by Lucia Ashta
“Yeah. That. Where did you get it?”
“At one of the stands at the trailhead to Thunder Mountain. The woman who sold it to me said they were in the process of turning the place into an official pilgrimage site. She said two angels appeared to her the week before last. She went on and on about it, but it really sounded like some kind of miracle or something. I figured, with how things had been going, I could use the luck. I bought another one about the Angel of Hidden Blessing.”
I groaned and dropped my forehead into my waiting palms.
“What’d I miss?” she asked, stuffing a bite of burrito into her mouth. Melted cheesed dripped across her bottom lip, and Orangesicle looked like he very much wanted to reach over and wipe it off.
I pushed up from the table. “I’ll let Dave and Adalia fill you in. I’m going to go check on Wren and Jas before Defensive Creature Magic.”
“Wait? Aren’t you going to eat?” Sadie asked, eyeing my salad. The woman didn’t turn down a single thing if she could ingest it.
“I’ve suddenly lost my appetite.” I started to move away. “We’ll catch up more later. I’m glad you’re here, Sadie. I missed you.”
Before anyone could say anything to convince me to stay, I walked toward the double doors, gave the flowers in pots around them suspicious looks—they were usually off to the side, not in the middle of the path—and shoved through the doors, sucking in a deep breath the moment I was outside.
I couldn’t bear to think of the possibility that Rage and Fury might still be after me. I longed to shift into my lion and run so fast and so hard that I’d forget all about my problems. Instead, I trudged toward the healing wing, where I’d be fully reminded of them.
13
Despite Sir Lancelot’s encouraging welcome speech at the beginning of term, I wasn’t convinced the headmaster entirely believed his assurances that we were now safe at the Menagerie. Or maybe he just believed in preparedness in the ever-changing world of magic, and if that was the case, I didn’t blame him. My experiences since becoming part of the supernatural community certainly suggested that it was smart to be ready—for anything.
Whatever the true reason, I sat in Basic Defense and Attack Spells 101, a class new to the school that was meant to prepare us to fight using basic mage spells, since most shifters didn’t have an aptitude toward the magical arts. Since the Academy Spell had been acting wonky for nearly a month now, Sir Lancelot had called in help from the Magical Arts Academy.
The sister institution to the Magical Creatures Academy, and the one that had started it all, had sent ten of its experienced witches and wizards to aid us. One of them stood at the head of the class as she gesticulated with fervor. Visiting Professor Hettie Hapblomb did everything with her own particular type of zeal, and expected everyone to take magic as seriously as she did. She was the kind of witch who seemed to think genuine smiling should be reserved for special occasions, maybe a handful in a lifetime. Her hair was a warm, soft gray, and it was currently tied up into a top-knot. Everything about her was crisply precise. She was thin and fit, her shoulders strong, her back straight. She walked as if she’d been forced to carry books atop her head as a child and had never shaken the habit.
Her lips were plump, but it was easy to miss that fact since they were usually pressed into a disapproving line. She peered at us now over pince-nez pressed to the bridge of her nose, but I suspected they were mostly for show—as if she needed one more thing to affirm her stern appearance. No supernatural creature I’d met wore glasses; their preternatural healing didn’t allow for vision problems. I suspected a witch as apparently knowledgeable as Professor Hapblomb would have found a spell to correct her vision if she had any issues.
I must have zoned out as Professor Hapblomb currently pressed her lips together and stared at me over those pince-nez spectacles of hers.
“Well, young lady? Are you going to answer my question or not?” Professor Hapblomb glared at me, and then moved on to share the love with Jas and Wren, who flanked me on either side. She was the only member of the staff who appeared unsympathetic to my friends and the fact that nearly a month had passed since the incident in Intermediate Shifting, and they still weren’t fully recovered, though they’d begun attending classes a week ago.
I was sorely tempted to look to my friends for help, or even my brother, Boone, or Leander, but the lot of us had learned this lesson during our first class with the professor: she didn’t approve of anyone shirking their duty. I’d take my friends down with my sinking ship if I did anything but own up to my mistake.
“I’m sorry, Professor Hapblomb,” I said. “I didn’t hear your question. Would you mind repeating it?”
“Of course I mind repeating it, I mind it very much. I’m not here to waste my time or anyone else’s. I’d think you of all people would be interested to learn what I have to teach you. You’re the one who’s been at the epicenter of all the problems the school has had.”
Wren, ever the loyal friend, sucked in a gasp of outrage under her breath. Stacy, Tracy, and Swan swiveled in their seats to look at me, their smiles genuine for once as they enjoyed seeing me in the hot seat. Stacy hadn’t taken well to my relationship with Leander, but at least she no longer draped herself all over him. Tracy and Swan, however, had grown a few extra tentacles, hanging all over Ky and Boone at every opportunity, as if they believed all it would take to win the two men over was some extra groping.
“I am very interested in learning, Professor,” I said, not bothering to excuse my inattention. I was a good student, and everyone zoned out in class occasionally, right? Besides, she didn’t need to single me out; I received plenty of attention, and not of the good kind, without her finger pointing. Every student at the academy was aware that Rage and Fury, and all the problems they and the Shifter Alliance and their umbrella group the Voice had caused, had at least a little bit to do with me. It didn’t much matter that I hadn’t done anything to deserve any of it.
Professor Hapblomb scowled at me, a gesture she’d obviously refined over her six decades or so. “I was asking you if you would like to demonstrate a simple stun spell for the class.”
My stomach churned inside. Obviously I didn’t want to demonstrate a thing. I’d be very happy to be left alone for the remainder of my time at the academy, however long I continued to bamboozle the Academy Spell into allowing me to remain at the school for magical creatures when I no longer was one.
I smiled tightly and rose from my seat, smoothing my skirt and stepping carefully over Jas’ full-length cast. Professor Hapblomb’s question wasn’t a request, no matter how she colored it. I headed down the center aisle to the front of the room, feeling every set of eyes in the smaller auditorium on me. When I reached the front, I turned to face the class, and met Leander’s waiting gaze.
He smiled warmly at me, and I smiled back.
“The princeling won’t be completing your assignment, Rina. That’s your problem. You think everyone else will swoop in to help you. You don’t appear to realize how serious the dangers currently plaguing the supernatural community are.”
I waggled my jaw back and forth and tried to calm myself before I said something I’d regret, but I couldn’t quite miss the reactions of my friends. Ky, Boone, and Leander went completely rigid in the front row, while Jas narrowed her eyes at the teacher and crossed her arms over her chest a few rows back. Wren and Dave scowled, and Adalia looked impassive, which for the happy fairy was probably the equivalent of a full-on frown.
WTF, lady? is what I really wanted to say, but once I was sure I wouldn’t, I very carefully enunciated, “I’m well aware of how serious the dangers out there are.” For obvious reasons. There was no way Professor Hapblomb hadn’t been briefed on what happened to Ky and me at the end of last semester. So was she ignorant of the reaction her accusations caused, or unaware of what she was saying? I doubted she was either. The woman’s prickly gray stare was astute—and cold. I hated even to consider the possibility that I m
ight have an enemy within the school staff, but Professor Hapblomb wasn’t doing anything to dispel the notion.
“I think your behavior in my class makes it abundantly clear that you do not, in fact, have a clear notion of how the world of magic works,” the professor said, making it very challenging not to outright hate her. “You should be hanging on every single one of my words, desperate to learn how to protect yourself now that you’ve been stripped of all your magic.”
Leander and Ky shifted forward on their seats as if about to rise to my defense, and Wren’s quiet gasp reached me from four rows up. I didn’t understand. Was the teacher intentionally trying to make me feel bad? Didn’t she realize I already worked non-stop to overcome the loss of my mountain lion? The only encouraging part of this encounter was that it appeared Professor Bitch wasn’t aware I possessed some level of mage magic. At this point, I was all too happy to have it remain that way. This woman was not my ally.
“Now that you’ve wasted enough of the class’ time, you’re going to demonstrate this spell for us, assuming you can do it. All spells require at least some degree of magic to accomplish them, even if that power is shifter magic.”
A snicker had me looking up three rows on the right. Stacy met my gaze head-on, a wicked, delighted sneer curving her perfectly-lipsticked mouth. She flipped her gorgeous red curls over her shoulder, and Tracy and Swan, on either side of her, mimicked her movements. The catty trio was on duty.
“Keep your attention where it belongs, Miss Mont,” Professor Hapblomb snapped.
“What are your instructions, then?” I asked, struggling to keep the steely edge from my voice. I wasn’t sure whom I wanted to strangle more at the moment, the teacher or the Cat Pack.
Professor Hapblomb smiled contentedly. “It appears my instructions were what you missed while you weren’t paying attention. I won’t repeat myself; it wouldn’t be fair to the rest of the class.”
But wasting everyone’s time while picking on me is fair?
Whatever. I huffed, then plastered a perfectly pleasant smile on my face. If I hadn’t let what Rage, Fury, and Jevan did break me, I sure as hell wasn’t going to let a witch with a grudge the size of Montana manage it.
I held out my hand. “May I have the spell please?”
Ky scooted forward another inch in his seat as if preparing to intervene. He alone knew that when I had reason to be upset but sounded calm, it was only because my insides were churning like lava about to erupt from a volcano.
“Here you go.” Professor Hapblomb handed over a crisp sheet of paper with a spell in … Latin.
“Uh, I don’t know Latin. May I do the spell in English please?” Every spell I’d ever heard the staff witch Nancy perform had been in English.
Professor Hapblomb smiled, and it was a horribly wicked expression, perfect straight white teeth bared. “The best spells honor their original roots and are performed in Latin. I don’t believe in marring magic, no matter what anyone else says.” Her gray gaze burned as it took me in, as if I’d just insulted all she held dear. “You’ll simply have to do the best you can. No one in my class will be performing spells in English.”
A murmur circled the classroom, and the teacher spun in her prim gray pantsuit, which precisely matched her eyes. Instantly, the room hushed.
I stared at the gobbledygook on the page. I couldn’t make sense of a single word, and I’d missed the instructions. No matter. I wasn’t about to give Professor Hate the pleasure of seeing me give up without even trying.
I scanned the spell once. What did I have to lose? Taking a brief few moments to connect to my mage power, I searched for it within. When Professor Hapblomb crossed her arms over her chest and pinned me in a devastating glare, I had to close my eyes.
But as soon as I blocked out the attention of the fifty or so students, I discovered that my mage magic was easy to find, simmering as if waiting for me to call on it. Now this was an improvement I could celebrate. My mage magic brewed within me, a pure golden glow within my mind’s eye. Reaching for it and taking hold of the energy, I slowly opened my eyelids, careful not to make eye contact with the witch.
With my attention trained on the spell on the sheet in front of me, I did my best to pronounce the words, certain I must be butchering most of them.
Magia bullat effervitque,
Magus sum,
Et hoc carmine,
Attono te.1
A hushed silence descended upon the auditorium as I finished, but nothing happened that I could tell. I looked up, and my gaze found Stacy, who was apparently busy trying to glare a hole right through me.
The moment our stares met, a blast of golden energy erupted from my chest, visible to the naked eye—and slammed straight into her.
She gasped and sucked in a breath that sounded as if she were a chronic asthmatic in desperate need of her inhaler. Clutching and clawing at her chest, she scrambled from her seat and into the aisle, trampling Swan in the process. Once standing, she pulled at her uniform shirt as if trying to rid herself of my magic.
But the gold light of my spell faded, and nothing seemed to happen.
Even Professor Hate Bomb watched, apparently dumbfounded as Stacy hopped on the stairs of the aisle as if she were on fire and trying to put out the flames.
Finally, when Stacy showed no signs of slowing or stopping, the professor asked, “What is it that you’re doing, girl? Miss Mont’s spell can’t have worked. She messed up just about everything about it. Enough with your theatrics. Return to your seat.”
Stacy, however, did not return to her seat; neither did she cease her theatrics. If anything, Professor Hapblomb seemed to have further upset her. She swiped at her shirt, skirt, and hair, before looking to me, hatred flaring in her eyes.
I met her stare, refusing to back down. I hadn’t done anything to her. No matter how much hopping and flailing she did, she had nothing to blame me for.
Or so I thought.
That’s when she barked, sounding quite convincingly like a yappy lap dog.
The entire class and teacher pinned wide-eyed stares on Stacy, who flared her nostrils and pushed out her jaw. Even Tracy and Swan stared up at their friend, mouths agape.
Stacy parted her painted lips another time, to say something perhaps, but she only barked again. Frustrated, she barked three more times.
Someone to the left of her—Jas, probably—giggled, and though it wasn’t a sound I heard often from Jas, she set off a chain reaction. Soft chuckles swept the room until Professor Hapblomb snorted with a repressed laugh before catching herself and pressing her stern features into an even sterner mask.
“Enough of this, Miss Enviton. You’re wasting time, and I have important lessons to impart upon this class. Cease your theatrics this moment and take your seat.”
Ruff! Ruff, ruff, ruff! The more Stacy barked, the wider her eyes grew, until panic bloomed within me as readily as it did in her.
Had I caused this? Had I butchered the Latin so gravely that I’d doggified Stacy?
Stacy looked to her two cronies, flailing her hands about as she implored them to help her. But of course, Tracy and Swan just looked from her to each other and back again, unsure how to aid their friend.
“Miss Enviton, I’m warning you,” Professor Hapblomb scolded.
The witch was either denser than a rock, or she’d never seen a spell misfire like this before.
Eventually, when Stacy moved down the aisle and started gesturing between her and me in a tortured version of Charades, the teacher seemed to get it. She whirled on me, a skinny finger already pointed at me. “You did this!”
“If I did, I didn’t mean to.” I shrugged, though I wasn’t sure whom I was apologizing to exactly. “I did my best to do the spell as it was.”
“But you didn’t hear the instructions!” she fumed. “It was irresponsible of you to perform a spell without knowing what you were doing.”
I tried not to say it, I really did, but I could swallow only so many r
etorts. “You were aware that I didn’t know the instructions. I told you I didn’t. You insisted I should complete the spell anyway, and so I did.” As the cherry on top, I added, “I do try always to obey my teachers.” And though it was the truth, it was also apparently the last straw.
Her nostrils flared alarmingly, and the finger she still pointed in my direction shook with her rage. “You,” she growled, “you are just too much. No teacher should have to endure this kind of ill behavior. You’re coming with me to see Sir Lancelot.”
“Sounds good,” I said. He was more likely to see reason than this lady.
As if on an afterthought, Professor Hapblomb reached back to grab Stacy by the shoulder. Steering her ahead of us, she said, “We’re also going to see the healer.”
“Great,” I said. “I’m sure Melinda will be able to help us figure this out.”
“Maybe. You’ve messed up this spell so badly that there may be no mage or healer who can fix it.”
Stacy’s eyes looked like they were about to pop out of her head and roll across the floor—Where she’d maybe feel the impulse to chase them…
Professor Hapblomb didn’t give Stacy any more of her attention. To me, she added, “This is what happens when girls with no magic mess with spells they shouldn’t. Sir Lancelot should have listened to me and expelled you from the school.”
My shoulders tightened before I managed to loosen them. The owl was far more level-headed than this witch, and far more familiar with my story. He knew I’d done nothing to cause all the mishaps that had befallen me, and consequently the school.
The professor guided Stacy through the open door, a little too roughly, and Stacy slammed straight into Sadie coming the other way.
“Roof,” Stacy said as the air whooshed out of her.
“What’d you just say to me?” Sadie asked, belligerent already.
“Ruff, roof,” Stacy answered.
Sadie cocked an eyebrow at me.
“It’s a long story,” I said, though I wasn’t sure it was. It was, however, a mystery. “I’ll fill you in while we walk.”