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

by S. W. Clarke

  Jericho shook his head a little. “Let me know if you want to participate in the trials, Clem. I can help you prepare.”

  “Sure.” I took two steps back, already searching out my escape. And I found it in Aidan’s face as he emerged from the infirmary. “See you.”

  Jericho raised a hand in goodbye.

  When I got to Aidan, I stood stock-still in front of him with my hands on my hips. “You weren’t in your dorm.”

  His eyes were lidded; he looked a little confused. “I went for a check-up. Nurse Neverwink is convinced I’m going to suddenly burst into blue flames.”

  I wanted to hug him. I wanted to thank him for what he’d done for me, his secret be damned.

  Instead, I swallowed. “I need to do something. Just give me a second.”

  He waited as I turned around and tried to conjure another plate of rolls. “Clem, I have class.”

  “It’ll just be one second.” Come on, Clem. This is your time to shine. I snapped my fingers, and a plate of them appeared…but they looked like they’d all been melted. Cinnamon swirled like soup throughout.

  “Clem,” Aidan said.

  I turned around with the plate, extended it to him.

  He stared at it, then me. “What is this?”

  “It’s your fruit basket. The closest I could get.”

  He sighed, his face softening. When he accepted the plate, he didn’t seem to know what to say. There was, after all, so much to say.

  “Can I walk you to class?” I offered.

  “Okay,” he said, and we started walking as he held the plate of melted rolls. “Clem…”

  “Your fire is blue,” I said, keeping my voice low enough not to catch anyone else’s ear.

  He glanced around us. “Yes.”

  “Well, that’s cool. I’ve heard it’s called everflame.”

  He nodded, face turned down—whether in thought or shame, I couldn’t tell. “It’s a rare genetic trait in our family. Hasn’t surfaced in generations. Funny that I’d be the unlucky one.”

  Did I mishear? “You’re the lucky one, Aidan.”

  “No.” He shook his head, but didn’t say anything more.

  “So, about that everflame—”

  And then, just like the conversational ninja he was, he turned it all back on me before I could finish. “Clem, I’ve been thinking.”

  He never interrupted me. This was an anomaly—a big one; I noted it, let it go...for now. I used a finger to scoop some melted roll off his plate. “I don’t like when you describe thinking like that.”

  He stopped, turned to me. “After class, we need to talk about the prophecy.”

  The library. It seemed to be Aidan and Clementine’s habitat whenever we were together. Not that I minded; of all places, Aidan seemed most comfortable here, most himself. It was here that he finally seemed to loosen up after his guardedness this morning.

  This time, we took a secluded table on the second story. The nice thing about afternoons in the library: nobody was alert enough to stay awake. Downstairs, one fae slept with her cheek on her open book. An elegant stream of drool glistened onto the page.

  “I’ve been reading,” Aidan said around the pile of books between us. He’d gathered all of them from the Room of the Ancients.

  I leaned past the pile. “When did you have time to read?”

  “In the infirmary. When you’re bedbound, your choices are to read or sleep.”

  “Fair enough.” I sat back, arms folding. I had been dreading this conversation all day, even though it was the exact one I needed to have. “So…?”

  He prefaced with a big sigh. Then he pushed his glasses up his nose. “I have bad news.”

  “What about the good news?”

  He blinked. “Good news?”

  “You know, the saying goes, ‘I have good news and bad news.’”

  “Well, I don’t have any good news.”

  Aidan the bookworm. Aidan the straight shooter. I couldn’t fault him for the latter.

  “I found the book my grandmother showed us at her house,” he said. “It’s in the Room of the Ancients—just under a different name.”

  I sat up. “The same one with the prophecy?”

  “The same one.” He lifted the book, flipped it open on the table between us. As usual, the writing was inscrutable to me, courtesy of the fae. “I spent hours thinking about this prophecy, Clementine. And I know why my grandmother believed it was about you.”

  I lifted my eyebrows for him to go on.

  He turned to the next page, and I sucked in air through my nose as I stared at the illustration before us. “That’s the key,” I said.

  He slid the book around for me to see it right side up. “This illustration is how the prophet described the liar’s key.”

  I reached into my pocket, pulled the key out. When I set it on the page next to the illustration, the square head was the same. The double-pronged ends were the same. And, most damning of all, the etching on its face was identical: a spiral toward the center.

  He and I met eyes across the table. There was no question, no denying it now. The key I held was the liar’s key.

  This was the first piece of Backbiter.

  “And,” he said, bringing the book back to his side of the table, “It talks about the next piece, too.” Aidan read aloud about the cheater’s rod, which was supposed to slot together with the key. “Apparently a great mage hid it after the Battle of the Ages.”

  “Hid it where?”

  “A place the fae called the ‘Endless Labyrinth.’” His brow furrowed. “But I’ve never heard of such a place.”

  “Does it say where the labyrinth is?”

  He shook his head. “No. There’s some line here about it being hidden.”

  “So the rod is hidden in the hidden labyrinth.”

  He set both hands on the table in semi-defeat. “Yes.”

  “Eva’s a fae. Maybe she’ll know something.”

  He scrutinized me. “I thought you’d take this much worse than you are.”

  “Why?”

  “Because this prophecy’s about you. You are the one who wields flame. You are the one who will defeat the Shade.”

  Not going to. Not supposed to. Will. Will defeat the Shade.

  His belief sent fresh chills through me.

  I tapped my fingers on the table. “Truth be told, I’ve been considering this prophecy ever since the day you took me to see Grandma North. And for the first day, I wanted to run as far from it as I could. God knows I’m no hero.”

  “And after that?”

  “Second day I had mixed feelings.”

  Aidan’s eyebrows rose.

  “And by the third day, I’d basically come to terms with it. I can’t control what some drugged-up mage saw in a vision five hundred years ago. If it’s me, it’s me.”

  I may have left out the panic attack in the shower, remembering the formalists. The steel container. The lightning rods. Farina North’s burning, covetous stare as she declared me the one to defeat the Shade.

  But I never mentioned the panic attacks. Not to anyone.

  “Huh.” He looked impressed. Then he pulled out his phone and began tapping away.

  I waited with lidded eyes. “Rude.”

  “Sorry. I’m texting Eva to come meet us.”

  When Eva arrived fifteen minutes later, she flew straight up to the second story, landing on the balls of her toes before our table. “What’s up?”

  I pointed at the book, and Aidan slid it around to face her. “Do you know anything about the Endless Labyrinth?”

  Eva’s eyebrows drew together as she leaned over the book. I imagined Faerish was her native language, and that was confirmed when she laughed. “It doesn’t say ‘endless,’ Aidan.”

  Aidan’s cheeks turned faintly pink as he glanced at me. “I’ve only been studying it for a couple years.”

  A couple years and he was fluent in Faerish? I couldn’t show my shock; I didn’t want his ego getti
ng outsized.

  “This is talking about the Boundless Labyrinth,” Eva said. “If you make it to the third round of the guardian trials, I’ve heard that’s where Umbra sends you.”

  The guardian trials.

  My knees banged the table as I shot upright. Downstairs, the sleeping fae woke up with a flurry of wings. “How do you know that, Eva?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “Torsten told me. And Liara told him. And Jericho told her. So basically, a guardian told me.”

  The deceiver’s rod was in the labyrinth.

  Only Aidan and I really knew what this meant. As soon as we met eyes, understanding settled between us. If I wanted to fulfill this prophecy, I’d need to enter the guardian trials so I could get into the Boundless Labyrinth and find the deceiver’s rod.

  But I couldn’t help thinking it was strange that the rod was hidden in the exact place where Umbra sent potential guardians to complete their trial.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  I lobbed the fireball at Aidan. “But if I go after the deceiver’s rod, aren’t I going even farther down the wrong path?”

  He caught the fireball and lobbed it back to me in one motion. Around us, the common room lay empty. “How so?”

  I juggled the ball between both hands. “The liar’s key. The deceiver’s rod. What did you say the last two pieces were called?”

  “The cursed chain and the thief’s blade.” He nodded at the fireball. “Going to throw it back?”

  I tossed it to him. “Yeah, those. So in theory, I’m going to have to do bad things to assemble the whole weapon. Probably things the Shade did to become the Shade.”

  “Huh.” He swirled the fire around his back, threw it toward me. “Probably.”

  “And that doesn’t concern you?”

  “Why would it?”

  I pointed a finger at my face, even as I caught the ball. “Fire witch here, destined to be bad.”

  He shrugged. “I know you, Clementine. You’re not bad.”

  I divided the fire into two balls, lobbed them simultaneously at Aidan. “Maybe not now. It’s supposed to corrupt me, and lying, cheating, cursing, and stealing won’t help.”

  He caught both balls, then conjured a third. He began juggling them with surprising skill. “That’s why you have me and Eva. And your familiar.”

  “You seem drastically less concerned than me, which doesn’t happen very often in my life.”

  He allowed all three balls to fall into one hand, where they reformed into a single flame. “And you don’t know why?”

  “Should I?”

  His lips curled at one edge. “You’ve already decided, Clementine.” He overhand-threw the flame to me.

  I had to skip two steps left to catch it. “Decided what?”

  “To enter the guardian trials. To find the rod.”

  I stopped before I threw the flame. “I have?”

  “I could see it on your face the moment Eva identified the labyrinth. You’re entering the trials. You’re going through with it all.”

  I let the flame die out in my hand. “Nobody can read me that well. I have a stunningly good poker face.”

  “Well, I can,” he said. “When you’re deliberating, your eyes unfocus. When you’re present, your eyes are always moving.”

  Huh. I’d need to work on that tell.

  I leaned against the table behind me. “Even if I were to enter the trials, I don’t know if I want to be a guardian.”

  Aidan fixed me with a look of skepticism. But he said, “This isn’t about being a guardian, Clem. It’s about getting the piece of the weapon. You can forfeit being a guardian after that.”

  Fair enough. But was what I’d said about my indecision actually true, or was it typical reluctant Clementine, never wanting to play kickball?

  What if I did want to be a guardian?

  “Okay,” I said. “But the book didn’t say anything about where in the labyrinth the rod is hidden.”

  “I know you’ve got more gumption than that, Cole.” Aidan began packing up his satchel. “Get access to the Room of the Ancients. Start researching. I’ll do the same.”

  He was right, of course. I’d been lazy and relied on him to this point. But instead of admitting that, I jerked my chin at him. “Where are you going?”

  “Class. Anyway, it’s almost noon. Professor Rathmore will be here soon for your lesson.”

  I groaned. “Can’t you just smuggle me into your bag? I’d rather be stuck in your moldy leather satchel for an hour than train with him.”

  “Moldy?” Aidan straightened, slinging it over his shoulder. “I’ll have you know I clean my bag twice a month. More than you do yours, I’ll bet.”

  Well, he wasn’t wrong.

  I folded my arms. “Go on, then. Don’t need you drooling over Rathmore when he gets here.”

  He half-smiled as he started toward the door. “It’s already mid-September. Pass Milonakis’s test and start getting ready for the labyrinth.”

  I waved him off. “Yes, Pop.”

  As he left me alone, I knew he was right. About everything. I had already decided to enter the trials, to retrieve the rod. Why?

  Three reasons. Alone, they came clear into my mind.

  One, I’d spent too many nights of my short adult life staring at the sky and hoping my life would mean something more than living in the past while doing odd jobs that hardly paid the bills.

  Two, Lucian the demon had mentioned my little sister, Tamzin. And while I wondered now if I’d imagined it, I knew the only way to uncover the truth was to get closer to the Shade. Maybe Tamzin was out there still, somewhere.

  And three, I wanted to prove everyone wrong—not just the mages at the academy, and not just the formalists, but the foster families who had only looked at my record and passed me over.

  I wasn’t the evil witch they thought I was. And if it took assembling this weapon and going into the depths of Hell to defeat the Shade, I would show the world that one fire witch had it in her to be incorruptible.

  Unwavering.

  Good.

  “You’re sweating.”

  I jerked upright. Rathmore stood not far off, and I hadn’t even heard him come in. He glared at me with unwavering, unashamed scrutiny. Perfectly leonine.

  I swiped sweat from my temple, rubbed it off on my skirt. “I was practicing control with Aidan.”

  Rathmore unclipped his cloak, hung it on the rod near the entrance. Today, he swiped his hair back into a tie.

  My lip curled when his defined jaw came into view. He didn’t deserve to have pleasant features; he ought to be ogreish and ungainly. But, of course, he wasn’t, like nature had recognized the need to counteract his suckiness with physical symmetry.

  All week we’d been practicing the same thing as we’d practiced the previous week: I attacked him with my fire, and he evaded. I still hadn’t gotten a single hit in on him.

  But that wasn’t the point, he’d told me. The point was the Spitfire.

  Maybe that was the point for him.

  “Aidan,” Rathmore said. “He saved you at Farina North’s home.”

  My eyebrows went up. “Seems nothing’s a secret with Umbra. Except, of course, everything that would be important for me to know.”

  He almost chuckled, turned his face away to hide it. “You were practicing control?” He took two steps to the middle of the room, turned around with hands clasped behind his back in a particularly brutal display of how little threat I posed. “Show me your control, fire witch.”

  He was a master of getting my blood up. All he had to do was give me that look and I could feel the Spitfire’s head uncurl from its slumber.

  As usual, Callum Rathmore had called it from deep inside me.

  Minutes later, fire poured through the room, obliterated my sight of him. I took step after step closer, the whole room a furnace around me. It was hard to tell whether I cared about hurting him, burning him.

  The Spitfire certainly didn’t.

&n
bsp; Rathmore cleared the fire cleared around himself in a single swipe, his dark shape coming into sweltering view. “Control, Cole,” he repeated. “Remember yourself.”

  Fuck that. I leapt at him, crashing down with a fiery fist.

  He dodged, dancing left with ease. “Remember—”

  With a roar, I spun. Rushed him with the Spitfire’s inelegant impulsiveness.

  And, as per usual, he stepped aside before I could touch him. I ended up ramming into the wall.

  He stood four feet off, sweat running down his temples and neck. His breathing fast through his nose. “You’re not trying, Cole. You’re letting your anger at me determine your entire state of being.”

  I growled at him, stalking forward. He wasn’t wrong; Rational Clem felt like a far-off being, floating at the bottom of a dark tunnel. The body we both inhabited had become the Spitfire’s domain, and it took no prisoners.

  It was getting more powerful every time I used it.

  His eyes narrowed. “You’re disappointing me.”

  Flames burst to life up my arms, across my chest. The ire those words inspired in Rational Clem intermixed with the Spitfire’s undiluted anger—a combustive mixture.

  When I ran at him again, he sent out a wave of flame that caught me in the chest, sent me to the floor. I landed hard, felt it only dimly through the adrenaline.

  Rathmore came forward, stood above me as tall as a building piercing the sky. When he knelt, he paused, studying my face. “The Spitfire owns you because you allow it to. Maybe you enjoy it. Why?”

  My breath came fast, my lip curling. I swiped out at him, predictably missed as he jerked his head back.

  “It’s more than the raw power,” he said. “It’s something from your past that made you want its power.”

  From the bottom of the dark tunnel, Rational Clem’s eyes widened. Heat filled my cheeks—embarrassment and anger. He dared to plumb my past, and even worse, he’d dared correctly.

  And, strange enough, the Spitfire receded just a little.

  Rathmore noticed. “What happened to you, Cole?”

  He wasn’t supposed to do this.

  He was supposed to teach me to use fire.

  This wasn’t part of the agreement.