Cruel Magic (Royals of Villain Academy #1)(38)

I halted, holding myself rigid so my nerves wouldn’t show. He’d obviously called all these people here. I had to guess he was the one who’d left the note in my room. If I tried to make a dash for the Tower or even back to my dorm, how many steps would I make before he stopped me like we both knew he could?

Just enough to make me look as ridiculous as possible, no doubt.

So I stayed where I was and raised my chin. “‘It’s time’?” I said, quoting the note. “Time for what, Nightwood?”

“Time you finally recognize what you are and who you should owe your loyalty to,” Malcolm said, his voice ringing clear across the green. “Time you stop carrying around an emblem of the self-righteous bastards who killed your family and would like to wipe us all out if they could. Time you got off that imaginary high horse.” He raised his hand, and his voice shifted into a silky lilt. “Take off the bracelet the joymancers gave you.”

Every bone in my body resisted, but his words wound through my body, loosening my muscles and jolting my nerves into motion. A startled gasp slipped from my lips as my hand moved of its own accord to undo the clasp on my charm bracelet.

Jude had said Malcolm’s primary focus was Persuasion. Here was my first-hand demonstration. Professor Crowford had mentioned that the more your instructions went against the person’s own will, the more power you had to bring to your magic for it to work. He must be expending an awful lot on me right now.

“Stop,” I said. My protest held no power at all. I had to save the little bit of magic I had for when it could matter the most. My fingers curled around the dangling strand of charms. He couldn’t take it. I couldn’t let him.

But that wasn’t what Malcolm wanted after all.

“Drop it,” he said, as if I hadn’t spoken.

My fingers twitched and released. The bracelet fell to the strip of smooth concrete with a rattle of the glass beads. I strained to snatch after it, but my body wouldn’t respond.

“Smash them,” Malcolm said in the same silky tone, but with a triumphant note now. “Smash every last one, like those fucking joymancers should be smashed.”

Oh, God, no. I tensed every limb, calling on the threads of magic I’d been saving up, but my foot lifted against my will. I gritted my teeth and strained to pull it back.

The magic wisped through me to no effect. My heel slammed down on the bracelet. Glass crunched against the pavement. I flinched, tears springing to my eyes despite my best efforts. The words tumbled out. “Please, don’t—”

“Keep going.”

My foot rammed down again. Another crunch, another jab of pain right through my gut. Memories swam up of the trips to the jewelry shops, picking out each year’s addition, Mom listening avidly as I explained what this or that one meant to me. Hope. Adventure. Creativity. Love.

Crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch.

I thought I heard Jude’s mocking laugh somewhere to my left. The breeze cooled the damp streaks down my cheeks. My foot twisted, grinding the glass beneath my heel. Malcolm chuckled, low and satisfied, and all our spectators just stood and watched the show. Watched him reduce me to the pathetic weakling mage he saw me as.

My hands clenched at my sides. I wasn’t weak. My parents had taught me that from the first days they’d revealed their magic to me, when I’d been just a little kid. You don’t need magic to be powerful, Rory. If your will is strong enough, you can do just about anything.

I had my will, and now I had magic too, if I just reached out and took it.

As I blinked the glaze of tears away, my gaze darted over the crowd. It caught on Declan standing back amid the spectators, his shoulders tensed, his mouth set in a grim line. He didn’t look happy, but he wouldn’t step in now any more than he had before. You have to learn how to defend yourself.

I could end this now. I could roll over like Malcolm wanted and prove him right, but every particle of my being screamed against that idea. He wanted this to be a fight. I’d give him a real one, by whatever means I could.

Fuck him and the assholes turning this torture into a spectacle. Fuck them all.

“Now let’s give that one last—” Malcolm started, and I swiveled toward the nearest cluster in our audience.

“You want to try me?” I snapped at them, taking a menacing step forward. The breeze had dried the few tears that had trickled down my cheeks, and all my fury and frustration rippled through my voice. A few of the younger kids jerked back with a flash of fright that shot into my chest.

That was all I needed.

I spun back to face Malcolm, who was sucking in a breath to give another command, not looking at all fazed yet. Why should he be? Even with that whiff of power, I couldn’t take him on head to head.

So I’d have to hit him hard and fast where it’d hurt the most, just like he had with me.

“Inside,” I murmured, focusing on his forehead the way I had with Jude in the Insight seminar. What was he thinking about right now? What about this really mattered to him?

I caught an impression of an older man with the same golden-brown hair mixed with gray, a low measured voice saying, Now that’s a win befitting a Nightwood, and a flicker of pride. His father?

Malcolm’s expression shuttered. A wall hurtled up, jarring me out of his thoughts, but I had something to hold onto now.

“Hear his disappointment,” I whispered, the first words that came to mind to fit my intention. I wasn’t even sure if I was conjuring a real sound or the illusion of it for only him, or what it would say—I just threw all the magic I had into tearing through that sense of approval.