The one who'd sacrificed everything to keep me hidden.
Fat lot of good it had done them. I was in a kidnap van heading who knows where. It was only a matter of time before they discovered who I was. Once that happened, they would have the last of my family - me - put to death.
It was the only thing they could do for a Rook. We'd gotten away with too much, according to them, and they had wiped us off the map. It didn't help that we'd escaped punishment for so long with our magic. They'd played the long game and we'd gotten complacent.
I had to figure a way out of this. If I didn't get out right now, I was as good as dead.
Chains clanked as I shifted, and I lifted my hands up only to see them both secured in manacles. Magic dampening manacles.
Great. I couldn't perform an illusion to save my life in these things. Good thing I still had my feminine wiles.
I reopened the curtain to look outside. It was October, and it usually didn't snow in Texas, Louisiana or Mississippi. Not often at least. I was definitely out of those states. It was a little too early to snow in the Midwest, either, but Colorado tended to get snow early and often. I chewed on the ragged end of one fingernail as I tried to figure it out. I couldn't see any signs up ahead, but I was also in the back of a van and it was hard to see much out of the small windows.
If I tried to use my magic, I’d out myself to the driver. Since Mannix was keeping my secret, for now, I didn’t think that was smart.
Maybe it would be best to bide my time. I was chained, so maybe they were going to keep me alive. For a while, at least.
I sat back against the cool metal, wincing as it hit my bare skin. At least if I broke out of here, a Wonder Woman costume would catch someone’s eye and possibly save me. It wasn’t every day when a woman screamed bloody murder dressed like a DC superhero.
I’d bide my time.
For now.
There were only a few ways this could go. If death was on the menu, I was going to do my best to be a difficult customer about it.
4
The van stopped after a few hours. The driver opened the back doors, and as I threw up my arms to block out the harsh glow of daylight, he hauled me out and tossed me onto the ground. I landed with a groan and slowly rolled over to come up on my hands and knees. I blew my hair out of my face and looked up. I’d been unceremoniously chained and dumped on the doorstep of what seemed to be a huge, hulking library. The van sped away, taking Mannix, the only person who might be an ally, away from me.
A woman stepped out from the old stone building, took my arm and helped me up before pulling me along beside her none too gently. I kept my mouth shut as I’d been trained to do any time I had a run-in with authority, but I did take the time to memorize the outside of the building. When my gaze snagged on the worn metal plate beside the front door, my heart skittered and stalled for several beats.
The Merlin Academy for Delinquent Paranormals.
I was in so much trouble.
I stumbled as my feet failed to move. Juvie. I’d landed in juvie! The one place I could no longer hide. I knew about this place, thanks to those pesky restored memories. This was the place everyone spoke about in hushed whispers. Not much was known about it, other than that few people ever got out of here. No one knew why. After all, it was just supposed to be a magical reformatory school. But now … knowing that one person knew my true identity, I wondered if maybe this place was something else.
Something worse.
The doors clanged shut behind me, trapping me inside of a massive room with vaulted ceilings littered with gargoyles and illusion magic. A norm would see tiny floating lights, the kind you might see at a rustic farmhouse wedding if you went to those sorts of things. The others would see the same thing as the norms, but I was different. My talent was rooted in deception and lies. I could see the magic powering the spell. Where one person saw floating lights, I saw bursts of blue and yellow magic along with the exposed wiring of the ceiling above.
I smirked as I was led down the hallway and into the Headmaster’s office. I hated it when people used magic to cover up for laziness. What this place needed was an interior decorator and an electrician. Throw a little cash at the problem and you wouldn’t have to waste power to cover it up. But...I tended to think a little different than the average magic slinger.
As evidenced by the clink of my chains as I shuffled behind the administrator.
The stern woman stopped in front of a curved door engraved with Runic script. I couldn’t read any of it which annoyed me, but I guess I should have studied harder in school instead of getting high all the time. There were a lot of things I should have done differently. But I hadn’t and now here I was.
The woman reached over and pressed her hands against one of the runes. It flared a deep, bright blue and clicked open.
“Very anticlimactic,” I murmured. With all of the spells burned into the door I’d expected something with a little more pizzazz, maybe even an explosion or something.
The woman’s lips thinned as she pushed open the door and gestured for me to step in. I rolled my eyes, huffed out a sigh, and continued doing the tiny step shuffle into the room.
Magic slammed into me, making my eyes water and my teeth chatter. The amount of power coming off of this room could have powered a nuke. I blinked several times to clear the moisture from my eyes and to adjust to my dimly lit surroundings.
The door slammed behind me. I jerked in response and snorted a laugh at my fear.
Be strong, Be brave, Be bold, I thought. This was the mantra I repeated to myself every time I was scared or anxious. I hadn’t used it in awhile due to the spell I’d been under.
A chair shimmered into existence right in front of me. I made no move to sit. The shackles chafed my wrists and ankles, and I was trying to be polite.
“Sit,” A commanding voice boomed.
I jerked again, but shuffled over to the chair and lowered myself into it. I interlaced my fingers as best I could with the chains and sat up straight. I said nothing but took a moment to study the room. All of the illusion spells fell away as my gaze passed over the spacious office. Shelves and tables were filled to overflowing, but it wasn’t exactly cluttered. You could tell the Headmaster used this place as both an administrative office and a lab. Directly in front of me was a huge desk, black as night but inscribed with stars and the names of all of the magical studies this place offered. I heard rumors that new students were all shuttled here and as soon as they chose a path based upon their magical strengths, they would touch the desk. All of that was good and well, but what came next was a point of great debate and contention among the gossips. Some claimed the desk would glow with their chosen path, and memories of all the students who came before them would slam into their minds with the force of a freight train, allotting them the immediate knowledge of the most basic spells of that particular area. It was at that point they could change to their second choice if they found their first lacking.
But it was the other whispers, the quieter ones, which had me curious. Some claimed the desk enacted a soul price when students touched their specialty and once it was selected, there was no going back. You could change your mind, but you had to go through the original curriculum first, then go back, choose again and do it all over again. That seemed insane to me. Repeating high school all over again? Screw you very much. But that wasn’t all that was whispered. The desk pricked your skin, taking a small blood sample.
If you were any magician worth your salt, you were never, ever careless about your blood. The blood is where the magic lived. The place of power, identity, and the most important thing about you. The blood traced your family lines, could reveal hidden paths of magic that lay undiscovered and could reveal all of your truths.
I was a person who dealt in lies so I wanted to keep as far away from the desk as I could. I studied it, my brow crinkling as I searched it looking for any illusion or concealment spells. I could see nothing, though as I looked upon it l
onger, I realized most of the power inside of this room emanated from it.
“Thank you for seeing me.”
I blinked and jerked my head up at the sound of the voice. Deep, ancient, and yet surprisingly friendly, the man attached to it appeared to be no less than two hundred years old. Even through the deep black velvet of the robes he wore I could tell his broad shoulders were stooped with age. He wasn’t feeble, though. Far from it. His appearance was more world-weary than old. Each line in his deeply cragged face told a story. Some of hope, some of tragedy, some of adventure and some of love.
His eyes were green and clear as a bubbling spring, but there was a wariness to his gaze. He knew I was more than I appeared, and he wasn’t foolish enough to treat me like the other students here. His nose was a sharp and thick hook on his face, and his lips, though generous, turned down. I could tell he no longer smiled much. As the Headmaster of what basically amounted to juvie for paranormals, I wasn’t sure I would either.
I inclined my head in greeting. He hadn’t introduced himself yet, and I hadn’t exactly volunteered to see him, so I wasn’t sure why he was thanking me.
“Ms. LeCharme, my name is Brooks Mago. I am the Headmaster here at the Merlin Academy. Would you like to tell me why you’re here?”
I sat back in the seat and watched as Mr. Mago squirmed in discomfort at the sound of my chains clanking angrily against the tile floor. “I’m assuming you already know why I’m here, so why don’t we just skip that part and save us both a boring rehash of my last 12 hours?” I hoped he did, because I had no idea what had happened since I’d been unconscious in a van.
His lips quirked to the side in amusement, though it didn’t reach his eyes. I could only imagine he had to deal with people like me all the time.
Except...I wasn’t like everyone else. In fact, I was like no one else here. I’d put my hand on the Black Grimoire and swear my soul away to the Underworld on that fact.
My last name wasn’t LeCharme. It was Rook. I belonged to one of the most powerful black-magic wielding families in the country. The same family who had been banished to the Underworld after a series of shady deals and one final bargain that went terribly wrong. My family had taken extra precautions to ensure my identity stayed a secret. Precautions some would consider highly immoral, illegal, unethical, and just plain appalling. To the world, I was Harmony LeCharme, a quirky, rebellious teenager strong in glamour magic and wit. I was the child people chuckled at and patted on the head for being too precocious. But no one really knew me. No one except the family who’d left me behind after they were sentenced to an eternity of servitude in the Underworld.
The real me was ugly. Complicated. Conflicted.
My name was Luna Rook.
I was a thief. A rogue magic-user. A master of deception and illusion. But I was also a liar and a cheat.
And I needed to figure out how the hell I could get out of this school without getting caught or, worse, revealing who I really was.
5
Mr. Mago skipped over the apparent transgressions that brought me here. He asked me if I would like any refreshments, and I politely declined. I was getting nervous sitting here especially since he hadn’t unchained me yet.
“At Merlin, we take students who have difficulty adjusting to the regular course curriculum given out by the Consortium and assist them in a slower transition to their magical studies.” He was assuming I’d been picked up on the streets of Ravenscliffe and not from a human town. What in the world had Mannix done?
I crossed my arms against my chest, trying not to wince at the cold iron rubbing my arms and cutting off a good supply of my magic and smirked. “So then why am I here?”
“Well,” he said with a sniff, “some of the students here gravitate toward the darker side of magical studies and got themselves entangled in circumstances not so easily overlooked by the rest of our community.”
“Ah,” I said, nodding like he was the wisest wizard who’d ever walked the earth. I leaned forward and whispered, “The delinquents. I hear those guys are the worst.” I didn’t acknowledge that I’d come from the human world or that less than four hours ago, I couldn’t remember that magic even existed. What in the world had Mannix told them about me?
Mr. Mago sighed and removed the glasses perched on the end of his nose. Whether they were purely decorative or if his advanced age was catching up to him, I couldn’t say. He rubbed his eyes and I had a gleeful moment where I wondered if he was silently counting to ten. “Ms. LeCharme, from the records I’ve been able to get, you have a documented history of criminal behavior.”
I sat up straighter, a little bit offended he’d just called me a criminal. I didn’t remember doing a single thing, but maybe Mannix had cooked this up for me. But why?
“Vandalism,” he said with emphasis and my eyes narrowed as I wondered if he’d just read my mind, “though somewhat harmless is still considered a criminal offense in RavensCliffe. As is,” he held the paper up to the glowing lamp on his desk, “harassment, impersonation of a peace officer, and theft.”
I had to be quick. I had to be on my toes and respond to everything like I knew what he was talking about. “In my defense, I was only pretending to be a peace officer so I could get out of the theft charge.”
“Harmony,” he said and stopped himself. “May I call you Harmony?”
“Knock yourself out, Headmaster.”
He let out a deep sigh. “Harmony, The Merlin Academy has seen the very worst of young delinquents and criminals. Right now, you don’t appear to be one of them. Sullen? Yes. Dishonest? Definitely. But Dangerous?” He shook his head. “Right now I can’t see it. So whether you’re experiencing personal issues related to your behavior or merely the perilous hazards of being sixteen, I can’t really say. What I do know is that if your attitude persists here, you are going to learn very quickly that there are bigger, badder wolves out there than you.”
“You like metaphors, don’t you, old man?” That’s right, Luna. Kill them with wit. Divert their attention from who you really are. Agree to everything if it gets you out of here.
Mr. Mago picked his glasses back up and slid them back onto his nose. “At our school, we have numerous specialties and subspecialties. Mrs. Valois will issue you the enrollment paperwork once you leave my office. Before the end of the first semester, you will narrow your choices down to your top three and return here for the Commitment Ceremony, which will be explained to you at a later time. No student at Merlin is allowed to be undecided or general. We look at your family background, the history of magic users born into the family, and make our best guess at what your latent and future abilities might be. Our success rate is 99.9%. We guide you to the best choices, provided you haven’t already made them yourself, and allow you to choose a subspecialty within so you can broaden your learning and experience.”
“But what happened to the .1 percent you got wrong?” I asked, genuinely curious.
Mr. Mago smiled at me. A chill ran cold fingers down my spine. It wasn’t a friendly look. “He met with an unfortunate accident during the Commitment Ceremony.” He stood from his desk and reached over for a gnarled and knotted staff I’d completely missed seeing. Mr. Mago leaned on it for a moment and shut his eyes as if it pained him to stand for too long. “As I said, Ms. LeCharme, we are rarely wrong, but when we are or if someone is lying to us, the magic seeped into the walls of this school knows and responds accordingly.”
Well. That didn’t make me nervous at all.
Not one little bit.
6
Mr. Mago opened the door and waited for me to shuffle out. He didn’t bother to say goodbye. A worm of shame wriggled through me. I didn’t know why I had to make everything difficult, but I usually did. I could no more stop the sarcasm from flowing out of my mouth than I could stop a river.
The logical part of my brain told me it was a defense mechanism to keep people from looking too closely at me. The bitchy side of my brain told me to relax. Sarcas
m was fun, and it showed I was witty too. Considering they still hadn’t taken the chains off me yet, I knew which side was winning the battle.
Mrs. Valois was waiting for me right outside the door. Her face was carefully blank and had been since the moment I arrived. I studied her for any hint of emotion, but she was as cool as the platinum color of her hair. She was dressed in a pale blue pantsuit, but instead of looking like a frumpy politician, she looked more like Barbie went to work. Her hair was in a perfect chignon, her glasses slanted at the side in a trendy cat eye, and her lipstick was just dark enough to skate the border of office propriety. I figured if she ever let the ice queen act warm up, we might be able to be friends. But judging from the way she sniffed when she looked at me, the heat on her was turned down to barely keep the pilot light on. I’d have to work on her.
Of course, to look at me, all you’d see was a surly teen. I changed my hair color more times than I changed my underwear. I knew that was disgusting, but I hated doing laundry and I took a shower, sometimes two, every single day. My hair was an expression of my inner turmoil I told myself. No one ever saw my underwear so I didn’t worry too much about it. Plus it wasn’t like I had several pairs to spare now that I was committed to this place.
Today my hair was a vivid pink. I’d put it up in a messy bun during the van ride. Hair is one of the things that would get you caught if you weren’t careful. As it turned out, my hair didn’t have anything to do with this most recent capture. I had to chuckle because even with my memories wiped, I’d kept up the bizarre string of hair color themes.
With a crooked finger, Mrs. Valois gestured for me to follow her, and I did, but as I walked I made sure to note all of my surroundings. One thing stood out. There were gargoyles everywhere. And what I meant by everywhere was basically if there was an empty space or wall cove, there was a stone gargoyle. Even stranger was the hint of magic leaking from each one of them. They were disguised, I could tell, but not in a way to make them look different. No. Only some of them could be seen by the residents of this school. The rest were carefully concealed by a cloaking spell.
Prom Fright Page 3