by S. W. Clarke
We were untrustworthy and violent. One historian even believed we all carried darkness inside us, and it only took the right alignment of stars and moon to bring it out. The historian wasn’t clear as to whether “right alignment” meant the literal stars and moon, or a genetic predisposition, or circumstances, or all three together.
So that was a harrowing read.
I also read about the fae and their realm. Hundreds of years ago, they’d been very nearly immortal. But when the fae realm had closed itself off from Earth during the Battle of the Ages, those fae left on Earth had lost their immortality. They were like us humans: they lived only eight or nine decades, if they were lucky.
All in all, between my classes and my work at the stables, you could almost mistake me for a good student.
Almost.
Because even though I was doing everything right, I still had two problems:
One, I hadn’t been able to fly on my broom. Not once—not even the whisper of once. And Professor Fernwhirl hadn’t seemed particularly keen on helping me; in fact, she spent most of her time ignoring me.
Two, for the first time in my life I was terrible at combat. Even though I met with Eva every other day to train in the meadow. And even though the combat class met five days a week, unlike the other two classes I’d been assigned. And most days out of the week, I got stomped. And I mean that literally: once, one of the students actually did kick me from behind and send me onto my stomach.
If I were to say no one laughed, I’d be lying.
Even now, as I mucked out the stalls a week after the fact, I could remember the laughter. Actually, it was kind of funny. It would probably be funnier once the bruise on my left butt cheek stopped hurting.
Plus, I still—still—hadn’t shown any indications of this magic I supposedly possessed. Torsten kept telling me to “feel it,” and he was beginning to sound like a stoner.
Actually, I’d been considering how much more effectively I could ‘feel it’ with a little green in me. But hell if I knew where to find pot at the academy—I certainly couldn’t ask my roommate.
A voice startled me out of my head. “Put your back into it, Cole.”
I straightened with my pitchfork full of manure and turned toward Aiden, preparing to toss it at him. “You want to see me put my back into it?”
He stepped back from where he’d been hanging over the stall door. “I take it back.”
I threw the pile of manure into the wheelbarrow. “That’s what I thought.” When I set the prongs down in the hay, he was observing me. “Did you come here just to watch me shovel poop?”
“I came to check on you. I am the student ambassador, after all. It’s kind of my job.”
I patted one arm with the opposite hand, flexing my bicep. “I’m doing great. Building my guns. Just great,” I repeated. As great as you can be when you’re a fire witch without her magic—and also the last witch alive in a world that hates them.
He only looked a little amused. “Did you figure out anything else about what happened with the wisps?”
I stepped up to the door, wiping my hands. A few stalls over, Noir gave a high-pitched whinny that startled Aiden so badly he staggered back.
I laughed. “Careful, North. He’ll get you if you don’t watch your back.” For my part, I was used to it now. I had probably lost so much hearing already that it didn’t even hurt my ears anymore.
When Aiden had regained himself, he pointed at Noir. “I don’t trust that horse.”
“You and everybody else.” I folded my arms, leaning over the stall toward him. “Well, everyone except me. I think he’s misunderstood.”
Aiden glanced over at me. “Misunderstood?”
“Yeah. He just needs the right rider. Someone who respects him.”
“And that’s going to be you?”
I nodded. “That’s going to be me.”
He shook his head. “Your funeral.”
In his stall, Noir nickered like he’d understood the whole exchange.
I leaned over the stall door toward Aiden. “Anyway, to answer your last question: no. I think I read every book the library’s got on wisps, but I’ve got nada.”
He nodded. “Yeah, same.”
“‘Same?’”
“I may have done some reading in the Room of the Ancients.”
I leaned closer. “You get access? You’re a first-year.”
He shrugged. “Student ambassador privileges, remember? Along with this.” He slid a brass key from his pocket.
“What’s that? The keys to Milquetoast’s BDSM dungeon?”
He snorted, his birthmark reddening. “Not that I know of. It unlocks all the major doors on academy grounds—just in case.”
“And how does that work? The grooves look like they’re designed for a pretty specific door.”
He held it up. “Magic, of course. The grooves change to fit the lock.”
“Ah. Of course.” I tilted my head. “So, Mr. BDSM-Dungeon-Keyholder, what did you learn about wisps in the Room of the Ancients?”
“Nothing you don’t already know.” He went silent, eyeing me.
“What?” I glanced down at my shirt. “Have I got manure on me?”
“No, it’s just— Have you still not harnessed your magic?”
I made a face; I hated being reminded of that fact. “Don’t make me reconsider flinging feces at you.”
“I’m not asking to taunt you.” He stepped closer, one hand falling atop the satchel at his side. “I found something in the Room of the Ancients you might be interested in. I think Umbra forgot we have this.”
“Forgot we have what?”
“I found something.” He lifted the flap for me to see inside. An enormous tome rested in there. “This is the only book the academy has about witches that’s written by a witch.”
I gasped. “You stole from the library. You stole from Milquetoast.”
Aiden was more rebellious than I’d thought. I loved it.
His eyebrows went up. “Milquetoast? Oh, Professor Milonakis. Very mature, Clementine.”
I half-smirked. “Says the guy who just stole a book from the Room of the Ancients.”
“Touché.” He closed the flap of his satchel when I extended my hand for the book. “I’ll let you read this on one condition: you don’t misplace it. If this book is lost, I lose all library privileges.”
I shrugged like I didn’t care that much, anyway. “All right. What’s in it, anyway?”
He started down the stable walkway, waving me after him. “Come find out.”
Together, we walked to the meadow. It was early enough that the first class out here wouldn’t start for another two hours, and secluded enough that we could speak without being overheard.
I sat against a tree at the edge of the meadow and opened up the book while Aiden sat cross-legged in front of me.
“Well hell,” I said as I read the title: The Witching World, by Raven Murkwood. “Murkwood. That sounds witchy enough.”
Aiden nodded. “This book is five hundred years old. Interesting writing, isn’t it?”
“That’s one way of putting it.” I dove back into the book, my eyes flitting as fast as my brain could process the words. Everything about this book seemed positively ancient—the print, the smell, the uncommonly thick pages, the style of Murkwood’s handwriting. I guess that was why it was in the Room of the Ancients.
And it had everything. Everything I needed.
“This is like a manual to witchery,” I murmured as I read. “There’s a section on brooms, one on familiars, another on tapping into your magic.”
“It is a manual, Cole.” Aiden sat forward. “And I think I know why it was locked away.”
That actually got me to lower the book an inch. “Why?”
“Because you’re a witch.” As he spoke, I had a feeling he was right. “Because if you access your magic, you’re as likely to turn dangerous as you are to help us.”
Nonetheless, I stared at him. “The headmistr
ess said she brought me here to protect me. She saved me from being killed so I could harness my magic.”
Aiden slowly shook his head. “I don’t think you were about to die, Clementine. Check out the section on the underworld.”
I flipped ahead to that section. What I found in there made me set the book down in my lap. “The guys who kidnapped me were going to toss me through the veil. Not kill me.”
He nodded. “I think so.”
“Why?”
He fixed me with his gaze. “Why would they want to keep the last witch in the world alive?”
Because I’m the last witch, and our power is great.
My eyes unfocused. “The headmistress brought me here to keep me away from the darkness. But nobody here wants to help me access my magic.” I paused, a new truth slowly rising to the fore of my mind. “They’re afraid of what will happen if I become a true witch, aren’t they? Even the headmistress.”
Aiden didn’t say anything, but I could see in his eyes that he thought the same thing.
I lowered the book, set my hand on the open page. “Why are you helping me? Aren’t you afraid of what I’ll become?”
He shook his head. “No, Cole. Nobody’s pure—not mages or fae, either. And I’m helping you because I don’t like the way they’re treating you. You deserve to make your own choices.”
Gratitude filled me. “I’m glad I didn’t fling manure on you like I wanted to.”
He barked a laugh. “Is that so?”
“Yeah—thought it’d be a better look than the starched white collar. On that note, North, here’s where I teach you to be more human. You are so painfully laced up.” I made a point of glancing down at the collar of his shirt, which was buttoned all the way to the top.
He noticed, and actually undid the collar. “Fine. Happy now?”
I grinned. “Now you might see some action.”
I glanced back down at the book and flipped the page. An enormous illustration stared back up at me. In it, the denizens of the underworld were shown directly under the Earth. Above, the trees rose up toward the sun.
The underworld and the overworld, Murkwood’s caption read. They were separated only by the power of the fae realm, which was still connected at that time with the human world.
It looked like the underworld was directly beneath our feet. Of course, it was a five-hundred-year-old illustration. And according to Murkwood, the underworld had been contained for an eon to that point.
No one who lived when she wrote had ever seen a servant of darkness.
I looked up at Aiden. “If the underworld was contained beneath the ground back when this book was written, then why have witches turned evil all throughout history?”
“Just because the route between this world and the one below wasn’t open doesn’t mean evil didn’t influence the world,” he said. “It did—it always has, in some measure. But now that the darkness can come to the surface, the balance has been thrown off.”
“And by ‘thrown off,’ you mean the whole table’s about to tip over.”
Aiden grimaced. “Something like that.”
Now I got it.
Aiden wasn’t just helping me out of goodwill or because he liked me. He wasn’t doing it because it was the ethical thing.
I pointed at the book. “Murkwood believed witches are the most powerful magic users in the world.” I paused. “That’s why you’re helping me, isn’t it?”
This time recognition flashed in his brown eyes. “I’m helping you because I think those wisps attacked Liara because of you.”
“Me?” I shook my head. “No, I—”
He silenced me with a raised hand. “I don’t think you called them or anything, Clementine. But I think they responded to your power.”
I swallowed. “And?”
“You saw their power, Clem. And you haven’t even really tapped into your magic—not yet. Imagine what you could do for the world if you knew how to properly harness your own abilities.”
I grinned ahead of my own joke. “Make the wisps carry me from class to class?”
He wasn’t in that kind of mood. Aiden’s Adam’s apple bobbed before, finally, he told me the truth. The real, deep truth. “I believe a witch is the only one who can stop the Shade. And you’re the last witch.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Silence fell between us. In it, a crisp breeze cut through the meadow, rustling our cloaks.
The atmosphere between us had changed. Aiden had gone gravely serious.
I took a deep breath, exhaled. “Why does it take a witch to save the world?”
His eyes hardened with a tinge of envy. “Because a witch’s power, properly realized, exceeds everyone else’s by two or three times over.”
Well, ain’t that something. “Even Headmistress Umbra’s?”
He nodded. “Even hers.”
And I was already a hothead with a chequered past. No wonder the whole academy loathed me.
In the end, Aiden let me take Raven Murkwood’s five-hundred-year-old book home with me. It had taken a lot of cajoling and promises, but I had a trump card: he believed I, as ridiculous as it sounded, could save the world.
And whether I myself believed that or not, I knew I needed that book.
I needed to read it from cover to cover. Twice. Three times. Until I’d memorized every line.
Which is exactly what I started doing. Over the course of the next week leading up to winter break, I read Murkwood’s book every chance I got. That mostly involved me sneaking back to my dorm when Eva wasn’t around.
The first time Loki saw the book, he stared at it with wide eyes from the floor of my dorm. “Where did you get that?”
I glanced up from where I was sitting on my bed. “The library. My friend stole it from a special, secret room. You jelly?”
Loki blinked, kept staring at the book. “Not by a long shot.”
“Well, you can’t read anyway, can you? Or can you?”
His ears tucked back. “Really? You know I can talk, but you think I can’t read?”
I shrugged. “Sorry, I haven’t read the section on familiars yet.”
He hopped up on the bed, inched forward and sniffed the book’s edge. He jerked his head away. “It smells off.”
“That’s because it’s been in an old, nasty room for probably hundreds of years.” Then I set new eyes on him, because he had taken a few steps back. “What is it?”
He sat down, his tail curling around him. “I’ve been alive for a hundred years, and I’ve never heard of a Raven Murkwood. I know about all the famous witches throughout history.”
“A hundred years?”
In answer, he raised one paw and licked it—the cat’s version of “Did I stutter?”
I tilted my head. “Were you the familiar to another witch before me?”
“No. I couldn’t find any that didn’t already have familiars, and there weren’t many witches even a century ago. It was a sad, lonely life for your little Loki. Well, not really. I lived mostly as a regular cat. Back in the 30s, there was this one family that actually fed me real fish for dinner.” He sighed. “I miss the Butlers.”
For a second there I’d thought he could teach me a thing or two about witching. But then, even if he had known a thing or two, he probably wouldn’t teach me what he knew. Or he’d make me do him ridiculous favors in exchange. So it was better this way.
I went back to my book. “It says here that witches don’t always ride brooms. Some were able to use their cloaks to fly on the wind. Others rode horses. Murkwood herself claims to have been able to do all three with time.”
Loki proceeded to lick a high-up, awkward spot on his shoulder with jerky movements, shaking the bed. “What”—he said between licks—“does—it—say—about—hopeless cases?”
I didn’t look up, but my skeptical left eyebrow rose about as high as it would go. “It also says that witches don’t always bring their familiars with them when they go places. Sometimes they leave
them at home with only dry kibble and the looping soundtrack of a dog barking.”
Loki huffed. “I’m sure. Skip a few paragraphs down, and you’ll see it also says that Clementine Cole is the most unappreciative witch to ever have a noble black cat for a familiar in the history of witches.”
The door opened, and Eva came in. I closed the book and slid it under my pillow as she closed the door behind her.
If she’d noticed, she didn’t show it. A brilliant smile graced her face. “I cannot wait until winter break.”
“Oh? Why’s that?”
“I’m going to take you to the fae solstice market. It’s amazing. There are pegasi yearlings to ride, gumdrops, wreaths. Oh, and singing. The carols are unlike anything you’ve heard…”
On and on she went, and Loki and I nodded along. All the while my mind remained half on Murkwood’s book, sitting like a living thing under my pillow.
At the end of that week, classes paused for the winter solstice. The academy was closed until January, and I was off to Vienna.
Though I suspected Umbra would have wanted to keep me on the academy grounds year-round, she couldn’t really justify me staying here alone. Even she left every year to be with her grandchildren in Zurich, so I’d heard from Eva.
Plus, she knew I had the moonstone. As long as I wore it, I was invisible to the Shade and anything she sent crawling its way to the surface.
And while some part of me was wholly uncertain about staying with a fae family for a month, another part of me still existed in that moment I’d stared up at the sky in DC. The moment when I’d wondered if there was anything else out there for me.
This was it.
I sensed my life changing in enormous, sometimes terrifying ways. I’d gotten what I had asked for.
And after our one afternoon in Vienna, I wanted to go back. I was secretly excited about something.
As our last classes ended before break and students began streaming every which way, saying goodbyes, some already leaving toward the nearby leyline, Eva, Aiden, and I agreed to meet up at the clearing in the center of campus as a farewell until the new year.
When I found the two of them standing in the clearing, Aiden had an enormous duffel bag slung over one shoulder. He wore a peacoat, jeans, and oxfords. Meanwhile, Eva wore a white puffy coat, black leggings, and tall boots. She had only a small designer backpack on, and her hair had been pulled back into a tight purple ponytail. She looked like she’d walked out of an advertisement.