by S. W. Clarke
“Sir,” Liara began. “You must understand. She’s not like the fire witches of—”
“Of old?” He tapped the page. “Of course not. A fire witch has not been seen in decades, and thank the gods for that. She is simply a witch, Ms. Youngblood.”
Not a fire witch?
“May I see that?” I said, my voice hoarse.
He turned the file around, stabbed the spot with his finger. There, listed beneath Magical Qualification, were two words:
Air witch.
Chapter Twenty-One
When we came out of the library, night had descended on Singapore. Around us, the city twinkled with motion and lights.
I turned to her. “Liara, I’m sorry—”
But Liara had taken a sharp right toward the six-story mall.
I followed after in silence. She had been banned from the Kowloon Library for three major infractions: first, lying about her guest’s nature. Second, bringing a witch into the library. Third, for attempting to cast a hex in the restricted room on behalf of a witch.
She was pissed. I wouldn’t stop her from feeling her feelings.
We came to a smoothie stand outside the mall with an enormous orange set atop it with a straw stuck in. An Orange Julius. We had these in the United States, too.
I gestured to the smoothie joint. “Is this a point of power I didn’t know about?”
“I need one before we go back to the academy.” Liara stepped up to the counter, began ordering. When she had received two enormous smoothies, she extended one to me.
My eyebrows went up.
“Well?” She thrust the smoothie almost to my chest. “What, you don’t like orange?”
I accepted it. “Orange is fine.”
We went to sit at an outdoor table as mall visitors passed in and out of the enormous, lit-up glass structure. Both of us knew we needed to get back to the academy. We were guardians. But neither of us were willing to say so.
Liara crossed her legs, sipped, and sighed. “I used to drink these with my mother as a girl.”
“Not your dad?”
“No. Just my mom—it was a special thing between us.”
“That was kind of her.”
She shook her head, gazed toward the mall. “She wasn’t a great mother. Whenever she showed me the slightest bit of attention, I leapt to it like a dog.”
I took a long sip of the drink, absorbing her words. I sensed this wasn’t the right time for me to talk; she just needed to say what she’d said. If I tried to comfort her, she would reject it. If I made a joke, she would scoff.
Silence was better until she was ready to talk again.
She turned her attention back to me. “So, you’re an air witch.”
“You don’t seem so mad anymore.”
“Oh, I am. But right now I’m drowning it in sugar and milk.”
She’d said she was mad, but this was different. This wasn’t the Liara who’d been so stony and closed off.
“According to my birth certificate, I am.” I set the drink down. I sounded much calmer than I felt. “But it must be wrong. You’ve seen me use fire.”
“I don’t think it is.” She paused, staring at me. “Do you know why I can use lightning magic, Clementine?”
I shook my head.
She leaned forward. “It’s something that happens when you’re attacked by a fire witch. If you’re young enough, you absorb some of that magic.”
I jerked back. “But when were you…”
She glowered, willing me to finish the question. The answer lay in her eyes. Her angry, agonized eyes. Her parents were killed by a fire witch when she was a child. She had present for their murder, but somehow she had avoided death.
And so, at the greatest cost of all, Liara had gained the ability to channel lightning.
A jag of empathy lanced my chest. “I understand.”
She took another sip, waiting for me to speak again.
So I did. “You’re saying I was attacked by a fire witch?”
“I can’t see another answer. Magical birth certificates are never wrong.”
Here in the middle of Singapore, another piece of my past had been unlocked. And another question raised, too.
I hadn’t been born a fire witch. I was an air witch like my mother.
But at some point—if Liara was right—a fire witch had attacked us.
“Drink your smoothie,” Liara said. “You’re looking pale.”
I obeyed, taking a long sip. Eyes unfocused. Heart hammering so hard my fingers tingled.
“But,” I said, “If that’s true, I should be like you. I should be channeling lightning.”
She nodded. “You should. But you’re different. Don’t ask me why.”
Silence fell, the two of us contemplating the consequences of all that had happened. What we had encountered in the library. The fallout of our actions.
Lightning was the consequence of a fire witch attacking a child who used air magic. Which meant…
I sat up straight. “Umbra.”
Liara nodded slowly. “Umbra.”
Maeve Umbra had introduced herself to me with lightning from the sky. She’d called herself a wizard, but now I wondered if that was just a designation for an air mage who had been attacked by a fire witch.
At some point during her childhood, the same thing had happened to her.
“Liara,” I whispered, “I need to apologize. For the lie, for getting you banned—”
“You want my forgiveness?” she cut in. “Then answer my question.”
“What’s your question?”
“Why did you have me bring you here?” She swept a hand out. “Why the likeness deception?”
This was the inevitable moment. I’d expected it sooner, really. After all she’d gone through for me, she would want to know why. She deserved it.
Aidan had told me to tell her the truth. That she might have grown. She had, after all, bought me a drink.
I surveyed the area around us. We were unobserved, about as alone as we could be. “Will you swear to me, as a guardian, to keep anything I tell you after this moment to yourself?”
Liara’s eyes narrowed. “Maybe.”
I made a face. “Maybe?”
“I only keep secrets if there’s a good reason to do so.”
“You want a good reason? You’re a guardian—you’ve sworn to protect the world from the Shade. And if this secret gets out, our chances at that may be ruined.”
Her eyes narrowed. “All right.”
“What I’m about to tell you will endanger two lives.” I scooted closer. “But I don’t think you’ll mind which ones.”
“Whose?”
“The lives of two fire witches.” I lowered my voice. “Mine, and the Shade’s.”
Never had I so completely held her attention.
“You’re right,” she said. “I won’t mind.”
After I told her about the prophecy and the weapon, she folded her arms as she studied me. “If everything you’ve said is true, I want to see the weapon for myself.”
I gestured around. “Here?”
“We’re effectively alone. Just a bunch of regular humans out shopping for blouses and crockpots.”
“Why do you want to see it?”
“Because I need to know you’re not full of bullshit about this prophecy.”
I stared at her. It was a fair enough request, given everything she’d done for me today. Everything she’d sacrificed.
I needed to trust her. I needed her to trust me.
“Fine.” I reached into the tangibly manipulated pocket in my skirt, lifted out the rod. It gleamed ebony and radiated power under my fingertips, even here in this shopping center.
When it came out under the artificial light, Liara drew in a breath. “Where did you get it?” she whispered as I held it before her.
“At the center of the Boundless Labyrinth.”
Her eyes flicked up to me. “That’s why you took the other path. Why you
left me and Loki.”
I nodded. “The key led me to it.”
“This is why the boggans were angry.” She clicked her tongue. “I knew it was you.”
I half-shrugged. “All’s well that ends well, right?”
“Little ends well in life, fire witch. You should know that.” Her eyes flicked down. “So this is the Shade’s weapon.”
I glanced around. We weren’t noticed. “Half of it. It’s missing the chain and blade.”
“May I hold it?”
My hands jerked a few inches back. “No.”
She tilted her head with raised, skeptical eyebrows. “After everything, you think I’ll steal it from you?”
The truth was, I didn’t. But still…
“After the past two years, do you blame me for being wary?”
“Fair.” She raised one finger. “A compromise, then? Just one touch.”
I sighed. “One touch.”
Her fingertip lowered to the deceiver’s rod. When skin met metal, her lungs filled to the brim. She looked up at me, shock and a thread of fear clouding her face.
“Do you feel it?”
She nodded once. Her hand returned to her side. “I’ve never felt power like that.”
When we returned to the academy, Liara stayed mum as we walked down the forest path toward the grounds.
I had shown her the deceiver’s rod and the liar’s key. I had told her about the weapon and the prophecy. And a strange recognition had shone in her eyes as she observed them both and listened to me recite the prophecy itself.
When I was finished, she had sworn not to tell anyone else.
And I believed her.
Some part of me remembered her as the teenager who tried bullying me. Who’d shunned me for two years. Who hated me for being a witch.
And another part of me knew I could hold her to that promise.
It wasn’t just because she’d sworn as a guardian. It wasn’t just because she had a moral code. It was because she and I were more connected than we’d ever known.
At some point, the two of us had encountered a fire witch’s flames, and it had forever changed us.
She had gained lightning. I had gained fire.
And, after all, we had one other thing in common: a hatred of a witch called the Shade. Mutual hatred of a thing, I had long ago discovered, was pretty binding.
When we came to the clearing, a hard-faced Fi struck toward us. Her expression smoldered with anger. “You’ve been gone for hours.”
“We just went—” Liara began.
Fi’s lips curled. “Hours.”
I glimpsed someone being carried into the infirmary. It might have been Mishka; that black braid looked awfully familiar.
I looked back at Fi. “No.”
“Yes.” Her hands had formed fists, like she really wanted to commit violence. “We were sent out, and two of our chasers had vanished without any word. We were only seven.”
I felt so small. So witheringly awful. “Were you successful?”
Fi scoffed, turned away. “Gods no. It was the worst rescue we’ve done since I was inducted.”
“And Mishka?”
Fi was already walking away. “Go see for yourself. More than anyone, she deserves your explanation for why you two traipsed off this morning.”
Liara and I exchanged a look. Her cheeks were red, her face barely a semblance of composure. When she lifted her phone, she found a series of missed calls. She groaned. “No reception in the library. It’s blocked by the magic there.”
Together, we went to the infirmary. Outside the door, I could swear I spotted blood on the ground.
When we came inside, a scream resounded from one of the closed-off beds.
Mishka.
“Oh gods.” Nurse Neverwink flew past us into the storage closet, came out with all sorts of magical things. A small blue pot, a red pot, a capped syringe with a green liquid inside. “You two stay out of the way,” she snapped at us.
She was always flustered, but I had never seen her like this.
Liara fell into a seat in the waiting area, her face going into her hands. Her hair formed a veil over her head. She rocked a little.
I stared at the curtain surrounding the bed, which jostled as Mishka cried. And without realizing, I came step by step closer. I could almost see around the edge of the curtain, which had been halfway pulled aside by Mishka’s thrashing.
And when I came around and glimpsed her, I had to find steadiness with my hands. I gripped the edge of the opposite bed while Elijah and Isaiah held Mishka down.
Meanwhile, Nurse Neverwink injected her with the green fluid in the syringe. Not in her arm, because Mishka no longer had arms.
The injection went into her thigh.
So much blood everywhere. Her eyes wide as silver dollars, unseeing and frantic.
“Hold her!” Neverwink shouted. “I need to stop the hemorrhaging.”
The nurse uncapped the blue pot, began applying an ointment from inside as best she could to each of Mishka’s shoulders. As she did, the bleeding seemed to stop.
Mishka seemed to calm, or at least her thrashing tapered off. As did the screaming.
“The medicine’s taken hold,” Neverwink said with a sigh. “You can let her go.”
Elijah and Isaiah, both with blood on their clothes, released her. One of them glanced at me, lean-sitting on the bed. The same anger Fi had held entered his eyes, and just as quickly dissipated at the sight of the tears down to my neck.
He came over to me. “She’ll regrow the limbs.”
I shook my head, wordless. “I…”
“She’ll be okay, Clementine. She’s tough.”
Okay was such a relative term. Could you ever really be okay after losing both your arms, even if you regrew them?
In the waiting room, the chair squeaked as Liara kept on with her soundless rocking.
When we’d returned to the academy, I thought we might be questioned. I thought our excuse was fine. Good enough.
Now I knew no excuse was good enough.
We had been irresponsible. I had chosen not to inform Fi or the others because I knew they would ask questions. I knew it would raise curiosity, and I had thought my mission was more important than theirs.
Maybe it was in the grand scheme of things. But what did the grand scheme matter when you were the one who had to lose your arms?
It didn’t matter at all.
Neverwink spotted me. Pointed at the door. “Out! Gods, didn’t I tell you to keep out of the way?”
I turned, numb, and passed into the sitting room.
One of the twins helped Liara up, and the two of us left the infirmary. Outside, the sun felt too kind. Too warm for what we deserved.
The twin with blood on his face glanced at me. “Where were you both?”
“Singapore,” I whispered. Not that it really mattered. “I asked to visit Liara’s home for an hour.”
“A visit.” His voice was laden with wistful sadness. “But you were gone for much longer.”
I leaned against the tree trunk. “I know.”
Liara had slid down the trunk, sat with her knees up. This had affected her in a way I’d never seen.
As I stared at the ground, I realized I had never had any real expectations placed on me in my life. Not ones that mattered. So I had no idea how to handle those expectations. Those consequential responsibilities.
And I made a resolution.
I would never again think of myself first in this way. What mattered were the lives around me.
I raised my eyes to the twin. “This won’t happen again.”
The other twin shook his head. “For all our sakes, I hope not.”
After I left the infirmary, I booked it for Hexes.
Of course, I was still late.
When I came to the meadow, Ora Frostwish was displeased. Though she only showed it in her posture—crossed arms, her mouth the size of a raspberry. Or maybe it had nothing to do with my latene
ss, and everything to do with our arguments during class.
Maybe she wasn’t displeased at all. Crossed arms and pursed lips could just be her way of being. Truth was, I still didn’t know Frostwish at all. She was a rare enigma to me.
It helped to be emotionally drained and numb; in this state, I couldn’t be properly anxious about what she would do or say. I could only go through the motions.
I came jogging through the meadow. “Sorry, Teach. Was indisposed.”
“Indisposed?”
“Guardian things.”
Frostwish’s lips unpursed. “Is that right?”
“Afraid so.”
She surveyed me, head to toe and back. “I thought we would start today on a different note.”
“Whatever you want. Though I’m fully prepared for another hour of being unable to move.”
Her lips curled. “The likeness deception. I want you to show me.”
She really did know how to cut through the chaff. But I knew this would come up again eventually. “I don’t know how I did it. That day was a fluke.”
“Flukes can be recreated.” Her arms lowered. “You read about it in a book. You know the basics. Attempt it again for me.”
Well, she didn’t know she was actually right about the reading-it-in-a-book part, as of a few hours ago.
“Professor…”
“Please.” She gestured toward the nearest tree. “Conjure your likeness over there. Just try.”
I turned toward the tree, fingers rubbing against my palms. In my periphery, I could sense her watching me with absolute attention. It was obvious: she was onto me.
I still remembered the words I’d mouthed in the library. They were all I had right now; I couldn’t very well bring out the weapon.
“I’ll try,” I said, and closed my eyes.
The best I could do was everything I had done before.
“Mealladh coltas,” I whispered into the air. When I opened my eyes, nothing had changed. Nothing at all.
I glanced at Frostwish. “So you know the words,” she murmured. “And you pronounce them like a fae.”
“I just read them in the book.”
She stepped closer. “Do you speak Faerish, Clementine?”
“Not well. I’ve heard my roommate speak it, and studied it some…” Which wasn’t entirely true, but how else could I explain my pronunciation?