Sin blinked in puzzlement over the druidess’s odd pause. “Thank you.”
“What do you think about the weirdness with the werewolves?” I asked. “How they had those creepy wounds and were bigger and stronger than usual?”
“Tobias was telling me about that.” Josephine glanced at the forest. “It could be a particularly powerful strain of wolf spirit, or … yes, I know!”
I rocked back on my heels, startled by her exclamation. “Sorry?”
“My apologies. The shifters’ unusual attributes could also have been caused by tampering.”
“Tampering?”
She nodded. “Though rare, it happens more than we’d like. It’s often misguided altruism—someone trying to suppress the fae or afford the shifter more control. I wish I could stay and—Niavv, would you be quiet!”
Sin and I started.
Josephine shot a glare over her shoulder, then smiled apologetically at us. “It’s just my familiar. He’s extremely talkative. As I was saying, I’d like to help investigate, but I need to return home. The timing of all this is troublesome for me, but when Tobias calls in a favor …” She shrugged.
“As long as I’m fae-free before you go,” Sin said.
“You will be.”
“Um …” I hesitated. “Can I ask an unrelated question?”
The druidess arched an eyebrow curiously. “Of course. Ask away.”
It was a mere curiosity, but it had been nagging at me. “Have you ever heard of the Wolfsbane Druid?”
As I asked the question, a fae’s baritone echoed in my memory. How much of the Wolfsbane Druid’s collection did you steal when you killed him?
All of it, a human voice, raspy and rumbly, had answered. At the time, I’d been deep in the woods of Stanley Park, where we’d just summoned a big ugly darkfae in an attempt to reverse my accidental bond with a sea serpent of doom. It’d been a fun week.
I hadn’t spoken to Zak since he went into hiding over three months ago, but I couldn’t forget his voice—or his odd conversation with the darkfae.
“Ah, the Wolfsbane.” Josephine bobbed her head. “A notorious dark druid. Originally from eastern Europe, I believe, and among the most powerful of this century, with a cadre of truly awful fae at his beck and call. He was—yes, I was about to tell them he’s dead, Niavv. He was universally feared among druids, the good and the bad alike. We were all relieved to hear that he’d died.”
“He was … killed?” I ventured.
“Yes, almost a decade ago. By his own apprentice, according to the rumors.”
The ground tilted under me.
“That’s a risk all dark druids take, considering their methods.” She eyed me with unexpected amusement. “Why do you ask? Most witches I’ve met don’t care to understand anything about druids.”
My brain buzzed blankly. Huh?
Lucky for me, Sin was way more on the ball than I was. “How do you know Tori is a witch?”
Josephine’s amusement deepened. “Well, her familiar brand, for starters.”
I looked at my arm, hidden by my jacket sleeve. Even without clothing in the way, the intricate design, which had originally shimmered in pink and blue, had long since faded to a near-invisible shadow. However Josephine could detect the marking, it wasn’t with regular ol’ eyeball vision.
“Druids are badass,” I said baldly. “You’re cool as hell in my books.”
Surprised, she flashed a pleased grin, then glanced at the sky.
“It’s time,” she announced, pushing her sleeves up in a businesslike manner. Her inner forearms were tattooed with rows of circles, and a colorful fae marking filled each ring. “Follow me, Sin.”
Oh, so the tattoo thing wasn’t restricted to dark druids.
With a nervous smile, Sin handed me her blanket and followed the druidess. As she limped wearily across the grass, I slung the blanket over my shoulder and backtracked to join the guys.
“How’s Sin?” Aaron asked, a note of anxiety betraying his guilt.
“Ready to get this over with.”
Kai, watching the final preparations, nodded sympathetically. “Josephine is a powerful druidess. She’ll get it done.”
A murmuring voice floated from the group of alumni. “Can you really call a druid powerful?”
My hackles rose and I whirled on the group, unsure who’d spoken. “Meaning what, exactly?”
A dark-haired woman shrugged. “All of a druid’s ‘power’ is given to them by fae, so, really, it’s the fae that are powerful, not the druids. Druids, on their own, can’t do anything.”
“By that standard, Arcana users are powerless too,” someone else pointed out with mock disbelief. “In fact, that would mean the only mythics with real power are mages and psychics.”
The alumni laughed as though the suggestion that mages and psychics had anything in common was preposterous—and to my unpleasant surprise, Aaron let out a small snort too.
“Our guild has psychics,” I reminded him stiffly, “who are important parts of our combat teams. You’ve asked Drew, Bryce, and Taye more than once to help you with tough jobs.”
“Of course. They have valuable skills.” Aaron shrugged. “But on the power scale, psychics can’t compare to mages.”
“Oh really?” I snapped, losing hold of my temper. “That’s news to me, because I distinctly remember a mentalist kidnapping you right out of our guild.”
The alumni let out a chorus of taunting oohs.
Aaron stiffened. “That only happened because of you.”
I inhaled sharply—then Kai and Ezra stepped in front of me, blocking my view of Aaron and the alumni group. Aaron didn’t move but the other mages shifted back, too wary of Kai to challenge him.
“The exorcism is starting,” Ezra murmured.
Breathing harshly through my nose, I turned my back on Aaron and the alumni. Sin had taken a position in Josephine’s circle, facing the fire and its coiling white smoke. Across from her, the druidess had begun to chant. Shimmering ripples revealed her familiar a few feet away.
Josephine’s low voice rolled across the lawn. A puff of smoke rose from one of the piles of herbs around the perimeter. Not breaking her chant, she flung powder into the fire. The flames turned blue and the air grew heavy as power rose from the earth. Quiet energy buzzed from my feet up into my chest, making my skin itch. Kai and Ezra shifted uncomfortably, feeling it too.
Sin sat stiffly in the circle, watching the fire dance. A greenish glow washed across her. As the haze emanating from her skin brightened, wisps of reddish power flickered through the green—the same eerie miasma that had leaked from the mutant werewolves.
Josephine’s chant stuttered. She recovered quickly and gestured to her shimmering familiar. The air rippled, and suddenly, the familiar was no longer invisible.
He appeared in mid-step, prowling the perimeter of the circle. Human-like, with long, pale purple hair that flowed around him. Pointed ears framed a beautiful, androgynous face, and his robes flowed over his slender body in shades of gray and silver, the silky ties trailing after him.
The glow radiating from Sin thickened, darkened, writhed. It gathered above her back and head like a shadow, twisting like flames. Rippling like … like fur.
The eerie light had a shape: thick ruff, long muzzle, pointed ears. A phantom wolf hunched above Sin, head and torso rising out of her back, the rest of its ghostly body inside her.
Still chanting, Josephine picked up a wooden bucket at her feet. Her familiar stopped behind Sin, and faint magic glimmered across his long fingers.
“Luna, lunae carmen, tuam ad lucem tuos voca liberos!” the druidess cried out, upending the bucket over the fire. Water plunged over the flames, extinguishing them in a billow of smoke.
Sin screamed.
The wolfish phantom writhed, its semitransparent jaws gaping in a silent snarl. Silvery threads leaped from the fae familiar’s hands and embedded into the phantom wolf like fishhooks. The fae braced his feet and p
ulled.
Another agonized scream ripped from Sin’s throat. She and the phantom wolf convulsed. Swirls of pinkish-red miasma stained the air as the phantom clung to its host.
I didn’t realize I’d jumped forward until Kai grabbed my arms.
“Keep pulling, Niavv,” Josephine cried.
The fae looped the magical rope around his forearms and lunged backward. The phantom jerked—but so did Sin. She collapsed onto her back, limbs twitching. Miasma boiled out of the spirit, engulfing her in the cloud.
“Stop!” Josephine ran around the circle as her familiar let the magic threads go slack. “This isn’t working.”
The fae opened his hands and the threads dissolved. As the phantom wolf sank into Sin’s body, her skin glowed in a hideous rainbow of green, pink, and red before the light faded.
I wrenched free from Kai and charged toward the druidess, the guys right behind me.
“What happened?” I demanded.
“The exorcism failed.” Josephine’s mouth flattened into a thin line, then she stepped into the circle to kneel beside Sin, who was sprawled on her back, breathing fast but otherwise unmoving. “Even with Niavv’s help, the spirit is too strong to dislodge—not without risking Sin’s life.”
I glanced at her familiar. His eyes, bright and pupilless like smooth opals, turned to me, then his form faded into shimmers. Huh, okay. Not so talkative after all.
“Too strong?” Aaron growled. “But exorcisms always work, don’t they? As long as they’re completed before the full moon?”
“I’ve never failed before.” Josephine looked past us. “We need your healer back out here, Tobias. Sin is unconscious.”
I looked over my shoulder. Tobias and Valerie stood beside Kai and Ezra. At the druidess’s words, Valerie turned and ran toward the academy, as strong and fast as any of the alumni despite her designer clothes.
Josephine rose again and I took her place, kneeling beside Sin. I held her hand, sick with helplessness. Her skin was chilled and a strange odor clung to her—earth and musk, but with a sweet undertone, like cherry syrup.
“Why did the exorcism fail?” Tobias asked, his expression sternly bleak.
“The spirit is too strong,” the druidess repeated. “Did you see the tainted aural colors? That isn’t normal. Whatever change the shifters in the woods have undergone, it’s been passed to Sin through the infection. An exorcism alone can’t remove the spirit.”
“Then what?” Aaron barked. “You’re just giving up? Leaving her to turn into a mutant werewolf?”
“Of course she isn’t giving up,” Tobias cut in. “Josephine, do you know how the shifters were altered?”
She glanced at the shimmer of her familiar, listening. “Niavv is certain it’s neither fae magic nor druidry. Only Arcana has the power to fundamentally alter nature like this.”
Tobias nodded. “Transmutation Arcana. I can have an expert here first thing in the morning to examine Sin.”
“I need to return home,” Josephine said. “The moment you have answers, I’ll be back. Sin must be successfully exorcised before the full moon, or there will be no saving her.”
My hand tightened around Sin’s limp fingers. Silence spread between the mythics, and I voiced the question no one else was asking. “When is the full moon?”
The druidess looked up at the overcast sky, the darkness unbroken and the moon hidden.
“Friday night,” she answered grimly.
Dread pierced me. We only had three nights to find the answers that would save Sin.
Chapter Twelve
Steel-gray clouds hung ominously low as I entered the academy building with Ezra at my side. Like me, he hadn’t managed to leap out of bed at the literal crack of dawn. We’d both been slow to get dressed, though his excuse was much better than mine. Dark circles marred the skin under his eyes.
The infirmary was located in an auxiliary wing of the academy. As I rounded the final corner, I spotted Aaron, Kai, Lily, and another guy loitering in the corridor. Lily wrung her hands together, her face pale and eyes huge.
The stranger was around my age, with sandy blond hair and a nice tan. He was tall, but slim and weak-looking with Aaron and Kai next to him, an impression not helped by the two bulging satchels weighing him down. A wooden trunk sat at his feet.
As I drew closer, recognition pinged through me. That dude wasn’t a complete stranger—he was the apprentice from the apothecary, though he looked paler than I remembered.
“Brian, right?” I said. “Does this mean Kelvin Compton the Super Alchemist is Tobias’s transmutation expert?”
“Kelvin is an exceptional alchemist,” Aaron replied tersely, his arms folded and feet set as though he was about to leap into action. “He does guest lectures several times a year on different alchemy topics relevant to student training.”
I almost retorted that, according to him and his alumni buddies, Arcana mythics didn’t have “real power,” but I restrained myself. Aaron’s attention was on the infirmary door and he was the palest among us—though, for a ginger, that wasn’t saying much. His jaw flexed, his anxious concern for Sin palpable.
Since everyone was standing out here, I assumed we weren’t allowed in while Kelvin examined Sin. So we waited. For nearly ten minutes, we stood in almost complete silence. No one felt all that chatty.
The infirmary door opened. Tobias walked out, followed by a hulking, bearded Kelvin. He was carrying another satchel, which he tossed to Brian with barely a glance. His apprentice caught it awkwardly, fumbling the strap, and hooked it over his shoulder with the others.
“The shifter spirit possessing Sin has been transmutated,” Kelvin announced as though expecting a chorus of shocked gasps. “I would guess alchemically, though I can’t be certain.”
“Can you save Sin?” Lily demanded.
Kelvin glanced at the girl but spoke to Tobias. “If you’d asked me yesterday if a shifter spirit could be altered, I would’ve said no. This is—” He gave his head a sharp shake. “This is uncharted magic. To pinpoint the exact nature and method of transmutation, I need a tissue sample from an affected shifter. How quickly can you capture one?”
“Give us a couple of hours,” Aaron answered before his father could. “Does it need to be alive?”
“No.”
Aaron nodded, then jerked his head at Kai and Ezra. Without waiting for a response, he strode toward the door. Tobias called after his son, but Aaron didn’t stop, Kai and Ezra following close behind.
Scrambling into motion, I trotted down the hall and squeezed between Kai and Ezra, matching their strides. “Are we going shifter hunting?”
“Yep,” Aaron answered shortly.
“First, we’ll gear up,” Kai added. “Tori, you—”
“I’m coming!” I interrupted fiercely. “Don’t even think about—”
“I was going to say you should bring your potion arsenal.”
“Oh.” My aim still sucked, but I could hit a giant wolf. Probably. “What’s the plan?”
“Find shifters. Kill shifters.” Aaron paused at the academy doors, his eyes blazing with determination. “Sin only has two days, and we don’t know how long Compton will take to do his part. We’re getting this done fast.”
Again, he didn’t wait for a response before shoving through the doors like a steamroller. Nerves prickled through me. Aaron could be … impulsive. Kai and Ezra were the smart, cautious ones who always reined him in, but this time around, I doubted anything short of chains and padlocks would slow Aaron down.
* * *
It was raining again. The worst kind of rain—icy cold, pouring in sheets, whipped into our faces by a spiteful wind. If it’d been a few degrees colder, it would’ve been a blizzard.
Aaron had set a punishing pace through the forest, leading us past the spot where the original attack had occurred, then on to where Kai and Ezra had found Sin. The three mages were scouting the area for signs of where to go next, while I waited with my arms wrapped aro
und myself for warmth. I couldn’t see them through the rain and shadows, but I could hear Aaron swearing in frustration, even over the drumming patter.
Tugging my beanie lower on my head, I wondered—again—how smart this was. Gathering a team of alumni to help comb the woods would’ve been a wiser move, but when Kai had pointed that out, Aaron had refused to wait. Tobias was putting together a second team, but for now … it was just us.
“Damn it!” Aaron stomped out of the dense bush, his hiking boots squelching in the mud. Sharpie’s hilt jutted over his shoulder, waiting to be drawn. “There are tracks everywhere and I can’t find a clear trail.”
“Pretty soon there won’t be any tracks,” Kai said, slipping between two tree trunks. “The rain will wash them away in another hour.”
Nerves tightened my chest. If we couldn’t find the wolves, we couldn’t save Sin.
Aaron swore again. “This is idiotic. How hard can it be to—”
“—find a handful of wolves in miles of dense forest?” Kai interrupted sarcastically. “Not difficult at all.”
A low whistle cut through the patter of rain. Aaron and Kai snapped to attention, then hurried toward the sound. I rushed after them.
Twenty yards away, Ezra crouched in the underbrush, studying the forest floor. As we approached, he rose to his feet, water running down his face from his drenched hat.
“This pushdown is recent,” he said, gesturing to a shrub. “I found tracks on the other side.”
I squinted at the bush, tilting my head one way then the other. The foliage had a crumpled look, like something had trampled it, though I would never have noticed if Ezra hadn’t pointed it out.
“Did you find anything?” he asked the other two.
“Not a damn thing, so if you can follow this trail, let’s go!” Aaron exclaimed eagerly.
Ezra nodded and shoved through the bush. We filed after him, and within a few minutes, Ezra had led us onto a game trail. He moved quickly, eyes on the ground, occasionally crouching to check the imprints in the mud. I wanted to ask where he’d learned to track animals, but no one was speaking so I held my silence.
The Alchemist and an Amaretto: The Guild Codex: Spellbound / Five Page 10