Page 10 of Alchemy of Souls

“What do you have to report, Damien?” my uncle breathes with a warning in his tone.

Damien bows. “It’s the school wards, Sir. They’ve been breached.”

There are gasps around the room.

“Casualties?” my uncle asks, and I can scent his ire. The wards around the Academy are second only to those around the University itself. And they haven’t been breached for more than thirty years. This is no small thing.

“None,” Damien says. “It’s the campus greenhouse, Sir. The Lawless have emptied it.”

His news is met with outrage. Students and faculty erupt in protest, horrified that our most potent and rare ingredients are now in the hands of the Lawless. And given the timing, there’s no way my uncle will believe that the tampered discernment spell was anything other than a premeditated distraction—which means Eloise and I are beyond screwed.

“Keep everyone here while you search the premises,” my uncle barks. “The Council will aid you.Find them.”

Damien nods and the Council members jump into action. My uncle, however, turns on his heel. He looks like he wants to rip my balls through my throat.

“You two”—he looks at me and Eloise with deadly calm—“are coming with me.”

Eloise stiffens as he lifts his hand to cast, but I refuse to so much as flinch. Not that it matters, because a second later my vision goes black.

CHAPTER 7Grayson

Sparks of light swim in my vision, and my head pounds like someone clobbered me. I squint at the heavy wooden desk before me, and the inset bookshelves separated by two large bay windows with cushioned seats—my uncle’s study?

As my head clears, I realize Eloise is in a matching armchair… asleep. Her head tilts back and her long brown hair is braided with pieces escaping around her face. Her heart-shaped lips are slightly parted, and the sunlight from the ocean-facing window falls in bands across her face.

I don’t know Eloise, not really. Except what everyone knows—that she comes from a poor Labor family here in Maine, spends all her time with Maggie O’Donnell, and that she hums to herself when she does spellwork. But the song she sang when she blew up that box and called the Key was different.

Maybe it was the acoustics of the room or possibly the discernment spell itself, but the melody felt disembodied, like she was leaning over my shoulder and whispering in my ear. The song was haunting and ethereal as though her fingers were lightly brushing the skin down my spine.

In her stillness, I can almost hear it again, like it’s vibrating through her even now. And it throws me so entirely that when her dark lashesflutter against her lightly freckled cheeks I startle, looking away and running my hands down my face. It’s also when something moves in my peripheral vision near the fireplace.

Not something—two giant Dobermans. Hauling themselves off the floor and zeroing in on me and Eloise.

The dogs growl and whatever haziness I feel vanishes with a jolt of adrenaline. Eloise gets one look at the snarling Dobermans and her naturally large eyes widen, making her look like a spooked lioness. I instantly scent her surprise.

“The thing is,” I tell her, “we don’t have dogs.” My family isn’t good with animals any more than we are with each other.

Eloise slowly climbs out of her chair as I stand, both of us avoiding any sudden moves that could cause them to spring.

“Let’s everyone just stay calm,” Eloise says to the dogs in a soothing voice, as though she could somehow subdue the approaching beasts.

“Like I said, they’re an illusion.” My tone reflects the frustration I feel. Five years of fostering a crucial relationship with my uncle and she’s managed to put it in jeopardy in one afternoon.

The dogs pull back their gums, saliva glistening on their pointed teeth, positioning themselves directly between us and the door.

“I’m assuming they can still bite?” she says, more of a statement than a question. Only advanced magic can manipulate illusions in such complicated ways. But given that it was my uncle who made them, I have no doubt. I’m also sure he’s watching every moment of this through one of his magicked mirrors.

Eloise glances at the windows and the desk behind us while I run through spells in my mind. Only I come up short—disbanding an illusion, especially one created by a Mage as strong as my uncle, is nearly impossible.

“How are you at defense?” I ask quickly.

“Not awful,” she says, but I can smell her doubt like rust on metal.

“Which also means not great,” I reply, and she flashes me the same challenging look she gave me this morning in the parking lot.

I test them by taking a measured step backward. The dogs immediately bare their teeth, the muscles in their shoulders rippling beneath their fur. I freeze, but Eloise reacts, lifting her hand to cast.

Only her choice of spell could not be worse. She doesn’t create a cage or a shield. Her spell pulls from the cushioned window seat and transforms it into a goddamn dog toy. A fluffy white ball to be exact, which she tosses in the air toward the fireplace.