Page 5

Before him, the castle he’d once called home punctured the burlap sky with its turrets.

Through the ages, it had endured, its bones so old they’d fossilized into the rocky crags overlooking the sea.

Ambrose looked upon the castle’s stone walls bleached by sea salt, stained by storms, and felt they were brothers, the bones in him just as ancient and scarred.

But the world around it? Nothing could have made Ambrose feel more foreign.

The paths and the gardens of the castle crawled with people.

Not servants and courtiers, but common people, bustling with paper cups and “mobile phones” grasped in their hands, gathering in huge groups with books and machines, and all of them—nearly every last one he could see—performing magic, the ozone of enchantments like an endless rip current.

In Ambrose’s time, magic had been a rarity, a talent to make or break kingdoms. Now it was common as a curse word.

A rumbling noise drew his attention. He whirled to see one of those machines—a dragon of steel and glass—roaring straight toward them.

He lashed out instinctively, putting himself between Emery and the beast. He aimed his fist for the glass, magic coalescing in his veins to tear through the pane.

It shattered in a burst of glittering rain, and a scream followed.

Ambrose struggled to make sense of what he saw: inside the belly of the machine was a woman, her hands gripping a wheel, eyes wide with horror.

Of course, she should be afraid—whatever this thing was, it had swallowed her—but she seemed more scared of Ambrose. His blood drummed in his ears along with the throbbing pain in his fist.

He tried to sound reassuring. “Let me help you.”

“Help me?!”

“Are you insane?” Emery cut in.

Ambrose couldn’t help feeling like the only sane one present. “The steel dragon attacked us. It swallowed a girl.”

“That’s a car ,” Emery corrected. “It wasn’t attacking. It was trying to parallel park.” He turned to the girl inside. “Sorry. He’s not well.”

“He smashed my window!”

Ambrose braced himself for punishment. He didn’t understand this world at all, but he understood he’d made a grave error.

Emery pulled something from his tithe belt.

He slapped the magic together like he was performing something as mundane as brewing tea.

The glass caught in Ambrose’s clothes and scattered over the ground floated back into the frame of the “car” and reassembled itself, flashing with heat before it fused into a single pane.

The girl inside huffed, gathering her things and flinging open the door on her side, revealing just how little peril she’d really been in.

She hurried away from them with the air of someone who didn’t have time for nonsense this early in the morning.

Ambrose wished he could be so unbothered. Adrenaline still made his heart beat thunderously. He’d truly thought they’d been in danger. Worse than that, his outburst had attracted attention, the din of the grounds gone eerily quiet as people looked on curiously.

He loathed to think what depths of creative punishment Emery would conjure as recompense for this mistake.

“That was a bit of an overreaction, don’t you think?”

Ambrose hated simpering, but Emery had killed his familiar—he could do worse to Ambrose if he didn’t beg for pardon. He started to kneel. “Gravest apologies. It was my mistake, and I’ll accept any punishment you deem justifi—”

“Please get up. This is already a scene; let’s not make it a pantomime.”

Ambrose paused. Exasperation was preferable to the fury he’d anticipated. He straightened. “Yes. You’re very gracious, my—” He wasn’t sure how to address Emery. “Sir, you never gave me your titles.”

“I understand that you might be experiencing a level of culture shock hitherto unbeknownst to mankind,” Emery said, “but please try to keep the melodramatics to a minimum. Dragons are extinct, we no longer believe in the divine right of kings, and unless I tell you otherwise, we aren’t in danger.

My mistake for not clarifying. I did bring you here to protect me, but the threat is far more insidious and subtle than—I cannot believe I am about to say this— steel dragons .

I unfortunately can’t beam information into the withering brain cells left to you after several centuries of breathing grave dirt, but try to keep up.

I’m going to conjuration class, not walking into the lion’s den. ”

Ambrose accepted the rebuke with a bowed head and shame curdling in his heart. His name had once been uttered amongst the names of heroes and legendary warriors. He’d been brave bordering on fearless. What was he now?

He said, “It will not happen again.”

Emery, still staring at him, said under his breath, “Hell, don’t look so woeful. You’re the Grim Wolf, but I feel like I’ve kicked a puppy.”

Ambrose perked up and smiled obligingly. “Yes, sir.”

“It’s Emery. Just Emery.” He gestured to the castle Ambrose had once called home and said, “Welcome to Bellgrave.”

Ambrose followed Emery into the castle, now a school for witches.

While the exterior still looked like an old friend, the inside was just as bizarre as the people and technology populating it.

Posters and art projects covered the walls.

Little shops and restaurants with fragrant food he didn’t recognize pocked each alcove.

Strangest of all, ghostly rats scurried through the halls en masse, hanging about darkened corners, up on eaves, sometimes passing through the feet of students, making them shiver.

“Is any of it familiar to you?” Emery said.

“I don’t recall the rats,” Ambrose answered.

“No, you wouldn’t. They’re new.”

Ambrose might have asked after the story behind them, but everywhere eyes were on them. They didn’t stare at Ambrose’s spell scars and runes, which were covered. They stared at Emery. More accurately, at the absence of his familiar. They whispered, shying away like a school of herring from a shark.

One particular witch waited in an arched alcove.

At a glance, she bore a resemblance to Emery, wearing an expression that looked the way poison tasted, her short hair threaded with white.

Her eyes were ice chips, her lips painted the color of wine.

A brown stoat, turning white for winter, sat perched on her shoulder, watching their approach.

“So the word going ’round is true,” she said. “Emery Vale tithed his own familiar.”

“Don’t pretend you’re surprised, Hellebore,” Emery said. “You’re not a halfway decent actor, and I expect you’re the one who’s told everyone.”

Ambrose stiffened. Hellebore, Emery’s rival, the one Ambrose was meant to protect him from.

“Who’s this?” Hellebore said.

“This is my cousin.” Emery put deliberate affectation into his voice, the implication clear. I’m lying. Ask me why.

Hellebore’s glass stare went up and down Ambrose’s body. “Does he have a sister?”

Ambrose was not the cleverest of souls, but he wasn’t witless enough to miss the sensual twist of her mouth or the implication that she’d find a woman who bore his familial resemblance more attractive. Instead of feeling flattery, it hit him with another cold wash of uncertainty.

His own … predilections had been far from acceptable in his time, yet Hellebore displayed hers without a twinge of fear that Emery might wield this information against her. It was not the first clue to make him wonder whether this world had changed in ways he might prefer.

Then Emery made a noise of disgust, and that glimmer of hope winked out.

“If he had one, Hells, you’d probably have already fucked her, so let’s skip the lechery and move on to proper introductions.

Ambrose, meet Hellebore. Hellebore—” He paused, assessing where they were, their surroundings.

No passing students could see the intricacies of their interaction in the alcove.

When his eyes met Ambrose’s, there was a silent order in them. Scare her. “Meet Ambrose.”

Ambrose deliberated quickly. He was unaccustomed to using his powers against women, and he had no idea if Hellebore deserved Emery’s ire. She hadn’t threatened them so far. What’s more, Emery didn’t wish to reveal Ambrose’s identity, so he might refrain from using the compulsion charm publicly.

Yet Ambrose had erred once already today. He needed Emery’s goodwill if he hoped to gain knowledge for the witch king’s resurrection.

In the end, obedience was a comforting habit to fall back to.

He took Hellebore’s hand to shake. The moment they touched, magic sweated his palm into something ephemeral, and he seized delicate bones in his fist. If he squeezed, they’d splinter.

It sickened him like it always had, but it was also gratifying, fortifying, familiar in a way nothing in this world had been, when Hellebore’s face waxed with terror, and something inside him feasted on her fear.