CHAPTER 38
By the time I came to, death was gone and so was Professor Holt.
Rather, her spirit was.
Her body still lay where she’d fallen, her sightless eyes wide open as though in shock. Pain racked me from head to toe, the cuts and venom making it hard to breathe, to think. At the same time, I felt oddly detached, like this was only a dream, a nightmare.
What had happened? How was the professor dead?
Lightheaded from pain and blood loss, I struggled to pick myself up. Something moved in my blurry peripheral, and I glanced over in time to see a black spider skitter behind a potted plant.
The professor’s familiar.
I let her go, the spider no longer a threat to me. Instead, I tried to remember how I’d gotten free of the vines, but everything after the professor had grabbed my necklace felt murky. Dark.
I couldn’t . . . I couldn’t remember.
Just like I couldn’t remember how Juliana had died.
Panic speared down my throat, and I scrambled to my feet, swaying so hard that I fell against the greenhouse windows. Did . . . did I do that? Had I killed her?
My heart started to race, faster and faster until darkness edged my vision again. I stumbled away and bent over to throw up, but only a choked sob came out.
What had I done? What had I done?
Straightening, I caught my reflection in the greenhouse window. I could practically feel my best friend’s condemnation.
Murderer.
“No,” I whimpered, shaking my head. “I didn’t . . . I didn’t mean to.”
Something glinted in the window’s reflection, and I reached up with trembling fingers to grasp my amulet. The stone was cool to the touch and wholly visible. For a split second, I thought about taking it off. Yes, it had protected me, but at what cost? My professor was dead. Dead.
Staring at my reflection a moment longer, I tightened my grip and whispered, “Shadows mine, aid my spell. Cloak this necklace, shield it well.”
The necklace immediately disappeared from view, and I hesitated for another beat before releasing it.
The amulet hadn’t killed Professor Holt.
I had. There was no one to blame but me.
Pain continued to rip through my body, making my muscles spasm and twitch.
I desperately needed Sano, but the only places I could get it were back at Heartstone or . . . home.
A sudden yearning filled me, a need to hide, to seek the safety of my family.
But if I did that, my time at Heartstone would be over.
I’d be expelled for not completing the trial, and .
. . and I’d probably never see Thorne again.
The thought of him no longer in my life, of never being touched by him again, of never being kissed and held in his arms . . .
No. I couldn’t run from this.
I might be guilty of killing Professor Holt, but she’d tried to kill me first. It was self defense.
Right?
Trying not to let panic consume me, I turned from the window and raised my hands to form a portal. Maybe I was in shock and denial, but I couldn’t let Professor Holt’s death stop me from completing my trial. There would be questions, an interrogation to face, but I would get through it. I had to.
The professor had tried to destroy my family’s legacy, but I wasn’t going to let her.
She’d been right about me being afraid, but I wouldn’t allow that fear to control me anymore.
I had what it took to survive in this world.
Naive or not, I was more determined than ever to prove her wrong. To prove them all wrong.
So when the black portal edged in dark violet formed before me, I stepped inside without hesitation, setting my course for Heartstone.
When I stumbled out of the sucking maelstrom seconds later, my strength finally gave out, and I crashed to the ground.
Pain seized my limbs, my muscles trembling as the venom wreaked its havoc on my nervous system.
I tried to stand and failed, but before I could crash back to the ground, a pair of strong arms hauled me up.
“Thank the moon and stars, you’re alive,” a familiar deep voice said, right before I was crushed against a hard body.
The contact sent agony roaring through my injuries, and I couldn’t hold in a whimper.
Thorne pulled back, sucking in sharply through his teeth when he saw the condition I was in. “How badly are you hurt?”
When I failed to answer, he swept me into his arms, striding for the steep stairs in front of Heartstone at a fast clip. The swift move was so abrupt that my senses reeled, making everything swirl around me.
“Move!” Thorne barked, each step urgent as he carried me up the stairs three at a time. I tried to speak again and failed, too dizzy and overwhelmed. Right before entering the front doors, he came to a sudden stop. “Please step aside, sir. Winter’s been injured and needs Sano.”
“That will have to wait, Mr. Hudson,” I heard Chancellor Grimshaw gravely reply. “Please set Miss Mayweather down.”
Thorne’s grip on me tightened, but when I let out another faint whimper, he carefully lowered me to my feet. The moment he did, the chancellor stepped forward and said in a formal tone, “I, Cyrus Grimshaw, Chancellor of Heartstone Academy, bind your magic.”
Something latched onto my wrist, and I glanced down just as a round silver object encased in fiery magic shot from his hand and encircled my other wrist. They looked like twin silver bracelets, but I knew better. They were cuffs. Shackles. Spelled to bind the wearer's magic.
Almost immediately, an odd feeling swept through me, one I’d never felt before. It was cold. Hollow. Empty. So vast that it burned a hole straight through me, stealing my strength, robbing me of something essential.
My magic.
One second, it was coiled inside me, and the next . . . gone.
Deep suffocating despair wrenched a sob from my lungs, and my legs completely gave out.
“Winter!” Thorne lunged for me, but the chancellor beat him to it.
Grabbing one of my biceps to keep me upright, he solemnly intoned, “Winter Mayweather, you have been charged with the murder of Juliana Hudson, and it is my duty as chief executive officer to arrest you on behalf of the entire witch community.”
Gasps filtered toward me, and one look down the stairs confirmed that most of the student body was present, along with the professors. I spotted Riku and Oz in the audience below, their expressions horrified.
Every inch of me went numb as the chancellor’s words finally sank in. He hadn’t said Professor Holt’s name. He’d said Juliana’s.
Before I could stop myself, I sought out Thorne. His handsome face was a blank mask, devoid of all emotion. As eyes of ocean blue stared back at me, I felt my heart start to break.
“Come with me, Miss Mayweather,” Chancellor Grimshaw ordered and firmed his grip on my arm to lead me away. I had no choice but to follow, my body nothing more than an empty husk. I lost sight of Thorne, the chancellor guiding me through the front doors of Heartstone.
I waited. Waited some more.
Thorne didn’t follow.
My heart shattered.
We walked in silence, each step more difficult than the last. There was too much to feel, too much to think, but I was too broken, too lost for any of it.
I didn’t know how long we walked, but it felt like ages.
By the time Chancellor Grimshaw stopped before a door, I had no idea where we were.
Nothing looked familiar. He produced an ornate iron key from his pocket and fitted it into the lock.
Uttering something under his breath, the key flared brightly, and the lock scraped open.
As the chancellor pulled the door wide, darkness greeted us. A foreboding chill crept up my spine, and I finally managed to whisper, “Where are you taking me?”
“To the dungeons, Miss Mayweather,” the chancellor grimly replied. “Where you will await your trial.”
The story continues in book two of the dark and electrifying Heartstone Academy series . . .