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

by S. W. Clarke

  I stepped up to the two of them, still in my uniform with my satchel slung over one shoulder. “Don’t tell me you two overachievers are already packed.”

  They turned, both red-cheeked from standing in the afternoon cold.

  “It’s winter solstice,” Eva gushed, gripping one of my forearms. “I couldn’t even sleep last night. Could you?”

  Actually, I’d heard her rolling around all night. Now I knew why. “All right, I have two questions for you two. First”—I pointed at Aiden—“since when do you have normal-people clothes?”

  He rolled his eyes. “I’m from London. We wear normal clothes there.”

  “And you.” I nodded at Eva’s backpack. “Are you only bringing your toothbrush to Vienna?”

  She glanced over her shoulder. “Oh, no. I’m bringing a month’s worth of clothes, a full set of toiletries, and four pairs of shoes.”

  I stared at her. “Let me see.”

  She grinned and unslung the bag, passing it to me.

  When I unbuckled it and looked inside, I found everything she’d described. A month’s worth of clothing, toiletries, two pairs of boots, one pair of heels, and house slippers. Except the bag didn’t seem any bigger than it had from the outside.

  Aiden must have understood my mystification. “Eva’s gotten good with tangible manipulations.”

  “This is a tangible manipulation?” I said, still rummaging through the bag as though I might discover its secrets.

  “It isn’t just for resizing clothing. The art itself involves messing with space,” Aiden said, “to put it very, very simply.”

  I flashed him a look. “Good. The dumb human need very, very simple.”

  “Where’s Loki?” Eva said to me, breathless like I’d never heard her. She really did love winter solstice. “Haven’t you packed yet?”

  “I mean…” I shrugged. “I don’t exactly have much to pack, Eva. Remember, all my stuff is back in DC.”

  Now that I thought about it, a feeling of sadness washed over me. I imagined everything I owned being carted out of the apartment, sent off to who knew where. Maybe the local dump.

  “Actually,” a voice said from behind us, “I’ve seen to it that your belongings were safeguarded.”

  I turned and found Umbra standing with staff in hand and a massive coat with a fur collar puffed up around her face. It fell all the way to her feet, and I was suddenly envious of her obvious warmth.

  I gripped my satchel harder. I was carrying Raven Murkwood’s book, and I wondered suddenly if Umbra could somehow sense as much.

  So I asked the first question I could think of to deflect attention.

  “What do you mean?” I said. “Where are my things?”

  “I had them transported to a safe place,” Umbra said. “One cannot be too careful, lest the Shade had one of her creatures magick your belongings to track their whereabouts.”

  “Magick them?” I said.

  “A trace of magic can be placed on anything,” Aiden explained. “Like a fingerprint.”

  Good to know. “And if she did?” I said.

  “That’s what they’re being checked for.” Then, “You will likely have them returned to you next semester.”

  Well, next semester was better than never.

  “Let me guess,” I said, eyeing her. “You’re already packed, too.”

  She chuckled, tucking aside the edge of her coat to reveal a small bag slung over one shoulder. “Yes, I’m prepared for the solstice.”

  That did it. I was learning tangible manipulations the first chance I got.

  Umbra tilted her head. “And you are leaving with Evanora to Austria.”

  “She has the moonstone, headmistress,” Eva said. “And my family won’t let anything happen to her. I swear it.”

  Umbra smiled. “I have no doubt of that, Evanora.” She fixed her gaze on me. “Clementine, please stay close to Evanora and her family. They are powerful fae, but even the strongest fae is no match for the Shade’s creatures in the witching hour.”

  I stared back at her, feeling like a child under her gaze. And, too, another thought lodged itself at the front of my mind: You don’t want me to harness my magic. I could be a match for the Shade’s creatures, but I frighten you.

  And in that way, also, she treated me like a child.

  After I gave her my assurance, Umbra left the three of us to oversee the closing of the campus for the solstice. Dusk was coming to the woods, and with it, our departure.

  As if sensing as much, Loki appeared with an upright tail, trotting from the dining hall.

  I pointed at him. “I knew it. You were with Vickery.”

  He came to my feet. “Don’t blame a cat for catting.”

  “Well, my parents are expecting me,” Aiden said, stepping to Eva. When they hugged, I sensed real kinship between them. “See you in the new year.”

  Eva squeezed him. “Next time, you’re coming to Vienna.”

  “What about you coming to London?”

  She pulled away. “We’ll do both. Why not?”

  I snorted. They were, after all, mages who could travel from one side of the Earth to the other in a few minutes. Why not?

  Aiden turned to me, and we stood awkwardly in front of one another. I knew Aiden wasn’t sure whether I would accept a hug, and I wasn’t exactly crazy about them in the first place.

  “Oh, just hug already,” Eva said. “I’d like to be home by dinnertime, thank you very much.”

  With an embarrassed half-smile, Aiden came forward and hugged me. He patted my back. “I’ll see you in the new year, Cole.”

  A faint smile came to my lips as we hugged. “See you then, North.”

  And so we three walked to the leyline, Loki following along, and Eva promising me she would help me pick out new clothes, and all my toiletries would be provided for.

  I didn’t have to worry about anything, she said.

  Meanwhile, I wondered if that would ever really be true.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  When we passed through the veil from the academy, I’d thought we would step out on the same street Eva had taken us to when we’d visited the coffee house.

  Instead, we ended up somewhere entirely else in the city—right at the center of a bridge over a river. And the moment we stepped into Vienna, the streetlamps blinked to life in the almost-darkness. One by one they burst to life, illuminating small haloes all around us.

  For a city-dweller used to constant light pollution, this was as close as we usually got to witnessing a meteor shower.

  “Pretty, isn’t it?” Eva said, giving me my moment as she leaned against the bridge’s railing.

  I turned a full circle, taking it in before I set eyes on Eva. “DC doesn’t quite have the same charm as this place.”

  “Well, it’s a lot younger. With age comes a certain mystique.” She grinned, hooking her arm in mine. “Come on. It’s only a couple blocks to home.”

  I allowed her to lead me off the bridge, Loki following behind. “Does the leyline run through this part of the city, too?”

  “No”—she pointed at the river on our left—“but the Danube does.”

  “I thought when you traveled by a river, you actually had to…dive into the river.”

  She flashed me a look of surprise and dismay. “Why would you need to do that?”

  “That’s what Umbra made me do to get to the academy. We jumped into a river.”

  Eva nodded slowly. “And did she call it a test?”

  “Yes,” Loki said from my right.

  Now that I thought back to that night—I’d avoided doing so in the weeks that had followed—I remembered she had called it a test.

  A test of courage.

  I shook my head. “That woman…”

  Eva squeezed my arm. “I get it—she’s eccentric with her tests. But you passed, didn’t you? And now you’re here.”

  I forced a smile back at her as we walked. Truth was, I wondered if she’d been testing me d
ifferently than the other students since the moment she’d met me.

  Harder. More rigorously. With a keener eye.

  My brooding was interrupted by Eva pulling out a key and pausing us at a stoop in the middle of a neighborhood. When she unlocked the door, we came into a foyer with a long staircase circling up and up.

  I came to the foot of the staircase, lifting my face. “Is this your house?”

  Eva chuckled, the sound echoing. “No, there are eight different homes in this building. Ours is on the top floor.”

  “So uncultured,” Loki said to me as he and Eva started up the stairs.

  “Like you’ve been to Vienna,” I said.

  “Actually, I lived here for the first fifty years of my life. I was born to an upstanding German family.”

  “Seriously? How did you end up in DC?”

  “One of my many owners transplanted from Europe to the United States, and the rest was history.”

  “Huh,” I huffed as I held the railing, still ascending stairs. “Eva, my cat’s a European.”

  She laughed, glancing back at Loki. “Let me guess—he’s originally from here.”

  I threw out my hands. “How did you know?”

  She shrugged. “Back in the coffee shop, he ate that cream puff like an old hand.”

  We arrived at the top floor, where Eva slid off her boots and set them on a shoe rack in the hallway. I followed suit, totally unused to taking my shoes off in the house.

  She placed a key into the door of Apartment 8. When we came in, she yelled out, “Mama? Obe? I’m here!” and rushed through the hallway into the living room.

  Meanwhile, Loki and I stood at the entrance. Just like when I’d met Eva and smelled meadows and vanilla, I was overcome by the sweet smells in this place. I scented butter and cinnamon and bread and the faintest hint of mint.

  “This,” said Loki, “is how I hope heaven smells.”

  “No kidding.”

  In the living room I could hear Eva’s happiness, and other unfamiliar voices saying her name. Before I could decide whether I should sneak away from all this unadulterated happiness and joy, Eva led two other fae out of the living room.

  One was an older woman, and the other was a fae who looked about five. Eva held the boy in her arms, and he gripped her with all his strength, his hair such a deep purple it almost looked black. Neither had their wings hidden.

  “Welcome, Clementine,” the woman said, her wings fluttering as she came forward to hug me with unfiltered warmth.

  “I guess Eva told you I was coming,” I said, glancing at Eva over her mother’s shoulder. Some part of me wondered whether she had told her mother I was a witch.

  “Of course. We’ve been preparing for it.” The woman leaned away, studying me with blue eyes under a silver fringe of hair. “I’m Nissa.” Her eyes dropped, and she crouched. “And you must be Loki.”

  Loki remained close to my legs, sniffing Nissa’s outstretched fingers.

  In Eva’s arms, the boy said, “I’m five.”

  Eva and her mother started laughing, and before I realized it, I’d laughed, too. Some strange layer of ice I hadn’t known had existed in me had been broken. “Good to meet you, Five,” I said.

  He stared at me with eyes the same color as his mother’s. Then a smile appeared. “Do you want to see my favorite toy?”

  “I do.”

  He hustled down from Eva’s arms, bursting into flight up the staircase toward where I assumed his room was, his wings a gauzy orange.

  I stared up after him. “I guess the stairs in a fae household stay pretty clean.”

  Nissa laughed. “Yes, I suppose they do.” She helped me off with my coat, placing it on a rack by the door. “I’ve got dinner plated in the kitchen. What say you all we eat before the two academy scholars drop from hunger?”

  Loki gave an uncharacteristically loud meow, rushing to Nissa’s legs and making his intent known. When she reached down to pet him, I knew I was all right here.

  Loki only trusted the trustworthy. He’d never been wrong.

  But as we passed into the kitchen, one question stuck at the fore of my mind—

  Where was Eva’s other parent?

  I’d expected their kitchen to be all pastels and pineapple ornaments, but it was actually understated, rustic, clean as a whistle. Wooden cabinets lined the walls, the countertops an austere white. At the far end, a window looked out over the apartment block next door.

  A table had been set for five, with plates and utensils set down and a fat candle burning prettily with its red wax dripping to the holder.

  “Please sit, Clementine,” Nissa said, brandishing a large plate from inside the low-heat oven and setting it in the center of the table. She paired it with a teapot and cups set out.

  I’d never had a proper fae dinner. I had no idea that fae ate any differently than humans—but they did.

  To start, we had dessert first. No bothering with soups or salads. As soon as I sat down, Eva’s mother slid me a plate with what looked like an enormous cinnamon bun on it. She poured me a cup of tea with a dollop of cream and a sprinkle of sugar.

  Beside me, Eva was already cutting into her bun with her utensils. Inside looked like it was lined with raisins and nuts.

  I followed suit. When I took a bite, I’d expected cinnamon bun, but what I got was something unlike any food I’d tasted before. It was sweeter in the most pleasant way, buttery without being overwhelming, and there was an aftertaste in the mix I couldn’t identify.

  I set my utensils down, watching as Nissa crouched to pour milk into a bowl for Loki. “What are these?”

  Oberon came tearing into the room holding toy dinosaurs in each hand. “Oh,” he said, dropping them both and setting eyes on the rosette of buns at the center of the table, “my favorite!”

  Nissa laughed, straightening as Loki began lapping at the milk. “In fae we call them caeneal buns. They’re an old recipe from before the gateway between the fae world and this one was closed.”

  Oberon sat himself next to me, his eyes saucer-wide as Nissa sliced off a bun from the rosette and set it on a plate for him.

  She sat down with us, the four of us settling into the first course. After that came a dish like spaghetti, but it too tasted better than I’d ever known spaghetti to be. I couldn’t define the difference, though.

  “Tell me, Clementine,” Nissa said as we ate, “has Eva been a good student?”

  Eva waved a hand. “Mom, don’t put her on the spot.”

  I nodded. “I know one thing for sure: she’s one of the best in our flight class.”

  “See,” Nissa said to me, “that’s something Eva would never tell me. She’s too modest.”

  “Because it isn’t true,” Eva said.

  “It’s true,” I said. “Both how good she is, and her modesty.”

  Eva’s cheeks rouged, and she tucked into her spaghetti. The irony, I realized, was that Eva had probably gotten attention all her life—at least for the way she looked, for her soft charm—and yet she didn’t seem to want any of it.

  Or maybe she felt like she didn’t deserve it.

  My eyes were drawn again and again to the empty place setting. I kept trying to find a way to ask about it—Eva’s mother seemed far too precise to accidentally set one too many places at the table—but the conversation rolled along between the three of them so well that breaking in to ask such a question felt strange.

  Besides, it wasn’t every day you listened to a mixture of English, Faerish, and German. They were speaking by turns in all three, sometimes all in the same sentence.

  Finally, Nissa noticed me glance at the empty plate. She set a finger on the table just in front of it. “You’re wondering who that’s for.”

  My eyes shot up to her, surprised by her perceptiveness. “It did cross my mind.”

  “My husband,” she said, eyes flicking to a clock on the wall with toadstools to demarcate each hour. “Right now, it’s the witching hour in Sydney.”
>
  I lowered my fork with spaghetti still on the tines. “He’s a guardian?” I paused. “But I thought they were only at the academy.”

  Nissa’s eyebrows lifted. “He’s a graduate of the academy—well, decades ago now. As am I.”

  I stared at her. “You’re one of them too, aren’t you?”

  She lowered her chin in a nod.

  I slowly turned to Eva. “Both of your parents are badasses.”

  “Yes, for as long as I can remember,” Eva said without any inflection, feeding a bite of her food to Oberon.

  “Well,” Nissa said, “how else are we to protect the young mages of the world? It isn’t only the academy’s duty.”

  I had a hundred questions, all of them equally pressing. I start-stopped enough times that I had to take a long sip of the spiced apple cider I’d been given.

  Of course the guardians wouldn’t just be at the academy. There were only twelve of them at Shadow’s End, after all, and a world’s worth of mages. They couldn’t be everywhere at once, even with their ability to part the veil.

  And, too, I understood now: this was what Umbra aimed for. Academy graduates were brought up to join the larger world. They weren’t just once-and-done—this was a life’s work.

  Meanwhile, Nissa smiled at me, crossing her arms at the edge of the table and leaning forward. “I see you have questions. Lots of them. It doesn’t look like Florian will be back in time for dinner. What say you we take a walk through the fae solstice market?”

  “Yes!” Oberon sang out, raising his plastic fork high.

  And because I was so used to not-knowing what things were, I only said, “Sure.”

  And so we finished our dinner, got our jackets on, walked down the long spiral staircase, and the four of us took a trip down the sidewalk to a place that, I learned on the way, was invisible to the regular world.

  The solstice market was, in fact, secret to the fae.