by S. W. Clarke
Good Witches Don’t Cheat
Academy of Shadowed Magic - Year Two
S.W. Clarke
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Epilogue
Afterword
About the Author
Copyright © 2020 by S.W. Clarke
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Cover Design: Covers by Juan
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Chapter One
He ran like a hellion. He ran for his life.
“It was just a squirrel,” I called for the third time since the horse had spooked and leapt the fence line. Now he galloped us through the woods, weaving past massive oak trees and under lethally close branches.
And I? I could only lean close to his neck, my fingers gripping a fist of mane at his withers, and pray to all nine gods I didn’t end up on the ground.
In my time at the academy, I had learned a crucial thing about horses: for as massive and powerful as they were—and this one orders of magnitude more massive and powerful than most—they were still creatures of prey.
Which was why a squirrel darting in front of Noir during our lesson had resulted in trying to stop a locomotive of a horse without even a bridle or stirrups.
In the three months since summer recess had begun, I’d trained bareback on Noir every morning. Quartermistress Farrow oversaw each of our lessons, teaching me the proper position for each gait, how to make the horse respond to my bodily cues. How to send him from a walk to a trot to a canter. Even how to perform an emergency dismount.
But not at a gallop. Never at a gallop.
In fact, she had strictly warned me against dismounting while the horse was spooked and running. I wouldn’t be able to fall without breaking bones—and possibly my spine. Spines were fixable with healing magic, but it was better not to find yours broken in the first place.
On we went, barreling forward as though I hadn’t tried every trick in my arsenal to get him to slow. Ahead, the meadow approached at incredible speed, the sunlit expanse where I’d spend so much of my time during the school year.
We burst from the trees, afternoon light pouring over us in a wave. We thundered through the high grasses, Noir’s black coat golden and brilliant. A sheen of sweat lay over him, the bellows of his lungs pumping hard.
Far behind us, a voice called out.
“I’m coming, Clementine! Hold to your seat.”
The quartermistress.
When I ventured a look over my shoulder, she was riding hard on Siren, the gray mare. They were still well inside the trees, and appeared to be losing ground on us.
Noir was just too fast. At one point during the summer, I’d let him out under her supervision just to see what he could do. And by the time he’d hit a gallop she had decided he was the fastest horse she’d laid eyes on.
For her, that was saying something.
Soon we approached the far side of the meadow, and I went on peppering him with my “Woahs” and my tongue clicks and attempts to pivot my weight back, all to no end.
And I realized, as the tree line approached, that this was about more than a squirrel.
He wouldn’t have spooked this long and hard over a squirrel.
He was taking us somewhere. Somewhere beyond the academy grounds, beyond Headmistress Umbra’s enchantment.
I couldn’t leave the grounds. The last time I had, I’d been followed into a fae market. Someone out there was powerful enough to see past the obscuring magic of the pendant around my chest.
Someone with ill intent.
“We really need to stop now,” I called to Noir, staring at the approaching tree line. “Don’t be dumb, dude.”
But he was persistently dumb. The smartest horse I’d met, but in this moment the dumbest one.
We hit the tree line in a rush of leaves, and I ducked my head again to avoid a branch that would have taken the top of it off. Ahead of me, his neck reached almost straight out, carrying us forward, forward.
Toward what?
I hadn’t ever gone this far. I didn’t know what lay ahead.
And then I saw trouble. Real trouble. Several hundred feet beyond us, the forest thinned out. And past that, the ground stopped.
Only a broad expanse of sky stared back.
“I’ll give you oats,” I breathed as we barreled toward the drop, “two flakes of alfalfa. Three! If you have any love for me at all, just stop.”
He didn’t stop.
We came out of the trees, and he rushed toward what I now knew to be a cliff. And as we did, I felt an invisible wave wash over me.
Umbra’s magic.
We had reached the edge of it and passed right through it. And now we were in the wide world again, a valley spreading far, far below. It was too far a drop to even conceive of surviving.
I realized, in spite of the quartermistress’s warning, I had to dismount. It was dismount or ride this rushing horse off the edge of the world.
My eyes found the ground, pelting along so far beneath us, and I had one thought as I prepared to throw myself off.
If I break my head, this will be the stupidest way for witches to go extinct.
But I had no choice.
I took a quick, bolstering breath. Then I threw my leg over, dropping onto the racing ground and immediately hitting my knees, then my shoulder as I rolled. The momentum kept me in dizzying motion, and though I’d done my best to protect my vital parts, I’d felt a bone—multiple bones?—break as soon as I’d hit the ground.
I just didn’t know what.
When I came to a stop, I lay on my side, staring through the curtain of my hair in the direction the horse had run. My breath came fast, my heart ready to crack my ribs as it pumped.
I’d expected Noir to keep running as he had been. Instead, he came to a magnificent, skidding stop just before he reached the cliff’s edge. A plume of dirt kicked up with his hooves. As it did, he swung back around, kicking up more dirt as he trotted and snorted.
I let out a long, furious exhale as he came over to me and his nose lowered to sniff my prone body. “You,
” I breathed, “are absolutely on my shit list.”
He nibbled at my hair, completely unconcerned as I evaluated how badly I’d been hurt. Pain radiated like a living thing up through both legs, in my hands, my chest—my entire body.
I didn’t even want to conceive of sitting up.
But maybe I didn’t need to.
After a minute, footsteps sounded nearby. Quartermistress Farrow.
“Bones are broken,” I said without moving. “Mostly the ones I need for walking.”
No answer. The footsteps came to a stop behind me, a shadow falling over my frame, and Noir’s head jerked up with a snort.
“Well,” a low, baritone voice said, “I suppose there’s only one thing to do, then.”
My body went as taut as a bowstring. I forced my face to turn, to stare up between the tendrils of my hair at the face staring back down at me.
Black hair. That wide jaw. Those probing eyes.
He was the half-man, half-demon I’d seen at the gates of Hell.
My mouth opened, and the first words that came to mind were what barreled to the surface. “Get away from me, demon.”
He stared down at me, black eyebrows arching. “Demon?” One side of his lips lifted. “I’ve been called worse.”
My instincts kicked in. My hands went to the ground, leveraging me to a half-seat to scoot away from him. Fresh pain surged through me, and I let out a tight-lipped groan as my eyes fell to my legs.
The left calf had a strange, sickening bend to it.
My eyes flew back up, a new hit of adrenaline masking the agony I should feel. “You’re him,” I said. “Lucian.”
He remained where he stood, the afternoon light illuminating all the planes of his body. He was just as I remembered: wide-shouldered under his black robes, back as straight as an exclamation point, that deep voice full of intrigue and a bit of mirth.
And yet he didn’t repel light.
He stood in it wholly lit, wholly visible, with that same unperturbed half-smile. “You’re sure about that.”
I snatched a handful of dirt, threw it up at his face. He took a step back, and it sailed to the ground like brown snow between us. “Don’t screw with me,” I growled.
And yet he wasn’t attacking me. He wasn’t trying to grab me.
A thought eked its way into my mind: You only saw Lucian in the dark. You saw him for a few seconds. Maybe it isn’t him.
I swallowed, scrabbling a few inches farther away as he lowered to a crouch, fingers touching the ground. Noir’s head bumped my shoulder, and my fingers reached up unconsciously to touch the horse’s velvety chin.
The man’s eyes flicked from my broken leg up to my face. He didn’t look more than twenty-five. “That’s a hell of a horse you’ve got.”
I knew what he was doing. He was trying to make me comfortable.
He seems too nice to be the demon.
Shut up, I instructed the logical voice inside me.
No strange man out here was safe. At least I had the horse. He would defend me if I needed it.
And Quartermistress Farrow was coming…wasn’t she? It was possible she’d lost me entirely; I didn’t hear Siren in the woods.
I ignored the man, trying to find a grip along Noir’s leg I could use to stand. I tried once, and the horse remained steadfast as I managed to lift myself about six inches off the ground before pain stabbed through my wrist.
I fell back with a groan, rubbing the hurt wrist.
The man remained crouched where he was, watching me. “You’re not going to get back on that leg.”
I cut a glare at him. “You don’t know what I can do.”
His eyes danced with my anger. “You’re right about that.”
I’d already refocused on using Noir’s body to stand. If I could just stand, I could limp back. “You can leave now.”
He didn’t respond. I didn’t hear him move, either. But when I tried again—and failed—to stand, my eyes tracked back to where he’d been.
The young man had risen, swiping dirt from his hands. He had begun to turn away, in the direction of the academy. “I admire your pluck, as little as it serves you right now.”
I went still, staring at his back as irritation stirred in my chest. At the blue-black hair hanging to thick waves at mid-neck. At the cut of his profile. Perhaps not a demon. A small wave of desperation had floated over me at the thought of him leaving.
“Who are you?” I called.
He stopped, face half-turning. “Maeve Umbra’s newest hire.”
Color me stunned. “You’re a teacher?”
He gave a short nod, otherwise unmoving.
I bit back all my rudeness and sarcasm, all the anger the pain was sending through me. “You’re not the demon, then.”
When he turned back around, a wind had kicked up over the cliffside, blowing my hair my face, and his away from his head. Through the moving veil of my hair, he stood simple and tall and solid. “Do you want my help, or don’t you?”
My lips pursed. He was as to-the-point as me, which I hated. I supposed that explained why I had so much trouble getting along with myself. “Yes,” I said in a low, nearly inaudible voice.
He didn’t move. “I thought I heard a bird’s call on the wind. Or was that you?”
Now I was beyond irritation. I threw both hands out toward my broken leg. “What does it look like?” Then, “Yes. Yes, I want your help!”
I could have sworn he smirked, but I didn’t get a chance to confirm before he strode forward, cutting a straight line toward me.
“Be careful,” I said as he approached, “the horse will…”
But one of his hands was already going out to Noir, who I’d expected to startle at his sudden movements.
Instead, the horse’s head came toward his outstretched hand, the nostrils widening as they sniffed. He didn’t seem bothered at all; Noir’s tail flicked once, and he nickered.
“You’re the best of them, aren’t you?” the man said in a low, gravelly voice, his hand coming to rest on Noir’s cheek. His fingers separated as he cast an admiring stroke up the black coat and toward the mane. “None better.”
I stared up at the two of them. At my wild, unbroken horse who only responded well to me, but stood taller, prouder, an absolute gentleman before this man.
Who the hell was this guy?
Now his gaze shifted down to me, and a chill pooled from my stomach up into my chest and through all four limbs. I shivered with it. “Let’s get you back,” he said.
Before I could respond, he stepped forward, bent to send one arm behind my back, the other under the crook of my knees. He lifted me up in a single wordless motion, and just like that, we were face to face.
Here was where I would object, would demand he put me down.
That was the Clementine I knew. The backbiter. The Spitfire.
Except no words came out, and for as much as I wanted to think I was silent because of pain or shock, I knew it wasn’t that.
Those dark eyes were overwhelming. They made me feel exposed to the point of looking away.
But I didn’t. I forced myself to stare back for the half-second he gazed at me, and then, as my hand settled over his shoulders, he turned to carry me back toward the academy.
Chapter Two
He didn’t hold me like a demon. His fingers didn’t dig into my legs. His arm around my back felt firm and secure and also not totally misplaced. The pain, once near-on agonizing, had dulled a bit.
As he walked us into the trees and shadow, I glanced over his shoulder. Behind us, Noir had already fallen into a slow, head-bobbing walk. He didn’t even need to be coaxed.
That wasn’t my horse. He had never acted like that.
And, too, I never acted like this. The intimacy of this moment—being carried by this man like a bride through the forest, my black stallion following behind—stoppered my throat. It was antithetical to everything about me.
I wasn’t meant to be carried.
&nb
sp; I wasn’t meant to be worried after.
I wasn’t meant to be this woman.
So why wasn’t I objecting?
Maybe you like it, a voice said. Maybe it isn’t the worst.
I shunted that thought right out of my head as soon as it cropped up. I replaced it with another, more adversarial one. “How did you get here, anyway?” I said with faint accusation, finally forcing my eyes onto his face in profile.
He stared ahead as he walked. “The veil.”
“But”—I gestured in the direction we were headed—“the leyline is that way. Not by the cliff.”
I didn’t have an ounce of Sherlock Holmes in my voice. Not one ounce.
Maybe half an ounce.
“Is that so?” A tinge of amusement tugged at his mouth. “You should tell the leyline that.”
My eyes narrowed. “So you’re saying it runs past the cliff.”
He didn’t respond, by which I could sense he meant, The answer’s obvious enough.
Through it all, the lingering question of whether he was a demon was still on my mind. But I knew it would be answered in a moment. We were about to pass through Umbra’s enchantment and enter the academy grounds. If he had ill intent toward me, the magic wouldn’t let him through. If his allegiance was to the Shade and darkness, it would repel him.
We came to the place in the forest where I had felt the magic wash over me the first time. As we did, I prepared myself for what would come next—maybe he would stop hard. Maybe he would drop me. Maybe carrying me was all an inexplicable bluff.