Lough didn’t say anything, but the corners of his eyes pinched. He hated the fact that dream givers weren’t very respected in the paranormal community. Unlike darkness mages, who were also rare but always very powerful, a lot of dream givers had trouble with simple spells and tasks.
We hurried downstairs to the door of Airlee, from which we had a clear view of the Tower, the tallest building on campus. The bottom floor was taken up with the campus dining hall, while the upper floors were classrooms. There were lots of buildings on campus, but the Tower was the largest and most imposing. It was made of colored glass that you could see out of, but not into. It was beautiful as it stretched up to meet the sky. Outside Astra Dorm, it was probably my favorite building at Public.
We trudged the rest of the way through the snow in silence. Lough was irritated, Sip was tired, and I was worried. As usual, it was impossible to know what was going on in Lisabelle’s mind.
The dining hall, another familiar and welcome place, was one large room with lots of small tables. One side was filled with different food stations spread out on large counters, allowing students to pick and choose what they wanted to eat.
So early in the evening there were no professors in the hall, but I wasn’t even sure who to go and talk to. We were still on break, and as far as I knew there was no campus police force, although at that point it seemed like there should have been.
“Let’s eat, and then we’ll figure it out,” said Sip. “By the time we’re done, maybe more professors will have gotten here.”
Reluctantly I went to fill my plate. My mind was whirling, but there was only one question. Where was my stuff? Okay, so two questions. Had I been kicked out after all? That couldn’t be, not with the protections that I knew had been placed on me all through the Christmas break.
“Tell me more about the demons,” said Lough as the four of us sat down.
I was too angry to talk. Instead, I shoveled food into my mouth while Sip and Lisabelle explained what had happened and how Lisabelle had taken on half a dozen demons by herself, and won.
I watched students trickle in, watching out for the first professor. Even if it was Zervos, I intended to go and talk to him. I wanted my stuff back.
As luck had it, Professor Korba, tiny pixie extraordinaire, was the first professor to arrive. Being so small, he usually flew around, which let him move at a faster pace and look a bit taller. He came up to my elbow.
I nearly bounded out of my chair in my rush to get to him. Sip made an irritated noise at my poor manners, but I ignored her.
He didn’t even have time to pick up a tray before I was there.
“Professor Korba,” I greeted him. He spun around in mid-air, letting out a little squeak.
“Ah, Ms. Rollins, so nice to see you,” he said. “I trust your holiday went well.”
“It was fine,” I said, not wanting to waste time. “I have a problem.”
Professor Korba’s eyes shot up. “My dear, that’s not good. Perhaps, though, it might be best if you waited until tomorrow, when the proper people will be present.”
I shook my head. “I can’t wait until tomorrow. And if you will forgive me, but what proper people?”
Professor Korba cleared his throat.
“Just let me get a cup of tea, my dear, and then you may follow me to the podium.”
He indicated the place in front of the podium where all the professors usually sat for dinner.
Instead of following him to get his tea I headed to the professors’ table, and he joined me shortly thereafter. Everything else in the dining hall, from other students coming in to my friends still sitting at their table chatting, fell away, and I started to tell my story.
“I’ve been robbed,” I said, as Professor Korba sat down.
“Oh, no,” he said, although he looked remarkably calm about it. “What was taken?”
“Everything in my room,” I said.
I would not cry. I wouldn’t. “I don’t know who did it. Sip and I came home and it was just like that.”
Something in Professor Korba’s face changed. He no longer looked worried or surprised.
“My dear,” he said, “I thought they sent you a letter.”
He took a sip out of his white teacup as he waited for me to process what he was saying. I frowned, shaking my head.
“I’m sorry. I don’t understand.”
Professor Korba sighed. “Did you not get a letter?”
“No? A letter from whom?” I asked. “Where would I have gotten mail?”
“You do not collect mail from your home?” he asked, confused.
Panic was starting to rise in my chest. I had missed a letter that had gone home. Maybe it had said that I was expelled.
“Did I get kicked out for what I did last semester?” I asked breathlessly. “I wouldn’t have gotten a letter if it was sent home.”
I felt like there was a very heavy weight on my chest keeping me from breathing. Professor Korba looked at me kindly.
“No,” he said, “nothing like that. Really, Charlotte, we would never kick you out. Only two students have ever been expelled from Public, and you are not nearly as bad as either of them. Ms. Verlans, on the other hand. . . .” His eyes danced and I saw that he was making a joke. At least he still had his sense of humor.
“Please, just tell me what’s going on,” I begged.
“Well,” said Professor Korba. “You are no longer an Airlee student.”
The weight on my chest got ten times heavier.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “What? So, I am kicked out?”
Professor Korba sighed, fiddling with the handle of his teacup.
“No,” he explained. “I didn’t want to be the one to have to tell you this, but I guess since you didn’t get the letter . . . well, you are elemental, so, obviously, you cannot live in Airlee.”
I stared at him.
“Wait, so I’ve been moved to Astra Dorm?”
My question came out louder than I meant to, and the students who were sitting close to us glanced in our direction.
Professor Korba beamed at me. Obviously this didn’t upset him as much as it upset me.
“Exactly.”
“So, my stuff was moved to Astra?” Somehow that didn’t ease the tension in my chest.
“Yes, that’s it exactly, now, all you need to do is go over to Astra after dinner. There, I believe, you will find your belongings and Mrs. Swan. If either of those things are not in Astra, feel free to come find me.”
I looked at him blankly for a minute, then nodded. “Sure.”
A million questions tumbled through my mind, chief among them who the blazes was Mrs. Swan, but Professor Korba obviously had a mind to drink his tea, so I was forced to give him a tight smile and get up and walk away.
Without another word I headed back to my friends. They could see from the look on my face that whatever had happened wasn’t good news.
“What’s wrong?” said Sip. “You look confused if I do say so myself.”
“Well, no one else is going to say it for you,” said Lisabelle dryly.
“Do you hear something?” Sip asked. “No? I thought not. Must just be hot air.”
“I’m being moved to Astra,” I said as I sat down. “Well, actually, I guess I was already moved. They sent a letter to my house, but obviously I never got it. My stepdad probably ripped it up into tiny pieces and then burned it for good measure.”
Lisabelle’s black eyebrows shot up. “That’s very interesting indeed,” she said. “I guess it makes sense, though.” She continued to eat.
“What do you mean it makes sense?” I sputtered. “I’m part of Airlee Dorm. That’s where I lived last semester. That’s where all my friends live. Do you know how many Astra students there are? ONE. What am I supposed to do? Live there alone?”
Lisabelle shrugged. “They couldn’t let you stay in Airlee. It would be like a vampire being an Airlee student. Ew.” She grinned.
“She does
have a point,” said Sip. “And at least she didn’t compare you to a pixie. Besides, you’ll have that whole gorgeous building to yourself. That’s not a bad thing.”
“They aren’t going to let you live there alone,” said Lough with certainty. “They’ll have someone there with you. There’s no way they’re going to let the last elemental be at risk like that. Besides, the place is massive, and now that other students won’t be cleaning it they need someone there to take care of it.”
“Wonderful,” I said sarcastically. “Now everything is all better.”
Sip sighed and leaned forward. “I know it sucks now, but just think about it a little. It might not be so bad.”
I stared at her. I loved Sip and I appreciated that she always tried to be positive, but it was most definitely going to be that bad.
“Have any of you heard of a Mrs. Swan?” I asked my friends. “That’s who’s going to live with me.” They all shook their heads. It was a long shot and it really didn’t matter, since I would be meeting her whether I liked it or not, but it would have been nice to have some inside information.
I didn’t eat much for the rest of the time we were at dinner, and once everyone was finished I said, “I’m going to head to Astra.”
“We’ll come too,” Sip offered.
I shook my head. “Why don’t you come by in like an hour? I should probably check everything out by myself.”
I actually hated this idea, but Mrs. Swan was an unknown quantity. It would be just the two of us in the dorm, and I figured I might as well start off on the right foot with her.
The four of us split up outside the Tower. There still weren’t very many students on campus, and as I walked towards Astra I was the only one on the paths.
Airlee and Astra weren’t very far apart, but you couldn’t see one from the other. I was dreading the prospect of getting to Astra and having it be dark, empty, and imposing. I hadn’t been back since Lough’s and my desperate rescue of Lisabelle out of the Astra kitchen walk-in freezer the previous semester, and I wondered how it would feel to be there again. At least the demon force field that the President had put around the place would be down.
I didn’t know what to expect when I got to Astra, but seeing it lit up like a Christmas tree was not it. Astra was the oldest dorm on campus, with five stone towers that each had a room of a different color. When I got within sight of it that night, each color was shining brightly. Earth, Air, Fire, and Water, or green, blue, red, and while, plus the black tower in the middle, created a stunning combination of colors. I found myself smiling as I walked towards it.
My new home.
Chapter Five
As I reached Astra, the door swung open. I paused, staring at the woman who appeared in the doorway. There were actually a lot of adults around Public: the professors, for starters, and then all the employees who made the campus run. From the cleaning staff to the administration to the people who worked in the campus stores, I often saw non-students walking around.
None of them looked like the woman standing in the doorway of my new home.
She was exceptionally tall, like, a basketball player in the NBA tall. Not the WNBA, but the NBA. She must have been over seven feet in height. She was draped in a variety of blue hues, as if she went around to different houses, found blue curtains, and wrapped herself in them.
I mentally chastised myself for not paying more attention in Intro to Para Studies.
“Hi,” I said. My voice made me sound like a squeaky ten-year-old. Wonderful.
She gave me a soft smile. “Good evening, Ms. Rollins.”
“I, um, huh,” was my next intelligent sentence.
“I’m Cat Swan,” she said, extending one brown hand. “Mrs. Swan.”
“Charlotte,” I said.
“May I call you by your first name?” she asked.
“Um, yeah, you should,” I said. “What can I call you?”
Again that soft smile. “Whatever you like.”
“So, um, not to be rude” - actually I was very tempted to be rude; I wanted my stuff - “but who are you?”
“I’m the matron of the dorm. Obviously, you had to live in your own dorm, and under normal circumstances there wouldn’t be an adult, just older students to supervise. But the Committee didn’t think it was fair to expect you to stay in a whole dorm all by yourself.”
“Fair?”
Committee?
Her smile was a little larger this time. “That’s their way of saying they were worried you would throw some rager party and a certain friend of yours, Ms. Verlans, would cause trouble.”
I snorted. “She hasn’t caused any trouble so far, despite being accused of lots of it.”
“Perception is a powerful thing.”
Okay, book of wisdom.
“They’re coming over later.” I set my jaw in a mulish line.
“Of course,” she said. “I’m not here to tell you what you can and cannot do.”
“Wonderful,” I said. “That makes one of you.”
“Can I show you around?” She extended one long, brown arm, offering me the space in front.
I shrugged. “I spent a lot of time here last semester.”
“You did indeed. Maybe you want to choose a bedroom?”
“Oh yeah! My stuff,” I cried. “Where is it?”
“I set it up in the largest bedroom, which would normally be reserved for the highest ranking senior. But of course, if you prefer a different room I’m sure we can see if it’s . . . available.”
My eyes narrowed. I thought she was making a joke, but my head barely reached her elbow, so it was hard to tell.
“Cool.”
I tried not to stare at this woman in wonder. She wasn’t like any of the professors on campus, and she had agreed to live in Astra, alone, with me, when she obviously wasn’t an elemental of any kind (any time I was near anything with elemental powers my own powers started pulsing).
“You are staring,” she said from ahead of me, just as we reached the large staircase and started up. I had a flash of memory of last semester, of cleaning a certain attic with a certain fallen angel, but I couldn’t think about that now.
“Sorry,” I mumbled.
She cocked her head around. “I’m half water maven, half witch. I didn’t go to Paranormal Public, unfortunately, so my education was lacking. I have worked as a nanny for wealthy paranormal families for many years. Professor Korba knows many of them, so when they were looking for someone to take care of Astra while it housed its first student in a generation, I was contacted.”
I nodded to myself. I was relieved that she knew Korba. Of all the professors, I felt like he was the most solidly trustworthy, mostly because he was so obviously absent-minded that I didn’t think it was possible for him to be turned to the dark side.
“What are your duties here?”
“Simply to look after the house, supervise cleaning, that kind of thing. I will have a buffet breakfast here on the weekends. Obviously, to be around in case you have any of the normal questions that paranormal students have in college, or that any college student might have, for that matter.”
“Who is the Committee?” She had mentioned something called the Committee, which I had never heard of before, another sad example of how much attention I had paid in class last semester. I had a million questions for this woman, but that one felt like the most pressing.
Mrs. Swan paused on the third floor landing and turned around to face me.
“The Committee is the group of senior paranormals who have been formed to find another President for Public, one who is trustworthy. While they’re looking, they’ll be in charge of the school.”
It was a good thing Lisabelle wasn’t there to hear that. She would have said something sarcastic about how terrible that was going to be, but I wouldn’t have been able to say that she was definitely wrong. It sounded intimidating.
All I said out loud was, “You mean a President that won’t let demons onto campus
, and kill and kidnap students? That sounds like an excellent idea.”
“I agree,” she said. Her face was unreadable. I wondered if Lisabelle would make any headway getting a reaction out of her. Somehow I hoped not. The reaction would likely be negative.
“And they’re in charge?”
Mrs. Swan shrugged. “Finding a President who is capable is going to be a difficult and long process. They won’t rush it. The four members of the Committee will arrive tomorrow, in time for the start of class, and spend at least this semester interviewing possible candidates, as well as taking charge of the running of the school.”
I raised my eyebrows. “So, this semester we’re going to have four Presidents?”
“Something like that.”
“Four people to get into trouble with?”
“Do you plan on getting in lots of trouble?” asked Mrs. Swan. “I ask merely because if you do, I might be called, and I normally have my hair in rollers in the evening.”
I wasn’t sure how to answer that, so I just said, “I don’t plan to, but things don’t seem to go how they’re supposed to here.”
We continued to climb. Not long after we reached the fourth floor, Mrs. Swan stopped in front of a large set of double doors.
“This is the largest room. I hope you like it.” Without further ado she flung the doors wide. I gasped.
The room was massive, like, so big I couldn’t even see all of it while standing in the doorway. It snaked away and around a bend, disappearing in a maze of beautiful furniture.
“This is your living room,” said Mrs. Swan, going into the room ahead of me. Until she said it I hadn’t noticed that there wasn’t even a bed in this room.
“This is ridiculous,” I murmured. “I didn’t expect to live in a place this nice . . . well, ever.”
Mrs. Swan smiled. “I’m glad you like it.”
“Oh,” I said. “I love it, but I can’t stay here.”
I looked around. The furniture was mostly blue and gray, but there was a large green table in the middle of a set of sofas, and the carpets were red. I realized that I was standing in a room made up of all the Astra colors, not just one. Red, Green, Blue, White.
Museum of Masks (Paranormal Public Series) Page 3