“That’s—” Silvus started to point.
“I know,” Rayner said. “We’re not moving yet. I’m going to watch, and everyone who hurts her—we kill.”
Rayner was hungry and not inclined to be merciful.
I woke shouting, “No. No!” I sat up in a rush.
I was breathing hard, but I calmed down when I heard the calm ticking of a clock on the mantel of our room’s old fireplace, and saw moonlight falling on my bed and Harris’ across from me.
He opened his eyes and slowly sat up. “Monty…you okay?”
“Man, I don’t know,” I said, irritated.
“Are you dreaming about them?”
“Yeah…” My hands were shaking a little, but I took a deep breath and steadied them. Harris and I had been best friends for so long, but we never had to face anything like this. We had fun. We didn’t talk about things like this very often.
Harris looked like he was thinking about this too. Life had gotten a lot more serious. I knew he was entangled in an engagement and a set path he didn’t want, and meanwhile I had…vampires. I used to talk to my familiar when something worried me, but now she was gone. I had to find someone else. I didn’t want to freak out Charlotte.
“They were in China looking for Lisbeth,” I said. “In one of her incarnations. She had bound feet and I think she had just been married. Rayner was furious and he—well, I didn’t get to see the whole scenario, but I think he killed her husband and her new family. I imagine he probably took her away. He didn’t even speak any Chinese.”
“So he was upset because they hurt her,” Harris said.
“I’m sure he was, but that was just what they did back then,” I said. “I mean, you can’t just murder people over a custom.”
“I suppose,” Harris said. “The vampires don’t follow our morals, but I have to admire the commitment. To love someone that much. If you live forever, you need something to live for, don’t you?”
“I don’t want to live forever…”
Harris paused. “There’s no such thing as living forever, really.” He sat up. “Do you trust me, Monty?”
I wanted to say no, but on a gut level I realized I still did trust Harris. Deep down, I knew where his loyalties were. Alec and I would always mean something to him. “Yes,” I said.
He looked surprised. “Well, I think if your sire gives you his blessing, we might be able to use your immortality as a bargaining chip somehow. You could give it up. You know what Professor Adams said about bargaining.”
“It’s dangerous.”
“I know,” he said, with a certain level of confidence that reminded me why we all wanted Harris around from the day we met him.
“They kidnapped you,” I said. “This wasn’t some master plan on your part.”
“Yeah, well, I work with what I’m given.”
There was something about him that was more magically sophisticated. He was willing to take on spells that skirted into dangerous territory. Our teachers would always warn us against that, but a great sans-pareil was willing to take risks and follow instincts.
“I trust you,” I said. “But I hope you know what you’re doing.”
“I’m trying to stop you from becoming part of that,” Harris said. “I know what I’m doing.”
Chapter Sixteen
Charlotte
I walked into class all excited for wand-making day. We were told to wear ‘outdoors-appropriate’ clothes so I dug up some shorts and a t-shirt with a turtle on it. I sat between Montague and Alec. Alec was wearing a tight t-shirt and jeans that was already wrecking my concentration. Montague was still wearing a suit jacket plus his hat, but I guess he needed sun protection. My old nemeses the Locke brothers were there, but they didn’t do more than grumble in my direction, while a couple of the guys from other dorms actually said hi.
Stuart watched us all file in. He was wearing a polo shirt, a tan jacket, and loafers, with his bad mustache, looking as un-warlock-like as usual, but in the back of my mind I still remembered how terrifying he was when he caught us at Professor Blair’s house. The weird thing about that evening was that Harris didn’t seem to notice, and usually Harris noticed everything.
Oh well. Wand-making. Wand-making!
“Good morning,” Stuart said. “I know it’s early. I hope you all had plenty of coffee, unless of course you have a caffeine sensitivity. This is a very important turning point in a warlock’s life. Today we’re going to begin making our wands. This wand must be made entirely by you and once you’ve made it, you’ll keep it close for the rest of your life. To make the wand, the first step is to go into the forest and find a branch.”
“The wand chooses the wizard…,” I said. I was excited that something fun and magical was finally happening without any drama. I mean, sure, wizards in books always did have plenty of drama, but you know what Harry Potter also got? Lots of shopping. Where was my shopping?
“Mr. Jablonsky, she said one of the forbidden phrases!” Some weaselly looking guy pointed at me. I think his name was Broderick or something.
“The forbidden phrases?” I asked.
“Right.” Professor Jablonsky pointed at an old, curling piece of poster on the wall marked ‘Forbidden Phrases’. “I would rather make an exception for Charlotte because she comes from the mundane world, but…we do have a list of forbidden phrases at Merlin College that I’m actually sort of surprised you haven’t violated yet…”
I looked at the poster and yes, one of the forbidden phrases was ‘The wand chooses the wizard.’ Others included ‘You shall not pass’, ‘Use the force’, ‘Only a flesh wound’ and ‘You killed Kenny! You bastards!’
“How old is this list?” I asked.
“We add to it whenever we have a bit of a problem with uhh…memes,” Stuart said. It took him a minute to find that word, and I was impressed he knew what a meme was at all. “Charlotte.” He took a step closer to my seat behind Cal, a guy who was always reading sci-fi novels and gave me a sympathetic glance. “TV and movies might be an enjoyable escape, but this is not an escape. This is a powerful moment in your life. That’s why the list is there, not to censor you, but to center you in your own life.” His tone was gentle and everyone listened to him.
He didn’t embarrass me in front of anyone. He made me feel like this really was important and that my life could really mean something.
“I understand,” I said. Okay, maybe you’re a good teacher, but you still confuse and frighten me.
“I know you do. All right, students. I encourage you to summon your familiars for this task. We will be leaving the bounds of the school wards for this.”
Familiars were appearing all around me, which was wild to see. It was easy to forget that anyone had a familiar besides me. Firian popped into existence next to me, and a cat familiar tentatively sniffed his tail. Alec had a fuzzy little spider on his hand while Harris—oh, of course—had a hawk.
“I hope you’re not afraid of her,” Alec said. “She really is shy.”
“I’m only afraid of spiders if they bother me,” I said. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“She won’t talk to you,” Alec said. “Most familiars aren’t as chatty as yours.”
It was true, the familiars mostly kept to themselves, but there were a few that seemed happy to be in the real world. I saw a hedgehog and a beaver talking to each other.
“So…cuuuute…,” I said.
“I packed up some food and thermoses for everyone,” Stuart said. “Some of you may be gone all day, so please collect a pack before you leave. Follow your instincts and be careful. You will sense the path of your wand, follow it, and ask the tree for permission to take it. If you have done everything right, the branch will break for you. Bring it back here and tomorrow we’ll begin work on carving. You can travel together, but this is something you need to do on your own.”
The guys were excited to break out of the gates and go wandering the woods. As we picked up our supply packs—there
was a special blood one for Montague—Stuart shoved a third food pack into my arms. “Just in case it takes a while.”
We were on top of a mountain, mind you. So when we walked out the gates, it was slightly uphill in one direction—following a bit of a ridge—gently downhill going down the road out, and sharply downhill in most other directions.
“I’m sensing something up the ridge,” Alec said. “How about you three?”
“Same,” Harris said.
The ridge led west.
“I’m getting northeast,” Montague said.
When I shut my eyes and concentrated, I felt a distinct prickle in the same direction. Northeast was definitely the direction with the most forbidding terrain. “Me too…”
“Are you guys going to be okay if we go that way?” Alec asked.
“I’ll watch over her,” Montague said, taking my hand in his.
The other guys in our class were also breaking off into small groups based on directions. For a little while, we had some other people around as we made our way down the mountain, half-walking and half-climbing. When we hit large shelves of rock, between Montague’s strength and Firian’s agility, they were able to help me. But I was aware that every time we climbed down something, eventually we would have to climb back up.
A truly terrifying prospect.
But somewhere out there was my wand tree.
“A nice, civilized wand shop sounds so nice right about now,” I said.
“Aw, that’s for those prissy Brits,” Firian said. “We Yanks just get out there in the woods, run some indigenous peoples out of town and kill all the beavers while we’re at it.”
“Sometimes I enjoy your sarcasm but today is not that day,” I said, while carefully stepping down a slope of slippery leaves.
“Be careful,” Montague said, putting a hand around my waist when I slipped a little. “Do I need to carry you down?”
“No…” My cheeks flamed as his hand slid a little lower, up the leg of my short shorts. I glanced back at Firian, expecting him to protest, but he just arched a brow.
“Do I need to leave?” he asked.
“No—we’re—not doing anything.” I jerked back from Montague.
“When are you two going to do the deed?” Firian asked, his tone deceptively light.
“How do you know we haven’t?” I retorted. “I don’t tell you everything.”
“I think I’d know,” he said. “And being secretive is not one of your strong suits.”
I was still blushing, stumbling on the leaves and had to brake by grabbing onto two spindly trees. “I—I never know how to talk about this when both of you are around.”
“It’s your body,” Firian said. “Your heart. Your life. If you want it, say so. I already told you, I’m happy when you’re happy.”
“I think I do need to carry you down,” Montague said, sweeping me into his arms and jumping off the next set of rocks.
“Yikes.” I grabbed his shirt, and then lingered on the feel of the strong body under his shirt as I looked at the way most of his hair was tucked behind his ear but a few dark strands grazed his stubbled cheek.
There was a part of me that wanted to succumb to marveling over all of these guys. The fact that they all wanted to be mine, and the fact that none of them were human. The cold of Montague’s skin and the fangs that sharpened when he was hungry; maybe they should have been unappealing, but instead I wanted to feel them. Every inch of them. Just like I wanted to know what Alec would do to me when the spell that kept us apart was broken. And I wanted to know where Firian went when he disappeared, and I liked to sink my fingers into his fur in fox form and then let him unleash his affections on me in human form.
I wanted more from them. I wanted to feel more, and show more.
Maybe I was scared of how much I wanted.
I think Firian knew that. He was pushing me not to be scared because that was his job.
Montague held me a little longer than he needed to before he set me on my feet, and I felt the air turning electric for a moment, as if a promise was made. “Are we getting closer, Charlotte?” he asked.
“Closer…” It still felt far away. “Where is your wand?”
“Right around here,” he said. “That’s why I was getting over-eager.” He smirked and before he let me go, he tugged on my arm so I couldn’t escape and brushed my lips with a kiss. “Come on.”
Montague led the way through brush to an old tree with a thick trunk. Other than the age, I couldn’t see anything special about the tree, but I did sense magic. Everything around us felt like magic. Of course, even before I knew I was a witch, forests like this seemed magic. My dad always said so, too. Ordinary humans knew what was there even if they didn’t know how to tap into the power. We couldn’t see any of the school buildings anymore, and I didn’t hear anything out here except wind and birds and the rustle of leaves in the mountain winds that rarely stopped.
Montague approached it slowly and put a hand on its trunk.
“This is the one,” he said. “Sacred tree…I request permission to take a branch from you to make into my wand. I apologize for coming to you as a vampire and not a straightforward ethereal warlock, for losing my familiar…but I assure you that my intentions are clear. I want to redeem myself for my mistakes.”
He put both his palms flat on the tree’s bark, then looked up. I didn’t say anything because he looked deep in concentration.
The entire tree rustled. One of the branches bowed to the ground from a height over Montague’s head, so he was able to put his hands on a smaller branch and snap it off cleanly.
“Magnificent,” he said. The branch was just the right size to carve into a wand, once the leaves and bark were stripped away.
“That seemed easy,” I said.
“I am a very talented warlock,” Montague said. “People forget that.”
“Do they?” I asked.
“How often do you sit around thinking about what a talented warlock I am?”
“I feel like my tree is still pretty far away…,” I said, looking at the woods beyond. They seemed to get thicker and darker the farther we traveled. “I don’t want to be here after dark.”
“Do you want your wand?”
“Of course.”
“Then, we have to find it. If we’re out past dark, we’ll cast light spells. It’s still summer. We won’t freeze.”
Yeah, my wand was out there. My wand was not a trip to the grocery store. My wand was like, at a place your dad only is willing to drive you on your birthday. My wand was up rocks and slopes and across a creek and then wandering through a meadow of flowers at the top of a ridge. By this time I was so exhausted that Firian and Montague kept offering to carry me but I felt like I had to make it to my wand on my own two feet.
The odd thing about the meadow was that it was so clear. All the trees grew up to the edge and just stopped. The meadow wound through the forest like a wide path. It was full of wild flowers that came up just past my knees, in yellow and white. The air was sweet with the honey scent of them. I started to feel like maybe we were not quite in the same world we started in.
At the end of the path was a blue tree. When I first saw it from a distance, I thought the afternoon light was just hitting it oddly, but no—the bark was smooth and a natural, mottled blue color sort of like lichens. The leaves were a bright light green, the way trees usually only look at the beginning of spring.
As I approached the tree, I suddenly slammed into an invisible wall. Hard. I staggered back, seeing stars. “What was that?”
“A protective field,” Firian said. “You probably have to fight your way through it.”
“What the hey? Montague’s tree didn’t have a protective field!”
“My tree also wasn’t blue,” Montague said. “Do you want help?”
“No, I’d better do it on my own. Once my face recovers…” I lifted my hands and tried to concentrate as I considered what spell might break an invisible barrier
. Probably not wind. Fire seemed too dangerous when we were alone in the woods, and it might not work anyway. The only option seemed to be a straight-out energy force.
I focused my breathing. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale, exhale, until I felt connected to my own center. I thrust out my arms—
The force of the spell lashed back at me and knocked me on my ass.
I was feeling more than a little irritated at my wand tree now, as Firian and helped me up. “Maybe you should—”
“Hsst,” I cut Firian off. “Let me try it first.” Maybe the lesson I’m supposed to learn is to use peace and not force. I slowed down my breathing again and tried to connect with the tree, but I was struggling a little. I liked trees. I was happy in the presence of trees. But it seemed like if I had a natural knack for bonding with tree spirits, I would have already found it back home. I was all too aware that I was still new at this and I didn’t always know what I was doing.
“What do you want from me?” I said, frustrated. “Montague’s tree was like, hey, here’s a wand, bro!”
Firian sniffed the air. “This is a weird place…”
“The energy isn’t bad,” I said.
“It’s not quite good either… I feel like someone’s been here recently. This is a strange smell. A…fae smell.”
“Fae?” We were so far from the school at this point, I knew we were on our own if something bad happened.
I whirled around, suddenly feeling like there were eyes on me. I caught a glimpse of a raven watching me from the trees. I immediately shot off a little wind spell toward the raven, shoving it out of its perch. “Maybe the tree isn’t the one testing me…”
The raven opened its mouth to caw, and instead a purple light emerged from its mouth and floated toward me.
“Ooh…” The light was mesmerizing and beautiful. I held out my hands to reach for it.
“Don’t touch it, Charlotte,” Montague said.
“But I want to…”
A Witch Among Warlocks: The Complete Series Box Set Page 34