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

by S. W. Clarke

  I didn’t answer, only smiled a moment.

  She leaned toward me, her cupid’s bow of a mouth turning up. “I know you’ll give them hell—Callum’s told me stories.”

  “Oh.” My eyebrow went up, eyes sliding to Rathmore. “About our lessons.”

  She nodded, curls bouncing in that elegant fae way. Frostwish glanced up at Rathmore. “Shall we?”

  Callum’s gaze flicked to her. Back to me. Hardened. “Goodnight, Cole. Ora’s right, of course. You’ll do fine.”

  “Sure, I’ll do fine. That’s the goal—fine,” I blurted as they passed around me toward the doors.

  As the two of them departed together, I watched while draining my mead until my goblet was nearly upturned.

  It burned down my throat, but it didn’t do a thing for the nettles. They still prickled in my chest, reminding me why I would always end up standing here with an empty cup, alone.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  “Your witch is an idiot,” I groaned.

  Loki fixed me with a stern glare. “Will berating yourself make you less of one?”

  I ignored him, kept my eyes fixed on the amphitheater’s stage, where Liara had just begun her duel. She was fighting a guardian from Gaia—the element she was weakest against. “I can’t read people at all.”

  Some ten feet away, Jericho sat surrounded by fellow guardians, elbows on knees, fixated on the duel. He hadn’t met eyes with me all morning, and I didn’t blame him.

  Avoiding the object of your unrequited desire was as much a protective exercise as anything.

  “Jericho will get over it,” Loki said from his seat beside me. “Focus on this.”

  Sometimes I thought I liked Loki better back when he couldn’t respond to all my day-to-day complaints.

  “All I do is focus on this.” I gestured vaguely at the scene in front of us. The earth guardian had yanked up shards of wood from the stage itself, and they flew like arrows toward her.

  If he knocked her off the stage, Liara failed. She had to knock her opponent off to win.

  Liara dodged them with effortless grace, sometimes flying, sometimes running toward the guardian. When she’d escaped the massive risk of splinters, she leapt into the air, blue lightning already sparking on her fingers.

  He tried to throw up a wall of wood, but the lightning had grown to engulf her arm. It arrowed down toward the guardian, split the wood in half and set it aflame.

  The lightning itself caught the guardian in the shoulder, sent him spinning to the floor.

  She landed on the other side of the split wall, sent another bolt of lightning at the guardian. He tumbled closer to the edge.

  “She’s ruthless,” Loki whispered.

  “Don’t I know it,” I whispered back.

  With a third bolt, the guardian rolled off the edge of the stage and landed with an inglorious thud on the ground.

  She’d won in thirty seconds.

  “This battle goes to Liara Youngblood,” Umbra said, standing and clapping in the front row. “Well done, Liara.”

  “If that’s the element she’s weakest against, I’d hate to see her fight water,” Loki murmured.

  I blew out a breath in agreement. I was just thankful I didn’t have to fight her—again. I’d already met the wrong end of her lightning, and lost my eyebrows for it. Those suckers had taken ages to regrow.

  Five minutes later, one of the professors from House Gaia had reassembled the stage, and it was time for the next duel. Nine had already taken place, and only Liara and one other student had passed.

  Umbra stood, turned to the crowd. A surprising number of students had stayed—most of the faculty and student body, actually—and the amphitheater was crowded.

  Practically all of House Whisper was seated together, and they had a chant they recited when Liara won. It sounded like Faerish to me, and it elicited the smallest smile from her as she hopped off the stage.

  Eva and Aidan sat together, out of earshot. Torsten was with them. Periodically they’d wave and smile at me, but they kept a respectful distance.

  This morning, my nerves and regret from the night before had made me entirely antisocial. I just wanted to be with my equally antisocial cat.

  “It’s ridiculous they won’t let me join the duel,” Loki said again in the chatter that followed each duel. “I’m like your third leg.”

  I grinned down at him. “So you finally acknowledge you’re one of my appendages.”

  He huffed. “I regret the analogy already.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said, “you’ll get more action than you ever wanted once we’re in that labyrinth.”

  Loki could at least accompany me in the third trial. God knew I’d need him in the dark. And if he could sniff out magic, then he would be able to smell the boggans.

  After a time, Umbra came to stand in front of the crowd, gesturing for quiet. “The next duel of the guardian trials will now begin. The combatants are Clementine Cole, and…”

  I went stiff, fixed on Umbra’s open mouth. “Please not Jericho,” I whispered. “Anyone but Jericho.”

  “Mariella Rievere,” Umbra finished.

  My mouth opened.

  “Mariella,” Umbra said into the crowd, “as you know, Clementine’s fire carries heat beyond what my enchantment can protect against. Do you still wish to duel her?”

  Mariella rose, blonde hair in a tight chignon. “Yes.”

  Next to her, Gabriel whooped a few words in French.

  “Bet you wish now it was Jericho,” Loki said up to me.

  He wasn’t wrong. Water was my weakest element. I still didn’t know how to escape Mariella’s ice shackles, much less throw her off a stage.

  “Clem,” Loki said.

  I didn’t look down. I was fixed on a random point ahead of me, my frame as rigid as a mannequin’s. “Yeah?”

  “You need to get up now, unless you want to forfeit the trial.”

  I realized I hadn’t moved in ten seconds.

  Did I want to forfeit the trial?

  No, absolutely not.

  I unclasped my cloak, allowed it to drop to the seat. “Wish me luck.”

  “You don’t need it.” Loki’s green eyes were on me when I stood up and glanced down. “You’re a witch.”

  When I came down the amphitheater steps, I passed Rathmore seated with Frostwish. I kept my eyes off him after that first glance.

  Like I said: avoiding the object of your unrequited desire is a protective exercise.

  Yes, it was true. I’d had to admit it to myself after last night.

  I desired him.

  I wanted to know what his fingers and his hands on me felt like. The feather sweep of his lips over mine. I’d wanted it since maybe the first time I’d met him.

  But the world didn’t deal in what Clementine wanted. Not unless it involved the five knuckles on my left hand and a fight. So that was what I would focus on.

  Mariella followed me up onto the stage. We stood at a distance from one another, and when I turned to face her, she had a faint, familiar smile on her face. Her hands were clasped before her.

  “Clementine Cole,” she said. “It’s an honor to duel you.”

  I couldn’t return the smile, much as I wanted to. “And you, Mariella.”

  Umbra tapped her staff on the stone floor. “Duelists, you may start when ready.”

  I lowered my chin. The second trial had begun.

  Mariella drew water from a brazier sitting nearby, set there expressly for that purpose. It floated into her upturned hands, which hovered there like she held two choices aloft—but both choices were equally bad.

  And then she didn’t move.

  I’d practiced with her dozens of times. By now I knew she favored her right hand, blinked just before she attacked, and enjoyed wearing her opponent down with walls of water.

  And yet I felt wholly outgunned.

  The ice shackles. I’d never figured out how to defeat the ice shackles.

  So don’t
get shackled, Clem.

  Flame burst into life in both my clenched hands. The power of water is the way to defeat it, I repeated to myself. Its power is its defeat.

  Mariella was my teacher. She’d taught me that, and so she remained an ethereal blonde statue, water gleaming in her hands, her eyes half-lidded and dancing.

  I had to come to her.

  “Foutre le bordel,” Gabriel cried in the silence.

  Umbra hushed him with a hard tap of her staff.

  I took a step left and forward, gauging Mariella’s response.

  She didn’t move at all, but her eyes followed.

  Another step left and forward.

  She still didn’t move.

  I couldn’t let the water touch my hands.

  I bent, swicked my hand along the floor, sending off a line of fire that shot toward her feet. That would get her moving.

  The water rushed out of her left hand, licked out like taffy along the fire, dousing it even as it came at me.

  I jerked left, evading her line of water. Ran at her with my right arm sweeping out from my body, flames cutting a half-circle through the air as they surged toward her torso.

  She danced backward, gripping the water in her left hand like a whip, flashing it sideways through the oncoming flames with a hiss. Her right hand had already yanked the water back, now swept it overhead at me like a second whip.

  I leapt forward, rolled beneath it before it came down atop me. Don’t let it touch you, Clem. When I came out of the roll, I remained low. I’d gotten close enough to shoot my foot out at her legs, and in doing so I clipped the right ankle.

  She stumbled, regained her balance before she fell. Both water whips were already swinging back around toward me.

  I rolled up to my feet, threw myself into her. Felt the sting of her whip on my back and sent my hands around her torso anyway.

  The water rose around her body, encompassing my arms. Extinguishing my flames.

  It didn’t matter now. I had a hold on her.

  Just get her off the stage, Clem. Do whatever you have to do.

  With gritted teeth, I lifted her clear off the ground—admittedly, she was waifishly thin—and prepared to throw her off the stage like I was a straight-up WWE wrestler.

  Somewhere I heard hoots and clapping. Somewhere I heard gasps.

  I took three steps to the edge of the stage for my final move. But when I went to let go, I found my arms unable to unclasp.

  They were stuck around her.

  Cold hit my fingertips like permafreeze, tendrils reaching up my wrists and arms.

  Mariella smiled down at me, her hands now on my shoulders. “If I go, we both go. What now, Clementine?”

  She’d ice-shackled me. And not just my wrists—my arms straight up to the elbows.

  She knew my secret, but she still wouldn’t give me the fight. I had to earn the right to enter the labyrinth—I had to wrest it from her.

  That was fair. That was right.

  With a yell, I struggled against the ice, but it was as firm and unforgiving as a Chinese finger trap. My strength gave out in just a few seconds, and I had no choice but to lower Mariella to the stage.

  Her eyes came to my level, and she bore a strange excitement, a thrill. “If you don’t defeat me now, that’ll be the end of it,” she whispered. “Water is more powerful than fire. You’re outmatched—except in one way.”

  “And what way is that?” I managed through a clenched jaw.

  She winked at me. “Why would I tell you that now, when you could have asked me any time all semester? No, Clementine—now I want to win.”

  The freezing continued up my arms, the water seeping over my skin. Soon it had encompassed my shoulders, my chest. My neck. Down my torso to my thighs.

  Without any real effort, Mariella simply ducked out from my frozen body, stepped a foot to the side to observe her work.

  Meanwhile, I stared out over the crowd. I found Eva and Aidan and Loki, all watching me without blinking. Eva’s hands were clapped over her mouth. I met Jericho’s unreadable brown eyes.

  And then I found Callum Rathmore.

  His arms were folded, and he was giving me the same look he’d given me in every one of our lessons. Early on I’d always taken it for judgment, disappointment, disapproval.

  But now I realized I’d been wrong all along.

  Because when I met his stormy eyes now, he nodded once, slowly at me, and I felt none of that. I only felt a silent message—an affirmation.

  Release it. Release it now.

  He was the one who’d taught me to control the creature inside me. He’d trusted that I could. And it was a dark, fraught business, not one to smile about.

  But with that nod, I knew I had one way out. One way in which I wasn’t outmatched by Mariella.

  The Spitfire.

  Mariella gave a final, quick sigh, like she wished it hadn’t ended so soon. “Don’t worry—it’s not a long fall.” And then she came forward in my periphery, one booted foot rising to kick me straight off the edge.

  But I’d already found it inside me, the angry, impulsive creature. I needed it now in this trial, just like I’d always needed it, relied on it when the world prepared to close in on me.

  And it responded. It unfurled the moment I called on it, and it came with a fury, white heat licking out from my chest, burning its way into my arms and my legs and heating my cheeks, blurring my eyesight.

  It was nearly impossible to keep a lid on. It was delicious and full of wild energy I wanted to burn alive in.

  But I was Rational Clem. I had to stay Rational Clem, or I’d lose myself in her completely.

  Oh, but the Spitfire was so fast. It’d be even faster if I wasn’t restraining it, slowing it down. Keeping it in check. Still, it was enough.

  Where Mariella’s boot should have landed, she found only the vapors of flame. The water dripped to the stage like rain as the flames consumed me. I’d spun, and now I was gripping Mariella’s arm with one hand, pressing her shoulder forward with the other.

  She dropped half-off the edge of the stage with a yell, reaching out to cling on with her free hand. When I let her go, she sent a surge of water back up at me. It evaporated on my body, hissing to nothing.

  I stepped forward, breathing hard and fast. Stay cool. Remember yourself.

  It took all my willpower to simply flick my hand at her. That was the Spitfire’s power—all it needed was one hand. The flames blew massive and wild toward her face, and Mariella had no choice but to let go of the stage, to duck away.

  She had no choice but to concede the fight.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  That day, five of us passed the second trial.

  The duels were the grand finale of the school year, the last hurrah. Most of the students and faculty left for the summer—in fact, the only ones I knew who chose to stay through the third trial were Eva and Aidan.

  Jericho chose to leave, too; when I caught him that evening with a bag over his shoulder headed off the grounds, I ran up to him and forced myself into his line of vision. He had no choice but to acknowledge me.

  “Jericho,” I said.

  He stopped. I could see the struggle behind getting his eyes to focus on mine. “Hey, Clementine.”

  “You’re not staying for the third trial.”

  His lips folded. “Whether I stay or go now is kind of inconsequential, isn’t it?”

  I wished Jericho knew how well I understood him in this moment. How I’d done this—what he was doing—before. But right now, I was on the other side of the glass. “Listen...”

  He raised a hand. “You don’t have to say nice things to me, Clementine. I don’t have hard feelings. Just raw ones. I know you’ll beat the hell out of that third trial. You’re amazing—and you reminded me why today. And that’s why I can’t stay, you know?”

  I nodded. Even if I might disagree with his assessment of me, I understood his response to it.

  “Look me up someday.” He h
alf-smiled. “If you ever want to get your ass kicked by a fire guardian.”

  I nodded dully. And then, a few minutes later, Jericho was gone.

  The grounds took on an odd quiet almost immediately, just like they had over winter recess. Loki and Eva and Aidan and I ate dinner together in the dining hall, with no one else present. Liara, Maise, and the smattering of others who would enter the third trial were around somewhere, but I hadn’t seen any of them since earlier that day.

  All through dinner, Eva and Aidan went over the ins and outs of the Boundless Labyrinth, encoding details of it into my brain.

  The goal: get the rod and get out of the labyrinth as quickly as possible.

  Don’t aggravate the boggans with too much light.

  Don’t make too much noise.

  Keep a hand on the orichalcum key as much as possible to sense when you’ve gotten close to the other piece of the weapon.

  Otherwise, let Loki guide the way.

  If you do see a boggan, hide.

  If you can’t hide, run.

  If you can’t run, fight. Make it quick and decisive.

  “Oh!” Eva added, twirling her spoon. “And demarcate the route you’ve taken so you don’t end up going in circles.”

  My eyes were lidded over my meal. After the second trial, this whole day had been an exercise in waking exhaustion. “How should I do that?”

  She shrugged. “Lots of ways to do it. Be creative.”

  “Scorch marks,” I said. “I’ll mark the ground with my fire.”

  “No,” Aidan said. “You’ll aggravate the boggans.”

  I groaned, dropping my fork onto my plate. “I think I’m going to sleep. I feel like walking death.”

  Eva turned wide eyes on me as I stood. “You’re not getting sick, are you?”

  I gave her my most patient smile. “I’m fine. Just sick of having my eyes open.”

  “More for me,” Loki said, tail upright as he hopped onto the table and began eating my meal.

  I left the three of them in the dining hall and headed through the empty grounds back toward the dorm.