Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
The door knocker is an iron grotesque with the hanging ring locked to the little demon’s ears and the ball of the knocker hanging just below its elongated upper lip. The moment Asher reaches for it, the thing comes to life and tries to bite his fingers.
Asher screams like a teenage girl in a slasher movie, and both Wylder and I crack up. We’re still doubled over laughing when Mica opens the door and finds us.
Mica has her turquoise hair tied back in a knot and held in place with what I’m pretty sure is a forge pin. Her arms are bare, a heavy apron hanging over her sleeveless shirt. “What are you guys cackling about out here?”
“Who knew knockers could be so aggressive?”
Mica’s mouth falls open, then shuts as if she’s just not sure how to answer that.
I pull myself together and wipe the tears from my eyes. “Sorry to disturb the peace, but that was too funny.”
She studies us for a moment, and then casts a wary glance over the academy grounds behind us. “Come inside.”
The smell hits us first. The tang of molten metal, woodsmoke, and something magical fills the air and sits at the back of my throat.
The front foyer of the forge castle is flanked by a room left and right, and straight on, there is a stone wall with a closed door.
In front of the door, sits a smoke-gray Persian with fur dusted in ash and eyes the color of old amber. His tail, singed with a bald patch at the tip, lashes once as it takes us in.
“Hello, Brimstone.” I give the Guardian of the Cinderheart Crucible a respectful nod.
“You remembered.”
“I did. You make an impression.”
His tail flicks, but I’m not sure if it’s in annoyance or just out of habit. “We’re in the middle of a lesson. Why have you interrupted us?”
Okay, so definitely annoyance.
“We wanted to check on Mica’s well-being and to see if she needed anything from us.”
The cat blinks at me. “And what do you think you have that would be of help to an apprentice of an ancient forge during her days of training?”
“Uh… well, when you say it like that…”
Mica scoffs. “Such a grumpy puss. Seriously, Brimstone, all work and no play makes Mica a miserable woman. Give me five minutes and I’ll be firing things up like a boss.”
The cat’s amber eyes narrow on her. “Promises, promises.”
With a twist of his body and a dismissive flick of his tail, the cat steps through the now-open door, and leaves us.
“Tough crowd,” Asher says.
“You have no idea.” Mica chuckles and waves for us to follow her through the door and into the forge area.
Smoke moves in slow coils near the ceiling, and the forge itself blazes at the far end of the space. It glows with a deep arterial orange that throws long shadows across the stone floor.
Every surface is covered with half-finished blades, coils of wire, and tools hung with the obsessive organization of someone who needs to know exactly where everything is at all times.
Mica gestures toward the workbench. “And this is where the magic happens… and when I say magic, I mean nothing at all. The furball Führer won’t let me do anything until I finish my freaking tutorials.”
“You came to me, kid,” the cat growled from where he’d curled up on his cushioned bed by the forge. “Do you expect me just to hand over the power of this forge without training you how to use it properly? Would you give a twelve-year-old the keys to your Lamborghini?”
Mica rolls her eyes.
"Going well, then," Asher says.
Mica grabs a stool by the workbench and sits. "The forging is fine—obviously. That's literally my affinity, and I could forge in my sleep. It's the imbuing that is tripping me up."
Wylder moves closer to the forge, his gaze scanning the racks of blade blanks with quiet attention. "Walk us through it."
"I can craft the weapon… a good, solid weapon with proper balance, quality steel, and a killer edge. Then I try to imbue magic into it, and it comes out—wrong.”
“Wrong how?”
“It won’t take the charge. I’ve tried banishment spells, disabling, binding, nothing will take hold. It feels like I’m pouring water through a crack in the stone. More of my intention ends up spilling onto the floor than ever gets into the blade.”
Wylder considers that for a moment. He picks up a half-finished blade from the nearest rack and turns it slowly in his hands. “When you're forging, where is most of your attention?"
“The blade."
"And when you're imbuing?"
"Also the blade." She pauses. "And the magic. Both, I guess."
"So you're trying to give full attention to the craft and the imbuing simultaneously."
She shrugs. “Yeah, I guess so.”
“Maybe dividing yourself isn’t the right call. What has Brimstone taught you about imbuing?”
She snorts. “Absolutely nothing. He’s Mr. Miyagi and I’m stuck over here doing the whole ‘wax on, wax off’ routine.”
A long, low growl rumbles from the cat bed, but Brimstone’s eyes remain closed. The only sign that he’s even listening is the twitch and flick of his ears.
"What if the forging process and the magical imbuing need to be separate?” Wylder asks.
Mica frowns. “I hear what you’re saying, but I have a natural sense of when I think it’s supposed to be, and it’s during the forging process.”
“What if someone else does the imbuing while you focus on crafting? Could one of us help?”
Mica frowns. “You don’t think I can do both?”
Wylder holds up his palms. “In no way am I doubting you. I just think you're already doing a very complex thing by using an ancient, magical forge. Maybe asking you to do that at the same time as imbuing enough magic to banish a major demon is affecting the outcome.”
I shrug. “It’s worth testing. Isn’t it?”
She seems to consider that for a long moment. "Are you offering yourself up?"
Wylder shakes his head. “No. Actually, I was thinking it should be Poppy. If any of us has a counter to Tharuzel’s energy, it would be Poppy’s spirit affinity. I think the two of you are the answer.”
I meet his gaze and then look over to Mica. “I’m willing to try. What do you need me to do?”
The door to the forge castle swings shut behind us half an hour later, and the sound of the academy's grounds opens up. A warm breeze rustles through the trees and cools my heated skin.
After multiple attempts for me to imbue the steel with a spell while Mica forged, it became obvious we were missing something.
Mica thinks Brimstone has the answers and said she will continue to train and try to gain access to the secrets of the forge. I’m still thinking about that when I realize that Asher has stopped walking.
He stands with his hands on his hips, his head tilted back, looking up at one of the many spires of the academy building. Ivy has grown so thick over the stone it looks like it’s structural. "Okay, this is genuinely unhinged."
"It's just a school, Hendrix," Wylder says.
He scowls. “An incredible Hogwarts-style magic school, maybe, but not ‘just’ a school. Look at that tree. The leaves aren’t the golden leaves of autumn, they’re actual gold. Like, metallurgically, gold."
Wylder follows Asher’s pointed finger and shrugs. "The leaves of a money tree change depending on the ambient magic levels."
"And that’s the most insane sentence you've ever said to me. Like actually bonkers, dude.” He falls back into step beside me and links his arm with mine. “So, Pops, while you were here, did you just wander around here mind blown?"
"To say the least."
He sweeps a hand toward a cluster of students crossing the far path, one of whom has what appears to be a small storm cloud orbiting her left shoulder. "Is stuff like that normal here?”
“Considering that this is the place for those struggling with their magic, yes.”
He considers that for a long moment before he shoves his hands in his jacket pockets and starts walking again. "Okay, so where are we going? Do you know where they put Violet and Lily, or are we just vibing it?"
"I know their dorm cluster is in the east wing." I scan the path ahead. "But I don't know their schedules, so we’ll have to track them down."
Wylder pulls out his phone and starts tapping through screens. “I’ve got you. Just another perk to sleeping with me.”
I laugh. “But by no means the most impressive one.”
He flashes me a sexy grin, his green eyes sparkling. “Okay, Lily was let out of class twenty minutes ago and is relaxing in the gardens. Violet is still in session.”
“Perfect. Then we’ll start with Lily in the gardens.”
We strike off across campus, and the closer we get to the gardens, the lighter my heart feels.
Logically, I know Arcana was the only choice for them until we’re sure their powers are stable.
Emotionally, I’ve been swamped with guilt and worry and every other big sister abandonment, self-recrimination feeling I could stuff into my poor, dented heart.
The gardens are the natural center of the academy grounds, designed around a series of interconnected hedgerows and stone paths that branch into smaller, quieter pockets the further in you go.
I learned early on during my stay that if something needed to be figured out and the walls of my room were too close, the gardens were where to go.
Wylder leads us through the main path and then turns right at the hedgerow fork, toward the alcoves tucked along the back wall where trailing wisteria has wound itself through old iron frames over centuries.
It’s not far from the alcove where Wylder took me for my first lesson in control. Maybe he’s thinking about that too, because he’s got a soft smile warming his handsome face when he glances over at me.
Look how far we’ve come.
We find Lily tucked into an alcove bench with both feet pulled up underneath her, her sketchbook balanced on her knees, and her brown hair falling forward as she leans over her work.
"Hey, Lil. How are the muses treating you?"
Her head lifts, and her face lights up with a complete, unguarded brightness. "Poppy!"
She's off the bench in a single motion, and then she's got both arms around me and squeezing hard enough that I feel my spine shift.