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I shook my head. “Don’t worry. It’s nothing I can’t undo. Let Mads know what I’m doing though, okay?”
Oleander tugged at his bottom lip with his teeth, glancing at the stained-glass windows. I’d been right the night before. In the last rays of the sun, the windows cast a fiery kaleidoscope of color over the hall. It was just enough to see by as we traversed the corridors. Soon torches would have to be lit to allow the non-vampire night class students to navigate the castle.
“I don’t know...”
“I’ll be fine,” I insisted. “Go without me.”
He still looked unsure, but eventually did as I asked, glancing back at me anxiously as I searched for an unlocked classroom. Finding one, I figured it must have belonged to a night class professor, because I didn’t recognize the decor. Lots of red and black fabrics obscured the stone walls, broken up here and there by mounted weaponry. An array of staves, épées, and knives were arranged on a table near the front. This had to be a defensive course.
“Typical witch arrogance,” I muttered, sliding into an empty seat. “We teach our students how to show off with magic. They teach theirs how best to skewer us.”
Lorcan had pointed out that exact oversight in my education to Wanda many times. Those with magic leaned into it so hard, they rarely learned how to do anything else. What if there came a time when I couldn’t use my magic or I came across someone more magically talented than I was? What then? Wanda had quipped that if he was so worried about it, he could teach me self-defense.
And he had. Well, sort of. He wasn’t exactly Mr. Miyagi, teaching me karate skills. Lorcan had grown up in 18th-century Ireland, so he’d learned the not-so-fine art of brawling and he’d perfected his technique in bars and small skirmishes with the British men who harassed his cousins on their way to and from church. That meant, I now knew how to throw a punch and how to fight dirty in general, all while slinging some pretty pithy Irish insults. It wouldn’t do much against someone who had a black belt, but it was more physical training than most witches my age had.
I dug a vial of Uncrossing Oil out of my bag and dabbed a little on my wrists. Poppy’s stuff was good, but I’d need the most potent blend to get rid of all six hexes. Still, it would make it easier for me to locate where the hexes were anchored on my body and loosen their hold on me. I’d have to ask for more in my letters home, or maybe just sneak enough ingredients to brew the oil myself. I steepled my fingers on the desk, breathing slowly, trying to bring my mind into a meditative calm. I wasn’t going to undo what had been done if I panicked.
The cursing, bathroom, itching, and tongue-tie hexes were easy to locate and unravel. The witches who cast them either weren’t powerful enough to make them stick or hadn’t put any real malice behind them in the first place. It was probably a mixture of both. Some of them were bottom feeders, gravitating toward the most powerful predator around, and some of the others were probably decent people on their own, but forced into compliance for fear of being the next victim. Would I have been in that category, if I’d gotten most of my schooling from my old coven? I hoped not, but I couldn’t confidently say ‘no’.
The last two hexes wouldn’t come loose, no matter how hard I tugged at them. They clung to me like vicious little barnacles, refusing to come away. And the more I pressed, the more they dug into me. If I’d been standing, my legs would have given out entirely, dropping me to the floor so hard, my head would have bounced off the stones. The sleep charm was worse, piling on top of me like the smothering weight of a dozen blankets. My eyelids slid closed of their own volition and my head bowed.
I was asleep before my forehead could touch the cool surface of the desk.
***
Something cool traced the column of my neck. A soft, tepid touch that reminded me oddly of Lorcan’s. I couldn’t help but find it soothing. I’d fallen asleep next to him on the couch more than once, with his soft, lilting voice sending me off with Irish lullabies. But while the voice that spoke was accented, it wasn’t Lorcan’s familiar brogue. It was crisp and distinctly British.
“Leave her alone, Jack. If she wakes up and starts screaming bloody murder, you’ll be strung up by Headmaster Thorne. You know how important cooperation is to the senile, old man.”
“Cooperation,” another male voice (presumably Jack’s) sneered. “More like cowardice. The Thornes should have never made an agreement with those damned witches. You know they’ll make our lives miserable whenever they can. It only seems fair to return the favor.”
“Jack…”
“I won’t blood her. I’ll just play with her a bit until Professor Valserak shows up. It serves her right for staying out past curfew and taking a snooze in one of our classrooms.”
The last sentence cut through the haze and sent my heart into a dead sprint. The sleeping hex. It must have gone into full effect when I tried to remove it, and I was now alone and defenseless against vampire and infernal students. Oh goddess, I was in so much trouble.
Jack laughed, pressing his thumb into my pulse point. “Ah, look, she’s awake. Hear that beat, Dan? You could dance to it.” Then he looked right at me as I opened my eyes and the room started to come into focus. “You scared of us, ginger?” he asked. “I gotta say, you confused me for a moment. I smelled a witch but was pretty sure I was looking at a faerie or somethin’.”
“I’m a witch,” I managed, even though my voice sounded like I’d just awoken from a hundred-year sleep.
“Just a witch?” Jack asked.
“Just a witch,” I managed.
He chuckled as he wound his fingers into my hair and then yanked my head up painfully and I found myself staring into his face. He towered over me, a tall, broad man with ashy blonde hair, a crooked nose, and a beard that failed to completely hide the fact he had a scar running along the length of his jaw. His blue eyes bored into mine, full of barely contained violence. The sight of him made my heart scale my ribs, only to get stuck in my throat, choking off the impulse to scream. The last time I’d seen a vampire this close, had one touch me like this, they’d choked me unconscious in the back of a moving van.
I couldn’t find the will to breathe, let alone speak. For a horrible second, I was back at the warehouse, bound, bruised, and soon to be blooded by a psychotic vampire war criminal. If Maverick hadn’t been there to throw himself on top of me, I’d probably be in the night class with this jerk-off. I cast around for something, anything to say, but came up blank. I just wanted to run away from this asshole as far as I could get.
Unfortunately, there were about four other vampires and one demonic student blocking the only way out. Even If I sacrificed some of my hair to Jack’s grip, I’d still have to contend with them. Had I been well-rested and prepared; I could have probably taken one or two of them in a fair fight. But I wasn’t. I’d been dragged out of bed before dawn, underfed, hexed within an inch of my life, and left to rot by my own people. Headmistress Aurea would probably consider this a fitting punishment for daring to contradict her in the entrance interview.
“You think you’re special?” Jack continued, glaring at me. “Ignoring your curfew...”
Jack’s face twisted in rage when I didn’t answer. He got a tighter grip on my hair and shook me so hard that my teeth clacked together. Blood burst into my mouth as I bit my cheek.
“Answer me, witch! You some kind of princess? Think you can treat this whole castle like your own personal dorm room?”
“No,” I said, ashamed when my voice shook. “I’m not. I’m sorry. There was a hex—”
