“Hi.”
What does he want?
I respond in a neutral tone. “Hi.”
He looks away, almost as if he’s shy. I don’t completely buy this yet. Sure, he’s not the meanest of the three, but Broin’s right, I can’t trust everyone here. He’s probably trying to act all innocent so I do trust him, just so his friends can kick me in the teeth. Not happening, dude.
When class starts, Huckleberry doesn’t waste time going over a syllabus or reinventing the wheel. Instead, she passes out spell books and wooden dolls.
“These dolls are the foci for your spells,” she announces, her voice musical and pretty, because of course it is. “You will place all of your enchantments on these mannequins.”
Poppets. No problem.
She gives me a strange look as she puts my book and doll down in front of me. “Miss Hemlock,” she greets, arching one of her bushy eyebrows.
I smile back as sweetly as Redera would have. “Professor.”
“You have… great power.”
Aurora turns around in her seat and glares at me.
No kidding. Aloud, I say, “Uh… thanks?”
Professor Huckleberry finishes her rounds and goes back to the head of the class. “Turn to the first spell in your books.”
I open the leather-bound cover and look at the first vellum page. The spell is more or less magical spray paint—it’s just going to change the doll’s color. I was casting this spell when I was four years old. I sigh, feeling stupid for hoping for more.
Aurora hears me and snips, “What’s the matter? Too hard?”
Somehow I resist the urge to cast the spell on her. She’d look awesome in paisley. Maybe it’ll be the next trend. Hmm, it’s tempting.
“Too easy,” I shoot back, giving a clearly false smile.
“Hmph.” She turns back to face the front, flicking her wavy blonde hair over her petite shoulders. Beside her, Rapunzel gives me a withering look. It’s getting tedious.
The professor continues. “In enchantment, as with all magic, words matter, but most of all, it’s imagination that counts. Enchantment spells are limited only by what you believe. It’s the one area of magic where faith in yourself and your abilities really comes into play.”
I have to disagree with her. Summoning is the kind of magic where you have to believe in yourself the most just to be able to control whatever it is you pulled out of the ether. I guess Huckleberry isn’t big on summoning, though, and I don’t think it’s even taught here at Everafter. I imagine it’s more of a Nevermore thing, seeing as it forces whatever you summon into temporary slavery.
Whatever. It’s not like it lasts forever. Besides, sometimes being a slave can be fun, if you have the right Master.
“Now, class.” Huckleberry clears her throat. “Cast that first spell.”
All around me, these rubes start sweating it, furrowing their brows and trying hard to do the thing. Aurora gets her poppet to change color pretty quickly, going from wood grain to pink.
Of course it would be pink.
I decide to make mine a little more interesting. While the other students lift their hands and mumble the words of the spell out loud, I cast from my mind, which is the only way to fly where enchantments are concerned. Think it and it will happen, Grandma always told me. So I think black background with silver stars that glow and twinkle, like the mannequin is made out of the night sky. It changes its appearance immediately. It’s a parlor trick, but I’m pleased.
Next to me, Christopher breathes, “Wow…”
I look at his mannequin. It’s a pleasant shade of green and I’m a little surprised by his choice of color. I suppose he chose the color of his eyes, the kind of green that looks almost blue.
Professor Huckleberry hurries over to me and seizes the poppet from my desk.
I’m convinced that I’m about to get in trouble when she holds it up to the class and shouts, “Everyone stop what you’re doing and look at this magnificent creation!”
Everyone looks. Jaws drop. These idiots are so easily impressed.
“This is a masterful enchantment!” the professor announces. “And it illustrates what I was saying. Enchantment magics depend on your imagination. Don’t be limited by what you think we want to see. Create the things you want to see.”
She puts the doll back on my desk and beams at me. “I expect great things from you. I’ve never seen such mastery on the first day of class.”
Gideon fake-coughs into his hand. “Darkblood.”
A few of the students titter nervously and Huckleberry looks at him with disappointment on her face. “That’s enough, Gideon. You know Darkblood witches aren’t allowed here in Everafter. White witches, however, are rare and always welcome.” She smiles at me, then continues to go from desk to desk.
Aurora is concentrating on her doll. She’s probably trying to do something more interesting than matte pink. Her imagination is apparently very limited because she only manages pale yellow pinstripes.
No shock there.
The rest of class is a drag but not entirely painful. While the others try to master the simplest of simple spells, I keep changing the colors on my mannequin and read ahead in the book. It’s the perks of being a witch; I already know most of the spells in it. There are some spells that I don’t know, though, and that’s a good sign. I might learn something in this joint after all.
Class breaks up, and we make our way out to the courtyard between classroom buildings. I recognize a familiar face and smile when I see Quasi trimming a swan-shaped ornamental topiary. I go over to him.
“Hey Quasi,” I greet. “So, you’re a groundskeeper?”
He looks around and then tucks the clippers under his arm so he can sign, ::You shouldn’t be seen talking to me.::
“Why not?”
Quasi hesitates, then says, ::The other students won’t like it if you talk to the help.::
“I don’t care what the other students like.” I lift my chin defiantly.
As if he’s trying to prove me wrong, Gideon chooses that moment to stroll up to us. He’s got a piece of paper in his hand and when he reaches us, he wads it up and drops it on the ground at Quasi’s feet.
Gideon looks him in the eye. “Whoops. Guess you’d better pick that up.”
Quasi bends to get the paper, but Gideon kicks the crumpled ball away. I can’t take this fool another minute.
“Stop being an asshole,” I snap at him.
He just laughs. “It figures that you’d be over here. I guess you found one of your own kind.”
“What do you mean, my own kind?”
He looks at Quasi, then at me. “A Darkblood who doesn’t belong here.”
::I’m not Darkblood,:: Quasi signs, his face panicked.
Gideon laughs and mocks his sign language, waving his hands meaninglessly. I punch him in the shoulder, mostly because at the angle he’s standing, his throat is just out of reach.
He looks at me in surprise. “You hit me!”
“Yeah and I’ll do it again if you don’t knock it off,” I growl. “And I’ll be aiming much lower this time. Although, it’ll be hard to find it. Shall I fetch some tweezers?”
His face darkens with anger. He’s so pathetic that I laugh. One little comment is all it takes to get him close to losing his temper. I wonder how it feels to be so fucking weak. I hate bullies. I hate spoiled princes. And one way or another, Gideon is going to get a taste of his own medicine. They all are. Even Redera wouldn’t stand by while innocent people are being treated like muck.
He turns and stomps away like an infant.
Quasi turns to me with a sad little smile. ::You didn’t have to do that.::
“Yes, I did. Assholes like him need to be brought down a peg or two.”
He smiles a little wider and goes back to trimming the topiary. I get a weird urge to hug him, which is not like me at all. I walk away frowning. Me? Hugging someone I barely know?
I think I need to get laid.
>
The next class is double Familiar Handling. If they only knew all the ways I’ve handled Broin… I’m pretty sure that’s not the sort of handling they mean. I go up to my room to retrieve him. I really hate that I have to keep him in my room all day. It seems abusive to me, and I wonder what’s wrong with these white magic people if they’re so afraid of familiars. Why the fuck have them, then?
He’s sitting in his cage looking dejected when I go in. Jasper is already gone, so we’re all alone. I open the door to Broin’s cage and reach in to touch him.
—Hi, Daddy.—
He usually brightens up when I call him that, but today it seems like nothing’s going to make him happy. I’ve never seen him so depressed. I wonder if he’s been sitting grieving all day, and I feel guilty that I haven’t been. Any time my emotions try to claw to the surface, I force them back down. My excuse is that I need to stay focused on the business of finding this wolf and fitting in here, but the truth? The truth is that I’m afraid that if I let myself start grieving I’ll never be able to stop.
Broin hops onto my hand and I pull him free of his little prison. I stroke his feathers. “Sorry about this. I hate that I have to cage you.”
—I’m not a fan, myself.— He turns his head away, looking anywhere but at me. —Familiar Handling time?—
“Yeah. Too bad you’re not in your human form. We could teach them a thing or two about handling,” I joke, desperately trying to jolly him out of his depression. He was gone all night, and when I woke up, he didn’t speak all that much.
He makes a sound that’s a cross between a click and a snort.
“What’s the matter?”
Broin shifts his weight from one foot to the other, then admits, —I’m losing you.—
If I were the kind to tell white lies, I’d say something to make him feel better. But we both know the truth.
“In four years,” I remind him softly. “Not right now.”
—What will I do if he doesn’t let me follow you?—
I sigh. This morose ruminating isn’t like Broin at all. I think losing my family has hurt him as much as it’s hurt me. He’s just so good at hiding it. Is that why he left last night?
“You worship him, too. I don’t see why he’d make you stay behind. Honestly, I don’t know if you’d even want to come. He’s going to make me his entertainment and I don’t think that’s something you’d want to see.”
—Maybe, if I’m there, I can mitigate things for you.—
If he was in human form, I’d hug the stuffing out of him. For now, we have a stupid class to get to.
“Try not to think about it until you have to,” I advise. “We have wolves to hunt and people to mess with. Let’s just take each minute as it comes.”
He flies up to sit on my shoulder and leans against my head, his chest against my ear. I can hear his heartbeat. It beats so fast when he’s in bird form. I reach up and stroke his feathers, and he makes a contented trilling sound in the back of his throat.
—I’ll try,— he says. —No promises.—
Familiar Handling is a fucking joke. It’s all about how to call a familiar and how to bond with them. Seriously? If these yokels don’t know that much, they don’t deserve a familiar. It’s a waste of a magical animal.
I’m irritated, so I tell the girls to eat lunch without me and I take Broin on a walk around campus. For the first time, I’m seeing other students with their familiars, too. It’s refreshing to see all the animals, magical and ordinary alike, roaming the grounds freely. Just a pity they can’t do that all day, every day.
A large, fluffy white dog runs up to me and plants its paws in the dirt, stiff-legged. I know canines well enough to know that it’s not feeling friendly. A black cat follows, its tail lashing the air as it approaches, hackles up and giving a low growl.
I look around for the students these familiars are attached to. I’m not at all surprised to see Princess Pisspot and her Poser Posse coming my way. Aurora, Cinder and Rapunzel march up, followed by Gideon and Erik. The other one, Christopher, is absent from the gang.
Broin sends an aggressive caw in their direction, casting aspersions on their family lines. A sparrow lands on Rapunzel’s shoulder and whistles back.
Great. What now?
Aurora gets right up in my personal space. “I don’t like you.”
“Really? I had no idea,” I counter dryly.
“None of us like you. In fact, you’re not welcome here at Everafter. We don’t like witches.” She has the temerity to jab me in the chest with her manicured finger. “You need to leave before things get a whole lot nastier.”
I want to grab her finger and break it off. It’s getting harder and harder to act like my sister. I’m just not that nice. When I see shitty people do shitty things, something inside me snaps, especially when they’re claiming to be a good person. At least villains own our darkness. It’s a part of who we are and we don’t try to hide that. Fake people like this prefer to stab others in the back so they can bathe in their blood. I despise that sort of fakeness, and it’s exactly why I’ve been dishing out as much as these snobs keep giving me.
—Don’t stoop to their level. You’re better than that, Little Red.—
Broin’s right, of course, but I’m seriously starting to lose my shit.
I jab Aurora’s chest the same way she just jabbed mine. “You don’t own this school. Stop acting like you do and just leave me alone. Don’t you have anything better to do with your time?”
She tosses her hair and narrows her eyes into little green slits. “I’ll have you know that my mother is the queen of Talia and we are the richest kingdom in our world. I own everything… and everybody. If you touch me again, I will have you hanged.”
That’s it. I fucking lose it.
—Ravyn, don’t!—Broin shouts through our bond, but my anger erupts and all I see is red. Before I can stop myself, I haul off and slap the bitch across her pretty little face. She almost falls from the impact. Gideon catches her before she hits the ground, which by my way of thinking is unfortunate. I would have loved to see her face plant.
Rapunzel starts shrieking. “Who do you think you are? How dare you, a measly witch of all people, lay a hand on a princess?!”
Cinder claps her gloved hands together and speaks in a high-pitched tone. “Oh, things are getting interesting!”
Erik puts a hand on Rapunzel’s shoulder, holding her back. He looks at me with utter disdain. “I heard what you did in Enchantments class. I don’t know how you got into Everafter, but you’re evil, and you belong in Nevermore. I’m gonna send you back there one way or another.”
I plant my feet, ready to fight it out. “You’re all welcome to try.”
“Witch!” Rapunzel yells. “Darkblood! You should be hanged!”
My anger explodes into white-hot fury as images of Grandma and Redera invade my mind. The tree. The nooses. The fire. My heart’s racing so fast I can barely breathe.
“You’re so upset about my enchantments?” I pull my lips into a superficially calm smile. “Try this one on for size.”
I whisper the words of power and feel the dark energy rising in the depths of my being. It fills my chest, my arms, my fingers, and then Rapunzel’s blonde hair unravels from its braid. The locks turn into snakes. She screams in terror, frozen to the spot, her eyes wide with fear. It’s a beautiful thing and it only gets better.
She starts swatting at her head, running in circles like a raving lunatic. Her hair actually bites her! One of the snake heads in her new Medusa hairdo latches onto her cheek and sinks its teeth in.
Rapunzel wails and I can’t stop laughing, despite the fact that I’ve pretty much showed everyone here that I know dark magic. That doesn’t mean I’m a Darkblood, though, at least not to them. I’d have to do something way darker than a silly prank to convince them of that.
Aurora tries to counterspell, but she just manages to turn the snakes pink, which is really adding insult to injury. Erik b
acks away, completely useless, and the dog starts barking its head off. Gideon grabs its collar and holds it back. I guess I know where the dog belongs now.
A shrill whistle blows.
Mrs. Thornhart runs into view. “Stop!” she commands, looking equal parts terrified and aggrieved. “Turn her back this instant!”
Reluctantly, I flick my hand and remove the spell. Rapunzel’s hair stops writhing and turns back into her usual locks. Funny enough, when I removed the spell, it stripped away all of the spells she had—and turns out miss golden hair isn’t so golden without her dye job. Who knew? I’m surprised it wasn’t a wig.
Mrs. Thornhart is shaking her whistle at me. “This is unacceptable! Headmaster Lockwood has very strict rules about the misuse and abuse of magic! And he saw you.”
She points at a circular window high up on the southwestern round tower. I can see a shape that might be Professor Lockwood standing there, staring down at us.
Broin sighs, shaking his little head. —Good one, Ravyn. Way to fuck things up again on your second day.—
Fucking things up doesn’t even come close to describing my day.
—I’m sorry I disappointed you,— I tell Broin as I follow Mrs. Thornhart through the castle. She stalks past the Great Hall and down a long winding hallway. Her intense speed-walking makes it seem like she’s trying to outrun me. —But I’m not sorry for teaching that bitch—them all—a lesson. It had to be done. They were even bullying Quasi!—
—But look where it’s got you. Don’t you see? Small actions like a minor hex can have major consequences.—
—Are you going to punish me later?—
He pauses for a moment. I hurry after Thornhart up a set of spiral stairs. The sunlight pouring through the windows cause prisms to dance around me. It’s like I’m trapped in a kaleidoscope.
—You know I have to. Your recklessness is getting out of hand again. I let your tone slide earlier, but today could be enough to get you expelled.—
I sigh, but I won’t lie when I say a part of me quivers with excitement.
Hopefully we’ll be able to use the maintenance closet for a couple of hours. I haven’t been punished in nearly a week and the tension in my body craves release. Even then, Broin had gone easy on me that day for hexing Redera. It wasn’t my fault she was being so annoying and kept messing up all my potions.
Once Upon A Wolf: A Dark Academy Reverse Harem Bully Romance (Everafter Academy Book 1) Page 10