Mage Shifter

by Lucia Ashta

  But there was time for that. Now that Rage was off my back, I had the opportunity to learn along with the other students. There was no need to rush ahead or skip over the basics in order to learn the skills that could save my life when threatened. Of course, I hadn’t forgotten about the challenge with Galen—at least, I hadn’t forgotten for long, though I’d tried. I refused to make my life all crazy now that I finally had the choice as to how I approached it. It would be a lovely surprise to defeat Galen and secure Leander’s right to court me. Though a ludicrous notion, it sure would make things a hell of a lot easier for us. But Galen was a trained warrior; I wouldn’t be that for a long time yet. Leander had grown to love me, truly and deeply, as I’d fallen for him. With that foundation, we’d find a way to be together, even if I failed to win this outrageously antiquated duel with his brother.

  The one thing I refused to do was worry. I’d had enough of that to last me a long while. I deserved to be a carefree nineteen year-old, to enjoy wild times and loving between the sheets. I deserved to throw caution to the wind.

  Beyond that, I’d discovered I was actually looking forward to being an average student, as average of one as I could be. I’d enjoy being a student of the Magical Creatures Academy, going through the motions of classes and the daily beatdowns we got in our practical applications classes.

  I was in the middle of wishing I were in either McGinty or Marcy June’s class when the dull monotones of Professor Whittle cut through my reverie.

  “Wake up,” he barked, which for him came off as mild inflection. When I noticed his command was directed at our row, I snapped my eyes open wide, wondering if I’d actually fallen asleep without noticing. I jarred against the hand that cupped my chin as I leaned my elbow into my thigh in the never-ending battle to stay awake in the werewolf’s class.

  “Jasmine Jolly,” he whispered more harshly than I believed him capable of. “Wake. Up.”

  Wren, who sat between Jas and me, elbowed the skunk shifter, causing her to wake up with a start and a snort.

  I caught Adalia rolling her eyes heavily next to her. But Jas didn’t appear to care about that, or the way Professor Whittle glared at her from the front of the room. Her mouth wrenched open in the mother of all yawns, her jaw cracking a couple of times, before rubbing her hands across her face, careful as always not to smear her heavy eye makeup.

  “You were sleeping in my class,” Professor Whittle accused, and several students sat a little straighter—working to convince the professor of their dubious innocence.

  “You can’t sleep in class, Jasmine,” the professor continued, while I tensed a little at what Jas might say. He’d called her “Jasmine” twice. I’d never experienced the skunk shifter not to protest after the repeated offense.

  I sensed Dave looking at me and turned to my other side. He widened his eyes at me, broadcasting his silent worry about what Jas might do. None of us particularly enjoyed Professor Whittle’s class the way one didn’t particularly enjoy munching on cardboard, but the werewolf was kind enough, and I didn’t suppose he could help it if he was the blandest teacher in all of history.

  Finally, Jas sighed heavily, and Wren reached across the armrest between us to clutch my forearm. I held my breath when Jas opened her mouth.

  “You know what, Professor?” she said. “I was sleeping. I don’t mean to sleep in your class, I really don’t. I just can’t seem to help it.”

  I sucked in a quick breath in anticipation. Jas wasn’t going to stop there. Jas never stopped when she should. She was about to insult the werewolf with at least a century of experience.

  But she … paused. Wren squeezed my arm harder, and Dave leaned closer to me.

  Professor Whittle, who’d apparently never had a student admit to the offense, stood at the front of the class with an open mouth. When he shut it, in a low and dangerous voice he said, “You aren’t allowed to sleep in my class. How will you ever learn anything if you don’t pay attention? Do you think the history of supernatural creatures is some kind of joke or something? Do you think you can go out into the world and not know what others can do to hurt you? If you don’t understand the world you live in, how can you properly form a part of it?”

  Jas stared at Wendell Whittle, who appeared more formidable than usual, his back and shoulders straight as he defended himself and the worth of his work. Professor Whittle stared right back at his student, his brown eyes more alive than I’d ever seen them, even when he’d appeared at the scenes of Rage’s invasions, suggesting his skill set extended far beyond the classroom.

  When he folded his arms over his chest, and Jas did the same, the entire class seemed to hold its collective breath.

  I didn’t think I could stand the tension any more when Jas finally huffed softly and recited: “The gnomes are some of the most underrepresented creatures of the woodland species. Though their magic is mild when compared to some of the other woodland races, such as the elves and the fairies, they compensate for it in raw, brute strength. There are few more courageous or enduring than the gnomes. Both the males and the females of the species are ferocious when called for, and gentle with the other creatures that share the forests with them when needed. They are supreme protectors of the planet and all smaller and defenseless creatures that walk upon it. Gnomes achieve their full maturity at around a century of age, and at that point they reach their full height, approximately three feet, and that’s before you take into account their large, pointed hats, a constant feature among them. They can live several centuries when the forest around them is healthy. When it isn’t, they struggle, and it’s been suggested that their life force is connected to the greater nature magic that surrounds them.”

  When Jas paused, the creaks of students’ seats were loud as they punctuated the shocked silence. “Shall I continue?” she asked, her signature sass on full display.

  I blinked at her several times, while Professor Whittle did the same. Every third term student in that class openly stared at the skunk shifter.

  Finally, Professor Whittle uncrossed his arms and let them flop to his sides. “No, it isn’t necessary for you to continue.” His eyes were wide, but there was something new there: intrigue and respect, I suspected. “I’d like to chat with you later, in private.”

  Jas gave him a curt nod and flipped the strand of white hair over the rest of her jet black bob.

  “All right, class, let’s continue. We still have a few minutes left,” Professor Whittle was saying, but I couldn’t stop staring at Jas. She caught me looking and winked.

  It seemed my friends had as many secrets as I did.

  I no longer dreaded Professor McGinty’s Intermediate Shifting class or Marcy June’s Defensive Creature Magic. Now that I could shift with ease, and I had an extra little something up my sleeve, I found that I actually enjoyed their classes, though bruises were almost a guarantee. But now that I’d observed the motivations of power-hungry supernaturals firsthand, I didn’t mind working hard to best prepare myself for whatever lay ahead.

  Professor Hapblomb’s Basic Defense and Attack Spells class, however, was a different story. The witch’s attitude toward me had changed completely. Since aiding in the rescue of me and my friends, she’d almost become … nice, and that threw me off more than nearly anything I’d encountered since I’d begun attending the academy. I continued to cross paths with her seemingly at random, but far too often for it to be mere coincidence. I didn’t trust her, not when she was this wishy-washy.

  Sadie had taken to accompanying me to Professor Hapblomb’s class every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon, leaving Damon alone to await Fury’s awakening. Obviously, Sadie didn’t trust the teacher either, nor was she ready to abandon her appointed role as my protector yet.

  But today Professor Hapblomb surprised me even further. “Miss Mont and Miss Enviton, please join me at the front of the room,” she called out at the start of our class, the second to last with her for the term.

  With hesitant steps, I made
my way down to the front of the small auditorium. I sensed Stacy’s glaring gaze attempting to sear a hole in my back, along with the wary looks of my friends, Ky, and Leander. At least that was something. With all of my friends in the class along with me, they definitely would have my back in case Professor Hapblomb decided to do another one-eighty.

  “Yes, Professor?” I nudged once Stacy and I had reached the front of the room. I didn’t bother to hide the suspicion from my question; I figured Professor Hapblomb had earned it, fair and square. She had helped save me, and that was definitely a heap of points in her favor, but she also seemed to mostly hate me.

  Stacy cocked her head to one side and barked. The longer my spell kept her in thrall, the more she behaved as an actual dog. She’d taken to scratching behind her ears with her fingers curled in like a paw.

  Professor Hapblomb turned to address the rest of the class instead of the two of us. “Today I’ll be demonstrating how to reverse a spell when you have no information about the spell’s provenance, or as in this case, it’s a spell with no history and no set reversal spell. I’ll walk you through something you can try if you accidentally misspeak a spell or cast something wrong … so you aren’t stuck as a dog.”

  In unison, my jaw and Stacy’s dropped open, though she was the only one to yip her shock.

  Is this crazy professor actually saying she could’ve helped Stacy all along and chose not to?

  I had plenty of reasons not to like Stacy, most of them tied into the fact that she seemed to blame me for all her problems, but I would have never wished a curse like what she’d endured on her—or, at least, not one that lasted this long. She might’ve deserved a little barking for some of the things she’d done and said, but she definitely hadn’t deserved a curse that plagued her for so long, transforming her into something she wasn’t.

  I sensed the tension building among our classmates as readily as I felt my own. None of us liked the teachers picking on us, and that’s exactly what it felt like Professor Hapblomb had done.

  Our instructor, however, seemed oblivious to our reactions as she spun around to face Stacy and me, giving her back to her audience.

  “I take it you don’t remember what you said to cast the spell in the first place,” she said to me.

  “No, of course not. If not, I would have told you or someone to try to get help for Stacy.” I put particular emphasis on how I would have helped if I could have. Professor Hapblomb either didn’t notice or didn’t care.

  “You should know the spell I tried to speak,” I added. “Since you gave it to me in Latin, which I don’t know.”

  She gave me a bland, quick, half smile and spun on her heel to face the others. “So here we’re dealing with an unknown spell. Though the original is a familiar stun spell, whatever worked its hold over Miss Enviton was not the stun spell. Hence the barking and other canine behavior.”

  Her tone was analytical, her hair swept back in its usual top knot bun. “Let’s say we have no way to discover the origin of the spell, or the wording of the spell itself. There is no way to undo a spell with a reversal spell if we can’t learn the wording of the original spell. There are a scant few mages in this world who can perform what I like to call instinctive magic, but they are the definite minority.” She flicked a quick glance at me before returning her attention to the rest of the class. “Almost all of you will be relegated to using spells, counter spells, and reversal spells.”

  She moved to stand in front of Stacy and me, her hands clasped in front of her. “It’s a rare occasion to find a spell with no reversal spell in existence. But when that happens, there is a recourse for us. Magical objects are hard to come by. The very good ones are highly expensive and worth more than the gold you’ll pay for them. They are also the only solution in this case to reverse Miss Enviton’s situation.”

  Reaching into the coat pocket of her suit jacket, she emerged with a slim, silver whistle. As she brandished it in the air, I figured it was far more likely that it only looked like a whistle. In fact, it kind of looked like a dog whistle, suggesting Professor Hapblomb might have a sense of humor, even if a cruel one.

  “This object might appear to be a dog whistle, but it could be anything,” she announced. “The important part of this object is that I commissioned one of the most adept creators of magical objects in the world to spell this. It took him weeks of work to complete it.”

  I couldn’t help myself. I inched forward, trying to get a better look at this spelled object that could reverse magic that none of the magicians on loan from the Magical Arts Academy had managed to accomplish.

  “The hard part of a magical object is its creation.” Professor Hapblomb waved the whistle in front of her. “After the object is created, its functioning is easy as can be. That’s why, if you can afford them, they are the most valuable things a mage can carry around. When your own magic fails you or is depleted, a magical object can come to the rescue, as they possess their magic inside them, and they don’t rely on the wielder’s power to function.”

  She brought it to her lips and smiled. “Ready? This is going to blow your mind.”

  On that note, she wheeled around and blew the whistle straight into Stacy’s face. With the same, long breath, she continued breathing through the whistle, dragging the high-pitched sound up and down Stacy’s body. Then she ran around her, whisking the whistle up and down the back of her before she ran out of breath and pulled away, breathing heavily for a few moments before addressing the class again.

  “That’s it,” she finally said.

  “But nothing happened,” Tracy called out from her seat a few rows up. “Stacy still looks like a dog.”

  Swan elbowed Tracy, who hurried to amend her comment. “I mean that she still looks like she might bark.”

  For once, Professor Hapblomb didn’t scold Tracy for interrupting. The teacher smiled, seeming genuine. “Just wait for it,” she said. “Magical objects will always do as they’re programmed to do. It’s the one guarantee in the magical world. Some objects, like this one, are single use. But its power discharged properly. Stacy will transform back to her true self in just a minute.”

  On cue, Stacy shook out her head, her long ginger hair regaining its bounce before my eyes. Her hazel eyes crystallized with their usual intelligence, and I smiled at her, relieved it was finally over—for her sake as much as mine. I’d hoped to find a way to help her, without any knowledge of how.

  But Stacy didn’t return my smile. Not at all.

  Her index finger extended toward me and her jaw clenched in anger. She closed the distance between us in two quick stomps and pushed her finger into my chest so hard that I stumbled back a step before holding my ground.

  “You,” she hissed. “You turned me into a dog!” Her voice was pitched like a squeal in her fury, and I couldn’t help but wonder if there might not be a little bit of dog left to her.

  “I’m very sorry, Stacy,” I said, grabbing her finger and pulling it away from me. She snatched her hand back like I was diseased and contagious.

  “You did this to me on purpose!” she screeched.

  “Of course I didn’t,” I snapped. I wanted to be nice to her, but I was no saint, and she was annoying as all get out. I’d forgotten what she was like while she was busy being a dog. “I would never do something like that to another person. I didn’t mean to.”

  “Of course you did,” she seethed, up in my face, fists clenched at her sides. “You get everything you want. You have everything you want.”

  What she really meant was that I had the man she wanted, and everyone in the audience had to know that.

  “You do whatever you want and everyone just smiles and lets you get away with murder,” she continued, a flick of spittle flying from her mouth. “You think you’re the school’s princess, but you’re not. You’re nobody. You’re less than nobody.”

  The more she went on, the more my own outrage receded. In the end, her tirade just made me sad. I’d never given her re
ason to hate me. The hate was all her own.

  When Stacy looked like she would go on hurling insults at me as long as we allowed her, I took a step back and looked to Professor Hapblomb. “I’m glad you fixed her. Thank you. May I take my seat now?”

  Professor Hapblomb met my gaze so intensely that I had to resist the urge to squirm. Until she smiled at me. The first genuine smile I’d ever seen her direct at me. It wasn’t big or particularly joyful or radiant, but it was true. “Of course, please take a seat,” she said, and as I turned to do just that, she whispered after me: “I’m sorry it took me so long to see things for what they were.”

  I paused without turning back around to face her, allowing her apology to wash over me, before giving a single nod of acceptance, and taking the steps in the aisle back to my seat. I felt Leander’s eyes on me, along with many others, but I didn’t look up before Stacy started screaming.

  “She has to be punished! You can’t let her get away with this. Did you see what she did to me? I was a dog. A dog. Expel her from the school. Throw her in the dungeons. Do something!”

  I heard a thud before I turned to take my seat. Stacy was crumpled in a heap on the floor at the front of the small auditorium, half atop the dais, half atop the aisle in front of it.

  Professor Hapblomb bent to arrange Stacy’s skirt so it was proper. Then she looked up at the rest of us. “Oops,” she said with a simple shrug before she stood, adjusted her suit jacket, and cleared her throat.

  “Now, where were we?” she said. “We have a class to continue.”

  When she moved on like she hadn’t just conked a screechy, whiny student on the head, I decided maybe she wasn’t that bad after all. If she’d adjusted her opinion of me, maybe I’d do the same for her.