“Wouldn’t that be breaking the rules? I’ve already been assigned a Fae patron who is supposed to give me Earth powers.”
Loki tossed his hair back, his horned helmet disappearing with the gesture, and winked at me. “I’m allowed to bend the rules. Special gatekeeper privileges.”
He was responsible for the other side of Mama’s gate. He’d chosen her for a gatekeeper, which is why he gave her powers in the first place. If I made a pact with him, what job would he expect me to do when I learned to control my powers?
So I asked him. “What do you want from me in return? And don’t say it’s because you like my mom.”
He chuckled. “Clever girl. Your mother never asked me that question until it was too late.”
“She was younger than me when she made the pact,” I pointed out, refusing to be swayed by the compliment. “You tell me exactly what I’m agreeing to or no deal.”
His eyes glinted with mischief. He called himself Loki these days, but he was more like Puck, playing little tricks on humanity. “I’m recruiting for the Queen.”
I didn’t have to ask which queen he meant. In Faerie, there were two queens who ruled the two courts, Seelie and Unseelie. For all his questionable judgment, Loki had always been loyal to one mistress. Brigitte, Queen of the Seelie.
My namesake.
My mouth went dry. “And what does Br—” I fell into a coughing fit, unable to speak her name. It had too much power here. “What does she want from a lowly human?”
He shrugged. “Fae don’t like to admit it, but we lost a lot of our influence on the human world because of the Witchgate disaster. Magikin getting seats in the courts, for one thing. Sharing power with the Unseelie again, too.” His gaze bored into me. “I pointed out that it was a witch who got us into this mess, so it’s only fitting that a witch help fix it.”
This had to be a nightmare. My mother had already spent her lifetime working to correct the mistakes my grandmother had made. Now I was getting sucked into the same thing.
“No way.” I turned and walked away from him, following the path I’d chosen.
He easily caught up with his long Fae legs.
But I kept ranting, not letting him get a word in. “I told you, I’m not doing anything that involves my family. The whole point is I want to break away from them. Besides, witches lost even more power than the Fae. We have a million rules we have to follow and government officials breathing down our necks. There were normal humans, faeriekin, and magikin all involved in the Witchgate conspiracy. Why don’t you go bug one of them for help?”
“Are you done?” he asked in an amused tone.
I shot him a glare. “I also don’t trust you.”
“Good,” he said, his tone serious for the first time that day. “You shouldn’t trust any Fae. Even one assigned to you by your precious academy.”
Something in the way he said that made me stop short. “Why? Who did they pick for me?”
He scowled off into the distance as if he could see something that I couldn’t. “You don’t know her. Her name is Anthurium, and she’s a low-level courtier, but that’s not the important part. She’s secretly working for a certain duchess.”
A chill ran up my spine. He meant Duchess Auriana, Mama Ashleigh’s mother, her Fae parent. When Ashleigh refused to make the political marriage that the duchess had arranged, Auriana disowned her. There was no contact with her since then, except when she sent a scathing reply to my birth announcement. She declared that no weak human could ever be her granddaughter. Ashleigh hadn’t told me much more, except to warn me away from her.
“Why would the duchess care who becomes my patron?” I was careful not to speak her name aloud.
“To have control over your powers.” Loki tilted his head to one side. “So you see, if you don’t choose one side of your family, the other side will ruin your life.”
I shuddered. “She made it very clear that I’m not her family.”
“Still.” Loki put his hand on my shoulder. “The magic community is rather small, when you get down to it, and there are connections everywhere. Maybe you had the right idea that you shouldn’t become a witch at all. It would be a waste of your potential, but you could be safer without magic. Do you want to just go home and be a normal human?”
I looked into his eyes, trying to see if he was telling me everything. Fae couldn’t lie, but they had many ways to twist their words and hide the truth. I’d known this Fae for my entire life, though, and my mother trusted him.
And as much as magic made me feel weird and uncomfortable, I also craved it. Magic felt more real than the ordinary world. I hated to admit it, but a part of me had always dreamed of being a witch. Even while I fought and argued against it, I knew I couldn’t escape it entirely. To refuse magic of my own would just leave me helpless to the manipulations of powerful beings like Duchess Auriana.
“No,” I said, lifting my head. “I don’t want to go home. Make me a witch. I can’t guarantee that I can fix everything, but I will serve the Queen’s interests in the human world.”
Loki’s smile widened at every word. He knew he had me.
I raised a finger. “Under one condition.”
He tilted his head to the side again like a raptor eyeing its prey. “What’s that?”
“Tell me your true name.”
Mama Rosa told me that Loki always dodged the question. He always gave himself different names, from Dandelion to Mantis, saying he didn’t like to be tied down to a single name and he’d forgotten his original. But that couldn’t be the whole story. All Fae had a true name, and if you knew it, you had power over them. I needed his name to save as a bargaining chip.
He shrank back from my request now. “Are you sure that’s what you want? I mean, I could give you so many things.” He pulled a mirror from his pocket and images flashed across it. “Money, fame, beautiful women…” Samantha’s face came into focus and he licked his lips. “Oh, she’s cute.”
Butterflies fluttered in my stomach at the sight of her, but I yanked my gaze away. “Your name,” I repeated.
He sighed. “Don’t laugh.” He stepped right up in front of me and bent so his mouth was against my ear. “Xiso,” he whispered.
I frowned. It didn’t sound like any Fae name I’d heard before, but then I didn’t know if the other names were true. “Zhee-sow?” I repeated, testing it out on my tongue.
“Shh,” he said with a stern look. “Don’t let anyone else hear you.”
I cleared my throat, wishing I could get something to drink, but there were strict rules against eating or drinking anything in Faerie. “Very well. Let’s make a pact.”
He took my hand and told me the secret words that would bind us together for the rest of my life. I repeated them carefully, and I felt a tingle of power rising up from the soles of my feet to the top of my head.
My vision shifted in a new way, and suddenly, the forest we were standing in didn’t seem so dark. When I focused on a nearby plant, it seemed familiar. Had my mother told me that striped flower was a tiger pansy, or did the information come from somewhere else?
I raised one eyebrow at Loki—I still thought about him by his use-name, I found, even though I knew the truth—and he smiled.
“I had to give you some Earth magic,” he said with a shrug. “I know it wasn’t what you wanted, but you won’t be able to pass your classes without it. Don’t worry, you have your Water magic, although you’ll have to learn how it works on your own… but you’ll need it for your first assignment.”
I frowned. “Aren’t you supposed to let me grow into my powers and complete my training before you start demanding things from me?”
He waggled a finger at me. “But we didn’t specify that in our agreement.”
I opened my mouth to protest, but I realized he was right. I snapped it shut and glared at him. While I was so busy being clever, I’d forgotten to add all the usual stuff for witch pacts. And I had no one to blame but myself.
> “Fine,” I said between clenched teeth. “What’s my first assignment?”
“It’s nothing you can’t handle. There is a group of mermaids intruding on the court’s territory near your school. All you have to do is find out what they’re doing and report back.”
A chill ran up my spine. I’d already promised myself that I wouldn’t go near the mermaid again, and now he wanted me to do the exact opposite. “Um.” I cleared my throat. “Isn’t it risky for humans to get close to mermaids? Like, what if I get obsessed and drown myself?”
Loki’s eyes narrowed. “You’ve already seen one, haven’t you?” He smirked. “But you’ve got a good head on your shoulders, just like your mother. I’m sure you’ll be able to resist temptation.”
I didn’t feel so confident. “Can’t you teach me a spell or something that would make me immune?”
“Hah! If there was a magic strong enough to control humans’ desires, it would definitely be illegal.” He held his hand out to me. “But we’ve spent enough time out here and your class is waiting for you. Shall we join them?”
I was in for it now.
My hand closed around his.
7
The world shifted, and suddenly I was standing in a eucalyptus Grove. The trees were in the same position they had been in at The Mystery Spot, but here they seemed to be experiencing every season at the same time. They were flowering, sprouting seeds, even covered in snow. Weird, because it didn’t usually snow in Santa Cruz.
A girl gasped behind me. “Where did you come from?”
I turned around and saw the entire Earth class standing around Professor Helicon, clutching their rope and looking nervous. The professor’s raven quorked at me.
“Oh! Brie,” Professor Helicon said, waving me over. “I thought I’d lost you there for a moment. Come here, don’t let go of the rope.”
A moment? It felt like I’d been gone for at least an hour, but everyone would be freaking out if I’d been missing for a long time. I walked over to them and picked up the end of the rope, although it felt futile at this point.
Loki followed me. He tipped his head to the professor, sweeping his cape out behind him with a dramatic flourish. “You look lovely tonight, Morgan. Will you be at the party later?”
The professor blushed. “Oh, um, yes,” she said, fluttering her eyelashes at him. “Just as soon as my students become witches. We’re waiting for their patrons to arrive.”
“Sorry—I might have caused them a little delay,” Loki said. “I came to tell you that one Fae won’t be here at all. Anthurium has been… unavoidably detained.” He winked at me.
Professor Helicon frowned. “Oh no,” she said. She pulled a list from her pocket—also handwritten on parchment, I noticed—and consulted it. “But Anthurium was supposed to make a pact with Brie! I must contact the school right away.” She peered through the trees as if that would let her see to the other side.
Loki shook his head. “No need to trouble yourself, my dear. I’ve already made a pact with Bridget.”
I flinched when he used my real name. I was tempted to whisper his true name back at him, but I wasn’t going to stoop to his level. I’d have to learn how to tolerate his irritating mannerisms now that he was my patron.
“Oh!” Professor Helicon looked even more flustered. “That’s so… unexpected. It breaks with protocol. What will the Court think?”
“Don’t worry,” he said smoothly. “I’ve already spoken to the baroness about it, and she approved the switch. All you need to do is update your records.”
Professor Helicon fumbled in her robes for a pen. Loki produced one—from where, I have no idea, because his armor was very tight-fighting and didn’t seem to have any pockets—and handed it to her. Once she’d made a note of the change, she seemed to calm down.
“Well then, one down and twenty-four to go.” The professor nodded as if she were pleased with her work, even though she’d had nothing to do with it. She looked up as more figures stepped into the Grove. “And here are the rest of the Fae! Thank you for joining us tonight.”
I had to wait while all the rest of my classmates stepped forward to meet with their assigned patrons and made their pacts privately. None of them claimed to be Anthurium or protested the change for me, so Loki must have made lots of arrangements before now. He was so sure I would agree to it before he even asked me. I grimaced, but even if it was a trap, there was nothing I could do now. I’d have to live with the consequences.
I also noticed that none of the other elements seemed to be present, but when we stepped back through the gate, the three groups emerged at the same time. Dame Susan and the professors took a headcount to make sure all one hundred students had returned safely, then told us to go back to the buses.
Damian found me on the hike back. “You already gave up on the heels?” he said with a frown. “I expected this to happen, but not so soon. I’ve got flats in my bag, but I thought we could at least walk into the party with a dramatic entrance.”
“What? Oh, these.” Honestly, I’d forgotten I was carrying the shoes with everything else that had happened. I held onto his arm for balance and slipped them back on. “Here, I can wear them for the entrance at least. It was just hard to walk on the other side.”
Damian gave me a puzzled look. “Really? We didn’t walk far at all.”
I glanced around at the crowd of other students and teachers. “Things went a little different for me,” I said with a shake of my head.
“Did something go wrong?” Damian covered his mouth with a gasp. “Oh, no! Don’t tell me you chickened out at the last minute.”
I flinched. He didn’t know how close I’d come to backing down, and maybe my instinct to avoid magic had been the right idea. “I got my powers,” I said. “Just not from the Fae I was expecting.” I wasn’t sure how much I could tell him. Pacts were usually private.
He squealed and threw his arms around me. “You’re a witch!” he shouted. “And so am I. Brie, we finally did it!”
Despite myself, I smiled a little, caught up in his enthusiasm. He was right—we were both witches.
Now we’d see what that meant.
I’ve been to dozens of Fae court parties at Doe’s Rest Castle in Calaveras, also called the County of the Golden Forest, with my parents. The major holidays were the equinoxes, solstices, All Hallows’ Eve and May Eve. That made for at least six parties a year. Since the Veil was thinner on those days, it was the best time for Fae and magikin to visit from the Otherworld. They could reunite with friends and family members, renew political ties, and catch up on news from the other side. The court played host to these visitors with an extravagant display of magic so they felt more at home in the human world.
Dewmire Keep was the seat of the Barony of Darkwood. Since it was ruled by a baroness who ranked lower than a count, it was much smaller. Set on the mountain summit and surrounded by a vineyard, it looked more like a mansion than a legit castle. It didn’t stand out much from the other expensive houses along the ridge which were owned by rich people like Silicon Valley moguls and lawyers. One of them might even belong to Samantha’s dad.
The main difference was the fairy lights which were strung up everywhere, even along the grapevines, and several racks out front to hold all the brooms. Older students flew here instead of riding the school bus.
But because this was Santa Cruz, they had to do things a little differently. The baroness, named—I’m not joking—Karma Rainfoam, greeted us herself at the front door. Her outfit was a cross between an upscale hippie and a businesswoman, with a flowing silk dress, clunky jewelry, and designer sandals. She welcomed us into a high-vaulted foyer with natural stone floors and gave every student a warm hug.
“Welcome to the Barony of Darkwood!” she cried. “It’s so exciting to have new witches. We have a very close magical community here. Don’t be afraid to ask for help with anything you need. But come in, help yourself to a snack, and take a load off.” She gestured to tables
full of food and comfy-looking couches in a nearby room. “I know it’s draining the first time you cross the Veil.”
I looked around for something that resembled a throne room or anything else official. “Don’t we need to swear an oath to you? Like, to uphold the laws and use our powers responsibly?”
Karma laughed. “Oh, sure, we can get the formalities out of the way. Raise your right hand.”
The new witches raised their hands, and I copied them.
“Repeat after me: I swear with my life and my magic to defend the Barony of Darkwood and the Duchy of the Pacific,” the baroness began.
I knew the oath by heart. It was in the school handbook, not to mention virtually every other book and manual on witchcraft, and I’d seen others swear in Glen’s court. He always did them individually so he could focus on each person who swore, not in a large, casual group like this. But special ceremony or not, these words would be binding. And I knew what the consequences for breaking our oath would be.
“To uphold the laws that govern them,” Karma said, pausing after each phrase. The oath continued, “To come to the aid of the weak and the helpless, and to see justice served. I vow to live my life governed by the virtues of mercy, courage, valor, fairness, justice, charity, resolve, truth, humility, and hope.”
When we’d finished, the baroness grinned at all of us. “Welcome, new witches!” Grabbing a tray of cookies, she offered them around. “Now, sample my hospitality. I promise these don’t come with strings attached.” She winked.
That was an odd thing to say, but she was a faeriekin. Fae could turn any gift into an obligation.
Damian took two cookies as the tray passed him and handed one to me.
Even the cookies were different. Count Glen always served faerie cakes at his parties. These were regular snickerdoodles. Still tasty, but they weren’t special.
When I nibbled on the cinnamon-covered dessert, my stomach growled eagerly. In between all the driving around and crossing into the Otherworld, I’d skipped dinner, and now I was starving. I pulled Damian toward the rest of the food.
The Reluctant Witch: Year One (Santa Cruz Witch Academy Book 1) Page 6