by L. C. Mawson
Natalie was standing next to her, one arm wrapped around her middle while another picked at the skin of her lip.
“What happened?” I managed to ask, wondering how I had gotten back, but my voice came out as barely more than a faint croak.
Natalie was the one to answer. “I came back to check on you between classes, and... Amy, you were on the floor, and you were so cold... Did you leave the room?”
“I needed something from my auntie’s,” I said, thankful that I had picked up Mr Fluffy. As embarrassing as he was, he was better than the truth.
“And then you shifted back instead of walking?”
I frowned. “I did? I just... I was about to pass out and I knew I needed to get back...”
Natalie’s hard look softened a little, but not by much. She picked up my blanket, and I saw that the blazer of my uniform was stuck to it by the sleeve.
“You’re lucky that you didn’t shift into the middle of your bed, if that was the first time you did it, and you were so exhausted. You could have hurt yourself. You did hurt yourself. You were nearly dead when I found you, Amy. You’re lucky Ms Maltere was on her way anyway and could heal you...”
I looked away, wondering if I really had been so close to death, or if Natalie was just exaggerating because she was scared.
My blood chilled at the thought that she could be right.
“But it wasn’t just the shifting, was it?” Natalie asked. “You were about to pass out before then. And you were bad this morning, but not that bad. Did you keep using magic, despite your exhaustion?”
I didn’t answer. There was nothing I could say. I had been using magic, and even if I hadn’t actually been exhausted before Natalie had left, I’d pushed myself far past the exhaustion I’d been feigning.
I’d had a reason for it, but I couldn’t exactly tell Natalie that I’d stolen from a teacher.
Natalie shook her head. “I didn’t think that you would actually hurt yourself, Amy. I thought you knew better than that. If not... Then I’m telling your aunt.”
Panic shot through me. If she told my auntie, she might try to take me out of the school.
Ms Maltere turned to Natalie. “You don’t need to worry about Amelia. The school takes the safety of our students very seriously. In fact, could you give us some privacy? I would rather not talk about her punishment with an audience.”
Natalie didn’t look happy at the request, but she nodded before leaving the room.
Ms Maltere then cast a privacy spell around us before turning to me. “That was reckless.” She reached under the bed and pulled out the book I’d copied. “Don’t worry, your roommate didn’t see it before I arrived. But you never should have taken it in the first place. Natalie’s right, you weren’t in good shape when I arrived. If I hadn’t already been on my way...”
“I don’t feel that bad.”
That was a lie. I wasn’t even sure that I could sit up if I tried.
The unamused look Ms Maltere gave me said that she knew.
“Amelia, your life is worth more than any book. Even Helena’s.”
“It might be able to cure my mum. I had to try.”
She frowned. “You would really go to such lengths for her?”
“She’s my mother.”
Ms Maltere continued to frown, before eventually sighing. “If your mother was cured tomorrow... What would your plan be?”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Would you stay at the school? Or would you leave?”
“I... I’m not sure. I would want to see her again. Why?”
She didn’t answer my question. She just kept frowning, as if thinking something over.
“I’ll make a copy of Helena’s book for myself,” Ms Maltere eventually said. “And I promise, I will do everything I can to find a cure for your mother. Just give me until Samhain. Can you do that?”
I frowned, thinking it over.
It was only a few weeks.
I must have hesitated for too long, as Ms Maltere continued, “You will need time to recover. Use that time to read. To learn magical theory. But promise me that you will wait until Samhain before using your magic again.”
I grimaced. The thought of not using my magic for that long...
But then, the thought of actually using it again did make me a little queasy.
“Okay. Not until Samhain,” I promised.
She gave me a stern look. “I’m not going to ask you to promise me in the same way that I promised you that I would respect you as my student, but I hope that you take your promise just as seriously as I have taken mine.”
My stomach twisted a little with guilt as I realised that, in the back of my mind, I hadn’t fully meant the promise that I’d made.
But Ms Maltere was right. When she’d made a promise to me, she’d bound herself with magic to prove that she would keep it.
And she had.
I owed her the same.
“I promise. I won’t use my magic again until Samhain.”
She smiled. “Thank you, Amelia. I promise, your mother will be fine.”
I nodded, though I knew that the promise was empty.
How could it be anything but, when she had no idea how to lift the curse?
When no one did?
Before I could say anything else, there was a knock at the door and my auntie stepped through.
Ms Maltere stood up, turning to her. “I take it you heard about her exhaustion?”
Auntie Jess nodded. “Yes. What are you doing here?”
“She took a turn for the worst and I was nearby. But she’s fine now. Just tired.” She gave a wry smile. “It’s nice to see a dedicated student, but I’ve had words with her about the dangers of said dedication when it comes to magic.”
“Thank you, Mary.”
“It’s nothing. I’ll leave you two to talk.”
She headed out of the room and closed the door behind her.
Auntie Jess moved over to sit in the chair that Ms Maltere had just left.
She sighed as she looked me over. “Want to tell me what happened?”
I shrugged. “Nothing. Just exhaustion.”
“Because you pushed yourself too hard?”
I shrugged once more. “I guess I’m used to intense studying. And my magic is so wild and difficult to control, I don’t always realise how much I’m using.”
My auntie scrutinised me for a few moments, and I wondered if she believed me.
But then she nodded. “Okay. Do you need anything?”
“No, I’m okay. I... I might have already liberated Mr Fluffy.” I shrugged. “It turns out walking to yours wasn’t the best plan, and that’s how I got sicker.”
She sighed. “You should have just called me.”
“You had classes to teach and I didn’t want to disturb you.”
She smiled. “I have magic, remember? Retrieving Mr Fluffy would have taken me a minute at most. My classes can survive a minute without me. Just promise that if you need anything now, or if you get sick again, you’ll tell me. Okay?”
I nodded, returning her smile. “Okay.”
“All right then. I’ll leave you to rest.”
She got up and headed out of the room, leaving the door open so that I could see Natalie beyond.
She had her arms folded tight across her chest and she looked far from happy.
“I’m sorry,” I said as she made her way into the room, closing the door behind her. “I didn’t mean to hurt myself. Really. I just...”
She sighed. “You want to figure out a way to lift the curse on your mother. I know. But... Today was bad, Amy. Do you understand just how bad you got?”
I grimaced. “The pain stopping me from moving has given me some idea, yes.”
Her expression softened a little. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to berate you while you’re hurt, I just... I care about you, Amy, and this scared me. If I’d been any later...”
“But you weren’t. And thank you for t
hat. Really.”
She nodded as she went to sit on the edge of her bed.
“And if it makes you feel better, I promised Ms Maltere that I wouldn’t use my magic again until Samhain.”
“And do you intend to keep that promise?”
“Yes.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“She may have reminded me that she made a promise to me when she first started teaching me and she hasn’t broken it. It would be kind of crappy of me to break a promise to her now.”
Natalie smiled. “Good to know that there’s at least one way to make you see sense.”
I shot her a glare, though there was very little bite to it.
“I’ll go and get you some food. You’re going to need it to heal.”
I smiled, having to admit that it was nice to finally have some time to actually talk to her instead of burying myself in my work.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Natalie skipped classes for a few days after I was hurt, and as bad as I felt about that, I didn’t protest it.
I couldn’t dismiss the fact that, as weak as I was, I couldn’t face the idea of being alone.
I couldn’t face the idea of much beyond sleeping, to be honest. And when consciousness finally returned to me in spurts of longer than a few minutes, I didn’t have concentration for much, so Natalie and I had finally started that multi-player game of Civ, and I’d mostly relied on my familiarity with the game to get through it without strain.
I hadn’t realised just how much I’d been burying myself in my work, and how much I’d missed my friends, until I was finally forced to spend time with them again.
Eventually, I was well enough to get back into lessons, but only after Natalie had shown me how to extend my wand into either a walking stick or a staff.
The idea of hobbling to class wasn’t exactly a pleasant one, but I was reluctant to fall further behind in my studies, so I made do and tried to ignore what felt like everyone staring at me.
Though if it was because of the walking stick or because they all knew what had caused it – and thought me an idiot – I couldn’t say.
It was the week before Samhain before I felt comfortable enough to get around without it again, and I realised that Ms Maltere’s timeframe had probably been as short as she was comfortable making it.
The thought of using my magic again still made me slightly queasy, but I wasn’t sure if that was because of my body rejecting the idea, or my nerves.
Either way, I wasn’t looking to break my promise to Ms Maltere.
I still read through Princess Helena’s grimoire in my spare time, but I wasn’t even sure if I expected to find anything.
Maybe everyone had been right, and I was foolish to think that I could do this on my own...
“So, guess who pissed off Lana?”
I raised an eyebrow as Lena walked over to our usual table in the library. I was already sitting down, while the others had gone to get coffee.
While I no longer needed help walking, my hands were a little shaky.
Natalie passed me a mug that she’d picked up for me and I gave her a thankful smile as she sat next to me.
“Is it you?” I asked Lena, suspecting that it was.
Lena didn’t really get along with anyone she felt was flaunting their position within a coven, and Lana had a tendency to do so accidentally.
Lena grinned. “Nope.” She slapped Charlotte on the shoulder. “Lottie went and took the position helping with the Samhain ritual right out from under her.”
Charlotte rolled her eyes. “I didn’t ‘take’ it from anyone. Ms Griffin has been helping me to look into research positions at covens, and she thought this would be helpful for me. Anyway, it’s not just me. She asked if I wanted to invite you three to help as well.” She turned to me. “It’s just set-up, so you shouldn’t have to use your magic.”
I smiled. “Great. Sounds like fun.”
Lena grinned. “Sounds like it’s going to piss off a lot of people. Usually Coven Heads ask the girls they’re grooming to be their successors to help with this. Of course, I’m sure the next Head of this school will be chosen from other covens, and we’re not part of Ms Griffin’s coven, but still, it’s pretty much a giant middle finger to all of the pureblood girls to ask a bunch of mixed species girls like us.”
Natalie quirked up an eyebrow. “Technically, she asked Charlotte.”
Charlotte shrugged. “And I’m Litcorde. Let’s face it, becoming a Lorekeeper is expected of me, but beyond that? Litcorde make up the majority of Lorekeepers, and yet it’s always the neurotypical Witches that get chosen as Coven Heads.”
I frowned. “Do you want to be a Coven Head?”
“I don’t like the idea of not having an option. Most people don’t like the idea of Litcorde being Coven Heads because they don’t think we’re personable enough. We don’t have that nurturing touch.” She rolled her eyes and then shrugged. “But Ms Griffin choosing me for this means that she doesn’t see me that way. Which I’m taking as a positive.
“What about you, Amelia? What are you thinking of doing after you graduate?”
I sighed. “I don’t know. I’ve wanted to go to Oxford or Cambridge for as long as I could remember. And I worked hard to even get close.”
“So, you’re thinking of returning to the Human world?”
I shrugged. “I hadn’t really thought about it. I’m not even sure what my options could be. Ms Maltere thought...” I looked away.
Ms Maltere had thought that I could be powerful, but I couldn’t even copy a book without almost dying.
I couldn’t save my mother...
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “She thought wrong. But returning to the Human world probably means keeping up with my A-Level studies...”
“You’re only in your first term,” Charlotte said. “You can’t have fallen behind that far.”
I sighed. “Not yet, but I’m relying on the studying I did over the summer. What happens when that runs out?”
Natalie leaned forward, sipping her coffee. “Well, you could always take a gap year to focus on your magic. I’ve considered doing that.”
Charlotte nodded. “Ms Griffin has mentioned maybe doing something for students who want to stay on past eighteen. I mean, it’s hard to double up on education, but most of us need to, so it would make sense for it to take longer. Especially given our longer life-spans.”
“My education taking longer sounds like something that would try my patience, and that’s not something I do well with,” I said as I took a sip of my coffee and turned my attention back to Helena’s grimoire.
“Yeah, and I’m not sure I’d want to stay here with the little kids instead of going to university,” Lena said, though I was only half-listening as I skimmed through the book.
Charlotte was the one to answer her. “I think Ms Griffin was thinking of something kept separate from the main school. But it’s just theoretical for now. She also wants to bring in other kinds of magical beings to the school and even that’s difficult. There’s still so much scrutiny...”
I choked on my coffee, coughing and drawing everyone’s attention to me.
“Are you okay?” Natalie asked, reaching over to put her hand on my shoulder.
I nodded. “Yeah, fine,” I managed between coughs. “It just went down the wrong way.”
There was no way I was going to tell her what had caused the choking.
Not when I wasn’t sure that I hadn’t misread.
Natalie nodded, though she didn’t move her hand until the coughing stopped for good.
I turned back to the book, blinking to clear the blurriness from my eyes.
But as I read the curse over again, it was just as familiar as before.
A sleeping curse cast on a knife.
A curse Princess Helena credited as something she worked on with Maria Brown.
Could this really be it? The curse that had been cast on my mother?
I skimmed down to t
he section on lifting it.
The curse can only be lifted by the person who cursed the knife, not the wielder of the knife. I never trust others to do my dirty work anyway, but Maria does have a fondness for finding those who need direction and using them for her own ends.
If I wasn’t so disturbed by the thought that Maria Brown might be the only one to lift the curse on my mother, I would have smirked at that.
Princess Helena had left enough private notes in her grimoire that I was sure that she was also one of those directionless people Maria Brown liked to pick up.
The girl who knew that she would never measure up to the achievements of the rest of her family.
If half of this book hadn’t been horrific curses, I might have felt sorry for her.
I kept reading, hoping that there was something else.
I have also written this counter-spell, just in case the curse does fall into the wrong hands. I can’t think of anyone Maria and I would care about being cursed that we’re not related to, so the spell needs to be cast by someone who shares blood with the victim, and it needs to be cast by two people, with the kind of power that Maria and I can produce together. Anyone else? Well, there aren’t any other Angelborn, so they won’t be able to lift it.
I read the passage several times to make sure that I wasn’t missing anything.
But no, I wasn’t.
The spell needed two people, one of which had to be related to the victim.
And one of the casters had to be Angelborn.
I would have to cast it.
I bit my lip. Ms Maltere had made me promise not to use my magic for another week.
But I couldn’t risk waiting. Not when the other attempts to lift the curse might harm my mum.
And I couldn’t tell my auntie to stop. That would mean telling her that I knew how to lift the curse, which would mean telling her about the book, which would mean telling her that I stole it from Mr Stiles.
Yeah, I doubted that would go over well.
And Ms Maltere... I rubbed my hand, where she had cast the binding spell.
She’d made me promise her that I wouldn’t use my magic until Samhain.
And she had been as serious as I had ever seen her about anything.
I doubted that was a promise I could talk my way out of, even with my mum’s life at stake.