Page 43 of The Holy Academy of Witches

Bzzz.

The phone vibrated against the wooden top of my desk. I crept over as though it were a live bomb. As I lifted it, the phone screen lit up, illuminating my room in a digital glow and displaying his reply:

Adeline: Hi

Unknown: Hey?

Adeline: Hi, sorry! I shouldn’t have messaged you.

Unknown: It’s cool. I’m awake… but I don’t know who this is?

His reply was instant. Why was he awake at 3am? I wandered back to my bed and climbed back under the covers, phone in hand.

Adeline: It’s the girl who runs where she shouldn’t…

Unknown: At last.

Those two words… I stared at my phone feeling a rush of emotion. I didn’t need this, I shouldn’t have messaged him. I put my phone on the bedside table and turned over, facing the opposite direction. After an hour of staring at the inside of my own eyelids, I eventually fell into a sleep plagued by memories twisted up in unimaginable horrors to the point where truth and nightmares were one and the same.

Twenty-Three

Sage

It had been two days since I had seen Cillian at the bar with his band and I still couldn’t get their stupid songs out of my head. I’d tried looking them up in between classes and assignments with no results and was irritable as hell about it. I could only remember the bridges, and one verse that had something to do with stardust dreams and midnight schemes. I couldn’t just ask someone when the Muses were playing next. The girls here would go wild if they found out Cillian was in a band, not that I’d be able to tell them without the potential for him spilling my secret. It was a mess. I was itching to sing songs that I had no copy of, and the only person who might be able to steal a copy was someone I was avoiding as much as possible. I rubbed the hidden mark, wondering what it was I had done for fate to force me away from the one person I trusted most. The memories were getting worse as my guilt and uncertainty toward the future continued to grow. How anyone slept well was a mystery to me. Were there really people that just laid down in their beds and slept?

I looked around the potion’s lab. I was one of a handful of people still here. I couldn’t get my sleep tonic to glow blue, which meant it would either put the drinker into a coma or give them a headache. Either way it was a problem I’d need to deal with before the end of the Unit. I’d somehow managed to do well in most of my classes except for Rituals, where I was barely holding onto a passing grade. I wrote down what I’d done in the hope that Adeline would have some kind of idea on what I was doing wrong. If she didn’t know I’d have to ask Amelia, which wasn’t my favourite idea. Not that she’d say no or make me feel bad, I just knew I was on the outs with the rest of them. Which is why I needed to make it to the Dining hall soon.

Gathering my ingredients, I placed them to the side for the Lab assistant, while making sure to dump the potion in the toxic waste barrel to prevent any Snow White incidents. Witches have enough bad rep without another princess swiping the wrong potion, reading these historical events of famous witches was becoming a past-time of mine.

Maybe I needed to try harder to be Adeline’s friend? My lack of social life was getting pathetic, especially now I was avoiding Theo. But she was difficult to derail from tutoring mode, and with my mind being preoccupied elsewhere I hadn’t been able to sit down to think about anything other than not failing school and tracking down a copy of Muses’ songs. Which meant the riddle had been sitting untouched, which was really my only other safe subject with her. Maybe I could ask her what kind of music she liked? Would that be too transparent? No, that sounded like something friends would talk about. I thought back to Theo’s friends and nodded to myself remembering several times I’d seen them sharing headphones and talking playlists. Yeah that’s what I’d do, I’d make a playlist similar to Cillian’s music and ask her if she knew of any bands that sounded similar. Foolproof.

Running to the Dining Hall, I sat at my dorm’s usual table and grabbed myself some food to go. If I got to the music room early enough I could have the playlist ready to go.

* * *

I was barely two songs in when Adeline signalled for me to pause the playlist I’d spent the last twenty minutes hastily throwing together.

“You saw him on stage then?” She asked, a raised brow telling me the question was merely a formality. I deflated.

“Yeah, a couple days ago,” I muttered, tucking the offensive phone away. Definitely the phone’s fault.

“And how did that come about?”

“A series of unfortunate events.”

“Hmm, must not be that unfortunate if you’re here begging for recommendations that sound like his band.”

“Just ‘cause he’s not bad at music…”

“A bad musician,” she interrupted, “you mean to say ‘justbecausehe’s not a bad musician.”

“…doesn’t mean I like him.” I finished, ignoring her corrections.

Her brows went up, “I never said you did.”

“Good! ‘cause I don’t.” I said vehemently.

“Okay then, so do you want me to ask him for a recording of his songs?”

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