Royals of Villain Academy 1: Cruel Magic Read online

  I came to a stop in the circle and let my arms hang at my sides, trying to stay relaxed.

  “Just take it in and let your body react the way it will,” the headmistress said.

  I nodded, and the professors raised their hands.

  Each of them spoke simultaneously, their voices blending together as they reached my ears. An erratic quivering of energy raced over my skin from all sides and delved into my flesh.

  My body tensed instinctively. Something shuddered inside me, down in the place behind my ribs where I’d reacted to Malcolm’s brief flash of fear yesterday. It whipped up like a whirlwind. For several seconds I couldn’t breathe, the energy burst so forcefully against my lungs. Then it fell away as quickly as it had risen.

  I’d closed my eyes without realizing it. When I opened them, the professors I could see were frowning. They walked over to consult with Ms. Grimsworth.

  A faint draft raised goosebumps on my arms, and I rubbed them as I waited. Had they seen something about my magical capacity that bothered them? Maybe after having my abilities suppressed for years, I wasn’t on the same level as the other scions. Oh, well. I’d work with what I had. I only needed enough to get the hell out of here.

  The headmistress beckoned me over. “Miss Bloodstone,” she said, “it appears we have a rather unusual result. The assessment revealed no effect at all.”

  I hadn’t expected that. “No effect?” I repeated, wondering if the words meant something different than they should. I’d definitely felt plenty affected.

  “It’s the sort of response we’d expect to see from someone who has no magical ability at all,” she said.

  I blinked at her. “But—I could feel something reacting inside me.”

  “That might have been simply the magic of the test.”

  I didn’t think it was, and besides— “I’ve already used my magic. Yesterday. I… had a disagreement with one of the other students about how he was treating a younger mage. I conjured ice on the floor, enough to freeze his feet to the ground for a few seconds.”

  Ms. Grimsworth raised her eyebrows. “Well, then. Do you happen to know which student this was? Perhaps we can get a testimonial.”

  Did I want a testimonial? It occurred to me, too late, that maybe I should want her to think I didn’t have any magic. The fearmancers wouldn’t have any use for me then, so I wouldn’t have to stay here, right? But I’d already barreled on ahead. Too late to backtrack now.

  “Ah, it was Malcolm Nightwood,” I said, restraining a wince in anticipation of her reaction. “His friends—Jude and Connar—they were there too.” I didn’t know if Declan or my other escorts had been close enough to see what I’d done.

  The headmistress only looked vaguely amused. “Ambitious, aren’t we?” she murmured with a little shake of her head. “Well, you are a Bloodstone.” She gestured to Professor Banefield. “Get Mr. Nightwood, Mr. Killbrook, and Mr. Stormhurst down here, will you? I don’t imagine they should be too difficult to track down at this hour.”

  I sat on a bench by the wall while we waited for the guys to arrive, and Ms. Grimsworth fell back into conversation with the other professors.

  How could I have shown no magic? It didn’t make sense—not to me, and not to them either, obviously. Deborah was proof that even my parents had expected me to develop a power.

  Finally, the divine devil and his cohorts swaggered into the gym. Even knowing what a callous, sadistic asshole Malcolm was, I couldn’t stop the flutter that passed through my chest at the sight of his shockingly gorgeous face. Overnight I must have downgraded his looks in my memory to match his personality. With two more epitomes of hotness on either side of him, it was hard to look away.

  Malcolm gave the headmistress a cherubic smile. “What can I help you with, Ms. Grimsworth?”

  The headmistress motioned for me to rejoin the group. I walked over, watching the three guys uneasily. Their gazes skimmed over me as if they’d never seen me before. Somehow that unnerved me more than if they’d been glaring at me.

  “Miss Bloodstone has informed us that she conjured ice in your presence yesterday,” Ms. Grimsworth said. “I was hoping you could verify the incident.”

  “Ice?” Malcolm said, knitting his brow.

  I gritted my teeth. “On the floor. Under your feet.”

  He shook his head. “I remember sending a little ice under you to interrupt your tirade, but I don’t recall you throwing any magic at me.”

  “I think Miss Bloodstone must have gotten confused, Headmistress,” Jude said helpfully, flicking back his floppy copper hair. “Maybe she was trying to summon some ice at the same time Malcolm did. But I heard him cast the spell.”

  “Mr. Stormhurst?” Ms. Grimsworth said.

  The brawny guy’s chiseled face stayed blank. “As far as I saw, only Malcolm used any magic.”

  Oh, for fuck’s sake. Malcolm shot me a triumphant flicker of a smile, and I forced myself to bite my tongue. What could I say? It was the three of their words against mine, and I was the newcomer here.

  “All right, boys,” the headmistress said. “I’m sorry to have interrupted your day.”

  “It was no trouble at all, Ms. Grimsworth,” Malcolm said sweetly.

  The three of them sauntered out. I turned to the headmistress. “I swear to you, I used magic yesterday.”

  She sighed. “Even if you did, if it isn’t enough to register on the assessment, it might as well be none. This test has never failed us before.”

  “Could it be… My parents—the joymancers—were suppressing my magic before.”

  “Your rescuers examined you for lingering spells on your journey here,” Ms. Grimsworth said. “By the time of your arrival, any magic used on you had already faded away. Spells of that sort are difficult to maintain without regular reinforcement.”

  No wonder my parents had kept me so close. Had they been casting magic on me every single night—or even more often than that—without me knowing?

  “Then what do we do?” I asked. Despite the tightening of my throat at the thought of all those secret spells, my hopes stirred. Maybe I could get out of this hell right now after all.

  “Well…” The headmistress rubbed her chin. “It’s a highly unusual situation. In light of your heritage, I don’t believe we should make any decisions hastily. We’ll continue with a general spectrum of courses for the next month and see if we can’t wake up your talent from whatever depths it descended to thanks to your captors’ suppression.”

  A month. Okay. “And if I still don’t show what you’re looking for in this assessment after that?”

  “I suppose we’ll deal with that when we come to it. Most likely we’d have you take up residence in your family’s properties with some private instruction on our society, and when you’re ready to marry, we’ll hope that your children fare better.”

  My children? Were they going to turn me into some kind of broodmare?

  Ms. Grimsworth was studying me. “Were you hoping for something else?”

  I opened my mouth and closed it again, thinking over my answer. These people hated the joymancers. I couldn’t tell her I wanted to go back to my parents’ people.

  “I spent my whole life that I remember in California,” I said. “If I’m not any use here, I’d kind of like to go back there.” The fearmancers couldn’t stop me from reaching out to the Conclave for help if I was in the same city.

  The headmistress pursed her lips. “I don’t think that would be at all advisable, Miss Bloodstone. The southwest is the epicenter of joymancer activity in this country. They’ve already ripped you away from your community and kept you prisoner once.”

  “But if I don’t have any magic—”

  “Do you think they’d believe that? You had no magic when you were two years old, but they knew you were a bargaining chip all the same. They’re afraid of us, and people acting out of fear find it very easy to ignore rationality. You’ll be safe as long as you’re among your kind.”

  You’re not my kind, I wanted to snap. But with her words, a sense of dread was sinking in. Not about Mom and Dad—I knew they’d cared about me. They might not have wanted me roaming too far out of their reach, but they hadn’t treated me like a prisoner the way she was saying.

  The other joymancers, though… If I was so important, why hadn’t any of my parents’ mage colleagues ever come by to talk to me? It was almost as if the rest of the joymancers had avoided meeting me. So I couldn’t identify them if I defected back to my real “kind”? So they didn’t have to worry about revealing any secrets?

  Or so there was no chance I’d use my villainous fearmancer powers on them?

  If they hadn’t trusted me even while I had my parents there monitoring everything I did, what were the chances they’d trust me now? They might even think I’d helped those murderers kill Mom and Dad.

  I swallowed hard. “Okay,” I said. “I see your point.”

  Her expression softened just slightly, which maybe was as soft as that pinched face ever got. “We’ll do our best to bring out whatever talent you have in you, I can assure you. It’ll take us a few hours to work out your preliminary schedule. Why don’t you take the rest of the morning to acquaint yourself with the campus at your leisure?”

  “That sounds good.”

  I didn’t set off exploring the campus, though. I headed straight back to my dorm, finding the common room thankfully empty for the moment, and shut the door to my bedroom as firmly as I could.

  “Deborah?” I murmured.

  Her little white head nudged the wardrobe open a few seconds later. I knelt down to scoop her up when she scampered to me and cradled her as I flopped on my back on the bed.

  Trouble? she asked. Other than the crapload of trouble we were already in, I mean.

  “I…” I inhaled slowly. “The joymancers were afraid of what I might do if I came into my powers even a little, weren’t they? That was why my parents suppressed my magic—that was why they had you watching me.”

  She was silent for a moment. They didn’t want your magic to lead the fearmancers to you.

  “It couldn’t have been just that, though. They never even told me. I’d have been so much more prepared if they had, but it mattered more to them that there wasn’t a chance I’d turn against them. They didn’t even tell you the whole story.”

  I’m sure they did what they thought was best for everyone involved, Deborah said, which wasn’t exactly reassuring. She obviously didn’t have anything to say that would prove the joymancer community would give me the benefit of the doubt now that I’d discovered who I was.

  No way in hell was I staying here with these psychos any longer than I had to. But I was probably screwed if I ran back to California empty-handed too.

  How could I show that no matter what my heritage was, I was on their side? That I was the girl—the woman—my parents had raised me to be?

  How could I make sure the bastards who’d slaughtered my parents got what was coming to them?

  The idea hit me so hard I tensed against the feather duvet.

  “Deborah,” I said slowly, “when you were telling me about this place, you said the joymancers had been trying to shut it down for ages, right?”

  They just never got close enough to manage it, yes. Why?

  “Well… you can’t get much closer than this. What if I took down Villain Academy for them?”

  Saying the words aloud sent a cool shiver through me. Dad’s voice rose up the back of my head. Pros and cons, Rory.

  Pros: I’d destroy the institution that trained mages to become heartless killers. The information I could bring to the Conclave might help them interrupt all sorts of other fearmancer villainy. I’d avenge my real family. Oh, and as a side benefit, I’d get to see the cocky smile wiped right off Malcolm Nightwood’s way-too-handsome face.

  Cons: I might fail and face a fate that I couldn’t imagine getting any worse than what I already had to deal with living with these creeps.

  Yeah, when I laid it out like that, my decision couldn’t have been clearer.

  Are you sure about this, Lorelei? Deborah said, nuzzling my fingers. If they catch you, fearmancers aren’t exactly known for mercy.

  “That’s a chance I’ll just have to take,” I said. “I’m the best shot my parents have at getting justice. The best shot the joymancers have at tackling this place.” Just because I’d been born a fearmancer didn’t mean I had to subscribe to their philosophies.

  I sat up, resolve coiling inside me. I was going to topple this place, but that meant I had to stick around long enough to pull off what might be the most epic betrayal in mage history.

  In one month’s time, no matter what, I had to pass my second assessment.

  Chapter Eight

  Rory

  You’d think a building like Nightwood Tower would be easy to navigate, considering it was pretty much straight up and down. Unfortunately, the perverse architect who’d designed it had decided to include two staircases, one on the north side and one on the south, each of which only gave access to two of the four classrooms on each floor.

  I’d hiked up seven flights on the north side before I realized there was no way to reach my Seminar in Persuasion, room 704, from there. I had to hustle back down and up the other side.

  Thankfully I’d set off for my first real class at Villain Academy with plenty of time to spare. My nerves had been twitching too much for me to sit still. I’d spent the last two days in one-on-one sessions with Professor Banefield between his regular classes while he tried to get me up to speed on the basics of fearmancy, but I still didn’t feel particularly ready.

  The trouble was it turned out I wasn’t very good at being scary. Just as mages like my parents had to spark joy in someone around them to work their magic, I had to provoke fear. I’d done it with Malcolm the other day completely unintentionally. Approaching someone or something with the primary purpose of scaring them made my gut clench up. Especially when Banefield kept sticking things like adorable floppy-eared bunnies in front of me and expecting me to terrify them.

  I managed to get a little reaction by stomping my foot or giving a shout, but the jab of guilt that shot through me afterward made it hard to concentrate on doing any casting or conjuring. After a while, Banefield had put a pause on applied magic and switched to theory and history to give me a break.

  “You’ll adjust to the process,” he’d said with the confidence of a man who’d been taught his whole life that freaking out every conscious being around him was a totally admirable goal. “Another option would be to take on a familiar. Most of us end up taking one. The magical bond allows any fear your animal provokes to fuel your magic as well.”

  “Oh,” I’d said. “Maybe later, if I can’t get the hang of this on my own.” I couldn’t admit I already had a familiar who wasn’t likely to terrify anyone. I got the impression the girls in my dorm weren’t the type to scream at the sight of a mouse. They were the type to skewer it. I’d rather not risk her life to test that theory.

  By the time I reached the seventh floor for the second time, my breath was coming short. I leaned against the cool plaster wall beside the classroom door to recover, and who should come strolling up the stairs but Malcolm Nightwood, looking as devilishly hot as ever and not the least bit winded. How was that fair?

  He grinned when he saw me, but the curl of his lips had a hard edge. “If it isn’t Glinda the good witch,” he said wryly. “Finally came out of hiding?”

  “I wasn’t hiding,” I said. “Strangely enough, I do have a little catching up to do.”

  “Hmm.” He set his hand against the wall about a foot from my shoulder and looked me up and down. That close, I could practically feel his gaze traveling over my body with a flicker of heat I couldn’t say I enjoyed. He might be the most gorgeous man I’d ever set eyes on, but he was also clearly dangerous.

  “You cleaned up well,” he said. I was wearing another of my birth mother’s outfits: tapered pants and a V-neck blouse. It’d looked professional enough to me when I’d put it on this morning, but under Malcolm’s gaze my chest felt abruptly exposed. He trailed a finger down my forearm to my charm bracelet, drawing a sharper line of heat to the surface. “Everything except for this. Did you buy it in some feeb dollar store?”

  I jerked my arm away from him. “Just because something didn’t cost thousands of dollars doesn’t make it cheap. It was a gift from my parents.”

  He guffawed. “From your parents? As if the Bloodstones would ever—” His voice cut off, and his grin turned into a grimace. “You mean the joymancers. The ones that incarcerated you. Why the hell would you want to hold on to a memory of that? They weren’t your parents; they were your jailors.”

  “You’ve got no idea what it was like,” I retorted, and changed the subject before he could insult my parents any more than he already had. “Why did you lie to Ms. Grimsworth at my assessment? You know I conjured that ice.”

  Malcolm shrugged, his mouth shifting back into his previous cocky grin. There was more of an edge in his voice now. “Just living up to your expectations, Glinda, since you’ve already decided I’m an asshole. We play by our own rules at Villain Academy.”

  My body went rigid. How did he know—had he heard me talking with Deborah, or had someone else heard and told him?

  Malcolm chuckled at my reaction. “Did you think we don’t know what those sanctimonious pricks call us while they’re looking down from their high horses? Let them think that.”

  Oh, okay, so the nickname was just common knowledge. “It doesn’t bother you?” I couldn’t help asking.

  “Why should it?” He shrugged. “You know, if we were being really accurate, it wouldn’t be about fear and joy. It’d be truthmancers and liemancers. We lean into what the world really is, how it really works. At least we’re not pretending it’s something it’s not. If that makes us villains to them, who cares?”