Good Witches Don't Lie (Academy of Shadowed Magic Book 1)

by S. W. Clarke

  “Right.”

  “And that determines my house.”

  “Right,” he said again.

  “And when will I fight the boggan?”

  “Tomorrow,” Eva said gaily, now tuned in once again.

  Aiden cleared his throat. “It’s protocol, you know. Really, don’t worry about it. The boggan’s never killed anyone.”

  I eyed him. “You’re being suspiciously reassuring.”

  Eva leaned across the table, setting delicate fingers on my arm. “I’ll be there to cheer you on. And then we’ll celebrate when you join Whisper.”

  That had also been suspicious. I knew they weren’t being entirely transparent, but I wasn’t sure why.

  My eyes dropped to Loki, whose face was dabbed in cream. “You want to fight a boggan with me?”

  He proceeded to clean himself by wetting a paw. “No.”

  I met eyes with Aiden, who looked amused. “Even I could tell that was a no,” he said.

  I stroked Loki. “He’s a curmudgeon, but he’s good for keeping my head warm at night.”

  Loki snuffed—a noise somewhere between a snort and a scoff. He kept cleaning himself.

  “Say,” Eva said, “do you want to walk to the museum square? Sometimes men wearing horse heads come play the accordion.”

  “We should get back,” Aiden said to her.

  “It’ll be quick.”

  I picked up my satchel, slinging it—and Loki in it—over my back. “Yeah, Aiden. It’ll be quick. Let the American absorb a little culture.”

  It only took a little peer pressure to get Aiden to agree. He wasn’t a pushover, exactly, but I found Eva and I could be very convincing as a pair. And so we walked out of the coffee house and strolled down the street toward the museum square.

  Loki hopped out of my satchel and trotted ahead next to Eva, who led the way. Now she was getting stares—here was a lavender-haired human so striking she could have been in a photoshoot on the sidewalk at this very moment.

  Which made me wonder how many of the world’s beautiful people were actually just fae with hidden wings.

  “This happens every time we leave the academy,” Aiden said to me.

  I tilted my head. “Are you two…together?”

  He laughed. “Gods no. And we wouldn’t want to be.”

  “How did you become friends?”

  “How could you not be her friend?” He gestured at Eva, who had taken a wide stance so Loki could pass under her like a ship under a bridge. And, totally out of character, Loki did trot through, his tail upright. He had totally taken to her.

  “I see what you mean.”

  One thing I didn’t full understand was why the two of them didn’t seem to have the same prejudice against witches as everyone else. They just…accepted me.

  I wondered if, for Aiden, it stemmed from his reading. He’d told me he knew of books on witches, and maybe that meant he had the benefit of hindsight, of historical record.

  Witches couldn’t be all bad. My mother was one.

  We came out onto a main thoroughfare—and what I knew had to be the museum square. A horse-drawn carriage trotted by as we stood on the sidewalk. At the center of the square stood an enormous statue, and beneath it a busker in a horse head swaying back and forth as he played the accordion.

  Ahead of us, Eva turned back, pointing and laughing.

  I whistled, staring over the immense buildings making up the square. “Everything around me is older than my whole country.”

  Aiden and I crossed the road together. “Harness your magic properly, and you’ll be able to go anywhere in the world,” he told me. “Just never take off that pendant.”

  The thought of traveling the way we had done any time I wanted was intoxicating. I could see everything. I could experience every culture.

  I could search for my family.

  I touched my fingers to my pendant, hidden under my shirt, as we followed Eva and Loki toward the busker. “Aiden, you’re a history nerd.”

  He side-eyed me. “Should I take that as a compliment?”

  “You should take it as a statement of fact.”

  “All right, what do you want to know?”

  I turned to him amidst Eva’s clapping and the accordion’s light music. “Why do witches turn evil?”

  An indecipherable expression crossed his face. It wasn’t good. “I don’t know, Clem.”

  “That was a quick answer.”

  His eyes tracked to the busker as though he was suddenly absorbed by the performance. “It’s the truth.”

  “Is it the whole truth?”

  “What is this, a court drama?” He paused. “If you think Eva and I are here to keep an eye on you, you’re wrong.”

  He was a quick one. “You have to admit—I’m not exactly a peach. And you two have been very nice.”

  As the performance ended, he reached into his pocket, pulled out his wallet. Both he and Eva dropped some money into the busker’s accordion case. When he came back to me, he said, “Believe it or not, Eva likes you.”

  “And what about you?”

  He finally turned to me. Those brown eyes surveyed my face. “Not everyone has an ulterior motive, Clementine.”

  Eva came over to us, her cheeks flushed. “Isn’t the city glorious?”

  Loki came up by her side, moss-green eyes bright on me. “I insist we live here after you leave the academy.”

  I half-smiled. “You insist, huh?”

  “We should be getting back,” Aiden said, clipped now. I’d dampened the mood. “It’s been over an hour, Eva.”

  She sighed, and I could almost see her wings deflate. “I suppose you’re right.”

  And so, with one circuit around the museum square, we returned to the spot we’d originally arrived by. Eva separated the veil, and we passed back into the forest and the academy.

  Part of me wanted to stay in Vienna and the world. The other part of me knew I needed to focus on what lay before me.

  I had a boggan to defeat.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The next morning, Umbra stood at the edge of the meadow during my Flight class. I discovered as much when every set of fae eyes shifted behind me, their wings coming to a halt.

  I lowered the bristled end of my broom to the ground and turned. Her eyes were on me.

  I knew why she had come.

  “Clementine Cole,” she called out once we’d met eyes.

  She waited as I crossed through the meadow toward her, her face a mask of serenity, her staff held as simply as though she’d merely picked it up from the forest floor and now used it as a walking aid.

  “The fae are watching you,” she said as I came to her side. “Do you know, some consider it a boon to have fae eyes on them?”

  I fixed her with a hard, intent stare. “Do I need a boon this morning?”

  She lowered her chin. “Ah, I see someone’s let the cat out of the bag, as it were.” She started us walking with a wave of her hand.

  Now I wished I had Loki around. I’d respected his decision to let me go alone, but that was when I’d thought fighting the boggan was easy.

  I fell into step beside her. “You’ve put a hundred teenagers together in the middle of the forest. The cat was never in the bag.”

  She laughed in a breathless, clipped way. I sensed her nerves. “Yes, I suppose you’re right. Have you ever heard of a boggan, then?”

  “I may have brushed up on them in the library yesterday.” I paused. “Long limbs. Pointy teeth. Talks fast. Anything else I need to know?”

  She eyed me as we walked. “That covers most of it. Do you know, then, why we’ve chosen the boggan to sort students into their houses?”

  “You can’t help but act on impulse in their presence,” I recited, remembering a line from the book I’d read. Now it was my turn to question her. “But why are you here?”

  She huffed in surprise as we passed through the forest away from the meadow. This was a different path than I’d seen anyon
e take; it led us past the dorms south of the academy. Here, the canopy thatched together more closely, the sunlight penetrating hardly at all. “I’m the headmistress. Do I need another reason?”

  Yes, I thought but didn’t say. You could have sent any of the other professors. You could have sent a guardian.

  The boggan sorted everyone; it was an easy fight, so Eva and Aiden had assured me. And yet, even as I thought it, I hadn’t been at all surprised to find Umbra waiting to escort me.

  Because I’m the witch.

  “I’ve come to ensure a smooth sorting,” Umbra went on, brushing aside an overgrown fern with her staff. “The boggan doesn’t like to be disturbed in winter, you see.”

  That felt like an excuse—not the truth. I sensed it in her body language, in the avoidance of gaze and cadence of her voice.

  But I didn’t argue, because obvious excuses were useful information, too.

  She was lying. She had another reason, and it was important to keep it a secret from me.

  By now the forest had thickened, enshrouding us tightly as we walked single file, Umbra leading the way. Ahead, we’d come to the edge of a stony rise, where the land sloped up into what had once been a mountain range, and which eons had reduced to hills.

  And in that hill lay a cave. That cave led to darkness.

  “You bring every student out here?” I said with a lowered voice.

  “No,” she said. “In late summer, the boggan comes to us. In winter it hibernates.”

  “And this is the only way to determine my house.”

  Umbra said nothing. By way of an answer, she stepped close to the cave, tapping her staff on the ground. The skyward end of it lit a luminous white, radiating off the rocks at either side of her. Her boots brushed the stone as she passed toward the darkness.

  “Boggan,” she spoke into the cave. One hand strayed into her robes, and she removed a bulging canvas bag. “Have you a moment?”

  No response. None at all.

  And then a low growl began. It issued out of the cave’s mouth, enclosing me. A voice followed, laced into the growl. “You tread on uncertain ground, Maeve Umbra.”

  The book had been right: it talked fast. Almost too fast to understand.

  Umbra glanced back at me. “They are quite serious about their sleep in winter.” Then, turning toward the cave, “I bring you a pre-solstice gift.”

  I stepped closer, staring into the blackness. She waited, and so I waited.

  And out of the nothingness, a sniffing began. One sniff, then two in quick succession. Movement sounded in the cave, a scrabbling. “Summer apples,” a low, gravelly voice said, half in quick question.

  Umbra nodded. “Yes, summer apples.”

  More sniffing. “Bring them.”

  The words weren’t enunciated so much as slurred at a quick clip. I had to parse them after they’d been spoken, and that fact alone made me uneasy.

  I felt totally out of element, even more than at the academy. I’d only been into two caves in my life, and both as a girl with a flashlight. And a black cat at my side.

  Umbra started forward into the cave. She gestured for me to follow, and I did. When we’d gone well past the light’s reach and stood surrounded by darkness, she tossed the bag of apples along the ground. They skidded deep into the cave, disappearing from sight.

  And were quickly ripped into.

  First came the tearing of canvas, then the gnashing of fruit. Five, ten seconds passed while the meat of the apples was crushed and bitten and slurped, and Umbra waited in stillness.

  One by one, apple cores hit the ground. This was followed by a deep, satisfied breathing while I squinted into the darkness, willing my eyes to adjust.

  But I didn’t need to adjust, because a grinning face emerged into the light off Umbra’s staff, juices pouring off the lips, the teeth bladed like daggers. Eyes black as pitch gleamed in the light, fixed on me.

  “Ah,” the gravelly voice said, “here’s the reason you’ve come.”

  Umbra placed herself halfway between me and the boggan. “Yes, she must be sorted. Will you test her?”

  The boggan’s eyes blinked once, the lips still spread to a wide grin. “Winter. A curious time for a sorting.”

  “She arrived late,” Umbra said.

  “And you could not wait until the late-summer.” He paused, sniffing. “Why?”

  Umbra took a breath, then, “She is a witch.”

  The boggan sucked in a flute of air. “A witch. You lie.”

  Umbra said nothing. She only moved aside, the light slipping away with her.

  The boggan came forward, long-nailed fingers reaching toward me from the semidarkness. “If you are a witch,” he said in his rushed way, “you will have the bravery to stay where you are.”

  My fingers curled to fists. I didn’t move.

  The boggan took a crouched step closer, nailed fingers reaching toward my hair. He snagged a curl, snipped it away with two nails pinched. He brought the dangling curl toward his nose—which was just two holes in his face—and sucked in the scent of it, eyes closing.

  I kept my lips pursed to a hard line, every muscle in my body clenching.

  You’ve faced worse, Clem.

  Remember the day you lost them. That was worse.

  Remember the night you were taken. That was worse.

  Nothing can break you. This creature least of all.

  The boggan’s eyes opened, staring again at me. He dropped the tendril of hair and stepped close enough for me to smell him, too.

  I’d expected an an acrid scent of eggs or rot, but I smelled only moss and dirt. One thing to be grateful for, at least. Especially with how close he came as he inspected me, nails running lightly over my shoulders and that deep, discomforting sniffing he made as he passed in a circle around me.

  Finally, he came to a standstill in front of my face.

  “Witch,” he hissed, low and final. “You have not brought a witch to me in three and thirty years, Maeve Umbra.”

  “She is the last of them,” Umbra said. “Will you test her?”

  The boggan’s mouth opened, bladed teeth parting, and he exhaled slow and thoughtful. Then they snapped together with a click. “Yes,” he said through clenched jaws. “Alone.”

  The boggan turned away, side-stepping deeper into the cave.

  Umbra’s staff clicked on the stone as she took a step forward. “I would oversee.”

  It spun around. “No,” it hissed. “Alone or not at all.”

  My breathing had quickened, my fists still clenched. Alone or not at all didn’t sound like protocol.

  Umbra stepped fully before me. “Follow the boggan. You will be fine.”

  I stared back at her. “He doesn’t normally test students alone, does he?”

  “No, he does not.”

  I gave a slow nod, sensing I wouldn’t get a better deal than this. “All right.”

  One hand fell on my shoulder. “Trust yourself. It will be over before you know it.”

  I held her gaze a second longer. Trust myself. She didn’t know how little trust I had in anyone but myself.

  “One way or another,” I said with a forced grin. I stepped around her and followed the boggan into the cave’s depths.

  I hadn’t gone five feet before I was fully beyond Umbra’s light—and completely engulfed by the blackness. My hands went out, fingers reaching, feeling for anything as I moved step by step forward.

  “Come, witch,” the boggan whispered.

  A tiny, flickering light burst to life somewhere ahead, illuminating a bend in the cave. Its shadow danced on a small section of rock, guiding me toward it.

  When I arrived at the bend, my hand went out to the wall. I followed it right, and it wasn’t long before I came into the heart of the boggan’s winter home.

  Before me lay a room so large it slipped away into nothingness. No ceiling above, no far walls.

  I only sensed three things:

  A low pool to my right, black wa
ter rippling off the flame’s light.

  The breeze whistling past me, blowing my hair back and stirring the water.

  And the small flame, which the boggan had lit on the floor at the center of the room.

  But I didn’t see—or smell, or even sense—the boggan itself.

  I stood alone beside the pool and the flame, my own breathing coming to me as an audible thing. My blood sang in my veins, and I knew like I had known every other time I’d gotten into a fight that this was a critical moment.

  I had to live in my body. In my senses.

  “Witch,” the boggan hissed, the low voice disembodied in the darkness.

  I was tempted to spin, to search for it, but I knew that was pointless in this light. It wanted me off center. It wanted me afraid. It waited for its opening.

  But I wouldn’t give it one.

  “You know where I am,” I said.

  A crackling laugh erupted, raising every hair up my back to my scalp. Don’t allow it to own you, Clem. Keep yourself together.

  Because right now, I was at risk of turning feral. We humans, I’d learned over the years, were like that: take away our sight and we became prey animals. We fell to instinct.

  But I needed to keep my head.

  I needed to be ready.

  The laughing died away to nothingness—only the breeze, the crackle of flame, the trickling of water in the pool.

  My mind centered itself on those three noises, my tethers to sanity. The wind, the fire, the water. And the hard ground under my feet.

  Not that any of those helped me when it finally came at me.

  Nails scraped across the rock a half-second before I was thrown off my feet. I fell hard, and only managed to break the fall because of what I’d learned in my combat class, rolling onto my side.

  The wind went out of me anyway, and I found myself struggling back upright.

  The laugh came again as I got my feet under me. “I’ll give you three chances, muck-dweller,” the boggan whispered. “After the third, you will die.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Three chances.

  It’s an empty threat, Clem. The boggan won’t kill you—it’s done this thousands of times. Umbra’s out there.