by Sarina Dorie
I fed the remnants of pain to the fire of my affinity. I imagined Derrick again. I tried to feel his lips on mine, but it had been so long since I’d seen him, since we’d shared that kiss that had made magic explode out of me. It was hard to remember what that kiss had been like.
All I could think about was Thatch’s ghost of a kiss on my face only days before. It was easy to recall how he’d brushed away the frostbite and cold with the magic of his lips. I smoothed my fingers along my cheek where he had kissed me, pausing at the corner of my mouth where he had stopped. When I had kissed him, he had kissed me back, even if it had only been for a few wonderful seconds.
The thought of his mouth on mine sent hot and cold chills into my core. My heart sped up, and spikes of pleasure shivered through me. I fed my affinity what it wanted. I caressed my fingers along my lips, imagining it was Felix Thatch.
Pressure built inside me.
I continued to relive that kiss. After another moment, my affinity burst free. Magic surged through me in a tidal wave breaking a dam. Never had I experienced so much power.
The momentary relief of that pent-up energy shifted and intensified. The electric pulse crackling under my skin sharpened. My skin glowed like a ninety-watt bulb, illuminating the wood of the coffin around me.
I pushed my voice past the wood, not so much amplified, but projected, traveling through the stone walls and out of the crypt. “Hands, I need you.” My voice fluttered through the air like a bird. Apparently, I was in a good mood because I couldn’t help adding. “I could use a hand right now.”
The hammering on the coffin stopped. “Still can’t hear you,” Vega said.
Vega’s cackle was cut short. She screamed.
“Hands! Help me! Get me out of this coffin!” I prayed I wasn’t summoning demons to explode the school. It would be just my luck to follow in my mother’s footsteps.
The wood of the casket creaked and groaned. Scratches and scrabbling sounded through the boards. Vega kept screaming.
A hand punched through the wood near my leg. Splinters peppered my skin. More hands broke through. I covered my face with my arms. Hands scrambled inside, pushing at the lid, pulling at the holes in the walls. Cool air swept over my arms.
After another minute I was free. Vega’s wand had fallen to the floor, but purple light still emanated from the tip, shining into an alcove with a decaying corpse in the wall. The light glowing from my skin illuminated Vega’s situation. Hands pinned her against the wall. She struggled, but it was no use with the number of them. Fingers gripped her around the throat. She wasn’t screaming anymore. Her eyes were wild and scared. I wasn’t sure she could breathe.
“Hands, stop choking Vega,” I said.
They did as I commanded.
She coughed and wheezed. Her eyes bore into me with malice. “Let me go.”
Victory should have felt thrilling, like molten euphoria. Instead, I felt cold and full of hatred. Maybe it was the energy crackling inside me, making everything else dulled in comparison. “Don’t ever try to teach me a lesson again. Do you understand?”
“If I hadn’t, you wouldn’t know what you were capable of.” She managed to lift her nose up at me and look superior despite her vulnerable position.
The icy numbness inside me cracked under the iron of my will swelling to meet her tenacious personality. My blood felt as though it were boiling in my veins. The electricity percolating inside me flickered under my skin, surfacing in small charged arcs.
Her eyes widened, but only for a second. “If it wasn’t for me, you would be afraid to use your powers because it might hurt someone. If a Fae ever tries to kill you, or use magic on you, what are you going to do about it? You won’t be able to use hands on an army from the Raven Queen. They’re going to use your magic against you.”
Fury flooded over me. My affinity burned hot and cold simultaneously. I bit out the words. “No, they won’t.”
“Yes, they will,” she said with the infuriating certainty of a Celestor. “They’ll use you.”
I couldn’t stand her snide, snooty arrogance any longer. “I didn’t let Julian Thistledown use me,” I shouted. Electricity arced over my skin, the sensation simultaneously painful and pleasant. Magic wanted to explode out of me.
I forced myself to step back from her.
Her eyes widened, taking in the white flashes of light. A pink aura surrounded the light, hinting at my Red affinity. It was getting harder to control the lightning that wanted to shoot out of me. The magic felt like it had a mind of its own. It hungered to caress another human being—even if it burned someone into an unrecognizable lump in the process. Perhaps this is what it was like to be a succubus or siren with a flavor of magic that craved intimacy just as it thirsted to kill the object of its desire. If this is what my mother had been, I didn’t want it.
I closed my eyes and focused on my core, calming the energy and shrinking the size of my affinity.
I was so entrenched in magic I forgot Vega was there until she spoke. “You were the one who killed Julian Thistledown, then?”
I continued to calm the magic within me. More than anything, it wanted to leap out and burn something.
“Is it true he was Fae?” she asked.
I wasn’t excited about admitting I had killed someone, but I wasn’t going to be like Jeb and cover the whole thing up. “Yes. I caught him magically coercing students into sleeping with him. He was a green man. I didn’t know it until he tried to force himself on me. So I killed him. If I’m faced with someone trying to kill me, I will do it again.”
But I didn’t have to kill people, I reminded myself. I pushed the electricity down inside me. “Just because I killed when I had to doesn’t mean I’m going to be like my mother.”
“Oh.” The challenge in her eyes died away. She studied me thoughtfully. After another moment, all she said was, “Oh,” again.
“Do I pass your test?”
“Yes. Let me go.” Her eyes were wary.
“So that you can test me again? In the hope of getting rid of me so you can have a room all to yourself?”
“I wasn’t trying to get rid of you.” Her dark eyebrows lifted. She actually looked hurt. “I was trying to help you become stronger and more autonomous. And you passed. You didn’t get help from Josie or Thatch or anyone else. You’ve protected yourself in the past, as you’ve said. I won’t test you anymore.”
I didn’t believe her. I needed to show her I was a badass witch she couldn’t mess with … not without a paying a price.
The problem was, I wasn’t like Vega. I wasn’t like my mother. I didn’t want to torture people or humiliate her. But I had to show her I wasn’t going to allow her to pick on me anymore. I had to hit her where it hurt.
Her weakness.
Thatch might have had good intentions suggesting swing music, but he was wrong about Vega. Her weakness was her pride and vanity.
“Hands,” I said. “I need your help again. Are you all right with that?”
One gave me a thumbs-up.
I whispered a request to one of the hands. It wasn’t like the hands had ears, but Vega did, and I didn’t want her to hear my plan. Several hands scampered off. A couple minutes later they came back with my Tupperware container.
“What’s that?” Vega’s tone was wary.
Good. I had her nervous.
“Do you know how many calories are in a seven-layer bar?” I asked.
“No.” She shook her head. “Don’t do it.”
I selected the biggest one from the box and waved it under her nose. “I’m sure you burn enough fat dancing on your enemies’ graves that three hundred calories aren’t going to matter.”
“Yes, it will. I’m warning you. Put that thing away, or I’ll hex you.”
“How are you going to do that with your mouth full?”
Before she could respond, I shoved the bar into her mouth. She mumbled a protest and tried to twist h
er head away, but the hands ensured she stayed in place. I worried I might have to pinch her nose closed so she would swallow. If I did, she would probably choke, and I wasn’t trying to kill her.
As it turned out, I didn’t have to resort to extreme measures. Like most deprived dieters, she took the bait. She swallowed and eyed the tub.
She licked her lips. “Fuck. That was good. I haven’t had refined sugar in years.”
“There’s more where that came from.” I fed her another, slowly this time, allowing her to savor the salty sweet combination of sugar, butterscotch, coconut, and pecans.
My biological mother killed and tortured. My fairy godmother taught me to kill with kindness. Who said I couldn’t save the day with baking skills?
I made my way out of the crypt, feeling pretty good about myself. I hadn’t killed anyone. I was fairly certain I was the one who had taught the lesson for once. Vega might even respect me after this.
I had just made it past the empty chamber of hands when I heard whispers on the stairs.
“Don’t step on that one. It’s booby-trapped,” Hailey Achilles whispered. “You’ll end of up in Dean Khaba’s office.”
I lit a fireball in my palms, illuminating the approaching students. Three shocked faces stared at me.
Hailey Achilles, Maddy Jenkins, and Imani Washington stared at me in surprise. Imani’s wand was lit. Hailey hefted a fireball of her own. Maddy held a candle. In my astonishment at seeing them, I forgot to concentrate on my magical flashlight, and it fizzled out.
Imani ran to me and tackled me with a hug, almost poking my eye out with her wand. “Miss Lawrence! You’re alive!”
“What are you doing down here? It’s dangerous to wander under the school.” I looked to Hailey. “Please don’t tell me you convinced them to look for that stupid ruby. It probably isn’t even real.”
“No,” Hailey made a face. “We were looking for you.”
“You missed study club. You weren’t in your classroom or your room,” Maddy said.
“And your dorm room was all wet inside. We were afraid something had happened.” Imani stared up into my face, her expression pensive. “We went to Mr. Thatch, but there was a note on his door saying he was running errands.”
Hailey’s smile was smug. “I knew you’d be back down here the first chance you got. But you don’t know spells yet. You’re over your head in deep magic down here. Am I right?”
Maddy beamed at me. “That’s why we came down here to rescue you.”
Hailey lifted her chin, acting all tough, even though she was just a kid who melted at the sight of a present on Christmas. “Like I said, I’ve got your back, Miss Lawrence.”
This was the sweetest gesture my students had ever done for me. They had tried to rescue me. Their concern wasn’t completely unfounded after all the trouble my lack of magic usually got me into, either.
“That’s really nice of you girls, but as it turns out, I had things under control.” I glanced back at the closed door to the Pit of Horrors behind me. Vega remained, voluntarily eating desserts. I’d given the hands strict instructions to allow her to go free in an hour—and then they needed to go right back to their home in the pit.
A warm wind whistled down the corridor. The breeze smelled like summer and freshly cut grass, butterscotch candies, and Cheetos. That fragrance smelled like Derrick. How strange.
Thatch strolled into my classroom as I prepared for classes to start up again in a couple days. He whistled a happy, upbeat song, which was something I had never heard him do. I watched him warily. He was up to something. If Vega had told him about the book, he wouldn’t have been so cheerful.
“Are you here to discuss … my magic lesson?” I tried not to sound too eager. I didn’t want him to take pleasure in knowing how heartbroken I would be if he refused to teach me magic.
Thatch didn’t answer. He sat at a table and kept whistling.
It took me a full minute to realize what song he sang. It was Vega’s swing song.
Realization must have crossed my face because he stopped.
“I heard Vega playing that song in her classroom.” He folded his hands in front of him, a sneaky little smile on his face. “I have upheld my end of the bargain. I have given you secret information that has assisted you in improving your relationship with your roommate. Now it’s your turn. How did you control the lost souls in the pit?”
I didn’t think it was the record that had helped me with Vega. As far as I could tell, it had been the book itself and the knowledge it contained that had endeared me to her, but I couldn’t admit that.
I nodded. “I did agree to tell you.”
He leaned closer.
My palms turned clammy at the idea of confiding in him something so intimate. “I used my affinity.”
“Yes, but how? You didn’t electrocute them. And I assume you didn’t bathe them in rainbows like at that fair.” His dark eyebrow lifted. “I haven’t taught you anything useful that could have gotten you out of that situation, so whatever you did shouldn’t have worked.”
“You sort of did teach me. It was all those lessons I flunked in the fear chair. I did exactly what I wasn’t supposed to do, and it worked.” I stepped around my desk.
He shook his head, still not understanding.
“The truth is, it would be easier to show you.” My eyes met his. Heat flushed to my cheeks. “I mean, I can show you, if you’ll let me. It uses touch magic. It’s kind of … intimate.”
“Oh. I see.” He jumped to his feet. “Perhaps another time. Or not at all.”
I’d never seen him move so fast. He strode toward the stairwell in the back of the classroom that led to the dungeon. The door popped open, and he glided into the shadows.
“Wait!” I chased after him. “What about my magic lesson? Are you going to teach me?”
“Indeed. Your first lesson starts tomorrow.”
He’d said yes! He whistled Duke Ellington into the gloom, the light of his wand receding.
Had all those things my fairy godmother said been correct? Was I Felix Thatch’s weakness? He needed Vega to toughen me up because he couldn’t resist my kindness or cookies. It appeared I had broken him, even if he wouldn’t admit it.
If he really didn’t hate me, if my friendship meant something to him, he might be willing to be honest with me.
“I need to ask you something,” I said, stumbling down the steps into the cluster of spiderwebs that only seemed to bother me. “I’m sorry if you think I’m prying, but I have to know.” I lowered my voice. “If you had the answer to the Fae Fertility Paradox, would it help you save Priscilla?”
The sweet notes of his whistle faltered. He tried to pick it back up again but failed. He turned to face me, his face half hidden in shadows.
“No,” he said, his voice solemn and sad. “There’s nothing the Fae could ever do to entice me to give it to them. Not even for my sister.”
I withdrew the journal from the drawer of my nightstand in my dorm room. There was no point in pretending to hide it from Vega. She knew what I was up to and had already learned Alouette Loraline’s secrets.
I flipped through the pages until I found the place where I had left off. I used my notes of Old High German to translate the spell my mother had copied into the pages from an ancient book she’d found in the crypt under the school. She claimed it was the answer to the Fae Fertility Paradox.
The spell contained a list of ingredients like virgin’s blood, a human heart, powdered unicorn horn, and dragon eggs. There were many items I couldn’t find a translation for. I would have to wait until after the break to ask Darla since our school didn’t own a dictionary. Instead, I moved on to the last passage of the book:
This is a powerful spell, one reputed to bring the dead back and create the spark of life in barren soil. The ingredients listed are all forbidden, many due to their relationship with the Red affinity such as blood, body fluids, and pain ma
gic. The electrical component of the spell means it can only be performed by a Red. I hypothesize this combination will turn a Witchkin with any affinity into a Red affinity with the assistance of a Red. The Witchkin who uses this will be able to have a child with an infertile Fae.
I have yet to test this and prove whether this is true. I only need a willing subject. There are many Fae and Witchkin alike who would do anything to conceive an heir. Perhaps Peter Bluehorse.
If this works, this could solve all our problems.
Peter Bluehorse. Was that Grandmother Bluehorse’s husband? Was that how he’d died?
That was my mother’s last entry. The next page had been torn away. Surely, this was the spell that had killed her. But no, the spell hadn’t killed her. My fairy godmother had said Thatch was named as her accomplice in her heinous crimes, and he’d searched for her after she’d tortured him—along with many others. That meant she’d been hunted down after she’d murdered people.
Someone had killed my mother after she’d used this spell—after she’d killed people in her experiments. Possibly the Raven Queen—because she’d failed? Or succeeded? There was still so much I didn’t know.
This spell my mother had discovered might help people. It could be what Maddy needed so she wouldn’t be forced into the equivalent of prostitution after graduation. It could be what Thatch yearned for to save his sister from a fate as a bird for the rest of her life—even if he didn’t want to hand it over to the Raven Queen to do so.
Or it might only cause more problems for everyone. It might make me into my mother.
I smoothed my hand over the leather cover of the book.
Testing the spell to see if it would work was tempting, but this pursuit had resulted in destruction, murder, and the torture of the people Alouette Loraline had known. Maybe the spell was the final solution that had worked. But at what cost? Did I truly want to pursue the Fae Fertility Paradox where she had left off? Or did I want to be like my fairy godmother—a good person who nurtured students and was a good role model to others.