5

The late hour means that most students have found their way out of the corridors and into the mess hall, the dorms, the lounges and the library. The silence of the empty corridors is disturbed by the wintery mountain winds that whistle through the black panelled windows.

I’m late for Star Theory.

I spent too much time in the bathrooms, prying forever-gum off my skirt, then hastening my ass to the dorms to grab a sweater.

I don’t know who snuck the gum onto my chair at dinner, but I do know the cashmere of my plaid skirt is ruined.

That, and the firecrackers that went off at the buffet, rocketing mashed potatoes up into the ceiling, gave me a startle, and I spilled black tea down my front.

So now, not only is my skirt ruined, the white of my high-collared blouse is stained.

I’ll need to send them to my mother. She will have the servants tend to them. And if they are unsalvageable, she will at least send me replacements.

The huff of the inconvenience jerks me as I round the corner—and make for the corridor that leads me to the tower.

But I make it just one step before I go rigid all over.

My heeled boots halt on the rug, right at the turn of the corner, and my eyes widen with the swell of ice in my chest.

Down the corridor, a whitish hue flickers over the wall.

The black wainscotting wears a milky sheen to it, and up along the papered wall, is a blotchy grey discolouration.

I’m silent as I lift my boot and step it back.

I slink away from the corridor, one foot after another, my movements slow.

One wrong move, one clack of the heel, and that poltergeist down there will hear me. It will chase me. And if I let my fear get the better of me, and I scream—it can hurt me. Touch me.

That’s a hard pass.

I only loosen a breath when I’ve backed down the corridor, out of sight of the whitish gleam. I turn on my heels and run in the other direction.

It’s a longer route to the tower for Star Theory, this way. But I’m no match for a poltergeist. And I know, I just know, one of the Snakes let it loose from the old broom cupboards down in the partially flooded part of the basements.

That prank has Landon and Mildred written all over it.

Oliver’s are a little crueller, a touch more direct and focused on one person. Dray’s are malicious. And always directed at just one person.

Landon will target anyone, really. Made ones, first years, faculty, he doesn’t care—doesn’t discriminate. He’s an equal opportunist.

And it’s fucking annoying, since it’s zigzagging me the longer, winding route around the East Quarter, then back up through the narrower corridors just to get to the tower.

About fifteen minutes into my rushed power walk, my breaths are running ragged already, and I round the wooden pillar, the sharp edge grazing my shoulder—

And I smack into a solid flesh wall.

My head knocks off a chin, hard, and I stumble back.

Boots tangled, the rug slips under me—then the floor is swiped away entirely. I land on my bottom, hard, and the pains that shoot up my back like ice-needles come quickly.

With a groan, I squint up at the one I ran into.

A scowl settles on my face.

Oliver slides his hand along his jaw, as if to heal it, to soothe the bruise that might bloom on his chin. “Watch where you’re going, Liv. You’re a walking liability.”

“Or you could watch where you’re standing, you fucking prat.” I push onto my knees and snatch for my books.

The throbbing in my head promises bruises to come.

Cradling my books to my chest, I stumble to my feet. “What are you doing up here anyway? Not releasing poltergeists by any chance?”

“What?” His face wrinkles with sincere, annoyed confusion. “Nevermind,” he flurries his hand, dismissive, “just fuck off. Go.”

I shoot my wicked brother a sneer before I shoulder past him.

Oliver just huffs and shoves me back. It’s a half-hearted push, and I don’t so much as stagger my footing.

I make it to the tower without another incident. But at the door, I pause—and draw in a steadying breath.

I smoothen my face with a false apology before I slip through the gap of the arched, ancient door, whose wooden boards are half-rotted by the cold, snowy air up here.

I’m glad I made a stop by the dorms after scarfing down a quick dinner, it gave me the chance to swap over my cardigan for a thick, tight-hugging cashmere sweater, and it’s enough to fight off any cold chills from prickling my skin.

Still, my breath clouds at my mouth and tickles my nose a faint pinkish hue.

Up here in the tower, the cold is a constant battle—but in the dead of winter, it’s a fucking war, and no amount of sweaters will save me from the colds and coughs we’re plagued with.

I slip into the classroom and lift my gaze up to the roof.

A glass dome serves as our star-friendly ceiling.

Tonight, the stars are impossible to see through the thick clouds. So I know we will be studying the theory, not having one of my favourite lessons, those lovely ones where we lie on our backs, wrapped in blankets, hot copper mugs that steam with teas and cocoa, and we watch the twinkling stars dance in the skies.

I kick the door shut behind me.

At the head of the class, where the chalkboard is freshly wiped in swirls, and stacks of star-maps are balanced on the desk, Master Milton slumps in his chair.

Can’t shake what Courtney once said about him, ages back in our second year maybe:

‘ Looks like a lumberjack stumbled into a mastership .’

She wasn’t wrong then, and not now. I’m certain that under the black robes of a master, he wears flannel and jeans.

Master Milton throws me a questioning look through the bushiness of his beard and ungroomed brows.

In answer, I dip my head. “Sorry, sir. There’s a poltergeist haunting the fifth floor. I had to take the long way.”

His tied-up brown hair bobs with the single nod he gives.

He accepts my excuse for tardiness. Then he turns his cheek to me and looks to the robed teacher who’s perched on the edge of the desk.

Dark brown hair with a caramel glisten to it, eyes like pools of rich, swirling chocolate, a deep honeyed complexion—

And a small smile dancing on his lips.

At the sight of Eric Harling, in teacher robes, leaning on the edge of the master’s desk, at the front of the class, it strikes me still for a heartbeat.

A flutter of surprise slackens my face.

It’s a quick heartbeat, and I chide myself for forgetting all about Eric, about his apprenticeship in this class.

I mumble another ‘sorry’ under my breath as I rush to the empty seat beside Courtney. Gaze down, I drop into the wooden chair and dump my books on the table.

The stop at my dorm room means I have only a single pencil, the tome for the lesson, and a notebook that’s already crinkled and warped.

Courtney spares me a cold side-glance, no doubt for my tardiness, but it’s a look that I ignore as I squirm in the hard, wooden seat. Would it kill the school to invest in some cushions?

Eric presses his hand to his thigh. “Open your workbooks to page fifty-four. We’ll be starting with predictions written by the stars.”

A curious murmur crawls over the dozen students. It’s not a response to the lesson, of fortune telling via the skies, but that we all recognise him. He is one of us. A senior.

But he addresses the class as a teacher would.

It does feel a little odd to have him leading the charge of our lesson today. But I’m not complaining, I don’t mind the sight of him in black robes, unfastened enough that I can make out the white of his starched shirt, the gloss of his leather belt, and—by the angle he sits at—a seriously noticeable bulge.

I blink on my own thoughts.

And as though Eric can read them, hear them whisper in his own mind, he glances at me, and a flush of heat burns my cheeks.

I flick through the leather-bound book to the page fifty-four, then flatten it out. Sweeping up my pencil, I dig my elbow into the wooden desk and rest my chin on the heel of my palm.

I risk another glance at Eric.

Patiently, but with a quiet sense of authority, his gaze drifts over the class.

I swear it lingers on me for a moment, and there’s the faintest tug of his lips, as if daring to smile, but I blink and it’s over, his attention has wandered, and it’s as though it didn’t happen at all.

Maybe it didn’t.

Maybe I imagined it.

James leans in from the seat beside me with a psst .

I twist around in my seat.

He pushes the bridge of his thick black rimmed glasses up the shine of his nose. The pinch of worry creases his dull eyes.

“Is there really a poltergeist?” he whispers.

I manage the slightest of nods. “Wandering the corridors around the fifth-floor bathrooms.”

James sinks into his chair. The pallor of his face is as ghostly and grey as the snow forming outside, sticking for a moment before it sludges.

In his sixth year, he was thrown into the flooded basement under the East Quarter. And trying to find a way out, he opened the wrong door. The door to the wrong closet.

Poltergeist got him.

He still has the scar down his arm. Takes years of daily ointments for the scars to vanish.

I turn back to face the front of the class just as Eric waves his hand and mutters a chant under his breath. In his grip, the brass tone of a coined pentacle flickers with light. Not unlike the enchanted one I have for the veils, but his one is for channelling.

Most witches will use pentacles to channel magic. Eric uses his to shudder movements through the metal fixtures above.

I watch as sculptures of moons and stars and planets swivel around the glass ceiling.

Arms folded over his beefy chest, Master Milton stays slumped in his leather and button-tufted chair, observing.

A constellation settles above Eric, one I don’t recognize, and he lowers his hand. “Aquila is placed on the celestial equator—”

Boringgggg.

Already, I’m losing interest. Not even with the hot, new teacher can I hold attention for another moment.

My mind drifts to the pasty-white stain on my plaid skirt.

Worst part about the academy?

No personal attendants. No maids, no footmen, no imps. So no chance of removing the forever-gum stain on my own.

I lean forward in the chair and take my pencil to the notebook. If I write my name, at least I’m sort of responding in class. So I do that.

The theory isn’t my favourite. Never is.

I take the class, as I take most, to appease Father, to meet my requirements for graduation, and—my favourite—for the lessons where we sprawl out on cushions and read the stars.

But those lessons come only on the nights that the clouds fade away.

The rest is theory.

Like this one.

I tune in and out of the lesson.

The two hours are slow to pass.

Courtney scribbles down notes the whole time. She doesn’t even pause to stretch out her fingers or flex her wrist.

I get second-hand finger cramps on her behalf.

James doesn’t stop fidgeting behind me. I hear the constant rat-ta-ta-ta of his pen smacking his notebook; the constant shift of his trouser leg as he bobs his knee nervously.

I have half a mind to kick his chair out from under him, he’s driving me mad. I shouldn’t have said anything about the poltergeist.

I chance a look at the desk over, on the other side of the classroom. In the chair furthest from me, Landon is passed out, slumped, his mouth parted.

I narrow my gaze on him for a beat. Releasing poltergeists into the school corridors must really take it out of him.

Beside him, Serena flicks through the glossy pages of a magazine that she has tucked under the table and flat on her lap.

I frown at it.

A travel magazine, full of colourful festivals and stone-white sands, and I suppose she’s already counting down the days until the aristos take flight for our annual holidays and gatherings and, I dread it , traditions.

Serena and I are among this year’s debutantes. Engaged or not, we must be introduced by tradition. But that isn’t until the New Year, so I have six months to avoid thinking about it.

I like to face my problems at the absolute last moment. And then try and flee.

It hasn’t worked out well for me.

I turn my cheek to her and try to focus on Eric’s babblings. But it’s late, and I am tired, my stomach full, and those two combined threaten to lull me into a slumber.

Star Theory is one of those fewer lessons that take place out of the ordinary hours of school. Supper will be happening in the mess hall now, the meal after dinner, snacks and sandwiches and treats, teas and hot chocolates, and a snoozed peace to the hall. But here we are, calculating predictions based on the placements and the alignments of the stars in the Aquila constellation.

I spend the lesson thinking about supper and if I’ll make it down to the mess hall in time. Sometimes the doors will shut once the buffet is cleared, sometimes it’s open later, all the way to midnight.

Tonight, after class is dismissed, I find that the doors are open—and I am a tad greedy on the treats at the buffet.

My excitement is quick to abandon me.

Slouching over my tray, I prod my spoon into the gooey custard that has lumped and has a flimsy layer of skin stretched over it.

Supper has been out in the buffet too long. Hours too long. And so my gingernut biscuits are stale, and my tea is over-brewed, and the banana slice is too sweaty.

I make a face before I let my spoon clatter to the table.

James is dull dining company this evening, like he is most evenings. Across the round table from me, he just outlines the ghastly, stretched appearance of a poltergeist onto the thick page of his sketchbook.

I spare him a withering look that he doesn’t notice.

Courtney is droning on about predictions, and how her mother’s line must carry dormant witchblood that awakened in her and her brother, since her mother can always tell what roads to avoid before a truck overturns, and that’s not terribly unlike Star Theory—

And I just tune it all out.

Krums have been claiming witchhood since the dawn of time, but have waged a war upon it, too.

It’s all so tedious, but perhaps I’m simply in a mood because my custard is cold and lumpy.

To pretend Courtney has my attention, I hum every so often, spare a nod or two, and ignore my supper entirely.

My gaze wanders to the long table at the far end of the hall.

Most of the faculty have eaten and gone already. Now, it’s just Eric, deep in conversation with his advisor, Master Milton.

I think I stare for a while, because when I do blink out of my daze back to my surroundings, Courtney isn’t rambling on anymore. She’s got her nose buried in an atlas that her tray has been pushed aside for.

My shoulders jerk as a sudden shout splits the hall.

I throw a glare over at the table, on the other side of the mess hall, and more glares follow from the few students still hanging around.

Oliver has his arms in the air, hands fisted, a cheer of triumph. The shout came from him.

I guess he just won whatever card game is splayed out over the table. His faceless cards sparkle with gold dust and, before he drops his hands back down, he smacks them together in a too-aggressive clap.

Landon scoffs and tosses a few coins. They hit the table with a clatter, and the moment they do, the cards start to shuffle themselves.

Serena has her cheek turned to the game. She smiles around gentle spoken words to Asta beside her.

With a sigh, I’m about to look away, to maybe grab my things and leave the too-boisterous mess hall, before glass cuts my gaze.

I flicker my stare to the light blue eyes fixed on me.

My heart drops to my gut.

Dray is looking right at me.

Our gazes lock.

His jaw flexes.

Whatever I’ve done to piss him off is a mystery to me. It might be just that I’m here, alive, breathing.

Not that it matters.

Battle is headed my way regardless of the reason.

Anxiety is quick to pool in my tummy.

Time to get the fuck out of here.

I slide my elbow to Courtney. “Back to the dorm?”

“Hm?” is all the answer I get, and she turns a page on the atlas. So she noticed I wasn’t paying the slightest speck of attention to her before, and now it’s time for my punishment. Silent treatment. How juvenile.

I’m hardly in the mood for it tonight.

I reach for the books settled on the seat over. But as my fingers graze the spines, I hear the subdued sound of snickers and scoffs.

The hairs prickle all over my body.

I know that sound.

I recognise choked laughter—and what it means.

My gaze swerves up. I stare, wild-eyed, at the table of Snakes.

Dray’s face has darkened, like his mood, and the clench of his jaw has tightened, but he isn’t looking at me.

He is looking above me.

Slowly, I lift my chin and trace his attention up.

Just inches from my head, a tray hovers over the table. It floats, and with each uneasy sway, the jelly substances on it wobbles. Gooey chocolate custard and butterscotch sauce and mushy apples.

The tray isn’t meant for me.

I know that because it’s moving past me, over my head, and right for Courtney in the chair beside mine.

I lunge for her.

My hands smack her square in the chest, and she’s thrown off her seat. Her chair topples with her a split second before the tray comes clattering down.

It knocks off the edge of the table, flipping around, and sprays the dessert sauce and goo all over.

James falls back.

My legs tangle on my own chair, and I slam down on the wooden floorboards, my hip and elbow taking most of the hit.

I wince, sharp, through my teeth.

And rainfall, a storm of applesauce and custard and butterscotch syrup, it all splatters.

Droplets smack me on the cheek, strike at my ponytail, and I feel the drizzle of warm sludgy sauce on my thigh.

I let my eyes shut for a moment, draw in a deep breath that floods my lungs. My nostrils flare around the breath.

I’m not covered in the slop.

I hold onto that thought.

It keeps me sane as, slowly, I open my eyes.

Muttering curses under my breath, I push up onto my knees and look over at Courtney.

She’s clean, save for a few drops. That sags my shoulders with relief. And, with a glance at James, the relief is stronger, because he is clean, except a few droplets on his hands that I think he used to shield his face.

Faintly, I’m aware that the sniggers have stopped. Abrupt, tense silence—a quiet outrage that might as well be a shout.

I swallow, thick. A nervous dash of my tongue over my lips.

Courtney turns her stunned look on me. Just a smear of sticky butterscotch on her chin, a bit of lumpy apple in her oily hair, but nothing a quick rinse won’t take care of.

The relief dissipates.

The hall is silent. So silent that, if someone dropped a fork, it would clatter in my bones.

I push up from the floor.

Everything in me is screaming to run. To avoid the stares spearing through me from the nest of Snakes.

That tray wasn’t meant for me.

It was headed for Courtney.

And I stopped it.

I just signed my own death warrant.

No one interferes with them. That’s a rule to live by at Bluestone.

But I interfered.

I will pay the price.

I grab my books and, without a backwards glance, not at Eric, not at my brother or Dray, I scurry my ass out of the hall.

James and Courtney are hot on my heels.

They have the right idea, the smart one. Get back to the dorms before whatever that slight prank was escalates.

Foolish us.

There is no escape.