Free Single Witch's Survival Guide by Mindy Klasky Page A

angle so David could read along with me.
    “WHEREAS, Hecate’s Court has been charged for time immemorial with the management and training of all Witches in the Eastern Empire, and
    “WHEREAS, Jane Madison has founded the Madison Academy as a magicarium for the training of Witches and established herself as the magistrix thereof, and
    “WHEREAS, Jane Madison wishes that all graduates of the Madison Academy be recognized as official Witches within the boundaries of the Eastern Empire…”
    There were a dozen more statements like that, all formalizing the background of my Academy, all stating what I had supposedly thought through and done before I launched the magicarium. I thumbed past the rest of the whereases until I got to a statement printed in bold: “NOW, THEREFORE, Hecate’s Court and Jane Madison are agreed that this document shall control all interactions between them with respect to the Madison Academy.”
    Okay…. I turned the page to a lengthy collection of DEFINITIONS.
    “Magicarium shall mean a school for training witches in the use of Witchcraft.
    “Affiliated Institution” shall mean any Coven, Magicarium, or Court that offers formal or informal support to a magicarium, including but not limited to support in the form of instruction, financial aid, material goods, or astral energy.
    “Shadowed Path shall mean any form of Witchcraft designed to bring harm to other beings, human or animal, whether those beings possess magical abilities or not.
    “Witchcraft shall mean the casting of spells, the reading of runes, and/or any magical use whatsoever of crystals, herbs, or other elements of the natural world.”
    All right. I couldn’t offer much argument there. I flipped past another few pages.
    One lengthy paragraph was labeled MILESTONES. I skimmed over the words, trying to force them to make sense. “All students enrolled in the Madison Academy shall be tested at regular intervals to determine their achievement of the Milestones set forth in this document.” A series of benchmarks was defined: Awakening a familiar, lighting a candle, changing the appearance of a substance, converting an item from one substance to another.
    The list of accomplishments went on and on. Some of the achievements were laughably simple; I’d mastered them on my own before I’d even learned that Hecate’s Court existed. Others, though, were substantially more involved. At the bottom of the list, I found one that had given me nearly endless grief: Awakening an anima.
    Right. Like I’d be teaching that to any of my students.
    The document went on in the same legalistic vein, page after page. I understood all the magical concepts, but some of the formal language left my head spinning. It seemed unnecessary both to attest and to aver. And I was pretty sure I didn’t want to “assert, verify, and proclaim” that I was entirely in charge of my students’ magical workings whether those undertakings were conducted on the premises of the Madison Academy or elsewhere. I was absolutely positive I didn’t want to indemnify the Court for any loss, pecuniary or magical, that they perceived to have accrued to the possessions of Hecate’s Court, in their sole evaluation and at their sole determination.
    And then, I found the real kicker. It was a few pages from the end, buried in a collection of paragraphs about how we parties could notify each other about changes in our address, about how we both submitted to the jurisdiction of the District Court of the Eastern Empire, etc.
    “MAJOR WORKING: In the event the Madison Academy fails to complete one (1) Major Working by the conclusion of its first semester of operation, all magical materials belonging to Jane Madison and the Madison Academy shall be forfeit to Hecate’s Court without any compensation or recourse for future return.”
    I tossed the agreement onto Pitt’s briefcase. “I won’t sign this.”
    He simply turned to my warder. “Montrose? Perhaps you can explain to