Page 139 of The Black Witch

Damion Bane

Late that night, after spending about two hours peeling potatoes and a few more toiling in the apothecary lab, I start back to the North Tower. Halfway across the cold, windy field, I realize I’ve left Professor Kristian’s books in the kitchen.

It’s well past midnight when I return to the kitchen to fetch the books. I’ve never been out so late, and it’s strange to find the University so quiet and deserted, only a few stray scholars walking here and there, some scattered lamplight visible through windows.

I push open the door that leads to the kitchen’s storage room, hearing some muffled voices in the otherwise quiet kitchen up ahead. I hesitate near the second door, curious as to who could be here at such a late hour.

“Please...please let me go,” a young woman pleads, crying softly.

“Now, why would I do that?” a velvety voice answers.

I creep up to the door in front of me and peer through its window. My gut clenches when I see who it is.

Fallon’s older brother, Lieutenant Damion Bane, decked out in his black military garb, silver-striped cloak and white armband. He’s grabbing at Olilly, the shy, violet-skinned Urisk girl who cleans the floors at night. The girl Fallon chased away.

“I have to go. Please let me go,” Olilly begs, trying to pull away from the hand firmly clenched around her thin arm.

Anger courses through me, making my heart race.Trystan. I should get Trystan. He’s a Level Five like Damion. He doesn’t have as much training, but still...

“Youhave something that belongs to my sister,” Damion says with a smile. “So you’re going to do exactly what I want, or I’m going to report you for theft and get you sent back to the Islands.”

“I didn’t take anything. I swear it.” Her words are muffled by crying.

“There, there,” he purrs, reaching up to finger the buttons of her tunic. “What Fallon doesn’t know won’t hurt her. You’re going to come with me, and we’ll have a little talk. We’re going to take a walk in the woods.”

Anger boils over inside me.Level Five be damned.

I grab up the biggest iron skillet I can find, swinging it by its wooden handle, and make for the kitchen door.

I burst into the kitchen wielding my makeshift weapon. As Damion turns to look at me in surprise, there’s a crash, and a blur streaks through the kitchen, colliding with Damion.

He falls backward away from the girl and onto a table with a groan.

Yvan Guriel is now standing over him, Damion’s wand in his hand. Yvan deftly casts it into the bread stove’s fire. Cold air rushes in from the still-open back door, the logs Yvan had been carrying lying all over the floor near the door in disarray.

I blink, momentarily thrown off balance. How did Yvan move sofast?Impossibly so.

Yvan’s fists are clenched, his body tightly coiled as if he’s ready to spring at Damion at any moment, green eyes blazing.

Damion looks at him, then me, ignoring Olilly as she cries and huddles against the spice shelf. He smiles and pushes himself off the table, then pauses to brush off his fine clothes.

“Doing some late-night cooking?” he asks me, amused.

My arm hurts from holding the heavy skillet, but I don’t care. I want to throw it straight at his head.

“Stay away from the kitchen girls,” I tell him, my voice steely.

I’ve heard all about him, and some of the other soldiers. Preying on any Urisk girl unlucky enough to find herself alone with them. The kitchen workers don’t talk to me directly, but they talkaroundme, and I’ve ears to hear.

“She’s a thief,” Damion tells me conversationally, flicking his fingers in the direction of the girl without looking at her. “She’s coming with me. She stole something from my sister. A picture.”

Oh, Ancient One. Guilt lashes through me.Lukas’s cracked portrait at the bottom of my cloak pocket. Olilly’s predicament is all my fault.

I hoist the skillet a little higher on the handle, fearing I may drop it. “She didn’t take Fallon’s picture,” I tell him, heart pounding. “Idid.”

His eyebrows fly up, then his gaze turns malevolent and he lets out a short laugh. “Soyouhave my sister’s picture of Lukas Grey?”

“Yes. Yes, I do.”

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