Rebel Academy: Crush

Chapter Four MAGENTA

The words curled out of Willoughby's diary, painting the glistening ceiling above the bed in sky-blue. Despite myself, I stared up at them. Curiosity killed the witch as much as her black cat.

I knew that I shouldn't read these private thoughts but witching heavens, I couldn't look away, and neither could Bask. He clasped my hand, as entranced as me.

The writing was beautiful and flowed like cool streams to read:

By my ears, I'm falling deeper and deeper under my brother's spell. The suit crushes my magic and soul. Yet today, I met a witch whose magenta magic entangled with mine, calling to nature and dragging me up from the silk's cursed sleep.

She's life.

I never dreamed that I could feel again. Not after what I've done, and my deserved shame.

But now, she's here, and I'm awake. The flood of feelings and sensations in this vile academy drown me. With her, I taste only joy, but that joy freezes within me to terror as soon as she’s gone.

How can I live here, now that I must sense the sadness even within the walls? There have been murders in this castle.

But still, all I can think about is a murdered witch.

I startled.

Ah, so I’d discovered not impolite truths about me, rather obsession.

Had the moment that Willoughby had looked at me across Bacchus' classroom truly meant so much to him? How was it possible? My heart beat rapidly in my chest, and all of a sudden, my mouth was dry.

I didn't want to hear any more, and yet I was desperate to. The elf was so emotionless that a twitch of his lips was the same as Fox's laugh. Yet anguish ran like a raging river beneath his cool exterior. I feared that I'd be swept away.

Willoughby’s difficulties with new sensations was like my own after my resurrection; my heart ached for him. Witching heavens, I’d never imagined that I’d have so much in common with a Prince.

Then both Bask and I jumped, when the words were spoken like they were breathed from the diary in Willoughby's ethereal but anguished voice:

When I'm around her, the tendrils of her magic and spirit call to the Other World. I can hear the trees, streams, and hills again. I know the taste of my favorite pears, and the smoke on the fall air, and once more, I can feel Thunder's mane under my hands, as I gallop across the planes.

To think of Thunder is to feel the silk around my neck that strangled his. Forgive me, my sweet steed. No innocents should've suffered for my crime.

It haunts me.

Yet why must I struggle against my exile? I deserve this punishment. If you fall, does it not hurt when you hit the ground?

Brother, will you ever forgive me? Please...

But with her...this witch who is yet a ghost...my mind clears, and for a little while, I'm me. At least, I’m the elf who I once was, when the Other World still welcomed me into its arms, rather than turned away from me.

I don't deserve leniency but I yearn for it. I yearn for her. She’s all that I can think about.

Will she notice me, when she already has such love surrounding her?

I envy her.

She's part of nature, and I crave it. I long to talk about...every word and look and... But I don't have that right. Lysander made that clear to me tonight. He bid me remain on my bed like I was a child without supper, ranting that Immortals don't talk to Princes. He insisted that I've disgraced our Wing, just as I've disgraced the Light Elves.

I wish I'd been able to tell him that he was wrong, but I’m the Light Elf who’s no better than a Dark one.

Lysander was once no more than a guard to me, but I must admit, he’s become my friend. I don’t blame him for his strictness. Lysander’s guardian is far harsher with him, than Lysander has ever been to me.

He’s never struck me, after all.

If I disobey Lysander, however, then he shall report me to Darby. I shudder at the thought of my brother tightening my suit, as he did when I first arrived at the academy and earned too many Punishment Points.

I had to battle for every breath.

I need to pay penance. I understand that. Every night, Lysander must watch over me as I write the lines that my brother insists upon.

One hundred times, I write: I am a changeling, Dark Elf, and killer.

Inside, I'm numb.

Yet those words are the only ones that can still make me smart, and burn my eyes with tears.

Tonight was the first time that those words could not touch me because of the witch.

She does not know me as a killer. Perhaps, she could even see me as I truly am?

I wish that I could sleep in her arms at night, rather than in this cursed bed, alone. I'd be cocooned in her comforting magic, as well as the embraces of her other lovers because the way that the whipping boy and incubus spoke to me (like I was neither prisoner nor deadly), made my soul sing.

I desire them.

Yet I should sleep now because in these pages, I've allowed myself to dream. The Immortals' friendship and the witch's love is only a fantasy fit for the secrecy of my Crystal Diary.

It's as dangerous as I am.

A monster lies within me. One day, a professor or Lysander will reveal my buried self to these new students. Then they won't even wish to look at me.

The more that I allow myself to care, then when that day comes, the more that I'll be crushed...

This diary was elven magic and dark grief. I shook, desperate to break the enchantment.

Sweet Hecate, nobody should hear such heart-breaking truths. They belonged to Willoughby alone.

Bubbling cauldrons, no more...

My magic wound around the book, battling the blue magic, which glowed from its pages.

Back inside.

I bared my teeth, snarling like I could scare the Crystal Diary into behaving. The cold nipped at me, but I snarled again, forcing the book to close with a snap. The words faded, along with the melancholy of Willoughby's voice.

I was desperate to hold him as he wished and tell him that it wasn't a dream. Immortals could love Princes; he wasn't alone.

Yet how could I do that without him knowing that I'd read his diary? It'd destroy him to find out that anyone knew his private thoughts.

I'd written a diary when I'd been growing up, which had mostly contained my love of tea, hatred of embroidery, and determination to free Robin (or how much I adored snuggling him in his squirrel Mr. Tailsy form). I'd have died a slow, red-faced death of humiliation if anyone had ever read it, and it'd never contained my fantasies, shame, or desires.

What had happened to Willoughby to destroy him in such a way or to make his brother insist that he write such terrible things about himself? He believed that we'd hate or fear him, when we discovered that he was monstrous.

Sleipnir had thought the same about his shifter form.

I didn't think that either of them were monsters. Yet even if they were, monsters deserved love too.

Willoughby wasn't a slave who had no control over his own mind. Whoever this brother was who'd cursed and controlled him, I hated him with a witching passion. I was quite certain that my thoughts against the so-called elven king ran towards the traitorous.

Why were my cheeks wet?

I reached up to wipe at them with my sleeve. When I glanced at Bask, I saw my own tears reflected in his eyes, although his cheeks were dry.

Bask squeezed my fingers. "We're saving that elf."

I nodded. "Most certainly, but first, I have a crow to have serious words with, since he decided to open a book that didn’t belong to his feathery self."

I fixed Echo with a stern glare.

“The word you need to say quickly is sorry,” Bask mock whispered.

"Sorry, sorry, sorry..." Echo sang at the top of his tone-deaf voice.

"Not as sorry as you're going to be," Flair snapped. "Get your feathery arse over here. My wing's itching to spank you, until you caw for mercy."

Echo lowered his head. "By my blood, I'd do anything to make Magenta happy, and I know that this will in the end.” He hopped towards me with a hopeful glint in his eye. “I’m only a familiar. I understand about dreaming that you could want me, when I know that you shouldn't. Every time that he sings, the elf sounds sad. I long for you to kiss that away. Now you’ve listened to the diary, could you love a Prince?"

Flair swooped to his brother, but instead of pecking him like I'd feared, Flair threw his wing around his twin consolingly. "Fuck me, that was quite the speech."

Could I love a Prince?

I didn't know. It was rather like asking whether I adored pizza. Fox insisted that the strange flat dough was delicious but never having tasted one, I could only say that others urged me to adore them.

Except, the difference was that I'd never nearly been forced to marry a pizza.

“You knew,” I said, staring at Echo, “what was inside the diary. You assuredly had every notion what I’d hear. Did you watch Willoughby write it?”

Echo ruffled his feathers (I was fairly certain with pride). “I was sitting on his shoulder. I seized the opportunity, like you always say.”

I narrowed my eyes. “I’ve never said that.”

Echo did the crow equivalent of a shrug. “You should.”

When Flair flapped to the window, Echo trailed after him. "Crows exit stage left. We're not off to do anything suspicious, dangerous, or forbidden."

I arched my brow. "How splendidly reassuring."

As he followed his brother out of the room, Echo cast a longing glance at me. "Be careful with the Principal. Remember, you promised not to leave us."

Bask played with my fingers, turning over my palm and tracing his gloved hand in circles over mine. "Willoughby has a crush on you."

I froze. "You mean that he loves me.”

Bask shook his head. “It’s not the same.”

I frowned. "Why's it any different to your obsessive love or how I crave all my Immortals?"

Bask stilled; I instantly missed the soft sensation of his finger. "Because you don't love him back."

He glanced at me carefully from underneath his eyelashes.

I opened my mouth to answer but then closed it with a snap.

What could I say? Willoughby’s magic called to my own, just as mine did to his. But he wasn't Robin or one of my Immortals.

Yet he could be.

Should I simply trap Willoughby to undo the wards, using his love to free all the Rebels? It was a worthy cause. I'd discovered a rival's weakness that would save Fox. It could end my own curse.

Yet I’d never play with anyone's emotions in such a way.

I leaned closer to Bask, and he pushed towards me to hear my answer. I trembled at the choice.

All of a sudden, the Privilege and Punishment Board blazed on fire.

Crack my broomstick and call me a witch, is that what happened when you broke too many rules in the Princes' bedrooms? Had we literally burned the rule book?

At least Bask and I were lying on a bed made out of ice. Wait, did Willoughby keep it that way for protection against his own spontaneously combusting room? Since I'd already experienced being burned alive, I believed that sensible. The ability to battle fire was an underrated talent in a man.

Bask scrambled out of the sheets, dragging me off the bed. I eyed the window and the door. If I was alone, I could've simply done my mist thing and escaped as easily as a bird. But I wasn't, and I'd never leave Bask behind to face...

Wait, what precisely? The burning board wasn't turning to ash. The fire must be magical, but what had triggered it?

Then all at once, the wall melted in on itself to reveal a hidden passageway behind.

Sweet Hecate, how many secrets were there in this castle?

When a professor stalked out of the passageway with a scowl on her sharp pointy features, Bask gasped and straightened his shoulders. He edged even further in front of me.

The witches of the House of Crows liked to make an entrance.

Juni, the Prince's Tutor, Professor of Divination and Damelza's daughter, who was alike to her mother, apart from the shortness of her hair that was trapped beneath a woven cap of feathers, hesitated at Lysander's bed, staring down at the sheets with a grimace. Then she scanned the rest of the room; her eyes danced with malice.

I wrapped my arms around Bask's waist. "Fancy seeing you here. Nice weather we're having."

Juni's cheek twitched. "It's the same weather that we've been having for over a hundred years. I believe that it can be counted to the day that you cursed the academy. Are you so fond of snow?"

I reached out, running my hand along the column of Willoughby's bed. "I'm finding myself growing fond of ice."

Juni's eyes flashed, before they narrowed. She was dangerous and she'd discovered Bask and me. On Hecate's breath, I wouldn't forget that again. "Music. Unmade beds. Evidence of immoral acts." She scrunched up her nose. "The Princes have earned themselves three Punishment Points each and a Shame Hex."

"Not a chance. It was us who played the music, messed up the beds, and had wicked fun with the immorality," Bask insisted.

Juni shrugged. "This is their room and so their responsibility. I'd suggest that you should have thought of the consequences of your actions before you acted but then, that would be unfair without casting a Self-Restraint Spell." When her gaze darted to Lysander's bed, it lit up with as much curiosity as disgust. "If these were Crown’s stains then he'd lose his Privacy Privileges for a month."

I winced. Why did I have to feel sympathy for the fae prince again? But the thought of him here, where even privacy was a privilege that could be lost, was agonizing.

Even a haughty prick of a prince didn't deserve that.

Juni swept around to Bask. "But they're not Crown's, are they?"

Bask smirked. "Guilty."

Juni tilted her head, assessing Bask. "Of course you are. I'm just wondering what creature my mother shall turn you into. I can't wait for you Immortals to be tripped up on your own overconfidence. She's been practicing slugs. They leave slimy trails behind as well, so it'd be fitting."

Bask paled.

I glared at her, imagining her transformed into a dung beetle with a heightened sense of smell.

Ah, happy dreams.

She stared at me. "Why are you smiling? You've been caught."

"Have I?"

Juni’s cheek twitched again. "You don't understand how furious mother is." I shivered. I had an idea. She glanced at Bask. "I haven't seen her this angry since the time Crave refused to go on his first mission, and she was forced to hang another Rebel.” Bask paled further. “The way that her eyes are blazing is almost as scary as the way Bacchus’ went all swirly, when Sleipnir delighted us all by pissing Loki Rules in the snow." When she strolled towards the counter, grasping the stallion teapot, I tensed. "Do you see the pattern? Immortals have no self-restraint."

"Still," I rested my head on Bask's shoulder, nibbling on his ear until he sighed, "they make up for it with bonus rebellion and high jinks. Wouldn't you rather we were in human form, rather than slugs? Otherwise, who will you be able to act superior to?"

When Bask snickered, Juni ignored him. She wrapped her hands around the pot, before pouring the now steaming tea into a cup. She'd warmed it with her magic, which was impressive. Although, I was less impressed with her tea making etiquette. She poured the milk in from the porcelain jug after the tea. I tutted, tapping my foot.

Quite appalling.

"Oh, how kind." I sauntered closer, holding out my hand, hopefully. "One for me…?"

Juni appeared to consider it for a moment, holding out the cup. I grinned. The Princes' luxury beverages here I come...

Then she snatched it back, sipping on the drink with a satisfied sigh. "If you'd only heeded my warnings about how to behave, then we could've taken tea together like sisters every day."

I gaped at her. Was ever there such a mean trick?

"Is that your Divination talking? I truly hate how those who know the future pretend that they, well, know the future," I retorted.

Juni's fingers tightened around the cup. "Just call me Cassandra because nobody listened to her either."

I grasped Bask's hand, sweeping to Juni. "I listened, which is why I snatched my Immortal away from your mother. When I first lived in this academy, I might not have understood its cruelties but I do now. I'm a Prefect." I deserved a little boast, surely? "It's my duty to look out for them, just like you look out for the Princes."

Black cats, that was a stretch, unless looking out for included obsessive regulation of bathroom breaks, revoking Food Privileges, and checking sizes of pricks. She was at least dedicated.

When Juni slammed down the cup with a sharp crack, I flinched.

Don't let it break.

Somehow, it felt like if it did, then Bask would too, and right now, I could still feel him alive and unbroken at my shoulder. My heart sped up, and I clutched my arms around my middle to hide how my hands shook.

"You're a Prefect, and I'm a Professor," Juni hissed.

I raised my eyebrow. "Yet which one of us takes better care of our boys?"

"Hmm, certainly not the witch who's risked their Immortals in the Rebel Cup, where the stakes are either their whipping boy's life or my one's wings to be decided tomorrow on Torment Thursday." Juni pointed at herself and then me. "Which one of us was that again?"

I wound my black mists around her finger, and my eyes sparked pink. "The Immortals are mine, and the Principal set those stakes and not me."

Juni stared down at her finger, dispassionately. "If Bacchus hears you claiming her Rebels, then she'll turn you into a—"

"Pomeranian...?" Bask offered, bouncing on his toes.

"She's favoring rocking chairs today." To my surprise, Juni yanked her finger towards herself, rather than away. I was pulled by my own mists into her embrace with a startled yelp. She stroked my hair, and the feathers on her hat scratched my cheek. "You care about your Immortals, but I also care about my Princes. You're hurting them, sister in the House of Crows. Just by being here and existing, you endanger them. By coming to life, you risk all the sweethearts who you pretend to love."

"It's not true." Bask tugged on my shoulder, attempting to pull me away from Juni.

Except, in the name of Hecate, it was.

I shuddered, but I didn't let go of Juni, as if she was holding me up, rather than entrapping me in her arms.

Juni's smile was sly. "It's such a shame that you didn't take part in Divination. Then you'd have seen that you're on a tragic path, just like Crown did. He witnessed the terrors that your return would bring, and it haunts him now."

I remembered Lysander's distress in Juni's class and how he'd screamed, arching off the floor. Juni had taken dark enjoyment in reducing Lysander to such fear that he'd needed her comfort.

She loved to be the predator in the room.

I'd just have to show her that the wicked witch would never become the prey.

I dragged my black mists away from Juni’s skin fast enough to give her mist rash, then I straightened, extricating myself from her hold. But I didn't drop my gaze.

"You're lying." My voice was as icy as Willoughby's bed.

"Am I?"

Lysander was a prick of a fae but he'd begged to suffer through the Divination Spell so that I wouldn't have to. What had he seen?

My tongue darted out to wet my lips, before I glanced at Bask. I wished that we could simply be caught in each other's arms again, safe within the womb of my magic. "I'm awfully sorry, but as my familiar would say, we're all out of giving a witching fuck."

Juni’s eyes gleamed with powerful magic, before she clicked her fingers and the tea set shattered. I jumped, shielding my face against the shards of porcelain. The tea sloshed in a brown sea down the counter.

Never forget that she was one of my descendants.

Bask wailed, then his gaze became steely. "Why would you break Willoughby's tea set? Fix it, before you force him to cry or lose the shine to his hair."

I knew that Bask was imagining the stuffing pulled out of Nile. My nails bit into my palms.

Juni studied Bask like she'd never seen him before. "Really, Crave? Do I take orders from students?" Bask dropped his gaze. "My Princes hurt for me, but nobody else harms them. Crown cannot fight his guardian and uncle. Prince Titus runs this academy as much as mother. When you rebel, you harm us all."

I froze. "I'm grateful for your sisterly guidance. Are you done smashing innocent crockery and imparting your pearls of wisdom?"

Juni sniffed. "If all I'm doing is casting pearls before swine."

"How did you discover us?" I asked. Why didn't you tell Damelza? I wanted to add.

Juni prowled to the passageway, but not before repairing Willoughby’s tea set with a click of her fingers; relief washed through me more powerfully than I’d ever have guessed. "It was amusing to see mother's frantic shock when she couldn't sense you within the academy. It was like — pop! — you'd both ceased to exist. Of course, I knew that I'd broken the rules to install a Privacy Spell in these rooms."

I hated to think about why. It couldn't be purely to reward the Princes.

I mock gasped. "Broken the rules? Why, it appears that I'm not the only rebel in this family."

Juni stiffened. "I call it becoming independent. I also guessed that you were here because you're forbidden to enter the East Wing. You're the sort to be precisely where you're not meant to be."

I preened. "Thank you."

Her lips thinned. "Get on with that vanishing trick of yours then. Crave, follow me. I don't trust you with magical transportation anymore, so we'll be taking the long route through the hidden passageways of the castle. What a shame that it'll also give you time to ponder the likely punishment from both the Duchess and the Principal."

I blinked. "Vanishing...?"

Juni twirled away from me, snapping her fingers at Bask like he’d already been transformed into a Pomeranian. "Follow or I'll leash you. And you, wickedest Crow, if you were to go invisible and follow us because you wanted to be present in the study for this meeting but undetected, then I'd easily be able to tell mother that I hadn't seen you."

I stared at Juni. And she called me the Rebel.

Bask snatched my hand in his, resting it against his cheek in a gesture that held intense intimacy for an incubus. "I wish you to be with me. I have to do this, but I don't need to be alone."

I nodded.

Yet could I truly turn myself back to my ghostly state and stand by like Bask wished as nothing more than a witness? Was I strong enough for that?

I could be for my lover.

If Bask thought that I wouldn't find a way to break the hold that the blood contract had over him or the Duchess who'd once forced a bond, however, then he didn't know the strength of my will after so many years trapped in the Dead Wood. I hadn't escaped, only to lose my Rebels now.

I studied the tense line of Juni's back. "Why help us?"

Juni hesitated, and I didn't think that she was going to answer.

At last, she said, "We don't all get to choose who we love, remember? Do you imagine that simply because I'm a witch, I'm free from suffering? I would’ve thought that your own experience had taught you better than that." My cheeks pinked. "Are professors and students so different?"

I snorted. "Since one can be sent to their death on missions and one can't, I'd say a resounding yes."

"I'm offering an olive branch," Juni's voice was deadly. The hairs on the base of my nape rose. "Don't burn it."

"Good advice," I muttered.

I stroked Bask's cheek for one final time. His smile was fragile, and I could see the cracks. But he didn't stop smiling, even as I unwove myself, thread by thread.

I faded, until I was once more invisible.

When Juni gave a final click of her fingers at Bask, he darted after her into the dark mouth of the secret passageway. I floated behind them, keeping close enough not to get lost in the labyrinth within the walls, through the castle towards Damelza's study, the Duchess, and their rage.