by Nika Gray
“A portal opened inside your room?” he asked, surprised.
“Yes,” I nodded. “A portal in the middle of my room. The mage on the other side had managed to make a small rectangle like I'd seen Kelly do last night. Then he started opening it wider and I panicked. I tried using some of the techniques Kelly showed me to close it. I managed to do that, and I think I hurt him because I heard him from the other side.” I remembered the horrible gurgling scream.
“You heard him?” the headmaster asked. “What did he say?”
“Nothing,” I shook my head. “He just screamed. I think I really hurt him.” Tears streamed down my face. It hadn't been my fault. I was protecting myself and I hadn't meant to hurt anyone. I just couldn’t be taken again.
“How did the wall catch fire?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I sniffed and wiped my face with the edge of my t-shirt. “Some of the spell I sent toward the portal must have missed and hit the back wall. Everything happened so fast and I couldn’t wake Avery and Sonja up at first. Finally, Sonja got the fire extinguisher out, but it didn't work and then we heard all the other students yelling and screaming. The wall was already burned away and that's when Professor McKenzie came running down the hall with his blue spell,” I said, the whole story coming out in a rush.
My shaking had become uncontrollable again. Headmaster Hotchkiss gave me a hug and I felt more of his calming energy flow into my body. The shaking subsided somewhat and then I felt exhausted and dizzy.
“You're in shock,” he said again.
“I hurt someone again,” I sobbed. “How did they find me here so fast? I’ve only been here, what three days? I thought you said there were a lot of wards and charms to keep people out?”
I couldn’t hold back my tears any longer and he patted me on the back as I let all the fear and guilt out. He didn’t use the calming magic on me, and I was glad. I wanted to let the emotions out of me and had a strange sense of sending them down into the Earth in red sparks.
“Sadie, I’ll be honest with you. It takes immense power and advanced knowledge for someone on the inside to open a portal onto these grounds,” he said.
His brows knitted together, and his green eyes darkened in thought.
“I'm still trying to identify the men who came to the club and took you. We’re going to have to find you safer accommodations than the dorm rooms.”
“This is going to be the talk of the school. I’m going to have to leave here, aren’t I?”
My mind raced to all the places I knew in New York City where I could hide. Problem was, I had no money of my own. I could hide, but I wouldn’t eat. Not unless I did things I simply wasn’t willing to do.
“And what will the other students say? They're going to know something’s up and won’t that be a bigger danger for me than being holed up somewhere?”
Headmaster Hotchkiss nodded in agreement at my predicament. “I agree this incident will give you undue attention. Students talk and staff report to their parents, so what happened here tonight will get out, if it hasn’t already. I don’t know how I’ll be able to keep your name out of it. You’re already on a special scholarship waiver.”
“I know what we will do,” someone said from the front door.
I recognized Fergus’ voice and my heart skipped wildly while my body urged me to hug him. Headmaster Hotchkiss stood up and faced Fergus. The door slammed closed behind him.
“Mr. Mathonwy, I don't believe your father would be happy with your inserting yourself into the situation.” Headmaster Hotchkiss’ voice was firm.
“I disagree with that, Sir.” Fergus’ demeanor was commanding. “I’m old enough to make decisions for myself, anyway. Sadie can stay with me until you find a suitable housing replacement. She would be under my family’s protection and nobody's going to strike against her while she's in my company.”
My heart swelled with gratitude as I swiped the tears off my face. We’d only known each other for a few days, but I’d never forget his chivalry.
“Do you really have any idea of what you’re proposing?” Headmaster Hotchkiss asked.
“I know exactly what I'm doing.”
“And what will Declan think about this?” he asked.
“The room held four occupants last year. There's only two of us now. I'm sure we’d still have plenty of room.”
“Yes, well it’s completely against policy for female students to room with male students,” Headmaster Hotchkiss countered.
“Special circumstances,” Fergus stated. “Doesn’t the policy leave emergency decisions regarding student safety up to the headmaster in special circumstances?”
Headmaster Hotchkiss thought for a moment and then turned to me.
“What do you think of that, Sadie?” he asked.
“I'd be very grateful for any help that I can get,” I sighed in relief. “What if I badly hurt the man on the other side of the portal? Will the authorities come for me? I don’t want to get Fergus in any trouble,” I said, my mind racing again.
Fergus heard the panic rise in my voice and sat down next to me. He embraced me and I folded into him. I closed my eyes and breathed in his beachy scent. I wanted to stay like this forever.
“Are you okay to walk?” Fergus whispered in my ear.
I nodded. He stood up first and pulled me up, putting his arms around me. My legs felt weak beneath me, but I shuffled forward.
“I guess we’re good to go then, Headmaster?” Fergus asked as we made our way past him.
“As you wish, Mr. Mathonwy,” Headmaster Hotchkiss conceded. “We can’t keep you in the same room as Sonia and Avery anyway. Their parents will be livid when they hear what happened tonight. That’s not your problem though. I’ll personally spell your belongings to Declan and Fergus's room. You can get organized once you get there. I'm going to go upstairs now and try to fix the damage to the wall of your former dorm room,” he said.
He pushed past me and Fergus and took the steps two at a time. He did not look like a happy man.
“Is Declan going to be okay with this?” I asked, clutching onto Fergus like my life depended on it. I had a sneaking suspicion it now did. Fergus kissed me on the forehead.
“I promise you he’ll be fine with this,” he said.
He squeezed me and his closeness fed my energy. I straightened and returned the hug.
“Thank you,” I said, my body already growing warm from the contact.
“My sexy Sadie,” he whispered. “Can you walk on your own? I worry we might put on a show we aren’t ready to premiere.”
I took a step away from him and smiled. “I’m better. I can do this.”
I pressed a gentle kiss to his lips. “Ready?”
“As I’ll ever be,” he said and headed for the door.
I followed close behind, a mixture of joy and despair swirling in my heart. I’d put this guy in danger and from what I gathered made a complicated family situation worse. I bit my lip working through my warring emotions.
They’d found me. I had nowhere else to go. No other allies.
This was the best of the worst situation. And I’d be near Fergus and Declan. I could try to figure out what the mysterious pull between us meant. And I would work my darndest to control the magic well enough to never hurt another person again.
Starting right now, I’d no longer be a helpless victim of my own power within me. I wouldn’t let it control me any longer. I would control it.
With my mind made up, I followed Fergus out into the night air to face the other students, as well myself and my personal demons.
Chapter 13
Declan
“Sure you want to be doing this?” I asked my best friend of the last fifteen years.
Fergus had just put his entire future on the razor’s edge for this girl we’d only met a few days ago. Plus, as an extra bonus, he’d exposed me to scrutiny I didn’t need right now. I’d only gone to a few resistance meetings so far and wasn’t sure how their leadersh
ip would feel about my living with a girl being pursued by the Magic Council. No one else could have the insider information and the power to break the wards necessary to get into her dorm room. Especially with Avery Craig and Sonia Gallagher sleeping just a few feet away. The Council had to have sanctioned it.
“Yeah, well. I guess it's time to tell you what's really been happening,” Fergus said.
In the immediate aftermath of the fire incident, he’d pulled me aside to ask my permission in offering Sadie a place to stay. He’d put me in a difficult spot, right alongside himself. I’d finally agreed, against my better judgement. Only because I knew he was going to do it anyway.
I had no idea what Ferg had just signed us up for and neither did he. We had plenty of room, but no guys or girls had bunked together since the beginning of the academy. Special circumstances, indeed. The rest of the heirs in our year weren’t gonna like it, either. I generally didn’t care what they thought, but I needed to secure my place in the movement before having everyone so curious about my living arrangements.
What was it with this girl? Ferg definitely had something weird going with her. I still hadn’t been able to get him to talk to me about whatever was going on with his magic. All he’d said was that he was looking into it. Looking into what? He’d spent a ton time in the library, poring over all the old books and when I asked him what he was looking for he just snapped the books shut and shook his head. That was Ferg. No use trying to get him to talk about something until he was ready.
If I was honest, the reason I didn’t want Sadie there was because I could barely resist touching her myself. Fergus and I’d never shared a girl before, nor had I ever wanted to. Until Sadie Bishop. I didn’t know he’d feel about it, but I had an idea he wouldn’t be happy.
I felt alive when she was within arm’s length. And when she wasn’t around, my body ached in her absence. I didn’t want to know what the hell that was all about. I’d never experienced anything like it. I’d looked at the books Ferg brought back myself for spells or hexes capable of creating this kind of strong magnetic pull for another person, but I’d come up as empty as he had.
Fergus had always been a favorite with the ladies and he liked the attention of the female persuasion. I’d never seen him behave like he did with her. Maybe it was because she was so different. Sadie was unlike any other girl I’d ever met. She didn’t talk about her family or get into all the petty social order games. She was both fragile and unbreakable and I wanted to know everything about her.
Which was a big problem.
I didn't believe for one second the story that Hotchkiss had spread through the rumor mill about her being his niece from California. Even as headmaster, he would've had to move heaven and earth to get a previously unknown relative of his into the school. No one had ever met or heard of Sadie Bishop before she showed up here out of nowhere, like magic.
My father, for one, would've never allowed it. I could just hear him now saying it would tarnish the elite legacy of the academy and all the students who’d come before or after. Then again, my father was a premier asshole. More importantly, Sadie herself was a genuine mystery. With a flare for activating powerful magic in my friend.
“So, I hooked up with her,” Fergus began. We sat on our bench near the lake. It was a secluded spot that no one used, mostly because Ferg’s mother had donated it and somehow no one wanted to touch her stuff. We’d found it by accident on a run last week. Today, I was grateful for the privacy.
“I figured as much,” I said.
“And something happened.”
“Stop being cryptic.” I threw my arms up in exasperation. “Spit it out, man.”
“Let me just show you,” he said.
He took the conduit ring off his fingers and placed it on the edge of the bench. Then he closed his eyes and this strange golden energy flowed out of him.
I jumped off the bench and stood as close to the lake as I could without falling in. Fergus Mathonwy, the boy I had grown up with and thought I knew everything about, turned his arms into molten gold. His skin rippled and then smoothed out. From molten gold to Fergus skin and back again.
He opened his eyes and nodded when he saw me standing some distance away. He turned his palms to the sky and tendrils of molten gold left his fingers and coalesced into a ball in the air in front of him.
“What the fuck, Ferg?” I yelled.
“You tell me, Dec.” He shrugged. “You’re the brains of this operation. Seen anything like this before?”
“She did this?” I was mesmerized by the golden energy flowing out of him. It was beautiful and powerful and also perfectly Fergus.
“She didn’t do anything,” Fergus shook his head. “I’ve been checked four times now. No spells, no hexes. It’s more like she unlocked something inside me.”
“Unlocked?” I asked. “You’re generating this yourself?” I stepped closer to him, eyeing the conduit ring laying lifeless by his side.
“It’s all me, Declan.” He nodded. “I’ve been practicing with it. I can do spells and hexes on my own. I don’t need the conduit ring anymore.”
“And you've never been able to do this before?” I asked.
“C’mon, Dec,” Fergus said. “You’ve known me pretty much my whole life. Have you ever seen me do anything like this before?”
No. I’d never seen anyone do anything like this before. “How?”
“I honestly have no idea,” he said.
That sounded like a lie to me, but I let it go for now.
“Who checked you for hexes?” I asked.
“Professor Tremaine,” he replied. “Everyone knows he’s the best. I asked him to reverse any hex or curse that might’ve been put on me.”
“He didn’t think that was weird?” I asked, stepping around Fergus to see the golden tendrils coming off his neck, too.
“I told him we’d been messing around with some old arcane spells and one of them had backfired on me.”
“Thanks for that,” I said. “And he didn't find anything?”
“Nothing.” Fergus shook his head. “I’ve spent hours at the library researching every text I could find on esoteric magic. Nothing describes anything even close to this.”
I sat back down on the bench and stared out onto the lake.
“You can't let anyone see this,” I said. “If your father finds out…”
“He’d kill me,” Fergus snorted. “No joke. He despises any kind of outsiders. I'm already almost out of the family. Could you just imagine how my mother would use this?”
“I figured as much,” I agreed. “But, just in case you had some stupid idea about trying to impress him again.”
Fergus flinched at that. “Nah, that ship has sailed and sank.”
All throughout his teens, Fergus had tried everything he could think of to please his father. It was all for nothing. A useless effort because the man was convinced Fergus wasn’t his. There was no way Ferg could be the perfect son if his father didn’t even believe he was his.
“You could come to one of the meetings?” Fergus asked.
I sat back in surprise.
Fergus hadn’t wanted anything to do with the resistance movement I’d joined as soon as I arrived at the academy. The movement was the real reason I’d worked so hard to be admitted here.
This academy was the only place mages brave enough to go against the Magic Council could meet. I sought out one of the second-years, a guy named Matthew, and offered my support.
At first, he pretended to not know what I was talking about. He threatened to turn me in to the headmaster. I knew he was suspicious of me because my father was part of the Magic Council. I guessed he thought I was trying to infiltrate. It took a lot of convincing, but after I allowed him to hit me with a truth spell and be interrogated, I was finally in. I spoke about my disgust at the treatment the other magical's in our community suffered at the hands of the Magic Council and the need for reform.
I might have used my powers of pers
uasion on him, too. I’d always had a unique ability to get people to do what I wanted. It came easily to me like nothing else did.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because I haven't found any mention of this kind of magic anywhere,” he said. “Even reading through the most obscure scrolls I managed to dig out from the library. Which means this magic comes from someplace else.”
“How is that possible?” I asked. “You think someone created new magic?”
“Or maybe they found some old magic from someplace,” he replied. “Someplace maybe like Faerie?” he asked in a whisper.
“Are you trying to tell me you think you might be Fae?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
Since the Fae war, the evilness of the faerie folk had been drilled into us. The Fae were enemy number one and were to be neutralized immediately. They were executed on sight by whatever means necessary, as decreed the Magic Council.
This entire academy was based on that principle. At any given time, someone could walk the grounds or anywhere on campus and hear students talk about their hopes and wishes for when they were at the Borderlands. They dreamed of bringing honor to their families and rising in the ranks in the pursuit of battle glory. They only feared disgrace, and the shame of failure. Killing the Fae. That's essentially what we were being trained to do. Kill all the Fae and exterminate other magical beings without any trial or jury. We were training to become warriors. Assassins. Murderers. Killers. We were training to kill them all.
It was the reason why I joined the resistance. The resistance wanted to find a way to dialogue with the Fae. They’d spread pamphlets around questioning the cause of the Fae War. The Magic Council came down hard on anyone who’d been found with the forbidden material, but the movement kept gaining momentum. No matter what he did, Fredrick Bloodstyne couldn’t stop the truth from coming out. If the war had started on false pretenses, then maybe the Fae were not the murderous creatures out to annihilate us all. Maybe we didn’t need to kill or be killed.