CHAPTER ONE
“Should we be singing or something?” Dani asked, surveying the passengers on the bus. The strawberry blond witch sat in front of me, sharing a seat with Bryn Morrow.
“We’re future agents for the Academy of Magical Forces,” Madge LaRue snapped from across the aisle. Madge was a constant source of irritation to our group.
“So? That means we don’t sing?” Dani queried. She cupped her hands around her mouth and called to the chaperones at the front of the bus. “Wardens, is there a rule that agents don’t sing?”
“I bet Dani has perfect pitch,” Mia said. The air witch was seated beside me with her nose buried in a grimoire.
“Of course she does,” Bryn chimed in. “She’s Danielle Montrose Degraff, bringer of fire magic and singer of earworms.”
Dani ignored her. “I’m pretty sure singing on a bus is a thing in Terrene. You should know, Bryn. This is your domain.”
“I was homeschooled,” Bryn said. “No school bus trips for me.”
I tugged on the end of Dani’s long hair. “I vote for singing. Something upbeat.”
Bryn smirked. “Cerys votes for upbeat. Shocker.”
“I’ll just mouth the words if that’s okay,” Mia replied. “My voice is awful.” A likely story. Mia Holmes preferred to be as invisible as the air around us. In her mind, anything that drew attention to her was best avoided.
The sound of a horn split the air.
“That truck cut us off,” Dani said, peering out the window. “Maybe I should offer to drive.” Dani had plenty of practice driving the groundskeeper’s pickup truck in Terrene. Still, I wasn’t sure that qualified her to drive a bus here. There were limits to even Dani’s talents.
“You can’t control everything,” Bryn said. “Just try to roll with it.”
“We’re all going to be rolling with it if the driver isn’t a little more defensive on the road,” Dani countered. “Some of these roadsides are steep.”
She wasn’t wrong. The landscape was getting more dramatic by the mile as we closed in on our destination.
“I can’t believe we have to take a Terrene bus on a Terrene highway,” Priscilla Peacock moaned. “What good is being a witch if we have to endure public transportation?”
“It’s not public transportation,” Warden Armitage said. “This is a Spellslingers-owned vehicle that the academy keeps in the human world for precisely this reason.”
“Couldn’t we find a place for a field trip with a closer portal?” Ollie Fitzgibbons chimed in. “Why do we need to go all the way to someplace called West Virginia?”
Warden Armitage fixed the wizard with a hard stare. “Do you think we pluck these field trips out of the air without considerable thought and planning?”
“No, sir,” Ollie mumbled.
“Petram Caverns and the surrounding area play an important role in our history,” the warden said.
“Not to mention there are very cool rock formations,” Gray added. “They’re like works of art by Mother Nature.” The vampire was a fellow Warden of the West and also happened to be Bryn’s boyfriend.
“I read that the caverns were once used by local covens for ceremonies,” Dani said. “When the Native Americans settled in the area, the covens decided to vacate the land to avoid detection.”
Warden Armitage tipped an imaginary hat. “Someone did her homework, not that I’m surprised.”
“There has to be more to it than that,” Priscilla sniffed. “We don’t come all the way to gods-know-where in Terrene simply because witches used to congregate here.”
The bus slowed to a stop in a parking lot. A wooden sign loomed ahead. It was painted green and marked in white letters with Welcome to Petram Caverns.
“Why is no one else here?” I asked. “It’s the middle of the day.”
“Did you think we’d be able to march an entire class of trainees through a Terrene tourist site without anyone noticing?” Warden Armitage asked, mildly amused.
“Why not?” Dani said. She gestured to her tall human frame. “We blend.”
“It’s closed for the season,” Gray said.
“That way we can explore and speak freely,” Warden Armitage said. “It’s hard to make a point about ley lines or paranormal history with human ears listening in.”
We poured out of the bus and assembled in front of the entrance to the caverns.
“Have you been here before?” Bryn asked Gray.
“Years ago,” the vampire replied. “We tracked a suspect here. There are so many underground passageways, it’s a great place to try to avoid capture.”
“But aren’t you putting yourself between a rock and a hard place, literally?” Bryn asked.
“Not when there’s a direct route to the underworlds below,” Dani said.
Warden Armitage whistled. “Exactly how much reading did you do for this trip, Degraff?”
She shrugged. “You know I like to be prepared.”
“A direct route?” Mia asked. “How? The tunnels?”
“There’s a river about thirteen levels down,” Gray explained. “It flows to several of the underworld entrances. Just have to know the right stop.”
We headed into the reception area in a single file line and my whole body began to hum with magic.
“The entrances are still functional?” Bryn asked.
“The gateway to the underworlds is functional, but any nearby portals have been sealed or destroyed,” Warden Armitage said. “That’s why we couldn’t get here without the bus.”
“Why have the portals been sealed?” I asked.
“Who knows their history?” Warden Armitage asked. No one answered. “Second War Between the Realms anyone?”
“There was a portal between our world and Terrene about ten miles from here,” Gray said. “That one was destroyed during the Second War. We have djinn to thank for that, apparently. There was a huge settlement of djinn in nearby Mountainview at the time and they used their magic to destroy the portal before fleeing back to their original realm.”
“This area was a hotbed of paranormals for a long time until the war came and changed everything,” Warden Armitage said.
“One of the reasons the covens decided to change location was to be closer to a portal in case of emergency,” Dani said. “They started to feel isolated out here. That was before the Native Americans came, of course.”
I was still fixated on Warden Armitage’s comment. “You can destroy a portal?” I asked. I’d never heard that.
“You can destroy anything if you try hard enough,” Gray replied.
“Why not just seal it?” Dani asked. “That’s what happened to the portal near Washington D.C. I remember reading the article about why they sealed it.”
“It was war,” Gray said. “What’s been sealed can always be unsealed with the right skill level.”
“But arguably what’s been destroyed can be recreated,” Bryn said.
I immediately thought of my brother and wanted to object. I clamped down on my comment. My friends still didn’t know my secret—only Callan and Alana were aware. Now didn’t seem like the best time to broach the subject.
“How deep are the levels?” Dani asked. She peered into the mouth of the first cavern.
“They vary,” Gray said. “The first one is about twenty feet underground. They get progressively larger the further down we go. There are so many passageways that it’s hard to say exactly how long each level is.”
Warden Armitage cleared his throat and yelled, “Time to explore.” He then stooped to enter the mouth of the first cavern. A rocky staircase took us down to the first level. “We call this level the lobby.”
“It’s beautiful,” I breathed. The rock formations were smooth and flat and glistened with moisture.
“You’ll likely spot a few gemstones the further down we go,” Gray said. “This place is filled with shiny objects.”
“Can we take a few?” I asked, hopefully.
Warden Armitage gave me a look of reproach. “No sticky fingers, Davies. I know how you like your pretty rocks, but we need to preserve this place. We can’t go robbing it of all its goodness. Even the humans have been prevented from raiding it.”
“How?” Madge asked. “It’s in their territory. They have control over it.”
The warden’s mouth twitched. “Not entirely. There’s a League-approved spell in place that prevents them from stumbling all the way to the bottom.”
“Makes their job easier, I imagine,” Dani said. “No unsuspecting humans finding their way into an underworld.”
The humming grew louder and I felt momentarily overwhelmed, as though the entire cavern was calling to me, begging me to connect with it.
“Listen up,” Warden Armitage continued in his authoritative voice. “We’re going to kick off the day with a training exercise. Open your palms. There will be a slip of paper in it numbered with either a one or a two. If you’re a one, then you’re an agent. If you’re a two, then you’re a suspect.”
I opened my palm and, sure enough, a white slip of paper appeared with a number two written on it. Great, I’m a suspect.
“The suspects are going to hide from their pursuers in these caverns,” Gray added. “The agents are going to round up as many suspects as they can inside of an hour. At the end of the hour, if there are more suspects in captivity then in hiding, the agents win.”
“Can we use magic to locate them?” Priscilla asked.
I raised my hand. “And magic to hide?”
“Sure you can,” Warden Armitage answered. “Anything you’d do in the field, you’ll do here.”
“You remembered to alert the League, didn’t you?” I asked. If too much magic was used in Terrene, the League of Local Paranormals would converge on the caverns to investigate.
“Gray took care of it,” Warden Armitage said.
I glanced at Gray, whose expression suggestion that he did not, in fact, take care of it.
“It’s not going to be enough magic to draw their attention,” Gray said quickly. “Not all the way out here in the caverns.”
Bryn smiled. “I don’t know. I might make it down to that river and throw enough magic around to summon every League member within a hundred mile radius, just for fun.”
“Please don’t,” Gray said with a pointed look.
“Suspects, gather on this side of the lobby,” Warden Armitage ordered.
I moved to his side of the cavern and noticed that Mia was with me. Dani and Bryn were agents. Terrific.
“Staying out of sight is my specialty,” Mia said.
“Perfect, then we’ll hide together,” I told her.
“Nobody accidentally board a raft to the underworld,” Gray warned. “I, for one, will not come and get you out. Been there, got the T-shirt.”
Heat rose to my cheeks. “Don’t worry. I have no desire for a return trip.” My first year at the academy, I’d been kidnapped by a demon and taken to the underworld to be his bride. Gray had been one of my rescuers, along with my roommates.
“Suspects, you get a head start,” Warden Armitage announced. “I’ll give you a ten minute lead, then I’m releasing the hounds.” He smirked at Bryn. “In your case, the bloodhound.”
“That’s insulting,” Bryn replied with the hint of a smile. It was next to impossible to insult the water witch.
“And it’s go time, suspects,” Warden Armitage called. “Move! Move!”
We bumped into each other trying to make our way down to the next level. There was only one narrow stone staircase. Sharp rocks jutted in every direction. If you didn’t hit your elbow, you risked knocking a knee.
“Ten minutes isn’t much of a lead,” Milo complained.
“Do you think it’ll be fairer out in the real world?” I asked archly. I hugged the rocks as we wound our way down. The staircase was slick with humidity.
“Where are we going?” Priscilla asked. Her tone suggested the only place she wanted to go was the exit.
“To the bottom,” I said. “This is a full-scale exploratory mission.”
“It’s not an exploratory mission,” she said. “We’re supposed to be evading capture.”
“And that’s how I intend to evade it,” I said. “Getting to the bottom and then finding a good spot to wait everyone out.”
“I’m not heading all the way there,” Paul said. “There are dozens of passageways to use for cover without going down thirteen levels.”
“Suit yourself,” I replied. I craned my neck to look at Mia. “How about you, partner?”
“I go where you go,” she said. “Your specialty magic is much more useful than mine here.”
She had a point. Even without an energy vortex, this place was bursting with ancient earth magic. I felt mildly dizzy from it, not a great side effect when I was trying to navigate tough terrain.
The further down we went, the fewer suspects remained with us. They split off at each level and disappeared down passageways. Before we managed to reach the bottom, I heard the shrill whistle of the warden. The hunt had begun. I tried not to think about the training exercise in terms of hunting. I didn’t want to be reminded of the Hunter. The Hunter was an ancient creature whose most recent form had been a centaur. He’d been after more challenging prey and had decided to create his own—pumping young men from Terrene full of metamorphic potion to do so. We’d managed to put an end to his mass murders, but not before losing innocent lives. There’d been one bright spot during that dark time—I’d met my boyfriend, Callan Mulroney. He was a member of the League and a werewolf, but other than those two small issues, we were perfect for each other.
“It’s getting colder,” Mia said, hugging herself.
“I didn’t notice.” I was too focused on our surroundings. The caverns seemed endless. It would have been wonderful to stay here longer and explore them properly rather than rushing down every level in an effort to escape the agents.
“Bryn will track you easily,” Mia said. “You’ve had her blood.”
“It’s not in our systems anymore,” I said. It would’ve been more difficult to siphon out her blood if Callan and I had ingested it. Thankfully, the type of blood magic Bryn used to bind us had been simpler.
“Everything’s sparkling,” Mia said. I heard the wonder in her voice.
“Limestone and dolomite,” I said. We’d arrived at the tenth level and were deposited in a giant room of shining rocks. The space was at least two hundred feet in length. I spotted pockets of green and gold that seemed to glow in the dim light of Mia’s wand.
“There are plenty of places to hide here,” Mia said. “We can set up a protective spell to conceal us.”
“I still think our best bet is to go to the bottom,” I said. “You know how some of those guys are. They’ll be too lazy or too afraid of falling into the river and drifting to one of the underworlds.”
“Not Dani and Bryn,” Mia said. “They’ll probably head straight down.”
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