“Cheers, you’re a saint,” Fox gritted out.
“Now, I have private business with Confess.” When the study door clicked open, Damelza’s chuckle was dark and low. “It’s time for you to fade out.”
I yelled in shock, as I was blown out of the room into the stone gallery beyond, before the door slammed in my face. I caught a final glimpse of Fox’s pale face, before he was shut in alone with the Principal.
Outraged, I banged on the study door, but I had a feeling that even that had been muted.
I’d been turned invisible yet again.
Then there was a sudden hoarse cawing at the open windowsill, and joy hit me so hard that I struggled not to cry.
“I thought that I’d lost you.” I rushed to sit next to Flair and Echo who hopped onto my lap. Echo rubbed his head against me with as much desperation as I stroked through his feathers. “How can I still see and touch you?”
“Now isn’t that the question, boss. But I’m happy as a pig in shit that you can.” When Flair pecked my finger, I knew that it was as close to a kiss as he could get.
I cuddled Echo tighter, and he wrapped his wings around me.
“Would you’ve forgotten us like everybody else?” Echo asked, softly.
I bit my lip. “Never. Who’d forget your superb singing voice?”
When Echo preened, Flair snorted.
“So, are you human now?” Flair asked.
“I’m something that’s caught between the living and dead, only this time I’m closer to the living side.” I scrunched up my nose. “The Rebels weren’t dreadfully experienced with magic, and resurrection is a tricky business.”
Flair’s scaly claws bit into me, as he circled in my lap looking for a comfortable spot to settle down. “Does that make you a zombie?”
“Do you want to eat brains?” Echo offered, helpfully.
“Mother once had pigs brains served for supper.” I shivered. “It was most unpleasant.”
“If you have no craving for brains, why aren’t you riding those Rebels and letting your bouncy bosoms out to have some fun for the first time in…forever?” Flair demanded.
“Firstly, I’m magically unable to even touch Bask. Secondly, Fox is trapped in there with the Principal, and thirdly,” surely, I deserved a little boast, “a Prefect does have duties, you know.”
“Hark at her, la di da!” Flair fell onto his feathery back, kicking his legs in a way that was disconcertingly close to his wanking impression. “Just give her a Prefect badge and suddenly it’s alclass="underline" where do you want me to bend over, ma’am?”
“There wasn’t a badge,” I muttered. “In fact, I don’t even get a uniform.”
Echo stroked his wing along my cheek, and I leaned into the touch. “My Magenta hasn’t changed. I trust her.”
I glanced back at the closed door. Damelza thought that she could tame me with a couple of spells and charms. Yet my magic ran through the entire academy. From my birth, it’d woven these grounds, creating the wards and spells. I’d cursed it for decades.
I was choosing to play their tamed Prefect for the sake of my lovers, but only until I could find a way to free them. When I’d lived here before, it’d been on the other side, as the part of the coven in charge. Now I was here as one of the students. Yet, I was still me.
Even if I couldn’t protect Fox from whatever was happening within the study, I could watch over him.
I nudged my familiars off my knee as I stood up. “Witches aren’t meant to care for their familiars, but I love you both deeply, you do know that?”
Echo fluttered his wings, which pulsed pink. He rubbed his head against my ankle.
Flair cawed. “And you’re all right for a witch, boss.”
“He means that we love you too,” Echo whispered.
I grinned, focusing on fading entirely. The sensation was odd like unraveling myself thread by thread. Then I floated to the study door. I took a deep breath.
Please let this work…
I whooshed through the thick door, exploding through the other side. I expected a howl of outrage from Damelza, but she only continued to talk with a quiet intensity to Fox.
I was invisible again. My pulse pounded at the thought that I wouldn’t be able to reverse it. Bubbling cauldrons, what if I was stuck like this? I forced the thought away, wrapping myself around Fox. He stiffened, as if he could sense me, before relaxing into my touch in the delicious way that he had.
His frown became a smile. He knew that I was there, and he was no longer alone.
If I couldn’t save him yet, then I could at least grant him that.
“…even I hadn’t imagined that your criminality extended to corrupting your own family to demand your release against the wishes of your House,” Damelza finished with a flourish.
Fox’s face lit up with painful hope; it was beautiful but as fragile as the snowdrops in my glade. “My sister’s trying to free me?” He impatiently brushed a stray curl behind his ear. “Hartley’s come for me?”
“Why would the only heir to the House of Jewels, and your mother’s darling,” when Fox winced, I stroked across his cheek, “ever release her mage brother? Have you no sense of honor? The witch outside the wards, who’s giving me yet another headache at the start of term, is your cousin. Do you wish to enlighten me on why?”
“L-lux?” Fox stuttered, paling. Whoever his cousin was, who’d been unusually flooded with kindness towards Fox, he still feared her. He’d also tried to hide the way that disappointment had ripped through him on hearing that his would-be rescuer wasn’t his sister, yet he shook with it. “Cheers for the laugh, but the only thing that Lux would want with me would be as a punch bag, subject for experimentation, or as someone to play with her broken Omegas.”
Damelza prowled around the desk, and I backed against the wall, just in case she could sense me. “I don’t care if she wants you to play Romeo in a jazz version of Romeo and Juliet, I don’t simply release students unreformed. No one leaves here who hasn’t graduated, unless they win a special contest, Tournament, or at my great benevolence. Most who do graduate are offered teaching positions because usually nobody wants them back. You’re here because you’re too dangerous to allow out into society.”
“I don’t need my power to know that’s a lie. Why’d you let this Duchess into the castle to paw at Bask then? Why’s she different to my family?”
“Because she’s the one who signed Crave into the academy with a special understanding that is none of your business,” Damelza snapped. “But your cousins appear to believe that if they pressure the House of Crows, where no one but Hecate has held sway for centuries, then I’ll let you go. Your mother is the one who registered your place here, and not your cousins. I don’t have to bow down to Lux, simply because she’s now Head of the Oxford covens. The House of Crows is above witch law and tradition.”
“Cousins?” Fox’s voice was tentatively hopeful again. My guts roiled, and this time I knew that it was neither guilt nor hunger making it churn. I was confused by the desperate desire to hold onto Fox, and at the same time, the need to let him go. This could be his best chance to escape. He had to take it. Please, let these cousins help him. “As in, Lux and her twin, Aquilo?”
“Huh, you imagine that I’d count her mage brother?” When Fox stilled, Damelza pressed closer, until their noses were almost touching. She scrutinized his deliberately blank face. “Lux even allowed him to try and break through our wards. He’s powerful, isn’t he? Are you hiding his level of magic behind that mouth of yours?”