“I have to get some sleep. Tomorrow is going to be a long day,” I told Ivy, yawning as I walked toward my room.

I was taking the coward’s way out, and I knew it. Then again, being bold had only ever gotten me into trouble. And right now, I had all the trouble I could handle.

10

Witch Hunt

The next morning, I changed straight into my leather uniform and headed downstairs to the canteen. I piled eggs, toast, donuts, and cinnamon french toast onto my tray. I just knew it was going to be a long day. Unfortunately, it was not a long breakfast. I had five minutes to eat, and then I had to head down to the underground garage. Nero, Captain Somerset, and Jace were already waiting outside of our car when I got there.

“Get lost, Pandora?” Captain Somerset asked with a smirk.

Nero was far less amused. “You’re late,” he said.

Actually, according to the clock in the garage, I was exactly ten seconds early, but there was no point in arguing with him. Angel time seemed to operate outside of normal time. Nero opened the door and slid into the driver’s seat. Captain Somerset claimed shotgun, leaving the backseat for me and Jace.

The drive passed in silence. Jace kept his face turned away from me the whole time. Either I was sporting some seriously bad body odor, or he was brooding over something. Whatever his reasons for ignoring me, it was better than his previous pattern of trying to beat the crap out of me. Not that he would have dared to do that in Nero’s presence without the angel’s permission.

Thanks to a lucky break with the stoplights—or Nero manipulating the stoplights—we arrived at the New York University of Witchcraft within minutes. The campus consisted of five large mansions that surrounded a blooming garden where the witches grew all of their potion ingredients. We parked outside Building 1, then we all got out.

There were half a dozen witches in sight, but no one tried to tell us we couldn’t park on the sidewalk. They just stood there, their eyes wide with a mix of wonder and shock as Nero led our badass walk toward the entrance. Our steps were perfectly in sync, and our long leather coats swayed majestically in the wind—all that was missing was the heavy beat of an epic soundtrack and the exploding light effects.

Beyond the glass doors that parted in front of us, a grand entrance hall waited. Small glass windows covered the arched ceiling, extending in a nautical swirl halfway down the back wall. A clock sat at the center of that swirl, its gears exposed. Bronze hands announced that it was half past six. Despite the early hour, the hall was not empty. Like the Legion, the witches seemed to be early risers. A woman sat behind a long, curved reception desk that resembled a counter in an apothecary shop. A very chic apothecary shop. The glossy desk was made of cherrywood. At one corner sat an antique bell, and at the other a lovely vase with an orchid plant inside. Orchids, what a perfectly fitting flower for the proper, dignified witches.

The witch behind the desk was certainly just as proper and dignified as the flowers. She wore a dark velvet overcoat with golden fasteners down the front and a matching golden clip in her chin-length black hair. She was busy chatting with the man on the other side of the desk, so neither one had noticed us yet. The male witch wore a brown vest over a blue dress shirt, the sleeves rolled up to the elbows, and a pair of jeans over big cowboy boots. A big brown leather utility belt hung at his hips. A dozen different tools were attached to it. From his outfit, tools, and the bizarre-looking goggles balanced atop his head, he looked like a mechanic. He talked like one too.

“The repairs on the Flying Siren are coming along slowly. The airship won’t be back up in the air for at least another week,” he said.

“Aurora wanted to throw a party aboard the ship on Friday. She won’t be happy that it’s not ready,” the receptionist witch warned him.

“She has her own sister to blame. Her last party…” He shook his head. “I still don’t know what they were brewing up there that resulted in them blowing out two of the gas tanks.”

“Well, you know how they get when—” The receptionist had just noticed us, hence the dropped jaw.

“Summon the department heads,” Nero commanded her.

His wings unfolded behind him as he walked, and the witch’s wide eyes panned across the gorgeous tapestry of black, blue, and green feathers. The man was an insufferable showoff, whether or not he cared to admit it, but no one could deny he was strikingly beautiful.

“Now,” Nero said, that single crisp word like a punch of magic through the artificially-cooled air.

That broke the witch out of her trance. She grabbed the telephone and hastily began tapping the buttons. The mechanic watched us with a worried expression on his face. We hadn’t told the witches we were coming. Nero hadn’t wanted to give them any time to prepare for this arbitration—or for the real reason we were here.

While we waited for the illustrious heads of the New York University of Witchcraft to make an appearance, I looked around the reception hall. The red and black checkerboard-pattern floor and brick interior walls were a nice touch, but my personal favorite was the Halloween decoration display. The holiday was nearly a month away, but it was not uncommon for witches to spend the entire month of October celebrating.

A mechanical witch made of turning gears stood inside a black cauldron oozing green smoke that smelled like peppermint. Pumpkins of all shapes and sizes were piled around the cauldron, and paper jack-o-lanterns hung from the two pillars on either side of the Halloween display. A panel of orange lights blinked ‘BOO’ over and over again in time to the classical music soundtrack playing in the hall. But it was the row of big, red apples that caught my eye. Someone had taken a bite out of each one, and from those mouth-shaped holes oozed a thick black liquid that was obviously supposed to represent poison. How ironic that poison was precisely what had brought us here.