I snap out of Nero’s mind and back into my own, forcing myself to sit up straighter and actually listen to the lecture.
“As you all know, magic is steeped in everything,” my instructor says from the podium. Mistress Bellafonte is a middle-aged witch, her coppery locks shot through with white. “Most people barely sense it. Fewer still can access it. Only witches and a few other types of supernaturals can interact with and manipulate it.
“One of the oldest and most basic ways to do so is through invocation. That is, utterance,” Mistress Bellafonte says, touching her lips. “As we move through this course, we’re going to come back to this theme over and over. But for now, let’s dig into that.”
A thrill shoots down my spine because even though I’m tired and this topic is drier than the Sahara, I’m finally, finally a student at this coven.
“Certain elements of language can add to the potency of an invocation and thus a spell. The most obvious example of this is rhyme. But there are others. An element less commonly known is the use of ancient power words.” She gives the room a meaningful look.
“Why is this the case?” she says. “It’s the same reason why a witch’s power only increases with age—magic is attracted to old things.” She pauses again. “You will be more powerful in ten years than you are now. And more powerful ten years after that. Even when your bones are brittle and your muscles are twisted with age, magic will surge within you.”
The room has gone quiet.
“The world that values your pretty, youthful face knows nothing of your true power. Though in time, you will discover it.”
Mistress Bellafonte gives us a tight smile. “But I digress.”
She paces around the front of the room, her periwinkle magic curling lovingly around her ankles. “In the next several weeks, we shall learn some arcane words and phrases, and we will apply them to spells before we move on to common spellcasting ingredients, the use of writing, and the role grimoires play. We’ll discuss what effect seasons and the time of day play into casting, as well as lunar phases and astrological events.
“My hope is that by the end of the semester, you’ll have knowledge and some commonsense tools to work with as you come to understand your own power and gifts.
“For now, let’s start a basic introduction into the sounds of different dead languages.
“Crack your books open to page twenty-one.”
I open my textbook and turn to the requested page. On it is the image of a stone tablet, Egyptian hieroglyphs etched into the stone.
“This is stela found in Karnak. We’re not going to translate it all, but I want to recite a portion of it…”
She begins to read it, and no, that’s not right. I shake my head absently. She’s emphasizing the wrong consonants, and the vowels—
“Excuse me, but do you disagree with something I’m saying?”
I don’t realize Mistress Bellafonte is speaking to me until her magic curls under my chin and tilts my head up from my textbook so I can meet her eyes.
My skin heats as the rest of the witches in the room turn in their seats and focus their attention on me.
The silence drags on.
“Well?” the instructor presses.
I swallow, then glance down at the words. I don’t know how to voice these murky thoughts of mine, so I simply read what I can of the stela.
“Jenek nedej sew meh a heftejewef. Jenek der beheh meh qa sa, seger qa herew re temef medew.” The words roll off my lips, different from English and different from whatever language I spoke with Memnon. I feel…less certain with Ancient Egyptian, despite correcting the instructor.
I exhale and translate. “I am the one who will save him from his enemies. I am the one who removes arrogance from the haughty, who silences the boisterous so he does not speak.”
It’s quiet for a long moment.
“You didn’t use your magic to read that,” she finally says.
I meet her eyes. There’s a lot of confusion in them, as well as something else, something that looks like wariness.
She blinks and clears her throat, even as the witches around me continue to stare.
“Exceptional work,” she finally says before clearing her throat again. She turns from me then and proceeds to lecture the class about the stela and the power words that could be taken from it.
I frown as I read the rest of the stone tablet. It discusses martial victories against the Nine Bows—the various enemy nations of Egypt. The words on this stela would be better used to invoke dark magic, which is rooted in violence. They shouldn’t be in this textbook.
A bloodcurdling scream cuts through my thoughts, the sound coming from somewhere outside the room.
Mistress Bellafonte pauses and gives us all a reassuring smile. “Probably just Mistress Takada looking at all the spells she must grade,” she says jokingly before peering down at her notes once more.
But another scream follows it, and this one continues on and on.
“Murder!” someone finally cries. “A witch has been murdered!”
CHAPTER 15
“They say her eyes were gouged out and her heart was ripped from her chest,” says Charlotte, the witch sitting across from me. I sit with her, Sybil, and several other witches in our dining room, all of us eating dinner.
I make a face into my food. The details are quickly making me lose my appetite.
“I heard she was naked,” adds a witch named Raquel, and she looks as though she wants to hurl.
For the twentieth time today, my heart races. Memnon shows up last night full of ominous threats, and now a witch is dead?
It’s just a coincidence, I try to tell myself. He wants vengeance on you, not other witches.
“Poor Kate,” another witch says.
“You knew her?” Charlotte asks, raising her ice-blond brows.
Overhead, the lights in the wrought iron chandeliers flicker, making the gloomy atmosphere all the more intense.
“Mm-hmm. She was a year above me, but she’d taken a leave of absence to work for some company that needed witches. Can’t remember the name of it. I didn’t know she was coming back to school.”
“I think she did move back,” Sybil says. “I’m pretty sure I saw her moving into the house—right down the hall from you, Selene,” she says, bumping my side.
“She’s my neighbor?” I vaguely remember speaking to a few of the girls who lived on my floor, but I don’t remember anyone named Kate.
“Was,” Raquel corrects me.
There are so many wide, spooked eyes around our table. And when I glance at the other tables in the room, the witches present are tense, and their conversations are subdued. I think everyone is considering how the witch found on the coven’s property could have been them.
Another witch with wiry hair and a sharp nose sits down, dropping a massive leather journal on the table. “I want to know what her final words were,” the witch says.
My gaze moves to her shoulder, where a—is that a newt?—sits perched.
“What’s that?” Raquel nods at the book.
“It’s my own Ledger of Last Words.”