by Hannah Wick
Rose sighed. “Fine. Let’s just get this over with.”
“We need the ingredients. I only remember the words. It was enough to disturb the spirit, but I need the whole spell to banish it.”
“All right… you said something about light and power, and a line about desire…”
“Yeah. And a line about negative spirits. Maybe it needs a light, like mentioned in the incantation?”
“That would make sense, right?” Rose asked. “So, a candle, and maybe a quartz for strength…”
We flipped through the pages in silence, my frustration growing in tandem with the pile of useless books beside us. As the light was starting to fade, I closed the last of the books. “It’s useless. There’s nothing there. I’m starting to think my parents made up the damned spell themselves.”
“You got the spell from your parents?” I glanced up in time to see her blanch and then continue. “Are you sure it can be trusted?”
I shrugged. “I’ve got to try something, haven’t I?”
Whatever answer she was about to give was interrupted by the sounds of footsteps pounding in the hallway. I shared a worried look with Rose, then threw open the door and found myself staring at Cassandra’s pale face.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, trying to keep the alarm from my voice.
Cassandra stopped in the doorway, refusing to look at Danny’s unconscious body. “On the way back from brewing the potions, we came across a dorm room… the door was open.”
“Cass, what happened? What did you see?”
“There have been more victims. A whole dorm room, they’re as bad as you were. And there were three more amulets in a single room.”
“How many people?” a voice asked from behind me. Healer Alice.
“Five,” Cassandra said. “Five people, and they’re all in a coma.”
Alice nodded, her face calm, but I could see the anxiety in her eyes.
“Take this,” Alice said, pulling a vial from one pocket and thrusting it at me. “It’s the potion. I’ve taken to carrying some… just in case. Share it between the students. I’ll alert a senior healer, and bring more vials. Quickly, now.”
I looked at Rose, torn.
“Go,” she told me. “I’ll stay with Danny.”
I nodded, and stood up to leave. “If the spirit comes back while I’m gone, use the light shield spell. Do you remember it?”
“Light De–”
“That’s the one,” I said, cutting her off. “Use it. It’ll keep the spirit away until we have the spell finished.”
Going against my better judgement, I left the medical ward and made my way over to the dorm room with Cassandra.
The students were in their beds, faces pale. Their lips were almost blue. Each of them was icy cold, and I gave them a few drops from the near-empty vial Alice had handed me. Not enough to bring them round, but enough to help them hold on, at least.
“Is there any heating in here? They’re frozen.”
I walked over to the other end of the room. Kneeling, I inspected the central heating. It had been turned off. And there was a window open. Why would they do that?
Alice and the senior healer raced into the dorm room, armed with more vials.
I breathed a sigh of relief. “They’re in really bad shape.”
“We need to let them rest, and hope we aren't too late,” Healer Alice said, feeding the potion to each student by carefully dripping the liquid into their mouths. One by one, they began to open their eyes.
The two healers shared a look, then the senior sighed. “Alice, please inform the dean that there has been another incident.”
Alice nodded, tucked her hair behind her ear, and hurried out of the door.
Chapter Sixteen
“Good morning, everyone,” Tabatha said. “Take a seat, please. We’re going to be doing something a little different today.”
There was some scraping and murmuring as everyone settled into their seats, and then Tabatha held up her hands for silence.
“As you all know, you will be required to sit a number of exams at the end of the year – that’s only three weeks away, Sharon – so today I’ll be taking you through the sort of tests you might have to face.”
The murmuring started up again, and I counted back in my head. I hadn’t realised we were that close to our exams, and now that I thought about it, I had literally no idea what that might involve.
“The first test involves moving a feather with your magic. We’re going to be doing this one at a time. Do I have any volunteers to go first?”
Shockingly, no-one rushed to be the first to utterly humiliate themselves in front of the entire class, and after a long moment, Tabatha’s gaze fell on me. I slumped in my seat.
“Kiera?”
Reluctantly, I rose to my feet, and Tabatha produced a feather and held it on her flat palm. I nodded, and took a slow breath. It was going to be fine. I’d done this test a hundred times. Just because I’d never actually managed it before, and now had fifty witnesses to my impending failure. I closed my eyes and put the image of the feather firmly in my mind, imagining the soft ruffles brushing my skin.
“Feather!” I called, taking care to enunciate the word properly.
I felt a whisper of softness against my hand, like the merest breeze touching my palm. Wishful thinking, most likely. Still, I tentatively opened first one eye, and then the other, and found myself staring at a single white feather sitting in the middle of my hand.
For a moment, I stared at it in stunned silence. I cleared my throat, and a grin tugged at my lips. Around me, the rest of the class were looking distinctly bored.
“Excellent work, Kiera,” Tabatha said. At least one person seemed impressed that I’d pulled it off. “Let’s move on. Next, you’ll attempt a light shield.”
I narrowed my eyes. This was all starting to sound very familiar. A feather and then a light shield?
“This is nothing to do with our exams, is it?” I asked, without really meaning to. But once the question was out, all eyes in the room fixed on the lecturer.
“What an odd question. Whyever would you think that?”
“This isn’t my first time. I have done dozens of these tests, I know what they are for.”
She sighed, and sat back on the edge of her desk. “Yes, I suppose you have.” Something that wasn’t entirely unlike pity washed over her face, and then she seemed to reach a decision.
“You’re right, of course. You won’t face any tests like these in your exams.”
“We won’t?” Sally asked, sounding as confused as the rest of the class looked.
“No, you won’t.”
“No,” I said, a little more fiercely than I intended. “Because these tests are designed to see if your magic has been damaged.”
“Damaged?” I didn’t catch who said it, but he sounded scared. “By what?”
Abruptly, I knew why Tabatha had decided to do this test today. Fear churned in my gut, and I forced the words out.
“By the charm that drained everyone.”
Like the one that had drained me. After I’d spent all that time fighting for even the barest drop of magic, was I going to end up right back where I’d started? Magicless?
“But that doesn’t mean there’s any cause for panic,” Tabatha said, raising her hands again to quell the rising volume in the room. “The dean has asked me to carry out these tests merely as a precaution. Now, shall we proceed?”
Her eyes pinned me in place, and I swallowed my reply with a nod.
“Excellent. As I was saying, the next test is to conjure a light shield. Off you go.”
I raised my hand and summoned my magic into the palm of my hand, feeling it burn with intensity.
“Lumen Decarium!”
Light exploded from my hand and flickered around the room, creating almost as many shadows as light. As light shields went, it wasn’t impressing anyone.
“Good work, Kiera, well done,” Tabatha said. I snorte
d.
“That was hardly worth celebrating. That shield wouldn’t stop a shadow, let alone anything else.”
“You’ve been through an ordeal recently,” Tabatha reminded me softly. “You just need to give yourself more time.”
One by one, the rest of the students began their test, even those who had felt no changes in their magic, and who, as far as we knew, had never been affected by the vampiric charm. All of them managed to summon the feather into their hands. Then, copying the light shield spell, they manifested a large bright bubble around them. The lights shone like a giant bulb before fading into a shimmering barrier. Some of the shields were weaker than others, and I saw Tabatha making a note of their names. I had no doubt they’d be summoned to the medical ward later today.
By the time the testing was done, only a few people didn’t look exhausted. It was weird. Nearly the whole class was looking worn down. Curiosity getting the better of me, I relaxed my mind, focusing on the auras around the class. Slowly, they came into view, like a mist clearing after a foggy day. Their auras had a grey tint to them. That concerned me. I wasn’t sure how bad it was, but I knew it wasn’t good.
After the lesson, I headed down to the library. I hadn’t forgotten my promise to help Danny banish his father’s spirit, and I hadn’t done a whole lot to follow through on that so far. I skipped dinner, and it was late when I finally made it back to my dorm, exhausted and irritable.
“Kiera, thank God you’re back!” Cassandra said, lunging to her feet the moment I stepped through the door. I took one look at her gaunt, pale face, and terror welled up inside me.
“What is it?” I said, spinning round and searching the shadows. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s awful.”
“What is?” I almost snapped, fear setting me on edge.
“Devron’s having a party,” she said. I frowned.
“That’s it? That’s your disaster?”
“Of course not,” she said, gesturing to her bed where half of her wardrobe was laid out. “The disaster is that I have nothing good to wear.”
“Are you sure it’s the party you’re stressed about, and not something else?”
“Yeah. Why else would I be this frustrated?”
“I don't know. I’m going to have a guess and assume it was Devron himself who invited you?”
“Well, yeah, he did invite me. But he invited loads of people.”
“He invited the whole class?” That was worrying. That was a whole lot of students – a veritable buffet for a vampiric charm.
“No, not the whole class. The whole year, actually.”
I coughed, my throat became tight and dry. I tried to force myself to breathe. “The whole year?”
She nodded. “Isn’t it great?”
I swallowed hard. Great wasn’t the word I would use. “There’s still someone out there stealing people’s magic and life energy. You need to be careful.”
“It’s a party, Kiera. Everyone is gonna be having a good time. And no one is going to try and kill anybody. There are too many witnesses about.”
“I don’t know, Cass. Just please, please, be careful?”
“Of course. Nothing is going to happen. Everyone is going to be there.”
That wasn’t a good thing, at all. With all those people drinking… I could feel a knot tighten in my stomach. If I was going to find out who it was, I needed to work fast.
Eventually, Cassandra decided on a short red dress with her matching heels, though she was already changing her mind, again. In the meantime, I was still obsessing over the energy vampire. A thought occurred to me.
“Cassandra, where is the party going to be?”
“He’s having it in the main hall. Why, have you changed your mind about coming?”
I snorted. Not bloody likely.
Cassandra shrugged. “You should come. It’ll do you some good to have some fun for a little bit.”
I rolled my eyes. Sometimes, it seemed we were worlds apart, but we were still best friends. I just hoped that we would still be friends at the end of the semester. “All right. Well, just be careful. I don’t want you getting hurt.”
“Please. The only thing that’s going to be getting drained are a whole lot of beer bottles.”
She shimmied back into her red dress, discarding the blue on one top of the pile on her bed, and slipped out of the door, grinning.
I waited until the building had fallen silent. Once I was sure that no one was about, I crept out of the dorm room and made my way around the premises, searching for the rest of the missing charms. That would hopefully indicate who had been stealing them. I was sure, though, that it was someone I knew. I strolled through the hallway, trying to make sense of what was going on. How many people actually wanted me dead? It couldn’t be that long of a list. How about anyone who fell victim to the night terror fiasco? But that was years ago, and it had nothing to do with me. I tried to shake off my paranoia. It couldn’t be connected to that… could it?
I crashed into something, and bounced to the floor with a hard thud. I’d been so absorbed in my thoughts, I hadn’t watched where I was going. And now, apparently, I was walking into people.
“Ow!” a voice groaned.
I frowned. I knew that voice. “Rose? Terrebis ad crap ex me.”
She grumbled to herself, rubbing her head. “Yeah, sorry. What are you doing creeping about? And what’s that language? I don’t recognise it.”
“It’s Latin. I’m looking for the other charms while everyone else is at Devron’s party.”
“I take it Cassandra went.”
“Yeah. I asked her to be careful. I hear that everyone is going.”
She frowned, taking a long look at her friend. “Is there any news on who the culprit is?”
I sighed, brushing my hair out of the way. I looked up, taking a proper look at my friend, kneeling on the floor in front of me. She was wearing a white sleeveless shirt and a pair of blue jeans, next to a cup, and a puddle of water. I groaned. “I knocked your drink over. I’m sorry. Let me get you another one.”
“You didn’t answer me,” she said, raising an eyebrow at me. “Is there any news?”
“No, not yet. And if everyone is going to the party, the energy vampire won’t be able to stay away. And with everyone drinking, their guard is going to be down. They’ll all be vulnerable.”
“And everyone will get drained and won’t even realise it’s happening. They’ll put it down to a bad hangover.”
“That’s if they survive the night,” I said grimly. “It almost killed me. Someone else might not be so lucky. I have to find out who it is before it’s too late. It’s not just about my life anymore. It’s about theirs. They’re all in danger, and they don’t even see it.”
I paused, and peered into her face. Something was bothering her. “Sally went, didn’t she?”
She nodded. “You really think she’s in danger? That the vampire will strike in front of witnesses.”
“I’m sorry. I do. And, they already targeted Sally once. She might not survive a second draining.”
“Then I’m going to help you find who’s doing this, and I’m going to stop them. What do you need me to do?”
I shook my head.
“You’ve helped loads already. It’s too dangerous this time. You just go and make sure your friend is all right,” I said. I didn’t need anyone else getting hurt. I had enough to worry about already.
She planted her fists against the curves of her hips and glared at me. I sighed and rolled my eyes. What the hell was I supposed to do? My head pounded at my temples. I was too tired to argue, and I was running out of time. And I was tired of fighting this on my own.
“All right. Come with me.”
Chapter Seventeen
My pulse raced as we crept through the academy, my hands were clammy, and I could feel my heart hammering hard against my chest. Our shadows stretched the length of the tiled floor in the dimly lit corridor. We moved in silence as we cr
ossed the academy, passed the main hall where, judging by the heavy bass booming through the open doorway, the party was in full swing. We kept moving, making straight for the medical ward. It seemed like as good a place as any to start, given that was where we found the first one. I filled Rose in with hurried whispers as we walked.
“Good idea,” she said. “I’ll look under the pillows and mattresses. If I wanted something to stay hidden, that’s where I’d put it.”
We slipped through the door and I glanced around – empty. Good. It was about time luck went in my favour.
“Okay. Let’s start looking under the mattresses, then. Hopefully, we can find out who has been visiting the medical ward more frequently.”
“You mean, other than us?”
I nodded; she had a point. If we were looking at frequent visitors, we would be right at the top of the list. Of course, last time I checked, I wasn’t draining the literal life right out of people, so there was that.
“Maybe we can ask the healers,” I said, eventually, and then I shrugged. “We’ll think of something.”
I lifted the first mattress, sending the blankets and pillow tumbling to the floor. Crap. The last thing I needed was to remake twenty beds. So much for luck going my way.
“There is one thing we could try.”
“What’s that then?” Rose asked. She stopped and turned towards me. I lifted another mattress, this time trying not to trash it, and cringed as the springs creaked loudly. I was so not cut out for sneaking around. After a few seconds, my heart rate slowed to something south of lethal, and I answered in a hushed voice.
“We’ll look at the results of the tests everyone took. Whoever cast the strongest spell is likely the one behind the energy drain. All that energy had to go somewhere, right?”
“Unless they’re hoarding it.”
“Yeah.”
I pulled open a drawer and rummaged through it, then moved to the next. Movement caught my eye: a shadow looming in the doorway. My breath caught in my throat and I froze in place, not daring to move a muscle. The shadow moved on, and my breath leaked out of me. I shook my head.