Blood Pledged (Arcane Arts Academy #3) - Elena Lawson Page 0,11

from her seat near the front.

“They’re all to do with fire,” she said.

“Excellent,” Donovan admonished, turning to smile widely at his prized student. His gaze flickered back to me for an instant, scathing before he turned to address the rest of the class. “Today, and for the next several lessons, we’ll be learning about the elemental magic associated with fire sigils and how they can and can not be wielded. What they can and,” he said, his eyes cutting to me again. “can not do.”

I bowed my head.

Ugh.

By now, everyone had seen me with the Arcane Authorities or the council representatives at some point over the last couple weeks. But only a small few knew what I’d seen or what happened in Elk Falls.

The Magistrate wanted to keep it that way. The order for my silence until such a time as more evidence can be gathered, came down from the top mere hours after I arrived back at the academy with Bianca.

The only person of authority who seemed to believe me was Granger, but even she told me I needed to do as I was asked and not go looking for answers I wouldn’t be able to find.

It was why she’d gone easy on me. Allowed Cal and Adrian to stay. Didn’t give me endless detention for disappearing from the academy without a word.

She seemed only to be glad I wasn’t hurt and made me promise not to scare her like that again—apparently she and Elias both had assumed the worst. I said I would do my best. She even kept the inquisitors from the Department of Arcane Inquiry at bay.

They wanted to run tests on me and my familiars to figure out the why’s and the how’s of what occurred that night in April when we bonded. But she said no—that until I turned eighteen, I was under the protection of the academy and she wouldn’t allow it.

I loved her for it. I wasn’t sure how Cal and Adrian would react to ever being poked by a witch’s needle again. They certainly wouldn’t go willingly.

Donovan droned on about witch’s fire and the sigils used to produce and to smother it. I took notes here and there while simultaneously trying to read bits of my father’s journal that I had half covered by the hefty Sigils textbook.

I’d managed to decipher precious few passages, and understood even less, but now and then, like today, I’d come across a journal entry written in neat cursive. In English, thankfully.

Pulling the textbook and journal closer, I pretended to be studying something on the right of the textbook page like the others.

July 3rd, 1872

They lied to us. I have strong reason to believe the Council, likely by order of the Magistrate himself, orchestrated the concealment of it. How could we have been so trusting?

“…but none of the sigils known to witch-kind for producing fire could cause an explosion. It’s simply impossible. They were created for the purposes of lighting hearths, candles, stoves—things of that—”

“That’s not true,” I blurted. I’d known all the teachers had been told of my so-called escapades—my unfounded accusations—but I wasn’t about to sit here and casually be called a liar in front of the whole class, even if they didn’t know anything about what happened two weeks ago.

This lesson was a sham. Professor Donovan was trying to teach me a lesson. To disprove me just like everyone else was.

But there was a witch in that warehouse. A powerful one. And he or she set a damned witch-fire bomb off and killed all those people. I wouldn’t be forced to sit here and listen to him try to tell me I must’ve imagined the whole thing.

“I beg your pardon, Miss Hawkins,” Donovan said through his teeth.

“You’re wrong,” I said simply and earned myself several whispers. Bianca tried to heel-kick the leg of my desk to hush me. “It isn’t impossible. Not if the witch is powerful enough.” My tone was a challenge, rising as my own power flowed into me, spurred by my frustration. I felt Rose’s presence like a soft caress of cool air on my cheek. She appeared beside me in all her ghostly glory, cigarette poised in front of her mouth, a sneer curling back her red-tinted lips.

“Not this twit, again,” she said, and huffed. I wanted to say, yeah, this twit just called me a liar, but talking to ghosts of your deceased ancestors was a surefire way to get branded as a mental case, if I wasn’t