Page 20 of Wicked Bonds
As the other students file out, blondie with the braids gives me a sidelong glance that I ignore.
Professor Winn looks at me over the rim of her glasses, and I realize she’s not actually as young as I thought. She just has one of those faces, and her eyes are old and sharp. I wonder what she is, witch or vampire, or other. It’s not readily apparent.
“Miss Smith,” she says, “I understand you’re new to the intricacies of magic, and of this place.”
I nod, careful to keep my expression neutral.
She sets her pen down and stares me down. “Your file said you had unusual circumstances. That your magic was dampened. Is that accurate?”
I shrug. “If by dampened you mean permanently broken, then yeah.”
She smiles, not in a way I trust. “Magic has a way of resurfacing. Sometimes violently. Sometimes not at all. In rare cases, it morphs into something the user never anticipated.” She folds her hands, the tips of her fingers tapping against each other.“Are you experiencing anything out of the ordinary, Rose? Strange dreams? Inexplicable urges?”
I choke a little and try not to think about the dream from last night, or the ghost. “No more than usual,” I say. “Is that going to be a problem?”
“Only if you let it be.” She leans in. “This academy is not a place for the ordinary. Nor is it designed to protect you from yourself. If you have questions or concerns, bring them to me directly.” She makes sure I’m looking.
I nod. “Sure thing, Professor.” I get up, and she’s already pounding out an email on her desktop.
So many offers to ‘help’ me, but I don’t trust a single damn one.
Ten
Rose
My next class is Elemental Magic. I keep my head up as I find my way there, and try to look like I give less of a shit than I actually do when people stare at me and my dirty t-shirt.
The classroom smells like burnt toast, vanilla, and expensive cologne, which is probably what you get when you put thirty over-privileged magical students in a room and tell them to play with fire. There are long, scarred lab tables, each equipped with four color-coded beakers of water, miniature crucibles, and trays of sand. On the board, in block letters, someone has written
ACTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES
The professor is a short, balding man with a bushy mustache. He calls himself Dr. Fennel, but the students just call him Doc. Doc doesn’t bother with roll call; he eyeballs me the moment I walk in, then moves on like he’s mentally dismissed me already. The rest of the class is organized by species and social hierarchy. Acouple of vampires and shifters cluster at the back, the witches in the middle, and the “other” in the front row where the professor can keep an eye on them. I grab a spot in the last empty seat, wedged between a girl with pale skin and green-tipped hair and a broad-shouldered dude whose name is Harry. I know his name is Harry because he keeps referring to himself in the first person, like when he says ‘Harry’s partying tonight, you in?’ to the girl next to him.
Doc starts the lesson by scrawling a pentagram on the whiteboard, labeling each point with a different element. “Today, we practice basic synthesis. First you will create a stable elemental orb using water, earth, air, and fire. If you cannot manage this, you will fail the assignment. If you burn off your eyebrows, you will still fail, but at least you will have a story to tell.”
The class laughs. I do not.
I can’t conjure up so much as a puff of smoke, let alone an elemental orb.
We are given exactly thirty seconds to prepare before Doc snaps his fingers and says, “Go.” The room erupts in a flurry of incantations and hand gestures. Colored lights pop and fizzle. Most students get a little marble of mud or a faint flame. The girl to my left conjures a tiny tornado that immediately snuffs itself out.
I stare at the bowl of sand in front of me, the beaker of water, the little silver lighter, and the glass sphere. “Focus,” I mutter, gathering the sand in my palm, letting it sift through my fingers. I try to imagine it’s a plant, or a small animal, something I could actually keep alive. Nothing happens.
“Come on,” I whisper, feeling the mark under my sleeve start to throb. The burn is back, not as bad as the day before, but enough to make my arm itch. I reach for the lighter, strike it, and try to coax a flame into a sphere. The best I get is a weak flicker before it gutters out.
From across the table, Harry leans in. “You want me to do it for you, baby girl?” His voice is quiet, but not low enough. “You can pay me back after class. Bring a hair tie.” I hear a snicker from behind me.
“Fuck off,” I say, my teeth clenched so tight I’m sure I’ve chipped one.
I try again. This time, I pour the water into the sand, mix it until it’s sludge, and whisper the word for ‘grow’ that my mother used to use when she wanted her windowsill basil to not die on her. The mud sits there, unimpressed.
In front of us, a perfectly round orb, all four elements together in harmony, floats above someone’s desk. Doc claps his hands, delighted. “Wonderful Miss Hawthorne! Not so difficult after all, is it? Perhaps the rest of you would care to observe her technique.”
I don’t have to look to know who it is. It took less than a day to clock the cliques in this place, and the queen bee of them all. ‘Thorne’ is the girl with the braids from the blood ritual, her friends circling her like mean little moons. She beams at the attention, then swishes her wrist, and her elemental orb spins faster, gathering momentum. The girls next to her giggle.
I glare at my pathetic lump of mud. The mark on my arm throbs, sending a sharp ribbon of pain up my shoulder. My face is hot, and I decide I hate this class, I hate this school, and I especiallyhate Thorne with her perfect blonde hair, non-alcohol stained clothing, and stupid magical abilities.
In a last-ditch effort, I dump the mud into the sphere, cap it, and try to force the air in the chamber to ignite. I push. Nothing. I push harder until my vision blurs and the room tilts around me. There’s a tiny pop, and the sphere shatters, splattering mud all over the table and my shirt.
