“I do love you, Josy Barrows.” With that proclamation, his greedy lips were on mine, and I had no desire for anything else.
✽✽✽
We spent several more hours in the woods—after the kissing ended, of course. Aspen showed me all his favorite spots when he was younger, including a creek that was full of fish, and then we walked home.
When we finally reached the house, the sky was nearly dark. Aspen’s mom was setting the table for dinner, with Nine underfoot.
“Hey, Mom,” Aspen said as we entered the kitchen.
“Have a nice time? It must be good to get away from your studies for a bit.”
I smiled. Clay must not have mentioned anything about what happened between us. “I have been playing a lot of catch-up at the Academy, but I think that Aspen loves studying.” I bumped him on the arm with my shoulder.
“Nine and I have been having the most interesting conversation.” Dawn walked back to the stove and stirred at a pot of red meat sauce while pasta in water bubbled away in the pot behind it.
I peered down at Nine and widened my eyes. What might have he been saying?
“He’s apparently had a very long and interesting life.” Dawn picked up the pasta and walked it to the sink to drain it in a colander.
“I’ll have to ask him about it sometime.” I raised an eyebrow at the cat.
You were gone for a long time. Nine slow blinked at me.
I glanced at Aspen, but before either of us could answer, Clay and Flint’s voices wafted from the living room.
Aspen pulled me aside before they got to the kitchen and whispered into my ear. “I’ll speak with them tonight after you go to bed.”
Clay walked into the kitchen first and smiled at Aspen as if nothing had erupted between us. Then he walked to his mother’s side and took over the sauce duty.
Flint scanned around the room, grinning at his family. “It’s so good to have things back to normal, even if it can’t last past the holidays.”
My stomach twisted at his words because “normal” was probably going to end much sooner than he thought. I ate my dinner without saying more than the minimum to be polite, and at the end I excused myself to go to bed.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Aspen said to me as I went up the stairs with Nine.
“I will be. I’m just tired.”
He eyed Nine, who’d scampered to the top and rounded the corner, and leaned in for a quick kiss on my cheek. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
I smiled and trudged up the stairs to the beckoning bed. It couldn’t have been more than a few minutes before I was out.
Chapter 6
The world turned a shade of blue and I was back in the woods behind Aspen’s house.
Why am I here?
A shiver crept along my spine, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. I wrapped my arms around my chest to shield myself from the cold. Where’s my coat? I must have left it back at Aspen’s house.
I gasped, and the frigid air burned at my sinuses and made it hard for me to breathe.
“Josephine Barrows.” A voice called my name.
I nearly jumped out of my skin and swiveled my head around to find the speaker but saw no one— only a dark, empty forest under the moonlight. My heart pounded so hard in my chest, I thought it might explode.
“Josephine Barrows.” The breathy voice came once more.
This isn’t real. This isn’t real, I told myself, but it felt real. Shaky breaths puffed out of my mouth like smoke. Everything seemed to be closing in. The trees loomed above, and the sway of the breeze through the branches made the limbs bend toward me.
“Josephine . . . Josephine . . .”
This time a chorus of voices whispered my name on the wind.
“Who are you?” I called, taking a few steps back on shaking legs. My body suddenly felt heavy, and everything in me wanted to run but something . . . someone . . . was keeping me here.
Crack, crack.
I swung my attention to the sound at my side. As if alive, the thick trees seemed to open, creating a dark mouth leading farther into the forest. A mouth that wanted to swallow me whole.
In terror, I stumbled backward and fell onto my backside, scraping my hands on the pine needles and rough stones. With clawing hands, I attempted to drive myself away from the hungry void, but it was no use. I couldn’t move. Desperate, I peered down at my feet. Nothing visible held me in place, but for some reason, they were stuck. I yanked to pull them free, but doing so only tightened the grip of the invisible force.
“Josy . . .”
The voices called to me again through the mouth and thick, white fog retched from the black maw in the trees, tumbling across the earth.
“What do you want?” I wanted to scream the words, but the question came out in barely a whisper . . . weak . . . powerless.
The ring from my mother, originally owned by my Morelli grandmother, warmed on my finger. I peered down at it and the same words that my mom had inscribed into my copy of The Hobbit—“Let the magic of life guide your journey”—came to life on the band.
For a second, my eyes widened and fixed onto the message. Was I supposed to go through the opening? No way was I doing that!
“Josephine,” a single male voice came this time, and I whipped my attention from the ring to a tall, thin, white-haired man standing above me.
My uncle— Zayne Gabrick.
He wore the same dark clothes as the other times I had seen him, once in a vision and then during the attack on the Academy. But for some reason, this time he was less frightening . . . less like a monster and more like a man, riding no giant dog with flesh-ripping fangs, and no army of terrifying Morelli behind him—just a man.
The fog settled around us, and I found myself released, feet free. I could run, but for some reason I didn’t. Instead, I stood and studied him. What did he know about the curse? About my mother? About my past?
Zayne lifted his hand and white magic emanated from his palm. The glow grew, lightening the scene around us, and the fog vanished. The terrifying opening closed, and overhead the sun cast rays of light through the tree canopy.
“Why are you here?” I asked.
My uncle tipped his head and studied me for a moment. Instead of answering my question, he said, “You look a lot like her.”
I knew immediately that he was speaking about my mother. Her face from my vision flashed in my mind and then wisped away, just as the fog had.
“So does that mean that you are going to murder me, too?” I demanded.
Zayne lowered his brows into a quizzical expression. “Murder your mother? I didn’t murder her.”
“Of course you murdered her!” I accused.
He reached his hand out to me and took a step forward but stopped. “Why would you believe that I killed my own sister?”
I balled my hands into fists, matching the tension pulling at my chest. “Because she married my father. She married a wizard, and you hated her for it.”
Or did he only think he was losing his sister to the curse? I shook my head from the thought. The Morelli were misunderstood, but Zayne Gabrick had attacked the Academy and was planning evil things for The Other Side. I had to stop that from happening and find the Morelli who wanted peace.
Zayne licked his lips in thought and clasped his hands behind his back. “I see that you’ve become quite confused. I loved my sister—she was the only family I had left. Why would I murder someone that I only wanted to come back to me?”
My head swirled with questions and confusion. I pinched at the bridge of my nose. “You are only trying to confuse me. You want me to believe you so that you have access to my magic, and I can’t let that happen.”
He nodded. “It is quite true that your potential for magic is very strong. Somehow you have survived the curse for as long as you have, and being a half Morelli, half witch has made you incredibly powerful. You are only beginning to come into the full force of it.”
“And that is exactly why you want it!” The angry words emerged but confusion jabbed at my brain again. What if he just wanted to bring our family together? Now I was all he had left. Tears pushed from the corners of my eyes, and I quickly brought my hand to my face to wipe them away. “Why are you doing this?”
“Josy,” Zayne said in a soft voice, “this is your vision. I’m not causing it. You are the one who brought me here with your questions.”
“Liar!” I spat. But I knew it was true. I did have so many questions that only Zayne would be able to answer.
Zayne pressed his lips into a thin line. “One thing I am not is a liar.”
“Then tell me why you are declaring war on The Side of Magic? No lies.”
My uncle turned his back to me and brought up his hand. Sparking, white magic danced in his palm and around his fingers. “That is a very complicated question for which I’m not sure you are ready to hear the answer.” He turned back to me.
“Why don’t you try me?”
“I believe that you already know the answer to this question, Josy. I’m not sure why you are asking it.”
“Why don’t you make peace?”
A small line formed between Zayne’s brows and a vein twitched on his temple. “We have attempted many times. Why do you think the Morelli made efforts over the years to integrate themselves back into magic society, attend the Academy, and live peaceful lives outside of The Middle? Nothing we have done has worked. We are always pushed back. The Middle is no longer sustainable, and our only choices are few.”
“Make a truce with the Directorate.” But I already knew that was useless, too. The Directorate was not as benevolent as they wanted to appear.
Zayne clicked his tongue. “You and I both know that it is going to take much more than a truce. The Directorate has wanted an excuse to kill off the Morelli since we escaped to The Middle after the war two hundred years ago. We have remained a thorn in their side ever since. And the fact that one of their own placed a curse on us is a fact they would like to forget. As long as we exist, they cannot do that. We must fight while we have the chance.”
I closed my eyes for a second and took a settling breath. “There is more to this than I think you even understand.”
Zayne chuckled. “You are a seventeen-year-old girl who only discovered magic a few months ago. How can you think you understand this situation better than I, who have lived it every day of my life? Our people have been stuck in the desolation of The Middle for hundreds of years. But we have survived . . . even thrived. It’s time for us to recover what we have lost. You can help us do that by using the magic already inside you. You are one bright spot in the unholy union between your parents—the last of what I have of my sister.”
My heart clenched at his words, and my vision of the future flickered in my mind. I knew that the only way for the Morelli to survive, for anyone to survive, was for The Side of Magic and the Morelli to come together.
I planted my feet and glared at him. “My parents’ union was not unholy. It was paving the way for what is going to come. And if you believe that the Directorate was evil for what they did, you don’t even know what kind of storm is on the horizon.”
Chapter 7
I awakened with a start and lifted my head slightly from my pillow, then settled back down, my heart slowing from its racing pace.
I was in the guest room, not the forest.
Soft rays of light spilled through the window and I turned my head toward the photo of my parents on my nightstand. As always, their faces were eternally happy as if nothing were wrong in the world. Less than a year after the photo was taken, they had sent me to The Other Side for safety while they were on the run from someone . . . or something.
Memories of what I’d seen moments ago rolled through my mind.
Was my meeting with Zayne a dream or another vision? I wanted to believe that it was only a dream, but experience told me differently. I’d had too many visions in the last couple of months to write it off as nothing.
Frustration brewed in my chest. Clay was right. What was I even doing here? If I truly believed that uniting the Morelli and The Side of Magic was necessary, I would need to do much more than spend the holiday with Aspen and his family. I couldn’t keep half-pretending that a magic war wasn’t in our future, that I wasn’t going to die. Even Aspen had mentioned the potential for great danger to his brother . . . so he knew it too. Something needed to be done.
I brought my fingers to the bridge of my nose and pinched at it. The only option was to speak to my uncle in person. If only I could tell him what I knew. Everything about it was risky, but what choice did I have? If we waited too long, then the price to stop the even bigger war to come may be even higher.
How I was going to manage this without going to The Four Points and asking for help, I had no clue. And even if I did manage to find the Morelli, what was I going to do once I got to my uncle? I had no way of knowing Zayne wouldn’t take me prisoner, let alone hear me out. After all, I was just a know-it-all teenager who arrived on The Side of Magic not that long ago.
I blew out a frustrated breath, sat up, and gazed around. Nine was asleep, snuggled up along my right side, flipped on his back with his paws in the air.
At least someone was having a stress-free vacation.
I gingerly pulled back my quilt, and Nine flopped over onto his side and snorted. Do we have to get up so early? He groaned and blinked several times.
I drew my attention to the little brass alarm clock on the dresser. 10:05 a.m.
“It’s not exactly early, Nine.” I rubbed his belly and swung my feet onto the ground.
Feels early since you kept me up all night with all your mumbling about wars, Morelli . . . Zayne Gabrick . . .
I turned back to him. “What do you know about my uncle? You haven’t really told me that much.”
Nine closed his eyes halfway. Do we really have to talk about this now?
I pinched my lips together and slammed my hand on the soft bed. “Yes, we do.”
Nine let out a long sigh. And on an empty belly, too. I heard Dawn mention something about cinnamon rolls for breakfast—
“You’re a cat. You eat meat, not cinnamon rolls!”
He stood and yawned, exposing the entirety of his mouth—pink tongue and rows of sharp white teeth. I’m allowed to think that certain foods sound interesting.
“Not when you’re using it as a stalling tactic you’re not.” I lowered my elbow to the bed and leaned my head on my hand. “Now talk to me about my uncle.”
Nine twitched his right ear. I only met him once before the attack.
I raised my brow at him.
It’s the truth. Your mother and I became friends when she came to Borealis. That was when they still allowed pet companions on campus. Another student had brought me because her parents had given me to her as a gift. But once she arrived at the Academy, she decided she didn’t like cats very much . . . especially ones that talked back.
“And demand food all the time.”
He narrowed his eyes at me. Do you want me to tell the story or not?
“Sorry, yes.”
Nine sighed. So I left. I was wandering around campus, and your mom’s window in Willoward Hall was open, so I jumped inside. She was nice . . . and I stayed. It was quite some time before I even knew that she was Morelli, not that I cared much about those things. She never mentioned her family.
I shifted to her photo again and her faux-brown hair. “But she must have eventually.”
Nine licked at his paw and rubbed it over his ear several times. Of course, but it wasn’t the focus of our friendship. Only when she met your father did we start to talk about who she was because she couldn’t share it with anyone else. She was torn about hiding her identity from him, but in the end, she told him, and he didn’t care about her heritage.
“They were part of an underground group that supported reuniting the Morelli into magic society, right?”
; Is that one of the things she told you in your vision?
I nodded.
Eventually, he continued. That’s when things became serious between them, and your dad asked her to marry him. But she couldn’t just say yes without telling Zayne.
“Was he living in The Middle?”
He was, and over the summer, she traveled back there with me. He licked his paw again and rubbed it over his other ear.
I sat up in interest. “You’ve been to The Middle? How did you both get there?”
Nine paused his grooming and glanced down at my hand. The ring, of course.
I held the ring up and stared at the filigree design and ruby stone.
Before your mom was called to the Academy, your Morelli grandmother had given her the ring for protection.
The same way my mom had given it to me.
I planted my feet back on the ground and stood, glaring down at Nine. “I’ve had a way to get to the Morelli for months, and you haven’t bothered to mention it?”
Nine shook his head. Why would you want to go there? It’s not very nice, and your uncle did not seem very friendly the last time we saw him on campus.
I couldn’t disagree with that last part. “I need to see him so I can tell him everything I’ve found out. Maybe if he knows, he’ll stop the attacks.”
He tried to kill you.
“Actually, Zayne tried to kill you and everyone else that night, but not me. He invited me to come with them.”
Nine pulled back his ears. You can’t honestly tell me that you think going to the Morelli would be a safe thing to do.
I stuffed my hands in the pockets of my pajama pants and blew a quick breath out of my nose. “I know it’s dangerous because the Morelli have no reason to trust anyone. But if I could convince them that they and the Directorate will need each other’s help, then maybe they might. I think deep down, my uncle is still a good person.”
Both times when I saw him, he was an angry person.
Again, I couldn’t argue, but Nine’s statement immediately piqued my interest. “What happened when you and Mom went to The Middle and found Zayne?”
Spellcaster Academy: Episodes 1-4 (Spellcaster Academy Omnibus) Page 28