Page 35 of Phoenix Academy: Madness

This place isn't my new home, after all. It's just a halfway house, and in between that'll keep me safe from the Heretic while I figure out my new powers. As soon as I track him down and get revenge for what he's done to my family, I'll find the nearest coven willing to take me in and dye my hair so I can fit in.

I wasn't meant to be here.

Witches stay with our own.

The night air is crisp and damp as I walk towards the gym at the back of the campus. It's up on a hill, the slope arduous to climb without the help of pavement gripping the bottom of my shoes. The front doors loom above me, lights illuminating the entrance, but I know better than to go that way. No doubt Mage Auerbach put the strongest wards in place there. He probably also warded the emergency exit out back so that students could gooutbut notin.

That just leaves the windows. Pacing around to the side of the building, I judge the brick wall and the locked window about five feet off the ground that lets light into the gym. There are thick bars that reinforce the panes of glass, and I can sense the edges of a warding spell, one that folds around every wall of the building.

But the mage who laid these spells down were thinking of keeping Grims out and wild magic in. They never considered witches. Hunting us, cutting us off from magic—they know how to do both. Keeping us out of places we shouldn't be? Well, let's just say they don't have a clue.

Reaching into myself, I feel the beating heart of my magical powers, which keep me in tune with every living thing around me. Chirping crickets, owls freshly waking for the hunt, bats swooping low to eat flying insects, and dozens of other little creatures wander the night, even in a developed place like this campus. With a whisper of my powers, I gather strength from them, and prepare to cast three spells.

A spell for stealth, one for finding the cracks in things, and one for unlocking locks. Together they should get me inside this building, and Mage Auerbach will be none the wiser when he checks on his wards tomorrow.

With the help of a little finger of the wind, I whisper the spells and let them be carried by the night's breath up to the window.

The spell for stealth makes it so the wards can't sense me; as far as they're concerned I'm just another of the bugs crawling in and out of the gym's hiding places, allowed in only because the magic to keep them out would also seal the air inside and make the gym a death trap.

My second spell, for finding cracks, makes the bars on the window slide open just a hair—enough that I can stretch up and pry them off with my fingertips, setting the set of bars on the ground beside the wall.

The last spell will be the hardest. I have to whisper it as close to the lock as possible in order for it to work its magic. Glancing around, I spot a gift from the remodeling that's been recently done: a thick two by four. With it beneath my feet I manage to stretch up enough to put my mouth near the lock and coax it open with a satisfyingclick.

Grinning, I push the window up and open, then heave myself over and swing a leg down onto the floor. It's an uncomfortable leap, but moments later I'm inside, eyes adjusting to the gloomy dark of the gym's interior.

At night, the runes glow with magic to my witch eyes. It's not hard to tell which one is the spirit realm rune; even if I hadn't memorized its shape and size, it sings to me with the voices of the dead, joined together in a harmony of longing. Its magic is a strange, dark color to my eyes.

Carefully, I walk between the runes towards the one I want, avoiding the edges of all the others. The last thing I want is to step into a fire rune and accidentally burn this building down with my blue flames—or, given the wards in here, at least scorch the gym floor so thoroughly that Mage Auerbach will know I've been here.

The other runes intrigue me, though. They're complex things, painted onto the floor with a careful, studied hand. I can feel Mage Auerbach's magical signature running through all of them, and it's not hard to see him as a boy apprenticing under a senior mage, drawing the runes over and over again until their shape was memorized to him exactly.

At first it's a cute, easy image in my mind. But then I remember that the senior mage who taught him might very well have been a former witch hunter, or at least a mage raised as one, with knowledge of how to sniff a witch out and cut off her connection to magic. For all I know Auerbach is aware of all the same witch hunting techniques his ancestors used, and could pass them on to the next generation, so that witch hunting will never truly die.

The sooner he's gone from this school, the better. His stuffy rules can go with him. If the rune in here helps me augment my power, then it's my right to use it as I see fit—no matter what anyone says.

Cool air prickles my arms and sets my hair on edge as I approach the rune. I can feel every thrumming beat of my heart, every churn of my stomach. The floorboards seem to creak under my feet more than they did this morning, and I swear the shafts of moonlight shining through the windows are stronger in here than they were outside.

It's not quite the witching hour. Not yet. But it might as well be, with the way my magic is rushing towards my fingertips and tingling in my blood.

As I put the toe of my right foot in the middle of the rune, I wonder idly if by breaking open the window and whispering spells against the glass I broke the wards. Maybe they don't work anymore. Maybe my feral magic has been freed from the confines of the building. I could cause havoc just by using it so close to so many feral shifters.

For a moment I hesitate, wondering if I'm making a mistake. Mage Auerbach knows these runes better than me, after all, and class this morning was nearly a disaster.

The same thing could happen again—even though I don't think it will. And this time I'll be all alone when I face the onslaught of angry spirits. I have only my naturalistic witch spells and some new-to-me blue flames to call to my aid.

But before I can back out, draw my toe out of the rune circle, and return to the warmth of my bed, a voice calls out to me.

The sound is distant but unmistakable.

"Ari. My darling."A shudder goes through me, and a lump of grief forms in my throat."I miss you so much, little flower."

"Mom."

I've stepped forward into the circle without even realizing it. Power surges into me, electric and alive, undeniably wild. My blue hair stands on end as the spirit realm opens up to me, every ounce of blood in my veins responding to the restless call of the mournful spirits that normally live beyond the veil.

They're so tired of being ignored.

For far too long they've lived just at the edges of our world, able to see into it but never seen, never loved or acknowledged. The world moves on without them, and they're stuck here, in a kind of limbo.

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