by Tasha Black
“Is there any object worth the loss of a witch’s control?” Professor Sora asked in her soft voice.
It was obviously a rhetorical question, but I found myself wanting to scream, My brother. My brother’s happiness would be worth it.
“Of course there isn’t,” she said, nodding to herself. “But when we perform magic without discipline, that is exactly what we do. We give up control.”
She peered out at us over her glasses before pushing them up the bridge of her nose again.
“How does discipline help us?” she asked. “Anyone?”
Everyone raised their hands but me.
“Anya,” she said, pointing to my companion.
“So that we don’t lose control,” Anya said.
“Quite true,” Professor Sora said. “Can anyone else be more specific? Nuria?”
“So that we can choose the price we pay for our magic,” a white girl with a long black braid answered.
“Yes, but more than that,” Professor Sora said. “Justine?”
“It’s so that we can choose our price and pay it in advance,” said a girl with short red hair. “So that we have total control over our magic.”
“Very good, dear,” Professor Sora said. “Very good. I think that’s a good stopping place for today.”
As the other students began to gather their things, the girl in front of me said something under her breath and touched her empty notebook. I watched in wonder as the pages filled with rows of perfectly ordered notes.
“Cool,” I breathed, before I had time to think about how lame it sounded.
“Such a showoff, Nina,” Anya added.
“Work smarter, Corbin,” Nina remarked with a sly wink as she headed out the door.
Everyone filed out, but Anya and I hung back until they were gone.
“What does that mean, to pay a price?” I asked.
“Magic doesn’t come freely,” Anya said carefully. “At least it doesn’t come freely to humans. Every piece of magic has its price, which must be paid by the witch who weaves it.”
“A price like money?” I asked, knowing instinctively that was wrong.
Anya shook her head. “One of the women in our program gets hungry if she does magic without planning it out ahead of time and meditating.”
“I guess it’s tiring,” I ventured.
“No,” Anya said. “It’s more like the magic takes her nourishment so that when she’s done, she has to eat like crazy just to get back to normal.”
“Whoa,” I said.
“Some people pass out and sleep for days,” Anya went on. “For others, it’s an emotional thing - crying or laughing. But it’s never in the witch’s control.”
I thought back to the times I had inadvertently used my powers. I didn’t remember feeling hungry or emotional. I tried to picture meeting Eve after the chase in the cemetery, but the image in my mind was dark and gray.
“Oh,” I said, realizing.
“What is it?” she asked.
“I think I know what mine is,” I told her excitedly. “Both times I used my magic I couldn’t see colors for a while afterward.”
Anya nodded slowly, looking almost disappointed for no reason I could imagine. “Yes, that makes sense. Did you use a lot of magic?”
“I was amazed at what I did,” I admitted. “But I’m getting the sense that it wasn’t all that impressive.”
“You ‘ll want to be really careful then,” she told me. “If you use a lot of magic and it impacts your vision, that could be dangerous.”
My mouth dropped open.
She was right. I had been thinking that a few minutes, or even hours, of black and white vision was a small price to pay. But what if I lost my vision altogether? Was that even possible?
“Come on,” she said. “Let’s meet Cori for lunch.”
We headed down the stairs and into the corridor.
Good smells already wafted our way from the lunchroom. I was looking forward to my meal after that marathon class. All that confusion really worked up an appetite.
It didn’t hit me until Cori was jogging up to join us that Anya never told me what her price for magic was.
11
Bella
I hurried through lunch, suddenly feeling desperate to talk to Jon.
My brother would expect me to text every day, even if he didn’t always answer. And I had missed calling him last night.
I slipped my phone out of one of my dress pockets and tapped out a quick message.
How r u?
A moment later it buzzed, and I felt warmth in my chest like I did every time I thought of my big brother. He usually wasn’t so quick to text back these days, and for sure it wouldn’t be more than a few words. But I was glad he was getting back to me. He must have been worried yesterday.
Your message could not be sent.
I exited the message app and pulled up my home screen.
I had no bars. Not half a bar or a bit of a bar - no bars at all. I figured that wasn’t really all that surprising in a giant mountaintop castle.
“Guys,” I said. “I don’t have any service. Can someone give me the WiFi password?”
“Oh,” Cori said, exchanging a glance with Anya.
“There’s a spell over the castle,” Anya said. “No communication in or out. It’s to keep the school off the grid.”
“I can’t be off the grid,” I said. “I have to talk to my brother.”
“When we go off-campus, you can catch up with him,” Anya said.
“When’s that?” I asked.
“We sometimes go down to the town on the weekend,” Cori said. “It’s tiny, but it’s cute.”
“Most of us have to be cloaked though,” Anya warned me. “They don’t want the people in town knowing we’re up here.”
I had no idea what she meant by cloaked, and I didn’t care.
“I can’t wait until the weekend to check on my brother,” I said, the note of panic in my voice inching up.
“You can write to him,” Anya offered. “One of the third-year girls can do this cantrip that mimics the postmark of wherever you’re supposed to be.”
“I told my family I transferred,” Cori said with a wink.
“My family doesn’t really care where I am,” Anya said softly. “What did you tell your brother, Bella?”
“I didn’t tell him anything at all,” I moaned. “I didn’t have the chance.”
“I’m sure he’ll be fine,” Cori said. “You were at college, surely he knows you might have met someone or gotten busy cramming for exams.”
“I always text or call,” I said. “Always.”
“We’ll think of something,” Cori said dubiously. “But right now, it’s time for Practical. You have Flora, right?”
I nodded.
“We’ll walk you there,” she offered. “And then we’ll pick you up after class and help you get ready for tonight.”
I nodded my thanks, afraid I would start sobbing if I opened my mouth.
We dumped our trays and headed out to the opposite wing.
I hadn’t been down this corridor before, but it had the same luxurious rugs over wooden floors that were in the rest of the castle.
The paintings on the walls were different though. Instead of the dark drawings and strange sculptures, everything here was nature related.
I felt just a little bit of my anxiety drift away as I took in the paintings of lush landscapes in thick oils, and the photographs of leaves and plants.
“Come in, come in,” the professor called to us from a doorway at the end of the hall.
Light poured out from behind her, and I could see she was standing in the threshold of an enormous solarium. The fragrance of flowers and damp soil drifted out to great us as we approached.
“Professor Waita, this is Bella,” Cori said. “She’s new.”
“Ah,” Professor Waita said, turning to me.
She was a large and sturdy woman with warm brown skin, her hair p
ulled back tightly in a gray and brown bun. It was hard to determine her age, a trend I was noticing among the staff here, but her dark eyes were bright with interest.
“You’re the girl with the vines and branches,” she said, looking me up and down as if vines and branches were going to come sprouting out of me at any minute.
“I’m very new to all this,” I told her.
“Well, I’ve got three days with you, girl, let’s make the best of it,” she said with a frown.
Ugh. Everyone knew. Literally everyone.
She swept her arm out to indicate that I should enter.
“Sit anywhere,” she said.
“See you later,” Cori said.
“See you,” I muttered, heading into the solarium.
There were tables and stools, but the tables were basically just huge flower boxes, filled with dark, rich dirt.
I picked out a stool in the corner and hoped no one would stare.
But they did, of course.
Two tall, pale women at the front of the room kept turning back to gaze at me and then giggle to each other again.
“Today we’ll be forcing blossoms,” Professor Waita called out in a deep contralto. “We don’t have time for nonsense, so cut it out, Miller and Quincy.”
The two in front straightened up immediately.
The professor began passing out tiny pots, each with a tender green shoot reaching out of the soil.
“My advanced students would be doing this from a seedling,” Professor Waita trumpeted. “But you’re getting a leg up. The goal is to force this plant to ripen, bud and bloom. Anyone want to hazard a guess as to how we would go about doing that?”
“A forcing charm,” one of the students called out.
“That much is obvious,” Professor Waita chuckled. “Raise your hand next time. Anyone care to give me some details?”
The pale girls in the front raised their hands and she pointed to the shorter one.
“A communion with the plant,” the girl said.
“Nice, Miller,” Professor Waita allowed. “Anything to add, Quincy?”
“We can’t really force it,” the taller girl said. “We have to encourage it.”
“Yes, Quincy, yes,” Professor Waita said triumphantly, looking up at the rest of us. “Though this is called a forcing charm, what you’re really doing is getting to know the plant, and then asking it to do as you wish. Questions?”
I looked around, but no one raised their hand. I had no idea where to start with this, but figured I would just watch the others and do what they did.
“Very well,” Professor Waita said. “You have one hour.”
The stern but comforting voice of the professor and the hope that I would succeed in this exercise, if nothing else, allowed me to lose myself a little.
Growing up in Philly, I’d had little opportunity to get my hands in the dirt. I spent the first few minutes trying to understand the little plant’s environment.
The soil was damp to the touch, but a little gritty under my nails.
“Careful, Hawthorne,” Professor Waita growled. “The roots of a baby plant are like feathers.”
“Sorry,” I said, pulling my fingers out of the dirt.
I held the pot up and observed the plant from all angles. With the sunlight filtering through it, the green was so bright and tender it almost broke my heart with its delicate beauty.
I want to know you, I want to understand you, I thought to the plant, feeling monumentally stupid.
I glanced around the classroom.
Most of the students were grimacing at their plants to no avail.
A girl I recognized from my morning class, Justine, with the red pixie cut, had managed to extend one of her plant’s leaves to about four times the size of the others. The tip of her tongue was sticking out between her lips as she frowned in concentration.
I continued to silently cajole my own plant as the light in the room blushed into a yellow afternoon glow.
“Okay, class, that’s enough,” Professor Waita called to us. “Put them away, you’ll try again next time.”
I had done nothing, absolutely nothing to my plant.
I looked around again. One or two of the students in the front row had pink buds at the ends of theirs.
Only Quincy had succeeded in asking her plant to blossom. It was a glorious pink, and I envied her horribly for being able to do it. This was supposed to be my thing.
As the students filtered out, I tried to catch Professor Waita’s attention.
“Hey, there, Hawthorne, chin up,” she said. “You’ll get it tomorrow.”
“Do you teach the Healing class too?” I asked, remembering something Cori had mentioned about her over lunch.
Her eyebrows shot up.
“One of them,” she replied. “But those are for upper-level students only. See you tomorrow, girl.”
I headed out, trying to ignore the lump in my throat.
It was only when I saw Cori and Anya waiting for me that I remembered what I really needed to be upset about.
My heart began to pound again at the thought of a night with the lord protector.
But before the fear fully descended on me, I pictured his eyes in my mind, pale as ice, and so tortured.
I wondered if there was something in me that might ease his pain.
12
Bella
I stepped out onto the stones of the courtyard again. At least this time I was wearing shoes.
The breeze picked up, lifting my hair and swirling my dress, carrying the scent of the forest to me.
Cori and Anya had helped me get ready, and they were scandalized when I chose to wear one of my modest uniform dresses.
“I don’t want him to think I’m trying too hard,” I had said.
“Don’t worry,” Kendall had said with her mouth full from where she sat perched on Cori’s desk chair, eating her stash of hard pretzels. “He won’t.”
“Don’t you want to feel your best?” Anya had asked me. “It’s an important night for you two.”
But I wasn’t interested in looking my best.
My heart was set on somehow refusing the mate bond.
If I could manage to do that, then I could still help my brother, even if I wasn’t exactly a natural at magic right out of the gate.
I just needed a little time.
And while I couldn’t be so disrespectful as to go to the lord protector looking slovenly, I hoped that wearing the school gown would tell him I was doing my duty, not coming to him for pleasure.
With my luck he would tear the thing off me before he could make any judgements about it. And the most infuriating part was that I couldn’t decide if that would be a bad thing. I didn’t want to be someone’s mate, but I couldn’t deny that I was attracted to him. How could I not be? He was so hot.
I bit my lip and looked around.
The courtyard was empty, but that was as it should be. I was supposed to go to him, alone. He would be waiting on the other side of the labyrinth, at the edge of the trees.
Well, there was no point putting it off.
I took a deep breath of the chill night air and marched across the courtyard toward the labyrinth.
I had never been good at these types of things. I’d gotten helplessly lost in the corn maze on the farm trip in elementary school and had to be rescued by an embarrassed looking farmer in front of everyone.
But tonight I had a sense of which way to turn.
It might have been the boxwoods guiding me, sensing my magic.
But I suspected it was the pull of the mate bond, dragging me closer to my fate. The idea made me almost frantic with despair, but I kept going, rounding one wall and curving around to the next.
I emerged on the other side so suddenly that it was a little bit disorienting. One second I was navigating the maze, the next I was in the open space between the boxwoods and the tall trees of the dark woods.
Moonlight bathed the edge of the forest in a soft
glow. It reflected in the large, waxy leaves of the rhododendrons and was lost in the heavy shadows under the pines.
My lord protector was nowhere to be found. Maybe he had forgotten, or changed his mind.
Somehow, even though it should have filled me with relief, the thought of him not showing up made my chest tighten.
I turned back, wondering how long I would need to wait until I could safely go back to the castle and my friends. Was this like in college, when everyone said if the professor didn’t show up in fifteen minutes, you were allowed to go home?
Somehow, I didn’t think that rule applied here.
The castle looked somehow further away than it should have. Warm light glowed in the windows and it looked cozy in spite of its incredible size.
I decided to distract myself by working on my magic for a moment. Maybe out here in the quiet night, it would be easier to commune with the plants.
I focused on the tight buds of the nearest rhododendron and closed my eyes.
I see you. Open for me.
Nothing happened, so I tried again. And again.
A soft sound in the trees broke my already dwindling concentration. I spun to check, but there was still no guardian. I scanned the tree line, wondering what I had heard.
There was a faint rustle and then movement in my periphery. I turned to look, but it was gone, leaving me with only the vague impression that I had seen someone in a dark hood, slipping between the trees. I blinked and scanned the tree line again, but saw nothing more.
Before I could give it much thought, an intense sense of awareness settled over me. It was as if the air were charged with electricity and I had suddenly gone weightless.
The guardian stepped out from between the trees and fixed me with his arctic gaze. I couldn’t believe I had thought for one second that I might miss his arrival. It would have been easier for me to ignore a full marching band.
“You’re here,” he said. The two words sent a tingle down my spine.
I nodded and swallowed hard, trying to ignore the ache in my chest that intensified in his presence.
“They explained everything to you?” he asked.