Page 37 of Spellcaster (Weatherstone College #1)
The next day started off slow, and I couldn’t remember the last time I felt this tired.
“Excellent job, Donna.” Professor Damone clapped her hands, sending gusts of air across the classroom.
Donna was a petite witch with dirty-blond hair, who’d reached the point of gathering air around herself and twirling it into
a mini tornado. She was halfway up one of the cylindrical glass tubes, storm energy surrounding her. Students always stayed
behind the glass because their control was shit.
“Nice work for you as well, Paisley,” the professor said kindly, as I managed to extinguish a candle with a swish of my hand.
Donna and I, we were totally the same.
“You’re using the element at least,” Sara said, yawning widely. “You manage to touch most affinities in class. I don’t understand
why nothing stands out a little stronger.”
“I have power.” I was finally sure of that. “It’s just locked away, and I haven’t figured out the freaking key.”
“You’ll get—” Her words were cut off by another huge yawn.
Waving the flame out again, I chuckled. “Late night?”
She all but slumped forward onto her arms. “You have no idea. My parents stayed until the midnight cutoff, and then I couldn’t
fall asleep.”
I’d been expecting a more exciting story, but that one was kind of cute. “I’m glad you got to see them.”
Her smile was gentle, eyes glassy with what looked like happy memories. “Mom never wanted me to leave for college. She wasn’t
ready, but it was so nice to catch up with them. Being here, with all the drama and coursework, I forgot how it feels to be
with people who love me unconditionally. I needed this weekend with them.”
I nudged her. “Hey, I love you unconditionally.”
She managed to crack one of her eyelids to peer at me as she blew me a kiss. “Love you too, bestie. But you know what I mean.”
“Yep, I was on the phone with Mom this morning. The transition is harder than I expected.”
During our call, Mom had assured me she was okay. He’s always like that, honey. It’s nothing new. I’m just excited to get started on this new yarn pattern I found. And my seeds
should arrive this week. She’d sounded the same, her voice light and open, but I was under no illusion. She would put on an act to keep me from dealing
with her drama, and no matter what she said, yesterday had been difficult for her.
When Sara and I were finished with our elemental class, we hurried along to History of Necromancy.
I’d never expected to enjoy this class, but it was turning into one of my favorites. Professor Jones had this way of revealing
history to us, almost as if it was a thriller novel and we had no idea what was coming next. It was cleverly done, keeping
me hooked, and I enjoyed learning more about Weatherstone and its ties to necromancy.
A lot of my necromancy classes were becoming fast favorites.
On Friday, when we’d been in Necromancy in the Wild and one of the students had accidentally unearthed bodies from their graves, I’d found myself intrigued rather than disgusted.
Professor Longhorn got it sorted in a few seconds, of course, and then proceeded to show us how to sample from the energy of the undead but don’t call them topside . An important lesson to learn.
When we raised the dead, they were nothing more than animated corpses. There was no magic to return them to who they’d been
before death. The worst part was if you lost control of them, you were in big trouble. Think zombies munching on people and
all the bad stuff.
In History of Necromancy, Belle and Haley had saved us seats, so we settled in next to them and waited for Professor Jones.
Logan strolled in late, the top two buttons of his shirt undone, and no tie, because he didn’t care much for their rules here.
He also got away with it.
He never looked my way, but I felt his presence as if he’d sat by my side. My body recognized his energy now, and it was starting
to become a problem. Just like my current hoodie obsession.
“Okay, where did we leave off last lesson?” Professor Jones said, a thankful distraction as he tapped the side of his face.
“Oh, right. We’ve finished going back through their childhoods, the covens from that age, and now we will continue with Writworth
and Ancot arriving in the Americas. They’d just battled the deadly seas, saving themselves with their magic many times. With
salt in their hair, and determination in their hearts, they traveled our amazing country, searching for a beacon of power
to call their own.”
His eyes twinkled. “Does anyone know why this is the location they chose for Weatherstone?”
“Not yet,” a witch in the front row said. “We’re waiting for the big reveal.”
“Right, right.” He nodded, as students laughed.
“They’d been traveling for months, trusting no one, as you know they’d been hunted from their country of birth.
They were determined never to allow another to have that power over them again, so they searched for an area where the veil between the living and dead, the five planes of our existence, was thinner. ”
A shiver traced my spine once more, but it was muted thanks to the blanket.
“They decided building an army was the key to success,” he continued. “When they stumbled onto this plot of land, it was sparse,
almost barren outside of the surrounding forests. That piqued their curiosity, so they set foot on it only to feel the plethora
of death that had taken place. So much death that no vegetation had regrown in the blood-soaked fields.”
Goose bumps added to the shivers down my spine, but I was intensely hooked.
“Ten thousand perished here in the two-year conflict,” Professor Jones’s whisper still boomed somehow, “and as this soil absorbed
the bodies and blood of the fallen, it left behind an energy that called to the necromancers.”
No wonder it was the most prestigious college in America, if not the entire world. There was an energy of death here, and
life forces were the strongest energy of all.
“They called the dead first to be their army, to protect them and build the original buildings for the college. From the moment
they came up with their plan, they decided that for an army to be truly loyal, they needed to be the ones to train them. So,
the college was born. They sent magical envoys across the worlds and invited all witches and warlocks, provided they had enough
power, of course.”
Of course. No one wanted an army filled with weaklings.
“Across the world?” someone asked. “Before they had transports to get around so easily?”
Professor Jones nodded. “Oh, yes. It took near another year before students arrived, and then ten more years before the college grew in reputation, and they no longer had to recruit.”
“And so their training began,” Logan drawled. “Until they created their own version of the power and control which had been
stolen from them.”
Professor Jones observed the spellcaster for a beat. “Why, yes. Favoring necromancy, as was to be expected, to contain the
absolute plethora of death that exists below our feet. If a headmaster controlled this school who wasn’t a necromancer, who
knows what might happen.”
That made me think about the monsters I thought I saw last night. “Did you feel the blanket drop around the school last night?”
I whispered to Belle.
She lifted her head from where she was taking notes, giving me an assessing look. “No, I didn’t. What time? I can check with
Dad.”
Yeah, he was about the last person I wanted to discuss any of this with now. “It’s okay, don’t bother your dad about it.”
I shot her a reassuring smile. “Totally not important.”
She narrowed her eyes but didn’t argue, finishing her notes as the professor wrapped his story for the day. The bell chimed,
so it was time for lunch, and then water class by the lake. I still sat out of this lesson, so I decided to skip and take
the time to research—I needed to find the book Elder Monroe had mentioned.
He’d been trying to make a point, and I wanted to know what it was.
“Ready for lunch?” Belle asked as we exited into the hallway.
“Yep,” I said in a rush, my stomach grumbling. “I just need to visit the library quickly—but I’ll meet you there.”
“Actually, she won’t be meeting you. Hurry along, little water elemental.”
Belle’s mouth fell open at the interruption, and before I could blink there was a warlock on either side of me.
Mint and evergreen intermingled with leather and oak as their strong energies collided with mine.
Tilting my head back, I wasn’t surprised to see Logan and Noah caging me between them, but just because I wasn’t surprised didn’t mean everyone else wasn’t.
The noise and traffic ground to a halt around us, and I ground my teeth in response.
“Excuse me.” I injected every ounce of go fuck yourselves into those two words. “Are you two in charge of my schedule now?”
“We are,” Logan confirmed cheerfully, “and you’re booked in for extra training.”
My friends stood there, looking between me and the boys, no doubt wondering what I wanted them to do. “How does ‘fuck off’
sound? It has a certain ring to it, and I think you might enjoy giving it a sho—”
Logan grasped my right arm, Noah my left, and before I could drop every four-letter word in my vocabulary, they lifted me
off my feet and started marching through the hallway, students parting for them.
“Call if you need some help,” Belle yelled after us, sounding like she was laughing.
Traitor.
“No need,” I snarled. “I’ll murder them on my own.”
And enjoy every second of it.
When we reached Ancot, I cleared my throat. “You can put me down now. I get your point.” They’d expertly demonstrated that
I was a bug compared to their size and strength, and there was no way for me to fight their command. Best to just shut up
and fall in line.