Chapter 156: Witchcraft Fundamentals

Chapter 156: Witchcraft Fundamentals

POV: Astrid Vale

The classroom looked nothing like any other room I’d stepped into at Moonshade, chalk circles etched into the floor, shelves lined with jars of ingredients I couldn’t identify, old texts stacked haphazardly across every available surface. Eliza moved through the space with obvious familiarity, settling into a seat near the front without a second glance at the unusual surroundings.

I felt strangely at ease despite never having studied anything like this before, something unfamiliar and yet oddly comfortable settling over me as I took a seat beside Ivy.

Ivy nudged me, nodding toward the shelves lining the far wall. "This is so much cooler than I expected," she whispered. "I thought it would just be candles and chanting."

"I don’t think we’re allowed to touch anything yet," I said, eyeing a jar labeled in handwriting too cramped to read from a distance.

"Speak for yourself."

A few other students filed in around us, some clearly Lycan by the way they carried themselves, unused to a classroom built around a discipline that wasn’t their own. One boy sat gingerly at the edge of his seat, glancing at the chalk circle etched into the floor like it might activate on its own.

"Witchcraft isn’t simply about throwing spells," the instructor began, a woman with sharp eyes and an even sharper tone. "It’s about energy, intention, control, and consequence. Magic without discipline is dangerous to everyone involved, yourself included."

We started with a basic exercise, each student given a small stone meant to help us practice sensing and directing magical energy. Around me, students concentrated with varying degrees of success, some producing faint glows, others struggling to produce any reaction at all.

I picked up my own stone, uncertain what I was even supposed to feel, and closed my eyes the way the instructor had demonstrated. At first, nothing happened, the stone sitting inert and cold in my palm.

Then something shifted.

Energy surged through the stone with an intensity that startled me, far stronger than what I’d witnessed from any other student, and I dropped it immediately, my hand recoiling like I’d been burned.

The instructor noticed, her eyes flicking toward me with something sharp and assessing, though she said nothing to draw attention to it in front of the class.

Eliza leaned over once the lesson moved on, her voice quiet. "You’re forcing it," she said. "Magic doesn’t respond well to force. Try grounding yourself first, breathing through it instead of pushing against it."

I tried again, following her guidance this time, breathing slowly and letting the energy settle rather than fighting against whatever instinct kept trying to seize control. The stone glowed faintly, steady and controlled, and Eliza’s eyebrows rose slightly.

"Better," she said. "Though I’ve never seen a beginner react that strongly on a first attempt."

"I don’t know why it happened," I admitted.

"Neither do I," she said, studying me with open curiosity now. "But it’s interesting."

Partway through the lesson, while flipping through one of the ancient texts scattered across our table, a symbol caught my attention, something etched into the corner of a page, half faded with age. My chest tightened the moment I saw it, some fragment of memory stirring uncomfortably, though I couldn’t place exactly where I’d seen it before.

"What’s this?" I asked, pointing it out to the instructor.

She studied it for a moment. "An old witch symbol," she said. "Associated with protection, I believe, though its specific history has largely been lost. Where did you see this before?"

"I’m not sure," I said honestly, though something in my chest told me I was lying, that somewhere buried in memories I couldn’t fully access, I’d encountered this exact marking before. Perhaps something my mother had once worn, or hidden somewhere I’d glimpsed as a child without understanding its significance.

I memorized the shape carefully before class ended, tucking the detail away to examine later.

Reed and Xander found us afterward, both immediately curious about how the first witchcraft class had gone.

"You did magic?" Xander asked, practically vibrating with excitement. "Actual magic? Can you show me?"

"I made a stone glow slightly," I said. "It’s not exactly impressive."

"It’s incredibly impressive."

"Did it cause any physical reaction?" Reed asked, more measured than Xander’s enthusiasm, his eyes carrying quiet concern. "Any pain, dizziness, exhaustion?"

"I’m fine," I said. "It was strange, but not harmful. The energy responded more strongly than I expected, that’s all."

Reed’s expression didn’t fully relax, though he didn’t push further, clearly filing the information away regardless of my reassurance.

"I still want to see you do magic properly," Xander said. "Preferably something dramatic."

"I’ve had one class."

"Low expectations, then. Something small and dramatic."

I laughed, shaking my head, though something about their contrasting reactions, Xander’s pure fascination against Reed’s careful watchfulness, struck me as exactly the balance I needed right now, curiosity tempered with concern rather than one overwhelming the other.

That evening, alone in my room, I pulled up an image I’d sketched from memory of the symbol I’d seen in class, comparing it against the faint recollection still tugging at the edges of my mind. The moment I focused on it properly, something shifted beneath the surface of my thoughts.

Sapphire stirred, her reaction immediate and unmistakable, though nothing about it resembled fear or aggression. Instead, something closer to recognition rippled through her, a familiarity that made no sense given everything I understood about the divide between witch magic and wolf instinct.

Why would my wolf recognize a witch symbol?

I sat with the question for a long time, turning the sketch over in my hands, my mother’s careful, guarded face rising unbidden in my memory. She’d spent seventeen years hiding this part of our history from me, protecting me from something dangerous enough that she’d rather let me believe I was ordinary than risk exposing whatever truth lay buried underneath.

Whatever she’d hidden clearly ran deeper than the fragments I’d already uncovered about her past. Something connected this symbol to Sapphire directly.

I stared at the sketch a while longer before finally setting it aside, understanding, with growing certainty, that whatever my mother had spent her life protecting me from, it was far more significant than I’d ever imagined.