Unstable: Witches

by Rye Brewer

  I hated that.

  I never had any reason to wonder if a family or coven member was lying to me. Lying wasn’t something that witches did to each other, since it compromised the strength of the coven.

  I flinched as the inferno continued to range outward from my spine to the very tips of my fingers. I crawled back to my bed and reached out for the collection of basic potions I kept on the window. It was as though my joints were made of needles, and if I moved too quickly, a knife was being plunged into my muscles.

  This was definitely not normal. This couldn’t be shrugged off as the common cold or symptoms of stress.

  There was something deeply wrong with me.

  With shaking hands, I undid the stoppers of two small vials of fever reducer and painkiller potions, taking a considerable swig of each.

  Then I lay back on my bed and shut my eyes against the faint morning light coming in through the blinds.

  The sooner I could talk to my mother about what was going on with my body, the better. I had plans to meet up with Aidan that evening after dinner in a highly remote part of the castle. He said it wouldn’t be easy, and that though skilled necromancers could talk to dead people with very little issue, helping non-necromancers to have an entire conversation with someone who was no longer living would be more difficult and might even take several attempts.

  I was willing to do whatever it took. That evening was meant to be our first practice session. I had no idea what it would entail, but I was ready to follow all of his instructions.

  I only hoped that I would still be able to meet up with him, given my current condition. I’d managed to tell him the truth about wanting to speak with my mother, but I wasn’t about to come clean to Aidan Grimsbane about the fact that I had a creepy, painful rash on my back. Not only that, but I was a fire witch running a fever that would probably kill a normal human.

  Plus, if I didn’t get better, that meant I wouldn’t be able to see Calder later. Tonight was the night we were supposed to be meeting up at the astronomy tower. If this stupid illness forced me to miss out on the opportunity to receive a romantic, starlit kiss from Calder, I’d set this entire castle on fire.

  Maybe I’m being dramatic, but still.

  The other times the illness took over me, the symptoms had faded within an hour. I figured my best bet was to skip my first class of the day, claiming that I wasn’t feeling well—which wasn’t a lie—and wait for the fire to fade away so that I could be return back to normal.

  Then, I could meet up with Aidan and practice whatever necromancer things he insisted I become familiar with and move one step closer to speaking with my mother and getting answers. And then I could go on my date with Calder.

  It was a perfect plan. However, the only problem was, the fever didn’t fade after an hour. It raged on, leaving my body weak and disgustingly sweaty for hours. It came in waves; sometimes I felt well enough to get up and stand by my window in order to breathe in cold air, but other times the fever would hit again so hard that I had no choice but to lay face down on the floor of my dorm and wish for it to abate.

  Kendra knocked on my door again that afternoon to check on me. I’d sent her a witch message earlier to let her know that I wasn’t feeling well and to collect any assignment from our professors.

  I still didn’t open the door for her, though I was wracked with guilt that I was keeping something like this from my best friend.

  I remained in my room for the rest of the day, utterly helpless. Every few minutes, I would check in the mirror to see if my eyes had turned black like they did that one time in the restroom, but they remained their usual hazel. It seemed that the illness had symptoms that were erratic and unpredictable.

  For a brief moment, I found myself wondering if I was going to die. Maybe this disease was terminal. Maybe I would fall asleep in this feverish state and never wake up, and then Nurse Dahlia, as a soul reaper, would be the first one alerted to my death because she would see my ghost trying to pass onto the other side. Then she and all the professors would come rushing to my room to find my dead body and poor Kendra would be left wondering if she should’ve forced open my door earlier to save my life. And Calder and I wouldn’t get to have our date.

  But, hey… if I died, at least I wouldn’t need stupid Aidan Grimsbane’s help to talk to my mother. If I was dead, we’d both be in the same realm. I could talk to her all I wanted.

  Disturbed with how much I was contemplating my own death, I forced myself to shut my eyes and attempted to take a nap.

  By some miracle, I was able to fall asleep despite the pain.

  When I woke up with a start a few hours later, I glanced out of the window and noticed that the sun had already set. I cursed and sat up lightning fast, flinching at the way the sudden movement caused my inexplicably sore muscles to sear in protest.

  Thankfully, however, it seemed that the pain had abated slightly. Either that or I was somehow getting used to it.

  An insistent knocking on my door alerted me to the loud noise that assumably awakened me in the first place. It must be Kendra, checking on me yet again.

  Grateful that I was able to walk across the cool tile of my dorm without too much lightheadedness or pain, I silently glanced in the mirror. Lifting up my shirt, I noticed that the strange scar had almost entirely disappeared, leaving nothing but a faint, jagged red line between my shoulder blades.

  I breathed a sigh of relief. Whatever flare-up had taken over my body that morning was clearly on its way out.

  “Kendra, I’m fine, I promise. I just don’t want to get you sick,” I called through the door. I hoped she’d take my word for it that I was merely concerned about how infectious I was and keep her distance.

  “Moira,” said the voice on the other side of the locked door. “It’s me… uh, it’s Aidan.”

  I froze.

  Then, panic striking my body like a bolt of lightning, I looked at my watch. It was well past the time I was supposed to meet Aidan. In fact, it was almost time for me to meet Calder at the astronomy tower.

  There was no way I could make it up all those stairs. My limbs were weak, and my skin felt disgusting from the amount of sweating I’d done earlier.

  Why was Aidan here? I assumed that, if it appeared I stood him up—which, admittedly, it did seem that way—he’d just brush me off and not give it a second thought.

  “Uh, sorry I missed our… meeting,” I said back.

  “You know necromancers can’t get sick with the same things witches do,” Aidan responded. “You can open the door.”

  With a loud sigh, I unlocked the door and cracked it open.

  Aidan was standing in the hall, hands shoved deep in the pockets of his school uniform trousers, though he’d abandoned the blazer and white button-up for a plain black tee that had an unfamiliar band logo on it.

  “Kendra mentioned at dinner that you weren’t feeling well,” Aidan said, seemingly by way of explanation.

  I raised a single eyebrow at him. “So, you came to check on me?”

  He snorted and rolled his eyes. “No. Just came to reschedule.”

  But something about the way he said it didn’t sound entirely genuine. Who knew? Maybe he was looking forward to an opportunity to humiliate me and was bummed that he didn’t get the chance that evening.

  “By the way, you look like hell,” he added.

  I glared at him. Yeah, there was no way he had showed up on my doorstep out of the goodness of his heart.

  “You’re always such a pleasure to interact with, Aidan Grimsbane,” I grumbled, moving to shut the door on his stupid dimpled face.

  He lifted a hand and caught the door before I could slam it.

  “Sorry,” he muttered. “Sometimes I just speak without thinking. Um, but anyway… if you still needed help with… you know… then we could meet up tomorrow evening after dinner? If you’re feeling better, that is.”

  I opened my mouth to tell him that would be fine when, out of nowhere, it felt a
s though my lungs were on fire. I gasped and doubled over, clasping a hand over my throat as an uncontrollable coughing fit took over my body. My vision blurred and it felt like I was suddenly stuck inside a burning building, with smoke engulfing my airways.

  I was vaguely aware of Aidan cursing loudly and stepping into my room to catch me before I collapsed on the floor.

  “Moira? Moira, are you okay?” he asked. The authentic worry in his tone would’ve been touching if it didn’t feel as if I was literally suffocating.

  I gasped for breath as the smoke curled up from the center of my chest and filled my throat. Wheezing, I clutched at Aidan’s t-shirt and tried to explain that I couldn’t breathe. It felt like my lungs were literally on fire.

  Maybe I was imagining it, but as I coughed, it looked as if real clouds of thick, black smoke were erupting from my mouth. But that didn’t make sense. How could that be possible?

  Were my witch powers acting up again? Had I somehow figured out how to literally breathe fire?

  Before I could think my way through any of those questions, a dizziness took over my head that I couldn’t fight against. As Aidan held me in his arms on the floor of my dimly lit dorm, I saw the entire world go black at the edges.

  And then I slipped into unconsciousness.

  10

  I assumed I was dreaming.

  There was no other explanation for the fact that I was flying.

  No, not simply flying. Soaring.

  Jagged, snow-capped peaks rushed by, miles below me, as I glided through an unfamiliar mountain range. The air was cold, whipping my hair around and chilling my skin, but it wasn’t entirely unpleasant.

  In fact, it felt incredible.

  I’d never been freer in my life, floating high above the world. I felt my face break into a smile as I tilted my outstretched arms and veered gently to the right to circle over a particularly high mountain peak. The wide mouth of a cavern was beckoning to me and, as I approached, an inexplicably familiar figure with black hair and black eyes stood in the snow and gazed up at me.

  I couldn’t explain how I was able to recognize the man, but I flew toward him with an eager comfort in my heart, as if I simply couldn’t wait to be near him.

  Looking to my right, I noticed something peculiar.

  I wasn’t flying with my arms, though the familiar pale limbs were extended to either side of my body.

  Rather, I had wings.

  Wait. What?

  I startled awake with a half-shout of surprise.

  No longer drifting through icy summits, I found myself once again on the floor of my dorm.

  Surprisingly, I felt normal again. The fever and the aches and the smokiness in my lungs were completely gone. The only thing that remained was the faintest itch in the center of my back, muscle memory from my dream.

  Or was it a hallucination?

  More bizarre than the fact that I was miraculously recovered was the fact that Aidan Grimsbane was kneeling over me, staring down at me with a level of concern that I didn’t even know he was capable of.

  “Moira,” he breathed. His shoulders relaxed instantly when he saw that I was awake, and he leaned back on his heels. “What the hell just happened?”

  I cringed and sat up slowly. In the chaos of whatever had just occurred, the door to my room had closed, leaving me and Aidan in almost total darkness now that the sun had completely faded from the sky.

  “Ugh,” I moaned, waving a hand to light the dozen or so candles that dotted my room. They glowed to life with gently flickering flames immediately. Aidan stared at the display of magic for a moment before turning his attention back to me.

  “Are you okay?”

  Did I hear him correctly? Was Aidan Grimsbane, the boy who bullied me from almost the second we set foot in middle school, asking if I was okay?

  “Um,” I replied. “I think so?”

  “Are you sure? Because you literally just fainted in my arms.”

  I snorted and shrugging, trying to play it off like it was nothing. Unfortunately, that kind of stuff clearly didn’t work on Aidan.

  He was watching me as if he was waiting for me to explode. Or burst into flame.

  “It’s nothing,” I insisted. “I just get stressed out sometimes and then faint. That’s all that was. It’s kind of like… um, it’s like a panic attack.”

  I was lying out of my ass, but I prayed I was at least halfway convincing.

  In hopes of persuading Aidan that what just happened was nothing to worry about—and definitely nothing to go spread rumors about—I stood up and walked over to my desk, perching on the edge of it casually.

  “Whatever you say,” Aidan responded, rolling his eyes. He stood up from the floor as well but didn’t move toward the door. Instead, much to my utter shock and vague disgust, he approached me and narrowed his eyes, observing my face.

  “What?” I leaned away to put distance between us.

  Aidan shrugged and stepped back. “Nothing. It’s just that I could’ve sworn you were coughing up smoke before you fainted. I didn’t take you as a rule breaker.”

  I snorted. He was accusing me of smoking cigarettes?

  “I don’t expect you to be an expert on matters that literally have nothing to do with you, but it’s actually very normal for fire witches to have reactions like that,” I told him. It was another lie, but he didn’t need to know that.

  Aidan still didn’t look like he believed me. That was the problem with him. The two of us were far too well-versed in skirting the truth and getting away with small rebellions at Under Realm Academy. We knew too well how to wiggle our way out of problems.

  And he was clearly suspicious of me.

  “Seriously? That’s normal?” he replied. “That was pretty freaky, Moira. I thought I was going to have to bring you back from the dead or something.”

  I laughed lightly as if he was joking. Of course, bringing people back from the dead was illegal. There was a difference between the practice resuscitation on animals that soul reapers did and the reality of them—and necromancers—actually bringing real humans back to life.

  No part of me believed that Aidan would actually break the law to save me, of all people, but the sentiment was oddly endearing, nonetheless.

  “No worries,” I insisted, pushing him toward the door. “I don’t plan on dying any time soon.”

  “Okay… do you want me to go get Kendra or something?”

  He was offering to fetch my best friend for me? Who was this boy who’d taken over Aidan Grimsbane’s body? He was almost… nice.

  “No, that’s okay,” I told. “Really, I’m okay.”

  But Aidan was barely listening to me.

  He leaned in toward me again, hovering just inches in front of my face. I froze at his sudden proximity. I’d never seen him this up close. His thick eyelashes fluttered as his dark eyes observed my face with shred intensity. Part of me wanted to slap him away, but I was so shocked that I could barely make any of my muscles obey.

  His skin was smooth, and, despite his hardened personality and harsh attitude, his cheeks looked soft and pliant. It always annoyed me that a boy who caused me so much trouble was so endearing on the surface. Sometimes I wondered if he wasn’t really a necromancer, but rather a demon that possessed a sweeter human boy’s body.

  “Uh…” I said, eyes growing wider as he continued to stare. “What are you doing?”

  “Your eyes look kind of weird, Moira,” he muttered.

  My stomach dropped.

  Not again.

  Blinking furiously, I pressed a hand to his chest and pushed him further away, almost at the door. Of course my eyes would choose that exact moment, when I was in the presence of someone I didn’t entirely trust, to turn black again.

  At least, that’s what I assumed was happening.

  “Hmm? No, it’s probably just the dim lighting,” I told him, shoving him and opening the door. “Candles and all that. Plus, I’m super tired.”

  “No, t
hey’re, like, black,” he insisted, twisting to get another glance at my face.

  I squinted my eyes at him in a glare, hoping it would make it harder for him to see that my eyes were no longer the hazel of a witch with a fire affinity.

  “Don’t worry about it,” I practically snarled. We were halfway into the hall.

  “Moira, I can bring you to Nurse Dahlia if you need me—”

  “Aidan. Get the hell out of my room.” At my words, a few heads poked out of the rooms adjacent to mine.

  Aidan fell quiet, clearly embarrassed.

  I bit my lip, feeling bad for making a scene. After all, he was only trying to help.

  Wait a second… why did I care about making Aidan Grimsbane feel bad? Hadn’t he gone out of his way on countless occasions to make sure that he could make me feel bad?

  Ugh, whatever.

  As Aidan stood in the hallway, staring at me as if I’d lost my mind, I didn’t care that he could clearly see how black my eyes were under the fluorescent lights.

  “Honestly, Aidan,” I said, softening my voice. “It’s normal. I’m fine. Thank you for checking in on me. I’ll see you tomorrow night.”

  Aidan frowned and leaned in close to me again. “No, it’s weird. Your eyes are normal again.”

  Despite myself, I reached up a hand and touched my brow with my fingertips as if I could feel the normal color returning.

  Damn it. Why did that happen? What was the point?

  I pretended to laugh it off. “See? It was just the lighting. So weird, right?”

  “But I thought you said it was because you’re a witch under stress—”

  “Aidan?” Called a painfully familiar voice from down the hall. “Moira?”

  Both of us spun at the same exact time to witness Calder making his way down the dormitory hallway toward us. I groaned internally. I just knew that all the witches on my hall were going to have something to say about the fact that our private quarters of the castle were crawling with necromancers and demons because of me.

  “Calder,” I breathed, surprised to see him. He looked handsome, his hair styled and his cheeks rosy as if he’d just been out in the cold. He was wearing a deep green sweater that looked warm and soft.