by May Dawson
“From…our school?”
“The universe is a weird place,” I admitted. I leaned against the tree behind me, letting my eyes drift shut. Exhaustion seemed to weigh me down, and it wasn’t until I spoke that I realized how broken I felt inside. “The people in my world want to leave yours to die. I’m one of the rebel magicians. We’re trying to seal the rips and prevent the apocalypse in all the worlds.”
“That seems like the moral high ground,” Chase said. “Why would anyone fight that idea?”
“Yeah, well, the moral high ground tends to be eroded by war.” I scrubbed my hand over my face. “I’m not supposed to be here, tampering in your world. If they catch me, I’ll be sentenced to forced labor in the mines, and that’s pretty much a death sentence. Happened to a few friends of mine.”
“Are they…”
Dead? I shook my head. “Not yet.”
“Can we help you rescue them?”
The offer surprised me so much that my eyes flew open again.
“A year ago you didn’t know shifters or witches were real,” I said. “Now you want to walk into a whole new world of magic?”
“Want to?” Chase asked skeptically, his big shoulders rising as he jammed his hands in his pockets. “No. But I know you, and I know you’re going to go after your friends. Someone should watch your back.”
I studied his face. I should delete his memory. That was the smart thing to do.
“You need to tell Maddie,” Chase added, and then snapped his fingers as understanding dawned across his face. “That’s why you’re so weird with her!”
The reminder that I’d turned my face when Maddie tried to kiss me still stung. “Yes. I’m weird with her because, well, I’m weird. I’m literally from another world. What’s your excuse?”
Chase pulled a face. “I don’t want to ruin our friendship.”
“So you’re fearless when a friend needs you, but in the face of a five-foot-six bubbly blond, you lose all your cool?”
“Yep,” Chase said.
“I know the feeling,” I admitted.
“I’ve got a lot more questions about this world of yours. And this mission of ours.”
“I shouldn’t answer any of them.” I should wipe his mind. But he’d implied it was our mission now, like he was all-in.
And it felt so good to be myself in this world, for once.
“I want to tell Maddie,” I admitted. “When I’m ready. This has to stay our secret for now, Chase.”
“You’re not going to use magic on me?” Surprise flitted across his face.
The realization that he expected me to enchant him filled me with guilt. “You’re a lot smarter than you look, aren’t you?”
“Right back at you.”
I could always wipe his mind with magic later.
For now, it felt better to walk through the dark woods with a true friend at my side.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Rafe
“Don’t go out there looking like a fool,” Clearborn said, already looking at the papers he shuffled on his desk, as if he wasn’t interested in us now that the beating was over. “Full uniform back on, properly, please.”
Jensen’s face was a mask as he pulled on his shirt, but he moved slowly. The second strapping over his swollen skin had caused it to split in places, weeping blood. As soon as the white shirt went over his back, it stuck to his back in those spots as the blood seeped through.
Only the uncertainty of his movements gave away his pain as he raised his arms to slip his tie on. He pulled the tie taut, checking the length of the ends before he pressed the knot against his throat.
“Are we dismissed?” I asked.
“Yes.” Clearborn glanced up at me. “If Northsea doesn’t come back by morning, let me know. If she hasn’t returned to her pack, then I’ll send out the search parties in case she’s been taken.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Jensen gritted his teeth with the movement as he slid his blazer on over his wounded skin, then he moved toward the door, looking as normal as ever. Maybe there was something to be said for his mask. I headed for the door, eager to get Jensen out of there.
“Oh, don’t forget your tawse,” Clearborn said. “I wanted to make sure you understood how to use it without causing any real damage. I hope I won’t have to order you to punish your cadets again.”
I didn’t want to carry this goddamn thing across campus. But I picked it up anyway.
He was already writing something, his head down, ignoring us. Jensen and I left the room in silence. Neither of us had anything to say; Jensen was moving slowly, his face stiff, and my mind was racing. I wanted to make sure that scene never played out again.
It wasn’t until we were halfway across campus that he said, “You can’t tell Northsea. You were right in there. It would kill her to know.”
The thought of her narrow back, her pale skin, under the lash made me sick. The tawse in my hand seemed to drag at my shoulder with its weight. I had to find a way to protect the rest of them.
All of them.
But especially Northsea.
“You don’t want credit?” I asked, only half paying attention to the conversation because my mind was still on how we could avoid this happening again. I needed all of them to be on their best behavior.
He flashed me a look, disgust in his gaze. “No, I don’t want credit.”
“I didn’t mean that—”
He cut me off, turning to face me. “You really think that’s who I am, don’t you?”
Maybe it was because the beating had stripped away some of his pride and left him vulnerable, but hurt flashed across his face. It made something tighten in my chest. I hadn’t been fair to him in the past when all I’d seen was the spoiled kid and the bully. I’d failed him long before tonight.
“No,” I said, knowing it was true as I said it. “You obviously care about Northsea…”
He stared at me, his blank face intimidating.
“Thank you,” I added.
Thank you for protecting her when I’m not sure how I would.
That tic pulsed in his jaw again, and I couldn’t read his face. Then he said, “I hope she’s just running late. That she forgot to charge her phone… I’d rather she made a bunch of stupid mistakes and left me here alone than came back to that. You think she’s all right, out there?”
“No,” I said. I didn’t want to say the words, and they felt heavy in the cool night air. “I don’t think she’d be late if she could get back here.”
He jerked his head in a nod as the two of us started across campus again.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” I warned him. “I meant what I said earlier. She’ll let us know if she needs us.”
As if what he’d already done tonight hadn’t been stupid…and brave and self-sacrificing.
Jensen nodded again, but I didn’t buy for a second that he agreed to listen to me.
“Jensen,” I said, my voice warning. Then I changed tactics. “Listen. Can you talk to the guys? Tell them they need to walk the line. Keep out of Clearborn’s sites. Especially Penn—he looks like he’s jonesing to do something stupid. Let’s give Maddie and Tyson time. Faith. Okay?”
Jensen frowned slightly. “You think any of them listen to me?”
“Yeah,” I said. “You don’t realize it yet. Things have changed since the start of the year.”
There was a faint hammering sound coming from the forest. Jensen glanced at me, and I returned his stare, trying to figure out what the hell that was.
Together, without having to discuss it, the two of us headed toward the foreign sound. It didn’t belong out here in the night at the academy.
In a clearing in the woods, a dozen men were at work, constructing a pair of flogging poles and a gallows.
“Yeah,” Jensen muttered. “You could say that things have changed since the start of the year.”
Dread settled heavy in my gut.
Chapter Thirty-Six
“Was it hard not to turn?” Maddie asked.
“Yes,” I said. “Did you feel it? That almost uncontrollable sense of fear?”
She shuddered. “It reminds me why the packs think magic is so terrible…”
Just remembering that sense of terror made my heart beat faster in my chest. But focusing on Maddie’s face had helped me fight that fear and find my center again.
“You trusted me,” Maddie whispered. “Thank you.”
“I always trust you,” I said.
The way she smiled at that made lightness bloom in my chest. But it was true. She was the most incredible girl I’d ever met.
That had nothing to do with her magic, and everything to do with her indomitable, happy-go-lucky personality. She was a force of nature.
“Now’s our chance.” Maddie walked along the bars, her fingers trailing across them. “We have to get back to the academy.”
“Sure,” I said.
She paused. The look on her face sharpened, but a far-away dreaminess came into her gaze, as if she was concentrating on something I couldn’t see. Her lips moved in the words of a spell, and I tensed.
If we were being watched, we only had so much time before the witches raised the alarm.
Then suddenly, she dropped to her knees. The bracelet around her wrist glowed, and she clutched her arm just above it.
“Maddie!” I moved to crouch beside her. She raised her face to mine, her eyes glimmering with unshed tears of pain.
“I think the bracelet blocks my magic,” she whispered. “When I tried to use my spell, suddenly it hurt so much...”
“We’ll figure something else out.”
“I’d fight through the pain,” she said, and I believed her, no matter how much the pain had brought her to her knees. “But it feels like… like there’s something blocking me. I can’t reach my own magic.”
She looked devastated. I’d thought of magic as something that was good on rare occasions—like when she healed Rafe or me—but that was a hazard. After all, her magic endangered her place at the academy.
But her reaction jolted my chest. She liked having magic. It was important to her.
A sharp edge of dread cut into my chest. I hadn’t even realized how scared I was of magic until that moment. She wanted to own that power, power no one should possess.
“Tyson.” She raised those luminous blue eyes to my face. “You’ve got to do it. You’ve got to break the spells on the cell.”
“I can’t,” I said, my denial quicker than reason, which came a second later. “Maddie, just because the fortune-teller said I’m a warlock… I’ve never used magic before.”
“Your magic changed the card deck,” she said. “Your latent magic must be powerful… so much you don’t even realize you’re using it.”
“No,” I shook my head.
“Maybe that’s part of why you’re so charming,” she mused, as if she was thinking out loud. “You could use magic to affect people without even realizing you’re doing it.”
I pulled as if she’d just slapped me. It felt like it. “You think I’m controlling people against their will?”
Her gaze was suddenly troubled. “No…”
“Maddie, I’m not a witch,” I said.
“You think that would be such a terrible thing,” she said. “To be like me.”
“I don’t want to be a witch!” I exploded. Her eyes widened, hurt flashing across her face, and more gently, I added, “I’m sorry, Maddie, I don’t mean to hurt you. I don’t mind that you are. But I don’t want to be one.”
Her lips tightened. “It’s so nice that you don’t mind part of who I am.”
“I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Well, if you aren’t a witch, we aren’t getting out of here,” she said. “You’ll be happy, I guess. Until we’re dead.”
Her voice was sharp. Irritation flared through me, and I scrubbed my hand over my face. “Are we still under the effects of that truth spell?”
“Why? Would you normally manage to contain your disdain for magic a little better?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I think I would, actually. Because I love you—all of you—witchy parts included. I just don’t want to be a fucking witch.”
“Why? What’s so terrible about having power?”
“Because I don’t want that kind of power!” I scrambled to my feet.
“Why?”
I shook my head, desperate to end the conversation.
Priority one was to get out of here. Even though everything in me resisted the idea of being a witch, if I had magic, if I could save Maddie and me, if I could protect our friends, that was what was important. I could deal with the fallout later.
“Okay. Fine,” I said. “Let’s play your game. How would I use magic to break us out of here?”
As relief came over her face, I knew I’d made the right choice.
I’d do anything for her, no matter what it cost me.
“There must be a way through these bars,” she said. “Even though we can’t see it.”
She held up her wrist, encased with that damn bracelet. “They must assume I’m the only one with magic. So they only bound me with their magic-blocking spell. You can find the spot where the bars are enchanted to hinge or disappear, whatever it is they set up.”
“How?”
“Run your hands over the bars and focus,” she said. “Feel for something that’s wrong, or warm, or just different. Your magic will respond to someone else’s.”
That must have been what she was doing when she walked along the bars.
I nodded, my jaw tight with tension.
Either we stayed caged and our friends were attacked, or I stepped forward into life as a witch. I’d rather be a witch, even though revulsion twisted through my stomach at the thought.
I started at one end and ran my fingers over the cold, hard bars. I paced across the length of them, but didn’t feel anything.
Maddie hesitated. I turned at the other end of the cell. Time to do it again. I wasn’t going to let her down.
I focused, letting my eyes drift shut. The room was deeply silent; she didn’t move, she barely breathed. But I could feel her there, the way my body always felt her when she was near, with some deep, primal connection.
She wasn’t a distraction. The ripples of energy that I felt when Maddie was near me felt like strength instead.
I let my mind drift, opening my mind to more than just what I would normally sense in this room.
My fingers ran across one bar, then another, then another. Each was cold and hard to the touch.
And then my fingers brushed over another bar, and it felt… soft.
I paused. My heart was beating faster, and I reached out and touched the bars with my other hand. This time, again, it felt like my fingers went through the bar, as if it was as insubstantial as Jell-o.
My eyes flew open. The bars in front of me looked as solid as before, and my fingertips rested lightly across them. I’d almost thought my fingers might have sunk into the enchanted metal.
“You found it.” Maddie sounded sure, full of confidence in me.
“I found it,” I admitted. “Now what?”
“Most people use Latin to focus their magic because it feels appropriately witchy,” she said, a smile in her voice. “There’s really no reason. You can say anything that helps, but you have to focus all your magic, all your power, into destroying the enchantment.”
“Focus all my magic, great,” I said. “No pressure. Not like I’ve done this before.”
“You could imagine the bars blowing away from you like an explosion,” she said. “Or crumbling to the ground as they turn to nothing but ash.”
“Am I imagining the bars being destroyed or the enchantment?”
“Either.”
“Magic seems a little unscientific,” I muttered.
“Imagine that.” She leaned against the solid bars beside me, and she reached out to tou
ch my arm gently. “You’ve got this, Ty. There’s nothing you can’t do.”
That wasn’t as comforting in this particular moment as she thought it was.
I set my hands on the bars, feeling tension ripple through my shoulders.
Nothing happened.
I bit my lower lip, straining hard, wondering if I was even doing this right.
Maybe I was trying too hard to force it. Maybe it was like the Force.
“I’ve got faith in you,” Maddie said, her voice soft. “Magic’s not good or bad, Ty. It just depends on the person wielding it. And you’re one of the best people I know.”
Disbelief flickered inside me. She really thought of me that way. As many girls had flirted with me and however many people had appreciated my athleticism, I didn’t feel like anyone really knew me.
I wasn’t sure I could live up to what she saw in me.
But I’d try.
Suddenly, there was nothing under my hands. The ground shook under my feet, and my eardrums popped. Energy blazed through my body and I caught myself as I leapt forward, stumbling through the blast.
When I turned to Maddie, the bars were gone.
She grinned at me, with a look of such unabashed joy that I couldn’t feel anything but good about what I’d just done.
“I’m a warlock,” I said, trying it out. “Huh.”
“You’re a badass shifter who can use magic,” she told me, crossing between us. She bobbed up onto her toes and pressed a quick kiss to my lips. “You aren’t really different at all. You’re still Ty. Still amazing.”
When her body swayed against mine, I thought the two of us together really could do anything.
We could even use magic for good, even if I grew up believing that was impossible.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Maddie
Tyson and I headed briskly across the room. He tried to pull open the door, but it was locked. He glanced to me.
“You know what to do,” I said.
He pressed his palm against the door. I held my breath, just as I had before, but this time, there was no real hesitation. The door flew away from his hands, across the hallway, and slammed into the wall, where it fell heavily back at our feet.