by Sarina Dorie
Mr. Cicero’s amiable expression turned grim. “I’m afraid not. He was fired. It turns out he was actually a. . . .” His amber eyes flickered to the students, who were leaning forward with interest now. “Well, never mind. I probably shouldn’t talk about it in front of students. I don’t want to give these young ladies nightmares.”
Even Vega’s curiosity was piqued. What was Mr. Reade and Mr. Cicero’s former teacher? Some kind of sexual deviant who had committed a crime? Or some kind of monster in the closet like her?
“What was he?” Grace Mathers rubbed at one of her pointed ears.
“Yeah! Tell us some juicy gossip!” another girl said.
Mr. Reade’s expression darkened. “Oh dear. Indeed, let’s save this conversation for later.”
“He was a strigoi, wasn’t he?” Maria Toma, a girl with dark hair and a unibrow asked.
“No! My cousin goes to Merlin’s Academy,” a girl in blonde pigtails who Vega didn’t know said. “Some teacher was fired six years ago because he turned out to be a jiangshi. They eat people.”
Vega had never heard of that term before, but it wasn’t that different from ghouls. She simply preferred for the people she ate to be dead. There was nothing like a hint of decay to enhance the flavor.
“That will be enough.” Mr. Reade shook his head. “We will not entertain any more of this. This is a foreign language class. We will stay on topic.”
“Sorry,” Mr. Cicero whispered to his friend. “I didn’t mean to open up a can of sea serpents.”
Mr. Reade turned his kindly expression on the class. “Now, I expect each of you to come up with at least one question to ask Mr. Cicero in Latin using the skills you have learned so far before you leave.”
Most of the students only managed to ask insipid questions like, “Do you like eye of bat?” or “Have you made a cauldron of fire?” their questions constricted by phrases and vocabulary they already knew.
Vega asked, “What is a jiangshi?”
Mr. Cicero grimaced. “A nice young woman like you doesn’t need to learn about monsters.”
Vega rolled her eyes at his patronizing tone. He only said that because he didn’t know she was a monster herself.
CHAPTER SIX
Miss Fortune
Mr. Reade let the class out a minute early. Vega ran to the library, mostly to confirm Jessica wasn’t there checking out the incriminating books on ghouls and monsters. Vega ran up and down the aisles until the librarian yelled at her. Her current nemesis wasn’t there. She would have checked out all the incriminating books that mentioned ghouls, but there wasn’t enough time. Instead, Vega hurried to her last class of the day.
She tried to get out of her Morty Studies class—the most worthless class out of everything on her schedule. Her entreaty to that teacher didn’t go any better than it had the previous period. For the first time ever, Vega considered skipping. But she had never done such an irresponsible thing. And what if today was the day they learned the one thing that would protect them from plastic, chemicals, and cold iron in the Morty Realm?
Finally after school, Vega went to the library. The librarian wasn’t in. Vega swept through the library, examining each of the students to make sure none were Jessica. Curiously, she was absent.
Did that mean she’d already found what she’d needed and left?
A student helper sat behind the front counter, a senior with dirty-blonde pigtails, reading a book despite the mountain of tomes beside her that looked like they needed to be checked in.
Vega leaned against the counter, her voice a whisper as she addressed the older student. “Earlier today, did a girl with purple hair come in?”
The library helper sighed overdramatically and closed her book. “I don’t know. Why?” Something hot pink poked out from the side of the giant tome. It looked like a bookmark. Probably the library assistant was the sappy sort who liked girly things like unicorns and pretty pink bows.
Vega hated both.
“No reason. She’s just my study partner,” Vega lied.
Vega covertly used a card catalogue, glancing over her shoulder every time someone walked in. The library assistant remained engrossed in her book. Oddly, the cover of Positive Thinking and Happy Magic was upside down.
Vega would have suspected the student assistant was pretending to read to spy on her, but her eyes flicked right and left, tracking words on a page like someone reading. The other students present seemed to be studying in earnest. Even so, Vega’s palms were clammy, and her mouth was dry. She jumped every time someone closed a book.
She located every book she could on ghouls so that Jessica wouldn’t be able to check them out. Most of the books were checked in. There was only one, titled Monsters and Cemeteries, for which the card catalogue showed a glittering X in the corner to indicate it was unavailable.
During Vega’s first week at the school, she had compiled a list of books she might have to dispose of someday. She recounted each title in her head and started scouring the library. The problem was, Vega didn’t want to check out the books about what she was. Anyone with two brain cells to rub together would become suspicious about why someone would check out titles like Ghoul Problems, Fifty Monsters Who Frequent Graveyards, and Ghul, Jinn, and Other Shayatin of Pre-Islamic-Arabic Regions.
She piled the books into her arms, considering how she was going to get around checking these out. The librarian had a ward of protection on the door. Vega had seen it go off on a student who claimed she had accidentally forgotten to check out a book. The last thing Vega needed was to draw more attention to herself. She could get around some wards, but not one created by a two-hundred-year-old librarian who had practiced magic far longer than she had.
Vega could hide the books all over the library so that they would be harder to find, but it was possible the librarian had spells to return books to their shelves in an instant. Vega considered creating a minor glamour to hide them, but it was only good until the librarian noticed and wiped it away. Then anyone could find the books, including Jessica. Vega glanced at the sunlight streaming in from a window. It was too high up to toss them out, and that might set off an alarm.
In any case, the idea of damaging a library book made her cringe, but desperate times called for desperate measures.
If only Vega had learned portal magic, but that was so advanced they didn’t teach it except in a very small and select class of seniors.
Vega spotted a copy of Curses and Death Wishes for Beginners locked in a glass case crammed with books. That would have been a useful book right about now. Unfortunately, the sign on the cabinet said that students needed a teacher’s note and assistance from the librarian to check them out. Someone had gotten access to one of the books recently, indicated by a yawning hole between two books as noticeable as a missing tooth.
By the time Vega’s arms were piled with twenty books, she had come up with her solution. She didn’t need to give her name. She could give Jessica’s name. It wouldn’t matter if she “lost” the books or kept them forever. No one would know Vega had them except for the library assistant. She heaved them onto the counter.
The girl behind the counter didn’t look up from the book she was reading. It was still upside down.
“Ahem,” Vega said.
The blonde girl turned a page. “There’s a limit of ten library books unless you have a teacher’s note or the librarian is here to give her special approval.” Something hot pink still peeked out of one of the edges of her dusty tome. Another book?
Vega considered her options with the books. She could ask a teacher for a note. She was writing a research paper in alchemy. But if she left the books to track down a teacher, Jessica might come in and snatch up the books.
She needed someone to hold on to her books. She glanced at two freshmen seated in the corner studying. She didn’t know them. It didn’t mean they didn’t know her. It seemed like everyone knew her after she’d accidentally inges
ted some beef and turned into a cow in the middle of the night. Or the time someone had slipped pork in her dinner on purpose to see if she would turn into a pig—which she had. Then there was the lamb stew incident.
“Will you watch my books and make sure no one takes them?” Vega asked.
The library assistant rolled her eyes. “What do you think is going to happen? Are they going to walk off without you?”
The girl set her book down with a thud. A section of pages stuck out askew from the rest of the book. The library assistant hurriedly shoved a smaller, thinner book inside the thicker book.
“Just make sure no one takes my library materials,” Vega said.
“Whatever.” The library assistant resumed reading.
Vega went to the two students in the corner. One of the girls looked up and smirked at her. It was difficult to remain anonymous at a school with only three hundred and fifty girls when she was the only one who had a “condition” that caused her to shapeshift into what she ate.
Vega attempted a friendly smile, the expression felt unnatural on her usually somber face. “I need to check out some books for a paper I’m writing, but I have too many to check out myself. Would you be willing to check some out for me?”
“Sure.” The taller girl wearing glasses, crossed her arms. “I’ll check out some books for you . . . for a price.”
“No! Don’t do it!” a girl with a freckled nose and gray hair said. “She might damage the books, and then you’ll get a fine!”
“I won’t damage them. I’ll be very careful.” Vega was a Celestor. There was nothing those of her affinity valued more than knowledge. As much as she wanted to destroy the evidence, there was no way she intended to harm a book. “But if something does happen to them, I can pay for them.”
The first girl looked her up and down. “I need collateral to know you’re good on your word. What will you pay me now?”
Vega suspected she meant collateral she had no intention of paying back. She glanced back at her pile of books on the desk. Some of those books were so old they would be out of print. She didn’t doubt some of them were worth a hundred dollars or more. With close to twenty books, there was no way she had that amount of pocket money with her.
“How much do you want?” Vega asked.
“How much are those books worth?”
“Don’t do it!” the freckled girl whispered.
“You know, I can hear everything you say,” the blonde library assistant from the counter called. “I’m not going to let them check out those books for you.”
The other teen Vega had been negotiating with swore under her breath.
The assistant librarian was still reading. From this angle it was easier to see the pink book she held behind the larger one. The assistant was obviously hiding something she wasn’t supposed to be reading in that book.
Vega wondered whether it was something forbidden like a book on poisons. Or maybe something scandalous like illegal topics such as producing electricity which could harm Witchkin. Vega wouldn’t have minded reading about the forbidden topics of science that taught how to create chemicals that would hurt Fae—and their Witchkin offspring.
She doubted those books would be hot pink.
Vega could try to coerce this girl into letting her check out these books, but if it only turned out to be a teen fashion magazine from the Morty Realm, she was going to make a new enemy, and her plan would fail.
That pink edge of book within the book gave Vega an idea. She knew how she could hide the books on ghouls in plain sight.
Vega took her stack to a farthest corner in the back. She pilfered dust jackets from newer books and slipped them over the books she had appropriated. It was a simple solution to a complex problem. She half expected an alarm to go off as she placed dust jackets from inane copies of remedial spellwork on the books she wasn’t allowed to check out.
No sirens blared to alert anyone of her literary crime. Vega stayed tucked into a corner as she sneakily carried out her plan. Eventually she was going to need to remove all these books from the library, but she could start with the most incriminating.
After half the books were hidden, Vega returned to the counter and checked out the most incriminating books in Jessica’s name. The assistant librarian didn’t question Vega, and she let her check out all ten books.
Vega suspected that meant Jessica hadn’t checked out anything from the library earlier. She had either snuck in and done research prior to school ending, or she was hatching some kind of brilliant plan that Vega hadn’t foreseen.
Once the books were stamped, Vega left without triggering alarms. She glanced over her shoulder to make sure the librarian wasn’t running after her. No one stopped her.
It was risky to keep the books in the school where others could find them, but Vega had few other choices. She waited until the freshman dormitory was clear before hiding her books in the false bottom of her trunk.
Vega wasn’t entirely surprised when she spotted Jessica in the cafeteria at dinner. Mealtime seemed to be the one hour Jessica didn’t miss at school. Vega would have preferred to sit alone in the graveyard, but the principal was present at the teacher table, her eyes narrowed to slits as she skewered Vega with her usual formidable expression. The principal didn’t like her eating outside and being “antisocial.” She had intercepted Vega earlier this week before she could sneak out of the cafeteria. That, coupled with Vega not wanting to be alone in the graveyard where Jessica might threaten her again, was another reason to remain in the school. The public place meant Jessica might be forced to leave Vega be.
Vega seated herself at a mostly unoccupied table that faced the stained-glass windows. Other students scooted away and sneered at her. Vega pretended she didn’t notice the way they snubbed her. It was one of many reasons not to eat meals in the cafeteria.
Vega stared at the glass mural of the Lady of the Lake bestowing wisdom to young women. Some of the smaller windows showed scenes of people slaying monsters like vampires, trolls, or slimy swamp creatures. One of the monsters in a graveyard had the same gray skin as a ghoul—though Vega’s mother had taken care to hide their sickly pallor. Vega forced herself not to stare at it and draw attention to herself. She tried to block out the jeering of classmates. Three times during the meal, she checked her bread, water, and salad for contamination. She refrained from the roast beef despite the way the aroma made her belly cramp with hunger. The raspberry mousse for dessert looked scrumptious, but the heavy cream in it would make her sick.
Out of the corner of her eye, Vega watched Jessica wander from table to table, talking to one group of girls before moving on to another. She was a social butterfly, only people didn’t smile and laugh with her as she made jokes. She clearly made other students uncomfortable. She was more like a parasitic wasp.
Vega shrank down and pretended she didn’t notice Jessica wandering closer. Charlotte from Latin class, seated at a table near Vega, stood up and shouted at Jessica after she whispered something to her.
“Shut up! It isn’t any of your business!” Charlotte said.
“Maybe not. But I bet Principal Gordmayer will think it her business when she finds out.” Jessica cackled like a truly wicked witch.
Eunice Littleton, seated beside Charlotte, stood up now too. “Charlotte and her family haven’t done anything wrong. Her brother wasn’t snatched by Fae because he committed a crime. Get lost, loser.”
Vega remembered Charlotte’s tears in class after the guest speaker had mentioned Latin being able to save people’s lives and her bitter response. Charlotte’s reaction made more sense to Vega now that she knew Charlotte had been close to someone who had been abducted by Fae. Vega knew what it was to lose a sibling, even if the circumstances were different. Even after all these years, the ghosts of Vega’s past haunted her.
And Jessica was somehow using her knowledge of Charlotte’s loss to blackmail her? The unfairness of that made Vega lose h
er appetite despite the savory smells of dinner all around her. Jessica wasn’t just a lazy student who didn’t apply herself, but a grade-A obnoxious prig. She deserved to be hexed by someone.
Not that the slings and arrows of Charlotte’s outrageous misfortune were Vega’s problem. She had her own ghoulish problems to take care of.
Briefly, Vega considered proposing Charlotte and she team up together to defeat their mutual enemy, but Vega had already been burned once by “friends.” She didn’t need complications like growing close to people to distract her from the task at hand.
Jessica didn’t leave the table until Charlotte handed a book over to her. Vega suspected it was homework. Then again, it could have been dirt on Vega—research Jessica had made someone else do. Had Charlotte been in the library earlier? She could have been coerced into doing Jessica’s research when she’d left Latin class.
Had Vega been the evil mastermind in a position to dictate someone else’s actions, that was what she would have done. Vega could have kicked herself for not thinking of that.
After a few more interactions, including books she stuffed into her bag from other students, Jessica finally took up a tray of food. Vega noted Jessica must have had some kind of dirt on Malisha Bane—something that wasn’t already public knowledge about Vega’s worst tormentor—or else Malisha wouldn’t have handed over her pudding so readily.
Malisha didn’t give up anything without a fight.
Jessica dropped her tray onto the table across from Vega, blocking her view of the stained-glass scenes. Being in public hadn’t deterred Jessica. Vega noticed she had taken three crystal bowls of pudding.
Jessica snatched up the pudding Vega had removed from her tray. Vega hadn’t planned on eating it, but she didn’t like anyone taking anything that was rightfully hers. It was just one more reason to dislike her new enemy.
“I know what you are.” Jessica’s lips twisted into a malicious smile.