by S. W. Clarke
Rathmore listened with scrutinizing intensity, his face flickering with almost pained emotion when I got to the bit about ending up at the gates of Hell. “And?”
“I escaped by parting the veil. And from that day on, the key was bound to me. This year, I learned about a prophecy.”
“Which prophecy?” he said in a husky voice.
I paused. Then, in one quick breath, “That one who wields fire would reassemble the weapon and descend into Hell to defeat the Shade.”
He exhaled, his arms uncrossing. A conflict seemed to war over his face, an internal battle in the span of a few seconds. I expected him to doubt me, to berate me for everything I’d done, to tell me I was ridiculous.
Instead, when the conflict ended, he only met my eyes with complete empathy. His face had changed, eyebrows lifting, lips softening. “I’m sorry for what happened to you that night. You must have been terrified.”
And just like that, emotion thickened my throat. I forced it back, but a new recognition entered me.
Jane Eyre lay open in the living room.
He had described her as her own master.
She was indomitable.
This man was no misogynist. He wasn’t godawful like I’d painted him to be.
Beneath my urgency and anxiety, a warmth had begun pooling in my core. My heart had tumbled over itself again the moment I’d spun to find him there. My breathing had quickened.
And I began to suspect I didn’t hate Callum Rathmore. Not at all.
“Thank you,” I breathed.
He hadn’t moved an inch, though the space between us didn’t seem so wide anymore. Or maybe I didn’t want it to be.
“Cole,” he said, “did you come for that key because you intend to fulfill the prophecy?”
At first I didn’t answer; that familiar old reluctance hung around my head. But because truth was my only path, I said, “I don’t intend to. I will fulfill it. I have to.”
“Why?” he said. “You’re only twenty. You have your whole life, and if you go down that path, it might kill you. The Shade—and her army—are powerful. Dangerous. She’s practically unkillable.”
“Practically,” I repeated. “But not totally.”
I knew I hadn’t answered his question. I knew he wouldn’t let me have the key until I did.
“You used to have an ambition,” I said. “You wanted to kill the Shade, stop the darkness. Stop her army. Don’t you still?”
His Adam’s apple moved in his throat, a deep and inexplicable storm cloud passing over his brow. He screwed up his mouth, dropped his gaze to the floor. I could see his jaw working, flexing. Finally, he said, “Yes. More than anything.”
For the first time, he’d broken eye contact with me. I’d touched a chord, though I still didn’t understand the full sound of it. Why was the chord so powerful, and what noise did it make inside him?
He had his own secrets. And he wasn’t willing to share them.
“I’m going to kill the Shade,” I said around a stone in my throat, “because it would break my heart to lose the people I love. My mother and sister went missing almost ten years ago, but if they’re still alive, I want to protect them. I couldn’t bear to think of them taken by the darkness.”
He went on staring at the ground. Silence elapsed, and when I didn’t think he would answer at all, he said, “Do you know, I read that prophecy when I was a boy. I thought… I thought it was about me. I thought I was the one who was meant to kill the Shade.”
So he’d known about the prophecy all along. “Maybe you are,” I said. “You were able to take the key from me.”
He shook his head, eyes lifting, burning into mine with ferocious intensity. “No—it’s yours. It’s absolutely, irrevocably yours. Even if I had the power to hold it for a time, the key originally came to you.”
We gazed at one another for a long while. Until finally, in a soft, vibrating voice so low it sent tremors through my chest, he said, “I’ll teach you to ride. I’ll teach you the art.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
“Clementine, let go of him,” Rathmore called from the center of the ring. “Do it now.”
“I’m bareback.” I kept both hands wound up in Noir’s mane as he cantered along the fence line, staring straight ahead. “You try riding hands-free while bareback.”
“I have. Lots.” I could hear his frustration even from atop a fast-moving horse, even over the wind in my ears. “Remember what I told you about the thighs. About melding your movements with his.”
I didn’t let go; I’d be damned if I was going to trust my thighs to keep me on a cantering horse.
In the three weeks since he’d agreed to teach me fire riding, my relationship with Rathmore hadn’t changed on the surface. He was still all folded arms and severe scrutinizing and apparent judgment. We still bickered most every lesson.
And yet everything had changed.
The severity was different—not tempered, but to a purpose. The folded arms were a sign of his focus. When he gave me an instruction, I knew it was to make me a better rider.
The man who stood at the center of the ring watching me ride wasn’t the same man who’d watched me try to wield fire. This man knew my secret, and because of that, he’d chosen to help me.
I’d managed in the past three weeks to ride without my hands at a walk, and even at a trot. But a canter? This was the most important gait, besides the gallop. I had to be able to free up my hands at a canter and a gallop in order to use the fire.
“Clementine,” Rathmore said in a low voice, “our time’s almost up. Just once. Do it once.”
I knew he didn’t just mean today’s session. He meant our time before the trials.
One week. One week left, and I still hadn’t even gotten past this step.
As Noir came around the bend, I unwound the fingers of my left hand from Noir’s mane. When they came free, they felt rigid, ached as I unflexed them. With slow care, I set my hand at the small of my back.
“Good,” he called out. “Now the other one.”
My other hand loosened, and I forced it to a hover off Noir’s neck. Right away, the whole world came unstable—all of my ability to stay on his back came down to my connection to his movements.
I had to meld myself to him, to shift my weight as his canter shifted his own weight. That required sitting more or less upright.
And yet I remained in a low crouch, jostling along with my right hand still hovering, gripping with my thighs until I thought the muscles would fatigue to nothing.
I’d definitely be in agony tonight.
“He’s got a rocking horse canter, Clementine,” Rathmore called out. “Did you have a rocking horse as a girl?”
I ignored him. I didn’t have a rocking horse, and right now, I didn’t want to imagine anything but not breaking my neck.
It happened first in small increments, my body coming only microscopically dislodged from the seat. And then, the longer he cantered, the more I bounced. I couldn’t seem to regain my coordination with his gait, and finally—just before I lost my balance and slid off—I thrust my hands back into Noir’s mane.
Afterward, while I wiped the horse down, Rathmore stood at the stall door. “It’s an improvement.”
I slid my hand down Noir’s leg, and he picked up the hoof automatically. I began picking away at the dirt entrenched underneath. “Don’t try to make me feel better. I know I’m not making enough progress.”
Rathmore leaned against the half-door, forearms resting atop it. “Please—I’d never shine you on. I was stating a fact.”
I let Noir’s hoof go, moved on to the next one. “I haven’t even summoned fire yet.”
From the corner of my eye, I spotted his black hair trailing low as he shook his head. “Do you know how long it took me to learn the art?”
“Your fangirls would say an hour. Maybe less.”
He chuckled. “I don’t have fangirls.”
I straightened, gestured with the pick to
ward the outer wall of the barn. “I can bet you at least one of them’s lurking outside right now.”
Rathmore’s eyes trailed that direction, then flicked back to me. He wasn’t willing to take that bet. “They have the wrong impression.”
“And what’s the right impression?”
He ran a hand through his hair. “I failed so many times. Once broke my femur falling off a horse.”
I flinched. “Did the illustrious Callum Rathmore shrug it off?”
“The illustrious Callum Rathmore lay in the dirt and tried to hold back tears. He didn’t succeed.”
The barest flicker of a smile touched my face.
He didn’t miss it. “Is that schadenfreude?”
I turned away, moved on to the next hoof. It was too difficult to explain my pleasure at his vulnerability. That was what had made me smile. “So how long did it take you?”
“Three years.”
I pretended not to be stunned, dismayed. I went on cleaning the hoof. “So why are you teaching it to me now, if there isn’t time to learn it?”
“Because even if you can’t properly use it next week, it’ll serve you long after the trials are over. What you learn here will serve you for the rest of your life.”
However long or short that might be, I thought but didn’t say.
“Do you think I can learn it faster than three years?” I asked.
“Yes, I do.” I sensed if I’d looked up, he would be staring at me. “I think you can learn it much faster than that.”
When I finished the last hoof and turned to him, I was right: his eyes were dark pools on my face. “Can I master it in a week?” I asked.
A grim determination touched his mouth. “No. But you might be able to get the basics.”
He didn’t shine me on. He told it like it was.
That would have to be enough for me. I nodded, went on with my work. At some point Rathmore left me alone in the barn, and I took Noir’s head between my hands.
“We have one week,” I whispered. “And then it’ll be showtime.”
The next day, Loki and I came into the clearing at noon exactly. Already fifty students had gathered in a line inside the amphitheater. I recognized Liara’s black hair in the middle of the line, and Eva and Aidan at the end of it.
“Why do I have to be woken for bureaucratic nonsense?” Loki complained as we walked.
“Because you’re technically an entrant, too,” I said. “Even if you won’t be in the first trial.”
He only gave an aggrieved sigh and said no more.
When I came up behind Eva and Aidan, I popped Aidan on the shoulder. “I thought you weren’t entering.”
He rubbed his shoulder. “I’m not. I’m here for student ambassador moral support.”
Eva looked like she would be sick. She turned to me. “This is it.”
I threw an arm around her shoulders. “Not thinking about backing out now, are you?”
“Gods no. We’re in this together,” she said, sagging under my arm. “But I may have to find some bushes to gag into before we get to the front.”
I squeezed her shoulder. “You do what you have to do, and I’ll hold your spot in the meantime.”
When we arrived at the front of the line, one of the guardians—a fifth-year I recognized from House Gaia—glanced down at me, then at Loki from his cross-legged seat on the stage. He held an open journal and a pen in one hand. “Clementine Cole,” he said. “And cat.”
It was strange that he knew my name, and I didn’t know his. “That’s right. And my familiar’s name is Loki Cole.”
The guardian evaluated me and Loki a second longer, then scribbled something in the book. “Welcome to the guardian trials, Clementine and cat. The first one will begin in the meadow next Saturday at eleven. If you’re late, you’ll be disqualified.”
“Sure,” I said.
“If you’re not riding a horse, you’ll be disqualified.”
I nodded.
“If you cheat or in any other way attempt to operate outside the rules of the trial, you’ll be disqualified.”
I tilted my head at him. “How about if I were a dark, nasty fire witch? Would that disqualify me?”
He got the hint and avoided my eyes out of something like embarrassment. A moment later he waved me off, went on to registering Eva.
It was official: Loki and I were entered.
That afternoon, I was able to go hands-free on Noir’s back while he cantered. The day after that, we attempted a gallop—with no success. A gallop was a smoother gait than a canter, but I had to get used to that kind of speed. The third and fourth days were the same.
It was on the fifth day Rathmore began teaching me to summon flame while riding. “Why didn’t you just start with that?” I said as I encouraged Noir in a circle around him.
“Because you have to be completely confident on the horse,” he said, turning in a circle with me, hands behind his back. “You have to have an absolute connection.”
“And why’s that?”
“Because the flame won’t just consume you, Clementine—it’ll consume your mount, too.”
I brought Noir to a stop, stared down at Rathmore. “Consume him?”
“You and he—you’ll become faster, lighter. Practically untouchable, if you do it right. You’ll be practically a single creature of flame.”
“That sounds…painful for the horse.”
“No. It’s only possible when you bear such a connection with the animal that he can feed off your magic. He’ll be impervious to your flames.”
Noir stamped as I considered what he’d said. “You said I’ll be consumed, too.”
Rathmore nodded. “Completely.”
Now I understood why this was considered a dark art.
The fire had always been an extension of me, an outcropping. But what would it feel like if it took over my body, heart and head and brain?
I could only think of the Spitfire, the uncontrolled, impulsive creature inside me. The fury I felt when it unleashed itself.
“The fire is what corrupts,” I said, realizing it even as I spoke. “Fire is a corrupting element.”
“For some. Witches are particularly susceptible. But they’re also known for allowing themselves to be consumed by flame.”
“Which is why fire riding is dangerous to any mage.”
His straight line of a mouth told me I’d guessed correctly.
And I wondered, gazing down at Callum Rathmore, whether he’d been at all corrupted by the fire. Whether he knew himself well enough to stave off its influence.
Noir danced under me, wanting to move, move, move as we had been for so many months when we were together. I swung his head back around as he began trotting toward the fence line. “Tell me what I have to do, and I’ll do it.”
“You have to let yourself go, Clementine,” Rathmore said, stepping toward me. “Completely.”
“If I let myself go, the Spitfire emerges.”
“Does it, though? Have you ever let yourself go without being furious?”
I didn’t know the distinction. What did it mean to let yourself go without being angry enough to do so? But I felt strange asking; it seemed like it should be an obvious thing, something a functional human being should know how to do.
Unsurprisingly, I wasn’t able to do much more than conjure the flames in my free hands as I rode. Not that day, and not the following day.
No matter how much Rathmore talked about “letting go,” it didn’t make a difference. I couldn’t let go without being angry, without letting the Spitfire out. And so we parted on the day before the trials with him saying to me, “Clementine, you don’t need fire riding to pass the trial. You just have to be smart and fast.”
“Sure,” I said, hardly seeing him. “Sure.”
Inside, I felt like the world’s greatest failure of a witch.
That night—the night before the trials—I fell into a feverish state for hours, sitting at my desk and attempting to fi
nish my manipulations to the cloak. I only had a little bit left, and then it would be done.
When Eva leaned against my desk and asked how it was going, I only grunted. Soon she floated off to her own things, and I was left alone to my obsessive misery.
That is, until Loki came and sat on the cloak and stared at me.
I kept working anyway.
He meowed.
“What is it?” I said without stopping.
“You need to sleep.”
“After I finish this.”
He set one paw atop my hand. “You’ll have time before the trials start tomorrow. Now sleep before the witching hour, please.”
And what else could you do when your cat set his toe beans on the back of your hand? You did exactly as that cat asked.
I lay in bed with my cat as little spoon, my eyes open in the night for a timeless stretch. Tomorrow. My chance at the deceiver’s rod began tomorrow.
Chapter Forty
On a mid-May morning, I rode Noir through the academy grounds along the path to the meadow, and into the stark brightness of the day.
All morning I’d been hearing Eva and Aidan’s voices in my head, coaching me. Only slow when you have cover. If you’re chased, use terrain to your advantage. Don’t ever dismount until the trial’s over.
Weeks ago, Eva and I had plotted out our strategy for this trial. Three hiding spots. I kept hearing her voice say, If you hide well enough, you’ll barely have to run at all. It’s not about bravado, Clementine. It’s about smarts.
Rathmore had told me something similar.
But as I came out from the tree line and into the open, their voices quieted. I only had one objective, and I knew it well:
Don’t get caught. Not ever.
As I rode Noir through the meadow, I spotted most of the student body in the same makeshift stands I’d sat in last spring. Aidan was among them, his glasses glinting in the sunlight. He raised a hand as I came close. Beside him sat Loki, and then Jericho, and beside him, Torsten.