by Eva Chase
Grim Witchery
Book 7 in the Royals of Villain Academy series
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner without the express written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
First Digital Edition, 2019
Copyright © 2019 Eva Chase
Cover design: Christian Bentulan, Covers by Christian
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-989096-54-3
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-989096-55-0
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Contents
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Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Next in the Royals of Villain Academy series
A Study in Seduction excerpt
About the Author
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Chapter One
Rory
I’d figured that once I started spending more time with my birth mother, there’d be a certain amount of family bonding. I hadn’t expected any of that bonding to take place at a shooting range.
“The original owner was a retired blacksuit,” my mother told me as she parked her gold Lexus outside the dark gray face of the building at one end of the strip mall. “Other fearmancers have taken up the business since. They accept Nary customers, of course, to sustain their income, but they have a separate bay for mage clients.”
She fell silent as we stepped out into the crisp October air. A couple of young men were just heading into the building with eager smiles. We strode in behind them.
A faintly metallic scent laced the air just inside. The woman at the front desk caught sight of us with a twitch of her expression that told me she knew exactly who we were. “Just a moment,” she said to the other customers, and came over to serve her current and future Barons Bloodstone.
“Here you go,” she said, handing a keycard to my mother. “Everything’s set up in the bay for you. We’re so glad to be of help.” I suspected she’d have been even more effusive if the presumably Nary guys hadn’t been looking on. As ordinary human beings, they had no idea magic even existed, let alone that we were one of the ruling families over a community that worked spells fueled by fear.
We headed down a narrow hall, having to brush past a small group that was just leaving one of the regular bays. The doors and walls must have been soundproofed, because the crack of gunshots barely penetrated them, sounding as far off as if they were being fired miles away.
I wouldn’t have thought mages would bother much with regular guns—I’d never seen even the blacksuits, our law enforcement officials, wield one—but I stayed as quiet as my mother was. One of the longest held rules of our society was to avoid making any show or mention of magic in the presence of those who had none.
The baron waved the keycard in front of a panel on a door at the end of the hall, and the lock clicked open. As soon as we’d walked into the eerily quiet space, her shoulders came down. She let out a sigh with a little shake of her body as if shedding something distasteful. My mother was no fan of the Naries—or as she’d have called them in her harsher moments, “feebs.”
A glance around the bay told me immediately that this wasn’t the kind of shooting range I’d have pictured from the movies I’d seen. Our end of the room held no weapons at all, the one rack mounted there empty. At the far end, against a black wall, a beige sculpture of a vaguely rendered, androgynous face and torso was posed where I’d have expected to find a paper target hanging. Apparently we weren’t going to be using guns after all.
My mother set her purse on a table in the corner, so I did the same with mine. My eyes lingered on her leather bag for a moment before I turned back to her.
I’d started coming to her more, acting as though I wanted to follow in her footsteps, because I was hoping to uncover more about the plans she’d been making with her fellow barons—so that I could intervene before they caused any more damage. So far she hadn’t offered much though, focusing more on what she talked about as my preparation in my role as her scion. I couldn’t help wondering how much I might find out from the contents of that purse.
My mother motioned to the sculpture. “The targets are created with magical enhancements. If you strike a potentially fatal spot with enough magical force, they’ll shatter. Otherwise they merely crack at the points of impact. The most vital points are the center of the forehead and the heart. Let’s see how you do.”
An uneasy laugh escaped me as I moved to the spot marked on the floor. “Not a skill I’m going to have to use very often, I hope.” I was aware that my mother had killed at least one fellow mage in a dispute during her university days, so she’d obviously made use of this kind of magic before.
And the barons and their scions did have to be more vigilant when it came to self-defense. “I hope so too,” my mother said, her mouth tightening. Just last month, I’d joined a squad of blacksuits in rescuing her from the other faction of mages in this country: the joymancers. As mages who drew their power from encouraging happiness in others, they looked on our fear-driven magic with horror.
Seventeen years ago, a bunch of them had attacked my birth parents, another baron, and various other fearmancers who’d been on a business outing. Everyone other than my mother and I had been killed, and the joymancers had made it appear that my mother had died in the assault too. She’d spent the past nearly two decades imprisoned in secret, and I’d been set up with a joymancer family who’d raised me with love while concealing my heritage and my magic from me.
I guessed if the fearmancers present had been better at magical combat, the outcome might have been rather different.
And it wasn’t just the joymancers I had to be wary of. Many fearmancers lived up to the awful impression our enemies had of us, not least of all the barons. I’d faced bullying and challenges to my authority from my classmates ever since arriving at Bloodstone University, and the older barons, unhappy about the joymancer attitudes I’d grown up with, had made it their personal mission to crush me and the people who’d supported me in every way possible.
So, yes, I hoped I’d never have to hit someone where it hurt… but it wasn’t totally out of the realm of possibility that I’d need to if I wanted to make sure they didn’t kill me first.
I drew a casting word onto my tongue as I focused on the target. Over the past several days, I’d been working with my professor mentor at the university on creating my own strings of seemingly meaningless syllables to imbue with magical meaning. Personal casting words had the benefit of preventing anyone listening from knowing what spell you had in the works before they saw the effects.
> But making that mental leap also took more concentration, especially when you weren’t used to it. I debated and decided that for the purposes of this exercise, I was better off staying in my comfort zone.
“Strike,” I said, willing a portion of the magic that hummed behind my collarbone to solidify into a bolt of energy. With the force of the word, I flung the energy across the room. I’d been staring at the sculpture’s face, meaning to hit the forehead, but the gleaming bolt glanced off the top of its nose instead. A thin crack opened up in the plaster.
“Close,” my mother said without any hint of approval or derision in her tone. “You’ll want to give it more power than that too.”
“Right.” I dragged in a breath and trained my gaze on the target again. Imagine it was a vicious attacker lunging at me. Imagine it was Baron Nightwood, about to cast a brutal spell against me—or his son.
I snapped out the casting word again, hurling the energy with all the strength I could give it. This time the bolt smacked right into the sculpture’s forehead—but only hard enough to leave another crack. I grimaced even as my stomach turned at the thought of my goal.
I didn’t really want to smash anyone’s head open.
“Better, but I’m sure you can hit harder than that.” My mother turned her piercingly dark gaze on me. “You can’t be afraid to strike back when need be, Persephone. You need to be ready to fight with everything you have. Too many people in this world want to bring us down or see us suffer. Too many have become shaky in their loyalties. They have to know that if they go up against us, they’ll regret it.”
Her voice turned sharp with those last words. She spat out a casting word and flicked her hand toward the target. The air quivered, and the sculpture burst apart in an explosion of plaster shards. I had to stiffen up to stop myself from flinching.
As far as I could tell, everyone who knew Baron Bloodstone was already terrified of her. I hadn’t seen any mage act against her since her return. But she’d come back to fearmancer society after her long imprisonment with wounds you couldn’t see just by looking at her. She was suspicious of even our own household staff trying to sabotage her somehow, muttering spells after every interaction to double check her security.
She didn’t even really trust me, or she’d have shared more about her plans by now.
Another target whirred automatically into place from above. As I readied myself, I took the opportunity to prod her a little more about the part of the barons’ schemes I did know. They’d decided it was okay for the students at Blood U to break the rule about magical secrecy, terrorizing the Nary students who were allowed on campus on scholarship and then wiping their memories so they’d forget what they’d seen. Tormenting those who had no magical defenses gave a quick boost to the fearmancer students’ power… but the trauma, even repressed, was already taking its toll on their victims.
“There haven’t been any more casualties among the Naries at school,” I said in as casual a voice as I could manage. The memory of the girl I’d watched jump to her death in the grips of some kind of distress made me feel sick. “How long do you think you’ll keep the new policy so restricted, especially with word about it getting out?” Only select groups of students had been let in on the terror sessions so far, under the watchful eye of a few of the professors.
“You should see some changes there shortly,” my mother said. “There’s been no significant pushback, so it’s time to extend the opportunity to all of the students. We’ll be making some adjustments that should both reduce the wear on the feebs’ minds and extend the benefits that the rest of you will gain.”
The whole school was going to get in on the torture now. Wonderful. I kept my expression calm and sent a bolt of magic toward the new target. It broke off a chunk of the sculpture’s temple.
My mother had already tortured me for speaking against the new policy in public. She’d amplified one of the Desensitization sessions the school used to help us build our defenses against our own fears and locked me in the chamber with those illusions. I’d been playing the part of a contrite daughter since then, but I could feel her studying my reaction for any sign of continuing doubts.
Doubts I couldn’t afford to show until I knew how to actually protect all those Naries—and whoever else the barons might have their sights on.
“You must be happy to see it all coming together,” I said. I’d gathered from how quickly the barons had moved on this plan once my mother had returned that some form of it had been in the works since before her supposed death. “I’m sure there were lots of things you wanted to accomplish that you’re finally getting the chance to.”
Like usual, my mother dismissed my nudge with vagueness. “Oh, yes. But we have to take things one step at a time. The rest will come as we’re ready.”
“If there’s anything I can do to help—”
“You’ll have plenty of chances as we move forward. One thing you’ll need to learn for when you’re baron is not to discuss your future intentions until you’re putting them into action. Right now, you’re best off focusing on what’s currently happening around you. And making sure you’re fully prepared for anything you might face from an opponent.” She nodded to the target. “Continue.”
A prickle of frustration ran through me. Maybe she didn’t want to discuss schemes she wasn’t totally sure she’d get to enact—or maybe she still didn’t think I was worthy of sharing those ideas with.
I balled a surge of magical energy and hurled it at the sculpture with a word. It pierced the middle of the target’s brow—and the plaster burst like it had for my mother. She clapped her hands with a small and only mildly warm smile.
“Excellent. Let’s see you try for the heart spot now. It requires you to be a little more precise with your aim.”
I didn’t dare push any further about her goals—that would only make her more suspicious. But I was tired of getting nowhere. Every visit I had with my mother, pretending to agree with her attitudes, chipped away a little piece of my own heart.
Her purse was right there, with her phone and who knew what else that might give me a clue. If I could convince her to leave the room for a minute or two… but it had to be an urgent enough reason that she wouldn’t stop to collect her things first.
I focused on the third target and formed a few syllables on my tongue that had a striking feel to them. I could get in a little more practice at that kind of casting—and it would let me cast more than just the spell my mother saw.
I spoke the nonsense word and threw my magic. A crack formed where the target’s collarbone would have been if it’d been designed in that much detail. Frowning as if annoyed by my failure, I tried again with a longer sequence of sounds this time.
The next impact opened a larger crack in the center of the thing’s chest. I adjusted my casting word just slightly—shortening it and adding another that I hoped would create the effect I wanted.
I tossed both out one after the other as if it were all one long casting word like I’d used just before. A splinter of plaster fell from the left side of the target’s chest. And my mother’s head jerked around.
It must have worked. I’d meant to strike her car outside too, just enough to put a little dent in the body. I’d seen her casting and checking the protective spells she’d woven around the gold Lexus more than once. Any magical interference would send an alert to her.
“I’ll be right back,” she said abruptly, and hurried out of the room, leaving her purse behind as I’d hoped. I waited until the door had thumped shut and darted to the side table.
There was her phone, but a quiver of magic surrounded it. Damn it. She had a protective spell on that too. I should have figured. There was no way I’d be able to break it and rebuild it before she got back. I dug farther into the bag’s contents, sharply aware of the seconds ticking away before she’d determine there was nothing to pursue outside and returned.
I turned up a business card from what I thought was a store in the t
own just off campus, with a couple of names scrawled on the back. I took a quick picture of it with my own phone so I didn’t have to rely on my memory and tucked it back in. Otherwise the purse held a couple of pens, a tube of lipstick, a pack of cinnamon breath mints, a spare phone charger, a tiny foldable knife with a symbol etched on it that I took a picture of too, and her wallet. I flipped that open—and the door handle clicked.
My pulse hiccupped. I shoved the wallet back into the purse, jerked over the flap, and sprang back into my spot in front of the target. Would she notice it wasn’t in exactly the same position as when she’d left? Shit, shit, shit.
The hinges squeaked faintly as the door swung open, and I threw myself into the best strategy for distraction I could think of.
“Strike!” I hollered, ditching the nonliteral casting words for the moment. My attention narrowed with the rattle of my pulse, and my urgency fueled my magic. The bolt I conjured blazed through the air and sliced right through the target’s chest. The sculpture didn’t just burst but exploded in a firework of broken plaster.
My mother came up beside me without even looking at the table. She chuckled at the sight. “There’s my girl. I knew you’d get the hang of it quickly. Let’s see if you can get the next one on the first blow. The less time you give them to strike back, the better.”
What a comforting sentiment. “I’ll do my best,” I said, forcing a smile.
After a few more rounds, I managed to blast away the sixth target I’d been faced with on my first attempt. My mother gave my shoulder a squeeze that felt downright affectionate. To my relief, she didn’t pause over her purse when she picked it up for us to leave.