by D. D. Chance
“You can begin your instruction of the others immediately,” Aiden said to Jorgen. “I stay with Belle.”
I barely hid my dismay, but the warrior djinn Magnus turned to him. “Very well. I will tell you what I will teach your people in your absence.”
“That’s not necessary,” Aiden began, but Magnus powered on.
“Cloaking magic,” he said, and he tapped his staff on the floor. I could feel the shift in the air around me, though nobody moved, and I didn’t understand exactly what had happened until Magnus continued speaking—from a spot ten feet away. Only Aiden, Niall, and I turned toward Magnus’s voice—the other Fae in the room remained in place, their smiles fixed, their eyes unfocused. “King Aiden, what we would teach you is that time is fluid. That you can run it ahead and back again in the time it takes you to assess a threat and decide how to neutralize it. Your method of fighting will remain the same, but you’ll grant yourself a few critical moments to reassess and redeploy your forces. Once you give yourself over to this skill, you will find it’s very useful—but it will take some time for the ability to take root within you.”
Aiden crossed his arms over his chest, and Niall humphed with interest as Magnus continued. “Mind reading is also a long-ago skill of the Fae, somewhat atrophied in the main population, though the royal family and your entourage have a bit of it, I can tell. With our aid, you can apply this skill across great distances in the heat of battle, to get the sense of the opposition before they strike. Beyond that, we would give you enhanced speed, strength, and healing ability, a far sight more impressive than what the Fae’s natural powers allow.”
With this last, he turned to Niall. “I cannot heal what was done to you, warrior Niall, but I can grant you sight that you should not have.”
Niall stiffened, and Aiden growled. “These are not skills for all ears,” he warned, but Magnus merely waved him off.
“Of course not. And there is more, of course. But I demonstrate this to show you that you’ll want to be there. At least to learn the cloaking magic.”
He tapped his staff on the floor again, and the air shifted, all of us blinking, at least those among the warriors, while young Alaric flapped his hands.
“Well, let’s go, then. Let’s go. When can we begin?” he asked, practically bouncing with excitement.
“Alaric, King Aiden is deciding.” His mother shushed him, and the realization hit Niall, Aiden, and me in a flash.
No one apart from the three of us knew what Magnus had just said. It had been part of the information shared under the spell of cloaking. Time allowed to run ahead and then flow back again, all with a simple spell.
I lifted my chin because this was magic I was supposed to know all about. And I had not one blessed clue.
“Shall we begin?” Magnus asked, and I turned to Aiden, smiling as brightly as I could.
“I’ve got a lot of ground to cover. This was my great-grandmother’s school, not mine. I need to understand what’s in here. Maybe you should go ahead with Magnus for now?”
“She’ll be safe,” Gwendolyn assured him. “No harm can befall a Hogan witch within the school.”
“The sooner we start, the sooner we end,” Magnus agreed, and I didn’t miss the fact that the djinn were piling on. But I kept my spine steady.
Aiden finally relented, I suspected mostly because he was desperate for the magic Magnus had teased. Whatever, I’d take it.
Within only a few moments, the room cleared, the trio of female djinn taking Alaric and Lena, plus half a dozen other nobles who were waiting in the doorway. Magnus led the warriors off, while Jorgen tagged along, acting like some kind of tour guide and traffic cop at once. For a few seconds I was left alone in the large foyer, staring at the opulence around me. The walls were marble from waist-high up and paneled in rich wood below, and a deep circular woven rug absorbed some of the noise from the floor, but not all of it. Doorways opened off the foyer in all directions, hinting at wonders that lay deeper within this building.
“You’re Belle, aren’t you?” It was a child’s voice, and I turned toward it, surprised to see a little girl no older than eight, her dark hair pulled back in a ponytail, her simple blue dress and white sneakers looking vaguely familiar. Was this another djinn? Maybe, but this one had feet. I gave the child an easy smile.
“I am,” I agreed. “And who are you?”
“I am the witch who should never be,” she announced earnestly.
I blinked with surprise, a sudden chill stealing over me. “Ah…what do you mean?”
“I can show you,” she said eagerly, and she held out her hand, pretty much looking like the beginning of every Japanese horror movie ever made.
“Um, I don’t think so.”
The girl stared up at me with big, confused eyes, then disappeared, and I sucked in a quick, surprised breath.
“Then I am the witch that should never be.”
I whirled and gaped as my mother appeared in a second doorway, or a woman who looked so like my mother that the difference couldn’t be discerned. We were the same height, only her hair was threaded with gray, her soft eyes wise and sad. My heart pounded hard in my chest, and an ugly, harsh sob rattled in my throat, desperate for release.
“Reagan understood what might come, sweet Belle, and she sought to avoid it. But she didn’t go far enough to ensure our freedom. Will you make the same mistake? Will you create a new generation of witches that should never be—witches tied to the Fae instead of walking their own path?”
“Get out,” I said, fighting back the wave of hysteria that threatened to take hold of me. “I’m not fooled by illusions, and I don’t speak in riddles. No Hogan does.”
“Except that now you’re here, you are the witch that should never be. So what is real, and what illusion? And when will it ever end?” The image of my mother gazed at me sadly, then disappeared as well.
“A worthy question for a Hogan witch,” Jorgen reentered the room, wearing the long tunic and heavy pants of a Fae warrior—complete with booted feet this time. His gaze was curious, but oddly kind. Or was that yet another lie?
“Your grandmother escaped her fate. So did your mother,” he continued. “Which left you to become the witch that should never have been. The one your great-grandmother hoped so dearly would never darken our door, but who she prepared for, all the same.”
“What are you really?” I asked.
He lifted one shoulder, dropped it. “I’ve asked myself that many times. A djinn, a teacher. A friend, if you have need of one. Your captor guards you jealously, as well he should. If his own grandfather had not been so blind, he would have seen what Reagan was planning. Of course, then he would have killed her, and you would never have been born.”
“He couldn’t kill her,” I informed him. “That crosses the line. No Fae can kill his witch.”
“Not true,” Jorgen lifted a finger, punching a hole through my fledgling confidence. “He just can’t be obvious about it.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “You know, considering this is my own freaking academy, this isn’t the warmest and fuzziest welcome I could’ve imagined,” I griped.
Jorgen laughed. “You’ll understand more, but you do have to take my hand to do it. And Aiden is not going to be pleased with that, so we’d best get it done while he’s distracted.”
I didn’t even bother informing him that Aiden wouldn’t know, because I somehow suspected he would. Instead, I sighed and reached for his outstretched hand. “Then this had better be good.”
The moment I touched Jorgen’s hand, the walls around me shifted and a new set of corridors lined up next to the ones I’d just seen, a whole separate wing of the academy springing into life. Jorgen curled my hand into the crook of his arm, turning me with the grace of a nobleman from another century, and set off. As we walked, he talked quickly.
“When you’re in close proximity with any of the staff, ideally touching them, you create a bubble of privacy that cannot be penetrated.
By all appearances, we are talking, and we’re talking specifically about the furniture, the walls, the paintings. Something very basic and prosaic, but always specific to the school. You need to know that in case King Aiden ever asks.”
“All these warnings,” I mused. “You’re treating me like I’m a prisoner here too. You said you’ve been here since the beginning. How long have the Hogan witches been prisoners of the school, of this family? And how did we ever get into this situation to begin with?”
He grimaced with what seemed like real regret. “We came after the academy was built, and I’m afraid no witch has ever shared information with us about what came before. You don’t bother explaining to the help why you do the things you do.”
I frowned as we continued on. What he said made sense, but seemed a little sad to me. If these djinn were my great-grandmother’s only friends, or at least companions during their tenure here, how could she not trust them, especially having worked with them for so long? How could any of the Hogan witches not have trusted them?
The answer came as quickly as the question. Because they’re demons, I reminded myself coldly. They couldn’t be trusted in my realm. What made me think they could be trusted here?
“Okay, how about answering this question. How have you stayed bound to the school?”
“A moment—just a little bit farther.” Jorgen squeezed my hand as we reached a section of the school with narrower corridors, fewer doors, and a tall window at the far end of the hallway. Before we reached it, he paused at an open door to his right, gesturing me inside. I walked into a room that took my breath away. Books lined the walls from floor to ceiling, and where there weren’t books, there were windows cut into half-circle seating areas, lined up behind the desk, even cut into the turreted ceiling.
“It doesn’t seem like it, but we are actually on a higher floor now. A trick of illusion that makes it seem like everything in the academy is on the first floor. A silly trick, really, but something that entertained Reagan when she remodeled the academy the third or fourth time.”
I frowned. “So is this version her final incarnation? Aiden told me I might not be able to bring back the full school.”
Jorgen nodded. “That’s generally true of Hogan witches, but when your great-grandmother left, she put certain contingencies in place.” He gestured expansively around the room. “She amassed a great deal of magic and invested it in all the books and artifacts here. She was clear that she would not be teaching any of it to her children—and of course, she believed she’d remember it in the first place. You Hogans always do.”
His words chilled me. “We forget when we return to our realm,” I murmured. “We forget everything.”
“Every last bit,” Jorgen agreed. “But in this case, Reagan didn’t plan for anyone to come back, so she made extra sure to trap whatever magic she knew in books and artifacts. She really wanted no one to come after her, for the next witch to be the witch that never was. But more than anything, she wanted her descendants to survive. She knew if any Hogan ever did come back here, her need to know magic would be great, and the available instruction might be scant. So she needed to make up for it with a treasure trove of knowledge and power. You’ll be teaching the king, but make no mistake. You’ll also be learning.”
I nodded, staring at the thousands of books with both dismay and excitement. “And I suppose I’ll be teaching myself?”
Jorgen smiled and drew a step closer. “It’ll be easier than you think,” he promised.
20
Aiden
I’d felt uneasy since I’d left Belle’s side, but now a sudden outrage blasted through me, nearly bringing me out of my chair.
Jorgen, I thought, catching a flash of Belle’s emotion. She wasn’t worried, which was the only reason I kept my place. But the djinn would face an accounting to be sure.
I shifted in my chair, grateful they weren’t sized for children, even though we were in a schoolroom. Instead, the war room, as the djinn called it, looked like any other meeting room in the castle. A long table with high-back chairs dominated the front of the room, while framed stands stood facing the table from all angles. The stands had nothing in them, no plate, glass, or board, but then they didn’t need to. They were fixed portals like the ones I had created for Belle, holding rapidly shifting images.
“You’ve been in here all this time?” I asked abruptly, interrupting some procedural outline Magnus was efficiently knocking through. “You’ve seen the war with the wraiths break out, then.”
“Not at all, my lord,” Magnus said without the slightest hint of irritation at my interruption. Then again, if he had been handling the delicate egos of the high Fae for centuries, he probably had lots of practice keeping a civil tongue. “When Mistress Reagan left the academy, we djinn essentially went dormant. We awakened only a short while ago. As you can imagine, there is quite a bit to catch up on, but with the tools at our disposal, we’ll manage.”
As he spoke, he gestured to the frames, which were filled with scenes from all corners of the realm. Some were quiet, some held ordinary levels of industry, some were open battlegrounds, and some were withered and empty shells of homes, even entire villages…all that was left of the wraiths’ attack.
“And there is already information I can provide you. The enemy you fight is one you have faced before,” Magnus said.
“We’ve been facing them nonstop for going on twelve straight years,” Niall grumbled, shifting in his chair. He wasn’t comfortable with the setup either, but his gaze jumped from frame to frame, greedily taking in the information. These portal windows were larger and clearer than the ones I usually conjured. Then again, so were the ones I’d cast from my bed this morning. A result of magic returning to the realm—or because Belle was nearby?
I scowled inwardly. I didn’t like relying so much on a single human woman. Whoever thought that would be a good idea? Especially given the results. My grandfather, or any of the kings before him, should have foreseen the possibility of an escaping witch long before it came to a breaking point. How could we have trusted the witches so long, and so well? Especially if the previous kings had felt the same maddening attraction for their witches that I felt for Belle?
“I’m not talking about adversaries you’ve fought recently, but deep within the mists of time,” the djinn answered Niall, refocusing my attention. “By some accounts, you won those mighty battles long ago. You defeated your enemies and confined them to a prison filled with despair. After that, you agreed to leave the far-off plane yourself, removing yourself from the realm you had helped secure and returning to your homelands.” He gestured around himself. “The kingdom of the high Fae.”
I stared at Magnus, distrust gnawing at my gut. As the High King, I knew the history of our people better than most. Both the history we shared within the castle and throughout the realm, and the history we didn’t. I knew he wasn’t talking about wraiths here.
“You’re referring to an enemy who no longer exists,” I snapped.
“The Fomorians,” Magnus nodded. “Yes.”
“Not a chance.” Niall looked over at me, the corner of his mouth quirking up into a grin. “We’re facing wraiths at our borders. Big, smoky, gut-sucking wraiths. Trust me, they’re not Fomorians. I would have noticed that.”
“And you’re wrong,” Magnus countered. “You’re not facing wraiths, and you know it.”
Irritation flashed through me, but I didn’t try to stop him as he continued, staring down Niall’s bravado with unflinching certainty. “In your pride, you believe that you are the only ones who are capable of throwing off a false image. Think about the creatures you’re facing. Wraiths, you say? A minor nuisance to the lesser Fae and to members of the monster realm. Generally speaking, they’re mindless creatures in wraith form, despite their viciousness. When they shift to another form, they lose all memory of their killing thrall. Sound familiar so far?”
Niall leaned forward. “I don’t care what they remember or f
orget,” he growled. “They’re killing Fae now.”
“Except the Fae aren’t usually the kind of prey that wraiths go after, are you?” Magnus argued. “And, something more: wraiths fight and kill, but since when do they destroy? Since when do they husk the bare sparks of native magic that still shine within their Fae victims, leaving them shriveled shells…again, since when do they target Fae at all? Normally, they’re the tools of more powerful magicians, nothing more. Does that sound like the enemies you’ve been fighting at your borders?”
I scowled. The monster realm had only one magician of any merit, and from the intelligence we’d managed to uncover recently, he’d been successfully contained in a magical dead zone wrought by human magic academy students, no less. That was a potential problem in and of itself, but not one that was central to our present issue.
I shifted uncomfortably as Magnus waited for a response. “You believe the Fomorians are hiding behind an illusion of wraiths,” I grudgingly allowed, but though I knew it was foolish to discount information simply because it didn’t fit with my biases, I still had a hard time wrapping my head around the concept. “The actual Fomorian enemy of old. How is that possible? We defeated them six thousand years ago.”
“Defeated them and banished them to their dire underworld prison, yes, with the help of human witches,” Magnus said. “But before you showed up, they walked as gods on earth and in other realms, much the same way the Fae did.”
“It’s easy to be mistaken for the gods of a realm when you’re bigger, stronger, and faster than the people you find living there,” Niall sneered, the soul of reason.
“And if you wield deadly magic, yes,” Magnus agreed. “When the Fomorians walked among the humans, they pillaged and killed, but they weren’t interested in impregnating the local population so much as husking them of their power, draining their innate magic. In this pursuit, they evolved their capabilities quickly. Since the human realm was surrounded by water, and water travel came particularly easy to the Fomorians, they were able to seek out the highest magic in the world and take it for themselves. They ravaged their way over land and sea, unchecked until the Fae discovered the human realm. The high Fae still retained their innate glamour and mind-reading skills, and they had a particular disdain for those who stole magic from the weak and unsuspecting. They also recognized the danger of the Fomorians, a brutal race that had gone uncensured for too long. The Fae championed the principles of beauty and learning, while the Fomorians cared only for warfare. The two sides fought a battle that was bitter and long and eventually—”