Mary Quirk and the Language of Curses: Dark Lessons, #4

By Anna St. Vincent

Mary Quirk has some unfinished business.

 

Earlier that summer, Mary and her friends managed to rescue three cadets from their rival school, El Paso Cerrado. As part of that effort, Mary turned up a strange fact that her boyfriend Finn and his twin Dillon are both hiding: their human grandfather was a Maledictor.

 

Maledictors make curses. It's an old and feared talent that isn't well understood. And Dillon clearly has more than a touch of it.

 

Unfortunately, that's become Mary's problem. She's tied to Dillon via a necklace he lent her, one that lets her become unseen. Unfortunately, she's beginning to suspect that the spell Dillon bound into the pendant isn't a spell at all, but a curse. Now Dillon is appearing in her nightmares, and she really wants to get him out.

 

And to do that, she'll have to face down an ancient curse…

• Language: English
• Publisher: Three Swallows Press
• Release date: Nov 24, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215071564

Book preview

ONE

It’s getting worse, Ro tells me as we walk around the track. Her voice isn’t much louder than a whisper, probably because she’s talking about someone else. Not gossip, though—this is information. Ro doesn’t gossip, ever.

I’m mostly cooled off from my jog, but she’s still calming down. She runs, not the same thing as jogging, so she works her lungs harder. She’s made for running fast, with a sprinter’s build, all long legs and arms, but I’m short and lean. I’m made for distance running. Although we’re both in the P3s—third-year Potentials, more or less the same as high school seniors—the track is the one place where our lives intersect.

We’re the only two runners in our class. So this is where we talk… if we talk. Most of the time we walk around the track in silence. This time, I let out a frustrated breath. I don’t need further explanation from her. I know what the worse is. She and I discussed this problem a couple of weeks ago; I just haven’t made any progress on it.

Rowena Whitehorse has the Second Sight. That means she sees things none of the rest of us do. And since the day she met each one of us, she’s known what our talents are. Often what our problems are as well. But she doesn’t talk about them. She’s discreet that way. For her to break her code of silence, to tell me about someone else’s problem, means it’s pretty urgent.

She looks down her long, slightly bent nose at me and adds, I need you to fix it. Soon.

Ro Whitehorse is one of what I used to mentally call the elf squad. Most magic schools have them, I’m told, the students obsessed with elvish fashion: long overcoats, excessively ruffly shirts, and fancy trousers. Sort of a cross between steampunk and goth, to be honest, but all in black and white. In any case, Ro has a model’s build and striking face, so everything looks good on her. And she’s eased off that look in recent times, as have all the old elf squad save for Beyza Sharma.

I consider what Ro wants me to fix.

It’s not my doing, is it? To be clear, I’m not trying to get out of fixing anything here. I’m gathering information.

No, Ro says. He had this the first day he got here. But it’s been quiet until recently.

She’s talking about Dillon Woods, my boyfriend’s twin brother. A couple of semesters back, Ro asked me whether I knew about the red thread binding souls together. I asked my favorite librarian, and that turns out to be a Chinese superstition. The fact that Ro perceives those red threads means they’re not a superstition after all. They’re merely hard to perceive. She hinted to me once that such a thread binds me and Finn Mitchell—the aforementioned twin—and told me not to mess it up. I suspect there’s a thread like that wrapping Ro and Dillon together, too. In a way, Dillon’s problems are her problems.

Sadly, they’re also mine. Not because Dillon is Finn’s twin but because Dillon is tied to me by the silver and blue topaz necklace I’m wearing. He gave it to me last year because, he claimed, I was the P3 most likely to walk into trouble. The necklace has a handy spell on it—it can make the wearer unseen. Cool, huh?

Except the spell might not be a spell at all. Dillon is a closet Maledictor—a curse maker. It’s not his top skill, which is creating amazing illusions and seemings. But his ability to curse is always in the background, causing both Ro and me worry. I wonder if the necklace around my neck bears, instead of a spell, a curse.

Have I done something to make it worse?

She gives me a beetle-browed look. I don’t know. Have you?

What she told me a couple of weeks ago is that Dillon has a problem beyond being a Maledictor. Something she’s never seen in anyone else before, and it appears as words running across his face. Fading in and out, she said. She thinks that the necklace is connected to that, and therefore binds me to his problem as well. If Ro believes, then it’s probably true.

And all I need to do is figure out how to fix it.

TWO

In this endless summer session, my Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays are pretty packed with classes, advisory sessions, Qualcann practice, and meeting with my therapist. Tuesdays and Thursdays are my slow days. Just one languages class, and then Jason and I have to bake for Instructor Emden. We’re on bread nowadays, but there’s a lot of downtime in baking, and it certainly won’t take all day.

Which is good, because today, I’ve got a Skype call to attend.

Beyza and I are in the Farmhouse that serves as the real-life connection point between Oklahoma and Umbrum Hall. Well, one of them. There’s a second one—the Freight Gate—that links Umbrum to a warehouse in Edmond, Oklahoma. That’s where most of our shipments of food, mail, and various other important things come in. Humans, however, usually come in via the Farmhouse, set plunk in the middle of a normal-looking Oklahoma farm, out in the middle of nowhere. It’s north of Guthrie, which is north of Edmond, which is north of Oklahoma City. Does that help?

Probably not, because there’s a lot of nothing out there. Perfect place to hide a gate to a magic school.

The Farmhouse is also serving a second purpose right now. Umbrum’s students can’t go home, not with a pandemic going on outside, so the administration is letting us call home via Skype. With so many people in Umbrum who want to call out, everything has to be scheduled, with students allowed half-hour slots. If they don’t make it to that slot, they lose it. No being late.

I’m the rare student who has no one to call, so I’ve got plenty of Skype hours stored up.

This call isn’t on my dime anyway, though. I meet regularly with a police detective via Skype. That detective is Beyza’s older brother, Mandeep Sharma. He’s a detective with the Oklahoma City Police Department, but my interactions with him are generally related to the status of a case I was involved with. Still am, to some extent, I guess. Therefore, after Beyza has nice family time chatting with her big bro, she shifts over to let him talk to me.

Beyza and her brother have been gossiping about their middle brother, Dev, who is the family’s non-magical black sheep. Apparently, he’s gone into IT, so at least his parents are fine with that. Neither of the Sharmas seem to be bothered by me hearing their intra-family gripes. Beyza gestures grandly toward the screen, and that’s my cue to take over. I shift closer to wave at her brother. You said you needed to talk to me?

Mandeep Sharma is startlingly handsome, although with Beyza’s looks, no one should be surprised by his. Their family is clearly blessed with good genetics. They’re both tall, with dark clear skin, thick black hair, and finely cut symmetrical facial features. While Beyza still rocks the elf-squad look, with excessive braids, long black jackets, and so many earrings on one side that her head should be tilting that way, Mandeep is a khakis-and-white-polo sort of guy.

His dark brows are drawn close over his brown eyes. Have you talked to your mother lately, Miss Quirk? he asks.

Ah, I was wondering when this would come up. I try to make my answer sound casual. Not for a couple of weeks. I got a message that she wouldn’t be able to make our Skype calls for a while.

He nods slowly, then rubs a finger across his chin. Do you know where she is?

No, I say. I figured she went to visit an old friend or a cousin or something. I don’t have cousins, so that’s bogus, but he doesn’t know that, right?

His eyes are narrowed, though. So… nothing weird?

Not that she’s mentioned. As that part’s a straight-up lie, I do my best to meet his eyes and look innocent.

I went past your house to see her a couple of days ago, and she wasn’t there, so I was concerned.

I do believe that Mandeep Sharma’s worried. Mom helped him in the past to connect with certain groups within the alumni of Umbrum Hall, Elementals who might have information about a plot within the Elemental community to overthrow one of the magic schools—Paso Cerrado. Well, El Paso Cerrado Hall that was. As near as we’ve been able to tell, it’s since been taken over by elves to be used as farmland, and I’m sure those elves are calling it something other than Paso Cerrado.

Back to the point. As a Fire Elemental, Mom has access where someone like Mandeep—a Telekinetic—doesn’t. I’m not entirely sure why he uses my mom instead of some other Elemental, though. Elementals are pretty common magic users, after all. It only requires one fairy ancestor to have Elemental powers pop up in your family, and those fairies got around.

And her online presence has completely disappeared, he adds.

I shrug. I don’t know where my mom is, and she wants it that way because she doesn’t want anyone to find out what she’s doing.

When I don’t give him any info, he scratches his jaw as if his fashionable beard-stubble itches. "I suppose I’m asking whether I should be concerned, Miss Quirk. Should I be looking into her whereabouts? Are you concerned by her absence?"

I shake my head. Mom can take care of herself.

He laughs softly. "Okay. I didn’t want you to worry, but if you’re not, I’ll let it alone and find another analyst."

Analyst? I know Mom does a ton of things online for the Umbrum Hall Parents and Alumni Association, but she also works as an analyst? For whom? I shrug again because I have no clue what to say. Beyza’s brother signs off with a quick comment that if I need anything while my mom’s away, to send word. I guess he’s adopted me as another little sister.

Beyza’s staring at me, though, and now I’ll have to shell out a long explanation. Beyza thinks anything that happens to anyone in our class is her business. She’s the unelected leader of the P3s and takes that pseudo-office pretty seriously.

She signs off the computer and motions for me to leave the private room first. We silently make our way through the Farmhouse, past the seeming of Mrs. Hargraves, the fake farmer’s wife, and through the pantry door to Umbrum Hall. As always, I walk through the portal untroubled, and Beyza comes out on the other side rubbing her temples. I’m a Gatemaker, so like jogging, this is what my body is born to do—travel through portals. Beyza, not so much.

She still manages to grab my arm and haul me along behind her. She’s tall, so I have to hustle to keep up. Once we get through the cloister and into the commons, she glances around and asks me, What’s up with your mom?

I heave out a sigh and hold my hands wide. She’s away from home for a while. She let me know so I wouldn’t be worried, and I’m okay.

Her jaw sets. Hmm. And does Finn know about this?

Finn helped me decipher Mom’s encrypted messages to figure it all out. "Yes, he knows. But neither of us knows where she’s gone, and I’d rather not have everyone know my mom’s gone AWOL."

Beyza’s not happy. Her arms fold over her chest and her eyes narrow. Your brother disappears, your father, and now your mom? What is it with your family?

Strictly speaking, we now know where my father is. I spoke with him a couple of weeks ago. He was the Gatemaker the elves were using to bring farmers and farm equipment into the shell of Paso Cerrado. He’s been a hostage in their realm since I was about twelve, forced to work for them to protect my brother, Daniel.

Supposedly, gatemaking is a human-only talent. We humans inherited the ability from elves, but then they somehow lost it. They still have jumpers, elves who can move themselves and maybe one other person to another location, but not anyone who can move large numbers of people and things by opening a gate and holding it open. So when the elves need gates, they hijack human Gatemakers like my father.

And you might ask yourself if I talked to my father, why did I leave him there in the elves’ control? Why not use my gift to carry him back home? Because Dad chose to stay as a hostage to secure my brother Daniel’s freedom. The elves won’t grab Daniel while they have Dad.

So even though I don’t know exactly where Daniel is, he too is alive somewhere in the elvish realm.

Where is my mom? I don’t know that either because she’s currently somewhere hiding my brother’s twin babies from the elvish government. The babies will have inherited Daniel’s gatemaking genes, and therefore they’re as much a prize as my brother and father. More in fact, because their mother is surely an elf, and that means they’re going to be great Gatemakers. And… that’s why my mom disappeared.

Yep, everything is all about Daniel. He left when I was twelve, and Dad left to hunt him down, then Mom abandoned me too. Daniel, Daniel, Daniel!

And I can’t even complain about him because we know that somewhere in Umbrum, there’s a leak, information getting out to our adversaries in the elvish realm. To keep my brother and his kids safe, I have to keep my mouth shut.

Finn’s waiting for me at one of the tables in the commons, and I manage to escape Beyza’s clutches and go sit with my boyfriend. He takes my hand under the cover of the table and frowns. So what was it this time? Has he found Swanson?

Michael Swanson was a student at Umbrum our first year, but he got kicked out for attacking Ro. He’s also behind an attack on Emma Jones, the death of a student from Paso Cerrado, and likely the death of Paso Cerrado’s Wardsman, Professor Obregon. Further, he offered to pay Ryan Perkins to get Tash Lopez kicked out of Paso Cerrado. Since she was the only Wardsman-in-training there, the school’s wards collapsed when Obregon died, triggering the demise of that school. The authorities—special ones who investigate issues that have to do with magic, like Detective Sharma—are hunting for Swanson and his accomplices even now. It’s been a major source of annoyance that Swanson seems to have simply disappeared.

Therefore, when he wants to talk to me, Detective Sharma usually is checking in with developments in that case. Not about Swanson this time, I say. He noticed my mom is missing.

Oh, Finn says, a line