Chapter 4

Chapter

Four

I f there’s one thing I don’t want to do, it’s go to school and face Zane Bradbury. So, I fuck around at home. Make myself pancakes for breakfast. Tell Aimee I’ll walk without her today and she can take the car we share. Maybe a walk will clear my head.

Mom’s already gone, so I could probably get by with ditching school today, but without the grimoire to practice with and see where I went wrong last night, my only choice—because I need the training—is to go to school.

I also have a lab today where I can work on my spellcasting for the final and I can’t really afford to miss it. Besides, I’ve gone five years without running into Zane in the hallway, without embarrassing myself in front of him. One faux pas at the bookstore won’t make him come looking for me.

I pep talk myself all the way through washing the dishes I used to make the pancakes then on the walk to the Institute. I can do this. And unless Zane has told someone—and why would he—no one knows about what happened at the bookstore. He doesn’t really seem like the kind of guy who would revel in my total humiliation. Although, it’s sometimes hard to tell.

He did say, in his Brad Pitt voice, that maybe he would like being my heart’s desire. And he’d waved to me first. That’s something. Although I don’t really know what that particular something might be.

I rush down the hallway. If I skip going to my locker—which means I won’t have my textbook—I might be able to slide into my seat before class starts.

In my rush, I do a crazy two-step kind of dance with the janitor who has chosen this specific moment to pick invisible pieces of lint from the floor in front of my locker.

When I finally spring the door open, I toss in an empty water bottle I’d brought from home and it slides back out as I grab the books for my first two classes. We both reach for it, but the janitor picks it up and hands it back to me.

“We recycle here, Miss Baum.”

Of course we do. Forty percent of the students here are green witches and the earth’s inner power is very important to magic. “Thanks.” I take the bottle and shove it back into my locker.

I pull my book from the dark inner depths and slam the door shut then book it down the hallway because infractions for unprepared and late earn the same kind of admonishment and I don’t need it. Although, I can feel the janitor’s judgment as I dash away, but when I look back, he’s gone.

Just before Professor Beckett walks into the classroom and sets his book down, I dart through the door in front of him and slide into an empty spot. “Nice of you to join us, Miss Baum.”

I grin. “You, too.” But I’m here, with a pen and a book and class hasn’t started yet .

The random murmurs that usually die when he walks into class continue today. I catch bits and pieces. Rowen Foster, 5th year, legacy student. I know Rowen in a more abstract way than in a friendship way, but I’m interested now, and I’m trying to wade through the white noise to figure out why they’re talking about her.

Her powers were stolen.

I heard it was a syphoner.

She’s in a coma, and they don’t know if she’s going to wake up.

“All right, people. Settle down.” Beckett walks around to sit on the front of his desk. He’s one of those new breeds of teacher. Hip. Wears jeans and button downs with those long skinny ties that look like an arrow pointed down at his crotch.

He has black hair that is combed forward on top and pushed up in the front. He has facial hair that looks more like he needs a shave than a beard but he probably thinks is fashionable because all the guys on TV wear their faces that way. But he teaches good magic and he’s the student adviser for fifth years with the last names A through F.

But I’m more interested in what the other students are saying today. I’ve heard of syphoners before. Supposedly, there haven’t been any around—if they’re real and ever existed at all—in the last hundred or so years. So, the excitement makes sense.

We come from long magical lines and if no one in any of our families has ever met a syphoner, and they have been relegated to myth and legend, then probably this is just another tall tale told by someone who wants their five minutes of fame.

I raise my hand. There’s no reason not to get the information from someone who claims to know. And it beats another day in Magical History class of reading about the witch trials and comparing the real information to that which has been out in the world for the last two hundred years.

“Yes, Miss Baum?”

“Did a syphoner take Rowen Foster’s power?” The sound in the classroom dies and now Professor Beckett has the attention of every person in his room. We all want to know, but no one else was going to ask, so I did.

“That is unknown at this time.” There’s a lot in what he isn’t saying.

“So syphoners are real?” I want it spelled out in black-and-white. And despite the shifting because this subject is uncomfortable, everyone else wants to hear what he has to say too.

He looks at me. Tilts his head. Probably wishes I would shut my pie hole and let him teach, but if so, he doesn’t say it. He smiles instead. “Syphoners aren’t known to be around this part of the country in this current era.”

I can see his loopholes. Aren’t known to be, in this era. These are cop out words. He doesn’t want to confirm or deny anything.

“There’s going to be announcements made later today, and as information is collected regarding Rowen and how to handle yourselves in the wake of this…incident, the Institute will keep you informed.” He doesn’t seem altogether confident in his own statements, but I imagine he’s in a hard position if he knows the truth but has been asked not to tell us for whatever reason. Or maybe, and this is likely, he just doesn’t want to believe it himself.

“Incident? That’s the word we’re using for when a witch has been drained of her powers?” This time someone in the back shouts out, and I’m glad it’s someone else, even though I would’ve done it. I just didn’t want to sound antagonistic. Not yet, anyway. I like Professor Beckett.

By the time class is over and we’re released into the hallway, no one knows anything more certain than they did when they walked into class. Although we did discuss syphoners as a real part of our history rather than a myth or someone’s tall tale. So there’s that. A confirmation in history that syphoners are real.

Syphoners, according to the professor, are a type of witch who can only reach their full potential by leeching off or stealing another’s power. They can also completely drain the powers of another, which leads me to believe that if, as I’ve heard, Rowen’s power was drained, it may have been a syphoner. That and the fact that the professor wouldn’t rule it out.

He cautioned us that a syphoner who steals the total power of another witch becomes corrupted and must be killed. They spread dangerous magic. Faulty magic. And only a syphoner can defeat another of its kind. But once a syphoner is killed, the powers revert to the witch from whom they were stolen.

I think about it. A lot. So much that when someone approaches my locker, I don’t notice until he touches my shoulder.

I suck in a gasp.

Zane Bradbury is standing at my locker. I’m not some first-year little witch who has a crush on the big fifth-year magic god. I’m a fifth year. A legacy in my own right. A witch in training, at the end of her training to be exact. I can hold my head up and not make a fool of myself in front of Zane Bradbury. Presumably.

Maybe. Once I tamp down the excitement. And once I stop seeing his naked chest in front of me .

I take a second to breathe through the excitement and then I smile up at him. As people walk down the hall, they stare. Who can blame them. He’s standing beside me . Smiling. Probably they’re thinking that one of these things doesn’t belong. It’s me. I’m the thing that doesn’t belong.

But I’m not going to point it out to Zane. And I’ll kick the ass of the person who does. My plan is to wait until he figures it out for himself, and then I’ll survive it. Probably.

“Hey.”

“Hey.” I’m cool. Calm. Don’t have anything to spill on him, so I’m not wholly worried. “Aren’t you in the wrong hallway?” His locker is in the B hall. Mine is in the C hall.

He shakes his head with his gaze locked onto mine, and it’s probably one of the sexiest moves I’ve ever seen before in my life. My heart thumps a little harder. “Nope. I’m where I want to be.”

A burst of heat shoots to my belly, and I smile. “Oh.” All that heat makes me eloquent.

“I wanted to see you.” It’s the gaze. I can’t break it. “You left in a big hurry last night.”

Well, it was bound to come up. “Yeah. Well, I was finished with my coffee.”

He laughs like I’m doing standup. He cocks an eyebrow, and I was wrong about the head shake being the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen. Very. Very. wrong. “I was finished with my shirt, too.”

“Good thing.” I can laugh about it now. Kind of. It’s more of a chuckle. And it hurts my belly, but it’s more for show.

“Right?” He grins as I shut my locker. “Come on. I’ll walk with you to your next class.”

“Okay.” I should probably pinch myself to make sure this is really happening and isn’t a part of some crazy dream I’m having, but I don’t because if it is indeed some sort of dream I don’t want it to end.

We walk the hall and people get out of the way. It’s like he’s school royalty or something. They certainly don’t part like the Red Sea when I walk down the hall. I get jostled and bumped all the time. Such things apparently don’t happen to Zane.

“Have you ever been in here?” He points to the Great Hall of Practitioners. It’s not really a great hall. It’s more like a large classroom, but it’s been emptied except for the statues that are lit from the floor and the portraits of the professors and standout witches from the Institute before us.

“I want my picture hanging on that wall someday.” And even if I didn’t mean to say it aloud, to be one of the great ones is one of my goals, as farfetched and unlikely as it is at this point. But the truth is, I don’t want money or power. I want to cast a spell and have it do exactly what I intend. And a Saturday night date with Zane so I get the full Zane Bradbury experience.

For either of those things to happen, I need to get to class, buckle down, do the work, and figure out why my magic is so faulty. But I still don’t want this minute to end. I’m alone with him. With Zane Bradbury.

Before I can finish the thought, I see my mother’s official Institute photo. Holy shit. It’s sobering to see her this way, as more than my mother, as a woman with her own story and her own past in the school where she’s sent us.

Not only was she a standout student, she spent years as a professor here, imparting her wisdom. She looks so elegant in her long black robes, holding her official Institute folio with her hair streaming out from beneath her professor’s cap .

I wonder why she gave it up, why she is happy doing whatever it is she does these days. I know she’s told me before, but I can’t ever remember where she goes every morning or what she does that keeps her out most days until after we’re home from school.

I stare at the photo for a few more seconds until Zane touches my back, letting his hand rest just above where the hem of my shirt meets the waistband of my jeans. The touch is electric and sensual at the same time. I could melt.

“Hey, you.”

I turn to look at him and it’s the smile that gets me. Again.

“Sorry. I was just…” I point to the picture of my mom like I don’t know how to say she’s my mom. Her name’s under the picture, engraved on a gold plate that is attached to the wall. Not that he needs me to say her name. Not that it’s what he’s paying attention to.

“And I was just saying you owe me a shirt.”

“I do?” But then the fog over my brain clears and the mortification that I thought this was something more than him calling me on having ruined his clothing last night sets in. “Right, I do.” I shake my head. “I could Venmo you.”

“Or…” He grins and moves to stand in front of me and tilts my chin up again. “You could get that I’m teasing and we could go for coffee instead. My treat.”

“You want to risk another shirt on coffee and a klutz?” He can either laugh at me or with me, and I don’t really care which one. I really like the sound either way.

He grins. “So our date has a theme. I like it.”

“Date?” My pulse is running its version of the Kentucky Derby in my ears because Zane Bradbury has just asked me on a date.

I’ve been on dates before. I’m nineteen, not ten. I’ve gone out. Done…things. But not with anyone who made my heart behave with such abandon.

The bell rings and now we’re both going to be late. “Think about it, okay? I’ll find you after class. I have to get to Advanced Spellcasting.” In the movies, this is the place where an upbeat tune would play and the girl would clutch her books to her chest as she spun around the room dancing with the statues.

I think I just had the best dream in the history of dreamers, and I’m halfway through a waltz with the statue of Wallace Whitmore, a wizard from the 1920s, when Aimee comes jogging into the room. “Oh my God. Were you just talking to Zane Bradbury? I saw him come out of here.”

I nod. I’m wearing khaki overalls and a button down with my blazer so I look like a weird cross between preppy Bob the Builder and that chick from Clueless , and I was talking to Zane Bradbury. “Come on. We have to get to herbology.”

We do. And I know it. What I don’t know is how I’m ever going to wipe this smile off my face.