by Eva Chase
Horrid Charms
Book 4 in the Royals of Villain Academy series
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner without the express written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
First Digital Edition, 2019
Copyright © 2019 Eva Chase
Cover design: Christian Bentulan, Covers by Christian
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-989096-48-2
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-989096-49-9
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Contents
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Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Next in the Royals of Villain Academy series
Wicked Wonderland excerpt
About the Author
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Chapter One
Rory
As prison cells went, I guessed the blacksuits’ holding rooms met a pretty high standard. I’d stayed in motel rooms drearier than this.
The space was about twice the size of my dorm bedroom back at Bloodstone University, with a double bed complete with mahogany sleigh frame set in one corner, a chaise lounge against the wall next to it, and a narrow bookshelf with a decent variety of novels and nonfiction offerings beside that. A matching table with three chairs dominated the other end of the room by the tiny bathroom. The soft whir of central air cooled the late summer heat, and it carried a sweet lemony basily scent that I’d probably have found pleasant under other circumstances.
But as cozy as my surroundings looked, this was a prison. The walls with their ivory-and-gold wallpaper held no windows. The main door wouldn’t budge at my tug. I couldn’t attempt any spells on it or anything else thanks to the warded cuffs fastened around my wrists.
On the first morning after I’d been taken in, a faint but persistent itch behind my collarbone reminded me of something else I was missing. I’d heard that a mage would start to feel uncomfortable if they stayed far apart from their familiar for very long. Mine was back at the university. I hadn’t been this far away from her for this long since I’d gotten her four years ago.
Would Deborah be okay? She’d managed to find quite a network of passages around the dorm building—hopefully she wouldn’t have any trouble finding food and water.
Before I could worry about that for very long, two blacksuits stepped into the room, and I discovered why the table had come with three chairs. One was for me, and the two on the opposite side were for my interrogators.
I hadn’t seen the man and woman who came in before, although they wore the same black dress shirts and slacks as every member of the fearmancer law enforcement that I’d encountered. The woman’s white hair was pulled back in a no-nonsense bun, and the shadow of a beard on the man’s face had a silver sheen. Maybe the older agents handled the talk while the younger ones carried out the activity in the field.
“Please have a seat, Miss Bloodstone,” the woman said in a flat voice. “We have a lot to discuss.”
I came over to the table as they sat down at it, but after nearly twenty-four hours shut up in this place, I didn’t have the patience to wait for them to start the conversation. “I didn’t hurt Imogen,” I said, grasping the top of the chair. “I wouldn’t have. She was my friend.”
I’d never hurt anyone, let alone killed them. The image flashed through my mind of my dormmate’s sprawled body, the blood pooling under her, the lacerations gouging her body. My stomach heaved. Who in the whole school would have wanted to do that to Imogen?
Silly question. It was my fault, in a way. My enemies, the rulers of dark magic society and their allies, had set out to undermine me from the moment I’d been “rescued” from the joymancers who’d raised me and brought back into the fold. When I finished my schooling, I’d join the ranks of the fearmancers’ rulers, and they didn’t want anyone who wouldn’t kowtow to their ideals gaining that kind of power. They’d already been responsible for my mentor’s death a couple months ago.
And now this. It was the only possible explanation. Bespelling someone into attacking me hadn’t done the trick, so they were framing me as a criminal.
“Your involvement in Miss Wakeburn’s death is what we’re here to determine,” the man said. “Please, sit down.”
I tugged out the chair and sat. The silver cuffs that diffused my magic clinked as I rested my arms on the table.
I had to remember that these blacksuits might not be cooperating with my enemies. They could be conducting a perfectly legitimate investigation. I’d have a much better chance of convincing them of my innocence if I showed I was willing to cooperate.
The woman had taken out a small tablet. She poised her hand over it as if to take notes, but I wondered if she was making an audio recording of the conversation as well. “Let’s start with you giving your account of what happened yesterday afternoon leading up to Miss Wakeburn’s death and your arrest.”
I’d tried to give my account to the blacksuits who’d hauled me away from the university, but they hadn’t been interested in listening. They’d basically ignored me from the moment they’d tossed me in the back of their car with these cuffs around my wrists, other than when they’d escorted me up here to this room.
“I was celebrating my win in the summer project competition at the end-of-term party with my friends and the other students,” I said. That interlude of snacking and dancing yesterday afternoon felt like it’d happened weeks ago. “We were in the large gymnasium in the Stormhurst Building. After a while, I left with two of the other scions—Jude Killbrook and Connar Stormhurst. We were going to take a drive before we all headed home for the end of summer break. I went up to my dorm to get better shoes for driving, and they were going to meet me at the garage.”
What did Jude and Connar think had happened to me? What did anyone think had happened to me? I didn’t know who had called for the blacksuits or who might have witnessed my arrest or what they were saying about it. The guys knew me pretty well by now, in… a variety of ways. They had to realize I hadn’t actually murdered someone, right?
A pang ran through my chest. God, I wished I had Connar’s steady strength and Jude’s irreverent humor here to help get me through this new ordeal.
“And then?” the man said.
I wet my lips, my mouth going dry. And then everything had gone to hell.
“I went into my dorm, and right away I saw Imogen on the floor,” I said. “I could tell she was badly hurt. I tried to call or run for help, but some kind of spell held me in place. I couldn’t talk. And I started seeing images of things that hadn’t really happened, of
some kind of fight—like her attacker had left an illusionary impression of what they’d done.”
The illusionary impression had been structured to put me in the attacker’s shoes. It’d felt as if the spell that had sliced Imogen up had seared from my throat.
My interrogators exchanged a glance. “That sounds like a strange thing for a criminal to have done,” the woman remarked.
“I’m not saying it was normal. There was nothing normal about finding one of my dormmates dead either. You asked me to tell you what happened.”
Her eyebrows arched slightly, but she didn’t make any further comment on that subject. She glanced at her tablet’s screen. “Our team doesn’t report any noticeable magic acting on you when they made their arrest.”
“No,” I said, my stomach knotting. “The illusions faded away, and the spell that was holding me released right before they got there. As soon as I saw them, I tried to tell them that my friend needed help.”
“I don’t have any record of that.”
“They didn’t give me the chance. They cut me off.”
“Mmhm.” The woman tapped a few things and let out a breath. “How had you and Miss Wakeburn been getting along before this incident?”
“Pretty well. We’d hung out a few times over the summer. She helped me get something fixed for my project.” I wasn’t sure how much to say about our history. “We didn’t argue or anything.”
“We’ve spoken to some of your other dormmates,” the man said. “They indicated that there had been tension between you and Miss Wakeburn not that long ago. Because she sided with other students instead of you in a personal conflict?”
Victory or one of her friends had been all too happy to make me look guilty, no doubt. I forced my voice to stay calm even though my mouth tightened. “A few months ago, one of the other girls blackmailed Imogen into betraying something I’d told her in confidence. I was upset about it, and I didn’t trust her as much afterward, but I mostly blamed the girl who instigated it.” They didn’t really think I’d killed Imogen over something like that—something that’d happened months before—did they?
“A similar situation could have arisen, then,” the woman said. “Another ‘betrayal’ or conflict of interests, which would have made you similarly upset.”
“It’s possible that could have happened,” I said. “But it hadn’t. There wasn’t any friction between us this summer. I hadn’t even seen Imogen yesterday, let alone talked to her, before I found her body. And even when I was upset about what happened before, I never lashed out at her.”
The woman hummed to herself again with what sounded like skepticism. An uneasy prickle ran over my skin.
These people didn’t know me at all. They just knew I was a scion and soon-to-be baron, and most of the barons were power-hungry assholes who believed they could get away with whatever they wanted to if they played their cards right. Why would the blacksuits assume I was better than that?
But my position had to come with some privileges. I was the only heir to the Bloodstone barony. They couldn’t throw me in their version of jail for years on end without any real evidence… could they?
Or had my enemies managed to produce some sort of evidence that solidified their framing attempt?
The man had tipped back in his chair, watching me. “Can you think of anyone else who would have had a motive to attack Miss Wakeburn?”
I opened my mouth and hesitated. My gut knotted.
I couldn’t point the finger at the other barons, claim there was some huge conspiracy they were orchestrating against me, when I didn’t have any evidence of that. I only knew because of the words of my dying mentor, and no one could ask Professor Banefield to confirm his story now. He’d managed to get a bunch of documents to me that might lead me to concrete proof, but I hadn’t fit the pieces together clearly enough yet. I hadn’t had time.
If I tried to accuse the barons, I’d only look desperate and possibly insane.
“I don’t know,” I said finally. “She’d mentioned to me that some of the other students hassled her now and then because she came into her magic late and they didn’t respect her father’s position as head of Maintenance, but I’m not aware of anyone on campus who would have wanted to really hurt her.”
“You didn’t notice anything unusual in or around the room when you found her?”
I’d been so shocked by the sight of her body and then panicked as the illusion caught me up that I hadn’t had much chance to take a careful look around. “No,” I admitted. “I wish I could tell you more.”
The woman cleared her throat. “And no one else was in the dorm or nearby outside when you arrived, to confirm that when you went in, Miss Wakeburn was already injured?”
The fifth floor hall had been empty. We’d been the only two people in the dorm—that I’d seen, anyway. No doubt the murderer had taken steps to ensure there were no witnesses. “No, not that I know of.”
“Well,” the man started, and the door to the holding room swung open again.
The sight of the woman who strode in should have been a relief. Lillian Ravenguard, like a muscular, tawny lioness even with the hint of gray in her hair and the faint lines around her eyes and mouth, had been my birth mother’s best friend. She’d come to me a couple months ago offering any help she could give during my transition into fearmancer society, and she’d given me a glimpse into my mother’s life through a bunch of letters and media she’d put together for me.
I’d also seen evidence of her collusion with the barons and their allies in the papers Professor Banefield had left me. If she was helping them, she couldn’t really want to help me.
“All right,” she said briskly, setting her hands on her hips. “I think you’ve badgered Miss Bloodstone enough. She’s unfamiliar with our procedures and ought to have a proper debriefing before any interviews are conducted. I’ll handle that. You get on with the rest of your jobs.”
Even though my interrogators looked old enough to have seniority over Lillian, they leapt from their chairs immediately, a hint of a flush coloring the man’s cheeks. As they headed out, Lillian glanced at my warded cuffs and grimaced.
“I’m sorry about those. It’s policy. If all goes well, we’ll have you out of them and out of here soon. I got here as fast as I could after I heard.”
I couldn’t take any comfort from her words when I wasn’t sure how much I believed them. Had this plot really taken her by surprise, or was she putting on a front so she could screw me over even more thoroughly later? I didn’t know what to say to her.
It’d probably be safest for me if I pretended to trust her while I was in such a precarious position.
“This whole situation seems crazy,” I said. “I found Imogen’s body—that’s all. I’m not a killer.”
“Of course you’re not.” Lillian leaned against the side of the table. “There’ll be an official hearing once the agents are finished gathering evidence and testimony, and then we can easily set the record straight. All it’ll take is one insight spell conducted by the judge for you to show that nothing violent happened while you were there. Those kind of memories always leap out if they’re present.”
My heart sank. All at once, the illusions that had battered me when I’d seen Imogen’s body made sense.
The tactic wasn’t strange after all. The killer had given me images of Imogen angry as if we were arguing, of my own body and voice casting a murderous spell at her. Now those impressions were etched into my memory as if they’d actually happened. From what I knew of insight spells, the sensations that the caster took in were imprecise and muddy even when they were real. Would the judge be able to tell the difference between fact and illusion?
I didn’t trust Lillian even enough to ask her that. I wished I hadn’t even mentioned the illusions to the other blacksuits. The last thing I wanted was to confirm to my enemies how well their gambit had worked.
“Okay,” I said in a voice that felt as if it came from a long distan
ce inside of me. “How long will it be until the hearing?”
“I’ll see if I can rush things along. A few days, I think we can hope for. And my colleagues will make sure you’re well looked after while you’re here, or there’ll be hell to pay.” She straightened up. “I should appeal to the judge for haste right away. I’ll check on you again as soon as I can. You’ve been through so much already… This just isn’t right.”
She gave my shoulder a quick squeeze that I managed to restrain a flinch at, and then she swept out of the room. I stared at the closed door with a hopeless sensation expanding inside me.
The barons had locked me up in a trap far smaller than this room, and right now I didn’t have even a glimmer of an idea of how to get out.
Chapter Two
Rory
I expected Lillian or maybe the interrogators to return later that day, but no one came through the door except for the impassive woman who delivered my meals and gathered the dishes from the previous one. The blacksuits didn’t want me starving, but I couldn’t say I had much appetite given the circumstances.
It was almost a relief when the door opened in the middle of the next afternoon, after lunch but way too early for dinner. I sat up on the chaise lounge where I’d been sprawled trying to think my way out of this mess—and immediately stiffened at the sight of the guy in the doorway.
Malcolm Nightwood, the heir to the most powerful baron family other than the Bloodstones, had stopped on the threshold to say something to the blacksuit who’d let him in. He drew his golden-haired head even higher, his muscular shoulders squared with an aura of authority, and the guy nodded and backed away. Malcolm came in alone.