Chapter Nineteen: Sisters

Let it never be said that Doctor Prudence Sauvage is not a wily witch - she's that and more. She certainly put me into an unenviable position, forcing me to sign an amendment to my behavior plan in front of the school board - and now I was graduating in four short months, to boot. That changed everything. Fortunately, I had a few aces up my sleeve, one of which the doctor was sure not to enjoy.

After my meeting with the School Board, Doctor Sauvage's reputation was solidified and protected against the recent loss of the littles' behavior plans - they had new plans, after all, and Sauvage had demonstrated control over them. Despite that, Lily returned to St. Circe's shortly afterward as co-Headmistress with the doctor. Really, that wasn't so different from how things were before, except now they were officially coequals. In addition, Lily wasn't co-signing pacts for any new students for the rest of the year - and possibly thereafter, if there was any question about her continued status. Instead, Mrs. Bishop was the school's co-signer of record.

Despite the drama with the board, things didn't change too much for me. At least not at first. I'd been taken down a notch after it became common knowledge that Doctor Sauvage had outmaneuvered me in front of the board, but I was fine with that. It restored her air of authority, without which her ability to do her job would have been substantially diminished. I didn't care about her authority, but I needed a low-drama ending to the year. More importantly, Sauvage and Lily's satisfaction at things finally settling down meant they gave the ok on more social outings for the Advanced girls. We'd be mingling with the boys at St. Lovelock's once again, which meant I'd finally get to reconnect with Magnus!

This was the first St. Circe's social outing in modern history with no mandatory control collars for the littles (and, technically, no 'Bigs' or 'littles' existed anymore - we were all just students, each of us with our own unique trajectory to follow). Surprisingly, the Bigs didn't make too much of a deal over it. In fact, some of them now admitted that they'd never been too fond of the collars - suspiciously convenient, given that they were no longer allowed to use them without our permission.

"Those collars are dumb, anyway," Valerie stated, casting a nervous glance in my direction. "If you're really good at witchcraft, you shouldn't need one... right?"

"Right," I said. Valerie was not really good at witchcraft.

Two of the girls still wore their control collars - the two littles, incidentally, who'd immediately signed on to Sauvage's draconian new plans. As far as I knew, they'd kept those ruthlessly-strict plans - and, I was afraid, they were going to end up being kept girls. I'd try to work on them, but time was running out. Tiffany and Asha, being the most recalcitrant of the former Bigs, finagled their way into leading the two collared girls for our outing. Yes, obviously they would have preferred to keep all of us collared, but this was the new order of things - no collar, not unless you wanted one. The Bigs would have to maintain their social status on their own merits. Which, for most of them, as plenty. Being an Advanced student at St. Circe's with a killer body and a penchant for witchcraft (however mediocre some of them were) ought to be enough for any girl to get ahead in the world.

As I stomped out into the snow, somebody reached around from behind me, wrapping my face in soft cloth. I screamed, thinking it might be a magical attack, flailing and drawing attention from everywhere nearby. I tugged at the fabric - soft wool in St. Circe's colors with a little pink fringe. I sighed in relief, turned, and looked up to spot Cassie as my scarf-assailant.

"I made us matching scarves!" Cassie grinned. Hers had a blue fringe - matching scarves with colors to match our supernatural hair highlights.

"When did you have time to make these?" I asked.

Cassie rolled her hazel eyes. "We don't all study twelve hours a day," she said. "And you're welcome. Ready to go?"

"God, yes!" I said, and I hopped up to peck her cheek. "Thanks! I love it!"

I was giddy with excitement as we loaded into our all-weather limousines and proceeded down the road. We were told to dress 'winter-appropriate', whatever that meant, so I had leggings, a knit turtleneck sweater, a burgundy parka with a little ruff of faux fox fur (try saying that three times fast), and matching boots. And, of course, my 'Cass & Nat' scarf. The location was hush-hush, but it was clear that we weren't going to Walukau - as we passed the school's threshold, a cloud of snow whipped around us and we found ourselves rolling along a snowy mountain vista, approaching a grand chalet. We were, I eventually deduced, in the Canadian Rockies, but the building and the view wouldn't have been out of place in the Swiss Alps.

"I haven't been skiing in forever!" Cassie gushed, grabbing my shoulder and giving me an excited shake.

"Same here," I said - I'd been exactly three times in my life and was possibly still competent to ski on the intermediate slopes, assuming this place had any. The trails we were driving past had lots of diamond symbols and looked way too vertical for my taste.

"I've never been," Simone said. "It looks dangerous..."

"But you'll try it?" Cassie asked.

Simone nodded uncertainly. "I'm trying to expand my horizons."

She certainly was expanding her horizons, and expanding in general. While still very slim by any metric, Simone had put on about ten pounds since accidentally (?) eating dairy at the Winter Festival. Those ten pounds made a lot of difference, turning her from a borderline-anorexic thinness to a distinctly feminine slenderness. If I had to guess, she had about fifteen pounds to go - she hadn't been punished enough before becoming an Accolyte to get too overburdened with curves, but what she was getting in custom-distributed fat and muscle was going to make a huge difference. Whatever her body did after that was up to her own dieting and hard work.

Soon after arriving, as we crunched across the snow to the chalet, fellow-math-geek Wyatt stumbled along to intercept us. Within seconds, Cassie and I might as well have disappeared to Narnia - he captivated Simone's entire boy-crazy interest with his own barely-contained excitement and awkward grinning. I saw them half an hour later wavering along the bunny slope. Simone wasn't very good - neither of them was - but it was good to see her enjoying herself. The sun reflected off the snow, making her dark skin shine, her pearl-white smile that much more radiant. She turned to see where Wyatt had gotten into just in time for him to veer off-course, arms flailing, his ski poles abandoned, and crash into her. She let out a surprised shriek as the two of them fell into the snow, laughing and tumbling about.

"That's good to see," Cassie said, pulling me into a hug. "Let's suit up and see if our boys are around yet."

Our boys - it still sounded strange to me. It still felt strange to me, the notion that I had a boy, a big, rugged, masculine warlock of a boy, who was wildly in love (or at least in lust) with me. And I was just as gooey over him. Whatever had been done to my body had erased the entirety of the jaded sexual cynicism that had landed me in this whole situation to begin with and replaced it with the teenage butterflies and a very healthy, very bisexual libido. It was a bit embarrassing, being a petite, perpetually-randy teenager, but boy did it feel amazing.

The only thing that tempered me from Simone's level of giddy excitement was the thought of another confrontation with Liam Langley. I hadn't parted on the best of terms with Cassie's boyfriend, and I hadn't been in the wrong. I wasn't about to apologize. Fortunately, he was very genteel and had the good sense to pull Cassie and myself to the side in the toasty, sun-suffused entrance hall of the chalet. Though I had to wait a bit for an apology. First, he got ensnared in a two-minute lip-smacking kiss by Cassie, after which Liam wiped his mouth, grinned sheepishly, and profusely apologized to me.

"I'm terribly embarrassed with what I said," he said. "It was a reflexive thing to say, unreflective and, I suppose, meant to pacify you. Which, if I understand Cassie correctly, is utterly impossible to do..."

I crossed my arms - I wasn't impressed yet. "You're rambling," I said.

"I am," he agreed. "Natalie, I apologize, deeply and sincerely, and I hope you'll forgive my stupid mouth..."

"Aww, your mouth is quite clever," Cassie said, kissing his cheek. He pushed her away, but in a playful way.

"So you say, sweet," he bumped his hip against hers. "But in this instance not so much. I said that I didn't think you were... what was it?"

I mimicked his accent: "I most definitely don't think you're barely better than a thrall."

Liam winced for effect. "And a good memory, too," he said, his blue eyes twinkling. "I want to assure you that, not only have I the greatest respect for you as a person, I'm not one of those monstrous warlocks who thinks nothing of enslaving another human being. In fact, I've made a blood-pact with your Magnus: both of us are pledged to release our thralls as soon as we graduate and offer them a stipend and cover schooling costs as reparations for their indenture. As a wise woman once said: 'we're all fucking people, and we all deserve respect.'"

"You have a good memory, too," Cassie said. I rolled my eyes.

"Yes," Liam said, "well it helps for remembering the many times I've put my foot in my mouth."

"Wise woman?" I scoffed. "What am I, eighty?"

"Eighty going on eighteen," Cassie said. "That's our Natalie."

"Our Natalie? I hope that includes me!" came the smooth, deep voice behind me.

"Magnus!" I whipped around and leapt into a kiss, his tongue running right along the inside of my lips, right against the tip of my own tongue. If I could survive two minutes of Liam and Cassie, they could withstand one minute of Natalie and Magnus.

Eventually, I pulled away and hopped back down, realizing with a bit of a blush that I'd wrapped my legs right around his midsection in order to get the height for a proper lip lock. It was a bit thrilling, too, how effortlessly he'd supported my weight. I looked up at him and batted my eyelashes - my physical conditioning had taken very well. I needed hardly think about enticing a potential suitor and a panoply of appropriately feminine behaviors would present themselves to me. Conversely, if I tried a macho swagger these days, I'd certainly come across as an ingénue with a very poor idea of what she was doing. Martin Warner, gone but not forgotten.

Magnus ran his fingers through my hair - I'd taken the pink out of it for the outing, but that was just a temporary transformation. Hopefully I'd soon get it done permanently - I didn't care to look like a pop princess. Magnus glanced to the other two. Liam offered a discreet thumbs-up. "Are we ready to hit the slopes?"

+++++

I hadn't been a bad skier before, but I'd never been all that great, either. Now, though, thanks to my balance, flexibility, agility, and lower center of gravity, I was a natural on the slopes. My handful of skiing experiences couldn't make up for the deficit where Magnus, apparently, had skied dozens of times in the Scandes, but when he coaxed me onto the black diamond slope, I didn't feel like I was about to die the whole way down. I even did some jumps and spins, finding that gymnastics training went a long way toward snow tricks, too.

"You should ski for the Summer Games," Liam called out after a particularly daring jump.

Presumably, the Summer Games, much like the recent Winter Festival, were not season-appropriate. Of course, if all went to plan (for good or for ill), I wouldn't be at St. Circe's when summer rolled around, and once we got to the bottom of the slope I told them as much.

"You're graduating? This June?" Magnus frowned, stopping in his tracks to digest that information. "Why is this the first I've heard of it?"

"I just found out the other day," I said. Shit… he was having emotions. "Um… things are kind of crazy after the winter festival. We have a new headmistress after the you-know-what and she wants me out of there."

"What am I going to do when you're gone?"

I hadn't given that much thought. Naturally, if the very worst happened and I was a sex slave to the Bryces, then it was a moot point what either of us wanted. And, if the very best happened and I was a free woman, the boys at St. Lovelock's weren't at school exactly two weeks every year - one week at Christmas and one week after graduation in June.

"I'll find you," I stated. "I'm a resourceful young witch."

I bent down, formed a tiny snowman with my hands, gave it pine nettles for facial features, and then used a handful of pine nettles from the same tree to make it dance around - basic sympathetic magic. Magnus and Liam looked on, dumbstruck. Cassie clapped.

"How in the world did you do that?" Magnus asked.

"Don't they teach you magic at St. Lovelock's?"

"Sure, how to summon lightning bolts, turn people into frogs, and what have you..."

"Typical men," Cassie muttered. I giggled and nodded. My bit of bad news had gone over well.

After a few hours on the slopes, we packed in our things and, at Liam's suggestion, hit the sauna. It was a surprisingly large sauna, considering the size of the chalet, with four separate rooms, each of which might comfortably house six or so people. Two of them were occupied, and the business of the occupants obviously wasn't just relaxing in the steam - there was lots of moaning, grunting, and slapping of flesh upon flesh to be heard. I'd long known that witches and warlocks were no prudes when it came to hands-on sex education; in fact, it was seen as an integral part of the trade. After all, we were famously seductresses (and seducers) of prodigious reputation - tales of succubi and incubi, apparently, were based off of a handful of real-life medieval warlocks and witches. Though, so far as I know, we always did our boinking for self-gratification (and possibly for sexual emissions - good for potions) and not in the name of Satan or any similar demonic creature. I'm not one to shy away from sexual exploits, but I was a little hesitant about going in the sauna with the three of them - it was a classic porno setup, and I anticipated a very awkward encounter. Fortunately, Liam helped us to navigate it with aplomb.

"Well I'm just knackered," Liam sighed. "I'm going to set my bones down for a moment. Maybe you girls should get started on your lonesome."

From his look, I could see that Magnus thought this was a magnificent idea. He sat next to Liam, the two boys clad only in little towel-wrappings that hid the bare essentials, and even then didn't hide them all that well. Cassie and I were a bit more clothed, our wrappings secured just above the breast... but we were only clothed like this from the time we walked into the sauna until about ten seconds after Magnus stretched out next to Liam, his hazel eyes open with a sly curiosity. Cassie's own eyes, also hazel, but the slightest bit lighter, had a predatory gleam to them. Maybe I just had a thing for hazel eyes? No... nonsense - there was no denying the draw of that world-class body, regardless of eye color.

Cassie dropped her towel to the floor, yanked my own from my much smaller body, and then pulled me down onto her lap, eliciting a surprised but happy yelp from me. Then she dipped her hands into a little trough of warm oil and started to rub me down.

Sitting on her lap, we were almost eye to eye - but not quite. Cassie pulled my hair back and kissed me hungrily, her hands roaming down my back. I stretched out my reach and managed to dip into the oil, too, returning the favor. I looked into her eyes with my own mischievous grin as I rubbed her shoulders.

Her own ministrations grew more insistent, roaming down to my breasts, where I gasped at the sensation of smooth but firm fingers, well-oiled and running over the nubs of my nipples. I moaned as she pressed her hands down my belly and thrummed at my clit for a teasing instant before massaging the insides of my thighs. I was so lost in the sea of sensation that I barely returned the favor and I almost forgot about whatever Magnus might think about what we were doing - Cassie had quite a few more liaisons with me than he had, and she could get my engine thrumming in ways that he was only beginning to understand. Would he be hurt? Insanely jealous?

Neither, it turned out. He and Liam were making out and stroking one another - that was a surprise. I'd known Magnus had used to be a girl, but I hadn't known he'd harbored the same deeply bisexual libido that I did. Guilty as charged, it turned out - and, perhaps unsurprisingly, not at all uncommon among witches and warlocks. In pre-modern times, covens were small and you took whatever partners you could get. In modern times, it makes for great orgy possibilities. Watching Magnus and Liam, oiled and muscled and rubbing against one another, broke my brain for a minute. I wanted to say something, but all that came out was a moan. Just then, Cassie returned her attentions to my breasts. My whole body pulsed with the fire of erotic pleasure, and I gasped and squirmed, slippery in her lap, giddy at being her center of her attention.

"How does it compare? With before you changed?" Magnus asked between groans - his own vocalizations were deep and rumbling like the force of a mighty storm. They resonated with me in counterpoint to Cassie's alto hum of contentment. It seemed improbable that any body could be so finely-tuned for sexual response, but I suppose that was the point to my whole 'punishment' - to make me helpless to resist despite any initial protestations.

I wasn't helpless, of course. I could tell them to stop whenever I wanted, and they'd respect that - and, in a hypothetical situation where they didn't stop, I could make them stop. Not even Cassie knew half the tricks I had at my disposal. But I was about a thousand light years away from wanting my bliss to end.

"It's so good," I gasped. "Sooo much better... touch me, Cassie."

As a man, I'd had about two square inches of prime sexual real estate, an area around the head of my cock, mostly at the base but curving around. As a woman, I suppose I had about the same amount if you added up everything around my clit and the g-spot up inside my vagina, though that new real estate was definitely trendier and hotter than the old stuff, probably two or three times more sensitive. But, more importantly, I had secondary erogenous zones aplenty. Before, I had the rest of my cock, my balls, my lips, and my ass (I'll admit to enjoying the occasional finger or two in there)... they were fine, I guess, but nothing that would get me worked up. They just added flavor to the overwhelming main sensation of that cock head. I never got anything out of my nipples (I know some guys do). But as a woman, those secondary areas were second and third chair players, some of them capable of impressive solo performances. When Cassie tweaked my nipples, my whole body shuddered, and she only had to knead the inside of my thighs and slick along my outer vulva to have me thrusting my hips to an imaginary lover. I was a sexual Stradivarius now.

"That looks wonderful, Natalie," Liam groaned - and now Magnus was behind him and thrusting, muscles pistoning, and Liam's blue eyes rolled back ever-so-slightly with each thrust. "I… I think sharing is good, don't you?"

"Sh… sh… sharing's good," I gasped. "We… we can share." And, just like that, I found myself signatory to a very un-square love tetrad. And, moments later, I was too far gone to speak intelligibly.

I eventually got to rub Cassie down, too, but not until she was satisfied she'd aced her Natalie solo. That was sort of our deal - she'd control the pace of things, and I'd improvise through whatever situation I found myself maneuvered into. I suppose it wasn't so different from things with Magnus - though he was inexperienced enough that I sometimes had to give him little hints, like stretching out with my wrists crossed above my head when it was time for him to hold me down, and he could do it with one hand and feel me up with that meaty man hand of his. And where I relished on getting Cassie off as much as possible, reciprocating all the bliss she gave me, I liked to tease Magnus sometimes, stopping just short of titillation once, twice, maybe three times - after all, he needed to recharge between bouts. I'd tease him until he got frustrated, and he'd throw me down and fuck the brat out of me.

We ran through all our accustomed games and more. Cassie fucked me. Magnus fucked me. Liam fucked me. And about the last thing that I remember before passing out was getting spit-roasted by both boys, the two of them thrusting into either end while they made out above me. Barely visible between the thrusts of Magnus's mighty member was Cassie sitting on the bench, legs splayed lewdly and fingering herself at the sight of me getting double-teamed. Without my unexpected enrollment at St. Circe's, it's unlikely that I would have ever approached that degree of blissed-out adventure. I now had a strange but physically fulfilling network of friendships. And if I'd been offered my old life back in that moment, I'd have told you to fuck off. And, as I drifted off for a short snooze, I felt fingers running through my hair. Whose? It hardly mattered.

"You're a lucky man, Magnus," Liam chuckled.

"You're pretty fortunate, yourself, Liam," Magnus said.

"And I'm the queen of luck mountain," Cassie sighed.

I think I gurgled something, myself. Something about fuck mountain. But then I drifted off.

+++++

When I awoke, the others were gone and I heard giggling out in the hallway. Realizing that I badly needed to rinse off before heading back for the main chalet, I stumbled out of the room, still in the process of wrapping my towel around my bosom. I took about two bleary steps through the little steamy corridor before running into a wall. Or, rather, a much bigger person (as most of the boys were) who might as well have been a wall.

"Well... I'd wondered where you'd gone off to," Lucian Bryce said.

"It looks like you've been a busy girl," Tiffany Chalmers said with a smirk. She traced her finger around a spot on my neck - a rose-red hickey, I'd later discover.

"We've still got an hour or two," Lucian said. He smiled cruelly and started to pull at my towel. To my surprise, Tiffany's hand shot out to stop him.

"Lucian, don't," she said.

"Why not?" To spite her, he gave my towel another tug and, despite my efforts, it fluttered to the floor. I didn't bother to cover myself.

"Lucian... you don't want to fuck with her," Tiffany said. "She's bad news."

Lucian snorted. He leered down at me, putting his finger beneath my chin to bring my gaze to meet his. "Little Natalie is bad news? How bad could she possibly be?"

He was about two seconds from finding out. My fingers twitched in anticipation of a bit of casual witchcraft - I had options. His towel, for instance, had a tiny trailing thread. If I got my hands on that, I could make the whole towel constrict around him however hard I liked. Lost limbs were not out of the question. He was sweating. A few drops of that and I could freeze him or scald all of his skin. I could turn my own hair into jagged blades - just try avoiding that much hair as it's whipping about. What would I do?

"If you don't back down, I'll do something that'll make the dislocation I gave you feel like a love tap," Magnus growled. He came up behind me, wrapping a protective arm around my chest.

Lucian looked at him coolly, looked at me, and then smiled. "Fine. You know what, it doesn't matter... when little Natalie graduates, my father wants me to guarantee that the goods are ready for use. Unless you can beat up the whole St. Circe's administration, I very much doubt you'll be a white knight for your little slut come graduation day."

"Take it back..." Magnus said through clenched teeth. From the tension in his arm, I could tell he was about one misconstrued facial expression away from physical violence.

"Fine," Lucian said quietly. "I take it back. My bad, my dude." He patted Magnus on the shoulder with utterly unconvincing contrition. He offered a shit-eating grin. "We good?"

"Fuck you," Magnus said. He grabbed my wrist and pulled me away just a bit too roughly.

"Magnus! Magnus!" I said, pulling back enough to make him take notice. "Stop it... deep breaths. Calm. I need a shower - why… why don't you join me? I'd feel safer."

"But he's right," Magnus said. "I can't protect you when you'll need me the most..."

"I like it when you protect me," I said. I ran my hand down his forearm, taut and corded and about five times as big around as my own. "But, not to toot my own horn, I'm a bit of a badass, myself. You saved Lucian from a very rash decision on my part that we would have all regretted."

"Ah," Magnus said. He drew me into a hug. I needed that - my hubris aside, I'd been frightened and I was trying not to cry. He rubbed between my shoulders. "I have one question, then."

"Shoot."

"Do you want a shower... or," he raised his eyebrows, "do you want a shower?"

I very much wanted the latter.

+++++

All things being equal, I could almost certainly demolish Lucian, should he give me cause to. According to Magnus, my step-brother was a mediocre magical talent - and, no offense to my man Magnus, he wasn't exactly a force of nature, either. My own talent was on par with Simone's and a notch or two above Cassie's - and all of the girls in Cassie's class thought she was hot shit, which made Simone and me next-level. Probably the kind of talent that gets you inducted into the Thirteen after a few decades of practice. So, yes, I could defend myself against Lucian, but I also couldn't have him reporting to his father that I was a badass next-level witch. In fact, I had to get him to report to Rowan Bryce that I was a docile little toy. Obviously, that presented a problem.

It was not an intractable problem, though. As was often the case, Simone came through with the winning suggestion:

"Doesn't his little sister go here? The girl they said you raped?"

"Older sister," I amended. "Little sister now, I guess, if that's how that works. But what about it? As far as I can tell, they worked her over a lot more thoroughly than they worked me, so the Bryces aren't likely to take her any more seriously than if she was actually eleven, and I have zero interest in getting revenge on her family using an innocent kid as a tool."

"Really, Natalie? That wasn't my suggestion," Simone said. "My point is: she's his sister. She's blood."

I grasped her point immediately, laughing at how stupid I'd been not to have thought of it first. Of course: blood relatives could make blood pacts to sign contracts, etc. on 'behalf' of a person. In this way, St. Circe's had traditionally used a girl's parents to seal a pact for that girl's enrollment and behavior plan. Both parents was ideal. It wasn't as strong as a personal pact, but not too terribly much weaker if structured properly. One parent was half as strong, and a grandparent was half as strong as a parent. And, even though they weren't additive in the same way parents were (that is, you got diminishing returns with each additional sibling after the first), one brother or sister was every bit as potent as a father or mother. It wouldn't be the most powerful thing in the world, but if I could convince Amanda Bryce to support a blood pact, I could compel, confuse, or curse Lucian Bryce into doing what I needed him to do. Namely: to not try to rape me and to convince his father that I was harmless and compliant.

"As far as I know, she still thinks I... you know," I said. "She thinks I hurt her."

"Maybe she'll listen to reason," Simone said. "Stranger things have happened."

"I guess we'll find out."

The next evening, we made our way to the Junior Girls' dormitory and saw ourselves in. We weren't allowed in, of course - the door handle would only recognize staff and Junior girls (and, after curfew, the students couldn't open and close the outer doors without hitting an alarm). However, the magic the doors employed was an old trick that was apprentice work to exploit - with a paperclip, you could touch the internal magical mechanism, cast a few short symbols to place it into antipathy with the lock, and click it open for about five seconds a go.

The Junior girls, being younger, were under much more supervision than the older girls. Mrs. Glace, their Night Matron, always had two or three Advanced assistants on shift to help manage things. We'd scoped out the front door and waited until nobody was around before magicking our way in. Mrs. Glace and her assistants were all in the little central lounge, engaged in hushed conversation - the night matron clicked away with her crochet needles, apparently teaching points of the craft to her apparently-interested assistants. Simone and I waited, poking our heads out from the dark of the entrance hallway.

"This one's for little Jonah," Mrs. Glace said. She held up a crocheted Christmas stocking. "My grandson. He'll be three next Christmas, so I want him to have his own stocking for the first holiday he might remember."

"Aw. That's sweet," Simone whispered.

"Shh! We're sneaking in, remember?"

We'd discussed how to go about getting past the matron and into Amanda's room. The most obvious option was to disguise ourselves as Junior girls - but we'd have to get a very good look at two of them first. Plus Simone wasn't very good at transformation magic yet and, if we looked too far off, Mrs. Glace would realize that something was afoot. There were around seventy Junior girls, and she probably knew each of them, at least a bit. No disguise shenanigans. Our second option - the one we'd gone with - was to simply go as ourselves, but pretend to be there in some official capacity.

I eased my way into the lounge area - smaller than the lounges for the older girls, I noted, with three round wooden tables for lunches, board games, and so on, and two sectional couches. Mrs. Glace was currently camped on the smaller of the couches with her aides on the one opposite to her, all of them click-click-clicking away with their knitting needles. But she caught me in her peripheral vision and slowly looked up. I knocked on the doorframe and smiled sheepishly. "Hi?" I said.

"You two aren't supposed to be in here," Mrs. Glace said carefully, setting her needles to the side. She knew who I was well enough - I think everybody at St. Circe's did at this point.

Simone slid in behind me, lofting the little pack we'd brought. "We've got a new uniform and behavior plan for one of your students," she said. "It's for... which one was it?"

I pulled a faux student copy of a behavior plan out of the pack and glanced at it. "Amanda Bryce," I said.

"Amanda was punished again?" Mrs. Glace sighed. She didn't sound surprised. "Why wasn't I informed of this earlier?"

"No punishment," I said. "Doctor... Headmistress Sauvage is redoing the behavior plans - I'm sure she's told you about that. Anyway, I'm her assistant for that. Amanda's was the last one of the day, only I didn't catch it until I was leaving from my shift in her office." I shrugged. "Sorry?"

"It's after curfew, but still an hour until lights out," Mrs. Glace said. "Amanda's in room thirty-two. Whispering only, please."

"Thirty-three," one of the assistants corrected.

"Right. Thirty-three with Ava Greene. Go on, then. You've got five minutes."

"She's my sister," I added. "Can we have ten?"

Mrs. Glace sighed. "Ten minutes and not a minute longer. Off you go."

We proceeded down the corridor to room thirty-three. Girls were wandering in and out of the shower area and getting ready for bed. The washroom was a din of giggling and conspiratorial whispering, hair dryers and electric toothbrushes running. Half of the doors were open, their inhabitants either in the bathroom or lazing around, quietly chatting, reading, or working on personal projects. A few of them were studying, including Amanda Bryce. She was alone in her room, the door cracked open three or four inches. She was in her pajamas, lying on her belly on the floor, propped on her elbows, little feet kicked up behind her. She was studying from an algebra book - pretty advanced for an eleven year-old, but probably something she'd learned years before. She was young, but she still resembled the pretty young adult she'd grow up to be, her golden blonde hair drawn back in a ponytail, her lithe form yet to display any signs of sexual maturity. I tapped on the door and she looked up, her eyebrows rising.

"Amanda, do you know who I am?"

She nodded carefully. "You're Natalie... my step-sister?"

"That's right. Do you have a minute to talk?"

Amanda closed her book and drew herself into a sit, curling her legs underneath her. She nodded, glancing between Simone and myself.

"You're not in trouble," Simone said. "Actually, we wanted to know if you could help us. Did you know that Natalie isn't really your step-sister?"

She nodded again. "I'm eleven, but I'm not stupid. If you were my step-sister, I'd have remembered it. There's a lot I don't remember, but I'd remember that..."

"And you don't remember a lot because you aren't really eleven, right?" I asked.

"I can't tell anybody about that," Amanda stated. "The spooky man did something to me... I think I used to be a lot older. Like grown-up old."

That was debatable - she'd been twenty and would now have been twenty-one. So legally, sure, but most early-twenties young adults still had a lot of growing up to do. Or, in my case, a mid-twenties full-on adult. I sat next to Amanda, a bit chagrined that I was barely larger than her (minus my obvious and robust demonstrations of puberty). She'd been a petite young woman, perhaps five-foot-two, but my guess was that she was going to be a lot taller the second time around. She'd have been a de jure Big in a few years if Lily and Sauvage hadn't disbanded the practice.

"Your dad did something like that to me, too, but it didn't work on my memories, so I remember everything from before. Actually, he thinks that I did something very bad to you, and that's why he's mad at me. Do you remember that?"

Amanda shook her head. "No. All I have is little flashes..." she started to tear up. "And I… I keep getting in trouble because I know I'm not me, but they want me to be..."

I rubbed her slim shoulder. "I know, and I'm sorry. I want to make it up to you. Simone and I know a trick to help you. Most of your old memories are still in there." I tapped the side of her head. "If we opened them up all at once, it would be very bad. Old you and new you would crash into one another, and you'd probably go crazy. But we can poke a little hole in the barrier, like a little water spigot, and you can let the memories out. Just a little at a time, drip-drip-drip, or you can make it go a little faster into a flow of memories, or you can stop it altogether if you don't like it."

Truth be told, I wasn't sure how much of the old Amanda was still in there. Some was, at least, but our brains are a bit like hard drives - 'deleted' memories stick around indefinitely, but they can be overwritten. And little Amanda had six months of very new experiences under her young belt. The chances of everything being intact were slim. Still - our memories are resilient, and even damaged ones can reweave into something resembling the original. So maybe we could get most of the old Amanda back… but it would have to be her decision. I wasn't about to trick an eleven year-old into betraying her brother. It was against my reading of the Creed: judge and be judged; do not subvert free will; dominate the weak… but in kindness. If I was going to get help from Amanda, it would be when she was fully-informed and not at all coerced. I would parlay with an adult-ish Amanda Bryce to help me avoid the horrible family that had put us both into situations we would never have agreed to before. And if she didn't want to, so be it. Simone locked the door and was already setting up our little ritual.

"We have a little ceremony we can do. It's a bit like magical psychiatry. Do you know what psychiatry is?"

"Yeah," Amanda nodded. "It's psychology."

I shrugged. Close enough. "We need a belonging of yours, a drop of your blood, and a few ingredients we've brought with us. It'll only take a minute, and we can stop whenever you like. Okay?"

Amanda bit her lip, her crystal-blue eyes big and uncertain, but she nodded. "What do I do?"

"Sit in the circle," Simone said. "And when Natalie gives you her needle, poke your finger with it."

"It'll hurt?" she asked.

Simone nodded. "Just for a second. It's a magical needle - it can only make you bleed one drop, and then you'll heal right up. Won't that be interesting to see?" Amanda agreed that it would.

And, as quickly as we could, we did the ritual. All things told, we overstayed our welcome by about two minutes and annoyed Ava Greene, who had to wait out in the hallway for three whole minutes (heavens forbid) after her shower. We set up the circle, had Amanda sit in the middle, ran our ritual, and drew her blood. For me, the most noteworthy bit was that this was my first foray into using my own witch's pin, a ruddy, coppery point drawn from my own head. Before, I'd just used a regular pin, but I wanted to do things the proper and more potent way with Amanda, so I gave it a try. After she and I smeared our bloodied thumbs together, I kissed her forehead to unlock the curse and sat back, waiting expectantly.

"Did it work?" I asked.

She bit her lip. "I... I think so?" Amanda said. "Oh! Oh, yes! Definitely! I just remembered about a time when I was twelve! I'm not even twelve yet… but… but I'm older… oh…"

"Good," I said. I took her hand into mine, rubbing the back with my unbloodied thumb. "Take it slow. I want to talk with you in a few days about something very important to both of us. Okay?"

Unexpectedly, Amanda pulled me into a hug. "Thanks, Natalie," she said. "I know we aren't really sisters, but maybe I wish we were."

"We're blood sisters now," I said, wiggling my one blood-stained thumb. I handed her a card upon which I'd written, 'Tear to talk to Natalie'. "Use this as a bookmark and, when you're ready to talk, tear the card in half. Wherever you are, I'll be able to tell."

She turned it over in her small hands. "Really?"

I took my pin from the floor and slid it back into my hair. "Really. Now... we should get going before your roommate fetches mean Mrs. Glace on us."

"She's not so mean."

+++++

It was too late on that account, anyway, because Ava had already gone to get Mrs. Glace, who intercepted us in the hallway and made it very clear that she'd ask Doctor Sauvage about the incident. She didn't punish us herself - only Lily, Sauvage, and Mrs. Bishop were authorized to punish Advanced girls, but co-Headmistress Sauvage was very unhappy with me the next day. One of her other assistants intercepted me on the way to breakfast and escorted me to Sauvage's office (like I didn't already know where it was).

Sauvage's tone was as flat as always, imperious and unforgiving. Whatever rapport existed between the two of us, she wouldn't have it interfere with school discipline. "I don't know what you were thinking, sneaking into the Junior dormitory and talking with that girl..."

"My step-sister," I interjected.

"Whom you raped, allegedly," Sauvage added. But that 'allegedly' was huge, coming from her.

"Yes... well, we both know where I stand on that."

"Indeed. And you know where I stand on student discipline. Frankly, I'm surprised that you'd risk a punishment anymore, the stakes being what they are. You know the drill - hands and shoulders on my desk, skirt up, bum where I can see it."

She gave me five firm thwacks with her magical paddle - a paddle that my latest learning in 'The Lesser and Intermediate Artifices' indicated was quite a bit past intermediate in its difficulty of construction. Whoever had fabricated the school's instruments of discipline had done so using forbidden knowledge; either the things were very old, illicit, or had been gifted by the Gangling men.

Doctor Sauvage's most recent additions to my behavior plan were severe and left obvious markers, the symbology intended to compel compliance and lower my resistance to magic. The program of changes would also further my hair's transition from my beautiful auburn tresses to a cheesy synthetic cotton candy pink - how Sauvage could tell the punishment was working as intended. Therefore, it was fairly obvious when the punishment didn't take as anticipated.

"That's not right," Sauvage stated. She inspected a shock of my hair between her fingers. "Your hair was supposed to get pinker, not less pink."

I pushed myself off of the desk and adjusted my school blazer, examining myself in the chrome surface of Doctor Sauvage's award for 'Excellence in Applied Pedagogy'. My hair had all gone back to its normal fiery color, except for a half-inch shock of fetching rose gold, appearing pink only in dim lighting. It reminded me of Lily's hair - I'd try to keep it.

"If I recall the plan we both agreed upon, this is exactly right," I said. "Unless you mean that nonsense that you amended..."

"Yes, I mean that 'nonsense' - you signed it in front of all of us. I've been at this game long enough to know that my new rules should have taken precedence. What trickery have you been up to?"

"Me?" I said with as much coquettish innocence as I could summon. "No trickery, doctor. Check my behavior plan."

She did so, unlocking her cabinet, fishing out my plan, and turning to the page with her amendment. The page contained the dense symbology of her changes, six clusters of complex, perfectly-scripted symbols, and a single spot of Prudence Sauvage's blood. The area next to that spot was conspicuously empty.

"I saw you sign the contract. I felt you sign it," she said.

I shrugged. "What if you only thought I signed it?" I mimed pricking my thumb and then, with a wavering hand, traced out the triad of symbols required for an interpolation spell, casting it upon the book with a twitch of my pinkie finger.

"You were in front of seven inveterate magic users. It takes decades to develop that sort of fast, precision signaling. You have what, two months' training?"

"Three," I said. "Perhaps you're right... tell me, doctor, do you see the spot next to your own now?" I flipped the book to face her.

Sauvage chuckled - not the response I'd been expecting. She tapped her close-clipped fingernails against her desk. "Too clever by half... at least it was a cunning foe that bested me with my own pin. But being cleverer than me doesn't excuse you from real punishment. I suppose you'll have to pay penance the old-fashioned way… by way of tedious cleaning - A011 needs to be cleared out and ready for use. Now, Miss Bryce, unless I'm mistaken, you have about eight more minutes for breakfast."

"Yes, headmistress." I turned to leave.

"And no more nonsense. If I feel you're endangering our contract with the Bryces, I will come down on you - I'll come down on you like the hammer of Vulcan. I don't care how promising your talent or how much of a liking Lily's taken to you - or how much of a liking I've taken to you. The coven comes first, the school comes second, and all else pales. Do I make myself clear?"

I turned back to her. "I'll see to the contract," I stated. "I've signed in blood. I've picked my name from the Vault of Stars. This is my school now, too."

"If you feel that way, then I'll give you a wide berth," Sauvage said quietly. "And, if you make me regret it, a long noose. Go in peace, Sister Natalie."

+++++

Amanda Bryce tore the card I'd given her in half three days later. I knew because it was sympathetically linked with my counterpart card, which tore all by itself in the middle of the night. Since it was nighttime and I wasn't about to sojourn back to the Junior Girls' dormitory to raise the ire of Mrs. Glace and Doctor Sauvage again, I waited until the next morning. I didn't need to conduct a ritual in secret this time, so just about any semi-secluded spot would do.

Junior and Advanced girls weren't supposed to interact outside of pre-approved times, but at this point there were very few people at St. Circe's who would bother to stop me if I wasn't visibly and openly flaunting the rules. A handful of staff members - Ms. Sturm and Mrs. Bishop, principally - but anybody else knew it was best to leave me be. I intercepted Amanda as she was leaving her English and Composition class at the start of the lunchtime hour and we made our way across campus to Dr. Clay's little greenhouse out behind the conservatory.

"Um... where's your friend?" Amanda asked me - she was obviously a bit nervous to be around me mano a mano.

"We can get her if you don't feel safe with me," I said. "But no blood and no rituals. I promise."

She bit her lip and nodded, her tawny blonde pigtails jostling. She was almost as tall as I was, perhaps an inch shorter, and dressed in the smoke gray skirt and coal gray leggings that the Junior girls sported for their uniform - no tartan patterns for them. "Fine," she said. "Lead on."

I could already tell that there was something different about Amanda - the cast of her eyes was self-aware and some shine of innocence had been lost. She squared her shoulders differently and was more assured in her gait. I closed the greenhouse door behind us and immediately removed my coat - it took about three seconds of exposure to the warm humidity to start you baking in your winter insulation. I sat on the stone bench and gestured for her to sit beside me - plenty of room for the two of us.

"I can tell you've been going through your old memories," I said. "You look different. Would you say that's about finished?"

"Yeah," she said. "I can still get a drib of memory here or there, but there's not even enough to drip-drip-drip. But there was a lot in there… a lot… and I'm kind of in shock. Eleven year-old me is gone. Twenty year-old me is gone, for that matter. Behold: the new Amanda. But I'm glad that at least I know now."

"And... now that you know, what do you think?" I asked, keeping purposefully vague.

She took a deep breath. "I want to scream," she said.

"At me?"

"For starters - but that's not exactly fair, is it? Why don't you tell me your end of things, and I'll decide what to tell you from there."

I told her everything as accurately and fairly as I could. I tried not to make myself sound blameless or noble - for I had some considerable blame, if mostly from ignorance and foolishness that perhaps I ought not to have had. I told her about how I'd accidentally seduced her with magic and how she'd wriggled out of that seduction (also with magic). She'd already seen and felt proof of my witchcraft, but I showed her my tattoos, and she traced over their shifting patterns with a small finger. I told her about how the two of us wound up as step-sisters enrolled at St. Circe's and what her father intended for the two of us.

"Not so bad for me," Amanda said with a shrug. "I always felt like a disappointment. Whenever I showed promise with math or languages, dad got excited and obsessive, drilled and pored over exercises for days. Eventually, I just lost interest and gave up, and eventually he did, too. He took my dislike for his crazy-obsessive focus as a lack of talent - because, from what I understand, I must have talent. And I guess I'll get to explore that once I'm..." she giggled. "Once I'm a mature fourteen year-old. How fucked up is it, though, that dad had to erase a decade of my life to do it?"

"Pretty fucked up," I agreed. "But what's done with magic can be undone with it. To an extent - I recovered as much of the old you as possible because I felt terrible about it… but also because I have a huge favor to ask of you."

Amanda sighed. "You? You have a favor to ask of me? What can Natalie Bryce possibly need me for?"

"Your father is... well, if he isn't insane, then he's a psychopath. You must know this, because what kind of man erases a decade from his daughter's life? What kind of man steals the life from an innocent… well... he and Lucian are still convinced that I... did that horrible thing to you... and they want me to pay. They want to turn me into a sex slave. I'm not sure what they'll do after that, but I'm not going to let them. And, since you're a blood relative, you can help me."

Amanda stared off into the foliage of the greenhouse, dangling her feet off the bench. "I'm really sorry about what happened to you. What happened between us... it fucked me up, but it wasn't your fault. I see that now. It wasn't anybody's fault, not really. But I'm not going to help you kill my family."

"What?" I shot her a strange look. "Who said anything about killing anybody? I'm not a murderer, Amanda. I want justice. I want them to feel like shit, to know that they fucked up royally. It's hard to do that when they're dead."

Amanda stared down at her skinny prepubescent legs, kicking back and forth in her coal-gray tights. She examined her smooth, small hands. Her brow furrowed adorably. "Fuck it," she said. "I'm down. They need to pay and you're going to make sure they do."

+++++

Life at St. Circe's continued after that, settling into a new normal. The biggest new development was that I had a little step-sister now, eleven going on twenty-two. And a not-too-distant second was one that I couldn't tell anybody but Simone (and Lily) - the knowledge I'd gleaned from our books on 'Seven Summonings' and on 'The Lesser and Intermediate Artifices'.

As extensive as the St. Circe's magical curriculum could be, none of it approached the topics broached in those volumes. The book on artifices was straightforward enough: how to create items with stable, predictable magical effects. Creating very simple artifices, like our witching rings, was straightforward enough, but there were elaborations that no lifetime of random experimentation could lead you to. I made frictionless socks that could slide me across almost any surface (and send me toppling onto my face or butt almost every time). I made a kettle that would freeze water when you shook it. These were things that could be made in a few hours' time with common materials. Other, more advanced artifices (or more intermediate, I suppose) required things like spun gold, ox blood, orchid petals, and other things not readily available at St. Circe's. Artificery was a lot like potion making, but geared toward permanent items.

Artifices were fascinating, but I had to destroy anything I made, or else hide it so well that nobody could find it. Therefore, they were of limited use. Far more useful was summoning. This entailed the creation of complex circles - far more elaborate than those of our everyday rites, and often fashioned out of chalk, salt, or coal and dotted with stones or other items. For summoning, unlike with rites, the lines themselves held some fraction of the magical power, spinning through strange dimensions to bring forth foreign essences. One particularly useful summoning called for the bodies of six dead bugs - length of time deceased unspecified.

"You really shouldn't summon brownies," Simone told me. "They love to trick people."

"You're thinking of fairies," I said. "Page fifty-nine. These are thirty-eight."

"I still wouldn't trust it."

I knew for a fact that Simone only ever practiced summoning far enough to make sure the circle was charging properly, and then she'd halt it. But, at that point, who knew if you were even summoning the right thing? A few times, I messed up and summoned amorphous, steaming, stinking piles of black goo - hopefully, these hadn't once been a living creature, because they certainly weren't anymore. Summoning worked to call a creature from a different plane of existence - a creature with a weak but persistent presence in our world that could be strengthened. And, in return for an offering, the creature would follow your bidding for the tenure of its stay. But the book cautioned:

'Exercise caution, for the summoning of these beings doth increase their foothold in our world. These that are summoned too frequently may seek to take up permanent root, else they may grow resentful of their human masters. For they follow you in the hopes of being summoned again, of increasing their own power within our domain, and only the most disciplined among us may control what espies freedom. Change ye, therefore, the locale and type of reagent ye use to ensure that differing spirits be summoned each time.'

Those were words to heed for good or for ill - it meant that repeating a summons in exactitude would be more powerful than before, but it also carry increased risk. But summoning brownies was pretty risk-free if you switched up bug types and a great help for my excavation of A011, down in the basement hallway of the administration building. I brought Simone down with me so that she could see it for herself, stopping by all of my usual bug spots to pick up dead houseflies, stinkbugs, and crickets that had long since overstayed their welcome inside. In total, I only needed six of the things per ritual, so the basement would have me set for weeks, even if I did frequent summonings.

"I thought you'd been at it for a while," Simone said. She covered her mouth with a cloth, afraid that breathing in too much dust would trigger her allergies. "This place is a mess."

"It was packed from floor to ceiling," I said. "I'm past half-way done."

The room was still pretty crowded with old desks and chairs, boxes of mouldering supplies, books that were too warped to properly use anymore, and so on. I'd successfully summoned a brownie the other day and saved myself a few hours' work, spending that time studying my artifices instead (ironic!). These days, I studied and practiced in every spare second. Of all the changes I'd undergone, this was one of the subtler but more profound ones: I'd gone from being a brilliant but lazy man, a go-with-the-flow guy who could do well enough by half-assing everything, to being a girl obsessed with preparation and studying. With my entire future stuck below a Damoclean blade, I pored through anything that might help me, devouring in hours books that took Cassie days and most of the other girls weeks to go through. The only one who could reasonably keep up was Simone, and in that regard my head-start into witchcraft offered me some small advantage. That, and the fact that she refused to do any full summonings.

"I want you to summon the creature," I said. "That way, it won't be the same one - so I get a freebie."

"What if we get caught?" Simone asked.

I shrugged. "Now that we're done with behavior plans, nobody ever comes down here except for class in A010. But we can study in the hallway while the brownie does my work if it would make you feel better."

"It would."

We got to work on the circle - it had taken me forty-five minutes the first time, but between Simone and myself, we etched out the intricate charcoal shape in under fifteen minutes. Then we placed the bug bodies along the focal points - Simone did not want to touch dead bugs and wouldn't place a single one of them down, so I ended up doing the ick work. Then Simone placed a wooden bowl (fittingly enough, one I'd scrounged from one of the musty boxes in this same room) at the center of the circle and poured in about a cup of whole milk. At my urging, she recited the chant:

"This follower of Starlight calls you here,

 O Brownie, to this messed room clear,

 we offer milk for your reward

 to attend to my summoned word!"

Then Simone spoke the soundless word of summoning, the vocal equivalent of a magical symbol, and traced out the tetrad to power the circle. The simplest summonings were three symbols but, the nameless author of 'Seven Summonings' warned, the more difficult ones could be 'in excess of a dozen symbols'. I'm pretty sure even Cassie could do a dozen symbols and Simone could trace out four in her sleep. The dark coal of the circle turned brilliant white, quickly scrawling brightness from the center of the circle out, consuming the insect bodies with little crackling flashes. Then the milk in the bowl started to disappear, as if sucked away by an invisible straw. As it did, the form of a small humanoid faded into view, slurping away at the milk. It was perhaps a foot tall, winged like a cicada, and clad in irridescent, chitinous armor. It walked to the edge of the circle and looked up at Simone, its face smooth with beady black eyes, its mouth a straight and lipless line, white and ripping with milk, all of it a bit too simplified to be a proper human face.

"Now you have to invite it out of the circle," I said.

Simone broke the still-glowing circle with the tip of her boot and gestured toward the brownie.

"Come on out, little guy," she said. "Do you understand me?"

It nodded but said nothing - I don't think the simpler spirits are capable of speech, though a few will talk your ear off. Others will try to eat your pets and children, so please be mindful.

"Please help us clean this room," Simone said.

The brownie grinned, a wide smile with a few too many teeth for its small head and, with a flit of its wings, was off. It darted into the pile of junk with a gout of dust and began to rummage far faster than any human could. Satisfied that it had things well in hand, we stepped out to study, quietly closing the door behind us.

"So?" I said, grinning deviously.

"That. Was. Amazing," Simone agreed. "I'm, uh. I should probably get some gloves. You know, for the bug touching bit."

"Most of them don't take bugs," I said. "Harvestmen eat compost and like flowers, most of them easy to find around here."

"Harvestmen? Which are those?"

"I've summoned them in the greenhouse. They'll do all sorts of gardening for you - in a way, they help summon themselves, since they bring your garden to bloom and then you can use the flowers to summon more. They're like daddy-long-legs spiders but a foot and a half tall."

"Um... not an improvement over bugs," Simone stated with a shudder.

We were about fifteen minutes into our study session, Simone studying from our summoning book and me from our book on artifices, when I heard a rhythmic bumping. I looked up with a start, at first thinking it was somebody thumping down the stairs - but it wasn't. It was something bumping against the closed door to A011. I looked to Simone and shrugged.

"It's your room to clean, you open it," she said.

"Fair enough."

I opened the door, only to find myself face-to-face with a dusty brown book. I sneezed, backed up a step, and accepted the book from the buzzing brownie. It stayed in the air, wings buzzing and wafting out a gentle breeze of musty A011 air.

"Thank you, brownie," I said. "Please continue."

It looked to Simone, who nodded. It was her summoned creature, and therefore hers to command. I closed the door once more and brought the book over.

"What is it?" Simone asked.

She wiped the dust from the cover, but there was no writing to be found. I cracked it open and took a peek.

"Seven More Summonings - Advanced Rituals for the Hale of Resolve," I read.

"My brownie found it, so it's mine," Simone said.

"I opened the super dangerous door and claimed it - finders keepers. We'll swap in a week."

"I'll paper-rock-scissors you for it," Simone said, tugging at my sleeve.

"That's called a Rochambeau."

"Fine, I'll Rochambeau you for it."

I nodded. "On four, then... ready? One-two-three-shoot!"

"Fuck!" Simone shouted, immediately covering her mouth and looking up and down the hallway. "I mean fuck," she said more quietly - my scissors just beat her paper. "Fine... one week, right?"

I nodded - of course I'd hand it over in a week. The only thing that Simone and I didn't share was boyfriends. That privilege was reserved for Cassie.

+++++

We had a standing weekly meeting with Lily at her place. True, she was back at St. Circe's six days a week, but we still made tea time a ritual on Saturdays at noontime. It was always pleasantly springtime at her sanctuary, always sunny and perfect no matter how gray and snowy it might be at St. Circe's.

"It's not always sunny," Lily cautioned. "It rains Tuesdays and Thursdays between eleven and five o'clock, so there are still usually puddles aplenty when I get home." Witch problems, I suppose.

On our third Saturday meeting, Lily acquiesced to our bringing Cassie into the fold. It was a risk, obviously, to bring a third girl into our little clique - a girl not mentioned in Elisa Jasper's prophecies, which had not one mention of a statuesque rowing prodigy - but I hated keeping secrets from Cassie, and now we had three forbidden books to share. Lily fretted over the third book while Cassie marveled over the magically-animated tea set.

"It's like Beauty and the Beast," she whispered.

"This is far older than the cartoon," Lily stated between sips. "We should get you working on your own set - good practice for intermediate artificery. But be wary of this new book you've gained. When summoned spirits volunteer their help, it's never for your gain..."

"I'd thought as much," I said. "Still - who's to say it cant be mutually beneficial? Is there any harm in reading it?"

"In reading it?" Lily tapped her rings against the table. "No, I suppose not. But leave it at that. Don't summon anything that requires more than six symbols to conjure, nor anything requiring blood or life. In the bad old days, many an enterprising young witch found herself beholden to an entity too powerful to be properly controlled. All of these old tales of vampires, jinn, even the wendigo, all can be traced back to foolish young summoners."

"I'll limit my summonings to speeding household chores," I said. "So Cassie's allowed to learn from our secret books now?"

Lily sighed. With a gesture, she had the kettle refill her tea. "I suppose somebody will need to bring Simone here once you've graduated," she said. "Miss Peterson, you understand that this is a responsibility as much as it is an opportunity to learn really cool shit, right?"

Cassie squeaked. She nodded. "Nobody keeps secrets as well as a Big who's girlfriends with a little." She bounced in her seat, unable to hide her grin, adding: "This is going to be so cool."

This was our new normal. It was a good routine while it lasted - visiting Lily for tea on Saturdays and spending a good chunk of our other time learning and practicing little bits of the forbidden arts (in absolute secret). Cassie wasn't ready for 'Seven More Summonings' quite yet, so she alternated back and forth between the first two books while Simone and I divided our attentions as evenly as possible.

Soon, though, I increasingly turned my attentions toward graduation and what I intended to do then. The Bryces would come in to approve of the finished product (i.e. me) and, if I could somehow get that to go off acceptably, I'd walk for graduation and then be turned over to Rowan and Katherine Bryce's custody. At that point, St. Circe's role in my development as a 'girl of good breeding' would be complete and I would be on my own to deal with whatever situation I found myself in. Hopefully, Byron Bryce had talked some reason into his son. But, having some experience with the men of that family, I didn't have high hopes.

OvidLemma

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