There’s no courage in the way I curl beneath all of my blankets in the dim light of my nest, tracing the shapes of the tattoos that adorn the backs of his hands on my sheets, paths I memorized when he held me close.
He lied to me, and I believed him.
And now he’s gone from my life, disappearing in the back of a squad car, while I hide in my nest like a coward.
A coward who will not survive this.
* * *
Classes resumethe next morning and though the Fairhaven student body talks, no one seems to know what happened yesterday, why the police came and took away one of their peers. The lockdown has yet to be lifted and Marcus hasn’t let me out of his sight once, not even in the safety of the omega residences’ powerful warding.
Did the police search Luca’s room, I wonder as I take my seat in Foundations in Magic. And if they did, did they find what I found?
Did they find the curling horns, the molded black leather of a Baphomet mask, an upside down seven-pointed star emblazoned on its forehead?
Cold sweat sends a chill up my spine.
The masks, brutal and bestial, haunt me, both the one I found in Luca’s steamer trunk and the ones I see around campus. The ones that watch me from across the quad. The ones that adorn the faces of Fairhaven students and teachers alike—but only in my mind.
Marcus thought they were a response to the trauma I’d suffered at the hands of the Soldiers of Saint Aldous. But time passes and still I see them. A masked figure watched me as I made my way to class this morning, head down to avoid the weight of its sinister stare.
Even now, I might turn in my seat and find Kelvin Montrose watching me, a mask transposed over the alpha freshman’s face. Is he one of the Soldiers of Saint Aldous like Rad? I know Andrew Radcliffe is a member of the Soldiers of Saint Aldous, can still feel sickness churning in my gut when I remember his orange-and-anise scent. The scent that choked me when he held a scribe to my throat, his face hidden behind a mask. The scent that made mine grow sour with fear when Andrew Radcliffe tried to rape me in the small stand of trees beside the library.
And Luca is one of them. A Soldier just like Rad.
How furious he was when he found out about my assault. How his alpha nature raged out of control.
And, oh, how Ibelievedhim. Every single pretty lie.
I bite the inside of my cheek until I taste coppery blood, focusing on the pain.
Pain I can control.
Professor Hayes sweeps into the room and drops an odd collection of steel and glass instruments on his desk, then whips his scribe toward the blackboard, covering it in formulas. He turns to the class, honey-brown eyes alive with energy.
“We’re soldiering onward today, class. Even as the world falls down around our ears. We will persevere. And today we do that by beginning your instruction in the science of magic. We covered it briefly before midterms, but now we’ll be digging deep into this facet of magic for the rest of the term. I hope you haven’t forgotten your high school physics and calculus! Oh, come on now, don’t groan.” He twiddles his scribe in his fingers. “Scribes out. I’m going to need a volunteer for today’s demonstration.”
We’ve never needed our scribes in Foundations in Magic before, as everything we’ve learned has been based in theory and covered through lectures and assignments. I draw my scribe from my bag and roll it between my fingertips, the steel warming as my magic flows into it. Saints, I’ll never tire of this feeling.
“All right, class. Call your magic and cast a beam. Straight up into the air, if you will.”
I do as instructed and then look around the room as my befuddled classmates do the same. Professor Hayes considers the class for a moment and then turns to me, drawing the attention of all my peers. They stare at me and the bright beam of my magic casting a pool of light on the ceiling, and whispers rustle through the classroom like autumn leaves down the paths that crisscross the quad.
Professor Hayes beams at me. “Strong and steady, Miss Rose. You’ll do perfectly. Could you come to the front of the class, please?”
For the first time since coming to Fairhaven Academy, I stride to the front of the classroom, my head held high, the tip of my scribe blazing.
Knowing that I will not fail this time as I have so many times before, that the magic that was once locked away from me now rises at my call.
Professor Hayes has me shine the beam of my magic across the front of the classroom and skims his palm over the top of it, letting out a proud grimace of pain when sparks crackle against his skin.
“Strong indeed,” he says, just loud enough for me to hear.
I risk a glance around the classroom, catching the light of my magic reflected in the wide eyes of my classmates. Kelvin Montrose, who called me fucking worthless, scowls at me, and it’s almost enough to make me smile.
“This, class, is magic in its most elemental form. Pure energy, waiting to be shaped by your intention! Butisit energy? Or is it light? Is there matter in the stream of magic Miss Rose has cast? Or is it something that defies what we know of the natural world, the rules and order by which we exist? Scholars, scientists, and philosophers have been asking these questions for centuries. The earliest alchemists smelted gold with their own blood to make the first scribes we know of. They thought magic existed in a mage’sanima, our very life-force, in our breath and in our blood. Now, these blood-smelted scribes were incredibly effective. Does anyone know why?”
Kel doesn't bother to raise his hand or rise from the disdainful way he slouches behind his desk. There’s a sick pleasure in his voice when he lazily throws out the answer. “Blood magic is the strongest magic there is.”
