Chapter 5

Chapter

Five

B eing Aimee’s sister is easy on a normal day. She’s pretty. Popular, even though she’s shy. And we usually dissect her life and leave mine alone because she’s generally thoughtful. Over-thoughtful on most occasions. We analyze her life to death.

But today she’s peppering me with questions when all I’m trying to do is discover which herb root is best to use in a potion that will make the drinker forget their own name. And how much to grind into the potion if I want the result to be temporary as opposed to permanent.

I don’t know when I’ll ever have the occasion to use this particular potion, but should the need arise, I want to be prepared. Aimee isn’t having it though.

“What did he say?”

“That I owe him a new shirt.” I flip the page in my notes looking for the appropriate ratio of distilled bittercress to qilin honey which is the honey gathered by a qilin dragon. I don’t know if they’re real or if it’s a marketing gimmick by some potion maker, but I don’t care. I just need to know the fucking ratio and I can’t find it .

“What happened to his shirt?” Her brow pinches and I try to wave her off, but she takes my notebook and sits on it. “Why do you owe Zane Bradbury a new shirt?” Her voice is shrill because she’s excited, but the classroom is mostly quiet so she sounds like she’s using a bullhorn.

Professor Stag shoots me an evil eye—which is bad from any teacher but worse from one who’s a witch—and I jerk my notebook out from under her behind, smooth the pages, and resume my work.

Aimee, on the other hand, and quite contrary to her usual behavior, has gone rogue and is ignoring the formulations we are supposed to be figuring out.

“Why do you owe Zane a new shirt?” she asks again and this time, Professor Stag slams her pen on the table.

“Yes, Miss Baum. Please tell all of us why you owe Zane Bradbury a new shirt. We’re dying to know.” Her sarcasm is noted.

“I spilled coffee on it.” I look at Aimee. There’s going to come a time, probably in the near future, when I remind her that I don’t pry into her business unless she’s dragged me into it or if I think she’s going to get hurt. Then I’ll maim on her behalf.

“How? Where? When?” Aimee isn’t finished and when I look at Professor Stag, she waves her hand.

“Spit it out. We aren’t going to get anything done until you do.” When it comes time at the end of our fifth year before graduation but after finals, Professor Stag is not going to get a sparkling student review out of me.

“I went to the Books & Brews last night and he was there. I spilled coffee, shredded his shirt, and ran out.” I look around at the smirks and hear the snickers.

But before Aimee can think to pepper more questions at me, the classroom door opens and Willow Thornbridge walks in. She’s tall and regal, and I recognize her from her picture hanging in the Hall of Greatness.

She speaks for a minute to Professor Stag who stands when they finish. “Ladies and Gentlemen, please put your work down for a moment. This is Willow Thornbridge. She’s a detective with the police department and a former student at the Institute.” She says it as if she personally had something to do with it.

I look up. Her attire screams of professionalism—a pantsuit my mom would call “smart” with a pair of low-heeled boots—and I wonder what kind of grades she got in herbology and if she remembers the ratios.

But I push the thoughts out of my head because they’re ridiculous. She obviously is here to talk to us about Rowen.

“Thank you, Professor. My name is Willow Thornbridge and I’m investigating the attack on one of your fellow students.” She speaks with a solemnity I wonder if she learned here or if she picked up at her police training. “Rowen Foster was attacked a few miles from here last night. As far as we can tell, she was alone, and it happened in the dark of night.”

I gulp. That’s never a good combination and I wonder what Rowen was doing out alone in the dark. Also, I was out alone last night. The fact that it could’ve been me hits home.

“We have talked to Rowen’s friends and anyone who could possibly have seen her last night. We know that she went to a book reading at Books & Brews, but we don’t know how she ended up outside of town. So, if you have any information, saw her last night or spoke to her about her plans for last night, or have any information, any information at all, please give the police department a call. You can do it anonymously.” She looks down the rows of tables where we’re all tuned in and listening.

A voice from the back asks, “Is Rowen going to be okay?”

“She’s at the hospital, getting treatment from the doctors there.” The detective nods. “What we want you all to know is that we don’t know who did this. So every person, especially those who attend the Institute”—she means witches—“needs to be vigilant. Don’t go anywhere alone. Travel in groups. And if you see something, anything, say something. The faculty and the police need to know even the smallest details that seems suspicious.”

“Are we in danger?” Aimee gives my hand a squeeze under the table because we don’t generally deal with danger. We’re not those kind of witches. We deal with earth and crystals, stars and spirituality. Danger and crime require a whole other breed of magic.

I want to ask if the detective thinks it’s a syphoner, and if I was still in history class when she came in I would, but I don’t want to alarm Aimee. She’s freaked enough.

On the other hand, at least she’s laid off me and the Zane incident.

“I heard Rowen was into black magic.” The same voice from the back of the room calls out and I turn to look. Isador Murick is watching the detective intently, like she didn’t just associate one of us with the dark arts.

I know Rowen and she is a rebel, but nothing so dark as Isador is suggesting. Rowen simply refused to focus on a single kind of magic as a specialty—earth or crystal or cosmic. She was keeping her options open. But of course, right away the rumor mill starts churning out its specialty claims that she was playing with the dark arts and even summoning demons .

Sometimes, the rumor mill is a real bitch.

It’s hardly fair that everyone is talking about Rowen when she can’t defend herself. I want to go see her, but I don’t know her well. Certainly not well enough to show up at her hospital bedside claiming friendship. She’s in a coma. Maybe when she’s further along in her recovery—if she gets further along—then I’ll talk Aimee into coming along.

Until then, I’ll take the warning seriously and not go anywhere alone. I don’t want to end up without magic. Not before I’ve really learned to use it, anyway.

When Aimee and I walk out of class, she heads to her locker, also in the C hall, and I head to mine. When I get close, my heart speeds up again. Zane is waiting at my locker when I get there. I smile, thinking if I don’t figure out a way to stop reacting so viscerally to him, I’m going to keel over and die before I ever get to our first date.

“Hey.”

“Hi.” I open my locker and he leans against the one beside it. I need a second to calm myself, so I pretend I’m searching for something inside. “Did a detective come to your class?” I poke my head out of the locker to ask, then immediately stuff it back inside because he is so right here .

“Yeah. Inspector Dryden.” Apparently there are detectives all over the school.

“We had Willow Thornbridge.” I say the name as if he should know it. But until we went into the Hall of Greats, I had no idea who she was, and he wasn’t focused on the statues and photos while we were in there.

“They emptied Rowen’s locker.” That’s news. I look at Zane and chew my lower lip. “Are you scared, RJ?”

I have a feeling he’s going to offer to protect me like I’m some sort of frail damsel in distress, and I want him to know I can protect myself. And should the situation call for it, I can make sure nothing happens to him, either. “No. I’ve been taking self-defense class since fifth grade when that group of witch hunters came passing through town.”

He nods like he approves, then bats his eyes at me like he’s the damsel. “Could you protect me then? Because I’m a little worried.”

Now I’m convinced that his flirting is real and not some figment of my overblown imagination and I giggle.

And hate myself for it.

“I’ll protect you.” I chew my lower lip. “You don’t have to worry.”

He smiles. “I feel so much safer now.” And the way he says it sends little shivers over my skin.

We have class to get to, but I wouldn’t mind standing in the hallway staring at him for the rest of the day. Talking to him. Flirting. Being flirted with.

I have to be in building two in less than five minutes, and it’s a three-minute jog to my class. “Have you thought about going with me for coffee later?”

To be honest, I haven’t thought of much other than concentrating on my herbology class and then of Rowen. But I would have to be the dumbest chick in school to turn down a coffee “date” with Zane.

But before I can answer, Dean Ryman approaches. He’s older than anyone I’ve ever met and has white hair and a beard. I’ve never actually spoken to him, and even now, he doesn’t spare a look at me.

“Zane, I’m glad I caught you.” The dean isn’t the kind of man one ignores to continue his conversation with a girl, although a part of me wishes Zane would ask him to give us a minute so I can answer the question. But I don’t interrupt and the dean looks at me then back at Zane. “Can we chat for a minute?”

“Sure.” Zane gives me a look—I think it’s an apology but I don’t know him well enough to know for certain—and walks away with the dean. And now I have three minutes to get to class.