by Elena Lawson
Little bits of stone dust and rained down onto the ground, coating me in gray debris. I coughed when it got into my lungs, tasting blood on my tongue that I wasn’t sure was my own or from the basin.
“Watch out!” Cal called, and I caught a glint of silver in the light as Draven threw one of his knives, and then another, and then two more at once.
I pushed from the ground, frantically trying to find his target, my bare feet slipping on the blood-slicked surface of the floor.
Donovan emerged from the shadows at the back of the chamber, a wide shield blocking Draven’s attacking blades. They were disintegrated into black ash on contact. Donovan’s eyes—normally the color of wet sand—were black, as though his pupils had grown so large they ate up any bit of color his eyes may have contained. And his skin—he’d already been pale, but this was more than paleness. He looked… dead. The pallor of his flesh almost greenish, waxen.
I made the connection in my mind as I hauled the magic I would need to defeat him up into my core, dropping the dams and allowing it to flow full force. He was a dark witch. This was blood magic. Whatever he was doing to the students—it was clear he was trying to collect their blood. For what malicious purpose was beyond my ability to comprehend…
All I knew was that it was over now. I was putting an end to it.
Cal and Adrian shifted in midair as they ran to take up positions on either side of me, their hackles raised, snarling, and chomping at the bit to attack. Wait, I commanded through our bond.
If that shield he was using could disintegrate metal to ash, I shuddered to think what it could do to flesh and bone. Hold.
It had to be me who ended this. Magic against magic. This wasn’t a fight my familiars could win for me. And though Draven was faster than anything I’d ever seen; all it would take is one misstep and he would be added to piles of ash at Donovan’s feet.
“Foolish girl,” Donovan bellowed. “Do you not know what you have done?”
What I have done?
The stun sigil came back into my hand, but Donovan had crafted a sigil of his own, and it perched, glowing bright scarlet, pulsing with ribbons of black over his clawed fingers.
What was that…? With his other hand, Donovan threw a sigil identical to mine at us, trying to stun my wolves no doubt, but I blocked it as Sloane taught me, pushing against the onslaught of energy with a defensive shield of pure power fused to my forearm.
I gasped at the force of it and cried out. Cal and Adrian charged, and I screamed, knowing it would be the end of them. My mangled heart protesting in a misery of its own. I slung the stun sigil at Donovan, hoping beyond all hope that it would hit him before Cal and Adrian could reach him.
But Donovan’s gaze was fixed on me. It was as though the wolves charging at him were of little consequence. Like they were bugs to be squashed under his boots. I was the real threat, here.
The vivid red sigil throbbed in his hand like it was a living entity, and he smiled devilishly in the dark as he loosed it from his fingertips, aiming it at me.
I barely had time to formulate a thought. I knew I needed to protect myself. To move. To do something, but I froze. My heart stopped in my chest.
From the corner of my eye, I saw Draven. I saw him vanish into a blur of movement and then it was too late.
The attack sigil Donovan threw was upon us and I heard him utter the words that would spell out the doom of any who stood in its destructive path. A killing spell. One no being on this earth could withstand.
“Aeternum Immotus!” he shouted, his voice shrill and eyes crazed, but there was another voice, a deeper baritone, that spoke the same incantation, and I had the satisfaction of watching Donovan’s eyes widen in shock before Draven reached me and both of us were knocked to the ground as someone else took the full hit of the spell.
For a terrifying instant, I thought it was Elias. My heart shattered when I realized it wasn’t.
No. No!
Donovan was down and unmoving—sputtering up blood from the impact of Martin’s spell. Cal clamped his jaw over Donovan’s throat and bit down hard, finishing him off.
They weren’t what I was focused on, though. What I couldn’t take my eyes off of. I choked on a painful aching my chest.
“Marcus!” I heard Bianca shout and found her face in the gaping maw of the corridor that led up to the library. She stumbled her way to him and Kendra and tugged them down. The spell that was keeping them airborne releasing as the black soul of Professor Donovan was released from him.
“Miss Harper?” Martin choked, gasping for breath around a mouthful of blood. My eyes stung with hot tears and I shoved Draven off of me. I scrambled from my back, crawling across the stone to where Martin lie against the cold floor. I lifted his head into my lap, trying to help him get air into his lungs. My body shook, convulsing with the colossal weight crushing me, forcing the tears into an endless stream.
I rocked him and myself back and forth, begging the pain to subside. Begging my magic to heal him as healing sigil after healing sigil hurdled out of my body, springing to my fingertips to find purchase in Martin’s chest.
Please. Please, please, please.
His wrinkled face broke into a tiny smile, and he reached a shaking hand up to stop me from trying to heal him, forcing a sob to leave my lips. Distantly, I heard Cal and Adrian whimpering somewhere close by, and distantly, I could feel Draven’s comforting hand on my shoulder, trying to rub away the pain.
None of it soothed me. None of it helped.
The last living link I had to my father. To my family was going to die and there wasn’t a damned thing I could do to stop it.
“It won’t… help,” Martin said, his voice weak. He patted my hand gently, his aged skin rough and smooth all at once. “It’s alright.”
I shook my head, sending the tears falling over him. It wasn’t alright. He was broken. Disheveled. His normally perfectly combed bit of silver hair was mussed. His tailored tailcoat stained with blood and dirt. His monocle cracked.
I removed it from his eye, sputtering, trying to find the words to thank him. To apologize… but there weren’t enough words to express it all. “I’m…” I started, my voice thick and throat swelling. “I’m so… I’m so—”
I couldn’t speak. The pain in my chest was too much. I couldn’t focus over the roar of agony and buzzing of a million thoughts in my head.
Martin squeezed my hand. “It was… an honor.”
My heart cracked, a fissure so deep and jagged I knew it would never quite heal properly. This was the man who cared for my family for three generations. Who helped raise my father. Who cared for the Abbey all those years after he’d died, hoping someday I might return. This wasn’t how he should’ve died.
It was wrong. So wrong.
Martin sighed and then grew still. His hand released mine and fell to the floor. His eyes shut and his expression smoothed into an expression of serene calm. He could have been sleeping.
But I knew better.
He wasn’t sleeping. And he would never open his eyes in this world again.
I cried out loudly at the pain. Shouted my fury. I wanted to scream. To set the world on fire. To beat the floor until my hands were raw and my skin broken. But none of those things would bring him back.
“No,” I heard him say. “Oh, Harper. I’m so sorry.” And then Elias’ arms came around me like iron bars of safety. I clutched him until some of the pain subsided, and he held me tight, whispering words of comfort into my ears. My familiars tucked themselves in close, Cal howled, and Adrian followed him, the sound echoing against stone all around us.
Over Elias’ shoulder, I saw Bianca rousing Kendra and Marcus, their wounds closed and some coloring returning to their faces from her healing. And I dug my fingers into Elias’ jacket, needing his solidness to hold on to. Martin hadn’t only saved my life. He’d saved theirs, too, and my familiars’, and I would make sure the witching world knew of his heroism.
I would make sure
he was remembered because that was one of the only things I could do now to thank him. That and find the root of the evil we’d encountered here. Donovan was strong. A powerful witch. But I was right about it all being connected. In Donovan’s black eyes I’d seen the same man who blew up the warehouse in Elk Falls. I knew it was him.
He was the one who was tampering with Bianca’s memories. He was the one murdering students. But I knew he wasn’t the leader my father spoke of in his journal. He wasn’t the one pulling all the strings. No. I had a feeling the corruption went a lot higher than a simple professor at Arcane Arts Academy. Much higher.
“Harper,” Draven said and lifted a bloodstained piece of parchment from the ground next to Donovan. In a blur of movement, he brought it to me, kneeling down so I could see. I’d forgotten we heard the rustling of paper before we entered the chamber. But now, the long bit of parchment was barely decipherable, stained as it was with still-wet blood.
I released Elias enough to turn. To get a better look, wiping the glaze of tears from my eyes. I recognized the page.
The symbols were like the ones I’d drawn from memory after Blanche ate the page that had been tucked into my father’s journal. This wasn’t that missing copy, but it was so very similar. The large sigil at the heart looked to be the same, but the notes on this one weren’t in code. They were in plain English, written in a messy script. Ingredients. Some sort of rite. A ritual?
The depictions of the sun and moon were clear, and below them was a line written in flowing Edwardian script.
When blood is spilled on edge of night and break of day, the beasts of dark and light fall prey. For what once begun to be fulfilled, the blood of the pure must be spilled.
To be continued in Of Fate & Fortune, the fourth book in the Arcane Arts Academy series. Pre-order your copy now!
And don’t forget to join my mailing list today to get exclusive sneak peeks and bonus content!
Thanks so much for supporting this series. I hope you’re enjoying reading it as much as I’m enjoying writing it!