Good Witches Don't Cheat (Academy of Shadowed Magic Book 2)

by S. W. Clarke

  I just stared. “Wow.”

  “What?”

  “It’s pretty clear you can’t read minds.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because that’s not what I was thinking. I wasn’t even mad anymore.”

  Her eyebrows went up. “You weren’t?”

  I shrugged. “I lied to you about the key. Call us even. Besides, you did just save my life.”

  She sighed into the chair, one hand going out to stroke Loki. “You’re my friend. There was no other real choice.”

  I sighed, watching her pet him. “But I do have questions for Umbra. Lots of them.”

  She nodded. “No doubt.”

  I gazed at Loki in my lap, at Eva’s hand stroking his head, and a realization solidified in my chest. Farina North, awful as she was, had seen through me from the moment she’d laid eyes on me.

  She’d believed I was the one from the prophecy. And beyond any other fear in my life, I was afraid she was right.

  Chapter Twenty

  When we left the infirmary, Aidan was asleep. He went on to sleep for the next three days.

  Apparently it’s tiring shooting blue flames.

  I had questions for him when he woke, ones Eva had made it clear she wasn’t in a position to answer. They were Aidan’s answers to give.

  Meanwhile, I had a bone to pick with Maeve Umbra. And who should happen to knock on my door that first evening but the very wizard I wanted to see? I knew it was her when she knocked; she tapped her staff against the door, wood knocking on wood.

  I didn’t move. Eva was out with Torsten, which was exactly what I wanted. Privacy.

  “Come in,” I said.

  When Umbra came in, I turned slowly around in my desk chair, staring her down. She would have to be the first to speak.

  “Clementine,” she said, taking in my dorm for maybe the first time. “I’ve been told what happened during your visit with Farina North today.”

  I hung one arm over my chair’s back. “Who told you?”

  Her eyes flitted to the bed, where Loki lay in a ball. “May I sit?”

  I waved a hand for her to do so.

  Umbra took a seat on the edge of the bed, her back upright. She leaned her staff against the wall and straightened her robes. “Evanora told me. And I felt the ripple of magic when Aidan shifted his form.”

  My eyebrows went up. “Good of you to come help out.”

  She folded her hands in her lap. “I’ve come to apologize.”

  “For what?” There were so, so many things, after all.

  “I asked Evanora and Aidan not to tell you about the formalists. That was a mistake.”

  Now I turned fully in my chair, full-on facing her. “They tried to put me in a steel box. They shot bolts of lightning at me. And you thought, ‘Sure, let Clementine go out into the world without knowing these people would hunt her.’”

  She sighed. “I misjudged Farina North. I didn’t believe she would ever fall to their propaganda, but I suppose their indoctrination has spread farther and more potently than I ever imagined.”

  “What propaganda?”

  Umbra gazed at the floor. “Put simply: they tell mages the world is a place to be feared. Witches are evil and must be imprisoned, or used as tools. Once abducted, mages must be put to death to stop the taint from spreading. In the past two decades, the government has become rigid and unempathetic.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Humans are a fearful species, really,” Umbra said. “Especially when we face that which we do not understand. When a dark power takes hold and grows.”

  “And that’s what began happening two decades ago.”

  She nodded once. “Yes. I suppose Eva told you.”

  “She told me some things.” I stared at her. “And you’re not aligned with them—the formalists.”

  She laughed, pulling her robes together. “Oh, no. I broke with them long ago. I suppose they would imprison me if I were to show up in Edinburgh.”

  “Edinburgh?”

  “The capital.”

  “Capital of what?”

  “Of the magical world,” Umbra said. “It’s the seat of government.”

  That was all well and good, but she still hadn’t answered my question. “I still don’t understand why…”

  Umbra lifted a hand. “Why I didn’t tell you about them?” When I nodded, she said, “I didn’t want that pain for you. I knew of your background in the foster system, Clementine, and I wanted you to feel safe here at the academy as your powers developed.”

  “You keep lying to me, Umbra.” I didn’t feel any compunctions about holding back anymore. “Why should I trust anything you say?”

  She took that one on the chin, nodding slowly. “I accept that, and I know trust is earned. I won’t ask you to trust me, Clementine, when I say that I always endeavor to do the right thing, even if that means keeping certain truths to myself until the time is right.”

  I held back a scoff. “Right for who? Not for me.”

  “For you,” she said, eyes flicking up to me. “You hold a fragile power inside you, one that could become a force for great good, or great evil. And my hope has been—and will continue to be—that your power will blossom toward goodness.”

  I swallowed. Her words felt sincere, but I didn’t have the heart right now to acknowledge it. I was still mad. “So, Aidan uses everflame. There’s another thing you kept from me.”

  “That one was not mine to tell.” Umbra stood from the bed. “But I’m very glad to know he was able to use his abilities to keep you and Evanora safe.”

  I looked up at her. She was leaving already. “Why did you even come here? Just to say you were sorry?”

  “Yes,” she said simply. “And to assure you that you are safe from the formalists here at the academy. They can’t penetrate the enchantment I’ve placed on these grounds.”

  I stood. “I can’t leave the grounds now, can I?”

  “I didn’t say such a thing.”

  “But the government wants to take me. To use me.”

  Her eyebrows went up. “Then it seems in your best interest to be cautious about your choices, child. I will never again tell you what you can and cannot do. That would be a fool’s errand.”

  Why was it that I always felt unsatisfied with Umbra? As though there was more to say, more to know, and she was always leaving me on an unfinished sentence?

  I wondered if Eva had told Umbra about the prophecy. About the key. If she hadn’t, I didn’t want to bring it up.

  “It’s time I leave you to your sleep,” she said.

  When she turned away, I took a step forward. “Headmistress.”

  She paused.

  “Did you ever hear of a prophecy delivered after the Battle of the Ages?”

  “A prophecy?” she murmured.

  “Yes. One about killing the Shade.”

  She didn’t answer at first. Then, “I suppose many prophecies have been delivered over the centuries. From time to time, mages fancy themselves soothsayers. The Shade features often in lore and legend, as you can imagine.”

  A small part of me deflated. Many prophecies had been delivered?

  “And yet,” Umbra said, “belief can often make a prophecy true.”

  I refocused on her. “What does that mean?”

  Her eyes found me over her shoulder. “I suppose it means that of many prophecies, one is likely to be right, particularly if we believe in its possibility. And if the one we choose to believe is that the Shade will die, then our belief may become prophetic, no?”

  Before I could respond, she retrieved her staff and saw herself out of the dorm.

  Had Umbra just told me I could kill the Shade if I believed hard enough?

  I went back to my classes the next day, proceeding as normal. But I couldn’t focus—not on Noir, not on tangible manipulations, not on controlling my fire magic.

  That night, I lay awake in bed. I couldn’t fall asleep for hours, my mind churning l
ike a gyre. And so it was, in the hypersensitive deep of night, I heard a familiar voice outside.

  It was a voice I never wanted to hear again.

  I sat up, lifting Loki off my chest as I did. When I got out of bed and approached the door, I wanted to imagine I’d heard it. But I couldn’t imagine anything; I heard its voice again, louder.

  The boggan.

  I opened the door, came onto the landing high up in the tree. Down there in the clearing, torchlight burned. It illuminated the faces of dozens of students and professors alike.

  They stood in a wide half-circle around four oversized bowls, each in a line. The first contained a flame, the second contained gleaming water, the third contained a pile of earth, and the fourth contained nothing at all.

  But I knew what it was. The fourth bowl was air.

  One of the twins I’d sat across from during the Summer’s End Feast stood before the bowls, looking on toward the forest. She seemed indecisive, her hands wringing together.

  Umbra nodded at her from one end, tipped her staff forward. She said something I couldn’t understand, but it must have been funny, because the boggan’s laughter emanated from the darkness.

  I rubbed the goosebumps from my bare arms, the creature’s face flashing unbidden into my mind as it leapt on me that night, throwing me into a pool of water. As it pushed me down, down.

  This was the creature that sorted students into their houses. Apparently you reverted to your true nature in its presence, and reached for the element in your heart—or something equally saccharine.

  I couldn’t remember now; I’d blocked out most of it.

  As it emerged from the forest, it kept to the shadows, darting with the same kind of freneticism as it spoke. I remembered long teeth, claws instead of nails, its audible sniffing as it came close to me in that cave.

  “The induction,” a voice said beside me.

  I jumped, found Eva standing on my right. “I nearly fell off the landing.”

  “That would have been a dark irony,” she said, her eyes on the students below. “Saving your life only to kill you by surprising you.”

  “Nah,” I said, returning my attention to the proceedings. “You would have flown after me.”

  “True.” She folded her arms against the cold. “It looks scarier than it is, you know.”

  I had never told Eva about my experience with the boggan. It was too terrible, too painful. And I wasn’t going to now, either.

  Down in the clearing, the girl reached into the bowl of water, scooping it up with both hands. When the boggan neared, she flung it at the creature, who cackled and darted away.

  “Good,” I heard it say. “Good, good. This one to Crest.”

  The students cheered, and Umbra nodded as the girl passed back into the semi-circle with dripping hands.

  It was that simple. A pleasant experience, even.

  “The fae aren’t sorted,” I said to Eva. “You’re all in Whisper, aren’t you?”

  “It’s true. But we’re still tested by the boggan, in a way.”

  Now that I was looking, I did see a few fae in the bunch. “Why?”

  “If we don’t have the proper affinity for air—the magical chops, so to speak—we aren’t allowed to stay at the academy.”

  I looked at her. “Eva.”

  “Hmm?” She didn’t take her eyes off the students below.

  “That prophecy Farina North was talking about…”

  Now her eyes lifted to me. “What about it?”

  “She thought I was the one the prophecy spoke of.”

  Eva nodded, her purple hair gleaming in the torchlight from below.

  “Do you?” I asked.

  She turned to me in full, arms still crossed against the cold. “To be honest, Clementine, I don’t know. I’ve thought about it, you know, and…I just don’t know.” She paused. “But Aidan will.”

  “When he wakes up,” I said.

  “When he wakes up.”

  I turned away from the sorting, away from the boggan. Eva walked with me back into the dorm. “You know,” I said, “I probably ought to bring him something nice for saving my life and all.”

  “That’s kind of you.”

  I sat down on the bed. “I’m not sleepy.”

  She sighed, sitting on hers. “Me either, to be honest. I couldn’t fall asleep.”

  Loki groaned, tucking his face into his paws. “I’d love to sleep.”

  I jerked a thumb at him. “We have to whisper,” I whispered.

  Eva nodded, patting the bed beside her. I came over to sit on it with her, and I whispered, “What do you know about summoning fruit baskets?”

  She giggled. “What?”

  “Fruit baskets.” I stared, dead serious. “Do you summon them?”

  “Well, sure. Oh! I could teach you to summon the fae sweet rolls you ate at my house during winter recess. I’ve never met a human or fae who didn’t like them.”

  I blew out my cheeks. “Hell yeah. But you do know you’re committing me to a lifetime of obesity if you teach me this power.”

  She grinned. “Someday, Clementine, you’re going to be in a tight spot. I don’t know when, and I don’t know where, but you’ll say to yourself, ‘Damn, I’m glad I can summon some of Eva’s rolls.’”

  My mouth opened. “You just cursed.”

  “That’s how good they are.”

  As we practiced in whispers through the night, and I conjured everything from crumbs to unrisen dough, I was able to forget about the boggan. About the formalists. About the prophecy.

  I could just pretend for a little while that we lived in a different world. A softer world, full of sugar and dough. I could pretend this was all that mattered, and finally, finally, the gyre in my head slowed.

  Eventually we slept. Eventually we woke, and it was in the clear-eyed early morning that I went to visit Aidan.

  He and I needed to have a chat over some sweet rolls.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  When I knocked on Aidan’s door, no one answered.

  “Well, damn.” I turned, holding the platter of rolls like a waitress. Eva had taught me to conjure these, but she hadn’t taught me to un-conjure them. She’d managed to whisk all my failed creations away last night, but I was too focused on making them to care about un-making them.

  Now I was going to have to eat these. This was the first day of my descent into my inevitable insulin resistance.

  When I came down the staircase around the tree, I did spot a face I’d been wanting to see. “Jericho,” I called.

  He stopped, one hand going to the strap of the satchel on his shoulder. He didn’t move, didn’t speak.

  As I came closer, his face remained impassive, stony. His skin didn’t show any evidence of the burns I’d given him. But I could see it written into his expression.

  I came to a stop in front of him. “You look…good.”

  His eyes darted around the clearing, came back to me. “Thanks.”

  “This is for you.” I extended the tray to him. “They’re sweet. They’re fae. They’re rolls.”

  He took it with uncertainty. “I can see that. Why?”

  “Would you prefer a fruit basket? I’ll be able to make those soon, too.”

  “No. I just… Why are you giving me this?”

  I circled a hand over my face. “You know, for what happened.” For what I did. Why couldn’t you just say that?

  He gazed down at the rolls. Then up at me. “Clem, do you remember how we first met?”

  “Sure. You spooked me and I fell off Noir in the stables.” I inwardly winced after I’d said it; that didn’t come off the way I’d meant it. Apologies were hard.

  “Right. I spooked you.” He paused, and then, without preamble, “Do you ever intend to become a guardian?”

  “Maybe. At some point.” Truth was, I had a lot more to worry about right now than becoming a guardian.

  He tilted his head a degree. “Well, you should.”

  T
hat was unexpected.

  “And it’s not something you commit to half-heartedly,” he went on. “When you decide, you go in full bore. The trials will test you, Clementine—and not just your power, your ability to shove your hand in someone’s face.”

  This time I outwardly winced. I did deserve it, though.

  “They’ll test your patience,” he went on. “The trials will at times test your ability to be calm, centered, thoughtful. You’ll need to be rational. You’ll need to keep your head on.”

  I knew where he was going with this.

  It wasn’t enough just to give him a plate of rolls and an apology.

  It wasn’t enough to tell him he looked good.

  “I get it, Jericho.” I reached out, lightly placed my hand on his arm. “I know I’m a hothead. I’ll probably die someday to spontaneous combustion. That’ll make for a hell of an epitaph.”

  He finally cracked a half-smile. “It’s also your greatest strength. Now that my face has stopped hurting, I’ll admit you’ve got more potential than just about anybody I’ve met here.”

  My eyes traveled the clearing, which had just now come to life with a few students drifting blearily toward the dining hall for breakfast. “Why me?” I said to him.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why should I be a guardian?”

  He lifted the rolls a few inches between us. “Because of this.”

  “I can conjure dessert?”

  Now he full-on smiled. “You care—and not just a little. You could have avoided me for the rest of the school year, and then I’d have graduated. The hardest thing of all is to come back to the person you’ve hurt and own up to it.”

  I’d spent so many years trying not to show anything but anger or boredom. Those were my two friends, and I wielded them well enough to keep any vulnerability far, far away. Even now, I could feel them wanting to step in. To admit I cared about people was a violation of the rules of survival. To admit I cared about people meant I’d be hurt by their loss.

  It meant they could abandon me.

  “Well,” I said after a pause, “let me know what you think of the rolls. They’re a special fae recipe.”