Warlock 4 - Preview Chapter

Warlock 4 – Preview Chapter

© 2025 Daniel Kensington

Chapter

The Willowmere campus felt different in the summer, even from the entrance and before we got to the campus itself.

Mihai pulled into the drive, easing the van to a stop and rolling down the window for the witch at the gate to approach.

There was now a little hut behind the wall next to the gate and it looked permanent. A second witch peered out of the hut at us. I thought I recognized the one still in the hut from the kitchen staff, but couldn’t be sure. Either way, it looked like guards at the gate had become an ongoing thing and I wondered, not for the first time, what the result of a new Board would be.

Selection of that Board was scheduled for the Lammastide Conclave, but Mel didn’t seem particularly concerned, despite Priscilla passing along word from her mom that the Prescotts were lobbying hard for board seats and apparently gaining some traction there.

We were waved through and Mihai started down the driveway.

I had to admit the trip had been far more comfortable in Mihai’s van than the train — and quicker, once you figured in the time having to transfer luggage and stuff.

I glanced out the back window to where two other Roma men followed us in the black SUV the witches seemed to favor.

At least they weren’t wearing suits and sunglasses, so I felt a little less pretentious about having my own motorcade.

The SUV peeled off into the surrounding forest at the discrete path that led to the Roma camp while Mihai drove us to the top of the drive, stopping near the residence building.

The quad was nearly deserted, with only a single figure crossing from the admin to classroom buildings and not really sparing us a look. I assumed it was one of the teachers, but couldn’t tell who it was.

The girls all stretched as they exited the van and I wondered if I should insist on getting out first once in a while so I’d have a better view — craning my neck to look out the van’s side windows was a little uncomfortable.

I was a little surprised Prima Rosethorn wasn’t there to meet us with a lecture about something — or about the Roma pestering her for any construction work around campus — but we made it out of the van and through the deserted residence building without seeing any other staff or faculty at all. Not even Mel, since she excused herself outside the van and headed for the admin building.

Felicity, back in the cat form she preferred for traveling — since laps were more comfortable than van seats — came along with us.

The sounds of construction — hammers and power tools — struck us as soon as we exited the rear of the residence building and started down the path to the cottages, growing stronger as we went along, and the cottage itself, when we arrived, was a bustle of activity.

There were a half dozen Roma men on the roof, tapping the stone shingles and stripping some while others came behind them replacing what had been stripped. Others were working on the windows, floors, doors, nearly everything that could possibly be worked on, while Roma women moved throughout the crowd with pitchers of lemonade and sandwiches — both of which looked pretty good to me after the long drive, but as soon as they saw us the refreshments vanished … along with my girls, because the Roma women rushed us with a frightening enthusiasm.

Whatever they were saying, the girls became equally excited and within seconds every female in sight was hurrying down the path toward the Romani camp — half of them clustered around Cassandra and touching her belly.

“Romnija,” Mihai said with a shrug and a grin.

I nodded. “Women,” I agreed.

“Noah!”

I looked to find Peter Rosethorn, the Willowmere coven’s warlock, waving to me from the side of the cottage.

Mihai clapped a hand on my shoulder.

“Go, brother,” he said. “Much work to do.”

*

Mihai’s statement undersold what was waiting for me.

We’d returned to Willowmere with just over a week left before the start of our European trip to help with the cottage renovations … not that the Roma trusted me with a hammer yet, but there were some things that required magic and that was our job. Or, mine, at least — the girls’ jobs appeared to be approving colors, fabrics, and tiles. Or, in the case of Cassandra, being fawned over and catered to.

My work started with Peter leading me to a large stack of stone similar to what the cottage walls were made out of.

“Ready to get to work?” he asked, grinning.

I nodded. “What’s first?”

I was actually looking forward to contributing to the place.

Peter pointed at the pile of rocks.

“Breaking rocks.”

I glanced back at the cottage. All the rocks making up the walls looked whole, so why would we need broken ones?

“Have I been sentenced to hard labor?”

“You bound a witch, didn’t you?” Peter said. “No harsher sentence than that, sometimes.”

He was grinning, so I knew he was kidding … or thought he was.

Prima Rosethorn was his coven’s high priestess, after all.

“These are for practice,” Peter said, pointing at the rocks. “Don’t want you cracking any of the actual walls.”

“Cracking?”

Peter nodded.

“Most of the electrical lines are run under the floor in the crawlspace, but your girls want some of the outlets on the walls instead of in the floor. More standard, I guess — and to hide the cables for the television and such.”

“I could talk to them,” I suggested. “If the floor’s easier, then —”

“Too late,” Peter cut me off. “Evelina and Lisandra are already talking about moving ours — you’re the guinea pig.”

“Great.”

Peter grinned.

*

I learned more about rocks than I ever wanted to know.

The rest of the day was practice, using the pile of stone Peter had set up for me, before trying to do anything with the actual walls of the cottage, and the process was deceptively simple.

Reach out with your mana and senses to sort of permeate the stone where you wanted it to split, then sort of squeeze with the mana to crack the rock.

“Good,” Peter said as I sent a corner of the practice rock flying.

It was a ragged split, not the straight line I’d been trying for, and none of the stone was supposed to go flying across the cottage’s back lawn, but it was a start.

“It’ll get easier with practice.”

“I hope so,” I said, wiping at the sweat that was already covering my forehead.

“Try it again, but this time, go for a cut in the center of the stone’s face — not all the way through, just a couple inches deep and a few long. Thin as you can make it.”

I nodded and concentrated.

Sensing the stone and getting my mana there wasn’t hard, even the actual cracking wasn’t that hard — keeping things from getting out of hand was. It was sort of like closing your fist around a water balloon and trying to keep it from escaping through your fingers. Because if any escaped when you popped, it was …

I concentrated, feeding more mana into it.

Peter nodded and stepped behind me.

“Right,” he said, “now clench.”

I put a little more mana into things and willed the stone to crack.

The work on the cottage went silent — hammering and the whine of power tools ending.

That was after the sharp crack of the stone shattering and the clatter of debris falling to the ground after being stopped by the wall of mana Peter’d raised between us and the cottage. Between me and the stone had been my own shields, and I blinked at the afterimage of sparking mana as stone chips had bounced off right in front of my face.

“Right, then,” Peter said. “Now you know that more power’s not always the answer. And why you want your physical shields strong when doing construction.”

I looked at the cottage to find all the Roma still and staring at me … except for the one on the roof who was holding his buddy’s belt to keep the guy from falling off he was laughing so hard.

“Try it again,” Peter said. “This time with less mana — you don’t need that much — but concentrate more. Precision is harder than brute force — put the power into that.”

*

It took two hours of practice, and quite a bit of shrapnel, before I could make the first cut to Peter’s satisfaction.

A straight line, six inches long and half an inch deep, cut in the stone without chipping or shattering.

Precision was hard, and I felt like I could have blown up every stone in the cottage with less effort — which made the announcement that we were done with rocks for the day incredibly welcome.

I waved goodbye to the other warlock and settled myself on a stack of two-by-fours to spend some time recovering.

Apparently it was time for everyone to take a break, because the Roma were coming down from the roof as well and a few of the Roma women were returning with food and drinks.

One of the Roma from the roof approached me.

He sat next to me and offered one of the sandwiches he held along with a cup of lemonade.

“Thank you,” I said. “Ah, palem tuke.”

“Na leske,” he replied, then held out his hand. “Stefan.”

Another Rom sat on my other side and held out a hand. “Dragomir.”

Stefan was a wiry little guy who always seemed to be smiling and Dragomir was … pretty much what you’d expect from a Roma named Dragomir — big, manly, dark hair and eyes, and a beard that was absolutely flawless.

I set my new cup down and took their hands in turn. “Noah.”

Stefan nodded, chuckling. “You, we know.”

I laughed with him, then nodded at the cottage. “And thank you for your work on the cottage.”

Stefan nodded. “Thank you for my sister.”

I paused, sandwich halfway to my mouth, assuming that was a translation issue.

He must have seen my confusion, because he went on.

“She has … ah, o kirvo andro jilo[1].”

My Romani was about as good as my Gaelic, which is to say I could usually recognize the language.

“The worm within,” Dragomir said. He nodded at the other. “Sofiya, his sister, has the … you call it cancer?”

“Oh, shit, I’m so sorry,” I said to Stefan, but he just smiled.

“Angelo Jagalo[2] fixes.”

I frowned.

“The Burning Angel,” the second Rom said.

“Mel?” I asked. She did have that “Flaming one who burns the night” name.

He gestured at his hair. “The red one.”

I only knew one redhead.

“Sam?”

The two Roma shrugged.

I chewed, thinking.

Sam had been coming back to campus about once a week, but I’d thought she was supervising the design of a sex dungeon or something, not using her newly discovered Healing to help the Roma. She did seem unusually tired when she got back, but I’d put that down to the long trip. She hadn’t said anything about using her new-found Healing affinity with the Roma.

We finished our food in a companionable silence and I looked around for something to help with, since Peter was done with me. I wouldn’t be trusted to work on the actual walls for a couple days yet, it seemed.

“Anything I can help with?” I asked as the two Roma stood.

Stefan nodded. “Mihai left something for you.”

He pulled two short two-by-fours from the pile and stacked them on top of each other, then set a box of nails beside it. He took a hammer from his toolbelt and quickly put a nail in each end of the two-by-fours with three practiced strokes. The first tink set the nail, then thwonk drove it in halfway, and a third tonk left the nail head dead-even with the wood.

Stefan held out the hammer to me.

“Mihai says you practice.”

*

Toward evening, after hours of pounding nails with far less success than Stefan, the girls returned and a tour of the state of the cottage started.

The interior of the cottage had changed.

The sunken part that had been filled with a giant bed made up of slideable ottomans was now a U-shaped, leather couch and the space in between was empty. The floor there appeared to have been refinished, and it shined with a warm, golden glow, but I was worried about losing the giant bed.

I liked the giant bed.

The girls crowded around me, staring at the empty space.

They liked the giant bed, too.

“Um, where’s the giant bed?” Rachel asked.

“This is Latscho, who built it,” Mihai said, gesturing at a Rom who looked to be about our age. “He will explain.”

Latscho grinned at us.

He said something in rapid Romani — oddly seeming to look up at the ceiling while he did — and the leather couches began to move.

The horizontal parts began sliding out, slowly and evenly, until they met in the middle, turning the space into a giant bed again.

“Magic?” I asked.

“Ayeohtee,” Latscho said, grinning widely.

“Aye-oh-tee?” I tried. I guess that was Romani for magic.

Latscho sighed, but Morgan elbowed her way between Sam and I.

“Aye-oh-tee?” she asked.

I thought I’d done perfectly good with my pronunciation.

Latscho nodded.

Apparently Morgan was better. She shared a look with Felicity.

“Where’s the server rack?” Morgan asked.

*

Apparently IOT was an acronym for some sort of internet-shit, and I maintain that my thinking it was magic was entirely understandable since I was standing around with a half-dozen witches on the campus of a magic school.

I wasn’t expecting one of the cabinets in the kitchen to be filled with electronics.

I left Morgan and Felicity to discuss the little green lights with Latcho and returned to the main room where the other girls were playing with the bed.

“Hexa,” Sam said toward the ceiling, “slide bed one to twenty-percent.”

This time I felt a vibration in the floor as one of the bed segments started sliding.

“Hexa?” I whispered to Rachel.

“Latscho changed the keyword,” she said, nodding toward Cassandra who was busily paging through a bundle of paper.

“Is she reading the manual?”

“What kind of idiot doesn’t read the manual,” Cassandra muttered. “How else can you …” Her voice trailed off and her eyes widened. “Hexa! Bed four softness to thirty!”

I heard hissing air that was quickly drowned out by the girls stampeding down to set beds to different firmnesses and try them out.

*

The rest of the weekend went quickly.

The cottage wasn’t nearly finished, but I’d carved out all the outlets and channels for cables that were needed and the girls had approved a seemingly endless list of color and material choices, and the Roma assured us they had everything they needed to finish before we returned for classes.

I thought I’d done a pretty good job on the stone work, and even Mihai nodded approval when he saw it.

The design Peter had come up with and had me implement included keeping the original surface of the stone as a sort of cover.

The outlets themselves were recessed, and we embedded some magnets in the lip so that the cover could be placed back and retained in place, leaving only the faintest line of cut around the edges. I thought it was pretty clever.

The new bed was fantastic — comfortable, and I thought it would be even more so once we’d had a chance to really dial in the firmness setting — not that I expected to have much say in that, even for the one I’d be sleeping on.

I thought about that as Mihai and some other Roma picked up our luggage to take to the van waiting to take us to the airport.

I sipped my coffee and pondered the bed, now made and returned to its couch configuration.

“How firm I like it isn’t going to matter, is it,” I muttered.

“Nope,” Cassandra said, kissing my cheek.

“Are we almost ready?” Sam asked, coming up from the basement with Morgan following.

“You two got it worked out?” I asked.

Sam nodded. “We chalked out space for a workbench and where to move a couple of my things.”

“Are you sure Hexual should have access to a credit card?” Morgan asked. “She’s got, like, six cows worth of leather down there already.”

“Pervert,” Cassandra muttered.

“That’s an exaggeration,” Sam protested, dumping the remains of her coffee and giving the cup a quick scrub before setting it on the counter to dry. “Bambi and Thumper aren’t even cows.”

She gestured at my cup and I took a quick sip, handing it to her, before she accepted Cassandra’s as well and returned to the sink to wash those.

“Bambi and Thumper?” Rachel asked.

“You don’t want to know,” I told Rachel.

We’d been experimenting with floggers, including a short, soft one of rabbit fur and a long, heavy one of deer hide. Yes, Sam was naming our sex toys — at least the ones she liked.

“Are the Roma working today or should I dump the rest of the coffee?” Sam asked.

“Mihai said they’re taking some time off to wait for deliveries,” Rachel said. “But they should be done by the time we’re back from the Conclave in a couple weeks.”

Sam dumped the coffee filter in the trash then rinsed the pot and pulled the bag from the trash can.

She handed that to me.

“Ready,” she said.

We left the cottage and made our way to the residence building, where Mel and Felicity were waiting for us.

Felicity was sniffing around the edges of the forest and joined us to collect Mel, who was in the kitchens with several members of the Willowmere kitchen staff.

There was a lot more activity in the kitchen than I’d expect for the summer when no students were present, then I realized Mel was moving from station to station, tasting and offering advice or encouragement.

She looked up at our entry.

“Is it time to leave already?” Mel quickly wiped her hands and stripped off her apron, setting it on a counter.

[1] The worm within the heart.

oh KEER-vo AHN-dro ZHEE-loh

[2] The Burning Angel

AHN-jeh-lo yah-GAH-loh