Page 29 of Spellcaster (Weatherstone College #1)

When we returned to Weatherstone on Sunday, a tingle of energy crashed into me so hard I almost tripped and fell on the cobbled

pathway. “Whoa, Pais.” Trevor caught my arm as I stumbled. “Are you okay?”

Straightening, I rubbed the back of my neck, trying to dispel the overload I’d been hit with. “My body appears to have forgotten

how strong the magical energy inside is,” I said, trying to laugh it off. “I’ll be fine once I adjust.”

My siblings stared at me with varying degrees of concern. “I’m fine,” I repeated, with a little more force. “I’ve always been

sensitive to the magic here. No doubt because my own magic is a finnicky bitch who wants to keep playing the affinity field.

Girl needs to settle down, but she’s just not ready.”

With a soft snort, Jensen took pity on me, removing Trevor’s hand with a flick of his energy. “Leave her alone, guys. Paisley

is more than capable of dealing with her own shit, and she’ll come to us if she needs us.”

He wrapped his arm around my shoulders, getting us moving again. “Thank you,” I murmured, as we joined the crowd of other

witches and warlocks returning from break.

Dad wouldn’t be back until tomorrow, so thankfully he’d missed my stumble. My siblings’ suspicions were already hard enough

to navigate, but it wasn’t anything new to be affected by Weatherstone’s energy. That one just took me by surprise.

“You will come to us if you need us, right?” Jensen said, for my ears alone. “If you know anything about these monsters, sis, you need to tell someone. Don’t take this on alone. That’s why you have a family, so we can support you.”

He was always able to read me the best of my siblings. “I will come to you, I promise.”

The second I had anything concrete to share with them, I would, but all I had now were questions. Jensen squeezed my shoulders,

and we walked the rest of the way in a comfortable silence. My family left me at my dorm, and I hadn’t even made it past the

threshold before Belle came barreling at me, throwing her arms around me. “Witch, I missed you!” she cried, and I hugged her

tightly.

“I missed you too.”

She followed me into my room and flopped down on my bed, watching as I added the four crystals I’d brought from home to my

collection, along with my new necklaces. I’d also thrown in a pile of the photos, wanting to read through the notes Gran had

jotted on the back of each in her sloping writing.

“Hope you had a nice break,” Belle said. “Mom showed up and it was so good to see her. Dad worked for ninety percent of the

holiday, so there was no need to split my time.”

Belle was closer to her mom, and counted India more as home than here. She’d told me she planned on trying to find a coven

there as well as in America, so she’d still always be part of both worlds.

“That’s frustrating with your dad,” I said, dropping into my desk chair. “He works a lot, doesn’t he?”

“All the time,” she grumbled. “Fairly certain that’s why my parents got divorced. Oh, he’s also stubborn and calculating,

and able to suppress emotions with the skill of a sociopath. Compounding factors, I’m sure.”

“I think that goes with the territory of being an elder. It can’t be easy keeping all the magic assholes across America in line.” It took a lot of magic, and attention to detail, to make sure the covens remained safe, and operating within the rules of our covenant.

Belle snorted. “Oh, I know. He tells me all the freaking time. The only time we did talk this time was about the Magic Covenant.”

The covenant was an ancient set of rules, blessed by witches and warlocks of the twelfth century. It had been amended and

adjusted to modernize over the years, but the basic principles remained the same.

“What’s happening with it?”

She blinked at me. “You know... I don’t even remember. I tuned him out for most of it, but I can assure you, it was as

dreadfully boring as you’d imagine.”

I tried really hard not to laugh, because her dad’s attitude hurt her deep down. “Maybe next holiday you can come stay with

the Hallistars.”

Belle’s entire face lit up, her flawless skin shining. “That would be amazing. Your family sounds like a fucking dream. Hard

to believe they’re even real.”

We weren’t perfect, but I’d fight the goddess herself for them.

Pulling herself higher, Belle was focused in a way she hadn’t been a second ago. “Okay, our evil-monster-creator problem.

What’s the next move?”

“More research, I’m sure,” I said, but in reality we’d almost tapped out the library’s resources. “And I’m going to spend

a little more time keeping an eye on Logan.”

Her eyes snapped to me. “You going deep-cover-007? Seduce that spellcaster, please.”

I groaned through my laughter. “You’re terrible. As de lightful as that seems, I prefer to fuck warlocks who don’t hate my guts.”

She tilted her head, this smug little smile on her face. “Come on, bestie. We’re past the point of lying to each other. There’s

a lot between you and Logan, for sure, and some of it might very well be hate, but it’s not the strongest emotion. Not by

a long shot.”

I chose not to address her insinuations. “He’s hiding a lot of shit. I’m going to figure that spellcaster out.”

Her lips twitched, but she let it go. “Dad said that it won’t be long until they wrap up their investigation, and then the

college will incorporate a blanket of energy while they conduct external searches. If that happens, not even Logan will be

able to perform the sort of magic to create the monsters.”

We were on a time crunch, and while a blanket spell over Weatherstone would make us safer, it wouldn’t solve the problem of

who was behind it. Despite their hopes, I was under no delusion that the professors or the council were going to figure it

out. Not after this amount of time.

“Okay, so research and stalking the spellcaster.” Belle nodded, nothing but confidence in her expression. “I’m cool with these

next steps.” She bounced off my bed, smacked a kiss on my cheek, and said, “See you in the morning.”

After her abrupt departure, I got ready for bed, and when I was snuggled under the covers I looked through the photos from

Gran’s box. There was enough light through the window for me to just make out the words.

On the moonstone she’d penned: Don’t use in the height of the moon, because the power is too great. The amethyst stated: Strongest when teamed with aquamarine, for true power boost. The jade: Deadly to those who wish you harm. The agate: Will call strongest.

There were quite a few others, and with each image came the real sense that my obsession with crystals might have more to do with my magic than I’d ever believed.

Were there witches and warlocks out there who did use crystals to strengthen their affinity?

Had Gran been one? If that was possibly true, why had I never heard of them before, and which affinity did they mainly fall into?

Maybe that was part of the issue with my energy lock and finding the perfect key.

Next time we had a weekend at home, I’d ask Mom if I could read the letters she’d been left. Maybe there were answers in them

after all.

Classes started with a bang the next day, the professors informing us that we were over halfway through our freshman year,

and if we wanted to make it to sophomore year we should have started studying two months ago. “Not like we’ve been dealing

with monsters and murders,” Sara muttered from my right, as we desperately took notes in Flora and Fauna Studies.

Apparently, that was a fail out of freshman year attitude, and from that point on we were nose to books, trying to catch up on all the spells we should know by now. My plan

to tail Logan had to take a slight back seat due to the sheer workload we were handed, but we did have one of his rare spellcaster

classes coming up soon. It wasn’t really an ideal place to observe him, but it was a start.

“This is weird, right?” Haley whispered, clutching her Kindle to her chest. Her textbooks banged at her side in her satchel,

but her Kindle was always safely in her hands. “We haven’t had a spellcaster lesson in weeks. Do you think it’s because of

the attacks?”

“That’s what I’m assuming,” Belle added, as we hurried through the halls. “Maybe he’s going to give us some tips on how to

stay safe.”

Ironic if he was the bastard creating the monsters.

The class was full and weirdly quiet, with only a few low whispers as we entered. Since the attack, there was a sense of unease filtering through day-to-day life, and with no answers forthcoming, the tension continued to ramp right up.

A few minutes later Logan strolled in, confident as always, as if he owned the college. My traitorous hormones did a stupid

flip at the sight of him, heat settling low in my body as I noticed the way his uniform stretched across his broad shoulders

as he walked.

Evil or not, the outside was perfection.

His dark hair was shorter, artfully messed on top of his head, as those icy eyes surveyed the room. “Quiet down.” His expression

was flat. “Headmaster Gregor has asked me to add another class to explain how I destroyed the creature in the hallway.” He

shrugged off his jacket, presumably to counter the slightly warmer than expected day, and draped it over a nearby chair. When

he rolled up the sleeves of his shirt, my mouth went dry, while other parts of me very much did not .

He had tattoos.

I’d never noticed before under his full uniform, but with each roll of that white shirt, more of his colored ink came into

view. It wrapped around his wrists and spanned up to where the shirt cut off on his forearms. Belle cleared her throat and

shifted in her chair until her mouth was right near my ear. “Excuse the fuck out of me? He has tatts too. Unfair. We should

riot.”

I was too busy smacking my hormones down to respond, but rioting didn’t sound like the worst idea.

Logan ignored the girls fawning over him like the arrogant shit he was. “The amount of power it required to banish that creature

is more than most of you will ever know. But I’ll explain the process to you, nonetheless. Just don’t expect to survive an

attack using this alone.”

With that uplifting pep talk behind us, Logan went on to demonstrate how he drew upon various energy sources to blast the creature into pieces.

That was the first time I realized he hadn’t banished it, or reversed the spell used to create it, he’d simply injected enough power to literally disintegrate it.

“He’s genuinely terrifying,” Haley murmured, her voice wavering.

“Would still fuck him though,” Sara said casually, keeping her voice low. “He’s very fuckable.”

Belle scoffed. “Guys, come on. He might be evil. Get some standards.” I side-eyed her since she was constantly talking about

me taking a roll in the old enemies-to-lovers trope.

Sara shrugged again. “I mean, I wouldn’t take him home to meet the family, but I feel like he’d destroy me for all other warlocks.

I’m in a dry spell. I could use some destruction.”

All of us were single, Belle’s and Sara’s previous situationships had fizzled out. At least Haley and I weren’t alone in our

angst any longer. In some ways, college was exactly as I’d expected, but in others there was way less sex.

By the time the lecture was over, there wasn’t a single witch or warlock under the misconception that they could destroy those

monsters. We walked out feeling slightly inadequate and entirely terrified of spellcasters. “I’ve got water studies by the

lake,” Belle said when we reached the hall.

Sara nodded. “I’ve got air with Professor Damone.”

Haley hitched her bag higher. “Yeah, I’m going to be late for my daily stroll through the forest.”

“We’re doing fucking excellent at this sticking-together thing,” I said with a shake of my head.

Belle’s shrug was casual. “At least it’s the middle of the day and we’re surrounded by students. Meet you all for dinner?”

“See you then,” we chorused, and all of those with affini ties and specialty classes took off, leaving me to figure out the rest of my afternoon.

A plan fell into place when I caught sight of a tall, dark-haired spellcaster in the hallway. He’d been held up by a few students

who wanted to fawn over him, but he’d brushed them off and was out of there.

Hitching my bag on my shoulder, I tried not to act suspicious as I casually strolled through the crowds of students, following

him. He left Writworth and headed into Ancot, and I let out a disappointed sigh when he entered the darker hallway of Nightrealm.

Peeking through the curtains, because there was no way this would work if I didn’t take risks, I caught a glimpse of him placing

his palm on his door scanner, and jerked back before he could turn and see me there.

I couldn’t follow him into his room, so I spent a solid minute cursing at the ornate curtain, trying to decide what the Hel

to do now.

“Are you okay?”

I jumped a good foot, embarrassing myself completely. If the warlock behind me had been a monster, I’d be dead. Spinning,

I lifted my gaze up and up. “Noah,” I bit out. “What the fuck are you doing?”

He showed no reaction to my rude response, just watched me in that calculating way. It took real effort, but I managed to

hide how intimidated I felt around him. He was as scary as Logan, and considering he wasn’t a spellcaster... Maybe it was

his sheer size. He was a beast of a warlock, with an unsettling energy.

I’d never even seen him talk to anyone except Logan.

And now me.

“I’m trying to get into my dorm,” he replied in a calm rumble. Unlike Logan, he had absolutely no accent, as if he’d been trained to conceal everything about his origin. “You’re staring at the curtains like they’re hiding a monster from you.” He peered through them. “Did you see another monster?”

For a crazy moment, I imagined a hint of concern in his voice. “No monster,” I said, easily. Not entirely true, but Logan

wasn’t the sort of monster he was referring to. “Do you know anything about the monsters? Any idea who might be creating them?”

The slightest of smiles played at the corners of his lips, but it was gone just as fast. “I know as much as you, Paisley Hallistar.

And it might be best if you don’t wander the halls alone, especially not in Nightrealm.”

It was hard to tell if that was a threat or concern for my safety. “Don’t worry, big guy.” I patted his hard chest, and he

glanced down at my hand, as if unsure what the fuck I was doing. Snatching it back quickly, I cleared my throat. “I’ve got

no plans to get myself eaten by a monster. I’ll see you around.”

Forcing myself not to race away, I could feel his eyes on me all the way along Aura. I had no idea what to make of that odd

encounter, but at least Logan hadn’t caught me, which meant my stalking plan was still in motion.