Staying Under

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Thirteen

Everything I knew.

The fear I had felt for Amy up until a few minutes ago transformed into something else. I felt an urge to run, to lie and said I didn't know anything. But between my selfishness and guilt, I thought about how Amy almost died, and how it could happen to someone else near me soon. Like Dee. So I swallowed down that part of me that wanted to save my own skin, and told the principal that I'd tell her in private.

With a nod, she led me to her office. I didn't glance back at Dee. If she was already starting to hate me, I couldn't imagine how she would think of me later when she knew everything.

I told the principal everything from the beginning. Or at least, the beginning of what I remembered. The memory about my parents were still locked away. All I remembered of them started that night when they died. And the man who had been there—who had killed them. Who had spared my life for a reason I never understood until years later, when I killed my foster father with raw magic.

Maybe I hadn't known what it was called back then, but I had always known it was wrong, what I did. And still, I couldn't feel remorse over it. Every time I was reminded of that monster, I was glad he was now too dead to hurt anyone else. And that satisfaction, that rush of thrill when I had used the raw magic on him—I had always known that was wrong.

I hadn't known then—not until I read about it in a dusty section of the library a few years ago—that using raw magic to kill was a black magic practice. Generally, witches and warlocks were supposed to possess only enough raw magic to do little more than disarming someone—that was why spells were created to manufacture and channel magic better. But I had always had more. That was why the man who killed my parents had spared me. He had seen the potential of me becoming a black magician like him.

The academy taught me control. I might have not regretted killing my foster father, but I also didn't want to hurt anyone else if, for example, I was having a temper tantrum. When Mr. Hollister died the same way my parents had, I'd had suspicions that it might have been done by the same person. I had hoped I was wrong.

Yesterday, I started to realize denying something didn't make it not true.

When I finished, I couldn't meet Principal Edgerton's eyes. I remembered her sitting me down just like this when I was seven. I'd told her a lie. And I had been lying every single day in the academy after that by downplaying my raw magic. PE had always been my favorite because it was the only class I could release some of it, though I sometimes slipped. I also suspected it was why I could be underwater for so long—that raw magic helped me preserve my air.

I stared at my hands and waited for the principal to yell at me or call the mages to throw me into the Council dungeon. But she only kept quiet for a few minutes after I was done telling her everything. It was the longest minutes in my life.

"Very well, Miss Williams," she said. "I need to make some calls."

"But—"

"You're welcome to go back to your dormitory."

A dismissal. I sniffed and tried hard not to let any tear fall out of my stinging eyes. Rising up from the chair, I walked to the door and swung it open, wanting to get away as fast possible before someone passed by and saw me crying.

But when the door opened, it revealed Luke standing there in the doorway, looking down at me as if he had been standing there for a while. His hair was no longer green and the look on his face made me want to hurt him physically more than just changing his hair color. I released a straight force field to his chest and slammed him to the wall to keep him in place. He grunted, but didn't take his eyes off me.