Chapter 12
CHAPTER 12
Dinner was a subdued affair.
Elliot held my hand all the way down to the cafeteria, where he had me sit so close to him, I might as well have been sitting in his lap. I understood, of course.
Everyone was worried.
Strangely, though, I wasn’t.
I let the conversation roll around me, and while the others were speculating out loud on how Zowen might be stopped, I was reviewing everything that had happened in this last confrontation and how we’d managed to send him fleeing .
I finally came to the conclusion that it had to be my fire.
It wasn’t the same as before, not since our time in the Shadow Realm, where it was tempered by darkness and infused with shadows. It was wilder now, with a bit of darkness at its center and ice along the edges.
My fire had made all the difference the night before. During the confrontation in my nightmare, it had frozen the shadows for key moments before they’d attacked again.
Today they’d driven the shadows completely back .
By the time we arrived in the library, I was ready to discuss some of my theories, though when I saw how many professors and staff members were waiting for us, I wasn’t so sure anymore.
“Good, you’re here,” Headmistress Blackthorn said. “Come join us.” She waved to the two long tables that had been shoved up against each other, creating a sort of boardroom feel to them.
Seated at the table were a number of professors, the dean of students, the librarian and Mrs. Caldwell.
They’d left one side of the table free, so the five of us took seats there. Somehow I ended up in the middle, with Kasi on my left and Elliot on my right.
Headmistress Blackthorn took the seat directly across from me .
At that moment, the door to the library flew open and Professor Fotheringham came bursting in. “Sorry, I’m late. Sorry, had to take a detour to Wellspring. Cluri was running a bit dry.” He said this as he tilted his head to the left to the tiny man sitting on his shoulder.
I squinted. I thought it was a man anyway.
Headmistress Blackthorn let out a huge sigh. “Do not tell me you are walking around this Academy with a clurichaun on your shoulder!”
Interesting. The little man did look like a ruddy-faced leprechaun. He was even wearing the requisite red jacket and hat.
Professor Duggan let out a guffaw of laughter. “Still haven’t found the right spell, eh, Callum? You know, I could help with that.”
Professor Fotheringham just gave him a withering glare, then sat down on the one empty chair left at the table, which happened to be between Duggan and Blackthorn.
“You’re the one who got me into this situation, ya miserable bampot.”
Blackthorn shook her head. “I don’t even want to know. Just do not let that creature loose in the Academy, do not give him access to our cellars, and under no circumstances are you to take him to class with you!”
Interesting. I couldn’t help but notice the way Cluri perked up the moment cellars were mentioned.
I’d never actually heard the Academy basement referred to as a cellar before, so now I was intrigued. If the little guy truly was a clurichaun, I was betting the detour Fotheringham had to make was for some sort of spirits.
My suspicion was immediately proven right when the professor pulled out a tiny bottle of what appeared to be whiskey, twisted the cap loose and passed it up into the clurichaun’s hands.
Cluri let out a chortle of joy and started to drink.
Now I had to wonder if the professors had their own hidden wine cellar somewhere on the property, a wine cellar Blackthorn didn’t want a clurichaun getting his hands on. Considering we were in the library, which was already in the basement, I was thinking this wasn’t the cellar Blackthorn had been referring to.
I leaned forward to look toward Jasmine and saw her looking my way, eyes shining with excitement. Oh, yeah, I saw a treasure hunt in our near future.
“Thank you all for coming. Given what we’re facing, I thought it was important to have our Defense instructor here,” Headmistress Blackthorn said, waving a hand toward Fotheringham. “I also felt it might be wise to have input from our Alchemy professor.” She nodded at Duggan. “Considering Lydrel Zowen has somehow defied the laws of nature and managed to unnaturally prolong his life.”
“I apologize for interrupting, ma’am,” Kasi said, “but in the case of shadow-beasts, it isn’t quite as unnatural as you might believe. ”
“Even in their heyday, shadow-beasts did not live for hundreds of years, Ms. Smith.”
“No,” Kasi agreed, “but they also did not live their lives in the Shadow Realm.”
“Explain.”
“The Shadow Realm has healing properties for shadow-beasts and their mates. If one is wounded, they could step into the Shadow Realm for healing. It shouldn’t stop age progression, but since no one has lived in the Shadow Realm indefinitely, there’s no way to be certain.
“Shadow-kittens have always been born there, but in order to have a physical form, shadow-beasts were always born outside it. According to everything I’ve read, too much time spent in the Shadow Realm could make a shadow-beast fade to nothing but shadows.
“If Zowen has been inside the Shadow Realm these last two hundred years, there is literally no telling how it has changed his physiology. What I can say for certain, though, is that it did not age him as it should have.”
“So we’re dealing with someone who truly has managed to slow their aging process,” Professor Duggan looked intrigued.
“Yes, but he did it by giving up his physical body for hundreds of years,” I pointed out.
“Exactly,” Kasi said. “There was no guarantee, after so long in the shadows, that he’d be able to regain any of his physical form.”
“If you looked closely, his wings were wrong,” Elliot said. “They were made entirely of shadows.”
Elli-Dragon, Miki-Leopard cheered, startling me since her silence had led me to believe she’d fallen asleep.
“I’m not sure if it’s because of the time spent in the Shadow Realm, like Kasi’s talking about, or if it’s because of his chameleon nature,” Elliot continued, the small quirk of his lips the only indication that he’d heard Miki at all. “There’s always the danger that a chameleon dragon will take on too much of whatever he or she is near and lose whoever they were originally. It’s not exactly them becoming something else, so much as them forgetting who they were in the first place, until the only thing they’re able to project is a fake version of themselves. They buy into the illusion.”
“So his wings might still be physical?” Professor Diaz asked.
Elliot shrugged. “There’s really no way to know without touching them, but if I had to make a guess, I’d say they’re a mix of both. I saw the way they moved and how they yanked him back into the shadows last spring and that is not the way dragon wings work.”
“All right, let’s talk about the dream-walking,” Headmistress Blackthorn said. “Ms. Mitchell, please explain what happened last night.”
I spent quite some time explaining what had happened the night before, then at their request, walked them through the events of that afternoon.
“I can’t decide if it happened the minute we walked into the simulation room or if we somehow went there later, but I think we ended up in the Shadow Realm somehow or maybe a pocket of it.” I glanced over at Kasi, who nodded.
“That would make sense,” she said. “It would explain why I couldn’t sense you, if you were in some pocket that wasn’t really in this world or the Shadow Realm, but somewhere in between the two.”
I went on to explain everything that happened from that point forward.
The entire time, I was struggling to focus on what I was saying and not laugh at Miki-Leopard’s increasingly unhelpful contributions, particularly since for some reason, she felt compelled to compare the two dragons in our life.
Mad-Dragon scary .
Elli-Dragon sexy.
Mad-Dragon ugly wings.
Elli-Dragon yummy wings.
Mad-Dragon mean.
Elli-Dragon sweet.
Clearly Miki-Leopard was sharing her comments with Elli-Dragon as well since his shoulders were like an earthquake before I got halfway through my summation of events, shaking in amusement. I couldn’t even look at him or I’d lose it.
When I got to the point where I was describing the fight between us and Zowen in the simulation that afternoon, Miki-Leopard finally got off the topic of Elli-Dragon in favor of pointing out her and Shadow’s bravery.
Shadow help.
Mad-Dragon scare Shadow.
Shadow fight .
Miki-Leopard help.
Mad-Dragon scare Miki-Leopard.
Miki-Leopard fight.
I know, sweetheart. You and Shadow were very brave.
Tell me brave.
Tell Shadow brave.
I couldn’t hold in my chuckle, which startled the professors. “Sorry, my leopard would like me to inform you that she was very brave.”
Shadow too.
Headmistress Blackthorn looked confused. “So you’re telling us you were brave.”
Down the way, Jasmine snickered.
“I guess it probably seems that way, but Miki-Leopard isn’t like other shifter leopards. She was very scared when she heard Zowen’s voice in there.”
The professors all gave each other concerned looks.
Great. Now they all probably thought I was having some sort of identity crisis.
“Look, I’m the daughter of a witch and a shifter and I was born with—” a fuck-ton “—a lot of magical power. What I was not born with was a leopard.”
“We already know this, Ms. Mitchell,” the Headmistress said, “but obviously you were since?—”
“No,” I interrupted. “I was not . What happened in the Shadow Realm was not my leopard manifesting. It was a shadow-leopard being born of the shadows and a portion of my own dormant DNA.
“Miki-Leopard is a sentient, separate being sharing my body. She has a voice and a personality and they are not the same as mine.” At all. “So when I say she was being brave, I mean it. She is, in essence, four months old and she just fought the monster we’re all terrified of. She was very brave and so was Shadow.” I glanced at Kasi, who smiled back at me.
Brave Shadow. Brave Miki-Leopard. .
“I see,” Headmistress Blackthorn spoke slowly. “In that case, I apologize, Ms. Mitchell. I don’t suppose enrolling you in a class about controlling your inner beast was very well-received by Miki-Leopard.”
I smiled. “She doesn’t really understand the implications yet, so it’s been okay. She didn’t enjoy today’s simulation, though, and I’m concerned that some of the curriculum here at the Academy is a little inappropriate for a leopard who’s in essence still a toddler, but I’ll chat with my professors about how we can best shield her from the more upsetting aspects. In the meantime, I’m more concerned about figuring out how Zowen’s trespassing in my dreams.”
“We were going to see if Mikaela’s roommate, Leslie, could help us, but no one seems to have seen her,” Elliot said.
The headmistress glanced at Professor Dunlop, who admitted, “I’m afraid your roommate is missing, Ms. Mitchell. Our Academy security spells indicate she walked through the front doors of the Academy this past Sunday. However, they’ve been unable to tell us where she is or if she’s attended any of her classes.”
“The professors are all somewhat confused about whether they’ve seen her or not,” Blackthorn said.
“If she walked in the front door and the professors are confused, how do you even know she’s missing?” I asked.
The headmistress sighed. “We were contacted by Leslie’s coven earlier this summer. She’d been having difficulties and they—well, they cast her out of the coven.”
“What? But why?” I exclaimed.
“There are many reasons, none of which I should share with you,” Headmistress Blackthorn said. “However, I am concerned that immediately after she went missing, Zowen somehow managed to infiltrate your dreams, not to mention one of our classroom labs, so I’m going to share this. I expect not one single word to be spread outside this room. Is that understood?”
After we all agreed, Headmistress Blackthorn proceeded to tell us that Leslie had been using her dream-walking abilities against her coven members. “She was infiltrating their dreams, influencing their decisions during their waking hours and generally causing chaos within the Coven. When they finally figured out why things were going so poorly, they had no choice but to cast her out.
“That’s when they contacted the Academy. They wanted us to know what they’d been dealing with and to let us know that they would not be continuing to cover her tuition. We had a discussion as a staff and we agreed that if Ms. Wellington returned and expressed a genuine desire to continue her studies, we would grant her a scholarship, with certain expectations around behavior.
“When she arrived, I was immediately notified and she should have been escorted to my office. Somehow, though, she was never seen by anyone after walking through our doors. As far as we can tell, she walked in and promptly disappeared. We’re at a loss. We have no idea where she is and at this point, we’re concerned not just for her safety, but for the safety of the entire student body.”
I was completely stunned. “You have a dream-walker you know has been manipulating people and you didn’t warn anyone? You didn’t warn me? I was going to be sleeping in the same room with her!”
“Ms. Wellington is entitled to her privacy,” the headmistress said.
“And I’m entitled to safety when sleeping.” I waved a hand, annoyed, yet not willing to waste more time on the subject. “So what exactly does this mean? Because I never saw Leslie at all during my dream. The only person I saw was Zowen.”
“A very skilled dream-walker can walk through your dreams and never be seen,” Mr. Brecken spoke up for the first time. “They can also bring others into your dream with them.”
“Are we seriously considering that Leslie might have teamed up with Zowen? Is that what we’re talking about?” I asked. “That my roommate teamed up with the most prolific serial killer in supernatural history?”
“It’s a possibility, that’s all,” Professor Dunlop said.
“A very strong one,” Headmistress Blackthorn corrected
“For how long?” I asked. “I mean, we’ve been roommates the entire time I’ve been here and she’s been supposedly staying with her boyfriend on the second floor since minute one.”
“There aren’t any residences on the second floor,” Professor Dunlop said.
“Exactly. So I figured she was either screwing around with a professor—” They all looked horrified, which for some reason made me want to laugh. “—or she didn’t want me to know where she was staying.”
“You never asked?” Professor Diaz asked.
I winced. “I didn’t really care, to be honest, so no, but now I’ m wondering if when she said second floor she meant the Shadow Realm.”
“You think Zowen was her boyfriend?” Jasmine asked incredulously.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I hope not, but I’m not liking the alternative. Either she’s with him of her own free will or he took her against it and we never knew. What if he took her and corrupted her with the shadows and that’s why she was manipulating her coven this past summer?”
“When I rescued everyone from the Shadow Realm, I didn’t sense Leslie at all,” Kasi said, “and I could sense all of our classmates and professors. She wasn’t there.”
“So either he’s taken her since then or she’s been gone since before I was taken,” I said.
“But that doesn’t make sense,” Jasmine said. “She came and visited you in the hospital when you were in a coma.”
“That’s right. She was here at the end of last school year,” Kasi said.
“And we’re absolutely positive she came back to school this year?” Jasmine asked.
“She definitely came in the front door,” Mrs. Caldwell said, “but I have no record of her stopping by for her official schedule.”
“So where is she now? Did she actually go to any of her classes?” I asked.
“She’s been marked present every day,” Professor Dunlop said, “But no one seems to remember having seen her, neither the professors nor the students.”
“Also not surprising,” Professor Fotheringham said. “A dream-walker basically walks through people’s minds, manipulating what they see and believe. A really powerful one can make you believe someone was somewhere they weren’t or weren’t somewhere they were.”
“So there’s no way to know whether she’s been in classes or not,” I said.
“Exactly,” he replied.