Chapter Twenty

Cyclones & Family Secrets

“Good teamwork, guys!” I say, team spirit coming over me as I look around at all of us. Bruised and battered, Soren’s trench coat bloodied, Nik’s body… unconscious.

It’s been quite the trek back, but some levitating spells helped with the burden of carrying Nik, and Soren’s wound has since stopped bleeding. Turns out, it’s a lot quicker to find our way out of Stillwood than it was to find what we’d been looking for inside of it.

It’s barely a decent hour for students to be up and moving on a Saturday, and there’s still another hour before the Enchanted Comet opens, but Sabbath’s locked the door anyway. Laying Nik out on the couch, the Jones twins collapse into their own armchairs by the coffee table.

“Do you think he’s going to be okay?” Sab asks, squatting over Nik to check his vitals again.

“Dumbass will be fine,” Tomorrow growls.

Ignoring her, Sab holds both hands around the crown of his head, performing some necromancy-sensing thing that she likes to do when I have headaches. I guess her magic can sense when something in a body is faltering. She gives us a reassuring nod.

“Well, that wasn’t so bad, right?” I say, nodding at everyone. I notice Soren flinch as he adjusts himself in his chair. “Are you sure you’re fine?”

He’s already reassured me about five million times that a unicorn horn directly to his scapula isn’t something I should be mom-ing him about. Except, the way it seems to be bubbling up around the edges suggests otherwise.

“Look, I’d like to respect your bodily autonomy, but please let me take another loo—”

The sound of a splash and a yelp cuts me off, and we all whip our heads to where Tomorrow is standing over the couch with an empty glass, its contents now dripping from Nik’s face.

Blinking wet eyelashes open confusedly, he finds Tomorrow’s dark brooding form looming over him and quickly jumps to an upright position.

“Oh, so now the water to the face works. After we lugged your useless bag of bones all the way back! You’re lucky this wasn’t the scalding hot water that would’ve taken me two extra minutes to boil.” She glares at him. “What the fresh hell were you thinking, swainsack?”

“I overheard you talking about unicorns,” Nik sputters, wiping his face.

“And?” Tomorrow raises her brows. “You thought you’d just tag along and see what one looked like?”

“Well,” he pauses, looking around for help he isn’t going to get in present company, “Yeah. Basically.”

“Who are you?” Tu asks in wonder, leaning close to him and resting her chin on her hand. Taken aback by this sudden interest, Nik frowns uncomfortably.

“This is our resident Fringe witch, everyone. Nik-with-a-K, right? Nik...?” I cast a look in his direction.

“Castigan.”

Tu hums excitedly. “Fringe! Raised among the enchantless? How intriguing!”

The Jones twins are the opposite of Full Fringe, their witching pedigree making enchantless society far more foreign than familiar.

“Let’s put it this way,” Tomorrow interrupts, folding one hand over the other and lowering her body threateningly into a chair, “tell us what you are and how you can explode wind out of your body, and maybe I won’t make you mute for the rest of the year.”

My worried eyes turn to Sab, silently asking if such a thing is possible, and she shrugs. Her wide ones certainly seem scared enough to believe it, though.

Nik swallows. “I was accepted to Spellfall like everyone else when I was a kid, but I didn’t know it. My parents... aren’t friendly with witching society, apparently. I had no idea what they were. What I am.”

Why would his parents withhold that information? The thought rushes through my mind as I watch Nik shift uncomfortably on the couch.

“Your parents don’t practice?” Sabbath asks, quickly meeting interference from Tomorrow’s irritation.

“What Brood are you?” Tomorrow interrupts.

“I’m not in a Brood yet.”

Tu gasps. “Not in a Brood?”

“Well, I’m new to everything so Professor Thorncaster thought it’d be best if I waited. I’ve been training with her privately.”

Private training sessions? Cyclones and family secrets? There’s something very mysterious about this Nik guy, and I’m not entirely sure he knows what it is, either.

Nik’s gaze maneuvers between us, disheveled and weary as we are. “Look, I’m sorry for following you. You hear things about an enchanted forest and savage unicorns and…well, I had to see it with my own eyes.”

Tomorrow lets out a humph. “And why are you at Spellfall now?”

“Because my magic has grown too much for my parents to... manage.”

“Cyclones,” I nod, knowingly.

“Have you killed someone?” Tomorrow eyes him. If he says yes, I’m sure it will be to his advantage.

“No, of course not,” Nik blanches. “I’m a vegan! I like science and facts, and things I can see! Conjuring wind and mixing up potions, none of that makes sense. I’d much rather be… normal.”

We all just stare at him, not sure what to do with this strange Fringe warlock that has stumbled into our underground soul spell dealings.

“What’s a ve-gan?” Tu slowly sounds out the word.

“Someone who just has to see a unicorn, apparently.” Tomorrow’s jaw tightens and releases like she can’t really hold this against Nik. “Such little consideration for the people he’s stalking, though.”

“Excuse me, he saved all of us!” Sabbath glares back at the twins, more offended than she should be.

Soren’s eyes are fixed on Nik in careful assessment, arms folded over his chest as he slouches down into his chair, looking pained. “Where did that wind power come from?”

Nik shrugs. “It’s just something I can do. I can harness elements, especially wind. But there’s no Brood for that, right?”

“A wyndwitch,” Tuesday muses. “You have old magic in your blood.” She looks over at us, something like concern knitting her brows. “Evanora wrote something about it in the Shadekey, I think.”

“A wyndwitch,” Nik agrees. “Sure.”

“Harnessing elements the way you did is coven power,” Soren says, grunting in pain. My body stiffens at the sound, but he shoots me a warning look to let him be. Resigned to solve the mystery of wyndwitches another day, Soren sighs. “Do I need to put a silencing hex on your mouth, Nik Castigan?”

“What?”

“Unicorns are sacred creatures,” Sabbath explains gently. “We weren’t supposed to do what we did.”

“Thus,” Soren adds gruffly, “you cannot tell a soul, or we’ll put a hex on yours.”

I narrow my eyes. “Not on his soul, Soren.”

“He’s joking,” Sab reassures at the same time.

Soren clears his throat. “I’m not joking. A word of this to anyone, and you won’t be at Spellfall much longer.”

Tomorrow shrugs like she’s sided with Soren for the first time in the History of Ever.

“He means thank you,” Sabbath says, looking at us. “We are grateful that you helped save us.”

“Yes,” Tuesday agrees, touching a hand to Nik’s knee. “Thank you very much, wyndwitch.”

Nik definitely seems weirded out by Tuesday Jones. Then again, the Jones sisters are the witchiest people I’ve ever met.

* * *

“Can we invite him?” Sabbath asks, throwing an apron over her head. Students have begun wandering into the coffeehouse at irregular intervals, huddled in scarves and wearing sleepy expressions.

I raise an eyebrow, casting a glance at Nik who seems fully recovered now, chatting with a first-year who appears to have taken a liking to him. His eyes keep wandering to Tomorrow like he’s sure at any moment she’s going to pull a knife on him.

“Are you asking if you can keep him?” I give Sabbath a knowing look as I wait for Soren to wash his wound in the back.

“Maybe. Yes.”

“Translation: He saved us and he’s so cute!” I give her a pointed look.

“He’s so cute,” Sabbath agrees. “And he did save us. You make such a good point, Mika.”

“It’s not like this is some social club, Sab. This is one half of a deal, and it will likely be a dangerous and poorly executed half if today is any indication. Maybe so poorly executed that Soren will cut you loose from this whole thing…” I trail off, wondering hopefully about the potential of this possibility.

“It’ll be a good bonding experience,” Sabbath insists, undeterred.

“Look,” I face her as she skips back behind the counter, “I have already been dead. You can raise the dead. Tuesday has a dead boyfriend she can reunite with on the other side, and Tomorrow would probably, just generally, love to be living her best afterlife already. And Soren—well, nobody cares if Soren dies. None of us have that much to lose.”

“That’s a stretch.”

“Point is,” I barrel on, “I don’t know anything about this Nik guy. So, like, he could be really excited about living to old age, and I wouldn’t want to take that away from him.”

“I could just ask,” she suggests.

I sigh. “Fine.”

The first rule of magic is that if you stare at someone long enough, they’ll feel your eyes on them. It literally takes Nik under two seconds to feel Sab’s gaze boring into the back of his head, but I think this is a special case.

I wave him over hurriedly.

“Yeah, totally discreet, Mika,” Sabbath hisses from between her teeth.

“FYI, if the new kid gets killed because you recruited him, you are responsible for resurrecting him, God hang-ups or not.”

Before she can protest, Nik arrives with a shy smile for Sabbath. “What’s up?”

“Um,” Sabbath stammers, “We were wondering—”

“She was wondering, actually.”

“Yeah. Me. It was me. I was wondering if you’d like to join our...”

“Quest?” I supply.

“Yes, that’s a nice word for it,” Sabbath nods. I bet she especially likes the part where it doesn’t scare her new crush away.

Nik’s frown deepens. “What are you questing for?”

“That’s a very great question, Nicholas—”

“Nikolai.”

“Nikolai,” I persist. “I can tell you it’s for a spell. I cannot tell you which spell. Mainly, because I do not know. We can say with a high level of certainty, however, that the unicorn is just the beginning of what is sure to be a life-threatening attempt at idiocy.”

Sabbath nods in solemn agreement.

“Oh,” he shrugs. His shoulders slacken. He’s totally at ease. “Sure, sounds cool.”

“Really?” Sabbath’s face breaks into a grin. “Aren’t you worried about getting expelled?”

“Should I be?”

Our heads answer him, nodding in sync.

“Will I get to see more of what you can do?” he gestures at Sabbath. “Necromancy stuff?”

She hesitates. “Yeah, I think.”

Nik nods, unfazed. “Then yeah. Sounds dope being proven so wrong about death.”

“Dope,” she repeats in a daze.

Having been part of this awkwardly unfolding scene for at least thirty seconds longer than I would have preferred, I say, “So… I’m going to go now.”

Like he’s magically sensed my discomfort, Soren appears from behind. Sparing a quick glare for Nik, he inclines his head, ready to go.

“See you guys later,” I say, flashing my fullest, most obvious smile at Sabbath.

Can we just ship Sab and Nik now, or....?

What's up with this guy! What are his secrets! Now accepting applications for all reader theories...

xx Jessa

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