EIGHT: THICKER THAN BLOOD KNOTS
JANUARY 4
NICOLE BRADLEY
SINCE SHE ARRIVED IN THE World of Magic, Nicole Bradley's life had changed dramatically. She was away at boarding school (which felt a lot like living on her own) and everything she thought she knew about the world was wrong. Magic was real and her new school reflected that. Runes and Archaic Symbols replaced Calculus, History of Magic replaced American History, and the Study of Magical Beings replaced Biology.
But with all of that excitement came heartbreak. Her sister was dead, killed by a radical student doing the dirty work for some Dark Wizards. And just that morning, Nicole woke up to a powerful burning on her hip and a strange scar there.
After two of her four classes on Monday, Nicole was supposed to join Kate in the Dining Hall for lunch but excused herself to the bathroom beforehand. She hadn't had a moment to herself since arriving at the Academy and she was beginning to feel overwhelmed. Luckily, the bathroom was empty when she walked in and she stopped at the sink to catch her breath.
"Get it together, Bradley," she said to herself and her eyes locked onto her reflection in the mirror. "You belong here. You're a wizard."
She pointed an index finger out and wracked her brain for a spell. She'd read plenty of grimoires in recent weeks (courtesy of the extensive reading list from Queen Clarion). Surely she remembered one of them. Nothing too big. Just a little spark. There was magic all over the Academy and there was magic in her, too. She just had to find it.
She remembered a spell called Conversus, meant for turning things on and she channeled every ounce of magical energy down to her finger—now pointed at the faucet.
"Conversus."
But nothing happened. Frustration crept up her spine and she huffed. Then she straightened her finger and more forcefully, tried again.
"Conversus!"
The handle squeaked, turning ever so slightly before a louder squeak sounded and the faucet switched on full force. Water shot into the basin powerfully, splashing out and puddling onto the marble floor below. When the pressure became too much, the cap on the handle shot off and the stream shot straight up to the ceiling, sending water everywhere.
Nicole shrieked and reached through the water to shut it off but the faucet was stuck. Hard as she tried, it wouldn't budge. Water rained down from the ceiling and Nicole started to panic because of the limited spells she knew, fixing this problem was not one of them.
Moments later, the door flung open and before Nicole could see who it was, she heard the girl curse,
"What the hell are you doing?"
Then she waved her finger and muttered something that sounded like Rescindo, causing the water to cease. The last few drops puddled to the ground like the very end of a rainstorm and Nicole stopped to catch her breath. She pushed her blonde hair out of her face and looked up at the girl who'd saved her from her magical mishap. Then she became breathless for an entirely different reason.
"Wil," she said with wide eyes and if she was being honest, she wasn't even sure if she was allowed to call the princess Wil. Sure, she called Kate Kate but they were roommates. What if the rules were different? Nicole looked around at the mess, searching for the right words.
"I—" But she didn't know what to say.
"Trying your hand at free magic?" Wil guessed, stepping through the puddle to the towel dispenser where she began drying herself off.
Nicole nodded slowly.
Wil snickered. "Didn't they get you a wand?"
She stepped away from the towels to the mirror and there, she stripped off her white tee which had been soaked sheer. As she did, Nicole noticed a flesh-colored bandage on the inside of Wil's forearm and beneath it, the slightest edge of a tattoo was visible. Nicole couldn't tell what it was but she wondered if it was the same as hers. If it'd shown up in the middle of the night.
"They did," Nicole answered, looking away from Wil's bandage. "But I didn't see anyone else using one so I left it in my room."
"No one over the age of six uses wands," Wil said, tying her damp curls up into a bun. "Aren't you some kind of magic fetus? You have no business messing with free magic."
Nicole giggled and then she gestured to the puddles of water around them. "Clearly."
Wil laughed again and then rolled her eyes at Nicole. Then she dug through her pocket for mascara and chapstick, returning to the mirror where she touched up her makeup. Mid-swipe, she saw Nicole watching so she frowned and then asked,
"What?"
"I met you at the party."
"You'll forgive me for not recognizing you," Wil said, holding her wet shirt in one hand and turning the other into a fist. A small breath of air came out of her hand like a blow-dryer and she used it to dry the rest of her shirt. "I go to a lot of parties."
"I'm sure that's true. And I would probably believe that you didn't know me if I was anyone else. But you know who I am. In fact, I think you've known exactly who I am since you first saw me at that party. That's why you took off. I didn't get it then but I do now. Because I look just like her—well, except for the hair but if you put me in a dark wig, I could be her twin."
Wil stopped her spell and put her shirt on, smoothing it over her body. Then she cleared her throat.
"I know you've been asking about that day. And I know you think there's some kind of conspiracy theory but the truth is, there's not. And I know that must suck to hear because she was your sister and believe me, if I could do that day over again, I wouldn't have given Reagan that book. I'm sorry."
Nicole opened her mouth to speak but nothing came out.
"Listen," Wil said, filling the silence. "I made a mistake and that's something I have to live with but you don't have to. You have this incredible opportunity. You're in the freaking World of Magic! The best place in the Three Realms."
Wil swept her finger through the air and the water around them began to evaporate, soaking through the marble floor like a sponge. When she was finished, she looked at Nicole and smirked.
"Magic is real. And once you know that, nothing else in the Three Realms matters."
AFTER HER CHAT WITH WIL, Nicole met Kate in the Dining Hall. The lunch spread was as extensive as breakfast—with pasta, pizza, and salad stations accompanied by many other options. Kate said that Mondays were usually Italian Day. Nicole filled up on raviolis and salad before it was time for the second half of classes. First was Botaneous Magic with Mrs. Truly followed by Premonitions with Madam Selena. Premonitions, the study of fortune-telling and sensory-based magic, left a lasting impression.
Madam Selena was a tiny, wiry-haired, bug-eyed woman in her late-forties who spoke in grand euphemisms that were impossible to understand. When Nicole entered the classroom, the teacher made some comment about a forgotten history repeating itself. Nicole made a face and Kate laughed, walking them to their seats.
"She once told me that Wil and I were linked by magic but not by blood," Kate said quietly, scoffing. "Guess someone forgot to tell her that we're twins."
They took their seats towards the back corner (unlike other classes, this one didn't have assigned seating) and when they did, Kate lowered her voice before asking,
"Have you looked since this morning?"
Nicole shook her head and fumbled with the ring on her pinky finger. "Not since we woke up. It doesn't hurt anymore. Does yours?"
"It's numb now," Kate said of her foot, which shared the same burn mark as Nicole's hip. "I wanted to go to the library and research whatever this is. It has to be in a book, right?"
Nicole shrugged. "You're asking the wrong person. I'm a magic fetus, remember?"
Kate frowned. "You sound like my sister." She shook her head as if to say anyway and then continued. "So what do you say? Ready to help me figure out what these marks mean?"
AFTER CLASS, KATE LED NICOLE up to the fourth floor of the Main Hall. There, they entered a library so large, Nicole couldn't believe there were enough books to fill it. At three-stories high, the library must have been filled with every book ever published—magical and otherwise. Few students were there when Nicole walked in—it was only the first day, after all—but the library was alive. Books sorted themselves and moved between shelves, all with a touch of magic, and she watched in amazement.
Nicole found them a table to sit at while Kate disappeared down one of the many aisles. She returned not much later with her arms full of books and Nicole helped her unload them onto the table. For the next hour, the girls sat in silence, flipping through pages in an attempt to find anything that might explain the rope marks burned into their skin.
One-hundred pages into a four-hundred page book, Kate let out a dramatic gasp and Nicole's eyes snapped away from Charms, Enchantments, and Spells by Asher Arnold. It was the same textbook Mr. Westville used in his Enchantments class.
"Look," said Kate, pointing to a sketch. It was a rope with four knots that looked startlingly similar to theirs. Below the picture were two words. Blood knot. Kate surveyed the room for witnesses and then slipped her foot out of her shoe, folding down her sock to show Nicole the mark.
The redness had diminished and the swelling was substantially less. The lines were darker, though. Black like a tattoo. Nicole reached to touch them and when Kate didn't flinch, she realized the pain was gone.
Kate held the textbook beside her foot so they could compare the tattoo to the image in the book. After they both got a good enough look (the knots in the rope were identical), Kate rolled her sock up and put her shoe back on.
"This is it," she whispered, wearing a victorious grin. "A blood knot. The book says blood knots are symbolic of linked magic—like if a wizard manipulates their magic and connects it to another's. Each knot represents a wizard in the spell."
"So there's eight of us with this?" Nicole asked, swallowing hard as bile rose in her throat. She wasn't sure what she was a part of but she got the feeling that it wasn't good.
Kate nodded. "According to the book, yes."
"I think your sister has one," Nicole said after a minute. "When I saw her earlier, she had a bandage on her arm. It looked like she was covering a tattoo."
Kate paused for a minute to think. "Well that makes sense. We're twins. Whatever happens to one, happens to the other."
"Do we tell someone?" Nicole asked. "Your mom? Dr. K?"
"We can't. Magic like this is forbidden. Wizards aren't supposed to mess with it. Manipulating magic is fatal and the Royal Council banned it a long time ago. We can't tell anyone. We could get into a lot of trouble if someone found out."
"So we're supposed to hide this voodoo blood tattoo?"
Kate snorted and shook her head.
"This isn't voodoo," she assured Nicole. "Voodoo is something else entirely—but it also happens to be Banishment-worthy. But it's a completely separate kind of magic."
"Tell me something," Nicole said while she packed up the books. "Werewolves, vampires, Voodoo... Are all of the fairytales real?"
A smile twisted its way onto Kate's face and she nodded.
"Every last one of them."
"So what do we do?" Nicole asked. "We don't know how our magic became linked and if we can't tell anyone about it, we may never find out."
Kate shrugged, unsure. "We have to figure out who else has this tattoo."