Rise of the Arcanist Series: Books 1 - 6

by Elizabeth Kirke

  “You’re brave for a young witch, aren’t you?” he taunted. “Not even thirty yet, am I right?”

  I raised my wand slightly. “You’re not going to get away with this.”

  He laughed. “Let me guess, your familiar is off with Smith’s brat somewhere, isn’t he? Ready to warn them if something happens? Pity that if he dies with you, he can’t lead them here.”

  “At least I have a familiar.” I almost regretted the cruel taunt, even though I was trying to crack his calm.

  Fletcher smirked. “You think your familiar is such an asset. It’s nothing more than a crutch, a weakness; waiting to be exploited.” He slowly paced toward me.

  “Dyn!” I cried, trying to catch him by surprise and stun him.

  He knocked it aside easily with a shield spell and kept walking, chuckling. “You do have spirit. You’d make a good blood witch.”

  “Never.”

  “Of course you would,” he said. “I’ve been watching you. I see you in the practice room. I see you studying. Always striving for more power.”

  “I’m not trying to gain power,” I protested. “I learned magic late. I’m just trying to catch up to other witches my age.”

  “You already have. And if you don’t realize that, you’re lying to yourself. Nobody your age practices like you do.”

  “Because I’m behind,” I insisted.

  “So, as soon as you catch up you’ll just… stop?”

  I swallowed nervously. Of course I wouldn’t just stop practicing. But then, catching up wasn’t really the only reason I worked so hard. “I also want to learn more magic to protect the people I love,” I said.

  Fletcher chuckled. “Worked out well for you today, didn’t it?”

  My stomach twisted and I clenched my fingers around my wand.

  “How many woods have you worked into your wand?” he asked.

  “Three,” I said softly.

  “Three? Before thirty? And you say you haven’t surpassed witches your age,” he purred. I knew the different types of woods in a wand didn’t directly correlate to skill. I was just fortunate enough to know a wood elemental who was fond of me and gifted me the specially chosen wood. But it still bothered me. “See?” Fletcher continued. “You do want power. Crave power. But you’re limited. You’ve already learned all the spell words. That’s it. Now you’re constrained by only the magic you already know. And soon you’ll stop improving dramatically, maybe you already have. You’ll creep along instead, improving only minutely. Unless you do something… unconventional.”

  “I’m not going to murder people for more magic!” I cried.

  He moved even closer to me. I forced myself to keep my hand from shaking as I aimed my wand at him.

  “Think about it. You’d be a good blood witch.”

  “I don’t have to think…” I trailed off and gulped as he came to a stop right in front of me.

  “If you ever change your mind,” he said sweetly. “Find the mystic key. And tell them Fletcher sent you.” He grabbed my hand so fast I didn’t have time to pull away. He pressed something into my palm, then stepped back.

  Heart pounding, I opened my hand to look. For a moment I thought it was a drop of blood. I realized it was a rock, or maybe a gem. It was the color of blood and shaped like a droplet or a tear.

  “What is this?” I whispered.

  “When you decide you want to learn blood magic, you’ll find out,” he teased.

  A blood-curdling hiss rent the air and a blur shot between me and Fletcher.

  “Get away from her,” Thomas snarled.

  Fletcher dodged away and Thomas stopped, breathing hard. He was covered in dust from the rocks and bleeding from a dozen small places. Like Dani, his blood was black after behind struck by the blood magic.

  Behind Fletcher, I spotted TS circling slowly. He was favoring a back leg, but obviously ready to attack.

  Fletcher raised his wand “Ahn!”

  I wasn’t sure why he was using regular spells now, but it made me more confident in blocking it. I quickly cast an earth spell shield and breathed a sigh of relief as it worked.

  “It’s over, Fletcher,” Thomas said.

  Fletcher’s eyes flicked nervously behind me and I glanced over my shoulder. My heart leapt as I saw Charlie slowly climbing to his feet. Fletcher actually looked nervous!

  But as worried as he looked, he still maintained a smile. “Oh, it’s far from over,” he said. “It’s just beginning. A new arcanist is about to rise. But you will not live to see it. Dyn!”

  Instead of aiming his wand at us, he aimed it at the base of one of the pillars. It didn’t explode dramatically like it had when combined with blood magic, but it still began to crumble and in moments, the entire pillar was crashing down. I didn’t hear Fletcher cast another spell, but saw the bottom of another pillar blown away.

  “He’s going to bring the whole thing down!” Thomas yelled. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

  A huge rock crashed down from the ceiling, shaking everything. Dust was starting to obscure my vision and choke me. All I could hear was the sound of falling rocks. One of the pillars fell almost perfectly sideways, crashing down between us and Fletcher.

  Thomas grabbed my arm and pulled me toward the stairs. I started to run, then realized he wasn’t with me. I turned, frantically squinting through the dust. A moment later he was back, carrying Dani easily.

  Together, we raced to the stairs. TS was limping up them with Charlie. I couldn’t tell which of them was holding the other up more. A large rock slammed into the stairs in front of us. The impact caused us to stagger as it smashed a part of the stairs away. Thomas jumped the gap without hesitating. I stopped nervously, gauging the distance. With some difficulty, Charlie climbed onto TS, then held out a black-lined hand to me.

  “Come on!”

  With no time to even ask TS if he could manage, I took it and joined him. I felt TS gather himself beneath us and lunge forward. I clutched his fur with both hands and shut my eyes. We rocked and lurched as he jumped. TS yelped and stumbled. I opened my eyes in time to see Thomas wince and grab his leg. And we were across.

  I quickly slid from TS’ back with Charlie and we continued our desperate race up the stairs. I wrapped an arm around Charlie who leaned gratefully on me for support, it felt like he was a million degrees, but I ignored it; I would rather be burned a little than crushed. Together, we hurried up the stairs as the rocks continued to fall around us and a deafening roar began; I think someone yelled to hurry, but I couldn’t tell who.

  And then we were out.

  I stumbled out of the tree and onto the forest floor in a cloud of dust. I spun to look behind us. It sounded like an earthquake and the ground was still shaking. Several of the trees were leaning. One suddenly crashed down with a rush of leaves. My eyes widened as I watched the ground heave beneath the pitching trees.

  “Move!” Thomas cried.

  We backed away, warily watching the doorway in the tree, in case Fletcher somehow made it out. In a mix of awe and horror, I stared as the ground collapsed. In a matter of minutes it looked like a sinkhole had opened, swallowing up entire trees. Everything was still and silent. Even the tree with the doorway had fallen over, revealing the collapsed stairway.

  I didn’t even realize it was raining until I tried to push my hair out of my eyes and noticed it was wet. Sure enough, a heavy, chilly rain was falling. I turned to make sure Charlie was okay and heaved a sigh of relief. He was hunched into his hoodie and looked dry. But more importantly, he was helping Dani sit up.

  “Wh-what happened?” groaned Dani. I had just enough time to see that the bleeding had even affected one of his eyes; instead of their normal blue-tinged white, the area around one iris was splotched with black. Then, he closed them and tilted his face up to the rain.

  “Long story,” Charlie sighed. “Are you okay?”

  “I will be.”

  Now that the danger was over, I sagged against Thomas. He heaved
a sigh and wrapped his arms around me. I felt TS bump up against us. We were safe.

  Chapter Eleven

  Jen

  “I’ll talk to you soon, I’m glad you’re safe. I love you, Jenny.”

  “I love you too, Mom.”

  I hung up with a sigh. At least one of my mothers knew what was happening. Granted, I only told Lynn an abbreviated version. I was still processing it all myself. But she still knew more than I could possibly tell Rachel.

  My eyes drifted to the piece of paper on the dining room table, blank except for the words Dear Rachel. I was even more at a loss for what to write to her now. I couldn’t even fall back on my usual half-truths. Everyone is okay. Not true. Delilah was still in a coma, which meant TS and Thomas were still in danger.

  Work is going well. Also not true. I hadn’t been back in two days and was honestly dreading it. Ember confirmed that Fletcher didn’t have the right access to edit the backend of the database, which meant someone else at MES was responsible. Add in Greyson Turner, who was still an agent, and the likelihood of more blood wizards working with us was too high to ignore.

  Jon met us not long after we escaped the cavern and went back with Thomas and TS. They confirmed it was totally collapsed. Fletcher couldn’t have gotten out and no blood wizards were likely to easily get back in, and Jon set some wards to alert him if anyone started poking around. Even with Fletcher gone, we all knew it wasn’t over; all we could do was hope we had found, and stopped, the source of the disappearances. At least for now.

  Still, Fletcher or no Fletcher, the prospect of returning to work was daunting.

  Tomorrow, once we were all rested and recovered, Jon wanted to meet to go over everything that happened in the cavern. Tonight though, we were just going to relax.

  I sensed a rush of satisfaction from Rak as he caught a mouse in the field. I smiled a bit, then sighed again. I couldn’t even be honest with Rachel that Rak was doing well, because she didn’t know his real name. She had also taken to calling him “old kitty”. She wasn’t wrong, he was almost forty, but I could never tell her that either.

  I stood with a groan and headed into the living room. Thomas was just hanging up his phone.

  “Hey,” he said, flashing me a smile. His veins were still black, but they had thankfully receded and faded a little. Now the network of lines marring his skin were an eerie gray color instead. “Was that Lynn? How is she?”

  “She’s good. Who were you talking to?”

  “I was ordering dinner from Erin’s. Got you your favorite wings.”

  “Oh, yum!” I spotted a stack of board games on the coffee table. “Are we doing game night?” I asked in surprise.

  Thomas shrugged. “We couldn’t decide if it would be weirder to do it or skip it so… figured we all needed a dose of normalcy.”

  “I agree.”

  “Perfect timing,” he said, looking toward the door. “Wanna get the door?”

  It couldn’t be dinner already. Curious, I went to open it and was delighted to see Dani, Charlie, and Ember had just arrived! I rushed down the steps to greet them. I hadn’t seen them since the park and was worried.

  “Hey!” I called as I approached.

  Like Thomas, the marks on Charlie had faded to gray, but were still visible as they swirled over his skin. Dani’s had faded too, although they were still concentrated on his head and face, as if that was the only place Fletcher had struck.

  “How are you?” I asked Dani, giving him a hug.

  “I’m alright,” he said casually. “It hasn’t bled since last night and I’ve been underwater for two days. Although now I know why non-magics differentiate between headaches and migraines.”

  “It bled for that long, is he okay?” I whispered to Ember as we all walked up to the house together.

  “Yeah. He seems to be.” She shuddered. “Blood magic is freaky.”

  We were just settling into the living room when Mariana arrived to round out the group. Soon, we were sitting around playing games, stopping only to grab the food when it arrived.

  Aside from the haunting reason why Shannon was there, it was wonderful to have her with us for a game night. For the first time since coming to New York, everyone, all of my magic friends, were together for games, and food, and fun. The last time we were all together for a night like this was when Shannon was still human and I was paranoid someone was going to accidentally reveal we were magics.

  When I ignored the darkened veins on some of my friends and tried to forget about TS’ predicament, the night was perfect. We laughed and talked until it was late. Even Rak joined us for the games that didn’t require holding a hand of cards.

  Eventually, we switched to a movie and popcorn. It seemed that recovering from blood magic took a lot of energy; Thomas, Charlie, and Dani all started yawning quite early into the movie. Shannon gladly volunteered her basement room and Dani and Charlie went down to bed, after letting her grab a few things. TS, who seemed to be sleeping more because of Delilah, was happy to go upstairs to bed when Thomas did. I stayed down to clean up and when we were done, Ember and Mariana went up to the guest room, leaving me alone with Shannon.

  “Will you be okay on the couch?” I asked.

  “Yeah, this is fine,” she said, stretching out. “Going to keep me company, Rak?” she called.

  We both looked toward the basket on the hearth and the tip of a black ear poked out. “I might.”

  “How’s Lynn?” Shannon asked.

  “She’s good. Still kind of weird to talk to her though. I don’t have to filter anything,” I admitted.

  Shannon nodded. “Did you finish your letter to Rachel?”

  “I didn’t start it.” I sighed and sat heavily on the couch, mostly on her legs. “I just… I hate lying to her. I can’t tell her anything.”

  My cousin pursed her lips in a sympathetic smile. It wasn’t the first time we talked about my struggles with talking to my stepmother.

  “I’m sorry you can’t apply for a permit.”

  “No way,” I said quickly. “Don’t you dare. I’d rather you be alive any day.”

  She smiled again. “I’m still sorry.”

  “You and Thomas,” I said dryly, shaking my head. “You’ve been my best friend forever. And I would have hated not being able to get a permit for you most of all.”

  It was true. As much as I wanted a permit for all of them, it was for different reasons. With Rachel, I mainly wanted a permit so that I didn’t have to lie to her. If I could tell her the truth, she could understand what I was doing and why, then she wouldn’t have to worry about me and my future. And Emily was so much younger than me it was hard sometimes to connect. It was difficult enough to come up with things to talk about without having to lie about half of them.

  Shannon though, when I used to dream of getting a permit for Shannon it was because she loved fantasy as much as I did. We devoured and traded dog-eared vampire romance novels for years. In college we’d sit on speaker phone and read the same book for hours, periodically talking about it. As little girls we pretended to be witches and werewolves and everything in between. I was so thankful I could share it with her now, even if I was still lying to Rachel and Emily.

  We sat in silence for a little while, then Shannon spoke.

  “What if you tell her the truth?”

  I laughed bitterly. “Shannon! I can’t!”

  “No.” She turned to me with a mischievous grin. “Tell her the truth you can tell her. Jenny, you’re so focused on what you can’t tell her, you don’t think about everything you can.”

  “Like what?”

  “Her favorite niece came to visit you.” Shannon gestured to herself. “If I’m up here much longer, I’ll have to tell my mom, and then she’ll probably tell Aunt Rachel,” she warned. “But what else… you got put on a special project at work! We just had game night.” She paused and considered. “And what about the bathroom?”

  “The bathroom?”

  “The bathr
oom remodel!” Shannon cried. “Aunt Rachel is an interior designer, I’d like to remind you. Have you told her about the bathroom yet?” My stunned expression was her answer. She playfully smacked me in the arm. “Seriously? She’d be all over that! I bet she can even solve the tile argument.”

  “Shannon, that’s brilliant!” My heart leapt. “I’m going to go write that letter!”

  “Night,” she laughed.

  I hurried back into the dining room, feeling lighter than I had in ages. Soon, the words were flowing. I told Rachel all about Shannon coming up and staying with us, and the games, and my project at work, and all about the bathroom. I even mentioned how Charlotte the other intern had hit it off with Shannon, which was true. After we got back from the park and determined Charlotte was telling the truth, she went home, but not before exchanging contact info with Shannon. They were even planning to hang out a little before Shannon went back home.

  At last, I folded up the letter with a sigh, but this one was a sigh of relief and satisfaction. Shannon was up reading and waved goodnight to me as I headed upstairs, stopping to give Rak a scratch.

  Soon, I was tucked into bed next to Thomas. It was chilly, so I focused on the warmth I sensed from Rak while waiting for my side of the bed to warm up. A moment later Thomas rolled over and draped an arm around me.

  Tomorrow we’d have to sit with Jon and revisit our harrowing experience in the cavern and we’d have to figure out where to go from there. In a couple of days I’d be back at work, looking over my shoulder and wondering who else was working with Fletcher. I thought of the strange stone tucked into my purse and shuddered.

  But that was tomorrow.

  Tonight we were all safe, under the same roof even. Fletcher was gone. The cavern was destroyed. And maybe, if we were lucky, we had enough clues now to actually find some answers.

  “Goodnight, Thomas,” I murmured sleepily.

  His arm tightened around me and I quickly fell asleep.

  ~~~***~~~