Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Dafni
Was I one of those lovesick girls from the fairy tales my grandmother used to tell me before I fell asleep?
I still had that funny feeling in my stomach, even a week after meeting Gideon.
Maybe I still had some of the love potion floating around in there.
That was the only explanation for the way I was feeling.
Our lips had touched. He’d brought me back to his room so I could recover from the love potion in private.
That was all. We’d both stared at each other, each of us trying to figure the other out.
I’d probably stared the most. He was unlike anyone I’d ever laid eyes on…
but that was it. There was nothing between us.
All week, I’d kept the healing potion I’d made tucked between my breasts in my bra, scanning faces every time I walked through the dome to class hoping to see the witch I’d hurt. Without the potion, she had to be in a lot of pain, her finger still bent at an awkward angle.
It wasn’t until today that I saw her, standing nearby a group of witches, her uninjured hand wrapped around the injured one, holding it in front of her chest like it bothered her.
As I walked toward her, I plucked the tube from my shirt, wrapping my entire hand around the glass so no one could see it. She didn’t notice me until I got close, taking a step back, alerting her friends to my presence. They all turned and looked at me, their lips curling up.
I began extending my arm, holding the tube in my hand. The witches all bent their knees, pointing their index and middle fingers at me.
“Wait!” I yelled, bringing the potion back to my chest and closing my eyes.
They were about to strike me with their magic.
I slowly opened my eyes to see the witches still standing in the offensive stance, waiting for me to make my next move.
“I have something for you,” I said to the injured witch. Slowly, I spread my fingers, revealing the tube resting on my palm.
I tried to hold my hand steady as she walked toward me, her boots clicking on the ground with every step. With her uninjured hand, she picked up the potion, holding it at eye level while swirling its contents in the glass.
I saw her eyes as soon as she pulled the tube away. She was smiling with them instead of her lips. Her friends jumped out the way of the tube as she threw it against the brick wall, the glass shattering and the potion spattering.
“I don’t need any help—especially not from a human-born,” she spat.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I made that for you. It was supposed to help with pain, promote healing—”
I jumped to the side as poison from her mouth hit the dirt floor where I’d just been standing.
My head cocked back and to the side as I stared at her. I’d just tried to help her, to do the right thing, and she’d literally thrown my kindness away.
Why was I apologizing to her for doing the right thing?
It’d always been so easy to apologize, to appease others.
I’d been trained from a young age not to rock the boat—to just apologize so everyone, mainly my mother, would be happy.
It’d always come at the cost of my own happiness.
Apologize so everyone else felt better. It’d never made me feel any better.
Especially when what I was apologizing for wasn’t my fault.
“I take that back,” I said, my voice not wavering. “I’m not sorry I made that for you. If you would’ve taken it, maybe you’d be able to compete in your precious evaluations.”
This wasn’t a Coven of witches, this was a jumble of anger and resentment—with everyone teetering on the edge of their tipping point.
Today I’d tried to help someone, and that offer of help had pushed them past their breaking point.
Maybe she’d been too proud to take help from a supposedly human-born witch.
Fine. Don’t take my help. Suffer instead.
My kindness in here was being misread as weakness.
I walked past the group of witches, the heels of my boots crunching the broken glass on the ground. Their eyes heated the back of my neck as I headed to the class they’d just made me late for.
Petunia was at it again. Arcana had the air magics practicing levitating—the witches sending wind from their fingertips toward the hard ground, their bodies swaying back and forth as they went airborne.
Plumes of dust flew up from the dirt after their bodies fell, having become unbalanced in the air.
I could hardly pay attention to my potion, instead having to watch and make sure one of the air witches didn’t land on the work bench and cause another unfortunate love-potion incident.
Though this time, we were being drilled on making an expelling potion, and if I got any of this in my mouth, I’d be on my hands and knees emptying the contents of my stomach onto the floor.
The earth magic witches were on the opposite side of the room to the air magic witches and were trying to coax water from the dirt between the bricks.
Brooke, having already mastered the skill before she came here, stood with her back against the wall, watching the air magic witches.
We locked eyes for a moment—both rolling them as Petunia pushed one of the levitating witches, causing her to lose her balance and topple to the ground.
“Witches!” Arcana said clapping her hands together. “Robinson will be here shortly to observe the progress you’ve made over the past weeks. Please remember to do your best to show him everything I’ve taught you!”
Around me the water magics stirred their potions with more vigor, and Brooke even turned back around, willing a trickle of water from the wall. Petunia used her air magic to push herself even higher in the classroom, well above our heads.
The door to the classroom opened, and Robinson entered, standing with his legs apart and his arms crossed in front of his chest. With one hand he smoothed his mustache. This was only the second time seeing him, but he already gave me the creeps.
Arcana fluttered over to him, doting on him as she’d done the last time we’d seen him. The witches in the room continued to work on their magic as both Arcana and Robinson scanned the room. He pointed over at where Petunia was floating, nearing the tall ceiling, whispering something to Arcana.
Just below Petunia, another air magic witch floated up, her head parallel to Petunia’s boots.
After a quick glance down, Petunia bent her knee before delivering a swift kick to the witch’s head, sending her tumbling several feet down to the ground.
She landed with a thud, a cracking sound echoing along the brick walls.
I couldn’t help but wince and wish I’d kept that healing potion instead of giving it to that ungrateful witch earlier. I was too far along in my potion in today’s class to be pulling ingredients to make another one without drawing attention.
Robinson’s eyes never left Petunia as Arcana rushed over to the witch Petunia had kicked.
Arcana clicked her tongue at the injured witch as she held her limp arm up in the air, the witch crying out in pain.
It looked from here like it was broken. She helped the witch to her feet, guiding her to the side of the room and pushing her back down into a seated position against the wall.
The witch with the broken finger had been right. They weren’t about to help injured or even sick witches down here. We were all disposable, contestants in their sick game of evaluations. This wasn’t right.
Loud, slow clapping caught my attention as I turned away from the witch with the broken arm. Robinson stood clapping, his eyes locked on Petunia.
She smiled, floating up there in the air, her fingers still blowing wind to the ground to keep her afloat, looking down on all of us.
That night, I lay in bed next to Brooke. She’d taken a long time to fall asleep, shifting between crying and simply shaking at the realization that the earth magic’s evaluation would be tomorrow.
She’d finally fallen asleep, her breathing still short and choppy at times as she recovered from hyperventilating.
Brooke was a strong earth magic, but the witches here were vicious, as we’d seen with Petunia today.
With their futures on the line, they were unpredictable and prone to violence.
I empathized with Brooke—my whispers of Everything will be all right falling flat—as they should’ve.
Tomorrow everything might not be all right. She could very well be hurt…or worse.
It was late once my eyes finally became heavy with sleep. Above me the mattress springs flexed and squeaked as Petunia shifted.
“I will win.”
I sat up, holding the sheet over Brooke so she’d stay sleeping.
“I’m powerful—the most powerful witch in my class.”
Petunia was talking…whispering. Was she talking in her sleep?
“He’s mine. He will choose me. I will become the chosen.”
A shiver ran down my spine.
If she was talking in her sleep…those were her subconscious thoughts. If she was awake this late, speaking those words aloud to a quiet, dark room…she was more disturbing than I’d previously thought.
I kicked one foot out of the bed, careful to get off the mattress without disturbing Brooke. Both Brooke’s and Petunia’s breaths stayed even as I crossed the floor—I had to assume both were sleeping.
I closed the door to the bathroom before I switched on the light. Using the toilet, I let myself relax on the seat.
Petunia had been sleep-talking. People said strange things when they slept.
Her words weren’t unexpected. Judging by the attitudes of the witches down here, I was sure almost every witch had thought the words that’d come from Petunia’s mouth at some point.
But the way she’d said them, so sure of herself, so determined, made me uneasy.
My bare toes dug into the dirt ground. There was no staying clean here.
The only time we cleaned our feet was in the shower, and then after, it was either straight into our boots or keep our feet bare and deal with the dirt on the ground.
I wasn’t about to sleep in my leather boots, therefore my toes were already filthy all over again.
Sighing, I looked up. There was hardly room between the toilet and the brick wall in front of me, and my eyes traveled from the dirt floor to where the brick wall began.
What’s that, there?
I bent over, looking at the etching in the brick. It was light and uneven, but it was there.
A heart with the letters G and P inside.
Gideon and Petunia.
Gag.
My stomach felt like it had butterflies flopping around inside it. Petunia had never kissed Gideon; had she even spoken to him?
Is this jealousy?
No. I didn’t get to feel like that. I was supposed to become Prime. Feelings of attraction…of jealousy didn’t apply to me. They couldn’t. I had too much to learn.