The Connelly Curse

by Lily Velez

  The moment I thought it, that energy connecting us suddenly flared to an all-time high, electrifying every cell in my body before it exploded in a glorious starburst of light that sent shockwaves of magic booming for miles all around us.

  I gasped, breaking away from Jack.

  Trees shuddered down to their roots. The neighboring mountain trembled. And lightning cracked across the sky in a web of white, spears of it shooting down to form a perfect circle where we were at the center.

  I flinched and clung more tightly to Jack, and he automatically drew his arms more closely around me. “Did we do that?” I asked breathlessly.

  Jack studied the small flames that sparked to life around us in the wake of the lightning. They sizzled in the rain but continued burning. “It was the magic between us,” he said, his chest rising and falling in quick, shallow breaths.

  My heart raced. Us. Once, I didn’t know if there would ever be an ‘us.’ Now, I couldn’t picture a reality where an ‘us’ didn’t exist.

  I faced him fully, awestruck. Awestruck by him, by those magnificent kisses, and by what we’d just done with this combined magic that now blazed in our bodies. Jack smoothed a tender thumb across my cheekbone, the affectionate look in his eyes enough to turn my knees to jelly.

  After a moment, he pressed his forehead against mine. We stayed like that, our breaths mingling between us, our arms around each other. The passion we’d ignited still lingered, the nearby air charged with it. I could’ve spent an eternity continuing to kiss him, and even then it wouldn’t have been enough.

  But I was more fascinated by the way our hearts beat in sync, by the way our lips delicately ghosted over each other, by the hush that had fallen over our surroundings, as if all of nature joined us in worshipping the perfection of this moment.

  We both closed our eyes and simply savored each other.

  And savored the future that lied ahead.

  Because the rest of forever started today, and we were the ones who were going to write how it all played out.

  39

  Connor

  “I think it’s safe to say I failed that exam,” Lucas announced as we exited our physics classroom.

  “And that’s different from any other day how?”

  He smirked as we strode down the congested hallways of St. Andrew’s, navigating the sea of navy blue blazers and crimson-and-gold-striped ties. As usual, it parted easily for us, heads turning and classmates whispering amongst themselves as we passed, hoping this would be the day one of us would make eye contact with them.

  A select few used this opportunity to establish their social standing in the school’s hierarchy. Rugby teammates nodded to me in passing or stopped me for a quick question, a question I knew they already had the answer to, but their reasoning was simple: thanks to a distant ancestor who’d made his fortune in the railroad and shipping industry, ours was the wealthiest and most well-connected family at St. Andrew’s, so when you were seen interacting with one of us, it did wonders for your image.

  Lucas had his own tribe feeding his ego. They whooped and called out that ridiculous nickname of his to get his attention, slapped hands with him, and laughed about whatever antics he’d pulled in earlier classes.

  Jack had never been an admirer of boarding school politics. It was probably part of the reason he’d become the school’s golden boy. He’d never been exclusive in his friendships, avoiding cliques altogether. Like the diplomat he was, he offered a polite greeting and smile to anyone he passed on campus, including the nameless first-years that no one bothered to get to know.

  I, on the other hand, didn’t have the mental bandwidth to play nice with the entire student body. It was enough of a chore to hold a conversation with the Sightless classmates I did get on well enough with.

  Being that my mood was presently in the gutter, I definitely wasn’t up for social niceties today. Were it possible, I would’ve told Lucas to simply wayfare us to our next class. Unfortunately, Lucas’s preferred method of travel—more specifically, his overuse of it—had recently attracted the attention of one of The Vanquished.

  In a single night, Lucas had hopped all over Ireland on account of his being restless, and all the magic he’d given off had unsurprisingly put a target on his back, landing him opposite an opponent he was hardly equipped to beat. He’d wayfared out of the situation before it became hopeless but not without earning himself a black eye, which he’d been admiring in any reflective surface ever since.

  I started to turn a corner, but Lucas grabbed my sleeve to keep me bearing straight. “This way.”

  “You know I have Spanish next.”

  “Is it considered cheating if the only reason you pass that class is because you dated a Rivera for as long as you did?”

  “What are you going to show me? Some stupid prank? You do realize we’re not still in primary school, don’t you?”

  “Trust me, you’re going to want to see this. You’ll thank me for it later.”

  Doubtful, but I walked with him nonetheless.

  Our forward-motion came to a halt when a trio of girls in their plaid, school-issued skirts suddenly materialized in front of us. Two wore patterned tights to cover their legs. The third went bare, her pale skin pebbled with goosebumps from the cold outside. She must’ve thought I was admiring the view because she shifted ever so slightly, bending one knee and popping her hip to the side, one hand at rest upon it.

  My gaze flicked up to meet hers, unimpressed. Not happening.

  She only smirked, lifting a single eyebrow. Are you so sure?

  “Luke, we heard you got hurt,” one of her companions, a brunette, cooed. “What happened?”

  “Are you okay now?” asked the third, her black hair in a crown of plaits.

  “You poor thing,” said Bare Legs, running a comforting hand down the sleeve of Lucas’s jacket slowly, her fingers lingering for longer than what was called for.

  Lucas, absolutely devouring the attention, proceeded to spin a ridiculous, off-the-cuff tale about fighting off a mugger who’d tried to swipe an elderly woman’s purse. The girls drew closer, practically oohing and aahing.

  “That’s so heroic,” the brunette said, stars in her lovesick gaze.

  I rolled my eyes at the idiocy of the whole scene.

  It had been stupid of Lucas to crisscross Ireland out of boredom, but Lucas excelled at stupid, so his actions hadn’t exactly surprised me. I was more concerned with trying to understand why The Vanquished hadn’t made a significant move yet. For days, I’d scoured the internet for news about any deadly crises in Ireland but found nothing each time.

  “They may be waiting,” Father Nolan had said when I raised the subject with him. I’d finally told him about Jack, and though the news upset him, it certainly didn’t surprise him. “It may be that the combined energy of their joint efforts will play a part in the Dark Lord’s plans.”

  Thinking on it, I mentally cursed.

  “Mr. Connelly!”

  I pushed past Lucas’s adoring fans, Bare Legs offering a sensual “Bye, Connor” as I did, me rolling my eyes yet again, and made my way to Professor Kelly, who taught world lit.

  He was standing outside the door to his classroom, greeting his students as they entered. Once I stood before him, he clapped a hand on my shoulder with a smile. “Connor, the essay you submitted on Dostoevsky was absolutely brilliant.”

  A student from my year cast a curious glance our way as he slipped into the classroom. I fixed him with one of my trademark looks, a potent blend of ‘mention this to anyone and you’ll be sorry.’ His face flushed and he hurried inside.

  “I particularly enjoyed your comprehensive analysis of Raskolnikov’s self-alienation. You brought up several fascinating insights. I was so impressed I shared the essay with a few of my colleagues. One sits on the editorial board for a distinguished journal of literary criticism. He’s interested in speaking with you about a potential submission.”

  There was some sort of com
motion taking place further down the hallway, and my eyes slid past Professor Kelly to hone in on it. Gallagher. He and his usual half-witted underlings were giving someone trouble, but I couldn’t make out who.

  “You’d be a published author at seventeen. I’m sure your parents would be massively proud.”

  “Author,” I repeated, the word strange and odd-fitting in my mouth.

  “I know your peers best know you as one of our top athletes, and that’s certainly worthy of admiration. But you have a gift, Connor. Your writing is incredibly sophisticated for a young man of your age. I spoke with your literature professor from last year, and he shared some of your creative works with me. That story you wrote about the boy haunted by his demons and your choice to have them materialize as flesh-and-blood creatures that follow him throughout a typical day—it made for a riveting read. Where did you get the idea for that?”

  I almost snorted. Instead, I only shrugged, as if the concept had simply drifted into my mind one day.

  Gallagher, Neanderthal that he was, grew louder. He and the others had crowded around an open locker, which presumably belonged to their victim. They laughed and jeered at said victim, and at one point, Gallagher’s hand shot into the locker to snatch a folder. He held it upside down, and sheets of paper slid out, skating across the tiled floor, where passing students trampled over them.

  The sheets were covered in sketches, the charcoal lines instantly familiar.

  Furrowing my brow, my eyes darted back to the open locker, hopping over shoulders and heads to try and get a better view of Gallagher’s target for the day. When I caught the slightest glimpse of auburn hair, a pounding started up in my ears.

  “Connor?” Professor Kelly’s voice sounded distant.

  Heat flushed through my body as I stormed down the hallway, the muscles in my hands and arms practically quivering.

  Gallagher had held a grudge against me for over a year. It’d started the day he’d tried out for the rugby team, cocksure and obnoxiously full of himself. For the entire two hours, all he did was run his mouth about some cousin who played professionally. This when he wasn’t trying to impress the entire team with how many summer houses his family owned or how many sports cars daddy dearest had bought him.

  We’d been opponents in that tryout, and his nonstop crowing had scraped against my nerves so much that all I could think about was him shutting up. So when my elbow connected with his face during one play, I wasn’t sorry for it. And when a broken nose meant Gallagher couldn’t make the team—though he wouldn’t have anyway, considering he was rubbish—I counted it a job well done on my part. He, meanwhile, counted it as grounds for retaliation.

  Apparently, he’d found the perfect way to get back at me.

  I was only a few paces away when every locker door in the hallway suddenly exploded open, sheets of paper bursting into the air like confetti in a parade. Rory’s magic unchecked. As the hallway lights flickered and the din of the crowd crescendoed, I marched across the remaining distance separating me from Gallagher.

  He’d taken a momentary pause from taunting Rory as he tried to make sense of the turn in events, but that didn’t matter. He shouldn’t have been messing with Rory in the first place. Once I was close enough, I grabbed his shoulder and roughly turned him around as my fist sailed straight into his face. The impact threw him hard against the lockers, which let out a metallic rattle.

  Gallagher, half dazed, cursed and pressed his hands to his now crooked nose, which swelled and bled and must’ve hurt like hell. Lips pulling back to reveal gritted teeth, he launched himself at me. We went to the ground hard, a circle forming around us as a cheer rose to a deafening pitch.

  “Fight, fight, fight!”

  We traded punches, the taste of blood filling my mouth, but I was the better fighter, and within seconds, I was on top of him, my knuckles burning and bruising.

  If he were a witch, and we were among our own kind, he’d be sorry for doing so much as thinking of bothering Rory. With a single word, I could’ve broken every bone in his body. I could’ve cast a spell to send a fear dearg after him, and it would’ve visited him in his sleep every night for as long as I wished, terrorizing him with unending nightmares. I could’ve drawn hidden sigils all over his home to attract the bánánach, and instead of haunting battlefields, the spectres would haunt him, appearing everywhere he was until he went mad.

  I couldn’t do any of those things, not to this pathetic, Sightless, little prat.

  A fitting metaphor for my life, when there was so little I could do for my family.

  So I did the only thing I could, my fist meeting Gallagher’s face once, twice, three times. Until someone hauled me back, professors breaking up the spectacle with sharp orders for students to head to class at once.

  Lucas materialized at my side, draping an arm over my shoulders. He surveyed my injuries with approval. “Told you you’d thank me,” was all he said, grinning from ear to ear.

  With that, I was lead to the headmaster’s office.

  40

  Lucas

  The headmaster’s office.

  Also known as my second home.

  You knew it’d worked out to be an exciting day when you were here well before lunch. Unable to wipe the grin off my face, I sprang a deck of cards from one hand to another, replaying in my mind that glorious moment when Connor’s fist had connected with Gallagher’s unexpecting face.

  What could I say? He’d had it coming. I knew Rory’s preference was clearly that none of us interfere, but it’d left a bad taste in my mouth every time I caught a glimpse of Gallagher pushing him around. I kept thinking Rory would defend himself, especially now that his witching year had really gained momentum. He never did, though, so the time had come to bring in the heavy artillery.

  I only hoped Gallagher had a thing for hospital food.

  Who was I kidding? I hoped everything they were feeding him kept him going to the jacks again and again all day long.

  I snorted and shuffled my cards.

  I was sandwiched between Connor and Rory, the former holding a bag of ice to one side of his face and the latter seemingly wishing he could melt into his chair and disappear. Whether it was because he didn’t want to get into it with Connor or because it was his first visit to the headmaster, I didn’t know.

  If anyone was at liberty to gripe, however, it was me. For once, I was purely innocent, and yet, here I was, dragged along to receive punishment simply because I’d been standing next to Connor with a black eye of my own. Talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  I got this while rescuing a little old lady! I wanted to protest.

  “I don’t know about you two,” I said, breaking the tense silence that enveloped us, “but I could murder a Guinness right about now.”

  No response. Why the gods had put me in a family where no one understood the concept of having a good time, I’d never know.

  I tucked my cards into the inside pocket of my blazer, perfectly content to catch some sleep while we waited in the lobby. I bunched up my scarf to use as a neck pillow, slouched in my chair, and clasped my hands over my stomach.

  It was comfortably toasty in the room. The blinds were open on the window opposite us, and horizontal bars of pale sunlight striped the carpet. The receptionist had hung a ‘be back soon’ sign over his workspace, and the only sound was the occasional ringing of his desk phone. I let my eyelids fall shut.

  “Do you even understand the meaning of being discrete?”

  Thank the gods!

  Connor, finally remembering himself, set the ice bag on a neighboring chair and twisted to face Rory. “What the hell was that back there in the hallway? You need to learn to control your damn magic.”

  Eyes back open, I eagerly looked back and forth between them, ready for round two of this drama to begin.

  When Rory didn’t immediately respond, I spoke up. “In his defense, I don’t think anyone’s first thought was that the lockers were cursed
with witchcraft.”

  “This isn’t a joke.”

  “Gods, you really need to relax.”

  “Do I?” Connor pulled a folded piece of paper from his back pocket and flung it at my chest. “How about now?”

  I had a good guess what it was when I saw the broken seal, but scanning over the contents inside confirmed my suspicions. I rubbed an eyebrow and blew out a breath, instantly sobering up.

  “A Summons,” I told Rory, extending the missive to him. It would’ve been sent to the head of our household, but with Seamus in The Citadel and with Jack in another world entirely, the Summons had automatically taken itself to Connor.

  “Already?” Rory took the paper gingerly, as if handling an explosive.

  “It was bound to come soon enough,” Connor said.

  All witches received a Summons shortly after their sixteenth birthday. When they did, they were required to appear before The Council within thirty days for an Inquisition (poorly named, if you asked me). During the Inquisition, witches revealed their Mastery or Masteries and discussed in detail the happenings of their witching year thus far.

  And if you thought you could lie your way through it, you were sorely mistaken. There was always a sitting Elder who was a Reader like Connor, who could comb through your memories and see just how much of a problem you’d been after blowing out your sixteen candles.

  Was it excessive? Of course it was. The Council, however, thought it the best way to keep tabs on witch-kind. After all, following an Inquisition, young witches could be connected to mentors who shared their same Mastery and who could therefore train them in the proper use of their gift, thus shortening their learning curve. Meanwhile, those who were struggling with their heightened powers could receive counsel and guidance.