Demon of Dreams (Vesperwood Academy: Incubus #1)

15. Cory

15

CORY

I t wasn’t just a replica of my face, but my entire body. My mouth dropped open as I stared at Ash, who grinned, breaking the mirror-like connection.

This was stranger than looking in a mirror, actually. In reflecting your image, a mirror showed you what appeared to be your right cheek, even though you knew it was your left. But my face on Ash showed me what other people saw when they looked at me.

It was slightly disconcerting. I’d never noticed that one of my eyebrows was higher than the other before. And there was, indeed, ink on my nose. I scrubbed at the spot on my own nose where I saw the ink on Ash’s.

“How did you do that?” I asked, sounding as awed as I felt. “That is still you in there, right? You didn’t like, clone me?”

Ash laughed and stuck his tongue out, and I shivered. The mannerisms were all Ash, but the laugh sounded like my own.

“Still me,” he said. God, he had my voice too. “It’s just glamor. Mimicry and illusion are some of the most common faerie powers.”

“I feel dizzy.” I shook my head from side to side. “This is very strange. Cool, but strange.”

“Don’t like looking at your own face, huh?” Ash said. “No worries. I can change it up a little.”

He ran a hand across his face, and suddenly, I was staring at Felix. A second Felix, that was. The first one was still sitting in my desk chair, but now Ash-as-Felix sat on my bed, grinning.

“Don’t be so childish, Ash,” said Ash-as-Felix in a pompous voice. “Truly, I can’t remember why I put up with your adolescent antics. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a dusty library to fuck.”

Real Felix rolled his eyes. “What does that even mean? Am I fucking the whole room? Because there’s a lot of empty space in a library, so I don’t think it would be very—”

“What does that even mean?” Ash-as-Felix repeated, only this time, he made his voice higher pitched and nasal. “Am I fucking the whole room?”

“I do not talk like that,” Felix objected. “You know very well what I sound like.”

“This is so trippy,” I said. “I don’t think I can handle two Felixes any better than I can handle two me’s.”

“Hmm, so no clones of yourself, no extra Felixes—can’t say I blame you there. In that case, how about this ?”

Ash wiped a hand over his face a third time, and now I was staring at Noah.

My heart lurched. I knew this wasn’t really Noah. But Ash’s whole body had changed, growing and filling out, until he took up way more space on the bed, and his face was Noah’s to a T. Same brown hair and stubbled jaw, same piercing hazel eyes under dark brows, and that same expression, looking at me like I was the gunk under his shoe.

“Change back,” I said quickly. “Change back, change back.”

Ash-as-Noah cocked his head to the side, then gave a one-shouldered shrug. “I thought you might get a kick out of looking at Noah—he is pretty hot. But suit yourself.”

With a final pass of his hand over his face, Ash was himself again, grinning impudently. I heaved a sigh of relief. It wasn’t so much that I didn’t like Ash impersonating Noah. It was more that I was afraid I might blurt out something stupid in front of my friends while Ash looked like that.

“That’s incredible,” I said after a moment. “And you can just do that, without spells or anything?”

“The joys of being a changeling.” Ash’s voice was a little sour. “Not sure it makes up for the drawbacks, but at least it’s something.”

I turned to Felix. “Can you do stuff like that?”

He shook his head. “Nothing so impressive.”

Ash snorted derisively. “Don’t be modest. Your powers are plenty impressive. You just don’t want to use them.”

Felix squirmed in his seat. “I did take a vow not to.”

“You took a vow not to hurt Vesperwood or any of its denizens,” Ash said. “But showing Cory what you can do isn’t hurting anyone. Come on, show off a little.”

Felix gave me a dry look. “He’s making it sound like a bigger deal than it is.”

“Um, you have utter control over light and darkness,” Ash said. “You can walk through walls. I think that’s a little cooler than fucking glamor.”

“You can what ?” I said, staring at Felix.

He sighed. “It’s nothing. I relinquished some of my abilities when I left my home to come here. But yes, I do have some control over darkness—”

He waved his hand negligently, and the room plunged into pitch black. I might as well have been blindfolded. I couldn’t see a thing, not even the hand I waved in front of my face.

“—And light,” he finished, and I blinked as the room suddenly filled with the light of a midday July sun.

My eyes hurt at the sudden transition. Felix waved a hand again, and the light in the room returned to normal—which was to say, somewhat dim. Every room I’d seen at Vesperwood so far had been lit by glowing balls of light that brightened or dimmed themselves according to the time of day. There was a ball of light hovering above my door right now, and another one over my nightstand, both casting a soft, orangey glow.

“Okay, you definitely need to stop pretending that’s not impressive,” I told him. “Because that’s amazing. Can you do it anywhere? Even outside? How big an area can you cover?”

“It depends on a lot of factors,” he said, looking down again.

I still wanted to ask about the whole walking-through-walls thing, and what exactly it meant to give up one’s wings, but I got the feeling he was uncomfortable being the center of attention.

“It’s fine,” I said. “We don’t have to keep talking about it.”

“Thanks.” Felix looked relieved. “It’s nice to have a friend who respects boundaries for once.”

“Boundary?” Ash asked. “What’s a boundary? Sounds fake.”

Felix raised his gaze to the ceiling. “I do wish I could have seen those blog posts you mentioned, Cory. You said they were written in Latin?”

“I probably shouldn’t have sounded so sure about that,” I corrected myself. “I don’t know any Latin, I was just going off what my English teacher taught us in SAT prep.”

“Now I’m even more interested,” Felix said.

“Do you read Latin?”

“Yeah. Well, no, actually, but…kind of yes. You know.”

I did not know, but Felix seemed to feel his explanation was crystal clear.

“I’d show them to you,” I offered, “but I lost my phone on the way here.”

Felix waved his hand. “It doesn’t matter. Cell phones don’t work at Vesperwood.”

“What? Why?”

“Reception isn’t great anywhere in the region, but all the magic gathered at Vesperwood means that technology tends to work strangely around here. Or not work at all.”

“Or create a big-ass explosion,” Ash said with a grin. “Don’t forget that.”

“Seriously?” I looked at Felix for confirmation, in case Ash was exaggerating again.

“Seriously. Try to use technology in a space that’s too magical, or to use magic in a space that’s filled with lots of mundane technology, and things tend to go very badly, very fast.”

I didn’t like the sound of that. Sure, I didn’t have my phone right now, but I still didn’t like the idea of being so cut off here. Some aspects of Vesperwood felt very comforting, warm, and safe—but the lack of cell service made me feel isolated.

“I wonder if we could ask Erika about the blog posts,” Felix said, tapping his fingers against his chin. “She’s even more well-read than I am. If anyone would have any ideas, she would.” He frowned. “I know she’ll be a good fit for Hex, but I think it’s a shame she won’t go out for History.”

“Erika…” I said slowly. “She’s the girl who wears her hair in two braids, right? The one who sits next to me in Spellwork?”

Ash nodded. “Yeah. She’s even nerdier than Felix, if you can believe that. But somehow, still cooler.”

“She also doesn’t buy into the stereotypes about paranormal beings,” Felix said. “She’s pretty set on going into Hex, since it’s the most prestigious of the havens, but she doesn’t have the prejudices many Hexers have. She’s a good friend.”

I shivered, remembering Sean and his prejudices. “I’m sorry. I know this is normal for you guys, but it’s all so unfamiliar for me. It’s going to take me a while to get used to it.”

“Familiar!” Ash shouted, loud enough that I jumped. “That’s gotta be it.”

“Be what?”

“Your familiar. That’s what the raven probably was. Is. Whatever.” He waved a hand. “It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

“It’s not the only thing that makes sense,” Felix countered. He tilted his head to the side, staring at me as if seeing me for the first time. “But it does have a certain logic to it. Not all witches have familiars, but many do, and it’s not unheard of for the familiar to find the witch, instead of the witch finding the familiar.”

“But I’m not a witch,” I said, utterly confused. The tugging feeling in my stomach was growing more insistent, and I shifted on the window ledge awkwardly.

“Don’t get hung up on the gender thing,” Ash said. “Witch is the correct noun for human spellcasters of any gender—or no gender at all.”

“It’s not that. I’m just not a witch.”

“What do you mean?”

I spread my hands. I’d said it pretty plainly. “I’m just not. I’ve never done magic in my life.”

Felix’s head tilted even further. He looked like a confused owl. “Then why are you here?”

I opened my mouth to explain, then stopped. I’d just backed myself into the very conversational corner I’d been trying to avoid.

“You have to be,” Ash interjected, before I could think of something to say. “I wasn’t sure at first, but now that I’ve spent more time with you, I’m certain you’re human. I can sense other supernatural beings, and I don’t get that particular kind of tingle from you.”

“It’s possible Cory’s nature is something you can’t sense,” Felix said, casting a quick look at Ash before his eyes resumed their scrutiny of my face. “But logic says you’re not paranormal. If you were, you’d have grown up in a paranormal family or community. Or there would be a precipitating event. Like getting bitten by a vampire,” he added when he saw my confusion. “The point is, you can’t be a paranormal being without knowing it. Witches, though. They can come into their powers at almost any age. So that must be why you’re here. To learn how to work your magic. How to control it.”

It was so close to what the dean had told me that I shuddered. But I couldn’t tell Felix that. Just like I couldn’t tell him that there had been a precipitating event—my birthday, this October, when I had the first dream and my life began to unravel.

“Didn’t the dean explain this to you on your first night?” Ash asked. “What did you guys talk about, if not why you’re here?”

My aggressive sex dreams, and apparent need to orgasm or die .

“He just…wanted to make sure I was okay, I guess,” I said lamely. “He said he’d explain more later.”

“Well I hope he does, because I’m dying to know, and patience is not one of my strong suits.”

“We’ve noticed,” Felix said dryly.

“Not all of us like watching paint dry like you Historians.” Ash retorted.

“Hey, speaking of that,” I said. “Romero said we had to apply to a haven, but you’re making it sound like Felix has already gotten into History.”

“I definitely haven’t,” Felix said at the same time that Ash said, “Yeah, pretty much.”

I looked between the two of them, and Felix sighed.

“Right now, I’m planning on applying to History, and statistically speaking, the odds are good that I’ll be accepted. It has a higher than average percentage of paranormal members and generally encourages the type of scholarship I’m already inclined to. As Ash would say, if it’s a subject you could write a six-hundred page book about that nobody will ever read, it belongs in History Haven.”

“I would never say something that cruel,” Ash said. “How dare you besmirch my reputation in front of Cory?”

“You said that to me last week.”

“Well, Cory wasn’t here then. It was a different world entirely. Anyway,” Ash added, “you’re basically a lock for History because the head of the haven is in love with you.”

He sounded a little…jealous, maybe? That was new.

“Ash, we’ve been over this,” Felix said, giving him a long look.

“I know, I know.” He raised his hands up. “You’ll have to forgive me for not being the man’s biggest fan, but given the way he treats you—”

“Just drop it, please?” Felix said, and after a moment, Ash rolled his eyes and sighed theatrically.

“ Fine ,” he said. “If you insist.”

But I couldn’t help thinking there was an undercurrent of bitterness there.

“What about you, Ash?” I asked, hoping a change in subject would cheer him up. “What haven are you going to apply to?”

“Oh darling, how could I possibly choose upon which to bestow the gift of my perfection?” he said, waving his fingers through the air. “With whom to share the knowledge of my sweet beneficence and favor?”

I shot Felix a look. “I’m assuming that means he hasn’t picked one yet?”

Felix laughed and nodded.

“Sue me for not being thrilled about shackling my future to a group of witches who’ll only grudgingly tolerate my presence,” Ash grumbled.

“History would be happy to have you,” Felix said. “Harmony too, if you could learn to curb the sarcasm for thirty seconds.”

“Ugh, but I’d be so bored in History, surrounded by all you bookworms. And can you seriously see me fitting in with all the holier-than-thou do-gooders in Harmony?”

“You’re the one always saying that witches need to see that paranormal beings aren’t so different from them. That’s basically Harmony’s mission.”

“Yeah, that and sitting around in sharing circles, dredging up our deepest shames so the group can ‘ hold us in beloved community .’” Ash made a retching sound. “I don’t know if I could stomach that.”

He looked at me. “Not that that should stop you if you want to apply to them, Cory. Just because I’m a hater doesn’t mean you have to be. Besides, you could choose any of them, no limits.”

I shrugged uncomfortably. Both Felix and Ash assumed I was a witch. But in truth, Hex or Hunt or Heal would probably want me just as much—which was to say, just as little—as they wanted my friends. And I barely had any idea of what the other havens were like.

“I don’t know. Maybe I’ll just pick whichever one gets me out of Combat the soonest,” I said, half-serious.

Felix’s nose crinkled. “Unfortunately, you can’t. Combat’s mandatory all four years. A hold-over from the old days.”

“Four years?” I said. It was almost a wail. “You’re telling me I have to go through four more years of this torture?”

I didn’t know which was worse—the thought of having to share that class with Sean for the next four years of my life, or the thought of Noah teaching it.

“It probably won’t be as awful as it was yesterday,” Ash said quickly. “I don’t know why Noah did that. Sean, I can understand—he’s a dick to everyone. But Noah—”

“You know how Professor Braverman is, though,” Felix said. “Always talking about self-control and respect. And he hates it when people don’t pay attention. He says it’s the surest way to get yourself hurt. He probably saw Cory trying to find the bathroom and wanted to make sure he didn’t miss anything.”

“But he still didn’t have to pair him with Sean ,” Ash said with a shudder. “That was just cruel.”

“Yeah, but he let Cory partner with me today. Anyway, it was Sean who ended up taking the heat. I heard he’s been ordered to clean the gym every night for a week.”

Ash waved his hand dismissively. “He’ll probably just get Rekha to do it with a spell.” He looked over at me. “She’s the girl who looks like Sean’s attack dog. Always wearing an expression that says she’s considering whether strangling you with your entrails or feeding them to you would give her more pleasure.”

“Yeah.” I nodded. “She’s kind of hard to miss. What’s the name of their other friend? The one built like a sequoia.”

“Tim,” Felix said with an expression of distaste. “Timothy Kim. Another Hunter, like Sean. Not big on talking, but his fists tend to get his point across just fine.”

“Which you can find out for yourself, if you ever call him Tiny Tim in his hearing,” Ash said.

“Jesus,” I muttered. “He hasn’t hurt you guys, has he? I can’t believe the staff would just allow that.”

“Can’t you?” Ash arched an eyebrow. “Why would the professors here step in to stop bullies who they basically agree with?”

I opened my mouth to protest, but then thought about it. The bullies in my classes growing up had escaped punishment more often than not.

“You’d think it would be better here, though,” I said. “We’re not in high school anymore.”

“It’s not quite as bad as Ash makes it sound,” Felix said. “About a quarter of our class this year is paranormal. Sean and his cronies are the worst of the witches, but long as you avoid being alone near their rooms, you’ll be fine.”

“Probably.” Ash added. “I’d advise avoiding being alone with Sean anywhere, though.”

I hugged my arms around my knees, sick to my stomach. I felt ashamed on a whole new level. I fought the urge to confess it, to confess everything. Maybe that explained the tug in my core. Maybe it was my body, rebelling against me and what I’d done.

“So, wait,” I said. “You just called Sean and his friends witches. Are Hunters a kind of witch? I thought they were just one of the havens, but sometimes you talk like they’re almost a separate species.”

“Because they basically are ,” Ash said. “For all intents and purposes, Hunters are paranormal beings themselves, though God help you if you say that to their faces.”

“It’s normal to be confused at first,” Felix said. “Hexers, Healers, Harvesters and all the rest—they’re mostly your garden variety witches, with a few of us paranormals thrown in. They’re the majority of the student body, and they study in order to control, expand, create, or discover new spells and areas of power.”

He was counting on his fingers again, and tapped a new one. “Hunters, though. They’re witches, in that they’re humans and they have magic, but for the most part, they’re not spellcasters. Hunt is one of the hardest, and easiest, havens to get into, because by the time you get to Vesperwood, if you’re meant to be a Hunter, you know it. Magic is less something Hunters do , and more something they are .”

“Which is kind of ridiculous, considering they’re the most vehemently prejudiced when it comes to—” Ash began, but Felix cut him off.

“Can we not derail the conversation for like, five minutes, please?”

Ash glared at him, but didn’t say anything, so Felix continued.

“Hunters take all the same distribution requirements as everyone else,” Felix said, “but they’re basically here to perfect their fighting skills.”

“And harass other students,” Ash said, but it was quiet enough that Felix didn’t object.

An awful thought occurred to me. “Is Noah a Hunter?”

I already knew he hated me for seeing him at the Balsam Inn. It shouldn’t make a difference if he had a second reason for hating me too. But I realized, suddenly, that I really, really didn’t want to see the same look of disgust in Noah’s eyes that Sean had gotten when he’d talked about paranormal beings. I didn’t want to give Noah any more reasons to want me gone.

“You’d think he would be,” Felix said, “but actually, no.”

I blinked. “But he teaches Combat. I thought—”

“That would make him part of Hunt?” Ash said. “Understandable. But Noah’s not a Hunter. He’s just a human with a lot of experience fighting witches and paranormals. The head of Hunt thinks he should be fired, that he has no place teaching their ‘ pwecious widdle baby Hunters ’ but the dean wants him here, so here he stays.”

“That’s why everyone calls Professor Braverman by his first name behind his back,” Felix said. “They don’t think he’s earned the title of Professor.”

“Personally, I don’t think Noah gives a shit either way,” Ash said. “But, again, the dean says he’s a professor, so that’s the rule. Officially, anyway.”

I digested that for a moment. Noah had so much confidence, so much steadiness as he walked us through our exercises. He’d certainly seemed experienced with different fighting styles, as far as I could tell based on two classes. And he’d taken Sean down quickly enough.

I wondered where he’d learned all of that. What had brought him to Vesperwood. Brought him to—

Me , the voice in my head finished. I closed my eyes and tried to shake the thought away. Nothing had brought him to me. Our paths had crossed by chance, and if Noah had his way, he’d made sure they never did again.

“So what happens after we graduate?” I asked. “Are Hunters and Hexers like…Vesperwood’s army?”

“Great question, Cory!” Ash said, his voice cheerily emphatic. “Sure would be nice if someone could justify the need for a highly-trained, prone-to-violence paramilitary force answerable to exactly zero higher authority, wouldn’t it?”

Despite saying my name, he was staring intently at Felix, who stared right back at him. They were having some kind of silent conversation, that much was clear. Ash’s nostrils flared, and even the hair on his head looked bristly.

Finally, Felix held out his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “What do you want me to say?”

“I want you to stop defending them.”

“I’m not defending them, I’m just acknowledging that the historical context is more nuanced than the either-or dichotomy you make it out to be.”

“You think I’m the one who thinks that? It’s them who think that way, and that’s the whole problem. They want to tar and feather us all with one brush.”

“Can we not mix our metaphors?”

“I don’t know, can we stop being bootlickers for the oppressor?”

“Can we stop using so many pronouns and tell Cory what the hell is going on?” I interjected, lost again. “Who’s them , for Christ’s sake?”

“Them! They! Those!” Ash huffed. “The Hunters, the Hexers, the lot of them. All the witches who are forced to be polite while we’re all students here at Vesperwood, but who would be more than happy to see us dead as soon as we’re outside university bounds.”

“You make it sound like we’re living in the Middle Ages,” Felix said.

“Because we might as well be. It doesn’t matter what the dean’s views are, when half the student body wants to murder us in our sleep, and the other half wouldn’t lift a finger to stop it. They might be playing nice for now, but tell me you’d feel safe, surrounded by this many witches, after we graduate.”

Felix didn’t bother to reply to that. He looked at me instead. “Hunters are not Vesperwood’s private army. The academy doesn’t maintain a standing military force of any kind. The Council wouldn’t allow it. And while Ash isn’t wrong about there being prejudice among the students and faculty, it’s not as dire as he makes it out to be. Half of the student body does not want to kill us.”

“Tell that to them , and see how they respond,” Ash said.

“You know, Cory’s one of your them ’s,” Felix pointed out. “So which half is he in? The one that wants to kill us, or the one that wouldn’t object if it happened?”

“Neither,” Ash said. “Cory’s not an asshole corrupted by hatred.”

“Then can’t you believe that there could be other witches who are similarly not assholes?”

“I can count them on one hand,” Ash said. “As for the rest? I’ll believe it when I see it.”

“Anyway, your math doesn’t add up,” Felix continued. “What about the paranormal students at Vesperwood? Which half of the student body are they in?”

“The half that’s trying not to get jumped in an empty classroom.”

A knock at the door interrupted their argument, and we all turned to look.

“Are you expecting someone?” Felix asked. “We can go, if you are.”

“Who would I be expecting?” I said. “The only people I know here are you guys.”

“Maybe it’s Professor Braverman,” Felix said thoughtfully. “Maybe he wants to apologize for Sean’s behavior.”

“Be real,” Ash said. “Can you honestly imagine Noah apologizing for anything? The guy could run you through with a sword and turn it into a lesson on preparation and mindfulness. Anyway, if he were going to apologize, why wouldn’t he do it yesterday?”

My heart thumped. It couldn’t be Noah, right? There was no way he would apologize, but what if he’d come here to threaten me into silence? Or to tell me I had to leave? Or maybe he’d told the dean what I’d had done at the Balsam Inn, and now the dean wanted to—

“Come in!” Ash called brightly, when I didn’t respond. “We’re decent. Or as decent as we’ll ever be,” he added with a snicker.

The door swung open.