by Tasha Black
“Wow,” Anya murmured.
I turned back around quickly, not wanting to stare at him while he got his breakfast. All the other women would be doing that. He had no lack of admirers.
Bella showed up and sat across from me, placing down a tray with nothing but dry toast and a cup of tea.
“Hey guys,” she said.
“Everything okay?” Anya asked, looking at her tray.
“I’m just kind of freaking out,” Bella said. “Luke got a tip that campers found something suspicious in the woods. He’s going to check it out. I don’t like him going without me.”
“What did they find?” I asked.
“Hello, Bella,” Reed said, sitting beside me.
“Guys, this is Reed,” I said. “Reed, you know Bella. Next to her are Nina and Lark. And this is Anya on my other side, and Kendall.”
“Nice to meet you all,” he said.
There were hellos and nods all around as we all tried not to stare at his plate, which was piled with a mountain of food. It was like something out of a cartoon.
“Did I hear you say Luke was following a lead?” he asked Bella.
“Yes, campers said they saw paw prints up at the bluff,” she told him.
“I’ll try and catch him as soon as I leave here,” Reed said. “Sound good?”
“That would be great,” Bella said. She smiled and grabbed a piece of toast, making it clear she actually felt relieved.
It made sense. I couldn’t imagine much in the woods that would be too much for Luke and Reed to handle together.
“So, we managed to track down an item from the list last night,” I told the others.
“Busy girl,” Kendall quipped, arching an eyebrow.
I chose to ignore her. “The clue that says written in cochineal from a source that has never seen sunlight. It refers to ink made from a beetle.”
“What beetle hasn’t seen sunlight?” Bella asked through her bite of toast.
“A cave beetle,” I told her.
“Whoa,” Anya said. “You guys went into a cave to find a beetle?”
“It was epic,” Reed said, through a massive bite of waffles. “You should have seen Cori.”
“It was fine,” I said quickly. “We got a few beetles. We need to pick another clue for tonight.”
Kendall snickered. She was definitely going to make a sex joke if I didn’t cut her off.
“Who has the list?” I asked quickly.
Nina pulled out her notebook and laid it on the table so all of us could see.
“Want to get the white feather from a winter raven?” Reed asked.
“Do you know where that is?” I asked him. “Sounds kind of rare.”
“Oh, they are,” he said. “There’s only one pair in the area. But I know their territory. We’ll go tonight.”
“It’s a plan,” I said.
It was fun knowing we were a team. I could feel our bond pulling tighter.
The others went quiet.
I looked around and realized that Reed had very nearly cleaned his plate.
“Well, babe, I gotta go,” he told me, standing and kissing the top of my head. “See you after school. It was nice to meet everyone.”
“See you,” I murmured.
It actually felt like my insides were being pulled out as he loped away past the gaping students.
“I can’t believe he just came here and ate breakfast,” Lark said dreamily.
“He lives here,” I said.
“Yeah, but in the tower,” she replied.
“They’re going to need more cooks on the morning shift if he keeps eating breakfast with us,” Kendall said.
“Big man, big appetite,” Nina said thoughtfully, then blanched at the implication.
Nina was pretty much as inexperienced as I was.
Well, as inexperienced as I was before last night anyway.
“I guess we should get to class,” I barked out, leaping out of my seat.
I did not want to even think about last night in front of my friends. I swore they could read minds sometimes.
24
Reed
The forest was humming with life and the sun was warm on my face. The scent of the morning frost was fading already, giving way to the warmer smells of soil and pine needles.
I missed being out here, missed it a lot, even though I was in human form again today.
I found myself wanting to be in this form lately, even when Cori wasn’t near. I felt closer to her this way, I could think more slowly and in more human ways about the complexity of our relationship.
Luke’s scent trailed back to me from just up ahead. I jogged to catch up, even as the bond tugged me backward toward my mate. It was a strange sensation, as if she had my heart on a leash.
“Hey, Luke,” I called out when I could see the back of his shirt.
“Reed,” he cried, turning to wait for me. “I got a tip some campers saw paw prints up on the bluff.”
“Bella told me,” I said. “She seemed worried.”
“Shit,” he said. “That’s the hard part of this mate business.”
“So it’s normal?” I asked.
“Who knows?” he said with a shrug. “I only know what it’s been like for Bella and me. We’re pretty much obsessed with each other.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad,” I admitted.
We walked on in silence for a little while, the birdsong filling in the gap in conversation.
“Do you want to talk about Cori?” Luke asked quietly after a few minutes.
I did. But I wasn’t sure how to begin.
“Did you seal the bond?” he asked, as if he knew I was at a loss.
“No,” I said. “I’m not sure I will.”
“Why not?” he asked, sounding surprised.
“Did you know right away with Bella?” I asked him instead of answering.
“That’s complicated,” he told me. “I thought I didn’t know, but I knew.”
That was a non-answer.
“What’s holding you back with Cori?” he asked.
“She makes me feel… helpless,” I told him.
“Well, that’s love for you,” he chuckled.
“No, it’s not like that,” I said, feeling a little annoyed. “I mean literally helpless. We were chasing down one of the items from that spell last night. We got into some trouble, and she saved my ass.”
“Sounds like it’s not so bad to be helpless,” Luke said. “You have an issue with a woman having powers? You should be proud if she’s stronger than you.”
“First of all, no one is stronger than me,” I told him firmly. “But yeah, her magic is insane. She froze an underground lake.”
“That is impressive,” Luke said, eyebrows lifted. “Bella kind of gave me the impression that Cori wasn’t very good at magic. Please don’t share that.”
“Of course not,” I assured him. “And that’s also kind of true. Her powers are incredible. But she needs to grow into them. I watched her pay the price last night, and…” I trailed off. There were no words for it.
“What’s her price?” Luke asked.
“Memory loss,” I told him. “It’s temporary, but it’s terrifying. She didn’t even know who I was.”
“Oh wow,” Luke said sympathetically.
“I like her, a lot,” I told him. “But it scares me that the bond would make her risk herself in that way, to save my sorry ass.”
“She’s not allowed to like you a lot too?” Luke asked.
“What if she forgets me permanently?” I asked him. “What if she forgets herself because of some trouble I get us into? How can I take a mate, when that bond could risk her mind?”
“Maybe the bond would help,” Luke offered.
“What do you mean?”
“What if the bond meant she couldn’t forget you?” he asked. “Once you seal it, it’s pretty powerful stuff.”
I thought about that, but I didn’t have an answer. If the bond were any stro
nger than it was right now, it seemed like we would be able to cross solar systems to find each other.
Or it could drive her insane.
If her heart remembered and her mind didn’t, what would that mean for her? What if she had to accept me over and over again? What if one of those times… she didn’t?
“Oh, look at this,” Luke said, squatting to examine a set of paw prints.
“They’re not that big,” I said, secretly relieved that they were not the hoofprints I’d stumbled across before.
“Sure, all paw prints look small compared to yours,” he said, squinting at them. “Thing is, they don’t smell anything like a hellhound. I would guess it’s just a dog.”
“Pretty big for a dog,” I said.
He shrugged and straightened, and we followed the scent.
Sure enough, it led us almost to the top of the bluff. It always felt almost heavenly up here, like we were standing in the sky and a tiny piece of Earth had just lifted up to touch our feet.
Scraggly pines clung to the rocky ground. After a moment, I noticed a low whining sound in the gaps of the breeze.
“Hey, buddy,” Luke called out.
A silvery gray face peeked out from between two of the pines. It had long, floppy cheeks with webs of drool hanging from them.
“Great Dane,” Luke said. “Come on, buddy, let’s go find your owners.”
The dog loped out from between the trees with quiet dignity. When it spotted me, it shied away slightly, probably recognizing something of the bear in me.
But Luke made a kissing sound and the big dog trotted right over to him, a silver tag on his collar catching the sunlight.
“I’ll take this from here,” Luke said. “You can head back to the castle if you want.”
Surprisingly, that sounded very good. It wasn’t like me to prefer anything over being outdoors, but I felt like the bond was stretched thin and sharp as a wire between Cori and me. I had to get back to her.
“Thanks for the talk,” I said gruffly and marched away before he could get sappy on me.
25
Cori
Soft morning light poured in the window of my lecture class. I kept glancing at the window, knowing Reed was out there with Luke, chasing down something dangerous.
I might be an overprotective maniac, but it upset me to think of Reed out there, vulnerable. Which I knew was crazy. What could they find that would be a match for the two of them? But my thoughts kept going back to those dark shapes in the water of the cave. And the bond between us kept buzzing and tightening. I felt like a kid whose socks slipped down into her boots. I could stand it, but the awareness of it took up about half my bandwidth.
All of a sudden, his overprotective nature made perfect sense.
“So today, we’ll have a more in-depth talk about the price of magic,” Professor Sora said in her soft voice. “This is a frightening concept, but important for us to talk about.”
She began to pace across the front of the classroom. “Who here knows what the ultimate price means?”
I had no idea. I glanced around, but no one seemed to have any clue.
Then a girl in the front row raised her hand.
“Justine,” Professor Sora said.
“The ultimate price is when a witch uses so much magic that her price is taken fully,” Justine said softly.
“That is correct, dear,” Professor Sora said, nodding. “The ultimate price is when a witch pushes her powers past her own limits, past her ability to pay.”
The classroom was silent as we all took this in.
“When this happens, the witch pays her price permanently,” Professor Sora said.
I blinked at her, the words jangling in my head until they nearly lost their meaning.
“The most famous example of the ultimate price is the story of Hattie’s lover,” Professor Sora said. “Hattie was a brilliant witch, such a gifted healer, that it was rumored she could prevent death itself.”
Beside me, Bella leaned forward, intent, and I remembered that Bella had originally come to the school to learn how to heal her brother. I knew she was in a better place with the whole thing now, but she still had a keen interest in the healing arts. She said it called to her, which I thought was pretty cool.
“Hattie fell in love with an ordinary human,” Professor Sora went on. “He was a simple man who worked on a farm by the lake, but he was kind. He played the lute and sang to her, and Hattie was happier than if she were being wooed by a king.”
My fingers began drumming on my thighs. I could see where this was going.
“The price for Hattie’s magic was great thirst,” Professor Sora explained. “So she practiced her discipline to stave against it, of course. And she carried a skein of water with her everywhere, in case she had to call on her magic unprepared.”
Thirst. That must be nice, I thought to myself.
“One day, she was walking in the village and the foreman from the farm where her lover worked ran up to her panting,” Professor Sora continued. “Her lover had been horribly injured. She ran like the wind. But when she arrived, she knew it was too late.”
Professor Sora strode over to the window and looked out for a moment, before turning to continue her story.
“Then she made her first mistake,” she said, turning to us. “Hattie knew it was too late. But she decided to try anyway. She knelt by his side, blood soaking into her skirts. She placed her hands on his beautiful face, the only part of his body that wasn’t injured.”
Professor Sora paused dramatically for a moment, gazing over the classroom to be sure we were paying attention.
She didn’t have to worry about that. You could have heard a pin drop.
“She closed her eyes and called on her magic,” Professor Sora continued. “At first there was no effect. It was as if the magic had simply refused the impossible task. Then there was a stirring in the air, and Hattie’s lover moaned in agony as his shattered bones tried to knit together.”
Bella hissed in a breath beside me, and I tried to catch her eye to remind her it was an old story.
“Hattie worked on and on,” Professor Sora said. “Her lover screamed and begged her to let him go, and her magic swirled out of her until only a fine mist remained. And then there was nothing, and still she raged on…”
Professor Sora stopped to push her spectacles up her nose. “After a time, Hattie’s lover died. And she wailed over his broken body. But no tears fell from her eyes. She searched her garments frantically for her skein, held it to her lips, and drank it dry.”
I wasn’t sure what was coming, but I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to like it.
“She looked around in desperation, but there was no water near,” the professor said. “So she dragged herself back toward the village as the foreman cried out her name. But she was so parched it was as if her body was turning inside out. And then she saw the cold lake, its surface dark and glossy.”
The professor gazed out the window for a moment before turning back to us.
“They say the foreman jumped in after her and tried to pull her out, but her strength was superhuman. She drank in the cold water until the weight of it pulled her down. Most witches feel the drowning was a mercy.”
She allowed a moment of silence, leaving us with the image of the torn body of the lover and Hattie’s watery doom.
Bella put her hand up.
“Yes, Bella?” Professor Sora said.
“How do we know if a spell is too hard?” Bella asked softly.
Bella’s price was losing colors from her vision, and once she lost her vision completely. But it came back to her quickly afterward. I could see that she was afraid of losing it permanently.
“So if we try a spell that’s too hard, the price is forever?” Nuria asked, forgetting to raise her hand.
Other hands went up.
“Oh, my dears,” Professor Sora said quickly. “This doesn’t happen by accident, so you’ve no need to worry. It doesn’t co
me from and ordinary challenge. This is something that has to be done willfully.”
“But how do you know if you’re doing it?” Bella asked.
“Every witch has a limit,” Professor Sora said. “A sort of wall at the end of her powers. You cannot push past it without knowing. The pain would be blindingly intense. You’d be more likely to accidentally climb the highest walls of the castle.”
Hands went down, but there was still an air of tension in the room as a dozen new witches contemplated what our magic could mean if we pushed too far.
26
Cori
Later that afternoon, Reed and I headed into the woods.
He walked slightly ahead of me on the narrow trail, holding back branches with his big hands to give me easy passage and then scrambling through the foliage to get ahead of me again.
“Would you rather be a bear right now?” I asked as he jogged around me for about the hundredth time.
He paused and turned to me thoughtfully.
“Normally, yes,” he said. “But these last few days, I just… feel good in this body.”
I want to make you feel good in that body.
God, I was losing my mind.
“Are you okay with that?” he asked. “If you’re tired, I can shift and carry you.”
“No, I’m fine,” I told him. “I was just curious. It seems like you like being a bear more than Luke likes being a wolf.”
“Luke doesn’t dislike being a wolf,” he replied automatically.
“That wasn’t what I meant,” I said carefully. “I just mean… you were a bear in the tower. And when you chose me.”
“I didn’t really grow up in a human family,” he said carefully.
“I’m sorry,” I told him. “You were telling me the night we, uh, the night of the ceremony, that you came to live with the guardians when you were little?”
“Yes,” he said.
We walked on in silence for a few minutes as I forced myself not to ask any follow-up questions. He would tell me what he wanted me to know. We had plenty of time to learn each other’s secrets.