Page 11 of Wicked Bonds (Serpentine Academy #1)
Ten
Rose
My next class is Elemental Magic. I keep my head up as I find my way there, and try to look like I give less of a shit than I actually do when people stare at me and my dirty t-shirt.
The classroom smells like burnt toast, vanilla, and expensive cologne, which is probably what you get when you put thirty over-privileged magical students in a room and tell them to play with fire.
There are long, scarred lab tables, each equipped with four color-coded beakers of water, miniature crucibles, and trays of sand.
On the board, in block letters, someone has written
ACTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES
The professor is a short, balding man with a bushy mustache.
He calls himself Dr. Fennel, but the students just call him Doc.
Doc doesn’t bother with roll call; he eyeballs me the moment I walk in, then moves on like he’s mentally dismissed me already.
The rest of the class is organized by species and social hierarchy.
A couple of vampires and shifters cluster at the back, the witches in the middle, and the “other” in the front row where the professor can keep an eye on them.
I grab a spot in the last empty seat, wedged between a girl with pale skin and green-tipped hair and a broad-shouldered dude whose name is Harry.
I know his name is Harry because he keeps referring to himself in the first person, like when he says ‘Harry’s partying tonight, you in? ’ to the girl next to him.
Doc starts the lesson by scrawling a pentagram on the whiteboard, labeling each point with a different element.
“Today, we practice basic synthesis. First you will create a stable elemental orb using water, earth, air, and fire. If you cannot manage this, you will fail the assignment. If you burn off your eyebrows, you will still fail, but at least you will have a story to tell.”
The class laughs. I do not.
I can’t conjure up so much as a puff of smoke, let alone an elemental orb.
We are given exactly thirty seconds to prepare before Doc snaps his fingers and says, “Go.” The room erupts in a flurry of incantations and hand gestures.
Colored lights pop and fizzle. Most students get a little marble of mud or a faint flame.
The girl to my left conjures a tiny tornado that immediately snuffs itself out.
I stare at the bowl of sand in front of me, the beaker of water, the little silver lighter, and the glass sphere.
“Focus,” I mutter, gathering the sand in my palm, letting it sift through my fingers.
I try to imagine it’s a plant, or a small animal, something I could actually keep alive. Nothing happens.
“Come on,” I whisper, feeling the mark under my sleeve start to throb. The burn is back, not as bad as the day before, but enough to make my arm itch. I reach for the lighter, strike it, and try to coax a flame into a sphere. The best I get is a weak flicker before it gutters out.
From across the table, Harry leans in. “You want me to do it for you, baby girl?” His voice is quiet, but not low enough. “You can pay me back after class. Bring a hair tie.” I hear a snicker from behind me.
“Fuck off,” I say, my teeth clenched so tight I’m sure I’ve chipped one.
I try again. This time, I pour the water into the sand, mix it until it’s sludge, and whisper the word for ‘grow’ that my mother used to use when she wanted her windowsill basil to not die on her. The mud sits there, unimpressed.
In front of us, a perfectly round orb, all four elements together in harmony, floats above someone’s desk. Doc claps his hands, delighted. “Wonderful Miss Hawthorne! Not so difficult after all, is it? Perhaps the rest of you would care to observe her technique.”
I don’t have to look to know who it is. It took less than a day to clock the cliques in this place, and the queen bee of them all.
‘Thorne’ is the girl with the braids from the blood ritual, her friends circling her like mean little moons.
She beams at the attention, then swishes her wrist, and her elemental orb spins faster, gathering momentum. The girls next to her giggle.
I glare at my pathetic lump of mud. The mark on my arm throbs, sending a sharp ribbon of pain up my shoulder. My face is hot, and I decide I hate this class, I hate this school, and I especially hate Thorne with her perfect blonde hair, non-alcohol stained clothing, and stupid magical abilities.
In a last-ditch effort, I dump the mud into the sphere, cap it, and try to force the air in the chamber to ignite. I push. Nothing. I push harder until my vision blurs and the room tilts around me. There’s a tiny pop, and the sphere shatters, splattering mud all over the table and my shirt.
Thorne claps, slow and sarcastic. “Wow, such skill, Charity. Do it again, but maybe try not to get it in your hair this time.”
“My name’s not Charity.”
“You sure?” She tilts her head and smiles. “I was sure it was Charity Case.” Her minions titter and then they all swivel in their seats in sync and go back to ignoring me.
I want to punch her, but I restrain myself.
Getting into a fist fight my first week is probably not the best impression to make.
Not that I care, but I’m not in a hurry to find out what kind of punishment they have for that sort of thing.
I’m betting it’s not detention. So I settle for scooping the mud off the desk and tossing it in the trash with as much as force as I can manage.
Doc doesn’t even look at me. “Moving on,” he says. “Let’s see if any of you can manage a sustained ignition without blowing your fingers off.”
We pair up for the next exercise, which means Harry by default. He’s not thrilled. “Just don’t touch anything,” he mutters. “I’d like to graduate with both hands intact.”
The exercise is simple. We need to create a controlled jet of flame, maintain it for thirty seconds, then extinguish it safely.
Harry takes the lead, his hands steady as he channels the energy into a perfect blue-white arc.
I watch, envious, wishing I could steal even a crumb of his mediocre-male confidence.
When it’s my turn, I fumble the lighter again, then try to channel the fire with just my will. Nothing. I try to picture the way my mother’s hands looked when she did magic, the graceful movement, the soft command in her voice. Still nothing.
Thorne saunters by. “Maybe you should try harder, Charity,” she suggests, her tone oozing superiority.
I see red, then I gather every ounce of anger, humiliation, and pain and force it into the lighter. I don’t even whisper a word, I just will the flame into being.
It works.
Too well.
An arc of fire blasts from the lighter, arcing across the room like a goddamn flamethrower.
It catches Thorne’s orb, detonates it, and then slams straight into the desk where her friend is sitting.
There’s a yelp, a cascade of burning paper, and the sharp smell of singed hair. The girl dives for the floor.
The whole room goes silent. Doc storms over, puts out the flames with a gesture and a few muttered words, and turns on me. “Miss Smith!”
I cut him off. “Sorry,” I say, my voice steady but cold. “But maybe it’s a bad idea to have the new witch play with fire on the first day?”
He stares at me like he wants to staple my mouth shut, then turns to the class. “That is why we practice. Anyone else wish to volunteer for a demonstration?”
No one does. The vampires in the back smirk, the witches in the middle try not to look at me, and the “other” in the front row just look relieved it wasn’t them.
Thorne’s friend glares at me, clutching her scorched ends. Thorne herself is pale with rage, but she’s smart enough not to retaliate in front of the professor.
Class ends five minutes early. Doc assigns a double-length essay on ‘control and responsibility’ and dismisses us. I’m the first out the door, but not before Thorne gets in one last shot.
“Hey, Charity,” she calls, her voice sweet as cheap vanilla body spray. “If you’re looking for a better fit, I hear the circus is in town.”
I don’t even look back. “You’d make a great clown,” I shoot over my shoulder. “You’ve already got the makeup.”
I hear a couple of snorts behind me, but mostly I hear my own blood pounding in my ears. My arm is on fire under the sleeve. I don’t check the mark until I’m three hallways away, hiding in a stairwell. It’s angry red, and bright.
I really, really fucking hate this place.