by Katie Cross
“She’s going to try to bind me into killing you tomorrow?” I asked, hoping to divert the conversation back, though the topic was twice as grim. Grim, but safer.
“Yes. She’ll want to take power before the Western High Priest, Almack, dies, I believe. That could be at any moment if our reports are correct.”
“What does the Western Network have to do with it?” I asked, my confusion deepening.
“Everything,” she said. So simple but so encompassing. A tangled web that I couldn’t even comprehend.
“Miss Mabel is working with Dane,” I whispered. It wasn’t even a question. I could see it in the High Priestess’s eyes. Dane would take over the Western Network. Miss Mabel wanted to take over the Central Network and join forces with the West.
She wanted a war.
“I want you to agree to her deal,” the High Priestess said, pulling me back out of the deepening recesses of my mind.
“What?” I hissed, gaping at her, all concerns for rank and respect aside. That was her big plan?
“Do you need your hearing checked? I told you to agree to whatever deal she makes you.”
“Your Highness, I-I can’t.”
“Yes, you can.”
“I can’t kill you!” I cried, jumping to my feet. Her infuriating composure made this worse. “I’m not that strong. I don’t have enough magical power to get into Chatham Castle with that intent. The Guardians would detect it right away. My father would–”
I stopped myself seconds too late.
“If you don’t agree to it, Mabel will kill you. Do you understand that?” she asked, her voice hardening. It was the tone of a woman who had been in charge for many years. “I will not have a student, or several of them, die because of me. If you don’t do it, she may try to find someone else, someone we can’t track or anticipate.”
My legs weakened until I fell back to the chair. I didn’t like it. Not at all. There had to be a better way.
“It’s crazy,” I whispered, staring at the intricate swirls of light red and gold on the carpet beneath me.
“It was a crazy man that came up with it. Fortunately, most of his ideas have a way of working out. He seemed to have an uncanny belief in you.”
She gave me a probing look then, one that kneaded right into my soul. I knew what man she spoke of, and so did she. Somewhere, somehow, the High Priestess had discovered that my father worked for her. A man who was not allowed to have a family by history’s traditions but did anyway.
“You know,” I said.
“Yes. I know that Derek is your father. Why do you think I recognized you at the Esbat? You’ve got his face. His serious expressions.”
I swallowed.
“Is he–”
“No. He’s not in any danger from me. But I’d advise you to continue keeping his secret, as I have. The Council is not aware he has a daughter.”
“How long have you known?”
“He told me before I swore him in as the Head of Protectors. Your father is a man of honor. He came to me in private to refuse the position when I offered it to him, knowing the Council wouldn’t approve of him in such a high Network position because of you and your mother. Not unless he broke all ties with you and promised to never see or speak to you again. He refused to abandon you, and I forbade him from doing so. Instead, I promised to keep his secret, and the Council isn’t any the wiser sixteen years later.”
Tears filled my eyes, but I blinked them away. Of course Papa had told the High Priestess. Why had I assumed for all these years that he would deceive her?
Suddenly I felt very, very tired. It sank into my chest, a horror collapsing in on me that was too much to bear. Miss Mabel planned to attempt a coup, and the High Priestess wanted me to be a part of it. My father made a proposal in which I agree to kill the High Priestess, and it all started tomorrow, the day after my grandmother’s funeral.
Absurd.
“Can’t you just make her tell you?” I asked hopefully, though I already knew the answer.
She shot me a disapproving glare. “Do you really think I’d be talking to you right now if it was that easy?”
No, I didn’t. Miss Mabel was too powerful to beat with potions or truth spells. Her soul-deep conniving and treachery went too far. It wouldn’t be practical to kill her. Not yet.
“It’s imperative that she think we are ignorant of her plans. Do you understand?”
Her words gave me chills.
“Is this the only way?” I asked. The High Priestess paused, her chest rising and falling.
“No. But Derek believes it’s the best chance we have.”
I stood up and kept my hands at my side. She must have known that injecting Papa into it would give me strength, and she was right. Not much, but enough.
“Very well,” I said with a great deal more bravado than I felt. My hands were icy fists, my heart as skittish as a rabbit. I wondered if the High Priestess would still recruit me if she knew the depth of my fear. “How shall I inform you once I’ve accepted the binding?”
She opened her mouth to say something but decided against it.
“If you need any help, let Scarlett know.”
It didn’t slip my notice that she hadn’t answered my question, but I pushed that aside in my surprise. My eyebrows shot up. “Miss Scarlett?”
“Yes. She’s been my eye. Scarlett has worked for me for many years. Most of my information comes from her.”
The woman I thought was a lonely spinster obsessed with rules had actually been a secret spy for the High Priestess. Her actions the night of the Esbat, when I tripped outside Miss Mabel’s door, now made sense. Miss Scarlett had probably been listening to Miss Mabel’s conversation as well and had covered for me when I fell.
“Yes, Your Highness,” I said in a weak voice.
She paused, staring at me. Then she nodded her head in the direction of the fog gathering in the back corner of her office.
“Go, Bianca, and be well.”
Halfway across the room, I stopped and circled around.
“How did this happen?” I asked. “How did she get so strong?”
The High Priestess let out a deep sigh. Even in the gleaming light of the opulent office, she looked weary. It was the first time I had seen her display anything but regal haughtiness. She seemed human. Beneath the rough exterior, she probably wasn’t that bad.
“We all have the same chance to be powerful within us, Bianca. What it comes down to is the choices that we make along the way.”
It wasn’t an explanation, but I sensed she didn’t have one. I didn’t think anyone had the answer. After gazing back one last time, I turned around and disappeared into the fog.
Darkness had settled on the school grounds by the time I returned. Torches illuminated the road to the school in yellow light, and candles flickered in the kitchen window. Miss Celia moved as a dull shadow behind the white drapes. Augustus nodded to me when I climbed down from the carriage.
“Thank you,” I said, and he disappeared into the night.
The hall held no noise or light when I ventured down the main corridor and up the spiral staircase. I tuned my ear to the sounds of the school as I trudged upward. A rustle of sheets. The low whisper of second-years in the common area. A crackling fire. A light cough from the first-year floor. The fragrant smell of plumeria. My heart started to pound.
Plumeria.
Miss Mabel.
At first a shadow, her dark hourglass figure on the attic landing took shape like a goddess waiting for her sacrificial offering. I kept climbing as if she wasn’t there until I made it to the last step.
I met her with a flinty gaze.
She didn’t say anything when I stopped. For a moment, I feared I couldn’t control my hatred enough to hide it. All the manipulations, the secret plans, the puppeteering behind my back caught up with me. After talking to the High Priestess, my fear and anger collided into a far greater mass than I had anticipated. I didn’t know how to control th
ese emotions, and I stopped trying the moment I saw her. The candlelight flared, blazing with bright light.
Miss Mabel straightened up, her chest rising. The lustrous blue in her eyes gleamed in the growing candlelight from the wall sconce. Delight, mirth, happiness. I saw it all in her face. She’d gotten the response she wanted from me now. Her low drawl, as slow as her languid smile, told me she knew how angry I felt and how loose that made my power.
“Welcome back, Bianca.”
Not For Anything
The perfect morning for a most horrific scenario started too early.
A low storm seemed to churn just above the school, threatening flecks of ice and snow. Bitter gusts of wind hit the building, nipping the tips of my fingers and nose in my cool room. I stayed buried beneath my blankets, staring at the wall, reviewing every memory and scrap of information I could recall my father teaching me. I couldn’t help the feeling in my gut that told me today wasn’t going to end in a peaceful binding to murder our leader.
No, I was in the mood for a fight.
I didn’t sleep, kept company by the calico cat that had strolled into my room on my return to the attic. She hadn’t been around in weeks, and purred near my head in sleep. Camille and Leda sent me several messages as soon as I returned, their envelopes flying underneath my door like darts. I left them on my desk, unopened.
Miss Mabel stirred before I crept out of bed. Once I heard her movements, I grabbed my clothes from where I’d tucked them beneath my pillow to keep them warm and dressed under the covers. Another trick Papa had taught me.
The white cat appeared from hunting, his fur cold. He followed me into the classroom and settled near the fireplace. Miss Mabel whirled around. A cream-colored dress made her sapphire eyes seem especially bright. Her hair fell onto her shoulders in gleaming waves.
I loathed her and her stunning beauty.
“Good morning, Bianca.”
“Miss Mabel.”
You horrid dragon.
“I have a surprise for you today. Instead of stressing you out with last minute studying and memorization, I decided we’d do the Advanced Curses and Hexes final this morning.”
I tried to sound surprised, but it came out strangled.
“Oh?”
“Yes. Isn’t that kind of me?”
“Yes, Miss Mabel.”
She smiled. “Wonderful. I’d like to get started as soon as possible. In an effort to make the best use of my time, I’m going to teach you your first lesson on your next mark, Advanced Defensive Magic, while we take your final.”
I took a mental step backward and looked up. Something wasn’t right. The extra layer of malicious intent in her eyes gleamed like a wobbly crystal chandelier.
“You’ve heard of a Mactos, haven’t you?” she asked.
“Yes.”
Miss Mabel began her usual stroll around me. Her dress fluttered out behind her with the quiet sound of swishing silk. Diffusing through the windowpanes in white beams, the sunlight illuminated specks in the air that swirled up behind her.
“As you should know from your reading, a Mactos is a magical fight between two witches involving a shield and a versatile little weapon called a blighter.”
A flash caught my eye and I spun to the right. Seconds later, a burning red fireball skimmed my back, just missing skin. The heat of it burned my dress, leaving a singed smell in the air.
A blighter.
We stared at each other, surprised.
Did she just send an actual blighter at me?
Red blighters burned. Blue froze. Orange caused bruising and swelling. There were many others, all categorized by color and effect.
“Well, well,” she whispered. Her coy smile chilled my bones. “What a fast little mover. Have you ever conjured a blighter before, Bianca?”
My quick reflexes had betrayed me. She hadn’t expected me to move fast enough away from the blighter. She wanted it to hit me.
Well, two could play this game.
“No, Miss Mabel,” I lied. Underestimate me, I silently dared her. I’m not afraid of you anymore. “I’ve never worked with blighters before.”
She studied me with a knowing look. My lie hadn’t been effective. “Hmm … well, this could be rather fun,” she said.
Three green blighters materialized from different corners of the room, headed straight for me. They would paralyze whatever they hit and were exceptionally sticky and difficult to remove.
I grabbed a heavy book off my desk. The first blighter came on my right. I whacked it into the path of the second and used the book as a shield against the third. The first two crashed into the vaulted ceiling, and the third clung to the book cover like a glowing snail.
She stopped walking to stare at me.
“You have done this before,” she said.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“No,” she mused. “I’m sure you don’t. Oh, Bianca, this is better than I could have hoped!”
She stepped to the right, and I followed suit. We circled each other with slow, measured steps.
The familiar punch in my gut told me she’d cast a curse. My mouth went as dry as the desert, the telltale symptom of the thirst curse. I countered it and sent one of my own, but it seemed to slide right through her. She must have some kind of protective incantation in place.
“Oh good. I love a student that will fight back,” she cried. The tan braided rug underneath my feet slipped, but I jumped onto my desk chair and kept my balance.
“Very nimble move. What about this one?”
Another curse hit me. I stumbled back and landed on the ground with both feet. My body began to itch with a vengeance. It felt like red fire ants crawling under my skin. I could barely concentrate, finally countering it with the narrowest margin of time but not soon enough to recover before I saw the next blighter.
Icy blue and trailed by particles of snow, it headed for me with unmatched precision. Ice blighters were notoriously fast, constructed of razor sharp crystals that could tear through flesh.
Acting on instinct, I ducked and lifted my hand, conjuring up a jagged shield of crystals to match the ice blighter. The fist-sized ball of ice hit with a crack, shattering both into a thousand glittering shards and sending me onto my side.
I held my breath, waiting for Miss Mabel’s reaction. Dodging the simplest blighters could be shrugged off as luck, but a protective shield strong enough to destroy an ice blighter was no accident. Without meaning to, I had just made a decision that would change everything.
Miss Mabel stood in the center of the room, regarding me through narrowed eyes.
“Don’t lie to me anymore, Bianca. You know defensive magic.”
I shook the remaining flecks of the shield off and straightened. There was no going back now. My shoulders and hair glittered with melting shards of ice.
“Yes. Since I was a little girl.”
Miss Mabel smiled, slow and catlike. Her conversation with the High Priest rang in my ears.
It proves she’s got courage, like I thought. Talent, too. She thinks quick on her feet.
“Your father taught you?”
“I don’t know my father,” I said automatically.
“Right,” she chuckled. “And I don’t know my mother. Derek’s defensive magic skills are the stuff of legend, you know. I can’t imagine he’d raise a little girl in secret and not teach her how to protect herself in the big bad world. He’s kind of a bleeding heart for family, I hear. A familiar weakness amongst your kin.”
The sound of my father’s name on her lips knocked my heart against my ribs like stone. Of course she knew my secret. What didn’t she know?
More leverage, more power.
Always keep a little leverage where you need it.
A couple of blighters popped up from nowhere, but I sent them back to her with a quick deflection spell. Now that she knew, there was no reason to hide what I could do. The blighters spun in a short cyclone around her waist and
dissipated.
She was sizing me up. Assessing my skills. Wanting to see exactly what I could do.
Another curse slammed me in the stomach. I hit the ground and struggled to stay conscious. A fainting curse. Somehow, in between waves of awareness, I completed the counter-curse in my head. The blackness receded, and I jumped to my feet in one clean move.
“Very good, Bianca. If Derek taught you defensive magic, you don’t need me to teach you all of this fluff and nonsense, do you?”
A shot of liquid dread spread through my body. Oh, no. This wouldn’t be good.
She waved to the chalkboard and my desk. It shot toward me, intent to ram me over. I stopped it in the middle of the room.
“We should have a little talent showcase, don’t you think? Let’s see what you can do in a real Mactos. Because I have an idea that you know enough to pass the Advanced Defensive Magic mark right now.”
A wooden shield materialized in the air, hanging several feet away from me. Bolts and strips of iron held it together. It looked solid but worn, with blackened spots from red blighters.
“Go ahead.” She motioned with a jerk of her head. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”
Defensive magic without a shield was like trying to plant a tree with no seed. But this wasn’t my shield, so it wouldn’t listen to my commands. Strong magic ran on familiarity.
“No,” I said.
“No?” she repeated. “Why ever not?”
“Because that’s not my shield.”
Her lips tapered into a circle.
“Is this your shield?”
A shimmer filled the air, and soon another shield appeared. Made of thick oak, the front gleamed in the firelight, lined with golden Letum Ivy vines and silver flowers. I held up my arm and it flew over, latching itself on with a speed that almost knocked me down. She’d conjured my shield.
This wasn’t a final or a school lesson anymore. It was an official Mactos. A battle for my life.
Her wooden shield flew back, reaching her just in time to stop a yellow blighter I sent that would have caused her muscles to contract and spasm to the point of uselessness. She peeked over the top.