Well, that’ll teach him not to mess with females, though my satisfied thought evaporated as soon as he picked up his phone and called for M.L.E. officers to come to the Administration Building and help “calm down a rowdy crowd.”
Magical Law Enforcement officers? Were they now at his beck and call? There had never been officers stationed at the school in the three years prior. Last semester, when a battle had been waged on school grounds, their presence had made sense, but now? We were dealing with angry students who had a right to protest, not criminals. Dean McIntosh would’ve just gone out there and talked them down.
It took a lot of self-restraint to keep a straight face, then follow Nyquist out of the office as if I were a good little lackey who thought everything he was doing was justified.
“This Academy needs a strong hand,” he said as he ambled down the corridor toward the foyer. “When I went here, witches and warlocks didn’t intermingle like nowadays. Don’t get me wrong, Ms. Rivera, I have nothing against your gender. You are strong and resilient, even talented—some of you, anyway. But warlocks get too distracted by your guiles and don’t focus on what's important. The changes I’ve instituted will be good for everyone. If people would just learn to listen without causing a stir at every turn.”
Our guiles? Christ, he was old.
“Um, yes,” I said, unable to think of a proper response for all that ridiculous patriarchal bullshit.
When we reached the grand foyer, the chant of angry voices could be heard drifting through the large front door. The few students still inside glanced from the dean to the exit. They watched me too, which made me wish for the marble floors to crack open and swallow me. I hated that they would think I was in league with Nyquist.
“Stay by me, Ms. Rivera,” Nyquist said. “Your fellow students need to see a good example, a witch with a real future ahead of her, someone who knows her place and takes advantage of what is offered to her.”
He charged ahead and shambled outside, his old man shoes squeaking on the tile floor.
A sea of young faces—Bridget in the lead—turned in his direction. At the sight of him, the chants rose in pitch and meanness. At first, Nyquist didn’t try to talk, he just stood there coolly and regarded the crowd with detachment. He didn’t seem scared of them anymore.
“Witches have rights,” Bridget said using a voice-magnifying spell and casting a dirty glance in my direction.
The other students changed their previous chant of “we need proper dorms” to this new one.
“Witches have rights. Witches have rights!”
Still, Nyquist did nothing.
I scanned the crowd for Disha and found her sitting on a bench all the way in the back, looking so done with this whole affair. She seemed to be on her phone, talking to Drew most likely.
There was a pop to my right and left, and I had to jump when two M.L.E. officers materialized at each flank. They were dressed all in brown with wide bands around their arms that had the M.L.E. initials etched in black ink. Short cloaks hung at their backs. I was surprised to find that they were both women, tall and broad, with their long hair pulled into tight buns at the top of their heads. They looked commanding and very intimidating.
The crowd went silent at the officers’ surprise appearance. Judging by their simple uniforms, the women were of low rank, but if the severe way they carried themselves was a requirement of success within the force, they would soon be getting into higher stations.
At last, Nyquist pressed two fingers to his throat and spoke. “Ladies,” he said in a pacifying tone, “I understand the unrest, but I assure you, it is completely unnecessary. If you had received your welcome packages, you would know that the changes taking place are for the good of the Academy and all its students.”
“Lies,” Bridget yelled.
The dean ignored her, not even bothering to look in her direction. “The old Alumni Hall,” he said, “which has been renamed to Witch Cove will soon be one of the best-equipped dorms on campus.”
The students exchanged glances, looking intrigued by Nyquist’s words. Was this true? I didn’t think so. I actually had the feeling that the old man was making shit up on the spot.
“This Supernatural Academy has a certain prestige to uphold,” he said. “So it is ludicrous to think that we won’t provide the best for all our students. Still, changes can’t happen overnight, even in our magical community. Permits are needed, funds must be approved, designs have to be finalized. All kinds of boring things your young minds have no time or inclination to understand.”
Judging by the blank stares on some of the students, Nyquist wasn’t far from the truth. They were already looking bored. Even Bridget appeared at the brink of dozing off.
“As your new dean, I promise you the current situation at Witch Cove is strictly temporary. Bear with us and, in the end, you will not be disappointed with the state of the art facility we will provide for you.”
As my gaze roved over the crowd, I could see the fight had gone out of most of the girls. Several had just traveled many miles to get here today. They were tired, and the blazing afternoon sun bearing down on them was surely draining the last bit of energy left in their systems. Nothing a tall mocha coffee couldn’t cure, but there were none of those around.
At the fringes of the crowd, the protestors started peeling away, appearing mildly satisfied with the lies Nyquist had so masterfully pulled out of his sagging behind. Little by little, the group walked away.
After a few minutes, only Bridget was left at the bottom of the steps, an intense expression on her face. She didn’t have the look of someone who had given up. Maybe she was planning something. God only knew what.
Nyquist sniffled and threw his head back in triumph. He turned to go back inside and seemed surprised to find me a step behind him.
“Oh, Ms. Rivera,” he said. “I should thank you for your timely warning. Very much appreciated.” He bared his yellowed teeth.
“You’re welcome,” I said, clenching my hands behind my back to keep them from reaching for his neck.
“Now, I must go back to work. I need to make sure the student welcome packages get delivered. Please let me know if there are any more… flare-ups. I’m counting on you.” He hurried inside, though not before instructing the M.L.E. officers to stay put and keep an eye out for more signs of unrest.
Feeling exhausted, I went down the steps.
“C’mon, Bridget,” I said as I passed next to her. “It was a valiant effort. At least now we know the bunk beds are temporary.” I patted her on the shoulder and headed toward Disha.
She stayed behind, her eyes fixed on the Administration Building’s facade.
“What a mess,” Disha said as I sat next to her.
“I know.”
“And we’re right back where we started ‘cause I don’t buy anything Nyquist just said. He’s a clever geezer, probably made all that up on the spot. I bet that later he’s gonna say the budget for the remodel is not being approved by the board or some such crap. All of that for nothing.”
“I don’t know if it was all for nothing,” I said, thinking back to the glimpse of Nyquist’s memory.
Disha cocked her head to one side. “Oh? Spill.”
“I saw something,” I said. “I’m not sure what it means yet, but I’ll find out.”
While I’d been standing next to Nyquist on top of those stairs, the images of that girl had nagged at me, tugging at a memory of my own, a memory of two long summers ago: me in a beet farm, thumbing through old photo albums of Irmagard and her sisters.
The young girl in Nyquist’s memories had seemed familiar because I’d seen her in those photo albums. That young girl was one of the McIntosh triplets, either Lynssa, Irmagard, or Espelth.
What could Nyquist possibly want with one of them?
Chapter Thirteen
FALL SEMESTER
MID-SEPTEMBER
If I’d had any thought that classes would be better than the disaster
of the first day, I had another thing coming.
The girls and I spent the first few days magicking our new “dorm” into something livable. We erected soundproof barriers, rearranged furniture and used cleaning spell after cleaning spell until our space was mostly livable.
Now, each bunk had a little cubby that was semi-private. With twinkling fairy lights and new curtains, the place took on a certain charm. However, it was still small and cramped and had terrible grimy bathrooms that no amount of spells could clean. A few girls left on account of the conditions, and all I could feel was relief that the shower line would be shorter in the morning. Most stuck around, though, probably hopeful about Nyquist’s promises.
Bridget wouldn’t speak to me. This wasn’t new behavior as she’d pulled a similar stunt last year, too. But I couldn’t risk telling her my secret. Knowing how impulsively she tended to act, I had to let her believe I was the bad guy. Another thing to regret, it seemed.
However, I was too busy putting out fires and calming girls’ nerves to worry too much about Bridget. The first night, a sophomore girl had hexed a freshman who snored too loudly. And the second night, the freshman retaliated, giving the sophomore such deformed elephant features she had to be taken to the new nurse, Nurse Horrace, a severe-looking woman who seemed to like causing pain more than soothing it.
As I watched her tweak the girl’s nose-turned-trunk and scold her for not defending herself, I made a mental note not to get sick this year. She was nothing like Nurse Taishi. One more reason to fight. We had to get him back.
Besides Witch Cove’s responsibilities, I still had spy duties to attend to. I needed to figure out what Nyquist was doing with the memory of one of the triplets. I was certain it was one of the McIntosh sisters, but the problem was none of them were around to ask. And, Rowan was no help.
In his Lawson disguise, we couldn’t talk in public. His fans hounded him, and with the new rules about men and women fraternizing on-campus—private conversations between couples were highly discouraged—it was impossible. I’d tried a few note-sending spells with dummy messages, but with M.L.E. officers almost everywhere that seemed like a great way to get caught.
I’d pictured my senior year to be the year when I would hit my stride, both magically and personally, but so far, it had been more like ten tons of horse crap in a five-ton cart.
In other words, shitty.
And yet, classes were somehow worse. Our schedules had changed. Now, instead of Potions and Defensive Magic, we were taking Domestic Spellcasting and Medicinal Skills for the Modern Witch. It was more male-dominated garbage, making me feel like I was attending college in the 1950s. Maybe Nyquist had figured out how to use the Loopers to turn back time, or maybe he was finding a way to usher in decades’-old ideals with a sweep of his hand.
And I was helping him.
Today, Disha and I sat in Domestic Spellcasting. The class was held in the Spells Cave, but the curriculum was much changed. The stone seats that ringed the main stage were filled with women. Standing on the platform was one of our new teachers, Mrs. Bass. She appeared to have been dug up from an archive and reanimated before they took the embalming fluid out. Her skin was pasty and with a greenish tint. She was in her sixties but dressed much older, right down to her brown orthopedic shoes, pearl necklace, high-necked dress, and pantyhose. The curly gray hair she wore looked more like a cheap costume wig than an actual hairstyle, but here we were.
“Ladies,” she shrilled, “sit up straight. Eyes on me. Now repeat these words exactly. Lustrant per sordes. Redige auferat cibum.” She flicked a wand—yes, an actual wand—at a pile of dirt. It disappeared.
“Rocket science, I tell you what,” Disha whispered with a roll of her eyes.
“What was that?” Mrs. Bass’s eyes darted up, pinning us like moths.
“Um, nothing,” Disha said. “I was asking Charlie about proper finger placement.” Disha twiddled her long, brown fingers and smiled.
Mrs. Bass frowned. Disha’s chipper demeanor, which had gone far to impress the young male teachers of the past, did the opposite for our new ones.
“Another word and you’ll get a foible,” Mrs. Bass said.
Foibles were the new staff’s fancy way of doling out demerits. It was a cute term that disguised major consequences. Get enough of them and you were grounded to the dorms. More and you could be expelled.
Disha bit her lip and nodded, but below her books, she was squeezing my leg hard enough to bruise. Damn, my friend had the hand strength of a lumberjack.
For all our sakes, this had to stop. The male students were still following the real curriculum, learning advanced spells on teleportation and conjuring while we had to do this crap. It was so unfair.
After an excruciating hour watching Mrs. Bass teach us laundry spells and cooking spells, we were finally turned loose into the hot September sun. Disha pulled me along campus to a bench and quickly cast a cloaking spell.
“I swear to all that is holy,” she began, “I’m going to broil off her eyebrows—the four hairs she has left, anyway. Then I’m going to make her eat her own wig after I use her sautéing spell on it!” She kicked at the grass, cursing. “I’m going to—”
There was a popping sound as the air around us whooshed out. We stared up in time to see Cruise Knightley knocking our cloaking spell away with a wave of his hand.
“Cloaking spells are illegal, ladies. You know that.” His mouth curled up in a snide smile. God, he loved torturing us.
Some of the boys had been given the ability to police their fellow students as if we needed Hitler Youth storming around to add to the welcoming atmosphere.
“Arg!” Disha howled, clenching her hands. I had to hold her back from broiling his eyebrows.
“Sorry, Cruise,” I said, holding her tight. “Disha is having some, er, private girl troubles if you know what I mean.”
I nodded down to Disha’s lady parts as if to indicate we were talking about periods.
Cruise took a step back, making a face. “Gross. Go to your dorm to talk about that.”
To my surprise, he left without giving us a foible or harassing us further. I counted it as a win until I turned and saw Disha’s face. Tears were streaming down her cheeks.
“Oh no,” I said, wrapping her in a hug. “It’s okay. We’ll deal with that teacher situation later.”
Disha gripped my shoulders. “That’s just it, Char. I don’t think we will. We can’t deal with anything anymore.”
I hugged her for a moment before holding her at arms’ length and staring into her eyes. “We can deal. We’re badass witches, remember?”
She sniffed, not ready to give up her sadness.
“What about this?” I added. “I was saving it for later, but Drew and Lawson have come up with something for tonight.”
Her eyebrows lifted.
Drew had been around campus, making notes and reporting back to his father—to Nyquist’s deep displeasure. He’d taken up an office in the Administration Building but had to go back and forth a lot. The good news was that he was back for the weekend and had conspired with Lawson to take Disha and me off-campus where we could breathe and talk without the likes of Cruise Knightley hovering around.
“A double date,” I told her.
She stopped crying. “Somewhere nice and expensive?”
“I’m sure,” I said.
A smile graced her tear-streaked face. “I hope really expensive.”
“How could Lawson Rush be seen anywhere else?”
I was nervous, not only to venture out on a double date but to spend time alone with Rowan dressed as Lawson. Lately, I’d spent my nights dreaming of being with him as a nice distraction from all that was going on, but when it came down to it, I just didn’t know how to be around him. Plus, there was so much baggage, and Lawson was recognized everywhere we went. It complicated things.
Yet, by seven PM that night, Disha and I were sufficiently dolled up and waiting on the curb by the Administra
tion Building.
When a stretch limo pulled up, with Lawson sticking out of the sunroof, I couldn’t say I was shocked.
“Dolls!” he shouted, “are you ready for the night of your lives?”
Girls walking from the cafeteria took notice and started to flock to us. Lord, couldn’t he do anything without drawing attention?
“Come on,” I said, grabbing Disha’s hand and hurrying her to the limousine. “Get in before the mob arrives.”
We clomped in our high heels to the door the driver was now holding open for us. As we slipped inside, Drew greeted me with a smile before Disha sat down on top of him. He wore an expensive black suit, black dress shirt, and slim purple tie. His hair was slicked back and his beard was professionally trimmed. He looked like a high-powered Wall Street executive.
Lawson, who had managed to extricate himself from the sunroof, was the stark opposite. Rocker to the bone, he wore a silk shirt in a navy and gold geometric pattern. It was unbuttoned so that his entire chest and abs were bare for all to see. Magic tattoos—a Chinese dragon, a black pirate ship, and a string of Arabic letters—cavorted on his chest, traveling around before settling down on his taut stomach and round pecs. He was in exquisite shape, not an ounce of fat to be seen. I wondered if he spent his days working out instead of studying magic as he was supposed to be doing. Or maybe it was some kind of spell.
Instead of shoulder-length golden curls, his hair was cut short and colored a verdant green, a shocking look, and yet so damn sexy I found myself staring for a beat too long, especially because his dark eyes were entirely Rowan.
He patted the leather seat beside him. “Come over here, darling, and get a better look,” he purred.
“Stop it,” I snapped, angry at myself for revealing how hot I thought he looked. “Be normal.”
He laughed and then reached behind him to knock on the security glass that divided us from the driver. Slowly, the black divider rolled up. Still, that wasn’t enough, so Disha wove one of her cloaking spells to be sure, probably picturing Mrs. Bass’s trampled wig as she did so.
Senior Witch, Fall Semester Page 9