Page 56 of Witchlore
“Shut up,” Kira mutters to him, shooting me a look that seems both curious and a little nervous.
“Only if summoned, Lando. Or if they are still operating under a previous curse and haven’t been exorcized,” Professor Wallace says, smiling at me. He clearly thinks my questions are a sign ofrenewed academic rigor rather than desperation not to accidentally unleash a hellhound in the city center. “This one did wreak havoc in the 1800s. Many humans died. But the Merlin Foundation intervened.”
“How did they do it?” I ask. “What spells?”
Bastian, who is sitting next to me, stands on my boot under the table. I can tell it’s a warning to shut up, but I move my foot away and try not to be distracted by the sensation of his knee pressed against mine.
“Sometimes, the oldest ways are the best, products that already have power woven into them. There’s a reason that magical blood, holy water, and holy fire have such prominent cultural representations,” Professor Wallace says, looking at his watch. “That’s all our time today. Please remember to check your college emails, there is a compulsory all-college seminar on Monday.”
“How compulsory, sir?” Carl asks, deliberately bumping into my shoulder on his way to the door. Bastian glares at the back of his head with enough acid to burn through paper.
“Very, Carl,” Professor Wallace says.
“Come on,” Bastian mutters to me, taking my arm and jostling me out of the seminar room before I’ve even had a chance to pull my coat on. “What was that about?”
“Just asking questions,” I mumble, gently pulling my arm away to lean against the wall a few meters from the door. Farther down the corridor, Carl and his mates are bunched together, glancing back at us and laughing. I try to ignore them. “This is way more dangerous than the others, isn’t it?”
“Well, yeah, kind of.” Bastian fiddles with the strap on his bag and shoots Carl a vicious glare when his cackling laughter reaches us. “But it’s going to be okay.”
“What if we set it loose?”
“We won’t.” Bastian fixes his expression back on me and it softens. In a way that’s actually really unhelpful. I have to stare at the drama society’s poster for last year’s production ofThe Crucibleto stop from blushing. “But you can’t go on asking questions like that, you’re going to draw attention.”
“They’ll just think it’s academic interest.”
Bastian opens his mouth and I’m sure he’s about to say no one will believe the student who never speaks up in class has suddenly been imbued with curiosity overnight, but Kira walks past, looking curiously at us both and then down at the book I’m holding about conjuring spells. Maybe he’s onto something.
“Better not to risk it,” Bastian mutters. “Lunch?”
I think I should probably say no, better to keep my distance, but Kira is lingering and so is Carl, both clearly intent on interception that I don’t feel up to facing.
“Sure.”
“Did you see the email about the mandatory seminar on Monday?” Bastian asks me when we’re sharing a cone of chips in St. Ann’s Square. “Is that a regular thing they do at Demdike?”
“I’ve never seen it before.” We both checked our emails while waiting for our food. All it says is that it’s for everyone and attendance will be taken.
“We could bunk it off,” he says.
“For someone so literate you have an interesting interpretation of the word ‘mandatory.’”
“Fine, we’ll be obedient.” He bites the straw of his milkshake and grins at me, suddenly so stupidly charming, I have to lookdown at the bench. I find myself drawing an exorcism circle in the raindrops, joining them up into the right shapes.
“Hey, that’s pretty good,” he says.
“Yeah, if you have a need of someone to perfectly sketch one and tell you everything about it without actually being able touseone, I’m your person,” I say sarcastically.
“I find I have a need for exactly that person,” he says, and then nudges his shoulder against mine. I suck in my breath. I think he might press against me, to let me feel more of the warmth of his body, but he doesn’t. He goes back to drinking his milkshake and watching my nervous fingers. Suddenly, I wonder how it will be when Elizabeth is back. Will I still feel this odd, irritating sense of lost potential when he sits near me like this? Or will these troubling feelings vanish, and I’ll be perfectly satisfied with my new friend and my old girlfriend? The idea doesn’t comfort me the way that I think it should.
“Only twelve days to go,” he says. “Then we’re one step closer to the end.”
“Yeah.” My mouth is a lot drier than I expect it to be and my stomach drops with anticipation. When I think about the wild eyes of the Black Shuck in the picture from the book, it seems way too soon. “Twelve days.”
On Monday morning, when I walk down Faraday Street to the mandatory meeting, chased by a blustering breeze that sweeps along the yellow leaves that have fallen in the square, I see a tall, blond-haired woman standing outside college. She’s in her forties, smoking a cigarette and wearing a belted tartan coat. I stop in my tracks, my heart racing. It’s Elizabeth’s mother. The last time Isaw her was the only time I have ever spoken to her, at Manchester Royal Infirmary, after the cave. I was sitting on a hard plastic chair, shivering uncontrollably, my hands torn and bloody from wrenching fallen slate and stones off Elizabeth’s body, an ambulance blanket around my shoulders. I saw Dr. Toppings as soon as she walked through the automatic doors. I could tell, just from her expression, that she had already been told. She looked like she’d aged ten years from the photos I’d seen on display in Elizabeth’s house. She saw me and her ring began to glow, the same kind of pearly color as Elizabeth’s but her magic smelled like witch hazel, making my nose smart and run.
“I’m sorry,” I gabbled as she stalked over to me. “I don’t know what happened, I shifted and she fell over and hit her head—”
“I should curse every inch of you, shifter,” she said. Her voice was so gentle and dangerous, I cowered in my seat, wishing I could disappear. “I should dedicate my life to it, turning you to nothing. It should have been you.”
