Defensive Magic-Chapter 30: The Dark Grimoire

WINTER TERM - January 18th 

I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but Aries's room is kind of a lot. This morning, I woke to the ice-blue eyes of a heavyweight champion cage fighter Aries had tacked to his wall. It's not the only thing on his wall. He's got Fel's flag - blue stripes, gold moons, a wolf. And more posters - a few more shirtless fighters from Caburh hanging over his desk along with a few ads for singers in Mesym with upcoming shows. Most, unsurprisingly, were too-pretty men who sing love songs, but some weren't. One especially large one was for a girl-led, rebel-rock group that actually looked like it'd be a good show.

Aries started the day pulling feathers out of my hair. My horns had torn through a pillow - from a nightmare actually, a normal one that I could hardly remember now.

"Has it always been this bad?" he asked. "The nightmares?"

I hadn't meant to wake him up. Especially since this time it really had been just a dream. I didn't want to talk about it. I was just reliving the same night over and over again. I hadn't always been afraid of Ianthe, but then again, I was pretty sure she wasn't going to kill me. At some point, after leaving, that had changed. Or maybe she hadn't changed at all and I'd changed. The thought of going back to my old life in any capacity was giving me heart palpitations.

"It hasn't been like this," I said. I tried to focus on collecting the rest of the feathers scattered around the bed. I could get one of the pillows from my room later to replace it. Aries didn't seem to mind that I was avoiding my room. I'd shadow step back there before class to grab things, of course. My clothes, my toothbrush, a replacement pillow. Though I'd taken to stealing his socks. His were softer than mine, better made. Even then, I was met with a row of toy soldiers atop his dresser staring me down as I nabbed them. I'm dating a man-child... I know. 

"Do you think she wants to turn you?" Aries asked.

He was doing what he could for the most part to avoid talking about Ianthe directly, but sometimes there was no getting around it. I didn't want him to have to think of her at all if I could help it. Just now, it was hard to help.

"No," I said automatically. It was kind of a common misconception. It wasn't the first time I'd gotten that question. I was with Ianthe for a while, even by vampire standards. I was getting older, even as she wasn't. But that didn't mean anything. New vampires were rare. From what I knew of the Stag's Court, Ianthe was one of the youngest, and even then she was turned a few years before I was born. The Stag's Court didn't get to be the way it was bringing new vampires into the fold. It was old and unchanging for a reason. "That's not really something that happens at The Stag's Court."

In the scheme of things, I wasn't even all that special, even to her. She'd had other boyfriends. There was only one - Fletch - that she never shut up about. Another one that got away and stayed away, lucky bastard.

"I still think you need to tell Marblebrook about it," Aries said. "If I'm sick of her harassing you all the way from Caburh, I can only imagine how it is for you." He'd said this yesterday too. I knew he was right, but it didn't mean I had to like it. It just sounds so pathetic going to a professor to say I needed help to get my ex-girlfriend to stop bothering me. Even if she was a blood-thirsty vampire...

"You want me to go with you? Hold your hand?"

I pushed him onto the bed. A couple feathers I'd missed fluttered up around him.

"I'll be fine."

I was going to meet with Marblebrook before the new moon coven meeting anyway. We needed to have a discussion about the grimoire I somewhat accidentally stole from the Sanctum over winter break. She still thought it was something to do with my deal with Orendell, as though being a werewolf for the rest of my life wasn't enough.

I was trying not to think too hard about any of it. Our conversation was interrupted by Noodle banging his fists at the door, urging us to join him for the walk to breakfast. It was annoying, but at least an improvement. Yesterday, he'd made the mistake of just walking in and caught an eyeful of a lot he wished he hadn't.

Aries got the door. "We're going to need a few more minutes," he warned.

By the time the three of us made it to the dining hall, Aisling was waiting. I knew she'd be pissed - Aries and I slept through breakfast entirely yesterday. And today, there was already someone new in my seat. She didn't look pleased.

I pulled up another chair, left Aries and Noodle their usual seats, once I had my plate of toast and a cup of coffee.

"Morning," I said. There was Aisling and her new friend. Aisling glared. Friend was an assumption, and I was guessing, the wrong one.

"So gracious of you to finally join," Aisling muttered. She wasn't eating. It took me a moment to realize it was because her fork was floating in the middle of the table as her strange invisible familiar rolled it over in its claws.

"It's hard to say I've seen one like this before, but I think it's an imp," said the guy in my chair.

"I wasn't asking what you thought," Aisling said. "Not when yesterday you thought she was a sentient pile of carrion." freewёbnoνel.com

"Wasn't meant as an insult!"

"It was taken as one," she hissed. Her eyes flicked from hazel to red as my own.

It might have only been a day, but I'd missed something. The new guy was young, close to her age if I had to guess, human, short black hair with a couple pieces he'd dyed bright blue, matched his eyes. He was cute enough I had to wonder if Aisling had intentionally dragged him over here, but everything about their conversation made me think she probably hadn't.

He put up his hands. "She's something dead. That's all I'd meant by it. Maybe four or five somethings originally if I had to guess."

I realized then that they were both staring at the same spot on the table, not just at the floating fork, but the thing holding the fork. "You can see it?"

"She lets me see her now," Aisling said. "And Ripley just sees."

"I see spirits," he clarified.

"It doesn't mean she's dead." Aisling extended a hand out to the table. She got her fork back and the wool of her sweater pulled strangely as the invisible thing crawled up her arm. "Noodle thinks I should name her after him. But it'd be too confusing to have two Noodles..."

"You could call her Penne?" Ripley suggested.

"That's not funny. Don't make fun of Noodle's name." Aisling looked to me next, as though I'd back her up, but it felt like a particularly bad moment to mention I was pretty sure he had a brother named Cheddar.

It was almost a relief when Aries and Noodle finally made it through the omelet line and could switch the topic of conversation to something easier.

Later, I went to meet Marblebrook. She was in her office, before the wide picture window. Boaz, her pigeon familiar, perched on the sill with his eyes shut. She was flipping through a book - the grimoire, my grimoire.

"You know, I've seen a lot of books in the Sanctum, but this was a new one for me," she said. "Every coven has a different approach to teaching and as part of ours, we prize personal freedom and self-discovery over most else. To the extent that had you been in Professor Fen's coven, you probably never would have found a book like this."

"I know some of the spells are kind of... dark." I lacked a better word for it. I'd tried out many of the less consequential spells, but others, I had no method for testing. I could only practice the gestures in pieces and let the power of the spell subside before I could set it off. One could force someone to act against their will. Another would summon mindless dead. The last eviscerated its target, turning them to nothing but char and ash. I didn't know if I could ever test these out, but now, because of that book I knew them. I'd practiced them. The gestures were locked in muscle memory.

"We don't censor our collected grimoires, Zephyr," Marblebrook said. "With that said, the owner of this grimoire seemed to have a particularly violent streak." She slammed the book shut. "So, I'm keeping it."

No. 

"We'll see what Orendell has to say about that," she said. She set it down on her desk and picked up another, a slimmer, baby blue volume with gold embossed print. "I'm replacing it with this. It's still a grimoire, but a bit more appropriate I think. The mage who kept it was interested in shape changing magic. Should be good enough for Orendell, alright?"

I was still looking at the dark grimoire on her desk, nearly to the point where I didn't take the little blue one she held out to me.

"How's that meant to help me with Ianthe?" I muttered, but took it anyway.

"What was that?" Marblebrook asked.

"Nothing," I shrugged it off. I was being rude. I hadn't meant it.

"No, Zephyr. Come on, I won't be mad." It felt like a trap. I liked her too much for this. I don't know why I'd said that.

"Elandria, I hadn't meant it," I said.

Marblebrook tsked. "You made a deal with Orendell, Zephyr. These gods make demands. He wants you to learn more and more dangerous spells. Why do you think that is? Do you plan to kill Ianthe? Is that it?"

I scoffed. "No, of course not." I wasn't planning on going to Caburh again. I wouldn't see her for the rest of my life if I could help it.

"Zephyr," Marblebrook urged.

"I can't go back," I said. "I won't."

Marblebrook sighed. "Whatever it is Orendell wants from you, I won't have any say in it. You agreed to it. You'll end up pushed into whatever corner he wants you in. So, for now, you're reading this one. Teach yourself five spells and I'll give back the other one, alright?"

"Alright." There were worse agreements.

Marblebrook let the conversation die from there. It was over. Or at least this part of it was anyway. I wouldn't be leaving with the dark grimoire tonight. But Aries had asked that I bring up Ianthe's dreamwalking, so I did.

I told her the short version. Ianthe had been bothering me for a few months now. Bothering me was an understatement, sure. But this was Marblebrook listening. She had better things to worry about than my overly invasive ex-girlfriend.

"It's a kind of scrying," Marblebrook said. "Hard to combat, but there's a few deterrents that could help. You could summon a guardian spirit to watch over you at night - always useful. You could make a witch's ball a kind of spelled maze that'll make accurate scrying a lot harder. Or you could have some protection charms made."

There were answers, because of course there were answers. She said, "A mix of things might work best. We can start with the witch's ball. Kelyn can help you make one. She likes crafts."

"You ever dealt with this kind of thing before?" I asked.

"With a vampire? No. She's the first," Marblebrook said. "But nosy witches? Yeah. Your mother, for one. I love her, but sometimes I need her out of my head too."

I assumed at first I hadn't heard that right. But no, I think I did. Marblebrook said my mother's a witch. It hit like a slap. All through the coven meeting after I felt the strange lingering sting. How had I not realized that? She'd been communicating with Marblebrook this whole time. Dreamwalking.

Now that I knew, I could see the clues that had always been there. Ianthe might have learned a trick or two, but my mother had dozens. I didn't know what it was, and frankly, I'd been afraid to ask. But knowing now, it was strange. How suddenly I could understand her better and know her less.

"Are you staying over again? Or did Marblebrook give you something to keep Ianthe out of your room?" Aries asked after the coven meeting ended.

"She's having Kelyn teach me to make a witch's ball," I said. "It's meant to help."

"So, we get one more night then," Aries said. He grabbed my hand and shadow stepped out of the Sanctum, dragging me through behind him.