Page 8 of Practically Witches

I grin. “You, too.” But I’m here, with a pen and a book and class hasn’t started yet.

The random murmurs that usually die when he walks into class continue today. I catch bits and pieces.Rowen Foster, 5th year, legacy student.I know Rowen in a more abstract way than in a friendship way, but I’m interested now, and I’m trying to wade through the white noise to figure out why they’re talking about her.

Her powers were stolen.

I heard it was a syphoner.

She’s in a coma, and they don’t know if she’s going to wake up.

“All right, people. Settle down.” Beckett walks around to sit on the front of his desk. He’s one of those new breeds of teacher. Hip. Wears jeans and button downs with those long skinny ties that look like an arrow pointed down at his crotch.

He has black hair that is combed forward on top and pushed up in the front. He has facial hair that looks more like he needs a shave than a beard but he probably thinks is fashionable because all the guys on TV wear their faces that way. But he teaches good magic and he’s the student adviser for fifth years with the last names A through F.

But I’m more interested in what the other students are saying today. I’ve heard of syphoners before. Supposedly, there haven’t been any around—if they’re real and ever existed at all—in the last hundred or so years. So, the excitement makes sense.

We come from long magical lines and if no one in any of our families has ever met a syphoner, and they have been relegated to myth and legend, then probably this is just another tall tale told by someone who wants their five minutes of fame.

I raise my hand. There’s no reason not to get the information from someone who claims to know. And it beatsanother day in Magical History class of reading about the witch trials and comparing the real information to that which has been out in the world for the last two hundred years.

“Yes, Miss Baum?”

“Did a syphoner take Rowen Foster’s power?” The sound in the classroom dies and now Professor Beckett has the attention of every person in his room. We all want to know, but no one else was going to ask, so I did.

“That is unknown at this time.” There’s a lot in what he isn’t saying.

“So syphonersarereal?” I want it spelled out in black-and-white. And despite the shifting because this subject is uncomfortable, everyone else wants to hear what he has to say too.

He looks at me. Tilts his head. Probably wishes I would shut my pie hole and let him teach, but if so, he doesn’t say it. He smiles instead. “Syphoners aren’t known to be around this part of the country in this current era.”

I can see his loopholes.Aren’t known to be, in this era.These are cop out words. He doesn’t want to confirm or deny anything.

“There’s going to be announcements made later today, and as information is collected regarding Rowen and how to handle yourselves in the wake of this…incident, the Institute will keep you informed.” He doesn’t seem altogether confident in his own statements, but I imagine he’s in a hard position if he knows the truth but has been asked not to tell us for whatever reason. Or maybe, and this is likely, he just doesn’t want to believe it himself.

“Incident? That’s the word we’re using for when a witch has been drained of her powers?” This time someone in the back shouts out, and I’m glad it’s someone else, eventhough I would’ve done it. I just didn’t want to sound antagonistic. Not yet, anyway. I like Professor Beckett.

By the time class is over and we’re released into the hallway, no one knows anything more certain than they did when they walked into class. Although we did discuss syphoners as a real part of our history rather than a myth or someone’s tall tale. So there’s that. A confirmation in history that syphoners are real.

Syphoners, according to the professor, are a type of witch who can only reach their full potential by leeching off or stealing another’s power. They can also completely drain the powers of another, which leads me to believe that if, as I’ve heard, Rowen’s power was drained, it may have been a syphoner. That and the fact that the professor wouldn’t rule it out.

He cautioned us that a syphoner who steals the total power of another witch becomes corrupted and must be killed. They spread dangerous magic. Faulty magic. And only a syphoner can defeat another of its kind. But once a syphoner is killed, the powers revert to the witch from whom they were stolen.

I think about it. A lot. So much that when someone approaches my locker, I don’t notice until he touches my shoulder.

I suck in a gasp.

Zane Bradbury is standing at my locker. I’m not some first-year little witch who has a crush on the big fifth-year magic god. I’m a fifth year. A legacy in my own right. A witch in training, at the end of her training to be exact. I can hold my head up and not make a fool of myself in front of Zane Bradbury. Presumably.

Maybe. Once I tamp down the excitement. And once I stop seeing his naked chest in front of me.

I take a second to breathe through the excitement and then I smile up at him. As people walk down the hall, they stare. Who can blame them.He’sstanding besideme. Smiling. Probably they’re thinking that one of these things doesn’t belong. It’s me.I’mthe thing that doesn’t belong.

But I’m not going to point it out to Zane. And I’ll kick the ass of the person who does. My plan is to wait until he figures it out for himself, and then I’ll survive it. Probably.

“Hey.”

“Hey.” I’m cool. Calm. Don’t have anything to spill on him, so I’m not wholly worried. “Aren’t you in the wrong hallway?” His locker is in the B hall. Mine is in the C hall.

He shakes his head with his gaze locked onto mine, and it’s probably one of the sexiest moves I’ve ever seen before in my life. My heart thumps a little harder. “Nope. I’m where I want to be.”

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