Cyberwitch Academy: Learn or Burn

Chapter 58

The tiniest hint of a smile plays across the exquisite lips of the Queen of Sighs, as if she is amused by this gauche attempt to shift blame.

"Ursula has been far beyond my influence for months now, she's been identifying as a Siren, and yet you seek to blame her rash actions on the Weaver school leadership?"

"She was under your protection the entire time. You used her as a double agent as well you know. All the Sirens want is to ensure safety for the witches in our joint care. But you find this blunts your ambition, so you send a living bomb into our Clan." Bess responds to the provocation at last.

"You think that the technology we designed together is an aberration to be hidden now? You think that we had a choice but to try and find a way to equip our young people to survive in a world that is already at war with itself? Curbing Weaver ambitions will not return you to cosy anonymity. The cat is out of the bag."

"We must negotiate with the enemy. We must seek a peace deal. Then we can have a Secret School once more, we will have time to research the rhizome, to begin to understand the Shivers. We can find a new place in the world. All you offer our community is exposure to unnecessary risk through your meddling in politics."

"They will not stop coming for us. The people have always blamed their fall from grace on witches, or immigrants or some scape goat or other. So no, Elizabeth, I did not expose us to risk, the risk found us and I responded to it, methodically, strategically, democratically, as Weavers have since the dawn of civilisation.

And what have you done? Elizabeth. Schemed and plotted, always trying to take control of the school, for your own ends, a world of endless partying, freedom for a louche sect of pleasure worshippers with no concrete vision of the future. Take the reins sister, see how long you last before you come to the Weavers for advice."

And there is some applause to this speech, but the governors remain impassive. Then when Elizabeth stands, the whole mood of the room changes. it is impossible not to want to find what she says fascinating. She is the enchantress. She is everything, when she stands, when she leans into the microphone, she looks like the leader we have always dreamed of having, the Queen of Queens. The Empress of Desire.

And I almost don't hear half of what she actually says, because the pattern of how she delivers it is so damn hypnotic but I pick out pieces here and there, like catchy song lyrics.

"My dear sister, in her fanatical ambition, wants to control the earth itself. And my dear sister has brought here, to our home, a doorway for the enemy to use, to come and go as they please, and that doorway is Ursula Calzoncin Loveless, aka Applethorn. The lost girl who brings doom to all her mothers."

I feel like I've been hit by a train. Mom, Ms. Grigore, Ms. Fortune, Mel, Sadie even Alice, just a chain of surrogate mothers, all of them cursed because they met me. I'm woozy. Too shocked even to cry.

"Amanda, we loved her, but she was dangerous, insane from the moment she joined us. And we did not notice until it was too late. So now, we welcome into the bosom of our family, the time bomb she left behind?"

Then Bess turns to the governors, addressing the next section of her speech to them.

"We must investigate, the stories of our Secret School within a Secret School, fake news. I know that it is not possible to hold secrets from Sadie within the Gap, she told you herself she built the Gap.

Although again, not strictly true. We built the Crone and the Crone built the Gap. And now that the Crone is running wild, beyond our control, we must curtail her data centres."

The Crone? Nobody else here seems surprised to hear that name. I think of the woman with the disfigured face. I knew they built an AI god, but they called it the Crone? Why?

"Our experiment has failed. We must return the Cyberwitch cult to its more modest origins. An organisation of sisters to help each other live, find a space within the world to actually live, instead of trying to order the tides to go back out, for we are not enough to change the world. But we can find a place to live in it, if we help each other out."

There are strong murmurs of approval. One of the governors looks like a teenager in love. Nobody can escape the magnetic pull of this woman in full flow.

"I propose to the council that Sadie and all Weavers be removed from office, that all leadership roles within the school be granted to Siren witches, and that the governors maintain a permanent watch over the investigation into Weaver corruption which is ongoing.

The Secret School will continue to teach both Weaver and Siren magic, but will remain under our control, until order can be restored, and this nascent war between our houses nipped in the bud."

The house erupts into applause. Weavers in the crowd appear absolutely defeated, hunched, downcast. Silent.

Suddenly the Siren Queen turns her full power on me. I feel as if I have been lanced by her gaze. I'm pinned into a case like a butterfly in a museum.

"And you Ursula. You have had so many chances to do the right thing, and you have been selfish and spoilt at every step of the way, and there are many deaths that I will not lay at your feet, because you are a snarling brat who had no idea of the effects of her actions, but at the feet of your patron, Sadie, and your mother who in her infinite madness did not even tell you that you were implanted with the Rhizome she herself designed. You have been failed, but you have failed to learn from your experiences in London."

I cannot disagree with a word of it. All I want to do is atone to her, forever. So long as I can be near to her in some way. I can follow her, crawling and confessing, for eternity.

"I would ask the governors to expel you with haste, and to forbid anyone to escort you back into the Gap. Whether your friends in my Siren clan choose to keep you as their pet is their decision, but they will also be expelled if you ever bring ruin to another member of this family again."

I cannot think of anything to say, but it doesn't matter because I'm not even granted the right to speak at this gathering.

And I have to stand in full view, for hours, waiting for judgement.

But I know what is coming now, everybody does.

Elizabeth didn't win the war of words, but nobody cares. People can only remember how she made them feel. How magnificent she looked. Now there's a real leader. That's our school director.

And now the governors formalise it, droning on in legalistic speak, and Sadie is stripped of her office, and I am literally thrown out, picked up and thrown out of the Gap, landing hard in my real body as I wake up in my Siren prison.

I stare into the middle distance for a long ass time.

Nobody even tries to talk to me.