Page 22 of Beastkin
Phoenix pulled at the chain around his neck, revealing nothing to our eyes but clearly something was there. “My parents gave it to me. It burns when I’m near anyone who isn’t a witch. It’s why I’m standing so far from Karrick.”
Professor Blackwood approached, taking the invisible chain in hand, studying it carefully. Then, just as quickly, she dropped it and went to her store cupboards, pulling out jars of random things until at last she let out a soft gasp. Pulling off the lid and dipping her fingers in, she walked back to Phoenix.
“Ashes,” she smiled, grabbing the necklace once more. “Sometimes the most mundane magic is the most useful.”
Taking the pendant in her ashy hand, she rubbed at it until the soot stuck, revealing what was there. I glanced over her shoulder, trying to get a better look at this tool of torment. It was such a tiny thing on a thin chain. And yet, as Professor Blackwood’s thumb swiped over the surface, I saw a symbol that filled me with fear down to my very bones.
“The Purity Front…” I whispered.
“I’m afraid so,” Professor Blackwood nodded. “I knew the Emberwoods were involved in some capacity, of course, but I didn’t know it was this extensive.” She lifted her gaze to Phoenix, giving him a pitying look. “They’re hurting you, aren’t they? I can see it on your skin.”
Phoenix stared at her for a long moment before quietly nodding his head.
“Honestly,” she sighed. “I don’t know why they even sent you here. It’s impossible to go through four years at this academy without getting sat next to a shifter or a monstrous creature. Your parents set you up to fail.” She gave him a good once over. “Or… to lose control.”
“Lose control?” he asked in a quiet voice.
“Your gifts are well known, Mr. Emberwood. There isn’t another witch I know of that has as much control over fire as you. Should you be tortured until youtrulylose control… well, you’d make the Hindenburg disaster look like nothing more than a cheap fireworks display.”
My blood ran cold at her words. Phoenix losing control? The idea of all that fire magic unleashed without restraint... I’dseen what he could do as a child, the careful way he’d practiced with small flames. But now, with years of training and pain building up inside him?
“They want me to lose control?” Phoenix whispered, his voice barely audible. The color drained from his face as the realization hit him. “That’s why they sent me here? They want me to hurt someone?”
“Or hurt yourself,” Professor Blackwood said grimly. “Either outcome would serve their purposes. A witch who loses control and harms innocents becomes a cautionary tale. One who burns himself out trying to contain his power becomes a martyr.”
I wanted to reach for Phoenix, to comfort him somehow, but I forced myself to stay back. The pendant was already causing him enough pain without me making it worse.
“But… I thought… I thought they loved me,” Phoenix whispered, looking wide-eyed around the room. “I knew they didn’t like monsters but… they loved me, right?”
Professor Blackwood nodded. “They do love you,” she replied, being especially delicate. “So much that they want you to go down in history as the witch that destroyed the Purity Front’s biggest adversary. Widdershins Academy.”
“That doesn’t sound like love,” I muttered, glaring at her back.
“To those in the Purity Front,” she sighed. “It’s as close as you can get.”
“Can you remove the damn thing then?” I asked Professor Blackwood, my voice rougher than I intended. “So Phoenix can have his life back?”
She examined the now-visible pendant more closely, her expression growing darker. “Not directly. This type of binding magic requires a replacement focus, something to absorb the connection before the original can be severed. Otherwise, the backlash could kill him.”
“You mean it’s possible?” Phoenix asked, hope creeping into his voice. “What kind of replacement?”
“A golem,” she said, moving to one of her bookshelves and pulling down a thick tome. “We create a magical construct that mimics your magical signature and is infused with your blood, transfer the pendant’s binding to it, then hide it someplace where it will never come into contact with anyone but a witch.”
She flipped through pages covered in intricate diagrams and symbols that made my head spin just looking at them.
“The process requires rare materials,” she continued. “Clay from a hundred-year-old graveyard, water blessed under a blood moon, a vial of your blood, and...” She paused, glancing up at us. “A piece of bone.”
Phoenix went even paler. “Bone?”
“Just a small fragment. A small piece of a tooth would suffice. Or I could withdraw it from a femur with relatively little pain.” Professor Blackwood’s tone was matter-of-fact, but I could see the concern in her eyes. “The real challenge is time. This ritual takes six hours to complete, and it has to be ready before the full moon. Which, as luck would have it, is tonight.”
“Tonight?” I croaked, the world seeming to tilt beneath my feet. “That’s… we don’t have time to prepare or?—”
“We need to start immediately,” Professor Blackwood interrupted, already moving to a cabinet against the far wall. “The ritual must conclude at moonrise, which gives us precisely six hours and twenty-two minutes.”
Phoenix’s eyes darted to me, wide with a mixture of hope and terror. “Won’t my parents know something is wrong? They made it seem like they can watch through my pendant too.”
“Then they lied,” Professor Blackwood said, pulling out various jars and vials from the cabinet. “The magic isn’t that strong. And lucky for you, I have all the supplies we need. Plus, I have the perfect hiding place for the golem. Mr. Thornfield owes me a favor anyway.”