Before Axell answered, Dan felt like something slithered over his entire body—something from outside him. Fear? Warning? Magic? He wasn’t sure what it was, but he paused and looked around at the other students in the library. Every last one of them paused, glanced around, or tensed. Whatever it was, they’d all felt it.
“Daniel?” Axell reached a hand toward him, as if the urge to vanish was instinctive. The beautiful Norwegian singer had a musical magic, but he had a secondary ability to make them vanish if they were touching.
“I felt it.” Dan stepped a bit farther out of reach. Louder he asked, “Everyone feel that?”
Murmurs greeted him. Their peculiar study group had become the basis for the first real group of friends he’d had in his life. Witches, all of them.
Headed his way was Ana, a rather terrifying grandmotherly woman when they’d met, but she’d been aging backward fast enough that it was easy to forget that she was twice his age. She now looked his age.
“Call one of your hob friends,” she said.
“You’re awfully pushy for such a young woman.” He gave her a once-over, noting that a few more years had vanished from her face. “A nice girl like you…”
She chortled. Her long hair was ink black now instead of the gray it had been when they’d met a few weeks ago. Back then, she looked like a lot of grannies in the Southwestern states. That long hair was braided and twisted up in a graying bun, and her brown skin was lined with wrinkles. Her gaze was eerily observant both then and now, but now her skin was without line or scar. The magic that lived in all witches had clearly already changed her age.
“Still your elder, Daniel.” Ana’s voice was stronger, too. Magic agreed with her. “And something is wrong. I can’t feel anything outside the castle.”
“You could feel outside before now?” Axell asked from behind Dan’s shoulder.
“Yes.” She shrugged. “I am not meant for being inside, and the earth calls me. Just like everyone else in my house. Right, Silas?”
A beefy guy raised his hand in a thumbs-up gesture. “Not now that the thing slithered over the building. Like a bug net.”
Bug net?Dan wasn’t too keen on being compared to bugs.
Dominique, a typically quiet student, said, “I don’t feel that, but there’s someone very very sick in the infirmary. I feel that more and more.” She glanced at Axell. “You are not well lately. I don’t know why, though. It’s like being itchy?”
Axell glanced away and crossed his arms over his chest.
“Did you bringmorethings in your bag?” Dan asked him quietly. Axell’s near death had been from an overdose after a concert. He had, apparently, not coped particularly well with his success. The idea that he’d use again was baffling.
“Just a little that was in my pockets,” Axell whispered.
“Seriously?” Dan glared. His voice grew louder. “And youusedit?”
As much as he was astounded that the strikingly handsome man foundhim attractive, Dan was equally cautious about their budding relationship. Axell was a rock star—if such words applied to men who courted a Viking mystique. He had a long ponytail that was always bound by a series of silver clips every few inches. The sides of his head were shaved smooth enough that Dan often found himself absently stroking them. Axell’s beard was long and divided into several thick braids with more metal clips.
But under the persona, under the muscles that Dan found painfully distracting, was a man who had a level of insecurity that rivaled Dan’s own. That was the root of the addiction that seemed to linger even though it had almost killed him.
Apparently not all illnesses are healed by magic.Disability wasn’t, and so far mental illnesses like PTSD and addiction were untouched by magic. What magic healed were the things like aging and diseases like cancer and heart disease.Guilt wasn’t erased by magic, either.
“You got a second chance, and you shoved a needle in your arm again?” Dan whispered.
“Do not judge, Daniel. You are not free of mistakes,” Axell muttered.
Does he know?Dan hadn’t yet told him that he been party to erasing the memories of two of their classmates. He’d not done so on his own or even as his own idea, but still, he was guilty. Now, he awkwardly avoided Ellie Brandeau and Maggie Lynch because of his actions.They could’ve been friends, but now… they don’t even know my name.He wasn’t sure what all had been erased, so it was easier to stay away from them.
“Should we head to our rooms?” Sam, another of the remedial witches, asked from under their usual pile of wool. They had found a drop spindle and somehow acquired a bag of wool. It seemed an odd hobby to Dan, but Sam toted the spindle and wool around like it was an extension of their body. Currently, they were doing something that looked like attacking the wool with a pair of metal-toothed brushes.
Ana began, “Maybe someone ought to see the headmaster—”
“And what would that conversation look like?” the headmaster interrupted from behind Dan. He stood in the doorway, seemingly larger than normal. He was a former soldier and a brawler.
Sometimes, he was almost Dan’s friend. Today didn’t feel like such a day.
“We’d ask you why I suddenly can’t feel nature,” Ana said without missing a beat. “It feels like a fence or closed door between me and out there.”
The headmaster let out a noise that was likely a muttered cuss word. Then he looked around the room. “That feeling was my magic. I put up a shield to keep you safe from harm. No outsider can enter the castle without eliminating the magic that controls it.”
