Familiar Magic (Druid Enforcer Academy Book 1) Read online

  FAMILIAR MAGIC

  Book 1 of the Druid Enforcer Academy Series

  C. S. Churton

  This is a work of fiction. The characters and events described herein are imaginary and are not intended to refer to specific places or to living persons alive or dead. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher except for brief quotations embodied in critical reviews.

  Cover by May Dawney Designs.

  Copyright © 2021 by C. S. Churton

  All rights reserved.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  A note from the author

  Get Free Content

  Other Titles By C.S. Churton

  Chapter One

  It was a beautiful day in a beautiful town, and I knew none of it was real. I took a deep breath, running my eyes over the white picket fence – which was how I knew Cody had never been to Haleford. Nothing in our town was really that quaint. Or clean.

  “You forgot to include the peeling paint,” I said, turning on my heel and waiting for the figure to materialise. He didn’t keep me waiting; a tall, dark-haired guy with a day’s worth of stubble shimmering into existence with an unapologetic shrug.

  “I wouldn’t have to waste time with illusions at all if you’d just take my calls.”

  “Well, I’ll save you wasting your time right now. The answer is no.” I folded my arms over my chest and glared at him.

  “You haven’t even heard the question.”

  “I don’t care.” I was well aware that Cody wasn’t the sort of person I should be rude to, but, well, I didn’t care. “I was having a perfectly good dream before you came and ruined it, so you can just get out right now.”

  A smile tugged at his lips, making him look younger.

  “And just what does the great Lyssa Eldridge dream about?”

  I blushed and dropped my arms to my sides, then tried to regain some of my composure.

  “That’s none of your business,” I told him, really not pulling off the whole composure thing. “Get out of my head. I mean it.”

  I turned and strode away, not really sure where I was planning since, so long as he was controlling the illusion, there was nowhere to go. I heard his footsteps hurrying after me.

  “Wait, wait, I’m sorry. You’re right. It’s not my business. And I swear I didn’t see anything before I started the illusion.”

  My mouth popped open and I whirled around.

  “You can’t do that, right? See people’s dreams?”

  He shook his head, and I tried to steady my heart rate. Sure, it was just a dream, and there was nothing sinister about it, but… I shuddered. How embarrassing. I hoped he was telling the truth, and not just trying to spare my feelings. Maybe I should hear him out, just to keep him on side. Because if word ever got back to Logan, I’d just about die.

  “Alright, let’s hear it. Your question.”

  He hesitated a moment, then conjured a bench.

  “Maybe you should sit,” he suggested.

  “Maybe you should quit stalling,” I countered.

  “Okay, fine. Head Councilman Cauldwell asked me to speak to you.”

  I folded my arms over my chest again. “That’s not a question.”

  Okay, so maybe I was being ruder than strictly necessary, and maybe this fell under shooting the messenger, but if Cody had come to tell me the circle wanted to drag me in to go over the night Raphael tried to kill me, along with half the druid kingdom, yet again, then I was going to make him spell it out. Seemed only fair, since we both knew that when Cauldwell stopped playing nice and got around to making it an order, I’d have no choice but to go. Why should I be the only one to suffer?

  “Are you sure you don’t want to sit down? No? Okay.” He drew in a breath, and then said, “Raphael’s awake.”

  I lowered myself onto the bench. I don’t know why it was such a shock, I mean, I’d known he was going to wake up sooner or later. Of course, part of me hoped he wouldn’t, but deep down, I’d known. For one thing, I just wasn’t that lucky.

  And then the way Cody was looking at me finally penetrated. I rolled the two words round my head, and then reluctantly said,

  “That’s still not a question.”

  Cody nodded slowly and leaned his hands on the back of the bench.

  “Okay. Raphael’s awake. Will you come with us to interview him?”

  “Why? Want me to hold your hand? Because you’re a big boy now, Cody.” I was stalling. We both knew it. They wanted to go and see Raphael? He was locked in the prison reserved for the baddest of our criminals. I’d been there once, and I’ve vowed never to go back. How could they ask me to go there and visit the man who had spent two years trying to kill me? Who had killed my friends?

  Cody smiled, but his face held more pity than mirth.

  “He wants to see you.”

  “Since when are you in the business of granting wishes to murderers?”

  My heart thudded painfully in my chest. Raphael wanted to see me. The feeling was not mutual. I thought I’d made that perfectly clear when I risked my life to shut off his spell. Being prepared to die to stop someone carrying out the massacre they’d been planning for years was pretty universal speak for ‘don’t call me, I’ll call you’. But then, he’d always been a little… stubborn. I was starting to see where I got it from.

  “I’m sorry, Lyssa. I wouldn’t ask, truly. But…” He exhaled heavily, then slid onto the bench beside me. “You remember the mundanes Kelsey bit?”

  I snorted. Like I could forget.

  “That wasn’t her fault,” I said. “Raphael cursed her.”

  “I know. And that curse… she passed it on to the mundanes. We need to know if Raphael can reverse it, but he won’t speak to us. Not until he’s seen you. I don’t know if Kelsey has managed to put this behind her, but if we can bring some measure of peace to h– to the victims, don’t you think that might help?”

  He was fighting dirty, and the way he was avoiding my eye told me he knew it. I knew what Raphael made her do had affected Kelsey – how could I not? When you shared a dorm at the academy with someone for three years and then became roommates out in the real world, you noticed their sleeping patterns. Or lack thereof. If I could help her in some small way, then I should. Even if it meant facing… him.

  “Okay,” I said in a small voice. “When?”

  “Do you have any plans this morning?”

  “I guess I do now.”

  “Good.” He smiled brightl
y. “I’ll send a portal in an hour. Or do you need a bit more time to finish your dream?”

  I flushed furiously and ducked my head.

  “For what it’s worth, I think Logan would be lucky to have you.”

  *

  A little over an hour later, I was standing outside the innocuous doors of Daoradh. The old – but sturdy – stone building didn’t look like it housed the most dangerous druid criminals in the country, but the wards protecting the perimeter were enough to fry anyone who tried to sneak in or out of here. And that was before we set foot over the prison’s threshold.

  The wooden door opened, and we stepped through. Immediately, the air seemed to become musty, almost stale, but I knew it was only of the prison’s wards, intended to make passing through harder for air elements, whether they were welcome or not. I wasn’t sure how much they paid the guards who worked here, but it had to be a hell of a lot to deal with the plethora of wards every day. I shuddered.

  The room itself was small and looked like it had seen better days, with peeling paint and dirt-stained floors, but as I sharpened my focus, I could sense the glamour-like quality to it. Sure enough, when I focused on seeing through the magic, the walls were reinforced, and the floor made of stone, and both were laced with iron and silver. Trying to cast magic in this room would be hard. Not impossible, but enough to slow an intruder down. If anyone was stupid enough to come here uninvited. I didn’t want to be here even with an invite.

  A guard shut the door behind us and set about sealing it. I tried not to stare, lest I appeared too curious, and turned my attention to the one other person in the room. He was in his late thirties, with smile lines set into his face, and the first smatterings of grey peppering his hair. Cody greeted him with a smile and shook his hand.

  “It’s good to see you again.”

  “And you,” the man replied. His attention switched to me. “This must be Lyssa.”

  “Nice to meet you,” I said. “Uh…”

  I glanced to Cody with a raised eyebrow.

  “Oh, right. Lyssa, this is Adrian. He’s one of the circle’s top enforcers. He’ll be coming with us.”

  I looked him up and down as subtly as I could, and felt a little reassured. I couldn’t help but feel he had a lot more experience at this sort of thing than I did. Which was good, because my experience was practically nil.

  “How much did you agree to pay her?” Adrian said.

  “Pay me?”

  “We haven’t discussed a figure yet.”

  Adrian chuckled. “I’ll tell Cauldwell something high. How does two thousand solarins sound?”

  “Uh… insane?” I turned back to Cody. “I just have to talk to him, right, not duel him or anything?”

  Two thousand solarins was more than I’d earned in the whole time since I’d graduated. A lot more. Enough to cover my share of the rent in the flat me and Kelsey were sharing while I was away at the academy – and have plenty left over.

  Adrian laughed. “We look out for our own, us enforcers.”

  “I’m not an enforcer,” I said. “Not yet, anyway.”

  “You will be soon enough. You’re starting at Krakenvale Academy in a few days, aren’t you? Come on, this way.”

  I hadn’t been allowed to bring my phone, or even a watch, with me – personal possessions were strictly prohibited at Daoradh – but if I had, I suspected it would have said it took us a long time to pass through all of the prison’s many security systems. It certainly felt like a long time, even with the fear spell temporarily deactivated. Eventually, though, we reached the very bowels of the prison, to its most guarded cell.

  Raphael’s cell.

  I took a deep, shuddering breath. He couldn’t hurt me. His magic had been bound. There was no reason to be afraid. Which didn’t stop me being terrified, anyway. The butterflies in my stomach started practicing acrobatics, and I swallowed something bitter tasting.

  “Are you ready?” Cody asked me. I nodded. It was a lie, of course, but somehow I didn’t think they’d be cool with me just standing here until I felt more confident – in, say, a decade or two.

  Adrian pressed his hand to the door, and his palm flared red. The pulse pattern was beyond complex – it was the single most complicated password I’d ever seen. Probably just as well. This was Raphael we were dealing with.

  The door swung inwards, and the sight that greeted me was almost… domestic. The single occupant, a man in his fifties, was sitting on the single bench in the small room, one leg crossed over the other, reading a paperback. I squinted, but I couldn’t quite make out the title. Talent something or other, maybe. Whatever. I didn’t much care what murderous psychos read in their spare time. Etched into the walls were dozens of runes, and I could feel them muting my magic as I crossed the threshold. Other than the bench and a single light source hanging from the ceiling, the room was barren. Like I said, almost domestic. It was impossible to forget I was standing inside a druid prison.

  “Ah,” Raphael said, closing his book and setting it carefully aside. “I’m so glad you could make it, Lyssa.”

  I shuddered, and said nothing.

  “What, no hug for your dear old father?” He feigned hurt, but there was nothing feigned about the way my jaw clenched and my hands curled into fists by my sides.

  “You’re not my father,” I ground out, and caught the look Cody gave me. I was going to have to do better than this. Thirty seconds in this room and he was already getting under my skin. I forced my hands to open and relaxed my jaw, even managing something close to a smirk. “You’re a sperm donor, at best.”

  A shadow passed over his face before he composed himself again, and I felt a stab of grim satisfaction. I wounded his pride? Good. He wounded my friends.

  His gaze flicked from me to the two men standing on either side of me. He picked out Adrian.

  “I’ll speak to my daughter alone.”

  “Yeah. That’s not going to happen.”

  Raphael shrugged and reached for his book, flipping it open again. I battled with the desire to reach over and rip it out of his hands, but that wasn’t going to get me anywhere. He’d always viewed emotional displays as a weakness.

  I took a step back and lowered my voice.

  “He can’t hurt me, right?”

  Adrian shook his head. “Magically? No.”

  “He’s stronger than you,” Cody said.

  “Hey,” I protested. “I work out. Sometimes.”

  “It’s not safe,” he insisted.

  “But it’s my choice, right?” I turned to Adrian. “And you think this is the only way he’ll talk to us?”

  He nodded, whether to one of my questions, or both, I wasn’t sure. I squared my shoulders and forced a confidence I didn’t feel into my voice.

  “Alright, Raphael. I’ll speak to you.”

  He lowered his book and peered over the top of it, fixing his eyes pointedly on Adrian. Cody bent his mouth to my ear.

  “Try to get him talking to you about the rage spell, but don’t let on about what I told you.”

  I nodded, and the pair of them slipped out and shut the door, sealing me in with the deadly druid.

  “Ah, that’s better,” Raphael said, setting his book aside. “Alone at last.”

  He rose to his feet and I took a hasty step back.

  “Stay away from me,” I warned him.

  “Afraid?” He raised an eyebrow in what I took for amusement. I squared my jaw.

  “No.”

  “I know you well enough to see otherwise.”

  “And you know me well enough to know a little fear never stopped me.”

  He inclined his head and settled back on his bench.

  “Regardless, you have nothing to fear. I know you said some hurtful things, dishonest things, last time we met, but I do not hold that against you.”

  I laughed, and there was a bitter edge to the sound. When did I get so bitter? I shook the thought aside. It probably wasn’t the best time to be psychoan
alysing myself right now, what with the whole being sealed in a locked room with the country’s most dangerous druid thing I had going on.

  “That’s what you wanted to see me about? Your bruised ego?”

  “Well, of course, I’d also like to know how you survived interrupting that spell. It should have killed you.”

  “Right back at you.”

  It was a miracle we weren’t both killed. Well, okay, maybe ‘miracle’ wasn’t the right word in his case.

  “Tell me about the rage spell you put on Kelsey,” I said.

  “The halfbreed?” His face creased into a sneer.

  “Hybrid,” I corrected him, through habit more than anything else. “Tell me about the spell. Tell me how to reverse it.”

  “The halfbreed is not still under the spell,” he said, frowning. “It was broken. I felt it.”

  I hesitated. I couldn’t exactly tell him that the people Kelsey had bitten had been infected with the rage curse. He didn’t need to know he’d had that much influence, and frankly, the last thing I wanted to do was give him any ideas. Plus, it wasn’t going to help my cause if he thought he had something to bargain with.

  “Tell me about it anyway,” I said. “We’re studying its effects.”

  I mean, it wasn’t exactly a lie, although the ‘we’ part might have been an exaggeration.

  “Ah, so someone else was infected. Interesting.”

  Crap. How the hell did he do that?

  “Last time we spoke, you asked about my mum. We’ll trade information.”

  “If you desire information about how to break a second-generation curse, then I’m afraid you’ll need to do better than that.”

  “What do you want?” I asked. “Another one of your cheap novels?”

  “My freedom.”

  I laughed again, and his eyes blazed with anger. Huh. He was serious. And he was seriously deluded if he thought that was on the table. I didn’t even need to ask the others. He wasn’t getting out of here. Not in my lifetime.

  I turned round and hammered on the door.

  “Open up. We’re done here.”

  Chapter Two

  The building was far grander than Daoradh and exuded only one tenth of its menace. And yet, as I stood at the wrought-iron gates set into the immaculate stone wall, waiting to be admitted, I couldn’t help but feel I’d rather face Raphael again. The Krakenvale Academy of Druidic Law Enforcement. It was one thing talking about coming here. Actually doing it was another entirely.