Good Witches Don't Steal (Academy of Shadowed Magic Book 4)

by S. W. Clarke

  I leaned toward Liara before he finished introducing himself, whispered, “Twenty bucks he’s Gaia.”

  She gave a quick exhale through her nose. “I’ll take that bet.”

  And then, just as quickly as I’d offered it, I lost that twenty bucks. “House Crest,” he said, and Liara’s hand went out to me, palm flat for the receiving.

  I stared at Paxton Tarrensteam as he returned to the group, a new guardian. Crest? They were soft, flowing—this guy was rigid, all angles in his walk and his stance. He was dissonant, and it bothered me.

  Dissonance, I’d learned over the years, is something we explain away in ourselves. I might look like a bad witch on the outside, but in my better moments I’d convinced myself I was really just a soft marshmallow of a witch on the inside.

  But dissonance in others? Unacceptable.

  Which was why I approached Paxton after the initiation, when everyone was leaving for the dining hall and the ceremonial game of Duck, Duck, Werewolf. “Paxton,” I said as we came into the night. Loki veered into the darkness after a mouse, and I walked alone alongside our newest guardian from Crest. “I’m Clem.”

  His green eyes narrowed as he looked over at me. His walk was formal, even. “You say that like you’ve never seen me before.”

  “Have I?”

  “We’re in the same year. We were in Rescue together with Milonakis, and we usually go to the dining hall around the same time, and the library…” When I didn’t register any of it, he trailed off. “Okay, maybe you’ve really never seen me before.”

  “If I’m being honest,” I said, “most people aren’t on my radar.”

  He ran a hand over his hair, eyes facing ahead. “Sure.”

  “Listen,” I said, “I’m not Eva Whitewillow. I’ll probably be on your bad side before I’m on your good side. Maybe I’ll always be on your bad side, but hey, one upside is that I have to stay here on the grounds while you’re away. You won’t have to see my mug all the time.”

  This brought his gaze back to me. “And you’re the leader of the guardians. You and Liara.”

  I shrugged. “You want the job? I might be able to pull a few strings.”

  His eyes lit for the first time, vaguely amused. “Truth is, I always avoided you. For obvious, witchy reasons. Probably why I was never on your radar.”

  “Fair enough. We witches can historically be a pain in the ass.” I paused. “I only have one question for you before we go in: How good are you with water, Paxton?”

  He stopped, his back as straight as an exclamation point. The others had trailed into the dining hall, leaving us alone in the night. And in the cricketing summer evening, his hands went out before him, shaping an invisible ball.

  I stared, squinting in the dim light, as water began to shimmer there. He was calling the moisture from the air. And just that fast, his ball had grown to the size of a watermelon.

  With a lowered chin, eyes on me, he thrust his hands forward faster than I could follow. The water formed a wall, but nothing like what I’d seen any other water mage create. Where other water walls were curving and iridescent, his was perfectly flat, unforgiving, and roiling on the inside with froth.

  It was dissonant. It made no sense, but there it was.

  The water broke on me in the same moment I closed my eyes, and it was like hitting a river from a hundred feet up—except I wasn’t falling. It was simply the force of his power rushing at me, and then over me, yanking and pulling like a gale storm, and I got the feeling he’d avoided going too hard.

  Didn’t want to break his leader’s bones, after all.

  Just as quickly, it passed, slapping the grass in a wave. And I was left drenched, hair covering my face, spitting water from my mouth and blowing it from my nose.

  Mark came forward, lifted a lock of my hair away so we could meet eyes. “Am I on your radar now?”

  Now I understood. He wasn’t dissonant at all—he was perfectly congruent in the way he talked, walked, and used water magic. This guy was all hard angles and unrelenting force. He and Maise would be perfect guards out there for the others.

  “Paxton Tarrensteam,” I said, “that was the best goddamn thing I’ve seen all summer.”

  Chapter Eight

  After Eva dried me off with a strong gust of air, we played eight rounds of Duck, Duck, Werewolf. Or maybe it was ten, or twelve. I lost count when the grape drink began to run out, and this time I didn’t hold back.

  Every time it came my turn, I was a vicious, fiery werewolf. And I caught so very many drunken mages.

  The night was a blur. I nursed a drink that someone would refill when it got low, and I ate the conjured foods on the table when I could get a chance to snag them. Chocolate cookies and salt and vinegar chips. Fae rolls (my doing) and Mishka’s favorite, baklava. Grapes and slices of cheese. Some fae fruit that looked like a pear, but tasted like mint chocolate chip ice cream.

  I’d never been so full.

  Some rounds I sat out, and I found myself shoulder to shoulder with Mishka, who hugged me and forgave me for everything that had happened to her on that mission when she’d been injured last spring. Or I sat with Elijah and Isaiah on either side of me, the three of us debating whether Liara’s lightning was more like Palpatine, or X-Men’s Storm.

  They said Palpatine. I maintained Storm.

  Akelan and I just stood in silence for a good ten minutes, watching the group, and when he offered to get me more drink, it wasn’t an awkward way of getting away from our quietness. That was just who we were together: silent, observing. It was right for us.

  I congratulated Maise, who pulled me into a hug, thumped me on the back. “I’m glad it’s you leading,” she said. “Ever since I first saw you, I thought you had fire. The figurative kind, too.”

  And at the end of the night, it was finally just me sitting the last round out, watching the others. I was tired, bleary-eyed, slumped into a chair, and happy to be with these people.

  That was rare for me.

  When I was younger, if I wasn’t alone I itched for it. Other people felt dangerous, like they could bite without using their teeth. Or maybe it was me who was dangerous, and I didn’t trust myself not to run them off.

  When I was sixteen, I wouldn’t have seen a difference between this academy and my group home. Stuck around other broken, problematic people my age, forced into places and conversations I’d never wanted.

  Now, as Eva tripped and burst into laughter as she dropped to the floor, I realized I didn’t feel unsafe. Not around these people. But maybe I was still dangerous. Not because of what was in my head, but what lay coiled in the center of me. The creature. The anger.

  For the first time, I could see the distinction between me and it.

  Liara helped Eva up, and I pushed all thoughts of the Spitfire aside.

  This year, I understood what the ceremony was really for. It was freedom from responsibilities, letting out all that stress and anxiety for one night before the whole weight of saving people’s lives descended with the same fury as one of Paxton’s water walls.

  Tonight, we could just be people. Regular young people with regular burdens, like drinking too much.

  The game was stupid. But it was also perfect, and by the end of it, I had decided I liked Paxton. When he got inebriated enough, he got clumsy. He started to laugh, and then all his hardness fell away and he was just a guy who’d been initiated as a guardian, who didn’t quite know what he was doing and wanted to impress us.

  Afterward, Eva insisted on flying. But she was slow and uncertain, weaving her way off the landing from the dining hall, sometimes using only one wing, then the other.

  I’d thought I had let loose. Compared to Eva, I was practically sober.

  I came down the steps, crossing my arms as she made a drunken path through the air. “That’s right,” I said. “Keep heading due north.”

  “North?” One wing stopped working, and she nearly hit the ground before it did again. “I can’t even tel
l which way is up.”

  I gestured up at her. “All right, get down here, lightweight.”

  She went into a slow spiral, finally touching the ground and nearly tipping onto her hands and knees before I caught her. “Woah,” she said when I helped her straighten. “You caught me. Am I the werewolf?”

  I resisted laughing. “Eva, we’re outside now.”

  Her face lifted, eyes finding the canopy and the sky. “So we are. Gods, Clem—have you ever seen the stars?”

  “Sure.” I began walking her toward our dorm. “Once or twice.”

  She toddled along with me, eyes still heavenward. “No, I mean really seen them. They’re like diamonds.”

  I cast a quick glance up. The stars really were brilliant tonight, the sky clear of clouds. “They are. They really are.”

  She grabbed my shirt with both hands as we reached the staircase up to our dorm. Turned to me. “Clem, I need to tell you something.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Neverwink’s going to make me into a real healer.”

  My eyebrows went up. “Neverwink is teaching a class?”

  “Independent study.” She paused, her throat bobbing like she might hiccup or burp. Then, once the threat had passed, “I practically had to beg her. But she said yes in the end.”

  “So you want to be a healer.”

  “I want to save people’s lives if I need to.”

  “Well that’s—”

  “Clem, I’ve got something else to tell you.” She stared at me like she couldn’t quite find my face, her lidded eyes wandering. “This summer, the guardian leader in Vienna, he sent my dad to Edinburgh on a mission.”

  “Edinburgh? Why?”

  She gave an overlarge shrug. “Top secret, you know. But do you know how much they hate mages there?”

  This was her drunkenness talking. If she were sober, of course she would know I knew.

  Nonetheless, I said, “A lot?”

  “Oh gods, they keep it on lockdown. Only a few can have magic. Their police even specialize in ‘anti-magic.’” She made uneven double-quotes with her fingers in the air.

  I eyed her. “Anti-magic?”

  Eva’s grip on my shirt tightened, her throat convulsed, and then she keeled over and released the contents of her stomach onto the grass.

  I knelt with her. “Eva?”

  She groaned, eyes shut, and swayed on her knees. “That tasted like grape.” And then she sighed, head lowering until her chin touched her chest.

  After that, she was pretty useless to the world. Especially to me, by which I mean I had to practically carry her up the stairs and to her bed. And as I helped her in, my mind revolved on what she’d told me.

  Her father. Edinburgh. Anti-magic.

  If William Rathmore led the Mages’ Council, then I could see why he’d hoard the magic amongst himself and his councilors.

  More mages meant more potential problems.

  When I questioned her the next morning, Eva didn’t remember saying anything about her dad or Edinburgh. And the way she acted told me it was something she wasn’t supposed to have mentioned.

  I left her hungover in bed because I had early-morning training with Umbra in the guardians’ tree. I would be back for Eva and her secrets later.

  “On the train platform,” I said, eyes drifting from the globe in front of me over to Umbra. “How did you part the veil?”

  “Focus, child,” the headmistress said, her face lit as the globe slowly spun before us. “This is critical.”

  I swallowed, forced my eyes back onto it. The two of us stood alone on the third floor of the guardians’ tree, the massive magical globe taller than both of us and shimmering with leylines.

  I had so many questions for Umbra. But ever since we’d met this morning, she’d been single-minded about teaching me to lead the guardians. Of course, she was always single-minded in her teaching.

  My fingers went up to the globe, flicking outward. As they did, it zoomed in on Iceland, expanding the landmass until I could see the roads and towns and the capital city. With an upward slide of my finger, I brought the focus down to the capital, Reykjavik. And then, flicking outward again, I zoomed in until I could even see the one-lane streets.

  “You know,” I said, “there’s this thing called Google Earth…”

  Umbra ignored me. Her fingers went out beside me, creating tiny moving dots on one of the roads. Some were green, and some were red. “The rescue has failed. Now, two of your guards and two of your chasers are on Laugavegur Street. They’re flanked by a dozen of the Shade’s creatures, and more are moving to intercept them on their left. What do you do?”

  As I watched, the four green dots—my guardians—moved down Laugavegur, and were pursued by twelve red dots, with four more moving in on their left, as Umbra had said.

  These were a simulation, a trick of Umbra’s magic. It would be my own magic—my connection with each of the guardians—that would ultimately allow me to follow them, to perceive where they were and what they faced.

  I still didn’t quite know how. But Umbra had assured me she would teach me that, too.

  I pointed. “I’d have them turn off onto Reykjanesbraut at the first opportunity. I would tell them to follow it until they came alongside the Elliðaá River, where they would have to leave the road and use it as a point of power to escape.”

  “So be it,” Umbra said. With a flick of her finger, she allowed the simulation to play out, directing the guardians in the way I had described.

  The green dots took a right onto Reykjanesbraut, and the creatures followed. When the guardians came alongside the river, they passed into the snow. The two guardians on horseback slowed in the snowpack, while the two fae kept at the same pace in the air.

  The creatures, on the other hand, didn’t slow. And the two guardians on horseback were quickly overtaken, while the fae escaped by the river.

  “That wouldn’t happen,” I said when it had finished.

  “Oh?” Umbra cast an imperious eye on me. “And why not?”

  “One of the horseback guardians would have used their fire to clear a path through the snowpack. And even if there hadn’t been a fire mage among them, the fae wouldn’t have left the other two behind to be killed.”

  Umbra turned to me, staff tapping as she did. “What would the fae have done with fifteen of the Shade’s creatures chasing them?”

  “Rebuffed them, slowed them down.” I threw an arm out, and it passed through the globe. “Or Liara would have made a new call. It wouldn’t end like that.”

  “Clementine, your plan was flawed from the beginning. You sent the guardians on horseback into snowpack in Iceland during the winter.”

  “There was no other choice.” My focus returned to the globe. “The closest leyline was corrupted, and they had to make for the river.”

  “Wasn’t there?” With a revolving finger, Umbra returned the simulation to the start. She swiped her hand through the air, and the green dots raced down the same street they had begun on. This time, instead of turning right, they passed straight down the road. The two fae branched off, rushing back toward the creatures and passing over them.

  As they did, the creatures followed them.

  Meanwhile, the guardians on horseback raced down the road until they came to a farther, uncorrupted leyline. There, they just barely passed through before the creatures caught them. And then the two fae guardians, who had been safe in the air, swung back around and flew toward the leyline themselves, passing through.

  When all four green dots had disappeared from the globe, I just stared, silent.

  “You made your call too quickly,” Umbra said, soft. “It was the wrong one.”

  “You have to make quick calls,” I said. “It’s how you survive.”

  She shook her head. “No, Clementine. The great boon of having you here, watching from safety, is that you don’t have to make calls the way Liara will have to. You can see the whole picture. You can consider all the facto
rs, and you must be sure before you give instructions, because you will supersede Liara when you do.”

  I turned toward her, sensing this wasn’t just about steering the guardians. “And how will I observe what they’re doing in the first place?”

  A faint smile appeared, and she began walking us toward the stairs. “By the same means that all magic passes through this world.”

  Leylines.

  As we came down the stairs, I said, “If the closest leyline hadn’t been corrupted, this wouldn’t have been a simulation at all.”

  She tilted her head at me. “It’s a moot point. The leyline was corrupted.”

  “You uncorrupted the one outside the academy grounds.”

  “Over the course of three days, child. You wouldn’t have but twenty minutes.”

  I twirled my fingers through the air. “How hard could it possibly be?”

  “You do know how to make an old woman’s day, don’t you, Clementine Cole?”

  We came down to the first floor. “It’s one of my specialties.” I grabbed my cloak from the hook as we headed out. “Another of my specialties is chasing monsters.”

  “I know, child. You want to be out with the others. But tell me, how many of the creatures did the Shade send over the tundra when you retrieved the chain?”

  In a flash, my mind placed me there again. The white expanse, the round moon, the stream of monsters passing over the earth like a swarm. All rushing toward me. “Hundreds,” I said.

  “You will endanger their presence,” Umbra said as we came into daylight. “Simply by being there, you will endanger the guardians.”

  My gaze sharpened on Umbra. “So teach me what I need to know to go unseen for as long as I need to.”

  “Demanding, aren’t we?” Her eyes flicked to the sky. “Ah, and now I see why. It’s time for lunch.” She gestured for me to follow. “We should break.”

  I walked alongside her. “Are you trying to distract me with sandwiches?”

  She glanced at me, eyes twinkling. “Never. Though you did ask me a question about the train platform. If you want the answer, you’ll join me.”