by D. D. Chance
Niall shrugged. “Not many, and mostly in the realm of the lesser Fae—the Laram, as they call themselves. They’re closer in makeup to humans, which means they don’t scare you as much. But still, it takes a special human to last for long in the monster realm. It’s not your place.”
“We have Laram in the human realm,” I pointed out a little defensively, and Niall scratched his beard.
“Sure you do. But that’s different. For Laram to exist among humans just takes a bit of glamour work. They can survive more easily, even mix into the culture there, if they have a mind to.”
“They can?” I blinked. “They can marry, or whatever passes for marriage here, have kids?” My Laram training had been limited, and focused only on keeping them away.
Niall scoffed with a laugh. “They can marry, should it please them, but no children. The Laram learned long ago that a half-blood Fae is the kind of trouble they couldn’t manage. The wards between the realms were strengthened to avoid that problem. Laram females don’t usually bother with human males, but should a human female find herself impregnated by a Laram Fae, she must brace for hardship. The humans usually die from it, or their children do, same as any coupling between a member of the monster realm and the human. It’s just the way of it.”
“And what about the children of high Fae and humans?”
“Doesn’t happen,” he said matter-of-factly.
“Got it,” I said, keeping my face carefully neutral and praising the goddess that these Fae warriors couldn’t read my thoughts. Because they were wrong—or at least not entirely right. I’d seen the daughter of a monster and human survive quite well, even thrive. So clearly, the child didn’t always die. And as to the mother…
I frowned. Well, the girl’s mother had gotten sick in the end. So maybe there was something to Niall’s warning after all. But lots of people got sick for lots of reasons.
I gradually became aware of Aiden’s focus on me, and I stuffed down my thoughts, cursing myself. Maybe it’d be a good idea not to have conversations about getting pregnant in front of a man whose very kiss made my head explode? How about that? How about we work on that?
“So if humans come over to the monster realm, do they die there? Or do they eventually find their way home?” I asked instead, knowing I had chosen the right path to redirect my thoughts when Aiden’s irritation flicked against my senses.
Niall fielded the question easily. “Depends. If they come over to Laram lands, they can go back when the Laram say they go back. Most of the time, the Laram are happy to chuck humans across the veil again at the earliest opportunity, though they have their uses. Human magic, when it’s strong, is worthy of study, and it absolutely provides an advantage against our foes. That’s as true in the monster realm as it is here, though humans can’t breach the realm of the high Fae without our express permission.”
“How long will it take you to teach us what we need to know?” This question came from the other side of Niall, from a tall, sturdily built female, her white hair spiking around her face.
“It depends on what I find in the school,” I said. My book, athame, and even the cup now lay in their small pouch slung into a satchel at my side. Nearly a third of the spells of the Hogan book of magic had returned to its pages, but only a third. I hoped, expected, that more would be forthcoming once I entered the academy, but I was flying blind here. “I imagine teaching you the spells of warfare and healing won’t be all of it, though they’ll be important. I suspect…”
My hands tightened around my cup as I was riven by a bolt of pain, strong, harsh, and true. I lurched against Aiden, who rose from the bench in one swift movement, lifting me high to clear my feet from the table as I convulsed again.
“What is it?” he demanded. “What’s happening?”
Another jolt rocked through me, and two of the Fae warriors stood, their eyes seeming to catch fire like the people I’d seen in the portal Aiden had shown me, or at least that was what it looked like in my delirium. Aiden shifted me to one arm and moved his right hand roughly. Portals opened, windows to the outside world.
“There’s movement at the academy,” one of them said, and I gasped as another bolt of pain drove through my gut.
“We have to go—to the academy. Now,” I managed as tears sparked in my eyes. I had never experienced pain this strong. Aiden growled something I couldn’t understand, then turned, cradling me against him as if I were a wounded child.
“Then we go,” he announced. He twitched his free hand again in a quick, slashing motion, exhaling a relieved breath, and strode forward.
I couldn’t make sense of the path we took to the academy. Cradled in Aiden’s arms, I wasn’t self-conscious about being carried, mainly because I was barely conscious at all. But in seemingly no time at all, we reached the academy doors. They stood open at the top of the staircase, flanked by a half dozen of Aiden’s warriors.
“We can’t go inside. It’s barred,” one of them called out.
“I can.” I tried to slip out of Aiden’s arms, but he tightened his hold.
“No,” he insisted as I struggled to break free, pain ripping through me. I had never had a child, but this was by far the closest I ever wanted to get to childbirth. It hurt as much as if someone was trying to rip their way out of me.
“It’s the awakening,” I said, the word strange and foreign to my tongue, but resonating in my heart, the same way the haunting mantra had earlier today about chains and an emerald-encrusted crown. “The teachers are coming to life. Are your defenses strong?”
The unexpected question drew his attention, and I looked up to see his eyes had gone an almost supernatural blue. Fury sparked at their edges, and heat rolled off him.
“Our defenses are strong. But defenses against what?”
“Those who would prefer to see you fall,” I said, still speaking words that I didn’t at all understand, as if I was reciting someone else’s speech. “What we teach here is for the high family and its warriors alone. In the hands of your enemies, it would be disastrous. Better you kill me yourself than for that to happen.”
It was by far the most bloodthirsty thing I’d ever said, and the words weren’t my own. They echoed in my mind in a voice I didn’t recognize, young, haughty, and proud. The voice of my great-grandmother, the last in a long line of indentured witches? If so, why would she give her captors such information? What could be her motive—unless she too was shown the vision of the Fae’s beginning, the carnage and sacrifice that resulted in the most beautiful realm in existence, and a people both heart-stoppingly gorgeous and brutally shrewd.
“What happened to you here?” I muttered, though more to myself than my long-dead great-grandmother, and Aiden’s words crashed down over mine.
“I do so promise to keep your magic safely in Fae hands, and Fae hands alone,” Aiden declared. “Now teach us, witch. Awaken your academy and teach us what we need to know.”
He carried me across the threshold as a bell rang high above us, tolling in the ramparts of the building I had breathed into life out of thin air not twenty-four hours earlier. The Witchling Academy was open for business.
18
Aiden
The moment I carried Belle into the academy, I could sense the power of the place stirring to life. Almost against my will, I loosened my grip on her, settling her on her feet as magic fizzed and sparked around us, a living thing.
But now we’d drawn a crowd, Belle moving several steps into the wide foyer, allowing my generals to file in behind us. To no one’s surprise, Alaric and his mother were right behind, as well as a half dozen cousins I hadn’t realized were living at the castle, but probably were because why not? I certainly hadn’t been there to care. Now I felt the press of many people hard around me, and I struggled against irritation, but only briefly. Because Belle was…beautiful.
I hadn’t realized, or maybe hadn’t noticed, that she’d maintained a slight caul around her features, even after dropping most of her aging g
lamour. But this was a woman who had spent her life in the shadows, who had benefited a great deal from drawing the mists around her.
There were no more mists now. She glowed with a warmth of new life, her storm-gray eyes wide, her lips parted in astonishment as she stared around the foyer. With her face tilted up, I studied the curve of her high cheekbones, the strength of her jaw. Belle’s thick dark hair was pulled back into a ponytail, but strands escaped to dance around her face as she moved, her slender body seeming far sturdier than it should for its compact size. As I watched, her hands lifted, as if she was somehow processing the place through her fingers, their tips reacting to a magic I could only faintly sense.
“I never knew my great-grandmother,” she murmured, her tone soft with wonder. “She was so old when I was young, and she left us far too quickly. But I can feel her here.”
I shot a glance to Niall. Given that Belle’s great-grandmother had caused so many problems in the first place, I wasn’t sure that was a good thing. Still, I was willing to put up with a lot to avoid Belle writhing in pain the way she had in the castle.
“How are you feeling?” I asked.
She turned to me, her eyes wide. “I think there was a release of magic, a breaking free. I think…”
She frowned, then turned to Cyril, who stood at the edge of the foyer, looking unhappy as usual.
“Do you have any stories of the way my great-grandmother left?” she asked. “Did she close the academy first? I don’t see how all this is possible if she didn’t.”
Cyril scowled. “Each witch creates her own academy—”
“No,” Belle said with an unaffected honesty that did her no favors. It would be better for her to act as if she had wrought this incredible place, but she shook her head firmly. “Whatever magic I bring to the table, whatever abilities, whatever skills, I will put to use. But I didn’t build this place. I wouldn’t have known how.” She pointed to the corners of the room, which were braced with arches of exquisite beauty. “I’ve never seen anything like this, and she may not have either when she first arrived. But if she added to the academy over time…”
“Reagan?” An old man’s voice called out from the opposite end of the room, and I turned to see something else that made no sense. Five figures, all of them looking not quite right, had flowed into the room. Three women, two men. Four of the figures were middling height, while one was half again larger than the others, a warrior by training, I could tell. They wore long cleric’s robes, but there was something wrong with the hems. They seemed too frayed, almost shabby.
“King Orin?” one of the younger newcomers gasped, a female, but the girl beside her scoffed with a short laugh.
“Not likely. This one’s way taller than King Orin, and far more—”
“Gwendolyn.” The third woman spoke the name severely, and the two younger girls flinched, scowling upward at the arched dome of the foyer. Their voices had carried clearly to us, though they had only whispered.
The oldest male in the group drifted forward, and as he did, I blinked. He started out old, but didn’t stay that way. With each step, ten years seemed to drop from his face, so by the time he reached Belle’s side, he was a young man of maybe thirty, with a thick mop of sandy-brown hair, brown eyes, and pale skin. Was he human? An illusion? I couldn’t place the magic, but it swelled around the lot of them like heat radiating off sunbaked stones.
“What is this?” I growled, only slightly mollified by the fact that Belle looked as confused as I felt.
The man turned to me as I spoke, as if seeing me for the first time. “King Orin—no, you aren’t, are you? Still, you are quite clearly the High King, and we are honored by your presence in the Witchling Academy.” He lifted his hand and crossed it over his chest, bowing to me in the obsequious manner of clerics and teachers. “I’m afraid you have us at a disadvantage. Who are you, my lord?”
“King Aiden,” I grunted. “Grandson of King Orin.”
The trio of women behind the man squeaked, while the large warrior who hung back at the door merely folded his arms and scowled. He alone didn’t appear surprised. He’d known what Reagan Hogan had planned.
“Then it has been some time since we’ve taught anybody. No wonder you all weren’t expecting us.” The newly youthful man spread his hands and smiled, his teeth flashing. “I am Jorgen, one of Mistress Reagan’s instructors. We all are.”
I narrowed my eyes. “And what are you, exactly?” I asked, which earned me a quick smile from the young man, his merry eyes twinkling in delight. I didn’t like him.
“I should have shared that first. We are djinn,” Jorgen explained, modestly laying a hand on his chest. “Called upon to do the work of the human who summoned us, and all her line.”
He turned to Belle. “That makes me at your service. You are the newest Hogan witch, yes? Of course you are,” he continued without letting her respond. The clutch of instructors at the end of the room floated forward, and I understood what bothered me so much about them. They all wore long, sweeping robes, but they had no feet.
“What manner of magic is this?” Niall snapped, making the younger two female djinn yelp in alarm. But Jorgen pivoted to him.
“Warriors. That’s new.” He glanced back at me. “But you approve. You want us to teach your warriors, not the high family alone.”
“These warriors are my family,” I said, and Jorgen nodded.
“Of course, of course. It has been done before. Not for many years, though.” He sighed. “The realm is back at war, isn’t it?”
“Did my great-grandmother bring you here from the human realm?” Belle asked, her voice a little strangled. Something about Jorgen seemed to bother her too.
“A Hogan did,” the djinn agreed cheerfully. “Your great-grandmother, as impossible as it is for me to even consider her such, was a remarkable witch. And witches control demons in your realm.”
I felt the stir of unease around me. We didn’t truck with the demons in our realm, and they had little influence among the lesser Fae as well. They were creatures unto themselves, occupying lands we had no desire to conquer. How had my grandfather allowed them into the academy?
“But she wasn’t the one who brought us here,” Jorgen went on. “We have taught the high family of the Fae under the direction of the Hogan witches since the contract was first forged.”
I noticed the quickening of Belle’s pulse, the sharpening of her focus. She opened her mouth, then shut it just as quickly, swallowing her surge of excitement. She didn’t want anyone to know how desperately she wanted to escape. At least not anyone but me.
I thought her secret was safe for now, given the fascination with which everyone was staring at the slightly levitating djinn. It still didn’t make me happy.
“So who will teach Aiden’s warriors?” Belle asked, her voice all business. “They don’t have much time. There’s work to be done, and they must be prepared.”
“I teach the magic of killing,” the warrior djinn said from behind the others, and from the look of him, I could imagine him having fought battles in his day. “The magic of war is quickly shared, but mastered only over time. We’ll begin at once.”
“Excellent,” Jorgen said. “Magnus takes on the mantle of warfare, while the instruction of the family falls to the four of us,” he said, pointing at the three female djinn and himself. “It is the magic of subtlety and strength, house management and ally building. My particular strength is court magic—the work of kings and their advisors. I’m quite good at it, if I do say so myself.”
Cyril thinned his lips as Jorgen turned to him, but the djinn seemed unfazed. “We’ll be spending some time together—and there are books. So many books.”
The advisor’s eyes lit up almost despite himself, as one of the younger djinn flowed forward.
“I teach the women of the house as well,” she said, smiling shyly. “Separate of the family instruction, female Fae magic flowers when it is mixed with magic of witches. A strange and bea
utiful thing, to be sure.”
I figured it out at the same time Belle did, so by the time she looked at me in dismay, my smile was firmly on my face. “So, Belle, I guess your instructional duties are very specific, then. You teach the king.”
Jorgen, of course, had something else to say. I suspected he often did. “Yes and no. Mistress Belle will help you access your magic because she alone can. However, as the High King, you will receive instruction from all of us. I can tell from your manner that you are a warring king.”
There was a slight lilt of judgment in the phrase, but before I could bristle, the djinn went on. “So you will need to be with Magnus as well, to stand with your people and learn at their sides.”
I nodded, tensing my jaw. Jorgen wasn’t wrong, but I still didn’t like him. I especially didn’t like the warm smile he sent Belle’s way.
“To us, it has been barely a span of breaths since your great-grandmother left us. She knew so very much, it was a wonder to behold the magic she wrought. Is she with you?”
I felt Belle’s pang of sorrow, though her face remained composed. “She died a long time ago,” she confessed. “I’m afraid her secrets died with her.”
Jorgen merely tilted his head, a sprite with a secret he was bursting to share. “No, they didn’t,” he assured her. “She left them here for you to find.”
19
Belle
The group of djinn stepped forward to usher their charges out of the room—or flowed forward, rather, since they didn’t have feet.
I kept my smile fixed firmly on my face, but only barely. I knew next to nothing about djinn, other than they were a subset of demons, with a base of operations in the Middle East. How in the world had a Hogan witch gained control of them?
Still, because they were demons, witches could control them. So far, so good. However, there were rules to that kind of control, which meant that demons were tied to particular witches at particular times with particular spells. I had never in my life heard of a witch’s family being able to control a demon beyond a very specific period of time, let alone for generations. The original Hogan witch must have had incredible power…and I didn’t even know her name.