Good Witches Don't Curse (Academy of Shadowed Magic Book 3) Read online

  Good Witches Don’t Curse

  S.W. Clarke

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Epilogue

  Afterword

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2021 by S.W. Clarke

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover Design: Covers by Juan

  FREE SHORT STORY: Liara Youngblood and Lucian the demon prince clash in the prequel story The Fae and the Demon.

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  Chapter One

  My flames cut through the August air with a hiss, the London humidity parting in a straight line toward Aidan North’s chest.

  He hadn’t expected that. His brown eyes followed the flames with almost scientific fascination, his glasses flickering with the reflection.

  “Gotta move, North,” I called out.

  That seemed to awaken him. He threw himself out of the way as he always did. But where I expected him to land with an inglorious thump on the grass, this time he managed to return fire as he did.

  Blue everflame blossomed from his hand, sprayed out from his fingertips in five directions. Three of them were on course to hit me.

  Well done, Aidan, I had time to think before I dropped, hitting the grass chest-first, fingers tented as the flames rushed overtop me.

  He and I stared at one another from opposite ends of the lawn, his chest moving fast.

  I smiled. “About time.”

  He shrugged one shoulder, adjusted his glasses. “I guess sheer repetition can overcome even the worst depth perception.”

  I pushed myself up to a crouch. “Show me how you did that, with your fingers.”

  “Oh, you mean the Five-Finger Flick?” He blew on his not-flaming fingers with irritating smugness. “It’s patented. You’ll have to pay for use.”

  I stood. “One, you need to rebrand that. Two, if you don’t show me in the next five minutes, I will absolutely not hesitate to double-team you with Loki.”

  From the patio, Loki gave a loud, portentous meow, his tail flicking.

  Aidan’s eyes shifted between us. “You wouldn’t.”

  “I’m a fire witch, North.” I took a step forward, my left hand igniting. “Don’t put anything beneath me.”

  For a moment, his eyes widened with something like concern. He studied my face from his seat on the grass, and I could tell for a split-second he was searching for some sign I was joking.

  It lanced me through the chest. He hadn’t ever doubted me before the incident earlier in the summer. But ever since that day, he’d never quite gotten back to trusting me completely. And no matter what I did or said, that moment of trepidation always appeared when my dark humor came out.

  So I bared my teeth at him like a feral cat, scrunching my nose.

  A second later his fear was gone, replaced by a small smile. “Maybe I’ll teach you...if you can win the next round.”

  I nodded, lifting my other hand. Flames hissed to life. “You know I will.”

  He stood, blue flames appearing in both hands. “I don’t know, Cole. You don’t win them all anymore.”

  And it was true. We’d practiced every day this summer, and I really didn’t win them all. The majority, but not all.

  Sometimes, of course, the everflame got the better of him. On those days we called it a draw.

  Aidan had a unique fighting style. You wouldn’t expect it, but he was all offense. He came at me fast and hard, sending out a wave of flame to obscure his movements until he burst through it like water.

  The thing about Aidan’s everflame: I couldn’t dissipate it like regular fire. It burned hotter, longer, and didn’t obey anyone but Aidan.

  So all I could do was backpedal, fists at the ready.

  He came out the other side of the flames airborne, leaping with a yell that made Loki jump. I would have laughed if Aidan hadn’t been coming straight at me with five blue knuckles of righteous fury.

  He’d gotten quicker. I hadn’t expected him to be this quick.

  I only had one choice.

  I swung my upper body left, threw out my hand to grip his forearm and send him past me. Of course, the everflame extended up his arms, too—and it caught on my hands the moment I touched it.

  That was the other thing about Aidan’s gift: it spread mindlessly, grasping whatever it could touch. Which in this case happened to be my hand.

  Thank god for his parents’ anti-burning enchantment on this property. Otherwise the whole place would have been incinerated on the first day of summer.

  Unfortunately, my body wasn’t included in that enchantment.

  The blue flames consumed my red ones, streaking up my hand and arm with a wildfire’s speed. There was only one way to get rid of them.

  I spun, pitched toward the patio’s edge where the deceiver’s rod lay. In a second I’d gripped it, felt its power rush through me. Felt the blue flames dissipate under the heat of my own.

  I had long ago discovered just one means to overcome everflame: the weapon. The key and the rod, swimming with their own power. That was all we had managed to figure out about it over the summer—the sheer power of the key and rod combined were immense, and that I preferred to wield it like a baseball bat.

  So much for great epiphanies.

  “Bloody hell, don’t use it like that,” Aidan said from behind me.

  I swept around, pointing the rod at him. “If it works, it works.”

  His eyebrow went up. “You’re seriously going to point that weapon at me?”

  I stood, still pointing it at him. “It’s only half of a weapon.”

  “Don’t underestimate it, Clementine.”

  I rose, coming forward and jabbing it at him like a sword. “I’m its master, North. It only does what I ask of it.”

  Before he could reply, I swung around with a roundhouse kick I knew he would dodge. But he wouldn’t expect the rod whistling through the air as I came back around; I threw out my arm, caught him lightly in the side with it. “Gotcha,” I breathed. “How’s that for a new trick?”

  His arms went across his midsection, mouth opening. “You just hit me with a five-hundred
-year-old weapon.”

  I straightened. “I’d call that ‘lightly batted.’ Anyway, I win.”

  The house’s back door began to open, and Aidan and I exchanged a quick glance. The moment we did, I dropped the rod into the nearby shrubbery.

  When Charlotte North’s face appeared, she folded her arms and leaned against the doorway just the way Aidan would do. No question he was her child. But I wondered if she was as perceptive as him; she showed no sign of having seen the rod. “Who won the second Battle of the Ages?”

  Loki stood, trotting over to her with a meow. He loved that woman’s cooking.

  Aidan jerked a thumb at me. “Clementine.”

  “To the victor goes the largest slice of minced pie,” Charlotte said in a sing-song. “Come on for the last supper.”

  The last supper before we left for the academy.

  Aidan started toward the house, but I remained where I was. “I’ll be just a second,” I called out. Aiden knew why; he didn’t stop to ask.

  When the two of them had left, I picked the rod out of the bushes. Stared down at it, considering Aidan’s fear of it. Of me.

  Nothing would happen if my anger didn’t appear. If the Spitfire didn’t appear. And I’d only been truly angry once this summer. Just one time, and I hadn’t even been holding the rod.

  But I wondered what would have happened if I had been.

  I gripped it, started toward the patio where my cloak lay. Just don’t get mad, Clementine, I thought. The moment I stepped onto the stone, a voice sounded from the yard.

  It was my name, high and breathy.

  When I spun, I caught a glimpse of red hair disappearing behind a far tree.

  I blinked, staring.

  A moment later, a cardinal flew around from the other side. Swept up onto a branch and perched there, staring back at me.

  Not my red hair. Just a bird’s tailfeathers.

  I stood a minute longer staring at the bird—watching, listening. Nothing else happened. Nothing except the soft uptick of wind as an English rain blew in.

  Aidan and I sat opposite Charlotte and Tom North, a minced pie being passed around the dinner table for our last meal. Loki sat at the head of the table with his own plate, as he did every night.

  That cat would never accept anything less again.

  With Aidan’s family, I had begun to feel normal. For three months, I’d felt like someone’s daughter.

  It was different with the Norths than with Eva’s family. The Norths were human, like me. They were about the same age as my parents would be. They had given me a bedroom to sleep in, my own place for a few months.

  And like me, Charlotte North was a fire mage.

  “Back to the academy tomorrow,” Charlotte said, eyeing us both. She had the warmest green eyes I’d ever seen. “The both of you third-year scholars. And you a guardian, Clementine.”

  I took a large bite of pie, occupying my mouth. That way I only had to nod. All summer I’d been avoiding thoughts of—and sometimes re-remembering—what lay before me.

  I was going to be a guardian.

  And every time the thought returned, a strange swirl of feelings twisted inside my chest. Thrill lay in there, but it twined tight with dread.

  “Hey, what do scholars eat when they’re hungry?” Tom asked, already chuckling at the thought of the punchline to come.

  Charlotte rolled her eyes toward him. “Not that. Please.”

  “Dad,” Aidan said. “It’s not fun—”

  “Academia nuts.”

  I snorted into my pie. Meanwhile, the rest of the table groaned.

  Not long into my stay, I’d decided Aidan’s dad was the kind of man I would have liked to have for a father. He didn’t make me uncomfortable like some men had done. He didn’t look at me longer than he should. He loved and appreciated the people around him with a rare keenness, the kind you didn’t often see after so many years of having a family.

  I liked his dad jokes. He had earned them.

  “Tom and I will take you three to the leyline in the morning,” Charlotte said. “You know, just in case.”

  Aidan raised a hand. “No, Mum. It’ll be fine.”

  “We heard about what happened at my mother’s home,” Charlotte said. Once again, she surprised me with her maternal care, given she was Farina North’s daughter. She must have gone through a real gauntlet to become the woman she was today. “If you’re leaving the property, it’s best Clementine is escorted by one or both of us.”

  “Nothing’s happened,” Aidan said. “Nothing all summer.”

  And it was true. The few times we’d been into town, no one had bothered us. It was almost as though, for one gilded summer, the formalists didn’t exist. The Shade didn’t exist.

  But life had taught me that such things never really disappeared. They only stayed out of sight for a while.

  What Charlotte and Tom didn’t know was that Aidan and I had come to a conclusion in June. Maeve Umbra had made me a guardian. She knew almost everything at play, and we figured she had come to one conclusion:

  The only way to defeat the darkness was to face it.

  Prudently, of course. With weapons and horses and whatever magic you had at your disposal. But face it all the same.

  The one thing Umbra didn’t know was about the prophecy. I was supposed to defeat the Shade, and there was only one way to become powerful enough to do so.

  I had to fend off her army, the shards of her power. I had to defeat them again and again until I could take the queen herself. Only through a trial by fire would I ever be strong enough to win.

  So I couldn’t hide myself away from the world. Not entirely. And going alone with Aidan to the leyline near their home wasn’t a reckless thing.

  I had the enchanted moonstone from my mother. I had Loki and the weapon. And I had my fire.

  “We’ll be fine,” I said to his parents. “The formalists don’t know I’m here. And if something does happen, Aidan and I will send up smoke signals.” I raised an eyebrow at Aidan’s dad.

  He pointed at me and nodded. “Nicely done.”

  From his seat, Loki meowed. Then, to me, “Must we leave?”

  I half-smiled at him. “You want to live here forever?”

  “It isn’t that I don’t enjoy Vickery’s conjurations, but you don’t encounter minced pie like this twice in a lifetime.”

  I turned my attention to Charlotte, jerked a thumb at Loki. “He’s wondering if you could adopt him. Not because he loves you, but because he loves your pie.”

  Charlotte, who’d always been charmed by Loki, shot him her most indulgent smile. “Absolutely, my love. Gods, what I wouldn’t give to have been born a witch with a familiar. He’s such a sweetheart, that one.”

  Of course, she only thought he was a sweetheart because I filtered out most of his snark.

  Loki turned self-satisfied green eyes on me, licked his lips. “Now that’s the kind of treatment I expect.”

  Later that night, as I stood in my bedroom packing everything into my tangibly manipulated cloak, I lifted out the deceiver’s rod. Ran my fingers down the cool length of it.

  I’d been holding this rod when I had heard my name on the wind. When I thought I’d seen that red hair in the yard.

  That was a first.

  When Aidan and I returned to the academy, we would delve into the prophecy again. The only book we’d ever found that discussed it remained tucked away in the Room of the Ancients, and Aidan had never properly translated the Faerish for the last two parts of the weapon described in the prophecy.

  The cursed chain, and the thief’s blade.

  They were still out there in the world, somewhere.

  “Is that your precious now?” Loki asked from his recline atop the bed’s duvet, tail flicking.

  “Would you be jealous if it were?”

  “Never. It’s an object. I’m a living, highly intelligent being.”

  I sat down on the bed with it. Some part of me wanted to tell Lo
ki what I’d seen in the yard, and another part of me hesitated. I felt a little crazy. What I’d seen reminded me of the apparition in the center of the Boundless Labyrinth. She’d looked just like me. She’d sounded like me. She was me.

  And I still didn’t understand how she’d come to be.

  Seeing things. Hearing voices. Maybe I was just now manifesting schizophrenia.

  Or maybe—even worse—the fire magic itself was beginning to affect me. I had already lost control of the Spitfire once this summer, on Aidan of all people. That should never have happened.

  But when I considered my other choices, I didn’t see that I had any. It was only to grow in power, to assemble the weapon, to defeat the Shade. That was my path.

  So I set the rod into my cloak and put it all aside.

  Tomorrow, we had to be up early. After a long summer, we were finally returning to Shadow’s End and the prophecy.

  Chapter Two

  Aidan’s mother must have hugged us each three times. She tearily pressed a wrapped pie into Aidan’s arms, pushed his hair back to kiss his forehead. She even picked Loki up, held him like a swaddled baby (to which he didn’t object; that cat loved her). Meanwhile, Tom slid a hand over his wife’s shoulders, gave us each one-armed hugs.

  “Goodbye, scholars,” he called after us.

  It was just a fifteen-minute walk to the leyline, which ran through a little-used field not far from their home. Passing down the lane and all the pushed-together houses, I shook my head. “I still can’t believe Farina disowned your mother.”