In fact, I was sure he was lying.
Chapter Twenty-Five
SPRING SEMESTER
EARLY FEBRUARY
Two weeks passed without improvement in Sinasre’s health. I spent free nights at his bedside, feeling sad and sick and responsible. His father and a few other fae had visited a couple of times, but I hadn’t met them. When I asked Nurse Taishi about Sinasre’s father, he’d seemed cagey as if he knew something that didn’t concern me.
The specialist Nurse Taishi had brought in did her best to stabilize my friend. But Sinasre hadn’t regained consciousness. It confused and confounded both medical practitioners and made my worries multiply. He was in a sort of magically-induced coma. What if he never woke up? I would never forgive myself.
The time passed with agonizing slowness, filled with distracted thoughts, suspicions and late-night worries pouring over every bit of evidence I’d collected. Instead of doing homework, I scribbled into notebooks, madly dictating the inner workings of my distracted mind. Thank God the teachers were still being nice to me or I’d definitely be failing my classes.
At the moment, we were in Spells with Professor Fedorov. He was teaching again, giving his poor teaching assistant, Ramona, a break. Today, he looked pale and thin as a reed. It was as if the trip to save our beloved dean had sucked some of his life force away, turning the shining star of the Supernatural Academy into a blurry facsimile of himself. However, he was still impeccably dressed with his hair coiffed and his cufflinks shining. His suit coat remained draped over the desk chair as he prepared to cast.
Disha watched his darkness incantation while she furiously scribbled notes from the blackboard. I knew she wanted to learn as much as she could from his renewed tutelage. I knew I should care, also. The problem was the empty bench across from us where Lancer, Anama, and Sinasre once sat.
My fault.
No one had heard from Anama or Lancer. There was no way for us to communicate with the fae realm and, since we couldn’t use the damaged portal to travel there for fear of ending up in the infirmary beside Sinasre, there was no way to reach them. The few fae still here seemed despondent and stopped attending classes. We stopped seeing them altogether after a few weeks. The regent swore he had his best people on the problem, but I hadn’t seen any results.
What I had seen was the regent making rounds on campus, smiling and chatting as if nothing was wrong. I’d watched him schmooze with teachers and cozy up to students. He’d lost no time inserting himself into the role of leader now that Dean McIntosh was dead.
And, for all Irmagard’s leadership at the beginning of the year, she’d barely been seen since her sister’s memorial. Maybe she’d finally broken. Maybe she and Gerald had hightailed it to her beet farm without so much as a goodbye. Could I really blame her for saying it was all too much and giving up?
The problem was, yes, I could blame her. I could blame all the adults who’d failed me—Irmagard, Bonnie, and Regent Nyquist. Trusting them had brought me nothing but heartache.
I’d thought that going along, being a good little student, would make things better, but they had made everything far worse. They all seemed to have their own separate, selfish agendas.
New Charlie was a flop. It was time for Old Charlie to get the reins back.
Which meant I needed to do something, goddammit! But what?
On the platform down below us, Professor Fedorov muttered his incantation while swirling his delicate, slender fingers. With movements like a skilled pianist, he wove the spell in the air in front of him. Soon, a small black cloud rolled out from his hands, obscuring his desk and the middle part of his torso in a large black void. The darkness spell blotted out all the light, turning everything it touched into oblivion.
“This is spell I created while on my, er, sabbatical,” the professor said in his Slavic accent while he swirled the black hole around and around with both hands.
Sabbatical? Was he still unable to discuss what he’d been doing while chasing the subversives and searching for Dean McIntosh? Perhaps he felt responsible for her death. That would explain his shriveled appearance.
He should. Someone should feel awful besides just me. If she were alive, none of this would have happened.
His fingers weaved patterns, continuing the spell while he instructed us on proper elbow placement.
Watching his hands made me remember the grimoire. I’d used the revealing spell on half of the pages but had tired out after getting no results. It just hadn’t seemed a priority after we’d learned of the dean’s death and the thwarted attack on the regent.
I’d assumed they’d extracted Rowan’s powerful freezing spell from the book, but what if it had been something else entirely?
Suddenly, I wanted to jump up and run to my room, but class was still in session.
Fidgety and impatient, I watched Professor Fedorov extinguish his pool of darkness and give us instructions on how to carefully attempt it at home. The minute he was done, I leaned over to Disha.
“I’m heading back. There’s something I need to do.”
Disha stopped shoving books in her bag and blinked at me. “What’s going on? Why are you all fidgety?” Her brown eyes narrowed.
Bridget, on the other side of Disha, leaned forward and inserted herself into the conversation. “Something’s up?”
“No, I…” Pausing, I glanced around. No one else seemed to be paying attention until I spotted Professor Fedorov peering up at us. I adopted a weak smile and stood quickly. “I want to try out the darkening spell before I forget my finger placement,” I lied.
Disha’s eyes narrowed to slits. She knew I’d been dedicating practically zero time to study lately. “Fine. I’ll come with you.”
“Me, too,” said Bridget, pushing back a strand of red hair. Today, she had on a purple tracksuit straight out of the eighties that clashed wildly with her hair.
Grinding my teeth, I gave them a nod. My plan hadn’t involved them, but apparently, it did now. I’d just have to readjust my poor attitude and try not to bite their heads off in the process.
We left the Spells cave and made our way across the lawn. The day was bright and mild, with temps in the fifties, and students were taking advantage of the warmer weather and sunshine by gathering in clumps around the grounds. Near the sundial, students were gathered around a bench and, as I watched, they broke into spontaneous laughter. When I walked a few steps further, I saw it was Regent Nyquist telling jokes while the students hung on his every word.
You have everyone fooled, haven’t you? Well, not me.
I hurried to the Junior Dorm and up the front steps with Disha and Bridget at my heels. Inside my room, I waited for them to enter before shutting the door and diving under my bed for the grimoire.
“What in all seven hells is going on?” Disha asked, panting. “And did we really have to rush here? My bangs are a mess now. I look like someone straight out of the eighties.” Her eyes darted to Bridget, assessing whether it offended our friend and her purple tracksuit, but Bridget ignored the comment and, instead, cozied up to me and the grimoire.
“So, what was the spell that bitch, Ana, extracted from this puppy?” Bridget asked, running one finger gently down the leather cover.
“We never figured it out,” I said, defeated. “But, something tells me I should try again.”
“Wait, what?” Bridget stared at me like I’d grown two heads.
“We need to try to figure it out,” I repeated. “I tried a revealing spell, but it took forever so I only got through about half the pages.”
Bridget’s mouth dropped open. “You’re kidding.”
“No. I tried, just… there was a lot going on.” My neck burned hot under Bridget’s gaze as I defended myself. It wasn’t for lack of trying. I’d spent hours and hours, time I should’ve been studying, or, I don’t know, enjoying my time on campus. All my effort had been for nothing.
Bridget put her hand to her head as her eyes remained wide in shock.
“All this time.”
“‘All this time what?” Disha asked, forgetting her bangs and leaning in.
“You could have just asked me,” Bridget said.
“Well,” I shot back, “you’ve been mad at us so much, it’s hard to gauge when we can count on you.”
Nonchalantly, she shrugged and nodded admitting the truth of my words before placing her hand on the book and beginning to mutter a spell.
Disha and I stepped back.
Bridget’s lips moved and her fingers formed shapes in the air above the book. Soon, the tome began to rise, floating above my bed. The air became charged with magic as Bridget deepened the spell. Her red curls blew back and her eyes blackened, becoming all pupil.
The curtains flapped. My bed began to vibrate. The book’s pages flapped back and forth as if a ghost were speed reading.
Suddenly, Bridget’s mouth snapped open. The spell ended and the book fell on my bed open to a page near the back.
“There,” Bridget said, pointing as she wiped the sweat from her upper lip.
We all gathered around the rumpled bed and stared at the pages.
On one page was a spell to exorcise spirits from within a human body. On another was the ability to absorb them into one’s self. Pictures of horrible demons and writhing souls spilling in and out of someone’s mouth decorated the page, making me go cold and nauseous.
“Jesus Christ,” Disha muttered.
“I don’t think Jesus has anything to do with this,” Bridget said. “Maybe more like Satan. They were trying to… put a demon inside of Regent Nyquist. But why?”
I put my hand on the open page carefully. It was warm as if still exuding magic. “I don’t know, but there’s one thing I know for sure—who to ask.”
“Charlie,” Disha admonished.
“What?” Bridget asked as if it hadn’t occurred to her yet.
I sighed, realizing I was falling right back into the Old Charlie routine. Well, habits were habitual for a reason.
I glanced at my friend. “Disha is mad because she knows what I’m going to suggest.”
Disha rolled her eyes, putting a hand on my shoulder. “When you got it bad, you got it bad, sister. I just don’t want to see you hurt again.”
I held up my chin. “I’m done being hurt by Rowan Underwood, but, yes, by all means, let’s track his ass down.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
SPRING SEMESTER
EARLY FEBRUARY
“Do you have it?” I asked as Disha and Bridget came down the Junior Dorm steps. I stood by a lamppost, my hands stuffed inside my jacket’s pocket as I muttered a warmth spell against the cold February night.
Disha pointed at her waist where the hilt of the knife we’d used the last time we’d tried this stunt peeked from her bag.
“Gah, I really don’t want to do this again,” she said with a grimace. “I hate the sight of blood.”
Bridget rolled her eyes. “I’ll do it. I have no trouble with it.”
“Don’t look so excited to stab me, Bridget,” I said, frowning.
Despite Bridget’s sadistic enthusiasm, I knew I was lucky that I had a built-in way to summon Rowan to me.
Pain.
And I intended to use it tonight.
A cut from that knife had brought Rowan from his exile last year. It was bound to work again unless he was very far away or he’d decided to block his side of the connection between us. He’d felt it at the Winter Solstice party, so he might still feel it now. If he didn’t, we’d think of something else.
We’d decided to head to the same patch of woods we’d used last time. It was also late, almost midnight, our favorite time for mischief. And torture, apparently.
Hurrying our step, we cut in front of the Enlightenment Fountain, giving it a wide berth and a distrustful sidelong glance. Since I received the Aradia Cuffs, the fountain had felt like a kindred spirit, a source of magic in the same wavelength as my own, but now… I couldn’t trust it—not after the way it had hurt Sinasre and Anama. He was still in the coma, no sign of improving and she and Lancer hadn’t been heard from since.
I was saying a silent prayer for my fae friends when Disha held out an arm and stopped me and Bridget in our tracks.
“What is it?” I asked.
She pointed toward a row of small, shadowy figures as they disappeared through a patch of bushes.
“Those gnomes again!” I said. “What are they up to now?”
After Irmagard relieved me of my duties, I’d done my best to forget the mischievous creatures, not putting another thought to what they might be up to. Now, it seemed my appointed replacement was failing as miserably as I had.
Their naked behinds flashing us, we watched the last two bury themselves inside the bush. They shoved and shushed each other as they slunk away. The shrub rustled and trembled as they hurried through.
I shook my head and resumed walking. I’d only taken two steps when a shrill sound rent the night, echoing around campus as if through a megaphone.
Someone was screaming.
Disha, Bridget, and I exchanged a panicked glance, then took off in the direction of the sound, readying our defensive magic. We sprinted past the Humanities Building toward the woods in the back in time to see two people burst through the trees, running in our direction as if their butts were on fire.
The girls—they looked like two freshmen—ran side by side, their faces twisted in panic.
“What is it?” I asked as they approached. “What’s happening?”
They’d been so bent on escaping that they startled at the sound of my voice. Their heads swiveled toward us and their eyes went wide as if we were apparitions. It took them a moment to realize we weren’t people to fear, but once they did, one of them—a petite blonde dressed in yoga pants and an Academy sweatshirt—veered in our direction and pulled her friend along.
“Oh, thank God,” the blonde cried out, crashing into me and wrapping her arms around my neck.
She seemed to melt against me as if I were her savior and could keep her safe from whatever was chasing her.
“Um, it’s okay,” I said. “You’re okay.”
I tried to extricate myself from her terrified embrace, but she stuck like a tick.
“What’s going on?” Disha asked the other girl, a pretty brunette with a nose ring.
She had stopped in front of us and was hugging herself, throwing glances back the way she’d come. “A… a body,” she said, her teeth chattering. “We found a body.”
“What?!” the three of us exclaimed at the same time.
The blonde finally let me go and rejoined her friend’s side, still trembling. “Yes, we found a body,” she said in a British accent. “We were just back there playing with a few spells and then I tripped.”
“You tripped?” Bridget repeated.
“On the body,” the brunette said as if that were obvious.
The blonde pointed toward the ground. “One moment, there was nothing there. The next, I tripped on this… on this…” She inhaled deeply, then burst into tears. “It was horrible. His face. It was all…” She curled her fingers into claws and made a raking motion over her face. “Bloody hell, it was awful.”
“Can you show us?” I asked.
“Hell, no!” the brunette snapped. “No way I’m going back there.”
“Me, either,” the blonde echoed.
They took a step back, their eyes flicking toward campus.
Bridget rolled her eyes. “Fine. Go on,” she said, making a dismissive motion with her hand. “You can scream all the way back if you want. Raise the alarm and get some of security and faculty over here while you’re at it.” Shaking her head, she started trekking toward the woods. “Freshmen,” she muttered to herself.
The girls gave us dubious glances, then the blonde said, “Yeah, sounds grand. Good plan.” Slowly, they pulled away, then turned tail and ran away as if there was no tomorrow.
Disha and I stood stock still for a moment
, then nodded at each other and went after Bridget.
“Bridget,” Disha called. “Maybe we should go back, too, let others deal with this.”
I was torn. I wanted to go in the woods and see for myself, but what if whoever had killed this person was still back there? Maybe Disha was right. New Charlie would get help. Old Charlie would rush headlong into whatever might be happening. I was so torn. Neither Charlie seemed to know what was the right thing to do. Which one did I choose?
“It could be dangerous, Bridget,” I called.
She ignored us and disappeared behind the thick trees, walking with resolve. Danger didn’t scare Bridget, but maybe it should. She’d grown too reckless lately.
Disha sighed and glanced toward the dark sky. “Dear Krishna, why did you send me two crazy friends?”
I mock-punched her in the shoulder as we made it to the edge of the trees and, with a shrug, went after Bridget.
The three of us conjured witch lights and shone them over the brush as we walked deeper into the woods. As always, they were dark, deep and full of shadows. Shivers tripped up my spine as twigs cracked and the leaves rustled in a stiff breeze. There were ancient spells in these woods and evil spirits if the stories were to be believed. Being out here at night was the definition of stupid, yet here we were again.
A few minutes later, I was about to say we were wasting our time when the strong smell of decay hit my nose and, at the same time, Disha gave a shriek.
“Holy shit!” she exclaimed, her witch light flickering off as she covered her mouth with both hands.
Fear gripped me with cold hands as Bridget and I hurried to her side and stopped short at the sight of what our friend had found.
The body lay on its back, carefully positioned like a corpse inside a coffin. Its hands were on its chest, fingers interlaced. Its face was perfectly visible, nose pointing toward the sky. The burned features were unrecognizable, but the clothes suggested this mass of charred meat and bones had once been a man.
Junior Witch Page 19