But that wasn’t Altair’s responsibility either.
“Going is a death sentence,” Rokh said, as if that was the end of the argument. “We cannot spare one of our own for this.”
Altair shook his head slowly. “I’m already dead, Rokh, you just don’t know it yet. Stop worrying about me.”
Before the other dragon could respond, he pushed off the wall and wandered out into the flow of witches. The smaller and shorter women parted for him and he moved like a shark through a school of fish as he wandered aimlessly past.
His brain was elsewhere. Focused on a driven brunette, whom for some reason, Altair didn’t want to disappoint.
I’ll be at that training session, he vowed mentally. No matter what.
He would make her proud. Her and the rest of his kind. They would see what he was going to do, and they would finally think of Altair in positive terms again. He would be rid of the stench of failure, once and for all.
All he had to do was kill a demon lord.
Chapter Five
Christine
THE DOOR WHISPERED open, silent as could be.
She lowered her hand, having only knocked once.
“Come in,” a voice said from within.
She walked into the room, marveling again at the beauty of it all. Though she wasn’t a regular visitor to Circe’s office, it wasn’t unknown to her either.
The room was bright and airy, windows lining the sides, sunlight pouring in through them. Of course, they weren’t real windows. Circe’s office was located in the depths of Winterspell, cut deep into the mountain itself. They were instead rifts, rips in reality that served to light the room.
Greenery and sitting chairs and couches filled the space to her left, while off to the right was the Circe’s personal library, bookcases filling the space between window-rifts, and low-slung bookshelves on the ground in between, so as not to block the view.
A metal wire-frame staircase occupied the center of the room, leading upstairs to the Circe’s private quarters. Christine had never been up those stairs, though one day she hoped to perhaps ascend them.
As Circe herself.
But that was a long time off, and she needed to focus on the present.
“Apprentice Sinnclare,” Circe said, her voice sounding happy to see the other woman. “It is good to see you again, Christine. How are you?”
“I’m good, Circe,” she said, following the path around the staircase and approaching the large circular desk behind which the head of Winterspell sat.
She spent a moment admiring the massive thirty-foot-wide rift that was centered behind the desk. The endless swells of the ocean were visible, sunlight glittering off the water tops. No land in sight, just endless water, it truly was a beautiful sight to behold.
Not just a beautiful sight, but a testament to the power of the woman in command of Winterspell. Even Christine, one of the stronger witches in terms of natural magic, was continuously awed by the things the other woman could do.
“It is good to see you as well, Circe,” she replied politely, bowing her head respectfully. While the two weren’t friends, as such, the Circe, and the Coven as a whole, tended to take a much more invested role in the success of the upper-year apprentices. The two had talked on several occasions before, and she felt the woman was looking forward to seeing how far Christine would push herself.
“What can I do for you today? I wasn’t expecting to see you. Was I?”
“No, Circe. This is an unplanned visit.”
“I see. It must be important then. Go on, speak your mind,” Circe said, sitting back from her desk to look at the Apprentice with interest.
At least, that’s the way Christine interpreted the body language. The slight relaxed lean to her upper body, what might have been a head tilt under the hood. It was fun for a moment to know that she had the full attention of the head of Winterspell, but Christine wasn’t about to play any dramatic games. She was here for a reason, and one reason only.
“I want it,” she said bluntly.
Circe didn’t react. There were many benefits to constantly hiding her face under the shroud of her hood, including not betraying her thoughts with her facial expressions.
“You want...what?” Circe asked.
“The response team,” Christine clarified, fairly positive Circe knew, but wanted to confirm. “I want to lead it. I’m strong enough, I’m high-ranking enough and have demonstrated before that I am more than capable of leading other teams.”
“You make an interesting point,” Circe said calmly. “I wonder, though, how you will fair with a team not entirely composed of witches.”
“The only way to know how any of us would fare, is to find out,” Christine pointed out, not backing down.
She knew where Circe was going with the conversation, and she’d already thought it over in her head. It was why she’d sought out Altair right after the meeting. She’d wanted to get a feeling for the dragon, for how he might best integrate with the team.
“The idea of working with the dragons doesn’t bother you?” Circe asked casually.
Christine snorted. “I am not, and have never been, one of Loiner’s fan’s,” she said, naming the disgraced former Master who had been exiled to the Hexe Institute in Europe after her actions at Winterspell. “I understand she played many of her disciples against one another, promising to help them climb the ranks. It burns me that we didn’t do a better job preparing those young women, to show them their options so that they didn’t have to.”
Circe was quiet during the little outburst. They both knew that Christine had been approached by the former-Master when she was younger, and had said no. Loiner had tried to come after Christine for it, but she’d misjudged the meteoric rise of the young—at the time—Initiate, and it had backfired on Loiner.
“I don’t
