A Spell for Shadows: Rosewilde Academy of Magical Arts

by Marie Robinson

  Serena pressed her thumb and forefinger to the bridge of her nose. “The… have you not heard about this? The biggest event of the year? Of any given four years at Rosewilde?”

  I shook my head, totally lost. “No, I haven’t. No one’s said anything, plus I’ve been busy either studying or warding this room so I—oh, wait. No, you know what, I do think Lucas… might have said something… I don’t think I was listening.”

  “I mean, half the time I look at him I don’t hear a word he says either,” Serena admitted. “Him or Isaac. They’re so fucking pretty… anyway, the Inter-Academy Gala. There’s five academies in the US, and they all get together at one school or another for an annual Gala. Only top students in the senior class actually go, which means the rest of us only see the one that takes place while we’re in school. I’ve been to a few ’cause Daddy is sort of a big deal in some circles. Anyway, this year, it’s here at Rosewilde. It’s fancy as fuck and you’re gonna need a sexy dress that can be hiked up past your waist without ruining it and I have exactly the—”

  “Hiked up?” I interrupted. “What?”

  She waggled her eyebrows at me. “Well you gotta plan ahead, sugar.”

  It caught up to me, and I blushed at the thought of Isaac and Lucas taking turns holding my dress while the other… “Um, right,” I murmured. “Wait, five schools? But then isn’t it every five years per school?”

  She made a face. “Uh, no. Nothing happens at Goldhaven. That place is a shithole. But Blackthorne, Merriwether, and Bludhaven are all going to bring their best students, most of their faculty, and their boards, and while they work out whatever bullshit agenda they want to set for the next year, we get to put out the good silverware and get wild. I’m gonna snag me an assassin and a vampire. When I went with Daddy, he kept me under his fucking heel the whole time. I’ve got making up to do.”

  Because of course there were vampires. “Blackthorne is an assassin school,” I counted, “I know Goldhaven is some kind of…”

  “Call them rejects,” Serena muttered.

  “…right,” I went on, “and I’m guessing Bludhaven does what it says on the tin?”

  “Blood-sucking creatures of the night,” Serena agreed, and bit her lip. “They don’t have to get off until they want to, so they just like… go forever. Literally—I dropped by this vampire orgy when I was… I don’t know, like thirteen or something… and last year right before school started I showed up because I was in the area thinking maybe there’s another one going on, like it’s an annual thing, and there was—but it was the same orgy. Going on like five years. It was insane.”

  “Uh,” I tried not to get bogged down imagining that. “Yeah… so, then what’s Merriwether?”

  Serena rolled her eyes. “It’s this… thing,” she said, waving her hand. “They’re nobody, really, but they’ve got a ton of money.”

  “What kind of thing?” Now that she’d teased me with the rest of it, I had to know. “Magicians, vampires… is it like werewolves or something?”

  “Ew, no,” she said, “no, those people don’t go to schools, they just grow up barefoot in the woods. Which, don’t get me wrong, they grow up hawt, but no, they don’t have a school. Merriwether is… well, like you saw the Wizard of Oz, right?”

  I nodded. “Obviously.”

  “Right,” she said, “so imagine like, a whole campus kind of like this one but way more, like, sterile and strict and with no sex or basically any fun at all, and all the students are Glinda the good witch of the north. It’s like that.”

  “It’s a witch school?” I grunted curiously and wondered why this was the first I was hearing about it. “There are witches?”

  Serena grunted, rolling her eyes. “Don’t get excited,” she said. “Witches aren’t remotely like us. It’s this kind of a whole thing; it goes way back. Basically Magicians are like ‘we’ve got magic bitches, we do what we want’, and witches are more like, ‘praise the goddess, let us serve nature and hug trees and cultivate free-range dendrophiliacs. What a beautiful gift we have.’ They’re the worst; they’re all super judgey if you like, use a plastic straw in their presence.”

  I knew I shouldn’t laugh at that, but I did. “Okay, well… so when is it?”

  “Christmas break,” she said. “Just the first weekend. Everyone likes to get back before you-know-who shows up.”

  I didn’t, and pinched my brow in question.

  She lowered her voice. “You know… ‘ho ho ho’…?”

  “Santa Claus?” I snickered again as her eyes went wide with concern. “I thought Hunter was just… is that serious?”

  “Hell yeah it’s serious,” she squeaked. “You have any idea how many kids go missing at Christmas? Not to mention that the ‘suicide’ rate goes up. Yeah, Santa’s no joke.”

  “Jesus,” I muttered.

  Serena took a calming breath. “Anyway… so before that, we’re going to get you set up with a bitchin’ dress because I saw how you looked when you got here and I’m just assuming you, you know… don’t have one.”

  “I have dresses,” I shot back. “I just didn’t bring any.”

  “Uh,” she cocked her head to one side and clearly assessed me, “yeah, cotton one-piece strapless floral print numbers… don’t count.”

  How did she know? I didn’t dignify that with a response. “Well, we can worry about that later. Thanks for helping me get the last of these set up, I know it’s crazy sounding, but it does make me feel better.”

  “That sounds like a dismissal,” she mused as she went to the door. “Fine. Wouldn’t want to encounter your fake roommate anyway. See you after breakfast tomorrow?”

  “Always,” I said.

  Before she could open the door, though, it opened for her. Or, rather, it opened before she got to it. Serena took a step back as the door swung quietly into the room to admit my roommate.

  “Oh my god,” Serena breathed.

  I stood up from the bed and flung a hand in Pete’s direction as he stood wide-eyed and confused at the commotion. “See?! I told you he was real!”

  Pete was frozen. Serena put a hand to her mouth, and from the look on her face… was she going to pinch his cheek? Before she could do that, though, Pete looked at me, and held out a slip of paper. “It’s for you,” he said. “Headmistress wants to see you. Maybe about all the wards.”

  I snatched the paper from him. A note? A school for magic, and I was sent a note. Though, it did occur to me that… perhaps a message wouldn’t make it through the walls and into the room. “Shit,” I muttered. “What do you think this…”

  I was taken aback as Serena did the very thing I feared. She bit her lip, reached out to Pete’s placid face and pinched his cheek. “You… are adorable.”

  That woman was a fucking mystery to me.

  Amelia

  Walking into the headmistress’s office was difficult. I stood outside the door and could almost feel Sinclaire on the other side of it, waiting for me. When I reached up to knock, my hand shook and I had to compose myself before I walked in looking like a mess in front of Headmistress Pepper Hayes. Sinclaire isn’t here anymore, I reminded myself. He’s about as gone as it’s possible to get.

  I told myself that a few times and counted backward from ten before I knocked.

  “Come in, please,” Hayes called.

  I opened the door and peaked around the edge of it. “You wanted to see me?”

  She looked up, and took her glasses off. “Miss Cresswin,” she said, smiling, “I did. Please come in, have a seat.”

  I pushed through and closed the door behind me. The room had changed. In fact, it didn’t even look like the same room at all. The carpet, the curtains, the desk—all of it was softer, somehow. The desk looked like a well-worn antique, someone’s favorite piece of furniture. The built-in shelves had been replaced with book cases filled, not just with arcane-looking tomes and ancient artifacts, but regular books. I spotted at least a few science books, and a whole shelf full of fi
ction, classic and new. One shelf was devoted entirely to Harry Potter, which made me grin just a little as I took one of the plush, comfortable leather chairs on the receiving end of the desk.

  “Like what I’ve done with the place?” Hayes asked.

  I smiled a little wider. “I do. It looks… I don’t know. Lived in?”

  “It is,” she said with a tired kind of grin. “I should consider having a bedroom built onto it. It would save me time. So, how is this year going for you?”

  I had a hard time believing that Headmistress Hayes was checking in with all two hundred and some-odd students in the school this year. Still, it was nice of her to ask and I tried to imagine it was a casual interest, or polite chatter. “Well,” I said, “being a suspect in a grisly murder has made the year a little stressful. But I’m doing well in classes, I think.”

  She winced slightly, in an exaggerated sort of way. “Yes, that business is terribly unfortunate,” she said softly, “and… I did happen to notice that you’ve done a remarkable job decorating your dorm room? Dean Yakovich tells me there was some business with a ghost.”

  It was my turn to wince, but I tried to hide it. “It, ah… didn’t turn out to be a ghost. But since I didn’t know what it was I thought I should cover all the angles. It’s not against the rules to ward our rooms, is it? Last year it wasn’t, but—”

  “No, no,” Hayes said quickly, “it’s not at all a violation. I didn’t mean to imply that it was. It’s quite impressive work actually. I wasn’t going to send a note but… all other forms of communication were rather effectively averted. Sometimes the old, simple ways are best I suppose.”

  I bit my lip to keep from smiling. I was just a little proud, I supposed. Even with a lot of help. “Sorry about that. Um, but if I’m not in trouble for going a little overboard on wards… can I ask what I am here for?”

  “Certainly,” the Headmistress said as she flipped open a folder with a few more pages in it than I really liked—it was obviously my file. She put her glasses on and looked it over. “I understand that your Path was identified last year as Summoning. Now, although I understand that business with the former headmaster must have been quite difficult, we are still left with the need to arrange some kind of training for you.”

  My skin crawled as she spoke. Right up from my hips and over my scalp until the two met in the middle of my spine and I almost had to stand up to keep from vocalizing my discomfort in a very uncivilized display of unmitigated fear. Somehow, I managed to root myself to the spot and keep breathing. “Oh,” I breathed as I tried to calm myself. “You know, I’m not all that concerned with having a Path, Headmistress. I’m sure it sounds like I lack ambition but honestly I’d be totally happy just being kind of a mediocre magician in the end. Magic itself is kind of enough for me, and I know there will be plenty of ways for me to make a living while quietly applying my skills. I still think I might head to MIT after this, and—”

  Hayes raised a hand and both eyebrows at my word-vomit. “I haven’t a single doubt that you will become an exceptional magician, Miss Cresswin,” she said. “You’ve already shown yourself to be excellent stock. Few, if any, of the students here could have accomplished what you did in your first year. You have a raw instinct and a clever mind, and the determination that will make for a first-rate professional one day. But I’m afraid it’s not as simple as you might imagine to just walk away from your Path.”

  “Plenty of magicians don’t have a Path at all,” I pointed out. “I don’t mind being among them. I understand Winston Churchill did okay.”

  She laughed quietly, nodding. “He did, at that,” she admitted, “but the difference there is that the Prime Minister did not have a Path to begin with. You do.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, “but I don’t see the difference.”

  Headmistress Hayes pressed her lips together and stood slowly. She came around the desk and paced the room. “It’s… a delicate matter,” she said slowly, “and I don’t wish to alarm you over it. But you do need to know. A magician’s Path isn’t merely a proclivity or an area of interest. It’s integral to who they are as a caster. In many cases, a magician saddled with a Path they don’t care for is not cause for any concern. Take an illusionist, for example. They may at times of stress find themselves spontaneously manifesting minor illusions, but they can do no real harm. A psychic may discover that they are at times unable to entirely filter out the emotions or thoughts of those around them, but there are coping mechanisms for a condition like that. An elementalist? That becomes something of another matter. Spontaneously starting fires could be dangerous, it really must be trained to reach a good level of control. Your particular Path is about breaching the division between worlds and bringing through those breaches beings not native to this plane of existence.”

  She stopped pacing and pinched her eyebrows sympathetically. “I have the deepest sympathy for your initial experiences in this kind of magic, Miss Cresswin—you never should have been subjected to such abuse. However, I’m sure you can see how spontaneous manifestations of your particular ability could be more than merely inconvenient?”

  I started to argue that summoning was a complex process, and that I couldn’t possibly do it by accident… but the dream I had just before school this year made me wonder if maybe she was right. Still, I had a hard time accepting the idea of going back to it. “Isn’t there… I mean, can’t we work out a way to sort of block it? I know there are different types of engraved spells to channel magic in a certain direction, and away from others.”

  “The costs of those procedures are high, and extensive,” she said. “While it is possible, of course, it isn’t accomplished by turning off certain magical talents—it’s accomplished by channeling all available magical talent into a specific vein of operation. And even then, you need to have a natural talent to begin with. The only such enchantments that would be effective, would be those that pertain to some kind of summoning. You’d be effectively giving up magic in that case.”

  “Alright,” I breathed, wringing my hands in my lap, “but then what about the training itself? Sinclaire said that summoners are rare. Would it be with you, or would you have to bring someone in? How would I even go about it?”

  “We can acquire relevant texts,” Hayes assured me, “but as for a teacher… yes. It has presented something of an unusual challenge. As such, it has also yielded an unusual solution. You are aware, I believe, that the young man you rescued from perdition last year is himself quite a remarkable talent?”

  My jaw dropped. “Nathan? Nathan Crowley?”

  “The same,” she agreed. “In fact, his tenure in the Abyss was caused by an unfortunately unrefined but nonetheless impressive grasp of—”

  “I know who Nathan is,” I interrupted. “Uh… sorry. I just mean that I… I’ve spent a little time with him. I don’t think he’s a good choice, Headmistress. He doesn’t exactly like me. In fact I’m pretty sure he’d be happy to see me dead or at least gone.”

  She furrowed her brow, confused. “I don’t believe that to be the case at all, Miss Cresswin. When I spoke to Mister Crowley, he didn’t hesitate one moment to accept the task. Enthusiastically, in fact. He spoke quite highly of you.”

  If my jaw dropped again, it was going to fall off. “I… but he…”

  “I think,” the headmistress said as she approached and took the chair next to me, crossing her knees and clasping her hands over them, “that you will find Mister Crowley has come quite far from the moments of his first lucidity. Master Larson has worked with him extensively, and you must understand that when Mister Crowley was first returned from his terrible ordeal he was not precisely… himself. But, I spent much of the summer carefully monitoring his progress and I assure you that he has regained himself and is quite happy to serve as an instructor just until we’re able to find a more experienced specialist. It is highly unorthodox, I will admit, but… well, your particular talents are highly unusual. Some allowances will have to be
made if we’re to ensure that you pose no danger to yourself. Or… to others, Amelia. I’m afraid you simply must gain some degree of mastery over your magic in this regard. To fail to arrange for that would be criminally irresponsible on my part. Surely you can understand how important this is?”

  I was sweating in places I hoped she couldn’t see, and folded my arms across my chest as I tried to think of a way around or out of it. One didn’t present itself immediately, but more than a few other possibilities did. “I could summon something spontaneously,” I muttered, and frowned as the implications popped into my thoughts. “Would I… if that were to happen, I mean, would I know that I was doing it?”

  She took a deep breath, thoughtful as her eyes drifted to her hands. “I suppose unconscious casting is as much a possibility with your talent as with others,” she said at length. “Illusionists are known to unconsciously make themselves appear more or less how they view themselves inwardly, without realizing that they’re doing such. Elementalists have been known to cause storms or other inclement weather—or quite lovely weather—based on their moods. Summoning is a more complex and demanding kind of magic but I suppose if sufficient emotion and energy were present—yes, I believe, based only on what I do already know, that it would be possible. That’s part of the rub here, you see; there is a great deal that we simply do not know. I would be remiss if I did not admit that Summoning is not only a quite rare path… there also are not a great many summoners who are, shall we say, in their golden years.”

  “Which is to say they tend to die,” I guessed.

  Hayes spread her hands and gave a shallow nod. “I do hate to be impolitic. But, that is what I mean, yes. And that is what I’d like to avoid for you.”

  “What about Professor Turner? He’s teaching the course on Abyssal magic. Surely he’s an option?” I was desperate for other options. My heart sank as she shook her head.

  “Unfortunately, Professor Turner’s knowledge is entirely theoretical,” she said with regret. “He wouldn’t have half an idea on the true matter of Summoning as Nathan. Believe me when I say a student is not my preferred instructor. But it is all we have available at this time.”