A Spell for Shadows: Rosewilde Academy of Magical Arts

by Marie Robinson

  There was never just a “yes” or “no” with Master Larson. I gave him a stiff, appreciative smile as he got out of the way and ambled Zen-like down the hall to wherever he went when he wasn’t treating Nathan.

  Inside the room, Nathan was cross-legged on the floor in ‘lotus’ position, his hands still pressed into simple mudras of concentration from his session. He didn’t react when I entered the room, so I settled down across from him, on my knees instead—my legs were a little too thick to sit like that comfortably—and waited for him to come to.

  It took several minutes. In that time, I traced every line of his face, his hands, the shape of his shoulders, and identified the pulse in his neck that barely reached thirty beats per minute. He was deep, wherever Master Larson had taken and left him.

  Part of me had the irrational fear that he wasn’t going to open his eyes. That he’d be back in a coma, stuck in some Abyssal nightmare like he had been before, at the end of last year. He was looking physically better now, at least. There was color to his skin again, the bags under his eyes were barely visible now, and he’d put back on a lot of his old muscle mass thanks to a combination of Master Larson’s mysterious muscle tensing exercises and a bit of magic to remind his body what it used to be.

  Nathan did, however, open his eyes eventually. I hoped this time he would smile. Instead, he blinked once. “Hunter.”

  “Hi,” I breathed. “How are you feeling?”

  He raised one eyebrow. “Do you mean to ask if I’m sane yet?”

  “What?” I shook my head. “Of course not, I—”

  “I was making a joke, Hunter,” he said quietly. He unfurled his legs and ignored my hand when I stood and offered it. He rose carefully, then bent at the waist to stretch first down, then to either side, his hands reaching toward the ceiling. “If I’m not mistaken, classes should start soon. Shouldn’t you be preparing. There’s still a party before term, isn’t there?”

  “There is,” I said, unsure what to do with my hands now. “Um, I don’t know if I’m planning on going, really. I mean, if you’re… here, you know.”

  Nathan sighed and went to a hook on the wall, where his uniform blazer was hung. He slipped into it. “You should go.”

  “Would you want to come?” I asked.

  He gave a weak smile. “That many people… I don’t believe it suits me at the moment. Master Larson has cleared me to resume classes, though. I’ll have to test into sophomore classes but I don’t believe that will be particularly challenging.”

  That was good news, but Nathan didn’t seem excited about it, which made it hard for me to muster excitement myself. “Are you ready for that?”

  “Of course I am,” he muttered as he buttoned two of the three, the last one left open, just like always. He shoved his hands into his pockets and stared at the door to the room. “She’s here, isn’t she?”

  “Who?” I asked, even though I knew pretty well who he meant.

  He knew that I knew, too, and gave me an irritated eye. “The Harbinger, obviously.”

  “Amelia,” I corrected. My heart beat a little harder. What would he do if he saw her? Nathan was dangerous, if he wanted to be. “She’s back for her second year, yes. You’ll… well, she’s a sophomore, too, so…”

  “So we’ll almost certainly have classes together,” Nathan said slowly, nodding as though thinking through something already that he liked. “Good. That’s very good.”

  “Nathan,” I took a step toward him, so that I was between him and the door. “Whatever you think she is, you’re wrong. Or at least, you don’t have the full picture. She’s good. She could have finished Sinclaire’s ritual, but chose to bring you back instead, she—”

  “She had no idea what would happen,” he said calmly, unperturbed at my being in his way or trying to change his mind. “She acted blindly, and I happened to come back through the way I went in. After barely a year of tutelage, I promise you, Sinclaire only taught her enough to summon the Dreadmother into this world.”

  Heat prickled at the back of my neck. “She didn’t act blind. She studied hard, she wanted to bring you back if she could, and if you’d been there to see what she pulled off you’d—”

  “Still call it blind luck,” Nathan said. He held a hand up before I could say anything more. “I’m well aware that you have feelings for her, Hunter. The others do as well. You all only know her in her current incarnation. I’ve seen her from the other side. I’ve seen what’s in her, Hunter. She’s the daughter of Az-Harad, wherever you think she came from. The Dreadmother is monstrously clever, her intelligence… there isn’t a way I could convey it to you. Over there, there is no time, no space. Our entire plane of existence is laid bare like a book to be read at leisure. I can promise you, Az-Harad knew what would happen that day. She knew Amelia would come here, that she would return this year, that she would bring me back from the Abyss. She knew all of that, Hunter. All of it. Which means it’s all part of her plan. You have to believe me. Amelia Cresswin is not what she appears.”

  He moved closer, took a hand out of his pocket and reached for my cheek. Opposing impulses went to war. I wanted to feel his touch again, but I wanted to pull away—deny him, until he came around from this obsession. He wanted me to choose. I could feel it in every word he said. Since I couldn’t figure out which impulse to follow, I followed neither and he put his warm hand to my face but I didn’t reach up to touch him in return. I tried to savor the contact but it felt… cold. Manipulative.

  “You don’t know her,” I said.

  Nathan took his hand away, disappointed. “I suspect, in the near future, I will. I’m not going to murder her outright, if that’s what you’re worried about. It doesn’t work like that. We’ll have classes together. You can introduce us. But I’m not going to lie about what I know, what I felt in that place; what I feel. I’m going to watch her. And if any of what I’ve seen in the Abyss starts to come to pass…”

  “It won’t.” I reached out to him, to touch his neck the way I used to.

  Maybe the choice was easier for Nathan. He leaned back just enough to be out of reach and intercepted my hand with his. “I know I’m… not like I was. I may be, eventually. I need time.”

  I held onto his fingers a moment, and then dropped my hand when he let them go. “Yeah. Of course you do. I’ll be here, though. When you’re ready. Nathan, I do still…”

  He closed his eyes tight and shook his head. “Don’t. Not now. Not… just not now. Come on. Let’s get me checked out, find out where they’re going to stick me, and with whom.”

  Nathan met with Gina at the front, who signed him out officially with Master Larson’s approval that he was able to resume classes provided he came back for weekly sessions. When we finally left the clinic, he turned to me and put a hand on my chest. “Go find the others. I’ll manage from here.”

  Much as I hated to leave him alone, I didn’t have much of a choice when he was like this. My heart hurt as he walked off down the hall, hands in his pockets, as casually as if he’d never been dragged into the Abyss, as if none of the last year and a half had happened at all. I almost expected to hear him whistling.

  What was worse, I felt confusing guilt when I began to cast a Whisper to Amelia, apologizing for taking so long to get back to her. I had loved Nathan. Even like this, changed on some level I didn’t understand yet, those feelings were still there. But I couldn’t just turn off what I felt for Amelia, either, and that feeling…

  If I named it now, I’d be caught between them maybe forever. So I didn’t. I Whispered to her. “Here. Sorry, I had something to take care of. Where are you? I’ll meet you.”

  I watched Nathan turn the far corner and disappear.

  Something told me I was going to have to make an impossible choice, sooner than I liked.

  Amelia

  “The bad bitch is back!”

  That could only be Serena.

  I couldn’t help my grin as I looked up from my syllabus. The boys and
I had collected them and returned to the courtyard to enjoy a bit of a sunlight while we still had the freedom to do so. Serena strutted across the courtyard toward us in stilettos that managed not to sink into the grass, dressed in a slinky looking white dress with black stripes along the side. It looked designer and probably was, and set off the massive white sunglasses on her face. Half her hair was in tight braids that made a complex pattern spreading from her temple, and the rest was bound back in a ponytail with them. She looked darker, probably from spending her summer somewhere exotic.

  I threw my arms around her when she reached us. “So good to see you, Serena. I missed you!”

  “I thought about you a few times,” she said. “Okay, done hugging; this dress is immaculate.”

  She extricated herself from me, but her hand lingered on mine a moment longer before she let it go. She pulled her sunglasses down and peered at Lucas and Isaac on the ground and gave a grunt of approval. “Still wearing these two hotties, I see. Boys. I hope you had a good summer.”

  Lucas glanced at me, smiling, and shrugged one shoulder. “It was certainly warm.”

  “Where have you been?” Isaac asked. “Getting sun somewhere tropical?”

  Serena took her glasses off and twirled them, smug. “I wouldn’t call England exactly tropical. Went to a few parties, woke up in a few beds. I could tell you which prince and sexy-ass princess I instructed in the fine art of pegging, but one does not discuss such things in mixed company. The hot ones, though.”

  “You slept with Prince—”

  She put a finger to my lips. “Shh. Hm. Aren’t you missing someone? Where’s the big one?”

  “Coming,” I said. “Hunter was ah… he had something to take care of. I think he’s getting his syllabus now.”

  “Speak of the devil,” Lucas said, nodding toward the corner of the south and west wings of the Academy. “Here he is now.”

  They got to their feet, and I turned and scanned the courtyard for Hunter. It was impossible to miss him, of course. He was a mountain of a man that towered over everyone else. He wasn’t in uniform yet, just a roughed-up pair of jeans, a red and black lumberjack shirt, and big black shit-kickers that somehow all made him seem even bigger than he really was. His beard was still clipped and groomed, which made me smile privately. I wanted to climb him like a tree or cut him down like one for not talking to me all summer. Maybe both.

  Then I saw the expression on his face.

  “Everything okay?” I asked when he came closer.

  He blinked like he didn’t know what I was talking about. “Hm? Yeah, it’s good. How was your summer?”

  “Fine,” I said slowly. Experimentally, bravely, I sidled up close and went up on my toes to give him a peck on the lips.

  All my fears came true as he turned his head just a little to accept it on his cheek instead. When I backed off a little, he wouldn’t look at me, instead giving Isaac and Lucas a friendly nod. He looked Serena over critically. “Serena.”

  “Mr. Bunyan,” she replied. “That’s a good look on you. Needs a hammer. Or an axe. Or both, one of each.”

  Hunter’s eyebrows pinched a little. I bit my lip. “She’s not wrong. You look good. Um… how is Nathan? You were with him over the summer. Right?”

  “No,” he said quickly. “I mean… not like… I wasn’t with him, or anything just… he’s doing fine. Better, anyway. Cleared for classes.”

  Okay. There was definitely something happening there. Or something that had happened. Not that Hunter belonged to me or anything. I knew things would be complicated when Nathan woke up, but I had given Hunter space and patience. Still, if he’d decided that he and Nathan were going to get back together, why not just say so? I tried not to let the confusion irritate me and resolved to just go forward. “That’s good. Is he still…?”

  Isaac and Lucas came closer, just as concerned as I was about whether Nathan was going to try and murder me if we met in the hallway. Serena came closer, too. “What did I miss?”

  “He’s got concerns,” Hunter admitted, “but he’s not a danger to anyone. He just doesn’t know you, is all. But that will change. He’s testing into the sophomore class. So… you’re going to be spending at least some time with him.”

  My gut churned nervously. I swallowed. “And he’s okay with that? All of that? Getting to know me and everything?”

  “He’s open-minded,” Hunter muttered. It wasn’t very convincing. “He’s been through a lot. The summer was hard for him. When he came out of it, his mind was in pieces, out of order. He’s been undergoing intensive treatment, dealing with his trauma, repairing his mind. He’s mostly his old self again.”

  “Mostly,” Lucas echoed. “But not entirely?”

  “How could he be,” Isaac said. “After what he’s been through. No one would be entirely the same.”

  “Hunter?” I pressed. “Are you okay?”

  His shoulders slumped a little. “It’s been a long three months. Nathan is getting his syllabus and testing sorted out, I think. Then… we’ll see. But I promise, he’s safe.”

  If Hunter said so, he would know probably better than any of us.

  “I am super lost,” Serena said, raising a hand. “Did some other shit go down? I should have caught up with you all before I left, I hate being out of the loop.”

  “The short version,” Isaac told her as he waved us to the ground back where we’d been, and we all sat down in a loose circle, “is that Nathan woke up just after the end of the school year, and sort of… had a poor reaction to Amelia’s presence. He believes she’s ‘The Harbinger’ and said that he’d been attempting to ‘stop her’. From doing what, we don’t know. After that he sort of went in and out of lucidity.”

  Lucas shuddered. “Some of the things he said… I don’t think he knew where he was, or even when he was.”

  “It was the time he spent in the Abyss,” Hunter said softly, plucking at grass. “They had to help him repair his ability to interface his consciousness with time and space. Nothing was in order. It was like his mind dissolved in the Abyss, lost the temporal cohesion that lets us define past, present, and future. So, all his memories, and predictions of the future were tangled up with the present. All happening at once. It was a month and a half before he could speak a clear sentence. He’s better now, though. Hasn’t had a lapse in a few weeks. And he’s still going to see Master Larson for regular sessions to make sure it holds.”

  “Well shit,” Serena whispered. She had managed to position herself so that her short dress didn’t reveal anything and looked every bit like the royalty she’d spent the summer with. She drummed her fingers on her knee. “That sucks. But I didn’t actually come out to catch up. I gotta steal Miss ‘Look At Me I Save The World Sometimes’.”

  I straightened, frowning. “What for? The party isn’t for another—”

  “Oh, no,” she laughed. “No, no, no. Not the party. See, I had such a good time being your mentor last year, what with the multiple magical felonies and then almost getting tentacle fucked by Cthulhu’s less attractive cousin, that I thought to myself, ‘How could I possibly repay my new bestie for all the fun?’ And then I thought, ‘Oh, yeah, I could sign her up to be a mentor this year.’ So that’s what I did. And now you’ve got a little magician nugget to tote around just like Mama Serena did.” She pinched my cheek. “They grow up so fast.”

  I gently pushed her hand down. “You what? Serena, I—”

  “It’s a done deal already,” she said. “Mentors from the previous year nominate mentors for the following year; that’s how it works. It builds character and makes you more responsible and… shit. I don’t know. But you can’t possibly have a year like I did because of it, so. Come on, let’s go meet your nugget.”

  Lucas and Isaac were biting their lips to keep from laughing at me when I looked to them for some kind of support or a loophole or something. “You’re enjoying this.”

  “Try not to hurl your mentee into the Abyss,” Lucas said, “an
d I think you’ll do just fine.”

  I groaned as Serena stood and offered me a hand. I took it, if only to extract a small price for signing me up for it. “I’m going to remember this,” I told her, “and I am going to have my revenge.”

  “Make sure it’s room temperature,” she chirped. “They say it’s best served cold but that has not been my experience. Too hot or too cold and it seems like your trying. Revenge is a dish best served casually so it really stings.”

  I grunted and waved at the boys as Serena dragged me off to the south wing, where the entrance leading to the front foyer was. Right about now there were young would-be magicians spread out across rooms that occupied the same space but were slightly out of phase with the rest of the academy, having their mysterious interviews, answering nonsense questions in their entrance and placement exams, and otherwise being totally confused. Well, probably not many of them as far as that last bit was concerned.

  Most students at the Academy came from magical families. They’d already done primary education at magical prep schools, which I missed out on because my parents died when I was four and gave me to my godmother, Laura, who either didn’t know the first thing about magic academies or she opted not to tell me about them. One or the other. I was still uncertain about that, given that magicians tended to undergo something that the boys called ‘occultation’—the “real” world tended to just… forget.

  Laura hadn’t forgotten about my parents, and had been friends with them her whole life almost. Which meant that either they’d somehow kept her close… or Laura was a magician herself. I’d spent the summer digging through everything she kept in the house looking for some reference, even something as meager as an arcane-looking scribble. Nothing. As far as I could tell, Laura was just a normal woman who took in her best friends’ orphaned daughter. She probably had no idea my parents only had me because some being from outside reality had made some kind of deal with them.