Teaching the King (Witchling Academy Book 1) Page 13

  “The Fae won,” Niall said.

  “Not exactly,” Magnus corrected. I grimaced as the warriors around me stirred with annoyance. I felt their gazes on me. They wanted me to discount this djinn, but I couldn’t. I didn’t know the truth; it had all happened too long ago. But I did know what I had been taught.

  “We won with the help of the human realm, the witches,” I said. “We used the witches’ powers to help banish the Fomorians, then agreed to go back into the shadow lands, as the humans called it, returning our kind to the land of the Fae, both lesser and higher. We further agreed not to walk the earth again.”

  “We just went home? Why? And why didn’t we just kill the Fomorians when we could?” Marta asked, and I grimaced. None of these were bad questions.

  “Because the Fae were farseeing,” Magnus said quietly. “In lieu of the Fomorian race’s death, you forged a balance that has been maintained for millennia. The humans could continue to live and learn on their plane. The Fae remained safe, their borders refortified. And the Fomorians were banished. Now that balance is being challenged on several fronts.”

  “Several?” I sharpened my gaze. “Explain.”

  “The Fomorians rattle at your borders, but they’re not the only invading force in play, my lord. The lesser Fae grow eager to walk among humans once again and to take up their ancient roles.”

  “Fools,” one of the warriors muttered, and the old djinn nodded.

  “Be that as it may, it doesn’t diminish the threat. The Hogan witch returns in time not only to strengthen the high Fae, but to protect her own people as well. Both those she cares for personally and the wider witch community, who would be the first to fall if the lesser Fae or Fomorians invaded the human realm.”

  The possibility of the Fomorians weaseling their way into the human realm was news to me, but then, we Fae didn’t usually trouble ourselves with the problems of other races—and neither, from what I understood, did demons. “Why are you telling us this?” I asked.

  Magnus looked at me with an almost mocking smile, apparently well aware of why I was asking. “I’m a djinn, King Aiden, beholden to the Hogan clan. Belle, new to all this, remains confused as to how magic strong enough to hold an entire cabal of djinn could exist for so long beyond the death of the first binding witch. It’s simple. We chose to be bound. We still choose it. But we are not fools. In the barest blink since we’ve been awakened, we have seen what damage has been wrought in a mere hundred years where witchling magic has not coursed through the castle of the High King. It is time for the alliance between human and Fae to go to the next level, and Belle is the catalyst for that alliance.” He leveled his stare at me. “You need her.”

  “Well, that works out then,” I said roughly, “because she’s mine now.”

  My witch, my human—and something more than that, I was beginning to feel deep in the marrow of my bones. An ancient pulse of power, of connection, that meant that Belle could never leave me, no matter how much she yearned to recapture her freedom.

  My mate.

  Light help us all.

  Everyone in the room accepted my announcement as gospel, except for the one creature among us who knew these witches better than I did by far. He merely smiled wearily, even a little sadly.

  “Perhaps,” was all Magnus would allow. “Perhaps.”

  21

  Belle

  My head was going to explode. I sat amid a dozen open books, while unstoppered vials of potions emitted bubbles and sparks. Thin trails of smoke wafted through the air, blending together to create a haze of knowledge and deep spectral power. It was too much data, though—it was just too much. How in the world had a single witch managed this much information and energy? How had my great-grandmother stayed grounded?

  For the first time, I wondered if Reagan Hogan had fled the court of the High King not because he was an asshole and she was tired of being his slave, but because she was simply tired. Over the course of the day, Jorgen had brought in the other instructors—everyone except Magnus—all of them so much better versed in the arcane rituals of witch magic than I would ever be. They knew it too, but had discounted it. Knowing the words and the proper ingredients of a spell weren’t enough, they informed me. My job wasn’t just to teach the letter of the magic to King Aiden, but to instill magic within him.

  Right.

  “Mistress Belle.” The voice came from the doorway: young Alaric. He was only about eight years my junior, maybe a young seventeen years old—or whatever age that passed for in Fae years. But looking at him now, so fresh-faced and eager, I felt like I might as well be a hundred years old.

  “Shouldn’t you be with Gwendolyn?” I asked. “Open-book spell casting may not sound very exciting, but I assure you, it’s a witch’s greatest skill.”

  He grinned. “That’s what I’m here to tell you. She said it’s going to be sundown soon. Apparently, the academy closes at sunset, so we’ll be returning to the castle for dinner. I don’t know about you, but I’m starving. I can walk you there?”

  “Sunset?” I turned to the window, and sure enough, the sun was drifting toward the western horizon. As my line of sight followed it, my gaze dropped down to where I knew my great-grandmother’s beautiful little cottage sat, perched among the trees at the edge of the academy grounds. I couldn’t see it through the heavy canopy of forest, but I imagined it nestled into the shoreline overlooking the beautiful lake beyond. How far did that lake extend? How would sunset play across its waters?

  New questions crowded up behind. What answers lay within that small building? It had popped into existence at the same time the academy had. Was there something there to strengthen me, to stiffen my resolve, to help solve this impossible conundrum of making someone magical?

  I realized Alaric was still watching me hopefully, and I gave him a smile. “You go ahead. I need to pack up some things, then I’ll head out.”

  Even as I said the words, I knew that would never be allowed. I was a slave after all. But even a slave could buy herself some time. “If you see him, could you tell King Aiden to meet me? I need him to close up for the night.”

  Alaric frowned at me. “Meet you where? Here?”

  I shook my head. “No. But he’ll know where—and don’t make a special trip to find him, okay? Like, you can tell him only if you see him.”

  “Of course!” Alaric practically vibrated with newfound purpose. I had no doubt he would search every floor of the academy until he found Aiden—and I had no idea how many corridors and floors there were. It didn’t give me much time, but it gave me some.

  Even better, I wouldn’t be defying the king because I had sent for him, right? I was being a good little witch, all the way down the line.

  As Alaric darted away, I sensed another presence in the room. With a wry smile, I began setting books aside, marking pages with ribbons, closing tomes, and straightening up the vials.

  “Did you watch my great-grandmother so closely?” I asked as Jorgen stepped from the doorway.

  “Only when she asked me to,” he admitted. “Which she did quite a bit in the early going. She was as uncertain as you, after all. No witch starts out knowing everything.”

  I turned and considered him. “How many witches of my family have you served, again? And who brought you to this place?”

  He chuckled softly, his brown eyes warm as he regarded me. “That is the question that troubles you the most, isn’t it? The Hogan witches have grown softer hearted over the years, but each subsequent generation has asked a version of this question. I was brought to this realm by your great matriarch Annalise.”

  My expression must have given away that I had no clue who he was talking about, because he grimaced. “Annalise was the first witch to teach the High King. She brought us with her not by direct design, but more as a result of circumstances she couldn’t control. She rescued us, you could say, and bound us in the same breath. This entire realm might as well be a circle of salt keeping us here to do the bidding o
f the witches and, by extension, the Fae, though to be fair, that circle has been interrupted enough times that it doesn’t hold us fast any longer.”

  I made a face. “So why don’t you leave?”

  “Because we’re selfish,” he said, surprising me. “Here, we’re not despicable demons, filthy and vile. We’re instructors positioned at the highest levels of Fae society. Each time a new witch comes to the doorway of the academy, we are here to open it. It’s not such a hardship.”

  His words made sense, but they still struck me at odd angles. I sensed there was more to this story, but when Jorgen gestured to the setting sun, I was gripped by renewed urgency.

  “How do I get to the cottage by the lake?”

  “The retreat house?” Jorgen asked, with a strange lilt to his voice. “You should know, it’s been a part of the academy grounds since well before your great-grandmother’s time. I think she was the third or maybe the fourth witch to be drawn so deeply to its renewing strength. The first to find it, the witch Honor Hogan, piled up the stones to—”

  “Jorgen,” I prompted. “How do I get there?”

  “Well, when you have a need, Mistress Belle, there’s always a spell for the taking.” He spoke with the air of a man who’d said the same thing fifty-seven-million times during his life. He probably had.

  He waited, looking at me expectantly, and I gestured to him to hurry up. “It’s my first day and I’m kind of tight on time. If the king gets there before I do…”

  I really didn’t have a conclusion to that statement, but it seemed to do the trick. Jorgen moved over to the carved rolltop desk and picked up what looked like a stoppered bottle of ink. He gestured me forward as he uncorked the bottle, and I smelled the thick, pungent scent of the ink wafting up. He handed me a quill and opened a heavy journal to a new page.

  “The original witches preferred to know where they were heading and to leave a trail should anyone need to find them,” he said. “Eventually, the intention became the path.”

  I understood immediately, at least the concept, and I took the quill and set my hand to the page. My gaze went automatically to the pages that came before, so heavy with ink that I couldn’t quite read through the pages. Where had my ancestors gone? But I didn’t have time to tarry. I wrote the name RETREAT in the heavy blue-black ink, my eyes going wide as a surge of warmth flowed up from the book to my hand, to my arm, scattering them both into mist. How the word ever finished itself, I didn’t know, but Jorgen opened the window and I was swept away, shooting across the open grass. The magic moved me as simply as that.

  I stepped down onto the leaf-strewn forest floor a second later, and the retreat house stood before me, tidy and inviting. I could see the lake beyond its corner, and I gave the building a wide berth, for all the world acting like it had never even occurred to me to go into it without my lord and master’s approval. But Aiden couldn’t cut me off from the sky, water, and trees. You couldn’t put a lock on nature.

  A cobblestone path led around the house, the ground sloping down slightly, so that by the time I passed the far edge of the house, I was nearly a story below the wide deck that extended off its base. Our house in Vermont had been similar, perched right at the edge of a drop-off. Stable enough, yet still giving the impression of stretching out over the air. Much like that home, the cottage’s lower ground level was beautifully landscaped, with a low stone wall creating terraces and stone steps at its edge that trailed down to the lake. The trees were thinner here, allowing the sun to stoke the profusion of flowers to life.

  It was quite possibly the most peaceful, beautiful place I’d ever seen, and I watched wide-eyed as the sun dipped lower, sending shoots of pink and orange across the lake.

  I stood there, hugging myself, wishing more than anything that my mother could see this. My grandmother too. Wishing more than anything that I wasn’t alone.

  And then, suddenly, I wasn’t.

  22

  Aiden

  Belle knew the moment I set foot on the terraced garden surrounding the odd little cabin at the edge of the lake. She didn’t visibly react, but her awareness increased, like a wild animal sensing danger.

  Her fear irritated me more than it should, especially since I’d been working hard to keep the loosest possible tether on her. Now that my mind was churning with thoughts of an enemy far grander than I’d ever expected, I no longer wanted Belle to be afraid of me. I had no time for her fear, her resistance. I simply wanted her acceptance of the way things should be.

  Well, I wanted more than that. But I could be patient. Really.

  “I thought I told you not to come here,” I said, the words cutting harshly across the quiet idyll. She didn’t move, didn’t look at me.

  “That’s not true. You told me not to enter the house without you, and I haven’t. This is open land. Plus, it’s on the grounds of the academy and the castle, so it’s not like I can escape.”

  “You won’t escape,” I corrected her, knowing the power of words. She stiffened, but didn’t deny it, and I could tell she steeled herself not to move away when I came up beside her. That irritated me too, but I forced myself not to react visibly.

  “You wanted to see me,” I said, and she nodded.

  “The djinn Gwendolyn told Alaric that the academy closes every night at sunset. Do you know why?”

  I blinked at her. That wasn’t what I’d expected her to say. “I don’t,” I answered honestly. “But Jorgen seems to have an answer for everything, and he barely leaves your side when you’re in the building. Did you ask him?”

  “Not hardly.” She snorted, but then she frowned, and I realized that was a confidence shared.

  I peered at her more intently. “You don’t trust him?” I didn’t need much incentive to challenge the djinn. He irritated me on a deeply visceral level. But Belle only shook her head.

  “It’s not that.” She blew out a long breath, and her hand drifted against her pocket, where I knew she carried her small, pointless knife. “I don’t trust anyone here. I don’t know any of you well enough for trust. All I can do is trust your motives. You need magic, despite the fact that you have more than you realize, or maybe, put more correctly, you need a trigger to access it. You need it to fight for the safety of your people against an ancient enemy.”

  “Jorgen told you all this?” I scowled. He and Magnus must have worked out their story in advance—or perhaps it was the simple truth, and I should accept it as fact.

  “He did. And it’s all there in the history books. You’ve been taught some of it, but there’s probably more you need to know. Tomorrow, we’ll have to start figuring that out. There’s not much time, by all indications.”

  My attention sharpened, my mind spiraling down different pathways while I tried to remain focused on what was most important.

  “You can scry, can’t you?” I asked her. “The djinn Gwendolyn said you could, that it was a gift all the Hogan witches shared. Can you not show us the best path to take?”

  Belle blinked at me, startled, her cheeks flushing—first in embarrassment, then in annoyance. This was a secret too, I realized belatedly. The djinn had been telling tales that weren’t theirs to tell.

  “Well—actually, yes, I guess I can.” She gave a short, grim laugh. “But the gift I have isn’t so great. My scrying is small magic. I can see into the very near future of anyone in front of me, someone I can physically see, only it doesn’t work on the Fae.”

  “It doesn’t,” I grunted, though I wasn’t surprised. “That’s not as helpful, then.”

  “I’m afraid not. But seeing the future isn’t your greatest need. The academy is full of spells, potions, and recipes, any one of which your family can memorize within the space of weeks or months—enough to last a generation for sure, even if that’s all it lasts. That’s not what I have to teach you, based on everything I’ve read today.”

  “And what is?”

  She bit her lip, and her gaze lifted to the shimmering lake beyond the trees
as her voice dropped into a strange, rolling cadence. “I have to teach you how to make magic,” she intoned, then shook her head, her voice reverting to normal. “To, like, stuff your long-lost magic back into you, somehow. That’s what’s going on here. And I think—I think maybe that’s why our witches come back so sad and drained, when they finish their time here. It’s like you take a bit of our energy from us—maybe killing us a little in the process? I don’t know.”

  She sighed deeply, and her eyes went a little glassy as she continued, “…and when they are fixed upon you, there is nothing you won’t do.”

  “Stop it.” The words came out more harshly than I intended, and Belle blinked, taking a quick step back in confusion, as if she’d already lost her train of thought.

  “I’m sorry, what was I saying?” she asked, confirming my suspicion as her cheeks flushed again.

  I peered around. “What is it about this place?” I rumbled. “Why are you acting so strangely?”

  “Am I?” she asked, but her attention wandered again, and she swayed, caught in a sort of thrall that made her shift toward me, her body loose, her manner easy, as if she were muzzy with honey mead.