Cyberwitch Academy: Learn or Burn

Chapter 58

We're in the Gap, in a building far from the Secret School. It's a courthouse hidden in the deep dark woods. Actually, I'm pretty sure it's the courthouse from Alice in Wonderland.

I stand between two opposing banks of benches rising up on my left and right. To my left, all the high-ranking Weavers and to my right, all the senior Sirens. In the front benches the Queens stand opposite one another in front of lecterns.

There is a cacophony of conversation. Everybody is talking about me. I long to be swallowed up by a hole in the ground. Powerful witches are poised around me ready to pounce if I start glitching out again. I'm using all my mental strength to keep the voices pushed down.

Above the main action, a public gallery is stuffed with students I recognise from lessons at the Secret School. And there at the end of this great hall, there are thirteen seats where the governors sit. They are very old, majestic witches, each from a different corner of the world. It kind of helps to study their fascinating avatars.

I don't want to be expelled but my rap sheet is damning. I ditched my coven. I faked my identity to return to school with another coven. I went to illegal fear magic lessons. I got ditched by my new coven after fraternising with a senior, and then I got my third coven into a clan fight at the Secret School. But I can't just quit.

And especially I don't want the hammer to fall on Mel, Ty and Vash. I've got a case to fight here, for them. They don't deserve to be thrown on the street, left to the hunters.

I have to figure this out. But I've been going round in circles in my head for days. I've been held under house arrest by Siren agents back in London. Now they have brought me to the Gap for judgement.

I'm just a kid. I should be stressing about homework and chores. I need a therapist not a council of witches ready to pass judgement on my sins. But the twins come to me. The smell of their hair.

If they throw me out of school, there's nothing I can do to help the twins, I'll never find a way to defeat Marketta and end the Witch Hunt. The Secret School will be divided and the Sirens will withdraw from the war entirely.

Will my Siren friends even continue to look after me? What use would I be to them? And sooner or later, I'll glitch myself to death and maybe take a few of them with me.

I have to stay here. Then the idea of just giving up, just letting myself fall apart in some dark corner, no more struggle. It sounds kinda sweet. Darkling I listen. Something pops used to say when he was drinking. Whispering to himself. Not even seeing us.

Queen Sadie Weaver, ex-principal of the Cyberwitch Academy, takes the stage first. She seems to have aged a decade since I saw her last. The Gap is merciless with her, makes her look like a frail human being in a world full of immortals. Even her voice is lessened, subtly.

"Thank you all for attending, the esteemed governors of the Secret School. The school that I built, with my coven sisters Elizabeth and Amanda. Sadly, Amanda cannot be with us today. And thankfully, she never saw our clans at war with one another in the sanctuary that she helped to build."

It sounds like a farewell, which I guess it must be. Bess Kyteller holds a completely impassive face, like an iceberg to Sadie's sinking ship. She's as beautiful as the Arctic.

"My sister Elizabeth believes that I have broken our safe space though my own ambition and negligence. She believes that my blind love for Ursula Loveless' mother, Amanda Loveless, has clouded my once trusted judgement. And I will explain to you why she is wrong."

There is a ripple of muttering through the assembled crowd. Perhaps she has not lost her fighting spirit just yet.

"She is the one who has endangered us, playing her mind games, using her sirens to seduce and manipulate young Ursula, a mere child. There is the evidence that there have been secret black magic classes taught in the siren school. These young sirens know too well how to use terror and fear as a weapon. they have not learned this by accident."