Sparking Magic (Protectors Academy Book 1)

by Nika Gray

  I’d memorized her schedule and knew she should be on her way to the History of Fae right now. Her class had started ten minutes ago, but somehow, I knew she hadn’t made it.

  Her familiar magnetic pull called to me from the west side of campus. I ran down the slope, allowing it to pull me closer.

  I hadn’t seen her since last night after Declan promised he’d look after her. I’d gone to my parents’ estate to raid my father’s library. I’d devoured every text on campus, so his library was my next target. He was a collector and had an impressive stash of manuscripts documenting the Fae War. I’d been looking for a book I remembered about strategic faerie folk warfare tactics.

  My parents were in their apartment back in the city and I knew I had some time to find the books I was looking for. But none of them were there. No books, scrolls, or manuscripts. My trek out to the estate had been for nothing.

  I’d only arrived back on campus a few hours ago, just before my first class, which I didn’t go to anyway.

  Her abductors must have found her again. My chest constricted as I sprinted faster.

  I’d been so sure Sadie would be safe with us. I grunted at my mistake. Maybe my father had fallen out of favor. A thought niggled at the back of my head. He wouldn’t have been involved in her kidnapping, would he have been?

  He always had shady dealings going on. Backroom deals with some of the other power players were his daily routine. I wouldn’t put it past him to kidnap and torture someone for the magic he coveted. That was just how he played with the others in his inner circle. Including dear old mom. Could she have been involved in Sadie’s abduction?

  Of course, she could. One of my parents’ favorite pastimes was trying to outdo each other in the little games of intrigue they played.

  I pushed them both out of my mind in disgust and focused on her magnetic pull. I’d noticed that my awareness of her involved my entire body. It was like I had some kind of antennae and could home in on her signal. I wondered if it was the same for her.

  I turned on the path toward West Campus, but her signal almost disappeared. I reversed course toward the lake.

  “Fergus!” Someone called my name from somewhere behind me.

  Cole Trahern.

  I turned to find him, wild-eyed and desperate, his eyes glowing an unnatural blue.

  “It's Sadie,” he gasped for air. “She's in trouble.”

  I flinched at the realization he had the same powerful connection to her as I did.

  “How do you know that?” I demanded.

  Cole and I’d never been friends. Our families were on opposite sides of most issues. Our fathers hated each other. All through school we’d been forced into competition by our families and now it was just the way things were. We gave each other room to breathe until the next time we were forced to go head to head in some kind of competition.

  “How do you know Sadie’s in trouble?” I asked again.

  “The same way you do,” he said. “Your eyes are gold, bro.”

  “Yeah?” I replied. “Yours are glowing blue.”

  There it was. We’d both been changed by Sadie. Jealousy flashed through me, but I pushed it to the side. This wasn’t the time. Sadie needed us.

  “Where are you sensing she is?” I asked through gritted teeth.

  “Somewhere down by the lake,” he said, and ran past me.

  When he noticed I wasn’t following, he turned back to me.

  “You coming or what?” he called.

  I joined him and we ran down to the lake. His jaw clenched and I knew he was about as happy to find out about me as I was about him.

  He stuffed his hands in his blazer’s pockets, but I could see the blue light spilling out. Interesting. I had gold lava fire and he had icy blue light.

  Sadie Bishop had done something to us. She’d changed us and there was no going back to what we were before. Now it was up to us to find her before she disappeared again.

  We arrived at the edge of the lake and stared at the vast forest beyond. The feeling of her presence was fading by the minute. I turned frantically, looking for movement in the trees or any place I could pick up her signal again.

  “I've lost her,” I said.

  Cole stood completely still.

  He was a good three inches taller than me, so maybe he’d be able to see a bit farther into the forest. He stood motionless, like a statue with his face was set, like a stone. He was controlling his breathing and I realized he was using some sort of spell to see if he could find her. His jaw clenched. He was failing.

  Fuck!

  “Her presence is very faint,” he said. “I can't tell what direction it's coming from.”

  His eyes flew open and we both looked at the forest beyond.

  “Have you been in there yet?” I pointed to an area ahead and to the right of us.

  “No. Have you?”

  I shook my head no. We’d only been at the Academy for two weeks and I hadn’t had the time to explore most of the trails.

  As if reading my mind, Cole said, “I haven't explored these woods, either. She's out there somewhere.”

  “We won’t be able to find her in there.”

  “I know,” Cole said.

  “We need help,” I said.

  “Is there anyone you trust?” He asked.

  I wondered what he knew about her kidnappers.

  “Dec,” I replied immediately. “Hotchkiss? He’s been helping her all this time. She trusts him.”

  “We go find him then,” Cole nodded. “He knows more than he’s letting on about her.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  Cole didn’t reply. He broke out into a run back the way we’d come.

  Real talker, this guy, I thought as I ran to keep up.

  Chapter 19

  Sadie

  The red light brightened to a pink and then faded as my eyes adjusted to a different kind of light. Daylight, I assumed by the color.

  Without turning my head, I barely opened my eyes and looked around. Something within me knew I had to stay perfectly still if I didn’t want to alert Alexis to my being awake. I slowly opened my eyes a little more to see Alexis walking alongside me.

  I was in a prone position, floating about four feet off the ground. She held her hand with the conduit ring at my level, keeping me afloat and moving. I became aware of a gentle force pushing my head to keep pace with her.

  Oh, god. Oh, god. I was being taken again. She was kidnapping me. Where was she taking me? Who did she work for?

  She’d said her family wasn’t as high status as many of the other students at the school. Had a bounty been put on my head by the Magic Council? Was she sucking up to Kyna and the minions? My mind raced with various scenarios of why Alexis was doing this to me.

  Stupid Sadie, I thought to myself as I remembered how grateful I’d been for her friendship. Ugh, I was such an idiot! Again. My heart ripped open a little bit more for the foster kid I’d been, always looking for a way to belong.

  I drifted along beside her for a good half hour. It took everything within me to remain calm and perfectly still. I strained to hear the sounds of anyone around and only faintly heard voices and the regular sounds of campus life. Had she put a spell on us so that no one could see what she was doing? Could no one see me?

  The sun had dipped behind the trees in the forest by the time she pulled me onto the hidden path. I listened as the sounds changed from the gentle lapping of the lake’s waves to the crunching of leaves and twigs underneath her feet as she took me farther into the dense forest.

  The question I wrestled with was whether to use my being awake to my advantage and confront the people who were after me or escape. I was better now at controlling my magic, but could I take on all those mages who’d surrounded me in the lab? The smell of burnt flesh and hair flashed through my mind. How had I done whatever it was I’d done that night?

  Or did Alexis want to hurt me in some other way and I should get the hell out of her
e right now? I resisted the urge to flee. I needed to know what was going on and who I was up against.

  I remained perfectly still as she took us deeper and deeper into the forest. The light changed and we entered a clearing. She hadn’t said a word since she’d had me drink that potion. Could she be spelled or hexed and in a trance? Maybe she hadn’t betrayed me.

  What if I hurt her as I tried to escape?

  She stopped and I heard the rustling of her clothes. She brought something out of her pocket and then I heard the unmistakable clicking sound of a car trunk releasing. As I floated next to the car, she went to the trunk and opened it.

  My body drifted down into the trunk space and I felt the spell lift. My body dropped the last couple of inches into the trunk. She closed the trunk lid on me and then I heard another door opening. She started the car.

  If I was going to escape, I had to do it now.

  The memory of the lab flashed through my mind again, but this time pain seared down the middle of my body. The scream that came out of me reminded me of the anguish I’d heard in the vision of my soul ripping apart. Was that what they were trying to do to me in the lab?

  I no longer wanted to see who she was taking me to. I didn’t care who she was working for or if she was connected to the mage who’d opened a portal in my room.

  I needed my magic. Now!

  Rage welled up within me as I focused on the betrayal of someone I’d considered a friend. My red energy lit up the trunk and I focused on finding the mechanism that opened the trunk from the inside.

  My magic sent out red tendrils that explored all the different crevices of my prison. I would’ve enjoyed the light show if I wasn’t trapped in this metal cage after being kidnapped by a fellow student, someone I thought was my friend.

  The tendrils failed to find the mechanism.

  Fine. I’d destroy the trunk door and pray my fire wouldn’t burn me along with it.

  I squeezed my eyes shut and imagined the trunk exploding out and away from the car.

  The screeching sound was deafening and holding my hands over my ears did nothing about it. Metal ripped apart like wet paper all around me. I opened my eyes to see the beautiful green of the woods through the burning, fiery hole that had been the lid of the trunk.

  “No!” Alexis screamed from the front seat.

  Guess she wasn’t spelled or hexed after all, I thought as I clambered out of the trunk and fell flat on my face amongst a bed of pine needles.

  I picked myself up and watched as my magic fire spread from the trunk and began to eat away at the metal rim of the entire car.

  Alexis was inside and she was screaming.

  I didn’t want to hurt her. If I left her there, she’d be dead.

  The SUV suddenly lurched forward and hit a massive Fir tree. Alexis didn’t make a move or make another sound.

  I ran over to the driver’s side and saw she’d hit her head on the steering wheel. Blood was streaming down her face from the gash in her head, staining her blonde hair.

  I had to stop this fire. I closed my eyes and imagined a cool liquid engulfing the SUV and extinguishing every last flicker of fire. I willed it with my entire being.

  When I opened my eyes, the SUV still burned.

  Damn, I thought. Guess my magic doesn’t work like that.

  If I ran to get help now, the fire would burn through the SUV and it would be fully engulfed. With Alexis still inside. I had no idea where we even were. I had to get her out of that burning car somehow.

  I reached out to see if my fire would burn me. The heat was intense, and I pulled my arm back. I closed my eyes again and lifted my arm. I focused on shifting the fire to the back of the SUV. I imagined energy pushing the fire back.

  When I opened my eyes, the flames were flickering towards the back. I concentrated harder and the fire began to move. Excited, I stepped closer and the fire cleared the front door.

  I couldn’t touch the burning melting door handle, but maybe I could get my magic to blow the door out. Guess I could have thought of that before fiddling with the fire itself.

  I focused on the door exploding off its hinges while I moved out of the way. Metal screeched and ground together in an awful sound and then finally the driver’s side door flew off.

  I ran to Alexis and unbuckled her seatbelt. She moaned as I gently pulled her back from the steering wheel. The angry gash along her forehead was bleeding badly, but I didn’t see bone.

  I pulled her out of the car and dragged her a good twenty feet away from the burning car. She would have to be okay here until I came back with help.

  I sprinted in the direction I thought we’d come from and found a faint path leading out of the woods. I ran along the path as far as it would take me. Then I exploded out of the underbrush, gasping for breath, my stomach roiling with bile.

  I vomited all over a rock. Then I stood to get my bearings and looked around. Off in the distance I saw a familiar sight. I swiped the remaining vomit off with my sleeve and sprinted up the path back to campus and the Headmaster’s Manor.

  I banged on the front door and sagged against it until Kelly finally opened the door and I fell into her arms.

  “Oh my God, Sadie,” she cried out. “Dad!” she yelled behind her. “We’ve been so worried. Everybody's been looking for you for the last hour,” she gasped.

  “How did you know?” I gasped between gulping breaths.

  “The potions teacher, Professor Dean came to talk to my dad,” Kelly explained as she helped me into the sitting room and down onto the settee. “Alexis stole some rare ingredients for a lethal potion. Professor Dean followed her and saw her handing something to you.”

  “Oh, my god,” I whispered. “She really wanted me dead then.”

  At least I’d made the right choice in escaping.

  Kelly didn’t answer. Instead she went back into the hallway and called for father again.

  “You need to send someone out to her,” I told Kelly. “I left her bleeding in the woods. She put me in the trunk of a car. She kidnapped me. She was driving me away, but I freed myself,” I babbled on.

  I couldn’t stop talking. “Kelly, I set another fire. Someone will have to put it out again!”

  “Dad, Sadie!” she yelled.

  Footsteps ran towards us and Headmaster Hotchkiss appeared at my side.

  “Sadie, you’re alive,” he said and hugged me.

  “I started another fire,” I sobbed into his shoulder. “We need to go back there and get her.”

  “You should stay here,” Kelly said from behind her father. “Are you hurt? You smell like vomit.”

  I pulled away from his embrace and tried to gather my thoughts. I took several deep breaths and wiped the tears from my face.

  “You won’t know which trail it is,” I explained. “It’s getting too dark. I have to show you,” I said.

  “Sadie, are you sure you’re okay?” Headmaster Hotchkiss asked.

  “I’ll take you back there,” I jumped up from the settee proving my point.

  Headmaster Hotchkiss nodded and we rushed back the way I’d come. I led them down the path around the lake and to the vomit rock. They would have never found the hidden path in the dark.

  Unfortunately, by the time we reached the clearing Alexis was gone. The SUV was still smoldering. Headmaster Hotchkiss extinguished it within minutes.

  “You’re going to have to teach me how to do that so I can clean up my own messes,” I muttered.

  “How about you try not setting any more fires instead,” he suggested.

  I wished I could do that, but I doubted it was in my cards until I could better control my magic.

  “Where could she have gone?” Kelly asked. “You said she was bleeding from a head wound.”

  We looked around for any sign of her and then Headmaster Hotchkiss led the way down the darkened path.

  “There's a highway just about a thirty-minute walk from here,” he said. “There isn't much reception, but if she had
a satellite phone on her, she could've called somebody to pick her up.”

  “Damn,” I swore. “I need her tell me why.”

  “Oh, I know why Alexis did this,” Headmaster Hotchkiss said. “I received word from one of my contacts at the MCO that her father Milton Schoenberg had been severely burned the other night. By what appeared to be Fae fire. He must be the one who opened that portal into your dorm room.”

  “Fae fire?” I whispered.

  My heart was thudding so loud in my ears I could barely hear what he said next.

  “That's what the MCO think and they don't know how it happened,” he continued. “I’m starting to have a sneaking suspicion about where your magic comes from and why the Magic Council wants you so badly, my dear.”

  “You found out who the men were?” I asked.

  We’d made our way back to the lake. Even though I didn’t see anyone else around, I understood his reticence to speak.

  “Come back to my house and we’ll discuss it. It’s time you met some people who can help us. It’s time you knew everything.”

  Kelly put her arm around me. “You need help walking? How are you feeling after that crap she gave you?”

  “I feel fine,” I lied.

  “That's another reason why the potion didn't work on you,” Headmaster Hotchkiss said. You're not human.”

  I had no idea how to respond to that. None of us said anything else all the way back to the Manor.

  Kelly kept glancing over, checking in on me and held my hand the entire way. I’d gone mute, my mind processing what Hotchkiss had just revealed. If what he said was true and I was faerie, or part Fae, that meant I was in a school dedicated to teaching the fine art of how to hunt me down and kill me.

  A bead of cold sweat trickled down my back.

  I was more afraid than I'd ever been in my life.

  Chapter 20

  Cole

  Fergus kicked the nearest wall in sheer frustration when he realized we’d just missed Headmaster Hotchkiss. The guy had some anger issues, I thought and not for the first time. The headmaster had left the door slightly ajar, obviously leaving in a rush. We walked through the Manor, searching for him or his daughter but found no one. I took that as a good sign.