Page 29 of Phoenix Academy: Madness

"Even worse, we have the same face."

Xavier sighs. "Just tell us what itreallymeans, Ari. And ignore my idiot of a brother."

"I don't know what it means." It sucks to admit the truth, but there it is. "I think... I think it's the reason why my magic works differently on the three of you. And it's probably why you could pull me out of the rune circle. Further than that, it's anyone guess."

There it is: I fucked up, turned these three shifter boys into my familiars, and now we're all equally uncertain what happens next.

"Can you undo it?" David asks.

"It can't be undone."

Reggie mutters, "Great. A life sentence, and it's not even fun sex stuff. What's next, homework?"

Mage Auerbach steps up, claps his hands together, and tells the four of us, "No homework. But a bit of in-class research to figure out what's going on now that you're all in this position. Shall we get started?"

What follows is a series of dubious experiments, all at the behest of my new teacher. He puts cards with shapes in front of the boys while I close my eyes and try to guess what they're seeing. With us separated across the room from each other, he pricks their fingers, or my fingers, to try to figure out if we can each feel the other one's pain.

Then he tries things with magic. A spell to make a person's eyes orange, which gives Xavier a creepy gaze. Some kind of tracing spell that lets him follow David's footsteps. A seemingly useless spell he uses on Reggie that makes his voice one octave higher, much to the panther shifter's delight.

"I don't get it," he says, as class winds down towards the thankful end. "All of my spells worked on them. But you said being a witch's familiar protected them from magic."

I frown at him. "Isthatwhat you were testing out? Because I could've told you not to bother from the beginning."

"What—does the ritual not work on a mage's powers?" His brows crinkle together. "I suppose that makes a certain sort of sense, given that mages have much more powerful spellcraft than witches. We'll have to try an even weaker form of magic."

Irritation flares inside me, and only the extensive wards on this building keep my feral magic in check. Otherwise I might just reach out with a glowing blue hand and pour enough madness magic into Mage Auerbach to force him toactuallyeat his own dick.

"That's not the issue." My voice is clipped with anger; for this mage, of all people, to disparage witches... "The problem is that none of your spells were targeted to harm the three of them. If they had been, a ward of my naturalist magic would've kicked in and protected them, at leastsome.But it doesn't make them completely invulnerable, so if youhadtried harmful magic on them, you could've really hurt them."

"Oh." A sheepish expression crosses Auerbach's face. "I guess next time we should concentrate on other efforts, then."

"Like helping me learn how to control my magic, you mean? Which was the whole point of this class in the first place."

"Yes, well..." His eyes dart around the room awkwardly. "Itisonly my third day of teaching. And my first of teaching a witch. I suppose we both have a learning curve ahead of us."

"I guess we do."

Until Headmaster Towers replaces him with someone whodoesn'tcome from a long line of murderers.

Hopefully my next teacher won't be so useless, or I might just drop out of the academy right here and now. I want their tracking tools, especially whatever is up in that watchtower, to help me find the Heretic and enact my revenge on him. But I'll do it all without them if this entire thing is a waste of time.

My education be damned, I'll take the Heretic out one way or another, with or without help.

* * *

10:00 AM: Siren Resistance with Shimmer, Teacher's Assistant Danielle Carpenter

This particular class is held in the Great House, the large, gothic-style structure at the front end of campus near the gates. I get there before anyone else due to Mage Auerbach letting me out of my supposed Magic Casting Control class early; apparently he realized that he wasn't warming himself up to his students by experimenting on and insulting them.

Before I left class, Xavier asked me to meet him in the library before dinner, and gave me instructions where to go—along with his student ID. "If there's any information on witches' familiars, it'll be in Melisandra's Library."

I'm not so sure about that. Witches have a closely guarded oral tradition. Writing down spells is dangerous—a good way to get yourself killed, tortured, or cut from your connection to magic by a witch-hunting mage. So if there's any knowledge about familiars out there, it's in the head of a witch who would never write it down.

If I reach out to the closest coven to campus, I may be able to find just such a witch and get answers from her. But first I'll need permission to leave the academy grounds—a rarely granted thing according to Petra, who says Headmaster Towers considers it dangerous for phoenix students to go, at least without a Shield. I'll probably find a way to sneak off before that happens.

Which means for now, I'm stuck with three irritated shifter boys at my side, bonded to them by feral magic. Let's hope no one gets killed before we can sort things out.

No one is in the classroom when I get to Siren Resistance, whatever that means, so I take a seat cross legged on the ground. There are no desks or chairs here, just soft pads on the floor and a chalkboard that's been wiped clean. The name of the teacher, Shimmer, has given me the distinct impression that I might be meeting a pixie today—something that seems impossible.

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