Chapter 13
Talisa
“If you just keep taking the blows, he’ll never stop,” Elio said, looking directly at me. “You need to hit Lord Lukhan back where it hurts.”
The murmur of conversation around our new Circle of the Open Hand stopped as soon as Elio spoke. Heads turned toward us.
The humiliation of the dining hall prank two hours ago burned through my veins like molten lead.
Word of the dining hall prank had spread quickly, bringing more students than ever to our nightly gathering. And it wasn’t just first-years anymore.
Tonight, to accommodate the influx of new attendees, we’d been forced to move downstairs to the dormitory’s common room.
The residents of the Western Tower, along with a sizable group from the Northern Tower, crowded the threadbare sofas, mismatched chairs, and the worn rugs. The air felt thick with outrage.
I passed out the last cup of tea to a first-year I’d never met before, then sat down heavily in the chair next to Elio.
My supplies had been running low until Elio appeared in my room a few days ago, lugging a chest filled with compressed bricks of red tea he’d brought from a tea-merchant in the city.
“My contribution to the tea circle,” he’d said, and raised his hand to stop me when I tried to protest. “I insist. And the tea-merchant told me that he doesn’t accept returns or issue refunds.”
Mira and Juno sat side by side on the floor in front of my chair, their shoulders touching. Juno’s eyes were still red-rimmed from crying, while Mira maintained that unnerving stillness she’d worn since the incident.
Alara sat nearby. Tomas had taken a corner spot in one of the window seats. He folded his tall frame awkwardly in on himself as if trying to make himself smaller.
“I don’t understand how he thinks he can get away with it,” I said. “A compulsion charm like that is illegal black magic!”
“And you really believe that Mage-Instructor Mundise’s investigation will get anywhere?
” Elio supplied, his amber eyes glowing with the same anger smoldering in my veins.
“Come on, Talisa! We all know that even if Mundise can prove who’s responsible for that charm, and it’s who we think it is, the chatelaine and her people won’t do a blessed thing to punish the son of a former ambassador and Imperial Council member. ”
The words I wanted to say battled with the voice of caution in my head.
“My mother always said—” I began, then stopped as grief clutched at my throat.
They were looking to me for guidance, for strength. I wish I didn’t feel so inadequate.
“She said dignity was a weapon,” I managed. “And that control is power.”
“And she was right,” Elio said. Then his expression hardened. “But there comes a point when dignity alone isn’t enough. When it becomes just another word for ‘victim.’”
He was right. When I stood before Chatelaine Lirelle with my torn drawing while she dismissed my complaints as trivial, what had dignity earned me then?
“But they’ll punish us if we get caught casting spells. Whatever we do to retaliate, it needs to be subtle,” I said, thinking aloud. “Something only Lukhan and his friends would notice. That way, we can avoid getting into trouble, but they still get the message.”
Elio was already shaking his head before I’d finished speaking.
“No,” he said firmly. “That silk-draped barnacle is so frightened of being ordinary that he’s made everyone around him miserable just to feel tall.
He humiliated you and the rest of us in front of the whole academy.
So, we need to cut him down to size somewhere equally public.
Otherwise, he and his friends will always view us as prey. ”
Murmurs of agreement rippled through the room.
“I bet he’s not nearly as handsome as he seems,” Tomas piped up from the window seat. “No one’s supposed to use magic outside of classes, but I can’t be the only one who’s noticed how many of the aristos are wearing beauty enhancement or flaw concealment charms.”
I’d noticed that too, because I’d helped Mama craft similar charms to sell in our family’s apothecary shop and at the Imber fair. They always outsold our potions and salves by a lot.
I glanced over at my sisters and saw them both nodding.
“I have an idea! But first, we need to tell everyone about Eadwin Fugolson,” Juno said.
A spark of her usual mischief lit her eyes for the first time since the dining hall incident.
“He was Fugol Blacksmith’s son,” I said. “Back home, in Bernswick.”
“He was the town bully,” Mira clarified. “Until he tried to push us around.”
Elio grinned and sat back in his chair. “I like where this is going. Tell us more.”
He draped his arm around my shoulders, and I soaked in the comfort he offered.
It seemed like the most natural thing in the world to reach up with my free hand and lace my fingers through his.
“Eadwin was always big for his age, and mean,” Juno continued.
“He liked to terrorize all the children our age in Bernswick. Last year, he pushed me into a mud puddle during the Midsummer Festival and ruined my new dress. Then, he cornered Mira and tried to cut off her braids with a pair of fleece-shears.”
The twins exchanged glances, a silent communication passing between them.
Mira picked up the tale. “So, we decided to teach him a lesson.”
Juno nodded. “We worked on a special charm for three days. It was tricky getting hold of his favorite shirt on laundry day long enough to anchor the charm.”
Elio’s grin widened. “What kind of charm?”
“The kind that gave Eadwin green, warty skin for a week,” Juno replied with a shy but proud smile. “Everyone thought he’d caught something nasty from swimming in the river.”
“He never bothered us again,” Mira said simply. “Or anyone else, for that matter.”
“Good for you!” someone called from the other side of the room.
“You see?” Elio said, leaning forward, his eyes bright with purpose. “Sometimes the only language bullies understand is retaliation in kind.”
I looked around the room, at the expectant faces of the first-years who had been humiliated today.
Something shifted inside me, like a key turning in a lock.
Perhaps Mama’s advice had been right for her circumstances, for a respected healer in a small island community. But here, in this world where the rules didn’t apply to aristocrats and we commoners were left to fend for ourselves?
“If Lukhan wants to play with public humiliation,” I said slowly, “then yes, let’s beat him at his own game… but without using black magic.”
Let everyone see what he and the rest of the aristocrats are trying so hard to hide.
A fierce cheer, accompanied by a tempest of clapping, went up from the gathered students. I held up my hand to quiet them.
“If Lukhan is using some kind of enhancement or concealment glamor, I’d say that’s the logical thing to target,” Elio said.
“Let’s take away their makeup and hair-dyes, too,” Juno suggested with a fierce grin. “Show everyone that they’re not just ugly on the inside.”
“Great idea,” I replied. “But we need to be careful. If anyone traces that anti-glamor spell back to us, we’ll be expelled for sure.”
We spent the next hour discussing logistics and how to craft the anti-glamor spell.
For the first time since the humiliation in the dining hall, I felt something other than rage and helplessness. It was good to have a sense of purpose again. It burned away some of the fog of grief that had clouded the days and weeks since Mama’s death.
Lukhan FitzMurad thought he was untouchable. He thought he could torment us without consequences. He was about to learn how wrong he was.
∞∞∞
Lukhan
Dominion Day
My mouth watered at the rich aroma of roasted beef with mushrooms in wine sauce and freshly baked herb bread as I settled into my seat at my usual table in the dining hall.
Today was a national holiday, and Chatelaine Lirelle had just finished giving a speech that commemorated the human dukes’ historic vote two centuries ago to unify their duchies into a powerful new Dominion of Human Lands.
In celebration, blue banners with gold imperial eagles hung from the dining hall’s walls and rafters, and the kitchens were serving a better grade of food, with the promise of a special dessert.
Lady Beatrix was in the middle of recounting some tedious story about her cousin’s betrothal when I felt a peculiar tingling sensation wash over my skin and prickle my scalp. My stomach dropped.
Someone had just cast a spell.
Across the table, Lady Helene’s eyeliner and rouge vanished, and her perfectly smooth complexion suddenly erupted in angry red blotches.
“Your face!” Beatrix exclaimed, interrupting her story. “What in the world is happening to your face, Helene?”
It wasn’t just Helene. Beatrix’s lip-rouge had disappeared, and her golden ringlets turned mousy brown. Her lashes were suddenly short and sparse instead thick and long.
Helene’s hand flew to her cheek in horror as gasps echoed around us.
Around us, similar cries of dismay erupted as makeup and hair dye vanished and every illicit beauty charm in the hall unraveled.
Ethmond Valens’s carefully concealed acne reappeared in full, angry force.
Lady Olivia’s sculpted jawline melted into soft roundness and a double chin.
Baron Halfinger’s son’s prematurely receding hairline was suddenly, embarrassingly apparent.
“Luk,” Damien whispered beside me, his eyes widening as he took in my transformed appearance. “Your hair!”
A sickening wave of panic crashed over me. I reached up with trembling fingers to touch my hair, which until that moment had been a carefully maintained midnight black.
A strand fell across my vision—vibrant, unmistakable violet-purple. Whoever had designed this charm had considered physical dyes and makeup as well as glamors.
My backup system had failed, and my Fae heritage was now unmasked for all to see.
“Divine Mother, save me,” I whispered.
Icy terror squeezed my chest. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think.