A Dangerous Witch (Wildes Witch Academy Book 2)

by Holly Ice

  ‘It’s good to see you, too.’

  Without the guards watching us like a zoo exhibit, I could imagine we were outside the prison, on a date, or visiting friends. That snippet of normality was worth far more than the loony lawyer.

  I pushed that thought into a smile, relief flashing through me when Shane’s shoulders finally relaxed.

  ‘How did you get permission to move me?’

  ‘Julian arranged it.’

  I took it back. Loony went too far. Begging, bribing, and going through the proper channels got Shane and I exactly nowhere on that score, so the lawyer did have some pull. Or maybe I’d needed a lawyer to get a reprieve from my cell all along.

  ‘Why is he so… scattered?’ I asked.

  Shane rubbed his neck. ‘Please don’t get mad.’

  Shit. I’d ruined the mood. And that phrase was never a good sign. ‘Why?’

  ‘He’s in recovery.’

  I gritted my teeth. My mother’s many failed attempts at Gamblers Anonymous came back in vivid, blood-boiling colour. ‘He’s an addict?’

  ‘He’s a recovering addict. He’s been clean for five years.’

  ‘Then why is he twitchy, like he’s in withdrawal?’

  And why the hell had I thought we could find a decent lawyer to take my case? No money, no influence, and my bad reputation made sure that couldn’t happen.

  ‘Fae drugs mess with the nervous system. Sometimes they cause permanent damage.’

  A broken system, and a broken lawyer.

  I laughed and couldn’t stop. I held a stitch. Hiccoughs interrupted the hysteria.

  My lawyer was a damaged drug addict, my best witness and good friend was dead, with me framed for his murder, and most witches wanted me dead for my Wildes blood. I had it right the first time. Wildes Witch Academy was too good to be true.

  This could be going better.

  No shit, Lyall.

  He was half the reason I was in this mess!

  Shane drew back into his chair, staring at his shoes. Mira bristled beside him.

  ‘I tried my best, Bee. If I had any other options, I’d bring them to you. But Julian is all we have.’

  Double shit. I took a few deep breaths to settle the hiccoughs. ‘I ken. This isn’t your fault.’

  He’d have explored every possibility before resting with Julian.

  ‘I should’ve done more,’ he said.

  ‘No. You threw everything at this.’

  And maybe it was paranoia, but that brought me back to asking why Julian was here. Someone pulled strings to keep people away, or to make Julian apply. But which?

  ‘Why did Julian take my case?’ I was very careful to keep my voice neutral.

  Shane rolled a shoulder. ‘He was asked.’

  ‘By you?’

  ‘No. The coven sent invitations to every practising representative when we couldn’t hire one ourselves. It’s standard procedure this close to a trial date.’

  So they’d shopped my case around to anyone who’d finished law school as a last resort. Fantastic.

  ‘Anything else I should ken? Did you find any new witnesses?’ I’d need them with Julian.

  ‘No. I’m sorry. I’m trying everything I can think of, but…’

  ‘But you’re being stonewalled. I get it.’

  Both his eyes were bloodshot, more red than white.

  I had to stop piling pressure on him. He’d taken time out from the academy to help me and spent most days travelling between potential witnesses and lawyers’ offices, and he still made it here for visiting hours. This wasn’t what he signed up for. He was all I had, but he deserved praise and support, not complaints and a nagging need for more.

  The thought of a few days without Shane’s visits put a weight on my chest, but I had to ask.

  ‘Will you take a few days off? For me? You look dead on your feet.’

  He grunted. ‘I’ll sleep when your trial’s over.’

  ‘You’ll think better after a break. And I won’t be alone. I’ll have Julian.’ I tried to inject enthusiasm and failed miserably.

  Shane just stared at me.

  I squeezed his hands. ‘You can’t keep going on caffeine and willpower forever.’

  ‘It’s fine.’

  I opened my mouth to argue, but he tugged me around the table, into his lap, and kissed me.

  His sweet taste chased away the trial and my lawyer and the prison, reminding me how safe I felt with him and how well we fit together. As did the heat of him through his jeans.

  I gripped his shirt and deepened the kiss, wishing I could take him back to my cell. Or even just his hoodie. I’d curl it around my shoulders under the threadbare blanket and breathe in his woodsy smell until I could pretend I was free.

  And then the door opened.

  ‘Time’s up, Wildes!’

  I sighed against Shane’s lips. ‘Rest. Please.’

  Smiling, he shook his head. ‘Don’t worry about me.’

  * * *

  ‘Wake up, Wildes!’ A guard yelled. His baton clanked the bars like a bell.

  I jerked upright, my heart beating double-time. Frog Face. I clasped the covers to my chest.

  His wide grin was full of cartoonesque glee. What was he so smug about? I rubbed my chest as my heart rate returned to normal.

  ‘You have a special visitor,’ he said.

  ‘Who?’

  He slunk off.

  I dropped the covers and peered along the corridor.

  Another man met Frog Face at the next set of doors and passed him something. Probably a bribe. That’s how the press got in. But they’d stopped visiting, tired of getting ‘no comment’. Frog Face wouldn’t be so worked up over them.

  So who was it?

  I couldn’t see his face – now I could.

  Bile jumped into my throat. I rubbed my clammy hands on my thighs, the stench of human waste searing my nose, the vision of the dirty, desperate woman he’d imprisoned flashing in front of my eyes. This bastard should be the one behind bars.

  ‘Russell McKee.’

  He sneered. ‘Bianca Wildes.’

  I didn’t jump on the name change. I’d been called Wildes more often than Nash behind bars. And Wildes was my witch bloodline, like it or not.

  ‘What do you want?’

  He wasn’t here to catch up. Shane’s shady great uncle hated me even before he knew I was a Wildes.

  ‘I heard you’ve obtained a lawyer.’

  I grunted. ‘And?’

  ‘He won’t help you.’

  I crossed my arms. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘He won’t find a scrap of evidence to clear you.’

  ‘Are you saying he’s useless?’

  ‘Oh no. He’ll try, but he won’t find anything.’

  I thrust my hand through the bars, snatched his shirt, twisted, and brought him eye to eye, centimetres apart.

  ‘You put me in here.’ He’d practically admitted making evidence disappear. ‘And you murdered Justin.’

  Russell’s dark eyes narrowed. ‘Your blood put you in here. And your lies.’

  ‘So you’re here to gloat?’

  ‘No, I’m here to tell you we know how to deal with people like you.’

  He raised his hand.

  Air magic turned me into a statue. Helpless. I couldn’t move an inch. Even breathing felt heavy. I tried to push against him, but the bindings on my wrists flared.

  No use. Shit.

  All air magic must come under my bindings’ ‘no offensive magic’ rule, even when used in defence.

  Lyall, fly to the guard.

  He flew out of my limited view.

  I stared at Russell, waiting for his next move.

  He grabbed my hand and pried my fingers from his shirt.

  In that moment, I fell into darkness.

  My vision brightened on an industrial room with a painted concrete floor.

  ‘Come in!’ I called, in Russell’s voice.

  The grey door opened.
The man who walked in was solidly built but scruffy, his clothes wrinkled and his laces chewed up and trailing across the floor.

  ‘What is it?’ Russell snapped.

  ‘He broke, sir.’

  Who broke?

  I’d been wondering why Russell was in my cell, but what did this vision have to do with his visit?

  Russell ran his teeth along his thumb. ‘You can go.’

  Once the door shut, Russell took a disposable phone from his pocket. ‘I need to see her. Tonight.’

  He hung up, and the edges of the room darkened until I was back in my cell.

  Russell had long ago dropped my hand and stepped back from the bars. The air magic had eased to nothing.

  ‘And she’s back.’

  I bit my tongue. ‘What do you mean?’ Was I gone long enough for him to work it out?

  ‘I mean, you’re not getting out of here. Dead or powerless, I don’t care.’

  I shivered. He knew.

  He’d never let me out of prison now.

  Unless the coven stripped me of my magic.

  He couldn’t risk me touching someone who knew about Justin’s murder, or the woman he kept in a cell. The moment I did, I’d get a vision. Another clue to trace back to him.

  I shook my head, staring through him rather than at him. He’d baited me. This entire visit, he’d wanted to prompt a vision, prove I had the ability.

  He turned to the corridor. ‘Goodbye, Bianca.’

  The guard met him on his way out.

  I walked to the bed on numb legs and sat.

  My dry throat ached, my eyes stinging. Frog Face left me unattended with that monster. Russell could’ve choked me to death if he wanted, but instead he discovered my second biggest secret after Lyall’s real identity.

  I gritted my teeth. I didn’t have the time to wallow.

  It’d be a disaster if I reported Russell. By the time we checked, he’d have erased any evidence of his visit. And Frog Face wouldn’t spill. Justin was one of their own, and they thought I’d killed him.

  One day at a time.

  I had to play the long game, find the evidence Russell missed.

  I’d start with my lawyer. It was a dim, wispy hope, but maybe he’d persuade the potential witnesses we’d found to support my defence in ways Shane and I couldn’t. And get Frog Face off guard duty.

  Chapter 2

  Trial day stalked me like a shadow, overhanging our every move. Julian’s sprawling stacks of notes and careful exhibit examinations were a wee, piddly defence compared to the prosecution’s star witnesses and convincing narrative. Russell kept his word on that.

  As much as Shane assured me we’d find something, the last embers of my hope were spluttering. And today we were out of time.

  I stared at the clothes Shane dropped off, stacked by the bathroom sink, and drew in a shaky breath.

  The blue silk blouse and smart trousers brought back that mad run through the car park to my hearing. Adrenaline jumpy, ears ringing, as witches pelted Shane and me with stones, his back getting the worst of it, shielding me.

  From my brief trip through the corridors near reception, the protestors’ mood hadn’t improved. And with almost every potential witness refusing to speak for me, and hard evidence which may have cleared me ‘disappearing’, my trial outfits might be the last time I ever wore normal clothes. I felt like the ground was shifting beneath me and I had no one to hold me in place.

  ‘Hurry up in there!’

  My matronly guard. Always making sure I moved to her schedule.

  ‘Give me a minute, or I’ll come out naked!’

  I slipped out of my prison gear, the tiled floor sending shivers up my spine and spreading goosebumps over my skin. Then into the new trousers. I buttoned my blouse, watching my fumbling fingers in the mirror.

  Even if I won, this murder would follow me, my name as tarnished as the Wildes, in reputation if not sentence. But I was about as likely to win as I was to clear the name of the Wildes Rebels. Too many powerful people wanted me gone.

  ‘Wait a minute. She’s changing.’

  ‘Ms Nash, may I come in?’

  Shit. Julian. If he was here, I really was late. I finished dressing and slipped my feet into the buckled shoes, then briefly checked my hair in the mirror.

  My bones stood out from my skin, and my usually golden waves hung flat and lifeless from the cheap shampoo, but it’d have to do.

  ‘I’m decent.’

  Julian came in. He’d paired dress pants, a smart blazer, and shiny shoes with his patterned waistcoat. But the scratched and dented briefcase in his left hand didn’t match the suave image.

  I nodded to it. ‘Find that in a second-hand store?’

  His fingers twitched around the handle. ‘The coven are ready for your plea.’

  I bit my tongue. I shouldn’t have lashed out at him. I’d worn tatty charity shop bargains most my life. And however much I doubted his ability, he was all that stood between me and a death sentence.

  ‘Sorry. I’m a mess. It’s time to move?’

  The snatched minutes alone with Shane after Julian left our meetings had kept me going this long, but the WMCF insisted on isolating him today, worried I’d manipulate him last minute. Like I needed to. He was behind me one hundred and ten percent.

  But Shane was the first witness, so I’d get my support system back tonight.

  My heart twisted. I’d have killed to fly my old housemates, Finn and Rhea, over from Scotland in his place – any support was a welcome balm on my thoughts going in – but I couldn’t expose them to this world, and a mind wipe at the end of the trial.

  They thought ordinary schoolwork in my elite Latvian academy had commandeered all my time, and I had to keep it that way.

  Julian took my shoulders.

  I flinched.

  He’d opened up a lot over the weeks we’d worked on my case, but I didn’t feel close enough for casual touching.

  Sighing, he dropped his hands. ‘You should stand tall. Above these accusations.’

  I wasn’t slouching. ‘You want me to be uppity?’

  Standing rod straight, nose in the air, would make me look like an entitled rich kid… though I suppose that’s what most the Wildes students were. And half the coven had families, with kids or grandkids at magic academies.

  ‘You think that’ll hit their emotions?’

  His nose twitched. ‘No. But witches have feared Wildes for decades. Seeing you calm, confident, will do more to sway them than you might think. There’s a reason they didn’t change the academy’s name, and it’s more than a warning of what happens to witches who go too far. Wildes were legendary.’

  ‘You’re sure it won’t sway them to call for my execution?’

  ‘Cowering like a beaten mouse doesn’t help you. You can’t let them treat you like vermin or they’ll think they’re right to.’

  The iron in his eyes settled my frayed nerves. He was on my side. I wasn’t alone going into that courtroom.

  Something about him reminds me of someone.

  My raven watched Julian from his perch on the sink’s taps, tilting his beak.

  We’d hidden his true form through my imprisonment. Better to let everyone – including Julian – think Lyall’s human form was from a less controversial shoot of the Wildes tree than the murdering leader of the Wildes Rebels. Especially while I was on trial.

  Of who?

  I can’t quite place it. Something in the slope of the shoulders? Or the forehead?

  ‘You should know, I pressed for the DNA offence to be treated as a civil matter. The coven agreed,’ Julian said.

  I blinked, my knees unsteady. Finally, good news. ‘What charges do I face now?’

  ‘Murder. Their best chance at a category one punishment.’

  Ice chilled my veins. So much for good news.

  Julian opened the door. ‘I doubt they’ll bother with the rest if they succeed here.’

  Comforting.

  I forced re
gular breaths and followed Julian through the back corridors to the courtroom, but my thoughts were spiralling.

  I had to hold myself together. Pleading guilty wasn’t an option. I was innocent. I had to fight this case, even if that meant facing the death penalty.

  Oh no.

  Julian warned me the grand courtroom looked different than the regional court I had my hearing in, but I hadn’t expected this.

  The only lights were white, flickering candles, their brackets attached to the walls around the public seating.

  Each flame was a different colour, alternating through the five colours of the elements.

  A single black candle sat on the low wall of the witness stand, but none rested behind or around the seated coven, casting them into shadow.

  I could barely make out the edges of their faces beneath raised black cloaks.

  My nightmares whipped through my mind. Witches screaming at the stake, their clothes smouldering, or choking on water, their thumbs tied to their opposite toes…

  Julian nudged me to the stand. ‘Don’t be distracted by the theatrics,’ he whispered. ‘You’re stronger than that.’

  Easy for him to say!

  You’d rather show them your fear?

  Hell no.

  I had to get it together. Clenching my hands into fists, I climbed the steps to the stand, channelling every dreg of anger and frustration I’d felt since the hearing. I was innocent. They had no right to make me feel like a common criminal.

  With the candle directly below me, swaying with my breath, I had to squint to see the coven. Their hoods reminded me of an executioner’s mask.

  No doubt hiding their faces helped relieve any responsibility for this sham trial. The whole thing was medieval.

  The lead coven member, Tibor, stood.

  ‘Bianca Nash, you are charged with the murder of a Wild Magic Containment Force officer, Justin Holt. How do you plead?’

  ‘I plead not guilty.’

  For a moment, I swore no one breathed. My heart thumped, blood rushing up my neck.

  They’d expected this plea. We’d put so much work into finding witnesses, they must have, and yet those words set it in stone. No turning back now.

  From here, I’d face their lies and the system which hated me for my name.