Page 1 of The Witch & the Tiger

Prologue – Martin

Martin woke up in a cold sweat, heart slamming against his chest. Again. That same nightmare. His hands lifted to his throat, remembering the sensation of the water rising and rising, flowing into his mouth, invading his lungs.

It wasn’t the only thing he remembered. The voices of his friends mingled together, echoing in the cave, full of confusion and terror. The dream never let him pick out the individual words – just the overreaching sense of suffering and fear that formed a clangorous uproar in his mind.

I’m not there, he reminded himself. I’m home. My mother and father are in the kitchen; my sister will be getting ready for school.

Not him, though.

Rolling out of bed, he joined his parents in the kitchen just in time to watch his father gleefully flip a pancake without getting it stuck on the ceiling.

The usual good mornings followed, and he sought some orange juice, a last-minute stretch.

“Here.” His father thrust the plate of pancakes in his son’s face. “Enjoy. Afterward, your mother and I want to talk to you.”

“Talk now then,” Martin said, his appetite instantly souring. He’d not be able to enjoy eating until hearing whatever they wished to say.

His parents glanced at each other. Both parents had incredible heads of reddish-orange hair, though his mother’s hair tended more toward the curly side, while his father’s was long and straight. Both parents now conspicuously hid their faces from view as they whispered to each other.

What the hell do they want to say to me?

“Okay.” His mother cleared her throat, turning to face him. “We were just wondering… when you’d be returning to Dreadmor.”

He froze. “When I feel ready.”

“Honey,” she said, somehow managing to look both pitying and exasperated at the same time, “it’s been five months. We’re worried. It feels like you’re slipping away from us. You haven’t been the same since…”

He took a deep breath, fighting the urge to shut down the conversation or exit the room entirely. He knew they meant well. But he hadn’t quite finished what he wanted to do.

“I know. I’ll return to the academy soon. I just need… a little longer. Can I have that?”

Again, his parents glanced at each other before a grudging nod passed between them.

“We’ll be checking up on you. This can’t go on forever.”

“Sure.”

He picked at his pancakes afterward. Even with honey drizzled over them, they didn’t hold quite the same attraction as before.

But he couldn’t stop now. Not when there were still missing pieces of the puzzle. Not until he figured out how people drowned in a place where no water existed.

Chapter One – Willow

Magic didn’t always have logic to it. Sometimes, it seemed that other places and other realms just casually bumped into each other, spilling over their contents. This seemed to be how Dreadmor Academy functioned as well – casually bumping into non-human places and yet somehow existing side by side with them.

Honestly, Willow found the whole concept a little insane. Wild magic, non-human creatures – they presented a danger and mystery to those who lived on Earth. Wild magic areas – otherworldly spots – usually had clear borders. Where the richest academies held their summer camp program, there was a wild magic area defined by a clear boundary and a posted warning to the campers who went there. Other places all over the world followed this example.

Then, you had a school where no such boundaries existed.

“You know,” Harrow said, glaring at Willow, “if the whole lack of boundary thing is a big issue for you, you could always just transfer to another one of the academies.”

They sat together on one of the ivy-laced stone benches in the Triscor Garden, where some of the oddly lifelike statues were located. “When you come here, you sign up for a deep connection to wild magic. It’s supposed to be what gives Dreadmor students an edge compared to all the other academies.”

“It’s still insanely dangerous,” Willow said, even though, yes, she did sign up for Dreadmor. Of course, logically, she knew at the time that she’d be getting herself in deep, but it hadn’t truly registered just… how deep the situation would be. In the three years she’d been at Dreadmor, at least three students had mysteriously gone missing; others had been expelled, and she was about eighty percent convinced that the Triscor Garden statues were people who’d been enchanted and turned into stone.

Still, after four years of dubious magical activity and lessons, she could flee elsewhere or stay longer to gain a master’s in a chosen subject and stay longer. Maybe she’d become one of those perpetual student types who never entered the real world since, even now, she still didn’t know what she really wanted to do.

Go to Dreadmor, her mother had said. It’s a wonderful place. I went there, and look how I turned out!

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