Page 13 of Reluctant Witch (A Course in Magic #2)

13

Dan

Dan had decided to use the hidden library at Crenshaw Castle as his personal meeting space. Technically, the students ought to still be unaware of its existence, but Dan had been sharing the knowledge of it with other witches. Today there were roughly a dozen witches in the library with him, and it made Dan feel pleasantly rebellious to have let that many people know about it. Knowledge ought to be freely accessible, and only a corrupt soul would lock away books.

Maybe Dan was wrestling with his own sins a little, and maybe telling others about the library was a little bit of salve on his guilty conscience. Still, he was pleased that others were happy to be here. So far, the vast space was occupied solely by remedial witches, but the library was more and more active every week—although no faculty came here, and no one from the village visited. No hobs, either.

Axell, his sort-of, maybe, kind-of boyfriend, asked, “Are you okay?”

Dan nodded. It was the truth, more or less. He was “okay,” but since he’d done a Bad Thing to witches he’d been trying to make into his friends, he never felt quite “okay.”

It was that or risk being booted out of Crenshaw. It was that or have his friends face near-certain death. Dan could explain his actions away, but he still thought he’d been wrong to help enforce Crenshaw’s ruling body’s decision.

And I can’t even talk about it with anyone.

So he hid away in the library and read up on the history of the magical world.

Inside the hidden library, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, complete with rolling ladders, lined all the walls, creating a veritable fortress of books. Circular shelves jutted out in a pattern that was a bit too much like ribs for his comfort. But the important thing was that there were tables, cushy seats, and a few desks that appeared to have translucent bubbles over them for privacy. Not exactly privacy of the “let’s get naked in the library” way, but the study bubbles were great for private conversation.

If a person wanted to research, as Dan had lately, there were three of Ramelli’s sixteenth-century bookwheels. He could have multiple books open at once. Nothing so far offered much in the way of explanations for the sludge in the woods, why he was able to boost magic, or even why Axell could make them invisible. The library was surprisingly low on the magical information he needed for answering his precise questions, but everything he’d read led to new ideas. So it wasn’t a “topic to answer” sort of organization that he’d found in the library, more of a meandering sort of knowledge-gathering that made Dan fairly sure the library needed a team of librarians.

But he hadn’t come anywhere near exhausting the information yet, and he was no longer someone Elleanor Brandeau even remembered, so he hadn’t figured out how to approach her and say, “I found a library that desperately needs a flock of librarians.”

A fleet?

An encyclopedia?

What was a group of librarians called?

A knowledge?

A catalogue?

A coven?

Dan briefly mused that maybe witch brains were all ADHD, because his own thought processes seemed increasingly nonlinear.

“Does magic rewire the brain?” he said aloud, and then he felt a vague tug in his center toward a shelf with a book called Neuromagical Intervention. It was tucked between a book called Daydreaming for Divas, which looked like a spicy romance, and a book on Mental Magic for More Magical Ministrations, the cover of which hinted that it was on sex magic.

Of course that was the one in his hand when Axell joined him.

“Perhaps a bit more advanced than where we are,” Axell mused. “First we should have sex, perhaps?”

Dan’s face flushed. “I wasn’t… that was… I was looking at this one!” He grabbed at Neuromagical Intervention but instead pulled Daydreaming for Divas off the shelf. “I was thinking about something else, not sex.”

Axell laughed softly. “Such a shame. I think you are thinking of it now, though.”

“Well, you just said we should have sex.”

“We should. I think if you are feeling romantic, Daniel, we can go somewhere else.…”

Dan glanced down at the paperback in his hand. “Damn it. Not this one.” He jabbed the neuromagical book. “This. I was wondering about brain magic. This is what I was trying to grab.”

“Ah.” Axell nodded once. “Less fun. Like the scary witch. She is not what I think about if I want to feel like getting naked.”

And Dan couldn’t argue with that. Lady Prospero was the reason he was thinking about mental magic. Helping her erase Ellie’s and Maggie’s minds was probably the worst thing he’d ever done, and it was impossible to stop thinking about it.

Am I a bad witch?

Was helping her for my own gain my start to being a villain?

Could I have done something different?

Part of his mind argued that what was done was done, but examining our past was how we planned our future. He knew that without doubt. He had been faced with a choice, and he couldn’t help but think he’d made the wrong one.

How will I respond next time?

He wished he could lie and say he had a plan, but the truth was that he still couldn’t say. Here he was safe. Here Ellie and Maggie were safe. They looked happy-ish. He had rolled the details over in his mind and had no clearer sense of what he should, could, would do differently if given the same choice today.

“I need to talk to you,” Dan started. If he was going to try a relationship with Axell, surely he could talk about what he did.

What if he doesn’t want you? a little voice asked. Self-doubt was his thing, his gift. Maybe that’s my magic? But how?

Before Axell answered, Dan felt like something slithered over his entire body—something from outside him. Fear? Warning? Magic? He wasn’t sure what it was, but he paused and looked around at the other students in the library. Every last one of them paused, glanced around, or tensed. Whatever it was, they’d all felt it.

“Daniel?” Axell reached a hand toward him, as if the urge to vanish was instinctive. The beautiful Norwegian singer had a musical magic, but he had a secondary ability to make them vanish if they were touching.

“I felt it.” Dan stepped a bit farther out of reach. Louder he asked, “Everyone feel that?”

Murmurs greeted him. Their peculiar study group had become the basis for the first real group of friends he’d had in his life. Witches, all of them.

Headed his way was Ana, a rather terrifying grandmotherly woman when they’d met, but she’d been aging backward fast enough that it was easy to forget that she was twice his age. She now looked his age.

“Call one of your hob friends,” she said.

“You’re awfully pushy for such a young woman.” He gave her a once-over, noting that a few more years had vanished from her face. “A nice girl like you…”

She chortled. Her long hair was ink black now instead of the gray it had been when they’d met a few weeks ago. Back then, she looked like a lot of grannies in the Southwestern states. That long hair was braided and twisted up in a graying bun, and her brown skin was lined with wrinkles. Her gaze was eerily observant both then and now, but now her skin was without line or scar. The magic that lived in all witches had clearly already changed her age.

“Still your elder, Daniel.” Ana’s voice was stronger, too. Magic agreed with her. “And something is wrong. I can’t feel anything outside the castle.”

“You could feel outside before now?” Axell asked from behind Dan’s shoulder.

“Yes.” She shrugged. “I am not meant for being inside, and the earth calls me. Just like everyone else in my house. Right, Silas?”

A beefy guy raised his hand in a thumbs-up gesture. “Not now that the thing slithered over the building. Like a bug net.”

Bug net? Dan wasn’t too keen on being compared to bugs.

Dominique, a typically quiet student, said, “I don’t feel that, but there’s someone very very sick in the infirmary. I feel that more and more.” She glanced at Axell. “You are not well lately. I don’t know why, though. It’s like being itchy?”

Axell glanced away and crossed his arms over his chest.

“Did you bring more things in your bag?” Dan asked him quietly. Axell’s near death had been from an overdose after a concert. He had, apparently, not coped particularly well with his success. The idea that he’d use again was baffling.

“Just a little that was in my pockets,” Axell whispered.

“Seriously?” Dan glared. His voice grew louder. “And you used it?”

As much as he was astounded that the strikingly handsome man found him attractive, Dan was equally cautious about their budding relationship. Axell was a rock star—if such words applied to men who courted a Viking mystique. He had a long ponytail that was always bound by a series of silver clips every few inches. The sides of his head were shaved smooth enough that Dan often found himself absently stroking them. Axell’s beard was long and divided into several thick braids with more metal clips.

But under the persona, under the muscles that Dan found painfully distracting, was a man who had a level of insecurity that rivaled Dan’s own. That was the root of the addiction that seemed to linger even though it had almost killed him.

Apparently not all illnesses are healed by magic. Disability wasn’t, and so far mental illnesses like PTSD and addiction were untouched by magic. What magic healed were the things like aging and diseases like cancer and heart disease. Guilt wasn’t erased by magic, either.

“You got a second chance, and you shoved a needle in your arm again?” Dan whispered.

“Do not judge, Daniel. You are not free of mistakes,” Axell muttered.

Does he know? Dan hadn’t yet told him that he been party to erasing the memories of two of their classmates. He’d not done so on his own or even as his own idea, but still, he was guilty. Now, he awkwardly avoided Ellie Brandeau and Maggie Lynch because of his actions. They could’ve been friends, but now… they don’t even know my name. He wasn’t sure what all had been erased, so it was easier to stay away from them.

“Should we head to our rooms?” Sam, another of the remedial witches, asked from under their usual pile of wool. They had found a drop spindle and somehow acquired a bag of wool. It seemed an odd hobby to Dan, but Sam toted the spindle and wool around like it was an extension of their body. Currently, they were doing something that looked like attacking the wool with a pair of metal-toothed brushes.

Ana began, “Maybe someone ought to see the headmaster—”

“And what would that conversation look like?” the headmaster in terrupted from behind Dan. He stood in the doorway, seemingly larger than normal. He was a former soldier and a brawler.

Sometimes, he was almost Dan’s friend. Today didn’t feel like such a day.

“We’d ask you why I suddenly can’t feel nature,” Ana said without missing a beat. “It feels like a fence or closed door between me and out there.”

The headmaster let out a noise that was likely a muttered cuss word. Then he looked around the room. “That feeling was my magic. I put up a shield to keep you safe from harm. No outsider can enter the castle without eliminating the magic that controls it.”

Sondre did not say that he was putting his own safety at risk, but if he was the source of that magic, Dan heard the truth all the same. The headmaster was standing between them and whatever dangers were outside Crenshaw Castle. Extension magic had been addressed in a book Dan read last Thursday.

Sondre added, “You are safe within the castle. You can gather in the common areas and continue to enjoy the library freely since you’ve found it, but no one leaves the castle until I tell you that it’s safe. Please notify any witch you encounter.”

“Safe?” Dan echoed. “Are we expecting to be under attack?”

“Perhaps, Mr. Monahan. The barrier that hides our world was taken down this morning.” Sondre paused as murmurs rippled around the library.

“How?” Dan pressed. “And what does it mean?” The barrier was obviously another case of extension magic. “If the barrier fell, is Lord Scy—”

“Hush.” Sondre pinched the bridge of his nose like he could chase a headache away. “It means that you all stay in the castle in case we can’t get it fixed before they find Crenshaw.” He made a summoning gesture at Dan. “It also means I need you in the infirmary to help Dr. Jemison.”

“Can’t Lord Scylla maintain the barrier?” Axell asked.

“Lord Scylla is in the infirmary,” Sondre said. “Her house will do what they can.” Sondre’s gaze swept the room, and for a moment, Dan was relieved that this man was the one who would keep them safe.

“Don’t test this rule,” Sondre said, voice stern in a way that made every eye in the room fix on him. “Lord Scylla was gravely injured. In case you haven’t heard rumors, there are factions in Crenshaw, and one of them just declared war.”

“War?” someone echoed in a strained voice.

“If any of you are considering being siphoned, now is a good time to request that.” Sondre glanced at Axell pointedly, and his gaze stayed there long enough that everyone had to notice. “Some of you could be siphoned easily.

“Others could not survive it.” Sondre’s gaze then fell on Sam, who shrugged as if this was of no interest. “Whatever you choose, know that you are safer in the castle than out of it.”

Axell reached out and took Dan’s hand. Quietly, he said, “I made a mistake, Daniel. I am not leaving here.”

Dan squeezed his hand back. “I don’t want you to leave.” Despite both of their insecurities, Dan thought they had a shot at a real connection. “Stay with me, and—”

“Monahan,” the headmaster called out. “Let’s go. The rest of you ought to be in class, not frittering in the library. Go on.”

To Dan’s surprise, Axell wove his fingers between Dan’s and said, “I go where you go.”

The headmaster looked at their hands and shrugged. “He wants to fail classes, that’s on him. However, he can’t go inside the infirmary. Essential personnel only. That’s you, Monahan, not your boyfriend.”

That was all Sondre said, though. He pushed open the library door and marched down the hall. The headmaster was often gruff, but he was exceptionally so today. The thought of war made Dan shiver, but knowing that Sondre was what stood between the school and threat made that fear ebb somewhat. Whatever else anyone could say about the man, he was both brave and intimidating.

“We will protect our home,” Axell said, keeping pace with Dan as they trailed after Sondre. “I will be here at your side.”

Dan glanced at Axell’s elbow. “No more of that ? It’s not in this world, so if that’s what you want…”

“You’re all the drug I need.” Axell gave him a look that was far more pulse-quickening than he ought to be able to manage. “Say the word, and I’ll show you.”

Face burning, Dan looked away. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to cross that line, but every other man who’d been in his bed had been just a hookup. What if that was because he was disappointing? What if he was too skinny? Too sickly? Too boring? He wanted to be sure that whatever this was between them, it was real.

But Axell wasn’t used to rejection.

If I say yes, will his interest end?

If I keep saying no, will it wane anyhow?

The thought of this world being in peril ought to have been Dan’s only concern, but neither his heart nor other parts was willing to ignore the Norwegian dilemma at his side.