Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Fifteen


I dreamed about my first contest. It was on the spring when I was fourteen. I had been so nervous because all the other kids were older and more experienced. But the moment I was submerged underwater, every cell inside me calmed down. I didn't even notice as the others rose to the surface, one by one. Back then, I'd still had this irrational fear that no one was going to notice if I drowned because I had too much pride to give up when I couldn't stand it anymore. So I broke to the surface at the first sign of suffocation.

It turned out I was the last one out. When they handed me my first-place trophy, I couldn't stop the wide smile coming over my face. I had never smiled as wide and bright as I had that time. Everyone cheered my name.

For the first time in my life, I wasn't the strange girl, the loser, or the orphan. I was just Riley Williams, an underwater athlete of Asphodel Academy.

I was still smiling when I woke up from the dream. Thankfully, I was alone in the infirmary, so no one saw me, because it would have been terribly inappropriate to smile after what happened before I black out. My head spun when I sat up. It got even worse and my bare feet touched the cold infirmary floor. Lucas, I remembered suddenly with a wave of grief. Tears sprang to my eyes, but I blinked them away because I had to be on the move right now. There was something important I needed to tell the principal. I wouldn't let anyone else get hurt because of me.

Even though my legs felt like jelly, I succeeded in dragging myself across to the door. When I opened it, I saw Principal Edgerton talking to someone.

"Principal," I rushed out. My voice sounded croaky and thin—how long exactly had I been passed out? "I need to tell you something. Last night, when the dark prince spoke, I recognized his voice. It was—" I stopped breathing when I saw for the first time who the principal was talking to. It was Luke. He looked unscathed­—tired and a few years older than his actual age, but very much alive.

My knees couldn't hold me up anymore. I sat on the nearest chair. "What happened?"

The principal gestured to someone behind her briefly and spoke to me. "You were found with Mr. Clyde's body two days ago—"

"Jack is dead? Oh my god, he killed him." I told you not to touch her. I rubbed my head. "Jack was his apprentice. He—Principal, I know who the dark prince is, it's—it's—ugh—" A sharp pain pulsed in my head every time I tried to finish my sentence, and every time it did, I forgot more of what I was trying to say. It was the voice. The voice I recognized. Why couldn't I remember?

The principal watched closely as I tried again and again to say the name. I kept forgetting. The harder I grasp at the memory, the further it slipped away. "It's as I expected, Miss Williams," she said grimly. "You have been spelled with a memory fog. The same thing happened to Mr. Island." She gave me a shoulder pat at my frustrated look and told me briskly, "I need to inform Lord Ellison that you've woken up. Mr. Island will fill you in on everything."

My gaze shifted to Luke as she walked away. He wasn't in his uniform, but in a simple black tee and jeans. His hair was rumpled and he looked like he hadn't slept for a couple of days, but he was very much alive. Alive and avoiding my eyes. "Come on," he said.

I followed him even though I didn't know where we were heading. I just couldn't stop staring at him. He was alive. He was alive. "You're alive."

"Why, I didn't know you cared so much, Williams."

He shouldn't know how much I actually cared, so I said, "Tell me everything I missed from Friday night."

While he spoke, I realized we were heading to the pond. Luke told me about his own encounter with the dark prince first. It was right around the time where I was supposed to arrive in the woods. In his dorm, Luke was heading to the principal's office to help with what Dee had called the CCTV spell. Only he didn't make it because he forgot to bring something and when he went back to his room—Luke's room was often empty because he didn't have a roommate—the black warlock was there. No one knew how he came in—no mages saw him and the academy didn't have surveillance camera. Luke saw his face, but couldn't remember that or his name because of the memory spell he put on him.

The dark prince performed the sacrifice spell on Luke. It didn't work, so he tried to kill Luke by sending a bolt of raw magic straight to his heart. Edgerton came then to the dorm to check the sudden flare of magic in the academy, but he escaped, and not before he put a memory spell on Luke.

"But how did you survive?" I asked him. We were now sitting on the bank of the lake where we had a few weeks ago. It seemed like a lifetime ago. "And why didn't the sacrifice spell work on you?"

Luke lay on the grass and stared up at the sky. It was blue today, clear and beautiful. His gaze didn't look pleasant, though. "You know why, Riley." The fact that he called me by my first name again didn't ease my nerves. "Part of you have always known."

His thirty-four-minute time underwater without any effort.

Inability to decode astral spells.

The way Jack Clyde had called Luke 'freak', 'your kind', and 'abomination'.

"So am I!"

"You are not a warlock."

His eyes drifted close briefly and my guess and he nodded. "My grandfather is one, but that is all the magic-wielder in my blood."

"Then what are you?"

Luke looked right at me. "My mother is part-witch, part-water-nymph. My father is an elf."

An elf. Ever since I could remember, we had been taught that the faery were creatures we should never meddle with. The Seelie fae sometimes made pacts with the Council, but even then most of the families who still believed in the Greek gods weren't complacent with their presence, mostly because they didn't believe in any of the Midgardian creatures. They were both beautiful and deceitful and they thought themselves far above the humans. The Unseelie fae, however, consisted of two major elements: goblins and elves. Goblins were known for their likability for thievery and their stubby sizes, big pointed ears, pug-like wrinkled face that looked permanently sad. Or at least that was how they were depicted in the books. I never met one.

Elves, on the other hand, looked like the cross between a Seelie fae and a normal human. Their beauty was still very alluring to humans, but their ears were less pointed, their eyes less doll-like and their skin less glowing. The combined appearance made them look far more approachable to humans than they really should be. Although they were beautiful and could express human-like emotions like a pro, they were known to be just as selfish and deceitful as the Seelie, and even more insatiable in their search of power.

They weren't anything like us. We had always avoided them.

Nymphs were rare and almost deity-like creatures, revered by some of those who still worshipped the Greek gods. But they also weren't anything like us. I didn't even know they could procreate.

Amy would probably knock me in the back of the head if she heard me say that.

And Asphodel Academy was supposed to be a school for witches and warlocks, not elves. Elves were supposed to raise their children in...I didn't know, a castle? But they weren't supposed to be here. "How did you end up in Asphodel?"

Luke's attractive appearance was beginning to make sense. So was his influential reputation and his ability to breathe underwater. "I was found. Nymphs weren't proud to have elf child and elves never wanted anything that wasn't of their pure blood." He shook his head and lay back against the grass. "I know what you mean. I'm an abomination among everyone. The academy was the only good chance I had—where else was I supposed to go?"

I remembered Luke's face when I had first seen him. The story behind his eyes that had reflected mine in certain ways. "But how could you do spells and the other stuffs in class?"

"Most of the teachers already know what I am. I could do basics because of the little magic I inherited from my grandfather, and some I did by drawing the elven magic." Of course. Spells were just channels—they could be worked by any source of magic. "Like in Duels. Elven magic is especially compatible with combat spells." He exhaled heavily. "But I don't have the human 'raw magic' you guys have. That's why the dark prince couldn't draw any from me in the sacrifice spell."

I felt wheels spinning in my head. "So when he hit you with that bolt, you blocked him off with a combat spell?"

Luke gave me an incredulous look. "No. I told you, my body is not made for raw magic. Shooting a force field to knock me out, that'd work, but to aim inside me—wait, that's not how it's supposed to sound like—"

But I was already laughing. Once I started, it was hard to stop. I couldn't remember the last time I laughed when I wasn't with Amy or Dee. Luke himself looked suspiciously like he was trying not to join me. And then a few second later, he did. It occurred to me how normal we were right then, just a pair of teenagers brooding about our unsatisfactory childhood and laughing at a dirty joke.

"So?" I prompted when I finally managed to control my laughter. "The dark prince aimed inside you and?"

Luke sobered quickly. "My body rebelled against the raw magic. It gave me convulsions for several hours, but when it wore off, I was more or less intact."

Without thinking, I confessed, "I was so scared when I thought he killed you." Quickly amending my words, I said, "Guilty, I mean. I felt guilty if someone else got hurt."

"It's not your fault even if he did," was his only reply to my statement, thankfully. If he teased me about how much I cared about him again, I might just tell him the truth. "Jack's dad is raising hell in the Council for his death, but you don't need to worry about that either."

"Wait, he blamed me?"

"May I quote, 'No son of Clyde will ever disrespect his family in such regard.' He can't accept that Jack meddles with black magic practice, even after his friends confessed about it."

Suddenly weary, I decided to lay my head on the grass like him. Unlike him, though, I could appreciate the good view of the sky and it relaxed me a little. "It was kind of my fault, though. He killed Jack because of me. Jack was torturing me with this raw magic...I don't know what kind of spell it was—it doesn't matter. The dark prince said that he wasn't supposed to—"

"Touch you?" When I looked at him in surprise, he said, "He said a few words to me about that, too before the sacrifice spell." He sighed. "I just wish there's a way to lift the memory spell. It shouldn't have worked on me because of what I am. I think he used a device. He had this necklace thing—"

I sat up fast. "Like a chain. With a pendant."

Luke sat up, too. "Yeah, exactly like that. It looks like an eye."

"That's it! Jack was wearing it. I think it's what kept his shield up for so long and so impenetrable. Maybe the dark prince used it to wipe our memory, too."

Thoughtfully, Luke said, "But isn't it strange that it didn't take the scenes away from our head? It's more like a block."

"Well, I don't know much about magical devices." I stood up. "Maybe I'll go ask Dee if she knows anything about it." As I looked down at Luke, I couldn't stop myself from plucking out a leaf that had made its way into his hair. He stared at me as I took it and I felt this strong urge to kiss him right then and there. But when I threw away the leaf, I noticed something. "Hey, my wrist isn't broken anymore."

He blinked. "It wasn't broken to begin with." But it had been. I clearly remembered Jack twisting it and the pain was too intense for a sprain. "Actually, we don't even know why you haven't woken up for two days. You didn't have a scratch on you. Wimp, Williams," he teased.

Any other time, I would have responded to that taunt, but all I could think of was the voice I had heard in my head before I passed out. Sleep.

"What?" Luke asked when he saw the change in my expression. "What is it?"

"The dark prince healed me." I felt dizzy, hurt, betrayed and exhausted. "I think I know who he is."

True to my feared assumption, Carter wasn't anywhere to be found. He had vanished the Friday night before and the mages said he had been transferred to another post outside the academy. Most didn't even remember his name. If it wasn't for the memory the select few of us had, it would be as if he had never existed.

You are one of the most promising witch I had ever seen.

I've been watching you for a longer time than you think I have.

You're capable of so much.

It had been so obvious. How couldn't I have noticed it before? He was almost always there at any sign of trouble. The way he always hung out individually, not mingling with another mages. But I did remember Carter Reston as a senior in our academy. And he hadn't looked any older than I had last seen him three to four years ago, but I had thought it was because he had a baby face.

Principal Edgerton also looked shaken by my admission. She had taken out his file and checked it over. "He began enrolling in the junior level. There's no documentation of his previous education. Because he claimed to seventeen when he began enrolling, he had never needed to list a guardian. We all thought he was a prodigy, but we never suspected—" she broke off, looking distraught. "The Council is also looking into it and according to them he just began his career as a mage suddenly and no one even noticed that he had never gone through the initiation process."

While the principal had her breakdown about getting fooled all this time, I was more freaked out by the fact that an over one hundred years old guy had met me when I was three, watched me when I was thirteen to fourteen, and then flirted with me now. I felt crept out and violated. It also didn't help when the principal said, "At least we can predict his moves now. His actions have proven that he'd been obsessed with you for over a decade."

Right. Since I was a kid. Practically a toddler. Ew.

And then she continued, "Your uncle wants you to stay with him for the time being. At least until Samhain is over. I agree with him. It's not safe for you now—"

"Look, I'm not trying to be cocky here, but it's not me in danger," I protested, frustrated. "It's people around me."

"They will also receive protection."

"With what? Mage guards who turn out to be evil black magicians?"

"I know how to keep my students safe, Miss Williams," the principal snapped. I must have really hurt a nerve. "Lord Ellison can't come to pick you up himself because he still has important matters to settle over the Council, but he will send someone first thing tomorrow morning. I hope you will pack well tonight. No arguments."

I stalked out of Principal Edgerton's office feeling angry and helpless. I didn't want to be helpless. With all the show the dark prince had run so far about wanting me because of what I could do, blah blah, there should be something I could do. What was the point of having so much raw magic or 'great power' when I didn't even know how to use it to keep my friends safe?

A thought occurred to me then: if everyone I cared about had the kind of protection like the impenetrable shield Jack Clyde had, then the dark prince wouldn't be able to touch them.

Not wrong, right? But first I had to confirm if that shield thing really came from that eye device, and then I would have to find out where I could get that kind of device. And I should stop calling him the dark prince and started to face reality that it was indeed Carter—but the Carter I knew hadn't seemed like a stalker and serial killer.

Maybe I was wrong. Maybe it wasn't Carter, and the dark prince was framing him. Or maybe he killed Carter and possessed his body that night and then left to get rid of the evidence. Realizing I was beginning to sound like certain someone who watched too many movies, I went back to the dorm to find Amy.

Only when I came inside our room, I found her on the bed, making out with a guy.

"Riley!" she exclaimed, clearly surprised. Her guy cleared his throat, muttered something to her, and quickly left.

"Was that Ethan Kowalski?"

Amy fussed with her hair and tied it into a bun, trying to make it look like she hadn't just been kissing her hot senior ex-boyfriend in her room. "We, uh, bonded again. After your scare in the woods and everything."

"In two days?" It wasn't really my business, but Amy had a history of regretting every time she got back together with him. It became my business, though, when he started to hurt my best friend. The last time they broke up was last spring. He hadn't wanted to introduce Amy to his parents because of some shady mysterious reason. To me and Dee, though, he just sounded like a fuck boy.

"Don't be a hypocrite, Riley," Amy said. "Everybody knows about Luke and you now."

"What?"

"It's pretty obvious from the way he yelled at everyone when they found you in the woods and you wouldn't wake up. He thought you were dead, you see. Everyone did."

He certainly hadn't told me that. "There's nothing going on—"

"I thought I'm your best friend! Everyone asked me when you two got together and I don't know the answer to that! And you can't answer me because you were too far in coma—"

"Amy, stop it! I wasn't in coma—"

"This is just like every time you deny the thing about you and Carter—"

"Carter is the dark prince, Amy!"

That stopped her. "What?"

I had planned to explain to her later when we were together with Dee so that I didn't have to tell the story twice, but I had no choice. It hurt, talking about Carter like that. I didn't know if it hurt because I had actually cared about him, or because I just didn't like being fooled, like Principal Edgerton. Either way, I still had that hope inside me that it really wasn't Carter.

I didn't tell Amy about Luke's heritage, though. That wasn't my secret to tell. Besides, I was sure she had fun picking at the rumors going on about Luke's 'epic battle' with the dark prince. According to them, Luke had fought Mr. Hollister's killer with bravery and honor, and he managed to run him out of the school singlehandedly.

Right.

While me—the Queen Bitch had supposedly finally snapped and killed her own heart's conquest, Jack Clyde, in a fit of jealousy.

And then there was the rumor about Luke and I being 'together' and stuff. This version was preferable because at least in it I didn't kill Jack Clyde—Luke did, to 'claim what's his'.

My classmates should really publish their own novels.

"So you think this eye thing is the dark prince's secret power?"

"No, Amy. The dark prince is powerful because of the ways he could manipulate his raw magic, but that necklace is something else. I think it can create this permanent force field shield. Luke thinks he used it to put memory block in his head, because it shouldn't have worked on—" Realizing what I was saying I quickly changed tracks before Amy noticed. "Anyway, I just think if I can find this necklaces for you guys, I'll sleep better at night."

"Where? In the library?" Amy suggested, "Artifacts section?"

"I don't know if it's actually a commercial object, but we can check there. It'd help if we actually know its name, though. We can't keep calling it eye." I sighed. "I just wish we had a special magic google."

"Well, I don't know any special magic google, but I know a walking magical Wikipedia."

Dee had been sleeping when we knocked on the door. She was already in her pajamas and her eye mask was shoved up to her head. "Amy? Riley." She rubbed her eyes. "You're awake. What time is it?"

"Um, eight? Why did you go to bed so early?"

"Besides, I'm enjoying my phantom single bedroom while it lasts." Meaning, her roommate wasn't in there and there wasn't anyone to keep her awake by snoring. "Come in."

I let Amy filled in Dee on the details while my mind drifted. Maybe it wasn't such a bad idea to go live with Lord Ellison until Samhain was over. If he was truly that obsessed with me, then he would leave my friends alone here and come after me in my uncle's residence.

Or he could hurt my friends here specifically just to make me come back.

I still felt like I missed something, though. An over one hundred years old evil magician couldn't just suddenly decide to transfix his attention on one teenage girl, powerful or not. There must be something more than just all this stalking and killing 'people who touched me' thing. He must want something more. And we just couldn't figure that out yet.

"It sounds like a third eye," Dee said after we explained about the necklace. "It gives psychic ability to someone who isn't psychic."

That would explain the memory block, but not Jack's shield.

"A third eye is usually given to those who couldn't focus well on their spell. Because it's basically all kinds of psychic in one device, it strengthens your brain and gives you more focus, more will. When we manipulate raw magic in PE, Mr. Hollister always said that our magic comes from the mind, not just the body, right? So it's like a Viagra effect in magic terms."

"Makes you last longer and harder," Amy piped in for me. "In case you don't know what Viagra is."

"I know," I said dryly.

"Right, I forgot. You're no longer celibate because of Luke."

"I'm not sleeping with Luke!"

"Guys," Dee said tiredly. "Do you want to know about the third eye or not?"

I shot Amy a look. "Sorry, Dee, go on."

"The third eye doesn't work to amplify or protect—it just gives us more focus working on what we already have and gives us better abilities in illusion. Especially for people who weren't really good at illusion. It could work on any creature because it's mind-based, not magic-based—" With this, Dee gave me a meaningful look that made me suspect she knew more about Luke. "—but on longer and improper use, it can mess with your own mind and turn you into, well, vegetable."

"So," Amy concluded, "if we don't have much raw magic to begin with, it won't give us a penetrable shield like the one Riley described?"

"No, it won't," Dee agreed. "In your case, you'd probably be able to upgrade your illusion skill from making someone think they're eating spiders to making someone feel the pain of the spider bite."

"That's torture," I said instantly. It could be what Jack Clyde had done to me.

"My point is that it makes your affinity magic more detailed, but not more powerful. For example, if I use it, it'll make me—"

"Albert Einstein?"

"More or less," Dee admitted modestly.

"Well, it's not what I expected, but it sounds handy. Where can we get it?"

Fifteen minutes later, we found ourselves lurking in front of the infirmary. Dee said that the third eye was like a helping device for witches and warlocks with focusing problems—like a wheelchair or a crutch for a limp, or painkillers for someone who broke their hand. I preferred the painkiller analogy better because we weren't going to use it for any pain. We were just using it for the high—in this case, the extra perks. For a temporary time until Samhain was over.

"I think the nurse is inside," Amy whispered.

"She can't be," Dee rationalized. "When does she sleep? Where does she sleep? She's the only medic staff in the academy. Surely she must sleep."

"Well, just in case," Amy said, "you guys get behind me. When I see someone, I'm going to put on an illusion spell immediately." That was how we usually sneaked out in the second Friday party, before all the mages swarmed our academy this month. When someone crossed by, as long as Amy was fast enough they would see no one. It didn't work all the time, especially if the person was too experienced to be fooled. And they usually saw us first before Amy got her spell on.

Amy turned the doorknob carefully and turned the door. I checked the corridors to make sure no one was passing by. Most of the mages were being interrogated in turns after Carter Reston's sudden disappearance and possible identity fraud, and the infirmary corridor had always been lightly guarded to begin with.

We froze until Amy beckoned at us with her finger. Like a train, we slipped through the doorway: Amy first, and then Dee, and me.

"Okay," Amy said in her normal voice volume. "Now what?"

Dee looked around. "Helping devices should be in one cabinet with potions."

"Oh, like retainers and gum shots."

I shuddered, thinking about the three dentist trips I ever had back when I lived with the normal humans.

We found the cabinet near the filing row. Just like Dee had described, it contained potions and several third-eyes complete with the neck chains and also other devices that I didn't recognize. "What's that?" I asked, pointing at the small round object beside the eyes.

"I'm not sure," Dee said, picking up the object in curiosity, "but I think it's a chalk." To prove it, she put down the object back and held up her fingers. They were covered in powdery black color.

"Why is there a chalk in the infirmary?"

"Because it's a portal chalk. If emergency persists, the patient will need to be sent to another location quickly, and not everyone was capable of doing teleportation spell. With the chalk, all you need to do is draw a circle on the floor or on the wall, and imagine your destination."

"That is so cool," Amy said, eyes wide. "Why don't they sell it?"

"First, because the chalk is made of an incredibly rare meteorite, tampered by a guild of mages. Second, they do. But only dirty rich people could afford it. And even then, it's banned for students. If something went wrong we could end up in a wormhole, stuck in the middle of nowhere."

"Spooky," Amy breathed. She shook her head. "Let's just grab the eyes and go."

We took one for each of us. And then, when they weren't looking, I slipped the chalk inside my pocket.

Later, back in our room, Amy confessed, "I've never raided infirmary before. That was nerve-wrecking."

"Amy, you have never even stolen anything before."

"Just so you know, I'm not going to follow you when you steal cupcakes from the kitchen from now on. This is a one-time thing."

"Sure, sure."


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