Page 2 of Rogue Witch

A bitter wind whips my hair. I shiver. Clouds scuttle across the weird blue sun and the wind turns colder. I smell oncoming snow in the too-crisp air. I glance left then right down the road. Does this reality come complete with cars whizzing by too fast on these narrow roads? In the real upper Westchester County, it’s dangerous to walk on the roads, which doesn’t stop fools from doing so. There are no sidewalks, and the densely wooded terrain leaves no place to walk except on the shoulder of the road. I take a deep breath and, like just another fool, start walking.

Minutes later, I round a curve in the road. A large red barn borders the road up ahead to my left. The purr of a car engine draws my attention to the road behind me. I step off the road and face the oncoming car, as a blue sedan appears around the curve. I stick out my thumb as the vehicle approaches. An elderly woman is driving. She keeps going. I turn and watch the car disappear down the road, and belatedly remember the sword and knives strapped to my belt. Hell, I wouldn’t have stopped for me, either. I’m dressed like a medieval warrior. I have my fellow Illumina Academy student, Fran Shelton, to thank for the funky outfit. I hope she’s safe at The Academy.

I start walking, again. Through the trees, I glimpse a massive house about eighty feet behind the barn. Up ahead on the right is a two-story home painted mustard yellow with a stone wall in front.

I shiver with cold and stuff my hands in my jacket pockets. In memory, I smell the cinnamon rolls Grams baked on similar cold winter days. My mouth salivates in longing for the hot chocolate she served with the rolls. No one makes hot chocolate like Grams. I release a fog-filled breath and the sense of well-being increases. I haven’t felt this good since…since the last time Grams made cinnamon rolls and hot chocolate.

I’m startled to realize that the last time Grams served cinnamon rolls and hot chocolate was the day before she kicked me out of the house. I was fifteen. An unexpected sob escapes me. My God, I had forgotten that. All these years, I’d focused on the day she kicked me out. Why am I remembering this now? My breath comes out as steam in the cold air. The sense of well-being vanishes and the sweet memory of Grams’ cinnamon rolls and hot chocolate collides with the memory of her shoving me out the door.

My attention snaps to rapid movement in the trees ahead. I halt. A figure is racing deeper into the trees. I break into a run across the road, past the stone house to my left, and enter the trees beyond the house. Underbrush and low-hanging limbs force me to slow.

“Hey,” I shout. I’ve lost sight of the person, but they can’t be far ahead. “Hey!”

I advance at a fast walk and scan my surroundings but spot no sign of human life. I turn and catch sight of a fist hurtling toward my face an instant before pain splinters through my cheek. All goes black.

Chapter Two

ETHAN

I slam my thumbs down on the tablet's controls. "Where the hell is Leilah?"

Streetlight glints off the screen. I blink, certain her sudden disappearance from the feed is a trick of the light. I swipe the screen to the monitor room which displays life signs for all the students, but Leilah—and too many others—are gone.

Raith’s roar transmitted over the tablet strikes terror in my mind. I swipe the screen back to the feed in the mob boss’s kitchen as Raith slings aside the dragon he’s just torn apart with his teeth. He wildly scans the room, the blood of the dragon dripping from his mouth. The Fae, Blade Tyrion, appears frozen five feet from him, staring at the spot near the kitchen island from which Leilah Crowe disappeared seconds ago.

“No,” he whispers.

She’s gone.

We lost her forty years ago when she died in Caleb’s arms. She’s only just come back into our lives. We can’t lose her so soon.

“No!” I roar.

Fire leaps from my palms, incinerating the tablet before I can halt the reaction.

“Ethan!”

I yank up my hands, palms face out, ready to blast my fire.

“Ethan!”

My vision snaps the street into focus. Two students stand five feet away, Juan Hernandez and Kiersten Simms. I blink, then glance wildly about for the other twelve students who I’d been leading in the War Games.

They’re gone. Twelve students taken from my team.

A Reaping.

I stagger back two paces.

“Ethan.” Juan starts toward me.

“Stop,” I say in a hoarse voice, my palms still aflame.

He halts.

My gut knots. My youngest student, one of the students taken, is a girl of fourteen, a sweet mage who belongs in a laboratory, not on a battlefield—and sure as hell not in a Reaping—is gone. Never in our history has a Reaping happened in anything less than twenty-five year intervals. The last was a little less than five years ago. Why now? Why, when Leilah just came back into our lives?

Leilah.