by Nika Gray
“The queen bee and her minions,” Kelly nodded. “Two of them are your roommates.”
I flinched when I heard that. “You must be joking,” I muttered.
“Sonia Gallagher and Avery Craig, the blond and brunette minions. Kyna Bloodstyne, the dark-haired girl, has a single suite. Her father demanded that.”
“Of course, he did.” I sighed.
I couldn’t believe I’d have to share a living space with witches like them. From what Headmaster Hotchkiss said though, I only needed to be here to get my magic under control and my memory back. Hopefully, that wouldn’t take too long and then I could go wherever it was I should. There was the kidnapping and the incident in the lab, though. Hotchkiss made it very clear that my leaving the grounds would put me in danger, and possibly others. I winced at the thought of Kelly being frightened or threatened.
I looked across the hall and my eyes fell on two of the most beautiful men I’d ever seen walking through the entrance to the hall. Like, they glowed. My body heated just watching them walk.
The guy on the left looked like he walked right off the beach. He was over six-feet-tall, with broad shoulders, honey-colored skin and sun-bleached hair. He laughed and his dimples made my heart flutter. I took an involuntary step toward them.
“You all right?” Kellie asked but her voice came from far away. I stepped back to her side and my body screamed in protest.
The guy on the right was shorter and seemed feral. The way he moved made him appear dangerous. His arms were filled with tattoos and I could see they spread to his chest, too. His eyes were so green, I could see them from where I was standing and he had the most luscious lips I’d ever seen on a man.
“And who are they,” I asked managing to tear my eyes away from them. My body, however, still tugged me toward them.
“You sure can pick up on the social order fast,” Kelly observed. “Two more offspring of the Magic Council. Fergus Mathonwy and Declan Longbane. Declan is the one with all the tattoos. I’d recommend staying far away from them.”
“Are they available?” I asked before thinking.
“Did you hear me?” Kelly asked, concern spreading on her face.
“I did, but holy hell. Look at them.”
“They might be good for a one-night stand, but they don’t do longer involvements,” Kelly admitted.
“Not a problem for me. I won’t be here long enough for any commitments,” I said. Kelly didn’t answer me on that one.
She said something else, but I couldn’t focus. My hands began to tingle.
Kelly shook me gently out of my reverie.
“We can’t use magic inside the dining hall,” she whispered. I looked down and saw red tendrils of fire licking up my fingers. I waved them off as if I were on fire.
“Sorry, I don’t know how that happened,” I whispered back. “Let’s get out of here. Maybe see my dorm room?”
In reality, my body was on fire. I hoped this wasn’t my typical reaction to hot men because I’d be in a lot of trouble here.
“Good idea. Get you settled in before the minions come back,” Kelly agreed and led me out through a different entrance.
I nodded, but the two guys were still occupying my thoughts. I’d briefly locked eyes with the green-eyed one and I swore his eyes changed a different color. Probably my imagination, I thought.
“What’s with all the hot and sexy mages here?” I remarked as we walked back over towards the dorm to the left of Gallagher Hall.
“It’s the magic, I think. It makes us irresistible,” Kelly said and giggled.
“Wish I had some of that,” I said, shaking my head still thinking of the two guys.
“Girl, you have it in spades. Don’t you worry about that,” Kelly said with a grin.
“Then hopefully I can snag one of those one-night stands out of one of those two.”
Kelly stopped with her eyes wide. “Seriously?”
“Joking.” I laughed.
“Just joking,” I lied, and we walked again. “Do you have a guy here?”
“No,” Kelly shook her head. “I have two problems with that. Everyone is too busy trying to outdo each other to make it to second year.”
“Uh-huh,” I said, but didn’t believe it for a second. “And what’s the other problem?”
“Headmaster’s daughter,” she sighed. “They either want me for that reason only, or they run from me for that reason only.”
“Well, that sucks,” I said. “What happens if you get defeated in the trials?”
“You’re out of the school.”
“Wow, that's harsh,” I said. “No do-overs?”
“We’re in battle with a formidable foe, Sadie.” Kelly shook her head. “The Fae have unmatched powers that could destroy all of us.”
“Why would they want to, though?” I asked. “What have we done to them?”
“It’s just the way it’s always been, and I’d keep that opinion to yourself,” Kelly warned. “Everyone here is diehard to the cause.” Her voice had a bit of an edge to it.
I decided to drop the subject as her usual sunny disposition was fading, but her words didn’t entirely ring true to me. Things were never black and white like that. We stopped talking as Kelly pushed the door open.
“Your suite is on the third floor,” she said.
We entered a small vestibule with a single staircase going up.
“No elevator?” I asked.
I’d healed well enough, but I still got tired easily. We didn’t speak much as we climbed up the stairs. Kelly wasn’t breathing heavy by the time we reached the landing, but I had a hard time and was practically wheezing.
“I wish we could have gotten you a second-floor room, but we’re all filled up this year,” she said.
“I’ll be fine. This is good for me,” I gasped out.
I followed her down a plushly carpeted hall to the last door on the right. My ears zinged for a moment and the door swung open. Everything worked on magic here.
We walked into a corner suite with three living areas laid out complete with beds, chests of drawers, and desks. Windows wrapped around two walls and looked out to a stunning view of Gallagher Hall and the lakes and forests behind it.
“Beautiful,” I said, looking around. The minions had decorated their sides of the room with explosions of floral designs. “The decor not so much.”
“It’s harsh on the eyes, isn’t it?”
“Matches their personalities, I guess,” I said.
I like my flowers, don't get me wrong, but not in such abundance, all over everything. I touched the nearest bedspread. It felt smooth and expensive.
“These girls get the best of the best, don’t they?” I asked.
Kelly nodded. “Always.”
“I can see why Queen Bee wouldn’t want to be roomies with these two,” I said.
“Careful,” Kelly warned. “She’s right next door.”
I sighed. Of course she was.
I wasn't here to make friends with anyone. I just needed to get my memory back and figure out who kidnapped me and… oh, who was I kidding. I was in deep shit and I had no idea how or why.
Kelly opened the closet next to the empty bed and dresser. “These are your uniforms,” she gestured to the side of the closet that was all black, navy and white. “There are two robes and five sets of white shirts, skirts, and blazers.”
The other side of the closet consisted of more of the colorful dresses, pants, shirts and shoes that Kelly had mentioned she’d bought for me.
“Underwear and bras are in the dresser. I guessed your size. Hope they fit,” she said.
“Thank you for everything you’ve done for me,” I said.
She’d brought me the current outfit I was wearing today: a white button-down shirt and jeans. Headmaster Hotchkiss had said he’d found me in a bloodied white undershirt and underwear on the road. I must have been a sight to see. I turned back to my new bed. It had an equally plush white cover and pillows.
> “Did you get these for me, too?” I asked.
“I did,” Kelly said. “Settle in and look around campus. You aren’t expected in classes until tomorrow. You have your schedule, right?”
“Yeah, I do,” I said taking the sheet she had given me out of my pocket.
She wiggled her fingers and gold sparkles appeared between her fingers. They coalesced into another sheet of paper with a map of the campus on it.
“My dad set up special sessions with some of your professors in the upcoming week. I should know more about them at dinner.”
I gave her a big hug while fighting back tears. “Thank you so much Kelly for all of your kindness,” I said.
She squeezed me back hard and grinned. “Dinner tonight?”
“Absolutely,” I said.
“Stay away from any one-night stands,” she added and giggled. “Pace yourself.”
“I can’t promise anything if I encounter one of those delectable guys,” I said.
“Maybe you’ll be the one who’s trouble for them,” she said with a wink and closed the door laughing.
I sat down on the bed, still exhausted from the climb up the stairs. The conduit ring hummed when I took it off my fingers. I felt its magic recede when I placed it on my dresser. That had to be a sign that I still had magic, right?
I glanced around my new room.
What was I going to do with myself until dinner?
Chapter 4
Sadie
I awoke to a strange sizzling sound coming from the door of my new dorm room. I hadn’t realized I’d fallen asleep until a second ago. The minions were coming back, apparently.
They were deep in conversation when they walked in and didn’t see me at first.
“My dad told me he was in bad shape,” Avery Craig, the blonde minion said.
“Is he going to make it? Who will take over his council seat?” Sonia Gallagher asked, more curious than concerned.
“They don't know yet,” Avery said and then caught sight of me. She slammed her mouth shut and glared at me.
“Have you been listening to everything we've been saying?” Sonia demanded.
“Hello to you, too. My name is Sadie. I'm your new roommate,” I said rather tartly.
“You’re the charity case with no memory,” Avery sneered.
Ah, so the rumor mill had already started. I wasn’t too surprised about that.
“Pleasure to meet you, too,” I said sweetly.
“My name is Avery Craig. Don’t forget it,” she said. “We’ll be demanding you be transferred out of here tomorrow morning.”
“Knock your socks off, Avery. I’d prefer to have a single myself,” I said.
Sonia rolled her eyes at Avery and they turned their backs to me.
Good riddance, I thought. I noticed that their conduit rings were bedazzled with red and green jewels. Ugh. Of course, they were.
I flopped over on the bed giving them my back. From the sounds coming from behind me, they were packing up their books.
“Excuse me, Sadie No Name,” Avery said.
“I have a name. It’s Sadie.”
“You have no family though, do you?” Sonia sneered.
I didn't deign to turn back to them, but I did reply.
“Do you have something to say or are you just feeling insecure and taking potshots at me?”
“Don't touch any of our things,” Avery warned.
“Gross,” I said. “Why would I?”
“Please, you can’t afford anything we own,” Sonia scoffed.
I heard them flounce out of the room and the door slam.
“Assholes,” I said under my breath as my hands clenched into fists. Tendrils of a bright red fire licked along my fingers and gave off a red glow.
I sat up excitedly, forgetting all about my bitchy roommates.
I worried I had no magic left and here it was. All someone had to do was piss me off. It was good information to have. Magic was real. This place was real. This magic of mine had kept me alive both at the lab and on the road. I closed my eyes and focused on the energy flowing through arms and into my hands. When I opened them, a sphere of brilliant red fire tendrils had formed between my hands.
The energy felt good coursing through me. Muffled footsteps sounded outside the door and I waved my hands around until the sphere had dissipated.
I lay back down again and closed my eyes. A face flashed in my mind’s eye. A sculpted, cold hard face with ice-blue eyes and a shock of blond hair. His beauty was breathtaking like a cold vista of snow and ice. His torso gleamed with sweat as he hovered above me. Intense need and desire made the blue in his eyes shift. A fiery red glow lit up his face.
My magic.
I recognized the hue of it. He lowered himself to me and my core responded in turn. And then he and the memory were gone.
I reached for the fading vision of the memory but it was gone. For the second time that day, my body ached with an extreme want.
The flawless beauty of the man in my memory made me think he was a magic user. Like Fergus and Declan from the dining hall. I searched around my memory filled with holes for anything that said I belonged in this world of mages.
Nothing sparked.
The need to pee overwhelmed me and I jumped off the bed in search of a bathroom. To my relief, I found a small bathroom with a shower near Avery’s rose explosion. As I peed, I thought how grateful I was to be at the Academy. What kind of luck had landed me in front of Hotchkiss and his kindness of bringing me in? Especially since I still had nowhere else to go.
Like Headmaster Hotchkiss said, I could figure out what I was within the safety of the Academy’s walls, well away from the people after me.
I still had the nagging suspicion that magic was new to me. I wasn’t comfortable with the mages’ customs and rituals. Unlike my references of the real world, I didn’t have many references for this world. That knowledge gnawed at me. When the hell was I going to get my damn memory back?
I finished up in the bathroom and walked over to my desk where I had placed my schedule on top of my new textbooks. Tomorrow, I had Magical Sparring in the morning and Ancient Magical Practice in the afternoon. Both classes filled me with dread. I didn’t want to make a complete fool of myself with that conduit ring, but apparently I would be proving myself inept in all things mage.
I shuffled through the textbooks and came upon Mage Essentials. Excellent, I thought. I could get a head start on figuring out how to be a mage.
I had a healthy skepticism for anything that people told me. In some past life, I’d been a skeptic on all things it seemed. I fluffed my pillows and stacked them against the wall. I lay back on them and flipped the book open.
The history book went all the way back to the Druids in the time of Stonehenge. Apparently, they were the first mages. I had a faint idea of what Stonehenge was.
I found it very strange that I could remember the world around me, but not who I was or my specific life experiences. I knew about mean girls and about hot guys and about Ivy League schools, but I couldn't remember my last name or where I lived or where I was from?
The amnesia was odd in its specificity. Could the people who had held me in the lab have damaged a part of my mind on purpose? That, at least, made more sense.
I focused back on the book and my finger moved down the table of contents until I came to the heading: The Fae War. I flipped the textbook open to that.
Headmaster Hotchkiss had given me a little information, but he’d mentioned the Fae war immediately. It was only 22 years ago and had shaped this society with its aftermath. After all, this academy was all about learning how to stop the Fae in all the ways.
I read the in-depth chapter for close to an hour. Before the war started, dead magical creatures were being found all along the Borderlands. Back then, portals were open through the Veil, the membrane between the Faerie Realm and ours. Mage Kendrick Bloodstyne concluded the Fae were behind all the mysterious deaths. He sent emissaries to
negotiate a peace treaty with the Fae, but the four courts of Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter couldn’t agree on the terms. The one thing the Fae had decided was that the mages were their common enemy. The emissaries were barely able to escape and Mage Bloodstyne declared war on the Fae. When I found a photo of him on the battlefield, I knew in an instant he was Queen Bee’s dad. They both had that raven black hair and indigo eyes. Kyna Bloodstyne looked just like her father, but a little shorter and more feminine.
Spies in the Faerie Realm had come back with reports of a large force ready to crack open the Veil and allow a large army through to this realm. Reading this history was doing something weird to my stomach. A knot had formed low in my belly that ached.
Tiny red tendrils of fire sprouted from my fingers and traveled over the history book. When they came to the picture of Kendrick Bloodstyne, the fire flared over his face and burned the page until he was unrecognizable. My magic had something to say about him.
Mages feared Fae power above all else. They had scrambled to fortify the Veil and not let the portal rip open. The textbook didn't get into the spells they used to overcome the Fae, but the book did mention that the eight main families came together that day to save the world by keeping the Fae armies out. I assumed those eight families ruled the Magic Council now and their names were on all the buildings of the school.
Through the use of a talismanic device, they channeled their power into the Veil sealing and locking all portals leading to the Faerie realm permanently.
Through all the fighting about a thousand mages lost their lives in the war along with countless other werewolves, vampires, and witches. The war spilled out into the human world as well and thousands of human beings died, too as mysterious plagues, outbreaks of violent social unrest, and mysterious accidents ravaged the populated areas close to the Veil. The existence of this school made more sense to me now.
I closed the book and watched my fire dissipate back into my hand. I felt the surge of energy rush up my arms and into my chest. I eyed the conduit ring again. Kelly said that mages required the ring to do their magic.