My first class this morning was called, Gremlins or Trolls: A Guide to Helpful Woodland Creatures. This was one of the classes outlined in the General degree program. Laughable, really. The last time I'd seen any real woodlands around here was when I was a Magic Scout and trying to get my Mushroom badge. After managing to make the entire troop and the leader violently ill after mistaking a Chanterelle for a Jack-o-lantern mushroom, I was briskly whisked away and never allowed to attend another Scout meeting again. For the longest time I had no idea what I'd done, only that the police showed up at my door and there were a lot of hush hush meetings for a while. It was only after my parents exited the office that I'd crept in and snooped through the documents left on the desk. The Jack-o-lantern mushroom was used only in dark magic spells and was highly poisonous. They were also supposed to have been expelled from Ravenscliffe fifty years prior. So the fact I'd found one was more than suspicious and for a while I was under suspicion of the deliberate act of trying to take out the troop leader.
Now, don't get me wrong, she was a figurative troll, but I'm no murderer. Plus, she was disliked by pretty much everyone. As I got older, I figured they kept her because she had something on someone. That woman was no role model, that was for sure.
Anyway, at no point in time had I ever seen a woodland creature, and certainly not one who was friendly or who'd trade me magic beans for a milk-producing cow.
I pushed my way through, careful to keep my head down, and headed to the back of my seat. I only stopped to step over a foot deliberately left out in the walkway to try to trip me.
Dummy. If I never met anyone's eyes, the only place I was looking was at the floor. They'd be better trying to ping me in the head with something. I'd never see it coming.
I dropped my backpack with a loud thunk and slid into the uncomfortable wooden chairs. Holly sat beside me. I blinked at her and opened her mouth to ask her what she was doing here, but she leaned over. "I was failing Spanish miserably and they can't afford to tell my parents that." She wiggled her eyebrows. "After all, we're one of the schools biggest donors."
"So friendly woodland creatures it is?" I asked.
"You got it. Though I've yet to meet one. You?"
"Hardly." I held up perfectly manicured nails. "These nails would not hold up to woodland activity, I'm afraid."
Holly grinned and turned back to face the front of the class. I let my hand drop slowly, feeling guilty about the subterfuge. My nails were normally never manicured, few witches were. The less that could interfere with a spell, the better. Our circles had to be pristine. No electronics, no perfumes, no lotions or products that could cling to the skin, and certainly no nail polish. Could you imagine Tangerine Dream dropping into a love spell? The effects could be laughable at best, catastrophic at worst. First rule of witch club: a pristine circle keeps a witch with all her limbs intact.
The fingernails were one of many things I had to do to secure my reputation as a supposed shifter. Instead of wearing my hair down and loose in the ways most witches did, I usually wore it into a high ponytail like the rest of the cheerleaders (all of them shifters). You know, the less able to get tangled during a shift the better. My makeup was perfect and highlighted the best areas of my face. Or what I thought were the best areas. I wasn't too hung up on my looks. At the end of the day, all of our faces came from genetics and none of us could help it anyway.
Looks weren't my thing, though I did appreciate a well put together and symmetrical face. They just weren't everything. Give me someone with a good brain and a TBR pile on their nightstand, and I felt my ovaries fluttering in anticipation for the future. Alas, though, the amount of boys I'd met like that here amounted to zilch, nada, and zero.
I plunked my head down in the palm of my hand as my elbow rested on the small desk. The teacher strolled in. He was an unassuming man, slight of build, but with a silken voice made for the radio. Not that they ever played anything good in Ravenscliffe; all young paranormals used the black market to smuggle in digital music from the humans. All of us were too scared to download anything on what passed for the internet here. I'd had yet to meet a successful hacker who could make your digital footprint invisible. Control the information and you control the people. The monitoring on our internet access was legendary.
So we found other ways.
The teacher, Mr. Raven, had a curious way about him. Birdlike almost, which made me wonder if he was indeed a bird. I had a lot to learn about shifters, and whether they came in an avian flavor was one I didn't know for sure. But his eyes were hard and shiny, and he loved the girl's jewelry a little too much. Plus, the super obvious last name and his obsession with all the Goddesses' creatures great and small.
I'd bet my left boob he was a bird.
"Get your nature texts out," he said in a voice that should have been too high pitched to belong to a man.
I reached into my desk to pull out the book. A folded piece of parchment fluttered out down to the floor. My name was written on it in a delicate, feminine scrawl. I quickly put my foot over the note and looked around to see if anyone had noticed.
Everyone was too busy opening up their books. Quietly, I shifted my foot over closer and bent down to snatch it. I couldn't chance reading it right now, not with so many prying eyes, so I shoved it in the pocket of my skirt and settled in to try to not fall asleep during the lesson.
The day passed without much drama and soon enough I found myself back in an empty dorm room. Lolly wasn't here often. I wasn't sure what she did, but I never saw her with anyone. Maybe it was a Kitsuné thing. I thought they had to commune with nature at least a few times a week. I dropped my backpack on the floor by the bed and flopped down on top of it, my thoughts whirling with the events of last night.
Four dead girls and I'd never heard a single student here say anything about it. A frown crinkled my brow. I'd forgotten to ask their names. I wanted to ask around and see if anyone knew those girls.
I rolled over only to hear a crinkle in my pocket. The note. I pulled it out, studying the unfamiliar writing, and slowly opened it.
The note was quick and to the point.
Meet us in the West Wing at Midnight.
The note was unsigned. It was the same handwriting as the outside, but the writing became decidedly more shaky until Midnight was almost undecipherable. Feeling paranoid, I got up, checked under both beds and in the closet before I whispered a simple word and the paper burst into powdery ash in my hands.
The flex of power made me sigh in relief. Witches needed to use their powers during the moon cycles, but I needed to use mine more often. Not doing so made me itchy, like I had ants crawling all over my skin. I couldn't talk to anyone about it. I couldn't figure out why I was different or if there was anything I could do about it. All I could do was try to do the bidding of the Goddess. I snorted. As if I knew what her bidding was. Only that I was supposed to be pretending to be a shifter. I wasn't even great at that. The only thing I could do was use my powers in secret, and I wasn't even sure how far I could go with those either. I'd never been given the opportunity to really give them a try before I'd been thrown in this joint.
With a whisper and a flick of my fingers, the dust of the note gathered in a small whirlwind and deposited itself in the trash can beside my bed. Parlor tricks but easy magic. I reached over for the phone that never went off anymore and checked the time. Turned out, when you got confined to magical juvie, no one respectable wanted to be your friend anymore. I hadn't had a single text since I'd been in here. And it wasn't for lack of trying either. I'd sent dozens of them out only for them to be met with a stony, irrepressible silence.
It was 4:30. I had almost eight hours to kill before I went to the West Wing. With a groan, I rolled over and tried to take a nap.
The four ghostly apparitions floated in the middle of the common area of the West Wing, an empty storage area of the Merlin Academy. The only time students went in here was when the professors needed something they'd relegate
d to a box no one could find anymore. It was where information and knick-knacks came to die.
"'Sup," I said, super casual, even though my heart was beating double time. I'd had to use all my stealth skills to get out of the shifter dorm with no one the wiser. "I need all of your names," I asked. "I've never heard of any deaths around here, and I want to ask around."
The ghost who visited me in the bathroom snorted. "Mallory. Don't expect anyone to tell you anything. The secrets here are vast."
"Oookay," I said as I motioned at the second girl.
"Trish."
The third one spoke "Belinda."
The fourth one stared at me. I lifted an eyebrow at her. "Roxie," she snapped.
I grinned at her. "Cute. It's like a friendly stripper name."
She gnashed her teeth at me. I would have normally laughed at that, but she was a ghost so I took a step back. Her grin made me blush. It was normal to feel scared of unfamiliar things and the fact that I was up at midnight talking to dead students was very unfamiliar.
I pulled out a small notebook and wrote them all down. "Last names, too."
Begrudgingly, they all rattled off their full names.
"I'm trying to help you. Research is always the first step in solving a mystery. Haven't any of you ever read Nancy Drew?"
Probably not. Those books had been banned for years, but I had a hookup in one of the markets I used to go to. I'd trade herbs from the back gardens in exchange for government blocked human literature.
At their blank stares, I had to laugh. "Once I find out what everyone knows, I'll be able to start. I'm going to need something - a focus object from one of you, preferably something that meant a lot. I need to be able to get a read on your energy so I can follow the path you took that night." I paused. "Unless one of you has something from the killer?" I asked hopefully.
Blank stares all around. "Right. I've never been that lucky. If it can lead me to the room where it happened, maybe the person or persons left something I can use to track them. I’m assuming you don't remember where it is."
Four ghostly shakes of the head.
“Of course not.” I'd be starting with nothing besides four murders and no knowledge of the perp or the reasons why.
That didn't sound like it could get me killed at all, right? Especially not if the person was still around the campus.
6
My eyes felt like someone had rubbed them with sandpaper while I slept. Not that I'd slept a whole lot. Illicit communing with ghosts at the witching hour was not great for my complexion. I groaned when I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. Padding over to the sink, I turned the tap on cold and splashed water on my face. It wouldn't help much. Nothing would help until I got these ghosts off my back.
The good news was I planned to do a little digging today. First in the library. Then with my fellow peers. It was the third Friday of the month and the full moon was less than a week away. Unless something drastic happened, my shtick would be up sooner rather than later and I would be up a creek without a paddle. I'd only found out after I'd clung to the shifter lie that one special day out of the month was reserved for the shifters. It was the full moon, of course, and it was outside of the campus in a place called the Hollycross Woods. From what I could tell, there were no woods around here. Trees, yes. Enough forest cover to hide a crapload of over-energized teens going furry? Nope. I was going to be stuck with them. When I didn't go furry or feathery, I was going to be answering a lot of questions I didn't know the answer to.
I put cold hands up to my flushed cheeks. Don't think about it.
My grandmother always used to say, "Save the worry for tomorrow, dear." When I asked her what happened tomorrow, she would grin. "If you're constantly saving the worry for tomorrow, there's never any worry." She was as cooky as a cartoon animal, but I loved her nonetheless. A pang shot through my heart at the thought of her. My parents took me away from her at an early age lest she "put nonsensical ideas" into my head. I wondered if my abilities came from her rather than my own mother.
My mother was too proper to ever have anything abnormal happen to her.
The good thing about Fridays was the Merlin Academy half day policy. Every student caught up on their work was allowed to take a half day and spend it however they liked. Provided they didn't leave the campus.
When I heard it, I snorted. The doors were warded within an inch of their lives. The only way we'd be leaving this place is if we did so in a body bag. I sobered. Wasn't that how Mallory and the other girls left?
I stood outside the library, my canvas market bag hanging over my right shoulder. It was mostly empty for once, just in case I needed to check any books out. I hoped they kept news articles in the library, too, but I'd never been in here. With the government's policy of the less information the better, I didn't expect to be successful today.
I stared up at the gorgeous arch above the entrance to the library where the words "Enrichment of the mind feeds the soul and the magic living within us all" were carved.
True, but the statement felt contrary to the actions of the police and other magicians who tried their best to keep everyone conforming to the status quo. I stepped forward.
Fire rushed across my skin almost dropping me to my knees. I pressed forward, through an insanely powerful ward. My teeth clenched together with the sheer effort from it. Sweat buckled on my forehead.
"Wait!" A voice called. But it was too late. I burst through the ward and fell to my knees. My bag slid off my shoulder as my phone skidded out of it and across the floor. It landed at someone's dirty Converse.
I took a couple of deep breaths doing my best to keep quiet. It was a library, after all, and I'd barrelled into it like an angry bull.
I looked up only to see a gorgeous boy with hair the color of night and eyes the color of sable. His skin was a smooth honey against harsh but beautiful angles and the most generous lips I'd ever seen on the opposite sex.
"Uh, hi?" I said. Crimson bloomed on my cheeks.
One of the boy's eyebrows quirked up as he reached down for my phone to pick it up. Once he had it in his hand, he stepped over to me and helped me up. I snatched my bag up and dusted myself off, glad I'd fallen forward and not backward. These skirts were the devil and as soon as I had a free minute, I was going to petition for pants. The boys got to wear them. Why couldn't we?
"This must be yours," the dreamy boy said and extended the phone to me. I took it from him, my mouth agape.
"Fun fact," he continued. "You have to have a pass to visit the library. You're the first person I've ever seen force themselves past the wards." He checked his watch. "In less than ten seconds you're going to be swarmed with school staff."
"Oh," I said eloquently. "Crap."
"Agreed." He held out his hand to me. "But I can help." His dark eyes filled with amusement. "If you can't figure out how to hide successfully in this place, are you even dark enough to be here?"
I took his hand.
True to his word, mere seconds after we disappeared around a set of massive bookshelves, the entrance to the library was filled with school personnel. Even Mr. Mago himself had deigned to show up. I hadn't seen him since my stint in the infirmary, but I realized I hadn’t missed him. There was something about him I didn't quite like. He looked like the consummate friendly wizard, if there was ever such a thing, but I could sense a darkness within him. Something wanting to get out of him. I shuddered lightly. The boy gave me an odd look.
We were tucked into a secret spot with a small grate where we could look out without being seen. It was an ingenious spot to hide.
"Mannix," he whispered.
"Honey," I replied.
A smirk lit the edges of his mouth.
"Don't." I snapped. "It's bad enough I'm a cheerleader."
He held his hands up as best he could in the tight space. "I'd never make fun of a cheerleader."
Mannix would. I knew he would. I pulled the annoying silver ribbon out of my hair and s
hoved it into my skirt pocket. "How soon can we leave?" I asked.
Teachers still flooded the library. A lot of them scattered to search around to see who'd been able to get through. The students were staring, but the teachers were careful not to alarm anyone.
"Why don't they want anyone to know someone breached their wards?" I whispered.
A furrow formed between his brow. "Are you serious?"
I flicked my gaze away from the chaos at the entrance to him. "Why wouldn't I be?"
"There has never been a single student who's been able to break past the wards. Not in the entire history of the school, I'm afraid." He shrugged. "Or at least that I know of. They don't want to tell anyone someone has that kind of power. They want to find you."
I swallowed hard. "And neuter me."
He shrugged. "Possibly. Maybe splay you open like an insect on a board and study you."
I blinked at him.
A smile tugged the left edge of his mouth. I swatted his arm. "Funny, you."
"Funny, but I'm only half kidding." He tilted his head and studied me. I tilted my head down so I didn't have to stare into his unnerving eyes. "I've never smelled anything quite like you."
"If I hadn't already realize you're a shifter, I'd be creeped out right now." I said. Gooseflesh had already risen on my arms, so I was lying. I was creeped out. But only because he was too perceptive.
And cute. Super cute.
"Why can't I tell what you are?"
I shifted away from him as best I could in the small space. There was a rolled-up blanket in the corner and a small light hanging on the ceiling. A stack of books sat next to the blanket, but the light was too dim for me to make out any of the titles. The air didn't smell disused or musty. In fact, it smelled quite like the boy who sat next to me. Like cedar and secrets.
"It's impolite to ask," I retorted. "So what, do you live in here?"
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