Chapter 10
Ten
Avery
There was no known way to break a bond, and no known way to get off the island.
She would need a dozen lifetimes to figure out how to do that.
But a few weeks alive was better than dead today.
She needed to figure out something, and between the shifter and the university, one would be the death of her.
Tiredness racked her body as she slugged herself into the bathroom, locking the door behind her. It had been a fucking day.
She turned on the witch lights, their gentle hum a blessing to her ears.
The small bathroom was illuminated under the warmth of the lights, the copper fixtures so shiny they were almost blinding.
Her favorite part of the room was the circular window above the bath; it was just high enough so that when she was taking a shower at night, she could watch the stars go by as she lost hours to the water.
It was the only place in the academy she felt truly safe.
However, there was no safety tonight. Her bedroom held a shifter, her sister was suspicious—her fault—and her plan was a steaming pile of horse shit.
So not only did she need to find out how to unbind a shifter, she needed to find out a way to get him off the island, and come to the horrifying acceptance that she would end up never leaving the island. Or dead from treason of bonding a shifter.
Just fucking fantastic.
Stripping off her robe, she let it drop to the floor and kicked it into the wicker hamper.
Stepping into the bath, she turned on the shower, cursing as the cold spray hit her already frigid skin before it finally warmed.
Under the stream, everything fell away. If there was a pure form of magic, it had to be water.
The source of all life. Even the goddess made them from it.
Something powerful enough to drown you, yet gentle enough to cleanse you, that was true magic.
The silver moon shone through the window as she looked out through it, losing herself to the stars.
Warm water drummed against her skin, almost loud enough to drown out all the noises of the world.
Except the single creak of a door still made it past.
She stilled, instinctively folding her arms to cover her breasts from the silent intruder.
Yet, when she looked into the darkness beyond the bathroom, there was nothing.
She swore she had locked the door, but all she could see was just a sliver of her barely lit dorm.
Thinking she was hearing things, she ignored the noise and went back to her shower, letting the water run over her face.
The noise came again, louder this time. The bathroom door creaked open like it had been pushed. Then she saw him, sitting so still she almost missed him. A cat stood at the threshold of the door.
Felix was watching her in the shower.
It took her a moment to realize that in the shock of it all, she had left herself entirely uncovered this time. Her arms dangling by her side like useless limp noodles, leaving her as stark as the day she was born. His eyes raked it all in.
“It’s rude to stare, little witch,” a voice said into her mind. Not a voice. His voice. The feeling of it slithering through her head wouldn’t be something she would get used to quickly. The goddess-honest audacity of this shifter astounded her. Her? She was the one who was staring?
“Get out,” she hissed at the cat.
“Make me.”
He very well fucking knew she couldn’t get out of this shower without giving him a full show.
“Can you not?”
“Not what, witch?”
She’d officially lost her mind. She was arguing with a shifter while butt-naked.
Maybe she hit her head and died, and this was some version of hell.
Out of all the things that had happened today, this felt like the worst. She moved to cover herself with the shower curtain, the water still drenching her and sticking her body to the thin fabric.
Felix’s eyes dropped down for a second before meeting hers again. That little shit.
“Do not—” She gestured wildly with her hands. “Watch me in the shower.” She fumbled for words that didn’t sound ridiculous. A low rumble came through their connection, something that sounded awfully like a laugh.
“You wanted me to be your familiar. I go where you go,” he teased.
That was so wrong on so many levels. This wasn’t what she meant, and he knew that.
“That doesn’t mean you can just watch me while I’m naked.”
“I’m naked too, if that helps.”
It really didn’t. If a cat could look smug, he did.
She let out an exasperated sigh. If she wasn’t dead, this had to be some sort of fucked-up dream that she would wake up from any second now.
She closed her eyes. There were too many knots in her mind, too many strings of problems that she didn’t know where to start to untangle.
Using the shower curtain to cover herself, Avery leaned forward toward the towel rack, yanked the towel off it, wrapped it around herself, and slammed the door in the pervy cat’s face. One problem sorted. Sort of.
She dried herself off and brushed her hair in silence, reveling in the small moment of peace that life had afforded her.
A scratch sounded at the door. Then silence.
Then another series of increasingly urgent scratches.
Was he seriously fucking scratching at the door to get in?
Avery’s mouth parted, and then clamped shut again before she stalked over to the door and opened it, expecting to find a small cat staring up at her.
Instead, she found nothing. Felix licked his paws on her chest of drawers, the complete picture of nonchalance.
“Something bothering you, witch?” he said.
This was going to be a long few weeks.
Avery didn’t get much sleep that night, and neither did Felix, she guessed.
He had stayed on the armchair in his cat form in front of the fire, readjusting every few minutes.
It was a tense sort of calm, one where neither of them was comfortable in the other’s presence.
They were, after all, natural enemies who had been shoved into a dorm room and forced to work together.
Every so often, she would open her eyes, only to find him staring back at her.
Morning light poured through the curtains, illuminating the room.
Dust motes drifted through the air, dust bunnies darting out to snatch them mid-flight.
A bunny crossed over Felix’s paws, and he went to swipe at it before stopping short, letting the magical creature run away with a few of his hairs that had found their way to the ground.
“What are they?” he questioned, paw still hovering.
“You don’t have dust bunnies in…wherever you’re from?”
“No, we don’t have magical dust bunnies in London.”
The shifter was from London? She had pulled him from that far? She supposed it wasn’t the most far-fetched thing in the world, given that she had pulled a shifter into a bond. Did the bond have to choose such an asshole, though? Surely there were nicer shifters.
“Were you there when I, you know, summoned you?” she asked, playing with the threads in the duvet.
“I was having a cocktail in my courtyard before you so rudely interrupted me.”
“Sorry,” she said sincerely. It must have been a rude awakening. She imagined him sipping on a pina colada with a little umbrella. The thought shouldn’t have brought a smile to her face.
“What are you smiling at, witch?” He scowled.
And just like that, the grumpy cat put her in a sour mood again. A scowl formed in its place.
“Classes start today,” she told him.
“And?”
“And”—you sassy bitch, she didn’t add that—“I am due to present my familiar today, otherwise I’ll get expelled.”
The cat sat silently for a moment, contemplating. “Fine.”
She sucked in a breath. Thank the goddess, he hadn’t changed his mind. One day at a time.
Avery got dressed in the bathroom, this time putting a chair up against the door so he couldn’t open it with whatever shadow magic he had. It wouldn’t stop a shifter, but it made her feel better.
From what she knew, unlike witches, shifters were born with their magic; they could use it from birth, and often they were incredibly powerful.
There was a caveat to that, though; they burned out quickly if not careful.
It took an immense amount of control and concentration for a shifter to channel their magic without letting it flare up and become incapacitated for days.
She heard that sometimes when they truly lost control of their emotions, they supposedly turned into literal monsters.
Never mind that she had heard that from the fanfiction, and that they had done other stuff.
Felix jumped down from the armchair. “After your classes, we begin hunting for a cure to our… infection.”
Out of all the insults that have been hurled toward Avery, that one was potentially the worst so far. An infection. The way he said it made it sound like she was some sort of venereal disease. Asshole. If she were an infection, she would be far more interesting than gonorrhea.
Once she had gotten dressed and her bag packed, she opened the door to the hallway, the cool air rushing in.
Other students in her year level meandered through the dorm hall, making their way to the first day of class.
Felix’s ears flattened as he sniffed the air that wafted in.
Slowly but surely, he took a few steps toward the open door, one paw in front of the other.
When he reached the door, he stood on the threshold.
Avery went to move her foot toward the back end of him, giving him a small nudge out the door.
He hissed at her. “Don’t rush me, witch.”
Avery rolled her eyes.
A single paw touched the threshold, then, by some miracle, the cat committed to walking through. She shut the door behind him so he couldn’t change his mind.
Felix looked around cautiously, sticking to the wall as they walked beside each other. She had thought all shifters were brave, or at least they were cocky enough never to be fearful. But it seemed he was cautious. And he should be; he was surrounded by enemies.
The more they walked, the more relaxed he got, except for when he walked past an enforcer, and all the hairs on his body stood up.
Maybe. Somehow. This would work out. Although deep down she knew she was just delaying the inevitable, once she broke the bond—if that was even possible—and put this behind her, she would have nothing.
No one. She would be truly ostracized. Loneliness was a feeling she was already used to, even in a family, even with a single friend.
She still felt the soul-crushing weight of having no one in her corner but herself.
Her father had been. Until he died. Which Avery thought was quite rude of him, to be honest. Even though it had only been a year, his face slipped from her mind.
The wrinkles that crinkled at the edges of his blue eyes disappeared, replaced by her mind’s rendition of what she thought they might look like, like an artist painting from memory.
When she looked at the photos, it was almost like looking at a stranger.
At least his soul remained, the essence of who he was, which was kind and gentle, always stuck with her.
The walk across campus was torture. Each step brought them closer to the lecture hall, closer to dozens of witches who would sense something was wrong.
Who would know? They had to know. Her heart pounded in her chest. Maybe this was a terrible idea.
Maybe she should just turn herself in right now.
She wondered if they would kill her on the spot or whether they would ship her off to Anoddun, the magical version of Alcatraz.
Shivers raced down her spine at the thought.
Rain misted across the quadrangle, turning the fallen leaves into a treacherous carpet of red and gold. First-year students giggled in groups and admired the senior students’ familiars that sauntered past them: a fox here, a raven there, even a small dragon circling overhead.
Avery hung back until they’d all moved on.
“Your heart is pounding,” Felix observed. “I can hear it from down here.”
“Shut up,” she muttered under her breath, earning a curious glance from a third-year student.
They passed the statue of Cerituen in the courtyard, her stone face eternally judging, and guilt twisted in her stomach. What would the goddess think of what she’d done? Binding a shifter, her mortal enemy, and parading him through her sacred halls when witches had died to get rid of them?
“You look like you’re about to vomit.”
“I might.”
“Please don’t. I’d rather not have to be bathed again.”
Despite everything, a nervous laugh bubbled up in her throat. She quickly stifled it, but not before Felix made a rumbling sound, one that could have been a purr or could have been a laugh. Were they getting along? No, it was far too early for that.
The entrance to the great hall loomed ahead.
Towering arches gave way to spires, the intricate patterns blurring together as the cool rain fell against her skin.
Enforcers eyed them up and down, one of them readjusting the grip on his rifle, which made Avery’s heart almost explode.
But they did nothing, only stood there like ever-present statues.
When she was a child, Avery had once asked her mother why they were always there.
She had only replied, “To protect us.” From what Avery had never seen.
There hadn’t been a single incident on the island that warranted their intervention…
until now, she supposed. Most of the enforcers just waited to be deployed to a post as elite human security, patrolling luxury compounds.
Witches had no purpose anymore except to be a pawn to the highest bidder.
It was quite depressing, really. The culture of witches was beautiful, but Avery thought, we had come so far from how we were meant to live, or what we were truly striving for.
Instead of being a coven, we were pitted against one another, shamed for not being the best among our peers.
From what she had read, it hadn’t been like that.
Something had changed amongst witches for the worse.
The enforcers opened the arched doors for them, Felix’s ears flattening as he went past. She could almost feel the amount of self-control it was taking him not to hiss at the enforcer.
Before they entered the grand hall, they took the set of stone stairs to the right, climbing them to the professor’s office.
She knocked on the door three times and stepped back, waiting for it to open.