Hex Appeal: A Hexy Witch Mystery (Womby's School for Wayward Witches Book 15)

by Sarina Dorie

  The principal folded his metal hands in front of himself. “We’re all friends here, eh? We all want what’s best for you, Ms. Lawrence, and what’s best for the students. Think of this as an opportunity to correct your behavior.”

  Vega began writing, her hand racing across the pad to keep up with his words. “Excuse me,” Vega said, “could you state what Ms. Lawrence’s formal reprimand is for? I know the letter said something about an ‘inappropriate respect for authority,’ but there were no concrete details.”

  Steam puffed out of the shoulder joins of Chuck Dean’s body armor. “Ah, yes. Ms. Lawrence used inappropriate and insolent language that was disrespectful of her superiors.”

  “Can you give an example of the swear words she used?” Vega leaned forward with interest. “I want to make sure I write it down so we have a full record.”

  I glared at her. She was very good at playing a double agent.

  Chuck Dean waved her off dismissively. “It was more her tone and the message of her argument that I found disrespectful. She made a sarcastic reference to my traumatic experience with the Silver Court and offered a snide commentary that I found churlish and uncalled for.”

  I tried to remember what I could possibly have said about his traumatic experience. Oh, yes, I’d said acting like he was in charge had worked well for him in the past. It had been snotty. Still, I thought it was nothing compared to his nasty remarks.

  “So she didn’t swear?” Khaba asked.

  Chuck Dean shrugged. “I can’t recall the exact words. She may have said the word ‘fuck’ or ‘shit’ or some other words unbecoming of a teacher.”

  “I did not swear. I don’t swear.” I crossed my arms. “I make it a habit of speaking to people civilly. You were the one who brought up my personal life and told me I shouldn’t have gotten married, or chosen to live in this realm, and my mom is probably dead.” I turned to Vega. “He was antagonistic and rude. His remarks had nothing to do with my teaching—”

  “Ms. Lawrence, you have not been given permission to speak,” Chuck Dean said.

  “Are you writing this down, Miss Bloodmire?” Khaba asked.

  Her hand wrote furiously. “Every word.”

  The principal gave Khaba a withering glance before directing his attention to Vega. “No, Miss Bloodmire will not write that down. I did no such thing.” He fidgeted in his chair.

  “What about calling me a brainless idiot, swearing at me in front of students, and damaging school property?” I pointed at the table farther down the horseshoe arrangement, still covered in splinters where he’d punched it. “Are you going to claim you didn’t do that too?”

  Khaba raised an eyebrow. “I beg your pardon? Did you swear at one of the teachers at this school? We did discuss that any staff member using inappropriate language should be chastised.”

  I could see he was completely on my side in this, even if he couldn’t say so. He just had to do everything by the book.

  Chuck Dean cleared his throat. “I may have said the word ‘damn’ or ‘crap.’ Hardly anything worth mentioning.”

  “You dropped an F-bomb,” I said. “I did not.”

  He snorted. “It’s her word against mine. There were no witnesses. There’s no proof that I used profanity.”

  Again, I pointed to the splintered gouge in the table he’d punched. “What about that? Are you going to say you didn’t do that to my table either?”

  His face flushed red. “A student probably did that.”

  Khaba nodded. “Yes, of course. Let’s agree to dismiss all circumstantial and hearsay evidence. Anything that cannot be proven by witnesses, I would like us to agree to dismiss.”

  Fae were pedantic in their word choice. I noticed what he was hinting at. There had been witnesses. If Imani and Greenie weren’t too afraid of the principal to tell what they’d seen, they would corroborate that they had heard him swear. Not that I thought this was the worst infraction in the world, but perhaps it was enough to make him rethink his juvenile reprimand against me.

  “No! This is not the way it works.” Chuck Dean raised his voice. “This meeting isn’t about me. It’s about her. We are not discussing information that is irrelevant.”

  “No need to let this upset you,” Khaba said. “We’re all friends here.”

  Vega underlined something on her memo pad. I tried not to make it obvious I was reading what she wrote.

  The principal shouted, “This isn’t about me. It’s about her.”

  Khaba and Vega must have conspired before this meeting had begun.

  The principal glared at Vega as she wrote on her pad. “I did not ‘shout!’ Cross that off.”

  She did so, then added a note in the margin stating he had told her to cross off that he had shouted.

  Khaba folded his hands before him. “I believe we’ve agreed not to discuss anything that can’t be proven. Since there were no witnesses that heard Ms. Lawrence swear or say anything insolent, that means it might be in our best interest to forget about this business of a formal reprimand.”

  “You are twisting my words!” the principal said.

  “No, I am simply quoting them verbatim. I am enforcing the rules you have insisted on. As you’ve so helpfully pointed out in the past, I’m a Fae. I am bound by rules.” Khaba spoke softly, his smile cloyingly pleasant. I had a feeling he had his own issues with the principal.

  The principal set a paper bag on the table. He took a few deep breaths, calming himself. “All righty. No worries. Let’s move on to evidence.” He removed the bloody knife I’d used to cut Maddy that I’d stashed in my supply closet, intending to clean another time.

  I’d forgotten about it.

  Chuck Dean sat up in his seat. “There’s obvious blood on this weapon. Who did you stab?”

  “No one,” I said. I prayed he didn’t know about Khaba’s lie-detector spell.

  “There’s probably a reasonable explanation for that knife. Ms. Lawrence might have cut herself. We don’t need to jump to conclusions,” Khaba said. “Might we start with open-ended questions, instead of suggestive questions?” He turned to me. “Ms. Lawrence, can you please explain what this red substance is dried on this knife?

  “It isn’t a knife. It’s a letter opener. I cut myself a while ago.” I examined my hands for any cuts or scratches I was always getting from picking up student pottery projects. I pointed to one on the side of my hand that was scabbed over.

  The principal frowned. “Is that so? Let’s do a blood match.” He turned to Mr. Khaba. “Use that spell you were telling me about when we found Camelia Llewelyn’s corpse and we wanted to see if any residue of her body was on Felix Thatch’s hands.”

  “That was a spell to detect essence, not blood,” Khaba said matter-of-factly. “Additionally, it is a Witchkin spell, not one I am familiar with as a Fae. I had hoped we could get someone else to perform it. Perhaps you would be willing to do the honors.”

  Principal Dean’s eyes narrowed. “You know I can’t do that kind of magic anymore.” He lifted his hands encased in metal. “Not with these.”

  “Oh, I forgot about the magic in the metal making it difficult to perform spells,” Khaba said. “Pity.”

  I could see another reason the principal hated me. Not only were Chuck Dean’s injuries from King Viridios permanent, but he couldn’t use magic either. He’d been doing his job, trying to protect the school, and this was his reward. It hardly seemed fair.

  Not that it made things right to punish everyone else who had survived unscathed.

  Chuck Dean looked to Vega. “You’re a Merlin-class Celestor. From what I understand, you can do any spell.”

  “Any spell that I’ve read.” She continued writing. “Put a copy of that spell in my box in the morning, and I’ll take care of it.”

  I was ready to move on and get this meeting over. “Is there anything else you’re going to accuse me of and write up a formal reprimand for?” The next lo
gical move would be to bring up the sketchbook.

  The principal lifted his chin. “Your inappropriate and lewd art that you were making during school hours.”

  Yep, here it was. My sketchbook full of the dark arts. He’d saved his trump card for last.

  “Were there naked people in them?” Vega asked. “Can I see?”

  Chuck Dean ignored her. “There were dead bodies, and I’m sure other gory details.”

  “What do you mean by ‘I’m sure other gory details’? Did you not see it yourself?” Khaba asked.

  The principal bristled. “Stop playing those Fae mind games with me.”

  Khaba placed a hand on his heart. “I’m not playing any game. I simply wish to know what you saw that was inappropriate.”

  “It would be useful to see this art.” Vega looked up from her writing to scan the contents of my now tidy desk.

  Chuck Dean crossed his arms. “The book Ms. Lawrence was drawing in earlier is now missing from her desk. Nor was it in her private quarters.”

  He’d been in my room? Craptabulous! Who knew what he might have found in there. Thatch’s art was way darker than mine.

  Khaba nodded. “Got it. So we don’t have any evidence Ms. Lawrence was drawing anything scandalous during class time. I believe we agreed we weren’t going to persecute teachers without evidence.”

  “She was absorbed in her art. She was ignoring the students. That isn’t what a good teacher does.” Chuck Dean blustered, his face turning red. “I wrote it down in my observation. That should be evidence.”

  Khaba shook his head in mock disgust. “Those self-absorbed art teachers. Don’t know what to do with them; don’t know what to do without them. You should have seen some of the hilarious antics our old art teachers used to do! Did I tell you about that time Jorge Smith did the splatter paintings?”

  “Let’s not get off track,” Chuck Dean said.

  I interjected before he could further slander me. “I assure you I’ll make improvements in my teaching and do a better job in the future. I’ve just had a rough end of the year with the attacks. I’ll be able to focus better after summer vacation.”

  Khaba patted my hand. “Of course you will. You’ve had a rough year. This summer will be a good chance for you to recuperate and do some art therapy.” He looked to Vega. “I think this meeting is over.”

  “Not quite,” the principal said. “There’s one more item I found in Ms. Lawrence’s art supplies that is highly objectionable. I made it clear to all staff I would not permit anything that would damage our wards or endanger our students. Under no circumstance is it permissible to allow electronics on campus.”

  My eyes went wide as I remembered the items I had packed in the quilted bag that I had intended to use as weapons against the Raven Queen. I imagined the fifty shades of humiliation I was about to go through when he held up one risqué item in particular.

  Chuck Dean dumped out the remaining contents from the bag.

  He scooted back from the MP3 player. He waved a hand at it. The gesture would have been comical if Witchkin didn’t consider electronics as bad as weapons.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Fifty Points to Slytherin

  Vega pushed her chair away from the table, feigning disgust. Khaba inched back. His aversion wasn’t fake.

  I would have liked to say that the MP3 player had been planted by the principal to make me look guilty, but it wasn’t. The electronic device was Thatch’s. It was the one hidden in the false bottom in the trunk of his art supplies.

  At least he hadn’t found my vibrator.

  I’d dodged the bullet for everything in this meeting except for having electronics. And the MP3 player wasn’t even mine. I could have said it was Thatch’s, but then my husband would have gotten a reprimand.

  “Is this or is this not your electronic device?” the principal asked.

  “It was a student’s,” I lied.

  “Whose?”

  There was no way I was blaming a student, even if Balthasar Llewelyn and Ben O’Sullivan both had been jerks lately and I wouldn’t have minded giving them an extra detention.

  “I don’t remember,” I said.

  He snorted. “How convenient.”

  “I probably confiscated it during Art Club last year and forgot to give it to Mr. Khaba,” I said.

  “Then why was it in your personal possession, hidden in your art supplies?” He leaned forward. “Charged. Full of electricity. The power in Morty electronics doesn’t last months, let alone a year.”

  “Really? I didn’t know that,” Vega said with mock curiosity. “Are you certain? Have you ever used electronics before?”

  The remark went unnoticed.

  “Well, what have you to say about that?” Chuck Dean rubbed his hands together eagerly, the metal gloves clicking together as he did so. “Should we use a lie-detector spell to prove you’re telling the truth?”

  Maybe it would be better if I took the blame for the MP3 player. That way, he wouldn’t need to use some kind of charm to compel me to tell the truth about everything bad I’d done.

  Khaba must have realized the danger of what the principal was suggesting. He spoke quietly but calmly, the only hint he might be nervous, the speed of his words. “I believe it would be in our best interest to give Ms. Lawrence a formal reprimand for forgetting to turn in an electronic device. It will go on her permanent record, and she will be under probation for the next year.”

  The principal leered at me. “No. We are going to make Ms. Lawrence prove her innocence.”

  Khaba leaned toward the principal, his whisper conspiratorial. “I advise you against it. The results might not work to your advantage.”

  “Is that so? Or is it because you’re afraid of the results and how they might incriminate your colleague? You’re too biased to recognize the weakest members of the staff and too soft to do anything about it. Bring me that crystal ball you use to detect whether students are lying to you. We’re going to put Ms. Lawrence to the test.”

  Khaba rubbed a hand against his chest, just under the third button. The gesture reminded me of someone with an itch, but I knew what he was doing. It was subtle enough that someone else might have missed it. When I had freed him from the lamp—or from the bong in the latter instance—I had never asked him how the magic worked so that he would be his own sovereign. I suspected I now understood. He was rubbing his own lamp.

  “I have an idea,” Vega said. “Let’s start from the very beginning. Every accusation you’ve made about Clarissa swearing at you or using drugs, we’ll ask her again. If the lie detector proves she didn’t do those things, we know she isn’t a liar.” A smile twisted her lips upward. “That would mean someone else was lying … which means we should ask you if you were telling the truth.”

  Vega and her reverse psychology. She had used this so many times on me, and it had worked.

  The principal paused, some of his cool leaving him. “As I stated before, this is a disciplinary meeting for Ms. Lawrence. I am not the one being reprimanded. You would do well to remember that, Miss Bloodmire, especially if you ever want to become department head someday.”

  She smiled sweetly. “Of course.”

  I admired her audacity, but ultimately her attempt wasn’t going to improve my situation. If he asked if the electronic device was mine, I could say no, but if he pried further, he would see it was Thatch’s. If he asked about my drawings or the blood or why Maddy had brought me those bottles, he would see I was lying.

  In the time it had taken the exchange between the principal and Vega, Khaba had magicked the crystal ball into his hand.

  He held it up. “Let me explain how this works so that Miss Bloodmire can write this into her notes.”

  She set the pen to the paper.

  “When I ask a question, it will flash red if the person I am asking lies—or intends to lie. It will flash green if one is telling the truth. In a formal inquisition—o
r an informal questioning among friends—I always begin with a question for the administrator in charge to verify the accuracy of these methods and so that you can keep in mind how subjective the idea of truth is. For example, Clarissa, what is your hair color?”

  “Pink.”

  The ball flashed red.

  Vega bit the end of her pen, her brows coming together as if troubled. “Her hair is pink.”

  “It’s very specific,” Khaba said. “The device wants the entire truth.”

  Khaba had used the device once before with me, and I understood it well enough. There was something about the ways he spoke that sounded rehearsed. Something about this scenario didn’t feel natural. I couldn’t tell where this was going.

  Khaba looked to me. “Try again, Ms. Lawrence. What is your natural hair color?”

  “My natural hair color is red. We call it auburn or maybe strawberry blonde. But I dyed my hair pink.”

  The globe glowed green before fading away.

  His crystal ball wasn’t so different from Princess Quenylda’s Pinocchio curse. The minutia of the answer was important. I suspected Khaba was leading the principal down this path of understanding so that I had time to prepare my answers.

  “Now, let’s give you a turn so you can understand how tricky it can be,” Khaba said. “Who appointed you as principal of this school?”

  “The school board.”

  The ball flashed red.

  Chuck Dean chuckled, “Crikey! It’s one of those tricky questions. The school board appointed me under the advice of the Witchkin Council.”

  The sphere glowed red again. The principal frowned. “There are other factors and politics, of course. I’m not going to list all the people involved.”

  The ball continued to glow red before briefly flickering green. The light faded away.

  The principal smiled. “I see what you mean. It helps to ask precise questions. The sphere expects precise answers.”