by Sarina Dorie
Vega’s voice was stern. “Keep the bandages on and don’t let the principal see your hands or else he’s likely to send you to Nurse Hilda.”
“Yes, ma’am. Thank you.”
Vega smiled, a hint of warmth cracking through her tough exterior. Standing in the doorway, I felt like I was intruding.
Abruptly, Vega stood up and sauntered toward me. “Miss Lawrence, mind Maddy for a moment. I wish to see if the girls are settled back into their beds.”
I took Vega’s place at Maddy’s side. “How are you holding up, sport?” I sounded like my dad.
Tears filled her blue eyes. “I’m sorry, Miss Lawrence. You must be so disappointed in me.”
“No, not at all. Why would you say that?”
“I didn’t mean to use my magic on that boy. And I didn’t mean to kiss him back. And I didn’t want to try to kill him. If Hailey hadn’t stopped me… .” She covered her face with her bandaged hands.
So that explained why she had more burns on her than Balthasar. He had probably been drawn to Maddy after Imani had released the siren magic out of her during her spontaneous burst of waterbending.
“Don’t beat yourself up over this.” I patted her back. “We all experience setbacks and have accidents. The important thing is that you have a network of people around you who are here to help you so no one gets seriously hurt. Hailey might be a pain in the behind sometimes, but she pulled through for you and Balthasar tonight, right?”
Maddy nodded, her expression glum.
I nudged her with my elbow. “I know what will cheer you up.” This was the first moment of calm that I’d had in hours. I told Maddy about the mural and who had made it.
Her brow crinkled up in disbelief. “You have a boyfriend?”
“I did. Sort of. For one day. That was before my magic blasted him into the Unseen Realm, and he landed here at Womby’s.”
“Where is he now?”
Good question.
Vega’s heels tapped over the floor, signaling her arrival. “Now that I’ve enchanted everyone’s voices into silence, they will have no problem going to sleep.” She smirked.
“Do I have to… ?” Maddy swallowed and looked to me. “Do I have to go back to the girls’ dorm?”
Vega sat down on her own bed. Her tone was unusually indulgent. “You can sleep in here. But only for tonight.”
She showed more kindness to Maddy than she ever had shown to me—or quite possibly anyone else. I waited for the catch.
Maddy looked from Vega’s bed, to mine, to the floor. “I’ll sleep in the corner. I won’t bother either of you.”
“Nonsense, child. We wouldn’t dream of offering you the floor. You’re going to sleep in a comfortable bed.” Vega’s smile turned sinister. “Miss Lawrence will give you her bed.”
Probably this was another attempt to make me uncomfortable and to get a rise out of me, but I didn’t mind. Maddy needed a bed by herself for the night. The last thing she needed was my magic amplifying her.
“Yes,” I agreed. “I’ll sleep on the floor.”
“That’s right. You will.” Vega cackled. “In the girls’ dorm so you can make sure no other boys break in.”
Of course. There was always a price for Vega’s niceness.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Temptations
That small burst of kindness from Vega when she had helped Maddy and threatened Balthasar made me wonder if I had been wrong about my roommate. Maybe there was a nice person trapped somewhere deep inside that coldhearted witch. She might be like Thatch and not know how to show people she cared.
My A day passed without incident. The following evening, as Vega and I settled down into our beds, I tried to think of a way to talk to her without annoying her to the point of hexing my mouth shut. She didn’t seem interested in talking. She turned out the lights.
Her bed creaked as she shifted. I didn’t want to wait any longer to talk to her, or else she would get mad I was stealing her sleeping time.
“Is there anything you like?” I asked. “Any kind of food or art or books?”
“If you’re asking me what I want for Christmas, you can give me the beating heart of one of my enemies. It would come in handy for a potion I’d like to make some day.”
Cheery.
“So, who are your enemies?”
“Pretty much everyone.”
“Thatch?” Not that I would give her his heart, but I wondered what kind of relationship they had.
“Thatch is my supervisor, and he’s an annoying fucktard, so yeah, his heart would qualify. If you ever kill him, I wouldn’t mind taking his heart off your hands.”
“Is there anyone you like?”
“Not anyone alive.” She was silent for an entire minute. “There are only people I tolerate.”
That was pretty sad. She must be lonely.
“What do you do during the holidays?” I asked. “Do you spend it with family?”
“God no! My father is an elitist snob. He never approved of my decision to be a teacher. My mother is a manipulative psycho bitch. You’re so lucky your evil mother is dead.”
“I guess. I would have liked to meet her to see if all the things people tell me about her are true.” She didn’t sound wicked in her journal, not even cold and scientific. She really had cared about helping people even if she had taken the wrong path to do it.
Vega’s bed creaked, and I thought I saw her silhouette sitting up. “I wish I could have met your mother.”
“People tell me I’m like her, or they’re afraid I’ll be like her, but I really would like to see for myself.”
Vega snorted. “I didn’t meet the woman, but I know you aren’t like her. She was powerful, successful, and ambitious. You’re just sort of … meh.”
“Thanks.” Knowing Vega, this was probably a compliment.
“Don’t mention it.”
“Do you have any plans this Christmas? You could hang out with my fairy godmother and me if you don’t have anywhere else to go.”
“I’d rather stab myself in the eye with a hot poker.”
Probably now was not the time to bring up the subject of a magic lesson.
Her bed creaked again. I rolled over onto my side away from her. I thought that was the end of our conversation, but a sharp pain shot through my skull as Vega yanked my head back by my hair.
Her breath was hot against my ear. “If you think I’m going to be impressed by your attempt at social niceties to convince me to be kind to you and give you magic lessons full of fluff and love, you’re wrong.”
“Let go.” I jammed my elbow backward, but my arm met air.
She released me. “You’ve got a lot to learn if you’re going to make it in this world against Fae and Witchkin far less forgiving than me. You’re going to have to stop being so nice and start being smart.”
It took days to salvage what I could from the burnt remains on my desk, regrade papers, and make more art examples for the current units we studied. I didn’t get back to translating my mother’s diary until the following week.
In the privacy of my locked classroom, I unwrapped the book from the invisibility hoodie I’d hidden it in and smoothed my hand over the leather. Trepidation quivered through me as I thought about what would happen if I translated it and the Raven Court discovered I knew the answers to the questions they sought.
Translating was more work than I’d bargained for. I hadn’t found out all of Alouette Loraline’s secrets yet, but those were probably the parts in Old High German.
In only a couple of weeks, Thatch would be teaching me magic. Real magic with my affinity. If I messed it up by reading about Loraline’s secrets that he didn’t want me to get involved with, he might give Vega my heart for Christmas. Still, it didn’t change what I needed to do.
I went to Darla and asked her to tutor me in Old High German. She was thrilled to help me. Best of all, she didn’t ask why I wanted to
learn another foreign language.
I brought words and phrases to her that I couldn’t translate on my own, piecing together passages of spells like a patchwork quilt stitched together with time and determination. Slowly, I revealed my mother’s secrets.
There are two known ways a Red affinity can be made. The first is to be born Red. In cases where one Witchkin parent is Red and the other is another affinity, the offspring have just as much chance of being either affinity. If both parents are Red, the offspring have an extremely high chance of being the same.
The reason history books give for the slaughter of the Lost Red Court is because those with this affinity were said to be able to create using black magic instead of through procreation. More likely it was a Fae rumor invented to rally other Witchkin to join them in destroying the only court ruled by Witchkin.
I had learned little about the Lost Court as it was called in history books. Nowhere had it said anything about this family not being Fae. My mother was like Anastasia, the lost Russian princess who had hid herself and changed her identity to avoid detection from the opposing forces. Or perhaps it hadn’t been my mother who had escaped the slaughter, but some other ancient relative.
I continued decoding my mother’s words.
The second way to become Red is to steal a Red’s powers. While researching in the library crypt, I discovered a text in Old High German documenting three different cases of someone killing a Red and stealing magic by draining them. This method doesn’t work on other affinities. For example, an Elementia isn’t able to capture an Amni Plandai’s powers by draining one. Additionally, this only works for Witchkin. Fae magic functions differently.
I shivered as I realized what this meant. Reds could be made, but only through the death of another. It was dangerous enough Fae wanted to use me for my affinity, but if this was true, Witchkin would also want to kill me to steal my affinity.
I asked Odette and Priscilla to tell me what they knew about their parents since Felix wouldn’t. I suspect he would be angry to know I had asked his sisters after he refused, but I had to know if they knew their lineage and how they’d been created.
Priscilla was Thatch’s sister? No way! Maybe he’d just named a bird after his sister. I wondered what had happened to Odette.
I haven’t shared my findings on the second way someone can become a Red affinity, though I suspect Felix knows but feigns ignorance. If Odette and Priscilla knew, they would be obliged to tell the Raven Queen, who would no longer have any use for me. She would have used this knowledge to steal my affinity by now and tasked Felix or Odette with being in charge of the experiments. The day I discover the answer to the Fae Fertility Paradox, there’s a chance she’ll kill me anyway so that no one else discovers the secret.
I know Felix doesn’t agree with what we’re doing, but he’s driven to find the answer, if only to please the Raven Queen so that she will grant Priscilla’s freedom. He might be willing to sacrifice his own soul, but he won’t sacrifice someone else’s.
Thatch had been trying to save his sister from the Raven Queen? That was so sad. The Fae Fertility Paradox wasn’t common knowledge, so I could only assume he’d failed.
I suspect there is a third way to create a Red affinity, and it’s related to the solution that will help Fae to have children. Solving the Fae Fertility Paradox will result in offspring with Red affinities, enabling the Lost Court to rise again.
The following pages were filled with spells and rituals too complex to translate without assistance.
Instead, I went to the school library. I knew my mother had been Thatch’s teacher at the school. She was the one who had taught him his affinity. Had she taught Priscilla and Odette as well? I perused the shelves of old yearbooks, wanting to see what his sisters looked like. I was pretty sure Thatch had once said he’d been teaching for over forty years, so I went back fifty years. When I didn’t see him in any yearbooks, I went forward.
Finally, I found a picture of Thatch in 1986. He looked younger, but not a teenager. He wore his tweed jacket, and his arms were crossed, his expression as grumpy as ever. I went back further, surprised he wasn’t listed as being on the teaching staff prior to 1984. I read the staff list for every year going backward. He worked at Womby’s for one year in the late seventies after Alouette Loraline had been hired on as a teacher. But she hadn’t worked at the school prior to the seventies.
I’d always assumed Thatch had graduated, then became a teacher immediately after, and worked at Womby’s because it had been where he’d gone to school. I traveled through the decades with the yearbooks as my time machine, showing the records of teachers and principals. I found a younger Grandmother Bluehorse in the sixties pictured with her husband. At that time, they went by Mama Bluehorse and Papa Bluehorse. Jeb looked exactly the same in the fifties.
I didn’t see any Priscillas or Odettes among the staff. I found a blonde student named Priscilla in the fifties and an Odette in the forties. I wrote the dates down so I could go back later if I decided it was worthwhile. I was just about to give up, when I found Thatch in a black-and-white photograph. He stood unsmiling in a line of sullen students graduating in 1935. A young woman with long black hair stared at him, admiration in her eyes. She had the same long nose and large eyes. She was thin like him and almost as tall.
Alouette Loraline had been teaching at the school that year. I had always assumed she had taught for consecutive years at Womby’s without any gaps. Perhaps she’d needed a break for her experiments.
I reached for the year before, but the next book was dated 1918. All the yearbooks from the twenties and early thirties were missing. Who would want a bunch of old yearbooks?
Had Thatch hidden them so no one would know about his sister?
No. It came to me. I knew who would check out all the yearbooks from the twenties.
Ten minutes later, I found fifteen yearbooks under Vega’s bed, ones from the twenties and thirties. I slid them out, examining the photographs more closely. Only one sister was pictured in these. She looked younger, but I couldn’t find her first name anywhere. When the girl was mentioned, she was listed by her last name: Thatch. She wasn’t pictured with her class, so I didn’t know which sister she was.
“What are you doing with my library books?” Vega demanded, thundering into the room as though an alarm had gone off when I’d touched her things.
I could have told her any number of excuses: I wanted to see what Thatch looked like when he was young, I had discovered Thatch had a sister and I wanted to know more about her, or I wondered if Thatch’s bird was his sister, but all of those would have led to questions. I didn’t want to answer any questions on how this quest had started, namely with my mother’s diary.
Instead I said the one thing that I thought might sound reasonable to her. “I was just looking at … um … that dead, hot teacher you told me about.”
She snatched the book from my hands. “Like hell you are. He’s mine.”
“Okay, you can have him.”
She tucked the books back underneath her bed. The top one she placed under her pillow. From the way she had stroked the cover and smiled, I had a feeling that was the one I wanted to look at most.
I considered forgetting I knew who Odette and Priscilla were, but I couldn’t unread what I’d read. Thatch would probably be annoyed with me and accuse me of invading his privacy if I said anything, but I wanted to know who he was. I wanted to know about his life and what he knew about the Raven Queen and my mother.
Finally, I went to Thatch’s office after school. The cage behind his desk was empty. He sat in his comfy chair, drawing in his sketchbook. I craned my neck to see the ink drawing of a woman with wings. Each feather was covered with a glowing rune. I couldn’t tell who the woman was from upside down. My mother? His sister? Thatch closed his book.
“Where’s Priscilla?” I asked, nodding to the cage.
“Hunting.” He opened a drawer and placed his art
journal inside.
“Can I ask you a question?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “Not that I’ve ever been able to stop you from doing that before.”
I opened the yearbook that had been under Vega’s pillow to a page I had bookmarked. Four members of the air pelota team posed for a camera while three other students watched from the background. One student was a young Felix Thatch, lanky and awkward like Derrick in high school. The girl beside him was younger, and she looked like him. I held the book out for him to see.
Thatch stiffened. “What is your question?”
“Is that Priscilla or Odette?” I asked.
He didn’t answer. His eyes reminded me of rainclouds, heavy with gloom and sorrow. I wished I hadn’t shown him the picture. I could see how it pained him. Yet, this was the sort of thing Vega was always talking about that stopped me from succeeding. I wanted to be a nice person who didn’t hurt people because I cared about them. If I always did the nice thing and listened to everything everyone told me I should do, I would never find out the truth.
I squashed Miss Nice Teacher. “Did the Raven Queen turn your sister into a raven to spy on my mother? Or did the Raven Queen do it so you would spy for her?”
“Who told you about Priscilla? Grandmother Bluehorse?” he asked. “Jeb? Miss Periwinkle?”
I waited.
He leaned forward. “Who told you?”
“I figured it out on my own.”
“Did you? Vega didn’t help you in some way?”
“No.” Sure, it was Vega’s library book, but it wasn’t like she knew I’d borrowed it. She hadn’t checked it out to educate me. She’d checked it out because she was obsessed with the twenties, flappers, and that son of a Fae prince. Hadn’t she?
Or had it been to tempt me?
Thatch leaned back in his chair. “The Raven Queen was unhappy with your mother’s lack of progress. She accused Alouette of sabotaging her own experiments. To show her how displeased she was, the Raven Queen thought it would be best to send her a … gift. She presented her with the heart of one of her former pupils—my sister—Odette.” His eyes turned hard. “When that didn’t change her mind, she transformed Priscilla into a bird. She hasn’t been able to shift out of that form since. No amount of magic has ever cured her. Only the Raven Queen will be able to do so.”