Chapter 3 #2
“Focus up, fellas.” Jamius clapped his hands to get the attention of his eight copies walking alongside him; each drifted back into formation with their eyes fixed on a book and doing their best to ignore their desperate urge to chat with the other students in the lobby.
He’d taken out his braids since the last time I’d seen him, allowing for a more natural afro.
Name: Jamius Watson
Branch: Alteration (Duplication)
It was nice to see Jamius take my advice on expanding his comprehension through his copies.
He’d gone an extra step, ensuring they each read and retained intel on all the Cerberus Guild protocols, industry standards, and enchanter stats.
When Jamius reabsorbed his duplicates, he retained the knowledge and information they acquired without him, meaning he could amplify his learning intake so long as he could make his copies cooperate.
We’d never made it that far in class, so I rather liked seeing him pull it off now.
One by one, his copies handed Jamius a book and exploded into nothingness. As the crowd thinned, I saw a fiery redhead making her way inside.
“Hey, guys,” Melanie waved her hand, adding a flair of fire in the process.
Name: Melanie Dawson
Branch: Primal (Fire)
“You see that, Mr. Frost?” Melanie asked, noting how smooth her control over flames had become.
“It’s Enchanter Frosty,” Gael corrected.
“Oopsie,” Melanie said. “Did you see that Enchanter Fro—”
“Melanie, don’t waste words on basic nobodies.” Layla raised her clawed hand, then gestured as if to shoo me from her presence. “Not all enchanters are equal, and you should honestly only speak to those on track to be successful. Not the pity hires.”
Name: Layla Smythe
Branch: Bestial (Therianthropy)
She didn’t wear her typical oversized academy blazer and tiny skirt.
Instead, Layla wore a form-fitting bubblegum pink dress with black lacing.
Melanie’s mind wandered to the price tag, indicating Layla’s accessories for the dress cost more than half her wardrobe.
In truth, Layla had gone all out for today, convincing her parents to purchase her a customized designer augmentation wardrobe.
Augmented clothing lines allowed witches who shifted their physical form, much like Layla, not to rip apart their outfits.
It magically changed with them. But Layla couldn’t wear some basic bitch outfit.
No, she needed the best designers to work with enchantments meant to create their augmentation clothing lines.
She literally hired her own clothing line from the elites.
Layla stood for a few more seconds alone in the lobby area with Melanie until a handful of girls from Gemini arrived.
Layla eyed each of the girls up and down in attendance, ensuring all put their best on today.
Somehow, in her mind, they were there to make a good impression that’d properly reflect Layla.
Okay, that I didn’t miss. With a smug smirk of satisfaction, Layla turned on her heel and led the way as the group followed behind her like some gang of popularity.
I allowed my telepathy to drift outside and away from the noisy cluster of so many teens inside the lobby.
Two of my students nearly bumped into each other as they arrived from opposite directions.
“Whoops,” Tara said, twirling around Katherine.
The pair laughed and paused for a breath neither had taken since rushing to the guild.
Katherine brushed a hand through her recently straightened, long, dark brown hair.
She did her best to keep it presentable, but ended up having to fly to Cerberus Guild since she spent so much of her morning getting ready.
Everything took more time than expected, from her make-up to her sapphire blue heels, which she already regretted thanks to the pinch of her toes, all the way to her dress that she’d picked out of quite possibly a hundred outfits this morning.
Katherine wanted this morning to be perfect.
“You brought your familiar?” she asked.
Tara nodded. “I think she’s close to leaving her cocoon and didn’t want her to be stuck at home all day if that happened.”
I smirked, eyes flitting toward Gael, which made him quirk his pierced brow in confusion and curiosity until my expression shifted into a scowl, and he returned to his conversation with the others.
While I didn’t know everything my students had been up to over the summer, I did know the main components, which involved Gael rescuing a caterpillar that inched its way toward Tara from the clutches of King Clucks’ beak.
Even without knowing, Gael sensed the magic stirring in the tiny hungry insect, and somehow, he convinced Tara to keep a watchful eye over the bug until her link blossomed a few days later, and she awakened yet another branch.
Name: Tara Whitlock
Branch: Ward (Sealing)
Branch: Cosmic (Shadows)
Branch: Arcane (Intangibility)
Branch: Primal (Icicles)
Branch: Psychic (Banshee’s Wail)
Branch: Bestial (Familiar)
“I see I’m not the only one lugging around massive equipment.” Tara eyed the grimoire strapped to Katherine’s hip.
A huge book, twice the size of a standard grimoire, and barely contained in Katherine’s customized holster. She unstrapped it and held it in her hands. Katherine walked alongside Tara, showing off her new grimoire. Well, her old grimoire, by the looks of the cracked, creased binding of the book.
“Fancy,” Tara said. “Or what’s the opposite of fancy? Vintage? Can grimoires be vintage?”
Name: Katherine Harris
Branch: Enchantment (Spell Craft)
“Yes and no.” Katherine held the book close. “My mom suggested I come with something impressive for my internship, something that shows my mentor I’m ready for anything.”
“And this book does this how?”
“It’s a rarity. My family has a lot of one-of-a-kind and long-since forgotten grimoires,” Katherine explained.
“This one happens to predate the fall of magic. Apparently, the Harris women passed it down over the generations, and many of them tried to access the spells with no success during the Eras of Silence.”
Eras of Silence. A reference to the hundreds of years, magic had died out.
No one knew why, but magic had vanished for many years before returning.
Some people knew. I had access to the memories of three witches, the Sisters Three, who knew of life before the fall of magic, but their memories were so jumbled and guarded that I’d barely made sense of any of it.
Hell, understanding Milo’s visions was easier than making sense of those dead witches’ memories.
“And your mom seriously let you bring that?” Tara’s question drew my thoughts back to the present and away from the mission I had, the one where I would bring down the Celestial Coven.
A twinge of guilt hit me, merging with a memory Tara kept close to the surface of her thoughts.
Brewing like a storm above her ocean of sorrow lay the revelation Enchanter Evergreen shared with her over the summer.
I couldn’t in good conscience let the Global Guild make moves against the Celestial Coven without sharing the very twisted truth with Tara.
Tara stared blankly at Milo, completely dumbfounded by the news of The True Witch, the woman who aligned herself with Theodore Whitlock, the witch who planned to conquer the world.
“Of course she couldn’t have just abandoned me,” Tara had said to Milo, eyes flitting to the screen which projected her father since he still remained out of the country for business, but in truth, I suspected he hid from Amara and her coven.
“So, she wants to unleash Hell and thinks I’m the key to this plan? ”
Milo had nodded. It pained me still that he’d held back certain details, but Tobias Whitlock and the Global Guild were firmly on the same page: Tara didn’t need to know the full extent of her mother’s power or how she believed her daughter was a goddess meant to rule over everything.
It was deranged. But that whole Celestial Coven held fancies of godhood, deluding themselves into believing their witchcraft held some sacred, ancient secrets.
What would Tara do when she learned her mother was the immortal leader of a coven bent on destroying the world because they believed in the gods of old?
“This fucking family.” Tara burst into laughter. “I swear.”
“It’s important to note that Theodore may not be working with her willingly.”
“Of course not. She’s planning to control the world, and he wants to burn it all down.” Tara shrugged, then cut her gaze toward her father. “But I’m sure neither would be profitable to Whitlock Industries, so hopefully, our shareholders devise a perfect plan.”
“This is serious, Tara,” Tobias finally spoke up.
“You can tell me all about how serious it is the next time I see you.” Tara closed the computer and smiled at Enchanter Evergreen. “If that sums everything up, I should get going. School’s around the corner, and I’ve updated my casting permit yet again.”
With that, Tara kept the sadness of the memory buried and out of reach. It didn’t pain her because she didn’t dwell. Worse, she ignored it.
I shook away the memories Tara held, focused my telepathy, and stayed grounded here and now.
There wasn’t much I could enjoy with the stress of The True Witch and her coven looming in the world, threatening everyone, but I’d be damned if that fear stole today from me.
I wanted to be present, see my students’ arrival, watch the looks on their faces as they were assigned mentors, and silently cheer for them and all their successes.
“When you land an internship with who I landed with, definitely.” Katherine’s smile blossomed, reeling me closer.
She truly felt on top of the world, her thoughts soaring with excitement for today.
Mostly for herself and the hope she had to impress her mentor, but also as she made her way inside, her thoughts flitted with excitement for her peers, her friends, and even the students at Gemini she didn’t recognize in the lobby.