by Sarah Piper
A sigh of relief rushes out. “I was so worried about her.”
“The feeling was mutual, trust me. But you don’t have to worry anymore. She’s got a secured cell now, spelled with encryption and warded from any outside interference or tracking. You’ll have the same setup. We can’t risk anyone else in Tres Búhos finding out you’re alive.”
I nod, though the whole thing weighs heavy on my shoulders. “When can I talk to her?”
“As soon as they get your phone set up.”
“When?”
“An hour or two at most.”
“Thank you,” I manage, my anger evaporating. “For phoning it in, and for looking out for Jessa.”
He smiles, the familiar sight of it twisting my heart. Was it only a week ago that he asked me out for coffee?
Did he mean it, or was it just part of his job?
“So, should we maybe… walk?” Tentatively, he holds out his coffee tray. “I brought treats.”
The inviting scents curl around me like a hug, drawing me closer despite my best efforts to keep a distance.
“Just so you know,” I tell him, plucking one of the cups from the tray, “I haven’t decided whether to forgive you or not.”
“Understandable. Unfortunately for you, I’m the best tour guide on campus, as well as the only one available at the moment. So unless you want to wander the grounds aimlessly and end up somewhere you shouldn’t…”
“I’m pretty good at finding my own way around.”
“I know.” He smiles, his energy gliding over my skin like a tender caress, warm and sincere. Then, holding out his arm for me to take, he says, “But you don’t have to find your own way. Not anymore.”
I look at his arm, knowing he’s offering me much more than an escort and a tour.
He’s offering friendship.
And despite the deception, and the fact that there’s probably a lot more to the story he’s not sharing, deep inside he still feels like a friend. Maybe the only one I have here.
I take a sip of the latte, sweet and delicious, even better than the ones at Froth.
“Perfect,” I say with a sigh.
“Yeah?” Kirin’s smile breaks through the last of the tension between us like the dawn. “Does that mean I’m forgiven?”
“I meant the latte’s perfect.” Then, rolling my eyes and offering a smile of my own, I finally take his arm. “This little tour of yours better be good, or I’m totally getting my money back.”
Eighteen
STEVIE
“Okay, the House of Iron and Bone,” I say, following Kirin down yet another red stone path. The entire campus is connected by them, a vast web lined with the same flowers I saw with Dr. Devane earlier. There are bike trails, too, running around the perimeter of the campus and through the desert behind the dorms, and free bike stations at most of the buildings so students can just hop on and ride anytime. “How did they get Iron and Bone from pentacles?”
“I’m so glad you asked.” Kirin’s eyes light up, just like they have at every single one of my questions. He really is in his element, and I suspect he knows even more about the campus and its history than the architects and founders themselves. “In the legends about the First Fool—basically, the guy who sacrificed himself to the elemental deities so humans could access magick—the first pentacle was crafted from iron of the earth and—are you ready for this? The dude’s actual bones.”
“Of course! Because that’s not creepy at all.”
“It gets creepier. The chalice of blood and sorrow was fashioned from the top of his skull and filled with his blood and tears, which his ancestors then drank to unlock their own channels to the magick.”
I wrinkle my nose. “Eww.”
“The first sword was said to be forged from flames stoked by his final breaths—hence the breath and blade bit.”
“What about the wands? Did they just set him on fire after that? I mean, what else, right?”
“Actually, they performed a prolonged sexual rite, capturing and infusing the wand with the essence of his final moments of ecstasy—flame and fury. Then they cut off his head—that’s when they made the chalice.”
“Wow, the first mages were kind of extra, huh?”
“You don’t know the half of it. But you will. You’ll be expected to memorize all the old legends and write so many essays on it that by the time you graduate, you’ll never be able to look at a Tarot deck the same way again.” Kirin laughs, but it’s not the shocking stories that linger in my mind.
It’s his other words.
By the time you graduate…
Graduate. From magick school. Me. The idea still feels so foreign, so forbidden. When I told Trello that my legacy was to be caught between two worlds, I meant it. Now, I wonder if that feeling will ever pass. If I’ll ever feel totally comfortable on this strange new path.
“What do you think of my tour so far?” Kirin asks, still grinning. “I told you I was a good guide.”
I drain the last of my latte, toss the cup into a nearby trash container. It vaporizes in a cloud of pink smoke before it even hits the rim—magickal recycling at its finest.
“I think you’re quite possibly the creepiest guide in existence,” I say.
“What? I haven’t even shown you the Chapel of Severed Heads yet!”
“You can’t be serious.”
He wriggles his eyebrows, making his glasses jump. “The clergy wears rosaries made of baby teeth.”
At my horrified gasp, Kirin unleashes a laugh so big and bright, a few students ahead of us on the path turn to look, then start laughing too, infected with his charm.
“It’s all just legends, Stevie,” he says. “The first written records we have about it are from the fifteenth century, and those are just translations of the originals, which likely date back thousands of years before that. Who knows how much was changed or mistranslated, or misheard from back when the stories were all passed down orally. For a long time, nothing was written down at all, for fear the non-magickal humans would find out about our world.”
A breeze drifts along the path, and I fight off a shiver, wishing I had more latte to warm me up. “The ancients were smarter than us. Maybe the stories should’ve stayed secret.”
We wander a little farther, and Kirin points out the shopping center on the western edge of the campus—a small outdoor mall called the Promenade with at least two dozen different stores, a good mix of regular shops that sell clothes and shoes, office supplies, games, and sporting goods, along with stores catering specifically to witches and mages. Glancing at some of the signs, I spot ads for everything from Tarot decks and crystals to magickal herbs and potions, enchanted jewelry, wands, occult books, and—
“Broomsticks? Are you serious?”
Kirin laughs again. “They’re mostly used in rituals. Though for the students who have the power of levitation, they make a fun prop at parties. You want to stop in and get something?”
I’m not ready to shop till I drop just yet, so we continue on toward the dormitories—one for each house. Set on a huge semi-circle connected by another arcing pathway, four impressive gothic buildings that look like a cross between cathedrals and castles stand tall, carved from the same color stone as the surrounding landscape. They’re smaller than the administration building, but more ornate, with towering spires, stained glass windows, and gargoyles perched along the eaves.
Each dormitory has five floors of student housing, plus the main level, which includes a massive common room and kitchen area, art and photo installations depicting the history and magickal legends of each house, and multiple cafés featuring different international and regional cuisines.
“House of Blood and Sorrow has a bar called Pour Your Heart Out,” Kirin says. “They do karaoke nights on Fridays. Pretty fun, if you’re into that sort of thing.”
“Karaoke? I love karaoke! Jessa and I used to bring the house down at Sancho’s with our rousing rendition of Beyonce’s All the Single Lad
ies.”
“Now that I’d pay money to see.” Kirin grins. “All the cafés are open 24/7, and you can eat in any one you choose, no matter your house affinity.”
“Good to know, since I’ve got all four.”
“You… what? Hold on.” Kirin turns to face me, stopping me in my tracks. “You’re spirit-blessed, and you’re just mentioning this to me now?”
“I’m a little overwhelmed and distracted at the moment,” I explain. “But yeah, that’s what they told me. Spirit-blessed.”
“Which cards did you see?”
“The Princesses.” I tell him about the vision, once again leaving out the part about the owl.
Kirin watches me with an eager glint in his eyes, the gears of his researcher mind turning so loudly I can practically hear them squeaking.
“Fascinating,” he says.
I flash him a sexy smirk. “Well, thank you.”
“You know I’m going to bug you about this, like, every day. Especially as your magick starts to develop.”
“I would expect nothing less. What’s your affinity, anyway?”
He’s still nursing his coffee, and now he holds the cup in front of him, then releases it. It floats before us, not spilling a drop.
“Air,” he says. “I can move it and manipulate it, among other things.”
“I might be bugging you, too,” I say, eager to know more. “I’d really love to learn how to do that.”
“It’s a deal.” Kirin grabs his cup, swigs back the last of his coffee. “In the meantime, let me show you the house grounds. We’ll need bikes for this part.”
He tosses his cup into one of the magickal bins, and we head over to the nearest bike station, selecting two sleek white mountain bikes.
We ride along another path that winds behind the dorms. I’ve barely broken a sweat when the landscape suddenly cracks open before us, revealing a vast, beautiful space that looks as huge and pristine as a national park.
“I see now why we needed the bikes,” I shout, pedaling to catch up to his long strides. “This is just… wow. I live here. I actually live here.”
When Trello mentioned that there were plenty of outdoor areas to explore, she was seriously underselling that fact.
The dorms fade behind us as we ride deeper into the backcountry, and Kirin points out the natural features associated with each house, each one more impossible and stunning than the last, making me giddy—and super glad I pushed Devane for the rock-climbing gear. I’ve already spotted at least a dozen potential spots to try.
Behind the House of Breath and Blade, tall sandstone spires called the Towers of Breath and Blade rise out of the earth, their craggy fingers stretching so high into the sky, the jagged peaks are obscured by the clouds. They look too fragile to climb, though; in fact, their very existence seems to defy the laws of nature, as if the weight of a single feather could send them toppling to the earth.
Riding past the spires, we weave through desert mounds of red and lavender and gray until we reach the boundary to the House of Iron and Bone lands, a petrified forest bearing the same name, its crystalized tree remnants sparkling like diamonds in the setting sun.
Next is the Cauldron of Flame and Fury, a huge bowl canyon that Kirin says glows like fire at sunrise, situated behind the House of Flame and Fury.
Behind the House of Blood and Sorrow, the last stop on our dorm tour, a red river called—wait for it—the River of Blood and Sorrow winds through the landscape, richly colored by the iron in the soil.
It’s so perfect and amazing my head’s about to explode.
“How is it that the landscape is so well-suited to each house name?” I ask when we stop the bikes to catch our breath. “And what about the Academies in other countries? Do they have the same features?”
“The architects always build the academies around the existing natural landscape, taking great care to situate each house in the most suitable place—whatever is most compatible with its element. So the House of Blood and Sorrow will always be near water, though it won’t always be a red river like we have here.”
“It’s just… It’s breathtaking. It all feels so… so…”
“Magickal?” Kirin smiles, the warmth in it reminding me of all our mornings together at Kettle Black. “That’s the idea. In magick, everything is symbolic, taking power from the words we name it, the physical features, the scents and textures… everything. We’re elemental magicians, Stevie. To wield that magick, we need to connect with the natural world as deeply as possible.”
I take a moment to soak it all in, looking out across the vast landscape. The sun is sinking low, the air cooling slightly, the crickets just starting to sing. My eyes track the bend of the river, roaming out to an area we haven’t explored yet. From here, it looks like there are more sandstone spires, but it’s hard to tell. Everything out that way is covered in a thick, white mist.
“What’s over there?” I ask, jutting my chin in that direction.
“That’s… not a place you want to go. Ever.”
I roll my eyes and laugh. “Well now you have to take me.”
“I can’t, Stevie. I’m serious. It’s forbidden to students and staff alike.”
“Forbidden? Sounds like code for the best party spot on campus. Let’s go.” I hop back on my bike, but Kirin doesn’t move.
“Kirin. Come on. What’s over there?”
His face turns contemplative, and it’s a long beat before he speaks again. When he does, an ominous weight hangs over him, a shadow sliding into his normally bright eyes. “Have you ever heard of L’Appel du Vide?”
Holy red-hot cinnamon buns, he’s speaking in French. This is not a drill, people. Kirin Webber is speaking in French, and my thighs are clenching at the sound.
“Say again?” I ask. Beg.
“L’Appel du Vide,” he repeats, his accent as rich and buttery as a croissant. “It literally means ‘the call of the void.’ It’s said that there are places in this world so deep, so dark, so… compelling… when you peer down into them, they literally beckon you to jump.”
An icy finger traces a path down my spine.
“That place…” He thumbs at it over his shoulder, as if he’s afraid to even turn and look at it. “It’s like that. We call it the Void. A sheer cliff that descends hundreds of feet—maybe thousands—into abject nothingness. Before they finally warded and fenced it off in the 1930s, dozens of students and teachers committed suicide there—people that were otherwise completely content.”
“The Void,” I repeat, the words themselves seeming to echo on the breeze. “It’s not on any map of Arizona I’ve ever seen.”
“Nor is the Academy, or Lala’s place…” Kirin shrugs. “Some places just aren’t meant for the rest of the world to know.”
“Only us?”
“Only us.”
The breeze stirs again, the mist roiling in the distance, and I swear I hear it calling me. Starla Eve… Starla Eve… Starla…
A shiver grips me in a tight fist, shaking me head to toe. Suddenly, I want to be as far away from the Void as possible.
Kirin must sense my sudden need to escape, because his brow creases again, and he hops on his bike without another word, beckoning for me to follow him back to the dorms.
I’ve never pedaled so hard in my life.
Safely back in front of the buildings, we stash the bikes and stop in the shade of a huge saguaro so Kirin can check his phone.
“Okay, your suite should be all set up now,” he says. “They’ve got you in…” His eyebrows jump, the muscle on his jaw ticking. When he speaks again, his tone is tinged with disappointment—and maybe a little annoyance. “House of Iron and Bone.”
“Is that a bad thing? I mean, it would’ve been cool to be in the House of Breath and Blade with you, but I guess they figured with the tea and rock stuff, I’m pretty earthy, so…”
“It’s not a bad thing. It’s just—”
“Webber,” a guy calls out from several paces
ahead of us on the path. “Who’s your new friend?” He laughs and waves at Kirin, but takes his sweet time sauntering over here. Sauntering is the only word for it, too—gray henley pushed up to his elbows, hands in the pockets of his faded black jeans, shoulders slightly hunched, his lean but well-muscled frame moving through space-time as if he hasn’t a care in the world.
Kirin closes his eyes and says, “Baz. It’s Baz.”
“What’s Baz?” I ask. “The reason you’re being weird about my house, or the guy heading our way?”
“Both.”
There’s a playful spark in Kirin’s eyes, but I can’t tell if he’s joking or not. I’m about to ask, but then the guy in question is standing right before us, looming like a dark shadow.
Oh, damn.
Nineteen
STEVIE
We lock eyes immediately, his slow-burn smile sexy and wolfish behind a few days’ worth of stubble. Messy, chocolate-brown hair falls lazily into his eyes, which are a deep auburn-brown that looks almost reddish in the light.
Devil’s eyes, I decide. More red than brown, and too intoxicating for his own good.
Bastard knows it, too. When I reach out for his energy, I find a smug aloofness. A cockiness trying hard to hide something else festering beneath.
He still hasn’t removed his hands from his pockets, and I can’t help but stare at his sculpted arms, flexing in the fading sun.
The forearm porn is strong with this one…
“You must be the little jailbird Trello’s got her panties in a bunch over,” he says by way of introduction, and Kirin rolls his eyes, letting out a groan.
I lift my gaze to Baz’s face, my eyebrows shooting skyward. Forearm porn or not, that was a jackass thing to say.
“And you must be the guy who cops attitude to compensate for a small dick,” I retort. “You don’t have to do that, you know. I’m sure there are plenty of fine women out there who like a guy just for his personality. I mean, I don’t know any of them personally, but if you believe it hard enough, dreams really can come true!” Then I flash him the double thumbs-up and a wide, cheesy grin. “Think good thoughts!”