Chapter 17

17

Ifound myself struggling to catch up to the rest of the class, scrambling to stand on the ice because I knew if I slipped, I was out. Just when I thought I had the hang of things, the class load shifted entirely for the first half of the new semester.

Labs started as soon as fall break ended. Each class I had now dealt with a different type of magic, with hands-on work being the emphasis of this portion of the semester. Quite a difference from the study I’d grown accustomed to.

Thank God. I wasn’t sure how much longer I could have dealt with the book work. My eyes were practically bleeding.

That was probably the way the staff wanted things to work. Their watchful gazes were everywhere, constantly, waiting for us to mess up, waiting for an excuse to take our points away.

I tried to look at things a little differently after my last talk with Melia, shifting focus to remind myself about how the professors didn’t want us to succeed. They wanted us to be strong. They wanted the best people to move on to the next level, and the next level, with a spot in Faerie being the ultimate goal.

Paranoid, I peeled an orange for breakfast, not trusting anything else the chef made, the garlic demon. I’d never used magic before. I knew nothing about magic. Could I even do this?

Barbara had told me I’d broken through her wards, something I didn’t remember doing. Was it magic?

Melia sat down next to me, her plate filled and a grin on her face. “Are you excited to start your practical studies?” she asked me.

I tried to nod and nearly choked on my orange. “Sure,” I said with a groan. “Hey Meli, does magic come naturally to everyone? What I mean to say is, I’ve never had much of a chance to practice it. Does every half-breed have a kind of natural proficiency when it comes to magic?”

“Well…” Melia trailed off, her gaze distant. “For some people I suppose it comes more naturally than to others. I’m not sure about the same level for every half-breed. I think sometimes it depends on your own talents, and for others it takes hard work. I’ve never seen anyone completely fail at this portion of their curriculum.” She paused, then gestured with her fork. “I take it back. My second year, I saw a first-year boy completely fail to produce any kind of magic. They got rid of him really quickly. But I think he was half-Fae, half-troll or something. Maybe his two parentages canceled each other out.”

“I wonder how it will work for me,” I muttered, popping another orange segment into my mouth.

“You’ve never used magic?”

“Not once.”

“I wouldn’t worry too much. You’ll get your chance to practice. And practice and practice and practice. You’ll end up using so much magic you’ll dream about it at night,” she told me.

In the afternoon I sat down at a long table for my first Divination class.

Things didn’t feel right at the academy today. Maybe it was my imagination but the air was filled with pressure despite the empty halls, so many students given the boot and sent home after the first culling. I’d gotten used to the low-lying energy of all those Fae singing in my veins as I navigated the strange world of academia, but I couldn’t shake the sense that there were things going on here I still didn’t understand.

An undercurrent I could not put my finger on.

“Attention, students! Please, eyes up here. Pay attention.” The professor snapped her fingers to get all eyes on her. She stood taller than most of the boys in the class, her back ramrod-straight and hair falling in a gleaming trail of slick fire down her back. She’d emphasized her almond eyes with black liner bringing out the curved shape, her pupils mere slits like a cat’s eye.

This wasn’t the flighty hippy I’d expected when I heard the word divination. I expected the classic wild-haired, gaudily dressed gypsy who spoke in a high whisper and communed with spirits.

Not hard-ass Professor Marsh with her porn-star stiletto heels.

“Students, take your places, sit your rears down on the cushions, and take out your tarot cards.” Marsh tapped the desk in front of her with her own deck. “These are brand new, gifted to you by me. Touched by no other hands than your own so they get a feel for your energy and yours alone. Make sure to keep it that way.”

I found a spot down the table from Mike and Roman, shooting them both a smile and thankful for the familiar faces. Seeing Mike soothed my heart. It was a reminder. There were still bright spots in the world, and my yearning to do well here, my yearning for freedom, did not have to push me over the edge of stress.

“Are you ready for this?” Mike asked me out of the corner of his mouth.

Had he saved a seat for me, knowing we’d have this class together? I liked to think so.

I sat down cross-legged on the red velvet cushion at his side, letting my bag drop with a clunk. “No,” I answered easily. “I don’t think I have any magic.”

“Every Fae has magic,” he insisted with a chuckle. “You just have to know how to harness the power.”

So he said. I wasn’t sure I believed him.

It became painfully evident in our first few weeks of Divination: I had no natural talent and couldn’t divine to save my life. Yet despite my shortcomings, I actually liked the class. I appreciated the way Marsh took her students in hand and didn’t tolerate any bullshit. She also didn’t play favorites.

Thank goodness. I’d had more than enough of Hoarfrost, even though I only saw him once a week. Still, she gave me a weird feeling whenever she stared at me. I couldn’t explain it, but she felt familiar to me, like a friend I’d fallen out of contact with.

Almost like…like pack.

Ridiculous, because shifters were not allowed at the school, much less allowed to teach.

She didn’t lecture me about the terrible way I read tea leaves, or how my tarot cards always flew out of my hands and onto the floor. She didn’t lecture when I spent more time staring at Mike than I did on my studies. More points in her favor.

Later, my footsteps echoed through the dorm room, painfully empty since a bunch of my fellow female half-humans had been sent home after the first test.

The first purge had not been good to my kind.

Somehow, I’d managed to make it through, and part of me still couldn’t believe it. Like my body refused to relax because it had become so used to living in a constant state of anxiety. My muscles were tense and my back ached from keeping it straight.

I’d no sooner drawn my covers over my head than a screech filled the room. I bolted upright, heart ready to leap out of my throat. A red light descended from the ceiling. A strange alarm.

“Fire!”

The call came from my left and though I didn’t smell smoke, I got the hell out of there. The rest of my dorm mates scrambled out of the room and I followed, keeping a blanket over my head as we walked outside. I didn’t need to risk breaking my spell. A full moon and no clouds meant a death sentence if I let even a single shaft of moonlight touch my skin.

Students milled on the back lawn staring up at one of the tower rooms and the trailing smoke curling from one of the windows.

“There you are! I’ve been looking for you.”

I moved toward Melia’s familiar voice in a daze. “What’s going on?”

“I’m not sure. Fire alarm, I think. I was having the best dream about a guy named John in my scroll-making class…” Melia clutched at her pajamas. “Look at you, with your blanket. Good idea! Scoot over and let me in.” She grabbed the corner of the blanket and tugged it open to step in beside me. “It’s a little chilly tonight, isn’t it?”

I barely had time to react. “Wait, what are you doing?”

“I’m chilly and you’re the smarty-pants with the blanket. See? There’s enough room for both of us. Good thinking, girl.”

We stood together under the blanket, the heat of her body seeping into me. I was too surprised to think about the implications of the movement. But I felt the moonlight on me when she tugged the blanket the wrong way. The same thing I’d tried desperately to avoid by using the blanket in the first place.

Dammit, Meli.

It wasn’t her fault. She didn’t know. But as the cold feeling of my spell breaking washed me with shards of ice, I gritted my teeth. Three bottles wasted. Wasted. For no good reason. I kept my head ducked down to avoid people staring at me, hoping they would be too concerned with the smoke to look around.

“Do you think someone pulled the alarm on purpose, after they set the fire? Or do you think it was an accident?” Melia asked, staring around at the rest of the students gathering on the lawn.

She stood close enough to notice how I tensed. But she said nothing. The shifter in me rose immediately in response to the full moon overhead. My eyesight sharpened, the nightscape coming to life in startling clarity. Nostrils flaring, I drew in her scent, a combination of cinnamon and honeysuckle belonging uniquely to Melia.

Then my focus moved to the woods. What I wouldn’t give to let my wolf have her freedom, to feel the way my bones shifted and my muscles sang, running on all fours—

“Tavi? Are you listening to me?”

I tried to tune in and push the wave of feeling aside, still huddling under the blanket. “Who would be awake at this hour? Does this kind of thing happen often?”

Melia shook her head. “No, not really. The upperclassmen know better than to mess with those kinds of things. If they got caught, their points would be gonzo and it would mean automatic expulsion. No one is willing to risk it when they’re so close to graduation next semester. You know?”

Keep her talking, I told myself. Keep her distracted before she realized how my scent changed. How the small hairs on the back of my neck rose and my energy signature shifted into something other than human.

Would she be able to know if she looked at me?

It took another twenty minutes before the students were allowed to return to the building. A police car swung up the circular drive and parked in front of the Castle entrance. I didn’t pay it much mind, needing to get back inside. I kept the blanket over my head while I said goodnight to Melia, launching myself through the doors to my dorm and climbing the ladder like a spider monkey.

Another vial down, I thought with disgust. What was wrong with me? I needed to be more vigilant. I shouldn’t have put myself in this position.

I was smarter, wasn’t I?

Yeah, I’m not so sure.

My internal monologue sounded sassy and I didn’t appreciate the judgment.

“Oh my God, did you hear that the cops are here?”

The whispered statement echoed back to me and I shook my head, not wanting to eavesdrop.

“Wait a minute, someone called the cops?”

“It’s bad. I heard they found something.”

“What did they find?”

“Another body.”