Reading, Writing and Necromancy Read online

  Finally, she asked, “Your friend from high school? The one with the green hair?”

  “Blue hair. Yes. He came to the Unseen Realm. He was a student at Womby’s and then an employee. I met him again recently.”

  “Oh … that’s nice.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing. Go on.”

  “You always thought he was a bad influence because he wanted to teach me magic. I know about magic now. He’s not a bad influence.”

  “That’s true.” Doubt flavored her words.

  “I met him this week, but now he’s disappeared. I’m worried something bad may have happened to him, like the Raven Court snatched him.”

  “Oh dear!”

  “To make a long story short, Derrick thinks Mr. Thatch cursed him with some kind of memory-altering spell that made him forget the Raven Queen.”

  “What? Mr. Thatch?” Mom clucked her tongue. “He wouldn’t do that.”

  I plowed on. “I wonder what kind of spell it would take to do that. I have some potion ingredients and thought maybe you could tell me if you think they could brainwash someone.” I listed off some of the ingredients.

  “That’s high-level magic. Potions were never my specialty. I’m good with herbs. When I use them in my cooking, it infuses the food with their medicinal properties and enhances what is already there using my affinity. I’ve never been one to use rare ingredients or nonherbal items.”

  Another dead end.

  “I want you to go back to what you just said about Mr. Thatch,” Mom said. “Why would he want to brainwash Derrick? He’s always had the best intentions, even if he doesn’t always know how to show them.”

  “He might still be employed by the Raven Queen and be under her influence. He’s been lying to me about something, but I don’t know what. I’m afraid he’s going to hand me over to the Raven Court.”

  “How can you say that? After all he’s done for you. Don’t you dare accuse him of that! If he knew, that would hurt his feelings,” Mom said.

  Mom, the peacekeeper. She was more concerned about hurting people’s feelings than someone breaking a bone.

  “Mom, stop.” I already regretted calling her about this. “I can’t trust anyone. Fae and Witchkin, they all have their ulterior motives for things. Everything is about making bargains, and everything comes with a price in this world. No one does anything nice without a reason.”

  “That’s why I came to the Morty Realm. Not everything is life or death here.” She spoke quietly, yearning in her voice. “You can always come back here. If things get too dangerous over there, you could come home and lead a normal life without magic.”

  Wouldn’t she like that!

  “Thanks for the offer, Mom. But I don’t think I can ever go back to a life without magic. It’s in my blood. I need this world.”

  She sighed. “I knew you would say that.”

  We said our goodbyes. A little countdown clock in the corner of my computer screen told me I only three more minutes. Just for the heck of it, I typed the first four ingredients from the potion into a Google search. The top results were links to fantasy pictures on Pinterest and books on Amazon. I clicked on a few websites. On page three of Google, I found a blog for spells and potions. I doubted this was going to go anywhere, but I clicked on it.

  The page was slow to load, but a photograph of an old spell written in another language appeared. The translation was typed out below. The ingredients were the same. Consumed with desire to know more, I scrolled down the page to see what the blogger said.

  This potion was found in a book that had been buried with a medieval monk. When they renovated the cathedral, they found the body sealed off under one of the floors with a book. Most of the manuscript was too far deteriorated to restore, but this photograph shows one of the intact pages. As far as I can tell, it looks like a spell for—

  My computer went dark.

  “No!” I yelled. I had to get back on the Internet and find that page. I ran upstairs. Hal wasn’t behind the bar. Nor was he in the kitchen. Students gave me sidelong glances.

  “Where’s Hal gone off to?” I asked a girl I’d had last semester.

  She shrugged. “Even leprechauns need restroom breaks.”

  The bell on the door rang as a one of my students came in from outside. His eyes rested on me. “Yo, Miss L! Khaba’s outside. He told me if I saw you in here I was to relay the message to get your butt out there.”

  I dashed outside. Khaba leaned against the building. His shirt was buttoned all the way up—a rarity for him.

  “Khaba, I need a few more minutes. I have a good lead on something.”

  He pushed himself off the wall. “Someone knows where Derrick is?”

  I hesitated. He wasn’t supposed to know about my Internet usage. “Not exactly. About something else. There’s this spell—”

  “No,” he said firmly. “We’ve already spent too long here. Sunset is in twenty-five minutes. I want you on school property before that.”

  “Can we come back tomorrow? This is important,” I said.

  “We’ll see.” He hooked an arm through mine and guided me along the narrow road toward the meadow. “What did you find?”

  I did my best to tell him about the spell without incriminating myself. Long shadows of the buildings hid his expression in the gloom of the coming twilight. We had just stepped into the meadow when he froze.

  I was already shivering, but the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. Something rustled from out in the tall grass. Khaba turned, slowly scanning the shifting plants. He pulled me closer.

  Two dozen women in midnight gowns made of feathers rose from the field. Their wings flapped as they lifted into the air and circled around us. Their eyes were black like something someone would see in a horror movie.

  “Hello, Clarissa,” one of them said.

  The raven woman’s voice filled the space between us like a lullaby. The music tasted like honey and brushed against my skin as smooth as silk.

  My breath caught in my throat as I tried to speak. “Hi.”

  “Don’t respond,” Khaba said. “Keep walking.”

  He pulled me forward.

  “May we speak with you, Clarissa? We have an offer from the Raven Queen we would like to share with you.” A tall and slender woman gracefully landed in front of us. Her hair was like the Raven Queen’s, long and flowing into her all-feather gown. Though this woman didn’t wear a crown.

  “My name is Odette.” Her lips curled upward. “Perhaps you’ve heard of me … from my brother.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Sweet Temptations

  I didn’t know how that was possible. Odette was Thatch’s younger sister—the one that the Raven Queen had supposedly killed. He’d told me the queen had torn her heart out and sent it to Alouette Loraline to show her displeasure that my mother hadn’t solved the Fae Fertility Paradox.

  My gaze flickered to the pink line starting at the woman’s collarbone and disappearing under the collar of her black dress. Numerous scars crisscrossed her arms, reminding me of the crosshatching Thatch used in his ink drawings. This was the sister whose affinity worked best with blood magic.

  “Come on, Clarissa,” Khaba said, tugging me with him as he circled around the woman.

  “You’re supposed to be dead.” I said. “Does Thatch—Felix Thatch—know you’re alive?”

  She laughed. “Did he tell you otherwise? He can be so … deceptive at times.” Her voice was like a lullaby.

  “You are obstructing our path,” Khaba said. “I would like you to get out of our way. If you refuse, I will forcibly remove you.”

  Odette laughed, the sound like wind chimes. “I come in peace.”

  Khaba abruptly stopped. “I’ll give you a piece of something if you don’t leave.”

  She placed a hand on her chest, her eyes going wide in surprise. “I have no quarrel with you, sir. You are Fae, one of us. A
re you not?” She glided back several steps, giving us more space. “Nor do we have any quarrel with … your charge.” She spoke formally, with the same British cadence as Thatch.

  Cautiously, Khaba stepped forward. He gestured for her to get out of the path. “Move along.”

  She flapped her wings and fluttered back another few feet, but she didn’t move out of our path. She turned her smile on me. “The Raven Queen simply invites you to court. She has a proposal for you. If you would like your friend to go with you, he may do so as your guest.”

  “Oh?” Her words intrigued me. Then again, it might have been the way the air around her face shimmered with magic. “What kind of proposal?”

  “Don’t speak. It only encourages them. And don’t listen,” Khaba said. He started forward again.

  “Clarissa has free will. She can answer if she chooses.” The woman’s lips curled into a sweet smile. Despite all the shades of black magic that hugged her frame, her beauty and voice sounded angelic. “She may come with us if she chooses.”

  It took all my will not to answer her. I wanted to melt into the lull of her voice. Khaba squeezed my arm as I stepped forward. The pain grounded me in the moment. He kept me close to his side.

  They weren’t attacking. So far, that was good. But with every step forward, the raven women in the rear kept pace. I didn’t know why they were allowing us to get closer to the school. This smelled of a trap.

  Khaba’s voice was low. “I need you to do a favor for me.” He shifted my hand onto his lower back before changing his hold on me around my shoulders.

  Was he asking me to rub his lamp? What was the wish? I stared up at him, trying to ask without asking out loud.

  I dug the back of his shirt from his pants and placed my fingers on his back. I rubbed, trying to think of how sexy he was to draw out my powers. It wasn’t easy to think of my affinity and arousing thoughts when surrounded by freaky flying monkeys who wanted to snatch me.

  Odette’s eyes raked him over. “I sense great power in you, longing to break free. How long have you been enslaved against your will? The Raven Queen wouldn’t keep such a powerful demon bound to the service of the school.”

  Demon? Khaba wasn’t a demon. He was a djinn.

  “If you join us, our queen wouldn’t bind you to a lamp or ring or school,” Odette said. “You would be free. You could use your powers as you like.”

  He snorted. “A djinn is never free. Even when he is his own master, he’s a slave to his powers.”

  I wondered what that meant. There was a lot I didn’t know about Khaba.

  She continued walking backward, her pace even with our own. “It’s better to be one’s own master—even if it means giving some things up—than to be a slave to someone else.”

  “I am less a slave now than you are,” he said.

  I tried to remember what I had done with Derrick to give Khaba a jolt of magic. I had been touching Derrick. I didn’t think the sensation had been arousing so much, but it had felt nice. Thatch had told me I needed to feel pleasure to draw out my power.

  I closed my eyes and tried to block out their voices. I focused on the heat of his skin warming my fingers, the contours of the muscles of his back, and the way he held me close to his side. His embrace was safe and secure, a brotherly benevolence. I leaned my head against his shoulder.

  My affinity was awake now. Not hot and overflowing like it had been with Derrick, but slowly swelling with energy. I imagined it filling my core and radiating into my hand.

  Khaba gasped. “I bet you wish you were somewhere safe right now.”

  I wasn’t sure if he directed that statement to me or the raven emissary. I kept rubbing his back, uncertain I was even in the right spot.

  I said, “I wish Khaba and I were safe at the school.”

  The ground under my feet shifted, and a wave of vertigo washed over me. I thought I would fall over, but Khaba held on to me. The air grew warm. I blinked my eyes open. A cloud of smoke swirled around me. As it dissipated, I realized I was in my room.

  “What the fuck?” Vega asked. She stood in front of the mirror. The door to my wardrobe was open. She held up one of my pink T-shirts in front of her, caught inspecting herself in the mirror.

  I didn’t know who was more surprised, me or Vega. She was always complaining about how much she hated the color pink and made fun of my fashion choices. I might have yelled at her, but I was more concerned about my encounter with the Raven Court. My knees turned to jelly, and I grabbed onto the chair at the desk to keep from falling over.

  “Are you all right?” Khaba sat me on the bed. His brow was crinkled up in concern. “Did I drain you?”

  “No, I’m fine.”

  He eyed me skeptically.

  “Really,” I said.

  “What was all that smoke and mirrors about?” Vega asked. She at least had the decency to shove my shirt back into the wardrobe.

  “Clarissa, if you aren’t too weak, I need you to tell Jeb what happened and send him to join me in Lachlan Falls.” He looked to Vega. “You, come with me. We need to retrieve all students from town. Immediately.”

  Mrs. Keahi was her usual crotchety old self, refusing to allow me to see Jeb. The moment I relayed Khaba’s message, though, her eyes went wide. She ran into Jeb’s office. Before I could follow her in, she shoved me out and slammed the door in my face.

  I went to Josie’s classroom to tell her what had happened.

  “Holy crap, that’s bad,” Josie said. “I bet Jeb has left too. I wonder who’s covering dinner duty.”

  Craptacular. That would be me! I had to get down there before the cafeteria broke into chaos. Or before Vega caught me shirking the duty I had promised to cover for her. I could only imagine how she’d react to that.

  The highest-level Celestors worked for hours to retrieve students. Later that night I heard all teachers and students came back safe.

  Derrick was still missing.

  I made my rounds in the morning: Khaba’s office, Derrick’s room, and the dungeon. I couldn’t find any of them. In my mailbox a note announced that due to safety concerns, the school was under lockdown until further notice. Students were permitted anywhere on school grounds and in the woods within our boundaries, but not beyond unless they were supervised by a staff member. This would be announced by Khaba during morning breakfast and at lunch. An emergency staff meeting would be held after lunch. It might have been a Saturday, but no one was going anywhere fun with our lockdown.

  Along with the note from administration, I found the note I had previously placed in Thatch’s box requesting an appointment. Or more accurately, what remained of the note. It was shredded into long strips. That wasn’t Thatch’s usual M.O. He was more of the sort to write a scathing letter back telling me the many reasons I was unworthy of his teaching. Or to corner me in a dark hallway and tell me why I was such an ungrateful student.

  More likely, this was the work of Miss Periwinkle.

  Students asked me about the lockdown in Study Club in the morning, but I didn’t have any answers, other than the sighting of the Raven Court. Josie and I went to the staff meeting early to get good seats. An all-staff meeting meant it would be crowded. Even arriving ten minutes early, nearly all the staff were present, even Ludomil Sokoloff, the custodian, and Mrs. Ali Keahi, the secretary. Since all adults were present, I could only hope the student hall monitors were doing a decent job overseeing the school grounds.

  Josie and I grabbed the last two seats in the front next to Jeb’s empty chair.

  Some of the teachers were talking about the lockdown. Some were discussing their problem students of the day or the chaos of student schedule changes so late in the semester.

  Khaba stood at the front of the room waiting for teachers to assemble. He wore a rainbow cheetah shirt and white leather pants so tight they left little to the imagination. Josie couldn’t take her eyes off him.

  Miss Periwinkle walked in wi
th Sebastian Reade as he was in the middle of some story about how he’d heroically rescued students from werebears at his last school. She smiled politely, but she didn’t look impressed.

  Pro Ro stood, interrupting the foreign language teacher’s story. “Please, take my seat.”

  “Oh, no, I couldn’t,” she said. She scanned the room. If she was looking for her boyfriend to rescue her, Thatch hadn’t arrived yet.

  “Please, I insist. I would rather stand anyway. It will be a chance to do yoga stretches in the back. I don’t know if you know this, but I teach yoga.” He spoke casually as if he weren’t trying to impress her.

  Josie nudged me. Yeah, I caught it too.

  Miss Periwinkle took his seat. “I didn’t know you liked yoga. You must be very limber.”

  The aroma of rotting garbage and musky animal wafted into the room with Pinky’s entrance.

  “How’s yoga going for you?” Evita Lupi shouted across the table to be heard over the murmur of teachers. “I hear the students didn’t have to tell you the difference between Downward Dog and Cobra today.”

  His cheeks turned pink. “Ahem. I’ve been practicing.”

  Pinky came in, standing behind Vega’s chair in the back. She turned around and gave him a dirty look. He didn’t notice.

  Pinky joined in the conversation. “Did I hear you say you’re just learning yoga? Hatha or vinyasa? Personally, I like Bikram myself, but I’ve done some yin and have been doing kundalini for about ten years.”

  “Wow. That’s a stretch,” Khaba said.

  Josie tittered.

  Vega stood. “For once would that fleabag bathe? He makes this room smell like a thousand unwashed armpits.”

  I shushed her. “That isn’t very nice.”

  Pinky must have heard her because his eyes went wide, and he shifted away from her. Poor guy! It was hard enough being the new teacher, but having to put up with Vega’s insults was the worst.

  Jeb shuffled in five minutes later, whispered something to Khaba, and Khaba began.