“Where’s Alec?”
I didn’t want to see Alec, after he called me out in front of Charlotte. My situation was starting to become difficult to hide from my closest friends. They knew I wasn’t the same as I used to be, even if the professors didn’t notice.
The memories were starting to hit me more often, and they were getting more intense.
“Did the werewolf attack really shake you up or something?” Harris asked, with a faint scoff. “You can handle a werewolf, right? Or did she scare you off? I heard she started shooting fire everywhere again.”
Alec joined us at the table. “Hey, sorry I’m late.” He picked up the day’s menu, glanced it over, dropped it. “I think we need to have a real talk about this before we lose you, Monty.”
“Alec, don’t fucking start. I’m fine.”
“Is Monty getting worse?” Harris asked.
“I think he is. Monty, I know you’re hiding it because you don’t want to get kicked out of school or worse, to get sent to the Haven for good.”
My stomach clenched at those words coming out of my friend’s mouth. This really was serious. Ethereals who turned dangerous could spend their lives under the careful eye of the council.
“They will have to drag me out of here,” I said. “It’s not a big deal. I just have some weird memories. That happens to all vampires. I’m completely in control. The spells are working. If either of you tell Master Blair or anyone else that you’re worried about me, you will ruin my life. You know how hard I’ve worked to attend this school. I’m not a Hapsburg.”
“I’m not going to report you,” Harris said. “That wouldn’t be any fun. As long as you don’t bother with Charlotte anymore. We’re just looking out for you.”
“Oh, you forbid me from talking to Charlotte?”
Harris leaned a little closer to me. “Monty, you know my parents forbade me from talking to you once you turned. My mother wrote you out of the book. I know we’re going to have a reckoning about it at some point, and if I can demonstrate that our friendship with you is keeping you safe, well…that makes me look a lot better.”
It was no surprise that Harris thought like this. I knew he was as self-centered as it gets. The old Monty used to really get off on being best friends with the richest, most prominent warlock at boarding school, especially when I knew Harris loved all the stuff we used to do. The new Monty…well, I still realized that I needed this alliance more than ever.
Alec, of course, wanted to dig into the situation, and I knew he wasn’t going to let this go. “So you do have memories,” he said. “What kind of memories are they? How far back do they go?”
“I’m not sure. I have memories of a girl in an Elizabethan ruff. A simple one. Not a very fancy one.” I cringed as Harris was giving me a withering look and Alec looked upset.
“So…suddenly you know all about Elizabethan ruffs,” Harris said.
“It’s because I went roller skating with Charlotte,” I said. “And it made me think about him—the—older vampire—“ I wasn’t going to start saying ‘my sire’. “—ice skating with a girl he liked. But they’re just little memories like that. Meaningless.”
“Ice skating,” Alec said. “In an Elizabethan ruff? So what are we talking, 1600s? 1500s even? That means you have at least a five century old sire. You would only get his memories if he was still around.”
“I am aware.”
“Five century vampires…,” Alec repeated. “Powerful.”
Most vampires just didn’t live that long. “I know,” I said. “I am aware.”
“I didn’t know they were ice skating back then,” Alec said. “Where was that invented? Is it Dutch, maybe?”
Lisbeth…come with me to London. It’s safe for us there. There are others like me, and no one will know us. I suddenly heard the vampire in my head, and saw the girl’s face, caught in uncertainty. She was quite pretty, even in such a dowdy old-fashioned outfit with the ruff and her hair under a cap. By candlelight, her skin glowed.
Rayner…I’m scared. I’m betrothed to Mr. die Raet… I would be defying my father and my God, turning my back on everything I know…
Great, in my memories I knew Dutch now.
“He’s getting that look again,” Alec said.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “Whoever he is. I have the memories, yes, but they taught me a spell to cast them out.”
I’d been slacking on that spell, though. The memories were intriguing.
“You need to be very careful,” Harris said. “A vampire’s downfall is always some girl. If Charlotte is giving you memories of your sire’s lady love, that sounds like a terrible idea.”
“He’s not my sire. I don’t have a sire. I’m a warlock. That shit is for stupid humans to deal with.”
“Anyway, we’re only a month out from the autumn ball, and we’ll see the witches then,” Harris said. “You only want Charlotte because she’s the only girl here.”
“Yeah…” He was right. Plenty of girls at the autumn ball. Witches from good families, not that any of the best ones would look twice at me now. I had already trashed my chances at a good marriage to raise my family’s standing, but that was fine. I wasn’t Harris. I could fall in love. And Charlotte wasn’t the one I would fall in love with.
Probably.
She had her overly protective familiar, for one thing. Who would want to get into a relationship with that situation?
I tried to eat my pork blood with parsley, paprika, and house wine vinegar (chef’s special). That was when I heard Charlotte scream, “Hey!”
I stood up and looked over the back of the booth.
All I could see were the Locke brothers, hovering over her table. One of them grabbed Firian by his wrinkled shirt and threw him out of his chair, claiming it for himself, while the other had his hands planted on the table, hovering over her. I heard him saying something to her in a low voice.
“Get away from me,” she said.
Harris grabbed the edge of my jacket and pulled me down. “Not your job. Her familiar will protect her until a professor breaks it up.”
“What if no professors are here?”
“Not your job,” he repeated. “She needs to learn to defend herself.”
“So she can set stuff on fire?” Alec looked restless too. “I share a room with her. How am I suppose to explain why I couldn’t even bother to stand up for her?”
He likes her too. I knew it. The thought made me feel a little competitive, but at the same time, strangely closer to him.
“Give it a minute,” Harris said.
We could hear Charlotte talking back to the Locke brothers, and then Firian growled. It sounded like a fight broke out. Alec and I could have broken that up in no time.
“I thought we were supposed to be gentlemen,” I said to Harris. “Chivalrous.”
“Well, she wants to be treated like an equal, so let’s allow her to handle it!” Harris said. “She can cut it. If the Lockes get set on fire, I don’t give a shit. Alec, you need to keep your distance from women so you can truly live up to your potential as a warlock, and not succumb to your dark side, right?”
“Yes…,” Alec said.
“Montague, you know, deep down, that you’re going to hurt her if you pursue her, don’t you?”
I growled.
“You need to swear to me that you’ll stop flirting with Charlotte. It’s not just for your own good, it’s also for hers, but mainly, it’s just the only choice you can make that isn’t stupid.”
The doors burst open and Chef Cyrus stormed out. “What is this? No fighting in my restaurant! Get out! Out, out!”
“They—“ Charlotte said something.
“Woman, you make so much trouble!” Cyrus bellowed.
A second later, Charlotte stormed past our table, her brown ponytail bouncing like it was nagging me. Firian was behind her, but he shot us a look of disgust.
A familiar was actually trying to make me feel ashamed of myself? That really was going
too far. Charlotte needed to get him under control. I leaned back in my chair and crossed my arms.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Charlotte
Firian had a black eye. He’d gone straight for a punch to Ronan Locke, the bigger of the two Locke brothers.
“Touch me again, fox, and I’ll hit you so hard it’ll blow you back to Etherium and you won’t be able to return.”
“And if I see a rat there, I’ll know it’s your familiar, and I’ll tell him you said hello,” Firian said.
That was when he got the black eye.
“Firian…you should be more careful,” I said, coming upstairs with a bag of french fries I found in the dorm freezer. It was the best I could do.
“I can heal myself,” he said. “You don’t have to take care of me.”
“Oh…” I sat down next to him. “Why don’t you, then?”
He gave me a squint-eyed grin. “In a minute. I want to feel it first.”
“No need to do that!”
“I feel very…human. You know. Sometimes one needs to live in one’s skin for a second.”
I shook my head. “That sounds unpleasant.” I put the fries on his eye anyway. “It’s not peas, but they’re crinkle cut, so they do mold to your skin better than shoestring.” I groaned. “This place sucks more by the day. Even Montague and Alec didn’t defend me.”
“I’m glad he didn’t. You don’t need a vampire in your life. You don’t need any of these jerks. There’s something about you, and they’re jealous of it.”
I groaned. “Setting things on fire doesn’t make me special. It makes me hazardous.”
“Wait and see, Charlotte,” he said.
“Do you know something I don’t?”
“I’m not keeping any secrets,” he said. “But I do see that beneath the normal girl you think you are, there’s a core of strength. You stand up to your enemies. You could have begged to go home. You could have told your dad what’s going on here. But deep down, you want to see what happens…and you can fight back. I’m here to remind you of that. My job is to remind you how much power you can wield.” His voice had a rough quality, his green-gold eyes unblinking as they met mine. He was close enough that I could see just how very nice his skin was. His fae quality seemed even more intense. He looked rather foxy even as a human—his nose and chin were rather pointed, his gaze patient and slightly feral.
“Sometimes witches break the rules,” he said. “And sometimes familiars do. But do you know what all those stories have in common?”
“No.”
“No witch has ever turned bad without her familiar turning bad with her. And no familiar has ever fallen in love with a human without the blessing of his witch. I will always protect you. So you never have to be afraid. And you never have to depend on a vampire or an incubus.”
“Firian…” I swallowed. My throat was suddenly tight, a ticklish feeling crawling over my arms and legs, as I thought about the fox watching me from the forest.
He handed me the french fries and wiped his fingers over his eye, whispering a spell. The bruising faded and the swelling went down, although a little bit remained.
For some reason, he seemed proud of it.
I was living an Academy-Award nominated movie. “The First Female Something Important”. But only the first half, before the triumphant rise.
“I can’t believe I thought I would have my pick of boyfriends,” I said, slamming my backpack down. “I am never dating a warlock.”
The last week, things had gotten a lot worse. Alec seemed very embarrassed about the dream, and so was I, so we barely spoke. He told me flat out that he needed to avoid me so he wouldn’t step into my dreams again. Montague also seemed wary of me now, and I almost never saw the two of them without Harris close by. I already knew he thought I was nothing more than a “nice piece of ass”.
Spoken like a full head-to-toe ass.
Seeing how those three were always hanging out, I got this feeling that Harris had forbidden Montague and Alec from getting too friendly with me. I wasn’t stupid. By now it was obvious that Harris was the “It” student. The professors all fawned over him and his illustrious blood line.
Master Blair was looking into the demon situation, but he hadn’t made any announcements. Everyone clearly thought I was trouble. Whenever I tried to do any magic in class, guys pretended to duck or made jokes about my out of control fire spells, although it was just self defense.
Everywhere I went, I was ogled and isolated. Firian never left my side, as promised. I knew he was the only thing standing between me and spells that lifted my skirt or something.
But since Montague stopped trying to be nice to me…now I had these guys freely targeting me.
The Locke brothers.
I was the first one in theurgy class. Professor Adams, an older black guy who was quick with a chuckle but also with a punishment, was working at his desk. He glanced up. Professor Adams had one eye that was slightly off. I felt like it was maybe glass, but I wasn’t going to ask, the same way I didn’t want to know why the infirmary had so many beds. His stare was disconcerting. “Miss Byrne,” he said. “Will your familiar be here for every class? First it was a week and I said to myself, well, all right, she’s new to all this. Now it’s been thirty days.”
“It isn’t against the rules. I looked it up,” Firian said.
“It isn’t against the rules because no one’s ever tried it,” Professor Adams said. He also had a deep, distinguished voice. “Any boy of mine would be far too ashamed to bring his familiar to class. We might just have to make ourselves a rule. But—back of the room, at least.”
As the boys filed in, Professor Adams turned to the class with his most wild-eyed look still in place. “Today,” he said. “We are going to summon a demon.”
“Are you sure—“ one boy tried before getting cut off.
“Don’t worry, boys, I have all of this under control; this demon happens to be a friend of mine—a practice demon, if you will. We’ve had our differences, of course, ethereal to sinistral, in the tradition of fine debate. But this will not be a dangerous, fire and brimstone affair—“
“Damn,” muttered Royce Locke. Under his breath, he said, “I thought maybe we were going to see Roller Slut versus Werewolf with our own eyes.”
Everyone had gotten some idea of how the fight had gone because weird scuff and burn marks were left behind on the roller rink. Master Blair had hired someone to clean and polish or whatever you did with a roller rink. Plus it was now under renovation by his designer, because he was insulted that we’d made fun of his playlist. Everyone was mad that they couldn’t skate with the girls during the upcoming winter ball. And I was now referred to as Roller Slut. Because of course, I had been alone in the roller rink with a vampire and an incubus, and rumor was…ehh, you can guess.
“No. Summoning high demons is not something you should ever practice,” Professor Adams said. “Even summoning low demons is not advised. But, this is Merlin College, and you are the best of the best. There may be times in your life when you need a demon—for the greater good. To gain information. To prevent a tragedy. If you summon a demon for your own selfish purposes, you have taken a huge step toward the path of Sinistral. Remember—we are Ethereal warlocks. Honor, duty, community, benevolence, for we are the servants of the highest order. Now, I need a volunteer.”
Put up your hand, my gut said.
Everyone will make fun of me.
(I had officially reached the “my own private voiceover” stage of loneliness.)
Who cares? No professor has let you actually practice magic yet. Show them all. Especially—
I glanced at Harris. He had his hand up, just a little, because he knew every professor would look at him so he barely had to lift a finger. I quickly threw mine up too.
I heard soft laughter around me as soon as I put my arm up.
“Pick the girl!” a boy crowed from the back. “Pick—the—girl! Pick—the—girl!”
Luckily his effort to get a chant going was dead on arrival. Unfortunately, it was because Professor Adams snapped his fingers at Harris. “Nicolescu,” he said. Of course he did. Because Harris got whatever he asked for.
Harris slid out of his seat. “Can’t wait.”
“When am I going to get to practice any magic?” I asked. “Respectfully, Professor Adams, I have been taking classes for a month now and no teacher has called on me for one single thing.”
“You can learn by watching like the rest of this class. You are untrained. You are not ready to be summoning demons, even friendly ones.”
“Yes, watch and learn,” Harris said, smacking my desk.
“Clear your mind of wicked thoughts,” Professor Adams said. “Your mental state can leave you open to a demon’s influence.”
“I thought this demon was your friend.”
“She is. But you still have to take the lesson seriously. Now, this is ash you will use to form a pentagram. There are other ways to summon demons, as most of you probably know already. For instance, if you have an object that belonged to the demon, that can serve. You can draw the pentagram in the dirt, particularly in places where the energy is already strong. You can also use magical objects such as crystal balls, mirrors, or fire. Eastern traditions of magic will often use symbols instead of pentagrams. Using a pentagram or symbols to form a circle or gate will control the demon. It also usually makes the demon rather pissed off. Elise has consented to this method today just for learning purposes.”
“‘Elise’?” Ronan said. “Is she hot?”
“Well, she’s a demoness, so she’s gotta be hotter than Charlotte.” I wasn’t even sure who said that.
Bullying, I thought, was really dumb. Like, now that I was a target, they never let up. It was just a game, so why did I still get so upset? Firian was right. I could fight back…although I had no control over my magic, so I didn’t really want to fight back.
“I need silence in the room,” Professor Adams said.
Harris formed the pentagram on the old wooden floors. “Let me do that again,” he said, frowning. “It turned out smaller than I wanted.”
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