Broken Wand Academy

by Marisa Claire

  At the bottom of the stairs, my shoes skidded on the tile as I rounded the corner into the hallway leading to the front doors. My feet went out from under me for a second, but I caught myself on one hand and bounced right back up. I expected a blinding pain to shoot through my practically melted palm, but of course, the wounds from my magic were gone. Physically, it was as though none of it had ever happened, and that felt uncomfortably like being gaslit by my own body.

  It’s all in your head. Stop overreacting.

  I made it about five more strides down the hall when curiosity overtook me. Slowly, I turned to face the yellow metal door beside the stairway. The blocky blue letters still read Department of Transmogrification. The smaller red ones still warned it was Access Restricted. Pressing my palm over the outline of the key in my right front pocket, I wondered…

  There was no way Professor Yates had just handed Serenity this key and told her to go have some good, clean, torture fun in the Arena. She had either taken it from him when he wasn’t looking, or she had acquired it through some other means. What if were some sort of master key, capable of opening all the doors at the Academy? It wouldn’t hurt to just slip it in the yellow door’s lock to see if it fit.

  That was crazy talk. It could absolutely hurt. Not only was I losing precious time I desperately needed to make my escape, but for all I knew, an alarm would go off the second the wrong key touched the lock, bringing Chancellor Singh immediately to the scene. And when she was done punishing me for nosiness and unauthorized transmogrification of a fellow student, she would probably rake me over the coals for being rude to Dasharath earlier.

  Even so, I was already moving toward the door as if pulled by an invisible string. Once I stood before it, I found myself staring at my own image in the highly reflective window embedded in the yellow metal. My hair was a wreck, and I had heavy purple bags under my eyes. Lovely. Cupping my palms around my stressed-out face, I leaned forward until my forehead touched the cool glass.

  A suspicious pair of eyes peered back at me from the other side.

  With a startled cry, I leaped backward, spun on my heel, and started running as fast as I could. The door creaked open behind me, and a moment later slammed shut.

  “What’s the rush, young lady?” a soft, lilting voice called out.

  I froze, hands on the front door. Damn my curiosity.

  Groaning inwardly, I turned toward the voice. It belonged to an elderly man whose white lab cloak stood out sharply against the yellow metal door. He watched me from underneath bushy white eyebrows—the only hair on his head, which was crisscrossed from scalp to chin with thick pink ridges of scar tissue. A shiver rolled down my spine. Either this man had been maimed by something that caused damage magic couldn’t fix, or he had chosen not to have his injuries treated by a healer. I couldn’t think of a single reason for the latter other than intimidation. If so, it was working like a charm.

  The man shuffled toward me, every two steps punctuated by the sharp tap of his dark wooden staff on the floor. “Was there something you needed, or were you up to no good?”

  Swallowing my fear, I answered mostly honestly. “I was just curious. And then you startled me.”

  He paused a few feet away and smiled, twisting the scars into new shapes and revealing dingy, smoke-stained teeth. “I have that effect on people. Though most are usually too polite to express their disgust quite so dramatically.”

  “That’s not why I—”

  He waved a dismissive hand, which aside from being gnarled with age and dotted with liver spots, had only two fingers and a thumb. “You’ll want to know what happened to me.”

  I winced, not really sure I did. “Um…”

  “This was a bear.” He indicated several puckered puncture scars on top of his skull. “This was a cougar.” He tapped the jagged scars that cut across his mouth and nose. “And this…” He flapped his thumb and two fingers. “This was my beloved pet. Ungrateful she-beast.”

  “You’re Professor Phorm,” I sputtered, veins filling with ice water as the realization that should have been immediately obvious dawned.

  He inclined his head. “Ah. A new acolyte?”

  “Yes,” I blurted. “I mean, I wish. But I’m not in your department.”

  He inched closer until I could see that his dark wooden staff was carved into the shape of a serpent. He raised it toward me, using the snake’s head to lift my chin so he could study my face. Up close, he smelled a little too much like an egg salad sandwich for my taste, but I held my breath while he hummed and wheezed his way through the inspection.

  At long last, he lowered his staff. “You’ve got the knack, but you’re too much like them for the program. I’m afraid my answer is no.”

  “Pardon?” I stammered.

  “My answer is no.” He rapped his staff on the floor. “And that’s final.”

  “But what did you mean? Too much like who?”

  He chuckled, showing off those rancid teeth again. “Lee and Kim, obviously.”

  My breath caught. “How do you know my mother?”

  His white eyebrows bunched together. “She was my student, of course.”

  ***

  I banged my fist on Braden’s door. My heart picked up its pace as though trying to match my frantic knocking. The harder it beat, the more often it seized up with the pain of losing my wand—and everyone who had passed it down to me.

  Why had no one told me?

  Why hadn’t my grandmother told me?

  Why hadn’t Professor Wallace told me?

  Why hadn’t Chancellor Singh told me?

  It was common enough knowledge in the wider magical world for Serenity to know, so why had this been kept from me?

  My mother was a witch.

  Tears stung my eyes as I continued my assault on the door. Had my father known? Or had my mother’s love for him cast her powers into the shadows?

  “Open up!” I called, voice hitching with the threat of a sob.

  A muffled voice answered from within, but I couldn’t make sense of it. I banged harder. The voice shouted a response, but it still wasn’t getting through to my ears. I lifted my fist for another round of door abuse, but it suddenly swung open. I caught myself just in time to avoid punching Braden square on his bare chest.

  “You’re late,” he said gruffly.

  I opened my mouth to apologize, but the only sound that emerged was a soft wail. I lurched forward, planting my face in the middle of his chest as the tears began to freely fall. Quickly, without any questions, he folded me into his arms and lugged me into his room, kicking the door shut behind us.

  “Meena?” he asked with surprising tenderness. “What’s wrong? What’s happened?”

  “Too much,” I moaned. “Too much.”

  “Okay,” he said, but it seemed to be more for himself than for me. “Okay. Here’s what we do. You…” He pushed me to arm’s length. “You sit down right here. And I’m going to sit right over there. Because I don’t want your pretty boyfriend coming around testing my chest hair for your snot DNA.”

  A laugh bubbled up through my sobs. Braden guided me down into the armchair, then took several steps backward to sit on the far edge of his couch. He made a big show of grabbing his shirt and blotting the matted wet hair I’d left in my wake. Then he slipped the shirt on over his head.

  “I’m sorry I’m late,” I babbled. “And I’m sorry about the raccoons. I mean, wait, that part wasn’t real. They weren’t raccoons. They were men. Two of them. And…”

  Everything that had happened since I left his room in the hospital wing poured out of me. As I spoke—blubbered, really—he inched closer and closer until our knees were touching and he was holding my hands ever so slightly in his lap. When I finally got to the part where Professor Phorm revealed that my mom was also a witch, and a very good one at that, I really broke down, doubling over until my forehead was resting on the knobs of his knees.

  Braden awkwardly patted my head and my back. “
Wow. You weren’t lying. That’s… that’s really too much.”

  I sat up, sniffling. “Sorry I’m such a mess.”

  He shrugged and rubbed the back of his neck. “Sorry I was such a jerk earlier.”

  I swiped my arm across my face. “You were a huge jerk earlier.”

  Braden jumped up and returned with a wad of toilet paper. “But I guess not irredeemably so since… you’re telling me all this?”

  I blew my nose into the toilet paper and shot him a glare. “I’m here because you’re the only person I trust. A fact which is somehow totally separate from the fact that you’re a huge jerk.”

  He lowered his head. “I really am sorry. I was just…”

  “High on pain meds?” I eyed a whiskey bottle tucked between the cushions of his couch.

  Braden tossed a pillow over the bottle. “Hey, whiskey is a time-honored paid med in many cultures.”

  “I’d feel better about trusting you if I could ever be sure you were going to have a clear head when it mattered.”

  He frowned as he settled back on the far side of the couch. “We’ve seen some stuff together, but I’m not sure you know me well enough to get on your high horse about my habits.”

  I flew out of my seat. “And you know me well enough to accuse me of using your room as a cheap motel?”

  He grimaced. “Okay, okay. Point taken. But can you admit it looked—okay, no. Fine. I’ll shut up.” He rolled his shoulders and looked away. “Wouldn’t want your boyfriend barging in and teaching me a lesson.”

  In lieu of turning him into a frog, I reached out and grabbed a tuft of his hair, yanking his head back to make him look me in the eye. “Dash isn’t the witch you need to worry about if you ever disrespect me like that in public—or in private—again. Understood?”

  He whimpered and ducked, brushing my hand aside. “Understood.”

  “Really?” I asked, folding my arms over my chest. “Because I just explained that whole Dash situation to you, and you still just had to get a dig in about it.”

  “I said I’m sorry, alright?” Braden whined. “I guess I’m just still having a little trouble believing you aren’t into him at all after the scene with all the kissing.” He frowned. “That was a lot of kissing.”

  “Well, I don’t remember the scene where I asked for your opinion on the amount of kissing I do or with whom.”

  “Whoa, hey, I do not care who or how much you’re kissing.” He held up both hands. “Let’s get that straight right now.”

  “Likewise,” I huffed. “So why is that what we’re talking about instead of what you did with the file Lucas gave you?”

  Braden’s eyebrows shot up his forehead. “Lucas didn’t give me any file. He never told me anything at all about what they were up to down there.”

  “Nothing?” I echoed, a little whiny. The contents of that file now seemed vitally important, not only to understanding why Lucas was killed, but also why Phorm’s bizarre experiments had such a personal connection to my mother. The witch. That no one told me about.

  Braden shook his head. “I mean, we had barely even seen each other since I got back from break. We were planning to sneak out for beers this weekend. Maybe he would have filled me in then, but we obviously never got that far.”

  I paced back and forth in front of the couch, tapping the knuckle of my index finger against my lips. “So if he didn’t give it to you, what did he do with it?”

  “Beats me. Buried it in the woods? Maybe that’s what he was doing out there when—” Braden’s voice thickened, and he cleared his throat and looked down.

  “Possibly.” I nodded slowly, but another idea was taking shape in my mind. “Or…”

  Braden leaned forward, hands clasped between his knees. “Or?”

  I stopped and stared at him. “Or what if he just gave it to the wolf?”

  Chapter 9

  Braden stared at me, mouth slightly parted. Then one corner of his lips quirked into a smile. And then the other. His smile widened until suddenly he was laughing so hard he had to wipe his eyes on his shirt.

  “What?” I demanded, planting my hands on my hips. “What’s so funny?”

  “I’m sorry,” he snickered. “I’m just imagining this wolf running through the forest with a soggy manila envelope in her mouth. Like, what’s she supposed to do with it? Read it?”

  “She’s a person, Braden. Were you listening to me at all?”

  “She was a person, Meena. Unfortunately, now she’s a wolf. No thumbs. How’s she gonna flip the pages? Does her brain even have the ability to process words?”

  Frustrated, I flopped down on the couch beside him. He stiffened dramatically, but I chose to ignore it. “Those are valid questions, I guess. But neither of them is proof that Lucas didn’t give her the file. Maybe he just wanted her to dispose of it. Or maybe…” I chewed on my lip, trying to remember everything Rhea said last night. “Maybe she’s supposed to deliver it to someone on the outside? Maybe that’s why she didn’t have time to stick around and explain any of this?”

  “Possibly,” Braden said carefully. “But…”

  Rolling my eyes at his devil’s advocate routine, I dropped my head against the back of the couch. “But what?”

  “Two things.” He shifted toward me, hooking his elbow over the back of the couch. His knee brushed the pillow hiding the whiskey bottle, causing it to tumble onto the floor. “First, I still don’t think it makes sense to give an important file to someone who has to carry it in their slobbery mouth.”

  “But if he had no other choice—”

  “True. Maybe so. Second thing, though, is that you seem to be taking this wolf’s story on blind faith, but the whole far-fetched thing seems perfectly designed to manipulate you personally.”

  “I’m not as easy as you think I am. I’ve obviously already thought of that. But what would be the point of that?”

  Braden gave me a pitying look. “You’re a Proteus, Meena. You’re always gonna have a target on your back. You’ve got to get a wall up. Keep your vulnerabilities out of sight.”

  I reached for the bottle between the cushions and lifted it between two fingers as though it were a rat. There was only about a half inch of liquid left to slosh around the bottom. “Is that what this is for?”

  “You bet,” he answered, snatching it out of my hand. He tossed the last shot down his throat, winced, and then flashed a satisfied smile. “Liquid protection ward. You ought to try it.”

  “No thanks.” I pushed away the empty bottle he was waving in front of my nose like an idiot. Even if there had been something in it, I would have refused. Maybe it would take the edge off my grief and fear, but the last thing I needed was to start acting as erratic as Braden this morning, or worse, the Chancellor last night. If I was going to get through this alive, I needed all my wits about me and then some.

  “Suit yourself.” He tipped back the bottle and made a face when he realized it was empty. “But my original point stands. There’s no proof you can trust a talking... woof.”

  He grinned, proud of his silly rhyme, and there was something endearing in the flash of boyishness behind his beard. But I refused to dignify his naysaying with an endeared reaction. My theory made perfect sense. Why was he being so stubborn?

  Raking a hand through my hair, I blew out a frustrated stream of air. “If only I could get back to that spot in the woods, then maybe I could find her again. She can’t have gone far on her leg. And maybe I could find my wand, too...”

  Braden pushed himself off the couch and sauntered over to his fridge. His dark blue pajama pants were riding low, revealing his hip bones where his shirt was rumpled up from sitting. A flush of heat crept up my neck, and I quickly averted my eyes.

  “Didn’t get a good look before, huh?” He grunted, swinging the fridge door open. “Well, I don’t mind showing you. It’s pretty cool.”

  “What?!” I squeaked. “I wasn’t—”

  Braden turned around with a beer in one hand
while the other hiked up the front of his shirt, revealing the light pink scar where the cult leader’s knife had sunk into his muscled abdomen.

  I breathed a sigh of relief, resting a hand over my racing heart. He cocked his head and then a gruff laugh rumbled out of his chest as he dropped his shirt.

  “What did you think I was going to show you, Meena?”

  “Nothing! I was just relieved that it wasn’t as bad as I thought.”

  “Uh-huh. Alright.” He swaggered back over to the couch with a smirk on his face. “We could always get into the woods through the closet.”

  “Really?” I perked up. “It doesn’t only work with other closets?”

  “Pshh, course not. It’s just safer that way. But if you think you can visualize the clearing…”

  “It was really dark, but I think I can. There was a big tree...”

  He smiled down at me. “The one you killed a guy with?”

  I covered my face with my hands. “I’m not proud, okay?”

  “Why not? He was going to do the same to you. It was self-defense. Don’t sweat it.”

  “Don’t sweat it?” I gaped at him. “That’s your advice?”

  He gaped back at me like I was stupid. “Um, yeah? You got your wand right after that, didn’t you? So it couldn’t have been too big of a loss to magekind.”

  “I got my wand for saving Rhea, not for killing some guy in the process. But that does poke a hole in your theory, doesn’t it? If Rhea can’t be trusted, then surely saving her wouldn’t have been meaningful enough for a first-year to earn her wand over it, huh?”

  “Touché.” He pulled the tab on his beer can and raised it toward me like a toast before plopping back down beside me, sloshing some of the amber liquid in the process. “So, tonight? A woodland excursion for two?”

  “I’ve got Divination tonight,” I said, frowning as the wet spots soaked into his pajamas while he didn’t even bother to blot them. He may have had a nice face and a hot body, but the dude was a serious fixer-upper.