Page 93 of The Black Witch

“Establish ancestry as a greeting.”

She blinks at him. “Why ever not?” she finally says, clearly appalled.

“It’s just not their custom.”

She folds her arms in front of her chest and huffs at him.

“Besides,” he whispers, gesturing to the front of the room where Professor Volya stands menacingly still as if she’s contemplating the most expeditious way to murder Diana. “We should probably pay attention now.”

“Why?” Diana asks like a spoiled child.

“Because,” he says, raising his eyebrows at her meaningfully, “lecture hasstarted.”

Diana frowns at Professor Volya and then at everyone else before finally plopping back down into her seat next to me. Professor Volya shoots her one more stern look before focusing in on the rest of us and resuming her lecture on distillation techniques.

I’m surprised when Diana turns to me and starts whispering. “I have already read this book,” she complains stridently. “I do not need to listen to her rehash it. It is a waste of my time!”

I don’t know what to say. Besides, it’s so hard to resist staring at her flashing amber eyes. The color is mesmerizing.

“The forest is beautiful today, is it not?” she says wistfully, looking toward the line of windows and the orange-and-gold-tipped trees beyond. She sighs longingly. “I love how the trees smell this time of year. And the dried leaves, so sweet. I wish I could be out there now. Such a day for hunting. Do you hunt, Elloren Gardner?”

“No,” I reply, still trying to get my mind around the fact that I have a wolf-shifter for a research partner. “But my older brother, Rafe, does.”

“Does he?” she asks, seeming curious.

“He’s an excellent archer,” I whisper. “Do you have a bow?”

Diana laughs at this, a little too loud, causing Professor Volya to shoot her a quick, irritated look. “I don’t need a bow,” she says, grinning incredulously.

“What do you hunt with, then?” I ask.

She fixes her wild amber eyes on me. “My teeth.” She smiles widely, displaying her long, white, glistening canines. The hairs on the back of my neck go up in alarm.

“Oh,” I say, swallowing nervously. “You mean when you turn into a wolf?”

“Not necessarily,” she says, still smiling dangerously.

Holy Ancient One in the Heavens above.

I gulp and turned back to face the front of the room.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Tierney Calix

I enter the main teaching area of the Apothecary Guildhall breathless, having raced here from Chemistrie. To my dismay, the wooden lab tables filling the long, low-ceilinged room are already populated by pairs of young women hard at work chopping and mashing ingredients, the hiss of steam distillations and the low gurgle of boiling liquid soft on the air.

It reminds me loosely of the Chemistrie laboratory, the walls and tables covered with glass jars, vials and distillation retorts. But here flinty, sulfurous smells do not dominate the room. Instead, there’s an all-encompassing, earthy scent, deeply rooted in the forest realm, the containers surrounding me stocked with dried herbs and flowers, powdered bark and wood. My apprehension is tempered as I take in the rich scents, separating them out one by one in my mind—pine sap, birch ashes, cedar shavings. Bunched herbs hang from the ceiling, as well. I breathe deep, detecting nettlewood, briarsweet and black-cherry leaves.

Something inside me settles, contentment washing over me. Unfortunately, that feeling is short-lived, as I catch the eye of a furious-looking young woman storming in my direction.

“You’relate,” she chides me angrily, and I immediately panic at the sight of the gold pendant of a Lead Apprentice dangling from her necklace. Two scholars standing at a nearby lab table mirror her contemptuous glare. Society girls, all three of them, wearing finely embroidered silks under their long black lab aprons.

“I’m so sorry. There was a situation...with a Lupine...”

A low murmur of alarm goes up in the room, young women pausing to look up from their labors. There are no Keltic scholars here, no Elves, no Elfhollen. Gardnerian females dominate the apothecary trade, especially those with a little bit of Magecraft.

“It doesn’tmatter,” the apprentice snipes, cutting off my explanation. “It doesn’t matter if there’s anarmyof Lupines on your tail. Guild Mage Lorel expects you to be on time. As correction, you’ll stay after class and scour all the retorts.” Her eyes bear down on me, white-hot. There’s something vaguely familiar about them.

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