by S. W. Clarke
“Sure.” I picked up my satchel, swept it over my shoulder. “I’ve got class. “Next summer we can go to Dover, if the offer still stands.”
“It’ll still stand.” Aidan gathered up his books. “And Clem?”
I paused, glanced back.
“Any progress on the labyrinth?”
I sighed. Between the two of us, my job had been to research the Boundless Labyrinth—everything I could learn about it. But most importantly, I needed to know where the deceiver’s rod was hidden.
And I still didn’t have a clue.
“I’ll take that sigh as a no,” Aidan said.
“A defeated, reluctant no—but yeah, it’s a no.”
Aidan stood with his books. “By the time you get to the third trial, we’ll make sure you know how to get the rod. Maybe Jericho’s researcher friend will tell us something.”
“What about you?” I said.
“What about me?”
I tilted my head. “It would be nice to have someone with everflame watching my back in those trials.”
He shook his head. “I’m sorry, Clementine.”
I really had to get to class. But before I left, I had one question. “Do you want to be a guardian, Aidan?”
He considered this from behind his stack of books. Then, after a time, his brow furrowed. “Truth is, Clem, I don’t know if I’m cut out for life outside a library. For being…the thing inside me. You remember how I arrived late the first day of the school year?”
I nodded.
“I had been training,” he admitted. “Trying to use my everflame. I ended up setting my whole back yard on fire, and it took hours for the local water mages to put it out. My family dog even got some of his fur singed off. That’s why I was late. It was just like that day in the village, fighting the formalists.”
I sucked in air through my nose. So that explained his rare tardiness the first day of school. “I may know a thing or two about what you’re dealing with, Aidan.”
His brows raised, his face dubious.
I had never told him about the Spitfire. It had always been an embarrassment, something to push back down after my anger subsided.
But now Rathmore was teaching me to cultivate it. To control it. And it was only after several months that I’d begun to realize I felt less shame about the Spitfire than I ever had.
It was part of me. Part of my power.
And Aidan and I had more in common than he knew. His ability was part of him. His grandmother had described his power as a rare gift. A gift. Except it had been coupled with a lifetime of doubt, probably imposed on him because he wasn’t the kind of guy you imagined wielding everflame.
He wasn’t fiery. He wasn’t quick to anger. He was cerebral and thoughtful.
But that made him a perfect bearer of the gift he’d been given. Power, I was learning, was best left in the hands of the people who were slowest to take advantage of it.
Where did that leave me?
I scuffed my boot over the ground. “There’s an anger inside me, Aidan. When I was younger, I gave it a name. It felt like it deserved that—it felt like an entity unto itself.”
“What name?”
I kept my eyes on my boot, kept it moving over the ground. “Spitfire. I was thirteen and dramatic, and the name stuck around.”
He laughed softly. Then, “Mine has a name, too.”
Now I lifted my eyes. “The everflame has a name?”
He nodded, and silence fell.
“Well,” I said, “aren’t you going to tell me?”
He stood, gathered up his books. “Nope.”
I threw out my hands. “Seriously? I thought we were like, BFFs.”
He pushed his chair in, books and bag in his arms. We started walking out together. “That’s why I told you it has a name. I’ve never even told anyone that.”
Thinking back, Aidan really wasn’t one to share intimate details of his life. Not like Eva. He liked to talk history and meetings and research and planning. Those were the lines he’d drawn around himself, and once I recognized that, I had to respect it. I was, after all, much the same.
“If I pass the trials, then will you tell me?” I asked as we came out of the library.
He laughed as we passed through the circulation room. “Sure. Then I’ll tell you.”
Outside, I found Loki sitting atop the frozen snow with a flicking tail. “About time.”
“Forgive me, my lord, for my lateness.” I bent over, reaching out. “Want a ride?”
He didn’t answer; he just allowed me to pick him up. Together, we parted ways with Aidan and started toward the common room. Rathmore had asked me to bring him, and I had gotten my familiar to begrudgingly agree.
As I came into the common room, I set Loki down, my blood already heating in anticipation of my lesson with Rathmore.
There he stood with hands clasped behind his back, eyes on me for the first time since the ball. No hello, no words about the dance we’d shared. No—he only lifted his hand. From it, a column of fire shot straight toward me.
I grabbed Loki, thrust the both of us against the wall to avoid the flames. When they stopped, I turned around. I was untouched; after a lifetime of fire being bad, it was easy to forget it didn’t hurt here. Still. “What the hell, Rathmore?”
His hand lowered. “Your familiar is your protector. That’s good.”
In my arms, Loki shimmered, heat rising off him. His claws were digging into my jacket, his tail as bushy as a raccoon’s. And he was growling at Rathmore long and low like he would attack him if the man stepped a foot nearer.
“Beloved cat here,” I said. “None of this is good. I’d prefer he not end up traumatized.”
Rathmore looked unapologetic. “He’s your familiar, not your cat. And you told me what you wanted, Clementine.”
Power.
I’d said I wanted power.
But not like this…
“Put me down,” Loki said.
I did so.
The cat’s back arched, his whole body cast in a red flame as he faced down Rathmore. He didn’t say anything else, but his growl didn’t stop. He was ready to cut a bitch, six foot five or no.
For his part, Rathmore looked on with a grim smile. “You’re lucky he’s so loyal. A powerful one, too.”
I threw out my hands. “He’s pissed. You tried to burn him. And me.”
Rathmore’s eyes flicked up. “You cannot be burned on academy grounds. Nor can your familiar. The only fire that has any power here is yours.” He stared me down, as though willing me to give up my secrets. In my pocket, the liar’s key felt like a lead weight.
I still didn’t know if he’d felt it in my dress when we’d danced.
I just folded my arms. “You’re terrible at introducing yourself.”
“That was an introduction?” Loki said, back still arched.
Rathmore smothered a laugh, managed to keep his face serious. “I needed to test his loyalty to you. And his connection.”
“Connection?” I said.
He nodded at my clenched fists. I unfolded my arms, realized my cheeks and neck were heated. Adrenaline had flared through my system, and Loki palpated with it in the red flames surrounding him even now. “He’s connected to your power. Why do you think a familiar would ever pair with a witch, anyway?”
I shrugged. “Because we feed them regularly.”
“But let’s be real here: you never did buy the good stuff,” Loki said through a tight throat, the flames dying down as my own anger dissipated.
I glared at him, but before I could snark back, Rathmore raised a finger. “You do feed them, in more than one way.” He nodded at Loki. “Blast the cat with your fire.”
“Go to hell,” I said.
His eyes gleamed with an unspoken answer. Instead, he said, “Trust me.”
“I don’t like the guy,” Loki said, “but he’s right on this point. You can trust him.”
When I lifted my hand, I extended a singl
e finger. From it I shot the tiniest spritz of fire with half-shut eyes. Instead of catching on Loki’s fur and burning him, it caught—and spread around him, enveloping him in an armor of flame.
He glowed with it, his body twice as large with the outline of fire. His shadow seemed to grow larger on the wall, even as he remained the same size.
“That’s your power, Cole,” Rathmore said. “A fire witch’s power.”
For the first time since I’d started training with Rathmore, a small smile found its way onto my face. I lifted my eyes to him. The faintest pleasure graced his features as he gazed back at me. “I can share my magic with him any time I want.”
He inclined his chin.
Loki flicked his flaming tail. “Ahh, so this is what it feels like. Now I have the power.”
I uncurled my fingers, sent out a larger wave of flame toward my familiar. This took as easily as the first, and his flame-shadow grew twice as large, the fire licking as high as my waist.
Energized, Loki began a frenetic lap around the common room, his claws digging into the carpet to manage the turns, the flames swirling around him. “More,” he crowed.
Rathmore folded his arms, turning a slow circle to watch. “Your familiar is…”
“Yeah,” I said to whatever word he was about to use. Wild, insane, crazy. “Trust me, I know.”
Across the room, Loki lowered to his belly. His butt started wiggling as he stared at me with enormous pupils.
That was the targeting wiggle. The prey-spotted wiggle.
I pointed at him. “Do not do it.”
Rathmore glanced at me over his shoulder, mouth upturning. It felt like the first moment of real connection between us. Again, I noted how his face changed entirely when he smiled. “You’re going to have to fight me together, the two of you.”
I lowered my hand. “Figured as much. Well, how do you want it, Rathmore?”
His eyebrows rose. “Excuse me?”
I widened my stance. “You’re about to be double-teamed by the last fire witch in the world and her familiar. Pain may ensue, and I’m asking how you want it.”
He stared at me for a beat, and then, in the most surprising turn I’d ever experienced, he burst into laughter. Rich, deep, infectious laughter. Laughter so tempting I had a hard time resisting.
One hand found his chest, and he shook his head.
I straightened, threw my hands out. “Oh, come on. You’re shredding my ego.”
Rathmore wiped tears from his eyes, turned to Loki. Jerked his thumb back toward me. “You didn’t pick that one for her fighting words, did you?”
Loki’s flame had died down. He leapt onto the back of the couch, perched atop it with a flicking tail. “Most definitely not.”
I pointed at Rathmore. “You’re going to ask me what Loki said, and I’m not going to tell you.”
He turned around, eyebrows lowering. “I don’t need to. I understood him well enough.”
My heart palpated. “Only I can understand him.”
Rathmore gestured to Loki’s flicking tail. “The tail always tells the tale.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Winter recess arrived, and with it, a mission.
It was already the afternoon of the last day of classes, and Eva, Aidan, Jericho, Loki, and I were standing in the clearing with our bags. Correction: I didn’t have a bag. I was the only one not going home.
But I was going on a day trip to Lafayette, Indiana.
“You’re sure about this, Clem?” Aidan said for the third time. Then, before I could answer, “What’d Umbra say?”
“Umbra didn’t say. She told me long ago she can’t stop me from making my own choices.”
Aidan ran a hand over his forehead. “This whole thing is making me perspire. The formalists might twig you.”
“Twig me in Lafayette, Indiana?” I said with my skeptical eyebrow raised.
“She has a point,” Eva said. “Nobody will be looking for Clementine in such a place.”
I pulled my hair back, tied it into a bun. “First rule of being sneaky: if you have big hair, make it small. Instantly a different person. See?” I turned in a circle.
“Wow, that is uncanny,” Aidan said.
I patted my pocket. “Anyway, I’d stay here, but the thing doesn’t leave my side. The only way to test it is for me to meet Jericho’s gamer friend.”
“Terry,” Jericho said, backing his way toward the leyline. “Once again, his name’s Terry.”
“Could he be named any better?” I said as we started walking. “Terry the gamer.”
Jericho turned to face forward. “He’s a good guy. Just intense.”
“I for one am dying to see Indiana,” Eva said, hitching her small backpack up. “Do you know I’ve never seen a cornstalk?”
“You’ll be dying to leave it after an hour. Prepare for corn and flatness,” Jericho said in a monotone. “Lots of flatness.”
Once we were outside the grounds, Jericho parted the veil with one perfect cut from six feet up, straight down to the earth. He was a guardian, after all.
We stepped out onto the roof of a parking garage overlooking a college campus. And into deep snow. Eva was most of the way to her knees in it when she waded through the veil.
“Huh,” I said as I stepped through with Loki in my arms. “That’s interesting.”
“What is?” Jericho said.
“The cold.” I touched my cheek. “It feels like it’s trying to eat my face.”
“Oh, that. Yeah, winters here are what we like to call ‘maliciously cold.’”
Aidan and Eva were clinging to each other. “C-can we get inside?” Eva asked. “I’m about to lose a wing.”
“Can fae wings get frostbite?” I asked as we descended the staircase.
Eva turned a solemn face to me. “Oh yes. It’s quite easy, given their delicateness.”
Huh. Things you never think about when you’re a human.
We crossed the street and came onto the campus, which bustled with students between classes. The buildings were low and brown, the windows reminiscent of the 1970s prison-style of architecture.
“Just charming,” Loki said in my arms. “Defying all my expectations of Indiana.”
I laughed. “Loki says he likes it.”
Jericho led us to a place labeled the Neil Armstrong Science Building. Inside, we passed various classrooms and labs, until we arrived at the end of the first-floor hall. When he opened a door, he stopped me with a hand on my shoulder. Nodded at Loki. “Sorry—I don’t think they’ll let the cat into the lab.”
Loki sighed. “Always a bridesmaid, never a bride.”
I let him down to the tiled floor. “Take a cat nap. We’ll be back soon.”
“Oh, because there are so many soft places to sleep here.” He wandered off, tail upright, and disappeared around a corner. Knowing Loki, I’d probably find him inside a vending machine when we came out.
Inside, the lab was empty. All sorts of fancy gadgetry lined the countertops and walls, including the biggest microscope I’d ever seen.
I swept a hand out. “So, where’s Terry the gamer?”
“Here.” A back door opened, and out came a gangly twenty-something in goggles, his curly blond hair overgrown into a mop. He came at us in a power-walk, stopped with folded arms. “‘Terry the gamer.’ So very complimentary. Jericho’s doing, I presume.”
Jericho raised both palms to chest level. “I said nothing.”
Terry’s blue eyes surveyed us. “I’m Terry. Terrence.” His hand went out to Aidan for a shake. “And you?”
Formal, awkward, insecure, probably smart as a whip and wholly bound up in it. I had Terry’s number.
Aidan shook hands, introduced himself. As did I.
When Eva turned toward Terry, his eyes got wide. His hand hovered as he froze in the open-mouthed pose of a young man meeting a young woman so beautiful his brain’s neurons cease firing.
Then he blurted, “You’re a fae.”
/> Eva had already fixed him with her killer smile. Her hand found his. “Evanora Whitewillow.”
He shook her hand with both of his. “Oh, very good. That’s beautiful. Evanora Whitewillow, an exquisite name. You are so fragile and fine-boned and perfect.”
She blushed, smiled, her hand still being shaken by both of his. I wondered if she could extract her fingers without throat-chopping him with her free hand.
Jericho clearly couldn’t take the awkwardness; he came around, threw his arm over Terry’s shoulders. “Terry here was the only reason I survived high school. Remember raiding the Frozen Throne? And we beat it with you, a ret pally for a tank.”
Terry laughed, easing up. The two of them reminisced a few minutes, an odd couple who had an unexpected easy way with each other.
I glanced at Aidan and Eva, who watched on. You just never knew who your people would be.
A few minutes later, Terry appeared directly in front of me. “So, where’s the supposed orichalcum?”
I took a step back. “Uh, in my pocket.”
He gestured with flapping hands. “Bring it out.” When I did, his eyes got wide and delighted. “Oh, it does look like the right material. How exciting—I’ve never had the chance to work with real orichalcum.”
He brought me over to a microscope, gently took the key from my hand. He set his goggles atop his head, brought out a pair of glasses. He held the key up to the fluorescent light, turning it slowly.
I watched as he did this for some time. Finally, I said, “So, you have a degree in Magical Elements.”
“Yes.” He didn’t stop inspecting the key. When he turned to me, he was uncomfortably close. “May I scrape a tiny sample?”
“Scrape?” I echoed softly.
He pinched his fingers together in the air. “An infinitesimal amount. For study.”
I sighed, gestured for him to do what he needed to do.
Terry grinned, proceeded to scrape the key over a slide until tiny particles of it collected on the clear surface. Then, with shaking care, he placed the slide’s top on and came forward to the microscope, placed it under the lens.
All went silent as he turned the knob, his face pressed to the eye piece.
“You have a degree in Magical Elements,” I said, “but you’re here on a regular human campus. In a regular lab.”