A Witch’s Beating Heart Read online

  Daddy’s solid girth filled the door frame as he blinked to adjust to the trailer’s dim lighting. Worry creased the folds of his perpetually sunburned white skin even more than usual as his dark red eyes shot straight to Mama.

  “Lucille, honey, you okay?” His gaze scanned from her to each of us. “Girls, what’s going on?”

  “Oh Robert,” she choked out as tears spilled down her cheeks. “We can’t protect them no more! That letter wasn’t a bluff. Eternal Academy’s laid claim to them both!”

  Daddy’s sunburned skin went a shade so pale it rivaled my own. He staggered toward the couch, causing me to jump up so he could sink down. I moved to his usual recliner nearby, watching as he took Mama into his arms. His pale skin stood in stark contrast to her light brown skin, courtesy of her mother’s Puerto Rican heritage. He began murmuring words of comfort; or maybe words of conspiracy, given that Mama had mentioned some mystery letter they sure as hell hadn’t told us about.

  And what parents reacted like their children had been given death sentences at such an exciting announcement?

  The kind who have secrets to hide and bones buried in the backyard, a silky voice whispered inside my brain.

  Misty sought comfort herself by squeezing into the oversized recliner next to me. She sensed the same thing I did. Whatever secrets our parents were about to reveal would shake the foundation of our world.

  I could stand the suspense no longer. “What is going on you two? What letter? And what do you mean, the Academy has claimed us?”

  Mama whispered something to Daddy that had him nodding and clomping down the hall to their bedroom. I heard their closet door slide open and then an unzipping sound. Moments later, he reappeared and loomed over us where we sat on his recliner, eyes peering into our faces as if he feared something might rip us away from him any second.

  And damn, there went the shivers along my spine again.

  Finally, he let out a deep sigh and handed Misty an envelope that had already been opened. He held up one hand in warning and pulled something out of his back pocket. My eyes widened when I recognized the telltale shape of an extremely effective, astronomically expensive ward that prevented eavesdropping. Even the single-use ones like the one Daddy triggered with a quick burst of both Eternal and Infernal magic cost an arm and a leg. The slight pop of a successfully-cast spell barely registered in my mind, so focused was I on the envelope he’d handed Misty.

  “Go ahead.” He rejoined Mama on the sofa while Misty tugged out a heavy vellum sheet similar to the one our acceptance letter had been engraved onto. Unlike that neatly-typed letter, however, this one had been handwritten in beautiful, old-fashioned ink. Blood-red ink that inspired another chill to sweep across my skin.

  Misty cleared her throat, shook the vellum to straighten it, and began to read out loud.

  “Dearest Mellora and Cressida Gallanos of the Gloaming. Please believe that I hope this letter finds you well. For so long now the witching world has believed you both dead thanks to a powerful spell your adoptive aunt fueled with her very own lifeblood, not to mention the cost of your adoptive mother’s familiars and health. But, as with every single witch’s spell cast in a shadow realm, it is fading.

  “The time for hiding in the dark is past. You two must be trained as quickly as possible by the best teachers available. And so you must come to Eternal Academy.

  “Your adoptive parents are right to fear the wrath of she who murdered your birth mother. They have done a noble and wise thing hiding you in obscurity all these years, but that plan is no longer viable. As your magical strength grows, it’s only a matter of years or even months before the truth comes out. And so I will arrange for your acceptance into the Academy, something that will provide your only chance at survival.

  “But beware, for the Wrathful One’s spies are everywhere, and you must remain in the shadows until you come into your full strength.

  “Only then can you reclaim your true birthright. Until then, I will lend what aid I might without compromising either you or myself.

  “Gird your loins, my dear girls, and guard each other’s backs. Trust no one at the Academy, but take their lessons to heart.

  “Your lives depend upon it. As does the fate of an entire realm.

  “Wishing you strength and success, I remain Your Humble Servant.

  “P.S. Look for this symbol to know that communications I send are really from me.”

  Beneath that postscript the image of a hawk with wings unfurled had been etched in silver ink, with the bird’s eyes colored a vibrant sapphire shade. The hawk had a scarlet snake clutched in its mouth. I didn’t recognize the symbol but committed it to memory now.

  Misty’s eyes bore into my own the moment her voice faded. I didn’t need a mirror to verify that my perplexed expression exactly matched the one tugging her eyes sky high and her mouth wide open. This was like...like something straight out of Harry Potter. I almost reached up to feel for a lightning-shaped scar on my forehead.

  My sister recovered her wits before me. “What under the Eternal Skies does this letter mean? We thought Aunt Blanche died in the same work accident that claimed your familiars and hurt you so badly.”

  Mama bit her lips, obviously battling her own personal demons, but damn. This was our past, too. Apparently one we’d never really understood. She owed us the truth.

  Daddy must have agreed, because he wrapped an arm around her back and gave her one of those spit it out, already looks I’d been on the receiving end of at least a hundred times. “They deserve the whole truth if they’re to have any hope of surviving, Luce.”

  My flesh went as ice-cold as Mom’s fingers. The letter had expressed the same sentiment of our lives being in mortal danger. And if the Wrathful One referred to who I thought it did…

  Mama drew strength from Daddy’s unwavering support and no-nonsense nagging. She straightened her back and nodded in determination. “Your aunt did die and I was injured while technically on our jobs. Which is why I draw a stipend from the government to this day. We just didn’t tell you—or anyone else—the whole truth.

  “My sister served as your chief bodyguard, and I was your senior nanny, when your birth mother still lived. But then she was murdered by her closest friend, who forced your father to marry her using the darkest magic.”

  My throat went dry as puzzle pieces started clicking together. Those two distinctive names. The fact Misty and I were so damned strong in witchcraft despite only being half-trained. That we’d rated both multiple nannies and bodyguards when infants. And a father magically coerced into wedding his beloved wife’s murderer. The letter’s using oblique references to that witch’s identity out of fear it could fall into the wrong hands. Daddy casting the hellaciously expensive warding spell to ensure we had complete privacy.

  “You’re saying...You’re saying that we are the Royal Heirs who were supposedly assassinated by Infernal saboteurs. That our stepmother is...the Witch Queen?”

  Which meant we weren’t actual orphans. Because the King who’d been forced to wed that wicked witch was very much alive.

  Mama let out a sigh that seemed both anguished and relieved. Daddy kissed the top of her head before nodding. “Yep, Princess. That’s just what we’re saying.”

  Misty and I let out nervous bursts of laughter. “So all this time when you called us that as a nickname, it was actually freaking literal?” My voice rose on the last few words, until I sounded much like a chipmunk from one of those mortal movies we loved to watch. Similar to how my life suddenly felt very much like one of those movies.

  Daddy managed a small chuckle. “Well, I never thought of it like that. You’ve both always been princesses to me just because you’re fierce, strong, amazing daughters I’m proud to call my own.”

  Sappy warmth filled my belly, and I couldn’t hold back a smile. But my brain that never shut off had continued putting puzzle pieces together, and something just didn’t add up. Literally.

  “Wait. This do
esn’t make sense. The two princesses who died were like...three or four years old when you had your accident and Aunt Blanche died. That’s the same year we were born!”

  Mama seemed to have gained strength from having the truth out in the open at last. She replied without needing any prodding or comfort from Daddy.

  “You’re correct. So let me get out the full story of what happened that night without interruptions. I’ll only be up to talking about it once.”

  Understandable, given that the trembling was back in her hands and the pain lacing her voice. Misty and I nodded.

  Mama gritted her teeth and then continued. “Blanche and I always suspected your stepmother was responsible for murdering the previous Queen, may the Eternal bless both their souls. We had always vowed to your birth mother that we would protect you with our lives, and that was no hardship. We fell in love with you both the same way your birth parents did. So even with our suspicions, we held our tongues so we could stay on as your protectors.

  “At first, your stepmother was content enough to solidify her new rule and curry the favor of the sycophants who flocked to her side. She never showed signs of wanting to harm either of you. Doted on you both, in fact. But then...she got pregnant.”

  My breath hissed out as I made the logical leap I hadn’t even thought about earlier. “The current Crown Princess, Penelope, is our half-sister.”

  Mama nodded grimly, and Misty pointed out the other obvious leap in logic. “For her own daughter to become the new Heir to the throne, we had to die.”

  Daddy let out a growl that reminded me distinctly of a grizzly bear. “Evil Bitch Queen.”

  The three of us gasped at hearing someone call her that out loud. I mean, we’d all thought it at some point, but considering that people who vocally criticized her ended up in jail or just disappeared…

  Misty’s gasp turned to a snicker. “Taking advantage of that expensive-ass ward, I see.”

  The tension in the air ratcheted down a few notches, just as she’d intended.

  Mama picked her tale back up, despite the interruption. “Your birth father is the reason we found out about her plan in time. He fought off her coercion charm long enough to get word to Blanche. We bundled you up and ran like hell. We nearly made it out of the palace without a fight, but the Infernal assassins your stepmother hired caught up quickly. Two of your bodyguards and the other nanny…” Her voice shuddered. “They gave their own lives to see the rest of us to safety. We activated our emergency teleportation charm and thought we were home-free.”

  Her eyes closed briefly, before opening to display a profound note of sorrow. “The assassins had a teleportation spell of their own, and they used it to head directly to my old home. Where they took both your father and brother hostage.”

  Her nod at Daddy clarified which father she meant, as did the mention of Luc. Their only biological child. Not that the three of them ever made us feel that we weren’t every bit as loved as him. My pulse picked up speed even though I knew they both had survived.

  “I reacted on instinct, casting a curse so powerful it killed two of the three assassins and knocked out the other. It also backlashed so fiercely I paralyzed myself completely.”

  Daddy broke in. “I cast the most powerful healing spell I could. But...it only partially worked.” His voice cracked and tears welled in his eyes. My heart just about broke seeing that.

  Mama reached over to stroke his cheek tenderly. “Hush, you. We’ve been over this a thousand times. You’re the only reason I can walk as well as I do. There is no shame in being the way I am.”

  He startled and clutched her hand. “Course there’s not! That’s not what I meant. You’re perfect to me.”

  She nodded and went back to her story. “So there we were. Me all but out of commission. Your father wiped out from Healing me. Your brother barely five years old without even a first familiar. Blanche the only one of us unharmed and, make no mistake, she was the best damned bodyguard the Gloaming has ever seen. But she was only one woman and the Witch Queen...nobody’s ever crossed her and lived to tell the tale. She wouldn’t have ever stopped looking for you two unless she believed you both had really died.”

  Misty and I grabbed each other’s hands as sickening realization gripped my stomach. The intensity of emotions swirling inside was no less for all the years that had passed.

  “Blanche told your father to bring his two prize hogs—that was before we had to sell off his family farm. We slaughtered them right then and there, and we staged a scene of carnage to fool the most exacting of crime scene mages. Blanche claimed the two pig hearts, and she...she said a few private things to me. And then she sacrificed both her familiars and her own life to disguise those pig hearts as being from witch children. She even tied pieces of your own essences to the hearts so there would be no way to tell they weren’t your own.”

  Shadow Realms like the Gloaming—those that existed in the supernatural spaces between the Eternal, Infernal, and Mortal Realms—were walking advertisements of extremes. At times exactingly civilized, at others brutal beyond belief. The most common method for an assassin to prove that the correct target had actually been killed was not to offer photos, videos, or memory charms as proof—it was to provide still-beating hearts. Hearts that were spelled to continue beating (some sickos liked to keep them as trophies) until they were either burned or (by the most gruesome of enemies) devoured.

  Dark and disgusting magic indeed.

  Tears had begun slipping down Mom’s cheeks, and they were echoed along both Misty’s and my own. We’d heard so many stories about the amazing woman Aunt Blanche had been. Hearing that she had given up her life for our own. I mean, how did someone react to that? Knowing someone else willingly died so you could live?

  Mama wiped her tears away with the faded handkerchief Daddy pulled from his pocket. “Even with all that, I knew it wouldn’t be enough to fool the Queen. If she caught wind that we had adopted twin girls who just happened to be the same age as the ones supposedly assassinated…”

  Yeah, that wouldn’t have fooled even the most gullible of people. Much less the Gloaming’s resident evil genius.

  “I discussed it with my familiars and they...they agreed to try a cantation we’d never successfully cast even under the best of circumstances with the finest of components. We reversed your age from four years old to one. But...the spell required so much energy that they both incinerated.”

  Unlike charms that used only Eternal magic or curses that used solely Infernal magic, cantations required magic from both those realms.

  My mouth dropped open even wider, something I would have thought impossible. This story made Harry Potter look like just a mundane little nursery tale. How could this dark, fantastical, awful story be our real, actual lives? And for several people and four familiars—deaths?

  Misty shared my sentiment. “So you...you reversed our age by three years? That—wow. I didn’t even know that was possible in the Shadow Realms.”

  My brow furrowed. “Wait, how is that possible? All witchcraft cast in the Shadow Realms eventually fades, unless re-cast.”

  Her lips twitched. “Re-cast that cantation we have, every year upon your birthday. Why do you think we stay so damned poor even with how hard your father and brother work? It takes the whole year to save up and gather all the components without raising suspicion.”

  Whoa. That made a lot of sense. The age-reversal spell wouldn’t require the sacrifice of familiars if it were planned in advance, all the best spell components pre-purchased, and a powerful enough witch like our father cast it. I mean, at this point it was maintaining the reversal, not truly re-casting it.

  “Besides, sometime soon we can stop it entirely. Once you claim your Infernals, you’ll freeze at that chronological age for decades anyway.”

  Now that this long, sordid tale had been shared, I wasn’t sure how to feel. Mixed emotions didn’t even scratch the surface. Misty and I...we were freaking royalty. Our biological mo
ther had been murdered by her own best friend. That heinous witch had then coerced our bio dad into marriage to solidify her claim on the Gloaming’s throne. Laying claim to it was a mixture of heredity—one needed certain bloodlines to have the necessary Mastery over all three types of spellcraft—and proving one’s worth to assume and hold on to the throne.

  And now, we two half-trained witches with zero pennies to rub together were getting launched straight into the lion’s den. The odds that we’d navigate the twists and turns of four years at Eternal Academy among the Gloaming’s most elite without running into the Witch Queen were about as good as my chance of catching up to Misty in either height or bra size.

  So about a snowball’s chance in the Infernal.

  Chapter 3

  Three weeks later...

  Daddy and Luc trailed behind Misty and me, dressed in their finest jeans and plaid shirts and loaded down with boxes galore as we strode along the parking lot toward the dorm we’d been assigned. Misty and I were also sporting our nicest clothes—a flowy little purple dress for me and a teal skirt and black blouse for her—because damned if we were gonna let any rich witches find an excuse to look down their snooty noses at us as we settled into this foreign environment.

  Mama had spent the past two days baking up a storm, and she’d sent us off with tears, lots of love, and enough baked goods to inspire cavities in an entire football team. She hadn’t felt up to helping us move in. Considering how far we were having to lug all these boxes and second-hand suitcases, that was for the best. Not even her spell-worked cane would have made this much walking comfortable for her.

  So far, nobody else had paid us much attention. They were all too busy supervising their own moves. I shifted the heavy box in my hands and juggled the duffel bags slung over each shoulder, trying not to drop anything. Maybe none of my belongings cost much money; but dammit, they were mine. My eyes caught sight of the main Administrative building looming in the distance, and I caught my breath. It towered over everything, a grand stone edifice boasting myriad towers and wings, with old-fashioned gargoyles keeping watch over all us little people.