Becoming The Red Witch: A Why Choose Academy Romance (Major Arcana Academy Book 1)

by Ana Calin

  “Professor Jones is right,” the Headmaster says. “I must say, Miss Reid, I’m intrigued.”

  He waves a hand, and Vanessa presents a silver tray with more or less the same ingredients I used when I tried my first love potion—which I intended to sneak to Sadie in the mortal world for the guy I know she’s craved for months. It’s magic lilies like those Ramses’ back garden, basil leaves, a silver chalice of sweet red wine—though it works best if it’s the querent’s blood—, but for something general it will suffice.

  I take a deep breath, avoiding the Headmaster’s stare. I realize the table is an altar; as I open my channels, I can feel its energy binding seven realms. I crush the ingredients into the chalice, mix them slowly using the silver spoon until the contents become pasty, then I hold it over the candles. I close my eyes as I chant the spell, my voice rising over the altar, and into the seven realms. My mind shuts down as I channel my energy into my words, and the words into the mixture. When I open my eyes, everybody is staring at me focused, assessing every gesture. I pour the potion into the crystal jar that Vanessa provides, and hand it over with trembling hands. I’m weak at the knees, this has been so draining.

  “Miss Morgan, please,” the Headmaster invites.

  Apparently Vanessa knows exactly what to do. She turns her back to us, a V-shaped cut in her dress revealing the white sinews of her back as she spreads out her arms. She begins chanting a spell that bounces off the high stone. Her spell pours like the song of a siren through our senses, even I’m completely taken with it as a portal starts to form in front of her. A swirling ball of liquid glass emerges from the dark archway right behind the Headmaster, the one that she’s facing. The liquid glass expands in waves until it fills the entire archway.

  Vanessa steps into the portal, the liquid swallowing her. Then it solidifies into a screen showing what happens on the other side—in the mortal realm. We experience everything through her eyes as her high heels click on the university hallways. Memories flood me, and tears come to my eyes, but I remember to control my emotions.

  My old university isn’t as empty as the magical version of it on the Flipside, possibly because mortals like getting together in study groups, or on campus with a six pack to admire its gothic architecture. The place has been built as a replica of Oxford, but Silverdale locals take pride in comparing it to Hogwarts. It does hold a special charm, and mystery, and now I understand why—because, of the Flipside, it is a supernatural Academy.

  Then something happens that makes my breath hitch. Vanessa rounds a corner and stops contemplating Sadie. My Sadie.

  “What? No, not her.” I rise from my chair, but Maverick’s calloused hand wraps around my wrist. His clasp is tight, forcing me to look down at him.

  “Your emotions,” he mouths. I sit back down under the scrutinizing eyes of the Headmaster and the Board. I look away, controlling my breath. I have to keep my emotions in check, the stakes are too high.

  Sadie is clutching her books, talking to a man that clearly intimidates her. He’s with his back at us. She keeps pushing her glasses up her nose, letting her straight black hair fall over the sides of her pretty Asian face. She’s a ‘co-production’ between an American billionaire and his Asian maid, which is why she’s so pretty; and why she lives secluded from his legitimate family. The guy is tall, well-built, but there’s something about him that betrays he’s a bully. And when he turns and I see Blade’s face, I shriek.

  “No, it can’t be!”

  “What can’t be, Miss Reid,” the Headmaster jumps at the chance. That’s when I realize he set this up. He must have. But I can’t let anger rise in me, that’s exactly what he wants.

  Silas pushes his chair back and walks behind me, placing his big hands on my shoulders, while Maverick keeps my wrist in his clasp. The Lord Protector’s shadow wraps around the three of us in protection as well. And between the three of them, I feel safe.

  “What is this, Samuel?” Ramses growls menacingly. “What are you really trying to prove?”

  “Whether Miss Reid’s potion works or not, of course.” But there’s provocation in his grin.

  We’re all painfully aware that all we can do is wait, but we don’t have to wait long. Vanessa is an expert at this. She manipulates Sadie and Blade to the downstairs café, where she plays the waitress and slips the potion into their drinks—Sadie’s having coffee and Blade, being a heavy drinker, is having scotch. Sadie has no choice but listen to him as he gesticulates aggressively and shakes his head, his hair soaked with sweat.

  She sips her drink, so does he, and in a few minutes everything slows down, their faces brightening in pleasant surprise. They stare at each other like they just had an epiphany, and he reaches over, taking her hands in his.

  “Look at that, it works brilliantly,” Vanessa’s voice fills the arena like the breath of a ghost, coming from everywhere. She must be whispering to herself in the mortal realm, and we hear it like we’re inside her head.

  All right, we’re half way through it, I tell myself. I just have to find a way and undo what the potion did. But then something happens, and things take a savage turn. The display on Sadie’s smart phone lights up, and Blade’s eyes shoot to the caller. She picks up, talks for only a few seconds, then redirects her attention to Blade. But he’s not the same man from a minute ago.

  He loses his temper with jealousy. He becomes demanding, they fight for minutes, until they’ve got all the patrons’ attention. She tries to calm him down, but he’s on fire, and she decides to leave—fearing for her safety, I can see it in her face. It’s self-preservation.

  She gathers her books quickly. But she can’t turn her back on such a guy, and I know it before she does. He grabs her arm and spins her around, slapping her hard across the face with the back of his hand. Her hair flies around her head, the books falling from her arms. And when she takes a trembling hand to her bloody nose, I lose it.

  I stand, rage racing through my veins. Maverick, Silas and Ramses try to hold me back, but it’s too late. The portal opens, the swirling black vortex, knocking down the table where Sadie and Blade have just sat. Demon arms reach out from it as Sadie shrieks, and Blade stares in horror. Patrons scream and run as the arms grab Blade and pull him into the vortex the exact same way they did on Halloween, only that this time they don’t tear him apart.

  “Do something,” the Headmaster calls, and Vanessa launches herself after him through the portal. But there’s nothing she can do to save him. She gets there only in time to watch the arms thrust him through the branch of a hell-tree like through a hook. The black tip spears his chest, pieces of his smashed rib cage sticking out, and blood swelling from the wound. Blood gurgles in his mouth, his eyes rolling back. He chokes on his own tongue that swells out, black and dripping with blood.

  My flesh crawls, and I would look away if I didn’t recognize my vision from the Halloween night. This is exactly what I saw back then.

  “But what can it be,” I whisper. “He died that night, the demons tore him apart.”

  “What returned wasn’t Blade, Lucia,” Maverick whispers.

  “It was a demon disguised as him,” Silas breathes. “Someone must have summoned him.”

  “But now,” Ramses’ Grim Reaper shadow whispers inside my head where no one else can hear him, “the power of hell destroyed the demon. And it did it on your command.”

  I realize. What I saw that night wasn’t a vision. It was a sentence.

  Not that it matters anymore. Now the Headmaster and the Board have seen enough. Nothing can save me. I’ve lost control over my emotions, despite everybody’s warnings. I’ve exposed myself as what I am—a creature made in hell. I don’t know exactly what the Red Witch is, but I know I can conjure demons into the world, and sentence people to death. They’re gonna throw me to the pit for this.

  Or not.

  “What in the cursed realms has just happened?” the Headmaster says, his vampire fangs glinting long and sharp. Seems he had a serio
us scare, but he’s not looking at me.

  I stare around puzzled, and realize the entire Board is staring at Ramses. Not one person is looking at me. Then I notice Rouen and Dacian, both of them sitting impossibly quiet in their seats. With their attention on the Lord Protector, no one minds them, so only I see the trails of magic simmering from them like heat above asphalt on a hot summer day. They’re casting an illusion over me. Over us all.

  “That man wasn’t a real man,” Ramses says, his deep, authoritarian voice bouncing off the walls. “He was a demon who fell for the girl because of that potion—powerful potion, by the way, Miss Reid. I had to kill that romance in its crib.”

  “It didn’t look like a romance to me,” Maverick puts in, supporting Ramses. “It looked like a demon with an obsession for a human he would have dragged with him to the pit.”

  Vanessa re-emerges from the portal, her eyes wild. “What in the cursed realms happened?”

  “The Lord Protector. He cast a satanic spell,” one of the floating entities says, its words like the whispers of a ghost.

  Vanessa gasps.

  My eyes fly to Rouen and Dacian. It was them, casting their illusions, so the Headmaster and the Board didn’t actually see what happened. In their version of the events, it was the Lord Protector doing my actions—rising from his chair, speaking in the spectral demonic voice.

  “I had to intervene before that girl’s life was destroyed for the sake of this test. She is Miss Reid’s best friend. Miss Reid would have never forgiven herself if her friend had ended up dragged into hell just so that she’d have a place at the Academy.”

  “But Lord Protector, you just summoned devils into the mortal world,” the Headmaster spells out as if Ramses somehow fails to see the gravity of it.

  “How else was I to remotely banish a demon from there?”

  The Board members murmur and lean in to each other, while the Headmaster rises from his chair. He stands to his full height. He’s as tall as Ramses, broad and impressive in his vampire cape, but Ramses’ shadow grows crushing. The Headmaster hunches under his cape, losing the stare-down.

  “Well, the test was a success, no question about it.” His dead vampire eyes find me. It feels like interacting with a corpse, and it shakes me to my bones. “Impressively effective, your potion, Miss Reid. Contrary to popular belief, producing an effective love concoction requires a rare combination of talent and skill. But there’s one thing...” He starts around the table in my direction. I freeze, afraid that coming close would mean him discovering the truth. Silas and Maverick both flank me on each side, while Ramses’ shadow grows even bigger. He doesn’t touch me, but I can feel his shadow brushing my shoulders. It makes the finest hairs stand on my spine—I can literally feel the breath of death on my nape.

  The Headmaster stops in front of me, his eyes sweeping over the three men that have risked everything to protect me.

  “There’s one thing that bothers me. The fact that this portal to hell has opened once before, on Halloween night. And it was you, Miss Reid, who summoned it.”

  It dawns on me—of course he knows. He surely set this whole thing up with Sadie and Blade in order to bring my emotions to boil. Maybe he was the one who pulled the demon inhabiting Blade’s body out of hell, and had him play the role.

  “No, it wasn’t,” Ramses intervenes. “That was me. The girl had shown supernatural powers already, and I had to extract her.”

  “You see, even if I could believe that, Lord Protector, why would you have summoned demons into the mortal realm when there were no demons to fight? Those boys were human, the Blade guy was himself. A prick, I’ll give you that, but still human. You could have saved her any other way.”

  “A prick, you say. And how would you know?” Ramses retorts. “Did you already know him that well at the time?”

  Tension thickens between the two men, and the Board is watching everything intently. They’re barely even breathing. This could cost the Headmaster his position. He’s incriminating himself more than he does Ramses, and he begins to understand that.

  “We could discuss this forever, and not reach a conclusion we both like, Lord Protector. So here’s what I suggest.” He turns to the Board, spreading his arms as he addresses them. “We’re going to enroll Miss Reid into the Academy—it’s probably best, given her shady abilities. No better way to control what we do not fully understand than keeping it under constant surveillance.” He turns to us, his dead vampire eyes triumphant on Ramses. “I will enroll Miss Reid, Lord Protector. But she will be staying at the Academy. Starting. Now. Under my permanent watch.”

  The blood drains from my head, and I can feel all three of my protectors tense. We all know what this means—the Academy will be a continuous test; I won’t be able to keep my emotions in check at all times, especially under the constant watch of the Headmaster. This has become personal to him. He’s intent on destroying me. But the stakes are much higher than that. If I fall, then the Lord Protector does as well, and that’s exactly what the Headmaster is after. He lusts after the Ramses’ position, his authority, and his boundless power.

  I’m doomed, one way or another. Locked inside the Academy, without my three angels, I’ll have no one to protect me. Sooner or later I will fall, and I’ll be taking them down with me. There’s no way out of this.

  Except...

  TO BE CONTINUED

  With

  RISE OF THE RED QUEEN

  November 2019

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