by Jen McConnel
I flushed. “You don’t know anything about me, so stop pretending that you do.”
His smirk irritated me, and I threw caution to the wind.
“I know more about Red magic than you think. I bet you haven’t been to the Underworld for training. I bet the gods haven’t fought over you.” I hoped to elicit some surprise from him, but his stormy expression was not what I’d expected.
“You’d lose that bet, Darlena. I’d be careful what you say; you don’t know anything.”
He stepped around me and headed down the dark street. I watched his broad shoulders for a moment, and he spun around as if he could sense my eyes.
“If you do anything to hurt her, whether you mean it or not, I swear that I will find you. And when I do, you will not survive.” He faded into the darkness, his threat hanging in the street like smoke.
Gods, what have I gotten myself into? Was working with Marcus even worth the risk? I tried to ignore the sinking sensation in my stomach and hurried into the graveyard to find Izzy. Marcus’s threat was still ringing in my ears as I walked, and I hoped I wouldn’t have to travel too far into the spooky graveyard to find his sister. I was too on edge to wander around the place, and I didn’t want to make a fool of myself.
Luckily, Izzy was near the entrance. She was perched on a raised tomb, fiddling with her cell phone. “What took you so long?”
I started to tell her how annoying her brother was, but I hesitated. Sure, she’d told him about me, but he was the one who followed her here tonight. Maybe she didn’t know he’d been outside. I decided to lie. “I fell asleep at the hotel.”
She snorted. “Loser.”
I shrugged. “I think I’m still jetlagged.”
“That’s not hard to get over. It’s just like magic.”
“What do you mean?”
She looked at me pityingly. “Whenever you do a lot of magic, don’t you get that queasy lightheaded feeling?”
I nodded, not sure where this was going.
“How do you fix yourself?”
“I usually eat bread, or something else carby.”
She smiled. “Anything else?”
“Tea?”
Izzy shook her head. “The best way to cure a magical hangover, or jetlag for that matter, is bread dipped in honey. Bread by itself is good, but the honey adds a kick that helps you feel better.”
It sounded like it would work; I’d have to try it the next time I did a spell. “Thanks.”
“Whatever. That’s not why you wanted to keep talking.”
I shook my head, trying to get my thoughts in order. I needed to make her trust me if I had any hope of getting to Marcus through her, but I wanted to hang out with her, too. “I don’t really know where to begin.”
“Who’s your patron?”
I paused, unsure of how much to share with this girl. I’d told my parents and Justin about what happened with Aphrodite, but even that had felt weird. Why would I tell a complete stranger something so personal? You told Marcus, a sharp voice whispered in my mind. Why not his sister?
She crossed her arms, glaring at me. “I told you mine! At least be fair.”
“I don’t have one.”
Her eyebrows raised in surprise. “Why not?”
“It’s complicated.”
“How?” She looked at me expectantly, her blue eyes open and bright.
I decided to trust her. There was just something about the kid that made me want to be her friend, and friends were honest with each other. Rochelle and I had told each other everything before she came after me. I sighed at that thought. Hopefully, Izzy wouldn’t betray me once she knew me better. Besides, her brother already knew my story; if either of them were likely to use it against me, it’d be him.
“I had a patron. I swore to Aphrodite.” The words felt heavy leaving my mouth, and they hung in the air between us as if I’d spoken a spell. I shivered, wondering fleetingly if Aphrodite would attack me someday. The vow I broke had pretty much guaranteed my destruction, but at the time, she’d seemed more hurt than angry.
Izzy scrunched her face up in confusion. “How … ”
I held up my hand. “I said it’s complicated.”
“Sorry. Go ahead.”
I took a deep breath. “I swore to her because, well, because I was desperate, I guess. She was the only Red goddess who seemed sane.” I shuddered as I remembered the other Red gods who had sought me out; Pele hadn’t seemed too awful until she followed me across the ocean, but Kali was terrifying from the start.
Izzy’s eyes widened, but she kept her mouth shut.
“It was a mistake. I learned a lot from her, but not as much as I needed. So, um, well … ” I trailed off, unsure. I scrambled up onto the tomb to join Izzy while I thought about what to say.
“What?”
I sighed. I had just told Marcus this story a day ago, but that didn’t make it any easier. “I ate a pomegranate seed.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“I’m not entirely sure, but it gave me kind of a redo.”
“Where’d you get the seed?”
“Persephone.”
Izzy whistled between her teeth. “Dang! How many gods have you met?”
I shrugged and her eyes got bigger.
“You don’t even know?”
Thinking for a moment, I said, “Seven, I guess. No, wait, eight.” I wasn’t sure if I should count Loki or not, but I guessed I had met him, sort of.
“I’ve only ever met Isis.” Her voice was quiet, and I glanced at her.
“I didn’t mean to make you feel bad.”
She shook her head. “I don’t. It’s just, well, you must be something pretty special if you’ve met that many gods.”
“I don’t think so. I think it’s just that there are way more Red gods than there ever are Red Witches.”
“So why isn’t Persephone your patron?”
I sighed. “I wasn’t ready to swear to a god again. It had helped me, the first time, but I’d also felt limited.”
“I’ve never felt limited with Isis.”
“You’re lucky.”
Izzy and I talked until midnight in the ghost-free graveyard, and everything she said made me feel like I still had a lot to learn about magic. How could someone so young know so much? It wasn’t until I was walking back to my hotel that I realized I hadn’t been cold all evening. As soon as I had that thought, I started shivering uncontrollably, and I hurried the last few blocks. Maybe Izzy’s magic was more fiery than she let on, or maybe talking to her had just distracted me from the winter weather.
Because of the chill, it seemed like the city should have been deserted, but the streets were alive with people. Most businesses were closed, but every block I passed had at least two pubs, their doors open, spilling light and laughter into the cold, winter night. The holiday celebrations were in full swing.
I didn’t feel much like celebrating, but the sound of the parties was enticing. Maybe I would be in a better mood once my plans were underway. I knew that the Hogmany celebrations in Edinburgh were legendary, but this wasn’t a vacation. I had serious work to do. I’d made headway tonight with Izzy, but that still wasn’t a guarantee that Marcus would help me. Maybe it was time for me to start considering other options. What was it Loki had said the last time I dreamt of him? That he’d help me bind Hecate if I freed him somehow? The very idea made the hair on my arms stand up, and I pushed the thought away. It had been a long day, and maybe I’d be able to think more clearly in the morning.
My room was dark, and I fumbled along the wall for a moment before my fingers found the light switch. Freya was sitting at the desk.
“What are you doing here?” I meant it as a straightforward question, but the goddess cocked her head to one side.
“I can move about all the north lands with ease, child. They worshiped me here as well as in Iceland.”
I blushed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know that. But that’s not what I meant. Why are yo
u here, in my room, tonight?”
She sighed. “You have not listened to my advice.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“You’ve spoken with Loki.”
It took effort to keep my face neutral, but inside I was seething. What right did this goddess have to push her way inside my dreams? “Not intentionally.”
Her eyes bored into me. “That doesn’t matter. Did you not listen to my warning?”
The strain of the past months and the continued interference of the gods finally caught up to me, and I snapped. “I don’t care what you’re here to warn me about! I didn’t ask for your help, and I’m sick of the gods using me as a pawn in their stupid games. I want you to leave. Now.”
I opened the door, but Freya didn’t move. She kept staring at me, and when I saw pity on her face, I looked away.
“You do not understand. I do not know if you will ever understand. But not all gods want to use you for their own gains.”
I forced myself to meet her eyes. “How would I know that?”
“You will have to trust someone, Darlena.”
I shook my head. “Not tonight.”
Freya rose smoothly, gliding toward the door. “Then I hope that when you do decide to give your trust, you choose wisely. I fear that you may be the undoing of the world.”
Her words echoed Loki’s, and I stared at her, numb. Freya nodded once to me, her eyes stony, and then slipped into the hall. The door swung closed behind her.
The next morning, I woke up early. Even though I hadn’t tried Izzy’s trick with bread and honey yet, I felt restored, and for the first time since I left the States, my head didn’t feel fuzzy.
I ordered room service and ate a big breakfast, lounging around in my pajamas and sipping my coffee. Since I didn’t have anything better to do, I decided to check my email again. There was a response from Mom, which I’d been expecting, and also an email from Justin. Seeing his name in my inbox gave me tingles, but another email caught my eye before I could read what Justin had sent.
The sender was someone named “Dr. T. Farren,” and the subject made me pause: “RE: Isadora.”
I hesitated for a moment, but then I clicked on the email. My palms were sweaty by the time I was done reading, and my heart had started racing. Dr. Farren the director of Izzy’s school, and she’d emailed me to discuss some “concerns” she had regarding my “relationship” with Izzy. She wanted to meet me in person this morning to discuss the “safety” of her students. How the woman even knew about me was a mystery. I’d only met Izzy for the first time yesterday, but evidently my dangerous Red reputation was all the woman needed to know.
Glowering at the computer, I typed the name of Izzy’s school into a search engine. Although no magical school would put full information up on the Internet where Nons could find it, I was pretty good at reading between the lines, and I needed some information before I replied to Dr. Farren’s pushy letter.
Izzy’s school, like Trinity, hid behind a veneer of religious language: Lady on the Lake was an exclusive girls’ preparatory academy where values and faith were taught side by side with the core subjects. I chuckled at that. Parents probably saw that line and got excited, envisioning science labs and literature classes, but I knew what the core subjects of a Witchcraft school were. I’d have to ask Izzy if her school offered divination; that was an elective at Trinity, but I’d never gotten the chance to take it. If they offered divination, it might explain why Dr. Farren knew about me so fast.
Without bothering to reply to the email, I bundled up and walked to Lady on the Lake to meet with the director. At least she was willing to meet me, I thought, as I glanced nervously up at the wrought-iron gates separating the school from the streets of Edinburgh. From the tone of her email, she might have rather just come after me in the night to boot me out of Scotland, but there was no way I was going to let her or her school intimidate me.
There was a pedestrian gate beside the towering gate, and it was unlocked. The fence reminded me of Trinity, and I faltered for a beat, feeling homesickness and anger wash over me. If I hadn’t been kicked out of Trinity for declaring Red, who knows how much more I could have learned. When I was able to move again, my footsteps crunched across the frozen brown lawn; even though Edinburgh was far to the north, snow seemed an uncommon occurrence. In that way, I mused, it shared something in common with North Carolina. As I walked, I wondered fleetingly about the coming ice storm Justin had mentioned; maybe I would try to call home later in the day, just to check on everyone. I hadn’t had a chance to read the emails he and Mom had sent, and I felt disconnected from them after so much time.
Lost in thought, I looked up and realized that I was standing in the foyer of the school building. Where Trinity felt like it wanted to be an old-world academy, Lady on the Lake had no pretensions: it simply was. The sweeping hallway around me reminded me of illustrations of cathedrals that I’d studied in my history class, and the black and white checkered floor beneath my feet had a shine to it that could only mean it was real marble. This school made Trinity look like a cheap imitation.
My boots squeaked on the glistening floor, echoing in the empty hall, and I paused, suddenly nervous. What if Dr. Farren had only asked to meet me to hand me over to Marcus for further questioning, or worse, to Hecate?
“You’ll have to trust somebody sometime,” I muttered to myself, recalling my visitation from Freya. I might as well start now. I couldn’t do this on my own, and I sure wasn’t ready to trust the gods.
A plain wooden door opened to my left, and a severe woman in a gray tweed suit stepped into the hall. Her heels clicked on the floor, and her steely hair was pulled away from her caramel skin in a perfect bun. I felt like a small child standing there in my ratty jeans and coat, and I jumped when she spoke.
“You must be Darlena. I’ve been expecting you. Come.” She had a faint accent, but I couldn’t place it. She turned sharply and I followed her through the doorway, not sure what to expect. Dr. Farren hardly looked like the kind of person who would run an eclectic, open-minded magical school; she looked more like the kind of principal who kept a paddle over her desk. Maybe I’d made a mistake in coming there.
Her office was a surprise: instead of a desk, she had floor pillows stacked at odd angles on a woven grass rug. She saw my expression and chuckled.
“The office will change to suit my needs at any given time. Today, we’re just having a casual meeting, are we not?”
I nodded uncertainly, looking around. A tray sat on the floor, holding two mismatched porcelain cups, a silver kettle, and sugar. Dr. Farren sank gracefully to the floor, folding her knees beneath her, and tossed a red pillow to me. Not sure what else to do, I joined her, sitting across the tea service from the strange woman.
“Would you like tea?” She held out a small wooden box, and when I opened it, I was assaulted by a variety of smells. I grabbed a tea bag at random and set it in the cup she offered. She nodded and made her own selection, pouring steaming water out of the kettle with concentration.
Finally, she sat back. “Now it steeps, and we can speak. Why are you here?”
Her bluntness was surprising, after the polite tea exchange, but I realized that everything about this woman was going to surprise me. “I’m here to find help.”
She nodded. “I had the sense that you were not here to do harm. But why contact Isadora?”
I shrugged, wondering how much she knew. “I thought she might be able to help me with a magical problem.”
“Such as?”
I paused to stir sugar into my tea. “She knows someone I need to talk to, and he won’t talk to me on his own.”
Dr. Farren’s jaw stiffened. “So you are using the girl to gain access to her brother.”
When she put it like that, I sounded awful. I took a sip of tea and winced as it burned the roof of my mouth, and I hurried to set the cup down. “Yes. No. I don’t know. It’s not like that.”
“You had be
tter decide which truth you want to tell me, Darlena Agara, for I am fast losing patience with you.”
“I’m a Red Witch.”
The woman stared at me impassively. “So I gathered, if you seek help from Isadora’s brother.”
I gaped at her. “Look, how do you know so much about me? What did Izzy tell you?”
“She told me nothing. It was my patron who warned me about you. I want to know exactly what you’re doing here, and what you want with my students. If you lie to me, I will know it.”
I studied her face, and after a moment, I nodded. “I practice Red magic.”
“You told me that already.”
“I know. But that’s why I’m here: I don’t want to be the next Red Witch to die.”
Her gaze was sharp, and I fought the urge to squirm when she looked at me. “Why would such a thing be your fate?”
My hands were shaking as I reached for the tea. “I’ve made a powerful enemy. I want to use Red magic to bring balance of chaos, and Hec—someone—doesn’t like that.”
Dr. Farren stared at me levelly. I had to admire the woman; I’d just dropped a lot of shit into her lap, and she didn’t even flinch. “Why would the goddess you speak of want to stand in the way of balance? She is the keeper of the crossroads, the patron of travelers. Surely there is nothing that represents balance more than choice and movement?” Her eyebrows arched as she spoke, her disbelief obvious.
I was surprised that my issues with Hecate didn’t faze her, but I tried not to show it. “I don’t know. I just know that Hecate has tried to kill me before, and failed.”
“The Queen of Witches does not fail, Darlena.”
I paused, sipping my tea. I eyed her critically. “Then how do you explain what’s happened to me?”
Dr. Farren leaned back against a gold cushion, stirring her tea with a faraway expression. “I am not sure. My patron told me a bit about you, and I have learned more by meeting you. But whatever the whole truth, it is clear that you are a Witch of some consequence.”
I spilled tea onto my lap. “What makes you say that?”
She laughed. “Look at those who have found an interest in you! For that matter, look at the magic you practice: there are only ever three Reds in the world, and weak Witches never hold the post.”