Witch Fire by Laura Powell Read Free Book Online Page B

and the woman said stiff hellos.
    ‘. . . and Guy Carmichael,’ Rawdon continued, ‘a colleague from Six.’
    Glory went to shake the MI6 officer’s hand. It was surprisingly firm for such a limp-looking man. As she sat down, Rawdon indicated the red light on the communications panel. ‘ This is a closed meeting. Your wardens will be appraised of what follows, but on a strictly need-to-know basis.’
    Glory’s stomach began to flutter pleasantly. She and Lucas exchanged looks, trying not to appear too obviously excited as Rawdon tossed them a couple of shiny brochures.
    ‘ Welcome to Wildings Academy ,’ Lucas read aloud. ‘ Distinction, Discretion, Diligence .’
    ‘It’s a school,’ said Glory, in the way other people might say ‘it’s a dead cat.’
    ‘A very special, very private school,’ said the man from Six.
    Glory opened the first page. She was looking at a photograph of a narrow valley, shadowed by mountains and furred by trees. A cluster of grey towers and turrets rose up from the forest. It was a castle out of a fae-tale.
    ‘ Wildings Academy ,’ the introduction read, ‘ provides structure and security for young people whose needs are not met by conventional education systems, and a refuge where troubled teenagers can find shelter from the pressures of modern life .’
    ‘So it’s a sin bin,’ she said.
    Rawdon looked amused. ‘In a manner of speaking. But though you wouldn’t know it from the brochure, its intake is exclusively witchkind.’
    ‘Sounds like the place my stepmother wanted to send me to,’ said Lucas.
    Glory flicked through the pages. Wildings was apparently located in eastern Switzerland, somewhere near the Italian border, but there was no address or map, just a contact email. There wasn’t any sign of the students either, in the glossy pictures of classrooms, science labs and sports facilities. The only people to feature in the brochure were a group of uniformed guards. ‘Does the Inquisition run it, then?’ she asked.
    ‘It doesn’t have jurisdiction,’ Commander Hughes said from the screen. Her voice was acid. ‘Switzerland does not legally recognise witches under the age of eighteen. Its own witchkind community is tiny: less than 0.05 per cent of the populace.’
    ‘A loophole that Wildings Academy has been able to exploit,’ Guy Carmichael put in. ‘Wealthy families can purchase a special study visa from the Swiss government to send their offspring to the school, as long as they do so before the child’s fae is officially detected and registered in their home country. Wildings’ students are high-status – the sort who’d cause professional as well as personal difficulties for their parents if their condition was known. The academy operates a Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy, which is why it can get away with it.’
    Glory snorted. ‘I bet that kind of loophole don’t come cheap.’
    ‘Very true,’ said Rawdon. ‘Wildings is as expensive as it is secret and the intake is no more than ten students at any one time. You need powerful connections to even know about it.’
    ‘So far,’ said Commander Hughes, ‘the Swiss government has resisted external pressure to shut the place down. Discipline there is tight: any student caught discussing witchwork, let alone practising it, is instantly expelled. They work hard to maintain good relations with their neighbours – in fact, the local village of Blumenwald gets regular “grants”, i.e. bribes, from the academy. In the fifteen years it’s been operating, there have been no security breaches. Or rather, none that we know about.
    ‘However, our team at Intelligence Command has picked up chatter that the place has become of interest to Endor. There’s a concern the academy could have been infiltrated, either among the students or staff. Since any collection of adolescent witches is a breeding ground for trouble, the more we can find out about what goes on there, the better.’
    ‘So you’re going to