Clever Witch

by Nikki Dean

  "I didn't mean to steal it. Not permanently. It was supposed to be a joke, and I was going to give it back. Then everything happened and you ended up with it instead. I didn't steal it steal it, you know? Just borrowed it, but it never made it back to Luca on accident."

  "Who was going to buy it?"

  "I don't know. Luca may not have even known. He said it was someone online who was really upset when Luca told him it was gone."

  "Why did he want it so bad?"

  Paul shrugged again. "No idea. I thought it was just some stupid knickknack, something to take up space and look cool. Luca said it was magic, but he wasn't a witch, so I don't know how he would have known one way or another."

  "It is magic," Mallory said. "It reacts to magic."

  Alec squeezed her a little, as though to ask if she should tell him anything else. Mal poked him.

  "Theoretically it's a container, something to keep magic in. But I have no idea why."

  "That sounds dumb," Paul scoffed.

  "I mean, maybe. Magic is actually really cool. I have this class on runes, which are like the symbols on the outside of the sigil, but you can imbue them with magic when you draw them to do things. Like I have one that I can draw on paper and use as a bookmark, but it remembers the page I was on even if it falls out of my book. It's handy for studying."

  Paul just looked at her. "No shit?"

  "Yeah. There are a lot of interesting little spells like that. But what's really interesting are people's individual magic. It manifests a little differently in everyone, but I've met some cool witches."

  "Clearly."

  She didn't miss his sarcasm and punched him in the arm. He scowled and rubbed it.

  "Have you been working out or something?" he asked.

  Alec tensed again. Mallory did a quick scan on her web and saw that she'd been using a tiny bit of his magic, even if she hadn't meant to. In fact, all of their magic was being copied somehow, even if she wasn't using it right that second. She could even tell the difference between them now, the different flows and consistencies inside her that matched each man.

  "Absolutely. I go to the gym and lift weights pretty much every day. Plus, I go running," she joked.

  "Do you really? Wow. That academy must be something, to get your ass up off the couch."

  "No, not really. I go running with Alec and Damon a few times a week, but only because Alec takes his shirt off."

  Paul glanced at her, then Alec's wide grin and shook his head. "I have to admit, I never would have seen this coming, Mal. What's it like dating more than one person at a time?"

  "Less work than I thought it would be. Alec, Damon and Nico live in the dorm where I do, but a few floors up. Matt stays over all the time anyway, but now they're both just sleeping in my room. Matt brought a cot so that we could put the mattresses together. It's not really a big deal. I go to class like usual, and then we all hang out afterwards. Alec and Damon come get me to run a few nights a week, and everyone kinda does their own thing when they want to. I spend most of my time with Matt and Nico though, and the other thirty percent or so with them plus Alec, Damon and Everett."

  "So it's not weird?" Paul asked. "What about... you know?"

  "I know you are not asking me about sex right now." The idea was unfathomable.

  He cringed. Alec cringed. Dice possibly even cringed.

  "No! That'd be gross!" Paul protested. "You're my sister! I don't want to know about your sex life."

  "That's what I thought." Silence fell. "No one gets jealous, if that's what you wanted to ask," she finally said.

  Paul hopped off the porch, then jogged up the steps to the front door. "So, I'll talk to you guys in the morning, it was nice meeting you, Alec. Make yourselves at home, and I'm going to pretend the last five minutes never happened."

  He shut the door, leaving them out there alone.

  "I think you traumatized him," Alec murmured.

  "I know. We should have asked more questions about the sigil first."

  The door opened again and Matt and Nico filed out, followed by Damon.

  "Your brother just ran to his room like you told him Santa's not real," Matt joked. "What happened out here?"

  "He tried to ask me about sex with you two, so I just told him not to go there, but no one gets jealous."

  Matt sputtered and Nico laughed. Damon just sat down beside Dice and didn't say anything at all.

  "I bet he took that well," Nico chuckled. "Not that I want to know why he asked to begin with."

  "Because you guys are like a train wreck, and it's hard for outsiders to look away," Damon retorted. "We just know it's bound to go up in flames at any minute."

  "Wow, bitter much?" Matt said. "Or are you just jealous because you wanna hop out of the frying pan and into the fire, too?"

  "As long as we're all agreeing that your ass is cooked, I can rest my case. Also, no."

  "You realize that I am right here, right?" Mallory asked again. "Seriously, Damon. It's getting old. You don't have to like me."

  "Is that really what you think?" Damon asked, his dark eyes glittering in the meager light from the windows. "That I don't like you? Nah, Bunny, it's not that personal. You just have the power to destroy my friends' lives, and I kind of hate that. It's not an even playing field, and it never will be."

  She blinked. Blinked again. Tried to process what he was saying.

  "You think I'd hurt them?" she demanded in surprised outrage. "You honestly think I'd tell anyone at school what's going on between us, under any circumstances? I fucking love them. Both of them. I'm terrified that someone's going to figure it out on their own, and then we'll all have to deal with the fallout. Hell, Matt got deployed, then trapped in the lab because of me. You think I want that to happen again? Fuck you, Damon."

  Alec moved over and Matt wrapped his arms around her middle, hauling her back against his chest. He kissed her jaw, just below her ear as he nuzzled her.

  "You mean it?" he whispered. "You love me, too?"

  Well, damn it. That's the second one I've just blurted it out to. I'm not good at this romantic shit. "Yeah. Yeah, I do."

  Chapter 20

  He squeezed her so hard she could barely breathe. Mallory turned her face back towards his as he kissed her, allowing her to taste the happiness in his heart. She basked in it, letting the moment soak through her anger at Damon, washing it all away.

  He cleared his throat, embarrassment coloring his presence on her web as he watched her and Matt. They both ignored him.

  But the lonely ache that spiked from Alec's direction did give her pause. It wasn't really fair to make out with Matt in public after telling him no, no matter how emotional the moment should have been. Mallory broke the kiss, consoling Matt with several lingering pecks before she turned back to Damon.

  "I'd never hurt them. Or any of you. I know you don't believe me, because why would you, but I won't. They mean too much to me."

  "I do believe you," he muttered. "But that doesn't mean you can control everything. Just because you don't want them to get hurt when you all get caught doesn't mean they won't be. You'll all face consequences, eventually."

  "Then we'll just do whatever we can to keep that from happening," Alec declared. His loneliness had transformed to hunger, a deep craving for the connection that he saw in front of him.

  "What are we going to do?" Damon demanded in exasperation. "We won't be able to do anything if Fitzam finds out. Hell, he might already know and that's why Pohler is after them. I guarantee that he conveyed his suspicions before he went on this little leave of absence, if that's even what it is."

  Alec shrugged. Something moved in the trees beyond him and Mallory narrowed her eyes, trying to see what it was. Everett stepped out of the shadows.

  "Coming back for a beer?" she called. She could feel his answering glare without even having to see it. "Guys. Talking about Pohler or what may or may not happen isn't going to help anything. We should figure out what we're doing here, in Wi
nn, and see what else Paul knows before we go home."

  "Have you felt anything else from it this week?" Alec asked. "Anything listening in there?"

  "No." She pulled Matt's arms around her a little tighter, then grabbed Nico's hand too. "I haven't tried to touch it with my magic either, though. Once was enough."

  "Did you use the shadows on it, or your web?" Everett asked. He'd walked silently across Paul's yard and now stood on the other side of the unfinished porch railing, his elbows draped across it. "The magics are two different things, right?"

  "Yes! Finally, someone gets it." Then again, he can do it too. He said it was rage when we talked about it in the lab, but it comes out a lot more than just when I'm angry. Maybe that's the only strong feeling he's really capable of. I wonder if he's a virgin.

  Squashing that thought before she made the mistake of mentioning it, she tried to focus. "I used my web. I pushed magic into it, like I had to do to Dice and Matt. They had these awful connections forged between them somehow, sort of like my web, but hard and painful. Less flexible and more like spikes pinning their minds together. I had to get them out."

  They all looked at her with varying degrees of interest, since she'd never explained it in quite those terms before.

  "I tried to see how much magic the sigil could hold, or what would happen to it since you guys said it was a container. I don't know what I was expecting, but I didn't think there would be something in there that would eat it. It absorbed my magic in a second, and reached for more. I had to cut the web to sever the connection, but I'm afraid I wasn't fast enough. It woke up and I could feel it looking at me. At all of us in that room through my web."

  "What the fuck, Mallory?" Everett burst out. "You didn't feel like explaining that before now?"

  "But it hasn't woken up since then, right?" Nico asked. "So it needs energy to come out of stasis?"

  "I guess, yeah. It felt like it woke up for a second, but disappeared right after I cut the web. I have no idea if it would recognize us, or anything like that. I don't even know what it was."

  "Did you sense anything else about it?" Damon asked. "Was it pissed? It's been in there for years, at least."

  She shook her head. "No. It's like it was sleeping. It didn't feel malicious at all, just curious and hungry."

  "It knows you now. It'll come looking for you if it ever gets out," Everett said with certainty.

  "Why?" Mallory asked.

  "You don't know that," Alec protested. "We don't know anything about it. We need to ask someone that would know about sigils."

  "I know enough to know this is bad," Everett replied. "These sigils are hard to make, and even harder to enchant. I've seen them once or twice before, but none that were already occupied."

  "Where did you see them?" Mallory asked. "Maybe we can ask that person about it."

  Her web tingled as some kind of energy flowed between them, and she snapped her fingers, pulling their attention. "Stop it. I don't know what you're doing, but I know it's that weird guys-only thing you all do when you don't want to say something. It's annoying."

  "You're insane," Everett replied flatly.

  "How does she always know?" Alec asked with a chuckle at the same time.

  Everett glared at him. Damon glared at him. Matt shook his head behind Mallory's, and Nico just sighed.

  "Ha! You are talking somehow! I knew it!" She shot Everett a triumphant smirk. "How? Is it part of your magic? They told me that you absorb a little of everyone that you've touched, so can you pull that bit back up and talk to them again?"

  They all gaped at her.

  "That's telepathy. Totally different magic," Everett said.

  "That's not a no," she replied. It has to be that. What else would it be? Sign language? None of them moved.

  "You're really clever," Damon said. "She figured it out, Ev. Fair and square."

  "So that means you can get back into my head whenever you want?" she asked. The thought made her cringe a little until she reminded herself that she did the exact same thing. Okay, but I only do it during sex now. I doubt Everett is that discerning.

  "No. It takes a lot of contact, built up over years," he replied slowly. She could feel his grudging approval in her mind.

  "Do it to me," she demanded. "I want to see what it's like."

  "Uh, no," Matt immediately said.

  "What part of over years didn't you hear?" Everett demanded.

  "But my magic is closer to yours that anyone else's, and I've already gotten around your mental blocks a few times. So come on, just try it," she said. "I want to know if it's like mine when I communicate with Dice." She wasn't sure why she was pushing it, but she wanted to be included, at least this one little bit. Even if Everett blocked her out of everything else, he could at least give her this.

  Mallory let go of Matt's arm, which was hooked around her chest from behind, and held up her hand. Black shadows flowed from her skin toward Everett.

  He jerked back with a hiss. "Don't touch me."

  The guys all looked from him to her hand, and back again. Mallory didn't move as her shadow magic stopped a foot or so away from him, waiting for his magic to respond.

  He glared at her. No one else said anything.

  "Seriously, put those down," Everett ordered. She sighed and dropped her hand, but the magic stayed.

  Tendrils of darkness began to seep from his skin, winding lazily through the air toward hers. "Are you really going to keep pretending that you don't want to let me in?" she asked softly. “This wouldn’t happen if you didn’t want it to, on some level.” The longest shadow met hers and coiled around her magic, desperately seeking something inside her darkness. The two melded together, forming a link between her and Everett.

  "You can’t force me to," Everett hissed. "Why can't you just back off?" Matt and Nico stiffened in anger. The desperation in Everett's voice was all that stopped them from reacting any further.

  "You realize that this isn't me, right?" Mallory asked. "Your shadows are clinging to mine. It won't let go." She tried to pull the magic back, she really did. But it was futile.

  "That's impossible," Everett denied. Mallory didn't have the heart to call him on the lie as she watched his eyes move over the bridge that was building between them. The shadows were so thick that she could barely see past them to Damon sitting on the other side.

  "Mallory, what's going on?" Nico asked. "Are these the same shadows that you say touch you all the time?"

  Everett recoiled, his face going pale. "There's no fucking way."

  "Yeah. What is this, Everett? Everyone says it's my magic, just a manifestation of my web that only I can see or feel, but you know it's there, too. You can see it. What is it? Don't tell me it's rage this time."

  All four guys looked at him as one, laser-focused on his reaction.

  "It's nothing. Just magical energy, or manifestations, like you said. Magic is weirder for some of us than others."

  It continued to twist through the air between them, thickening the whole time.

  He's lying. Again. But it doesn't look like he can control it either. "Then how do I make it stop? It only started after I met Nico, Alec and Damon."

  "And me," Matt reminded her. "You met me first, remember?"

  "Yes, but I didn't see it that day. The dorm was the first time," she replied. "Right after I spoke to Nico on my way from registration."

  "Look, I don't know what you want me to tell you," Everett said harshly. He pushed himself up from the railing. "I don't know why your magic freaks you out. I don't know why it's on the same wavelength as mine, or why they interact. Everyone's magic interacts every day, but you're not asking me questions about that. Go ask one of your real professors if you really want to know, since these assholes clearly have no idea either."

  With that he stalked up the porch stairs and let himself into the house. Mallory sighed.

  "You always have to keep pushing him, don't you?" Damon demanded. "Why?"

  She didn't an
swer at first, instead watching the shadows that pointed toward the door Everett had just closed. They went through the wood, stretching out between them as he walked farther away. Still, they never completely broke.

  "Fine, don't answer me. He's right, you know. You’re trying to force something that will never be there," Damon muttered. "I don't know what your issue is with him, but drop it. No good will come out of you pissing him off like that."

  "We're still connected," she murmured. "Our shadows are still there. Nico, Matt, I'm going to try something, okay?"

  Damon sighed and opened his last can of beer. The sound of the pressure releasing was loud in the still night.

  "I'm going to try to pull you guys into my spot on the web, instead of the other way around. I want to know if you can see what I'm seeing, okay?" she asked. They both nodded.

  "You can do that?" Alec asked.

  She shrugged. "Never tried it, but if I'm in their heads half the time, they should be able to be in mine, right?"

  "Uh, no. That's not how it works. That's not how any of this works," Damon muttered with a shake of his head.

  Alec reached over and touched Mallory's bare knee, just below the hem of her shorts. Damon rolled his eyes.

  "Everyone, close your eyes," Mallory said as she squeezed her own shut and concentrated on her web. She tugged on the strings connecting Nico and Matt to her mind, bringing them closer instead of the other way around.

  "Can I open them yet?" Matt whispered in her ear. "What are you doing?"

  "Not yet. Just tell me what your mind sees."

  Damon scoffed.

  Mallory opened her eyes. The shadows were still there, even if they were dissipating a little. "Anything?"

  Nico shook his head.

  "Um, it's dark?" Matt guessed. "Damon looks pissed, and there's about to be a chipmunk on the porch?"

  She sighed. I should have known that wasn't going to work. Looks like Everett and I are still the only ones that can see it.