by V. Vaughn
Mal walked behind her up to the immense doors. “How’s that?”
“She thought it’d help me talk about my feelings. Get—I don’t know—less repressed?” The curse slipped away from her in a rush of coldness, like someone yanking off your blankets before you awoke. It was a brief one, mercifully brief. “Oh,” Cassie said brightly. “It’s gone now.”
“Maybe next time your roomie wants you to loosen up she can just try vodka, like the rest of us.” Malcolm yanked on the doors and stumbled backwards as they easily swung open.
Gloom welcomed them. The library was a dim place, cool and clean. Vaulted ceilings arced overhead, held up by thick columns that had been repurposed into spiraling book shelves years ago.
A librarian glided up. She was a beautiful woman wrapped in dark black cloth. A golden circlet around her neck marked her as a ward of the library.
“Payment?” She rasped, her voice like old paper tearing. The librarian held out a hand that was as thin as a skeleton’s.
“Here you go,” Cassie said, pressing two pennies into the woman’s palm.
“You can keep the change,” Mal said, handing over a roll of pennies to the woman.
The librarian looked down at the offering in her palm and teared up. “Thank you, thank you, kind sir,” she whispered.
Cassie was no stranger to the library. It may have rearranged itself every fortnight. It may have scared first-year students senseless when they saw the stacks of books that seemed to stretch down endless looping corridors. It may have been the second most dangerous place on campus, but she loved it.
“So where—” Mal started before being shushed by Cassie. He didn’t know any better, didn’t know the punishment for breaking the quiet in the library.
She grabbed his hand and pulled him deeper into stacks, hoping no rogue librarians discovered them. His hand was dry in hers and very warm. She’d heard that shifters ran warmer than normal people and it was true. He felt almost feverishly warm.
Once they were safely deep in the stacks, with vertiginous shelves rising around them, Cassie whispered, “Are you out of your mind?”
Malcolm gave her a hurt look. “What?”
“You can’t talk in the library. The librarians punish offenders seriously. Super seriously.” Cassie slipped her wand out of her sock and pronounced a silencing spell. She tapped the wand against her lips and Malcolm’s ears, and then repeated it with his lips and her ears. “There, now only we can hear each other.”
A low growl rolled out of Malcolm. “You should get someone’s permission before putting a spell on them.” He was glaring at her like she’d tried to curse him.
“It’s what everyone does, right? I mean, this is Penrose 101. You should have learned this ages ago.”
“No, I never learned this.” He growled. “No one teaches us Afflicted anything. We’re just set up to fail from day one. The only reason I was able to pass any classes at all is because last semester my roommates were in the same classes as me. They tutored me and coached me. But now I’m on my own and you’ve heard how well that’s going.”
“You’re not on your own anymore,” she said.
Cassie led them to a long row of freestanding study rooms, each barely large enough for two people. They were each handcrafted and unique. The rumor was that every new librarian at Penrose had to make their own study carrel before they graduated. Becoming a librarian of magical books was quite a bit different than being an ordinary muggle librarian. For the one, the books in the Penrose library had a nasty habit of organizing themselves into their own cliques and gangs, and then attacking books that had rival information. She’s seen one of the book wars, once. It wasn’t pretty. She’d never forget the sharp crack of a book’s spine breaking forever.
The study carrel she chose was her favorite one. It’d been made sometime in the 1950s and had a certain retro charm to it. It was as if Frank Lloyd Wright had decided to build a small wooden room for two witches to study in, with muted colors and shag carpeting.
Mal lingered behind, gawking at the long row of study rooms. So of course Cassie had to grab his too-warm hand again and yank him in and close the door. Just as she did, a librarian floated by. This one was more of a traditionalist, with a long black hood pulled up over her thin and wizened features. She glided along and as she passed the books grew agitated, vibrating on the shelves. When the librarian neared a book that was out of place, the book guiltily leapt off the shelf into her hands.
“This place is bananas,” Mal said, peering at the librarian through the study room’s small square window. “You know that libraries aren’t usually like this, right? In the rest of the world, people keep their haunted houses and their libraries in different places?”
“Yes, well, that sounds boring,” Cassie sniffed. “This is the second greatest collection of magical books in North America. It requires special tending and care.”
Mal regarded her with a hard to read expression. “Are you studying to be a librarian? Is that your thing?”
The color drained out of Cassie. “Oh no. No way. I believe public service is the highest calling, but I could never sacrifice myself in that way.” Then she took a breath. “You really don’t know anything, do you?”
The change was instantaneous. One second he was leaning against the wall with his hands stuffed in his pockets and the next he was snarling, his teeth were fangs and his eyes burned with fire. He leapt at her and slashed the wall over her head. Wood shavings tumbled over her head and shoulders.
Cassie fought to remember any of the defensive spells she knew, but her mind had gone blank. There was a shield she could summon. An emergency teleportation spell that would yank her back to her dorm room in an instant and set off a hundred different alarms all over Penrose. But the words to each of them were out of reach, scared away by Malcolm’s sudden transformation.
He looked her in the eye and growled, before turning away and hurling himself into a corner of the study room and folding himself down into a ball. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do that. I’m just so tired of everyone telling me what I don’t know and what I can’t do, like I don’t already know. Y’know?” He took deep shuddering breaths and the air in the carrel became tinged with shift scent. It was spicy, but not unpleasant at all, smelling of cinnamon and cumin and chilis.
Cassie’s mind was terrified of the boy. He could have killed her. With one swipe of his clawed hands he could have taken her throat out. But he didn’t. And her heart went out to him. Her heart wanted to comfort him, to hug him. It saw his pain and wanted to do what it could to ameliorate it.
“If no one else has taught you the basics, I will,” she said. “Please take a seat.”
As they talked and went over the wizard equivalent of grade school lessons, Cassie realized it was going to be more difficult than she’d expected. It wasn’t that the Afflicted boy wasn’t understanding her classes, it was that he didn’t have any of the tools to understand any of it. He was basically illiterate.
“Can you tell me the difference between a charm and an enchantment?”
“No,” he said, shaking his head.
“How about between a curse and hex?”
“Those are different things?”
“Demonstrate the five proper ways to hold your wand please.”
“I don’t even have a wand. Am I supposed to have a wand?”
And so it went, with Cassie trying to recall the way she’d learned the basics and then trying to explain them to Malcolm in a way that wasn’t condescending.
They were interrupted when her phone buzzed. Her father was calling.
“I’m sorry, I have to take this.”
“Should I wait outside?” Malcolm asked, making for the door just as one of the older, crueler librarians floated by.
“No!” Cassie grabbed his hand again to hold him back. “Don’t go out there without me. That’s not a good idea.” She looked down and realized she was still holdin
g onto him. In the coolness of the carrel, the warmth of his hand was welcome. Very welcome. For a moment, she wished she could just snuggle into him and let his warmth wrap around her, but then her phone buzzed again. “Just stay here, please.”
Cassie swiped her phone. “Good evening, Father. How are you?” she said in a crisp and pleasant voice.
“Did you think I wouldn’t find out?” he barked. “I can’t believe you’ve been so careless, Cassiopeia. We’ve always said these classes you insisted upon were too advanced for you and now here’s the proof. Gambling away your future for what, academic pride? What a ridiculous state of affairs.” His voice was angry and barbed. Cassie could see him in his study at home, behind his large desk covered in taxidermied sprites and nymphs. He was likely sitting in the dark, with only the light of the phone illuminating the room.
“Father, I’ve already worked it out with—” she began, but his barking laughter cut her off.
“Oh yes, I’ve heard about your little deal with mother. You do know she’s set you up to fail, don’t you? The Afflicted might have magic in their veins, but that does not make them wizard material. You can’t help this boy. You may as well try and teach a dog to read.” He laughed his cruel laugh and Cassie could hear the clink of ice cubes as he sipped whatever brown liquor was fueling him. “You need to put this behind you, Cassiopeia. The family is depending on you to make the smart and proper choice. Anoxamander is a perfect match for us. With his family’s resources and connections—well, I dare say the sky would be the limit for your mother and I. You risk it all, flirting with failure like this. You’ll have plenty of opportunities to pursue your heart’s desire later. After you give him an heir and wean the bloody thing you can go back to school and study whatever little esoteric topics flit by that little mind of yours.”
Malcolm was pointedly not watching her. But she knew he could hear every word of the conversation. Her face burned with shame.
“I’ll take your silence as agreement then. I expect that the next time we speak you will have chosen more acceptable classes for a lady of your breeding and stature. Good night, Cassiopeia.”
“Good night, Father,” she said in a hushed voice.
After she hung up, she couldn’t bear to look at Malcolm. He’d heard it all. What a failure she was. How she was messing up her family’s future out of her misplaced sense of pride. She knew she could be a great witch—could make real progress in pushing the boundaries of what magic could do—but her father was right. That would come later. She sighed and braced herself for Mal’s snide laughter, or some sneering and cutting comment.
“Maybe we should call it a night, yeah?” His voice was softer than she’d heard it. It was almost unrecognizable, all traces of growls and ferocity gone.
He was standing over her, all blue jeans and leather jacket, with his hand extended to lift her up.
“Tomorrow,” Cassie agreed. “Tomorrow we’ll meet after breakfast in the quad and we can begin on basic charms.” Ignoring his hand, Cassie pushed herself to her feet. “Now let’s see about getting ourselves out of here safely.”
6
Mal didn’t know which offended him more, the condescending tone the high-born witch used when lecturing him, or the Magic For Babies books she’d brought along. No, it was the books. It was definitely the books.
He arrived at the quad an hour late, but it wasn’t his fault. His roommates had been up all night showing off some new wizarding board game they’d invented that somehow was a perfect blend of Nico’s mad science and Ash’s talent for music and before they knew it the sun was coming up. It had been engrossing and ridiculous and they’d eaten all the pizza and even the canned peaches Mal had lifted from the cafeteria. He was irritable from lack of sleep, but also had that jangled feeling in his nerves, like he’d over-exposed his feelings and now they were raw from overuse.
But Cassie was understanding about his tardiness. She didn’t scold him or give him one of those “shifters are always late” looks. She just smiled and politely suggested they get to work.
She’d spread a blanket out in the quad—the green square of park space that was bounded on all sides by Penrose buildings. It was roughly shaped like a diamond, but the paths through it meandered. A small copse of trees occupied the very center of the park, and was infamous as a place of dark magic and midnight rendezvous. Though Mal was pretty sure it was just a convenient place to get drunk, kiss someone, or hide. Cassie’s blanket was far from the copse. It was a pale yellow, with flecks of gold woven through it. A picnic umbrella loomed over her, casting her in shadow. She wore a red sun dress that rode up her thighs as she sat and thick sunglasses that gave her the look of some forgotten movie star.
They got to work, with Cassie sitting with her legs folded underneath her and Mal sprawled half on the blanket and half on the grass. No matter how many times he sat up straight to pay better attention, by the end of a passage he was supine again.
He needed coffee. He needed sleep. All of the smells of the world were too much. He could taste everything’s scent, like they were being jammed straight up his nose. He could smell the everything bagel on Cassie’s breath, the cloying soap on her skin. He could scent a squirrel across the quad and a thousand personal details about everyone who walked by. His eyes felt like sandpaper as he stared at the brightly colored cartoon wizard using basic vocabulary to explain magic.
“This is dumb,” he growled. “We’ve been at this for hours and I’m no closer to understanding it or giving a damn.”
Cassie folded her hands in her lap and looked at him like he was a rowdy pupil moaning about busy work. “You need the basics. You’ll never be able to cast even the simplest of spells unless you understand all this.”
“What I need is a nap. Can I just get a catnap in, right here?” He said it jokingly, but he meant it. With the sun beating down on him and Cassie mercifully in the shade, he wanted nothing more than to curl up for an hour. You can’t learn when you’re exhausted, right?
“When I performed my first incantation,” Cassie said, “I was only four years old.” A haughty pride crept into her tone. Mal was getting used to the way she spoke. It was like every other sentence was about her, about how great she was.
“Yeah, well I’m twenty-one and these books are starting to piss me off,” he growled.
“Should we take a break?” Cassie asked. “I’ve always found that I work best after a short break. Perhaps we can go our separate ways for lunch and then meet back here in an hour? You could go freshen up?”
Mal sniffed at his shirt. He was ripe. Over-ripe, even. The funny thing about being a shifter and having enhanced senses, was that he didn’t smell himself unless he really thought about it. His shirt was only a day old, but Nico had spilled who-knows-what on him when he was setting up the game last night and today it stunk to high heaven.
He couldn’t go back to the dorm just yet. Nico and Ash were throwing a party to introduce their game to the rest of the Spenser Hall. They didn’t need sleep, at least not yet, because Ash had repurposed some old wartime marching music to keep them going. They’d crash hard eventually, but they’d feel no fatigue for at least three days.
“Let’s just eat here,” Mal said, peeling off his stinking shirt and stuffing it down to the bottom of his backpack. “I have a granola bar in here. I think.” It was a cool day, but that never bothered him anymore. The sun on his skin felt amazing. The urge to shift rose up within him. It was getting worse. His body wanted to transform, to go full wolf, but he knew that was dangerous. His Alpha had warned him against it. Going full wolf, before he could control himself, could mean losing himself to the wolf urges. He could get stuck that way or lose his mind forever.
But wolves didn’t get hangovers, so it didn’t seem like such a bad idea right then.
Mal looked up from his bag and caught Cassie staring at his chest with a faraway look in her eyes. “Hey, my eyes are up here,” he joked.
She reddened, deeply. It was t
he third time he’d made her blush and he was really enjoying it.
“Yes, what?” she stammered, then closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “What I mean to say is, lunch al fresco sounds charming. I anticipated something like this might happen and packed a little something.” Cassie’s bag was some sort of pink silk purse, overly large and adorned with pale pink jewels that spelled out her proper name. Wizard fashion was gaudier than Mal expected—some of the older witches and professors went full-on Harry Potter with robes and beards and familiars clinging to their shoulders—but the students mostly dressed normal, if somewhat loudly. He could tell the high-borns apart from the normals and Afflicted, because they all had a similar sort of bland beauty to them. Like they’d been sculpted at birth, but the sculptor only had three noses to choose from.
From her pink witch’s bag, Cassie produced a silver tray with a top buckled on. It looked like the world’s fanciest cafeteria tray, or a bento box crafted by a jeweler and a locksmith. Gears adorned the top leading to a hundred tiny locks that circled the perimeter. Cassie placed the box on the blanket before her, slid her wand from her sock, and tapped the central gear while whispering some charm. The effect was instantaneous—the gear spun and the locks disengaged with a sound like chattering teeth. When the last lock opened, the top sprang off leaping twenty feet into the air before falling to earth with a gentle thud next to Mal.
Reflexively, he reached for the lid and then drew back his hand as the silver burned him.
“Goddess!” Cassie gasped. “I forgot that was silver. I’m so sorry.”
The wolf within clawed at him, pushing its way out. An animal fury gripped it. It wanted to bite Cassie, to show her how it felt, but Mal pushed it back. He examined his hand, which was red and swollen and blistered. He could see the marks the jewels left in his flesh.