Chapter 11
After gorgingmyself on snacks last night, I passed out. In my bed. And it was one of the greatest experiences of my life. Which isn’t saying much. But hey, no more couch sleeping for this girl. Not after how well I slept last night. And I may have originally thought the couch was comfortable, but it definitely has nothing on that mattress. You could tell the second you laid down that it wasn’t one of those cheap ones with the bed springs digging into your back. It was high quality. And dare I say, magical. There is one thing I know for sure. Wherever I end up after the academy, I’ll be investing in one of those for my own house.
Before conking out, I remembered to set an alarm to avoid another day like yesterday. Once it went off, I got up, showered, dressed, and made myself coffee. There may have been some snacking along the way, too, but hey, a girl’s gotta eat, right?
I’m just lacing up my red Vans and throwing my hair in a messy bun when I hear the door across the hall shut. This time, Thaddeus is threat-free when he knocks on the door at 1:00 p.m. sharp. He’s a punctual one, I’ll tell you what.
“Hey, Thaddy!” I exclaim as I pull the door open.
Shock colors his features for a mere moment before a smile lights up his face. “Afternoon, Bailey. You ready to go?”
“Yep!” I pop the P. “What’s the plan, Stan?” Thaddeus backs away from the door, and I shove into the hallway, closing the door behind me.
At this time of day, I expected professors to be coming and going, but the corridor is silent. Which probably means the professors are in their classrooms getting ready for tomorrow. Or they’re not even on the grounds.
“Stan?” His eyebrows pinch together in the cutest look of confusion.
“Human saying.” I wave his words away.
“Ahh, okay.” He nods his head as we start down the hallway. “There’s a few we’ll work on today. Nothing hard. Just basic ones to get you by until we can meet again. But with you having Transmutation class tomorrow, I figured we should try working on that, too. That’ll be the hardest one out of the bunch.”
“Alright.” I skip along beside Thaddeus’ long strides, excitement about what’s to come adding a little extra bounce in my step. “So how often can we get one of these containment rooms, and how secure are they?” He raises a brow curiously. “I’m only wondering if I’ll be able to go in there myself and practice or if I need you with me all the time. And also… well… if I do go by myself, will anyone be able to just walk in on me?”
“Ahh. You can,” he stresses the word, “book one of the rooms, but I think until you have a better handle on the magic and what each rune does, you should have Jasper or I with you in case you get overwhelmed.”
“Gotcha.” My head bobs like a bobblehead.
Our conversation is cut short as we enter another hallway after going down three flights of circular stairs and across a main section of the castle into another wing. This one is different from the rest. That much is easy to see.
Supernaturals of all walks of life flutter down the corridor, laughing, chatting, and… did someone just growl at me?
My head whips around, looking for where it might have come from, but I come up empty. No one is paying attention to the new girl or the professor in their midst. That works well for me. If I can stay in the shadows and master my magic, I’ll be better off.
Thaddeus makes a left at the T at the end of the hall, and this one is by far emptier than the previous one. Along the walls are steel-type doors, kind of like the ones I’ve seen in pictures of old-time submarines. There are no windows looking in, so anything could be happening beyond them. He stops outside one of the doors and presses his hand to a panel on the right, which lights up green after a few seconds.
Almost like an airlock releasing, the door swings open, showcasing a large, empty room. There’s nothing inside save for a few recessed lights in the ceiling. The walls are a pockmarked dark charcoal color, and the floor has a resemblance to the stone on the outer walls of the castle.
Thaddeus ushers us inside, but it’s not as easy to enter as it seems. A thick barrier with the consistency of slow-moving molasses presses against me as I pass over the threshold into the room. A resounding pop echoes around the cavernous space as I finally make it through, making me stumble. He closes the steel door behind him after he joins me in the room, and a sound like one you’d hear from a pressure cooker fills the silence until it gradually fades away into nothing.
“Sorry. Guess I should have warned you about the ward in the room,” Thaddeus murmurs sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck in a sign of nervousness. “It’s what keeps the magic contained so there aren’t any accidents.”
I was wondering what made these magical containment rooms so special, but now I know. Hopefully, it’ll get easier to pass through the more I come in here to work.
“Now. What are we starting with, Thaddy?”
He pulls out his phone, flicking through the pictures until he stops on one. He flips it around for me to see, and it’s easy to make out what we’re doing first. I admit I haven’t taken the time to look over the marks covering my body, and well, this girl is avoiding mirrors like the plague, but there’s no denying the mark looks like a dancing flame.
So fire. He’s going to want me to manifest it.
If we were anywhere else, I would tell him hell no. It would be my luck to burn the entire place down. But with Thaddeus here, I feel a little more prepared to do this.
With a nod of my head, he pockets his phone once more. “Fire, while volatile, is easy to control once you get the hang of it. In the beginning, it’ll try to take on a mind of its own, but that’s where you need to focus To press in on the flame and will it to do as you say. Magic is a combination of power, concentration, and will.” He holds out an icy blue hand, snaps his fingers, and an almost identical in color flame appears in his palm. It flickers, casting a light show all around us, but never moves away or grows in size than what it is.
“That’s amazing,” I murmur in awe, moving closer. “But why is it blue and not red and orange like regular fire?” Almost like compulsion, my hand reaches out, my fingers dancing through the pale fire. “And it’s cold. Why?”
“Shit.” Thaddeus immediately extinguishes the magic in his hand, then grabs mine, looking it over. “It was fucking ice fire, Bailey. Why the hell did you touch it?” He’s still staring at my hand and grimacing, but I don’t know why. It doesn’t hurt. There are no marks. The flame didn’t even hurt me. “How? Your skin should be covered in burns,” he murmurs quietly, almost like he’s asking himself.
I shrug a shoulder. I don’t know. But I only have one answer for him. “Magic?”
He finally takes his eyes off my uninjured hand and pins me with a hard stare. “This isn’t a fucking game, Bailey. You could have gotten seriously hurt.”
“I know it’s not a damn game, Thaddeus. This is my fucking life! I don’t know why I touched your damn fire, but I was drawn to it. And you yourself said the more runes, the more power. Maybe one of my runes protects me from it.” Gah. I can’t do this. Nope. Not right now. My emotions went haywire yesterday, and I was supposedly glowing. It’s a rabbit hole I feel myself going down now. And if Thaddeus and I clash like oil and water while attempting to practice my magic, there’s no way either of us will get out of this training session unscathed. “Maybe this was a mistake. Thank you for trying, but I’ll find someone else to help me.”
Tears gather in my eyes as I head to the door, and I hear Thaddeus curse under his breath. His hand wraps around my arm, halting my steps. But I don’t turn around to look at him. He doesn’t need to see just how overwhelmed I am. And it wasn’t even the fact that he yelled at me that got me to this point. It’s… Everything. His anger was just the cherry on top of my shit life sundae.
No matter how convincing my brave face was when he picked me up at my room earlier, it’s long gone now.
“Bailey, wait. Please give me another chance. I shouldn’t have yelled at you. I just… fuck. I’m supposed to protect you, and I thought you got hurt.”
“I know, Thaddy. But this is my life. The only one I have, and if this is what fate means for me, then I’ll work my hardest to be the best damn curiomancer this world has ever seen. But I can’t freaking do that when I’m so damn overwhelmed all the time.” My chest heaves as I suck in breaths, working hard to calm the volatile emotions.
Thaddeus pulls me into his arms and holds me as I rage against the power pushing against my skin. Smooth, soothing circles on my back finally calm my nerves enough that I can breathe, and I don’t feel like I’m going to be split apart.
The only difference between yesterday and today, though, is that there was no glow. Not like the show in Axel’s office. Does that mean I have some semblance of control, or are the situations completely different?
I clear my throat as a prickly sense of humiliation washes over me from yet again letting my emotions get the best of me. As Thaddeus said yesterday, magic needs control, and that’s a subject I’m severely lacking in.
“All good, Bailey?”
“Yeah,” I mutter, taking a step back and clearing my throat before retreating to the middle of the stone room. Because that’s what it makes me think. Stone, like a cave. Like this one room was roughly carved into a rock to hold back the errant magic that can go awry.
“So, your fire rune is on your left shoulder. So go ahead and take off your hoodie and your necklace.” My hand flies to the necklace in question, tightly clutching it in my fist. He wants me to take it off. The one thing I have to keep myself protected. “Remember what I said, Bailey. No one can come in here if their names aren’t on the reservation. Or in our case, since Jasper and I will be working with you, we’ll always be granted access to any magical containment room you’re in. No one else, though. Just us.”
Hearing him say that makes me feel a little bit better, and my grip on the necklace loosens until, finally, I’m able to bring myself to actually take it off. I may have only had it since last night, but I’ve already grown attached to the piece of jewelry.
My hoodie comes off next, revealing my tank top underneath. The situation is nowhere near as humiliating or distressing as it was when I was in Jasper’s office or when Thaddeus came to take pictures of my runes. But there’s still this innate sense that I don’t have enough clothes on in a locked room with a man—a decidedly handsome fae—who has a girlfriend.
After depositing my things near one of the walls, I stuff my hands in my pockets to await his next instruction. He stares at me with a strange intensity until he almost seems like he’s shaking himself out of it and strides across the room to stand in front of me.
“This here,” he traces the flame-like design on my shoulder, “is your fire rune. You’ll eventually be able to control how big of an impact you want to make with it, but for now, we’re going to start off small. A simple, single flame like I had shown you.” Nothing is ever simple when it comes to fire, but I keep that thought to myself. “Now, close your eyes, and I want you to look inside yourself for where your power lies. Its location is different for everyone, just like the look and feel of it.”
“What does yours look like?” I roll my lips between my teeth, kicking myself for asking. Someone else’s magic is really none of my business, but maybe if he tells me, it’ll make it easier to locate mine.
He graces me with that lopsided smile, making my heart swoon. Whoever his girlfriend is, she’s a lucky woman if he looks at her like that all the time. “It’s okay to ask, Bailey. I’d be worried if you didn’t. As someone who’s never experienced magic before, I doubt you have any idea what you’d be looking for.”
He’s right. I have no idea what I’m looking for. Would it be just a well of power? A bright, burning ball of flame? Or is it something completely different? All I know is when I felt it Friday in Axel’s office, it was erratic and zipping through my body like it couldn’t be contained.
“For me, it’s like a glowing block of ice deep in my stomach.” He slaps his hand onto his belly, the sound of him smacking his own flesh reverberating around the room. “And when I want to use it, it’s like chipping off a little piece of it—or a massive chunk, depending on what I’m doing. And that block always regenerates to its original size when I give myself time to recover my magic.”
I already know from his personal description that mine will be different, but hopefully, I’ll be able to locate it easily.
Blowing out a breath, I do as he said before and close my eyes, sinking into myself. It comes pretty naturally since I used to spend time meditating for good things to happen. Especially after the numerous denials when it came to getting a job. Instead of letting myself blow, I would hide away and meditate, and hope that the next one would be different. Not that it ever was.
It almost feels peaceful as I welcome falling into the blackest depths inside of me. Part of me would love to stay here forever, forgetting everything that happened over the past few days. But that’s not why I’m doing this. I’m supposed to be looking for my powers.
Well, shit. That’s not something I’d ever thought I’d hear myself say.
The first place I check is my stomach since that’s where Thaddeus’ is. But it’s blank. Empty. Not even a small lick of power to be seen.
If it’s not there, then where else can it be? There are only so many areas on a body where magic can hide. Expanding my mind further, I begin at the tips of my toes and slowly work my way up. But everything is empty.
Is there a chance they got it wrong? Maybe the power flowing through my veins Friday was residual from the lagoon. My body might have sucked some of it up along with the water and boom. The glowing was my body expelling the last of the magical waters.
When I reach my heart, a bright pop of pink sparks there, startling me out of my search.
“What’s wrong, Bailey?” Thaddeus is there right in front of me, his warm hands clasping my shoulders.
“I… I think I found it,” I ramble, staring wide-eyed back at Thaddeus.
“That’s a good thing, sunshine. So why do you look so shocked?”
“Cause I didn’t think I had any magic. Even with all this,” I wave my hand, encompassing all the changes I’ve been through, “I thought it was a fluke.”
“Nothing about you is a fluke, Bailey. You just need to believe in who you are more.” Easy for him to say. He knows who he is. He has hundreds of years of experience with his magic, whereas I just found out a few days ago. “Try again. Now that you know where it is, go back to that spot and see if you can grab a hold of just a bit of it and push it into your fire rune.” He takes a few steps back, just out of reach in case this goes haywire, so I don’t burn him to a crisp.
My eyes close and I sink back into myself, going straight to the spot that sparked pink. At first, there’s nothing. Almost like I imagined it. My frustration burns through my veins as I scour everywhere for it, and right as I’m about to give up, it sparks once more. Giving me somewhere to finally hone in on.
If I knew I could, I would shield my eyes from how bright it is as it comes more into focus. And as cliche as it sounds, it looks magical. Something I never expected in a million years to find inside of myself.
Like a writhing mass of electrical currents, the pink magic pulses almost with the beat of my heart. It zips around my body in its own version of a hello. Kind of like it’s excited that I’m finally acknowledging it.
My thoughts turn back to what Thaddeus instructed me to do, and with what feels like a ghostly appendage, I reach toward the pink mass, feeling it wrap around my fingers. Little shocks of pleasure zap wherever they touch, but every time I try to grab hold of it, it slips through like water.
Frustration gets the better of me, and with a roar that echoes in my ears, I flood all my will into the pink mass and demand it to do what I want. A painful electrical shock swamps my every limb, dropping me to my knees with a painful thud as my magic bursts into a sparkler worthy of a fireworks show.
“Fuck!” Thaddeus shouts, but it barely reaches my ears, sounding like he’s underwater. But that’s ridiculous. We’re in the containment room. How can he sound like that? “Shit, that’s hot. Okay, okay, Bailey. Open your eyes!”
At his command, my eyes pop open, but I can’t see anything past the pink flames licking across my vision. Sweat beads across my brow from the warmth heating my skin, but it doesn’t burn. Every which way I turn, the fire follows along like an obedient puppy following its master. In this case, I guess that’s true. I am its master.
Alarms blare, knocking me out of the trance the beautiful pink flames have put me in. Cold water rains down from overhead, dousing my magic until nothing is left behind but the steam curling from my body. Thaddeus lands to his knees before me, concern etched on his handsome features. His hands tenderly cup my face, and then he hisses, pulling away.
“Shit. Still too hot. You okay, sunshine?”
“Yeah,” I mutter, still feeling slightly dazed by the grace of my magic in full form.
A shiver wracks my body as the water cuts off, leaving me bereft of the warmth my fire instilled.
“Can you tell me what happened?”
I fall backward onto my ass, blowing a breath as I take in exactly what happened. “I let my emotions get the better of me.” I shrug with a self-defecating snort. “I couldn’t latch onto it, so I got pissed and forced it to do what I wanted. And my anger over it fueled the flames. No pun intended.”
“Alright, so that’s something we need to work on. How about we try something a little less…hot?”
I snort. “Hit me with, Thaddy.”
“Come on.” He reaches down, and I take his hand, getting to my feet. “On your left foot is a rune that I think is for speed. I know there isn’t a whole lot of room in here, but you can easily loop it a few times to get used to the feeling.”
Left foot. Got it.
Thaddeus stays in the center of the room, leaving me ample room to work without fear of me running him over if this works.
I think about the path from my heart to my foot as I close my eyes. My magic simmers around my heart, ready to be used. Or to mess with me. I’m not sure which. Only whatever happens next will tell.
The pink sparks flood my ghostly hand, and I shake it trying to release some, but it’s being stubborn as hell. It doesn’t seem as volatile as it did with the fire rune, so I go with it, sending it my foot.
Heat encases my foot for a minute before I attempt to try it. Just a step, Bailey. That’s all. Start with a step then go from there. What’s the worse that could happen?
Pain. That’s what could happen. And damn, does it deliver.
I slam to the wall with a cry, falling back onto the unforgiving ground with a thud that could rival the sound of Thaddeus hitting his stomach.
“Who put that damn wall there?” I grumble, prodding the tenderness on my forehead.
Thaddeus still hasn’t spoken a word, or moved a muscle from where he is dead center in the room. I tilt my head back to find out why, only to find his face bright red, crinkles around his eyes, and his hands cover his mouth. Trying to stifle the laughter he’s hiding.
Bastard.
“Walk it off, sunshine,” he gets out between chuckles, slapping his hand over his mouth again.
The. Fucking. Audacity
My hand shoots up in the air, and I flip him the bird, refusing to do as he’s instructed.
Jerk.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. That was just too good to pass up. But I think we did enough for today.” I go to object, but he slices his hand through the air, stopping me. “That was a lot of magic you used, and the blow-back in exhaustion will set in at some point. Better we cut it off now instead of later, where you overuse too much and you black out.”
“Fine,” I mumble. Not ready to throw in the towel yet. “Wait, we didn’t even try the transmutation rune.”
“I know. But Professor McHale normally doesn’t press the issue with new students if they’re unable to shift right away. So you’ll be okay.” I don’t know why, but those words sound kind of ominous. “Let’s go dry off and change and get some food. Sound good?”
“Sounds fabulous.” My stomach grumbles in agreement as Thaddeus helps me off the floor. “On the plus side, at least I’m not naked.”
“Not going to lie, even I’m surprised your clothes withstood the flames.”
We both chuckle as we head out of the containment room and back toward the faculty wing.
We both quickly dried off and changed, meeting in the hallway again fifteen minutes after arriving at our rooms. Now, we are trailing through the castle as he points out where my classes are and gives me a small rundown of the history of the place.
“When I first left the fae realm five hundred years ago, Jasper’s grandfather, Josiah, welcomed me here at the castle and put me up in one of the dignitary rooms.”
“Woah, woah, wait.” I slice my hand through the air, cutting him off. “Five hundred years ago? How freaking old are you?” He had to have misspoken, right? The man doesn’t look a day over twenty-six. Hell, all the guys I’ve met so far do not look that much older than I do.
“I’m six-hundred and twenty-two years old.” He chuckles as I stare at him dumbfounded. “And I’m not the oldest you’ve met either.” He tosses me a wink but doesn’t elaborate any further. Bastard.
“Ugh. Fine. Don’t tell me. Where are we headed now?”
“This,” he pushes open the double doors in front of us, “is the dining hall.”
“Holy shit.”
The dining hall looks just as the rest of the castle does, but the biggest difference is the massive buffet station along the far wall. A line of students chat and laugh in front of it as they wait for their turn for whatever is on menu. Circular tables take up every empty square inch with six chairs each, most of them already full.
But what’s even more shocking is that the dining hall is teaming with so many different supernaturals that I don’t even know where to look first.
When Axel first brought me out of the human sector, yeah, there were all different supes, but seeing them all congregated in the same space makes me uneasy. Any one of these kids—or are they classed as adults now?—could lose their shit and destroy me. And without knowing how to use my own magical abilities, I wouldn’t be able to fight back to save my own life.
One thing I know for certain is that there’s an obvious divide between them as there is with any school. Human and supe alike. It seems keeping to species is how it goes here. There’s a table surrounded by some massive people who barely fit in the chairs underneath them. My guess is that table is full of shifters.
At another one, instead of food, there are gold goblets sitting in front of each student. They remind of me Axel with the pale skin and red eyes. On either side of the vampires, there are more pointy ears than I’ve ever seen in my life. And that’s saying something because I’ve only seen one. But what sets these two groups apart are the glares and daggers they are tossing in each other’s direction.
“Ahh, I see you’ve spotted the fae tables. Seelie and Unseelie don’t mix. Hence the need for two. But that’s a lesson for another day. Come on, Bailey. Let’s grab some dinner, and then you can head to bed early so you can be well-rested for your first day tomorrow.”
I blow a raspberry at Thaddeus’ words. First day of classes. Not something I’m looking forward to. Especially since all I could do was light myself on fire when I got pissed off and run headfirst into a damn wall. That’s not going to get me any high marks. Only expelled due to setting the whole academy on fire.
Thaddeus weaves his way through the tables, many of the supernaturals calling his name or tossing him a wave in acknowledgment. He seems well-liked by all the students. A few of them eye me curiously, probably wondering what I’m doing with the professor, but thankfully, no one asks, and they go back to their previous conversations.
It wouldn’t surprise me if they’re wondering what a human is doing here. But again, we have a story to cover that. I’m a hybrid. A witch and a shifter. But fuck if I know what kind of shifter I can be. Transmutation class is going to be rough until we figure it out. That doesn’t stop me from being hopeful that whoever this Professor McHale is, they’ll be able to help me figure it out.
A white plate appears in my vision, Thaddeus graciously holding it out for me to take. With a grimace at losing myself to my own thoughts, I take it from him and follow at his back as he starts down the buffet line.
The food options are plentiful and a little surprising. There’s human food, things I recognize easily, like pizza, burgers, and chicken tenders. But then there are also things I’ve never seen before but don’t look any less appetizing.
Little by little, I add the foods I know and start taking small bits here and there of stuff I don’t. I’m always open to broadening my horizons when it comes to the feast for my belly. Right as I go to snag a delicious-looking morsel without a name plaque, a hand circles my wrist, stopping me.
“Are you stupid, little girl? Eating the flesh of the dead will kill you.”
My gag reflex is working overtime as I recoil as far as his hold will go, which isn’t that far at all. He keeps a tight grip, not letting me flee like my instincts are screaming at me to. He shakes my hand back and forth, the movement jarring me further. My gaze stays focused on his meaty paw, not once looking up at the asshole who thinks it’s okay to treat someone like this.
“Well, are you?”
“Let go of me,” I hiss, trying and failing to break his rough treatment. I’d love nothing more than to fight back, hit and kick with everything I’ve got, but the last thing I need to do is get into a fight with another student. Especially one as strong as this asshole is.
“Not until you answer my question.”
“Hudson, let her go. You should know better than to touch a student like that after the first time you were reprimanded for injuring someone.” Thaddeus comes to my rescue like a knight in pale blue armor. Thank fuck.
This Hudson dude releases me like I burnt him, but the angry scowl twisting his—I gulp—handsome face is still firmly in place. Why is it always the assholes that have to be hot? Can’t he be freaking hideous? Fuck a duck with my luck, man.
My accoster is giant, possibly even larger than Jasper’s massive size. Except this guy isn’t made of stone. No, he’s made of flesh and blood and muscles upon muscles. Molten gold eyes stare down at me as a sneer curls a set of plump lips. Chestnut hair covers his head, longer on top and shorter on the sides. A barrel chest, probably five or six times my size, threatens to rip out of the white v-neck t-shirt covering his large frame. If I didn’t know he was a supe—and a complete total asshole—he’d definitely be the kind of man I’d let do dirty things to me.
But nope. Not him. Not after this bullshit. His attitude ruins the entire handsome picture, making him ugly as fuck.
“Keep your student in check, Mr. Winterton,”—he stresses Thaddeus’ title—“and I won’t have to step in before her own stupidity gets her killed.”
It should piss me off that they’re talking about me like I’m not even here, but with the lack of control of my magic and how huge this dick is, I’ll let it go. Just this once. This is an altercation I’d never win. And I’ll be the first to admit it.
“She’s new, Hudson. Leave it alone.” Hudson huffs a disbelieving laugh, then spins on his heel, his plate firmly in hand, and heads to an empty table. The chatter around the room dies out, not because of the altercation but because this Hudson dude throws a hissy fit by slamming his plate to the surface of the table, shattering not only the glass but the wood itself.
“Ignore him, sunshine. He has a stick up his ass. Has ever since he first started here. But he was right when he said consuming the flesh of the dead would kill you. So I’d steer clear of it.”
I blow a raspberry. “Then maybe they should put a sign up explaining what it is.”
Thaddeus chuckles. “There used to be one, but the students couldn’t handle what it was in writing, so they took the sign down, and now it’s just common knowledge to avoid it.”
“Common knowledge, my ass,” I mutter, following Thaddeus over to an empty table.
We both take a seat, and conversation between us dies as we both dig into our food. It’s absolutely delicious, not something that I’d think an academy would supply its students. But I have to remember that this is the supernatural world. They do things differently than when I was in school in the human sector.