Page 251 of Castings & Curses

Or tried to.

“There she is,queen of the pigpens,” Jeremy taunted.

It was halfway through the summer session when Jeremy found me watering section A of the garden patch outside Greenhouse Twelve. This was part of a semester long assignment given to me by the head of the department, and the most senior witch of the Tellus Coven herself, Margaret Fairchild.

I’d been tasked with splicing herbs and creating genetic hybrids to be used in potions by my fellow earth witches, and as I toiled, I’d come to another conclusion. Arlo’s salve was incredible as it was, but it could surely benefit from some of the techniques I’d used with the herbs here.

If I could splice and blend plants used in the ingredients for his salve, maybe I could help him find the lasting effects he was trying to manage. So deep in my own thoughts, I didn’t hear Jeremy and his idiot friends approaching. I should have been better prepared, but that was me.

Naïve Jade.

Simple earth witch.

No threat to anyone.

I hated that.

What did people know about anyone else’s potential, anyway?

But I’d been categorized as non-threatening for so long, I guess I believed it. And that was messed up. I shouldn’t believe things like that about myself.

The same way I should never believe I wasless thanbecause I carried some more pounds than others. Arlo thought I was beautiful. Heck, he told me so all the time. But it was more than words. He showed me I was beautiful every time he talked to me, touched me, kissed, made me lose my mind with wanting him.

Jeremy Thrumble and every bullying boyfriend like him was not worth the time. Not mine, anyway. Whatever insecurities or mommy issues he had were not my responsibility. He and his baggage could take a freaking hike right on out of here and away from me. I had bigger things to worry about than my less than stellar ex.

“What do you want, Jeremy?” I asked, concentrating on the small budding vine I was tending.

It was a cross between raspberry vine and hops. When I’d initiated the experiment, I had this idea of brewing a sweet, fruity beer with a hint of summer. My younger brother had already started making IPAs as a hobby—one my parents thoroughly approved of. With Mom’s gardening skill and Dad’s business sense, he was sure to be a success. I loved my family, supported my siblings, and we’d often discussed the benefits of magically enhanced hops before.

This part of campus was usually snowy, but Greenhouse Twelve was in a perpetual loop of spring, summer, and fall. We were always planting, growing, and harvesting here—with the timeline magically sped up, of course.

Arlo was finishing a double shift and I would see him later tonight. Mabe was supposed to meet me here, I was giving her magic transfusions once a week to stem her need for blood, though Arlo supplied that for her as well from the infirmary stores.

Every evening, my roommates and I called a meeting of the Novus Mobilis Coven, that was what we secretly called ourselves. Interestingly enough, the two Westwood Academy sentinels mated to two of our own had been reassigned to guard the six of us. Their own Watchman sanctioned the changes.

No one questioned their presence when we walked by, or asked why a mage was suddenly rooming with us. Other mated students lived in apartment-like dorms, but there were few. That supernaturals were highly sexualized was probably the reason, but I needed Enid to explain for me to understand why she’d been so scandalized by it. Normals were prudish as hell.

“All alone out here, pigpen?” Jeremy asked, licking his lips in a way that made me cringe.

“Hey, Jer, why are you bothering with piggy for when Emma is waiting?” one of his companions asked.

“Emma Jacobs?” I asked, stilling as worry poured into me.

“Yeah. She is way finer than your ass, even if she is a pigpen too. Been riding my jock all summer,” Jeremy said, as if it would make me jealous.

Emma Jacobs was not my favorite person, but she was a fellow earth witch. I had a duty to protect her reputation. At least, that was how I saw it.

Jeremy Thrumble was a total POS.

“That is a disgusting way to talk about a woman, Jeremy. Why don’t you just get lost?”

“Get lost? Ha ha ha.”

“Oh,get lostshe says. Yeah, Jer, wanna get lost?”

I ignored his loser friends, careful to appear nonchalant as they circled me. I took in my surroundings. Greenhouse Twelve was too far from any building for anyone to hear me if I screamed. The Winter Forest bordered the south side of the fenced-in plot of land where I was working, but it was a good twenty-minute walk to Bryn Lake, where I knew Magnus and Rio were swimming today.

Go away.

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