Far too soon, Jackson turned his gaze to me. “Bettina?”
Why did he say my name? He didn’t say anyone else’s name.
My stomach did flips. I licked my lips and shrugged. “Does watching Jackie Chan movies count?”
Warner threw his head back and laughed. Trey covered his mouth with his hand, but his shoulders bounced as he chuckled. Jackson’s aqua eyes narrowed into little slits. The other First Years standing beside me giggled and nodded.
Warner eyed me suspiciously. “Didn’t you fight a demon yesterday? Dean told us. How’d that go for you?”
“I fell down. A lot.” I sighed. “Lots of screaming, too.”
Warner laughed again. “I like her.”
“The demons will, too,” Jackson growled. “Let’s start with the basics. Everyone get into fighting stance.”
Fighting stance. Think, Bettina. I wasn’t kidding when I said my experience was watching Jackie Chan movies. I tried to picture those scenes in my head, but he always jumped into fights from relaxed positions. It was obvious there was an actual stance I was supposed to be in.
I looked to the guy beside me and copied his pose just as Jackson stopped in front of me. My heart fluttered like the traitor that it was. I slammed my lips closed and breathed through my nose, but that intoxicating scent of pine swept over me.
He looked down at my legs, and it wasn’t because he liked the way they looked. When he looked back up, his aqua eyes were even sharper. “Which hand is your dominant?”
“My right.” And then, because he definitely didn’t know what hands looked like, I wiggled my right hand up in the air.
“Switch your legs. Put the left one in front.” He moved to stand right in front of me, in the pose he wanted me to take, with his left foot forward. He waited until I got into position then gestured in a line from his face down to his hips. “You want to protect yourself. Don’t give your enemy a straight shot to your weak areas. So don’t put your upper body straight out.”
I frowned and turned to the side.
“But face toward me. You’re fighting me.” His words were simple, but they were laced with irritation. “Stay light on the balls of your feet so you can move in any direction you need to.”
I nodded. “Why is my dominant hand in the back?”
He punched his left arm forward, stopping an inch before my face. He hadn’t thrown any force with it; it was just movement. “The front hand is a short jab. It can’t build up much power. But your arm in the back picks up strength and power as you swing it forward, so you want that one to be your strongest hand. Got it?”
I did, in theory.
But I must’ve been doing something wrong because Jackson sighed and shook his head. He turned and walked away, then pointed with that red rose thumb over his shoulder at me. “Warner, handle… that.”
Chapter Fourteen
BETTINA
My back slammed into the ground. Sharp pain shot up and down my spine. My head throbbed. I tried to sit up, but the world spun and I fell back to the mat, which wasn’t near enough cushion for this kind of torture. Every single muscle in my body screamed in protest. Had they ripped all of them off then reattached them? Certainly felt like it. I tried to push my hair back, but I couldn’t pick my arms up off the floor. My body felt like lead. I was a boat being anchored to the ocean floor.
I gave up trying to move. If they wanted me up, they could get over it. Or pick me up themselves, because my body was done. I lay there trying to breathe, my chest heaving with effort. Even still, I couldn’t seem to get enough oxygen in, and it felt like I was breathing through a straw. A coffee straw. My lungs burned with every inhale. Did I even have a single rib still intact? Doubtful.
Something dark hung over me. I blinked over and over until my vision cleared enough to see that it was Timothy leaning over me.
His brown eyes were dark. “You dead?”
“Yes.”
Timothy chuckled, a grin stretching wide above his salt and pepper beard. He held his hand out. “Here.”
Somehow I managed to put my hand in his. Timothy was a big dude, so when he pulled me up, my body went. The second my feet hit the mat, the world wobbled and I swayed. Timothy’s big hands gripped my elbows to steady me.
After a second, he ducked down to meet my eyes. “Better?”
I nodded and the walls spun.
“Okay, maybe let’s sit a bit longer,” Timothy said with a smile. He helped me over to the bench, which was good since my legs were shaking. Once I was seated, he turned and grabbed something off the floor. When he came back, he held two full water bottles in his hands. He held one out for me. “Here, drink this.”
I reached out to take the bottle, and my eyes widened. Half of my forearm was purple. A weird half-cry, half-howl noise came out of me. I yanked my arm back and stared at it in horror. My stomach turned. I looked down at my other arm and found four more bruises—smaller, but still bright purple. My mind replayed all the training we’d done in combat class and then in battle strategies class…and I cringed. I didn’t even want to know how many bruises I had on my legs.
Timothy sat sideways on the bench beside me. “Drink the water. It has a very subtle healing potion in it to help.”
Whatever healing potion was in my water had no taste, and I kind of felt like the toons in Space Jam when Michael Jordan gave them his ‘Secret Stuff,’ but it was actually just water. Then again…that had worked. With a shrug, I chugged more.
When I finished the bottle, I sighed. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. But you need to remember to stay hydrated even in class. None of the teachers will punish you for needing water, okay?” Timothy held up another bottle of water, but before handing it to me, he wrapped his fingers around it. White smoke swirled around his hand, and then the entire thing turned to ice. “Here, put it on whatever hurts. It’ll stay frozen all day.”
My jaw dropped. And then I remembered Timothy was a Card in The Coven. Which I’d learned between classes meant they all had some kind of elemental magic gift. Timothy’s was apparently ice.
“Thank you.” I held the ice to my right wrist and sighed. None of this made sense. I wasn’t a fighter. Four hours of getting my ass kicked should’ve proved it. I glanced around the gym and found that Timothy and I were alone. Everyone else had left.
Timothy frowned. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
I groaned. “Sorry. It’s just…this can’t be right. I can’t be a Sword. There’s no way. It has to be wrong. It has to be.”
“Ah…” Timothy stared at the ground and nodded. “The crystal ball is never wrong.”
“Maybe I need to touch it again? Maybe I was nervous—”
“Exactly, Bettina.” He turned back to look at me, and this time he smiled. “You were nervous. Terrified even, I’d wager, based on the look on your face last night…and yet, you came out a Sword. That is as telling as you’ll get.”
I opened my mouth then shut it again. He made a good point, though I didn’t like it. “But I suck at this. Just look at me!”
Timothy chuckled. “You know, you remind me a lot of our Empress. Like you, she’s sixteen and found out she was a witch this summer. She was not a fighter before joining us. Not by a longshot. She really struggled at the start, even with her magic. She couldn’t make it work for her. But it’s rare that any of this—magic or combat—is natural for someone. The rest of us have to learn. I know it seems bleak right now, but I’d put money that come next semester, you’ll be looking back at this conversation and laughing.”
I groaned. “So you’re saying I shouldn’t touch the ball again?”
“The ball is simply a tool that shows us which Suit we belong in.” He shrugged. “Now, clearly you had the potential to be a Wand, but in the end, your soul is a fighter. However, I’ll make a deal with you…”
“What kind of deal?”
“Give Swords everything you’ve got, really try…and if by Christmas you sti
ll feel misplaced, we’ll pay the crystal ball a visit. Deal?” He held his hand out to me.
For the first time that day, I grinned. I shook his hand. “Deal.”
Chapter Fifteen
BETTINA
“How is it you’ve been here for years, yet you’re just now in Coven History?”
Lennox sighed and threw her hands up. “Errors were made.”
The second we walked into our next classroom, Lennox and I went straight for the two desks directly in the middle of the front row. It was such a relief to have a friend who cared as much about school as I did. Tegan loved school, but she didn’t care about her grades. She loved learning, to an obsessive degree, but I couldn’t remember the last time she’d actually looked at her report card.
For me, it ran much deeper than that. I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do with my life, what made me happy, what I liked…what I was passionate about. I knew I wanted to do something; I just didn’t know what. I knew the answer was there, but I couldn’t see it. As a result, I made it my job to learn everything about anything I could. I wanted to soak it all up like a sponge. One day, I would figure it out, and when that day came, I wanted to have nothing in my way.
Something moved right next to my face. I jumped back…only to find Lennox’s face super close to mine. Her lips were pursed and her yellow-green eyes calculating.
I cleared my throat. “What?”
“You look like you’re having some existential crisis over there.” She frowned. “You okay?”
I chuckled and leaned back in my seat. “Am I really that much of an open book?”
She narrowed her eyes, like she was really considering her answer. “No, but your aura is crazy strong. Most people’s are a feeling, a vibe that you can’t put your finger on. But you? Man, I could paint that shit.”
I blinked a few times, unsure of what to make of that. “Thank you?”
She laughed, but before she could say anything else, a man I hadn’t seen sitting at the desk in front of us got up. He wasn’t tall, probably a couple inches shorter than me, but he had a good size to him. Like a little tank. His brown eyes were intense. I couldn’t decide if the bald head was making him look intimidating, or if it was this aura Lennox had just talked about.
He walked around the big wooden desk then sat on top of it, his legs swinging. Then he smiled. “Hi, guys. I’m Mr. Ruth. I’m going to assume you’re all here because every seat is occupied and no one likes taking attendance. So, if you’re not supposed to be in Coven History right now, then you are definitely in the wrong place. The cool place, but wrong.”
I chuckled. I liked this guy already.
Mr. Ruth stared at the class for a few seconds. “Okay, so, raise your hand if you’re a First Year.”
I held my hand up, and to my relief, all but five students did, too.
“All right, now raise ‘em up if you’re a second year.”
Four of the remaining five raised their hands.
Mr. Ruth nodded. “Raise your hand if you’re Lennox Ward and thought this class was optional, and then tried to convince Headmaster Daniel to let you test out of it.”
Lennox grinned like the Cheshire cat. “I almost had him, just so you know.”
“I don’t doubt it.” Mr. Ruth shook his head and laughed. After a moment, he sobered and rubbed his hands together. “So, I always teach this class in the same way. I start way back at the beginning, when our race was created, then work our way chronologically to the present. However, this year I want to teach you the history as it’s happening.”
“Yeah, that sounds like a threat,” Lennox grumbled.
“You see, everything changed this summer. Things are happening right now that will forever change the state of our world, and I think it’s important for us, as civilians, to understand what’s going on.” He took a deep breath and looked around the class. “But first, let me give you the cheat-sheet summary of what we are and how we came to be.”
I reached down into my backpack and pulled out my notebook and pen.
“Much like the Sapiens—”
“Sapiens?” I frowned.
“Humans. In our ancient language, the word is Sapien,” Mr. Ruth explained. “Much like the Sapiens, everything started when Adam and Eve fell from the Garden of Eden.”
My breath left me in a rush. Whoa, what?
Mr. Ruth chuckled and pointed at me. “Yeah, we’re that old. Adam and Eve, by the way, were humans. So that’s on them.”
The class giggled.
“Anyway, when they fell, it caused a ripple effect and subsequently let evil and darkness seep into our world. It set everything off-balance. In an extremely vague explanation, this is what caused supernatural species to be born. Vampires, werewolves, shifters—all those. Problem is, their presence weakened the veil between Heaven, Hell, and other dimensions.” He held his hands up to ward off questions. “We’ll dig in deeper to all this later, promise. Right, so, with the veil weakened, it allowed spirits to come back, both the harmless from Heaven, and the evil from Hell.”
Like at The Gathering.
“Now, the dimensional wall has always prevented Greater Demons and the Fae Court from entering our realm. Unfortunately, now weaker demons and fairies could get here. As you can imagine, this world was a horrible, dangerous place all of a sudden, and the humans were no match. They were being decimated.” Mr. Ruth stood up from the desk and began pacing in front of us. “The Creator realized Earth needed protection, but knew it was too big of a job to handle by himself—or herself. We’re still not sure.”
I grinned. Yeah, I like him.
“So, The Creator birthed the Goddess and tasked her with the job of controlling the supernatural elements. Except, she couldn’t directly interfere. This is when she created her own species, a species that looked and sounded human and would live amongst them but would be there to protect them.” He pointed to the chalkboard and flicked his wrist a few times…and then words appeared. “She took her own blood, which possessed magical qualities, then mixed it with the blood of humans and that of angels. This species she created are called Arcana, or what we, in modern times, call witches.”
There was a collective gasp.
I shook my head, trying to wrap my mind around that. “Wait, hold up. Are you telling me I’m only partially human? And that I have the blood of angels and the Goddess in me?”
Mr. Ruth grinned. “Pretty cool, huh?”
“Wicked.” I leaned back in my seat.
“So, The Goddess created one hundred witches, and these witches were unbelievably powerful, much more so than any of us. But there was chaos. There were too many of them with such strong powers that it was actually counterproductive. The Goddess decided to go back to the drawing board. The second round, she put in more human blood. These witches were like us, gifted with magic and abilities, but not overkill.”
“What happened to the first hundred?” the girl right behind me asked.
“They lived, albeit not very long. Those were dangerous times. Of that first hundred, only twenty went on to have children, and the Goddess required that they mate with humans to help dilute their magic. So there are still descendants of those first twenty. Of course, their identities are not common knowledge among civilians.” He turned back to the board and swung his arms around. The chalkboard went nuts, words appearing all over it. “Once she had the mixture right for civilians, she decided to bless a small group of them with extra powers. Twenty-two of them, to be exact. Long story short, this is where the tarot was invented.”
My mind was exploding.
“The twenty-two major arcana were given the job of being in charge. They ruled the rest of the species. They also protected it. Without them, our species never would have survived. But the Goddess knows from past mistakes that power that extreme must be limited. So there can only be one of each living at the same time. When one Card dies, she Marks the new one—with what we now refer to as Roman numerals—on their left forear
ms.”
I knew I should’ve been writing this down but all I could do was stare.
“Again, we’re going to dive deep into The Coven and everything they’ve done since they were created. There was so much, guys. So much. You’re going to look at them so much differently when you know what their lives are like.” He sighed and ran a hand over his bald head. “But right now, I want to skip forward to a much more recent time…to the year of 1692.”
I gasped and sat up straight. “Salem.”
“Yes. Exactly. Salem, Massachusetts.” He eyed the class. “Those of you who were raised human, you know the history of the Salem Witch Trials and everything that happened. But what you don’t know is that it was all a bold-faced lie.”
“Oh my God,” I muttered. “Salem was a cover-up?”
Mr. Ruth grinned. “Very good. Yes, it was a cover-up. Now, before I tell you this story, let me preface it by saying there had never, ever been a pair of twin witches. Not even fraternal. It simply never happened…until 1674, when Althea and Aurelia Putnam were born—identical twins. And to make things scarier, they were born with Marks. Now, most Coven members are Marked as teenagers. Very rarely are they born with their Marks. So now, The Coven had twin major arcana Marked as High Priestess and Empress—the two most powerful female witches in the entire Coven. Actually, only one other witch has power parallel to theirs, and that’s the Emperor.”
My heart fluttered with excitement. History had always been a love of mine, but this new version was even more fascinating. I leaned forward and propped my head up on my hands.
“Everything was great…until 1692, and then everything went as bad as it had ever gotten. One of the twins succumbed to darkness and twin went to her side, joining forces.” He sighed and shook his head. “Unfortunately, most of The Coven was killed so the details have been lost, but what is known is that the twins ripped open a gap in the dimensional wall.”
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