to Freya to anyone. Trust me, you don’t want to get embroiled in magical politics if you can avoid it.”

  “Is that why you didn’t take me to the Underworld when Caroline suggested it? I mean, I assume if Freya knew I was in danger, she would protect me.”

  “She would, but people would expect a sister of hers to be a Dark Witch. You’re too young to make that choice, Amy.”

  I nodded, remembering what Mr Stiles had said about choosing Light or Dark magic.

  And then I remembered what had happened in the corridor.