Fantastic Schools: Volume One
Author: L. Jagi Lamplighter; Christopher G. Nuttall; Mel Lee Newman; Emily Martha Sorensen; Thomas K. Carpenter; Roger D. Strahan; Aaron van Treeck; Steven G. Johnson; G. Scott Huggins; Denton Salle; Erin N. H. Furby
Date: 2020-05-26 07:00:00+00:00
Description: Have you ever wanted to go to magic school? To cast spells and brew potions and fly on broomsticks and--perhaps--battle threats both common and supernatural? Come with us into worlds of magic, where students become magicians and teachers do everything in their power to ensure the kids survive long enough to graduate. Welcome to ... Fantastic Schools. Follow a girl trying desperately to find her place in a school of dark magic, a band of witches desperate to prove they can be as good as the wizards, a school of magical monsters standing between the evil one and ultimate power, a businesswoman d
Publisher: Wisecraft Publishing
Rights: Copyright 2020 . All rights reserved.

Fantastic Schools

Volume 2

Edited by Christopher G. Nuttall
and L. Jagi Lamplighter

Contents

Fantastic Schools: Why Magic

Just Another Job

Too Good to be True

Sorcery’s Preschool

Going Home

The Monster of Mordwin

The Most Secret Magic of All

In Our Father’s Hand

A Polite Request from a Tough Soldier

Lab Day

The Fox and the Snake

Nannette’s Tale

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Epilogue

Most Likely to Succeed

Rachel Griffin and the Missing Laundry

Halloween Dance

A Word from Chris Nuttall

About the Editors

Copyright

Wisecraft Publishing

Copyright © 2020 by Christopher G. Nuttall and L. Jagi Lamplighter

All rights reserved. No part of the content of this book may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database retrieval system, or copied by any technology yet to be developed without the prior written permission of the author. You may not circulate this book in any format.

ISBN: 978-1-953739-00-1

ASIN: number here

Edited by: Christopher G. Nuttall and L. Jagi Lamplighter

Cover art by: Brad Fraunfelter

Copyright Notices

“Just Another Job” by J.F. Posthumus. Copyright © 2020 by J.F. Posthumus

“Too Good to be True” by Christine Amsden. Copyright © 2020 by Christine Amsden

“Sorcery’s Preschool” by James Pyles. Copyright © 2020 by James Pyles

“Going Home” by Becky R. Jones. Copyright © 2020 by Becky R. Jones

“Monster of Mordwin” by Morgon Newquist. Copyright © 2020 Morgon Newquist

“The Most Secret Magic of All” by Tom Anderson. Copyright © 2020 by Tom Anderson

“In Our Father’s Hand” by Patrick Lauser. Copyright © 2020 by Patrick Lauser

“A Polite Request from a Tough Soldier” by James Odell. Copyright © 2020 by James Odell

“Lab Day” by Misha Burnett. Copyright © 2020 by Misha Burnett

“The Fox and the Snake” by Audrey Andrews. Copyright © 2020 by Audrey Andrews

“Nanette’s Tale” by Christopher G. Nuttall. Copyright © 2020 by Christopher G. Nuttall

“Most Likely to Succeed” by Paul A. Piatt. Copyright © 2020 by Paul A. Piatt

“Rachel Griffin and the Missing Laundry” by L. Jagi Lamplighter. Copyright © 2020 by L. Jagi Lamplighter

“Halloween Dance” by David Breitenbeck. Copyright © 2020 by David Breitenbeck

Fantastic Schools: Why Magic

A Note from the Editor

Sooner or later, every lover of fantasy faces the same question: “Why do you read (or write) about magic? Why not something more realistic like petty thievery or insurance fraud?

“After all, isn’t fantasy nothing but escapism?”

Ah, escapism.

Is that all we are doing when we read? Running away from the ills of everyday life by burying our nose in a book? Is all our reading pleasure only a form of skirting chores?

Two of my favorite fantasy writers have weighed in upon this subject. The first was J. R. R. Tolkien. With The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien created one of the most rich and varied magical worlds ever devised. His books have inspired more than one generation of fantasy stories. He wrote about this topic in his excellent essay On Fairy Stories.

His view on the topic was summed up by author Ursula LeGuin—whose Wizard of Earthsea remains one of my all-time favorite books and contains one of the earliest schools of magic (Roke). In The Language of the Night: Essays on Fantasy and Science Fiction, Le Guin wrote:

“If it’s worth answering, the best answer is given by Tolkien, author, critic, and scholar. Yes, he said, fantasy is escapist, and that is its glory. If a soldier is imprisoned by the enemy, don’t we consider it his duty to escape? The moneylenders, the knownothings, the authoritarians have us all in prison; if we value the freedom of the mind and soul, if we’re partisans of liberty, then it’s our plain duty to escape, and to take as many people with us as we can.”

Another of my favorite writers, Lloyd Alexander, the author of The Chronicles of Prydain, takes it even a step farther. Alexander wrote: “Fantasy is hardly an escape from reality. It’s a way of understanding it.”

For me, I do not believe fantasy is escapism at all. Or rather, I do not believe it is only escapism. For some, it might serve that purpose. Sometimes life is hard and a break from it can make it easier to face.

But that is not why I read stories of enchantment and wonder.

People talk about the horrors of real life, but, truly, real life is also filled with wonders. Talk to nearly any human being, and you will find that something astonishing has happened in their life, from an outright miracle—such as a spontaneous healing where none was expected—to the every day kind of miracle that is so enormous, even though it is common, that we cannot even put it into words—such as the birth of babies or the joy of a bride.

And yet, when we are plodding along, day by day, in our ordinary lives, we tend to forget that wonder. It is as if a dark miasma of cares wraps around us and smothers out all memory of hope or better things.

Reading about magic might help some escape from the doldrums of real life, but for me, and I believe for some others as well, a story of magical enchantment does just the opposite.

It reminds me of how much more life has to offer.

When I read of children flying on brooms, magical beasts, talking cats, it is as if a fresh breeze has suddenly blown through the room, a breeze that carries the scent of the lands beyond the Fields We Know. By lifting our heads and breathing in that breeze, we can remind ourselves that there is so much more.

We can remind ourselves of miracles.

Reading about magic schools gives me hope. It gives me a sense that something marvelous might be around the corner. It reminds me that I do not need to settle for this present darkness but that I can struggle to achieve greater things. It whispers that the world might be a finer place, if only we did not give up hope.

Once, many years ago, my son, who was then a first grader, asked me, “Mom, why do you write fantasy?” I was a bit taken aback, but after stuttering, I replied, “Because it is filled with wonder—wonder, magic, and enchantment. Because when you write fantasy, you can write about anything.”

Why magic? For me, it is all about the wonder.

L. Jagi Lamplighter

Centreville, Virginia

Just Another Job

J.F. Posthumus

A substitute teacher for the Hogsback Public Schools, Harold Sylverson expected his assignment at Hogsback Creek Academy to be just another job. Robes and school uniforms? Those aren’t too unusual. An old historic building with no electricity? Well, he’s got solar portable chargers for his phone. This isn’t his first rodeo in an oddball place, after all.

But the students in his classroom are something of a completely different sort. Harold quickly discovers magic is real and he’s in charge of teaching World History to a group of magically inclined children!

What could possibly go wrong for someone without even a smidge of magical ability?

Just Another Job

The road leading to Hogsback Creek Academy left Harold very thankful to be able to park his car in the dirt lot to the left of the sprawling stone buildings. The twisty, turny roads that led to the school had multiple ninety-degree curves with steep ravines on one side the entire way. Several times, he’d looked over to see nothing but rocks, trees, and tiny black dots representing buildings. Even barely doing twenty miles an hour, his heart had lived in his throat for fear of missing a turn and plummeting over the side of the road.

How anyone managed to zip by him, Harold was still trying to figure out.

Drawing a deep, calming breath, he opened his car door and turned to his current assignment. Staring at the building, he felt his nerves calming as wonder replaced the fear.

Hogsback Creek Academy, itself, resembled some fancy castle complete with a carriage house, enormous greenhouse, and fields sprawling behind the structures as far as the eyes could see.

Who was he to argue? He was here to be a substitute teacher for the coming week. Seemed someone had come down with the flu or something, and he was needed to take over the World History class.

Admittedly, Harold was thoroughly intrigued by the design of this school building. He easily spotted some Italian Renaissance in the main building, alongside some German and French influences. The windows were clean. He squinted at them, despite the blinding sunlight. They appeared to be clean from top-to-bottom inside and out.

If that were the case, he’d have to remember to ask how they managed that feat.

The cry of a hawk pulled his gaze skyward, and he watched as a large raptor soared around a spire before vanishing into the structure.

Interesting, he thought. Perhaps the bird simply nested there? After all, in Virginia, falconry wasn’t a legal pastime.

Detaching the phone from his car charger, he frowned. No signal. That would make things a bit difficult. Not too surprising, though, considering how far into the middle of nowhere this place was located. He suspected, from the ups and downs of the road he’d taken, they were at the top of a mountain. Or close to it.

This wouldn’t be the first time he’d worked where cell signal was zilch. There were plenty of dead zones in the mountains of Virginia. Sometimes in areas you wouldn’t expect.

Mountains did tend to kill signals. Even five minutes from civilization, you could lose cell signal. It happened in the rural areas. One reason why landlines would never, entirely, die.

It was also why he made certain his phone had a large storage capacity. He kept his music selection updated and a few favorite movies downloaded. He never went anywhere unprepared for ‘rustic’ living. Portable chargers, tablets, a car charger, and even a solar-powered charger were all things he kept in his emergency pack.

After being sent to the middle of nowhere to teach some Boy Scouts how to build huts out of twigs and branches, along with the history behind how people lived during the 1600s, Harold never went anywhere without his solar-powered charger.

Not everyone was meant to be without technology, and Harold loved his phone.

Popping his car’s trunk, Harold grabbed a bulging backpack, suitcase, and his briefcase. Another two suitcases remained in the trunk. He slammed the trunk, pressed the lock on his key fob, and headed for the huge, wooden double doors that were more medieval in style than contemporary. Along with the stone, the wood was aged, weather-worn and ancient. The hinges were large, black, and wrought iron. Elegant. He’d seen them on castles and other Renaissance-era buildings.

He suspected they had been hand-crafted.

As he approached, the door to the right swung open. A tall, stern man stood in the doorway. Long, flaming red hair was pulled back into a ponytail before curling around his shoulders. His eyes were emerald green and were filled with confusion.

“Who are you?” the man asked, arms folded and hidden within the voluminous robes he wore.

“Harold Sylverson,” Harold said pleasantly. He offered a bright, friendly smile. At least, Harold hoped it was a bright, friendly smile. He felt rather confused, himself. “I’m the substitute for world history?”

“The… what?” the man repeated before taking a long moment to regard Harold’s clothing and accessories. He shrugged. “World history, eh? Come in, I’ll show you to your chambers. Whom are you… substituting for?”

“Thank you,” Harold said, trying to not sigh. “Mrs. Clarke.”

The man merely stared longer at Harold before turning and entering the building.

It was going to be one of those positions, Harold decided. Left hand didn’t know what the right hand was doing. But… how could this fellow not know he was the substitute? Did they not keep up with their fellow teachers?

“And your name, sir?” Harold asked, as he followed the man into the foyer.

“Olam Kram. Instructor of herbology,” he replied, not looking back at Harold.

“Ah. That’s an impressive greenhouse you have,” Harold said, staring at the grandeur around him.

“Thank you,” Kram replied, with something more akin to life finally entering the man’s voice. “It is my pride and joy.”

Harold nodded. Gave some sort of polite reply, but he didn’t remember what it was. He was too wrapped up in trying to absorb everything.

The interior was even more impressive than the exterior. He recognized a lot of antiques as they traversed the corridors. He could have sworn he witnessed a broom sweeping on its own along one side hallway. Another hallway had a bucket at one of the windows. There appeared to be a rag hanging on the window.

There was no possible way a rag could be cleaning a window by itself.

Harold would be damned if it didn’t appear that way, though. He hurried along behind Kram, hoping he was just imagining things.

The staircase resembled those used by servants in a typical castle. Winding, made of stone, Harold was dying to know the history behind this majestic building. The stones were cool to the touch. They were also smooth beneath his fingers. Curious.

Even more curious were the lit sconces lining the wall.

That’s when Harold realized he hadn’t seen any electrical outlets. No light switches. Nothing to even hint at electricity in the school. Yet, the building was a comfortable temperature.

Everyone knew castles were drafty. Anyone with a history degree was aware that tapestries were used to keep warmth inside the castle. It was a method to combat the cold dampness that could easily seep through the stone structures.

Yet, this place did not have that problem.

Finally, after ten minutes of walking up the winding staircase, Kram stepped onto a landing and opened a door. Harold followed him through into another hallway lined with doors. Small tables were scattered about the hallway, displaying vases of sweet-smelling flowers or delicate statues.

“These are your chambers,” Kram stated, opening the third door on the left.

Harold peered inside to find a small, if not comfortable, sitting room. To the right was a bedroom. Both rooms were fully furnished.

“Thank you. I’ll return later to unpack. Could you show me to my classroom?” Harold asked, dropping his suitcase on a chair.

“Oh. Uh, yes. Of course,” Kram managed to say.

Fifteen minutes later, Harlod stepped into a large room that reminded him more of a college classroom than anything remotely like a school.

The classroom was designed in a way that resembled a small auditorium, with enough descending rows of seats for at least one hundred students. At the bottom of the rows was a pedestal stage, large enough for any display, or even a small rock band to perform. There was no projection screen or any multimedia devices that Harold could see, only a desk that must have cost a fortune at an antique dealer’s showroom. That beauty sat to the left of the stage, with a matching chair. Harold found himself rushing down the center aisle to get a better look.

There was a bang, and Harold looked up in time to see the heavy wooden door shutting, leaving him in the room alone.

Sliding the backpack off his shoulders, Harold straightened his tie, made certain his button-up shirt was neat, and rolled his shoulders. The backpack did not go on the desk but rather the chair behind the desk. He did gently ease the briefcase onto the desk, flicking the metal tabs up, before opening it slowly. Almost reverently, he removed the gradebook, small box that held his prized fountain pens, and a pack of multi-colored pens. He removed a small pencil box, which held extra pencils, markers, a pair of small pencil sharpeners, and a pair of small scissors.

Opening the long, middle desk drawer, he found parchment paper, a quill, inkblot and bottle, and a tiny knife.

Harold frowned. Opening one of the drawers on the side of the desk, he found more items that went with learning calligraphy as used up to the 19th century. Perhaps this classroom had been used for something similar. Or perhaps that was part of the lessons taught by Mrs. Clarke, the teacher for whom he was substituting.

Shaking his head, he opened the bottom drawer, which held a dusty, leatherbound book. Removing the book, he slid all the parchments, quill, and other oddities into that drawer, closing it once everything was tucked away neatly.

Holding the book over the side of the desk, he brushed it off. The stirred dust sent him into a sneezing fit. Sniffling, he delved into an outer pocket of his backpack and opened a pack of tissues. Blowing his nose, he tucked the used tissue into a small ziplock bag before tucking it into an outer packet.

Carefully, he opened the book, and his dark brows nearly vanished into his hairline. The script was written in neat writing. It wasn’t the age of the paper, which in itself was impressive from his opinion, but rather the content.

Witches and wizards! He moved the backpack onto the floor and began devouring the words. So intent upon every word written by whoever had written this incredible telling of the history of magic, perceived by someone who believed themselves to be a magic user, he almost didn’t notice the students as they entered the room and took their seats.

Their movement pulled his attention back to his job.

Closing the book, he slid it into the top drawer, promising to read more later.

Standing, he squared his shoulders and moved from behind the desk until he stood at the podium.

“Good morning, class!” He greeted the students, ignoring the fact they all wore long robes with weird symbols on the lapels of the shirts that stuck out from the collars.

He was at a complete disadvantage, since no one had even given him a list of student names. As soon as this class was over, he needed to seek out the principal and discuss certain things with Mr. McMillan.

Only half the class replied with a ‘good morning’. Time to try again.

“I said ‘Good morning’! Come on, show some spirit here!”

The entire class spoke up, that time, though still only half was exuberant about it. At least, it was a start.

“I’m Mr. Sylverson. Your substitute for this week. Unfortunately, Ms. Clarke has taken ill and will be out for a while,” he said, keeping the smile plastered on his face. “Please take out your books. Since it seems she didn’t leave me a syllabus, someone will have to tell me what chapter you left off on.”

His words were met with confused faces and silence. A hand slowly, hesitantly rose into the air.

“Yes... what is your name?”

“I’m Emily. Emily Andrews,” the petite blonde said. “Everyone knows about Madame Clarke, Master Sylverson. She didn’t use a book for her class.”

“Oh.” That was not what he expected to hear. He sighed and turned around, pulling his backpack from the floor and dropping it on the chair. “Okay. What era were you in the middle of before she got sick?”

Emily gave him a smile that he did not trust. “We were learning about the Middle Ages. Castles, feudalism. That stuff.”

“Perfect!” He turned to his backpack and pulled a large binder from it. Flipping the binder open, he removed a stack of papers. Looking around the classroom, he frowned. This was going to be a bit more complicated than he’d originally expected. There were at least thirty students in the class. “You can pair up. This is a basic test for that era. If you guys pass it, we’ll move onto the next topic.”

He watched as all the students pulled out quills, ink bottles, and ink blots.

“No, no. We’re not using that stuff today. Pull out your pencils or pens.”

“Um… we don’t have those. We use quills, sir,” another student spoke up. A brown-haired boy with a round face, slightly-pointed ears, and blue eyes that glittered with mischief and humor.

Harold sighed. This was definitely going to be one of those positions. Where he had not been given the right information and the kids never came prepared.

Grabbing a large pack of pencils from his backpack, because he was always prepared, he added it to the stack of papers.

“The pencils will be returned at the end of class. One per student.”

He handed the pencils to the young man who’d spoken up and the papers to Emily.

“Please hand these out to your fellow students.”

Up close, he could tell the little symbols on their lapels were pins. Each one was a different symbol. The two students he chose both wore eagles. Glancing around, he spotted three other symbols: a dolphin, lion, and what looked like a lizard.

Weird, he thought as he returned to his podium. But whatever. Everything in this school was weird.

Within moments, the papers and pencils had been handed out. At least a third of the class was trying to hide grins as they all but caressed the pencil in their hands and the paper on their desks. The others were staring at the paper and pencil as though it were going to bite them or had resigned expressions.

“Now, if you all promise to be diligent and work together on this test, I’ll play music,” Harold stated, moving back to his desk. “Any preferences?”

“Classic rock!” someone shouted.

Harold turned, a grin threatening to spill across his face. “Your request…”

He pulled out his phone, attached a cable to a portable charger and began tapping the screen. The charger’s light sprang to life. Were those sighs of longing he heard behind him? No… impossible! He tapped the ‘play’ icon and Led Zepplin sprang from his speakers.

Heads began bobbing to the music. It took a total of three heartbeats for him to realize the same students who eagerly accepted the mundane pencil and paper were the ones now bobbing along to the music. Or perhaps ‘head banging’ was a more apt description.

It warmed his heart to see it. What puzzled him the most, were students who were trying to figure out how to hold the pencil. They stared at their classmates, wrapping their fingers around the wood and slowly making marks on the paper. The music, he could tell, was both foreign but intriguing to these children.

That song ended. The next began; and Harold was feeling worried about the other students. But they were slowly adapting to using the pencils.

Perhaps they were just messing with him? After all, who didn’t know how to hold a pencil?

Finally, one of the students slammed the pencil against the desk, pushing the paper off his desk. The paper flew away before floating to the floor. Some of the students, Harold noticed, exchanged wary gazes.

“Something wrong, young sir?” Harold asked, choosing a sort of title instead of a name he didn’t have yet.

“Yes. I don’t know why we have to use this thing?” the student all but yelled, holding up the pencil. “There is nothing wrong with a quill!”

“Quills are messy. The ink takes too long to dry, and I don’t like having black-smudged fingers. That is why,” Harold replied, leaning against the back of his chair.

The kid tossed his head, reminding Harold of a high-strung horse who didn’t want to do a task.

“I will not be subjected to this absurdity! I am a Westerford. I should not be forced to use such mundane and piddly instruments!”

“You will use such items in my class, young man,” Harold stated, rising from his chair. He tapped his phone, stopping the song, which caused a wave of groans. “If you do not sit, you will regret that outburst and your behavior.”

“What are you going to do? You’re not but a substitute! I’ll bet you don’t even know how this school works!”

“Very well. You will be doing a ten-page essay on the Crusades. Due tomorrow. Half of your grade will depend on that paper. It will be done using a pencil. You will include the technology, the impact the Crusades had, those involved with the Crusades, and the Knights Templar.”

Young Mister Westerford appeared as though he’d been struck by a bowling ball. His eyes were wide, his cheek twitched, and his mouth formed a perfect circle.

“You… you can’t… you can’t do that!” he stuttered.

“Can. Have. Did. Keep going and I’ll add pages,” Harold stated, keeping his gaze level with his student.

“That’s not fair!” another boy exclaimed, standing up beside him. “All we’ve ever used are quills! We don’t even know how to use that thing called… what’d you call it? A pen-sill?”

“A pencil, you moron,” another voice muttered.

Harold searched the class but couldn’t figure out who’d said it. Normally, he didn’t approve of name calling, of any sort, but in this case… it did seem rather fitting.

“It appears you’ve joined your friend in doing a ten-page essay, young man,” Harold stated. His eyes traveled over the classroom. “Since it appears you two are wearing the same pins, I’m going to presume you’re in the same group. If a third decides to stand up and argue, every student wearing that lizard pin will be doing a ten-page essay on the Crusades.”

A hand rose into the air.

“I hope you are not planning on joining them, miss,” Harold stated, voice hard.

“No, sir,” the young woman said cheerfully. She brushed back a strand of auburn hair. “They’re Houses. The pins? They represent Houses here at Hogsback. Each student is placed into a House. It’s basically a particular wing. If you like, some of us can stay behind and answer some of your questions?”

Houses? What the hell was this place? Harold wondered. He vaguely recalled that British boarding schools were organized in a manner that included the concept of Houses, but he had never come upon it in America. This place was getting stranger and stranger.

The young girl, though, sounded… hopeful? Her eyes were eager and drifted between him and his phone. Several of the other students were nodding, also.

“What’s your name, young lady?”

“Amber. Amber Tilley,” she replied.

“Very well. You and your classmates can remain behind. Provided your tests are finished.” He addressed the rest of the class. “Those who have finished, and are not remaining behind, may go after bringing forward the tests, complete with names at the top of the paper.”

Within minutes, students had turned in their papers, and most were scurrying from the room like rats deserting a sinking ship.

“You and your cohort may leave, young Westerford. Oh, and turn in your test. You will be graded on what you did and did not finish.”

The pair of students flushed red, picked up the pencil and paper, scribbled their names at the top before handing it to Harold. The moment it was out of their hands, they raced from the room.

Harold waited until the door shut behind the pair before turning to the dozen students who wore a variety of the pins. Each held the pencils as though they were lifelines.

“Who wants to start?” he asked, leaning against the podium.

“Could you, maybe, play more of that music while we talk?” asked one of the girls. Long black hair fell in a smooth sheet to her waist. She lowered thick, full lashes, and Harold sighed.

He knew her type. Pretty, petite, with exotic features? He’d seen that in plenty of schools. There was a reason it was a trope in movies for the exotic-looking girls to get all the boys mooning over them.

She also reminded him of his niece at that age. His niece who turned into a beautiful, successful, and happily married woman. Shrugging, he lowered the volume before hitting the play button. He’d been a sucker for his niece, too.

“Okay. Now that I’ve kept my end of that little request, who wants to start?”

“Let me start at the beginning,” Emily said. The others nodded at her, and she continued. “Hogsback is a school for magecraft. Witches, wizards, sorcery… anything spell-based. Potions, animal care, summoning of all sorts. It’s taught here. Most are mage-born. But some of us, those here, are born to mundanes. Andy, there, his mom is an elf. Jackson? His dad was fae.”

Harold glanced around the group. The two boys had their hands up. It wasn’t hard to figure out who was who. Andy had pointed ears. His skin was honey gold, and his eyes were an unearthly green. Jackson was slender with silvery-blonde hair cut short. His pale white skin was nearly translucent, even in the dim lighting of the room. His ears weren’t tapered, but they weren’t entirely human, either. Nor were his brilliant silver eyes.

“Magic? Are you serious?” Harold asked, trying to wrap his brain around what he’d just been told. “Mage-born? Mundane?”

Emily replied to his latter pair of questions “Mage-born means magically gifted parents. Mundane refer to non-magical folk.”

“Yup. We can all do magic here. Some of us are full-blooded ‘other’. Like werewolves, fae, elves, a couple half-elves,” Jackson said. His voice was musical, and he practically sang the words.

“Hogsback welcomes pretty much anything not purely mundane. Anyone who can do magic is allowed entrance, if you can pass the aptitude tests,” Andy added. He shrugged. “It’s either here or being sent off up North.”

“Or out West,” another girl said. She shook her head. “The Houses are divided up by what element you’re most connected with, too. So the students in each house aren’t all good or bad.”

“Though the House of Fire tends to be very hot-headed. No pun intended. Wesley is a pain in the ass. A bully to everyone who isn’t rich and from a mage-born family,” another boy added.

“Also thinks he’s a gift to the girls here,” Emily muttered.

“Let’s go back to the magic thing. You mean actual magic. The twitch-your-nose-and-things-go-poof magic?” Harold asked.

The students laughed.

“No, sir. Not like those old TV shows,” Emily said. “More like the new stuff. Not that words and gestures are always needed. And wands? They’re great for storing spells, but other than that? They’re nothing more than a crutch. A good witch, wizard, or whatever should never depend upon a crutch.”

“Or have to say words to a spell. You may need to do magic when noise could get you into trouble,” Amber said. It sounded like a rule or quote.

“Or fancy gestures. You have to learn to visualize the spell. To say it silently,” Jackson said. He sighed. “It’s easier said than done, to be honest.”

“I’m Isabella.” The black-haired girl with Asian-like features said, introducing herself. “Magic is very real, sir. Let me show you.”

She held her hand out. Fire leapt to life in the palm of her hand. Bringing up her other hand, she cupped them together and formed a fireball. It grew larger and larger the further she moved her hands apart, until it was the size of a large wiffle ball.

“You can touch it,” she said.

Harold shook his head. This was not happening. He’d been brained. Or maybe he’d driven over the side of the cliff, and this was some demented version of Hell? Magic was not real. Everyone knew magic wasn’t real.

Yet… that fireball looked very real.

“Thanks, but I’m going to pass.”

Isabella shrugged, a friendly smile on her face. She flattened her hands, until the fireball was gone. She brushed her hands together, as though dusting them off.

The door to the classroom opened, and another adult stood in the threshold, backlit by the hallway. They stepped into the room, and Harold could tell it was a man. From how the students were suddenly uneasy, he suspected this was Mr. McMillan.

“I believe you students have classes to be at,” the imposing figure said in a pleasant voice. Almost teasing. He moved with ease down the stairs, his robes sweeping the floor.

Harold was impressed.

So that was how the royals of old moved down stairs without tripping, he thought in awe. Just the barest of kicks to the front of the garments before stepping down. Kick, step, repeat. Fascinating.

“Yes, sir,” all the students said. They grabbed their supplies and hurried off, taking a moment to wave to Harold before departing the room.

“I am the headmaster here. Lord McMillan,” he said, the corners of his lips turning up in a tiny resemblance of a smile.

Lord McMillan had a head full of black curly hair with auburn highlights. His eyes were a rich brown that seared through Harold. A shiver danced down Harold’s spine at the power this man commanded. His features were chiseled, and Harold believed they would be better suited on a military man in peak performance than the principal to a school.

An aristocrat to the core, Harold thought.

One with a purely American accent, too.

“Young Weasley said you gave him a ten-page essay to write,” McMillan stated, moving around the classroom. He picked up a discarded pencil that one of the students had dropped. The lips twitched, and the smile grew slightly. “He believed I would change your decree.”

Decree? Headmaster instead of principal? Yep. This was Hell. A strange Hell, but oddly appropriate for him, Harold thought.

“I may suggest that sort of thing to the other instructors to dole out when students misbehave in their classrooms. It had a curious effect on the students.” McMillan turned, his fingers turning the pencil over and over.

Harold wondered if it was a nervous habit. But what did this man have to be nervous about?

“How did you get here?” McMillan suddenly asked. “How did you get by the wards?”

“I drove up,” Harold replied simply. “Wards? You mean security systems?”

“Curious. Only those with magical blood in them can see this place. What are you?”

“I am a world history teacher, part-time, for the Hogsback County School System. I was given this address and told you needed a substitute teacher. My name is Harold Sylverson, and I suspect I’ve died and gone to Hell.”

McMillan laughed. He laughed until tears ran down his cheeks. Shaking his head, he wiped his eyes with the sleeves of his robe. A very human behavior in Harold’s opinion.

“My dear sir, you are not dead. Nor have you gone to Hell. Well, no more than any other school is Hell. You are welcome to stay here, though I believe you’ll need an intense tour of this school and introduction to how things are done around here.” Headmaster McMillan held out his left hand, his right still holding the pencil. “Welcome to Hogsback Creek Academy, School of Magecraft, Harold Sylverson. Home to the Fighting Bumblebee, witches and wizards. If your week goes well, maybe we can convince you to remain.”

Harold’s smile trembled a bit before steadying. Could he even survive this job? Did he want to continue or run away? Did he want to take that road back down the mountain the same day he drove up?

Not really. Surely the students couldn’t be that bad… could they?

“Thank you, sir,” Harold replied. “I think I need to make sure I can survive the day’s classes before I consider an extended stay, though. Make sure I can sleep in my bed without fearing some angry kid is going to turn me into a toad.”

McMillan snickered and shook his head. “No, no. Nothing like that would happen to you.”

“What did happen to Ms. Clarke?” Harold asked. His eyes narrowed on the headmaster. “What did she teach? Why don’t I have a syllabus? Or even a list of students’ names?” He paused before all but demanding, “And why is there no electricity here?”

“One question at a time, Harold,” McMillan said, amusement filling every feature. “Madame Clarke grew ill with griffin flu. Poor thing angered a griffin on a field trip, and it bit her. Though it is easily healed, the body must rest, and she requires constant observation to keep her from trying to fly.” He shook his head, though the laughter never left his eyes. “One should never anger a griffin.”

Harold stared at the headmaster in dumbfounded disbelief. “A… griffin bit her? On a field trip?”

“Oh, yes. Thankfully, none of the students were injured or bit. That could’ve been rather difficult. Ever try to keep a teen from flying?”

“No, I can’t say that I have,” Harold replied, slowly shaking his head back and forth.

“It’s very difficult, I assure you. But, no matter. You would need more time to adjust before being allowed to request field trips and such.”

“Uh huh.”

McMillan smiled brilliant, revealing perfect white teeth. “As to your second question, Madame Clarke taught the history of witchcraft and magickry throughout the world. Since you don’t have that knowledge, please continue with teaching our students world history. It would prove beneficial to the students who have only known the magical world.” He paused and stared at the windows over Harold’s shoulder. “Perhaps I should consider adding more mundane classes to the schedules. Allow the students to learn more about you mundanes. Yes, yes, I think I will look into that.”

“Electricity?” Harold prompted.

This conversation was just getting stranger and stranger.

“Oh, well, this place was built before electricity became a thing. We haven’t bothered upgrading, because it would require mundanes to come in. I don’t even know if the power companies come this far up the mountain.”

“So, it’s not because magic interferes with electricity or anything like that?”

McMillan snorted. “Heavens no. Who told you that?”

“Uh, no one. I just…” Harold shrugged and gestured around him.

“Oh. No, nothing like that,” McMillan replied, still obviously amused with Harold. A chime sounded and McMillan grinned. “Your next class will be arriving shortly. I’ll see you later.”

Harold watched McMillan depart as the students arrived. He sighed and waited until the students were seated before addressing the class.

“I’m certain you’re all aware of Madame Clarke’s illness. I am Mr. Sylverson, your substitute. As you can tell from my attire, I am not here to instruct you on the history of witchcraft, magic, or anything like that. I am here to teach you about world history.”

“You mean mundane world history?” a young girl asked in a derisive tone. “No one needs to know anything like that.”

“I’m sure you also think you don’t need to know basic math or science,” Harold asked. “But I suspect those will be on the agenda before long. Now be quiet before I assign a ten-page essay on the topic of my choice.”

The girl’s eyes widened before narrowing into thin slits. She kept her lips pressed together, obviously not happy. But at least she was quiet.

“As I was saying, I am here to teach you world history.” He reached for the stack of papers and pencils. “This test will give me a general idea on what you currently know about the middle ages. You will use the provided paper and pencil to answer the questions. You may work in pairs. If you’re good, I will play music while you work quietly.”

“I refuse to do this. I will not be forced to use mundane items,” the girl snarled. She stood and stalked down the stairs. “You’re a mundane. You can’t do anything to us.”

A fireball formed in her hand. Her blue eyes, the color of a perfect flame, glittered.

Harold didn’t show the fear that he felt. This girl meant business, and he had zero ability to stop her.

Another young girl rose from the seats. A large glob of water fell over the girl’s hand. On the other side, a young boy rose, also. The pair had enough similarities to be siblings, if not twins. One wore a dolphin, the other an eagle.

“Knock it off, Carol,” the boy snapped. “You know what would happen if Headmaster McMillan knew you attacked a teacher.”

“He’s a substitute,” she objected.

“Still a teacher,” the other girl countered.

“How did you know I was a mundane?” Harold asked, zeroing in on the girl’s earlier comment.

“No self-respecting mage would be seen wearing something like that,” the girl retorted, tossing her head.

“That’s not true,” another kid called out. “My parents work in the mundane world. They wear clothes like that all the time.”

“Yeah, so do mine! We aren’t that different from the mundanes, and we have to live with them!”

“How’d you know, Carol? Who told you?” Water Glob girl demanded.

Carol turned on her. “I don’t have to tell you anything, Lorilee.”

“No, but I would like to know,” Harold said, interrupting the kids who were gathering around the troublemaker. “How did you know?”

“I know how she found out!”

All eyes in the classroom turned to a young boy who was standing at the desk Wesley had occupied in the prior class. He was holding two furry ears in his hands. They looked, to Harold, to be rabbit ears.

“Rabbit ears! Charmed for eavesdropping!” the boy exclaimed. “I saw you and a bunch other Lizards standing around Wesley before class.”

“Wow. Ya’ll are going to be in so much trouble,” the water-glob girl said, her Southern twang really coming out. “You’ll be lucky you don’t get expelled. Which means you’d either have to be shipped out to North Dakota for school or go to some mundane school. Better hope your parents can homeschool you for everything else, if you have to go to a mundane school.”

Carol’s face paled.

“Actually, I’m thinking two ten-page essays. One on the Crusades, and the second on the witch hunts of Europe during the 1400s. With a third, twenty-page essay on World War II. Pay close attention to Hitler. His rise to power and his beliefs. You may learn something, young lady.” Harold paused, before adding, “I’ll have to check with Headmaster McMillan, but I believe Wesley and the others who participated in this activity should also have to do those essays. No quills allowed.”

“Wow. You’re harsh, Mr. Sylverson,” Water-Glob girl said in awe.

“What is your name, young lady?” Harold asked. He needed something to call her other than Water-Glob Girl.

“Ashley Humphries,” she replied. “That’s my brother, Pery.”

“I’m Alex Campbell,” the boy who’d found the ears called.

“Wonderful!” Harold said. “Why don’t we allow Ms. Carol to return to her seat. Her grade will be very dependant upon those essays, and you all still have that test to finish.”

The students waited until Carol had returned to her seat before settling themselves.

Harold reached over and scrolled through his playlist before finding Highway to Hell. He hit ‘play’.

There was a smattering of laughter as the intro began playing. Harold was quickly learning which students were familiar with the mundane world and which lived in their naïve little worlds.

Or, perhaps, it was the mundanes who lived in a cloistered world? Sheltered from the majestic creatures of myth and legend, from fireballs conjured at a person’s fingertips.

Harold had a lot to think about, but one thing he didn’t need to think about was if he was going to stay.

These kids needed a link to the outside world, and for now, he was it.

Leaning back in the ancient, antique chair, he glanced at the leather-bound book.

Besides, he had a lot to learn about the history of witches, witchcraft, and magic.

Wife and a mother of five, J.F. Posthumus is an IT Tech with over a decade of experience. When she isn’t arguing with computers and their inherent gremlins, or being mom to the four younger monsters (the eldest has flown the nest and doing quite well on his own), she’s crafting, writing, or doing some sort of art. An avid gamer, she loves playing Dungeons & Dragons, and a variety of other board games with her family and friends. She’s also a hopeless romantic, thanks to all the fairy tales she cut her eyeteeth on. They were what J.F. Posthumus learned to read before she discovered the Boxcar Children Mysteries. From there, she fell into the rabbit hole that’s reading, where she discovered a love for mysteries, fantasy, and the occasional romance. Since writing was a favorite subject, she naturally incorporated her love of murder, mysteries, and fantasy into her works.

Too Good to be True

Christine Amsden

Christine Amsden is the author of nine award-winning fantasy and science fiction novels, including Cassie Scot: ParaNormal Detective. This original short story offers a glimpse into the darker side of magic school when a homeless teen in the real world is presented with an offer that is definitely…

Too Good to Be True

Kelsey knew the moment she laid eyes on her that the old woman didn’t belong down here by the river. It wasn’t her clothing; many of the others huddling over dumpster fires had nicer coats from the church ladies who came by to tell them about Jesus and hand out food. Nor did the old lady seem ill-at-ease among the forgotten filth of the city like the church ladies and their hyper-vigilant male escorts always did.

No, Kelsey decided as she watched the fat, gray-haired woman out of the corner of her eye, there weren’t any obvious reasons why the woman didn’t belong among the transitory homeless people seeking the dubious protection of the bridge. Between jobs, between family members, between substance problems and cycles of hope and despair, no two stories down by the river were precisely the same. Yet this old lady shouldn’t be here. She was just too…translucent.

Kelsey pretended she didn’t notice. Keep your head down and stay out of people’s business, that was her motto. If ghosts wanted to come haunt the bridge by the river, it didn’t have anything to do with her.

Warming her hands over the fire, Kelsey kept one eye on the woman as she wound from group to group, pausing now and again before moving along. She wasn’t that translucent; it wasn’t as if she were see-through, she just exuded an aura of not being fully there.

The old woman caught her looking and started her way. Kelsey hastily averted her eyes, pulled on a pair of leather gloves she’d stolen from her last foster mom, then headed for her bundle of blankets near one of the bridge’s large concrete plinths.

The woman followed. Kelsey couldn’t believe it; everyone knew not to bother someone after they went to bed.

“What do you want?” Kelsey demanded.

“You can see me?” she asked.

“So?”

“No one else can.”

Kelsey scanned the two dozen or so others, few of whom she knew by name. It was better that way. No names meant no connections. No one who could hurt her.

None of them were looking her way, but that didn’t prove the old lady’s point.

“If you want help with unfinished business or whatever,” Kelsey said, “you came to the wrong place.”

The woman chuckled. “I’m not dead.”

“Then why can I almost see the dumpster fire through your head?”

“Because I’m not exactly here. I live in another world where magic is real.”

Kelsey was beginning to get an odd, prickly feeling along the back of her neck. She’d gotten the same feeling when one of her foster fathers used to look at her, before the first time she’d run away.

“I’m from a school of magic, in fact,” the old woman continued.

Something akin to hope bubbled deep inside Kelsey, where dwelt the last remnants of a little girl who used to believe in fairy tales. She immediately tried to tamp it down. She wasn’t living in a fantasy book, and some strange ghost lady hadn’t just come here to invite her to learn at a magic school. That sort of thing didn’t happen in real life. It was too good to be true, so it couldn’t be true.

“And I’d like to offer you a job,” the woman concluded.

“A job?” Kelsey echoed.

“Yes, working in the cafeteria as a line server. You’d get three square meals a day and a roof over your head, plus a little spending money you could use in the nearby village to buy sweets or trinkets.”

Kelsey stared at the woman in stunned disbelief. While other girls got fairy tales, she got an offer to be the cafeteria lady? All she needed was a bun and a hairnet to make her humiliation complete.

And yet, it did sound nicer than staying here under the bridge. The temperatures were already starting to drop in preparation for winter, and soon she would have to decide if she could risk going to a shelter. Last time, they’d turned her back over to social services and she’d wound up in another abusive foster home. There were other options, of course, but every choice seemed to put her at the mercy of others.

“How do I even get there?” Kelsey asked. “You’re not quite here.”

“It takes a lot of energy to step across a plane of existence, so I’m just projecting myself. If you’re saying yes, we’ll expend the energy to pull you through.”

“What’s wrong with the people in your own world?” Kelsey demanded, though the hopeful little girl inside her wanted to say yes, no questions asked. “Why can’t they be line servers?”

“They have magic, and they all think they’re destined for greatness. We need to import people destined for practicality. Is that you?”

“Yeah. I guess it is.”

The school was in a castle. An honest-to-god castle like something out of Europe in the Middle Ages—but bigger. Even coming in through the servant’s entrance at the back, Kelsey couldn’t help but gape in awestruck wonder at the massive stone structure dominating the highest point of a hilly landscape.

Above her, people were flying. Not on brooms—she felt a temporary pang of disappointment—but on their own power. They were playing some kind of game that seemed to involve trying to make one another fall to the ground. As Kelsey watched in some horror, one of the people, a girl no older than herself, lost her ability to stay up and fell from the height of the tallest tower.

Kelsey gasped.

“She’s all right,” said the old woman, whose name was Agnes. “She’s supposed to catch herself, but if she can’t, the field will catch her like a giant net.”

“Wow.” She continued to stare, trying to take everything in at once but knowing it would be impossible. There was too much to see and hear and even smell. A delightful aroma was coming from near the back of the servant’s entrance, probably the kitchens. Roasting meat and baking bread and…Kelsey’s stomach gave a loud, indelicate growl.

“Let’s get you fed before we get you to work,” Agnes said kindly. She reminded Kelsey of a grandmother—not her own grandmother, who cursed and drank and warned her she was going to end up in prison like her good-for-nothing mom—but a grandmother like she sometimes saw on TV. The kind who baked and knitted and played bridge.

The servant’s door led straight into the kitchen, as Kelsey had predicted, but it wasn’t a kitchen like she’d ever seen. Instead of modern stoves and ovens and stand mixers, there were fires and cast iron cauldrons. An old-fashioned Franklin stove promised to be the source of the baking bread.

Everyone in the kitchen was old, Kelsey realized with some dismay. Not even middle age, but like her real grandmother’s age or older. The youngest of them, or so she seemed, was a dark-skinned woman with gray hair and an unlined face who had to be at least fifty.

Kelsey hadn’t come here for friends, she reminded herself. She’d come here for a roof over her head and food to eat and a way out of the cycle of abuse and flight. That was all.

She certainly didn’t hold out hope of discovering that she herself had magic and would eventually be accepted into the school as a student where she would rise to the top of her class, save the school from some threat, and become a hero.

No, definitely not.

“Here you go.” Agnes handed her a thick slice of bread and some hard cheese, which Kelsey took and immediately began to eat.

As she ate, Agnes filled her in on rules and procedures. Half-listening, Kelsey spent more time trying to take in every detail of the bustling kitchen. All the women wore the same uniform—a gray, floor-length dress and a fringed white apron. She supposed it would be too much to ask for a uniform in green or blue or even black.

After she finished her meal, Agnes showed her to a bedroom in the servant’s wing, a hallway just off the kitchen where the kitchen and janitorial staff lived four to a room. Even in her foster homes, she usually only had to share with one roommate, but as she tossed the single bag that contained all her worldly possessions onto a high bunk, she decided she didn’t mind. Fairy tale or no fairy tale, this was going to be the start of something amazing. It just had to be.

A week later, amazing was no longer the word she felt like using. The school might be brimming with magic, but back in the kitchen she saw little of it. Sometimes, she thought she noticed Agnes sprinkling herbs into the cookpots or muttering words—spells? —over them. It just wasn’t impressive looking magic, whatever it was.

“Everyone underestimates the power of the kitchen,” said the dark-skinned lady who said her name was Yazmin. (That’s with a ‘Y’ —don’t even think it with a ‘J’ or I’ll know.) “You ever want to learn real magic, you just stick by Agnes, and she’ll teach it to you.”

“She’s just making lunch.”

“And they’re all eating it, aren’t they?” Yazmin nodded significantly.

“But don’t they test for poisons or whatever?” Kelsey asked as she and the other ladies set up large metal trays and pots along the serving line. Agnes came along to inspect their work, adjusting the placement of a large metal pot full of porridge.

“Agnes doesn’t poison anyone,” Yazmin said once the woman in question had moved on. “She helps them. She’s got recipes for alertness in the morning and relaxation in the evening. There’s some for sharpness and kindness and obedience…”

“Obedience?” Kelsey shuddered as the thought of one particularly foul foster mom’s notion of obedience. It seemed to involve changing personalities and speech patterns and at least claiming to share her religious beliefs. She’d been slapped for “backtalk” and “taking the Lord’s name in vain” and shut in a closet the day she’d been caught making out with one of the other foster girls.

“Oh, the kids here are very well-behaved,” Yazmin said proudly. “Dedicated to their studies and to one another. It’s one of the things that makes Lyonhall the best school of magic in the world.”

Kelsey considered Yazmin’s words as she placed ladles beside each pot of stew. There were etchings on the handles similar to those around the rim of the metal servingware. More magic? A rune of some kind, perhaps? Or simply a decoration? Without learning a lot more about magic, she’d never know.

But it was true that the students treated the cafeteria ladies with a lot more respect than Kelsey had ever seen at any school she’d ever attended. Some of the students even smiled and said “thank you” as if such politeness always applied to the hired help. At first, Kelsey had seen that as a cultural thing, something charming and unique about this world, but now she wondered…

The students placed a lot of trust in the kitchen staff, didn’t they? Had any of them ever questioned that level of trust?

After lunch that day, Kelsey risked doing something she’d yearned to do from the first day. She took off her fringed white apron, smoothed down her drab gray skirt, and began to explore the school. Hopefully, none of the students in their burgundy uniforms would notice, or if they did, hopefully the kindness potion would protect her.

Leaving the kitchen and entering the school turned out to be easier than she expected. Once she’d done her fair share of cleaning the lunch dishes, she had about two hours of free time before dinner prep. Most of the line servers spent that time quietly reading or taking a nap. Where they got the books, she had no idea. The only book Kelsey owned was a copy of The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe so tattered it had lost both front and back cover. Mom used to read it to her, before Dad left and everything went to hell.

The castle corridors were eerily empty when Kelsey emerged into the castle proper. A few other servants nodded politely at her before hurrying to their tasks; they probably thought she was similarly occupied. There were no students in sight, however, meaning they must all be tucked away in a classroom somewhere.

I’d give anything to sit in on one of those classes. Kelsey thought, not for the first time. But this time she had another thought. So what’s stopping you?

She halted in the middle of a corridor lined with suits of armor that all seemed to be looking at her, demanding that she figure it out. How hard would it be, really, to slip down to the laundry room, borrow a uniform, and settle into a class?

The first part turned out to be ridiculously easy. The laundresses were taking a break in the heat of the afternoon too, leaving lines and lines of unattended clothes drying in the breeze. Kelsey snatched a tunic and pair of loose-fitting trousers, grateful that the billowy styles would make it hard for anyone to notice an improper fit. Then she slipped inside a restroom and changed hurriedly, hiding her own gray dress in a cabinet under the sinks.

A bell rang five times, signaling the start of a passing period. Heart racing, palms sweating, Kelsey joined the throngs of students now filling the corridors to overflowing. Spotting some of the younger ones and assuming they’d be going to a beginner class, she followed them into a wood-paneled classroom reminiscent of an auditorium. Bleacher-style seating rose to two stories high and provided enough room for at least two hundred students.

Perfect. No one will notice one more or less in here.

Still, she climbed to the very back, doing her best to seem invisible. Her lack of books or parchment made her feel slightly out of place, but only a few of the students eyed her curiously as they took their seats. Most were preoccupied with thoughts of their own, and even the few who did notice her dismissed her as easily.

Exhaling a long sigh of relief, Kelsey closed her eyes. And opened them again when a gruff voice at the front of the class called everyone to order.

“Settle down, settle down. We’ve got a lot of work today and no time to waste.”

Kelsey only just managed to stifle a gasp when she got a good look at the…individual…leading the class. He was pink and utterly hairless, and had a single eye in the middle of his forehead like a cyclops. Maybe he was a cyclops.

Something in her unintended surprise must have caught his attention because that single eye zeroed in on her, narrowing slightly. “You. Come down here and show me what you’ve learned about shielding so far.”

I could show you what I’ve learned about shielding so far from right here, she thought frantically. But her legs moved, almost of their own accord, first standing her upright and then guiding her down the side stairs to the front of the room where every pair of eyes was fixed upon her.

So much for being invisible. Can I learn that next?

“Someone tell me the four types of shielding,” the cyclops said to the room at large.

“Physical, mental, spiritual, and complex,” a girl intoned.

“Correct,” the cyclops replied. “We start with physical because it’s easy, and because it helps you get the basics down, but few magicians use physical attacks for that very reason. So learn, but don’t get too comfortable.”

With that, the cyclops turned his single eye on Kelsey. “Are you ready?”

“No,” she said.

“I like your honesty.” He smiled, then raised his hands in a threatening sort of way. Bluish energy appeared there, and as it shot from his fingertips she ducked, feeling the force of the attack lift the hair on top of her head.

Most of the class laughed. The cyclops joined in, good-naturedly.

“Yes,” he said, “ducking is always a valid option. But let’s see if you’ve actually learned anything about shielding, okay? Don’t worry—if you fail, the blue energy won’t hurt. Much.”

Standing awkwardly, Kelsey nodded and wished she hadn’t been so foolish as to come into this classroom. What had she been thinking? She should have stayed in the kitchen like everyone else, keeping her head low and cleaning out pots until she was as old and gray as the other women. And then…

Maybe I’m not destined for practicality after all, Kelsey thought.

She faced the cyclops and watched as he generated the blue energy at his fingertips once again. He paused, clearly giving her time to prepare; the whole thing was a learning exercise, after all. He was intentionally giving her warning, and intentionally using magic that wouldn’t cause permanent harm.

Drawing in a deep breath, Kelsey tried to imagine holding the energy at bay. It was, quite simply, the only thing she could think of.

The blue energy shot from his fingers and hit her in the solar plexus, pushing her backwards a step. She let out a slight oomph more in surprise than pain. The biggest hurt was to her ego. She could feel her cheeks heating as she stood upright once again.

“Not bad,” the cyclops said.

She made a noise of disbelief.

“I felt your magic stir,” he continued, “the focus was just wrong.”

You felt what? Kelsey thought.

“Next time, try to get out of your head and into your heart like we discussed last week.” He turned to the class. “Where is the magic?”

“In the blood,” they chorused.

“That’s right.” The cyclops smiled encouragingly. “So, third time’s the charm, then we’ll call someone else. Are you ready?”

This time, Kelsey didn’t reply at all. She was too busy thinking about her cardiovascular system, picturing a poster on the wall of one of her many different high school’s science classrooms. She even thought she felt, faintly, a sort of hum she’d never noticed before.

Had crossing into a different world awakened something inside her? Was it possible…

The cyclops created his blue light for the third time. Kelsey stopped thinking, stopped trying to control the situation at all, and instead let that gentle hum grow louder and louder until it filled her ears.

Blue light exploded all around her, but it did not push her back.

“Well done!” the cyclops said as the class erupted into cheers. “Now, who’s next?”

The next few weeks were like a dream. Kelsey could do magic. Magic!

For the first time in as long as Kelsey remembered—maybe the first time in her life—she knew hope and joy. Yes, she still had to work in the kitchen. Sometimes, she considered going to the school administration and asking for a place with the students, but she feared that any action she took might ruin everything. So she worked her three shifts at breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and she snuck off during her mid-morning and mid-afternoon breaks to go to classes.

Her favorite was Defensive Magic with the cyclops, whose name turned out to be spelled Frank and pronounced Farank. He might only have one eye, but he saw everything. He was the first person to tell her to “hurry back to the kitchen” after class one day, though with a gleam in his eye that suggested he wasn’t mad. He just wanted her to know he knew.

Between ten hours a day at work in the kitchen and three hours a day in class, there wasn’t a lot of time leftover for actual magical study. In order to keep up with her classes, she began to stay up late at night. This was a challenge at first, until she remembered what Yazmin had said about the helpful effects of breakfast and dinner. After that, Kelsey set aside some of the porridge from breakfast every day and reheated it for her evening meal in place of the more soporific offerings. The results were immediate and marked—she began to need only four or five hours of sleep. This gave her a chance to sneak into the library too, and check out books on every magical subject she could.

First year classes contained more theory than magic, which was partly why she enjoyed Defensive Magic so much. It was one of the few classes where she got to work actual magic. By the time a month had passed, she could create a physical shield instantly and effortlessly. Not a strong shield—that would come with practice—but a quick shield. And as Frank pointed out, in a battle, speed is often more important than strength.

The biggest challenge Kelsey faced, aside from time, was an inability to make friends with any of the students or even get involved in study groups. They were sort of polite to her, in that they didn’t overtly bully her with magic or words. But they did shun her, especially as word began to spread that a kitchen girl was attending classes.

“Has she even had her destiny read?” asked more than one student loudly as they passed through her serving line, intending for her to hear. “I had my destiny read by the Great Oracles at Mount Verde who told me I was marked by fate.”

That usually began a debate over which oracles were actually the greatest—the ones at Mount Verde or a slew of others—all of which seemed to have settled at the top of a mountain. It also struck Kelsey, as she listened to them boast and brag in a blatant attempt to put her down, that “marked by fate” might be some kind of form response.

“You can’t live in two worlds forever,” Yazmin said to Kelsey one day as they filled trays with porridge and fruit for the fated students. “You don’t belong there, but you think you’re too good for us here?”

“I don’t think I’m too good for you,” Kelsey protested. She could almost feel the magic of breakfast now, pulsing every time she dipped the ladle into the metal pot and came up with a scoop full of porridge that she then handed to a student.

“That’s what the other girls think,” Yazmin said. “You never spend time with us.”

Girls? Kelsey knew better than to call them out for their age, but that was definitely part of the problem. What did she have in common with a bunch of old ladies?

“The students might be amused by you right now,” Yazmin said, “but they won’t accept you. And look at the strain it’s causing!”

“What strain?” Kelsey asked.

Yazmin reached forward and tugged at a lock of hair that had come free from Kelsey’s perpetual ponytail. “It’s gray.”

Kelsey stared at the lock of gray hair, an odd contrast to her usual dark brown. She hadn’t noticed…hadn’t realized. Could lack of sleep be causing it? Or the strain of using magic?

Maybe she didn’t have enough magic to be a real student here. She was feeling more and more tired each time she went to class. It had come upon her so gradually that she had dismissed it, but the not-so-small voice of doubt inside her worried that her fairy tale was about to come to an end.

There was no one moment of revelation. No instant of understanding. Just a gradual shift to knowing something was wrong.

It started in the library the night after Yazmin pointed out the streak of gray hair. Kelsey started looking for glamour or illusion magic to hide it, but at the last minute took out a book on aging too. The aging book was pretty boring except for a chapter called “Premature Aging” which suggested that some magical effects could cause twenty-year-olds to look fifty. It just didn’t say why or how.

The next day on a whim, Kelsey decided to ask Yazmin her age. She fully expected the older woman to say she was being rude, or to tell her a woman never reveals her age. But instead…

“Twenty-six,” Yazmin replied.

Kelsey was shocked for a moment, then she remembered her grandmother saying she was celebrating her twenty-ninth birthday…two years in a row. It seemed to be the sort of thing old people joked about.

Only, was it a joke? Kelsey returned to her book on aging but found little more information. She tried to find a reference book mentioned in the “Premature Aging” chapter, but it wasn’t on the shelves and when she asked a librarian for help she got the closest thing to an evil glare she’d gotten from anyone in the castle.

“So I’m free to study magic as long as I don’t bother anyone about it?” Kelsey demanded. “Is that it?”

“No, that’s not it,” said the librarian, a middle-aged woman who could definitely use some of the books on glamours Kelsey had checked out. “That’s a restricted book, full of black magic.”

Which of course made Kelsey desperate to get her hands on it. She backed slowly away from the reference counter, then paced a circuit of the two-story library, trying to figure out where a restricted section would even be. But unlike in many stories she’d read growing up, this school seemed to realize that the first way to keep students away from restricted books was to hide them.

If she were a student, that would be a real problem. But she wasn’t a student. She was kitchen help, adjacent to custodial staff and a rung below “worthy of notice.”

Servants knew everything. She just had to find the right one to approach. Some resented her, as Yazmin had noted, but at least a few had been silently cheering her on for weeks, through smiles and sly nods. When she put the word out among the friendlier custodians that she needed a restricted book, she got results in less than a day—the book in question turned up on her pillow one evening after dinner.

Gasping in wonder, Kelsey first clutched the book to her chest then glanced around, trying to figure out who had gifted it to her. Then she set to work, reading by candlelight well into the night.

Her roommates came in to go to sleep, giving her disapproving looks as they suggested she go to bed. Instead, she went to the staff lounge at the end of the hall, now empty for the night. Settling into the coziest armchair by the fire, she continued to read until morning sunlight slanted in through an east-facing window.

There, in the final pages, was the answer to all Kelsey’s doubts and worries. All her suspicions that fate was about to turn on her, and that if something seemed to good to be true, it definitely was.

Staring back at her from the pages of an innocent-looking book were depictions of the precise runes etched into the metal servingware and ladles she used every single day.

She felt numb at breakfast, too exhausted to think and too horrified to act. So she served as she always served, feeling the hum of magic with every scoop of porridge. Only this time, she knew what was happening. Knew she was transferring tiny pieces of her own magic to the students each time she passed them a bowl.

“Are you all right?” Yazmin asked as they cleaned up. “Did you ever go to bed last night?”

Kelsey shook her head mutely.

“You should take a nap instead of going to class today,” Yazmin said.

I should run away instead of going to class today, Kelsey thought. But run where? She had no way of getting back to her own world without help, and she knew nothing about this world beyond the walls of the castle.

For that matter, she was coming to understand how little she knew about the castle, too.

There was a village nearby. Agnes had told her she’d be allowed to go there to spend pocket money, but she’d spent her days off studying instead. Now, Kelsey decided it was time to see that village. Collecting all her pocket money—she didn’t have a good understanding of how much it was since she hadn’t bought anything here—she left the castle to head to the village.

Or tried to.

She was blocked at the gate by a giant. A literal giant. Ten feet tall, big boned, and mean looking, the giant glared at her when she approached.

“No village passes today. No exceptions,” he said as he crossed beefy arms across a massive chest.

A giant security guard was definitely effective. Kelsey spun on her heels and ran right back to the castle, skidding to a halt in the front entrance hall when she realized she’d let herself in as though she were a student—through the front doors. Yet she was still wearing her kitchen staff uniform. She hadn’t been sure which would serve her better in the village.

All around her, students and staff didn’t notice her. She might as well have been invisible, except to one man with a single eye. The keenest eye in the school, in her experience.

“Let’s talk,” he said to her, turning and heading up the large main staircase at the front of the school. He didn’t look back, simply expecting her to follow.

She did, reluctantly. She liked Frank, but she didn’t trust anyone in this school at all.

Frank led her into a utilitarian office featuring bare stone walls and a single oak desk. He sat behind it, gesturing for her to take the student’s seat in front.

She expected him to ask why she’d tried to leave the school, or why she’d come in through the front door, but he didn’t.

“Why haven’t you asked to be admitted as a student?” he said instead.

“I’m allowed to do that?”

“You’re always allowed to ask questions. The answer might be no, but that’s the worst it can be.”

Kelsey shook her head, thinking of a time when she’d asked her case manager if she could have a new placement. The answer hadn’t just been no, it had been no and we’re telling your foster parents you asked, so they’ll be pissed off.

In her experience, no was not a simple answer.

“Do you want to be a student here?” Frank asked.

She opened her mouth, then closed it again. Her mouth felt dry, her palms sweaty. Yesterday, this would have been her dream but today…today she knew things.

“Do many kitchen ladies become students?” Kelsey asked.

“No. But you wouldn’t be the first.”

“Because we all have magic, don’t we?” she went on. “At least, when we first take the job.”

“Very few ever figure that out. Most people are content to stay in the roles society carves out for them. You’re rare.” He leaned forward, his single eye fixed on her. “The oracles tell thousands of people their fates every year, and those people accept it at face value. Never questioning. But you didn’t. You questioned. You sought a better life. I don’t have to wonder what the oracles would say about you. Your actions so far prove you have a great destiny.”

Somewhere outside, a bell rang five times, signaling the end of a class.

“It’s time for lunch,” Frank said. “Will you go back to serving, or will you stay and find out what else you can be?”

I’m an idiot. A world-class moron. Stupidest person ever. Kelsey kept berating herself all the way down to the kitchen where she settled back into her place on the line. The runes stared up at her in accusation as, with shaking fingers, she took the ladle.

She’d turned him down. Not loudly. Not flamboyantly. She’d simply stood up and walked away.

You’ve thrown away the chance of a lifetime, said an angry voice in her head. This is how life works, or haven’t we learned that by now? The strong prey on the weak.

It was how her life had worked so far. She saw in her mind’s eye every abuse, every attempt to put her in her place. A place they had defined for her.

Frank had a place defined for her too. Maybe this time, it was because she’d passed some kind of personality test, but it was still his place, not hers.

“Are you going to serve?” a student demanded.

Kelsey stared from the student to the ladle she held in her shaking right hand. She poured a bowl of soup, feeling the magic drain away.

The student reached for the bowl. Kelsey dumped the soup back into the pot experimentally and could have sworn she felt the magic returning. She might have been imagining it, but wasn’t it worth the experiment? All she had to do was figure out how to reverse the process.

“What are you doing?” the student asked impatiently. The line was beginning to form behind her, and a few other students grumbled.

“Just a minute.” Kelsey dropped the ladle into the tall metal pot and began to rotate it on the spot so that the runes faced the other way. In her mind’s eye, she saw Agnes fussing with the placement of the serving vessels at every single meal.

“What are you doing?” the girl asked.

Kelsey started to scoop out another bowl of soup but paused and, for good measure, decided to use her left hand. Then she handed the filled bowl to the student who glared at her before taking it and moving on.

“What are you doing?” Yazmin asked out of the corner of her mouth. “Agnes places those special.”

“I know.” She was trembling now as she continued to ladle the soup. Bowl after bowl. Student after student. How would she know if it worked? The outflow had been so subtle, it had taken her weeks to notice anything was wrong.

“Kelsey,” Yazmin hissed a few minutes later. “What’s wrong with your skin?”

“Huh?” She looked down at her hands, which were no longer shaking. In fact, they felt much stronger.

And they were glowing.

“What’s going on?” Yazmin asked.

She shook her head and thought, trying to figure it out. “Maybe…maybe I’m taking back more than I gave out? Or maybe taking a small amount of power and splitting it a hundred ways doesn’t have as big an impact as taking a hundred small donations of power and pooling it into one person.”

There was a loud murmur going up in the dining hall. A shout from behind Kelsey alerted her to the presence of Agnes, who had her hands on her hips and was fuming.

“Do they know?” Kelsey demanded, gesturing to the students. She could see, plainly, from the look on Agnes’s face, that they did not know, and she did not want Kelsey to tell them.

Suddenly, the path ahead was clear. She didn’t have to make a choice between slowly losing her magic on the serving line or becoming an unwitting vampire. She could tell everyone what she knew and let truth win the day.

Darting out from behind the serving tables into the dining hall, Kelsey lifted her hands and shouted for attention. When the room didn’t settle, she stepped right up onto a table, kicking aside a grumbling student’s water glass.

“There’s something you need to know!” she cried.

Frank was there, near the entrance to the dining hall, his one eye glaring at her in the first sign of anger she’d ever glimpsed there. He was not amused. But he couldn’t stop her.

She opened her mouth, then closed it as she sensed the attack. She was quick, and with magic siphoned away from a hundred students, she was strong! Stronger than she had ever been before. Strong enough to throw up a physical shield to block anything he threw at her.

Anything except…a psychic attack.

In the instant before the world went black, she remembered the four types of shields: physical, mental, spiritual, and complex.

We start with physical because it’s easy, and because it helps you get the basics down, but few magicians use physical attacks for that very reason. So learn, but don’t get too comfortable.

Kelsey knew the instant she laid eyes on the man that he didn’t belong down here by the river. Judging by his single eye, he might not belong in this world at all. But none of the others seemed to notice or care, too preoccupied with staying warm on a night that had started out chilly then somehow, between breaths, shot straight to freezing.

Something about that seemed wrong, but she couldn’t put her finger on what. And the cyclops man was now on full approach, smiling at her as though he knew her.

“What do you want?” Kelsey demanded.

From inside his coat pocket, he withdrew an oversized letter on thick paper, a little like cardstock. This, he handed to her with a flourish. “I come from a world of magic. And I’m here to offer you a place at my school.”

Christine Amsden has been writing science fiction and fantasy for as long as she can remember. She believes speculative fiction is fun, magical, and imaginative but great speculative fiction is about real people defining themselves through extraordinary situations. Christine writes primarily about people, and it is in this way that she strives to make science fiction and fantasy meaningful for everyone.

Sorcery’s Preschool

James Pyles

The day the witch Agatha Pye first took her four-year-old granddaughter Emily to the same magic pre-school she and Emmy’s mother attended, opened up dark gateways to the past. Agatha had been forced to abandon the mystic realms when her daughter Angelique, afraid of her own arcane power, turned her back on her heritage and married a man in the human world. For years, Agatha has kept her daughter’s new world safe for the sake of her family, but would her grandchild’s nascent exploration of the arcane wonder flowing through her veins be a blessing or the herald of disaster?

Sorcery’s Preschool

“Are you sure the other school children will like me, Grandma Agatha?” The four-year-old girl folded her fingers around her grandmother’s hand. The human world was fading away behind them, as they stepped into the eldritch realm of Enderwren.

“They are going to love you, dearest, even as I do.” Agatha Pye, fondly beamed at her youngest grandchild. For her first day at preschool, her mother had put her in a proper, dark violet dress, and a shiny white ribbon adorned the curled, sandy-blond hair on the right side. Only Emily knew that beneath her skirt, she was wearing her special “Upside Down Unicorn” brand underwear. Grandma had given her several pair as a present for her birthday last June.

“My brother said the kids in the neighborhood don’t like me because they’re scared of me.” Emily’s lower lip jutted out as she pouted.

“Older brothers can exaggerate a bit.”

“Danny says I scare him, too, sometimes. I don’t mean to, Grandma.”

Agatha stopped, the scenery around them still shimmering turquoise and gold as they stood on the threshold between two domains. “Listen to me, young lady.” The woman knelt down, folds of her silken black dress gathering under her. “I know what it’s like to be different. Yes, different can be scary to some people, even brothers.”

“Even Mommy and Daddy, especially Daddy.” The child looked down at her tan shoes, toes wiggling inside of her black tights. She felt her face getting hot and her eyes tearing up.

Grandma put her arms around Emily’s tiny frame. “They just need to see you the way I do. I promise, it’s all going to work out.”

“You’re taking me to preschool so they can teach me to not use magic anymore.” Her voice was muffled against Aggie’s warm chest.

“It’s the same preschool your Mommy and I went to a long time ago. They’ll teach you, just like they did me, how to practice control.”

“You mean stop using it at all. That’s what Mommy did.” The girl’s muffled tones didn’t hide her resentment.

Agatha pulled away and looked at Emily’s wet, reddened eyes. “Your Mommy made a decision about her life. She has the right to do that. But her decision doesn’t have to be yours.”

“Can I decide like you did?” Em’s lips tried to form a smile, and a wee sense of hope emerged.

“If you want, but remember this. When you make it, then it will be your decision, not mine. However, if you really desire to follow in my footsteps, that means you can’t do whatever you want, whenever you want.”

“Why not? You do.” Now she was defiant.

“Believe me, child, no, I don’t. Why if I did…” The grandmother stopped before she let herself entertain what exactly she would do in and to the world if she lost control.

“Would people get scared of you?”

“I don’t want to scare people, well, good people anyway.” Agatha’s smile twisted mischievously causing Emily to giggle.

“We need to keep walking. Mustn’t be late for your first day.” Grandma stood again, allowing her long, onyx gown to slide to her ankles, sheer material hugging very youthful and robust curves.

“Part of why people like you and me go to school is to learn to stay safe.”

“Safe?” Emily wiped the last of her tears from her cheeks and peered up quizzically.

“You know. Like how Mommy and Daddy have you look both ways before crossing the street. Then they have you hold their hands when you cross. Keeping you safe is part of showing how much they love you.”

The glistening transition faded like mist giving way to a late summer sun. Now the pair were walking up a gray, flagstone path in what could have been the Scottish highlands. A broad, azure lake was at their backs as they climbed the low hill. The chill breeze whiffed down from above, mussing their tresses.

“But I can fly across the road like this.” The little girl grinned as her feet slowly lifted above the earth.

Feeling her rise, a quick series of muttered words left the woman’s lips, and her granddaughter once again took to the ground. “Into your mother’s old, elementary spell books, I see.” Agatha sounded displeased, but hid her secret smile. Then she realized, “But you can’t read yet.”

“You’re no fun, Grandma,” the child whined, her face scowling. “And I can so.”

“Love also means keeping everyone else around you safe, too.” The older woman decided to pursue the issue of reading later.

“How is flying dangerous?”

The path curved around the grassy hill to the left, and Agatha’s heart quickened in spite of herself. It had been ages since she had visited the Tabbinshire School of Magic and Sorcery, especially the preschool. The long, emerald stalks undulating with the gusts, took her back to a time when she was a young pupil beginning her own journey of discovery.

“Flying is very dangerous. I got more bumps and bruises when I first learned to fly than you can possibly imagine, and I started older than you.”

“But flying isn’t dangerous to anyone else.”

“It is if it makes someone scared.”

“Why should it matter if people get scared? You always tell me to do my best. Well, magic is what…”

“Yes, do your best, but you have to know where and when to exercise your abilities. People are…”

“People are stupid.”

Agatha rolled her eyes and squelched her initial response.

“People are, well…people.”

“You mean people like Daddy and Danny who can’t do magic? Mommy can, but she won’t, and she tells me not to do it, either.”

“Emily dear, magic is in our blood. We will always have it with us. But we must use it in love, otherwise the gift becomes a curse.”

“Huh?”

“I know. It’s hard to understand, sometimes.”

“I do want to be a good girl, Grandma Agatha. I want to make Mommy and Daddy happy.”

“And your brother.”

“He’s a pest sometimes…”

“And…”

“I love him, too, Grandma. I guess I don’t want him to be scared of me, either.”

“Then when you learn what I learned, that’s when you’ll show them how much you love them.”

“If you say so, Grandma, but…”

“Yes?”

“This is a magic preschool, right?”

“Of course, it is.”

“And the other kids and the teachers use magic right?”

“A little more complicated than that, but yes.” Agatha saw where the child was leading but decided to go along.

“Then part of learning not to use magic is learning when to use magic, right?”

“Yes, but with control. Remember what Yoda said to Luke.”

Emily giggled, recalling how much fun it was to watch those old movies with her parents and brother. She could still taste the hot, buttered popcorn they all ate while snuggling together on the sofa every “movie night.”

“Okay, but just one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“Do I get my own wand?”

“My dearest child, you are far, far too young for a…oh, here we are.” Agatha laughed because it was like the girl was asking if she could pilot her own car…or attack helicopter.

Completing the half-circle around the hill, nestled between two verdant mounds swept by a perpetual, snow-kissed wind, stood the Preschool of Tabbinshire.

“Is that my school, Grandma?” Emily stopped, transfixed by the stately vision.

“That it is, dearest. Like it?”

“Wow! Danny’s going to be so jealous.”

“As your older brother, I suppose he will be.” Agatha smiled, both in accord with her granddaughter’s sentiment, and as a wave of nostalgia erupted from a long, dry well of time.

The pebbles lining the path to the door turned to stones, then rocks, and finally became massive boulders, giving way before the outer walls and towers.

The Keeper’s Tower was just to the right of the open twin doors, which were fully ten feet in height, and each one half as wide. The tower, made of rough, river stones like the rest of the temple, rose a full three stories, the top becoming a tall, thin spire. There was a warm, golden light shining from each of the five windows, in sharp disagreement with the slate, overcast sky.

“It’s a converted Druid Temple,” she responded to the child’s unasked question.

“A what?”

“Never mind. I’ll explain when you’re older. Come, dear.” Agatha pulled at the little girl’s hand expecting her to hesitate, but instead, Emily tried to run ahead of her. “Wait, Emily.” The old woman, though she hardly appeared such, tightened her grip. “We walk together.”

“But…”

Agatha glanced to the left of the entrance at a brightly-colored playground area, something that would have looked at home at her grandson’s elementary school back in the human world. “Well, I’ll be…”

They arrived at the doorway, vines haphazardly climbing the walls, overhanging the entrance, and merging with tree branches, both outside and within. Somehow, she was still surprised that the trees were so much taller than she remembered.

“So you finally arrived, Miss Marchant, with your small charge, and late as usual.”

From around the oaken door on the right, a man not much taller than Agatha appeared. Like the grandmother, he was clad entirely in black, but the tunic and trousers were stretched over a portly frame and only the jacket seemed too large, hanging on him like a cloak. Both the hair on his head and his large beard were white as woolen snow and wholly chaotic. Only the sea green eyes in his pale, wizened face carried any sense of youth.

“You’ve gotten fat,” Agatha said in mock disdain.

“And you are lovelier than ever, Miss Marchant.” Titus Applegate reached down to take Agatha’s hand, bending in a prelude to kissing it when she whisked her fingers away.

“That’s Mrs. Pye now, Titus.”

“And it’s still Grand Master Applegate to you, Mrs. Pye.” He emphasized her married appellation, mirroring her feigned annoyance.

“Grandma.” Emily clearly communicated her embarrassment and impatience.

“Oh, forgive me, child. This is the Head of the Tabbinshire School, Grand Master Applegate. He was the Grand Master here even when I was your age.”

“Hi. You’re really old.”

“Emily!” This time Agatha’s outburst was real.

“It’s quite alright.” Then still bending slightly, he turned to the girl. “I am as old as you are young, almost as old as this ancient keep.”

“Are you my teacher?” Her toddler’s incredulousness remained unbridled.

Agatha opened her mouth again, but Titus interrupted. “Here comes your teacher now.”

The trio focused on an opening at the other end of the roofless entry, their surroundings a study in granite draped by greenery.

The woman approaching was as tall as the Grand Master, which made her tall for a woman as he was short for a man. Her hair was down to her shoulders, almost as long as Agatha’s but not quite as dark, and definitely curlier. Her slacks were a maroon so dark it was almost black, but her blouse was a brighter white than Applegate’s disordered locks. While the Grandmother tended toward the tastefully voluptuous, the teacher reminded Agatha of a ballerina, both in form and grace.

“Mrs. Pye, Miss, uh…Watson is it? It is my pleasure to introduce you to our Head Teacher at the preschool, Miss Caressa Siegel.”

“Mrs. Pye, a pleasure.” The young woman extended a strong feminine hand, and Agatha took it, not sure why she was experiencing discomfort.

“Grand Master Applegate has told me so much about you.”

“All lies, I trust.” She winked at Titus, intending to tease him but realizing that she didn’t feel at all playful.

“All complementary, I assure you.” Miss Siegel leaned over toward the child. “You must be Emily. I’m your new teacher, Miss Siegel, and I’m sure we’re going to get along splendidly.”

“Pleased to meet you.” Em took the teacher’s hand and gave it a shake, trying to remember the manners Grandma said she was supposed to have.

“Come along, Emily.” She kept the girl’s hand lightly clasped in hers. “The other children are already here, and we’re ready to get started.” Then she stood and looked up at Applegate. “With your permission of course, Sir.”

“Granted,” he smiled patronizingly. Then at Emily, “Have fun, child.”

Emily looked back as she took her first few steps with Miss Siegel, then she broke away in a dash, lunging at Agatha and tightly embracing her. “I love you, Grandma. Thank you for taking care of me.”

“I love you, Emily. I always have, and I always will. Now go on with your teacher and meet the other children.”

“And be good, I know.”

“And have fun, too.” Agatha put her fingertip on the end of Emily’s nose and wiggled it.

Giggling again, she ran back to the waiting teacher. “I will, Grandma. See you after school.”

“See you, my love.” The grandmother exaggerated her wave as she watched the child and Miss Siegel disappear through the door on the other end of the great hall. For a moment, darkness enveloped the two receding figures, then Agatha heard the expected laughter and cheering of children at play.

Turning to Titus, “Playground equipment?”

He blushed at her question and nervously tugged at his collar with an index finger. “Well, you know kids these days. They see all the toys the pleb children have, and…”

“Excuse me, ‘Patrician.’ I’ll not have you referring to my in-laws using such a bigoted…” Agatha put her nose within an inch of her former master’s, murderous venom dripping from her voice, and red rage in her eyes.

“Sorry. I forgot myself. I meant…you know.”

“Oh, I know…” She turned away from him, choking down the lump in her throat. Then she spun back. “Why do you think I don’t visit here very often…Enderwren, I mean?”

Applegate’s features softened. He raised a hand to put on her shoulder, then lowered it again. “I feel as if I lost you as a friend a long time ago.”

“No, it’s not that. It’s…complicated.” Then she gently pressed the palms of her hands against his chest. “I’m sorry. I know I’ve been gone too long.”

“I’ve always been your friend, Aggie.” He embraced her like a loveable teddy bear, an image very rarely associated with the school’s ancestral head.

“And look at you.” He held her at arm’s length. “Why except for one streak of gray, your hair remains as silky and luxurious as a raven’s wing. And your figure…”

“Why you old lecherous…you’ve known me since I was Emily’s age. Have you always been in the habit of hitting on your female students?” She pushed his hands away, but she was grinning.

“Why, Mrs. Pye, you wound me. First of all, you haven’t been my student in far too many years. Secondly, at my age, such thoughts are firmly relegated to fantasy. My mind can still appreciate, but my body has failed me with the passage of time. Even my senses for…”

“Well, we’ll leave out your senses for now, failing or otherwise.”

“So, you married Hiram Pye. Of all the people you could have chosen…”

“And my husband is another subject we’ll not be broaching, thank you very much.” She hadn’t meant to lose her temper again, but even the mention of Hiram brought up a cornucopia of complex emotions.

“Very well. But you had a child, a daughter.”

“I have a lot of children and grandchildren, Titus. Right now, I’m worried about Emily.”

“Yes, I got your letter. She is a lot like your daughter Angelique, isn’t she…and a lot like you, I think.”

“Why do you think I’m worried?”

“You turned out alright, and as for Angel…”

“She made her choice, and now she’s living with the consequences.”

“You mean the plebi…uh, the man from the human world, her husband. Does he know?”

“Not everything, but enough to scare the pants off of him, at least when Emily kindles the fireplace without matches, or flies without the benefit of aircraft or even wings, or…”

“I’m not so sure you were as advanced at her age.”

“I wasn’t, but the Lords of Chaos help me, Angelique was, and it terrified the both of us.” She paused, and Titus patiently waited, knowing there was more.

“This teacher, Caressa Seagull.”

“Siegel.”

“Right. How good is she, I mean really? Nothing short of the best will even have a chance at handling a child with Emily’s potential.”

He finally put his hand on her shoulder. “The best, I can assure you.”

“She reminds me of someone. Should I know her?”

“I doubt it. She’s a provincial girl. Not trained here, but she might as well have been. Flawless control of her abilities. I’ve hardly ever seen a finer hand on a wand.”

“Except that wretched tart Kamalei Iyabo.” She chuckled humorlessly.

“Oh, don’t remind me. She damn near destroyed the school, and nearly spirited away the finest students of that generation, including you as I recall.”

“Shoot I was only twelve at the time.”

“And a loner even then. Disenfranchised from your family…”

“The school was my family.”

“One you almost abandoned.”

“I saw through that witch finally, and stopped her.”

“I believe a few of your fellow students lent a hand, and perhaps I had something to do with it.” He looked at her askance.

“Yes. You’re right.” Agatha’s smile was shy. “I’ve been away for so long, even my memory of those days has begun to fade.”

“As I’ve grown older, a failing memory has become a comfort.”

“All I have are my memories. If I lose them…”

“You have the family you always wanted. Little Emily, her brother Daniel, their parents. Aren’t you happy?”

“I don’t know. I’ll be happier if your school can find a way to help Emily not make the mistakes I’ve made.”

“Who has ever been able to stop our children and their children from our own mistakes?” Once again, he was the paternal teddy bear, but too late. Agatha was mentally searching for whatever he’d said that had distracted her.

“Where’s the rest of the school? I just realized…”

“It’s been relocated elsewhere. Miss Siegel suggested that exposing preschool age children to the older students, it’s such a tender and impressionable time in their lives, would be too difficult…ruin their sense of innocence as their talent in the arts emerges. Oh, don’t fret. Go through the Keeper’s Tower, and you’ll find the doorway to the rest of Tabbinshire. Want a tour of the old place?”

“Some other time, Titus. I’ve got some errands to run while Emily’s in school. I’ll be back in a few hours.” She took his hand off her shoulder and held it in hers. “Do me a favor.”

“Of course, Agatha.”

“I’d appreciate it if you’d personally keep an eye on Emily.”

“But Miss Siegel and her staff…”

“Please, Titus. I don’t beg, but I’ll do it for her.”

“Rest assured. She’s in good hands. But, naturally, I’ll keep a weather eye out.”

“You’re a gem.” She kissed him on the cheek, and he once again blushed.

“You’ll start tongues wagging.”

She turned to leave, then looked back at him over her shoulder. “You wish.” Batting her eyelashes like an experienced femme fatale, which she was, Agatha Pye started walking back down the flagstone path, departing the school.

An appreciative Grand Master Applegate gazed at her rounded, swaying bottom for much longer than he should have.

Fifteen minutes later, she was back in what she thought of as the ordinary world, the plebian world as Titus no doubt continued to consider it. Her deep blue SUV was sitting like an internal combustion sentinel on a suburban side street off of McMillan, the east and west thoroughfare between West Boise and Meridian. Sedans and pickup trucks whizzed by a few hundred feet away as she pressed the fob opening the driver’s door with twin chirps.

Then she remembered. “The last time I smelled such a scent was…no, it can’t be her. She must be dead by now. Anyway, it doesn’t smell exactly the same.” She opened the door and hoisted herself inside. “Talking about old times with that foolish Titus…”

Agatha turned over the engine and put her Toyota into gear, while a restless spirit inside tormented her. A small, unhappy voice kept saying that leaving Emily at the school was the worst mistake she had ever made. Ignoring the irritating little beast, she pulled onto McMillan and then took a left onto Cloverdale, nervously fingering the grocery list sitting on the passenger seat.

Some weeks later, Grand Master Titus Applegate ambled out of the Keeper’s Tower, having spent a good part of his morning terrorizing the upperclassmen and their instructors. The fire in his bosom, that had forged his school under an iron will had cooled with the passing years, but best not allow that to become public knowledge. The mid-autumn chill bothered him now, when it didn’t used to. Pausing, he looked out of the open gates to see sunlight reflecting off of the small portion of the lake visible from the preschool’s vantage point. He recalled his own youth when he scampered by those shores before climbing the hills and sneaking peaks at the Druids who once worshipped here.

“Best be keeping my promise to Agatha once more,” he muttered. He turned his opulent bulk and entered the hall under vines he knew must wither soon at the approach of winter, wondering how soon his own winter would claim him. As he approached the closed classroom door, he heard wild squeals and the unabashed laughter of the young cherubs within. “Now what are they up to?”

Titus, having chosen his gambit, suddenly thrust open the door, his face a frightful aspect. “And just what is all this commotion, children? Miss Siegel, I hope you can explain.” He was particularly proud of the apocalyptic tremor he injected into his words.

He saw the head teacher standing in front of her desk, delicate finger poised across full, pursed lips, a slight hiss issuing from between them. In the same instant, eleven toddlers scrambled for their seats, some knocking their desks slightly askew in their rows, while others jostled their inkwells. A tiny march of seconds passed, and each sat silently, radiant with feigned innocence, while Miss Siegel’s face shone beatific purity. Applegate knew they were up to something.

“Good morning, Grand Master.” Caressa seemed slightly out of breath. “Children, greet our Grand Master.”

In unison, the children and teaching assistants who were standing in the back of the room all chanted, “Good Morning, Grand Master.”

Titus let his eyes scan over Linza, Ziva, and Jett, who had all been students at the school, and were now apprenticing under Miss Siegel. Linza and Ziva were sisters, one and a half years apart in age, and fair of features and complexion. Ziva, the younger, was more adventurous, and relied on Linza the older to help contain her impetuousness. Jett was said to have his eye on Ziva, and, as his name suggested, he was a dark as a Nubian. Many of the young women had cast their intentions upon the handsome lad, but it was Ziva who had claimed his heart.

Of the children, Applegate allowed his gaze to wander until he arrived at Emily. As was common with her, she was dressed primarily in pink, her overalls being shade of flamingo feathers. Today, her hair bore twin pigtails, again bound in pink ribbons. Titus still couldn’t decide if this was the child’s favorite color or her mother’s. It certainly hadn’t been Agatha’s choice.

“How is Emily Watson doing this morning?” He figured it couldn’t hurt to ask, though he had to avoid the appearance of favoritism.

“Fine, Grand Master Apples…” The children momentarily twittered at Emily’s mistake, until Miss Siegel’s glower silenced them. “I mean Applegate. How are you?”

“Fine as well, Miss Watson.” He continued to play the part of the ominous and dignified school’s Head Master, though inside, he was laughing at the little girl’s ersatz maturity.

Applegate strode up and down the aisles, nudging the occasional desk back into place with one corpulent thigh. He paced past the three apprentice teachers, each of them standing at attention like soldiers on the parade ground. Finally, he arrived back at the front of the classroom and faced Miss Siegel.

“And how are you this morning, Head Teacher?”

“Well, Grand Master Applegate. Thank you for asking.”

He could tell she wasn’t intimidated by him. Yes, he was her superior, but having never attended Tabbinshire, she had not once fallen under his imperial influence as a child. At one time, he had been able to know the thoughts of everyone around him, just by their posture, facial expression, and scent. Now, he possessed a sense of those nearby mainly by his past knowledge of them. Most folks, after all, were creatures of habit.

Caressa Siegel was a bit of a mystery. Her performance as a teacher was outstanding, and her references, though from distant lands and a few more remote dimensions, commendable. But of the actual fabric of her personality, the essence of her nature, he could read nothing.

“I heard uproarious laughter just prior to my entry, Miss Siegel, and saw you shushing the children as I opened the door. Anything you’d care to relate about the incident?” He attempted to transfix her under his inspection.

“Merely one of the children telling a joke, Grand Master. You know how expressive preschoolers can be.”

Titus heard a bit of rustling behind him and whispers from Linza and Jett, probably quieting the students before they once again found something hilarious.

“I see.” He counted down five seconds allowing silence to hang between them. “Very well, carry on.” He turned to face the classroom, seeing Emily, as well as Leon, Tamika, Rocco, and several of the others wrestling to keep straight faces. “Mind your teachers, children. They are here to instruct you in most serious matters.” Hearing himself, Titus almost laughed aloud. “Good day.” He spun to face Caressa again. “Good day, Miss Siegel.”

“Good day to you, Grand Master.”

“Good day, Grand Master,” echoed the children.

After closing the door behind him, he waited and listened, but the teacher must have anticipated this, so he heard nothing. Then he strolled back across the courtyard toward the tower. He could feel his tummy rumbling as he approached the door. “Must be time for second breakfast,” he mused. Then he remembered that Cookie had been baking sweet cakes this morning. Yes, they would go quite well with some strawberry jam and dandelion tea.

Miss Siegel clapped her hands twice to get everyone’s attention. “Children, this is exactly what I mean about starting a commotion. The Grand Master or other visitors might enter our class at any moment.”

There was more giggling, and most of the children turned to stare at Emily.

“Now, students, attend.” They all focused on the teacher, but Emily’s face was still a bright crimson.

“There was no need to give our classroom pet, Mr. Newt, a flying lesson, now was there?” She slowly walked to Emily’s seat, situated in the second or middle aisle, in the second row, putting her near the center of the room.

“No, Miss Siegel,” she uttered solemnly. Then, “Except it was fun.”

The child grinned brighter than sunshine, and once again the rest of the students erupted in uncontrollable fits of jocularity.

Siegel spied her three assistants also laughing and glared at them. Then she walked to her right and examined the salamander in its tank on top of the counter. The wee amphibian might just fit in the palm of her hand. It was graced with black, orange, and white twirls and looked up at her attentively from a moist, moss-covered rock, one of several arranged in his watery, glass container.

“Well,” she turned back to the children. “I see Mr. Newt is none the worse for wear. However, I charge you pupils against any unauthorized use of magic in the classroom, especially you, Emily.”

She watched the little girl cringe at her words. The other children puffed up with pride while feeling relief that their classmate was the sole focus of unwanted attention.

“Yes, Miss Siegel.” She thought how wrong Grandma was. Tamika Bendertwill was her only real friend. The other kids made fun of her every time she got into trouble, which was too often.

“Very well. We’ll speak no more of it.” Caressa walked back to the seated Emily and softly stroked one of her pigtails with lithe fingers.

“Time for group lessons. Assistants, assume your positions by your doors. Children, line up in front of your instructors.”

The windows facing the playground on the opposite side of the room transformed into three closed doors. Linza, Ziva, and Jett stood by one each, left to right. Their students, three for Linza, three for Ziva, and four for Jett, assembled by them.

“As usual, I will personally instruct Emily.” She looked down. “Stand, child.”

“Yes, Miss Siegel.”

Carresa had constructed everything so that Emily’s emotions were a turbulent mix of pride and foreboding. She knew the girl liked being treated as special, but Siegel’s actions were designed to make the other kids jealous of the preschooler. The instructor had warned Emily not to tell anyone, even her Mommy and Daddy, about her special lessons. It was supposed to be a surprise.

“Come with me.” As the doorways beside the other teachers opened into pocket universes, little realms where children could practice their nascent skills, Siegel guided Emily to the back of the room. A map of greater Enderwren vanished and was replaced by a doorway, wood of ebony, framed and veined in scarlet as if splattered in gore.

The door opened, and Caressa nudged Emily inside. She had good reason to give the youth her advanced instruction individually and in private. It was indeed supposed to be a secret and a surprise to everyone, to Mommy, Daddy, the other children, and the teachers. In fact, it would be an astounding bombshell to the entire school, to that ludicrous Grand Master Applegate, and most of all, to the hated Agatha Marchant Pye.

Three doors slammed shut on Agatha’s SUV, on the same side street where she parked every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday when she dropped Emily off at preschool. The early autumn sun had still been warm on the child’s first day, but now in late November, the grandmother and her two passengers had to dress in their thick winter coats.

Agatha pressed the fob to lock her vehicle as her daughter Angelique and her husband Scott stepped onto the sidewalk.

“Her preschool is here?” Even in his designer winter coat, a tasteful sandstone color, trimmed in red, his unusually tall frame gave him the look of someone who needed a good, hearty meal. His complexion was average for someone whose grandparents were Scots-Irish. Brown hair was falling back into a classic male pattern baldness, which at age 34, he complained was a bit premature.

“I told you, it’s not really here, Scott. This is just the entrance.”

“But I don’t see…”

“After all you’ve seen, you still don’t believe.”

Agatha watched the two bicker. She knew that they loved each other dearly, sometimes even desperately, but this was the one point, the intersection between the mundane and the fantastic, that they couldn’t share, or rather, the one Scott refused to completely accept.

“Just come with us. You’ll see.” Angelique took Scott’s gloved hand in her bare one. Her hair was longer than Agatha’s and a pleasantly-tinted honey blonde. It draped over her shoulders, the jacket being black leather and thin. Her breasts were modest, which was another feature in direct contrast to her mother.

“This way, please,” Agatha instructed. “We want to get to the school while it is still a surprise to Emily.” The Grandma herself was clad in a black woolen coat that extended below her knees. The hem met the top of jet-black boots, with silver zippers up the sides. Like her daughter, her hands were bare. The cold didn’t affect her, and her outer attire was a matter of convention, not necessity. She did find it fitting to paint her lips a savory rose, just for the color.

“But there’s never been a school on this street. Angel, you said you went to this school.”

“Yes. So did mother.”

“But this was all vacant land when you were Emily’s age, and when Agatha was…”

“Enough of that, Scott,” Agatha called, a low, feline growl in the back of her throat.

“The doorway is hidden. You know that.”

“But, Emily…”

“I went with mother to the school before we enrolled her. I told you she’d be safe, and it’s the…the perfect place for her…”

“Special needs?” Scott regretted his words the instant they left his mouth, and both Agatha and Angelique stared at him hotly to make sure he got that point.

“She’s gifted,” Agatha added for emphasis. “I’ll have you remember that.” She had stopped on the sidewalk a few steps ahead of the couple, but then resumed her brisk pace.

Scott’s grip on his wife’s hand tightened painfully as the air surrounding them twisted like a sheet in the wind, and shimmered in, what to Agatha, were familiar colors.

“Just keep walking, Darling. It’ll be over in a few seconds.”

“But everyone…the people in those houses…”

“Won’t see a thing. That’s why they call it magic.”

Agatha didn’t have to look. She could hear the smile in her daughter’s voice. Angel had long since accepted a human existence, one with a husband and children in a world that was unaware sorcery existed, and even more rarely believed it when they saw it. She knew some small part of her daughter missed the life she might have had.

Of the limited number of non-magic using people who she had ushered to Enderwren or one of the other domains before, Agatha knew Scott was about to face what his mind might never accept.

“It’s just up this path and around the hill.”

“Come on, Scott. There’ll be plenty of time for sightseeing later.” Angel tugged on his arm and pulled him forward. He staggered the first several steps, still looking for the sidewalk and the quiet, older suburban neighborhood that had vanished into unreality. His stomach falling out into emptiness, he passively let his wife guide him after his mother-in-law. He had always found Agatha eccentric, but now she had become mystifying, enigmatic, and in all probability, dangerous.

“Grand Master Applegate!” Angelique’s first reaction upon seeing him at the preschool’s entrance was to run up and embrace him, but then she remembered being his student. Instead, she bowed and bent one knee in deference.

“Now, now, Miss Pye, or rather Mrs. Watson. You haven’t been in one of our classes in a good many years, and I have mellowed in that time. How about a hug?”

“Of course, Grand Master.” She wrapped her arms around him as if he was a warm, stuffed animal.

Agatha was standing to the left of them, a satisfied smile crossing her face, while an embarrassed Scott purposely cleared his throat.

“Oh, excuse me,” Angel apologized. “Grand Master Titus Applegate, I’d like to introduce you to my husband, Scott Watson. Scott, Master Applegate was the Head of the school when I was a little girl.”

Scott awkwardly extended a hand. “Pleased to meet you, Sir.”

Titus had been practicing how not to reveal his prejudices regarding plebeians, and so his smile seemed genuine to everyone there except Aggie. “Likewise, young man. I remember Angelique fondly, though it has been a long time since she visited.” He nodded to Angel. “I still say it’s a shame you did not choose to continue your studies. By now, you would have been…”

Agatha put a hand on Applegate’s forearm and squeezed hard enough to make him wince. “Now, now, Titus. None of…” She looked past him toward the door to the classroom on the other side of the hall. “What was that?”

“What?” The Grand Master followed Aggie’s gaze, but with a look of profound puzzlement.

“So soon?” Emily felt Miss Siegel’s hand on her upper back as she gently guided her out of their private lesson area.

“The rest of the class will be joining us in a few moments.” Caressa closed the door behind them, cutting off the smell of burnt wood. She had been indulging the child’s love of fire, allowing her to ignite a small glade. It was now a lifeless wasteland. Next week, the teacher planned to introduce numerous animals to the scenario, perhaps including the irritating Mr. Newt. But it would be without the toddler’s knowledge, at least initially.

“Besides, it will be time to go home in…” Siegel paused. Then, “Something’s wrong.”

At that same moment, Agatha started walking toward the classroom door, slowly at first, then picking up the pace to a run. “Stay here.”

“But Agatha,” Applegate complained.

“I know what’s been bothering me. Titus, there’s going to be trouble.”

“In the preschool? But…”

Agatha Pye rushed into the schoolroom just as the auxiliary doorways to her left sparkled into existence, preparing to disgorge students and teachers back inside. What she found was the head teacher pressing Emily against her with both hands.

“Grandma!” The little girl grinned and tried to run to Agatha, only to be stopped by Siegel’s firm grip.

“No, child. Remember, she doesn’t love you like I do.” Seeing Scott and Angelique sprinting into the room, she added, “None of them do.”

“Miss Siegel,” the child wailed.

Scott tried to run to Emily, but Aggie motioned with her hand, sending him sailing backward to the open entrance.

“Don’t. You’d never survive.”

As Scott staggered to his feet, Angelique grabbed him. “No. We can’t protect her right now. Mom knows what she’s doing.”

“But Miss Siegel…”

“Emily, remember what I taught you.” Caressa glanced briefly to her right and saw each of the three teachers keeping their students from entering. “They sent you here to make you not use your magic. If they loved you, they’d let you do what you want.”

“Like you?” The girl looked up at her teacher’s face, seeing her eyes shining corpuscle red.

“That’s right. I’m the one who is teaching you to use your power.”

“Emily, love isn’t about doing everything you want…” Agatha began.

“Nonsense. Love is about being free,” the teacher cooed, with a sinister smile.

“It’s about keeping each other safe.”

“It’s about being able to spread your wings and fly.” The lights dimmed, and Miss Siegel’s dress changed from a faint apricot, to red, and then a seething black. Smoke began to swirl around her and the girl as Applegate’s voice sounded from behind Scott.

“Oh, my. I’ll summon the guards.”

He was already gone before hearing Agatha remark, “It’ll be too late by then.”

“It’s too late now. I’ll never forget what you did to my mother.”

“Kamalei Iyabo had a child?” Agatha accused.

“One who didn’t make the same mistakes as her mother. I didn’t come to build an empire on the power of children from a school of remarkable mystics. Just one extraordinary student, my protégé. Oh, and for revenge, of course.”

“What’s that mean?” Emily peeped up at Caressa and then back to her family. “I want to go home now, Miss Siegel.”

“You will, but it will be home with me. Sorry, child, but Dear Granny’s awareness of me pushed up my timetable.”

“Mommy?”

“I’m here, sweetheart.” Angelique knelt. “I love you, baby.”

“But you want me to stop using magic like you did.”

“I want you to be happy, but I also want you to be safe.”

“Miss Siegel says my magic is safe when I’m with her. She lets me do stuff you and Daddy won’t. She says Daddy’s just a pleb, and he doesn’t love me because he’s afraid.”

“That’s not true, darling.” Scott got down on the floor next to Angelique. “We love you very much.”

“But you’re scared of me.”

“Sometimes I don’t understand what you can do, but I’m not afraid of you.”

“Liar!” Caressa pointed an accusing hand at him. “You’re always afraid of what you don’t understand. I see you edging closer, Agatha Pye. Not one more step. Emily is still under my control.”

“Meaning you’ll hurt her if I come nearer.”

“Miss Siegel wouldn’t hurt me.” Then Emily gazed up questioningly at the teacher. “I want to go home now. Why haven’t the rest of the kids come back inside yet?”

“If you go now, Mommy, Daddy, and Grandma will never let you return. They’ll take you away from me forever. Do you really want that?”

“Emily, we’re your family. We love you,” Agatha implored.

“I love you, but I love my Miss Siegel, too.”

“I told you, Pye, not another step.” Siegel raised her hand again. This time, her gesture doubled over the older woman. Angelique started to get up, but her mother waved her back.

“Grandma!” Emily tried to jump forward as Caressa grasped her arm, holding her fast.

“No, you don’t. I said you were coming with me.” Looking past the trio, she saw a group of figures approaching. “Applegate, keep them back unless you don’t care what happens to Emily.”

“You said you wouldn’t hurt me.” The smoke threatened to become an engulfing whirlwind.

“This is for your own good. Trust me.” The diabolical door behind Siegel opened, this time to a dark abyss. “I’ll take you someplace safe.”

“I want to go home.”

“Your home is with me.”

“No. I want Mommy and Daddy. I want them now.”

Agatha raised her head, this time her eyes inviting Emily to rebel.

The rapidly churning smoke exploded into a column of steam, breaking Caressa’s grip and casting Emily through the air away from her. At the same instant, Agatha waved her arm backward, pulling the sailing preschooler toward her. Siegel slipped her fingers inside one sleeve, but her older adversary had already drawn her wand. Esoteric energies of amethyst and jade shot forth from Mrs. Pye’s wand, in the form of electrifying bolts. She narrowly missed the evil witch, as she flew through the opening behind her and vanished into the gloom.

By the time Agatha managed to get there, the door had shut, and an instant later, it had disappeared into imagination. Pressing one palm on what was once again a map of Enderwren, she subtly sensed that Caressa Iyabo would one day come again as a menace.

“Emily, oh God, Emily,” her Daddy cried as he and her Mommy clutched her tightly.

“I love you, Emmy. Daddy and I love you so much. I was so afraid you’d be taken away from us.”

The family dissolved into tears of fear and joy as Agatha watched, noting that after her ordeal, the little girl remained amazingly unharmed.

Linza and the other two teachers let the students go into the classroom as the Grand Master escorted half a dozen senior sorcerers, who were no longer needed, to join everyone else.

“Are you hurt, Agatha?” Titus held out a hand.

“Only my pride.” She walked over to her old friend and accepted his hand as well as his kiss upon hers.

“But Mom, I saw…”

“You saw what I wanted you to see, or rather what I wanted Miss Iyabo to see. Me being helpless.”

“Are you okay, Grandma?” Emily swiveled and hugged her Grandma’s legs.

“I am now, dearest one.” She squatted down and cuddled the small child.

“Mom, I’m so sorry.”

“For what, Angelique?” She stood, holding Emily’s hand.

“If I hadn’t quit all those years ago…if I hadn’t been afraid…”

“You wanted to save your child. I know what that feels like.”

“But I…Scott, we can’t let Emily quit like I did.”

“Can’t we talk about this later?” He spoke between gritted teeth, and then saw the look on his daughter’s face. “I just want to protect you and our family.”

“We will talk about this later, but you and I need to have a serious conversation about what safe is for Emily.”

“Angel?”

“She’s right, Scott,” Agatha interrupted. “You’re right, too, at least about talking later.”

Applegate was still standing at the front of the room while the six security magicians were interviewing the other teachers and students. One of them, a short, hirsute man who looked as if he had more than one Dwarfish relative in his lineage, approached Agatha.

“Name’s Dowardo, Ma’am. Could I get a statement from you about this incident?”

“Later, young man,” Titus declared “Can’t you see she and her family have been through quite a bit?” Then to Agatha, “You called our Miss Siegel Iyabo. That’s a name I haven’t thought of since you last brought her up. Think we’ve seen the last of her?”

“I think so, Titus,” she lied. “She was really mean, Grandma,” Emily frowned.

“Well,” Applegate heaved a sigh. “I guess I’ll need to start interviewing for a new teacher.” He looked at the three instructors. “No offense, but the lot of you will be apprenticing for a while longer.”

“Are we going home now?”

The sound of running footfalls and murmuring voices came from the outer hall.

“That would be the other parents.” Applegate waved at Dowardo. “Help the teachers guide each child to their guardians.”

Scott pulled Emily to one side. “Yes, we can go home now.” He nodded at Agatha, who interpreted his intent. Her dad had no intention of letting his daughter resume her lessons at a preschool of wizardry. If the other parents felt the same way, it might close the school down permanently.

As it turned out, the children only had to miss a week of preschool while the investigation was completed, and the last of Miss Caressa Iyabo’s malevolent presence was purged from the building and surrounding environment. The Monday following their enforced absence, one by one, they returned with their parents’ blessings. The Grand Master still hadn’t lost all of his charm or his powers of persuasion. Linza, Ziva, and Jett welcomed each student at the door.

Emily was the last one to arrive, but only because she was still hugging her Mommy.

“I’ll be here when you get out of class, sweetheart.”

“You’re really going to school, too?” The little one still couldn’t believe big people went to class.

“Your Grandma said it wouldn’t hurt for me to audit a few lectures, and well…I guess I really missed this place.”

“Me, too, Mommy.” Then she whispered, “Is Daddy and brother going to be okay with it?”

“You were there when we all had Sunday dinner with Grandma. We agreed as a family that you could come back. Daddy and I even met with the Mommies and Daddies of your classmates.” Angelique was warmed for a moment by how her normally shy but stolid husband had stepped way outside of his comfort zone. He was the world’s best Daddy, especially to his daughter, a wizard in the making. “Now you run along. Don’t make your new teacher wait.”

They both shared a secret giggle before hugging one more time.

“Bye, Mommy. I love you. See you later.” The girl waved as she trotted through the doorway.

“Bye-bye, Emily. See you later.” Then after the toddler disappeared inside, “I love you so much.” She allowed herself a moment to watch her daughter scamper through the class’s doorway. Then she crossed the courtyard toward the tower. If the younger Iyabo was still hiding here or had confederates, she and Mother would help find them—together.

Emily ran past the desk at the front of the room, and hurriedly took her usual seat next to a grinning Tamika. Em had always adored her friend’s collection of “Upside Down Unicorn” t-shirts. Last night, Daddy let Grandma give her a black one with the rainbow-colored creature’s horn buried in the ground, and its legs flailing in the air. It was the same one Tammi was wearing today.

Folding her hands in front of her on the desk, Emily’s face beamed with glee. “Good morning, Teacher. Sorry, I’m late.”

“Not to worry, Miss Watson. I’ll allow it this time.” Then standing, the newly-minted instructor walked around to the front of her desk. “Good morning, class. My name is Mrs. Agatha Pye, and I’ll be your new head teacher.”

Grandma and Emily shared a conspiratorial wink between them. The budding, little sorceress knew this would be the best, funnest school year ever.

James Pyles is a published science fiction and fantasy writer as well as a freelance Information Technology textbook author and editor. A growing number of his short stories have been published in anthologies and periodicals since 2019. He also has a passion for reading the genres he writes and is currently working on more interesting and compelling projects for 2020. You can find him at https://poweredbyrobots.com/ or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/jamespylesauthor/

Going Home

Becky R. Jones

Middle school is rough to begin with. Add in stinky boys and kinetic magic gone wrong and Moira Donaldson is having a bad day. Now, she has to help her teacher figure out a way to get their school back to where it belongs. They also have to do it without sacrificing anybody.

Going Home

Middle school stinks. Really stinks. It especially stinks if you’re the only girl in your kinetic magic class, and the teacher looks at you like you’re some kind of freak. The boys do, too, but they’re boys. Being the only girl in a family with five boys means I’m used to boys. Being the youngest kid means I’m used to boys doing stupid things, too. But I really hoped that there would be other girls in this class. My best friend, Sara, is good at kinetic magic, too, (not as good as me, but still good), which surprised both our dads, but she said she’s not really interested in learning more about it. Dad says that kinetic magic is usually stronger in boys, but that doesn’t mean a girl can’t do it and learn to get really, really good at it. He did have to kinda yell at the school to get me into the class, which was sorta embarrassing, but besides being the only girl in a class with a bunch of stinky boys, this is probably my favorite class this year.

My name is Moira Donaldson, and I’m thirteen years old. Like I said, I’m really good at kinetic magic, which is moving things around. One of my brothers took this class, Basics of Kinetic Magic (how do they always manage to make classes sound so boring?) and he said they got to build a scale-model pyramid using real stones just like the original pyramid builders did, but on a smaller scale. I thought that sounded totally cool. I’ve been building things like that since I was a little kid. So when the school finally decided to let girls (namely me) take classes in the kinetic magic track, I was totally psyched.

We’re almost halfway through the school year, and the teacher, Mr. Scaramucci (we all call him Mr. S., but not to his face), still looks really surprised when I raise my hand in class and even more surprised when I have the right answer. I’m pretty sure in the parent-teacher meetings he asked my dad if he or my brothers were doing my homework or something. I would have loved to see the look on Dad’s face when that question was asked! Dad’s the one who made me practice extra at home and when I have questions about my homework he always says, “Well, what do you think?” Do my homework for me?? Not a chance. He said that he didn’t want me to believe that I couldn’t do something just because I’m a girl. Dad’s pretty cool.

So, stupid boys and stupid teachers are two of the biggest reasons middle school stinks. Another one, and right now, it’s THE BIGGEST one, is that middle school stinks is because weird stuff always randomly happens. Take today, for instance. I was in kinetic class, and we were practicing moving multiple things around at one time. So, three big stones, five chairs, that sort of thing. Everybody is just going along, shifting piles of stones and chairs and whatever from one side of the playground to the other, when some idiot didn’t focus enough and shifted the entire school elsewhere. (I bet it was Benny Dunleavy…not only is he stupid, he thinks he’s super smart. That’s a bad combination.) Now, nobody knows where or when we are, the teachers are panicking (well, they’re not showing it, but I bet they are. I mean, how many times has the school shifted into another plane of existence?) and we are on some small island in the middle of some gigantic lake somewhere. The sky looks kinda weird, like a blue-gray almost-storming look. I’ve never seen it like that before.

I think we’re in a lake and not an ocean. I can sort of see a shore when I look across the playground. And, there are trees pretty near the water, which I don’t think happens at the beach. It looks a lot like a lake we went to on vacation one time. But this lake is much bigger. And, I know there was no island in the middle of the one we went to. Especially not an island with my middle school on it. Duh. So, Benny (I’m sticking with my idea that it’s Benny because he’s just that arrogant, and he’s looking really, really scared right now and trying not to let Mr. S. see him), has somehow managed to shift the entire school to this stupid island. And, nobody seems to know how to get us back home.

“Mo! Mo!” Sara was running across the playground toward me.

“What?” I quit trying to see if I could spot anything on the shore.

“Where are we? Did you do this?” she asked when she stopped next to me.

“Me? Why do you think I did this? I don’t run around moving whole buildings!”

“Yeah, you do. Remember that time last summer when you moved your dad’s garden shed across your back yard? He was soooo mad!” Sara laughed.

“Okay, yeah. But I never moved it elsewhere. And, no, I have no idea where we are. But I think Benny Dunleavy did it. He’s an idiot and thinks he knows everything.” I said we were elsewhere, that area of unknown that we all knew was in between our world and the world where magic didn’t exist. But I really hoped we had only shifted somewhere else in our own world. I had never heard of anybody bringing anything or anybody back from elsewhere or from the non-magical world.

Sara looked worried. “Do you think we’re really elsewhere?”

“I hope not. But, the trees over there don’t look like any trees at home.” In fact, the trees looked like something out of a picture book that I’d had as a little kid. They had long, skinny trunks, and weird, poofy-looking leaves that were all clustered at the top. They were swaying a little bit, but there was no wind. Freaky.

Sara watched the trees. “Yeah, I don’t like those. They look weird. Are you sure Benny did this?”

Mr. S. walked up. “Miss Donaldson, I need your help.” Sara and I both stared at him.

“Um….Okay.” What was going on? I didn’t think he liked me.

He looked at Sara. “Miss Preston, do you have any abilities in kinetic or image magic?”

Sara shot a questioning glance at me; I shrugged. I had no clue what Mr. S. was really asking about.

“Yeah, I can do both,” Sara said.

“She’s as good as me in kinetic magic,” I added. Whatever was going on, I didn’t want to be separated from Sara.

Mr. S. raised an eyebrow. “Excellent. I need you two young ladies to accompany me. Mrs. Barber will be working with the other teachers to organize the rest of the students. We’re not sure what happened, but we will need to work together to get the school back to its original location. Our class and anybody else with any ability in kinetic magic will be working to move us back.” He turned and walked purposefully back to the main building. Sara and I stared at each other and then hurried to catch up with him.

As we trotted across the playground trying to keep up with Mr. S., I tried to find some clue so I could tell for certain if we really were elsewhere, somewhere strange in our own world, or in the non-magical world. I really didn’t know how I would know if we were in the non-magical world. And, if we were in the non-magical world, how were we getting back? If anybody I knew had been there (and I had my suspicions about Dad), they’d never said anything, and I’d never read any descriptions of it. Dad didn’t really talk about it either. Those trees were bugging me; they were still moving together. Based on that alone I’m guessing we were somewhere strange in our own world, or elsewhere. Creepy.

“Um, Mr. Scaramucci?” I figured he’d know if anybody did.

He glanced down at me and raised one eyebrow. “Yes?”

“What happened? Where are we?”

He looked back toward the main building and kept walking at a rapid pace. “Well, we, that is the teachers and the principal, believe that we are elsewhere, between our world and the non-magical world.”

“How can that happen?” I really wanted to know if Benny had done it.

“I’ll explain it when we have the class together. I don’t want to have to repeat myself several times.” He opened the door to the main building and waved me and Sara through. We walked down the hall, past the cafeteria. I started to go upstairs to our usual classroom when Mr. Scaramucci stopped me.

“No, we’re using the auditorium.” He waved his hand toward the door at the far end of the hallway.

We walked into the auditorium, and I saw all the boys in my class near the front. Benny-the-idiot was still trying to hide behind some of the others. There were also some teachers and other adults, along with a bunch of other students, standing around including my next-older brother, Donny.

Donny walked over and gave me a hug. “I bet Benny Dunleavy did this, and I bet he has no idea how he did it, so the rest of us have to figure this out,” he whispered as he hugged me. I laughed and stopped myself from staring over at Benny. So, I wasn’t the only one who’d noticed. My brother was pretty cool and smart. He was one of the things that made middle school less stupid and stinky. I hoped Mr. S. had figured it out, too.

Mr. Scaramucci vaulted up onto the stage at the front of the auditorium and clapped his hands. “Okay, quiet please. Everybody, please listen up and pay attention. Grab a seat close to the front.”

He waited about ten seconds for the shuffling and muttering to die down as everybody found a seat. (Benny didn’t sit in the front row).

“Okay, so somebody in Introductory Kinetics has managed to move us to this island.” He shot a glance at Benny, who was ducking down behind the kid sitting in front of him. It was pretty funny because Benny is pretty tall, and because he’s so arrogant, he’s always made sure the teachers know he’s there. Now, all of a sudden, he’s trying to hide. He really is an idiot. He should just have a sign that says, “I did it!”

Everybody else was looking at all of us in the class trying to figure out which one of us did it. I saw some of them staring at Benny.

Mr. S. clapped his hands again. “I said, listen up! You are all here because you have either demonstrated or potential skill with kinetic magic or image magic. Since the individual responsible for our present situation claims to have no idea how it happened, we will all have to work together to move us and the school back to our proper location.”

I raised my hand. “Yes, Miss Donaldson?”

“Mr. Scaramucci, sir, why do you need all of us? Why can’t the person who did it just use their magic to shift us back even if they don’t know how we got here?”

“Good question, Miss Donaldson. Does anybody want to answer that?” Was Mr. Scaramucci really turning this into a class lesson?

One of the older kids, a girl I sorta knew, Jenny O’Reilly, raised her hand.

“Miss O’Reilly? You have an answer?” Mr. S. stared at her.

Sara leaned over to me. “He looks surprised that Jenny raised her hand,” she whispered.

“Well, he seems to think that girls don’t know anything about kinetic magic and can’t build things. You should have heard my dad about him!” I whispered back, putting my hand over my mouth to stop a giggle.

“Sir, there’s a pattern to a move that only the originator knows. If it’s a simple move, like moving a table across the room, or stacking blocks, another person can simply create a new pattern and remove the chairs or the blocks. But, if it’s more complex, um, like, um, moving a whole school, then the best way is for the original person to move it back so that everything returns to the exact way it was before.” Jenny sounded pretty confident.

“Correct, Miss O’Reilly. Very good answer.” Mr. S. looked even more surprised.

I leaned over to Sara, “As far as he knows, she’s only the second girl that can do kinetic magic. Besides me.”

“What about the rest of us?” she asked indignantly.

I snorted. “I bet he won’t really believe it until he sees you move something.”

Sara rolled her eyes.

“…divide into teams to work on the problem.” While Sara and I were whispering, Mr. S. had kept talking about how we were going to bring the school back. I sat up and started to pay more attention.

“Several of you in here are skilled at creating images and opening them, in other words, image magic. We need you to begin setting up an image of this school in its proper place. Make sure it’s three-dimensional, include all the streets around it, the landscaping, everything. We need as accurate an image as possible; that will have to be done outside. That’s one team. Until that image is complete, the kinetics team cannot move us back. We, the kinetics team, will work on retrieving the original pattern to move the school back and avoid any…unpleasant endings.” He paused and swept his gaze over the group sitting in front of him.

I looked around. There were about twenty students, three other teachers, a lady who worked in the cafeteria, the principal’s secretary, and two of the janitors. It had never occurred to me that the secretaries and janitors could have strong magic skills. Why would you work as a janitor if you were a kinetic? Dad had always told me that kinetics were in high demand by building contractors. That seemed like an easier job than being a janitor.

I also noticed that Benny was still trying to duck down behind the seats. Did Mr. S. really not know who’s fault it was? I mean, I know he said that the person responsible didn’t know what they did, but that could be a cover for he didn’t know who did it. Donny caught my eye and shook his head. Brother-sister code for don’t say anything.

It bugged me that Benny was spending so much time hiding. Normally, he was right up front bragging about what he did and making sure that everybody, teachers included, knew what he did, even if he did get in some trouble, because he almost always got told how talented he was. Something was off here. Much as I wanted Benny to finally get in trouble, this was starting to look really weird.

Mr. Scaramucci clapped his hands again. “Listen up, people. The image team will go with Mrs. Brattle, and the kinetics team will come with me.”

The cafeteria lady turned out to be Mrs. Brattle. She was good at illusions and images? That might explain some of our cafeteria food.

Mr. Scaramucci looked at me. “Miss Donaldson, will you please gather up all the kinetic specialists and join the rest of our class in the back of the auditorium? Thank you.”

I stared at him until Sara shoved her elbow into my side. “Um…okay…I guess…okay.” I was in charge of some of the people? The only girl in Basic Kinetics?

Sara leaned over. “I want to be in your group, not with the cafeteria lady!” I nodded. Of course, Sara was going to be there. So was Donny. I needed at least two people I could trust.

“Ahem. Now, please, Miss Donaldson,” Mr. Scaramucci said, giving me a look that promised extra homework if I didn’t get moving now. He gestured to the rest of the kinetics class and they all headed toward the back of the auditorium.

“Yeah. Okay. Sorry.” I looked at Mrs. Brattle. “Um…like, um, how should we divide everybody else up?”

She frowned and looked around at the students and adults who were still sitting in the first couple of rows of seats.

“Okay, who thinks that they’re stronger in image magic?” She glared around at everybody. I noticed that Sara and Donny kept their hands down. I knew they were both pretty good at illusions, but Sara had already said she wanted to be with me, and I guess Donny thought he should work with his little sister.

Benny Dunleavy had already gone with our class, so I knew that I would have to work with him, but some of the boys who were in his crowd were staring between Mrs. Brattle and me. I really, really hoped they went with her. I didn’t want to deal with all those guys. Benny by himself was bad enough.

Lucky for me, they all raised their hands for images, and so all of them, one of the janitors, and two of the other teachers went with Mrs. Brattle. I stared at everybody still sitting there. The other janitor, one other teacher, the principal’s secretary, my brother Donny, Sara, and two other older students, a girl and a boy, who I had seen around school but didn’t know.

“Okay. I guess you guys are good at kinetics?” I tried really hard to sound like I knew what I was doing. I mean I’m good at kinetics, but nobody ever listens to a thirteen-year-old girl.

The janitor, I think his name was Carl, smiled at me. “You’re doing okay, kid. Yeah, we’re good at kinetics.” Donny nodded in agreement, and Sara jabbed her elbow in my side again.

“Um, okay. Well, I guess we need to go see what Mr. Scaramucci wants us to do.”

I led the way to the back of the auditorium, to meet up with the rest of my class. Sara stopped next to me. “Do you still think Benny did this?” she whispered.

“Yeah, I do. Look at him. He’s scared to death that Mr. S. is gonna yell at him in front of everybody.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right. I wonder why none of his friends came over here?” Sara glanced back over her shoulder at the image magic group that was gathered in front of the stage.

“They probably don’t want to get blamed for anything he did. Great friends, huh?” I snorted.

We walked past the open door at the back of the auditorium, and Sara punched me in the arm.

“Look!” she hissed, pointing at the weird trees just outside the playground fence.

The trees were still swaying back and forth together only faster now. Like some weird line of dancers. We had to be elsewhere. Or, wherever Mr. S. said, somewhere in between elsewhere and our world. How the heck did stupid Benny do this?

Speaking of stupid Benny Dunleavy, he looked super scared now. I could tell that Mr. S. must have yelled at him before we got there, because Mr. S. was looking more annoyed than usual, and Benny was slouched down in a seat, holding his head in his hands, and shaking.

“I don’t know! I don’t knoo-ooow!” he was wailing. “I didn’t think it would work! He said…” Benny suddenly stopped talking.

Mr. Scaramucci pounced. “Who said what? Who’s ‘he’?”

The whole group, including Carl, Mrs. Marsh, the teacher, and Mrs. Reynolds, the principal’s secretary, were staring back and forth between Benny and Mr. S.

Mrs. Marsh sort of reached out her hand toward Mr. Scaramucci. “Um, Michael, um, I think the kid’s scared. Maybe we should leave him alone.”

Mr. S. didn’t even glance up. He just stared at Benny. “No, Brenda. This kid did something to get us here. Or worse, he allowed someone or some thing to use him and our class exercises to bring us here. I don’t know why anybody wants us here; but I do know that we need to leave as fast as possible, and this kid is the only one who can do that.”

Benny actually started crying. I mean, blubbering. It was gross. I could see snot running out of his nose, and he just kept shaking. Now I was sorta starting to feel bad for him. He looked really scared. He looked so scared that I started to get scared. How were we going to get home if Benny didn’t know how we got here? Boys do stupid things, and they stink. Need proof? Benny in a seat blubbering into his hands with snot running down his face.

We were all staring at Benny and Mr. Scaramucci when Benny’s head jerked up, and his mouth fell open. He started making a weird wailing or screaming noise, and his head whipped back and forth like he was watching a super fast tennis game or something. His eyes rolled back until all you could see was white. And then they turned black. Like black holes in his head.

Mr. Scaramucci jumped back. His eyes got really big, and I got extra scared. I didn’t know that Mr. Scaramucci could be afraid of anything.

“Brenda, Amanda, Carl!” he snapped and reached his hand out to the other adults. They all grabbed hands, making a circle around Benny, and started chanting a spell that I’d never heard before. And Dad let me hear and read a lot of different kinds of spells.

After a minute that felt like an hour, Benny stopped screaming and slumped down in his chair with his eyes closed. Mr. S. and Mrs. Marsh were panting like they’d just run across the school. Mrs. Marsh collapsed into a seat a couple away from Benny. I didn’t blame her. I wouldn’t want to sit next to him after that either. Carl and Mrs. Reynolds sat down on the other side of Benny. They all looked really tired.

Donny came over to stand by me, and Sara and I edged closer to each other. This was now officially super weird and super scary. Mr. Scaramucci looked over at me.

“Miss Donaldson, you are the strongest in our class. I need you to work with me and Mrs. Marsh. We are going to have to move Mr. Dunleavy outside of the playground over to those trees.”

“You’re going to give him to the trees? What do the trees have to do with any of this?” I waved my hands vaguely around the auditorium. I was shocked. Mr. Scaramucci sounded like he was going to just abandon Benny to the strange, swaying trees. I didn’t like Benny, but that seemed like a really bad idea for anybody.

“We don’t have any choice. Mr. Dunleavy has allowed one of the wraiths that lives in this…wherever we are…in between…elsewhere…in those trees and other places, into his soul. It is what caused him to relocate the school. It’s bad enough that one student has been captured; we cannot allow all of us to fall to the same fate. Therefore, Benny will have to go out to the trees.” Mr. Scaramucci’s expression was upset and angry.

“But…but…” Sara was staring between Benny and Mr. S. “Can’t you get the…whatever…wraith out of him and just send it back to the trees?”

Mrs. Marsh glanced up at Mr. S, and he met her eyes. They both sighed heavily, and Mrs. Marsh put her head back in her hands. Carl, the janitor, moved like he was about to say something, but then he glanced at Mr. S. and just grimaced and didn’t say anything. Mrs. Reynolds was crying quietly.

I was beyond super scared now.

What was going to happen to Benny, and how were we going to get back to our world? I felt a small movement next to me, and Sara raised her hand.

“Sir? Excuse me, Mr. Scarmucci?” Her voice was shaky. She sounded as nervous as I felt.

“Yes, Miss Preston?” Mr. S. just sounded sad.

“Um…I-I think, um, like, um, there’s a way to get the wraith out of Benny, um…” she trailed off when Mr. S. turned to her.

“What do you mean, Miss Preston?” He was really staring at her now.

I was surprised. He was actually listening to Sara and not acting like a teacher. He must be really worried, too.

“Well, um…well…” Sara took a deep breath. “My uncle got caught by a wraith a couple years ago, and I watched my dad do a spell with my other uncle that sent the wraith back to wherever…here?” She made a gesture that indicated the whole school and this weird elsewhere or not place.

I stared at Sara. “You never told me about that!”

She shrugged and gave me a sideways glance. “It’s not exactly something you go around advertising,” she muttered, staring at her feet.

“Quite right, Miss Preston, and thank you for sharing this infor…” Mr. S. broke off as Benny started wailing again, jumped up out of his seat, and ran toward the back door. Carl sprinted after him and tackled Benny to the floor with help from Donny and the other boy. Benny’s face was all twisted up, and his eyes were all weird again. They didn’t look like eyes, they looked like black holes in his face. Mr. S. studied the pile of people on the floor and then glanced back at Sara.

“Okay, Miss Preston, we’ll need to begin immediately. Please tell me everything you know.”

Mr. S. and Sara moved a little bit away from the rest of us and Sara started talking really fast. I couldn’t hear what she was saying, but Mr. S. was nodding like a bobblehead doll.

Donny and the others got Benny to stay down and Carl, Mrs. Marsh, and Mrs. Reynolds did that spell again to keep him quiet. Now they all looked even more tired. Mrs. Reynolds pulled a candy bar out of her purse, broke it into three pieces and gave two of the pieces to Carl and Mrs. Marsh. They all wolfed them down. I just stood there trying to figure out what to do.

“Miss Donaldson, come over here, please.” Mr. S’s voice startled me. I ran over to him and Sara.

“Yes, sir?”

“You’re the strongest student I’ve ever had. Surprising, but there you go.” He licked his lips and rubbed his hand across his face. “I believe you can handle this.”

“Um. Okay. What is it?” I could see Donny’s worried expression as he watched us.

“Miss Preston has given me the details of how her uncle was freed from the wraith. This will require some teamwork. Mrs. Marsh, Mrs. Reynolds, Miss Preston, and I will handle the wraith. You, Carl, and the others will first move Benny out to the trees…”

“No! We can’t give him to the trees!” I shocked myself by interrupting a teacher. Benny was stupid and annoying, but not those trees…

Mr. S. sighed and held up one hand, but he didn’t seem angry. “As I was about to say, you and the others will move Benny out to the trees but remain on this side of the playground fence. We need to get him as close as possible without going directly into the domain of the wraiths.”

“Oh.” I felt my face go red.

“It’s okay. I understand,” Mr. S. sounded tired. “To continue, after we move Benny outside, Mrs. Marsh, Miss Preston and I will take over. At that point, you will begin the process for moving the school back to our original plane. We will have the illusion team outside with us so we don’t lose any time; that is of the essence. With the wraith gone, Benny should be back to himself and be able to remember the pattern to return us to our world. You will need to work with him at that point. Are we clear?” Mr. S. gave me the same look he did in class when he expected you to know the answer.

I nodded. “I think so. We move Benny outside, you guys start to get rid of the wraith, get the image from the other group, we start the kinetic spell to move the school back, you guys come back with normal Benny, we move the school back.” It sounded simple enough, but I’d never moved anything like Benny, never mind the entire school.

Mr. S. smiled at me. “Excellent. I know you can do this. You have your father’s strength and talent and that makes you very formidable. And, I understand you once moved a garden shed, so moving Benny shouldn’t be too much different.”

Oh, yeah. The shed. Remembering that made me feel a little better. But I still didn’t like the look on Mr. Scaramucci’s face. This was going to be a lot harder than moving that shed or some chairs around the playground.

Mr. S. nodded at me and moved over toward the others with Sara and me following him. Benny was now back in one of the chairs with Carl standing next to him, and Mrs. Marsh sitting on the other side. Mr. S. started explaining what we were going to do. Donny came over and put his hand on my shoulder.

“You okay, sis?”

“Yeah. I’m fine. We have to do this, so we will.” I smiled at my big brother. “I’ll just pretend it’s Dad’s garden shed.” Donny laughed.

Mr. S. looked over at us. “Miss Donaldson, we’re going to work in unison. On my count we will begin the spell. The direction for our object…Benny…will begin at six feet in height. The path is right, 25 feet, left 40 feet. That will carry us to the closest point to the trees while remaining inside the fence line. I’m not convinced that the fence will completely stop them if they wish to come in, but I believe it will act as a significant deterrent.”

I was starting to wish that Mr. S. was a little less honest and just told us it would all be fine. But I guess that wasn’t how he worked.

Mr. S. turned around and waved at the illusion team at the front of the auditorium. Mrs. Brattle waved back. The whole group had stopped whatever they were doing, and everybody was staring at us. They walked up the auditorium aisle, and after Mrs. Brattle and Mr. S. talked quickly, she took them all outside. I just hoped they’d created a good enough illusion so that we could use it to get back home.

“Is everyone ready?” Mr. S. gazed around at all of us. I swallowed hard and nodded. I felt Donny and Carl put their hands on my shoulders. I guess the others were holding their shoulders, but I didn’t look back there. I was focused on Benny.

“We got ya, sis,” Donny whispered.

Leva oculos corporis.

Proficies.

Praeterilla.

As the power built up in the spell, I could feel energy coming from Donny and Carl and the others. That was a little weird. I felt stronger, but it was like I was vibrating.

Benny was still slumped over in the seat with his eyes closed, but he slowly began to rise out of it as we kept going with the spell. I started creating my own pattern to take Benny outside. He twitched a little but didn’t really move. That was a relief. I’d only ever shifted things like chairs and rocks, and they don’t move around by themselves. People are completely different.

Mr. S. pointed to the door, and I moved toward it in my kinetic pattern, with Donny and Carl and the others shuffling along behind me. Talk about awkward. Once we got outside, the trees started swaying back and forth even more. Somebody gasped, and there was a small stutter in the power that was flowing into me. I heard Donny say, “Don’t stop!” and the power went back to an even flow. Carl squeezed my shoulder.

Mr. S. frowned at the trees doing their weird swaying dance thing and then glanced over at Benny. I did, too. Benny’s face had twisted into a snarl. His eyes were closed, but I could see them rolling around under his eyelids. It was like watching somebody have a very bad dream.

The trees started making a weird noise. It sounded like somebody whispering, and I thought there were words in it. I tried to hear what they were saying.

“Do not listen to the wraiths!” Mr. S.’s voice cracked like a whip. It was so loud and sudden I couldn’t hear the whispering anymore.

“Now, Miss Preston, Mrs. Marsh, Mrs. Reynolds,” Mr. S. said sharply.

The four of them started chanting, and Benny screamed. I flinched, but Donny and Carl squeezed my shoulders harder. Benny screamed again, and the movement of the trees became frantic. Whatever they were, or the wraiths were, they didn’t want to leave Benny alone.

Benny shrieked a third time, and then his eyes opened with those black holes in them. He was twisting and turning in the air where I was holding him. I took more energy from Donny, Carl, and the others to keep him still. Finally, after what felt like ages, Benny stopped twisting and passed out. Mr. S. took his eyes off Benny for the first time and glanced over at Mrs. Brattle and the image group.

“Now!” he snapped. “Miss Donaldson, remove Benny!”

I started pulling Benny back towards me. “Hang on!” I clenched my teeth. Just as we got him next to me and started lowering him to the ground, Benny opened his eyes. I didn’t want to look at them, but when I did, they were normal. I waved at him (I have no idea why) and said, “We have to go back home now.”

Benny nodded and held out his hand. I grabbed it, and the pattern appeared in front of me. We turned to face the image created by Mrs. Brattle and the others.

“Go!” I yelled at Benny. All the energy from Carl, Donny, and the others poured into me. I shoved it into Benny’s pattern, and I could feel the shift start. I’d never been in a group kinetic spell before and never moved myself. It felt really weird. Benny was panting, and I felt like I was running as fast as I could.

Just when I thought my lungs were going to explode and Benny was actually whimpering, Mr. S. let out a yell.

“Yes! You did it! Leave the pattern!”

I dropped Benny’s hand, and he collapsed. I probably would have, too, except Donny caught me by my armpits just as I was about to fall. (I bet that looked hysterical).

I leaned against Donny and looked around. We were not in the middle of a lake anymore, and there were no swaying trees outside the fence. I could see the street that went past the back of the school, along the fence.

We were home.

Mr. S. smiled at me. “Excellent work, Miss Donaldson. Excellent work.”

There was no school the next day, which was fine with me. I slept almost all day. When I finally woke up, Mom gave me a giant bowl of soup and three grilled cheese sandwiches. I ate everything.

Dad told me he was proud of me and that I did a great job. That felt really good.

Middle school still stinks, but it’s definitely not boring.

I wonder if Benny is going to be in class tomorrow.

Becky R. Jones landed in San Diego after spending the first eight years of her life as an Army brat. After college she spent time in banking, building sets for television shows, mobile home park management, and aerospace before going back to school and getting a PhD in political science. That led to twenty-plus years in academia. Now, as a newly emerging fiction writer, she’s changing directions again. She blogs at https://profornery.wordpress.com and you can find her first book, Academic Magic, on Amazon. She currently lives in Philadelphia with her husband and Max the Wonder Cat.

The Monster of Mordwin

Morgan Newquist

The School of Spells & War is an ongoing collection of old-fashioned sword-and-sorcery adventure stories following a wizard and warrior duo as they gallivant across the continent of Thillon. Good-humored, powerful warrior Cahan and intelligent, skilled wizard Alis work together to serve their university, by battling dragons, investigating plots against the king, hunting witches, and dealing with the ongoing threat of the ancient and mysterious Formless.

In The Monster of Mordwin, the fourth story in this collection, Alis and Cahan visit Mordwin College, a school only for wizards, rather than a joint one between warriors and magic users. A strange monster has the school under siege, and aid from Thillon’s wandering wizard and warrior duo is sorely needed. Can Alis help defeat the monster, and even harder, control her growing feelings for Cahan in the face of his old friend and potential suitor?

The Monster of Mordwin:

A Story of the School of Spells and War

Alis clung to the tree branch like a cat, too busy holding on to scream. Glowing, mossy green eyes and a gaping mouth swam beneath her. An overwhelming drive to flee gripped her, but she had nowhere else to go. Even if she dared to loosen her grip to climb higher, the branches would not support her.

The monster beneath her bellowed. A blast of air rank with mildew hit her in the face. It smelled like a cave had vomited its stench at her. Red-brown arms, lumpy and undefined, flailed beneath her and shook her refuge.

A tiny squeak escaped her lips, drowned out by the noise of the animate lump shaking the tree. Alis’ fingers slipped, and her chest slid forward, her body precariously twisting to the side. She couldn’t hold on much longer.

Just when she thought her grip would give way and she’d fall into the creatures waiting arms, thunder burst overhead. Alis reflexively tightened her knees and her elbows at the deafening crack. The sky above her head grew black and lightning flashed across darkening clouds. Rain poured down on her, soaking her to the bone.

A roar of rage exploded from the beast. Reacting to the sudden squall, the construct released the tree. After one final jerk, the violent shaking stopped. Alis readjusted her grip while she had the chance and looked down. Rain splattered onto the monster with audible plunks, leaving deep pockmarks in its skin. As she swayed to and fro on her perch, Alis watched in horror as the beast melted away before her eyes. Water oversaturated the clay forming its body. Muddy chunks slid off its face and arms, slapping loudly onto the ground at the base of the tree. Dirt skin washed away but revealed no muscles or skeleton beneath it. All but the monster’s glowing eyes dispersed, and Alis shuddered as those green pinpricks faded away too.

She sat in the tree for several minutes longer, intently watching the sloppy remains pooling under her branch. Nothing but storm-blown grass and lashing rain moved as far as she could see. Thunder, not roars, cracked in her ears. Wiping water out of her eyes, she contemplated her next move. Normally, she’d be enjoying herself by the fire in her library. But again she’d been chosen to go off with Cahan, and again she’d agreed to go. Part of her regretted the choice – she often did in the middle of their adventures – but when it was all over, she would be glad she’d come. Her dour personality made it hard for her to live in the moment, but she could enjoy those moments later. When she was warm and cozy, not soaking wet and stranded in a tree.

Alis had been in the adventuring game long enough to know just because she couldn’t see the mud-beast anymore didn’t mean it wasn’t there. Lightning burst in the sky again, spidering far too close for comfort over her head. What had been her refuge now put her in the storm’s line of fire.

I can run from a monster better than I can survive a lightning strike. That thought made her decision for her. Pushing her wet blonde hair out of her face, Alis shifted her weight and balanced carefully on the branch. She tied her robe in knots around her knees, and slowly began her descent down the tree.

Alis hadn’t realized how high up she’d scaled until now. She checked her height every couple of feet, impatient to reach the ground.

About ten feet away from the muddy ground, her boots slid out from under her on the slippery bark. She swung forward and smacked into the tree trunk. Without the support of her feet, her hands slipped on the wet branches. Completely losing her grip, Alis slipped and slid the rest of the way down the tree, unable to catch herself but never completely falling out of the tree. She landed unceremoniously at the bottom with a splat.

“Ugh!” she exclaimed. Her face wrinkled up in disgust as the clammy mud soaked through her leggings and saturated her clothes. At least, she hoped it was mud...or was it monster guts instead?

Horrified, she redirected her thoughts, grasping at happy musings like tea and research and reading alone in her room.

Happy thoughts, Alis. Happy thoughts.

A peal of laughter reached her ears, carried on the violent storm winds. She looked up, frowning.

Cahan stood about six feet away, cackling at her. Without the familiar sound of his laugh, she might not have recognized him. Mud coated him from head to toe, a layer of grime so thick that he looked like a miniature version of their foe.

The sight of him, even so filthy, made her feel less alone. Her heart swelled in her chest. Cahan was the reason she was even out here, after all. Without him, she’d still be shut up in her tower, hiding away from the world. Even with that, she didn’t appreciate being laughed at. She glared at him, but her disapproval did not stop his laughter. It never did.

Alis grumpily climbed to her feet, wrapping her arms around the tree trunk to stabilize herself. Her feet comically slid around in the mud, and she finally gave up. Holding her arms out, she slowly slid down the slightly inclined ground, coming to a stop in front of her warrior companion.

“Let’s get to the castle,” Cahan said. He grabbed her arm to keep her steady as she slopped through the last six inches of flooded field to reach him. He left a muddy handprint on her arm. Normally she liked when he touched her; today she could have done without it. The storm still raged overhead.

Getting to Mordwin College was easier said than done. The magical squall turned the entire field into a soupy mess of grass and mud that proved almost impossible to move across. Alis slipped and fell twice in less than five minutes. Slimy mud coated her entire body, turning her into Cahan’s smaller twin.

Her mood continued to sour, despite Cahan’s presence, as they made slow progress across the fields. Cahan remained as cheerful and unruffled as ever, even underneath inches of mud. Lightning cracked nearby, sending a thrum of electricity across the field. The longer the storm raged, the more powerful it became. Cahan’s grip on her arm tightened, and he pulled her forward, increasing their awkward pace. Cahan’s heavy foot hit a particularly slippery wet spot. He skidded forward until both feet flew out from under him. The warrior went completely horizontal, both feet up in the air, and landed flat on his back hard enough to knock the air out of his chest.

Alis slipped and slid another foot, her legs splaying out broadly. This time, she managed to keep her footing even though Cahan had not. A hysterical giggle burst out of her mouth before the wind carried it away. She had never seen Cahan in such an undignified state, and it was so comical that she couldn’t help herself. She tried to hold in her laughter, but it kept bubbling through as Cahan stood up. For a moment she feared he would be angry with her, but he laughed as well.

He caught up with her, slapping his hand on her head, imparting a thick layer of red clay on top of her hair in retaliation. Alis laughed harder.

More thunder rumbled overhead, reminding Alis that they had to find shelter before they drowned. Her laughter died in her throat as lightning struck the ground nearby.

“It’s not far now!” Cahan shouted at her over the storm. She could barely hear him even though he trudged right next to her. She nodded, not even attempting a reply.

Their destination, Mordwin College, loomed ahead. The rain obscured most of its features, reducing the castle to an ominous grey mass almost indistinguishable from the storm. Her saturated boots hit a hard spot in the ground. They’d finally found the cobblestone road leading to the school. For the first time since she’d fallen out of the tree, she found secure footing. An involuntary sigh of relief passed her lips, though no one but she could have possibly heard it.

Mordwin coalesced out of the rain and more distinct architectural features materialized as the wizard and the warrior moved closer. In the middle of the elaborate iron gates stood the source of the storm. A swirling grey cloud spun up from a tall woman, her blue robes whirling around as she powered the tempest. Alis stopped walking, staring at the woman in awe. Weather magic was not commonly taught at Scholae, and it took a powerful and skilled wizard to control such spells. Another burst of lightning sent Alis moving again, and she and Cahan staggered forward through the arch. Huge splotches of mud sloughed off their clothes, splattering onto the wet stone path.

The weather-wizard joined them at the front doors to the school. Her storm continued to rage without her direct attention.

“You made it!” she said cheerfully to the pair of them.

Alis glanced at the front doors as the wizard yanked them open. Carvings adorned the sapphire blue doors, but Alis couldn’t make them out in the low light. Their companion ushered them both inside and then closed the great doors, shutting the noise and water of the storm outside.

Alis and Cahan stood awkwardly in the great entryway, dropping water and mud onto the clean floors. Alis shivered in the drafty atrium while their rescuer shook out her soaked robes.

“Well, aren’t we in a state?” the woman asked. “I will show you to your rooms so you can clean up.”

“Our bags are out there somewhere,” Alis answered miserably. She clenched her jaw to keep her teeth from chattering.

“That’s unfortunate. Miss Alis, I will take you to our quartermistress. I’m sure she can loan you one of our uniforms. And Cahan, I’ll have some clothes sent to your room. You’re about the size of our groundskeeper,” she spoke briskly now, already walking down the hallway with a clipped, professional gait.

Alis awkwardly followed, her cheeks blushing a deeper red with every muddy step. She hated leaving such a huge mess, and tension from her embarrassment settled in her shoulder muscles.

“Who is she?” she whispered to Cahan. The weather-controlling wizard intimidated her. Cahan hadn’t said anything about a friend who could control storms. The woman moved with such confidence and intelligence that Alis dwelled on how clumsy and fretful she was in comparison. She could never compare to that.

Not that I’m trying to. She told herself firmly. Alis knew the rules of her station, and if there was one thing more comforting to her than Cahan, it was rules.

“I am Enna Mordwin, and I am the Headmistress of this college,” the regal woman answered as she came to a stop. Alis blushed. She hadn’t meant for her to hear the question.

“Here we are. Ivy will take care of you, Alis,” Headmistress Mordwin opened a door to her right and gestured for Alis to go inside. “We will meet up again in my office in thirty minutes, after we are all presentable.” Before Alis could answer, she swept away.

Alis smiled shyly at Ivy, awkwardness radiating from her red face as she dripped a slimy puddle in the poor woman’s workshop. Ivy said little about it, however, and for that Alis was thankful. After eyeballing her for size, Ivy dug through her supply of uniforms until she found one that would fit Alis.

She handed her a stack of clothes and sent Alis on her way to the room on the second floor to clean herself up. Alis quickly followed the directions, unwilling to make the Headmistress wait for her.

They reconvened later in Headmistress Mordwin’s office. Cahan wore simple brown linen pants and a dark green shirt. His leather vest had been quickly cleaned and he’d donned it again. The same appeared true of his boots. Damp dark spots covered the leather of his shoes. He still had his sword buckled on his belt and looked none the worse for wear after his muddy escapade.

Alis found herself wishing that the groundskeeper had a wife, because the pile the quartermistress handed her turned out to be one of the school uniforms. The older students just wore their own robes, so only the underschool had a uniform for her to borrow.

Alis felt thirteen years old in the black robes embroidered with an “M” and a salamander. Beneath the robes she wore black boots and a short white tunic paired with a knee length blue skirt. A black leather belt cinched with a brass salamander completed the outfit.

“It suits you,” Cahan commented when he saw her, smirking. Alis blushed brightly, scrunching her face up at his teasing. The uniform wore quite differently on a full-grown woman than the younger students Mordwin hosted in its halls. Her self-consciousness amused him, as it always did.

“Oh, shut up,” she snapped. He laughed but said nothing more.

Their banter ended when the Headmistress swept into her office, accentuating the feeling Alis was still nothing more than a schoolgirl.

Alis could see her better here than she could in the fields. Enna Mordwin was much younger than Alis had expected—late thirties at the oldest—and quite pretty. Brown hair was smartly tied back at the nape of her neck, and dark eyebrows and brown eyes accentuated a face with a hawk-like nose too big for her face. She had a winning smile, however, and the combined effect made her look stately rather than unattractive.

She wore robes similar to the ones Alis had been given, except blue trimmed in white to denote her position as faculty.

“Cahan!” Enna grinned, a small spark of mischief gleaming in her dark eyes as she shook his hand.

“You know her?” Alis asked.

“He does!” Enna answered Alis’s question, turning to face her. Alis blushed again.

“We grew up together,” Cahan expounded.

Of course, they did. The Mordwins had founded Mordwin College, and they would run in the same circles as the Galerens, descendents of the kings of old Gale. Both families were older—and prouder—than the poor, farming one Alis had come from.

“Do you know everyone?” she asked, her tone mixed annoyance and amusement.

“It feels like it sometimes,” Cahan conceded.

“How are your parents?” Enna continued in a friendly tone, and Cahan shrugged.

“They are well, as always,” he answered. Did her presence make him less comfortable discussing his family with Enna? They’d spent so much time together, and still he barely spoke of them.

If only he would trust me, Alis sighed. Perhaps someday she would learn about his relatives. But not today, apparently.

“I just received a letter from my Mama,” Enna said, stretching out “mama” in a posh way rather than a childish one. “She is harassing me to get married again. Since I have no brothers or sisters, it is up to me to make sure the formidable Mordwin line is not lost to the ages. Or so she constantly likes to remind me. As if running this school of ours wasn’t enough.” Though the words themselves came off harshly, her tone was one of amusement. She smiled through the entire diatribe.

Cahan chuckled.

“She sounds like my mother,” he replied. Enna nodded in sympathy. Alis couldn’t imagine a similar situation. With a houseful of brothers and sisters and multiple nieces and nephews running about, the Tredores certainly didn’t have a shortage of descendants.

A mischievous smile crossed Enna’s face.

“You could still marry me, and we could shut up both our parents.” The hint at a past engagement between them stirred curiosity in Alis’s chest. Perhaps it triggered something else a little darker, too. Alis clamped down on both feelings. What she had with Cahan had changed her life. She certainly wasn’t going to ruin it with a silly schoolgirl crush that couldn’t amount to anything.

Thunder clapped overhead loud enough to rattle Enna’s desk, interrupting them. Lightning flashed outside the tower window so brightly it cast shadows on the stone walls.

“My storm will not last forever,” Enna said. She turned her attention to the window. “It is the only thing that suppresses it. But I’ll flood the whole countryside if I keep summoning them, which I’m sure the farmers won’t appreciate. I fear our groundskeeper has already put out a hit on me for the destruction I’ve caused.”

“Tell us what happened,” Cahan answered.

Enna gestured to the seats on the other side of her desk. Alis immediately sat, still feeling like a child in trouble. Cahan noticed and smirked at her. Alis glared back.

“A little over a month ago, our geology department observed a minor quake. We thought nothing of it at the time. They’re not uncommon here, close to the mountains,” she gestured behind her head in the vague direction of the mountain range to the north of them.

“But within a fortnight of that first quake, there were several more, each one stronger than the last. Then they stopped, and the most terrible noises could be heard. For days, rumbling and roaring...and phrases in the old tongue. The field you crossed to get here was once a mighty Spellfield, put in place at the college’s founding. It is an amalgam of spells—shields, traps, teleportation, etc. The Spellfield has been defunct for at least a century now.” Alis listened carefully to the Headmistress’ words.

“Last Sunday, however, the screaming stopped. And a…” she paused, pursing her lips. “A monster, really, no better term for it—crawled out of the earth. It came straight for the school, and our spells did little to stop it. I can keep it at bay with the storm, but it isn’t a permanent solution. It attacks anyone who comes near the school—especially wizards. It has some kind of grudge against them. The college’s defenses can keep it out for a short while, but we’re running low on supplies. Eventually, it will get in, we’ll drown the entire county, or we’ll starve.”

“You have no idea where it came from?” Alis asked.

Enna frowned.

“It came from the Spellfield. I don’t even know quite what it is. We have a magical creature scholar on staff, of course, but he has been no help.” Her face twisted into a disgusted expression.

“It turns out he is better suited as a scholar than a field researcher. He has no courage for anything more ferocious than a book gnat.” She waved her hands again in frustration with cowardly professor.

A burst of pride surged through Alis. When tested outside of the safety of her library, she had not run away. Her heart swelled at the thought her own Headmaster would not complain of her cowardice to others the way Enna mocked the poor, out-of-his-depth researcher.

“Maybe running out of sweetcakes and wine would drive him to be useful, but I wouldn’t expect it. So now, it comes to you,” Enna said. She stood up again.

“You have quite the reputation for dealing with such problems.” Enna looked at Cahan as she said this. Alis’ brain immediately ground into overdrive, wondering why she wasn’t included in the comment. The rational side of her told her it was because she knew Cahan already. It wasn’t a personal slight.

But her emotional side, the one oversensitive at being dismissed by nobles just like Enna for all her career just because of her birth family, screamed that this was the case here, too.

“Mordwin is in dire need at this point. It’s why I sent for you. I trust you to help us.” Enna’s annoyance cleared, like the sun breaking through a cloud. “And I need to tell Mama that you have turned me down once again, now that I have had the chance to ask.” She laughed. Cahan laughed, too. Alis could tell that it was an old joke between them, and it only served to make her feel like an outsider. She ground her teeth and shifted uncomfortably in her chair, out of place in their friendly exchange.

“Mama always knows if I am lying, and now I can tell her so without fear of punishment.” Enna winked at Cahan, still grinning. “All of our resources are at your disposal. Just get rid of the slimy thing, and get me my school back.”

“Yes ma’am,” Cahan replied smartly, with only a little bit of a smirk.

Noble birth. Impressive magical powers. Her own magical school. Poise, confidence…the ability to marry Cahan if she so desired. Ugh.

Alis grumbled to herself in a spiraling monologue as she stalked through the school in her absolutely ridiculous outfit that made her feel like a child.

She knew she was being unfair to Enna, who had been nothing but cordial to her, but frustration roared inside her anyway. Alis’ shield against the ostracization she’d faced in her life – first, as a girl in a farming village with magical powers, and then as a farm girl in a school of magical nobles was anger. Perhaps not the most mature response, but it guarded her heart against the pain other people brought. Cahan had put a chink in it, and she tried to see the world with his easy-going charm, but she still struggled with it. Plus, anger could be quite the fuel for accomplishment, and Alis knew better than most how to harness it.

Five minutes of self-reflection later, she found herself in the place she always went whenever the world was amiss: the library.

But instead of the massive tower stacked with multiple levels hosting thousands of texts, Alis walked into an unfamiliar library with little in common with her beloved Scholae. A single, massive room, with reading nooks along the bottom wall, made up the entire collection. The size of it threatened to overwhelm her; at least at her own university, the layout hid the truly enormous size of the collection. Here it all stretched out in front of her, assailing her with its vastness. Huge windows with colored glass lined the far and eastern walls. Three stories of balconies, narrow enough for a single person to stand on, lined the shelves at each story height. Graceful iron filigree stretched across the railings of these balconies. Alis took a moment to look closely, noting that the artful and flowing curls of metal formed ancient runes. This entire college was a paean to magic. Coming from a school split between the art of magic and the art of war, the outright celebration of wizards—collectively called the Auguria—surprised her.

Iron ladders on wheels stretched from the floor to the top balcony. Alis watched one of the two librarians on duty reshelving books. He clattered up the ladder to the second floor, where the railing temporarily vanished for him to step onto the platform. He set the large pile of books onto the ground and began to sort them. The railing reappeared after he settled into his task.

She had made a quick side trip to speak to the specialist that the Headmistress mentioned, but he had been little help. It did make her feel a little bit more at home at this school, seeing a man promoted far past his abilities for who knows what reason. Bureaucracies were the same at heart wherever one went.

He did give Alis the beginning of a thread to follow, however, and so here she came. After admiring the great cavern of a room, she approached the large book near the entrance of the library. It contained their filing system—in a school of wizards, there was no need for anything but a magical record. If they’d implemented similar at Scholae, the librarians would spend all their time fetching books for the warriors. And if there was one universal dislike amongst wizards, it was being sent on fetch quests. Especially by warriors.

Alis lightly touched the pages of the open book. Its binding stretched at least five feet across when opened, and it sat atop a heavy, dark marble dais. She paused to figure out how to use it and then searched their archives to find the books she needed.

Alis memorized their location and went to work finding them. She liked the silence of the empty library. Apparently, the wizards at Mordwin weren’t any fonder of Friday night studying than the students at Scholae. Rather than bothering the lone assistant and having to come up with small talk, she found them all herself.

She selected a table close to the magical index to reduce her travel time if she needed to find more books and dumped a pile of texts onto it. Researching was one of her skills - and, honestly, one of her loves. She would figure out the monster attacking the college eventually. She had to. Not just because it had been asked of her or because the school was in danger, but because she certainly wasn’t going to look useless in front of a wizard like Enna Mordwin. Or Cahan, for that matter. If she wasn’t useful, why would Cahan want her – a prickly, naïve younger wizard – around?

I might not be able to summon a storm, but I can solve this problem for her.

Alis settled down to focus on her research, choosing not to linger on why competition stirred in her chest, only to use it for her own benefit. She had worked hard to be where she was. It wasn’t the first time she’d had to prove herself despite her humble roots.

And there she sat for the next several hours, until the magical torches lighting the room burned low, and the stained-glass windows grew dark. She worked through the large pile of old books, but none held the answer she needed. Sighing, she stood up and returned to the directory in the center of the library.

Alis spent another half hour navigating through it, looking for any other books that might be of use. Finally, she found another three to examine. They were all located in the upper east corner of the library, a section labeled Magicae Spiritus Vitae.

She found the ladder closest to the balcony she wanted to reach and tried to climb on it. Her feet pushed through empty air, and she stumbled. The wooden rungs were not where her body expected them to be. Alis frowned. She wasn’t that tired yet, was she? But when she reached forward, the ladder slid just outside her grasp. She took a step forward, chasing it. The ladder rolled away from her again. Growling in annoyance, she stamped her foot and lunged aggressively for the obnoxious thing. She’d turn it into kindling soon if she didn’t catch it.

“That ladder is for the restricted section,” came a voice from behind her.

Alis jumped. She’d thought she was alone in the library, other than the old woman manning the circulation desk and the young assistant.

A girl, no older than fifteen or sixteen, sat at one of the study tables in the nook where Alis stood. She had a pale, heart-shaped face and long black hair twisted tightly into double braids. She wore the same blue and white uniform that Alis did. A large pile of books and several shiefs of parchment sat on the table in front of her.

“Restricted section?” Alis responded in a puzzled tone. The concept was straightforward, but Scholae had no such thing.

“The college monitors access to several types of spell books, since many of the students are so young,” the girl explained. Imperiousness laced her voice. “Those books are about Breath of Life spells. I suppose the professors don’t want to have to deal with someone animating ridiculous objects on a regular basis.”

“Oh,” Alis responded in a moment of stunning charisma. The girl had an arrogant, long suffering feeling about her. She rolled her eyes at Alis.

“You’ll need to speak to the librarian about access,” she prompted.

The girl looked down her nose at Alis, which was impressive since she was sitting and Alis was standing. She stared at Alis as if she was the village idiot, her lip curled into a smirk.

Alis’ natural prickliness reasserted itself, and she narrowed her eyes.

“Yes, of course. Thank you…?” she paused, prompting the girl for her name.

“Maera. My name is Maera.” Under Alis’s own snide tone, her demeanor shifted to be friendlier. They locked eyes for a moment, and despite the age difference and irritated exterior, Alis had the feeling she’d found a kindred soul.

Alis found the librarian’s desk in one of the nooks in the rear of the room, tucked away near one of the sets of colored glass windows. A thin and grouchy-looking old woman sat behind it, intensely reading a book that Alis couldn’t see the cover of. She looked at the old woman with harshly pulled back white hair and deep, angry lines on her face and had a strange moment of reflection. Would this have been her future, had she never gathered the courage to adventure in the wider world? She could admit to herself she already had the same scowl.

“Excuse me,” Alis said politely as the ever-present storm reminded her of her limited timetable. The librarian set her book down with an annoyed thud, looking up at her in irritation.

“Yes?” she asked shortly.

Alis wondered how often she normally interacted with patrons. How much work was there to do with so many magical systems present to run the library? Even here, the books would be temperamental enough to dislike being touched by magic, but many of the other processes of the library had been replaced with magical automation.

“I need a book on magical constructs for my research,” Alis began, moving closer to the circulation desk. “But it has been brought to my attention that the title is in the restricted section. Can you help me?” She briefly gestured at the area of the library with the obnoxiously stubborn ladder.

“Do you have a permission slip?” The old woman asked. She glared at Alis over her glasses. Alis frowned.

“I am not a student here. I’m a guest, invited by Headmistress Mordwin,” Alis replied, taken aback. The librarian narrowed her eyes, taking in her uniform.

“I still require an acceptable signature,” the woman intoned, talking to Alis like she was a child. It had been a long day, and Alis had never been a patient woman. She sighed noisily, gritting her teeth in irritation.

“I don’t have that! I’m here to help with your bloody monster. I just want to look at the book,” she spoke in an angry whisper. Librarian habits died hard.

“If you do not have a signed slip, I cannot help you,” the woman sniffed. Then she pointedly returned to her book. At such a late hour it would be difficult to track down someone in authority to get a signature. The Headmistress would certainly do it, but she had to find her first. And possibly wake her.

“Ugh!” Alis huffed, stalking back to the study table she’d claimed as her own. Bureaucratic regulations would be the end of her. Perhaps the universe was exacting payback for all the times in her life she’d slavishly followed them.

Maera poked her head around the corner cautiously as Alis slammed books around to express her frustration. Alis’s own innate library code of conduct kept her from doing much else. It was a library, after all, and being loud would not change the old biddy’s mind anyway.

Alis noticed Maera after a brief period of angry mutters to herself. She blushed and straightened, gently placing the book in her hands back on the table.

“She wouldn’t give me permission or lift the restrictions,” she commented sourly. Maera pursed her lips.

“Miss Imyne is quite strict,” Maera responded.

Alis snorted. That’s an understatement.

“What book do you need?” Maera asked a moment later, and Alis told her. Before she could ask anything else, the teenager turned and headed for the restricted section. Alis dared not shout after her. She didn’t want to draw Miss Imyne’s attention.

Maera walked straight up to the ladder and climbed on it with no trouble whatsoever. Alis gaped as the girl procured the book, came back down the ladder, and returned to her in a matter of minutes.

“Here you go. Now you don’t have to flirt with Hue in some dark corner of the library to convince him to get it for you,” Maera said brightly when she returned. She gestured at the librarian’s assistant, an upper school student that must have been at least four years younger than Alis. He noticed the girls watching him and, while looking over his shoulder, he walked straight into one of the bookcases. Maera giggled, but Alis did her best to try and save the poor man’s pride by pretending like she didn’t notice.

“We should be glad that the fate of the school doesn’t rely on my flirting skills.”

“I have a signed permission slip for my History of Runes essay. I thought I would help. Especially, if you’re really here to deal with the monster.” Maera now seemed positively cheerful. Perhaps she was excited to help. Or perhaps she had decided that Alis was not an idiot.

Either way worked for Alis.

The doors opened, and Alis turned to see Cahan walk through them. She had no idea what he’d been doing for the last several hours, but excitement fluttered in her chest anyway. She always enjoyed his presence. She greeted him, relayed to him the small amount of information she’d acquired, and then promptly returned to her research work. She lost all track of time, and track of what Cahan did to pass the time as she delved into her books. Eventually, Maera finished all her school work and left. Alis barely noticed her exit.

The bells in the east tower of the college rang a single time, marking that midnight had come and gone. Alis could barely hear the sound over the storm. Both the longevity and the power of the storm impressed her. The Headmistress was no magical lightweight. Perhaps someday, Alis could learn such a spell from her. Maybe, when her life settled down, she could even attend Mordwin for a semester or two, to fill out any obscure classes that she had been unable to take at Scholae.

But none of that mattered at the moment. She took solace in the wind and rain lashing outside. The sounds of both meant her timer hadn’t run out, even if she hadn’t found an answer yet.

Silence settled over the deserted library, the shadows growing long in the low light of the torches. Even the crotchety old woman and her young assistant had left. Only she and Cahan remained.

Currently, Cahan snoozed in his chair at the table, his head propped up against the wall. He could sleep damn near anywhere, a fact that irritated her deeply every time she tossed and turned on the rocky ground while he happily crashed into a deep slumber. Alis frowned at him. At least, he wasn’t snoring.

She sighed and turned back to her books. Digging through another one produced little result, and the next was no better either. But, finally, in the third she found her answer. She silently thanked Maera for her help again.

Eyeing her sleeping companion, Alis slapped the book onto the table in front of him loudly. She hoped he would jump out of his skin, but his only response was to slowly open one eye and look at her.

Sometimes, he was so competent and level-headed that he was no fun at all.

Alis showed the book to Cahan, her arms spread wide to accommodate its massive size. Cahan scanned the page.

“I think it’s a construct. A clay golem,” she explained, standing on her toes so she could point to the illustration on the left page.

“Another magical creature,” he mused, thinking of the dragon. Alis nodded.

“What do we do about it?”

Alis blushed.

“I’m not sure about that part yet,” she murmured. Cahan smirked. He kicked his feet up on a chair across from him. Then he leaned back and closed his eyes again.

“Wake me again when you figure out it.”

“You can go back to your quarters,” she reminded him gently. Cahan shrugged.

“I’ve slept in worse places,” he answered.

“I’ll be fine,” she told him, not sure whether to be offended by his presence or touched that he wanted to stay close while a monster rampaged about the college.

“This is not a pleasure visit. I want to get this creature banished as soon as we can,” he told her shortly. He didn’t volunteer any more explanation. Alis wondered if he’d already gone back to sleep.

Alis started to harass him again but paused. Something had changed.

“The rain has stopped,” Cahan observed after a moment.

A rumble of thunder punctuated his comment, but the lashing of the rain outside no longer accompanied it. Another burst of thunder echoed through the empty library. The hair on Alis’s arms stood on end.

“That’s not thunder,” she realized, her eyes wide.

Cahan swung around to face the far wall of the library, the one that faced the now defunct Spellfield.

Another low clap of noise broke through the silence. It still sounded like thunder, but the floor beneath them shook.

“It’s the golem,” Alis whispered, her face going white.

She barely had time to even consider what to do about it when the monster tore open the far wall of the library, flinging stones everywhere. The lovely colored glass window on the end of the row shattered as its support pulled apart.

“This situation is familiar!” Cahan said to her cheekily as he drew his sword. They had met for the first time when a dragon had broken into the library tower. And then he’d thrown them both out the window into the moat. Alis remembered it in terrifying detail.She cursed at him. This situation wasn’t funny either. It was easy for him to joke—the golem wouldn’t be fixated on him.

They both jumped up from the table, taking several steps backwards to assess the situation. At least, the library was empty.

The monster didn’t immediately enter the library, despite the hole easily being big enough for it to squeeze through. Alis watched as it paused, a mass of dripping and slimy mud lurking outside the college.

Then it reached in, grabbing chunks of the destroyed walls and shoving them onto its body. The stone helped shore up the oversaturated mud constructing its form, allowing it to keep its shape.

Cahan cursed. The monster finished reinforcing itself and clambered into the library, leaving huge squelching footprints across the floor. The librarian inside Alis flinched.

It roared loud enough to make the bookshelves tremble, the shards of glass embedded in its sliding skin winking in the library torches. Nothing else in the empty library caught its attention. The monster headed straight for her and Cahan.

Alis took a deep breath and carefully aimed a spell at the monster. Its one weakness seemed to be the fluidity of its form. Perhaps the right spell could compromise that.

The concussive spell she fired at it hit the dripping construct and did nothing. The wet mud absorbed the power of it with a muffled whoooom.

“Stars and stones,” Alis said in response.

She doubted anything she could do would even touch the golem. Now she was out of ideas other than to try and melt it again. That was a spell she didn’t know. It would also ruin the library, and there was nothing to keep it from continuing to fortify itself with the stone from the walls.

Cahan circled around behind the monster as it staggered across the library and lunged for Alis. He swung his sword deftly at the monster’s leg, right around where its knee should have been.

His weapon only made it halfway through the leg, slicing into the mud with an audible sucking sound. The clay folded back around it, and Cahan stumbled forward as all his forward motion halted.

He tugged fruitlessly on the sword, unable to yank it out of the suction the monster’s wet mud form had created. A wide swing from the lumbering golem forced him to abandon the blade and leap out of the way. He landed near Alis.

“Second sword this year!” he swore.

The room lit up with spells as Alis tried to find one that would affect the old golem, but none of them even slowed the staggering mass of earth and stone. Turning to run, she dodged around the wooden tables, but her enemy was too large. She underestimated its reach, and a minimally formed hand swung towards her from the right.

Cahan leapt forward and knocked her out of the way. Alis went flying into the closest table and chairs, unintentionally widening the walkway as her body took them out. The table hit a bookcase and toppled it, dumping leather-bound books all over the table and Alis’s head.

A massive earthen fist closed around Cahan, snatching him up into the air. Alis screamed.

The golem stopped its charge, staring at Cahan with glowing eyes. It raised the warrior to its face, its barely formed mouth twisting into something resembling a frown. It sucked in great breaths that rumbled like the wind and fluttered the pages of the errant books.

Alis paused. Was the golem sniffing Cahan?

Another breath rumbled through what could only generously be referred to as a nose.

“Bhhhhhhhhhhhhhheeeeeeeeeeeeelyyyummm,” the golem spoke, but its form was too fluid to properly say the words. It also didn’t speak any tongue Alis understood, but the word rung a bell in her brain. She was too distracted to concentrate on it right now, however.

With that admission, the golem dismissively tossed Cahan to the side. He smacked into the far wall of the library with a wet splat.

Now the golem’s attention recentered on her, and Alis didn’t even have a chance to run this time. She crawled under the table, grabbing onto its legs, but the golem seized her by the ankles and pulled her out. He shook her several times, rattling her brains about in her head and shaking stray books off her body like he was clearing dirt off a snack.

His other massive hand pulled around and grabbed her around her waist, turning her upright. Alis pressed her hands against the fingers gripping her lower body, but they only sunk into the clay.

“Auuuuuuuuuggghhhhh!” it screamed.

Alis stopped struggling. She’d recognized the word it had shouted at Cahan, and now she almost knew this one, too. But the sloppy, sliding construct of a mouth paired with the already unnatural tone made it almost impossible to understand.

“AhmmmmGURrrrrrrhhhh!” the golem screamed in her face. Alis winced as the volume hurt her ears. “AmmmmgggggRRREEaaaaa!”

The grip around her waist was tight but not painful, and now that she was in its grasp, it did not harm her. She stared at the wet, muddy face, the only constant in it the glowing circles of its eyes. Alis tried to figure out what it shouted. It lurked right on the edge of her brain.

“Augurium!” She suddenly shouted as another half-formed rumble came out of the undefined mass that held her captive. “You’re saying Augurium! Wizards!”

The mass shifted its head in some semblance of a nod, then pulled her right up to its face. The clay forming its facade coalesced around the mouth, causing it to solidify.

“FIGURA MEA!” it bellowed at her, blowing her hair back and spattering her face with flecks of mud.

But she didn’t know what that meant. The golem shouted it again, shaking her for emphasis.

“It said ‘Shape me!’” came a voice from behind Alis. She looked over her shoulder, and saw that Maera had reappeared. Alis frowned. Even the teenager could speak the old tongue. She needed to fix that.

“Shape me?” she repeated, not knowing what the monster wanted. But the phrase obviously meant something to it, as it shouted it again. It shoved her face towards the glowing rune on its chest before shouting again.

Alis wasn’t up to date on her ancient runes either. She only knew some from shelving certain books in the library, and even then she used a guide. Middle-history runes? Sure. Ancient runes was a specialty she hadn’t studied at all. Because she wouldn’t use it outside the library. She could see the irony, but at the moment it did not amuse her.

She didn’t know what it said. It was almost unreadable anyway with the constantly shifting mud of the construct’s skin. What if it was some kind of trick? It didn’t matter at this point. She didn’t have much of a choice, now that the monster held her in his grasp.

Alis tentatively reached out and touched the glowing rune. She gently pushed some of her power into it. Cracks lit up all along the monster’s skin, glowing the same color as the rune in its chest.

The golem unceremoniously dropped Alis. She hit the stone with a thud, her tailbone taking the brunt of the fall for the second time this adventure. Chunks of stone and shards of glass tumbled to the floor. Alis covered her head with her hands and scrambled away from the monster towards Maera.

The dripping mud continued to solidify, shedding all the golem’s makeshift reinforcement. Soon a more-defined face appeared, and square, broad limbs. The glow from the cracks faded as the clay skin sealed shut, and the rune scratched into its chest disappeared.

The golem took a minute to look over itself, stretching and testing its restored limbs. Then it turned to look at them, glowing eyes still alight in deep sockets placed in a now solid face. It had basically no nose, and a wide, rough mouth. Blocky arms ended in huge four fingered hands, and grooved legs ended in feet with the same number of toes.

The creature’s mouth opened, and a sentence rumbled out of it. The words were much clearer now, even if Alis could not speak the language.

“His name is RuhmGohm, and he is looking for the blood of his master,” Maera translated for her, staring at the great golem construct. The golem waited patiently for an answer.

The blood of his master? Was that some kind of threat?

“He wants to be set free,” Maera said again to translate the golem’s words. Alis frowned.

“Go and fetch the Headmistress!” Alis ordered Maera, hoping to get her out of the area. She shouldn’t have come back in the first place, but Alis couldn’t be too angry with her. She probably would have snuck back too. Maera hesitated, but then obeyed. She rushed out the door of the library, not even glancing behind her.

Cahan warily made his way over to Alis, limping slightly. The bottom half of his body, save his calves and his shoes, was covered in the slimy mud the monster had been leaking.

“You alright?” he asked once he ended up at her side.

Alis nodded, not willing to take her eyes off the golem. But now that he’d been shaped, he made no move towards them.

After a long silence, Cahan spoke again. But this time he spoke to the golem, and not to Alis. The words coming out of his mouth were the old tongue.

The golem considered Cahan for a moment, staring at him intensely with his bottomless eyes. Then he reached down to his leg and grabbed the sword that still bisected his hardened knee. He pulled it out easily and turned back to Cahan.

Alis gasped, a spell prickling on her fingers, but the monster didn’t attack them. He handed the sword back to Cahan carefully. A thundering sigh whooshed through his open nostrils.

“I asked for my sword back,” Cahan explained as he found a clean spot on his pants to wipe off the residual clay on the sword. Alis smacked him on the arm.

“Next time, warn me first,” she growled. Cahan laughed. They waited in an awkward silence for the Headmistress to arrive, the only noise the dull roar of the construct’s breathing.

Finally, Maera returned with Enna. A crowd of other teachers and upper class students came with them. Alis started to feel self conscious about the mess in the library and the mud covering her clothes. None of them seemed to notice it, though.

As soon as Enna Mordwin approached, the golem immediately turned to face her. The runes on his body lit up again, casting a bright glow all over the darkened library.

The construct spoke, and Cahan translated for her. Alis’s cheeks burned beneath their dirt because it seemed everyone but her could understand him.

“You are Mordwin,” the monster said, bending his massive frame to be face to face with Enna. It was not a question. “I can sense your blood.”

“Yes, I am the Headmistress of this school,” Enna answered him, looking over the magical creature with interest.

“Set me free.”

Enna stared at him, not knowing what to answer.

“Your ancestor created me. He bound me to this place to protect it. But I wish to be free,” RuhmGhom said. Despite the almost monotone rumble of his voice, he sounded sad. “Only his blood can set me free.”

“Where have you been all this time?” Enna asked, avoiding the question. Ruhm took in a great breath, thinking.

“Asleep,” he finally answered cryptically. “The magic in the fabric of this world lessened, and the gods put me to sleep. But I no longer wish to be a slave. Set me free,” he said again. Alis watched Enna, wondering what she would do.

“Before I decide, you must answer my questions.”

Ruhm rumbled an assent.

“What will protect us if you are gone?” she asked.

“I will,” he thundered. “As long as a Mordwin exists to call me, I will return if I am needed.” He straightened, looking proud. “RuhmGhom will not forsake this place. I cannot. But let me guard it under my own free will.”

“If this is so, then I will free you,” Enna told the golem without hesitation. His face twisted into what must have been a smile but looked more like a terrible roar.

Enna and RuhmGhom continued to speak to one another, talking about everything from his history to the power he had. By the time the discussions with the golem ended, dawn peeked through the massive hole in the far wall of the library. Alis struggled to stay awake.

Cahan continued to translate for Alis, who felt simultaneously grateful and embarrassed.

“Then, RuhmGhom, as a Mordwin, I release you from your slavery,” Enna finally said after their discussions ended. The golem bowed low, touching his head to the stone of the library’s floor. He called out to the whole group, motioning with one blocky arm towards the damaged library wall.

“He wants us to follow him,” Cahan supplied as the clay golem turned and lumbered back through the hole he’d made. The group gathered in the library stepped out onto the grounds of the college to follow the golem. The chill of the morning and the dampness of the air helped Alis wake up a little bit. She hadn’t pulled an all-nighter for a while.

I must be getting old.

RuhmGhom brought them out to the grassy plain called the Spellfield. He gestured towards it, stretching his clay arms out in front of him, speaking in Old Tongue again.

“He says that he is the source of the power for the Spellfield, and when he went to sleep, it died,” Enna explained briefly for mostly Alis’s benefit. “He will reactivate it so the school will be protected from all darkness and evil magic.”

Alis frowned. Wizards rarely spoke of evil magic, as they had decided it did not exist, but the golem obviously believed it to be so. After dealing with the Formless, the bodyless shadow creatures that had awoken beneath the university last year, Alis wasn’t so sure he was wrong, either.

The golem clomped about the old Spellfield, stopping every couple of meters to lean down and touch the earth. Where grass or stone blocked his way, he simply ripped it up. When his great four-fingered hands brushed the dirt, all the runes on his constructed body lit up. Each time he did this, a rune activated in the ground, glittering for a moment in the morning sun before fading.

“I suppose you’ve got to get married now,” Cahan mused to Enna as RuhmGhom lumbered into the trees of Maybane Forest. His clay body and the runes that powered it soon vanished into the dense undergrowth of the wood.

Enna snorted delicately, half-frowning and half-smirking.

“I suppose I do,” she replied. “You up for the challenge?”

Alis couldn’t tell how serious she was. Jealousy stirred in the pit of her stomach before she could stamp it down. But at least she had done what Enna could not – figured out how to save Mordwin College. Alis could hold onto that for comfort, at least.

“Certainly not,” Cahan answered, laughing. “We would drive each other mad within a fortnight. Besides, I can’t marry a bloody Salamander witch. I’d never hear the end of it.”

Enna smiled at him.

“Back to the drawing board, then. But as it seems we may need this golem in the future, I’d better make sure there are Mordwins to command him. If you see any eligible bachelors who would pair well with the likes of me, send me a scroll.” She playfully punched his arm. Alis struggled to make sure she didn’t have a sour look on her face. It was none of her business who Cahan did or didn’t marry.

“Thanks again for your help. Both of you,” The Headmistress smiled at Alis.

“Now I can show you the hospitality of my school! After you get a little sleep, I’m sure our dining hall can prepare a proper meal for you. Then I will give you a tour of the grounds. You’ll enjoy our magical laboratories,” she said, now cheerful and excited. “I’ll send our groundskeeper out for your things once the sun dries everything up a bit,” Enna finished. She motioned for them all to head back into the college.

As the group moved en masse towards the front doors of Mordwin, Alis hung back a little, hoping Cahan would join her. He did, and they allowed the group to continue ahead.

“Thank you,” Alis said quietly.

She still struggled with the idea of Cahan marrying Enna Mordwin. That would, of course, be how it ended. Nobles...descendants of the old kings of Gale, at that, didn’t marry dirty little farm girls, no matter their magical skill.

“For what?” Cahan asked her, looking confused. She laughed, the tension from the past several hours leaving her body.

“For taking that first hit from the golem.” Cahan shrugged.

“You’re welcome. But that’s what I do. You don’t need to thank me for it.”

“No, I do,” she said, remembering how so many of her kind viewed physical warriors as disposable. Cahan seemed taken aback by her attitude but accepted her answer all the same.

Alis yawned loudly.

“I agree,” Cahan answered, grinning at her. “Pity the monsters don’t keep to reasonable hours.”

“After a nap, I want to look around. This place is very different from Scholae,” she continued her small talk as they both ascended the stairs towards their guest rooms.

“I might even need to have a sit-down with the Headmistress to see what childhood stories she can share,” she added with a mischievous smirk. Cahan stopped climbing, staring at her.

“I’m only jesting,” she said, laughing at his expression.

“You are silly when you’re tired,” Cahan said a moment later. “When you’re not being a massive grump.”

“Goodnight, Cahan,” she said kindly as she reached her quarters. He waited for her to close the door, and then continued on to his own room.

What was that? Alis demanded of herself as she approached her bed. Were you flirting with him? Ugh. In the privacy of her room, her cheeks burned. She was so awkward at these things. And he didn’t even seem to notice.

You can’t just fall for the first man that pays you close attention, she told herself with disgust. This ends now. She could not risk ruining everything with this. Alis was a professional. An adult. Not some starry-eyed girl.

All of this over a joke from an old friend of his. She rolled her eyes.

As she drifted off to sleep, she convinced herself how stupid the entire idea was, and that she didn’t have any sort of romantic inclination towards Cahan at all. Satisfied with the lie, and hoping that thinking it would make it true, she finally succumbed to her dreams.

Morgon Newquist started life by causing an international incident in Central America, and has been marching to the beat of her own drummer ever since. She grew up in the Rocket City – Huntsville, Alabama. After a stint at the University of Georgia to study Latin, she has returned to the place of her upbringing where she wrangles two dogs, a cat, and four children daily.

The Most Secret Magic of All

Tom Anderson

Having read ‘The Worst Witch’ growing up and encountered Terry Pratchett’s Unseen University, Tom Anderson enjoyed the Harry Potter series when it took the world by storm, but found it surprising that many readers seemed to think the idea of a magical school was new. His view of JK Rowling’s work was that its success lay not in its setting, but in its Agatha Christie-style mystery plots and Roald Dahl-esque colourful descriptions of abusive upbringings and the glories of food. For that reason, like many fans of the series, he has had some misgivings about Rowling’s later focus on world-building on a setting that was never meant to be more than a flimsy background to a thrilling plot. Online discussions of the problems caused by this prompted him to write a parody series on AlternateHistory.com in which these are comedically exaggerated, from which this more serious story naturally grew.

The Most Secret Magic of All

“Yah! Filthy little taint!”

Miranda Carter gripped her satchel ineffectually, with a resigned attitude born of long practice, as her textbooks scattered across the stone flagstones of the corridor. Iris Blades, her archnemesis in the rival Serpentine House, gave her a smirk of triumph, then blended into the crowd of pupils racing the sonorous chimes of the magical bell.

Miranda shook her head in frustration, her long dirty-blonde hair flying everywhere in the process, as she struggled to retrieve her precious books before they were trampled. As swift and practiced as she was at this point, The Annals of Magwit’s School still obtained a fresh bootprint, on top of all the others, before it could be returned to her satchel. At this point, she had probably collected samples of every shoe size in the whole school.

Tears started in the corners of her eyes. It was so unfair! She, who would never have been late to a class if it was left up to her, would once again get a talking-to from…who was it next? Doctor Trossberal? And she never felt she could come to them with stories of bullying. It wasn’t the done thing here. It wasn’t the culture.

It was unfair. It wasn’t as if she picked fights with people. Her friends Gareth and Will, love them though she would, always gave as good as they got in their rivalries with the Serpentines. They couldn’t complain if it became a never-ending escalating war of pranks. Miranda just wanted to focus on her studies. She’d been born to Normie parents she didn’t remember, orphaned at a young age, and raised in the magical orphanage in Daventry. In the holidays, she stayed here rather than going home. Magwit’s School of Thaumaturgy was her life, in many ways. But bit—girls like Iris seemed determined to make her not feel safe there, either.

Normie parents. A tainted one, according to the extremists in the Serpentines. Would it make any difference if she’d come from an old-established magical family like them? She suspected not. She knew hidalgos like Clement Brevas, good people, who got just as much vitriol from the Serpentines. Anyone in a weak social position in this school, for any reason, they would try to dominate and exploit. It was all they knew.

Trying not to look at the grandfather clock chiming at her, Miranda searched for her last book. Her Normie Studies textbook. A natural scholar, she usually found reading textbooks to be a joy in itself rather than a chore. This was the exception. She hated that subject. It was so boring, and the Serpentines would make cracks about how she should be a natural for it, being a Normie herself who’d rudely intruded on their society.

But she needed the textbook back, darnit. She needed to focus on her work at this time. Gareth had been taken away again by the Thaumaturgical Authority. It was another of those conspiracies the three friends kept getting entangled with thanks to Gareth’s family history with Lord Skallheim, the dark wizard who was plotting a return to power. Will had gone to call in his own family connections to try to get Gareth exonerated. Miranda wished there was something she could do. She’d tried poring over legal texts until her vision swam. But on some level, she would always be an outsider to this society.

There! The blooming slim textbook with its light blue colour had skidded all the way across the flagstones, bounced off the edge of a rug, and lay right under a flaming torch in its bracket on the wall. Doubtless Iris would have burned it altogether if she’d had the wit to. Satchel under her hand, her carefully arranged books now all dusty and jumbled, Miranda bent down to pick up the book.

And paused. The corridor was now deserted. The grandfather clock was still chiming. She would be late! Get on with it!

But no, the reason that made her such a good student wasn’t simply her aptitude for memorising things from textbooks. It was because she had an inquiring mind. While other pupils just struggled to learn the spells as they were taught in class, she tried to understand the underlying theories of them and experimented with making changes. It didn’t always work out; Will still ribbed her about the time they’d had to take her to the Sanatorium, having turned herself into a dog while trying to make toast. But it did mean that she couldn’t see something that didn’t make sense without pulling the thread.

Literally, in this case. As was common throughout the castle of Magwit’s, the stone wall was partly covered with a large and impressive tapestry. Unlike similar Normie weaves, the characters depicted on this one were in a state of motion. Amid the ornate border of flowers and nettles, the red, blue and yellow tapestry depicted Julius Magwit himself, playing cards with the three other founders: Arundel Vauxhall, Ordosia Oublizerg, and Franco Serpentine. They were all dressed in what Miranda vaguely recognised from this very textbook as Jacobean doublets, or a dress from the same era in Oublizerg’s case. The animated scene currently depicted appeared to indicate Vauxhall accusing Serpentine of cheating. Miranda smiled to herself at that, but her attention was mainly devoted to that strand of red thread which dangled from one frayed corner of the tapestry. It was floating as though blowing in a draught. Again, not unusual for the ancient castle of Magwit’s, except this draught seemed to be in an impossible direction.

Miranda felt in the pocket of her blue robe and took out her wand, a slim rod of elm with a softly glowing sapphire at the tip. With this, she felt the stones of the wall next to the tapestry and behind it, tapping cautiously. Yes, maybe it was her imagination, but they felt hollow.

A secret passage!

Magwit’s had hundreds of them, of course. Gareth had inherited a magical map, an heirloom of his grandfather, last year which claimed to depict all of them. The boys had had a lot of fun trying those out and getting their revenge on the Serpentines, while Miranda worried herself sick about being caught. But, with her usual gift for memorisation, she’d done a pretty good job of remembering where the passages were. And she was almost certain there had been none here.

Had Gareth’s grandfather missed one?

Might this explain how Doctor Malvolio, the treacherous Protective Studies teacher they’d had last year, who had secretly been working with Lord Skallheim, had been able to get around the castle unnoticed? Gareth said even Professor Hummerhorn, the Headmaster, had confessed himself stumped by that one.

Miranda’s orderly soul was still screaming at her that she needed to get to class and throw herself on the mercy of Doctor Trossberal. But, hang on, this was a matter that might impinge on the future of the whole school! And, darnit, on some secret level she was fed up with Gareth and Will always having all the transgressional fun.

She studied the wall carefully, thinking how the other secret passages she’d seen had worked. There might be some elaborate magic pass-phrase, that her advanced Cryptomancy reading-ahead suggested could take a long period to puzzle out from first principles. Or perhaps it worked on the law of similarity and the law of contagion, so she’d have to find a particular item and touch it to the wall.

While considering, Miranda absently dumped the final book in her bag. It was very heavy on one shoulder. She reached out and leant on the torch-bracket to one side…

And then the wall wasn’t there, and the bracket wasn’t there, and she was falling forward into a dark void—

“Oh sh—sugar! You shouldn’t be here!”

Miranda woozily looked up. She felt as though she’d only lost consciousness for a moment of shock. Maybe not only a secret passage, but an arcane transference spell that had taken her to another realm of existence altogether? She had read ahead in theory texts that suggested such travel would come with a shock to the system.

On the other hand, she doubted such shock would manifest itself as painfully-bruised knees and sore palms where they had hit the stone floor.

Except this floor didn’t feel like stone. There was a rug on it, or a carpet, but not like the rich magical carpets she’d seen the senior students practicing with. This was thin and ridged and oddly joyless in texture, and its colour was—

What was its colour?

Miranda’s dark blue velvet robes pooled in a heap around her prone form, yet she could only say they were blue because she already knew. This—passage, room?—was dark, with none of the homely glow of flaming torches that lit Magwit’s. The silver stars and moons on her robes gleamed reflectively in dim, distant brightly-coloured pinpoints of light: red, green and occasionally yellow. They reminded her slightly of the fairy lights at Christmas, when real fairies were entrapped in bottles to illuminate the festivities in the Great Hall, but these lights were cold and lacked vitality.

“You shouldn’t be—there shouldn’t be—” The voice sounded distracted and worried. There was a sound like shuffling paper, but different to someone perusing a scroll. “There’s nothing here about—something’s gone wrong, hasn’t it?”

Miranda’s eyes were still used to the corridor, which wasn’t that well lit by the flaming torch, but she’d been looking near the torch when she’d been examining the wall, and she’d discovered that meant she couldn’t see anything when suddenly plunged into blackness. Discovered it not in one of textbooks, which were silent on such points of everyday importance, but by the empirical method of having a sack plunged over her head by Iris and her cronies on the sports field when the teacher wasn’t looking.

All she could see were vague shapes in the gloom. She had a basic impression that this was not a long, snaky passage, but a small, stuffy, boxy room—though perhaps there might be a second door to lead elsewhere. There were those red and green and yellow lights over in one direction, in complex patterns but ones that suggested order rather than chaos, horizontal and occasionally vertical lines. There were also faint greyish-white glows from a set of squares, like enchanted paintings which were showing nothing more than views of restless snowstorms.

What else? The analytical mind that teachers had praised her for was going to work. That carpet, under her bruised knees, she followed it with a hand until she hit a wall. She could see the wall dimly in those strange lights, too, as her vision adjusted. Unlike the carpeted floor, the wall looked familiar…yes, those were definitely the homely stones of Magwit’s.

She hadn’t fallen into some out-realm then but merely into a secret passage as she’d first guessed, or at least a secret room.

“Why don’t you—it’s shock, innit?” The voice continued to gabble away. It was a male voice but not that deep and increasingly panicked in tone. “‘Ang on—now what did ‘e say…”

Miranda had met students who’d grown up in London, and she recognised the accent, growing stronger as the speaker became more agitated. He was just a near-shapeless silhouette in the dark room. He was fumbling about with something near the lights—the horizontal lines of lights—like they were sitting on a desk, a table?

There was a sound that Miranda knew very well from her attempts to get Gareth better grades in Alchemy class, though he insisted the teacher hated him, and it was pointless. It was the sound of pieces of solid glassware crashing against one another, hard enough to make her wince but not quite hard enough to break them. (Though Gareth had certainly acquainted her with that sound, too, as had Clement).

“Whoops,” the voice said. “Uh, I think it’s Oh Kay…dammit, I didn’t mean to…” Sound of a liquid slopping over the side of a glass. More sounds that Alchemy class had well prepared Miranda to recognise. “He’s gonna kill…never mind.”

The lights, red and green and yellow and grey, gleamed off a glass as it was proffered to Miranda. A few other reflective features stood out. The man had slicked-back, oiled hair, and wore glasses with lenses that looked black and opaque, like the ones Dr Volkano used in Magimetallurgy class when he was demonstrating his forge. But there were no bright thaumic sparks here. Maybe the man just had very sensitive eyes, perhaps damaged in a magical accident, and that was also why the room was so dark. Miranda was speculating.

Out of politeness, out of inertia, she took the glass from him and gingerly sipped from it. She almost choked. She recognised the taste from when she’d recuperated in the Sanatorium from the aftereffects of one of Iris’ pranks, or had it been Lord Skallheim’s latest plot from beyond the grave to resurrect himself? They all blurred into one after a while. Either way, the man was giving her medicinal brandy. Yes, he’d realised she had suffered a shock.

Miranda took a second sip and nodded. “Thank you,” she managed.

“Oh, you’ve got your voice back—I mean, uh, thank you, sir, ma’am.” The man’s speech kept accelerating into an indistinct, nervous mumble. “I’m sorry, I meant—” He looked around wildly. “I didn’t expect this to happen! He didn’t expect…”

“It is well,” Miranda said, trying to calm him down. “Thank you,” she repeated.

“Oh Kay, Oh Kay,” the man said, an incantation with which she was unfamiliar. Wait, no, hadn’t some of the Normie Borns used that before? He must be one of them. Miranda was technically Normie Born herself, of course, but she rarely thought of herself that way. “Uh…I’m not sure if I’m authorised to take your debriefing, you’d better wait for Dad—that is, Supervisor Alexander, I mean—to come back.”

“That is well,” Miranda said automatically, trying to work out what he meant. “Uh, Oh Kay.”

She was missing her class. But then, Iris had ensured she’d already be late, so she might as well try to figure out what was going on. Who was this man who lived behind the walls? A ghost of the castle she’d never encountered before? No, he had handled that glass and given it to her. Some secret extra caretaker who worked directly for Headmaster Hummerhorn? That, she could believe; the man was full of secrets, and she’d always suspected that what Gareth had learned through his misadventures had only scratched the surface.

“So you’d better…I guess…” The man gestured vaguely behind him, at the lights and the glows. Miranda was starting to see a little better and could now see they were coming from peculiar-looking boxes stacked on a desk. There were two equally unusual-looking chairs in front of it. “While you’re waiting, do you want to, er, join me?” Despite the lack of light, Miranda was sure he had blushed slightly. “That is, I mean, there’s nowhere else to sit in here, I mean…”

“Oh Kay,” Miranda said, just to cut him off.

She got up, wincing as the fabric of her robes rubbed past her bruised knees. Students weren’t supposed to try healing spells on themselves, but for something as minor as this she’d rather trust in her own abilities than wait hours in the Sanatorium for the Lady to become available. She found her wand where it had rolled along the sad carpet, her pointed hat next to it. She stuck the latter into her satchel for now, but pointed the wand at her knees. “Exsarcio Patellae!”

There was a brief flicker of golden light. Miranda experimentally rubbed her knees through her robe, then grinned. “Knew I’d got that one down!”

The man, his form once again rendered indistinct in her eyes by the brief flash of light, was staring at her through his dark glasses. “Wow, you’re one of the ones who really knows how to do it!” he commented. “Uh…” he shakily held out his hand. “You won’t have met me, I’m, uh, Dougie Alexander. Supervisor Alexander’s son,” he added.

Miranda looked at the hand in confusion for a moment, before remembering this was another thing Normie Borns sometimes did. She extended her own, tentatively grasped his and shook it. “Ah…I’m Leandra Cooper.”

There were some magical beings to whom it was dangerous to speak your real name, as doing so would grant them power over you. She doubted this man was one of them, but experience over the past few years had taught her not to give away trust lightly.

“Oh!” The man—Dougie—scratched his slicked-back hair for a moment. “Uh, I do know your name from somewhere, but forgive me, I’m not up on your file.”

That surprised Miranda, assuming he wasn’t just lying. She’d plucked the name Leandra Cooper from an American exchange student who’d been part of their adventures last year. Miranda would reluctantly admit that Leandra had proven to be basically a good sort, and her suspicions of her had been unfounded—though she would never admit, even to herself, that the latter had been driven by Will’s open adoration of the pretty New Englander. He’d always been there to answer her stupid questions about why there weren’t any cheerleaders or show-and-tell sessions at Magwit’s. At least, she was home, now, back at Chubb College of Sorcery, and the enchantment on Will had been lifted.

As though to cover the awkward moment, Dougie gestured frantically at one of the seats. It had an odd, insubstantial, spidery layout, and rested on a thin stalk which split into five roots: that made sense, pentacles had power. Miranda almost fell straight out of it when she sat down, finding that the seat of the chair rotated freely on the stalk, and those roots terminated in funny wheels that could move in any direction on the thin carpet. Fortunately, she managed to recover herself. She almost yelled at Dougie, reflexively, for not warning her about his peculiar chairs. The way he sat down in such a casual fashion, as though it’d never occur to him that anyone might have trouble with them, made the words die in her throat. Miranda had always hated to admit ignorance.

She could see him a bit more clearly now, closer to that odd array of glassy squares with their snowstorm-like grey glow. Hair, glasses…instead of robes, he wore a white shirt with black trousers. At least, she thought they were black—in this imperfect light, it was hard to tell. A black tie was imperfectly tied around his neck, and a black jacket lay in a shapeless heap over the back of his chair. It was warm in here, far warmer than it had been in the corridor. Something must be heating the room; she wondered if he had one of those tiny portable infurnaces powered by an entrapped demon.

Besides his dress, she noticed he was young, befitting his nervous, frantic manner, a boy trying to be a man. She realised she was being silly, as she estimated he was still older than her fifteen years by a year or two. Usually a boy of that age would be in the lower sixth form, preening himself over his success in the G.E.N.I.E. exams that Miranda was still studying for, coolly mature, looking down on her as a mere lower schooler. That is, if he was a student…

“Um, uh, want to check in on the cams?” Dougie suggested, startling her out of her reverie.

The cams? “I…Oh Kay.” It was easier than asking questions. Miranda had always enjoyed doing that, expressing curiosity about the world, but the answers she got had from some teachers at Magwit’s had increasingly put her off asking.

Dougie reached out for the desk or table with all the glassy-fronted boxes and their glowing lights. He clearly couldn’t see very well in the dimness, and the dark glasses didn’t help. He fumbled in his pocket and took out—not a wand, but a stubby cylinder that flared at one end.

Wanting to seem helpful, Miranda produced her own wand, concentrated on a spell and uttered the word: “Lux.” It was a simple enough spell, though poor Will as often as not still created a bunch of flowers instead when he tried. A beam of white light emerged from the tip of her wand.

Dougie, meanwhile, just clicked something on whatever his cylinder was, which produced an almost identical white beam. “Uh, thanks,” he said awkwardly when he saw Miranda had also generated one. He shone his own beam on the desk to see what he was doing.

No word of command? He hadn’t seemed to need to concentrate, either. Whatever this device was, it was clearly of ingenious arcane manufacture, if it allowed anyone to cast the Lux spell regardless of their own talent. Miranda had heard of such things, but they were usually described as very expensive and difficult for experts to create, too much so to be wasted on something as simple as the Lux spell.

The desk was covered with more boxy…things, these ones with slanted tops so someone sitting in Dougie’s position could see more of them at once. Each item sprouted a complex array of…well, things. Miranda felt frustrated, given her voracious reading on any and all subjects, that she didn’t recognise any of it. There were horizontal bars that moved up and down in slots, cones or cylinders that turned like doorknobs, more glimmering lights of red and green and yellow. Everything seemed to be made of that strange material she’d only seen a handful of times before, usually on items the Normie Borns had brought from home…what was it called…plastic. Flimsier and lighter than wood or metal or stone. She thought of it as being brightly coloured, but everything here looked made in shades of grey—though it was hard to tell, even with the lights of her wand and, and whatever it was Dougie had.

“Right,” Dougie muttered to himself and began sliding sliders and turning knobs. To Miranda’s surprise, one of the snowstorm-squares flickered and turned to a recognisable image. People were moving on it, like an enchanted painting, though only in shades of grey. Also, unlike an enchanted painting, they were not facing outwards and meeting her gaze. The image was a classroom, with students facing away from the camera and towards the front of the class. It put her more in mind of what Gareth had said about Professor Hummerhorn’s Noublion device, in which one could view memories from the past.

Miranda squinted at the rather blurry, grey-on-grey image of the teacher at the front of the class. It was Dr Trossberal—an Augurology class, then. She looked back at the students, wondering if she was there herself. There were empty seats. Gareth wasn’t in his usual place, nor was Will…and nor was she. Wait, they hadn’t all missed one of Trossberal’s classes before, had they?

Until…now. Which meant this wasn’t a memory, but an image of what the classroom looked like right now. Miranda was shocked; she’d read a lot, but had never come across a spell that would let one do this—let one spy on people.

“It’s looking from where the big coat of arms on the wall is,” she realised after a moment.

“Of course, it is,” Dougie said in surprise, glancing at her. “Oh, I suppose they don’t tell you field agents in case you forget and look at the camera. Yes, good thing the Serpentine snake has a big eye we can hide the lens in, eh?” He chuckled.

As Miranda watched, she saw Iris Blades put her hand up and rise from her circle of sycophantic cronies. There was no sound, but she could tell Iris was answering a question Trossberal had posed—and probably taking the opportunity to make a spiteful comment about Miranda’s own absence. Tears reflexively started in her eyes, and she hated herself for it.

“That’s Iris Blades,” she began, in an attempt to explain her manner when Dougie glanced at her in curiosity.

But he just laughed. “Well, of course,” he said. “I know I’m new to this, uh, Agent Cooper, but I wouldn’t be much good if I didn’t know Agent Blades. One of our best field agents, second only to Agent Ilvint, depending on who you ask.”

Miranda’s mouth hung open for a moment before she closed it. Machus Ilvint was Gareth’s arch-nemesis, Iris’ on-again off-again lover, and not above making poisonous comments about Miranda’s ancestry to her face. Both of them were Serpentines, of course. She wasn’t used to hearing the word ‘best’ in a sentence describing either of them, unless it was followed by the phrase ‘at being evil scumbags’.

“Of course, he’s not here right now,” Dougie continued. He kept tapping and flicking the strange controls and more of the snowstorm-pictures turned to show grey-on-grey images of different parts of Magwit’s castle. Many were just anonymous corridors, deserted during lesson time, but others were rooms she knew well. “Still off at the Authority set in London, givin’ evidence for Stoke’s trial…I think that’s a bit unrealistic, personally, but I suppose it carries more dramatic weight for the audience then getting some random adult to do it.”

Stoke was Gareth’s surname. Miranda cocked her head on one side, trying to understand what on earth Dougie was talking about.

“We just need to keep things tickin’ over here while that runs its course, of course we might always need some shots depending on how things go in post-production, so can’t get complacent,” Dougie added, clearly trying to sound like he knew more about what he was talking about than he did. It was a form of speech Miranda was well familiar with, when boys tried to impress her. Of course, this was a rare case where he really did know more about all this crazy nonsense than she did.

Miranda found herself staring at one of the glassy pictures as it showed a corridor. Rikrik, the annoying ghost who occasionally interrupted their studies, was there—but there seemed something odd about him, even for a ghost. He was flickering in and out of existence, repeating the same motion over and over, as though he’d been cursed. She’d pointed at the picture. “What’s wrong with Rikrik?”

Dougie glanced over and muttered something pungent under his breath. “Thanks for spotting that.” He reached out and pushed one of those sliders down. Rikrik faded and vanished. Dougie took out a stiff board with individual sheets of paper, not a scroll, attached to it with a big metal clip. Something dangled from the clip by a piece of string. Dougie flipped over several of the sheets until he found the one he wanted, snatched the thing on the string out of midair, and began to…

Began to write. Miranda shone her wand-light on the sheet. Dougie made a noise of thanks, but she was just trying to see herself. The sheet was clean white paper, with none of the brown imperfections of the parchment she was used to. Already printed on it were hard-edged boxes and grids with clean, regular black text next to them: a form of some kind. Dougie agonised for a moment before ticking one box. In a bigger box below it, he scribbled some words. The thing in his hand was a pen! But it was far more compact than a quill pen, and didn’t seem to need dipping in an inkwell. It was as convenient as a pencil. Miranda had trouble reading his handwriting, which was as bad as Will’s, but she caught the words MALFUNCTION and PEPPER’S PROJECTOR (what?) and MARK FOR REPAIR.

Dougie tore off the sheet and stuck it into a tray on the crowded desk. He gave her a grin. “Thanks for spotting that,” he repeated. “Should be fine so long as old Rikrik doesn’t have to appear in that corridor anytime soon.” He shrugged. “They’ll probably cut him out of the final release again anyway, I know Bobby Matthews in SFX is still sore about that.”

“Right,” Miranda said.

This was a dream, it had to be. Nothing made a lick of sense. This man—boy—had just switched off a ghost, like someone quenching a torch.

“Quick routine check of the basement,” Dougie added as he pressed more controls. “Though if we ever put in footage from there, something’s going wrong!”

The basement? Magwit’s had dungeons, of course, but…Miranda felt confused as Dougie switched a picture to show an image she didn’t recognise. It looked like a big kitchen of some kind, but with equipment she’d never seen before. Big metallic ovens, square boxy devices that looked rather like these grey picture-things, but white-clad people were taking steaming food out of them… Of course, there were kitchens below the Great Hall, but they were staffed by Penates, the domesticated goblins whom Miranda had always privately felt were rather exploited.

“Ready for the switchover at lunchtime,” Dougie said, pointing. The people, mostly women, wearing white were stacking up trays of food at a large hatch in the wall. Dougie switched to a different view, and suddenly there were the tiny Penate goblins, their movements jerky as always, taking the trays from the hatch, ready to serve.

“I thought the Penates made the food themselves,” Miranda murmured.

Dougie laughed. “The programs aren’t quite that sophisticated enough yet,” he noted. “Some of those things are still running FORTRAN, Mike Peters told me.”

“Right.” Asking questions of Dougie was as frustrating as asking them of most of her teachers. She needed a textbook on whatever this was.

“So, in summary,” Dougie said, ticking more boxes on his papers, “everything looks fine, we’re ready for the breakout tomorrow, or we will be…everything ticketty-boo, as my mum would say…Dad’s got plenty of time to finish the setup…”

His words trailed off as he switched to yet another view. Miranda recognised this one immediately. It was not a view of the inside of the castle, but its outside—near the secret gate they had discovered last year, an alternative way to get in if one was willing to brave the peril of the Blackheart Oak. This required a branch on the living tree to be wedged in such a position that its flailing other branches would be momentarily immobilised, which could be done with an implement such a gardener’s hoe.

Such as the one currently wedging it in place. The tree was almost as frozen as its more traditional counterparts, with only a trembling vibration to suggest otherwise.

“Dammit! Someone’s hit the cutoff switch!” Dougie muttered. “No-one’s supposed to be…oh, hell!”

The view on the shades-of-grey picture showed two figures disappearing into the secret door, which then shut silently behind them. They had only been visible for a moment, and largely as silhouettes, but Miranda instantly recognised them as her friends. “Gareth and Will?”

“Stoke and Ferrett!” Dougie said at the same time. “They’re not supposed to be…” Another desperate rustle of papers which saw him drop his cylindrical not-wand. “Not until tomorrow! Something’s gone wrong…it’s not set up yet…”

Miranda jerked backward, her strange chair drifting unexpectedly over the carpet as she did, as Dougie reached out across her without warning to grab another of the strange devices. She vaguely recognised it from Normie Studies class as a ‘telephone’, but this one had a big additional section next to the ‘handset’ and the numbered buttons. A red light was pulsating on it. “Missed—oh, sh-sugar…what’s this…” He punched buttons.

There was an unpleasant squealing sound, and then a tinny voice sounded, not unlike the imps they had learned how to entrap to parrot back phrases and songs. “Romeo Two—Rockall breakout ahead of schedule—Wideawakes injured—GS and WF have escaped, believed to be enroute back to Magwit’s—”

“Oh, for—” Dougie gulped back his words. “That’s torn it…” Distractedly, he hit another button. A rectangular piece of plastic slid back, and something popped up, startling Miranda, who jumped. Dougie was too distracted to notice. He pulled out a thicker rectangle of plastic with two holes in it, stuffing it into his pocket. There didn’t seem to be any imp anywhere in the thing.

Dougie grabbed yet another plastic rectangle, this one a bulbous one with lights and knobs on it. He flicked a switch. “Bravo One, this is Romeo Two. Breakout of GS and WF from Rockall, have just entered J2 via that entrance. Acknowledge.” Only disquieting noise came out of the device. He slammed it down. “Jesus…they won’t have reception there…”

Miranda might not know how these devices worked, but at least she had understood some of what the tinny voice had said. Rockall was the site of the windswept wizard prison of Lightmare, guarded by the terrifying Wideawakes, whom she and her friends had tangled with two years ago. Good old Gareth and Will, beating them…but why had they been there in the first place? Gareth had only just been committed for trial by the Authority. Maybe Ilvint’s influence again.

Now Dougie was hunting through books. “Got to do something,” he muttered to himself. “This is really bad…”

Dougie seemed friendly enough, if distracted. But he was clearly not on her side. He’d said approving things about Ilvint and Iris Blades. He seemed to be spying on everyone. And he saw Gareth and Will escaping from prison as being a bad thing. Was he working for Lord Skallheim?

Miranda didn’t know why he seemed to think she was one of his allies, but she decided to use it to her advantage. “Are you going to try to stop them?”

Dougie glanced up from his books. “Stop them? Hah! I can’t!” His dismissive tone made Miranda proud of her friends’s capabilities. “Slow them down, maybe, though…” He squinted at a page in a large book. “This should do.”

He patted his pockets for his lost light-cylinder. “Uh, can you shine yours up there…” Miranda obliged, aiming her wand where his finger pointed. She discovered that on the wall, previously hidden by the lack of light, was an enormous map of Magwit’s. It was even more comprehensive and detailed than Gareth’s grandfather’s magical map. Not only did it show the same secret passages, highlighted in green, but there was another set in red which Miranda couldn’t recall ever seeing before.

She rapidly found the corridor in which she’d been walking before discovering the suspicious draught near the tapestry. Yes, this room was marked in red, with a passageway behind it…

“C3,” Dougie muttered, reading off the gridlines on the map. He adjusted the controls on the big slab of sliders and knobs on the desk, and the grey pictures flickered and changed to show views of the corridors in that square. There were Gareth and Will, looking worried but determined, sneaking down the corridor. Miranda wished she was with them.

“So that means I want, um, D, no, E5,” Dougie said to himself. He produced a device like a fat black pen attached to a thick cord, not merely string like his pencil. The tip glowed red. He pressed it to the point on the book where he had placed his finger. Miranda watched; in addition to small bits of text, the book included lots of incomprehensible symbols. That wasn’t unusual for the books she read, but these were like no arcane runes she’d ever seen. They were angular clusters of vertical lines of black and white, of varying thickness. When Dougie ran the pen-thing’s red light over one of them, it emitted a loud beep. In the brief light, she saw that beneath the mystical lines were the words OGRES (3) TO E5.

“You’re sending three ogres to attack them? To slow them down?” Miranda tried to keep her voice steady. She’d been attacked by an ogre in her first year and still had nightmares about it.

“Yeah…” Dougie said distractedly. “Not sure if it’ll work…”

“We’ve—they’ve fought ogres before,” Miranda pointed out, hoping she could make him change his plans.

Dougie bit his lip. “You’re right,” he murmured. “They’ll have no trouble with the default programs. Hell…I need to take control.” He hunted across the desk for a moment and found yet another device, which he slung over his shoulder on a strap. “Come with me, I could use your help.”

Still with no idea what was going on, Miranda followed Dougie as he opened a previously hidden door on the opposite side of the little room to the one she’d fallen into. The corridor behind was like none she’d ever seen before. Recognisably still part of Magwit’s, it nonetheless had the same dingy carpet as the room, and blank stone walls not enlivened by tapestries or portraits. It was a little better lit than the room had been, but by strange, cold, globular lights of a type she’d not seen before, not comfortingly-familiar flaming torches.

Dougie ran, panting, and Miranda struggled to keep up. She’d always been more intellectual than sporting, unlike Gareth. Before long, though, the snaking corridor took them to where Dougie wanted, and he skidded to a halt. Miranda almost ran straight into him. He pointed. “There!”

There was a large, dark window in front of them. In the room behind it, three ogres, great ugly beasts taller and bulkier than a man, were swinging their massive fists at the slight forms of Gareth and Will. Miranda’s hand went to her mouth. She’d fought alongside them before, of course, in the heat of the moment, but there was something about seeing it like this that made her realise just what peril they were in. She tried to meet Will’s gaze, but he looked past her, as though she wasn’t there. “They can’t see us?”

“‘Course not,” Dougie said, unhooking the bulky black device from around his neck. He pulled on something, and a long, thin metal pole extended. “It’s one-way glass. Looks like one of those silly paintings from the other side.” He fiddled with complex-looking controls on the device. “Um…that’s better…I’ll go for that one,” he pointed at the nearest ogre, which was currently staggering back as a well-placed spell from Will exploded into red stars in its face. She’d taught him that spell, Miranda thought with a note of pride.

He’d only spoken of slowing her friends down, so rather than act, Miranda continued to play along. “What are you going to do?”

“Switch things up,” Dougie muttered.

He fiddled with the controls. The ogre’s movements became more hesitant and jerky for a moment, then smoothed up. He was controlling it, Miranda realised with shock, as though he had enchanted it. But with some Normie device?

Gareth hit one of the ogres with a jet of blue sparks that smashed it against the wall, knocking it out. Will was turning to face the second, probably assuming from the third’s jerky movements that it was wounded.

She let out a little cry as Will parried what looked like a predictable move from the third ogre with a protection spell—but then Dougie flicked a control, and the ogre ducked under the spell. Its fist crashed into Will’s head with a sickening thud.

“Will!” Miranda and Gareth both cried out at once, the latter’s voice muffled. Gareth’s shock was reflected in his latest spell losing cohesion, and a multicoloured spray smashed into the second ogre, in this case doing more damage than intended. The ogre collapsed in a spray of grey-green blood.

“Um, where is it…?” Dougie muttered, hastily scanning a page of illegible notes. “Got it!”

He flicked another couple of switches.

The third ogre, absorbing a hasty spell from Gareth against its chest, tackled him to the floor just as a hidden trapdoor fell away beneath both of them. With a scream, he fell.

Silence fell in the room, occupied now only by the corpses of two ogres and the still form of Will. He looked as dead as they were.

“That should do—” Dougie began.

Miranda’s first instinct was not to attack him, but to help her friend. She pulled her wand out and pointed it at the—glass, had he said? “Discutio!”

“Wha—” was all Dougie managed before a streak of blue-grey light from Miranda’s wand shattered the glass into a thousand glittering fragments.

It was the nature of the spell that the glass fell almost straight downwards from its frame, so she didn’t have to worry about it cutting into Will. Miranda bounded through the empty frame and into the room, immediately dropping to her recently-healed knees beside Will’s form. “Will!”

Will woozily looked up, his eyes struggling to focus. “Miranda…bloody hell…” he managed, then slipped into unconsciousness.

But he was alive. “Oh, thank G—” Miranda began, mopping his brow.

“Wait!” Dougie was climbing through the fame after her, his expression conflicted, his accent strengthening from emotion. “‘E called you Miranda…and…” He grabbed at the sleeve of her robe and stared at it, seeing it in good light for the first time. “Blue! We ain’t got no agents in Vauxhall…” His eyes widened. “You’re Miranda Carter!”

So he knew her true name after all. Well, that didn’t matter, so long as she struck first. “Guilty as charged. Laqueus!”

Dougie had been going for something in his pocket. Now, a pulse of green light leapt from her wand and expanded into a net-like grid of green lines, which wrapped around his hands and feet and flung him up against the opposite wall, next to one of the fallen ogres.

Miranda kept half an eye on him as she checked the unconscious Will. He seemed to be as well as could be expected under the circumstances, and she didn’t trust her attempts at healing magic on him, so she reluctantly left him for now.

“Right. Now you know who I am, what’s going on?”

Dougie looked terrified. He shook his head frantically. “You’re a truman! I’ve been talking to a truman! Oh sh—” This time, he did not soften it to ‘sugar’.

She ignored this. “True woman, if you please.”

“No, you don’t understand—it’s not ‘true man’, it’s a word, my dad uses it to describe people like you…” Dougie abruptly clammed up. “No, I’m not saying anything more. I’m in enough trouble as it is.”

That sentiment was so familiar to Miranda that she almost laughed at hearing it echoed back at her from this strange young man—boy, really. At least, someone else was in trouble for a change. But things were too serious right now.

She hesitated. They’d been taught last year that this spell was forbidden, or at least heavily restricted in practice, and for good reason. But things were desperate, and anyway, the teacher who’d told them that had turned out to be working for Lord Skallheim anyway. Miranda pointed her wand at Dougie’s immobilised form against the wall, furrowed her brow as she visualised whips and chains. “Ambacto!”

“Zzzt!” Dougie’s head was slammed back against the stone; Miranda winced despite herself. “I won’t…I can’t…” His will struggled with the spell for a moment, then succumbed. “I…”

“What does ‘truman’ mean?” Miranda said, her voice soft and commanding.

“I…don’t know,” Dougie managed a literal answer. Miranda shoved her wand forward, intensifying the spell. “I mean, I don’t know where my dad got the word from…ugggh…it means one of you, a wizard who doesn’t know it’s, ughhh…” His voice shrank to a quavering whisper as he tried, unsuccessfully, to clamp down his own lips. “It’s all a big con.”

“A what?” Miranda almost lost control of the spell through shock. She remembered Normie Born students who’d talked about the conjurers who did what Normies called magic, which was all just trickery and playing off people’s expectations. “A confidence trick? Don’t be absurd! Of course, magic’s real, what am I using on you right now?”

“Don’t…understand,” Dougie whispered. “The magic’s real, but…nobody really knows how it works or why only a few people can do it…four hundred years ago this place was built so you mutants would all be trapped in here chasin’ shadows rather than out there enslavin’ reg’lar humans…”

That was too many revelations at once. It said a lot about Miranda that the point she immediately latched on to was: “Four hundred? You mean by Magwit and...”

“Nah,” Dougie managed. He seemed to have resigned himself and wasn’t fighting the spell anymore. “That’s all faked. There was no Magwit or Vauxhall or the others…made up later. Think my dad said this was set up by Isaac Newton…he was the last one who was both a magician and a scientist…he wanted science to win. A lot neater. Numbers. Predictability. Theory.”

Miranda lowered her wand. “There’s magical theory,” she said uncertainly. She’d read ahead in her books about it often enough. Except it had never quite seemed to…

“Nah,” Dougie repeated. “That’s the con part. The other con part. By the time you get up to the level your teachers are, they let you in on the secret.” He groaned. “Shouldn’t be saying…” Miranda’s wand shot up warningly again. “Nobody knows how magic works. It just does.” He winced. “That was the other reason this place was set up by Newton, I think, to try to find if there were any underlying principles, but they never got very far with their studies…”

Miranda found herself suddenly angry.

Angry at whom? Dougie? No, not really. Angry at herself, at this system…

She’d always wondered why, when she had read so much about magic, that when it came to the crunch, Will and Gareth (who always tried to copy their homework off her, when they did it at all) seemed to be more capable in fighting off the Wideawakes or the Lifetolls or whoever it was this week. Or ogres, she thought, looking down at the smashed-up form next to Dougie. The grey-green blood had stopped flowing. The head had fallen away, revealing a rectangular green object covered with metallic gleams. Some sort of machine, then. A machine Dougie could control. A machine Miranda couldn’t understand, because she’d wasted her life learning the made-up theory of a chaotic, meaningless power rather than one that anyone could use. One which rewarded a person who studied it, and punished one who did not. The power of science and technology…

She took a step back, feeling suddenly dizzy. Where had that thought come from?

It was as though the floodgates had opened. Images, ideas, sensations flooded her mind. Wonders she had never dreamed of; great tall buildings of glass and steel, winged vehicles riding towers of flame into the sky, a spinning disc of silver that produced music without instruments, plays without actors…

Dougie was suddenly standing on the floor again. Her Laqueus Charm had faded. He extended one arm. “That Ambacto spell works two ways,” he said through gritted teeth. So some of his thoughts had entered her mind directly. “Come with me now. We need to go and see my dad.”

Miranda briefly tried to fight his will, but on some level she rather wanted some answers from someone who knew more anyway. She followed him.

Miranda stared down through the one-way glass window, eyes huge. Gareth stood there, confronting the familiar skeletal-thin, bone-white figure of Lord Skallheim. Gareth defiantly refused to surrender the jeweled belt buckle of Arundel Vauxhall, an artefact of power that Will had bought as an anonymous curio in a pawn shop back in their first year and had lain undisturbed in his drawer ever since. That sort of thing kept happening to them.

Now Miranda knew it did for a very good reason: because it had been planned that way. There was no Vauxhall, the jewels were just jewels, and twenty minutes ago, Skallheim had been in the makeup room, complaining about his contract.

Dougie’s father, Supervisor Alexander, bore a strong family resemblance to him. He gave his son another stern glare.

“This is all my fault,” he intoned, still keeping one eye on the confrontation between Gareth and Skallheim. “You weren’t ready. I shouldn’t have left you.”

Dougie gave a long shrug. “What were the chances of her stumbling across…?”

“Well, quite,” Alexander grumbled. “Could have been from one of our damn plots.” He looked over at Miranda. “This throws quite a wrench into our plans, Miss Carter.”

Miranda opened and closed her mouth. “I’m sorry?” she suggested in rather sarcastic tones. “I’m sorry that it’s a little inconvenient for you that I’ve discovered that my friends and I are living a lie!”

“A very profitable one, though,” Alexander sighed. “Look, what Dougie told you was correct. This castle was built to trap all the mutants—uh, wizards in one place so you didn’t try enslaving humans, or ‘Normies’ as you would say.”

“Oh, come on—enslaving?” Miranda asked. Yet her retort rang hollow in the inner cathedral of her own uncertainties.

“Oh, yes,” Alexander nodded. “There used to be real ogres and Penate goblins and imps—before your ancestors worked or hunted them all to death. Mass extinctions.” He shook his head, his eyes distant. “So they started turning to human slaves instead, till Newton found a way to fool them. Fortunately, nowadays we can fake all those old magical races with technology. Damned expensive, though,” he added ruefully, looking at the green-stained circuit board (as Miranda had learned it was called) from one of the destroyed ogres. His gaze inevitably slid to Dougie.

“At least, I managed to delay Stoke enough,” Dougie protested. “If I hadn’t sent the ogres, he’d have turned up while you were still coaching Skallheim through his lines.”

Alexander sighed. “There is that.” He nodded to Miranda. “That would have been good work, if you hadn’t created a problem ten times bigger in the process.”

“Would it be really so bad for wizards to go into Normie society now?” Miranda protested. “I saw things when that spell connected me with your son’s mind. Your, your ‘technology’ is advanced now…lighting better than torches, machines that can cook your dinner without needing goblins and ovens…” She clutched her blue robes against herself and shivered. “Central heating…”

Alexander actually smiled. “We live better lives than you do, you mean? Oh, yes, that’s true now. Didn’t use to be.” He sighed. “But your magic can still mess with minds. And no, we don’t want any part of the society you live in touching ours.”

“What’s so bad about it?” Miranda protested, her words again sounding unconvincing even to herself.

Alexander ticked off fingers on his hand. “Casual racism, unthinking acceptance of a ruling class, contempt for outsiders and social inferiors, incuriosity in how the world works, a willingness to bend or break your own rules at the drop of a hat…” He smiled at Miranda’s indignant expression. “We really had to try hard with our agents to make you think they’re the bad guys. They’re really just the handful of mutants we can actually trust.”

He sighed. “Poor old—well, you know him as Ilvint—he nearly had a nervous breakdown when someone made an unwise joke we’d ask him to eat a puppy for the next film.” He shook his head. “No, Hummerhorn agrees that if the time for you to become aware of the hidden world outside ever arrives, now is not the time.”

“Professor Hummerhorn knows about this?” Miranda asked in shock.

“He’s a lot wiser than most of you,” Alexander conceded. “He knows that, as you said, our technology has advanced while your magic has stayed stagnant for centuries. If it came to war, we’d wipe you out now.”

Miranda shivered. “Then why don’t you?”

Alexander hesitated. “That question was asked, once,” he muttered. “A few years ago, when Governments started inquiring where all the money for this place was going. Sending in agents to make you chase your tails and not worry about the outside world…there was a person called Mrs. Thatcher,” he shuddered in a way not unalike the way many wizards did at the mention of Skallheim. “She demanded this place turn a profit…and then someone had the bright idea of filming all the stuff you wizards get up to…”

“Filming it? You mean those enchanted pictures…” she hesitated, thinking again of the confused mass of concepts that had been pressed into her mind. “Those screens. I thought you were just spying on us.”

“It started out as that,” Alexander explained. “But, well, turns out the Normie kids love your adventures. They just think it’s all faked, of course.”

“It is all faked,” Dougie murmured.

“Not the acting,” Alexander corrected him. “Very good method acting. The novelisations sell well, too—we get those out earlier because of the time it takes to do the editing and the special effects.”

Miranda had a vague idea of what he meant by the latter. “Special effects? But we have real spells?”

“Don’t blame me, blame the American test audiences,” Alexander grunted. “Takes us forever to paint out all the colourful sparks and replace it with someone just being flung up in the air or something.” He shook his head. “You’re very popular on the internet, you know, Miss Carter.”

“What’s an internet?” she asked guardedly.

“You don’t want to know,” Dougie grunted.

“No, I really do!” Miranda protested, quite sincerely.

Alexander waved the point aside, then pointed at Miranda. “Enough of this. What are we going to do with you, Miss Carter?”

Miranda looked down at the scene below. Gareth had defeated Skallheim once again, but an enigmatic clue had been left suggesting that all was not what it seemed. It would, she knew from experience, all become clear during the next school year.

The next film.

“I’ll make a deal with you,” she told him. “I’ll go back in my box and pretend that all of this matters for another two years, if, when it’s all over, you’ll let me leave—you can break my wand, I promise I’ll never do magic again.”

She picked up the boxy device Dougie had shouted into before. “I want to spend my life finding out how stuff like this works.” She looked up at him, her eyes defiant.

Alexander studied her. “A very generous offer. But why shouldn’t I just get Ilvint or Blades to put a memory charm on you and send you right back to work, oblivious to all this?”

Miranda shivered as she met his gaze. “Because, contrary to popular belief, memory charms are actually very prone to failure after a few years,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady.

Alexander grinned. “I suppose all that research of yours was good for something after all.”

Tom Anderson was born in 1984 in Doncaster, United Kingdom, aka the centre of the known universe. He teaches chemistry at university level as his day job, but has always been fascinated by both reading and writing, in particular the genres of science fiction, fantasy and alternate history. Since 2015 he has published more than a dozen novels and short stories, being best known for the Look to the West series, but this is his first published foray into fantasy.

In Our Father’s Hand

Patrick Lauser

A young boy, one Arnould Balfour, finds himself trapped among dark powers which hold his life in a precarious balance. He is painfully introduced to a mystical and perilous facet of the world, and stranded in an ordeal that could easily destroy one of far less tender years.

In Our Father’s Hand

Arnould Balfour woke gently, without excitement or color; the morning sun was running its beams right through the white curtains of his bedroom, and drawing things on the wall with the help of the bay tree outside. But Arnould hadn’t found it easy to wake and get up ever since his sister Sandy had died. Since that time he felt as though he should be somewhere far away, and needed to find out where. As hard as it was, he always got out of bed at once, and afterwards he would quietly stand and think of his sister again and again. He was saying goodbye to her every day, like someone running to the back of the train to wave another time. Someday he might say goodbye to her only on Sundays, perhaps after another year.

He combed his dark brown, nearly brunette hair into a neat part. His mother would love it that way. Looking in the mirror he practiced blinking and softening his eyes, and making them watery like a dog. His father would give him anything when he looked like that, but he never knew what to ask. He was beginning to think that all he wanted was for his father to ask him what he wanted. His navy blue trousers and blazer framed his white, button up shirt, and the little, white frill at his neck. He was perfect, his mother would say, but he would never stop trying to be better. That was perfecter, he said to himself.

From the window of his carriage he saw a man collecting for an orphanage, and asked if he could give him something. The man was not badly dressed, and it was certain what the money would be used for (unlike with the beggars Arnould liked so much). His mother said the man was only keeping alive people who wanted to die (and is that not unkind? she said). Arnould asked what if there were some orphans who didn’t want to die. His father said it would be selfish for them not to wish for death (just as it is the only honourable thing for a widow to wish to die, so it is with the orphan, he said). Arnould was glad it was not the only honourable thing for him to wish to die. If children should want to die if their parents were dead, and a woman should want to die if her husband was dead, what if he should want to die because Sandy was dead?

He always thought it was curious that both his father and mother wore veils in church. After the service he asked to visit Sandy’s grave, and his parents happily agreed. It seemed strange to Arnould that they were so happy; after all, they were going to a grave. He supposed it must be something he would understand when he was an adult.

At Sandy’s grave his parents stood holding hands, and said a prayer in another language. Arnould sat at their feet, resting his head in his hand, thinking quietly, as he did in the morning. The gravestone was pale, clean cut, spotless. Though he knew he should appreciate what was placed in her memory, it did not seem to be a right gravestone for Sandy. She had been neat and clean, but she wouldn’t avoid getting dirty either. The edges of the gravestone seemed to cut cruelly into the soil his sister had loved.

Every evening his parents would stand at the foot of his bed, holding hands, just as they stood at the foot of Sandy’s grave, and repeat the same prayer in another language, as he waited quietly beneath his sheets. Sometimes he felt a great peace, as though he was indeed in a grave like Sandy’s, but this was always followed by a sad, desperate groping inside, as if his soul was drowning. His parents had begun their praying over him after Sandy died, which made him feel more of a likeness between his own bed and his sister’s bed beneath the soil. When their prayer was over, his parents turned out the gas lights, and left him silently in the dark.

That night he couldn’t sleep. His bed caressed and comforted him as well as it could, but there was a whispering in his head about something important. After an hour or so it seemed to him that it was all about his sister, so he tried crying, and hugging his pillows tightly, which did him good and comforted him as well, but the whispering did not go away. There was something hanging in the air, over his bed, over his pillow. He was afraid of something now, like a looming shape between him and sleep, between him and the future. Would he have to fight it? No, it would do no good to go to bed with a corpse, all bloody from a fight. Or was he going to sleep now? Surely he wasn’t thinking clearly.

But, with a dash of fierce rain on the windowpanes, he began to think very clearly indeed. He sat up and looked at the window questioningly. He even went and turned up all three lights he had in his spacious room, setting the shell white walls aglow and the polished trimmings gleaming. The rain was sweeping past and downwards with abandon, and every now and then the wind would turn and offhandedly throw it all against his bedroom. Why would this seem strange? Yet it did seem strange to Arnould, because he felt that what was raining was also what had been whispering to him about his sister. It was growing impatient and urgent, and there was something fighting against it. Maybe there would be no need for him to get all bloody if these would fight the whole thing out themselves. But it was not to be so: he would get bloody enough, and first of all he would get very wet.

Because a face was pressed against his window. He had seen it there before, and he stood quietly to say goodbye to that face, as he did every day, however tired he was. But a hand, the little hand that belonged to the little face, beckoned to him. He didn’t think he should follow; unless he really should want to follow her, if he really cared for her? He broke into a sweat, but he would ask her what she meant anyway, and he went closer to the window.

It was strange to be so much nearer, to see her pale, wet cheeks, and her hair, streaming and dark from the rain, and to again feel things like hoping she was not uncomfortable. He opened the window, and at first he would have jerked aside to avoid a dash of rain that came through that same moment, but he thought it would not be polite to get out of rain that had been pouring on his sister the whole time. Seeing him calmly stand the dousing, she stretched out her arms with a bright smile to him.

“Hug me again, Brother!”

“Is that allowed?”

“It is! I am not dead! Forget that whole dark time; it was dark for me to think you thought I died, almost like I really had!”

He hugged her, getting even more soaked than by the rain. It had been almost two years, and she felt different, but that meant she had been alive and growing that whole, evil time then, to him like a plant underground, waiting to spring out again, more flourishing than before. She smelled now as she had so often so long ago, when she would come in from a long exploration out of doors. He felt her clinging tighter, and she seemed so contented in that position she might have been ready to get the sleep denied to him in bed. She whispered in his ear,

“Well, Brother? I’ve found a home for you. It couldn’t be a home for me till you were in it, so tonight we will both be going home for the first time!”

“What about Mother and Father?”

She released him and looked into his eyes with sparkling eyes of her own.

“That is the best news I bring you: yes, better than my life, better than a home we can share. I am here to tell you, that…” she pointed harshly, through the house, toward the parents’ bedroom upstairs, with her arm scattering rain across the floor, “that, is not our father and mother.”

A grip of ice he had become wholly accustomed to feeling locked about his heart came loose with a sharp slip, and in its place came a flutter of freedom. He now saw in his mind the faces of those he had called his parents where they belonged: as if in a picture frame, flat, nothing of his, nothing to do with him. He asked with a voice trembling as it does in laughter,

“Where is Father and Mother?”

“They sent me, and with them it has almost been home, even without you. Let us come home to them together now. Is there anything you want to take with you?”

She asked this last thing doubtfully. But he answered with readiness, for he had thought many times before of what things he would want if all others were lost. He had sorted it plainly in his mind: the things he knew his false father would want him to want (there were many), the things he knew his false mother would want him to want (these were also many, and difficult to prioritise), and the things he would want, or, rather, the thing he would want, as there was only one thing. It was a little, knitted man: grey brown as the mud under a wheel. It had been given to him by a beggar, so he had thought it must be alright with his parents (so named), but, to be entirely sure, he had hidden the little man away ever since he had received it. Once he had accidentally let it be found, and had to rescue it from the rubbish where it had been placed automatically.

The poppet was no more than a foot long, without any joints except where its featureless legs and arms were stitched on. The knit was coarse, and of coarse twine rather than yarn, and only the scraptest bits of rag were its bunchy stuffing. Its hair of threads was a subtly darker grey brown than the body, and it was bald on top, not necessarily by the design of his manufacturer. Its eyes were a mismatched pair of the best buttons the beggar had ever picked up: a chipped, crazily orange button from a blingy bag, and a smaller, domed, black button from a fine dress, the kind that has a loop on the back instead of a hole through the middle. Its mouth was an untrimmed stitch of a red colour that would have embarrassed a real man, faded in a way that would have embarrassed any rouge wearing female. It had no nose, and the only other feature he bore was a sizable tobacco stain, which had been a sizable embarrassment to its creator, because it looked like the poor man had soiled himself.

The name of this humble abnormity was Hyram Hunt, and a great honour it was for the beggar to have a creation that bore two names. Arnould had memorised everything about Mr. Hunt, and handled and pondered him, unlike all the things he was supposed to like.

He now ran and took the doll from between the mattress and the metal slats on which it rested, and Hyram came out looking greyer and invisibler than ever in that pearlescent, luxurious room.

Sandy beamed when she saw Mr. Hunt alone in Arnould’s arms as he returned to the dripping window and his drizzling sister. She moved aside, and Arnould, with his breath coming deeply, stepped up over the sill and into the rain. The only place to stand was a narrow strip, the top of where an old door had been, which was now walled and plastered up, and partly buried. Sandy helped him onto this, and they even managed in the slipperiness to turn round, since that is usually nicer than jumping backwards into the dark, however well you know the place you intend to land on. The bay tree sizzled and swirled like a swarm of unknown beings, whose greater number stirred beyond the light. They jumped down from the window towards their shadows, and a great splash of mud that spurted up through the grass was their welcome to the ground outside. Arnould pulled the legs of his pyjamas up so they wouldn’t trip him; Sandy thought he was trying to keep them off the mud.

“You’ll be given new clothes, you won’t have to have anything of theirs anymore.” she said.

She was as barefoot as he was, wearing only a thick, white print gown, bright in the light from his bedroom window, and clinging to her in a way that made Arnould rather glad they were going in the dark. The rain swerved sideways again, and the gust of heartening air made him tremble more with excitement than cold. Sandy took a deep breath, and let it out slowly; the mist filled wind danced fiercely with her tiny breath all around them. Then she whispered to her brother,

“Come!”

And, with his hand on her shoulder, they vanished from the fan of sodden light below the window, and ran into the night.

Arnould found it uncanny how Sandy could guide him in the dark, running as quickly as he could. He found it uncanny mostly because of something that happened as they made a wide curve to avoid the servant’s quarters. She looked back to answer a question from him (how far is it, he had asked), and he saw her eyes shining almost as brightly as a cat’s eyes shine when they reflect a lantern’s light in the dark. She said they did not have to run far.

He could tell at first that she was leading him to the back of the estate, and he recognised the big gate in the big hedge, but he had never been through it before. After that they were soon in waste ground, and began to go uphill. He remembered seeing the hill in this direction, and wondering vaguely why it seemed like a border to his mind, as if all the things he had ever thought before would cease to exist if he vanished over the top.

It was so dark it was hard to tell when they were running under trees or in the open, except by the shelter from rain, the sound of dripping, the change of smell, and the subtle echo of their feet. He was often stumbling in long grass or branches and undergrowth, and scratched his bare feet more than once, and once stepped on something prickly. He was used to going barefoot, though his false parents had discouraged it when they could, but he was unused to running in the dark. When they started going downhill again Sandy put her arm around his shoulders, and it was difficult for him to understand his feelings then, never having a mother he could bury his face against; at least, he couldn’t remember having such a mother. But now that he was on the other side of the hill, he felt he might begin remembering things he didn’t know were there to be remembered, and he tingled with excitement.

They came out from beneath trees, and he realised there was a slight increase of light this time: it was still raining, but there was some moon brightening the thinner patches of clouds. After passing through another, denser stand of trees he could see lights ahead as well: yellowy orange lights of someplace that wasn’t a city or housing estate, but something industrial. When they got closer, more on a level with it, and the moon got brighter, he thought it might be a railway yard.

But before they were well inside the yard he saw a mist hanging like a small cloud on the ground, very still, as if waiting. They passed into this, and he wondered if Sandy could see even with her shining eyes. They went slower and picked their way, yet he almost rammed his foot against a railway track. They came out next to a freight truck with a single towering freight container. Sandy stopped and called out,

“Iorius! Iorius! We’re here! Let us in!”

As if Iorius was the name of the container, a section of its corrugated metal side moved outward in response to her voice, outlined in a warm light that escaped from inside. The metal square slid to the side, and the growing rectangle of the light made Arnould blink. He looked away, and was startled to see how the cloud of fog stood around them like something close and solid, with the rain falling out of a low, dense roof of wisps. Except for the rain pattering on the gravel, they seemed to be standing in a smallish room with indistinct, milky grey walls lit with a light that was very much an indoor light.

When his eyes adjusted more, he looked into the freight container, and saw a wallpapered wall, clothes on hangers, even a beige carpet on the floor, and a black doormat inside the opening. The light was coming from lamps on the walls, lamps with black metal fashioned like leaves, and sparkling glass. Sandy was looking at his face, and seeing that he was no longer blinded she said,

“Lord Townsend, our friend, let me use his private car. It’s a secret though, mind. Come inside!”

The room they stepped up into clearly did not run the whole length of the container, having instead the proportions of a cube. They stood on the mat to protect the carpet from their streaming clothes; Sandy wrung out the skirt of her gown, holding it outside the car. When she had done the same with her hair she held her hand out into the rain, and watched it splash on her skin with a curious fascination and rapture. She said something too quietly for him to hear, and breathed a long breath through the cold into the dancing wetness. But soon she was filled with a grimness he could feel in her more than he could see it in the change of her face. She stepped back and hastily told Iorius to close the door. The metal section slid back into place, looking wet and dark in the surrounding wall, which was bright with yellow and white floral patterns. They were closed inside the train and inside the rain, but outside he felt something dark, and horribly close. Though it was through his sister that he sensed this, it took only a glance of her bright face to ease the beating of his heart. Her arm against her chest still glistened with the rain; she reached out and touched him with her wet hand.

She told him to stay on the mat, and stepped through a narrow door, of which there was a like door in the opposite wall. For a few moments he stood in a lucid daze, admiring the polished, brass knob on the door she had left ajar, and he heard her gathering things. She brought in a white towel, and a deep pot which she set on the floor.

“You can put your night clothes there,” she said, pointing into the pot, “and dry yourself off. Then,” she had a kind of quiver in her voice, “you can put on the clothes of your own family.” and she pointed to the clothes he had seen before, hanging on a bar mounted to the wall. “I’ll come in and help you once I’ve changed myself. I’m too old for us to change together anymore.” She gave a little cough, or something like it, then she embraced him as if going into the next room was a long journey.

The door clicked shut after her, and he laid poor, drenched Hyram by his feet. He began to work himself out of his clothes: usually soft, when wet they stuck and scratched however carefully he shifted them. Changing alone, even after two years, was still a symbol for him of life after his sister’s death. But the novelty of stripping rain-soaked night clothes into a pan on a mat in a train car at night helped to alter the nature of the situation.

The towel was as soft as any he had used at home, and he began to wonder how much Lord Townsend was similar to his false parents. He felt a rough spot on the towel, and found that it was an embroidered coat of arms: an eagle treading on a serpent, a festooned, blue grey cone, some circles and scythes and a Latin motto. Then it occurred to him that his false parents probably wouldn’t let someone else use their private train car, and he began to think Townsend might be a nice lord. He finally stepped off the mat and examined his new clothes. The underclothes were folded on the floor below the rest, and they felt clean and light when he put them on, fitting him somewhat loosely though, as if his true family had overestimated his growth. The coat and knee-length breeches looked solidly made, and were a muted forest green, with tight, large buttons; they looked almost military.

He had buttoned his breeches when Sandy knocked. He expected her to come in directly, but there was a pause, and she came in only after he told her she could: apparently she was unsure of his sensitivities, and it was another thing that struck him about how different she was since two years before. He remembered her bursting in on him many a time; with the great amount of privacy he had from others he never really had much from her, and had never really minded it. She came in now, smiling, looking very different in a knee-length pinafore of the same shadowy green and the same firm, military style. She wore also a striking black belt with a knife and something long, straight, and dark. He surprised himself with an urge to put on his shirt quickly and cover his chest. He did so slowly, and she came and took his coat from the wood hanger as he tucked his shirt in. She had carried several things in with her and laid them on the floor, and he tried to see them while she helped him on with his coat. He let her do most of it for him, for memory’s sake, and something familiar they could share.

She now took from the floor a black leather belt like her own, and, as she began to put it through its loops in his breeches with a kind of reverence, he realised this was a ritual. She slid onto it the other things she had brought in: a black-handled knife such as hers; a square, leather pouch (she had three pouches of various sorts); and a long, dark object like that he had seen on her when she came in. It was a rod of polished cedar, dark, almost black, the exact length of his forearm and hand, with a hilt at the top marked off from the rest by a thin band. This hilt had a grip of many metal studs the size of insects’ eyes, and ended with a patterned, flattish, metal dome as a pommel. The rod was sheathed in leather as dark as his hair; with it belted at his side, he felt as though he stood much straighter. He ran his fingers along the grim material of the sheath, and felt as if he touched the clothes of a being.

“What is this?” he asked.

“It is the weapon of the witch hunter.” she answered with a spark in her eyes. “Let me show you how I can use it.”

She went back into the other room, brought out a small, metal tripod, set it up on the floor, and lifted onto it the pot where his soaked night clothes lay. Then she stood in front of him and to one side, turned to face the pot, drew her rod and her knife, and held them out crossed. She spoke quietly and firmly.

“Iorius, Bastien, and Lissanter, I khezek vocat: purge with the fire of the law.”

With a silken roar, a solid pillar of white steam rose from the pot, billowing to the ceiling and spreading in rolls till it faded into the lamp light. After a moment it ceased to appear, and with a sound like a gas stove lighting there leapt up ruddy yellow tongues and forks of flame, reaching after the vanishing steam. The fire stretched out, brightened, and quickened its crackling, like the efforts of a straining creature, then it sank down below the sides of the pot, turning wholly red. The rushing sound of the burning and the angry glow died out to nothing in a few moments, as if racing away into the distance. Sandy uncrossed the wand and blade, and shook them as if they were wet. Arnould stepped forward and looked down into the pot: there was nothing left of his old clothes except a scattered handful of snow-white powder. Suddenly a pang went through him, and he looked about for Hyram. The old doll was lying peacefully by the mat as though he lived there, and Arnould picked him up gratefully. Sandy’s eyes were round, and her mouth a little slack; she put away her knife and rod solemnly but somewhat nervously.

“I’m sorry Arnould, I forgot about your man. I’m glad he’s alright.”

Arnould felt a distance between him and Sandy which, small as it was, pained him hopelessly at that sensitive time. Forgetting Mr. Hunt was what his false parents would do. Then it finally struck him that he had himself forgotten about Hyram at the same time. If Hyram was hard to notice, he was hard to notice, and it wasn’t anyone’s fault. Arnould tried to think of something to say that would put right the confusion he felt in the silence.

“Well, it is a good thing he wasn’t affected, or he would have made a burn mark on your friend’s carpet.”

Sandy smiled again.

“Is his name Hyram Hunt?”

“How do you know that?”

“You were about to tell me his name, and it is a strange name, so it stood out.”

“You can see the future?”

“Not really. It’s like when animals know when danger is coming, or when mothers know a child is in danger. But it’s a little more specific, and we have it in our heritage, you and I, from our mother. Still it was hard for me to learn.”

Arnould took a moment to muse on this, and fiddled slowly with Mr. Hunt.

“Did Mother teach you?”

“Not only her. Arnould, where we’re going…” she stopped, as if to let her eyes sparkle, before she went on, “People call it a hiding place, but more than that it’s a fortress, a haven for hunted souls. But we also hunt: we’re witch hunters.”

There was something different about the spark in her eyes now, as she stood in her uniform with her feet apart and her hand resting alertly on the hilt of her rod. The look of some ravenous creature was in her face and air, like a wolf or a wildcat, young, but eager for her first kill. He felt a shudder run through him, but brought by the same disturbance was a peace, that such a fierceness was in his sister and her friends, that he was in the hands of those who would spare nothing to protect him, and to protect others as helpless as he. A feeling had welled up in him when she had spoken the words summoning the flames of the law, a feeling as powerful as grief, and it had pulled him forward like the edge of a cliff, and made his hair raise. His head was beginning to feel giddy, and he asked a question to steady himself:

“What is a witch?”

“They are enemies of God and man; in particular they are beings, and even humans, who have allied with treacherous ministers of the throne of God in exchange for the power to destroy, deceive, and enslave all mankind. We are not so strong without such help, but with God’s blessing it matters not. We will fight as long as there is breath in our bodies or blood in our veins.” Her fingers tightened on her rod. Arnould could almost taste the thrill that went through her every time she said the word “we”. He held Mr. Hunt closer, and asked another question in a small voice;

“Where are we going?”

“To Hoarwell House, the Larkross fellowship of witch hunters: an old, old mansion in an ancient place, dyed solid with power and defiance. Father and Mother are there, and they and their friends rescued me two years ago. Ever since then they’ve been preparing and looking for a chance to rescue you. Once you’re inside the gate at Hoarwell, there won’t be anything our enemies can do to you.”

Sandy stepped forward, braced herself, and took hold of Arnould’s shoulder; he didn’t understand until with a lurch the train started to move. She must have foreseen it, or had some warning he had not noticed. She smiled at him, and he sensed in it a great, concealed relief.

“We’re on our way. It’ll be some hours though, so we had better sleep: come on.”

She led him through the narrow door she had gone through earlier, and he found himself in a smaller room with bunks on each side and a small closet. Sandy stepped into this closet, and returned with a gown that might have been the same as the one she had soaked in the rain, except that it was now neither damp nor stiff.

“We’ll have to change again.” she said, “I’m sorry, but I couldn’t resist dressing you in the uniform straight away. You can take off your outer clothes and use this.” She handed him a folded dressing gown which smelled somewhat strange. “I’ll go into the entry room this time.”

The door clicked shut after her again, and he was left in the dimmer light of the single lantern which lit that room. He laid out on one of the beds his coat and trousers, thinking they looked much more fitting for someone older than him, especially with the formidable appearance of the rod and belt. The dressing gown was certainly for someone older than him, as it piled up at his feet and was quite roomy. If it didn’t belong to Lord Townsend it must have belonged to a page boy of his. When Sandy rejoined him she almost laughed.

“This is where Townsend’s servants sleep. Will you want the top bunk because I always had it before?”

“I’ll let you sleep on the top bunk because you always had it before. I always slept on the bottom bunk after you died… after you… while you were away.”

Sandy got on her knees and hugged him. It was more awkward this time because he was tangled in his dressing gown; the shaking of the train was oddly noticeable in the seconds that followed. Sandy buried her face ticklingly against his neck. He felt like he was supposed to comfort her, but that didn’t make sense: she was happy, wasn’t she? She drew back and looked him in the face, and in fact she appeared to have wiped away some tears, probably on his shoulder. But it made her eyes more shiny than ever. She put her hands on his shoulders.

“Thank God… that I’m alive again! Goodnight, Arnould.” then again, under her breath, “Goodnight, Arnould.”

She finally got up, let go of him, and climbed into her bed. As she climbed in and got under the sheets, she looked to him hardly different at all from the girl she had been two years before. He didn’t bother getting under his own sheets, but simply flattened out on his bed, with his head on the pillow as if by accident. The lantern dimmed, and went out.

He lay sleepless for many minutes, but not because of whispering this time. He had never been this far from… anything. Sandy was the only anchor he had in anything familiar, and it was she who was pulling him into a wild unknown which smelled of blood, and, strangest of all, had a home in it. Finally, he got out of bed. Even after two years he could remember how to tell if Sandy was awake or asleep by listening. He climbed up on one of the supports at the end of the bunk to look at Sandy’s face. He had often lain in bed on sleepless nights trying to remember her face clearly, only to have the hard and sharp-edged vision of her pale gravestone interpose itself again and again. He saw her face now, quiet and helpless: if she was a fierce creature, she was still a whelp, and in sleep at least she was as weak as he felt. He did not notice that the lantern had relit, and was shedding a soft light on her as he looked. He stayed for a while, ignoring how uncomfortable it was to stand on a metal bar. But then the room became oddly chilly, and he got down with a hushed sigh. After he had curled underneath the sheets and the folds of his dressing gown, the chill in the room vanished, and with it the faint glow in the lantern. He slept.

Someone was at the other end of the hall, but the paintings were in the way, and he couldn’t see her. By the time he got through she had left, and his heart began to beat. He ran through the corridors, but there were too many places, and if he didn’t find her soon he would forget who he was looking for. Then he realised with despair that he didn’t know who he was looking for.

Well-known voices called him, crying, “Hadrian! Hadrian!” He turned to run to the voices, for that was his name after all. But no, he stopped; “Hadrian” was the name his false parents called him, and he cowered in doubt. The voices came nearer, and the air rang like a bell, but the walls were still and silent; he hoped the walls would trap the voices, and that their silence would crush them, and quench the cries of “Hadrian! Hadrian!”

He ran his hands over the cold surface of the wall, searching. Then with a great relief he felt a hand. He couldn’t reach into the wall, and her hand could not reach out, but he could press his hand to hers. Then he realised that he was only touching a smoother part of the wall. He heard other voices behind him, and a great light was shining. He was glad the hand was not in the wall, because that meant she was on this side, and he could see her face…

“Arnould! We’ve stopped! There’s only a little way to go, do let’s hurry!”

He wasn’t sure why he should hurry if he could hear her voice so clearly, but then she touched his arm, and he came all awake in a moment. Sandy was kneeling by his bed, again in her uniform, and the lantern was shining brighter than it ought to be able to shine if it was only using kerosene. Sandy pulled the sheet off of him.

“Can I dress you?”

Arnould sat up and nodded. She stood him on his feet and got the dressing gown off, which took some time as there was so much of it. She seemed so good at putting clothes on him that he was sure she had been dressing people at Hoarwell House; he wondered if there were many young folk there. Straightening and tightening seemed especially to delight her. Though she was clearly having fun, every deft and precise movement of her wrists and fingers told of how disciplined and serious the two years at Hoarwell House had been for her, and how much she had relished it. His clothes had looked too old for him the night before, now he felt too old for himself: taller, cleaner, more upright, even more human. Now there was the addition of solid, black boots.

They went into the entry room, and Sandy took from beside the door an umbrella, which she opened with a “Thank you, Iorius!” It looked large, strange, and very black inside the room. The square section of the wall slid out and to the right. The lanterns went out as the grey light of an early, overcast morning came in, with a spattering of raindrops on the mat.

Arnould smelled the wet ground, the rain tapped on the umbrella, and Hyram was tucked inside his coat as they made their way. He wondered now why last night he had thought the mist stranger than the moving door of the train car. He also did not remember noticing the curious behavior of the lamps.

“Who is Iorius?” he asked.

“No one knows.” Sandy answered with a mischievous look. “But what he is: he is called a hayl. Creatures that come from the Other Place. That place has many names: Merowinter is one of them. Almost no one and nothing comes from it, or finds a way in. I want to be one of those who find a way in.”

He looked at her face, and at the moment she looked as she did when she was asleep, but had as well the light and firmness of all the determination he had seen in her.

It wasn’t long before Sandy pointed out the roofs of Hoarwell House, and the conical spires clothed in slate that shone dully in the rain. They came to the stone wall that surrounded the grounds, and went along the cobbled street beside it. On the wall thick vines of ivy swung in the gentle wind like long hair, and the light reflected from the leaves with a gleam not unlike the tiled roofs. The arch of the gate was high, with the same coat of arms Arnould had seen in the train: the eagle crushing the serpent, and the festooned cone. Then it must not have been Lord Townsend’s coat of arms, unless they were similar. The motto read: “Sapientia est Scutum ex Deo”. Beside the gate a tandem bicycle leaned against the wall. Through the gate he could see level lawns, and the old-fashioned entrance of Hoarwell House flanked by two statues of jackalopes. The gate stood wide open. Sandy let out a long sigh.

“You’re finally home, Brother. What a long time a few years can be.”

She walked forward, but Arnould stopped under the arch at the threshold. A moment later Sandy noticed he wasn’t beside her, and turned round.

“What is it, Arnould?”

She didn’t think he was afraid, but perhaps he could be overwhelmed, nervous. But he did seem afraid, though more bewildered. She moved back towards him.

“Why are you waiting?”

“I’m not, I don’t want to stand here, but… I want to go forward, but instead I only stand still. Am I afraid?”

Sandy was silent, staring at him.

“Can you take just the one step forward?”

There was a pause, then Arnould looked down.

“I’m not doing it. Why won’t I do it?”

Sandy came outside the gate and dropped the umbrella on the stones.

“We’ll find out if it has anything to do with you: come, I’ll pick you up.”

She took him in her arms and stepped up to the threshold. But, just as he had, she stopped there and stood as if that was all she had meant to do. Her face flushed, she stirred up her great desire to have Arnould with her inside, but nothing moved her feet: she could not go any further. She even tried to fall forward, but not even the slightest movement resulted. She walked away and back, went this way and that, tried to suddenly, even accidentally, step inside. She put him down and shouted for help, then screamed. Arnould winced. A slight breeze moved through the arch, blowing some of the rain onto them, and making the umbrella skitter a few feet along the ground. A clammy feeling ran down Arnould’s back. Then he remembered Hyram, and took him out.

“Maybe we aren’t allowed to take him inside?”

Sandy took Mr. Hunt and immediately walked straight through the gate and turned around. Arnould blinked.

“He can go in… maybe he can give Father and Mother my regards.” He gave a short laugh, then broke into sudden tears. Sandy darted back, fell to her knees on the wet stones, and embraced him, with Mr. Hunt clutched in her fist. His tears were over as soon as his laugh though, and a weary quietness fell on him. Sandy stood up and wiped her eyes.

“I’ll go and find someone to let you in. Stay well hidden here.”

She put Mr. Hunt in his arms and set him against the inside of the arch. Then she turned and stood at the threshold. She looked around, walked away and back, and stopped just at the threshold. She blanched and fell to her knees.

“Now I can’t go in.” she said in a voice blank with disbelief.

“Is it because you were going to get someone to bring me in? Can you go in for some other reason?” Arnould asked.

She stood up doubtfully, but moved no further. Her hands fell to her sides.

“No, I still can’t. But, of course, at some point I would try to bring you in. If only I had thought of going for help when I was inside!”

“Can you use your rod?”

She drew it out, and bent her head, trying to think of what to say. Then she drew her knife, and held the two instruments up.

“Imris, Erich, Bastien, and Lissanter, I rosh vocat: reveal this secret.”

Nothing happened.

“Imris, Erich, Bastien, and Lissanter, I raghoth vocat: open our way.”

A breath of wind stirred and dampened her hair, and the umbrella rolled to point in another direction. She lowered her arms.

“Imris! Erich! What do you want? What’s happening? Make some sign! Call someone!”

She waited, and nothing came but the rustling of the ivy. Arnould hugged Hyram as he had done on many dark nights in the days that followed Sandy’s funeral, when the beggar had made and given him the ragged toy in compassion. Suddenly Sandy pressed her lips together and raised her instruments with a glare in her eye.

“Bastien! Lissanter…”

Her fingers loosened, and the dark wand dropped to the ground with a clatter. She stared in horror at the fallen rod as if it was a venomous snake. Her lips trembled as she breathed through her open mouth.

“He left me! He opened my hand! Bastien!” She clenched both hands around her knife, as if to keep it from leaving also. Arnould asked shyly if she was able to pick the rod up again. She drew back one foot with a stiff jerk and bent down. Her fingertips slowly gathered up the rod into her hand, and she straightened herself, holding it to her chest. Arnould watched her nervously. She swallowed, and shook herself.

“We’ll have to find help outside the gate then. Townsend is nearest, and should be in a house of his that is nearby.”

She sheathed her rod and knife carefully, retrieved the umbrella, and held out a hand to Arnould. He came out of the shadow of the arch, carrying Hyram under his arm, and took her hand. As they went he looked back. It was so easy to walk away; it still seemed that they should just as easily be able to walk through the open gate onto the gravel beyond it.

Arnould remembered hardly anything afterward, until they stood before Townsend’s door, and Sandy had pulled the bell cord. She had an unnatural, nonchalant manner now, and he was too afraid to ask the question that was heavy on his mind: why hadn’t their father and mother met them? Why had no one met them, or heard her calling?

A porter answered the door, and jumped when he saw them. He bent towards Sandy and whispered:

“You two should be inside Hoarwell, why did you come here?”

Sandy answered in a commonplace tone that was wholly unlike her,

“We tried, but the gate won’t let Arnould in, or let us get help from inside.”

The porter gave Arnould a sharp look of suspicion that made his heart sink, but the expression vanished, and the man gave Sandy a glance of unspoken apology: he clearly trusted her in every way.

Lord Townsend did not show any surprise, but his blank expression and absent-minded manner showed even Arnould, who did not know him, that he was as nonplussed as any of them. He was tall, long faced, with stringy, dark, reddish hair, and a thin bald patch so irregular and jagged it reminded one of an overstuffed cushion tearing open at the seams. He went into another room, leaving them sitting together on a divan in the parlour. Arnould leaned against Sandy with his head on her shoulder, and they were silent for many minutes. Sandy was the first to speak:

“You know what our false parents called you?”

“Yes, they always called me Hadrian. And they called you Bertha.”

“But you always knew your name was Arnould Balfour. They couldn’t take away the names given us by Father and Mother. But do you know our false parents’ names?”

“No. I always called them Father and Mother. Everyone else called them Mr. and Mrs. Belem.”

“Their names are Seris, the woman, and the man is Caron. They didn’t want you to know. Did it seem strange that you had a different last name?”

“I thought everyone had different last names.”

They smiled at that.

The porter brought in a letter on a tray. Townsend came out to meet him, took the letter with tongs, and placed it in a chalice that was standing in the center of a small table. He held a patterned disc of metal above it, and spoke a command in Latin. Nothing seemed to happen, and he took the envelope out and opened it with a dagger off the mantelpiece. He read it, and handed it to Sandy.

“Arnould should know what this says.”

Then he turned away and stood with his hands clasped behind his back. Sandy sat up.

“They sent it.” she said.

Our Lord Townsend,

This is to inform you that the boy Hadrian Belem, stolen from us this night, is under the binding of Orechis, with the stipulations that Hoarwell House must not attempt to remove the bond or to hinder us in retrieving the boy; they are to deliver the boy to the Artwine train station by four o’clock, and none of them are to be present in the station while we are there, which we will be soon afterward; any breach of these stipulations will cause the immediate and complete destruction of the boy.

Your servants respectfully,

Mr. and Mrs. Belem.

“Is all this necessary?” Sandy said, “Can’t they just say, ‘Do what we want, or Arnould will die?’”

Townsend turned around.

“No. The binding of Orechis is complex in what stipulations may be used. It is required to be very specific, among other things.”

There was a ring at the door, and Townsend went with his porter to answer it. They returned with a stranger, dressed in long robes as dark as Arnould’s hair, and belted with a rope like a medieval monk. The man’s nose was hooked, his moustache bristling, and his glasses thick. He pulled off his gloves and bowed.

“I’m called Rupert Dahl. Townsend contacted as many of us as he could, but no one is able to leave Hoarwell House. I happened to be outside already; the rest will have to help from where they are.”

Sandy’s eyes shone, but with a piercingly dead light.

“He can’t see his father and mother?”

Dahl merely repeated that those inside Hoarwell would help from where they were.

“As I understand,” he said, “Your father and mother have already aided you?”

Sandy turned to Arnould.

“The rain. The mist, the wind: they came from Father and Mother, they are the ones who rescued you. If I had come alone, the Belems would have simply taken me back. Now, will you ever see Father and Mother at all...”

Townsend told Sandy to show the letter to Dahl. He read it and nodded. Then he looked at Arnould.

“Arnould, this is what your fate will be if they retake you. When once you have fully entered adolescence they will begin to feed on your youth, until within a few years you waste away to a slow death, and they will find another to take your place. This is what became of their own two children.”

He said this so placidly that it seemed to Arnould as if he was lying; or was that only the desperate hope of his mind? Dahl went on:

“We cannot help you when they come, so we’ll help you now to prepare, while there are still some hours before us. You will have to fight them yourself.”

Arnould looked at Townsend and Sandy. It was obvious that there was no other choice, other than giving up, but the unbelievable aspect of the scenario made it difficult to think about. Yet he could already see that Dahl had begun to reawaken the spark of defiance in Sandy at least: the glare in her eyes was becoming frightening. Townsend moved off sharply, beckoning to him to follow.

“We’ll need to find your affinity. I’ll get Alaric on the telephone, he may be able to guide us to find it by books.”

They explained to him that each person bears an affinity to a certain card in a deck patterned after the elemental law. It resembled old Latin playing decks of seventy-eight cards: fourteen in each suit, and twenty-two trumps: the lettered cards. Townsend’s affinity was the Esquire of Cups; Rupert Dahl’s affinity was Temperance, the fourteenth lettered card, the Hebrew letter Nun; Sandy’s affinity was the King of Swords.

By a tedious, makeshift process involving charts and repeated guessing, guided by the card master of Hoarwell in the buzzing tones of the phone, they found Arnould’s affinity to be the Three of Rods. Then he formally signed the Declaration of a Witch Hunter, and they began a rapid study of both basic and advanced apotropaic metaphysics.

He took in what they told him mechanically, learned the commands, followed their instructions, worked with no more rest than a change of subject hour after hour. He did it all with a dead feeling inside, where impossibility smouldered like a real substance. It was like waiting hours for a bullet to strike him which was already in the air, trying to learn how to stop it with his bare hands. The glare had gone again from Sandy’s eyes. It seemed to take a long time for her to realise their only attempt was to train him, that she could not save him herself. But there was a sense of not wanting to let go, not wanting to make a final statement, however completely the trap had worked. Seris and Caron Belem had made thoroughly sure that Arnould would not escape them as Sandy had escaped them: their “prayer” they had prayed over him repeatedly had been the invocation of the binding of Orechis.

At four o’clock Arnould sat hunched on the floor of platform 3 in the Antwine station, with a chalice and coin beside him, and his rod and knife in his lap. Draped over his shoulders was a dark mantle Townsend had given him. His three friends were kneeling on a crate outside, pressing their faces against one of the large windows. The train came in with its slow uproar, and the few passengers dispersed to their various ways, not noticing or not paying any heed to the boy with his strange accoutrements.

The Belems stepped off the train, in their finest attire, followed by five of their servants dressed in black. They walked towards Arnould without expression, not as a couple, holding hands, but as two dignitaries approach to collect a criminal which has been already apprehended. Each carried a long, ceremonial knife in their right hand, the woman carried a rod in her left hand, and in the man’s left hand was a goblet.

Sandy clenched Mr. Hunt in her fist, and a lump was in her throat as hard as a stone, but she was unable to cry anymore now.

Arnould knew that he should attack, that there would be no better moment than before they reached and surrounded him, and begun to weave more webs around him. The fire of fear had risen from smouldering, and if he didn’t act he would in the end be taken without a fight, and his friends’ help would be wasted. But the thought kept throbbing in his mind of the unalterable power of the binding that was on him, a power that could keep Hoarwell House from moving a finger to help him, holding him hostage from hundreds of miles away. What was the most powerful thing he had learned? What did he know best?

The Belems and their followers suddenly stopped. Arnould was looking up at them, and his eyes gleamed like a cat’s eyes reflecting a lantern in a black night.

“Ah.” he said.

Then he stood up shakily, letting the mantle slide from his shoulders, and held up his rod before him with both hands, like a knight holding his sword, or a chorister holding a candle. He began to speak in another language, and, just as he could not cross the threshold of Hoarwell, no one who was there, whether friend or foe, could move a muscle.

“Aros et Parenne, par notre puissance nous exigeons la pleine audience avec vous, et votre pouvoir par votre autorité…”

Townsend wanted to tremble, but was still as stone. Arnould’s voice went on, in a perfect, practiced cadence.

“...vous entendrez notre demande, vous tisserez sur celle-ci cette entrave…”

Rupert Dahl recognised the command as well, and cursed himself for not realising what Arnould had realised.

“...vous jetterez sur celle-ci la liaison d’Orechis, et vous la terminerez maintenant.”

Arnould had made the binding of Orechis on Seris and Caron, having been thoroughly taught it by them themselves, every night as he went to sleep.

Seris ordered the servants to do nothing the moment she was able to move again. Caron added in a low voice, “And think nothing.”

The light had vanished from Arnould’s eyes, but they were hard as the rod he held. He spoke in his normal, small voice,

“The stipla… the stip… the rules are: you will release me from your binding before I count to ten. One, two…”

“Silence!” Caron cried. Arnould was silent. The Belems dropped their instruments and clasped hands. They rapidly murmured a long countermanding, and Caron spoke again to Arnould when it was completed:

“Our binding is released, and your binding is now worthless to you.”

And they bent towards their weapons. Arnould raised his rod, and swallowed.

“I only stopped counting out loud.”

The Belems straightened again as they realised what he had said. The look of hatred and disdain they cast on Arnould made him look away. He had counted to ten long before they had finished unbinding him.

The air in the station seemed to contract, and a sound went through it like ice whining in warm water. There was a shivering distortion that surrounded Seris and Caron as if they stood beyond the mouth of a furnace. Seris gave a cry of rage and turned on the nearest of her servants, sinking her teeth into his neck. His fingers twitched, but apart from that he made no sign. Caron understood what she was doing, seized her hair, snatching her head back, and clasped her throat in his own mouth. She struggled like a pinned fly, but his arms enclosed her like iron bands. The man she had attacked continued to bleed without check, such was the curse of the vampire’s sting: he soon wavered and collapsed.

Caron wrestled Seris to the ground, like a lion with its prey, and ravaged every drop of blood from her flesh. Glutted, he rose from the corpse of his mate, which lay shriveled beyond recognition, leaving the finery of her clothes hollow. His skin gleamed, flushed with the life he had consumed, and he strode towards Arnould to make an end of him as his final act. But his doubled fund of life did not buy enough time for two steps. His skin changed, losing the vibrant hint of transparency, becoming instead like pigments spread on a clay figure. He collapsed headlong, jointlessly, as a thing made of sand when it is overbalanced. The distortions of the air spewed from him, his skin and flesh leapt from his bones in flakes and fragments, his clothes collapsed into faded shreds, his blonde locks scattered like blown feathers, and his blood spit through crevices in the form of dark powder. He lay then as a quiet, oblong heap of ghastly debris, and the air unbent.

Arnould took his hand away from his face, and lowered his rod.

Then a multitude of things happened at once.

Rain fell down like a dropped curtain, as if it had been hovering just above the rooftops. The windowpanes turned to steam and jetted away into nothing, sending the iron framework of the window spinning aside like a leaf. With the whole force of Hoarwell House to their aid in spirit and power, Dahl, Sandy, and Townsend leaped into the station. At the same moment one of the Belems’ servants raised a sword and sprang towards Arnould; Dahl put a bullet through his temples with an unexpected gun.

Another of the servants dropped a paper into an ornate, silver goblet: the contents of the goblet burst into flame, and the flame fell again into the cup as a stained liquid. The man raised it to his lips; Arnould turned to run, but stumbled to his knees. As the man began to drink Arnould sank down, and let his rod fall to the ground: the Belems’ servant, a pupil and disciple of vampires, was swallowing the life out of his body.

Sandy stretched out her weapons with violently shouted words which no one heeded in the confusion. The flame in her eyes now was unmistakable: it was an unbridled fury, wrung with a visceral torment, not a fear of her enemies, but the terror of one who sprints forward to catch someone who is slipping at the edge of a deadly fall.

Before Sandy had finished her command, the goblet at the man’s mouth shattered in his hand, and blood spilled from his lips down his chin. He put his hand to his face, and fell into a fetal position; his blood streamed from his eyes, nostrils, and between his fingers. Dahl and Townsend defeated the final enemies as Sandy ran to Arnould’s crumpled form.

His eyes stared unseeing, and his skin was evilly white, covered with bruises in unnatural shapes like fingers dragged along his flesh. She thrust Mr. Hunt into his numb arms, and picked him up. She choked, and the stone came loose from the spring of her tears.

The carriage wheels roared under the arch. Sandy sat with Arnould in her arms, overjoyed because she could feel him shivering, and terrified by the frailty and nearness to death that the disturbance betrayed. Her rain soaked back was sticking to the cushioned seat.

She realised that if Arnould had stepped within the bounds of Hoarwell when they first came, the binding would have begun to break, and he would have been destroyed. Her head swam.

“Thank you Imris, Erich; and I’m so sorry…”

In an inner chamber deep within Hoarwell House stood a man and a woman facing each other over a round table which was covered with maps and open books.

The lines of the man’s face and the grey lines in his pointed beard and moustache did not but display the immensity of the force at his command. He held up a long, heavy wand, gilded in a tartan like pattern, resembling the aspect of a sceptre.

The lady’s face was calm as a pool, with shining eyes, and her hair fell in two plaits down her shoulders. She held a tall, simple chalice, filled to the brim with still, clear water. The room was silent.

But after a time sounds of disturbance were heard outside, and were coming nearer the door. The two inside did not lower their instruments or move at all, but their breathing deepened.

The door was opened by Lord Townsend, who stepped immediately aside. Sandy came in, framed by the dark figure of Rupert Dahl standing behind, and in her arms lay her brother’s wasted form. The man and the woman turned their faces, and wonder and fear filled them. Arnould opened his eyes, and stared at the two.

“They’re a king and queen.” he said, through his dry lips.

They laid him on the table, and the rain fell; its sound and smell and taste and touch began to wash death and evil away.

“Father?”

“Yes, my son?”

“Might you pray over us before we sleep? No one ever has before.”

“I will.”

Arnould held Hyram near his cheek. The peace of sleep had already come to Sandy’s face as she lay awake, with her brother safely in the bed below her again, and her father and mother before her shining eyes. Their father stood in the glow of the candle, and his wife filled the light beside him. He opened his mouth, and prayed solemnly in another language.

Yevorekhekhah Yahweh weyishmerekhah:

Yo-eir Yahweh ponoyu eileikhah wikhun-nekhah:

Yisa Yahweh ponoyu eileikhah weyosem lekhah sholom.

The LORD bless thee, and keep thee:

The LORD make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee:

The LORD lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.

Patrick Lauser is a servant of God and of all servants of God. His two central themes are Strange Fantasy and Right Culture. The giants on whose shoulders he teeters precariously include Tolkien, Charles Williams, Elias Lönnrot, Richard Adams, Rudyard Kipling, C. S. Lewis, George MacDonald, Marco Polo, and whoever wrote Beowulf.

He is the author of a greyscale, surreal journey called, “Jorgan the Sphere: A Foreshadowed Way”.

A Polite Request from a Tough Soldier

James Odell

When Constance was thirteen, she discovered by accident that she was a Firestarter. The man from the Guild told her that the only way she could protect her family from harm was for her to go to the secretive Castle School.

At the school, she learned other forms of magic, which was fun. Unfortunately, the older girls forced her to learn deportment, which was not fun at all. She joined the officer cadets, so she could learn how to abseil down cliffs and other fun things.

But then the army learned about these children. They turned up at the school gates ...

A Polite Request from a Tough Soldier

The New Arrival

Constance hurried along the school corridor to the Headmaster’s office. She patted her pageboy haircut into place and knocked on the door. They were only one week into the new term, and she had received this summons. Why? She could not think of any reason.

“Enter.” Constance walked into the office. Mr. Beguid was tall, thin, and balding, with a sour expression. Three other people were in the room, sitting in high-backed chairs, facing Beguid. A girl, about thirteen, sat between two adults. Constance assumed the adults were the girl’s parents. They were white, wearing expensive smart-casual clothes. The father was blond.

Beguid smiled at her. “Constance is one of our star pupils.” Constance was embarrassed by this praise. She hated being singled out for attention. She hated her geeky reputation. But she knew that she looked presentable. Her uniform was neat.

The mother ignored Constance. “Mr. Beguid, my daughter’s situation is getting worse. I am disturbed that she harmed herself … and now she has started babbling about magic.” She spoke in a posh accent, the one that Constance had been forced to learn when she first came to the school.

Beguid smiled at her. “It’s just a phase they go through, Ms. Smythe.”

The mother turned to Constance. “Can the school cure her?”

Constance was caught out. Weren’t the parents in on the secret? She did not want to state a falsehood. “We can teach her to mind her manners and not embarrass her parents.”

The mother did not reply, but she seemed to be consoled by Constance’s statement.

“We are worried about the police,” the father said to Beguid. “I don’t want my daughter to have a criminal record.”

“You can leave that to us,” Beguid said. “We can ensure their files will show that the case was transferred to Social Services. And they sent the child to an appropriate institution.”

Constance wondered whether she ought to be listening to this conversation.

“It’s that simple?” the father demanded.

“The police are overworked. If we tick the right boxes, they won’t probe further.” He shrugged. “Besides, it’s close enough to the truth.” He smiled. “I admit, she’ll have her name in the police files. That’s merely an irritant. But, unfortunately, we can’t tamper with that.”

The parents seemed eager to leave. They jumped up, said hasty farewells, and rushed off.

Beguid’s smile vanished. “Constance, this is Alicia Smythe. I’ve assigned her to your room. Show her the way, will you? I chose you to ‘help her out’ because you’re a Firestarter too.”

“I see, sir.” Constance guessed that the girl had just reached puberty. Now she had been hit by magic. Constance could sympathise.

The girl was on the edge of tears. Her talent, or curse, was Firestarter. As evidence, her arms were still in bandages. That had happened to Constance too. “If you’ll come this way …”

They walked along the brick corridor.

Alicia began to explain, in the same posh accent as her parents. “Before this happened, I was at a top fee-paying school. St. Mary’s Yorkshire. You may have heard of it.”

Constance had heard it described as a snob factory. “Yes.”

“It’s far better than this place. I was so proud to be sent there. But then this happened.”

“But you didn’t have to come here. The Guild offers tutoring. They call it outpatient care. You could have stayed at your school and attended ‘therapy’.”

Constance had been offered that herself but had declined. Constance had wanted to go to this school and learn everything about magic. Sometimes she asked herself whether she had made the right choice.

The girl sniffed. “That’s what I wanted. But the headmistress said no. She said I was delinquent. Said a school for maladjusted children was the best thing for me.”

“Calling it that is just a cover story.”

Alicia merely sniffed. “Where are you from? Pakistan?”

Constance did not expect that tone from first-years. Her reply was sharp. “My family came from Iraq. My grandparents were political refugees.”

The girl recoiled. “You’re an Arab?”

“Yes.” Constance hid her exasperation. She resisted the temptation to explain her background.

Alicia was sniveling. “I could refuse to learn magic.”

Constance stopped. “Listen, brat. If you refuse to learn, you won’t be able to control that fire. You’ll be a menace to all of us. And then you won’t fit in here …”

Four boys passed by. They were fourth years, like her. One grinned. “You tell her, princess.”

The sniveling stopped. Alicia watched the boys walk away. “Why did they call you princess?”

“Because they know it annoys me.”

“You’re not really a princess, are you?”

“My grandmother says she is. And she doesn’t let you forget it.”

“But are you a princess?”

She was tempted to say yes, but common sense prevailed. “No, of course not. But my grandmother expects me to act like one.” Her tone was bitter.

That made her remember her last visit to her grandmother. The old lady was thin, wearing an elegant green dress. She had glanced at Constance’s uniform and sniffed her disapproval. “I thought you were just a graceless tomboy. But your posture seems to have improved. Does that school teach deportment?”

“It’s not like that, Grandmother.” The Castle School did not give lessons in deportment, but any girl who slouched was mocked and teased until she straightened up. And a visit to grandmother was like returning to school.

“I have been invited to attend the London Arabian Fashion Show next month.” Grandmother paused for emphasis. “So flattering! I considered taking you along as my assistant. You would meet all sorts of interesting people.” She smiled. “Sophisticated people.”

She felt close to panic. “But that’s term time, Grandmother.” She knew that this elegant woman ran a fashion magazine for the expatriate community. And, somehow, it was a success. How did she do that?

Her mother intervened. “Constance would have to spend the night here. You would have to write to the school, my dear, explaining where you were taking her and asking permission. The school has strict rules.”

“I could do that,” Grandmother said, in an offhanded manner.

Constance started paying attention. She enjoyed the thought of Grandmother going mano a mano with Beguid. Attending a fashion show would be a small price to pay.

Grandmother looked her over. “But is it worth the trouble? You’ll never amount to anything.”

She did not know whether to be relieved at a narrow escape or outraged at this set-down.

Alicia provided a distraction. “Are they all Firestarters here?”

“No. Most are telepaths. They hear voices.” She increased her pace. “Natural telepaths are a bit strange. My friend says it’s like standing in a crowded room listening to everyone’s conversations. But there’s a therapy that stops the voices. They learn to Talk to just one person and that shuts out the random voices.”

“Have you learnt it?”

“Yes. I want to learn everything about magic.”

“Can you control fire?”

“After being here three years? Yes, of course.”

“Can I learn, too?”

“That’s what the Castle is for.” She was impatient.

“They said it was dangerous. They said I might harm myself - or the person standing next to me.”

“Yes.” They had said the same to her.

“Show me. Please.”

Constance looked round. No-one was watching. And the girl had said ‘please’. She held her hand out and said the words. “Give me light. Partum a luce.”

She produced a were light, small and pure white. “Although this is light, not heat.”

“You make it look so easy.”

“Well, it isn’t. This takes practice. Lots of practice.”

The girl was silent for a moment. “Do they have a hockey club?”

She refrained from rolling her eyes. “Yes. But they’re hardly premier league. They have an ice hockey team too.”

The girl shuddered. “Not ice hockey. So, you’re not …”

“No. I’m in the rowing club.” She gave in to temptation. “We have a couple of boats at Oxford.” Surely this twit had heard of Oxford University.

The girl went silent. Constance led the way to the South Wing and up to the second floor. “The girls’ dormitories are in the upper floors of the south wing. Classes are mixed, though. Seniors—boys and girls—have the classrooms in the North Wing. Juniors study in the South Wing.” This year, she was taking her lessons in the North Wing.

“This is our room.” She knocked, pushed open the door, and found a first-year girl sitting on one of the beds.

Felicity objected to the intrusion. “We already have to share.”

Constance was annoyed. “Did you expect us to have a whole room to yourselves? There could be another by the end of the year.”

Alicia had another question. “They keep telling me that magic is secret. But they didn’t say what would happen if I told anyone.”

“They’ll laugh at you,” Felicity said. “And if you demonstrate it to other people, they’ll send you to the Tower of London.”

Alicia pouted. “You’re laughing at me!”

Constance shook her head. “I can tell you one thing for free: The Tower has a curse on it. Ask your parents to take you there. You’ll be able to sense it, and they won’t.”

“And what’ll happen if I try?”

“You’ll drop dead,” Felicity said.

“The rumour I heard was that magic just doesn’t work there,” Constance said. “Although, I don’t intend to try it.”

Light and Fire

Constance followed the teacher, Mr. Stuart, along the gravel path to the walled enclosure that the scholars called the ‘Secret Garden’. The enclosure did contain some rose bushes, but there was nothing secret about it. The high walls were there to protect the school if there was an accident inside.

She had been asked to attend an exercise for some first-year students. The students were Alicia Smythe and two junior boys, Paul and Charles. They all wore their uniform shell jackets—windproof, rainproof and fire resistant. The teacher, Mr. Stuart, had brought Constance along as exemplar and, she suspected, as a chaperone.

Alicia had become a problem. She was a snob, and, to her, Constance was a princess. She also thought that Constance was interested in everything she had to say. “I had to listen to a lecture by Mrs. Dengie. It was horrible. She’s the one in the wheelchair. She said magic put her in that wheelchair.”

Constance shrugged. “All the new arrivals get that lecture.”

“They say that magic kills one student every year.”

“Not every year. There hasn’t been one this year.”

Paul overheard. “There was a boy who refused to come to the school. Said he already knew everything about magic and didn’t need help from the Guild. Died of a stroke.”

“At least it didn’t happen at the school,” Constance said.

Alicia shuddered. “Do you think the Guild did it?”

“Of course not. There was no need, was there? But a couple of years ago a self-taught magician created a website. He didn’t even mention safety. The Guild was powerful enough to take that site down.”

“Hurry up.” Mr. Stuart opened the door. He was young and fit and some of the third-year girls said he was dishy. But Constance had no time for that.

A gravel path ran down the centre of the garden. The students formed a line, Constance and Alicia at either end. Mr. Stuart was full of good cheer. “Alicia managed to create a fireball at the exercise last week. But she needs more practice.”

Constance was annoyed at being dragged away from her studies. They were out in the open, because of the fire hazard. The high brick walls protected those outside from any accidents inside. The sky was overcast, and the high walls did not protect them from the cold wind. Constance did not need magic to know that rain was on its way.

Mr. Stuart opened the tiny wooden shed in one corner and got out the fire extinguisher and the fire-bucket. Constance hated this ritual because it emphasised the risk of failure. “Constance, provide an example.”

She stepped forward and turned to face her audience. She held out her hand, palm uppermost, and spoke the words. “Habeo caloris.” A fireball appeared above her palm. Alicia stared, an expression of envy or admiration on her face.

“And now, the most important thing,” Constance said. She closed her hand into a fist and the fireball winked out. “Closure.”

“Thank you,” Stuart said. Constance returned to her place in the line. The teacher smiled. “Now—Alicia.”

The girl, with obvious reluctance, stepped forward. She frowned and opened her palm. “I have heat - Habeo caloris.”

Nothing happened. She tried again. “Habeo caloris! Burn, damn you!”

A fireball appeared. But then it grew in size, floating upwards as it did so.

When this had first happened to Constance, she had been annoyed that the fireball would not obey her. She had concentrated on keeping the ball under control. But the expression on Alicia’s face was one of panic. She stared at the fireball, her mouth open.

“Shut it down, Alicia,” Stuart said.

But Alicia did not hear. Stuart dithered. Perhaps, he did not want to openly criticise a girl.

Constance thought the best solution would be to slap the girl’s face. But that was not an option. So, she took a step to one side, grabbed the fire bucket, and held it up. “Put that out, or I’ll empty this bucket over you.”

Alicia turned to look at Constance. Her expression turned to anger. “You wouldn’t!” But the fireball vanished.

“Thank you,” Stuart said. “Alicia can rest for a moment. Paul, can you produce a were light for us?”

Paul was one of the students who heard voices in his head. Like many Talkers, he was neurotic. But he was eager to learn about magic and had volunteered for this course. He stepped forward. He tried to look nonchalant, but his relief when the light appeared was obvious.

Alicia was crying silently. Everybody pretended not to notice.

Charles was next. He failed to produce a fireball either, but he was resigned rather than angry. “Perhaps, I should just go home, sir.”

“I’m afraid not, Charles. You’ve produced a fireball three times, by accident. We can’t let you leave until you can bring it under control.”

Constance took pity on Charles and told him to create a were light.

“But that’s a different spell.”

“Do it anyway.”

So, he concentrated and spoke. “Partum a luce.” He was surprised when a tiny ball of light appeared.

Stuart approved. “A little less flare, if you please … well done. Now, switch it off. Good.”

Alicia was asked to try again, but when she failed, she had just looked resigned. Had she really tried?

Paul and Charles each had another go. Then rain began to fall, and Stuart called it a day. They filed out. Alicia was still sniveling.

Constance wanted to get back to her own class. But she paused to console the girl. “We all find it difficult at first. I did.”

“I want to go home.”

“Well, you can’t. Not until you can show that you can produce a were light on command. Otherwise, it’ll happen when you least expect it.”

She turned to Paul. “We have an after-class Talkers’ session tonight.” She had been asked to act as moderator.

“Yeah. I’m not looking forward to it.”

For the guys who heard voices in their heads, this regular practice was vital. For the therapy to work, they had to deliberately establish rapport with somebody, several times a week. But Constance had wanted to know everything about magic, so she had asked to learn too. Then, at the start of the year, she had volunteered to help the others.

She had been told that ‘neurotic’ was now politically incorrect and the preferred term was ‘obsessive—compulsive personality disorder’. But most guys in the school just called them Talkers.

“I hate this place,” Alicia said. “Do you hate it, Constance?”

“I did when I first came here. Mainly because the other girls wanted to make me talk like them.”

She realised that Alicia did not understand. “They wanted me to forget my past. But I’m proud of being a Londoner, and I refused to give it up. But a friend told me that if I could learn Latin, without forgetting Estuary English, I could learn Received Pronunciation, too.” She sighed. “But coming here meant that I could escape from my grandmother.”

“Coming here was an escape?”

“She was trying to find a husband for me … even then. She grew up in the Middle East. The family was rich, and didn’t have to work and went to receptions and garden parties and things. But there was a revolution, and they came to London. Grandmother wants me to marry and live the way she did. She says I have no grace or charm. I’m a disgrace to the family and will never account to anything.

“But my mother wants me to get a degree. She heard that some of the girls from here go to university.” She hated the idea of university. but it would be preferable to a husband chosen by grandmother. “And I’m caught in between.”

“Was your grandmother a princess?” Alicia said.

“Well, she thinks she is. But the kingdom doesn’t exist anymore.”

The Resolution (Day 1)

Constance decided she wanted to get away from the school for a couple of hours. She asked her teacher for permission to visit the Three Boaters pub for a meal.

She justified the trip to her teacher by saying that one of the first-year girls, Felicity, needed a change. But the teacher reminded her that the rules required a fifth-year student in the group.

She decided to ask a fifth-year boy. Niall was a Talker. He was also a senior member of the school’s Officer Cadet Corps and seen as a ‘dependable’ character.

He smiled. “Does that first-year snob still call you princess?”

“Well - I told her to stop. But I can tell she still thinks it.”

“Does she still follow you around?”

She grinned. “No. I persuaded her to stop doing that. The third-year toffs were prepared to let her join their little coven.”

“Do they practice magic? The Glamour?”

She sniffed. “They mainly practice deportment. They dream of curtseying when they’re introduced to the queen. As if.”

He smiled. “I’ll do it for you. But you’ll owe me a favour.”

“No, I won’t. You’re going stir-crazy too.”

He frowned. “That first year Talker, Paul, wants some long-distance practice.”

“And you want me to help out? All right.” They recruited one other companion, a Third-year girl named Mary, one of Constance’s friends.

The weather had turned bad. But they were not going to let that stop them. They all had stout waterproofs. Constance pulled on her woolen hat.

Felicity had last minute doubts. “Are there any predators out there?”

Niall took this seriously. “In this weather? No”.

It was getting dark. The road had a footpath, but the cars drove much too fast. Constance grumbled that Niall’s flashlight was inadequate, but he ignored her.

She grew impatient. Casually, she held out her hand, palm uppermost. “Give me light: partum a luce,” and produced a were light.

Would the ball of light turn into a fireball? Would it start growing in size? A magic spell that went out of control could kill the user.

But the light remained bright and constant. Constance relaxed.

But Niall was not happy. “Tone it down a little.”

They reached the side road, marked with a ‘no entry’ sign, and turned down it, then crossed the river by the old stone bridge. The pub was on their right.

Paul spotted four motor bikes among the parked cars in the car park. “Look at the petrol tanks. That artwork is great.”

Niall shook his head. “Bikers can be trouble.”

Niall told Constance to kill the light. “We don’t want anyone to notice.”

“Right.” Constance closed her palm, and the light vanished.

Niall led the way inside. The pub had a low ceiling, and the lighting was subdued. The manager looked suspicious, but Niall put on his self-confident act and asked whether they had a table for five.

“Of course. Over in the corner.”

Constance spotted a ‘beetroot wellington’ on the menu and ordered it. Niall asked Constance if she ate halal.

She shook her head. “You don’t understand. Halal applies to meat only. Not fish or vegetarian dishes.”

“You never wear a headscarf,” Felicity said. “I never noticed it before.”

“We don’t, in my family.” She sighed. “My grandmother once said that a headscarf was a bourgeois affectation.”

They considered this for a moment. “If you’re not bourgeois …” Niall said. “Then-aristocrats?”

“My grandmother thought so. But my dad says that after five generations, there’s no point in pretending anymore.” She decided to pre-empt Felicity’s next question. “On formal occasions, ladies in my family wear turbans.”

Niall raised his eyebrows. “So, they’re ladies.”

“You better believe it. And they want me to behave like one too.”

Felicity smiled. “I’ve heard - some girls from here go on to Oxford, don’t they?”

“Yes,” Constance said. “My mother wants me to do that.”

Niall tried to change the subject. “There was a new terrorist attack in London this morning. Something to do with the American embassy. They may have to call in the SAS.”

Constance waved a hand to indicate the pub. “I came here to escape from the serious stuff.”

Paul, the first-year Talker, said his attempts to establish rapport with other talkers were improving. But he wanted a more difficult test. “It’s terribly frustrating, but Charles has agreed to help. He’s waiting, back at the school.”

“Perhaps we could try now,” Constance said.

Paul nodded, then opened his card-case and selected the token that Charles had given him. This was a calling card with a pen-and-ink sketch of the old brick bridge on the reverse, drawn with obsessive detail. They had been taught that it was impossible to establish rapport with someone unless they had given you a token of some kind.

She started her stopwatch and nodded to Paul. He concentrated. “I Talk - haec loquor.” He spoke in an undertone. “Charles, this is Paul.” He frowned in concentration.

Constance began to worry. Could he hear? Would it work?

Then he smiled. “Got it! Charles, is this easier for you than creating fire -?” But then he lost contact. He looked embarrassed.

Constance pressed the button on her stopwatch. “Thirty seconds.” The safety rules forced them to wait.

“Try again,” she said.

He picked up Charles’s card again. “I Talk - haec loquor.” But the attempt was a failure. “I can’t hear anything. Perhaps it’s because the walls are so thick.”

Niall suggested that Paul could try again with Constance. Paul agreed and got out one of his calling cards. He had personalised this with a pen and ink drawing of the school entrance. Constance admired it and shyly handed over her own card, a watercolour.

Mary was bored. “I don’t know why we use these silly things.”

Constance was annoyed. “Well, you can’t dial a number inside your head, can you? So, you pick up your partner’s card and think of the person who made it. They tried to imprint something of their personality onto it.”

“Well, I put some perfume on mine.”

Constance knew that was useless. Perfume was a mass-produced product. Although one fifth-form girl was rumoured to distill her own. She told Paul to go first.

But their attempt was a failure. She tried to console him. “This takes weeks of practice.”

Paul lost his temper, shoved Constance’s card in his pocket, and stormed out.

Constance was dismayed. Their outing was ruined.

Niall was unperturbed. He told Constance to try again.

“But he’s outside.”

He shrugged. “It’s still worth the attempt. Tell him to come back here.”

So, she picked up the calling card that Paul had given her. She looked round. “Mary - make yourself useful. Time me.” The girl pouted but did as she was told.

She concentrated. ‘Haec loquor… Paul, this is Constance.’ But there was no response.

Then she heard that voice in her head, loud and clear. ‘Constance - is that you?’

‘Yes. Paul - you mustn’t go back along that road alone.’

‘No, of course not. I’m in the car park. But how can you get through?’

‘Perhaps a real message helps.’

Mary raised a hand. “One minute. ”

Constance nodded. ‘Paul, this is Constance. I want you to break contact, wait a minute, then try to contact me. Have you got a stopwatch?’

‘Of course. Okay. signing out.’

The young men at a table on the other side of the room stood up to leave. Constance realised they were a team of bikers.

Niall smiled as they walked past. “Dangerous riding in this weather.” He used his posh Castle School accent.

The question was innocent, but the biker took it the wrong way. He stopped. “You saying we’re not good enough?” His accent was clearly Easy London. Mary’s eyes widened in fear.

Constance wondered whether it would turn ugly. She and Niall could use magic to defend themselves - but that might get them banned from here. And she didn’t want that. She prepared the spell in her mind. I push: I ventilabis.

Or perhaps there was an alternative. She fingered Paul’s card. ‘Paul, I need your help.’

She switched to her East London accent. “I saw those bikes outside. I liked the artwork on the tanks. Is it yours?”

They were flattered. “That took me weeks. Layer upon layer, you know.”

Then Paul walked back in. “Constance …” He was smart enough to guess the situation and took the opportunity to ask the rider for details. “Where did you get the design from?”

Niall was smart enough to keep his mouth shut.

London (Day 2)

Constance and eight others had been summoned to see the headmaster. They stood in the corridor outside his office, waiting.

“What’s it all about?” Niall said.

“I hear that an army officer has turned up,” Samantha said. She lowered her voice. “I wonder whether he’s dishy.” Constance sighed. Samantha asked that about every man who visited the school.

Then the school secretary opened the door. “You’d better come in.”

Constance found that old Ms. Dengie was there too, sitting in her wheelchair next to Beguid. Standing behind her was a harassed young man in an army uniform.

Eight hard wooden chairs had been set out in front of Beguid’s desk. He invited them to sit down.

Ms. Dengie explained that the officer was in the SAS. Several of the pupils gasped.

Constance’s first dismayed thought was, what have I done? That thing in Chelsea had been resolved. Then she recovered her wits, and common sense prevailed.

She would never have described this grim officer as dishy. But he was certainly fascinating. She realised she had better pay attention.

“I assume you’ve heard of this hostage crisis in London. It’s been on the news all day. If there are any deaths, the police may have to hand the case to us.”

Niall was impatient. “What’s that got to do with us?”

That earned him a glare from Beguid.

The officer ignored them. “We’ve worked out an assault plan. But that depends upon simultaneous attacks. That requires communication …” Some of his listeners stirred, as if they had an intuition of what was coming.

“Now, the aggressors released a pregnant woman this morning. The police questioned her, and she mentioned that the aggressors had a police Airwave radio and army surplus headsets. They’re monitoring our response. If we want to take them by surprise, we must have secure communications. I’ve heard you have a communications device that can’t be overheard …”

Beguid was uncomfortable. “Yes … That’s right.”

The officer turned to his audience. “I contacted your committee in London. I asked for a team of you people. They said they’d need twenty-four hours to get a team together. I asked whether they had any trained communicators gathered in one place. They sent me here. I want your best communicators.”

He looked them over. “We have five teams. And I’ll need one other man to receive the messages at my HQ. So, I want six volunteers.”

“It doesn’t work like that.” Beguid was impatient. “Didn’t they explain? Talking is strictly one-on-one. There’s no such thing as an open line. That makes it secure, but it also makes it useless in a battlefield situation.”

The captain was dismayed. “So ... I’ll need ten volunteers.”

“Three of our younger teachers might volunteer,” Ms. Dengie said.

“Not enough. We’ll have to make up the difference with these students.”

“But they’re children!” Beguid said.

“They can marry at sixteen … or join the army. Even if they can’t buy booze.”

“I can get you a dozen adult volunteers in twenty-four hours,” Beguid said. This sounded like an ongoing argument. “And a hundred in forty-eight hours.”

“We need them now. Tonight,” the captain said.

Comprehension dawned. So, the SAS wanted her to help them.

“Mr. Stuart and Ms. Johnson have volunteered,” Ms. Dengie said.

Constance nodded. They were the two youngest and fittest teachers.

Beguid turned to the children. “Most of you are in the Officer Cadets. You’re all fit.”

“But I’m in the fourth year,” Constance said.

He subjected her to a scornful look. “Yes, but you’re quick-thinking. You joined the OCC in your second year. But then you dropped out.”

She shrugged. “I was interested in learning how to be a soldier, not how to be an officer.”

“You say they’re fit,” the officer said. “Contact sports? Not rugby … hockey?”

“No,” Beguid said. “Constance, for example, is on the school’s rowing team. And Niall is a long-distance runner.”

Constance guessed that Niall, an able Talker, was high up the list. He was in the fifth year, an officer cadet, fit - and not too neurotic.

She was tired. But the SAS needed her help. And they had asked politely. It was only until dawn. She said yes.

The captain promised Beguid that he would return them in twenty-four hours.

“But what if this lasts more than twenty-four hours?”

“Your people in London have promised to round up a dozen students and send them to London tomorrow. They can take over.”

Constance insisted upon changing into her hiking gear. She had no intention of swanning around a barracks in her school uniform. She pulled on her track suit, boots, and a wool knit hat and went down the stairs two at a time.

They all climbed into the minibus. Some of the guys managed to sleep sitting upright.

“Is the crisis at the embassy?” she asked.

The captain gave her a look. “If the terrorists had grabbed the embassy, the crisis would be different. No, they’ve invaded the ambassador’s private residence in the West End.” He stared at her, measuring her up. “The American media are saying that their government ought to intervene unless we take action right now.”

“Oh. I see.”

At Regents’ Park barracks, they were introduced to their teams. The real soldiers wore black coveralls. The ‘communication specialists’ were all given combats with a green camouflage pattern. Constance had insisted upon keeping her wool hat.

The intelligence officer summed up what he knew. “We think there are ten aggressors. They call themselves Fenians. They claim they speak for the American Irish minority. They despise the president - she’s done nothing to support the nationalist cause in Northern Ireland. She’s a socialist. They disapprove of a female president ...

“The London ambassador is married to a lifelong friend of the president and is regarded as her closest ally. He’s offended these Fenians because he’s done nothing to condemn the British authorities in Northern Ireland. We assume that they want to humiliate the president, and they chose an attack in London as their way to do it. We’re worried that the ambassador’s wife is missing.

“The police negotiator has established contact. They’re demanding that the president changes her policy about Ireland and gives them a pardon. Then they want a flight to a destination of their choice. I assume they mean Dublin.”

Niall sniffed.

The captain waved towards a tabletop model. “The police built this for us.”

“Wow,” Constance said. “A country house in the middle of London.”

The intelligence officer did not seem to mind. “Yeah. It has a private garden, the second-biggest in London after Buckingham Palace. It’s surrounded by this triple line of trees. That ensures privacy and deters snipers, but it means we can’t see what’s going on.”

“We believe that the aggressors are holed up in the central section. We estimate between eight and ten of them. There aren’t enough of them to control the whole building …”

The captain took over. “This building is only three stories high, but wide, as you can see. The plan is to force an entry at both ends at once. We can’t approach from the front—this lawn is too open. The back has this wide carriage drive. So, it’ll have to be from the sides. We want to attack them from all directions. And that includes from above. So, one team will break in via this skylight, then force their way down. When they’re in place, the other teams will attack at ground level.”

He turned to a flatscreen showing a picture on YouTube. The image was a street, curving round to the left, lined with trees. “This is the view of the front gate. As you can see, the trees obscure everything inside the fence. The media are aware of the situation and set up this camera. It’s on a mobile crane. The police are keeping them from getting any closer, but we can’t stop them from streaming this view. If we use this route, we’ll be on YouTube. And the perps will see it.”

Constance asked Mr. Stuart, privately, whether there was a spell for taking out a CCTV.

“Not as such. I could fry the electronics. But that would alert everyone.”

“Yeah, I’d forgotten that.”

The captain said that three of the male students, and the teachers, would go through the garden or over the roof with the soldiers. The girls would stay in the ‘mobile headquarters’ with the commander.

Constance realised her role would be important, but boring. At least, she wouldn’t have to wear a balaclava.

The captain asked whether any of them had practiced abseiling. Mr. Stuart, Niall and Constance said yes. The captain led them into the gym. “Show me.” A series of stout ropes dangled from the ceiling.

“But what’s it for, sir?” Niall said.

“One team has to descend by helicopter,” the captain said, and Constance nearly wet herself. “Have you ever done any bungee jumping?”

She shook her head. “No. There’s no skill in it.”

But, despite her fears, she decided to go ahead. They gave her a pair of gloves. An instructor climbed up first and held the rope for them.

“The helicopter will have a jumpmaster,” The instructor was gruff but patient.

She did not want to make things difficult for him. She grabbed the rope and managed the descent without disgracing herself. Her second attempt was neater than her first.

The captain told them that Niall was better than the teacher, but Constance was worst. She hid her relief.

He explained there was time for a couple of practice runs. The army engineers had built a mock-up of the key section of the building. Niall joined the rooftop team, and she was paired up with him. She established rapport with him, for practice.

“You can’t carry a box of visiting cards around,” she said.

“No. I’ve got your card in my pocket.”

Then they went in. The girls stood in a row opposite the captain, their stopwatches ready. The other girls reported, one after another, that their teams were in place. The captain turned to Constance.

“Red Team are in place, sir.”

“Tell the rooftop team to go in.” Constance passed this on. Then they waited.

Niall kept her informed of his advance. ‘Constance, we’re on the roof of the mock-up.’

She relayed this to the captain, who nodded. “Tell them to advance to the skylight. As fast as they can.” So, she passed this on.

Then things went wrong. ‘Constance, this is Niall ... We have a problem. I’ve put my foot through the plasterboard in the roof mock-up. I fell. I think I’ve broken my leg.’

Constance gulped and explained this to the captain. Everyone on the headquarters team, including the Talkers, stopped to stare. The captain came to a decision. “The other teams are to carry on with the exercise. Are they in position? All of you - give me an update. And we’ll need a stretcher.”

Twenty minutes later, they held a hurried debriefing. Niall was present, his leg in temporary splints.

The umpire gave a brief summary, then said that he judged the assault to be successful.

“Thank you,” the captain said. “We were lucky there was only one hitch. In the real thing, we can expect more.” He pointed at Constance. “Somebody has to take his place. You have the most common sense.”

The teacher complained, but the captain said he was needed in the garden sniper team. “Their role is crucial. The roof team are mainly a diversion - or a reserve.”

So, Constance and Niall changed places. He gave her a tip. “Your visiting card—It’s almost useless in your pocket.”

She thought about it and taped his card to her left sleeve. Instead of a balaclava, she was given a fire-resistant hood, with a built-in radio, and a respirator. They all had radios but were given strict instructions not to use them. Communications were her responsibility.

The sergeant of her team was grumpy. She could guess why. Having to work with civilians was bad enough; children was worse still—and now a girl. He told her he expected her to be as quiet as a cat. She wondered how she could be cat-like in army boots.

The second practice began. She touched Niall’s calling card and subvocalized, ‘Red Team is ready to go.’

The sergeant was surprised. “You don’t speak out loud?”

“I can if you want to, for the practice.”

“No. We keep as close to the real thing as possible.”

Niall told the Red Team to make their way up to the roof. She caught the sergeant’s eye and pointed.

She noted that the men, boots and all, were stealthy. She hoped she could complete the practice without putting her foot in it, either literally or metaphorically. They reached the fake skylight. The sergeant pointed at her. She nodded and reported this to Niall, then waited for the go signal.

‘Constance, this is Niall. Tell them to go.’ She gave the agreed hand signal. The sergeant told her to follow them in, then wait. He led his men inside. And that was that.

At the debriefing, the captain asked the sergeant for his judgement.

“She’ll do.”

She felt flattered by this modest praise.

They took another minibus across London to their target.

One of the men was from Fiji. He shyly asked where she was from.

“I grew up in East London. But my family come from Iraq.” Her fear made her talkative, so she explained that her father’s family were political exiles. “Royalists. My grandfather fled when the kingdom was overthrown. Not that I want to make anything of it, you understand.”

“Iraq—So you’re a Muslim?”

“Yes.”

The sergeant intervened. “They tell me you were in the OCC.”

She was surly. “Yeah. I dropped out after a year. I realised they were trying to make us into Ruperts. And I wasn’t having that.” The men grinned at this slang term for junior officer.

“You don’t like Ruperts?”

“My dad was in the army.”

“You would make a good officer,” the Fijian said, trying to be polite.

“Shut up,” the sergeant said. “She would make a terrible subaltern. Make a good sergeant, though.”

“You’re laughing at me.”

“Not at all. But guys need experience to earn their stripes. It takes staying power. Unlike a Rupert. He gets his commission as soon as he steps out of university.”

Constance suspected it wasn’t as simple as that, but she wasn’t going to contradict the sergeant.

The eldest trooper leaned forward. “Where you from, Constance? When you talked to the officer, I thought you was posh. But now …”

“They all talk Estuary English where I grew up, like I said. But when I went to that school, they soon made me learn to talk posh. But I told myself, I won’t forget my Estuary English.”

“This is Regent’s Park,” the sergeant said.

They passed through the park gates and turned along the ‘ring road’ that ran past the house. A fine rain was falling. They passed half a dozen cameramen, held back by a police officer.

Three large police vans were parked on the pavement, close to the fence. The three vehicles made up the police ‘forward control point’. Their overt task was to stop cars, pedestrians, and journalists from going past the residence. Their real task was to conceal the fence from the media and their cameras.

The minibus pulled up alongside the police ‘mobile crisis centre’. The officer said the police Assistant Commissioner was controlling things from one of the vans. “The southern end of the house is just through the trees.”

The team climbed out of the van and into the police ‘mobile crisis centre’. They were instructed to sit in a corner. Constance kept quiet and listened. They were cramped. After a few minutes, she decided she would have preferred another rooftop exercise.

“This site is within sight of the press cameras,” the captain said. “So, you can’t go outside the ring of vehicles.”

“Now, we wait until dawn. Then another team takes over.”

The police negotiator was at the far end of the same ‘crisis centre’.

Mr. Stuart grumbled, in an undertone, that the SAS didn’t need Talkers at all. If they thought their radios were compromised, they could just use their mobile phones.

The female teacher said that reception of mobiles was not reliable.

From time to time, an aircraft would fly overhead.

“We’re under the flightpath to Heathrow,” the captain said. “They’ve been given orders to fly lower than usual.”

Despite the noise and the discomfort, some of the soldiers managed to get some sleep.

The police negotiator was talking. “We are curious about the ambassador’s wife …” He was trying to keep his tone neutral—and not succeeding. “I told you, we have contacted the Irish government, but …”

Was he speaking to the terrorists? She started paying attention. He asked them to reconsider. Constance was interested. Reconsider what?

They heard a bang from the direction of the house. Constance asked herself whether it was a gunshot. But all of the soldiers around her were suddenly awake and alert. Constance realised she didn’t need to ask what the noise had been.

The police negotiator spoke to the inspector. “They told us to watch the front gate.”

Everybody turned to watch the YouTube live stream of the front gate. After a few minutes, two men in camo stepped out of the trees and dumped a bulky object in the road. Constance realised it was a body.

The police negotiator contacted the perpetrators and asked for permission to retrieve the body. He turned. “They say yes. Two men. But they must be unarmed.”

Two policemen volunteered to go out with a stretcher.

Constance realized that the game had changed.

Dawn (Day 3)

The army captain climbed into the ‘crisis centre’ and looked round. “I have been told that the perps have killed one of the ambassador’s security guards. The minister has given orders to the police Assistant Commissioner, and he’s signed a document, handing responsibility to us. The Assistant Commissioner wants us to go in immediately. Before they shoot anybody else.”

Constance’s team climbed into the van, and they sped off to Battersea Heliport.

The helicopter was blue, not camouflaged, and looked posh. The pilot was an army staff sergeant.

Constance fingered the card taped to her sleeve. ‘Niall, we’re at the heliport.’

‘Constance, you can go at once. Everyone else is waiting for you. Ask the pilot, has his flight-plan been approved?’

She looked up. “I’ve been told to ask, Staff Sergeant, has your flight-plan been approved?”

The pilot was truculent. “Now I have to take orders from a schoolgirl.”

Red sergeant bridled. “She’s just the messenger. She delivers orders from the boss. And the flight-plan?”

“Yes. But I’ve been told I can only discuss it using secure lines of communication.”

“That’s me,” Constance said. The jumpmaster winked at her.

Red sergeant stopped his team. “One last word. Constance must keep out of the fighting. We’re all specialists, and her specialty is communication. So, she must stay back and do exactly that. If things go wrong, her task is to tell the boss what’s gone wrong, not help us out.”

They climbed in, and they took off. Red sergeant checked her respirator. Niall established rapport and told her to report in when they could see Regent’s park.

‘Well, I can see it now ... There’s the Inner Circle, but it really looks like two circles. I can see the house. It’s white.’ To be on the safe side, she checked with red sergeant. ‘Yes, I have confirmation.’

‘We can see you, too. Don’t get any closer. A jet will fly overhead in three minutes. Can you ask the pilot to go in then?’ So, she tapped the pilot on the shoulder and shouted. He nodded.

They flew in a circle, waiting, until one of the jets flew over the park. They could see its lights blinking. Constance gasped.

“It’s lower than it should be,” the pilot said. “They’re doing that on purpose.”

Then she felt that itch at the back of her head. Everybody turned. ‘Constance, this is Niall. All the other teams are in place and waiting for you. Go’.

So, she tapped the pilot on the shoulder. He nodded.

They flew in close, losing height. The jumpmaster opened the door and deployed the ropes. They flew over the trees.

Constance could see the formal garden. Then they were over the roof.

“Now,” the jumpmaster said.

Red sergeant went first. Then, one after another, the men grabbed the ropes and slid down.

Constance felt a moment’s doubt. But the jumpmaster was waiting. She got a good grip and slid down.

She landed safely. They made their way forward, as fast as they could, avoiding the forest of aerials, telescopic poles, wires, and satellite dishes. The Fijian was the biggest man on the team. But, somehow, he was the most catlike.

The tiles were slippery. Constance realised that the roof was also steeper than the mock-up. The sergeant slipped—but then recovered his balance. The sergeant waved them on.

Then Constance saw it—the glass of the skylight. The Fijian knelt beside it. For the first time, she had a chance to draw a breath. They forced open the skylight.

She touched Niall’s card. ‘Niall, this is Constance. Tell the captain, we’re down, we’re down, no casualties. We’ve reached the skylight.’

‘Right. Tell them to go.’

Red sergeant climbed down. She had to wait for her turn. ‘Niall, this is Constance. Tell the captain, they’re going in, they’re in—.’

She heard a series of bangs followed by the tinkle of broken glass—the snipers in the garden had fired their tear gas canisters through the windows.

She waited while the last man climbed in. She saw two motor vehicles smash through the front gate. The vans drove along the carriage drive and up to the front door. The teams jumped out of the vans, ignored the door, and climbed through the windows on each side.

Now that the need for secrecy was gone, her headphones were full of excited reports and terse commands. She heard shots. It was not the tear-gas canisters this time.

She felt that familiar itch. She almost said, ‘Not now, damit!’ Instead she said, ‘Niall?’

‘Constance, this is Niall. The boss wants you to get off the roof. We can’t risk the news types spotting you.’ So, she climbed down inside.

Red sergeant and his men were already running along the corridor to the staircase. She hurried after them. At the top of the stairs, Red sergeant stopped and turned. “You! Stay here.”

She was offended. But his order was perfectly reasonable. She contacted Niall and reported in.

‘Constance, thanks for letting me know. But the boss is very busy right now.’

She waited. Her respirator itched. Then she heard a terse report over her headphones. “Three of the hostiles are not accounted for.”

A minute later, she encountered someone running up the stairs. He was carrying a handgun. He was wearing camo, not assault team black. And no respirator.

He snarled. “Stop. You’re not going anywhere.” His accent was American.

For a moment, she felt guilty. She was a schoolgirl, in a strange house without permission. She was trespassing.

Then her brain took in the handgun and realised that he was trespassing, too.

She had to act fast, so she conjured up the spell that came easiest to her, a fireball. One teacher had compared it to napalm. She made no effort to put any force behind the spell. The ball of heat splattered against the man’s flame-resistant jacket and stuck there, smouldering. He stared down at it and screamed. She used the opportunity to take a couple of steps back up the stairs.

“Devil! What did you do?” The guy should have taken his jacket off. But that would have meant putting his gun down.

She hesitated a moment, then used a pushing-spell to knock him off his feet. He fell, slid down the stairs and rolled over. Had she used too much force? But he got to his feet. He had dropped his gun.

She heard more shots from downstairs. The man turned along a side-corridor.

She wondered whether she should tell Niall. But the need for secrecy was gone. She used her radio. “This is … red five. There is a lone hostile on first floor. Heading north.”

“Get on it,” a strange voice said.

Then she heard red sergeant. “Constance! Ground floor, now.”

She began climbing down the stairs, cautiously. She heard over the radio that the bad guys had set the curtains on fire.

She reached the ground floor and found red sergeant, standing outside a cupboard. “What was that shooting?”

“Blowing the locks off the doors to see if anyone’s hiding inside.” He was impatient. “I’ve found the ambassador’s wife. She was hiding here—.” he indicated the cupboard. But now she refuses to leave. I think she’s been hiding there since this started.”

Constance stared down. The disheveled woman was sitting with her hands 'round her knees. She stared up at them.

“Hiding was probably the smartest thing to do,” Constance said.

“Yeah, but now the building’s on fire, and she refuses to budge.”

Constance wondered why he didn’t just drag her out. He could apologise later. The woman was crying. So, Constance took her respirator off and shook out her hair. “D’you want my respirator?”

The woman stared, wild-eyed. “But you’re one of them. I can’t trust anyone.” She had an east-coast accent.

Constance was annoyed. “I’m just a messenger.” She switched to her most refined British accent. “I haven’t got any weapons. You’re safe.”

“You’re a fraud. You’re just a child.”

“Stop insulting me. I’m a qualified signaler.”

“The army wouldn’t use children, not in an elite unit.”

The sergeant intervened. “We use specialist support staff.”

Constance attempted a Glamour. “You’re the one acting like a child. Let’s get out of here.” The woman blinked and got to her feet.

Constance turned to the woman. “Which way is the garden?”

The woman led the way.

Red sergeant spoke into his microphone. “The last hostage is out of the building.”

“Clear the building,” another voice said.

They met another sergeant, who explained that they had rescued the ambassador. Five of the aggressors had been apprehended and lay face down on the lawn. One had second-degree burns.

“We think he spilled petrol on himself,” the sergeant said. Over the radio, Constance heard somebody say that the house was clear. “All the perps have been disarmed.”

The man with the burns babbled about magic. Constance felt a moment’s fear, but everyone ignored him.

A team of paramedics arrived at the double. “Are you all right? Any injuries? Are you in shock?”

“I’m just tired.”

The soldiers, their job done, made their way round the residence and back to the ‘Police command centre’. Dawn was breaking. They stood back as a fire engine roared past.

The soldiers handed their weapons over to a team of police officers. Red sergeant explained that Constance and the other guys in camouflage were signalers and did not have any firearms. She did not contradict him.

The men were jubilant, but Constance just felt tired. They found that the vehicles at the ‘command centre’ had been joined by a catering truck. Niall was waiting. “They want to send me to the hospital. But I wanted to see you were safe.” Constance nodded.

Red sergeant pushed a large mug of builder’s tea into her hands. “You deserve it.”

As they gossiped, a large American sedan drew up, and an officer stepped out. Two other men climbed out and followed him. The leader flashed an ID card at the policeman and strolled across to the catering truck. Constance noted that he was not wearing any rank or unit badges.

“Are you soldiers?” His tone was belligerent. “I am from the US mid-Atlantic Command. I have been sent by our government to take control of the hostage situation.”

“Take over?” Red sergeant said.

“We must attack at once. I want to see your commanding officer so I can give him his orders.”

Niall grinned. “You’re too late, colonel. It’s all over.”

“I demand to speak with your commanding officer.”

Constance was annoyed. She could not help herself. She spoke in her most refined accent. “Good heavens! It’s Delta Force. Better late than never, I suppose.”

The colonel glared.

Constance put her mug on the counter. “I think I’d better take you to the ambassador.”

“But he’s being held hostage.”

Red sergeant intervened. “Weren’t you listening to the lady? We rescued him.”

Constance was at her most haughty. “You’d better come this way.” She ignored the ‘no entry’ sign.

A fire engine stood on the carriage drive. An ambulance was parked outside the residence doorway. She recognised the ambassador and his wife, sitting on the back step of the ambulance, holding cups in their hands. The SAS captain turned to stare. Good.

Constance introduced the colonel. She thought that the ambassador looked frail and disheveled.

The colonel looked down. “Are you the US ambassador?”

Constance could understand the officer’s doubt. but she was appalled at his ignorance.

The ambassador’s wife interrupted. “Dear girl, you can leave this to me.” She turned to the colonel. “George, you always were impulsive. Don’t do something that might cause a diplomatic incident.”

The Colonel was annoyed. “I’ve been authorised by the president to apprehend these terrorists—.”

“I doubt that,” the ambassador said. “People forget that the president is head of the State Department. I report directly to her. So, I can pick up the phone and ask if you’re bullshitting me.”

Constance felt once again that she shouldn’t be listening in.

The captain turned to her. “You are dismissed, trooper.”

“Yes, sir.” She was glad to go.

Epilogue: The Palace

Constance and Niall scrambled into the limousine. The ambassador and the captain were waiting. The captain was dressed in his formal ‘number two’ uniform. Constance was wearing a formal day dress with a high collar.

The ambassador had asked the school how he could thank them and Beguid had suggested this.

“Why did you volunteer?” the captain asked.

Niall grinned. “Mr. Beguid twisted my arm. He said somebody had to represent the school.  And my father said that if I wanted a career in the Diplomatic Service, this would help.”

“I volunteered for the basest of motives,” Constance said. “I want to gloat. My grandmother said I was a graceless tomboy, and I would never account to anything. Now I have a chance to show off, in terms she understands.” As long as she didn’t screw up.

She was getting more and more nervous. She told herself that she had volunteered for this.

“I hope you understand, this isn’t a real garden party,” the ambassador said. “There are only three official ones every year.”

Constance shrugged. “I’ve been invited here. I’m not a tourist who’s paid to get in. That’s all that matters.”

“I had to carry out your security checks,” the captain said.

“Oh dear,” Constance said.

“I’m sure our little Constance isn’t a terrorist,” the ambassador said.

“No, but she is known to the police,” the captain said.

Constance turned to Niall. “The person standing next to me was attacked, and I defended them.” Using magic, she meant.

They drove along Birdcage Walk and past the barracks. “We won’t go onto the forecourt. That’s too public. Instead, there’s a side entrance with a carriage drive.”

They showed their documents to security. He waved them on, so they drove onto the carriage drive and joined the queue.

Their car reached the doorway at last and they climbed out. Constance had found her dress at Camden Market. Niall was still using a stick and, on this occasion, wearing a hired morning suit. She adjusted her absurd hat, so the brim came down over her right eye.

A footman escorted them through the building. The centre of the west suite was the Bow Room. They walked across and passed through the French windows. The garden, at the rear of the palace, was large and park-like.

The ambassador led them across the grass towards the personage. They joined a short queue. Constance noticed an official photographer standing by to make a record of each introduction. She summoned up her courage. If she slipped up, all the girls in the school would laugh at her.

It was her turn. The ambassador performed the introduction. She stepped forward and bobbed a shallow curtsey.

“I hear that you could call yourself princess,” the personage said.

“I don’t really qualify, ma’am,” Constance said. “Well—in theory, I could. But I would rather be remembered for something I’ve achieved myself.”

“You seem to have achieved something already,” the royal personage said.

They moved aside so the next in line could step forward.

“You achieved something as a Cadet Talker,” the captain asked.

“Yes. That’s something I can build on.”

James Odell has been writing for many years. He has written seven Steampunk novels, which have been published on Amazon. For his employer, he writes technical guidance.

In the past, he has gone sailing in the Mediterranean and gained a Yachtmaster certificate. He learned to fly sailplanes and qualified to fly solo. More recently, he has gone cross-country skiing in the Adirondacks and has gone hiking in the Alps and in Britain. All of these experiences have gone into his novels.

Lab Day

Misha Burnett

Commercial magi need qualified assistants and Leeshore Technical College provides training in both the theory and practice of magical conjuration. Students will receive hands-on training by licensed magi in all aspects of industrial magic, qualifying them for a number of laboratory support positions. After the successful completion of the three-year certification program, students will be fully qualified to sit for the Dacoheim magical workers board exams.

For more information call LS55-2020 and ask to be connected to the department of admissions. Your future could start today!

Lab Day

Magus Leonid Vetch only taught one class on Sixdays.

Conjuration 204: Theory And Practice Of Major Workings was a practical lab, 1300 to 1600. Leonid had a demonstration planned and so unlocked the lecture hall at noon to set up the equipment. He flipped on the overhead lights and cranked open the windows a crack to get some of the fresh sea breeze coming from the harbor that could be glimpsed between the buildings across the street.

The conductive plate was a permanent installation in the concrete floor, an eight-foot circular sheet of copper mounted over a thick rubber mat. Leonid checked to see it was clean and the attachment points around the outside edge weren’t corroded. Then he unlocked the storage closet and wheeled out the heavy calculating engine and made sure it had a fresh tape. Next came the accumulators, six of them, sturdy wooden bases supporting four-foot poles, wrapped with alternating layers of copper and cloth insulation, the glass accumulators on top looking like oversized light bulbs. He arranged them in a circle around the outside of the plate.

“Need a hand, Magus?”

Leonid looked up. His first students were already coming in. Shotwell and Kent, their bookbags slung over their shoulders, dark blue school uniforms clean and starched.

Leonid glanced at the clock. 12:27. “Did you boys skip lunch?” he asked.

“Slept in and then had a late breakfast at the Dolphin,” Shotwell said.

As third-year students, they had the privilege of taking meals off campus. Leonid nodded. “Well, if you feel ambitious you could get some number four cables and link the accumulators.”

The young men stowed their bags under a lab table and came down to the equipment locker where the heavy cables were stored. While they were doing that Leonid connected the calculating engine, first to the conductive plate and then to the connection to the school’s power supplied by generators in the basement. He verified that the connection was locked out, unable to be energized until he used his key to turn on the power.

He double-checked the connections that the boys had made from the accumulators to the attachment points at the edges of the conductive sheet. They were tight, the brass connectors locked into place, so he waved them back to their seats.

Satisfied that the preparations were all in order he sat at the small desk in the front of the room and lit a cigarette. He reviewed his notes, although he could probably have given this lecture from memory. He’d taught this class for eleven years.

The rest of the class arrived in ones and twos. At five minutes before the hour, Leonid looked up from his notes and quickly counted heads. Twenty-four. All present.

He ground out his cigarette and stood. “Good afternoon, boys,” he said.

“Good afternoon, Magus Vetch,” they chorused back.

Leonid walked to windows and looked out. “It’s a beautiful Sixday, and I’m sure most of you young men have dates tonight, so I’ll try to let you out a little early. I mentioned on Fourday that we were doing a demonstration today—does anyone remember what I said I was going to show you?”

“Apportation, sir,” someone spoke up.

Leonid nodded. He didn’t bother with raising hands and calling of names; his students were free to speak up, so long as they were polite about it. He ran an informal class. This was not, after all, the Dracoheim Academy for Thaumaturgical Studies, it was Leeshore Technical College.

“Apportation, exactly right.”

He gestured at the apparatus set up at the front of the room, then walked to the chalkboard and began writing a complex equation. “Apportation is the act of translating physical objects from one realm to another. It is achieved by establishing an etheric equipotential between the two realms. Remember, it is the frequency of the etheric vibrations that determines the metaphysical constants of a realm’s architecture. A containment grid allows us to synchronize a small portion of our universe with another realm. If within this grid we impose a frequency of, say, 9.9 megacycles, which is the native frequency of Ventose, the affected area becomes, in effect, a part of Ventose.”

He looked over the equation he had written, nodded to himself. “And so, you just walk across from here to there. Leeshore to the Malignium in three steps.”

He turned back to the class. They all had their notebooks out and were dutifully copying down his work on the board. He leaned back against the chalkboard and lit another cigarette.

“Now,” he said, “who can tell me the purpose of all those ships out there in the harbor?”

The class was silent, confused at his change of subject.

Leonid smiled, and gestured at the window. “I’ve just told you that objects can be apported directly into Nightmare by magic. There’s the basic equation on the board. Right here, I’ve got everything you need to dash across to another universe, pick up whatever you want, and bring it back here.”

He paused to take a drag on his cigarette, enjoying the moment. “So why all the cargo ships? Why do we sail out onto the dreamsea? Why do the oneiroi come here by ship? Why don’t we just apport all the trade between Nightmare and the Midworld?”

“The Navigator’s Guild wouldn’t allow it.” The voice came from the back of the room.

Leonid grinned and nodded, acknowledging the point. “True enough,” he said, “but not the answer I was looking for.”

He turned back the board and added an equal sign at the end of the equation, then a dollar sign. “Money,” he explained. “Apportation is expensive.”

He quickly circled one part of the equation. “This term right here is what keeps the Navigator’s Guild in business. Delta T—the time element.”

He ground out his cigarette. “It takes energy to maintain the equipotential, determined by the size of the containment area and the innate distance between the native architecture of the realms. Nivose is our closest neighbor, metaphysically speaking; the frequency is only a few megacycles different from the Midworld. Bascose is on the far end of the spectrum—which is why it’s called the Kingdom of Uncertainty. Things are very different there.

“No matter where you have an apport field set to go, however, it’s has to be stabilized by a standing wave signal generated by the containment grid; or it will collapse, and the native etheric rhythm will reestablish itself. That, in itself, is not so bad, until you get to the kicker, which is that the instability increases with the cube of the duration.”

He paused to let that sink in. “Open an apportation link for a minute, and you’re looking at a couple of hundred talents to keep it synced, depending on the destination. For two minutes, it’s eight times that. For ten minutes, it’s a thousand times that.

“Now, I know some of you have worked as longshoremen. How long does it take to unload a ship? A couple of hours? Let’s say two hours. If we plug 120 minutes into this term we end up with a delta-T multiplier of one million, seven hundred twenty-eight thousand.” He punctuated his words by chalking the number on the board and circling it.

He held up a hand. “Ah, you say, don’t keep the link active for two hours straight. Just open it for one minute, a hundred and twenty times in a row.”

He turned back the board and picked up the chalk. “Nice try, but sadly, it doesn’t work like that. Who can tell me why?”

“Samuel’s Law?” ventured a voice from the back.

“Are you asking me or telling me?”

“Samuel’s Law, Magus,” the boy repeated more confidently. “Diminishing efficiency.”

Leonid wrote SAMUEL’S LAW on the board. “Curse that Ivor Samuel,” he said with a grin. “That man ruins everything.”

He turned back to the class and continued. “The math gets a little complicated at this point, but the bottom line is that apportation is a terrible way to move cargo. Trade with Nightmare didn’t become possible on any large scale until the Lady Chuzz’s envoy ships made contact with us and sold humans the secret of navigating the dreamsea, back in 228.”

“Did you meet the ship, Magus?” a boy asked.

Leonid grinned. Jokes about his age were common enough from his class, and he didn’t mind. “No, that was my father,” he quipped back, to some amused chuckles.

He got the lecture back on track smoothly. “So why are we covering apportation? Well, there are applications where it makes sense. It used for traveling to the realms. It’s more expensive than passage on a ship, but a lot of companies do business in Nightmare these days, and it’s worth it to them to have an executive get to a meeting in a few seconds rather than a week. And some folks are rich enough to take a vacation that way. There are a number of firms in Dracoheim that specialize in transport.

“Also goods that are high in value and low in weight—Ferose clockwork engines, for example, or Nivose metapharmaceuticals. It depends on what’s more important—cost or speed.”

He stepped to the calculating engine and turned it on. The gears clacked as it reset itself to all zeroes. He looked back to his class. “Some of you will never see an apportation rig outside of this class. Some of you may be prepping one every day of your career. It all depends on where you end up working. When I was in private practice, I don’t think I opened one more than a half dozen times. But it’s important to understand the principles involved in any event.”

He went to empty side of the chalkboard and wrote 9.9 mC.

“Today, gentlemen, we are going to Ventose.”

He then wrote down a series of coordinates, then checked them against his notes. Satisfied, he nodded. “This is a spot in the Stone Forest, about twenty miles north of the Malignium. It should be empty—we don’t want to disturb any chigoes. We haven’t filed an import plan, so we aren’t actually going anywhere. We’re just going to open the apport link, verify that it goes where we want it to go, and shut it down.”

Lastly, he chalked 180s. “Three minutes should be enough time to let you all take a look through the window—not that there’s going to be much to see.”

He turned to face the class. “You’ll find the worksheet you need in Appendix C, on page 432. I’m going to give you...” he pulled out his watch and checked it. “...twenty minutes. Work it out separately, and then compare your answers. When I get back, I expect you to have settled on one answer. Remember, we need a value for the theta, rho, and lambda axis, an initial charge value, a differential plotted over time, and, of course the duration.” A grin. “That’s the easy part—I gave you that one. One hundred eighty seconds.”

The students obediently opened their textbooks and got their notebooks and slide-rules out. Leonid checked his watch again as he left the classroom. Two short hallways and a flight of stairs took him to his office. A buff-colored internal mail envelope sat in the wire basket that hung on the outside of his office door; he snagged it as he unlocked the door.

Sitting at the desk in his cluttered little office, Leonid reached behind him to pull an alchemical retort from one of his bookshelves, then a small beaker. He poured himself a neat shot of absinthe from the retort and sipped it as he sorted his mail.

His subscription to the Journal of Noetic Materials Science was up for renewal; did he want to the college to renew it? Yes, please.

A reminder that midterm marks would be due on Oneday the 34th of Siebenember. No problem; his teaching load was light, and his marks were mostly tabulated already. He made a note to have a chat with one of his first years, Connors, about his performance in Intro to Lab Prep. The young man was eager to learn but tended to be sloppy.

Would he still be willing to act as a chaperon for the Autumn Mixer Dance? Absolutely! Looking forward to it.

The minutes from the last Thautamagy Department Meeting. Blah, blah, blah, blah, and in conclusion, blah.

He polished off his shot and glanced at the wall clock. Time to go back and see how the boys were doing. He set the retort and the beaker back in their places and grabbed a licorice candy from a dish on his desk to suck on.

He heard the low buzz of conversation in the room as he approached. It cut off neatly when he opened the door.

“All right,” he said. “Before I get your numbers for the exercise, I wanted to remind you all that tickets for the Autumn Mixer go on sale next week. This is our year to host, so there’s also going to be sign-up sheet for volunteers for decorating the gym. I’ll be chaperoning again, so I’ll expect you to be on your best behavior and treat the young ladies of the Quayside School of Nursing with professionalism and respect.”

“Are you going to be dancing, Magus?”

Leonid grinned. “I will. And if Matron Eleanor attends, you might even get to see my tango.”

Then he turned serious. “Okay, let’s take a look at your data. Mr. Burke, how about you give me the figures?”

As the student read off the numbers, Leonid chalked them on the board. Then, keeping his face and voice neutral, he asked, “Did everyone get the same numbers? Any disagreement?”

Silence greeted his words.

“This is not a trick question,” Leonid said kindly. “I want to make sure that you all understand how to do these calculations properly.”

“I got one point six E for the rho index,” a student spoke up from the back. “but I know what I did wrong.”

“Which was?”

“I forgot to renormalize after I divided both sides by negative E.”

Leonid nodded. “I threw you boys a curve on the local coordinates. Anybody else forget to renormalize?”

A couple of hands went tentatively up.

“You didn’t remember summer,” he chided them.

He wrote SUMMER on the board, and then tapped each letter in turn. “Verify your symbol set. Check your units. Be sure of your metrics. Double check your math. Equalize your terms. And lastly, renormalize your terms. If you have any complex numbers, you need to get them out of there.”

He turned back to the class and said seriously, “Accuracy, gentlemen. Accuracy. You have to get it right. Right the first time, right every time. We are dealing with powerful and unforgiving forces here. There are no second chances in magic. If you get nothing else out of this class, I want to you to get in the habit of double checking everything. It’s got to be a habit. A reflex. We all make mistakes, but in this business, mistakes kill.”

He paused to look over his class. Their faces were grave. He nodded. “You have to catch your mistakes before they become disasters. Once the working has started, it’s too late.”

Then he lit a cigarette and smiled. “Well, if you’re sure this is right, let’s get it going. How about you set the engine, Mr. Kent?”

Kent came forward with his notebook and a look of almost comical concentration on his face. While he was inputting the numbers, Leonid said, “And, Mr. Shotwell, if you would be so kind as to ground the accumulators before we begin. They are going to be gathering a wicked charge on this exercise; we want to start them as close to flat as possible.”

Shotwell came up and took a short wooden wand with a copper tip from the workbench. Carefully, he touched the tip to each of the glass accumulators in turn. Sparks flew as the wand released the stored energy.

“The rest of you come down here and gather around. During the three minutes that the grid is active, the space directly above the energized copper will be coincident with Ventose. The ceiling of this room is equipped with a dampening grid, otherwise the area of correspondence would extend upwards to the limit of the generator’s power—about twenty feet.”

Leonid gestured for the students to form a circle around the plate. “Watch the accumulators. Do not touch them—they can give you enough a shock to stop your heart.”

He waited until the students had formed a circle around the copper sheet, all of them giving the glass topped accumulators a wide berth.

“The area that we will be congruent to in Ventose is relatively empty; that’s why I chose it. I have done this particular exercise for the last ten years with these coordinates. However, remember this is an alien universe. The other realms are collectively called Nightmare for a reason.”

He looked over at Kent, who was frowning down at the dials on the calculating engine.

“Are we all set, Mr. Kent?”

“Yes, Magus.” He didn’t sound sure.

“Someone... you, Mr. Baker. Double-check the program.”

Baker dutifully looked over the dials and checked them against the figures on the board. “He’s got it right.”

“Then let’s do this thing,” Leonid grinned at the students. These boys had grown up in a world shaped by magic. They had lived in houses lit by electricity produced by aefrits, ridden in cars fueled by elixir made by undines, owned toys and tools made by the forged ones of Ferose. They had seen oneiroi walking the streets of their city.

And yet, this would almost certainly be their first look into one of the alien universes that made it all possible. These boys weren’t rich kids; they were the sons of commercial fishermen and dockworkers. A generation ago, they would have no doubt followed in their father’s footsteps, but the new technologies spawned by industrial magic had created a demand for skilled workers.

And if most of them never attained the lofty title of magus, what did that matter? They’d make a good living in the power plant or refineries or as lab workers.

Leonid took out his keys and unlocked the connection the school’s generators. A red light glowed in a caged bulb above the panel. “We are live, gentlemen,” he said. “Mr. Kent, begin the program.”

Kent pulled the start lever on the calculating engine, and the dials began clicking through their complex movements, regulating the flow of energy into the copper sheet.

The air above the plate grew cloudy, and then, very suddenly, they could see through the mist to another world. It was an impressive view.

The Stone Forest of Ventose was a jagged landscape. Rock spires thrust up through the ground, ranging from a few feet high to enormous monoliths that stretched up until their tops were lost in the mist. The sky was a dull, almost metallic gray, glowing with a sourceless light that made no shadows. Leonid had selected the coordinates to put the point of correspondence at the top of a sharp rise, and the alien world stretched out for miles below them.

The rapt fascination of the class was gratifying. This was Leonid’s favorite part of teaching magic: the wonder on the young men’s faces as they saw with their own eyes the power of the craft.

“Ventose, gentlemen,” Leonid said. “The Realm of Lord Chimiculeon the Many.”

He glanced on the time display on the calculating engine. It clicked from 157 seconds to 156, then to 155.

Just then a beetle the size of a large dog swooped out of the mist and into the classroom, its wings clattering as it flew. The students, startled, jerked away from the path of the creature. Leonid saw Shotwell, intent on avoiding the flying thing, about to brush up against one of the accumulators. He reached to pull the boy back and one of the other students bumped into him from behind.

The shock of the stored energy of the accumulator threw Leonid forward onto the conductive sheet, but instead of copper there was dirt under his feet. His boot caught on a stone, and he staggered forward, still dazed from the jolt. His legs went out from under him, spilling his down the slope. His head hit the base of one of the stone pillars, and the lights went out.

“Magus!”

Leonid blinked away tears and looked up into the face of one of his students... Shotwell, it was.

“Is he alive?” Someone else asked. Also a student. Mr... Kent.

His head was clearing. He still felt the tingles from the jolt he’d gotten from the accumulator. He couldn’t have been out more than a few minutes.

Minutes.... shit. The contingency field must have collapsed by now and behind Shotwell’s head he could see the shifting gray of Ventose’s sky.

“It’s okay,” Leonid said, trying to sit up. His head ached, and he felt nauseated. “They’ll send someone for us. Might be an hour or more, they’ll need to wait for the interference to—”

“We don’t have an hour, sir.” Kent whispered.

Leonid turned his head—a bolt of pain lancing down his spine—and saw Kent. There were figures behind the boy, and Leonid struggled to focus on them.

Smaller than man-sized, with long thin limbs, far too many of them.

Chigoes.

“It’s okay,” Leonid repeated. His voice sounded shaky to his own ears. He made an effort to control it. “A moment, if you please,” he called to the crowd of natives. “I hit my head in the transfer, I’m still a bit...”

He started to lever himself to his feet.

The response from the chigoes was immediate. Complicated machines that had to be weapons were leveled in his direction. Leonid sat back down, cursing his fuzzy head. Were those... yes, the weapons, the glint of armor on their bodies, the military stance. Warrior caste.

But why? Why would a squad of warriors be out here in the middle of nowhere? And why would they be drawing down on three unarmed humans?

“They say we’re smugglers, sir,” Shotwell said softly. “I tried to convince them we’re not.”

“I am Magus Leonid Vetch,” Leonid said. “I am bound by oath to the Lord Mayor of Dracoheim, and, through him, I am signatory to the Accords of Nightmare. These men are Thodd Shotwell and Vladimir Kent, my apprentices, and I am guarantor of their obedience to those same accords. We intend no insult to the lands of Ventose or the Court of Lord Chimiculeon. We are here by mistake—a training accident.”

One of chigoes stepped forward. It stood just under four feet tall and was mostly legs—powerful hind limbs like a grasshopper and two sets of long arms. Its body was covered with a jointed carapace. Only its face looked soft, disturbingly human features on its insectile body.

“I am Captain Tethikthik of the Royal Guard. We have been hunting for some time a smugglers who bring unlawful goods from Nivose into our realm. We have reports that they apport into this region—just the area where you have appeared.”

“We’re not morauxe,” Kent protested. “We’re human. From the Midworld.”

The captain nodded. “Yes, but it is not uncommon for morauxe to hire human magi.”

“I see,” Leonid said slowly. It made sense. Smugglers would choose the Stone Forest for the same reason he had, because it was uninhabited. “Wrong place at the wrong time.”

“We must question you.” The captain’s voice was firm.

“Can’t you do something?” Shotwell whispered.

“Help me up,” Leonid said.

With one of the boys on either side he was able to get to his feet. The dizziness and sickness would pass, he knew. It was far from the first time he’d gotten a nasty shock in the lab.

“As visitors—however unintentionally—in your realm we will, of course, cooperate fully with the Royal Guard,” Leonid said to the captain, then turned to his students.

“The justice of the Court of Lord Chimiculeon is beyond question,” Leonid said, addressing his words to his students but speaking as much for the benefit of the guards. “As innocent men we have nothing to fear.” He managed a grin.

“But...” Shotwell gestured uphill, towards where they had apported in.

“My colleagues will send someone looking for us,” Leonid said.

“They will be questioned as well,” the captain said, “and should you be as innocent as you claim, you will allowed to leave together.”

“But...” Shotwell said again. He seemed unable to say more.

“Mr. Shotwell,” Leonid said sternly, “I have pledged my cooperation to Captain Tethikthik—” he only stumbled slightly over the name “—and as my apprentice I have guaranteed your cooperation as well. Do you understand me?”

Shotwell looked to the armed chigoes and then back to Leonid. “Yes, Magus,” he said.

Leonid’s eyes flicked to the captain and then back to the boy.

Shotwell took the hint. “Your instructions, sir?” he said formally to the captain.

“Come with us.” The captain turned and headed down slope.

Leonid headed after him, noticing that while the captain had turned his back on them, the other guardsmen had not. Shotwell and Kent fell into step beside him.

Leonid turned to Kent. “Do you understand as well?”

Kent nodded. “Our full cooperation with the representatives of the Court.” He smiled. “I had nothing planned for the weekend except going crabbing with some of the guys. This is going to be an interesting story to tell.”

Leonid smiled back. “That’s the spirit.”

The chigoes were all different. They ranged in size from knee-high on the humans to nearly as tall as they were. Most had six limbs, but some had eight, and one seemed to have a dozen, all spindly and in constant motion. They had hard carapaces in patterns of dark colors, deep reds, blues, greens, purples. In the gray light they shone like oiled metal.

Their weapons were as varied as their own bodies, each clearly built to their own requirements. Only the ammunition seemed standardized; they were all loaded with gleaming steel arrows with wicked serrated tips.

Leonid couldn’t tell how the bolts would be propelled and didn’t want to find out. He didn’t know much about chigo technology. Nobody did, really. There wasn’t much trade between the Midworld and Ventose. Lord Chimiculeon had accepted the Nightmare accords and agreed to the exchange of embassies but seemed to have little interest in the Midworld or the human race. There was a complicated three-way alliance between Verdemaire, Ventose, and Ferose, but Leonid didn’t expect any humans outside of few specialists knew the details.

Nor did humans have much interest in Ventose. The insect-like chigoes were too disturbing. Other oneiroi like norns, rashlings, and even morauxe were more or less humanoid, if not human. The djinn, undines, and aefrits were entirely alien, with bodies that weren’t physical, living masses of wind or fire or water.

Chigoes looked like giant bugs with human faces. They were inherently horrifying.

Leonid found himself wondering for the first time if chigoes found human beings just as horrible. Perhaps that’s why there were so few of them in Dracoheim.

At the bottom of the hill was a clearing of sorts, a wide patch of bare rock without any stone spires. Sitting in the middle of the clearing was an enormous beetle, the size of a cargo van, with metal lockers of some sort hung along its sides.

“We will administer the question, now,” the captain said. “Magus, if you please?”

Leonid had no idea what to expect as he walked forward. He made an effort to keep his stride even, his expression relaxed. His students were looking to him for leadership. He had to maintain calm. If he panicked, the boys were sure to follow.

“What are you going to do?” Leonid asked. His voice was even, despite the ice in his guts.

“You will be searched,” the captain said, and opened one of the lockers.

What came out of the locker was a swarm of insects. They buzzed like flies but were larger. The captain whistled, a series of shrill notes like a calliope.

The swarm engulfed Leonid. The small insects buzzed around him, not touching his skin, but flying close enough that he felt the wind from their wings. He forced himself to stay very still.

After what felt like a very long time, he heard another series of whistles, and the swarm retreated, buzzing in a cloud close to the giant beetle.

“You are clean,” the captain said. “Now your students.”

Leonid looked back at the two young men. They exchanged a worried glance, and then Kent said, “I’ll go next.”

He walked to where Leonid was standing, a little shakily. Leonid smiled to reassure him. “It’s not so bad,” he said.

“If you will step back, Magus?”

Leonid walked back to where Shotwell was standing. Together they watched the swarm engulf Kent.

“What are they searching for?” Shotwell whispered nervously.

“Contraband,” Leonid whispered back. “I assume. If they are looking for smugglers from Nivose, probably drugs of some kind.”

“What kind of drugs?” Shotwell asked.

Leonid shrugged. “I don’t know what would effect a chigo.”

The captain whistled his odd tune again and the swarm left Kent, who looked pale. Shakily he walked back to join them. Softly he said, “That was pretty creepy.”

Shotwell was staring at the swarm in horror. “I don’t think I can do this,” he said.

“You have to,” Leonid said. “It’ll be over quick, and we’ll be right here.”

Shotwell swallowed hard and walked slowly forward.

The captain whistled, and the swarm engulfed the young man.

Almost at once, Leonid could see that something was different this time. The swarm clustered around Shotwell’s left hip, and many of them landed on him, covering his uniform pants to halfway down his left leg. Shotwell started brushing them off in a panic.

The captain whistled, and the swarm retreated back to the giant beetle. Two of the chigo troopers came forward, weapons aimed at Shotwell.

“You will disrobe now,” the captain said.

Shotwell threw a terrified look at his teacher and Leonid started forward. Instantly, two more chigoes with weapons aimed came between them.

“Let me help him,” Leonid pleaded.

“Allow the magus to assist,” the captain said. “Magus, recall your oaths.”

Shotwell was trying to unbutton his uniform shirt, but his hands were shaking so badly that he hadn’t managed more than a single button.

“Hey,” Leonid said softly. “Mr. Shotwell—Thodd. Relax. We’ll get through this, okay?”

Louder, he addressed the captain. “Why don’t we just empty his pockets, first?” Did these chigoes even understand what pockets were? “Maybe whatever you are looking for is one of those items.”

Leonid helped Shotwell remove his wallet, watch, pocketknife, a cigarette case, putting them all on the hard ground.

The captain gave his whistle, and the swarm came forward. This time, the insects lighted on the ground, and, in moments, they were clustered on the young man’s cigarette case.

Leonid had a chilling thought. “What’s in there?” he whispered.

“Maiden tears,” Shotwell whispered back, his voice a near-inaudible croak.

“Oh, son,” Leonid said softly, “how could you?”

“I didn’t know I was coming here, now did I?” Shotwell’s reply was bitter.

Leonid felt a twinge of guilt at that. The boy had been wrong to have the maiden tears, no doubt about that. It was an unlawful drug imported from Nivose and being caught with it would have meant expulsion. But in Dracoheim, it probably wouldn’t have resulted in anything worse, not with a small quantity and a first offense. It was common on the streets. In humans, it produced euphoria and a heightening of physical sensation and—so they said—a lowering of inhibitions.

Here, though... ? Leonid didn’t know what its effects would be on chigoes, but judging from the captain’s reaction, they were probably severe.

As would be the penalty for bringing it into this realm, even unintentionally.

The cigarette case was put inside a very ordinary looking white paper bag, which the captain sealed with tape and a glyph he traced with a steel scribe.

“Thodd Shotwell,” he said formally, “you are being charged with the crime of transporting a proscribed substance into the realm of Ventose. You are hereby ordered, upon pain of death, to report with us to the Malignium for trial.”

A pause. Then, “Do you understand the charge being brought against you?”

“Yes.” The young man’s voice was flat, toneless.

There was movement coming down the slope, and Leonid turned to see Kravitz Welsh, the Dean of Magic, along with an armed security guard.

Strike that—a disarmed security guard. The man’s holster was empty. A trio of chigoes who were very much armed followed the humans down slope.

Leonid took a step in that direction, and the chigoes beside him lifted their weapons. He raised his hands and stepped back.

“After the question, you may meet with your colleagues,” the captain said.

The dean and his escort were subjected to the insect swarms, but the bugs didn’t signal any contraband. After that, the chigoes allowed Leonid and Kent to join them.

Shotwell stayed back, the guards watching him alertly.

“What’s going on here?” Welsh asked.

“Smuggler trap,” Leonid explained. “Evidently, some criminals from Nivose have been using this place as a transport site.”

“And you just happened to get caught in it,” Welsh concluded sourly. “Well, Tucker’s going to reactivate the grid every twenty minutes, for two minutes at a time. Let’s get back.”

“There’s a problem,” Leonid gestured at Shotwell. “He had maiden tears on him.”

“Oh, that poor fool,” Welsh said softly. “What are they going to do?”

“Take him to the Malignium.” Leonid said. “I need you to get word to the consulate. Maybe they can intervene somehow.”

Welsh sighed. “For all the good it’ll do.”

“You take Mr. Kent back with you,” Leonid said. “I’ll accompany Mr. Shotwell.”

Welsh gave him a long look, then nodded. “It was your screw up,” he agreed. “You know there’s going to be a full inquiry when you get back.”

Leonid nodded. “One thing at a time.” He looked back at Shotwell. “Right now, that boy needs me.”

“I’ll get word to the consulate. They should have someone waiting when you get to the capitol,” Welsh said, then to Kent. “Come on, let’s get back home.”

The chigoes returned the security guard’s pistol, then waved for them to go back to the transit site.

Leonid walked back towards Shotwell, calling to the captain, “Will you permit me to accompany my student?”

“Of course,” the captain said.

Shotwell was staring down at the bare ground. “I’m dead,” he whispered.

“No, you’re not,” Leonid said firmly. “This is a bad situation, no doubt about it, but help is coming. You’re a citizen of Dracoheim, and Lord Chimiculeon isn’t going to risk an incident with the Lord Mayor.”

“What does the mayor care?” Shotwell asked miserably. “He’s not even human.”

“Listen to me, Thodd,” Leonid said. “I care. You are my student, and it’s my fault that you’re in this mess. I’m going to see this through.”

Shotwell looked away and spotted the captain standing by the huge beetle. “Hey!” he shouted. “Can we get moving? Let’s get this cursed thing over with!”

The captain looked back. “We will not travel on the walker. I have called a flier. It will be here soon.”

“What does he mean, a flier?” Shotwell asked.

Leonid shrugged. They’d find out soon enough.

The flier announced itself with high-pitched engine whine and a sudden wind. It was the size of the cargo beetle but built long and equipped with two sets of gleaming steel wings. It seemed to be partially insect and partially metal, the organic and mechanical parts fused together somehow. Along its back was a line of saddles. The guardsmen ushered them forward.

“Ever ridden on one of these before?” Shotwell asked Leonid.

“I’ve never even seen one before,” Leonid answered. In truth, he had no idea that the Chigoes could manufacture flying machines. “Just hang on and try not to fall off, I guess.”

The saddle was adjustable to accommodate the varied bodies of chigoes, and one of the vehicle’s pilots moved bits of it around until it was fairly comfortable for a human.

The two humans took their seats, with guardsmen in front and behind them. The high-pitched whine of the motor increased and a hot wind blew from somewhere underneath the vehicle, and then, quite gently, they were airborne.

The Stone Forest dropped away from under them. The view was breathtaking, miles of twisted spires of rock in all directions. The vehicle turned smoothly, rotating in place until was facing back the way it had come, and then it accelerated away.

Shotwell laughed delightedly. “I need to get me one of these,” he shouted over the rushing wind.

“It wouldn’t work in the Midworld,” Leonid pointed out. “Different cosmological constants.”

“Pity.”

Under them, the spires of the Stone Forest gave way to rolling hills green with vegetation. From this height, it was impossible to tell what the plants were, but they seemed to be cultivated.

There were buildings, too, wood and stone, ordinary-looking cottages, at least from this height, except that most of them were round or six-sided instead of being rectangular. The chigoes seemed to have little use for right angles.

The buildings became both more numerous and larger, and then they were over a city. Here, too, the concept of a right-angled grid seemed to have escaped the locals. The streets were laid out in hexagons, and each hexagonal block was dedicated to a particular purpose. Some were residential, others open parks; some structures the humans couldn’t identify.

There was traffic now, too, chigoes walking or riding beetles of different sizes. Many of the things on the road were constructed like the flying machine, a mixture of organic and mechanical parts. There was also traffic in the air. An enormous airship drifted by overhead, a dozen or more gasbags supporting a shape of gleaming chitin the size of an ocean liner.

Behind the city a dome rose up on the horizon, dwarfing the city that sprawled around it. It looked like the polished skull of a titan, half-buried. The upper surface was pockmarked with round holes leading into its interior, shadowed like the empty sockets of a hundred blind eyes.

Shotwell’s delighted smile faded and his face grew grim. “That’s it, isn’t it?”

Leonid nodded. He’d never seen it, but from the descriptions he’d heard it couldn’t be anything else. “The Malignium.”

Traffic streamed around it, both on the ground and in the air. The scale of the thing was hard to gauge. It seemed too large to be real, something that would have collapsed under its own weight in the Midworld.

The flying machine headed for an opening on an upper level that seemed at first comically small, but as they grew nearer the scale resolved itself into a cavern that could have held a dozen fliers. A squad of the warrior class stood in formation on the floor of the hanger. Next to them, looking very small, was a single human figure, a man in a suit.

When the machine landed and the whine of its engines shut off, the man approached, holding out his hand.

“Seth Werner, Parliamentary Diplomatic Corps,” he said. “Magus Vetch, Mr. Shotwell, come with me, please.”

The warriors formed up around them, Mr. Werner seeming to not notice them. They went through a short, twisting corridor. It was nearly circular in cross-section, flattened on the bottom to form a sort of floor. The walls were a yellowish gray, disturbingly bone-colored. Leonid felt as if he were walking inside the body of some titanic creature.

A circular door led to a small room, hemispherical in shape. There were no windows, but the upper third of the walls glowed with a yellow light. Inside the room was a table and four chairs, very human looking, and Leonid suspected that they were imports provided for the use of human visitors.

The man from the Diplomatic Corps took a seat and waved them to the other chairs. The warriors took up station outside the door silent and immobile.

“Well, young man,” Werner said with a smile, “you’ve made my day much more interesting.”

“I’m sorry for any trouble I’ve caused, sir,” Shotwell said, looking miserable.

Werner shrugged. “It’s my job. Cursed bad luck you happened to have maiden tears on you. It’s a powerful narcotic for the locals—they used to use it for an anesthetic, in fact, but it’s also highly addictive, so they’ve switched to other drugs.”

“What’s going to happen to him?” Leonid asked.

“Well, you are clearly not the smugglers the sweep was intended for,” Werner said. “They freely admit that. But on the other hand, you did bring an interdicted substance into the realm. Right now, I’m working on having you remanded into CPS custody for trial in Dracoheim.”

“Does the Committee for Public Safety have jurisdiction?” Leonid asked.

“Use of magic to transport a class two controlled substance,” Werner said. “You won’t be charged, magus, so long as we convince the courts you had no knowledge of the contraband.”

“He didn’t,” Shotwell said firmly. “This is all on me.”

“The trip was unintentional, in any event,” Werner went on, “the administration backs you on that. So there’s no intent to distribute.”

Werner paused, then looked at Shotwell, his face grim. “Young man, this is going to go hard for you. You understand that we cannot afford to dismiss the charges—representatives of Lord Chimiculeon’s court will be following the case.”

Shotwell nodded. “I understand.”

Werner stood. “I have a meeting that I must attend. There are certain political ramifications here that I am not at liberty to discuss. Your hearing should take within a few hours. Do not attempt to leave this room. The warriors will feed you and escort you to the facilities as needed.”

Leonid and Shotwell both nodded.

To Shotwell he said, “We’ll get you through this. Just try to relax.” Then to Leonid. “You’re a good man for sticking with him. I’ll get you home for dinner tonight.”

The hours passed slowly.

At first, Leonid tried to make small talk, but he quickly realized that all he had in common with the young man was the school, and with his expulsion inevitable at this point, that was a sore subject. Shotwell made a few attempts to start a conversation about books, but Leonid didn’t really read aside from professional journals.

After a long silence Leonid said, “I’m sorry I got you into this.”

Shotwell shook his head. “It’s my own damned fault.”

There seemed to be nothing more to say after that.

At last, Werner returned, hurrying along the corridor with a squad of warriors. “Come on,” he said, “we’re being summoned to the presence.”

As they moved through the maze of twisting corridors, Werner spoke softly. “I have to warn you, it’s going to look bad at first, but I need you to trust me. Don’t speak unless you’re asked a direct question and give short answers. Don’t volunteer any information.”

Teacher and student both nodded.

“It’s going to be all right,” Werner went on, “I promise. Just... trust me.”

The corridor quite suddenly opened out into a vast open space, a spherical chamber dozens of stories high, lit by hundreds—no, thousands—of lamps affixed to the curving surface of the wall. A railed walkway girdled the chamber at the equator, with a few dozen figures spaced along it, lost in the immensity of the room. In the chamber was...

Lord Chimiculeon. The Seventh Lord of Nightmare, called The Many and The Armored King. It, or they, clung to the walls all around. The Nightmare Lord had uncountable bodies, millions certainly, crawling, flying, hopping, a gargantuan swarm of insects of all description. The sound of the swarm was a constant rumble that made the stone walls vibrate. The three humans walked into the presence and were the focus of ten million faceted eyes.

The swarm was in motion, and as they watched, the tiny bodies flowed down the walls of the chamber, pooling in the bottom of the sphere like a liquid and then surging up. A mass of crawling insects, surrounded by swarms of flying creatures that shrouded it like fog, rose up from the bottom of the sphere, taking on shape as more and more of the tiny bodies joined the swelling mass.

Within minutes, it had taken on the semblance of a single form, a jointed body the size of a railway locomotive. A dozen long legs lifted the mass until the front of it—bodies crawling over each other to form a face, huge black eyes above the chasm of an open mouth—was level with the equatorial walkway.

It—or they—spoke. The voice came from all around them, echoing from the walls of the sphere.

“Let the prisoner come forward.”

Shotwell swallowed hard. He was shaking, but he walked to the railing unaided.

“Thodd Shotwell, you are charged with bringing into my realm substances that I have forbidden, that are forbidden by the compact your own mayor has sworn with me, substances that are injurious to my people. How do you plead?”

Shotwell cleared his throat. “Guilty, sir,” he said in a small, quavering voice.

“By the accords of Nightmare, you are subject to the laws of my realm. I am within my rights as sovereign to sentence you as I would one of my own subjects. There is a petition before me to relinquish my rights and return you to your own world. Can any say why I should do this?”

As Shotwell stood frozen, Leonid started to move forward. Werner grabbed his arm hard and held him back. “Wait,” he whispered.

From somewhere down the circular walkway, a voice said, “I will speak to that, with your leave, O Lord of Ventose.”

Leonid turned to look. A robed figure stood at the rail, human in outline under the robes, but strange in some way.

“You may speak, child of my sister Heget.”

The figure pushed back its cowl. The head that was revealed bore two faces side by side. The one on the left was a woman, on the right a man. This was an incubus, a native of Verdemaire. But what was it doing here?

The male face spoke and gestured with its right hand, also masculine, to indicate where Shotwell stood. “My queen, your sister, asks for clemency for the young human. He admits his fault and takes responsibility for his actions, unwitting as they were. He stands accused by the justice of the Midworld and will not escape punishment for his misdeeds.”

“I admit that this is true. Yet why do you speak to it?”

The incubus’s female face spoke then. “We believe that the human is best served by human justice. As none of your people were harmed, it seems fitting to us that he be returned.”

“Your petition has merit. I will grant it. Is an envoy from the Midworld present?”

Werner stepped to the rail. “I am here, Lord Chimiculeon.”

“Are you prepared to take the prisoner to the Midworld to face justice?”

“I am.”

“Then let it be so.”

The great body in the middle of the sphere collapsed then, the bodies scurrying away from the deflating mass to swarm up the walls of the chamber. Soon there was no trace of the figure, just the swarming motes covering the walls.

Werner took Shotwell by the arm and led him back out into the corridor. The warriors formed up around them again.

Once they were headed down the corridor Leonid asked softly, “What was that all about?”

Werner sighed. “Politics. Now Queen Heget has a marker she can call in the next time Verdemaire has a trade dispute with the Lord Mayor.”

He put his arm on Shotwell’s shoulder. The young man seemed to be in shock, moving like a sleepwalker. “I told you it would work out. I know that was rough, but you held it together. Good man.”

Twenty minutes later, the three of them had been transported back to the Midworld, the grid in the Malignium sending them to the front garden of Government House where agents of the Committee for Public Safety waited to take Shotwell into custody.

Leonid stayed with the boy through the arrest and booking and promised that he would be there for the trial. Then he headed back to his rooming house—not quite in time for dinner—and started to worry about his own upcoming inquest.

The worst they could do was fire him, he knew, and he didn’t need the job.

Well, that wasn’t quite true. He didn’t need the money. He’d retired from a lucrative private practice and had invested his money well. He’d initially taken the teaching position as a favor to an old colleague, when the school was starting up, and it was hard to find experienced magi who were willing to spend their days lecturing and their evenings preparing lesson plans. He hadn’t planned on making a second career of it, but then his Annalise had died, very suddenly, hit by a laundry van while crossing the street.

The school was all he had. Without it, he’d be just another old widower, spending afternoons feeding pigeons in the park and drinking too much. His students gave him something to look forward to.

Curse Shotwell, anyway, the fool. He had the gift, an intuitive grasp of the principles of spell work. He’d breezed through the mathematics of conjuration while other students struggled. He had so much promise—all gone now, squandered. You couldn’t get any kind of license to work in the magic industry with a criminal record. Where would he go now? Back to the docks, to be a stevedore like his old man? Such a stupid waste of talent.

A momentary lapse of reason—a single error in judgment. That’s all it took.

Even after several drinks, Leonid was long getting to sleep that night.

In a week, he was back in the classroom.

The inquest found him innocent of all wrongdoing. Just a lab accident; it could happen to anyone. Privately, he was cautioned that the incident might adversely affect his chances with the tenure committee.

Tenure. As if that had ever been a possibility. He wasn’t a researcher, with a stack of published papers to his name. He was a middling industrial magus, a man who had made a career with careful, unimaginative work. He knew the job and how to do it safely. Let other people experiment and get themselves torn to bits more likely than not.

On the following Sixday he was back in the lab. He ostentatiously studied his notes, not looking up as the class trickled in. At 1300, he looked up and counted heads. Twenty-three.

The room was silent as he got to his feet.

“Today we are beginning the unit on organic transformations,” he began, then fell quiet when he saw a hand upraised.

“Yes, Mr. Kent?” He asked nervously. “What is it?”

“Magus,” Kent said, standing. “We just wanted to say... we know you did all you could for Shotwell. You went with him, into the Malignium. You didn’t have to do that.”

“Well, I...” Leonid shrugged. “I just did my job.”

Kent reached into his book bag and pulled out a bottle of a familiar square shape and filled with a green liquid that sparkled in the sunlight. “We wanted to get you something.”

He walked down the row between the lab tables and deposited the bottle on Leonid’s desk. “We just wanted to say thank you. On Shotwell’s behalf.”

Leonid looked at the bottle. Absinthe. The good stuff, too, a pricey bottle. There was writing on the label, in black glass marker.

Leonid picked up the bottle and examined it. They’d signed it, looked like the entire class.

“Thank you, gentlemen,” Leonid said formally, to cover the lump in his throat. “I don’t think I can say how much this means to me.”

He felt his eyes filling with tears and turned away to the board to hide his face. A bit shakily, he started writing, then broke off. Without turning around he said, “I wish I could have done more. I wish... none of that had happened.”

He stood silently and got himself back under control, blinked away his tears. When he felt he was ready, he finished chalking the equation he had begun, then turned back to face the class.

“Organic transformations,” he began again. “The important thing to remember with organic transformations is that the total value of the humors will always balance out. Understanding the relationships between them is vital to workings of these natures. You must maintain equilibrium.”

He sighed, then repeated. “Equilibrium. Really, that’s what magic is all about. Maintaining your equilibrium.”

Misha Burnett has little formal education, but has been writing poetry and fiction for around forty years. During this time he has supported himself and his family with a variety of jobs, including locksmith, cab driver, and building maintenance.

His first four novels, Catskinner’s Book, Cannibal Hearts, The Worms Of Heaven, and Gingerbread Wolves comprise a series, collectively known as The Book Of Lost Doors.

Major influences include Tim Powers, Samuel Delany, William Burroughs, and Phillip K. Dick.

More information about upcoming projects can be found at http://mishaburnett.wordpress.com/

The Fox and the Snake

Audrey Andrews

Ulrykah Fletcher never quite fit in at regular school, but when she started at Pender Academy, a well-respected college of magic, she expected that would change.  But after managing to befriend only two classmates (and one magical creature) her first year, it turns out it’s not about magic – she’s just terrible at making friends.  And now that she’s a sophomore prefect, she’s even less likely to receive invitations to forbidden parties where she could totally-not-flirt with that cute guy she’s been secretly crushing on since last year.  No, she’ll be too busy dealing with bratty dorm-mates, investigating the creepy dungeon, and spying on a certain mysterious character – all while studying hard to keep her scholarship.  At least the monster that was loose on campus is probably gone…

The Fox and the Snake

Once upon a time in the mysterious and cursed land of New Jersey, there was a little girl standing on a playground crying tears of rage. It was an all too normal scene at a normal school, of normal children surrounding a classmate with an abnormal name. Ulrykah Fletcher wasn’t the only child to be bullied for an obvious strangeness, but she was the only one struggling not to use to her secret talents to retaliate against… was it her entire second-grade class? She looked from face to face, blurred through her tears, and saw every single one of them, either watching curiously and being no help at all, or cruelly joining in Jimmy’s chant. Even though she wanted to, even though he deserved it, there was one rule she must not break: don’t let anyone find out. And she hadn’t, not even when she’d caused Jimmy’s homework to disappear mysteriously and him to miss recess the day before. She had been careful—he couldn’t know.

But now, with everyone, even Sandra and Miranda, who were supposed to be her friends, watching… Well, she would just have to handle this the normal way.

She marched up to the loathsome little boy, who was waggling his fingers with his thumbs in his ears, singing “RIKA REEKS!” over and over at the top of his lungs, and kicked him in the shin.

She backed up a few paces to admire the beauty of the scene, as his wide eyes narrowed and his gasping mouth turned to a snarl.

“Serves you right!” she yelled. “You should know better!”

The chanting had finally stopped, but the crowd still stood watching as Jimmy’s eyes began to water.

“Look, he’s crying!” Clint exclaimed.

“I’m not crying—my eyes are watering!” Jimmy yelled back. “I’m gonna get you!”

Rika hadn’t meant to start a fight, but if that would distract Jimmy, then maybe she could finally get around the wall of kids and make it to a teacher—but why was Jimmy walking toward her?

OH. Uh oh.

Rika only had time to take a single step back before Jimmy pushed her to the ground. For a moment, her mind protested, and she couldn’t react. It wasn’t fair—he had been mean to her first, so her kicking him was justified, but this?

“Stupid Ulrykah!” he said, laughing. “No one likes you!”

Well then, it was on.

She ran her right palm over the dirt and scattered sand from the nearby sandpit, summoning the tiny grains until she had a fistful. Then she pulled her feet back underneath her and, as she stood, flung them into his eyes, her aim guided by a softly whispered spell. Then she ran, intentionally bumping in to him, knocking him back, heading for a small gap in the wall of children, and plowing right between Sandra and Miranda, who complained loudly about being run into. Oh there were their voices. She began sobbing again but kept running and didn’t stop until she reached the classroom.

Stop that, Rika told herself, shaking her fluffy mane of hair as if it would rid her of all her childhood insecurities. Dwelling on something that had happened so long ago, in the normal—no, the unmagical—world when she was now about to start her sophomore year of college, studying magic at Pender Academy, was silly.

Except for the obvious problem that she wasn’t any better at making friends now than she had been then and had opted to go out for breakfast with her mother rather than sit alone in the dining hall on the first day. So perhaps a little reflection was warranted, she thought as she walked up the path through the freshly-mown grass toward Pender Academy’s stately Graeme Hall for orientation. Now that she was studying magic full-time, keeping up with and even surpassing her peers who had gone to private magical schools their whole lives, she could forget about trying to connect with her old high school crowd. Now she just had to figure out how to connect with the college crowd.

I made two real friends last year, she thought. If I keep going at that rate, I’ll have eight when I graduate!

She took a deep breath and exhaled her negative thoughts into the still warmish early fall air. It was a new year, after all, and she was on track to succeed in life. All that time last year she’d spent studying, chafing under the ridiculous requirements to read this boring book instead of that interesting one, to direct her magical abilities into mentally manipulating equations instead of learning to levitate, and not getting into the magically-enhanced mischief typical of freshmen, had paid off with an appointment as a dorm prefect. Accepting the offer came with a substantial reduction in her tuition, the reason she couldn’t say no to becoming, in essence, a paid snitch. She was an obvious choice, she supposed; although what the faculty committee didn’t realize was that the reason why she hadn’t been involved in the drunken debauchery and forest fire last January, the summoning-gone-awry a month after that, or even the Friday the thirteenth incident was simply that she hadn’t been invited. Not only that, she hadn’t even caught wind of any of the incidents prior to them occurring. However, if she were being honest with herself, she would have to admit that, had she known, she would have advised the organizers against carrying out their plans and refused to participate. And, if she were being very painfully honest, she’d also have to admit that, at least in the case of the stolen combustible bromeliad extract, she would have alerted staff—not to ruin anyone’s fun, but to prevent the otherwise inevitable explosion.

Yes, she was an obvious choice after all, she admitted, as she climbed the stone steps to the stately main building. The grass was still green, and the leaves only faintly tinged with yellow. That would change, though, as soon as Professor Belosevic returned from her travels in Croatia and spread her love of autumn with unnaturally-cold temperatures. Ulrykah stood for a moment on the wide stoop of Graeme Hall, drinking in the sun’s warmth on her bare arms until she felt both relaxed and energized enough to take on the crowd.

Ulrykah wrapped her hand around the iron dragon-tail door handle and stepped back, using her body weight (not magic—that would be pathetic) to pull open one of the heavy wooden doors of the gothic revival castle and slipped into the entry hall before the door could slam shut on her. To her relief, there wasn’t much of a crowd yet, and it was confined mostly to the sunlit lounge to the left and, from the sound of echoing chatter and clatter, the dining hall beyond. That gave Ulrykah a chance for a few deep breaths and to focus on what she could see, not on the growing anxiety that made her feel both conspicuous and invisible. New banners had been hung for the start of the year, but everything else was the same: the wide stairs with dark wooden banister opposite the front doors and the hall on the right, just past the creepy dungeon stairs, to classrooms and offices. The hall was creepy enough because there were no windows, only faint light from orbs in sconces that cast odd shadows of perfectly normal people and things, like the guy in the dark hoodie who was crossing the long passage halfway down. He held what looked like a swipe card in one hand, which the light orbs turned into a shadow of giant talons. She glanced back at his hand as he passed through a doorway to reassure herself, only to see that he did indeed have long yellowed fingernails.

Gross, she thought. Someone needs to tell that guy nail fungus is treatable. She stuck out her tongue at the thought and turned away to see if anyone she knew had arrived yet.

The first familiar face she saw in the entrance hall that morning belonged to Rav, a friend who wouldn’t care about her new status—not because his behavior was always in line with school rules but because his mischief occurred mostly in a boys’ dorm, which Ulrykah wasn’t responsible for. How he got around the male prefects, she didn’t know; maybe they also had a taste for mushroom powder. Or maybe he was just so likeable that no one wanted to get him in trouble.

They greeted with a casual hug, as usual (Rav was a hugger). As Ulrykah answered his questions about her summer, she noticed a small unfamiliar boy walk by with wide eyes set on Rav. She chuckled. Rav did tend to stand out. He was tall, though not a giant, and in shape, although not especially muscular, with a healthy golden-brown glow to his skin—and absolutely no hair whatsoever. He also looked a little like a bird around the eyes, which he’d asked Ulrykah not to say anymore, so she didn’t; but she couldn’t help thinking of him as a giant featherless avian creature. The little freshman would get used to him soon, though, as everyone did.

She was especially glad to have someone to talk to a moment later, when James walked past. If Rav was a bird of prey, James was a wolf—a friendly wolf, though, the kind who would help you find a misplaced book in the library during finals just because he’d noticed you had been looking for something without any luck, not the stalking and eating you type. Maybe a Husky or a Malamute then.

“Hey,” he said as he passed.

“Hey,” she replied, so casually, so smoothly. He would never suspect a thing. “How was your summer?”

“Great,” he said with his usual open smile. “Yours?”

“Good,” she said, smiling, but not too much, she hoped.

“Awesome,” he said, then glanced back the way he was headed, at a group of his friends. “See ya ‘round,” he said to her over his shoulder, then proceeded to receive a not-so-platonic hug from a girl who looked like a frog, but a cute frog.

“Dammit,” she muttered.

Rav hit her lightly on the shoulder.

“Don’t stare,” he said.

“What?” she said.

A loud belch came from behind, as did a greeting:

“Hey, Rika.” She flinched, not at the belch, but at the slightly too-loud-voice that was too close to her sensitive ears.

“Hey, Dan,” she said, and hugged her black-clad friend. He patted her back lightly with scaly hands, then tossed his long, curly black hair over one shoulder as he leaned in to fist-bump Rav.

“So you’re a prefect this year?” Dan asked.

“That’s right! Congratulations!” Rav said, knowing very well that she wasn’t thrilled.

“Yeah, um… yeah,” Ulrykah said.

“Well, we can’t have any fun with you this year!” Dan said and laughed.

“Oh no, I’ll miss out on your naked tree-hugging adventures,” Ulrykah joked.

“It’s a traditional form of worship that goes back centuries,” Dan chided.

“Back to when being unclothed in public supposedly wasn’t weird?” Ulrykah said.

“Yeah, basically,” he agreed.

“Well, regardless of tree-snuggling, I actually do think being a prefect is going to suck,” she said. Rav patted her on the head.

“Yeah,” he said. “Probably.”

“You guys are so not helpful!”

“Nope!” Dan said with a dragonish grin.

“Oh, and I’m about to be even less helpful. To you, that is,” Rav said, checking the time on his phone. “I’ve got to go finish setting up for the activities fair before orientation. Meet you guys for lunch?”

“Twelve-ish?” Ulrykah asked. “I should be out of my prefects’ meeting by then.”

“Sure,” he said, and then he was off, leaving Ulrykah and Dan to entertain themselves until it was time for the dean’s speech. As usual, Dan had plenty of stories to tell. This one started out as an overview of druidic dragon worship that somehow wound its way to drama among the members of the alternate-history club. This gave Ulrykah a nice distraction from her concerns as the hall filled with students. She couldn’t help but glance into a gilded full-length mirror as he spoke to try to catch a glimpse of James and that girl with the too-large eyes and too wide-smile. She could barely see them, between the ever-shifting clusters of other students, but they didn’t appear to be holding hands—maybe they weren’t officially attached? James certainly hadn’t seemed to mind her rubbing his back while hugging him… Ulrykah shuddered and chased that unpleasant memory away. The mirror now showed only the growing throng awaiting the orientation assembly, including herself: short, skinny, pale and freckled with bushy red hair and a small pointed nose.

Still a fox, she thought, just not the hot type.

“…which of course is why nothing happened between Avina and Daryl,” Dan was saying when she had fully tuned back in.

“Yeah, I’d think a hydra in your chosen make-out spot would be a mood killer,” she said.

“Problem is, by the time they got back from the forest and got caught—actually by Stephanie, the senior prefect! Catching young lovers: something to look forward to,” he teased. “So yeah, by the time the profs went to hunt it down, it was gone. I wonder if they found it over the summer.”

“I would hope so. The last thing this school needs is a roaming hydra.”

Walking through the common room on the girls’ side of her dormitory that night, Rika made a mental list of everything she wanted to write on her actual list when she returned to her room. She found that list making was an effective way to keep track of her responsibilities and to distract herself from thoughts of cute yet possibly unavailable boys.

“Oh no, here comes the prefect!” Teresa, also a sophomore, said from behind her phone. She was curled up on the couch in tacky patterned leggings, looking like an Aztec puffer fish, if fish spent too much time being unproductive on couches.

“Yeah, hide all the fun,” Ulrykah said in her best “I’m way too cool to take this seriously” voice, pretending she didn’t notice that Morgan, the other sophomore prefect was also sitting in the lounge in plain sight.

“There’s a problem you’ll never have,” said Teresa.

Ulrykah wished there were some way she could respond as if she were in on the joke, a way to make “Yeah, my social life is super boring!” sound funny, but no inspiration came. Neither did support from any of the other girls, who either chuckled or pretended they didn’t hear Teresa.

Ulrykah resorted to slightly nodding and softly saying, “Okay then,” before heading straight past Teresa to her room.

Morgan put down her book and followed.

“Um, Rika?”

Ulrykah switched on the light. Morgan was okay. Not the type to participate in petty spats, even to defend someone, unfortunately, but she was usually too focused on her schoolwork to involved herself with anything dramatic. She reminded Ulrykah of your basic everyday shorthaired cat, just not catty.

“What’s up?” Ulrykah asked.

“Not much. I just did something really dumb—I made plans for Friday, totally forgetting I was scheduled for night shift. I thought my shift was Thursday, and I was stressing because I wanted to study for financial wizardry Thursday night.”

“And?” Ulrykah asked, already knowing where this was going, but not minding particularly.

“And now it turns out I can! Only I can’t go out Friday, unless… Would you mind please switching shifts with me? I’ll take your Tuesday night. Please?”

Ulrykah wished so badly she had plans for Friday, but as it stood, her only reason to say no was the hope that she might acquire some, which was unlikely. And it wouldn’t hurt to show Morgan that she was a nice person, just in case Morgan held any bad feelings toward her for edging her out of the top place in bio-alchemy last semester.

“Sure, it’s no problem.”

“Thank you so much! I’ll talk to Stephanie about changing the schedule.”

“Yeah, sure,” Ulrykah said.

“Okay, so…” Morgan’s voice trailed off into a not unexpected prolonged and awkward silence. Ulrykah had hoped when she and Morgan met last year that they would have developed a closer friendship, both having grown up in middle-class neighborhoods, going to normal public schools, and restricting their magical study to evenings and weekends, unlike most of the students at Pender, who hadn’t had to hide their abilities at their magical private schools. But the sad truth was that, after their initial conversation about how great it was to finally be among their magical peers, to let down their guards, and show a spark of magical talent, Morgan and Ulrykah had found each other deathly boring.

“Night,” Ulrykah said, saving Morgan the effort of having to make awkward conversation about nothing in particular just to show appreciation.

“See ya!” Morgan said happily, and fairly skipped out of Ulrykah’s room—and Morgan wasn’t the skipping type.

Probably meeting up with a guy… at least she’ll know where to go with him to avoid my rounds.

Ulrykah looked up from her books and out the window across the lawn to the wall of tall narrow oaks that hid the school from the nearby highway and town. The leaves had turned from green to almost unnaturally bright oranges and reds overnight, as the temperature plummeted upon Professor Belosevic’s return. Her roommate Michelle (curly-haired otter, to Ulrykah) was somewhere else, as usual, and the room was comfortably quiet and dim, lit only by the afternoon sun and the soft glow of her laptop. It was much too warm inside to stay focused and too pretty outside to stay inside, so Ulrykah left her unfinished essay, bundled up and zipped out of the building.

The air was brisk, not bitterly cold; she was sure a walk would help clear her mind fog, so she headed down across the gently sloping lawn to the stables. Once upon a time, students would have boarded horses for travel here, but now only those few students with equestrian hobbies did. Most of the horses belonged to the school and functioned as teaching aides for the animal science and pre-veterinary programs—although technically, some of the horses were not actually properly referred to as horses.

Ulrykah stepped up onto the fence railing and waved at a chestnut pegasus who went by the name Bruno. He bobbed his head in acknowledgement as he placidly chewed a mouthful of grass. Even though he was eating, he had never seemed to mind her interruptions in the past, so she launched right in to telling him her troubles.

“It’s only been three days, and I’m already feeling stressed,” she said. “It must be nice being a pegasus. You don’t have to worry about tests or grades or mean girls.”

Bruno swallowed his grass.

“No, but we have our own pressures,” he said. “For instance, just two days ago, Phil got into some mushrooms and started flying. We had to keep him below the tree tops, and do you have any idea how hard it is to corral a tripping airborne horse?”

“No, I-”

“It’s near impossible! And he couldn’t understand WHY it was important no one see him! He kept going on about the mermaids, and why wouldn’t we let him swim with them. I’m still bruised where he kicked me. At least it was dark out.”

“Aw, poor Bruno! And you were being such a good friend.”

“Yeah, yeah. And the worst part is, he doesn’t actually remember eating any mushrooms. Could forgetting be a side effect? Sure. Or maybe they were just really small, and he didn’t see ‘em. So every bite I take, if it’s bitter, I’m freaking out, wondering, is that watercress, or am I about to expose us all to the normies and have to spend the rest of my days in a stable in Greenland?”

“That’s a lot of pressure, just for a snack,” Ulrykah said.

“And I’m so hungry, now that it’s cold!”

“I could bring you some oatmeal, if you want.”

“Oh, you’re a wingless angel!” Bruno said, stamping his hooves in excitement. “Plain, please—cinnamon doesn’t agree with me.”

“Sure thing. And it’s no trouble—I’d rather walk around than try to think of what to say in that stupid essay.”

“You always think of something eventually,” Bruno said.

“Eventually,” Ulrykah echoed as she hopped off the fence, she noticed a tense beanpole of a boy in riding boots slowly approaching.

Meerkat, she thought.

He stuttered a little as he asked if she were a prefect, and then having confirmed that, if she knew where to find Professor Barlow’s office. She did indeed, and rattled off the directions: “Go in the front door of Price Hall, turn left, take the second staircase to the fourth floor, turn left three times, pass the Chiropterarium, then turn right and go up the stairs. His office is at the top.” She might not have known what to write in her essay or how to talk to the other girls, but helping someone shyer than she made her feel like a competent human.

Unfortunately, she wasn’t sure if she’d actually helped - the boy was staring at her, brows furrowed, bottom lip twitching like he wanted to say something but couldn’t decide if he should.

“Would it help if I texted it to you?” Ulrykah asked.

“Yeah!” he nodded eagerly. Bruno snorted.

“I’m sorry, Bruno, I’ll go get your oatmeal in just a second!” Ulrykah handed her phone for the boy to type in his phone number and glanced over her shoulder at the pegasus.

“No, it’s fine,” Bruno lied.

“Seriously, one more second,” Ulrykah said, this time turning to look directly at him, but finding herself looking at James, who had apparently been standing right behind her.

“Oh. Hi,” she said.

“Hey, what’s up, Rika?”

“Nothing, just uh, doing the prefect thing,” she said and held up one finger to ask for a moment to finish typing. Bruno rolled his eyes. James waited patiently.

“And, sent,” Ulrykah said.

“Got it. Thanks!” the lost freshman said.

“No problem.”

“Just one more thing-” the boy asked.

Bruno let his head hang sullenly.

“I heard there’s a statue in front of the door, and I’m pretty sure it’s a stupid rumor meant to scare freshmen, I mean, I’m sure it is, I was just wondering-”

“No, the Medusa head statue outside Barlow’s office won’t turn you to stone.”

“Okay,” he said with relief. “I was just checking. I mean, I figured that wasn’t true because, you know, liability. And the part about it turning to watch you as you walk by. That’s a little over the top.”

“No, actually it does do that.”

“What?”

“Yeah, Barlow enchanted it to turn towards the nearest person. But if it bothers you, just say ‘mongoose’ and it’ll stop.”

“It’s that easy? Hunh. Cool. Thanks. Just… one more question, if that’s okay?”

“Of course,” Bruno grumbled.

“Why does he have a Medusa head statue outside his office?”

“I suspect it started out as a party trick, but he says it’s a ‘celebration of irony,’” Rika said.

“Oh,” the boy said, clearly not comprehending.

“Because it’s made of stone,” Ulrykah explained.

“So why is it irony? Iron’s metal.”

“Because-”

Bruno whinnied and snorted.

“-You know what, you should probably hurry to Barlow’s office hours before they end.”

“Oh, right. Thanks!” he said and took off running across the field.

“Look at you,” James said, “winning at being a prefect!”

“Oh, it’s nothing. I just like to be helpful when I can.”

“Do you?” Bruno asked loudly.

“That reminds me—I have a date with a microwave,” Ulrykah said, tilting her head toward Graeme Hall.

“Wouldn’t want you to miss that,” James said. “But maybe we can talk more on Friday at the party.”

“What party?”

“The one at the grove.”

“Oh, there’s a party on Friday. I can’t go… I’m on duty.”

“That sucks. I guess someone has to be.”

“Yep,” she said, and started walking toward the building, hoping he wouldn’t see how disappointed she was and think it had anything at all to do with him. James matched her stride.

“So, how did you know how to turn off the Medusa head?”

Ulrykah laughed.

“I overheard Barlow say it at the holiday party last year. I was behind the food table, and he had it sitting right in the middle, and he was standing next to it watching it creep everyone out. But then after everyone got their food, it started staring at him, so he shut it off.”

“Very stealthy—I’m impressed.”

“Oh, well, you know. It helps being small,” Ulrykah said and tried not to smile or bounce too much or make any of the squeaking noises she tended to when she was excited.

“So what are you up to?” he asked.

“Distracting myself from paper-writing. It’s just too pretty out here to be inside. You?”

“Just on my way back from a movie. Brad and I saw ‘Game Over.’”

“Oh, that’s supposed to be scary, right?” was all Ulrykah could think to say while her brain repeated, He didn’t go with a girl!

“Yeah, it’s a horror movie,” James said. “You don’t like them?”

“I’m not really into the hacking and slashing and blood and… icky stuff.”

“This one didn’t have a lot of that, at least not until the end. Mostly it was people having their minds taken over by an AI.”

“Sounds prophetic,” Ulrykah said, as movement caught her eye.

“Ha yeah, maybe,” James said.

“James,” she whispered. “Stand still a second.”

“Uh, sure, why?”

“Sh!” she said, and waited until the hoodied figure that had been walking the same direction about thirty feet to her right passed James. The hood prevented her from seeing much of his face, but the bit of profile she did catch was in full afternoon sunlight—and scaled. It wasn’t her imagination; he had smooth shiny scales, not skin. She grabbed James’s arm and started walking again, this time faster.

“Rika, what is it?”

“Okay,” she whispered, “in just a second I’m gonna ask you to turn and look over your right shoulder at the guy walking over there—not now!” she added as he instinctively started to turn his head. “We have to wait until we pass him so you can see his face ‘cause he’s wearing a hood.”

James chuckled.

“Okay, I’m game.”

“All right, casual-glance-over-your-shoulder in three, two, one, now!”

James glanced.

“Holy shit!” he whispered, touching her arm. “That guy’s a lizard person!”

“So I wasn’t imagining it!”

“Definitely not,” James said.

“That is so cool! I’ve never seen one in real life!”

“Okay, we have to calm down before he realizes we’re being total spazzes,” James said.

“Right.” Ulrykah breathed in a noseful of nippy air and blew it out slowly. James slowed their walking pace, as Ulrykah realized that somehow in their excitement, she’d ended up with her arm tucked around his—and even better, he didn’t seem to mind!

As they neared Graeme Hall, the lizard guy veered off behind one of the dorms, and James and Ulrykah discussed their theories about his secretive people. Once inside, Ulrykah headed off to the dining hall for oatmeal. She was a little bummed that James hadn’t decided to accompany her, but she couldn’t blame him for not wanting to waste a meal swipe between actual mealtimes. There wasn’t much prepared food out, as the staff was cleaning up lunch and preparing for dinner, so she grabbed a take-out salad and some granola bars along with Bruno’s oatmeal.

Back in her room, Ulrykah managed to write a couple more passable paragraphs but couldn’t quite summon the energy to complete the paper, having spent so much of it feeling sorry for herself after learning about the party. She stuffed a couple granola bars in her pocket and headed to Rav’s dorm, where she found Rav and Dan watching anime.

Dan sniffed the air.

“Is that food?” he asked. Ulrykah pulled out a granola bar and tossed it to him.

“Thanks!” he said, ate it in two bites, and burped loudly.

“That was beautiful,” Ulrykah said.

“Not my best work, I’ll admit, but not bad for a granola bar.”

Ulrykah sat on the floor, slumped against Rav’s bed and let her hopelessness seep into her expression.

“Aw, is someone sad?” Rav finally asked, after she had sighed loudly a couple times.

“Yes!” Ulrykah said, and told them her sad tale.

“And now it turns out that Morgan only switched shifts with me so she could go to the party that I hadn’t been invited to yet!”

“Bummer. Guess I won’t see you there,” Dan said.

“Dan!”

“What? I just found out about it today, too. I would have told you.”

Ulrykah sighed heavily.

“I know.”

“Maybe you can sneak away for a bit and come?” Dan asked.

“Probably not. The old dungeon stairs under Graeme Hall are on my walk list. I have no idea how long it’ll take to make it down.”

“Too bad the old tunnel is blocked off,” Dan said. “If you could take it out from the dungeon, you’d be almost halfway to the grove. It’d at least get you near the tree line.”

“It’s probably enchanted though, isn’t it? I bet sirens would go off if I tried to unlock the gate.”

“That’s likely,” Dan agreed. “Something to look into for a future event, though.”

“I guess so,” Ulrykah said. She was fairly confident she could learn how to get past it, given enough time, but wasn’t sure she wanted to, at least not to wind up at a party where there might be rule-breaking that she would be obligated to report.

“Well, what are you up to, Rav? My route might sorta take me near your dorm.”

“Oh, I won’t be here. I’ll be over in MacGregor Hall.”

“‘Kay…” She looked up at him with widening eyes. They were just starting to tear from lack of blinking when he said, “You can’t come.”

“Dammit, why not?”

“Because. Things. Reasons. Besides, you’re busy,” Rav pointed out.

“Not THAT busy, and MacGregor is close enough that could totally stop by without getting too off-schedule!”

“You’re busy being a prefect,” he hinted. She got it then.

“Why are you such a stoner?” Ulrykah complained.

“I am what I am.”

“You better not fail any classes this semester. They’ll kick you out regardless of your dad.”

“Yeahhh, I know.”

“Hey Rika, wanna come to my live action role play group this Thursday night?” Dan asked.

“Uh, sure, I think I can make time.”

“You should. There are girls there, and you need more female friends. And friends who don’t do drugs. Sorry, just saying.”

“No offense taken,” Rav said.

“I guess,” Ulrykah said, although she knew he was right. “Actually, yeah, I do. I just suck at making friends in general. Why is that?”

“Dunno,” Dan said, “but you need to suck less at it, and practice is the best way to suck less at anything.”

“I’ll give it a shot. But what do I do about Friday? James is gonna be at the party, along with lots of other girls, and I won’t be there. Or maybe he really likes me and will wait for me to be free next week?”

Dan snorted. “I told you what to do,” he said, “sneak away from your prefect snooping.”

Ulrykah looked at Rav for a more favorable response, but he had already tuned out and was watching TV again.

“I dunno, I just thought maybe James and I had a connection,” Ulrykah said.

“That’s a nice thought,” Dan said. Ulrykah gave him an annoyed eye roll before following Rav’s example and staring at the screen. She didn’t know who the characters were or why they were fighting, or why one had just sprouted an extra arm, but it was a decent distraction from the unavoidable truth that she needed her job even more than she needed a real human connection with more than two of her peers.

Friday night came, and, as much as she wanted to take Dan’s advice, Ulrykah dutifully made her rounds through the passages, hidden and otherwise, of her dorm building. She carried her wand, just in case she came upon something dangerous, something faculty and staff didn’t anticipate, but which to Ulrykah seemed perfectly possible.

Why did they make someone so small and unthreatening a prefect? Seriously, what am I going to do if I come across people doing drugs or messing with explosives—say, “Pardon me while I go report this?” They’ll probably tie me up and leave me behind a wall somewhere, at least until they hide the evidence.

She gripped her wand, partially concealed in her jacket pocket, tightly, although in a fight it would probably only help if she could manage to stick it in an assailant’s eye—but it was silly to worry about being attacked. If she came across anything actually illegal, she would probably have better luck making a deal. She did know the prefect rounds schedule and wasn’t above trading that for her life.

Okay, stop being so dramatic, she told herself as she slipped behind a wall-hanging and through the third-floor hidden passage. Uncovering a student drug cartel is very unlikely, and even if I do, I can just name-drop Rav, and if that doesn’t work, hit them with a super bright flashlight spell and run away. Yep. That’ll work. Maybe.

She ducked under a beam and whispered a spell to push the cobweb hanging from it back. Spiders were probably the worst thing she’d run into. The entire school was protected by magical wards, so it wasn’t like a serial killer could just happen to walk onto campus while she made the trek in the dark from her dorm to Graeme Hall. And, as she had almost convinced herself, the possibility of running into serious trouble with another student was very slight and manageable. There was nothing to worry about—except maybe that hydra Dan had mentioned, but surely someone would have said something if there were a monster roaming the grounds. Either way, she also carried mace.

After thoroughly checking the girls’ side of her dorm and the basement, Ulrykah dutifully headed across the lawn for Graeme Hall. Inside, the entry hall lights were dimmed. There were a couple study lounges in the building, and takeout in the dining room was still available, but she didn’t hear any activity as she headed for the stairs to what the students and even some of the professors referred to as the dungeon. It was really just a cold damp basement with stone walls, used primarily for storage. There were also a couple potions labs down there, although the better ones were in the new science building. At night, the hall to the labs and storage rooms was locked, so anyone heading down the stairs was either up to no good or a prefect.

There were small round light panels set into the outer wall that gave off just enough light to see the steps by. She took a deep breath at the top of the stairs and wondered, Why don’t they just install a door here to keep anyone from going down the stairs at all? This is so stupid.

She sighed and began her winding descent. The further she went, the fewer lights worked. After about eight full circles, she ran out of working lights, so she conjured a little ball of light that floated just above the tip of her wand. But because it was about as good an idea to walk down stairs with a wand out as with scissors, she tacked on a spell to make it float above her left shoulder instead and tucked her wand safely away.

There were some places on campus that felt undeniably haunted by restless spirits; this one felt like the murder hadn’t happened just yet. She followed her shadow down, trying to keep her footsteps quiet, even though the light orb hovering over her shoulder would give her presence away to anyone below. But maybe that was fine with her after all, since it would let anyone up to anything run away, allowing her to avoid an awkward confrontation. She wondered if she should hum something, loudly, just to make sure, but her mind was blank of familiar tunes. She let her boot heels hit the worn stone steps as loudly as they wanted to—it made her feel bigger, which made her feel braver.

It was even colder now; little trails of water had frozen on the walls and the air smelled like moss Popsicles. Ulrykah questioned the sanity of anyone using the passage below for hookups. Maybe they’d be warm for a bit, but on the way back the sweat they’d worked up would freeze. She tried to see her breath. It wasn’t quite cold enough yet, but she hadn’t reached the bottom. The steps kept coming; her thighs were both chilled and burning.

Further and further she descended, ten more steps, twenty more. Her breath came out in misty puffs, and she kept one hand on the lichen-splotched wall to guide her as she let gravity pull her down faster. She gasped as her heel caught on one of the steps and quickly shifted her feet to keep from tumbling down into the darkness. She leaned against the cold stone wall to catch her breath, drawing it in deeply, gradually slower.

And then she heard a scratching noise; from deep below, an intermittent sound of metal on metal whispered up the stairs.

What was she supposed to do? Prefects were sent down these stairs at irregular intervals to dissuade students from getting up to anything naughty at night, but what if it wasn’t a student? Or what if it was, but an upperclassman with dark inclinations?

She put her hand on the wall and quietly snuffed out the light orb. As carefully and silently as she could, she made her way down the last turn of the steps, stopping when she saw a flickering light.

“Dammit, stupid thing,” someone male said.

The light flashed around the small hall haphazardly, then settled on a far wall. Ulrykah slunk down a few more steps to get a closer look.

A hand, greenish-white in the light that shone from the wand it held, hovered near the metal door that led, not toward the labs, but into the underground passage. And, as she blinked and looked closer, she saw that it wasn’t just a hand—there was a dark sleeve attached, and presumably a body, as well. The other hand came into view, holding a large metal key that the holder was able to insert into a padlock, but not turn.

The key holder stepped back and sighed. She couldn’t run. Now that he wasn’t trying to open the lock, the hall was completely silent, and he would hear her footsteps. If he gave up and turned his light toward the stairs, he would see her. It would be better to fake being brave than to be caught off-guard, Ulrykah reasoned. She took a deep breath and said, “Need some help?” as she flicked her wand light on.

The man’s shoulders jumped, and his hand blocked the light from his eyes.

Ulrykah blinked. It hadn’t been a trick of the light—his hands really were pale and greenish. And scaled.

She aimed the light just past his head so he’d move his hand from in front of his eyes, and when he did, she realized—

“You’re a lizard person. Huh,” she said stupidly as her brain accepted that she was, in fact, in a creepy basement with a real live lizard person. Not like Dan, who claimed to be part dragon, but probably just suffered from dry skin—an actual lizard person, a being of myth and legend, like Bruno, only much less popular.

“Good eye,” he said with an edge to his tone.

“I think I saw you earlier today,” Ulrykah said. “Were you by the stables?”

“Who the hell are you?” he asked.

“A prefect. I’m supposed to be here. Are you?”

“Luckily for you, yes, I am. I work here.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, see?” he said, and unzipped his thick black hoodie to reveal a Pender Academy polo shirt.

“I’m pretty sure you can buy those at the gift shop.”

“Do you want to see my ID?”

“Actually, yes.”

He rolled his reptilian eyes and reached, she hoped, for his wallet—and it was his wallet he pulled from his pocket. She tried to exhale her relief quietly.

“Here,” he said, and handed her the card. She took a step off the stairs to grab it, then retreated backward to read it.

“Zachary Voss, Grounds and Maintenance,” she read aloud while studying the photo, his mostly-human mouth and nose, and the very reptilian brow bone. If the card hadn’t listed his department, she’d have assumed he was a student. But then, did lizard people show their age like non-lizard people did?

“And you are?” he said as she returned the card.

“Ulrykah Fletcher. Um, just call me Rika.”

“Rika. And you’re snooping around on Friday night because?”

“I told you, I’m a prefect. I’m supposed to make sure no one’s up to anything they shouldn’t be.”

“Uh huh. And if you were to stumbled upon some sort of nefarious act?”

“I haven’t figured that out yet. I mean, I went to the training, but it wasn’t actually very helpful in that area.”

“Unhelpful training,” Zachary said. “I can relate. I’m supposed to be able to open this lock with this key, but it won’t turn, and no one mentioned I should bring the WD-40,” he joked.

“There’s got to be some kind of enchantment on the lock.”

“There were several enchantments on the lock,” Zachary corrected her, “and I thought I’d undone them all, but I must have missed one.”

“Why do you need to get in there?” Ulrykah asked.

“Because the trap I set yesterday got sprung by something other than what I intended to trap.”

“Uh, what were you trying to trap?”

“Nothing,” he said.

“Really.”

“Actually, it probably is nothing, but I thought just in case, I’d better at least set a trap.”

“For…?”

Zachary licked his upper lip with a very thin tongue.

“I don’t know if you may have heard a rumor about a hydra in the woods-”

“The hydra! So it really wasn’t caught?”

“No. No one’s seen it since last year, before I started working here, but trapping monsters is one of my specialties, and probably the main reason they hired me.”

“So there’s still a hydra out there!”

“Somewhere,” Zachary said. “Hopefully no longer on school grounds, but that hasn’t been confirmed.”

“This is not good,” Ulrykah said.

“Why? What is it?”

“If there’s a chance that there’s a monster on school grounds, shouldn’t some announcement have been made?”

“Well, that would make sense, but I guess since no one’s seen it in months they decided to assume it’s gone off back to wherever it came from, to live with the bears and wolves and other potentially dangerous animals. At least until it’s hunted down.”

“But no one’s found it, and there’s a huge party happening in the woods tonight.”

“Ah, these kids… I was told that parties in the woods were against school rules because of something that happened last semester.”

“It is against the rules, very against the rules! But I didn’t report it because I don’t wanna be the queen of no fun for half the school… Of course, if I’d known there was definitely still a hydra out there, I would have said something.”

“Great,” Zachary said. “Well, now I’m gonna have to deal with breaking that party up, too. Just as soon as I can get in here and reset this trap.”

“What do you think set it off?”

“Something big enough to trigger the spell and close the gate at the other end, but small enough to squeeze through the gate after springing the trap. A really skinny coyote, maybe?”

“Okay, well, please hurry. My friend is out there! And other people, who are also important, of course,” she added quickly.

“Hold your light on the lock, please?” Ulrykah did, and Zachary tried one more disenchantment.

“Let’s see if this works,” he said, plugging the key back into the lock and turning it with a satisfying click.

“Yesss, who’s awesome?” he said.

After a too-long pause, “You, you’re super awesome,” Ulrykah chimed in. Zachary eyed her over his shoulder. “Sorry,” she said. “I don’t have great timing.”

“That’s something we can work on,” Zach said as he removed the padlock from the door and hooked it on his belt loop. “I’ll go check on the kids. Where are they?”

“It’s a place they call the Grove, down near the lake. There are a bunch of paths that lead there. If you see the Temple of Artemis, you’re too far north.”

“The what?”

“That stone gazebo thingy. It’s just a nickname. Um, if there is a hydra rampaging, maybe you should let me know so I can call for help?”

“If there’s a hydra rampaging, I’m gonna call security for help,” Zachary said.

“Right. But what if you can’t? You know, because of the rampaging hydra?”

“Fine, I’ll call you if everything’s fine, and it’s just a normal boring bacchanalian booze-fest. If I don’t call you in fifteen minutes, assume we’re all dead. Would that make you feel better?”

“Much,” Ulrykah said, and gave him her phone number.

“Okay,” he said, and handed her back her phone. “Here I go,” he added teasingly, and pulled the door open.

The tunnel beyond was, not surprisingly, dark, only dimly lit by wand light and faint moonbeams from the gate at the far end. Neither of those light sources explained the odd shimmer Ulrykah saw behind Zachary.

“Um, Zach?”

“What?”

“There’s something behind you.”

He turned back toward the tunnel just in time to see the shimmer materialize into a half-grown, five-headed hydra. Its bulk nearly filled the tunnel, and its long undulating necks lashed toward the doorway.

“Oh, shit!” he said and slammed the door on two of the hydra’s heads and one of its long-clawed feet.

“Oh my God,” Ulrykah said pulling her keys with her mace keychain from her pocket.

“RUN!” Zachary yelled. Ulrykah flipped the safety off her mace and sent a stream into the eyes and mouths of the two hydra heads. It hissed and pulled the snapping heads back, but not the foot. Zach aimed a spell at it and managed to burn off a few scales but lost ground as the beast lunged against the door.

“Since when can hydras turn invisible?” Ulrykah yelled.

“Get out of here!” Zachary yelled back as his feet slipped another few inches and the door opened wider. Two more greenish purple heads shoved their way through the opening. Zach didn’t appear strong enough to hold the door himself (Ulrykah wondered if what she’d heard about the inhuman strength of lizard people was true; now wasn’t the time to ask, though). The hydra would escape and eat him, and then catch Ulrykah before she could make it to the top of the stairs.

“Close your eyes!” she yelled.

She pointed her wand at one set of yellow eyes and screamed the light spell. It came out in such a bright blast that even she had to squint against it. The hydra screeched and reeled backward; Zach pushed the door shut.

“Grab the lock!” he said. Ulrykah rushed over and pulled the padlock from his belt. The hydra beat against the door, pushing the latch out of alignment.

“It won’t line up!”

Zachary pushed back harder, and for a brief moment, the metal pieces on the door and wall aligned. Ulrykah slammed the lock in and clicked it, tearing off the end of one of her thumbnails on the stone doorframe.

“Got it!” she yelled.

Zach slowly stepped away from the door.

“Okay. Good job, team.”

They both jumped as the hydra thudded against the door.

“Let’s go,” Zach said and reached for Ulrykah’s hand. She took it; it didn’t feel as odd as she had thought it might.

SKREEEEEEEECH!!

Ulrykah flinched as the sound of ripping metal assaulted their ears. They looked back to see one of the hinges pop off and fall to the floor.

“Got any tricks up your sleeve?” Ulrykah asked as she pulled her phone out to dial the campus emergency number. The campus sentinels would be able to handle a hydra, and they might even arrive in time to save them.

“Maybe,” Zachary said, a muttered a spell at his wand. A reddish light came out of it, but instead of shining like a flashlight, it created the outline of a trapezoid, about a foot long.

“What is that?”

“A knife. You really should run now.”

Ulrykah considered it as the operator came on the line, but there were so many steps, and she’d been winded just walking down them.

“What’s your emergency?”

“There’s a hydra in the dungeon tunnel under Graeme Hall.”

“Repeat that, please?”

“A F------ HYDRA!” she yelled. Then, to Zach, she squeaked out, “I don’t think you can kill it with just that.”

“I’m not so sure about that myself,” Zachary said, though most of his response was drowned out by another screech of the hydra’s claws against the door.

“Are you safe?” the operator asked.

“Not for long. I can’t outrun it,” Ulrykah said. “Definitely not up like two hundred steps.”

“Give me your wand,” Zach said.

She did, and Zach cast a light orb and sent it into the air above them, and then cast the same spell he’d used on his own wand. Her blade glowed green.

“We’ll have someone down there in a few minutes.”

“I don’t think we have many minutes.” She ignored the operator as she told Ulrykah to remain calm, et cetera, and waved her light knife through the air.

“Can you get to a safe location?” the operator asked.

“That’s weird, since you’re the green one, and I’m the red one,” Ulrykah said to Zachary, who gave a tight smile in response.

“I need you to stay on the line—” the operator said.

Another hinge popped off.

“I need to put my phone down.” Ulrykah slid her cellphone into her back pocket and retrieved her mace from her jacket. She held her wand blade tightly in the other hand.

“Stand behind me,” Zachary said.

“Okay.” Ulrykah sniffed and blinked against the tears forming in her eyes.

Stop that! I need to be able to see.

“Miss, are you there?” asked the muffled voice from her pocket.

The door began to bend outwards from the top.

“Come on, gimme a clear shot,” Ulrykah said, squeezing her weapons to keep her hands from shaking.

A long neck thrust out as a forepaw crushed the door further. Ulrykah maced the eyes. Zach ducked and swiped upward beneath it with his knife; violet blood sprayed over him, and the neck went limp.

“Look out!” Ulrykah cried as a second and third neck darted forward. Zach leapt to one side, and Ulrykah ran back up a few steps.

“Son of a bitch!” Zach yelled and sliced into a face—one that had nearly taken a chunk out of his bleeding forearm. Ulrykah cursed her cowardice and sprayed both heads, then praised her instincts as the other head lunged, snapping at her—but couldn’t quite reach; the monster strained against the metal, but its body was still trapped in the tunnel. When it lunged a second time, shrieking hideously, she kicked its underside with the toe of her boot sending it upward and back. Zach, having dispatched the head that had injured him, raced to her side in time for the third strike and sliced the head nearly off.

They only had time to take a breath before the door was finally ripped free, and the now-two-headed and fully-clawed beast tore into the hall. These eyes were barely open—likely they were the ones Ulrykah had sprayed before, but she had no way of knowing how much its eyesight was now impaired. It didn’t have any trouble finding them, as the two remaining heads came straight at them, likely guided by the smell of Zachary’s blood. They ducked, and she lost her balance, rolling down the few steps to the floor, safely away from the mouths but not the feet. She skidded to the darkest corner of the hall near the locked door to the labs. If only she had the key! But getting in there would be impossible. The only way to run would be straight past the hydra’s body and down the tunnel, and then maybe squeeze through the gate. She was tiny—it might be possible and a better option than getting cornered in the cramped hall as the monster advanced.

Zach was yelling a string a curses—she didn’t stop to look back as she launched herself over the remains of the door and past a rear leg. She slid to a stop, spun around, and jammed her blade into the foot, slicing off three of its toes. The blade cut easily and cleanly. The monster tucked its damaged foot under its body and swung its tail. Ulrykah leapt over it but was trapped against the wall as it swung back. She angled her blade down and away from her body, catching the tail as it pinned her against the wall. She coughed against the feeling of having about half the air knocked out of her lungs, ignored the burning in her shoulder where it had hit the wall, and held the knife firm—the harder the monster pressed, the further the knife cut, until it had sliced the tail clean off. Now free of its weight, Ulrykah leapt away, but not before the undamaged back foot struck her, slicing open her jeans and her skin below her left knee. She hobbled backward, screaming,

“ZACH! ZAAACH!”

She only noticed that the beast’s body had gone limp when she saw Zachary leap over it and run to her side. She had been leaning against a wall to stay upright, slowly sliding downward as her usable leg gave way to nerves.

“Oh man, I’m so glad you’re not dead,” Zach said, crouching beside her. “I thought it had gotten you.”

“You thought I was gonna let some sewer lizard get me?” she choked out through her tears.

“Hydras are no joke,” he said for something to say as he examined her leg through the rips in her blood-soaked jeans.

“No shit? Okay, granted, if you hadn’t been here, it might have a little trickier…” she said to distract herself from fear of how serious her injury might be.

Zach tilted his head forward and raised his scaled brows.

“Really?”

Ulrykah gave half a shrug but then met his gaze and tried to smile as her leg throbbed.

“How bad is it?” she asked.

“I don’t see any bone, and it’s not spraying blood everywhere, so I don’t think it’s that deep, but we’ll let the experts take a look when they get here,” he said, pulling off his sweatshirt and turning it inside out. “How do you feel? Any tunnel vision?”

“Very funny.”

“No, really,” he said, pressing the soft fleece against her wound and tying the arms to keep it on. “Do you feel like you’re going to pass out?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

“Good. Breathe deeply, okay?”

Ulrykah nodded and followed his directions, trying not to imagine what her leg must look like.

“Thanks for not letting it kill me. That would have sucked,” she said, leaning into his personal space and wrapping her arms around his torso. He put his free arm lightly around her and patted her hair.

“Out of the frying pan, into the fire,” he muttered.

Ulrykah pulled back just enough to look into his yellow eyes.

“I may not be able to walk, but I still have plenty of energy left, so if it’s gonna turn out that you’re a bad lizard man, just let me know, and I’ll kick your ass now.”

Zach blinked; a filmy membrane receded from his eyeballs just after his eyelids.

“Ew, that’s weird,” Ulrykah exclaimed. “I mean, weird interesting, I mean… I’m sorry, that was rude. I blame blood loss.”

He chuckled.

“Well, you’re not spurting blood, but the eyelid thing is usually to a shock to most people at first. Great party trick, though. Kids love it.”

“Is that how you get the kids into your creepy van?”

“Okay, that frying-pan-fire thing was a joke—a bad one, it’s just, you know, the hydra’s a lizard, I’m a lizard… people are usually creeped out by the lizard thing, so I just turn it into a joke… never mind.”

“I don’t think it’s creepy, as long as you’re not a creep.”

“Definitely not a creep,” he said.

“Good. What does your tongue look like?” she asked to distract herself from the pain—and because she hadn’t gotten a good look at it earlier and was genuinely curious.

“What?” he said, his lip curling a bit in either annoyance or confusion—Ulrykah couldn’t tell which.

“Okay, you can’t say you do the eyelid thing to make kids laugh and then get offended when I ask about your tongue.”

“Oh, really?” he said, now smiling.

“Really—it’s a rule.”

He stuck his thin, slightly pointed but otherwise very human looking tongue out a couple inches and waggled it at her.

“It’s pretty normal,” he said. “Although, I do have the ability to appreciate the unique flavor palate of horse flies.”

“Okay, I still can’t tell when you’re joking, so please tell me you are.”

“Totally joking,” he said through a laugh. “Oh, your face just then was great!”

Now Ulrykah stuck her tongue out—and quickly pulled it back in as he leaned down to look her in the eyes. They were still very close, arms lightly resting on each other’s backs.

Is it weird that we’re still kind of hugging? Ulrykah wondered. And does he like hugging me because I’m a girl, or because he’s cold-blooded?

“Hello?” came the muffled voice from her pocket.

“Oh yeah,” Ulrykah said, and pulled her phone out. “We’re still here,” she told the operator. “We’re both alive, but we’re kind of bleeding, and hey, you bleed red, too! It just occurred to me—What? No, they’re just flesh wounds. Sorry, I may be going into shock…”

“I’m so behind,” Ulrykah whined, sinking further into the pillows piled up on her bed between her back and the rough stone wall and trying not to move her leg, which, after a couple days of magical ministrations, was healing well, but still sensitive.

“Stop that,” Rav said from his seat on her absent roommate’s bed, where he was flipping through Michelle’s philosophy textbook. “You got extensions on everything.”

“Yeah, and if you need another, all you have to do it look at your professors with big sad PTSD eyes and ask for another,” Dan pointed out.

“I guess so,” Ulrykah said.

“I guess so,” Rav teased.

“So, I’ve been avoiding telling you this while you were in the infirmary,” Dan said, “but James was making out with some girl at that party… and they’re dating now.”

Ulrykah leaned her head against the wall and whined.

“If only the hydra had attacked the party,” she said.

“Hey!” Dan exclaimed. “I was there, too, remember?”

“I didn’t mean that, obviously,” Ulrykah said, “and I don’t even think I mind that much. It’s just disappointing because when you were hoping someone actually cared that you exist, and then it turns out that they mostly don’t… you know. It’s whatever.”

“So what’s the deal with the groundskeeper?” Dan asked through a mouthful of Doritos.

“Oh, well, he’s actually super cute and nice, and he visited me in the infirmary… but he’s an employee, so, even if he does like me, which I can never actually tell, that would be kind of against the rules for him.”

“Rules shmules,” Rav said.

“Actually, if he broke that one, he could get fired,” Ulrykah said. “And it’s really hard for lizard people to find employment, despite that whole ‘lizard people secretly rule the world’ thing. Turns out that’s just a rumor.”

“Or that’s what he wants you to think,” Dan said. Ulrykah shrugged. Talking kind of hurt her head, so she didn’t feel like arguing, even playfully.

“Hey, Rika?” someone said. Ulrykah looked past Dan to see her roommate, Michelle, standing in the doorway. Rav slowly closed the book and set it back on the bed.

“Uh, hey, what’s up?” Ulrykah said.

“I brought you my spellwriting notes,” she said, and handed Ulrykah several sheets of paper. “I like to write them by hand because it’s easier to draw the tridecagrams. I hope it’s legible.”

Ulrykah glanced over the notes, not because she was especially concerned about being able to decipher them, but because that was the most Michelle had spoken to her at once all semester, and she didn’t want to stare awkwardly until she could get herself to respond politely. Michelle had never been mean, she had just seemed like she couldn’t be bothered—until now.

“Yeah, they look great. Thanks,” Ulrykah said.

“Good! Um, so, we’re gonna be watching ‘Bridesmaids’ tonight in the lounge if you wanna come… around seven?”

“Um, yeah, sure, I’ll be there.”

“Great, see you then!” Michelle said and seemed ready to disappear again, when she stopped, looked at her bed, looked at Rav, who waved sheepishly, and grabbed her calculus book, before making a quick exit.

Rav reopened Michelle’s philosophy book.

“Look at you,” he said. “You put good energy out, you get it back.”

“I killed a hydra. Is that putting out positive energy?” Ulrykah asked.

“People usually feel like not getting killed by a hydra is positive, so… I guess?” Dan said.

“At least I didn’t have to go out of my way to get people to like me, or anything,” Ulrykah said. Dan smiled and reached for the TV remote.

“So, One Piece or One Punch Man?” he asked.

“Sailor Moon?” Ulrykah suggested.

“One Punch Man it is,” Rav said.

“Hey, I killed a hydra!” Ulrykah complained.

“Yeah, I’ve heard that one before,” Dan said.

A twinkling noise from Ulrykah’s phone was just audible above the sound of the TV—it was a text from Zach:

Hey, how are you feeling?

Ulrykah suppressed a grin as she texted back:

Pretty good, actually.

A native Texan, Audrey Andrews is an author and editor who presently makes her rent by herding cats with PhDs.  She holds a BA in English from Rutgers University, and an EdM in ESL education from the Rutgers Graduate School of Education.

Nannette’s Tale

A Schooled in Magic story, set directly after The School of Hard Knocks.

During Emily’s second year at Whitehall, depicted in Study in Slaughter, she shared a room with Lin, a mousy girl who was later revealed to be a spy from Mountaintop School. When Emily herself travelled to Mountaintop, the Head Girl - Nanette - was eventually revealed to be Lin, an agent of the enigmatic Aurelius. Nanette attempted to stop Emily from interfering with Aurelius’s plans, only to find herself holding a Death Viper. Emily saved her life, but had to leave her foe behind. Wounded, on the verge of death, Nanette fled Mountaintop ...

... Unaware that, as she tried to find shelter, she might encounter someone worse.

Nannette’s Tale

In hindsight, the memories mocked her.

Nanette had been sixteen - barely sixteen - when she’d met Aurelius for the first time. The Administrator rarely had time for first-year students, particularly those of no good family. It wasn’t until she found herself in his office, staring expulsion right in the face, that she’d had a chance to study him for the first time. He was a man of power, a man so sure in his own power that he had no need to play dominance games with anyone. And part of her wanted that for herself.

And so she squared her shoulders, looked him right in the eye, and told him the truth.

“She treated me badly, sir,” she said, when Aurelius pointed out that her former mistress was currently in the infirmary. “And I wanted to get her off my back.”

Aurelius raised his eyebrows. “And how did you do it?”

Nanette stumbled through a complex explanation. Ophelia - the girl who’d been supposed to mentor Nanette, in exchange for service - had been fond of pinching her at the slightest excuse. Nanette had put together a spell that not only transferred the pain to the older girl, but magnified it. Ophelia had pinched Nanette’s upper arm, hard enough to leave bruises. Ophelia must have felt as if her arm had been caught in a pressure spell.

“Fascinating,” Aurelius said, when she had finished. “And where did you learn to cast such a complex spell?”

“The library,” Nanette said. The spell had really been a mixture of charms and potions. It had been the only way she’d been able to attach it to the older girl. “I put it together.”

“I see.” Aurelius said nothing for a long moment. “Can you give me any reason why you should not be expelled?”

“We were told the system was meant to teach us the skills we needed for later life,” Nanette said. She was tempted to plead, but her instincts told her she’d get nowhere. “I’d say it succeeded.”

“Indeed,” Aurelius said. He cocked his head. “I will take you as my ward. You will work for me as you learn from me.”

Nanette had wondered, even then, if he’d wanted something more. She was no sheltered flower, no well-connected girl whose family would protect her if an unsuitable suitor came calling. And Aurelius was a powerful man, used to taking whatever he wanted. But - to her early surprise - he’d kept his word. He’d taken her under his wing, he’d spent the summers teaching her everything from etiquette to spells that would have upset many older magicians if they’d realised she knew them ... he’d been, in many ways, the paternal figure she’d wanted since her father had died. Not, she admitted, that he’d gone easy on her. He was a stern tutor, quick to correct her when she made mistakes. But he was fair.

She’d grown to trust him. She’d even grown to love him. And then ...

The memories rose up within her, mocking her. She’d gone to Whitehall, posing as a transfer student. It had been easy. She knew how to remain unnoticed, how to hide within the shadows and social conventions; she knew how to ensure she remained unsuspected, even as she collected the intelligence she’d been ordered to obtain. And she’d found it easy to watch Whitehall’s most famous student from a distance. She’d almost been unhappy when her cover had finally been blown and she’d been forced to flee.

She felt hatred curling around her heart as the memories flowed through her mind. Aurelius had wanted to bring Emily to Mountaintop, explaining that she could be converted to their cause. And he’d taken her as a protégé ... Nanette had been angry, hating the younger girl for taking her place. She’d followed orders, even as matters started to spiral out of control; she’d held her tongue, even when she could have put a knife in the Child of Destiny’s back. And, when she’d finally stood revealed in front of the younger girl, Emily had thrown a Death Viper at her. Nanette still couldn’t believe it. If she hadn’t touched the snake ...

The memories of pain were too strong. She cringed, trying not to remember the tendrils of ice and fire burning through her veins. Her hand was gone, and her arm was going, and she was doomed ... Emily, the girl who’d killed her, had saved her by cutting off her arm before hurrying onwards to meet her destiny. Nanette wasn’t sure quite what had happened then, as she’d stumbled out of the school. She hadn’t realised Aurelius was dead - and the school was no longer a safe haven - until it was far too late. She’d turned her back and fled, knowing she had nowhere to go. She’d staked everything on her tutor ...

... And now she was crippled, broken, on the run and alone.

1

Magicians, Aurelius had said, were superior beings.

Nanette didn’t feel very superior as she staggered up the dingy stairs to her even dingier room. Her arm - her stump - ached, no matter how many spells she cast to dull the pain. Her magic felt weak, as if it was collapsing . The bumps and bruises she’d picked up during her escape from Mountaintop hadn’t healed, even though it had been a week since she’d fled the school. And her skin felt unclean where the alleyrat had grabbed her. Once, it would have been easy to turn him into a slug and step on him. Now, the effort of merely casting the spell had nearly killed her. She wasn’t sure if she’d managed to kill him.

And the landlord is just biding his time, she thought savagely, as she stumbled through the door and slammed it. She’d seen the way the bastard looked at her, when she’d taken a room at the inn. It’s just a matter of time until he does something stupid.

She forced herself to keep moving until she collapsed in front of the bed. Her bag hit the floor, hard enough to break one of the jars. She heard the crack, but felt too drained to do anything about it before the liquid stained the floorboards. The landlord would throw a fit about that, she was sure. He’d demand she pay for it. And she had no idea how she was going to pay him. She had the skills to steal whatever she wanted - if she couldn’t get honest work - but she didn’t have the magic. Anyone who wanted to hire her wouldn’t be doing it out of the goodness of his heart.

Her heart started to beat, erratically, as she leaned against the wooden frame. She wasn’t sure how she’d managed to escape the school, let alone reach Dragon’s Den. Her memories were a blur, lost behind pain and delirium. She’d teleported, of course, but how? Aurelius had made her practice, time and time again, when she’d infiltrated Whitehall. Perhaps the lessons had taken better than she’d thought. Dragon’s Den was hundreds of miles from Mountaintop. It was safe, for the moment. The searchers wouldn’t think to look for her there.

They might find my body, she thought, numbly. I can’t go on like this.

She felt helpless, bitter ... alone. She’d always been able to rely on Aurelius. Her mentor had taught her everything, from magics that were rarely shared with students to how to be a social chameleon. Nanette knew she had the skills to make something of herself if she survived the next few days. But she knew it was unlikely. The Death Viper had wounded her. It would have killed her, if Emily hadn’t saved her life. Nanette stared down at the stump, wondering if death would have been preferable. She knew what cripples could expect, in cold and merciless towns. Emily might have saved her only to damn her to a lingering death.

Cold hatred twisted in her heart. Her mentor was dead. He’d been a father to her - he’d meant the world to her - and now he was dead. And Emily ... the Child of Destiny had gone back to Whitehall, leaving Mountaintop a smoking ruin. Perhaps that was why the searchers hadn’t tracked her down. Perhaps they were too busy saving what they could from the ruins. Or perhaps they simply didn’t care. Maybe she’d never been truly important. Maybe they hadn’t even realised she was missing.

She closed her eyes. It was futile, utterly futile. She could neither beg nor borrow nor steal the potions - or ingredients - she needed to heal. She could no more convince a local brewer to prepare them for her than she could talk her way out of trouble when the searchers finally caught up with her. And she could still feel the poison within her. Her magic was steadily weakening. It was only a matter of time before she became truly defenceless. The landlord would have his fun, then throw her into the alley to die.

Perhaps it would have been better not to rise so high, she thought, grimly. I would not have known there was so far to fall.

Something moved, behind her. “Hello.”

Nanette tensed, trying to spin around. Her body failed her and she wound up a crumpled heap, staring at the man sitting on the rickety wooden chair. It was the landlord ... no, it wasn’t. The man wore a hooded cloak, his face shrouded in a glamour that made it hard to see. A long, iron-tipped staff rested in his hand. She couldn’t muster the magic to peer through the spell, but she suspected it didn’t matter. The searchers had found her. It was over.

“You look a mess,” the stranger said. She wondered, insanely, if he wasn’t a searcher, as if he’d merely caught a sniff of a strange visitor and come to investigate. “What happened to you?”

“None of your business,” Nanette managed, somehow. Her voice sounded weak and feeble, even to her. “Who are you?”

“Call me Cloak,” the man said. “How did you get here?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Nanette said. She could feel the poison rushing through her blood, inching towards her heart. “Go away.”

“You’re dying,” Cloak said. “Do you really want me to go away?”

Nanette didn’t even have the strength to glare. He wasn’t going to help. A hundred ideas ran through her mind, ideas she might be able to use to convince him, but ... most of them were useless. And the ones that weren’t were almost worse. She had sacrificed so much in the last few days. She wasn’t going to sacrifice her dignity too.

Cloak stood, picked up her bag and started to unload it onto the bed. “You broke a jar of ointment,” he observed. “You’re lucky it didn’t have the chance to mingle with the powdered rhino horn.”

“Go away,” Nanette said. If he wanted to rob her ... she didn’t care any longer. Her entire body was growing numb. She knew she should be concerned, but ... it was hard to muster the feeling. “I don’t ...”

“I can help you,” Cloak said. “In exchange, I need you to perform a task for me. And, if you complete it to my satisfaction, I’ll give you a permanent job.”

“Hah,” Nanette mumbled. She knew she should ask more questions, demand to know the details before she committed herself, but she was dying. And she wanted very much, despite everything, to live. “Fine.”

Cloak knelt down, placed his hand under her chin and lifted her head so she was staring into his shrouded eyes. “Do you accept my offer?”

“Yes.” Nanette hoped she hadn’t made a mistake. “I do.”

“Good.” Cloak removed a glass vial from a hidden pocket, popped it open and held it to her lips. “Drink this.”

Nanette obeyed. The liquid tasted warm and sunny, bringing back memories of a childhood that had been spent in a fatherless home. She felt magic trickling through her, a wave of warmth that banished the numbness. Her entire body shook and started to sweat. A ghostly sensation nearly overwhelmed her, a suggestion that her missing hand was still there. Tears prickled at the corner of her eyes as she forced herself to sit up. She suddenly felt like running and jumping and dancing and ...

Cloak caught her arm, just in time to keep her from falling. “Sit down on the bed and wait,” he advised. “It takes some time for the potion to run its course. And then we’ll have to do something about your arm.”

“You can regrow my arm?” Nanette knew it was possible, but it wasn’t cheap. A merchant would have to work for years to scrape together the funds. There was no way her family could have afforded it, in the days before Aurelius had taken her under his wing. “I ...”

“There are a few healers who won’t ask inconvenient questions,” Cloak said. She thought she saw him smile, beneath the glamour, but it was hard to be sure. “I’ll take you to one of them.”

“Thanks.” Nanette felt woozy, as if she’d drunk something she really shouldn’t. “I ... what did you give me?”

“A very special potion, devised to counteract Death Viper venom,” Cloak said. “Thank you for giving me the chance to test it.”

Nanette stared at him. “You didn’t know if it would work?”

Cloak snorted. “How many people do you know who managed to touch a Death Viper and live to tell the tale?”

“Touché,” Nanette muttered, sourly. She could have saved her own life, if she’d thought to cut off her wrist, but the pain had banished all rational thought. It was quite possible she was the only living survivor in recent memory. And she’d only survived because someone had acted to save her. “I ... I take your point.”

She forced herself to focus as sweat poured down her back. Her magic felt weak, but slowly starting to recover. She felt tired, maybe even exhausted, but not as if she was on the verge of death. Her body still ached, but ... she felt stronger than she’d felt in days. The urge to get up and move was fading, yet ... she knew she could get up. It was just a matter of time before she recovered most of her former abilities. And then ...

Making that potion couldn’t have been easy, Nanette thought, grimly. It would have cost him badly. And he’ll want something of equal value in exchange.

She studied him, carefully. “What do you want me to do for you?”

“I want you to steal a book for me,” Cloak said. “Does that answer your question?”

Nanette nearly laughed a bitter laugh. Of course he wanted something illegal, something that would get them both in real trouble if they were caught. She was already in trouble. Emily would have made a report, damn the girl. There was no longer any mystery who’d played Lin, who’d pretended to be transfer student long enough to spy on the Child of Destiny. Lin had been a mask, one she’d discarded when she’d left Whitehall; Nanette was her real name. There was no way she could go home or resume a normal life. The searchers would be looking for her.

“A book,” she repeated. It would be something dark, she was sure. Probably one on the Proscribed Index. Aurelius had had quite a collection, some of which she’d read. There were books that could get someone in real trouble, if they so much as glanced at the bloodstained cover. “Which book? And where?”

“Lamplighter’s Lines,” Cloak said. “And the copy I want is at Laughter.”

Nanette blinked. Lamplighter’s Lines was restricted, but it wasn’t that restricted. It wasn’t Malice, or Chanson’s Charms, or Midsummer Murders, or anything else that might be understandably regarded with fear and horror. A student could read Lamplighter’s Lines, if they convinced the librarian they had a legitimate reason. She’d read it herself. The spells were dubious, but they were hardly dark. And many of them were outdated.

“I don’t understand,” she admitted. “You want me to steal a book you could consult anywhere?”

“The original owner of that copy wrote notes in the margins,” Cloak explained. “I want those notes.”

“I see, I think,” Nanette said. She was in no place to argue. “And you want the copy at Laughter?”

She frowned. She’d heard all the stories, particularly the ones whispered in the dorms after Lights Out, but ... she’d never actually visited the school. She was fairly sure most of the horror stories were exaggerated, if only because it was hard to believe anyone would actually send their children to such a school if it truly was that horrid. Mountaintop had its flaws - had had its flaws, if Emily had truly destroyed the school - but it wasn’t that bad. One just had to learn to manipulate the system to one’s own advantage. And some of the whispers she’d heard about her alma mater had been insane. The teachers did not perform blood rites when the students were asleep, nor did they sacrifice firsties to dark gods.

“Yes,” Cloak said, patiently. “And I want it quickly.”

Nanette rubbed clammy sweat from her brow and forced herself to think. It wasn’t easy to get into a magic school. Sure, she could pretend to be a transfer student again, but last time she’d had Aurelius filing the paperwork well in advance. Lin had had a solid paper trail when she’d entered Whitehall. Someone would ask questions if she just appeared out of nowhere. She could replace another student, but it would be tricky. Even an unpopular student would be hard to replace, if only because of the number of people who’d met her. The slightest mistake might expose the deception, leaving her in enemy territory with little hope of escape. She could set up a paper trail herself, but it would take time. Her new persona would have to enter next year, as a completely new student. She didn’t think she had the time.

“I don’t think I could crack the defences,” she said, slowly. Sneaking into the school might be doable, but not quickly. “They’d have to have a reason to accept me.”

“One month from today, Princess” - the sneer in Cloak’s voice suggested it was nothing more than an affection - “Nadine of Hightower will be joining the student body. You can take her place, if you cannot come up with a better idea.”

Nanette’s eyes narrowed. “Why her?”

Cloak didn’t seem annoyed by her question. He merely shrugged.

“The young lady is apparently quite unpleasant,” Cloak said. “She is, for better or worse, the natural-born daughter of Hedrick Harkness. Baron Harkness, after he was ... encouraged to marry Baroness Lillian Harkness of Zangaria. The man is ... how shall I put it? A milksop wimp. King Randor was unwise to expect him to keep his unwanted wife under control.”

“Of Zangaria,” Nanette said. A wash of hatred flashed through her. “Emily’s country.”

“Indeed,” Cloak said. “Nadine was kept in an isolated castle with her mother and a handful of servants. She does indeed have a strong talent, but she was ... prevented ... from applying to Whitehall or Mountaintop. It is only recently that she was able to convince her father to petition the king to let her apply to other schools. Laughter was the only one that agreed to take her, after a fairly considerable bribe. I believe it was that - and that alone - that convinced them to accept her in the middle of term.”

“Which is never a pleasant experience,” Nanette said. A girl who entered school on the same day as a bunch of strangers had an excellent chance of making friends. A girl who entered late would discover that all the friendships had been made before she arrived - and there was no room for her. “Should I feel sorry for her?”

“If you like,” Cloak said. He made an impatient gesture with one pale hand. “The important point is that no one at the school has met her.”

Nanette nodded in understanding. She wouldn’t jar someone’s preconceptions if they had no preconceptions. “How long have you been planning this?”

“I had someone else in mind,” Cloak said. “But you represent a better option. You have the skills and experience to pull the mission off without a hitch.”

And I’m expendable, Nanette added, silently. He won’t regret my death.

“I understand,” she said. “How do you intend for me to get the book out of the library?”

“I’ll give you a replacement copy,” Cloak said. “And teach you how to transfer the security charms to a new book. They won’t realise the original book has been stolen because, as far as they’ll be able to tell, they’ll still have it.”

“Clever,” Nanette said. She’d have to practice the spells repeatedly. And spend time thinking through all the possible contingences. And memorise everything she could about Nadine. And get used to thinking of herself by another name. “You seem to have all the answers. What now?”

“Now you wash, you change and you come with me,” Cloak said. He passed her a simple apprentice’s robe, something that would go unnoticed in any major town or city. “Unless you particularly want to remain here.”

“No, thank you,” Nanette said. She stood. Her legs felt steady, as if she hadn’t been at death’s door. Sweat trickled down her back. “Would you mind waiting outside?”

Cloak nodded and left the room. Nanette watched him go, wondering who he truly was. He’d known who she was, he’d known where to find her ... who was he? It wasn’t as if she’d had a plan to flee to Dragon’s Den. And yet ... she stood, forcing herself to undress carefully before wiping herself down and donning the robe. The sooner she got her hand regrown, the better. She’d never really felt sorry for the cripples she’d seen on the streets before there’d been a very real prospect of joining them.

She brushed her hair back, then stepped outside and cast a pair of charms on the door. The landlord would be in for a shock, when he tried to sneak into her room. The spells wouldn’t last forever - she didn’t have the magic to make them last, not yet - but a few weeks as a pig would teach him a lesson about creeping on vulnerable young girls. Cloak watched her, saying nothing. She couldn’t tell if he approved or not. Aurelius would have approved. It was the job of a superior to chastise one’s inferiors.

“Take my hand,” Cloak ordered.

Nanette obeyed. A moment later, they were somewhere else.

2

A month later, Nanette stood on the outskirts of Pendle, watching the regal-looking coach sweep into town.

It hadn’t been a wasted month, for all the frustrations of having her wrist and hand steadily regrown while she swotted extensively. She’d studied the life and times of Nadine of Hightower, memorised family details that were of little interest to anyone outside the dedicated snob - a type she knew well from Mountaintop - and read the candid reports from servants who’d left Nadine’s household. The girl’s mother seemed incapable of keeping servants for long. The reports made it clear that few experienced servants with good characters wanted to stay in her household. Nanette didn’t blame them.

Cloak really was planning this for a long time, she thought, as she turned and followed the coach into Pendle. Who did he have in mind for the job?

She put the thought out of her mind and walked through the streets. Pendle was a nice town, if a little odd. The vast majority of the businesses were run by women, even the ones that were traditionally male-dominated. The young men appeared nice enough - certainly nicer than the boys she’d known at school - but it seemed most of them moved away as soon as they came of age. And a number had weird little pimples on their faces that suggested they’d been hexed at some point. She found it weird. Anyone powerful enough to hex someone with permanent pimples could certainly do a great deal worse.

The long-stay inn was the largest building in town, the largest she’d seen outside the magical or aristocratic communities. She ambled closer, just in time to see Nadine step out of the coach and walk towards the door with her nose firmly in the air. The girl was twenty, only a year younger than Nanette, but she managed to look much younger. She was classically pretty, with long blonde hair that reminded Nanette of Princess Alassa, yet there was no real character to her face. Her servants looked beaten down, as if the will to live had steadily been sapped from them out of them. The slave collars around their throats made sure of it. Nanette felt a pang of sympathy. If she’d had any qualms about replacing the little brat, they’d long since vanished.

She waited until the coach was driven away before slipping closer to the inn and casually walking through the front door. The building was not heavily protected, despite its importance to the community. Really important guests went to the school’s guesthouse, not the inn. Nadine wanted to keep her servants close, Nanette had been told. It struck her as a waste of money, but what did she know? She wasn’t an aristocratic bitch. She wasn’t someone who had to put on a show of wealth and power even if she didn’t have two coins to rub together. She’d met too many of them too.

The wards buzzed around her as she walked up the stairs, easily deflected with a handful of comforting lies. Nanette was surprised the innkeeper hadn’t asked the school’s mistresses to improve his wards, although she thought she understood the logic. The school was a political force in its own right, one that had vast influence beyond its walls. It would be very tempted to spy on guests, particularly ones who might not be well-disposed towards the school. She’d watched Aurelius play the game long enough to know that simple human decency went out the window when there was power and influence to be won.

She checked her knapsack before wrapping a glamour around herself and stepping onto the upper corridor. The uppermost floor had been entirely reserved for Nadine and her servants, at great expense. It was more space than she’d have at Laughter, certainly more space than Nanette had ever had at Mountaintop. Nadine was showing off her wealth in a manner that Nanette couldn’t help but find tasteless. Her father might be a baron - through marriage - but he wasn’t made of money. His wife would probably be looking for an excuse to cut his unwanted daughter off. It was what Nanette would have done.

The thought made her grimace as she walked down to the door and paused outside. Someone was shouting inside, barking orders in a manner that sent ice down Nanette’s spine. Nadine, she assumed. No one else would dare talk like that in the princess’s suite. Nadine might not be a real princess, but she certainly had the spoilt brat act down pat. Nanette wondered, as she tapped on the door, if Nadine had taken lessons from Princess Alassa. By all accounts, Zangaria’s princess had been a brat until she’d run headlong into Emily and lost. Nanette wondered, idly, how they’d become friends. They seemed to have very little in common. Nanette loathed Emily, but even she had to admit the girl was a powerful and skilled magician. She’d beaten a necromancer in single combat.

She readied herself, preparing a spell. The door rattled, then opened. A maid, her pale face marred with an unsightly bruise, stared at Nanette in confusion. The glamour made Nanette look like Nadine. Nanette didn’t give her time to realise her charge was in two places at once. She cast a freeze spell, locking the maid in place, then pushed her out the way and looked around the room. Three more maids gaped at her before they were frozen too. Nanette pushed the door shut behind her as a loud voice echoed through the air. Nadine had heard the door.

“Who’s that?” Nadine sounded haughty, very much like Alassa. “Tell them to wait for ...”

Nanette strode over to the washroom and looked inside. Nadine was standing in front of the mirror, admiring herself. She turned as Nanette entered, one hand raised to deliver a slap ... and froze as she came face-to-face with herself. Nanette laughed at her visible confusion, then cast the dominance spell. Nadine’s face went slack, hands falling to her side as she waited for orders. Nanette smiled coldly as she checked the rest of the suite. Nadine had some training in magic, but it clearly hadn’t been as intensive as hers. Aurelius had cast hundreds of mind control spells on her until she’d learnt to fight them off.

“Well,” she said. “How many servants do you have?”

“Four maids, three coachmen,” Nadine said. There was no hint of resistance in her dull voice. Her free will had been snuffed out by the spell. “The coachmen are staying in the backhouse.”

Can’t have them sharing a suite with the maids, Nanette thought, dryly. Who knows what they’d get up to?

She ran through a dozen questions, trying to fill in the blanks in her knowledge, before moving to the next stage of the plan. Nadine really was a piece of work. She had about as much self-awareness as a flea. It never seemed to have occurred to her that she was going into a completely new and different environment, where her fellow students would be her equals in magic. Or that her father might have sent her away deliberately. Or that ... or that there was something wrong in constantly casting spells on her servants. Nanette rather doubted any of them were loyal enough to stay, if their collars were removed. She would have put a knife in the little brat rather than listen to her voice for a second longer.

And I’m going to have to act like her, Nanette thought. She cringed, inwardly. Nadine would’ve been in real trouble if she’d gone to Mountaintop. Her attitude would make her a pariah, the butt of all the jokes and the targets of all the hexes. People are going to be watching me.

She sighed as she ran through the last few questions, then opened her bag. The charmed fishbowl looked surprisingly plain, for something she was going to leave in an aristocrat’s suite, but it would have to do. Enchantment wasn’t her forte and there was no way she could ask any of the town’s enchanters to do it. This close to a school, they’d assume she intended to play a very nasty prank on one of her fellow students. They’d either report her to the mistresses or tell her to do her own dirty work. She filled the fishbowl with water, checked the spells one final time, then placed it on the ledge and released the dominance spell. Nadine’s eyes went wide, first with confusion and then fear, as she realised she was a prisoner. She might even have remembered being under the spell.

Nadine opened her mouth to scream. Nanette paralysed her vocal cords before she could make a sound.

“Just so you know, the fishbowl is enchanted,” she said. “If you try to break the spell, you’ll find yourself crushed to death. And I suggest” - she looked the aristocratic brat in the eye - “that you spend the next few months reflecting on how awful it is to be the victim.”

She snapped her fingers dramatically as she cast the spell. Nadine shrank, her dress billowing as it dropped to the floor. Nanette picked the dress up, revealing a tiny goldfish flapping its fins desperately. She scooped Nadine up, held her above the fishbowl for a long moment and then dropped her in the water. The experience of being trapped in another form would probably do the brat good. And if it didn’t ... Nanette shrugged. It would keep her out of mischief for a few months, which was all she needed it to do.

“And if you manage to break the spell,” she said, “it really will kill you.”

She carried the fishbowl into the next room, weakened the glamour and cast a slight confusion hex before releasing the maids. Their eyes glazed, just for a second. Their memories would be a little confused, but they shouldn’t have any reason to think something was wrong. They’d probably blame the whole thing on their mistress’s pranks and jokes. Nanette was no stranger to cruelty - she was all too aware that children and teenagers could be very cruel indeed - but there were limits. Nadine’s father should have hired a strict governess or done something before sending his daughter school.

“Princess,” one of the maids managed. “I ...”

“Lay out my clothes for going to school,” Nanette ordered. She braced herself. She’d done everything in her power to make herself resemble Nadine, but if she couldn’t fool the brat’s maids, she couldn’t fool anyone. “And I want you to take good care of my fish.”

She placed the fishbowl on the mantelpiece and issued strict orders. The maids would feed the fish, but otherwise do nothing. The enchantments on the bowl would clean the water, ensuring there was no need to take the fish out of the bowl. Nanette didn’t think Nadine could break the spell from the inside - she’d used the strongest spell she could cast without making it blindingly obvious - but Aurelius had taught her there was no point in taking chances. Nadine would stay a fish until Nanette saw fit to release her.

Or someone comes to investigate, after I’ve been and gone, she thought, as she changed into her new dress. The maids fussed around her, pinning her hair into an elaborate hairstyle that felt oddly uncomfortable. I wonder if they’ll blame everything on the little brat.

She glanced up as there was a knock on the door, then snapped her fingers. A maid hurried to open it. A young girl stood outside, looking nervous as she dropped an unpractised curtsey. The innkeeper’s daughter, Nanette guessed, wearing a fancy dress that was probably older than she was. Nadine would have sniggered, Nanette was sure. The girl’s dress was so outdated that it would have been passed down from grandmother to mother and then to daughter. But ... Nanette decided not to laugh. She didn’t need the girl doing something stupid while she was at the school.

“Yes?”

“Your Ladyship, the school’s carriage has arrived,” the girl said. “They’re waiting for you downstairs.”

“Then it will be my honour to join them,” Nanette said, grandly. She indicated the trunk with one hand, subtly casting a lightening spell. “Take the trunk down to the carriage. I shall join you in a moment.”

“Yes, Your Ladyship,” the girl said.

Nanette watched her go, then gave the maids their final orders before wrapping her cloak around her dress and promenaded down the stairs. Nadine wasn’t as important as Nadine had thought, she noted absently; Nadine only had a handful of servants, rather than the small army a real princess would have. She smiled inwardly as she reached the bottom of the stairs, waving grandly to the innkeeper before stepping into the open air. The carriage - it was more of a gig cart - was waiting for her, a grim-faced woman holding the reins. The innkeeper’s daughter stood beside it. Nanette made sure to tip the girl before she clambered into the carriage. Nadine probably wouldn’t have bothered, but Nanette knew what it was like to serve. She just hoped the girl was smart enough to make the money vanish before her father or siblings saw it.

She leaned back in her chair as the cart rattled into life, the driver steering through the streets and up a narrow road that led up to the castle. Magic flickered through the air, traces of wild magic mingled with more controlled spells ... she frowned as she saw another castle on a further peak, clearly in ruins. She wondered, idly, who’d built the twin castles ... and who’d destroyed the second one. The records didn’t say, not with any certainty. There was no shortage of stories, from the believable to the absurd, but nothing was known. She tensed as the cart passed through a ward, one that sent odd little tingles down her spine. It reminded her of something, something she’d seen before, but she couldn’t place it.

The driver glanced back at her. “If you happen to be smuggling any boys into the castle,” she said in a disdainful tone, “now’s the time to let them go.”

Nanette blinked. Now she knew why the ward felt familiar. It was a sex-detection ward, akin to the spells protecting the female dorms at Mountaintop. And yet ... she’d never encountered a ward so sensitive. It might not stop any boys from continuing up the road, but it would alert the castle’s wardmasters they were coming.

“I’m not carrying any boys,” she managed. The thought was absurd. “Does that happen often?”

“You might be surprised,” the driver said. “There’s always someone who thinks they can break the rules.”

She lapsed back into silence. Nanette stared at the back of her head for a moment, then lifted her gaze and stared at the school. The castle looked vaguely ominous, as if it were wrapped in darkness and shadow even though it was late afternoon. She could sense magic pulsing around the building, feel flickering spells dancing through the air. They didn’t seem hostile, but she had a feeling that could change at any moment. The school had enemies. Some of them were powerful enough to do real harm.

Yeah, she reminded herself. And I’m one of them.

The wrought-iron gates, runes and sigils carved into the metal, swung open as they approached. The courtyard within was empty. There were no students, no staff ... not even any other horses. Nanette wondered, just for a moment, if they’d come to the wrong castle. A shiver ran down her spine. The magic was strong, but ...

“Down you get,” the driver ordered. She waved a hand at an open door. “Penny will take you to the Deputy Headmistress.”

Nanette’s eyes narrowed as she saw a young woman - the same age as herself, she thought - step out of the door. The woman - Penny, she assumed - held herself like an aristocrat, but so rigidly that Nanette knew she wasn’t that highborn. Her blonde hair was tied in a tight bun, her face schooled into an expression of such bland unconcern that it had to be an act. She kept her hands clasped behind her back, probably to keep them from shaking. Nanette hid her amusement with an effort. She knew the type. They were easily manipulated.

“Nadine?” Penny’s voice was aristocratic enough to put the other aristocrats to shame. “I bid you ...”

“That’s Your Ladyship to you,” Nanette said. It was what Nadine would have said. “I ...”

Penny glowered. “The Deputy Headmistress wishes to speak with you,” she said. “And then I’ll show you to your room.”

“I want to speak to the Headmistress,” Nanette said. “My father ...”

“The Deputy Headmistress wishes to speak with you,” Penny repeated, a hint of impatience entering her tone. “Come with me.”

She turned and strode into the castle. Nanette shrugged and followed. Wards crackled around her as she stepped through the door, each one accessing her and her outfit before allowing her to proceed. It wouldn’t be easy to smuggle someone into the castle, particularly if that person happened to be a man. Nanette had met a couple of girls who’d tried to smuggle their boyfriends into the dorms, but it was rare. Mountaintop had plenty of room for young lovers to find privacy, without disturbing anyone else. She was fairly sure a girl could hire a room in the town, if she wished. No one had raised any objection to her hiring a room.

Her eyes looked from side to side, spotting no one. “Where is everyone?”

“Flying lessons.” Penny didn’t unbend, even slightly. “Everyone attends. You’ll be there too, once you master the charms.”

“Flying lessons?” Nanette allowed herself a laugh. “You mean you really ride pitchforks and broomsticks?”

Penny shot her a disgusted look. “You’ll see,” she said, as she stopped in front of a door and tapped loudly. It opened, silently. “Believe me, you’ll see.”

3

“Lady Nadine of Hightower,” Lady Damia said. She was a middle-aged woman who would have been pretty, if she hadn’t had a permanent scowl on her face. Her hair was tied into a long braid that seemed to move of its own accord. “Welcome to Laughter.”

“That’s Princess Nadine,” Nanette hissed. She knew it was unwise to bait one of the most powerful women in the world, but she had to stay in character. “I am ...”

“The natural-born daughter of a baron,” Lady Damia said, in a tone that suggested she only barely managed to keep herself from saying bastard. “You are no princess. And in this place” - her eyes bored into Nanette’s – “outside titles have little meaning. You are a student; nothing more, nothing less.”

“My father ...”

“Your father may call you a princess, if he wishes,” Lady Damia said. “But here you are a student. Your title means nothing.”

Nanette tried to look offended. She was fairly sure that wasn’t true. Magicians might be the social equals of everyone, at least in theory, but she’d spent six years at Mountaintop. She knew there was more deference to aristocratic titles than any of the senior magicians cared to admit. A student from an aristocratic background would be flattered by staff and students alike. And Penny talked like an aristocrat ... an aristocrat who was trying too hard. She smirked, inwardly. Lady Damia was either mistaken or simply lying.

“You are old enough to enter fifth year,” Lady Damia continued. “However, as a newcomer to the school, and one who was not taught by one of our former students, you will be required to wear the grey blazer and take remedial classes until we deem you fit to advance to the final year. Should you fail to qualify by the end of the year, you’ll retake fifth year and ...”

“I’m a powerful magician,” Nanette insisted. “I can ...”

Lady Damia raised a hand. Nanette found herself frozen, unable to move or speak. She could have broken free, but Nadine would have been helplessly trapped. Behind her, she heard a snicker. Penny wasn’t quite as rigid as she acted. Lady Damia shot Penny a sharp look, then turned her attention back to Nanette. Her eyes were very cold.

“You have a lot to learn,” Lady Damia said, coldly. “The spell holding you in place is very simple. Practically any of our students can cast it - and break it, even when it holds them frozen. Your mentor” - she gestured towards Penny - “will teach you the basics, if you behave yourself. If not, I’m sorry to say you will have a very unpleasant time here.”

She studied Nanette for a long moment. “Your mentor, who is also your roommate, will give you your timetable. You will have the same chance to learn as we offer to other students, but what you make of it is up to you. Attend your classes, listen to your teachers, practice your spells ... do well. Or waste this opportunity, as you wish. Do you understand me?”

Nanette felt the spell break. “Yes.”

“Good.” Lady Damia nodded to Penny. “Take her to the bedroom and help her to settle in.”

“Yes, Mistress,” Penny said.

“And one other thing?” Lady Damia spoke calmly, but coldly. “Bratty conduct will not be tolerated here. Your father paid us to educate you. He did not pay us to put up with misconduct.”

Nanette forced herself to swallow as Penny caught her arm and pulled her out of the tiny office. She was surprised Lady Damia had been so blunt, even though she didn’t really blame the older woman. Anyone who read the reports would know Nadine would be hard to handle. She wasn’t the sort of person who would listen to gentle hints. Nanette snickered at the thought. Nadine - the real Nadine - would probably get herself kicked out of school within the week.

“I don’t know what you think is funny,” Penny said, as they passed through a door and walked down a flight of stairs. “You’re in hot water.”

“If you say so,” Nanette said, mockingly. “Are you the real Head Girl or are you just pretending?”

Penny stiffened. “I was elected Young Head Girl last year,” she said. “I’ll be Older Head Girl next year.”

“Of course you’ll be older,” Nanette said, as gormlessly as she could. “It’s obvious.”

“Be quiet,” Penny snapped, sharply. She stopped in front of a wooden door. It opened at her touch. “Our home away from home.”

Nanette looked around with interest as Penny led her into the chamber. It was smaller than she’d expected, with two beds, two small bedside cabinets, two simple wooden desks, a single large bookshelf and a door she assumed led to the washroom. The walls were plain stone. She could sense magic flickering through them, magic that might - might - be keeping an eye on the occupants. The trunk sat beside the bed, waiting for her. She made a mental note to test the charms before she opened it for the first time. She’d gone to some trouble to make sure she’d know if someone had tried to open and search Nadine’s trunk.

And they might raise eyebrows when they see the book, she mused. Cloak had been insistent she steal the school’s copy, rather than simply copying the notes. She didn’t understand why, but she was in no place to argue. And what will they think of some of the other things Nadine wanted to bring?

Penny pointed to a bed. “That’s where you’ll sleep,” she said, darkly. “I’m sure it isn’t what you’re used to, but it’s what you’ve got.”

“I need a bigger bed,” Nanette said. She’d actually slept in worse places, but she couldn’t say so. The room reminded her of Whitehall. “And I need it warmer in here ...”

“Learn to warm the room yourself,” Penny said, dismissively. “A firstie could cast the spells.”

She went on and on, outlining everything from basic school rules to guidelines that made little sense. Nanette listened with half an ear as she reached out mentally and felt the wards, trying to determine if they were actually spying on the occupants. She’d grown used to a complete lack of privacy at Mountaintop, and she was practiced enough to act normally even when she knew she was being watched, but it was important to know what was really happening. If she had some privacy ...

“Are you even listening to me?” Two spots of colour appeared on Penny’s cheeks. “This is important.”

Nanette said nothing for a long moment, carefully planning her next move. Penny could be manipulated, but ... it had to be done carefully. Manipulation was never easy, particularly when it had to last. Thankfully, Penny was a type she knew. She understood Penny. It would be a great deal harder to manipulate someone who was satisfied with their lot. Or someone like Emily. Nanette had watched Emily closely, at both Whitehall and Mountaintop, but she didn’t understand the girl. She just didn’t make sense.

“Nadine!” Penny’s voice rose. “Are you even listening to me?”

Nanette gave her a languid smile. “That’s Princess Nadine to you, commoner.”

Penny’s face flushed. She reached down in one smooth motion and removed her wooden clog, brandishing it like the weapon it was. “Bend over the bed and raise your dress,” she ordered. “Now!”

That was quick, Nanette thought. She smirked. She’d goaded others into overstepping themselves, but it normally took more effort. I must really be getting to her.

She shaped a spell in her mind, then cast it. The clog became a giant spider. Penny yelped, dropping the animal and jumping back. Nanette cancelled the spell, trying desperately to look as if she’d made a mistake. Penny would see she’d made a mistake. But would she draw the correct conclusion?

Penny swallowed, hard. “You’re ... you’re better at magic than they say.”

“Yes.” Nanette tried to look as if she’d really made a mistake. “Don’t tell anyone. Please.”

She concealed her amusement as a calculating look washed across Penny’s face. The Young Head Girl - the system made a certain kind of sense, Nanette supposed - wouldn’t want to admit she couldn’t handle her roommate. She certainly hadn’t threatened to call her friends to hold Nanette down while she beat her, if only because admitting she needed help was tantamount to admitting she couldn’t handle the job. Nanette would have called her bluff and she would have been weakened still further, but she would have resented it. Instead ... if she thought she knew a secret, if she thought she knew something Nanette was trying to conceal, she would use it to regain control. And she wouldn’t realise until later - much later - that the secret was effectively worthless.

“You show me proper respect in public and I’ll keep your secret to myself,” Penny said, carefully. “Agreed?”

Nanette dropped a perfect curtsy. “Agreed.”

She waited, wondering if Penny would push further. The girl had to be on very thin ice. If she really was a low-ranking aristocrat, she wouldn’t have much room for mistakes. She couldn’t afford to give the staff a reason to remove her, not when there had to be dozens of other possible candidates for the job. Or to lose face in front of the rest of the girls. Nanette had been to boarding school too. A student who lost face lost everything.

“In public,” Penny said. “You don’t have to overdo it.”

“Just keep your mouth shut,” Nanette said. “And I’ll show you all the respect you want.”

Penny nodded. “And you can help me with something else,” she said. “I need etiquette and dance lessons.”

Which you could get easily, if you were prepared to admit you needed them, Nanette thought, wryly. She felt a flicker of rueful admiration. Penny thought she had blackmail material and was moving, ruthlessly, to capitalise on it. And you think I can teach you without demanding anything in return.

“In private,” Nanette said. “Please.”

“Of course,” Penny said. She gestured to the drawer under the bed. “If you’ll have a look inside ...”

Nanette opened the drawer. “Clothes,” she said, disdainfully. “They don’t suit me.”

Penny shot her a look. “Get them out,” she ordered. “And put them on the bed.”

Nanette obeyed. The outfits were black. Black dresses, black shirts, black socks, black underwear ... the only thing that wasn’t black were the blazers, which were grey. She frowned as she picked through them, noting the resizing charms that had been cunningly woven into the material. The uniform reminded her a little of Mountaintop’s, but ... it wasn’t quite the same.

“As a new student, you have to wear a grey blazer,” Penny said. “Everything else ... it’s what you’ll wear, outside sports classes. You have the right to wear other clothes outside classroom hours, but you can lose them if you misbehave.”

“So we walk around in the nude?” Nanette raised her eyebrows. “It doesn’t seem a very good idea to me.”

“If only you were the first person to make that joke.” Penny sighed heavily. “No, if you’ll wear school uniform outside classroom hours and everyone will point and laugh and know you’re being punished. Believe me, a few hours of wearing the uniform will make you think it was designed by a sadist who wanted to punish us.”

“I saw a man get hanged, once,” Nanette said, evenly. “I saw another being stretched on the rack. And a girl being whipped bloody for adultery.”

Penny gave her a discomforted look. “Your father let you watch?”

“My father is not a very nice man,” Nanette said. In truth, she had no idea if Nadine’s father had let her watch anything. Commoners were often ordered to watch executions, just to remind them what awaited them if they dared to disobey their betters, but noblewomen were often sheltered from the harsh realities of life. “And my mother could never gainsay him.”

“Oh.” Penny shifted, uncomfortably. “I’m sorry to hear that, really.”

Not as sorry as you’re going to be, when you discover I tricked you, Nanette thought. She would have felt sorry for Penny, if she hadn’t been an aristocrat. I wonder what your superiors will make of it.

She stood and peered into the washroom. It was smaller than she’d expected, nothing more than a toilet, a shower, a charmed mirror and a washbasin. It didn’t seem large enough for an adult, really. There wasn’t even enough room to swing a cat. She rather suspected they were meant to change clothes in the bedroom itself, rather than the washroom. It wasn’t as if there was a risk of a boy walking in the door. There were no boys staying in the school.

“You’d better get changed,” Penny said. “You’re expected to wear the uniform for your first school dinner.”

Nanette shot her a sharp look. “I thought you said we’re allowed to wear other clothes outside classroom hours.”

“We are,” Penny said. “But this is your first school dinner. And you have thirty minutes to get dressed.”

“Hah,” Nanette said. She undressed rapidly, silently glad she’d taken the time to charm away the calluses on her feet. It would have given her away, if someone with a working brain had seen them. “Is there anything else I ought to know?”

“Plenty,” Penny said. “Lady Damia is strict. I heard she once turned a student into a frog and ate her. Mistress Greenstone is a man in woman’s clothes ...”

Nanette looked up, sharply. “What?”

Penny coloured. “Probably not, but she’s a very masculine woman. She could pass for a man, if she tried. The rumours are ... stupid.”

She waved her hand, dismissively. “There are no servants here. You’re expected to help clean this room, if only by casting cleaning spells every weekend. You may or may not be expected to do chores ... junior girls are, but you’re a little older. Keep your head down and the staff might not realise you’ve skipped an important part of your education.”

“Doing chores?” Nanette tried to sound surprised. “Really?”

“It builds character,” Penny said. “Or so I’m told.”

They say that about everything, Nanette thought. Getting bullied builds character. Running for a mile builds character. Getting beaten to within an inch of your life builds character ...

“The younger girls will wash your clothes, if you put them in the basket by the outer door,” Penny continued. “Make sure you remove any blood first. You can collect them from the office later.”

“I see,” Nanette said. “Do they come in here?”

“No,” Penny said. “That’s why you have to clean the room.”

Nanette said nothing as she changed into the school uniform. It was uncomfortable, although hardly the worst thing she’d worn. There were beggars in rags who’d sell their souls for such warm clothing, even if it did itch like the plague. She did a little twirl, enjoying the way the dress spun. It was charmed against dirt, somewhat to her relief. The edges brushed against the floor. She let her hair hang down, for the moment. Penny would tell her, she was sure, if she thought Nanette was making a mistake.

“It could be worse,” she said. “Have you ever worn a ballgown?”

A flash of envy crossed Penny’s face. “Only once.”

So your family lives on the borderlands, Nanette guessed. She was tempted to ask, but it was more fun to play the detective and deduce what she could. You would have attended many more parties if you’d lived closer to the capital.

She put the thought out of her head as a bell rang. “Dinnertime?”

“Yeah.” Penny stood, brushing down her dress. “I’ll take you there.”

“Thanks,” Nanette said. “And how much respect should I show you outside our bedroom?”

“Just be polite.” Penny opened the door. “And don’t be rude to any of the teachers.”

Nanette smiled as they joined a throng of students hurrying down the stairs and into a large dining hall. A single raised table dominated the room, with a handful of older women - and a single man - being served by younger students. Nanette had a flashback to the Shadows of Mountaintop, although they hadn’t been forced to wait at tables. Penny led her to a table at the other end of the room and pointed to a chair, then waved to one of the younger students. She hurried off and returned with two plates of food. It tasted like fish stew.

And we’re hundreds of miles from the ocean, Nanette thought. The meal was bland, but expensive. I wonder how many of them realise it?

She studied the other senior girls thoughtfully as the room filled. They looked just like the girls she remembered, but there was something about them that nagged at her mind. She wasn’t sure what. They were more assertive than the girls she remembered, save - perhaps - for the aristocrats and magicians with years of experience. Perhaps it was the lack of boys that made them so confident, or perhaps it was the simple fact they had magic. They were powerful enough to stop a swordsman in his tracks, or permanently depress the pretensions of a lecher ...

They paid her no heed as they sat and chatted amongst themselves, eating only as an afterthought. Nanette knew it was for the best, she didn’t want them to notice her, but she couldn’t help feeling hurt at the social exclusion. It brought back unhappy memories from her past. She’d been excluded as a junior and, even as a senior, she’d never quite been one of the girls. It was odd to realise she’d had a better time at Whitehall.

Although I was old enough not to let it hurt so much, she thought, as the Deputy Headmistress tapped her glass for silence. I knew better.

Putting the thought aside, she pasted an attentive expression on her face and started to listen.

4

“Welcome, Princess,” Lauran said. She was a tall willowy girl with light brown skin and gimlet eyes. “Did you sleep well?”

Nanette gave her a nasty look as she followed Penny into the classroom. Penny had introduced her to a handful of other girls, all of whom seemed to take an instant dislike to her. Nanette wasn’t sure if that was deliberate - Penny didn’t strike her as being devious enough to socially isolate her, at least from her own clique - but it was a little annoying. In her experience, it was only a matter of time before snide remarks and taunts gave way to jinxes and hexes. She could have deflected them, at the cost of admitting she was better at magic than she claimed. She’d have to make a show of practicing ...

Or let them underestimate me, she reminded herself. Compared to nearly dying, being hexed was nothing. Better they think of me an idiot.

She surveyed the classroom thoughtfully as the rest of the girls filed in. Thirty desks and chairs, each rickety and old. Penny had warned her not to sit until the doors were closed, cautioning her that the older students had already picked their chairs. It was good thinking on her part, Nanette supposed as the door closed, but it was just as irritating as everything else. The only free chairs were right at the front. She sat down reluctantly, mildly surprised someone hadn’t cast a whoopee charm on the seat. That would have been a fine start to the day.

A wave of magic ran through the room as the teacher strode out of the backroom and took her place in front of the desks. Nanette rather thought she would have identified the Charms Mistress even without Penny’s rather slanted take on the teaching staff. Mistress Jens looked very much like the other charms teachers she’d met, right down to the tight-lipped demeanour and wooden ruler in hand. She’d smack a student’s hand, rather than let them cast an imprecise and potentially dangerous charm. Her dark face, darker eyes and grim disposition made it clear no one would dare misbehave in her class.

“Open your textbooks to the current chapter,” Mistress Jens said. She directed a stern look at Nanette. “That’s chapter seven, in case you were wondering.”

Nanette didn’t have to work to feign embarrassment. Nadine would have been in for a nasty shock if she hadn’t read the preceding chapters - and how could she, when she didn’t even know when and where she’d be joining the school? Nanette had passed through the section last year, but Nadine might not even have started. She pursued her lips as she found the right section, trying to pretend to be having difficulty reading. It wasn’t that much of a pretence. The textbook was written in a spidery hand that was difficult to comprehend.

The teacher launched into a long and complicated lecture, detailing how one could adapt a simple levitation charm to fly. Nanette would have been fascinated, under other circumstances. The idea of flying sounded appealing until someone cast a cancellation charm and sent the unfortunate magician falling to her doom, but Mistress Jens seemed to believe it was eminently survivable. She talked about a flurry of rotating charms, each one providing a different aspect of the whole. Nanette had trouble following the explanation. She was grimly sure Nadine would have been lost, right from the start.

She rubbed her forehead as she scanned the page, making a show of having problems reading the text. Nadine could read, if the reports were accurate, but not very well. Her parents probably hadn’t put her nose to the grindstone and forced her to learn. The nobility schooled their daughters, but some of the more old-fashioned families thought it a waste of time. It wouldn’t do to give the girls ideas. And, of course, it might make them unmarriageable.

Idiots, Nanette thought. Who do they think manages the estate when the husband goes off to war?

The ruler cracked against her desk. She looked up. Mistress Jens was glaring down at her. “Well? Are you paying attention?”

“I’m trying,” Nanette whined. “It just isn’t ...”

Mistress Jens scowled. “Can’t you read?”

“I’m trying,” Nanette repeated. A titter echoed through the room. “I’m just not used to ...”

“We are not having any of the fancy learning in this room,” Mistress Jens snarled. It took Nanette a moment to realise she meant the New Learning. Emily’s New Learning. “And you will learn to read properly.”

“I can read,” Nanette protested, weakly. “I’m just not very good at it.”

“Well, you’d better get better,” Mistress Jens said. She nodded towards the rear of the chamber. “Penny, sit next to Nadine. Help her.”

Nanette concealed her amusement behind a blank facade. Penny wouldn’t be too pleased at being forced to sit at the front, even though it was unlikely she wanted to do anything that would irritate the teacher. Charms tutors tended to have nasty senses of humour when it came to forcing students to pay attention. Mistress Jens was actually the mildest tutor she’d met. Penny shot Nanette a knowing look as she sat down, placing her textbook between them. It was open to a different page.

Mistress Jens silenced a couple of snickering girls with a glare, then stalked back to the front of the room and resumed her lecture. Nanette listened, doing her best to pretend to be bright but limited. The spellwork was incredibly complex, tricky even at the best of times. It smacked more of a ritual than anything else, a combination of spells cast by separate magicians that merged into one. She wondered if she should be concerned. Ritual magic was never very safe.

“It is important you master this before you go flying,” Penny muttered, her finger tracing a line of text. “If the spell fails when you’re in the air ...”

“Splat,” Nanette finished. The spellwork claimed it was resistant to tampering - and cancellation - but she had her doubts. It might lower her to the ground gently or it might simply drop her from a great height. “Do you go flying?”

“All the time.” Penny grinned at her. “I love it and ...”

“Hold out your hands,” Mistress Jens snapped. “Both of you.”

“Sorry,” Nanette muttered, as she obeyed. “I ...”

Mistress Jens brought the ruler down across her palm. She yelped in pain, trying to pretend it was the worst thing that had ever happened to her. Beside her, Penny took the punishment stoically. Nanette heard sniggers from behind her and gritted her teeth. By the time the class was done, she’d be well-established as a stupid and utterly unreliable wimp. She was going to have to work hard, but not too hard. Learning too quickly would draw unwanted attention.

“It could be worse,” Penny said. She studied the nasty red mark on her hand thoughtfully. “I think ...”

“It will be worse if you don’t pay attention,” Mistress Jens said. “Now, if you don’t mind, what are the four variables of conjuration in flying?”

Penny rose. “Height, weight, speed and resistance.”

“Correct.” Mistress Jens didn’t look happy. “And what do you do if one of the four becomes unbalanced?”

“You either enhance the others or lower the unbalanced variable,” Penny said. “At worst, you land and recast the spell.”

“Here, you always land,” Mistress Jens said. “If you want to get yourself killed by fiddling with the spell in midflight, you can do it somewhere else.”

Nanette nodded as Penny sat down. The flying spells were tough, particularly the ones the students had to cast on their own. And they had to be constantly refreshed when the magician was in flight or one of the variables would unbalance. She made a show of puzzling through the text, trying to sort out what was what while memorising the technique. Being able to fly would give her an advantage, particularly if no one knew she could do it. She honestly wasn’t sure why the technique wasn’t taught at other schools. If nothing else, the certainty of falling to one’s death was an excellent incentive to get the magic right.

They probably lost a few students and gave up, Nanette told herself. And reasoned that a cancellation spell could interfere with anyone’s flying.

She breathed a sigh of relief as the class came to an end. Mistress Jens assigned homework, gave Nanette a stern warning not to fly - the other girls laughed - and then dismissed them. Penny stood, shoved her textbook in her bag and headed for the door. Nanette followed, wondering what Penny would say when they were alone. Would she suspect Nanette was playing dumb? Or would she merely protest having to leave her friends?

A stinging hex struck her backside. She turned to see Lauran. “Why can’t you read, aristo girl?”

Nanette rubbed her bottom. It would be easy, so easy, to blast Lauran right down the corridor. The girl wasn’t holding herself like a duellist. It was clear she expected Nanette to grin and take whatever Lauran intended to dish out. Nanette could give Lauran the fright of her life, but it would blow her cover spectacularly. She’d have to settle for promising herself revenge at a later date.

“My mother never saw the value of reading,” she said. It was true enough, although the New Learning was changing everything. “My tutors didn’t give me a proper grounding.”

“You’ll never get anywhere with that attitude.” Lauran gave her a mock-wave. “Bye-bye.”

“She does have a point,” Penny said, as Lauran ambled down the corridor. “You do have to learn to read.”

“I can read,” Nanette protested. “Just slowly.”

“Very slowly,” Penny said. The bell rang. “Come on. We’ll be late for class.”

Nanette kept her thoughts to herself as she followed Penny into the potions’ classroom. The tutor - a scarred woman who looked as if she’d been in one too many accidents - ordered them to share a table, then launched into a complicated lecture on advanced healing potions. They would have been challenging under any circumstances, Nanette was sure, but all the more when she was pretending to be stupid. She cursed her luck under her breath as they were told to start brewing. Penny already knew she was hiding something. She wouldn’t be particularly tolerant of mistakes that led to explosions. She might even swallow her pride and report Nanette to her superiors.

And they might start looking too closely, Nanette thought, as she carefully chopped and deseeded the herbs. Who knows what they’ll find?

She sighed, inwardly, as she passed the ingredients to Penny. The tutors might find nothing, beyond an aristocratic girl trying to conceal her full powers. Or they might find the real Nadine. Nanette considered, briefly, going back to Pendle and disposing of Nadine permanently, then dismissed the thought. The brat had magic in her bloodline. Killing her might have all sorts of unwanted consequences. And moving her elsewhere might draw attention too.

The teacher stalked the room, checking on cauldron after cauldron. Nanette smiled as the tutor rebuked Lauran for a minor mistake, then ticked off two of the other girls for not chopping their ingredients properly. Healing potions were particularly unforgiving, she repeated time and time again; it was easy, all too easy, to produce a deadly poison instead of medicine. Or something that worked, technically, but had unfortunate and unpleasant side effects. Nanette had had the lecture herself, back at Mountaintop. She knew the risks.

An explosion shook the room. She ducked as hot liquid splattered everywhere, despite the wards. The tutor cleaned up the mess with a wave of her hand, then dispatched the unfortunate brewers to the gym mistress. Nanette winced, although she knew the tutor couldn’t take risks. They weren’t brewing harmless potions, not now. A single mistake could easily get them killed.

“Not bad,” the tutor said, when she inspected their work. “However, next time, I expect both of you to do the brewing.”

“I’m not very practiced,” Nanette said. Penny had insisted on doing the brewing personally, if only to ensure Nanette didn’t make a mistake. “I ...”

“Then it’s time you got practiced,” the tutor snapped. “You can attend my evening sessions, every Monday and Thursday night.”

Nanette nodded. Behind her, she heard more snickers. She was getting sick of that sound already. And it was only her very first day. The sooner she inspected the library and found a way to get the book out, the better. She’d leave the students with a little present as she left, she decided. Perhaps she could give Lauran and her fellow mean girls a taste of real danger.

Penny nudged her as the bell rang. “What do you have after lunch?”

“Emotional Stability,” Nanette said. She was quite curious. Neither Mountaintop nor Whitehall had had anything of the sort. “What is it?”

“You’ll be in with the little girls,” Penny said. She sounded genuinely sympathetic, rather than mocking. “Sorry.”

“Thanks,” Nanette said. She packed up her books and followed Penny to the door. “Lunch now?”

“Yeah.” Penny groaned. “And it’s a Monday too.”

Nanette said nothing as they walked down to the dining hall and took their place. The food looked awful, compared to the dinners served at other schools, although she had to admit there was a lot of it. Boiled ham, boiled potatoes, boiled vegetables ... the smell made her stomach churn, even though she knew she should be grateful to have it. The younger students handed out plates of food and poured glasses of water, then hurried to their own tables before the second bell rang. Nanette forced herself to eat. She wasn’t that hungry, but she’d learnt the hard way to eat when she could.

“This weekend, try and eat in Pendle if you can,” Penny said. “The food there is much better.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Nanette said. She grimaced as she tasted the ham. She had no idea what it had been boiled in, but her imagination provided too many answers. Brine? Or something even worse? “How do you keep from starving?”

“Midnight feasts,” Penny said. “We’ll have one in a couple of weeks. Just you wait and see.”

Nanette nodded and surveyed the room. The girls looked strikingly alike - the younger ones in grey, the older ones in black - but it was easy to pick out the cliques and factions. Lauran was holding court in the middle of a group of girls who were clearly from magical families ... Nanette blinked in surprise as she realised the group had girls of all ages. Mixed-age groups were largely unknown at Mountaintop. Even the quarrels hesitated to recruit people who were too young. The only student they’d sought to recruit before she entered her final year was Emily. Nanette had never been considered ...

She put the surge of sudden hatred out of her mind as her eyes swept the room. One clique was probably composed of aristocrats, girls from a dozen different nations bound together by a shared belief their blood made them superior. She didn’t recognise any of the faces, but that meant nothing. The paintings she’d seen bore very little resemblance to reality. Another clique was clearly composed of commoners, banding together against the magical and mundane aristocracy. And there were more ... sporty girls, smart girls, girls who were more interested in girls than boys ... it was easy to pick them out. Nanette smiled, coldly. She hadn’t wasted her lessons after all. Who knew? Maybe she could find a way to turn the class divisions to her advantage.

There may be no boys here, she thought, but otherwise ... it’s just like Mountaintop.

Penny nudged her. “I’m meant to be going flying after lunch,” she said. “Are you going to join me?”

“I can’t,” Nanette said. She rather doubted Penny had forgotten. The Young Head Girl was trying to put her in her place. “I’ve got the new class. Remember?”

“Yes,” Penny said. “I remember.”

Rubbing it in a bit, aren’t you? Nanette tried to look downcast. As long as you don’t guess the real secret ...

She shrugged, dismissively. “If flying is so great, why isn’t it taught at the other schools?”

“Women are better at it,” Penny said. “And they don’t want us to show up the boys.”

Nanette frowned. It was possible, she supposed, but unlikely. She’d studied the charms carefully. There was no hint they’d work better for women, unlike some of the spells she’d seen that were linked to virginity or ... or simply couldn’t be applied to the other gender. She wasn’t sure what would happen if a man cast an anti-cramping spell, but she was certain it would be pointless. And besides, who in their right mind would give up a source of power just because women were better at it than men? The magical community wasn’t mundane.

“Really?” She tried to sound doubtful. “Is that true?”

“Yep.” Penny winked. “And there’s also the prospect of being able to fly away from an unwanted husband.”

“Or simply turning him into a frog,” Nanette pointed out. A sorcerer would be able to stop his wife flying away, if he wished. “Why waste energy on flying away?”

Penny shrugged. “That’s what I was told,” she said, as the bell rang. “And you know what? It doesn’t matter. Flying is fun!”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Nanette said. “What now?”

“Now, you go study with the little girls,” Penny said. She patted Nanette’s back in mock-commiseration. “I’ll see you afterwards.”

“Sure.” Nanette stood and glanced around the room. The cliques really were for girls of all ages. What was so bad about studying with the younger girls, if it was a class one had never taken? “I’ll see you this evening.”

5

For a moment, as she stepped into the Emotional Stability classroom, Nanette honestly wondered if she’d got the wrong room. It didn’t look like a classroom. There were no chairs, no desks ... just comfortable cushions scattered randomly across the carpeted floor and giant stuffed animals resting against the walls. A soft radiance with no discernible source bathed the room in light. It looked more like a nursery than anything else, although it was strikingly depersonalised. There were no paintings of a child’s parents or grandparents, no sweet little homilies carved on the walls ...

“Ah, you must be Nadine,” a voice said. “Welcome, welcome.”

Nanette turned to see an elderly woman leaning on a cane. “I’m Duchene,” the woman said, pleasantly. “Headmistress, for my sins.”

“Ah.” Nanette stumbled into a hasty curtsy. “I ... have I got the right room?”

“You have,” Duchene said. She walked past Nanette and into the room. “You’re just a little early.”

Nanette frowned as she studied the elderly woman. Duchene looked ... nice, like everyone’s favourite grandmother, but no one became headmistress of a magical school without being powerful and ruthless. Or, she supposed, knowing where the bodies were buried, sometimes literally. Duchene probably had more magic in her little finger than the vast majority of magicians had in their entire bodies. Her grey hair covered a mind that had probably forgotten more magic than Nanette had ever known.

“I don’t understand,” Nanette said. “Why ... why do I have to take this class?”

Duchene sat on one of the cushions, moving with surprising grace for an elderly lady who needed a cane. Nanette wondered, as she sat herself, if the headmistress really needed the cane. An appearance of weakness went against everything she’d been taught, but she could see the advantages. Duchene wouldn’t be anything like as frightening as her deputy. She could play the comforting grandmother while leaving the discipline to the younger members of staff.

“Men will tell you that women are emotional creatures,” Duchene said. “And then they will use it as an excuse to deny us power. What’s wrong with that statement?”

Nanette had to smile. “Men are emotional creatures too.”

“Precisely,” Duchene said. “Mankind is not, in the words of a great thinker, a rational animal. Mankind is, in fact, a rationalising animal. People - men and women alike - will decide what they want to do first, then come up with a semi-rational justification. The little kernel of truth in the statement is that people will often go with their gut and only then think of an excuse. And emotion can easily flow into magic.”

“I don’t understand,” Nanette said. She thought she did, but it was wiser to pretend ignorance. “I thought magic was ... well, spells and suchlike.”

“It is,” Duchene confirmed. “The magical disciplines are the end result of centuries of research, of trial and error and the occasional outright disaster. You know to make a potion, or cast a charm, because someone worked out how to do it and told the world. However, emotion can bleed into magic. A number of spells will only work if you want them to work.”

She raised an eyebrow, challengingly. Nanette took the plunge. “Why would I cast a spell I didn’t want to work?”

“I’m sure you can think of a reason,” Duchene said. “But, in this case, you have to beware of your magic corrupting your emotions. It is very easy to become addicted to dark magic, or to allow your emotions to drive you into darkness. And even without that risk, losing control of your emotions can be disastrous. This class teaches you how to handle your emotions and, perhaps more importantly, consider why you might feel something. What do you want? Why do you want it? Is it really something you should have?”

I want ... I don’t know what I want, Nanette thought. She had the feeling the class was not going to be easy. I don’t want to talk about what I want.

She looked up as the door opened. “Come on in, my darlings.”

Nanette glanced behind her as a line of students filed into the room. Penny hadn’t been too far wrong, she decided. The majority of the girls were firsties, girls who couldn’t be any older than sixteen. A handful definitely looked older. Nanette frowned. They looked to be in later years, too. Had they not mastered the class? Or had they been ordered to take it again?

“Sit down, sit down,” Duchene ordered. “We’ll start with some breathing exercises.”

Nanette studied the younger girls. Most of them seemed to have formed friendships, but a handful looked more socially isolated than she would have preferred. One girl sat alone, doing nothing to call attention to herself. Nanette felt an odd little twinge, a flicker of fellow-feeling. She’d been the same, back at Mountaintop. She wondered how the girl was coping. It was easy to tell she was common-born, almost certainly from a poor family. She looked, very much, like a young Nanette.

She forced herself to pay attention as Duchene led the girls through a series of centring exercises. Nanette was almost disappointed. The exercises weren’t that different from the mental disciplines she’d been taught at Mountaintop, although there was a little more talking about one’s feelings. Nanette wasn’t sure what she thought of that. It was good to talk, sometimes, but one never knew who might be listening. The smiling headmistress might have something darker in mind than merely encouraging the girls to think about their feelings. It was astonishing how much insight one could gain into someone’s character by discovering what moved them.

Her eyes kept drifting to the lone girl. She reminded Nanette of someone aside from herself, someone she knew ... Frieda. Emily’s Shadow. Nanette’s eyes snapped open as she remembered how Frieda had blossomed into a powerful and capable student, one who’d learnt to stand up for herself. Nanette felt something twist inside her, a grim reminder that she’d had to learn on her own. Frieda had had Emily teaching her. She hadn’t been any match for an older student, of course - Nanette wasn’t sure if Frieda was still alive, after her expulsion - but she’d been well on the way. Envy curdled around Nanette’s heart. What had Frieda done to deserve private tutoring?

Her thoughts mocked her. What did you do?

“Lillian,” Duchene said. She was looking at the lone girl. “What do you want?”

The girl seemed to pale still further. “I want to study magic.”

A couple of girls giggled. Lillian reddened. Duchene gave the gigglers a reproving look that was somehow worse than shouting, screaming and threats of bodily harm. Nanette was a little impressed. Duchene had a presence that was soft and warm and yet - somehow - dominated the chamber. The gigglers shut up, sharply.

Duchene listened to Lillian’s answers, then turned to Nanette. “Nadine. What do you want?”

You’re not to ask me that question, Nanette said. What did she want? An easy end to her mission? Or ... something a little more fundamental? A father? A lover? The power and respect she’d been promised, before Emily had snatched it away? I don’t know what I want.

She channelled Nadine. “I want a good match to a good man.”

“Indeed?” Duchene raised her eyebrows, again. “And why do you want it?”

Nanette shrugged. “Because I want it?”

Duchene smiled. “And why do you want it?”

“Because a good match would bring me security,” Nanette said. She understood the aristocracy well enough to know the answer, although she had no idea if Nadine was reflective enough to know. “And a good man will not hurt me.”

“Indeed.” Duchene sounded oddly disappointed. “We shall consider the question later on.”

She turned away. Nanette felt a flicker of regret. It was the right answer, she was sure, but not a very pleasing answer. Nadine would want a husband who was powerful, rich and handsome ... in that order. An older man who was ugly but powerful would be a better match than a poor but handsome man. And yet ... Nadine was a natural-born child. Her father might be a baron - by marriage - but he might not be able to arrange a good match for his only daughter. Perhaps that was why Nadine was such a brat, Nanette considered. Her society saw only one role for her, yet it wouldn’t let her play it. And magic alone wasn’t enough to make up for everything else.

The class wore on. Duchene cast a handful of emotion-inducing spells, a handful on the borderline between legal and illegal, and encouraged the girls to talk about their feelings. Nanette said as little as possible - she couldn’t help noting that Lillian said nothing - while the other girls talked, discussing how the spells made them feel and what they wanted to do about it. She wondered, sourly, if Duchene was bending the laws to breaking point. She might not be directly invading their minds, but she was certainly gaining insight into how they thought. It was something to consider later.

“For homework, I want you to practice your breathing exercises,” Duchene finished, when the bell finally rang. “There’s no need to do anything else, not now.”

She swept out of the room. The girls hurried after her, save for a couple who pinched Lillian before running out. Nanette opened her mouth to say something - anything - but closed it again without speaking. If Lillian was anything like her, she wouldn’t want fake sympathy from an older student. No, she’d want something Nanette couldn’t give. She gave the younger girl what privacy she could instead, turning her eyes away as she made her way out of the classroom and up the stairs. It was all she could do.

Her thoughts were a churning mess by the time she reached her room. Duchene had, deliberately or not, unleashed a wave of emotions Nanette really didn’t want to consider, certainly not when she was in enemy territory. What did she want? She knew some of the answers - power, respect, a father - but not all of them. She wanted appreciation as well as power and ... she swallowed hard as she stepped through the door, took off her blazer and lay down on the bed. Did Duchene suspect something? Or was it merely just another hurdle she’d have to surmount?

She closed her eyes and reached out with her mind, studying the wards pulsing through the walls. They didn’t seem to be spying on her, much to her relief. It wasn’t unknown for magic schools to keep a close eye on their students, although there were limits. She studied them carefully, trying to determine what would trigger an alarm. Dark magic? Lethal spells? Or something that actually killed someone? The spells clearly didn’t respond to pranks or half the student body would be in permanent detention.

I can work with it, she mused, as she parsed out the wards. In some ways, they were less complex than Mountaintop’s. I should be able to complete my mission without setting off an alarm.

The door opened. Penny stepped into the room, her cheeks flushed. “Flying is the greatest!”

Nanette sat up. “I’ll take your word for it,” she said, amused. “How long did it take you to get out of Emotional Stability?”

“Months.” Penny undressed rapidly, dropped her clothes on the floor and headed to the washroom. “You have to get in touch with your inner child and tell her to grow up.”

Which makes perfect sense, if you were allowed to have a childhood, Nanette thought, sardonically. Her childhood hadn’t been the worst, but it hadn’t been the best either. How old were you when you started to really work?

Penny stuck her head out of the washroom. “Toss me a towel, will you?”

“Sure.” Nanette picked up a towel and threw it to her. She couldn’t help thinking Penny looked pretty with her hair hanging low. “You don’t know how to dry yourself?”

Penny shrugged. “I prefer towels,” she said, as she rubbed herself dry. “Don’t you?”

“Sometimes,” Nanette said. “I ...”

“We have an hour before the bell goes for tea,” Penny said. “I think you can teach me a few things.”

Nanette smiled, coldly. “Like what?”

“How to present myself,” Penny said. “I’ll only have one chance to make a good impression, when I come out.”

“Which will be next year,” Nanette said. A student was still considered a child until she graduated, if she recalled correctly. Aristo families were fond of delaying adulthood as long as possible, parents or guardians taking advantage of the time to arrange matters to their satisfaction before they finally let their children go. Her uncle might have done that to her, if she’d had anything worth the effort. “Right?”

“Yeah.” Penny sat on the bed, naked. “How should I present myself?”

“I think you should get dressed first,” Nanette said, mischievously. She allowed her eyes to blatantly wander up and down Penny’s body. “Unless you really want them to see you nude.”

Penny gave her a sharp look as she stood and picked up a robe. “Answer the question.”

Nanette smirked. “It depends when and where you come out,” she said. “If you are presented to the king’s court, you allow the herald to announce you, you walk down the stairs and curtsey to the king and queen. You try not to trip over your dress because, if you do, everyone will be talking about it long after you’re dead. And then you dance with your paramours. You have to do at least one of each type of dance.”

“Why?” Penny looked dubious. “With the same man?”

“If you like,” Nanette shrugged. “If you already have a match, you’ll dance with him and him alone. If not, you can dance with whoever you like. The point is to show off your dancing skills. They’ll be watching you to make sure there’s nothing obviously wrong with you.”

“I see, I think,” Penny said. “Wouldn’t they trust my parents to tell them about me?”

“No.” Nanette recalled her etiquette lessons with a shudder. There was a practical explanation for everything, from formal manners to dancing, but they tended to be very cold-blooded. “They’ll want to see for themselves.”

She felt a twinge of pity, mingled with contempt. Her teachers had pointed out that a girl who had her season was being put on display, like a prize horse. She was being sold to the highest bidder, to someone who might be kind and loving or someone who’d see her as little more than a brood cow. Penny was a magician - and she had to be powerful, if she’d survived five years at school - but she’d still be sold. Nanette wondered, idly, why she didn’t simply walk away. It wasn’t as if she couldn’t find employment elsewhere.

“Cheek,” Penny said. “I suppose it might be better if I showed up naked.”

“People would definitely talk about you,” Nanette agreed, dryly. “But not in a good way.”

Penny stood. “Show me how to dance,” she said. “Properly.”

“I’m surprised you don’t know,” Nanette said. “Why ...?”

“Because my parents never go to parties,” Penny said. There was a world of pain in her words. “And I never get to practice.”

“I see,” Nanette said. She stood, brushing down her dress. “I’ll be the man, shall I?”

She held out her arm. Dancing was something she enjoyed, sometimes. It was fun, when it wasn’t loaded with meaning. Or when the steps were simply too complicated to follow easily. It wasn’t easy to find partners who didn’t read something else into her willingness to dance. She wondered, sourly, why Penny hadn’t been able to find dancing partners in Laughter. The school did socialise its students, didn’t it?

“Let me take the lead,” she said, as she took Penny’s hand. It was an opportunity, one that shouldn’t be missed. “And follow me.”

Penny smiled. “Men like to lead, don’t they?”

“Yeah.” Nanette allowed herself a tight smile as she pressed her hand against Penny’s back and stroked it lightly. “And some of them can get very intimate on the dance floor.”

She crafted the spell carefully - very carefully - and triggered it. Penny smiled, warmly, as Nanette’s magic shimmered against hers. Nanette smiled back as they moved around the room, gently widening the spell until it lightly brushed against Penny’s magic. The technique was very simple, but extremely difficult to use unless the caster was touching the victim. It was a kind of intimacy. And one that could easily be abused.

“That feels good,” Penny said. She looked ... happy, relaxed. “What did you do?”

“A trick my mother taught me,” Nanette lied, smoothly. She massaged Penny’s back, drawing back the magic. She’d implant suggestions later. “It can make a man become putty in your hands.”

“You’ll have to teach me,” Penny said. She stepped back, letting go of Nanette. “It seems to work pretty well on women too.”

“Yes,” Nanette agreed. “But you have to dance with the men, I’m afraid.”

Penny laughed, humourlessly. “Next time, we’d better use proper music.”

“The music tells you how to move,” Nanette agreed. She glanced up as the bell rang. “Dinnertime?”

“Yeah.” Penny let out a long sigh. “And you know what comes after dinner?”

Nanette smiled. “Pudding?”

Penny gave her a thin smile. “Homework,” she said. “There’s no getting away from it, not here.”

“At least we’re doing something useful,” Nanette said. “What do you want us to do?”

“Flying charms,” Penny said. She changed into a dress and headed for the door. “And I’m pretty sure you know more than you’re telling.”

“It’s the first time I’ve ever worked with flying charms,” Nanette said. Technically, she hadn’t even done it once. “But I’m a quick study.”

6

Nanette was surprised to discover, as she started to settle in, that she rather liked Laughter. There were downsides - she had to pretend to be ignorant, when she wasn’t trying to be stupid - and she found herself more isolated than she would have preferred, but she had to admit it had its advantages. The classes were smaller, allowing the tutors to give each student more individual attention, and some of the magics were new and different even for her. She was tempted, more than once, to see if she could wrangle herself a permanent place at the school. Only the grim certainty she had to keep her word to Cloak kept her from trying to find a way to stay.

It wasn’t easy to pretend to be ignorant, not when it brought all kinds of unwanted attention from the cliques. Nanette had expected it - the person at the bottom of the social ladder was dumped on by everyone above her - but it was still disconcerting to be so alone. Penny was the closest thing to a friend she had at Laughter, a friendship aided by subtle suggestions that Penny should be well-disposed towards her, yet even she was little more than formal outside their shared bedroom. Nanette understood that too - Penny’s friends would judge her harshly if she appeared too friendly with the school’s loser - but she hated it. The feeling spurred her on, driving her to lay her plans. And, finally, she convinced Penny to show her the library.

“There are two levels to the library,” Penny explained. “The first level is open to everyone, even you. You can use the books to practice your reading.”

“Or learn a dictation charm,” Nanette said, flushing. She knew how to read perfectly, damn it! But pretending otherwise was an excellent way to look dumb. People might make excuses for a commoner who couldn’t read, but an aristo? She should be able to read if she wanted to go to school. “What about the second level?”

“That’s the restricted section,” Penny said. “You’re not allowed to read those books unless you have special permission or perks.”

“Like being Head Girl,” Nanette guessed. “Are you allowed to read them?”

“Some of them,” Penny said. “But not all.”

Nanette nodded as she peered around the library. Emily would have loved it. There were bookshelves everywhere, some positioned against the walls and others standing in the middle of the room. The chamber felt like a giant maze, bigger on the inside than the outside. She allowed Penny to lead her through the stacks, pointing out the more interesting tomes - and joking that books on reproduction were always on loan - before she indicated the restricted section. The books were sealed in a cage, surrounded by nasty wards. Nanette wondered, idly, just who the wards were protecting. It was quite possible they were protecting the readers rather than the books themselves.

And they’re an order of magnitude more complex than anything I’ve seen elsewhere, she thought. She half-listened to Penny’s prattle while she studied the wards. The staff offices aren’t as heavily protected as the library books.

“If you get permission to read them, you can’t take them out of the library,” Penny said, as she opened the cage. “The librarians will hex first and ask questions later.”

Nanette nodded. The restricted section was remarkably light on the truly dangerous tomes - she’d seen darker books in Aurelius’s private collection - but each volume was carefully secured in place and tagged with a complex and deadly charm. She shivered as her gaze wandered the shelves, passing over Advanced Alchemy and Curse-Breaking Wards before coming to rest on Lamplighter’s Lines. It looked identical to the copy in her trunk, heavily secured behind wards and obscurification charms. She had the nasty feeling she wouldn’t have time to so much as read the text, let alone copy the notes. There was nothing for it. She’d have to perform the swap as quickly as possible and then vanish.

“Some students work their detentions off here,” Penny said, waving a hand at the book trolley. “You’d hate that, wouldn’t you?”

“I guess so,” Nanette said. She’d continued to pretend she had difficulty reading the older books. “Do you think the librarians would let me have time to read?”

“Not when you’re meant to be working,” Penny said. “But I’ve heard that some helpers manage to hide books in the stacks for later reading.”

Which seems to be common everywhere, Nanette thought. Whitehall and Mountaintop had the same problem. There are too few books and too many people who want to read them.

“I’ll bear it in mind,” she said. “What do we do now?”

“Well, I have to go help plan the flying display,” Penny said. “You can stay here and pretend to read.”

Nanette pouted after Penny as she departed. The Young Head Girl might be happy to take etiquette and dancing lessons from her, but she had made no move to induct Nanette into her wider circle of friends. Nanette understood - she was quite happy to take advantage of it - yet it gnawed at her. Penny might have been a friend, if things had been different. And yet ... she shook her head as she surveyed the trolley, noting the presence of new printed books amongst the tomes. She was mildly surprised to see a handful of blue books in plain view, even though they were technically forbidden. They weren’t even in the restricted section.

She picked up a textbook, sat down on a comfortable chair and pretended to read while opening her mind to study the wards. They were complex, too complex to take down or spoof without setting off alarms. Only a handful of people were allowed to enter the section without permission, she guessed, and it would be difficult to pose as one of them. The wards might just be smart enough to spot someone who appeared to be in two places at once and alert their wardmaster. And then ... Nanette shook her head. The restricted section was a lure to anyone with even the slightest hint of ambition. All the easy ways to get into the cage would have been tried long ago.

Which means I have to be sneaky, she thought, as she heard a bunch of new students entering the library. Lauran was amongst them, her face set in a permanent sneer. Damn it.

Nanette stood, returned the book to the trolley and headed for the door. Lauran glared at her, but said nothing. Librarians tended to be touchy about people starting fights in the libraries and rarely bothered to sort out who was actually guilty before handing out punishments and detentions. She stepped through the door, taking advantage of the moment to study the ward protecting the outer library from the rest of the school. It, at least, would be easy to fool ... assuming she managed to transfer the charms from one book to the other. She took a breath as she walked down the stairs. She might have to take the copy in and out of the library first, just to see if the wards reacted. She might be able to come up with a good explanation for owning a copy. There was no reasonable explanation for trying to swap one book for the other.

Even being caught with the text would merit some questioning, she mused. As far as they know, I can’t read properly.

She passed a pair of younger students pinning a poster to the walls. Someone had drawn an idealised witch flying a pitchfork, surrounded by a cluster of youngsters flying under their own power. The text called for volunteers to join the flying team, promising a whole series of rewards that would be meaningless when the teamsters left school. Nanette’s lips twitched in dark amusement. Ken taught useful skills, particularly if one knew one might be going into combat. Flying was useless when one’s enemies could bring one down with a simple spell.

Unless there’s more to it than we know, she thought. It didn’t seem likely. The spells were complex, but easy to disrupt. And everyone would be doing it, if it gave a real advantage.

Her feet carried her on, past a handful of empty classrooms and down a flight of stairs to the lower levels. Laughter seemed bigger on the inside, although she wasn’t sure that was actually true. The school had grown down, digging further and further into the mountain with each passing decade. Nanette remembered the tunnels under Mountaintop and shivered. Digging too deep was dangerous. Who knew what one might wake?

She turned the corner and stopped, dead. A trio of third years were casting hexes towards a cowering girl. Nanette stared, torn between horror and grim understanding. Students needed to learn to defend themselves, but ... they were third years, casting spells on a younger girl ... on Lillian. Nanette’s heart twisted. The girl reminded her of herself, when she’d been a firstie herself. And yet, Lillian didn’t have the power or the nerve to fight back. She might even have come to believe it was impossible.

Nanette clenched her fists, unsure what to do. Mountaintop’s rules were clear. Sink or swim ... but even Mountaintop believed older students shouldn’t be starting fights with younger students. A three-year gap was almost insurmountable, certainly for a common-born girl who’d barely been schooled in magic. Nanette had needed nearly four months to find a way to strike back at her tormentor and it had nearly gotten her expelled. Lillian screamed as an invisible force hoisted her off the ground, flipping her upside down. Nanette felt a wave of boiling rage. How dare they?

Magic flowed through her, shaped by her anger and the bitter memory of being just as helpless herself. One of the girls glanced up, an instant before she and her friends started to melt. Their dresses hit the floor, jumping and jerking as if they were animated by a prank spell. Nanette hastily cast a floatation spell as Lillian fell, catching her before she could slam her head into the stone floor. The younger girl seemed to be going into shock. Nanette wondered if she was more surprised by someone helping her than anything else.

She stalked over and picked up one of the empty dresses. A small green frog stared up at her, eyes blinking. Nanette snorted, rudely. They’d been so sure no one would stop them that they hadn’t thought to look to their protections. They couldn’t have kept her from hurting them, if she’d wished, but they could have saved themselves considerable embarrassment. The entire school thought Nadine was a useless loser who probably needed a wand to do anything complex. And she’d just turned three girls into frogs ...

A hand caught her ear and yanked her back. “And I suppose,” Lady Damia said, “that you have a good explanation for this?”

“She saved me,” Lillian stammered. “She ...”

“I asked Nadine,” Lady Damia said, as she twisted Nanette’s ear. “Do you have an answer, girl?”

Nanette cursed herself savagely. She’d acted like Emily. Jumping in to help without thinking of the consequences. Being seen to use powerful magic by the students was bad enough, but being seen by the tutors ... Lady Damia would talk, of course, and Mistress Jens would wonder why Nadine was such an incompetent in her class and yet so brilliant outside it. She kicked herself, mentally. She had to recover the situation, but how?

“They were annoying me,” she said, in a tone that would have earned her a slap if she’d used it to her mother. She wanted - she needed - to irritate the older woman. An irritated person wouldn’t think too clearly. “I can turn them back if you like.”

She cancelled the spell before the tutor could answer. The three girls screamed as they reverted to normal, stark naked. Nanette giggled, despite everything, as they tried to cover themselves, grab for their clothes, curtsey to the tutor and run like the wind, all at the same time. The embarrassment of being turned into frogs was nothing compared to being stripped in public. There’d been a boy at Mountaintop who liked casting strip-spells on girls. What the girls had done to him was still talked about in whispers ...

Lady Damia froze the girls with a icy look, then glared at Nantette. “Do you think it is fair to pick on girls two years your junior?”

Nanette could have pointed out, rather sardonically, that the girls had been doing the same ... worse, perhaps, because Lillian had far less magic than any of them. But Nadine would have whined ...

“It’s not fair,” she said. “I ... they ... they were annoying me.”

“I see.” Lady Damia studied her for a long moment. “You have a lot to learn. Let’s see ... you will not attend the flying display. You can perform a month of detentions, assigned by your roommate. And you will report to the gym mistress this evening, after dinner.”

Emily would have gotten away with it, Nanette thought, sullenly. The punishments would have rankled, if she’d cared about them. She’d have put forward better excuses too.

“Yes, My Lady,” she said, as snidely as she could. It would definitely irritate the older woman. “I ...”

“You can report to the gym mistress now, if you like,” Lady Damia said. It was an order and there was no point in trying to deny it. “And you can spend the next few months mentoring this girl. You might have something useful to teach her.”

Nanette gritted her teeth. She wasn’t sure why she’d intervened. She’d seen worse things in her life. And now ... she didn’t need another complication. Time spent with Lillian was time she couldn’t spend planning her heist. She had a nasty feeling the tutors would be watching the mentorship closely. They had to be concerned about what a bratty princess might be teaching her charge.

She opened her mouth to say something that would probably get her in more trouble, then closed it before she could say a word. Emily made friends, friends who helped her when she needed it. Nanette knew she lacked the talent - Penny wouldn’t be anything like as friendly if Nanette hadn’t been manipulating her magically - but ... who knew? Perhaps she could turn the whole affair to her advantage. It always worked out for Emily.

“Yes, My Lady,” Nanette said.

Lady Damia let go of her ear. “Go.”

“Thank you.” Lillian was staring at her, worshipfully. “I ... thank you.”

Nanette felt ... she wasn’t sure how she felt. She’d broken the rules. She’d done something that, in the long run, might have done a great deal of harm. A younger student couldn’t get into the habit of looking to an older one for protection, or she’d be helpless and alone when that student graduated. And yet, the way Lillian was looking at her gave birth to a funny feeling in her stomach. She’d done something good. It felt wonderful.

And you can’t let yourself get too close to anyone, she thought, as Lady Damia started to lecture the younger girls. It looked like they were in trouble too. You’re not going to be here much longer.

She forced herself to wander down to the gym mistress’s office, dawdling as much as she dared. Mountaintop had taught her to take her punishments stoically, but Nadine had never been punished in her entire life. No one had so much as said no to her ... Nanette felt a flicker of cold contempt, tinged with amusement. The goldfish girl was in for a shock when she married and found herself subordinate to a husband. She’d move from being her father’s property to her husband’s.

Unless she masters enough magic to protect herself, Nanette thought. And that won’t be easy if she doesn’t buckle down and work at it.

She felt her heart start to race as she reached the office and peered inside. The gym mistress was sitting at her desk, talking to a pair of younger girls who looked like mice caught by a cat’s steady gaze. She was insanely muscular, so muscular Nanette was tempted to believe the whispered rumour the teacher really was a man. But she had no visible Adam’s apple in her throat, nothing to suggest she was anything but female. It was just another cruel lie dreamt up by girls who had no other way to fight back.

Mistress Greenstone looked up. “Yes?”

Nanette tried hard to sound scared. “Lady Damia sent me here ...”

“Then stand in the corner and wait.” Mistress Greenstone turned back to the other girls, as if Nanette was not worthy of her time. “I’ll deal with you in a minute.”

Your guests will make sure everyone knows what happened, Nanette thought, as she did as she was told. And everyone will be making fun of me afterwards.

She put the thought aside. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was fitting in long enough to devise a plan, put it into action and vanish before something went wrong. She couldn’t afford to delay. The longer she waited, the greater the chance of something going wrong. If the staff realised she was an imposter, they’d grab her even if they didn’t know who she was or why she was there. She doubted she could talk her way out of trouble.

“I’ll see you both later,” Mistress Greenstone said. “Dismissed.”

Nanette tensed as the two girls left the room. Their pitying looks boded ill. This was not going to be fun.

Just pretend it hurts worse than it does, Nanette told herself, as the gym mistress picked up a cane and ordered her to bend over. It would be easy, she thought. And believable. Let her think she’s really hurting you.

7

“I heard you disgraced yourself,” Penny said, an hour later. “The whole school heard your yowls.”

Nanette glared at her. The gym mistress wasn’t the nastiest person she’d met - she’d met quite a few outright sadists, during her career as student and gofer - but she was determined to make each punishment memorable. Nanette had channelled Nadine and screamed the place down, yet the gym mistress hadn’t seemed to care. She probably thought anyone sent for punishment before dinner really deserved it. Nanette had limped back to her bedroom, closed the door and thrown herself on the bed. She wouldn’t be sleeping comfortably for days.

“And banned from watching the flying display,” Penny added, as she sat on her bed and started to rustle through her drawers. “What did you do?”

“I can’t fly,” Nanette reminded her. “What does it matter?”

Penny gave her a sharp look. “Do you know who comes to the displays? The Elder Sisters, all the graduates who might take us as apprentices or give our careers a boost or even give us a helping hand when we need it. Every year, we have the chance to form relationships that might save our lives later on. It’s not just about flying. It’s about the opportunity to make friends with people who might help us.”

Nanette frowned. Put that way, it was almost reasonable. Magical society lived and died by patronage, from apprentices finding the right masters to newborn magicians marrying into ancient lineages or working for an older magician on the understanding you’d inherit the business when your master died. She remembered how older girls and younger ones seemed to be on almost friendly terms and nodded. The chance to meet graduates - and form relationships with them - was more important than it seemed. Who knew what someone’s patronage could do for you?

“I see your point,” she said. “But there’s no going back now.”

“You might be able to help me,” Penny said. She pulled a small jar out of her drawer and held it out. “But here’s something for you first.”

Nanette took the jar. “What’s this?”

“Soothing potion,” Penny said. “I made it myself.”

“Really?” Nanette was genuinely touched. Penny was taking a considerable risk in even admitting to owning the jar, let alone giving it to her. “I ... thank you.”

Penny shrugged. “Least I could do,” she said. “But you do realise why you’re in trouble, don’t you?”

“I turned three girls into frogs.” Nanette breathed a sigh of relief as she applied the potion to her rear. “Right?”

“Not quite.” Penny looked pensive, just for a moment. “You stripped them naked. That’s a serious crime here.”

Well, of course, Nanette thought, darkly.

“I know we’re not supposed to care,” Penny added. It took Nanette a moment to realise she meant aristocrats. “But here ... the rules are different.”

Nanette nodded. “I quite understand,” she said. “And I won’t do it again.”

“Very good.” Penny smiled as she took back the jar. “Now, I have to give you a cluster of detentions. You can work in the library for the next few weekends.”

“A fate worse than a fate worse than death,” Nanette said, dryly. It was, for a student at boarding school. She wouldn’t be allowed to leave the school on the weekends, even to visit Pendle. She’d be too busy in the library. And Nadine would absolutely hate it. Everyone knew she couldn’t read properly. “You’re a terrible sadist.”

“It could be worse,” Penny said. “Believe me, it could be worse.”

“Yeah.” Nanette forced herself to stand. “And what do you want in exchange for this bit of ... benevolence?”

Penny smiled as she brought out a handful of parchments. “I know you’re better at charms than you let on,” she said. “I want you to tell me what you think of these.”

Nanette concealed her irritation as she studied the parchments. The suggestions had clearly taken root in Penny’s mind. It helped, she supposed, that Penny wanted to take advantage of her. There were definite advantages to knowing someone’s secrets. You could make them do anything, if the alternative was worse. And everyone knew Nadine was useless at charms or - indeed - any form of advanced magic. No one would believe her if she claimed the other girl had stolen her ideas.

“You’re planning a ritualised flying display,” she mused. There would be eleven girls in the formation, each one casting a part of the whole. “Who are you trying to impress?”

“There’s a bunch of charms mistresses who’re meant to be attending,” Penny said. “If I can impress them, they’ll be falling over themselves to offer me an apprenticeship.”

Nanette felt a flash of amused understanding. Competition for apprenticeships was fierce. No wonder Penny was prepared to bend the rules and beg for help. If it worked out for her, she’d be on top of the world. Nadine wouldn’t see the point, but Nanette did. And she could see how to take advantage of it. She was already starting to form a plan.

“You’re going to have to plan it carefully,” she said. “And if someone fails their role ...”

“I know my team,” Penny insisted. “They can do it.”

“I’m sure they can,” Nanette said. She was tempted to point out that Penny had never tried to introduce her, but kept that to herself. The last thing she wanted was an introduction. “If you work the spells together ...”

She heard what sounded like a knock, a very faint knock, on the door. She looked up, puzzled. Someone who wanted in would knock louder, wouldn’t they? So would someone who wanted to prank them. They’d want to make sure no one was in ... she heard Penny snort, an instant before she heard the knock again. Someone was there, but knocking lightly ... they seemed to be in two minds about it. Did they want the door to open?

“Come,” she called.

The door opened. Lillian stepped into the room, wringing her hands together nervously. Nanette blinked in surprise. It was rare, at Mountaintop, for a young student to enter an older student’s dorm. Whitehall seemed to operate on the same principle. But Laughter ... she stood, trying to paste a welcoming expression on her face. It wasn’t easy.

Penny looked up. “What are you doing here?”

Lillian paled still further. “I ... I ...”

“She came to see me,” Nanette said, before Penny could say or do something unfortunate. “I’m her new mentor.”

“Sucks to be you, I guess,” Penny said. She glowered at the parchments. “Tell her to buzz off and come back tomorrow.”

“I’ll talk to you after dinner,” Nanette said, to Penny. It would have been rude to invite Lillian to stay, given that Penny clearly didn’t want her there. “Lillian, shall we go find a place to chat?”

The younger girl looked surprised, but nodded. Nanette felt depressed. Lillian had probably expected to be told to get lost, if she wasn’t simply thrown out the room or given detention. It had taken a great deal of nerve for her to enter the corridor, let alone knock on the door and wait. The older students didn’t take kindly to younger students invading their domain.

Which is how the staff controls us, Nanette thought. Studying under Aurelius had been an eye-opening experience in more ways than one. They manipulate our social hierarchy to make us behave.

She found an empty study and motioned for Lillian to enter. “How are you?”

Lillian shifted, uncomfortably. “How are you?”

Nanette felt a hot flash of anger. How dare Lillian ask her anything? How dare ... she shook her head. Lillian had probably heard the rumours, the rumours that had probably grown in the telling. If Nanette was any judge, half the school probably believed the gym mistress had beaten her to death and then used forbidden magics to make her rise from the dead. And there were plenty of students who had every reason to want to put her down a little. Nadine was an aristocrat whose father had pulled strings to get his daughter into the school.

“I’m fine,” she said, tersely. Emily would have known what to say. Emily would probably have had the younger girl eating out of the palm of her hand in a day or two. “How are you?”

“Fine.” Lillian shifted awkwardly. “I ... Lady Damia said you’d help me.”

“I’m sure she did,” Nanette said. She wondered at the older woman’s motives. Nadine wouldn’t be around for more than a couple of years, whatever happened. “Did she say with what?”

“With everything,” Lillian said. She reached into her pocket and produced a piece of parchment. “I just don’t understand.”

Nanette took the parchment and unfolded it. “You’re trying to get ahead too fast,” she said, after a moment. She recognised the signs, all too well. She’d had her nose rubbed in them, six years ago. And then ... she rubbed her arm, unconsciously. “You have to master the basics first, or you’ll get your palm smacked.”

“That’s happened.” Lillian’s face reddened. “I just don’t understand.”

“Clearly.” Nanette motioned for her to sit. “Let’s go through it, shall we?”

She’d never really considered teaching as a career, although Aurelius had made her proctor a couple of classes and mark assignments he couldn’t be bothered to mark himself. And yet, as she forced herself to go through half-remembered spellwork she’d left behind years ago, she found herself starting to enjoy it. Lillian wasn’t stupid, merely ignorant. The way her eyes lit up when she finally connected the dots ... Nanette understood, just for a moment, why some of her teachers enjoyed their work. The satisfaction of merely helping someone to think made up for one hell of a lot.

“These exercises don’t make sense,” Lillian grumbled. “Why do they ask us to prepare ingredients, then reject them?”

“You’re meant to ask what you’re going to be brewing,” Nanette said. “Take ... fairy roots. If you were making a soothing potion, you’d peel the roots before chopping them up and putting them in the brew, but if you were making a healing potion you’d merely wash them first. If you don’t ask what you’re doing, how do you expect to get it right?”

Lillian frowned. “We’re not meant to ask questions.”

“It’s better to confess ignorance than look like an idiot when your potion explodes,” Nanette pointed out, dryly. She’d met her share of sarcastic alchemists who looked to have dark secrets preying on their minds - or hangovers, from drinking their own brews - but none of them had ever punished her for asking questions. “Don’t you ever speak up in class?”

“Everyone laughs, every time I reveal my ignorance,” Lillian said. “And they ...”

“Learn to defend yourself,” Nanette said, curtly. She felt a twinge of disgust, mingled with guilt. “Bullies go away if you hurt them. And you have magic.”

“They have magic too,” Lillian pointed out.

“You don’t have to kill them.” Nanette’s lips twitched. “You just have to give them a bloody nose.”

She studied the younger girl for a long moment. She shouldn’t get attached. She shouldn’t do anything to draw attention to herself. And yet ... it had worked out for Emily. She’d taught the Shadows how to defend themselves. She’d ... Nanette wasn’t quite sure what Emily had been doing at Mountaintop, but she had to admit the whole affair had been one hell of a diversion. Even Aurelius had had problems coping with it.

And she killed him. Nanette was sure of it, although she’d never seen the body. Damn her.

She cleared her throat. “I’m going to have to lecture,” she said. “Are you ready?”

“Yes.” Lillian looked as if she’d be happy to listen to Nanette reading anything. “I’m ready.”

Nanette smiled. “The wimp is one of the two most despised characters in and out of school,” she said. “Part of that is because the wimp attracts bullies like flies to shit. Part of that is because the wimp, being unable to defend him or herself, is unable to defend anyone else either. And once you start on that downward trajectory, it is very hard to turn around and start climbing up again.”

She studied Lillian for a long moment. “You’re projecting an air of weakness,” she said, flatly. “You look weak, so others - boys as well as girls - will pick on you. You’ll be trained into helplessness before you even realise what’s happened, let alone do something about it. You have to learn to project both the appearance of power and actual power. Hold your head up higher, brush back your hair and don’t let them see it hurts.”

“I don’t know where to begin,” Lillian said.

“Hold your head up high and look me in the eye,” Nanette ordered, patiently. “And tell yourself you can hurt me if I try to hurt you.”

Lillian tried, but failed. Nanette kept her expression carefully blank. She didn’t know how Emily had turned Frieda into a powerful and capable magician. Frieda had been a Shadow, far more beaten down than Lillian ... Nanette forced herself to remember Aurelius’s teachings. He’d pointed out, more than once, that all the strength in the world was meaningless without the will and confidence to use it. Nanette supposed she’d never been quite as beaten down as Frieda or Lillian. She’d known she had power. She just hadn’t known how much.

And I was ruthless enough to risk killing my mistress, she reminded herself, dryly. She knew she’d been lucky. Aurelius would have been quite within his rights to expel her on the spot and badmouth her to the other magic schools. Lillian isn’t quite at that stage.

“You need to focus more on offensive magic,” she said. “And practice your defences as well.”

“I don’t know where to begin,” Lillian admitted.

Nanette smiled, then started to guide her through a series of basic protective spells. None of them were particularly strong - a powerful magician could batter them down through raw power alone - but they’d give Lillian a chance to strike back. Or simply get out of the way while mustering a counterattack. She found herself enjoying the experience - again - as she switched to more offensive spells, from sneaky pranks to nastier hexes that would teach anyone who tried to hurt her a lesson.

“Make sure you protect your property as well,” she said, as the bell rang. “You have a trunk?”

Lillian nodded. “Of course. Doesn’t everyone?”

“No.” Nanette shrugged. “If it’s not an enchanted trunk, someone’s probably already taken a peek inside. Make sure you protect it before they do something worse.”

“I ...” Lillian swallowed and started again. “I thought that was forbidden.”

Nanette raised her eyebrows. “So is picking on younger students,” she said. Aurelius had told her, more than once, that merely passing laws against crime was pointless. There were people who’d do something criminal merely for the thrill. Breaking into someone’s trunk was forbidden, but she knew students who’d done it. They’d found it enjoyable. “Make sure your trunk is secure before you use it to store anything ... well, anything you don’t want someone else to know about.”

Lillian coloured. “I don’t have anything to hide.”

“Everyone says that,” Nanette said. There was always something, from a harmless schoolgirl crush to criminal misconduct. “And everyone is lying.”

She snorted at the thought as she stood. “I want you to practice the spells I showed you,” she said. “And I want you to go through your previous essays and see if you can do them better.”

“I’ll do my best,” Lillian said. “I ... why are people so ... so ...?”

“Horrible?” Nanette made a face. “Power. It’s all about power.”

Lillian looked doubtful. “Really?”

“Yeah.” Nanette shrugged. “Among mundanes, there’s physical power” - she clenched a fist - “and social power. A strong man has physical power, which he can turn into social power; a weak man can still manipulate social power, but rarely hold it in the face of physical opposition. Women have far less physical power - very few women can beat a man in a fistfight - which encourages them to develop social power to levels men find impossible to grasp. And the stupider amongst the men find that either irritating or amusing.”

She felt a sudden wave of bitterness. “Magic levels the playing field. A woman can meet a man on even terms. Right now, the most fearsome magician in the world is a woman. I suppose it isn’t a surprise that women, given equal power to men, act like men.”

“I don’t understand,” Lillian confessed.

“You will.” Nanette ran a hand though her hair. She’d said too much. Nadine wouldn’t be so ruthlessly cynical. She might understand her society intellectually, but she wouldn’t feel it until someone showed her just how defenceless she truly was. And really ... she’d shown too much competence. Emily had the excuse of being the Child of Destiny. Everyone expected her to be brilliant. “Believe me, you will.”

Lillian stood and hugged her, tightly. “Thank you,” she said. “I ... thank you.”

“Perhaps you can do something for me in exchange,” Nanette said, awkwardly. She had to find a way to use the girl, if only to give her some cover afterwards. “When I ask you to do something, will you do it?”

“Anything,” Lillian said. “Anything at all.”

Nanette watched her go, feeling torn between guilt and grim amusement. Lillian really reminded her of herself, yet ... she’d never made such a foolhardy promise. She’d never pledged herself to a stranger, with no idea of what he’d demand of her. Or had she? She’d devoted herself to Aurelius, then Cloak ...

Not that it matters, she told herself, firmly. The plan was starting to take shape. It just needed some fine-tuning. I won’t stay here long enough for it to matter.

8

“You shouldn’t be spending so much time with that firstie,” Penny said, as they bent their heads over the parchments. “People are starting to talk.”

“It’s only been a week,” Nanette pointed out, dryly. “And I have orders to mentor her.”

“Which is all that’s stopping some of the nastier rumours from getting any traction,” Penny snapped. “You do realise she’s got a pash on you?”

And you’re jealous, Nanette thought. It was fairly clear that Penny had a pash on her. She never wasted a moment to spend time with Nanette, practicing everything from etiquette to dancing when they weren’t working on the flying display. You want me to spend more time with you.

She shrugged. “I have my orders,” she said, trying to add a hint of sourness to her voice. “And how many others even give me the time of day?”

Penny reddened. “I could introduce you to people if you weren’t in detention every weekend,” she said. “Why did you help the little brat?”

“I ...” Nanette shook her head. “Don’t worry about it, really.”

She peered down at the parchments. Penny was good, for her age, but Nanette was better. Aurelius had practically given her a charms apprenticeship, before she’d even graduated from Mountaintop. It had taken a great deal of work to craft charms that looked harmless, as long as they weren’t put together in a specific order. Nanette had few qualms about risking lives, but she knew she was risking discovery. A skilled charms mistress might realise something was wrong if she studied the parchments. She’d suspect the worst - and she’d be right.

“This is going to be great,” Penny said. “Everyone will be watching.”

“Yeah.” Nanette studied the parchment. “I still can’t believe you trust your life to these spells.”

Penny smirked. “Too scared to fly, little girl?”

Nanette allowed herself to flush. Mistress Jens had made it brutally clear she was not to try flying, at least until she’d mastered the spells. Nanette was sure she could use them, but it helped cement the idea she was bad at charms in everyone’s mind. And besides, she was entirely sure the spells weren’t safe outside a controlled environment. The teachers might promise expulsion without appeal to anyone who tampered with the spells, but what good was that in a real fight?

She sighed. Penny had finally dragged her into the arena and forced her to watch the older girls flying around like bats out of hell. There was a kind of freedom in flying, Nanette had to admit; there was something in her that liked the idea of letting go of her cares, throwing herself into the sky and letting the wind take her away. And yet, she knew she could never be so carefree. She knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that a single spell could send her crashing to the ground far below.

“It’s not that and you know it,” Nanette said. “They won’t let me fly.”

“Maybe you should show off your true skill.” Penny leered at her. “Or would that get you into more trouble?”

“Yeah,” Nanette said, quietly.

Penny stood. “You promised me more dancing,” she said. “And I brought music.”

Nanette had to smile as Penny produced a spellstone from her drawer and placed it on the cabinet, then muttered the activation charm. Recorded music was rare - she’d never actually seen a recording spellstone, outside enchantment classes - but she had to admit it served a purpose. There was no need to hire a band for private dance lessons.

And any aristo who could afford a spellstone would sooner die than admit he couldn’t afford a band, she thought. One must keep up appearances, even if it means pawning the family gold and eating off one’s shirts.

She took Penny in her arms and led her through a series of dance steps. It was tempting to just let herself sink into the music and enjoy the dance - Penny was a better partner than some of the men who’d taught her - but she had a job to do. Penny sighed as Nanette ran her hand down Penny’s back, gently brushing her magic against the girl’s skin. The suggestions were definitely starting to take root. Penny couldn’t help feeling friendly and trusting towards Nanette. It only took a moment to strengthen her feelings of bitterness and resentment towards Lillian. The younger girl didn’t know it, but she was Penny’s romantic rival.

Nanette felt a pang of guilt as the music changed. She was no stranger to manipulating people in any number of ways, but it still cost her to play with Penny’s emotions. She wasn’t sure why. Penny had set out to use her, just like so many others. And yet ... she shook her head, Penny leaning against her. She had a job to do. The plan was steadily coming together. And then she’d be gone, leaving a heartbroken girl behind.

And this school might accidentally foil my plans, she mused. What’ll happen if Penny starts questioning her own feelings?

She kept the worry off her face as she led Penny through a series of more complex dance steps. It was easy to cast compulsion or domination spells, but they tended to be incredibly noticeable. An outside observer would probably notice something was wrong, even if the mere act of casting the spell didn’t set off alarms. And Penny might be able to fight it off. It was better to play with her emotions, to steer her round to doing what Nanette wanted her to do without ever questioning her reasoning. And yet ...

She’ll recover, she told herself. And she’ll be all the stronger for it.

Penny stepped back, her face flushed. Nanette understood. Dancing was as close as one could get to sex without actually making out. It was intimate ... one of her tutors had told her that dancing allowed the partners to become intimately familiar with each other without ever crossing the line into intercourse. She’d thought it was silly at the time, but there was a world of difference between dancing with a tutor and dancing with someone attractive. She supposed she was lucky Penny didn’t have wandering hands.

“I ...” Penny shook her head and tapped the spellstone, cancelling the spell. The music died to silence. “I really should get back to work.”

“You still have that essay to do?” Nanette leaned forward. “Do you really have to get it done before Friday?”

“I have to coach the team on Saturday and finalise the spells before the flying display on Sunday,” Penny said. “I really have to get it right.”

“I’m sure you’ll do well,” Nanette said. “It’s just a shame you can’t practice everything first.”

“We’re not firsties,” Penny said. “We have to pretend we’re starting from scratch.”

Nanette rolled her eyes. She’d been taught that practice made perfect. Better to get the mistakes out of the way during training than when lives were at stake. But she thought she saw the logic. What was the point of a surprise test if everyone knew it was coming? The girls weren’t just being judged on their flying, but on their ability to cast a complex semi-ritualised spell on the fly. She told herself, firmly, not to question it too much. It would come in very handy.

“You know who’s coming?” Penny smiled, wanly. “I have to impress them.”

“I believe you might have mentioned a few ... hundred ... names,” Nanette said, dryly. “I’m sure you’ll impress them.”

“I better had,” Penny said. There was a knock on the door. “Oh, what now?”

“Come in,” Nanette called.

The door opened. Lillian peered in nervously. Nanette glanced at Penny, just in time to see her face twist in jealousy. The suggestions were taking root, then. She’d heard enough horror stories about pashes gone wrong over the last few days to feel a twinge of sympathy for both girls. Young romance was bad enough even without someone manipulating one’s feelings to cause chaos at the right moment. It was funny, she supposed, how Laughter had more romantic drama than Mountaintop or Whitehall. The girls weren’t really expected to marry each other. They could indulge their feelings in the certain knowledge nothing long-term would come out of it.

“Ah ... you said you wanted to meet,” Lillian said. “I brought my homework and ...”

“We’ll go to the library,” Nanette said. “I have detention in an hour, so I can keep an eye on your work while I shelve books.”

“Just don’t get caught talking to her,” Penny advised, sourly. “I’ll see you in a couple of hours. We can sneak down to Pendle together.”

Nanette glanced at the clock, then nodded. “And have dinner there? I look forward to it.”

She smiled as she stepped through the door, Lillian following her. It was irritating to have a younger girl dogging her steps, like a lamb following her mother. Nanette had no idea how Emily put up with it. And yet, there was something oddly comforting in the open, guileless admiration in Lillian’s eyes. Nadine would not have been anything like so welcoming. The girl was so shallow that the mere fact Lillian shared a name with Nadine’s hated stepmother would have damned her.

Idiot, Nanette thought. She was used to changing names at the drop of a hat. It isn’t as if she chose the name.

Lillian caught her hand. “I don’t think the Head Girl likes me,” she said. “Why not?”

“She just likes challenging people,” Nanette lied. “She prefers people to stand up to her.”

“Oh,” Lillian said. “But ... she’s the Head Girl!”

“Technically, she’s the Deputy Head Girl,” Nanette pointed out. The system made a certain kind of sense, she supposed, but she could see its flaws. If Penny disgraced herself, who would take her place? It made far more sense to have prefects and suchlike appointed by the tutors. At least popularity wouldn’t have that much influence on selection. “She has to survive this year before she becomes the formal Head Girl.”

Lillian shrugged. “Is it that important?”

“Being Head Girl looks very good on your resume, when you leave school,” Nanette said. It didn’t cheer her up. She’d been Head Girl at Mountaintop, but there was no way she could claim the title without revealing herself. “It suggests you’re impressive enough to get your fellows to trust you.”

She felt another pang as they walked into the library. She’d never been trusted, not enough to convince anyone to vote for her. They’d known her as a commoner, then as a tutor’s personal assistant ... it wasn’t as if Aurelius had been a monster. There’d been students who’d served really bad masters. Everyone had felt sorry for them. But her? They’d all known Aurelius’s patronage could open doors.

And now he’s dead, she thought, savagely. She’d make Emily pay for murdering Aurelius. He’d been more than a tutor to her. I’ll burn down her world before I kill her.

“Nadine?” Lillian sounded worried. “Are you alright?”

“Just remembering,” Nanette said. “A moment of weakness, nothing more.”

She calmed herself as she looked around the library. It was nearly deserted. Two swots sat at widely separated tables, working through a pile of textbooks; a duty librarian piled books onto a trolley, ready to go back on the shelves. Lillian selected a third table - Nanette was amused to note she was keeping her distance from the other students - and started to unload her bag as Nanette sat down. Her tutors had given her enough homework to keep even an experienced student busy for days. Lillian would have been hopelessly stuck if Nanette hadn’t broken it down for her.

“I managed to cast a luminance charm in class,” Lillian said. “But ... I couldn’t figure out how to change the light.”

“It’s a useful spell in more ways than one,” Nanette said. She took the parchment and scanned the spellwork. “It’s actually a difficult spell to block. What do you think will happen if you cast a blinding light into someone’s eyes?”

“You’ll blind them?”

“Perhaps not for long, but you’ll make it very hard for them to think straight,” Nanette said, dryly. She allowed herself a tight smile. Blinding charms were generally forbidden at school, but there was a rather neat loophole if someone used a luminance charm in their place. There was enough plausible deniability to keep someone from being expelled if they went too far. “Thinking outside the box, Lillian, can lead to some really interesting tricks.”

Lillian frowned. “Like what?”

“Cast a washing charm on someone and you’ll drench them in cold water,” Nanette pointed out. “Modify the charm a little and you’ll scald them instead. Cast a summoning charm when someone is between you and whatever you’re trying to summon and that person will be smacked in the back. Cast a painkilling charm when someone is not in pain and you’ll make them numb, very numb. It’s astonishing how many simple household spells have nasty uses if you think about it.”

And thinking outside the box is Emily’s skill, her thoughts added, darkly. Who’d have thought of using mundane means for magic?

She skimmed the homework quickly. “The trick is to know how to cast a particular spell without becoming too attached to any particular version of the spell,” she explained. “The standard washing charm, for example, produces cold water. You work out how to fiddle with the spell to produce hot water, rather than simply casting a hot water spell. And that’ll give you insight into modifying other spells.”

“I see, I think,” Lillian said. “What if I change the variables like this ...?”

“Don’t write it down,” Nanette advised. “Try and alter the variables in your head.”

“The teacher said to always write it down,” Lillian objected. “I ...”

Nanette had to smile as she broke off. “It’s good to ask, if you don’t understand,” she said, as reassuringly as she could. “You write the spell down to fix it in your mind. But you actually cast the spell in your head.”

It was a little more complex than that, she thought, as she rose to start her detention, but it would do for the moment. The duty librarian glanced at her, then shrugged. Nanette guessed the detention wasn’t considered too important, not in the grand scheme of things. Her lips quirked. It wasn’t easy pretending to be ignorant. She had to make understandable mistakes, without getting booted out of the library and ordered to serve her detentions somewhere else. Thankfully, the shelving system for the open collection was easy to use. A complete illiterate could have emplaced the books, even if she couldn’t read them.

Emily would love this place, Nanette thought. And she’d spend all her time here.

She scowled at the books. Reading was a useful skill, but she’d always preferred action. A magician could read a book and learn a whole new spell, yet actually mastering the magic required practice. She’d read, somewhere, of a magic that only worked when the spells were written down. In her experience, it was utter nonsense. Magic simply didn’t work that way.

The library felt odd as the hours ticked by. The older students would be in Pendle, enjoying their freedom; the younger students would be in the Silent Woods or sneaking their way to the Redoubt. Penny had told her all sorts of stories about the ruined castle, stories that had grown in the telling. Nanette had to smile at the concept of ghosts, goblins and things that went bump in the night, although she knew better than to laugh too openly. Anyone who lived in rural areas knew there were things out there that weren’t listed in any tome.

And the other folk are always listening, she thought. A shiver ran down her spine. Who knows what’s really buried under the ruined castle?

“I can’t figure this out,” Lillian complained. She was staring at a parchment. “Why doesn’t this work?”

Nanette left the trolley and walked back to the table. “Because you’ve knotted the magic into a collapsing spiral,” she said. “You’ve basically twisted the spell into a ball of string and tied the ends together.”

The door opened behind her. Nanette glanced back. Penny was stamping into the room, looking furious. Nanette wondered, idly, what’d happened. The suggestions shouldn’t have been that effective. Perhaps she’d had a row with one of her friends. It couldn’t have escaped their notice that Penny was spending a lot of time with a newcomer. Solid friendships had been destroyed by less.

“It’s time to go,” Penny said. She sounded like she was on the verge of exploding. “We don’t have much time left.”

Nanette glanced at the clock. It was mid-afternoon. “We have enough,” she said, picking her words carefully. She had to push the right buttons, all the while maintaining plausible deniability. “Just let me finish here ...”

“Come on,” Penny urged. “It’s not that important ...”

Lillian looked up, defiantly. “I need help and ...”

Penny glared. “Be quiet!”

“I need help,” Lillian repeated. “I ...”

“I said, be quiet!” Penny cast a spell. Lillian’s mouth and nose melted into her skin. “I said ...”

“Undo the spell!” Nanette didn’t have to pretend to be horrified. Lillian was starting to suffocate. “Now!”

Penny’s rage built. She drew back her hand to slap Lillian.

“Enough!” The librarian cancelled the spell. Lillian started to gasp for breath. “You” - she jabbed a finger at Nanette - “take this firstie to the healers.”

She rounded on Penny. “And you, report to Lady Damia at once. Now!”

Nanette helped Lillian to stand, carefully concealing her private glee. It had worked! She hadn’t known precisely what would happen, but she’d been certain something would.

And now to see where the pieces fall, she thought. If everything worked as planned, she’d have a window of opportunity. If not ... she’d think of something else. And no one can ever blame it on me.

9

It was nearly an hour before Nanette was able to return to the bedroom, an hour spent watching as the healers poked and prodded at Lillian and then escorting the younger girl back to her room. She was tempted to stay longer, but she couldn’t be seen in a younger girl’s dorm. Her dormmates would say all sorts of things, mostly complete nonsense. The rumours of favouritism wouldn’t do her any good after the older girl graduated.

And I won’t be here in a couple of weeks, if not less, Nanette thought, as she pushed the door open and stepped into the bedroom. Lillian will have to make do with what I can give her before then.

She frowned. Penny was lying on the bed, tears staining her eyes. It was brutally obvious she’d been caned. Nanette felt a stab of sympathy that surprised her. Penny might have done something that deserved something more than a slap on the wrist, but she hadn’t been quite in her right mind. The suggestions had pushed her into lashing out at her rival before she could realise just how bad an idea it was.

“I’m grounded,” Penny said. Her breath came in fits and starts. “I ... I’m grounded.”

Good, Nanette thought. She pasted a concerned expression on her face. “You’re stuck in this room?”

“No more flying for the rest of the term,” Penny said. “I ... I won’t get to impress the guests.”

Nanette pretended to think about it. “But you could still claim the credit for planning the display, couldn’t you?”

Penny shot her a look that suggested she’d said something stupid. “Do you think anyone will give me the credit?”

“If you’re the one who planned the display,” Nanette argued, “they can hardly tell everyone they did it.”

“Yeah,” Penny said. “They just won’t mention it. I have to blow my own trumpet and ... and I can’t.”

“I see.” Nanette opened the drawer and searched for the soothing lotion. “Why don’t you ask someone to do it for you?”

“And precisely who do you think is going to risk giving up their share of the credit?” Penny took the jar and started to apply the lotion to her backside. “My team? They’ll be pretending they don’t know me. The other teams? Get real. They’ll be promoting themselves, not me.”

Nanette smiled. “Ask Lillian.”

Penny stared at her. “Are you out of your mind?”

“No,” Nanette said. “Think about it. Lillian has every reason to want you to suffer, right? So her telling everyone you planned the display will look good, right? And you can play it up, later, as you trying to apologise for losing your temper and hurting her. Nearly killing her. You do owe her more than just a written apology, so ... you can claim you’re giving her some patronage. And so on.”

Penny didn’t look convinced. “You think she’d do it for me?”

“I’d urge her to do it,” Nanette said. Things might just work out better than she’d hoped. If nothing else, it would be embarrassing - afterwards - for Penny to withdraw her patronage or cheat the younger girl. The community might not give much of a damn about Lillian, but they’d take note of a patron who tried to weasel out of her commitments. “And you would find a way to reward her, wouldn’t you?”

She smiled. “So you can’t fly yourself. So what? You can still show off your spellwork.”

Penny frowned as she forced herself to stand. “I’m not even allowed to talk to the team.”

“So have Lillian carry messages,” Nanette said, patiently. “And if someone complains, you can say you’re trying to make it up to her.”

“Hah.” Penny took off her dress and headed for the washroom. “Do you think that’ll work?”

“It should,” Nanette said. She winced at the marks on Penny’s backside. The gym mistress had caned the back of her legs, as well as her buttocks. She knew from experience that was extra painful. “Yes, you did something stupid. Yes, you deserved to get thrashed. But ... you have a chance to show you can learn from experience, that you can recover from your mistakes. And it will work out in your favour.”

Penny turned and gave her a shy smile. “Do you think so?”

“Yes,” Nanette said. “And I’ll help you.”

She smiled, coldly, as Penny stepped into the washroom and closed the door behind her. It had worked. Penny and Nanette would remain within the school during the flying display, while practically everyone else was in the Silent Woods. And they’d see more than they expected, when the different pieces of spellwork started to interact. Nanette allowed her smile to grow wider as she studied the parchments. Lillian would serve as the go-between, if Nanette asked, giving Nanette a chance to switch the parchments around. It didn’t matter if she told everyone Penny had done the work or not. It might be better, afterwards, if no one was quite sure who to blame.

A shame Penny isn’t someone worse, Nanette thought. It would be a lot easier to set her up to take the fall.

The thought bothered her. She’d have had no qualms about landing Ophelia in the cesspit. Framing the girl for something awful would’ve been fun. She’d have deserved it, even if the deception hadn’t lasted long enough to get the girl in real trouble. But Penny ... wasn’t so bad. She was an aristo, and haughty enough to deserve some comeuppance, but she wasn’t an outright villain. She might even have been a good friend, if things had been different.

Lillian wouldn’t agree, Nanette reminded herself. A person can be both hero and villain at the same time.

She started to work through the spellwork, wishing she could write her work down. She didn’t dare. The rooms weren’t closely monitored, but someone - perhaps even Penny - would wonder why she was writing out scenarios that would inevitably lead to disaster. She wondered, briefly, if she could do the work outside the school, then dismissed the thought. The risk was simply too great. She’d just have to improvise.

Penny stepped out of the washroom, towelling herself off. Nanette glanced up and stared. Penny was stunning. Stripped of her uniform, her hair hanging in ringlets over a perfectly-toned body, she was ... Nanette looked away, hastily. The mission was too important to risk any sort of emotional entanglement. She concentrated, pushing the feelings into a small box and locking them away. Penny was going to hate her, when all was said and done. There was nothing she could do about that, not now. She’d been manipulating the girl from day one.

“I was thinking we’d start with a basic series of loops,” Penny said. Her voice was muffled as she pulled a new dress over her head. “And then go into a flying dance routine.”

“So I see.” Nanette didn’t dare look up until Penny was properly dressed. “You’re going to be dancing on air.”

“And teasing the boys with a chance to look up our dresses,” Penny said. “They’re going to be disappointed.”

Nanette gave her a sharp look. “You have a filthy mind.”

“You’ve never seen the way some boys look at you?” Penny smirked, as if she’d realised something important. “They can’t help it.”

“So they say.” Nanette kept her face expressionless, even as alarm bells went off inside her head. It was quite easy to manipulate someone who was attracted to you. It was how she’d manipulated Penny. Was it a coincidence or was she hinting she’d realised what Nanette was doing? “All the blood flows out of their heads and goes somewhere else.”

Penny’s smirk grew wider. “Have you seen a naked boy?”

“No.” Nanette pretended to be shocked. “I’m not supposed to see a naked man until my wedding night.”

“I suppose they wouldn’t want you to get scared and run away,” Penny said. “That would be awkward, wouldn’t it?”

“Yeah.” Nanette had to smile. She hoped someone took the time to explain the facts of life to Nadine before her wedding night. The mundane aristocracy liked keeping their daughters in ignorance for reasons that made no sense to her. She’d once read an anatomy textbook that concealed more than it revealed. And one glance at the diagram had been enough to tell her the writer was an idiot. “I suppose it would upset people.”

She studied the parchments for a long moment. “You work on precisely what you want to happen, then we’ll check and recheck the spells before putting them together,” she said, as the dinner bell rang. “Are you meant to stay here?”

“Outside class, yes. They’ll bring my dinner on a tray.” Penny shook her head. “They didn’t say I’d lose my badge, but ...”

“Make it up to Lillian,” Nanette advised. “I’ll talk to her, convince her to help. You can make everything up to her and show you’ve learnt something.”

“Fine,” Penny said.

Nanette gave the girl a hug, then turned and left the room. The corridors were still deserted, only a handful of students hurrying through the dorms. The majority of the older girls were eating in Pendle or practicing their flying for the display. Nanette snorted at the thought as she made her way down the stairs and into the dining room. She didn’t really blame the older girls for eating out. The school’s food wasn’t bad, but it was bland.

Lillian came over to her as she sat down. “Can I get you something?”

“Just a regular tray, please,” Nanette said. The younger girl looked fully recovered. Her classmates wouldn’t mock her for being hexed by an older girl, not when there was no way any of them could have done better. “And I need to talk to you afterwards. Meet me in the library.”

“As long as she’s not around.” Lillian seemed astonished at her own daring. “Where is she?”

“Grounded.” Nanette allowed herself a tight smile. “She was heavily punished.”

“Good.” Lillian retreated, then returned with a tray. “I’ll see you afterwards.”

Nanette nodded, then started to eat. The meat pie was bland, as if the cook had forgotten to add salt or any seasoning to the mix. She ate it anyway, rolling her eyes at the students muttering complaints about the food. There were plenty of spells that could be used to change the flavour, if they thought to try. It wasn’t as if the pie was charmed against transfiguration. They could change the flavour effortlessly ...

And no one ever thought to try, she mused. Why the hell not?

She mulled it over as she finished her meal, put the tray to one side and headed for the door. Laughter puzzled her. It was familiar enough for the differences to be disconcerting. The lack of boys gave vent to everything from boyish behaviour to student pashes that were both harmless and deadly serious. And the girls were encouraged to think of themselves as sisters, standing together against a hostile world. Nanette snorted in irritation. In her experience, sisterhood - and brotherhood - only lasted as long as it was convenient. Penny wouldn’t hesitate to sell her down the river if she thought she’d come out ahead.

They say the Sisterhood is the secret power behind the thrones, she reminded herself. She’d studied the legends, while her wrist was being repaired. The Sisterhood claimed immense power and influence, but ... if that were true, she was sure she’d have seen more signs of its presence. It was far more likely it was simply a quarrel writ large, an association of magicians who just happened to be female. But does it really have enough influence to matter?

The librarian gave her a sharp look as she walked into the library. Nanette did her best to ignore it, although - as soon as Lillian arrived - she took the younger girl back down the corridor and into a deserted classroom. There was no point in irritating the librarians, not when she needed access to the library. She didn’t think she could be banned from the chamber completely, but there was no point in taking chances. She was all too aware she was running out of time.

“I didn’t realise she’d do that,” she said, when they were alone. “How are you feeling?”

Lillian grimaced. “My dormmates were full of sympathy. It was ... unreal.”

“They’re smart enough to know you didn’t stand a chance,” Nanette said. “What she did was cruel.”

She patted Lillian’s shoulder, awkwardly. She couldn’t think of any firstie who could beat a fifth-year student in combat. Emily had beaten her - she admitted it was true, even though she didn’t want to - but she’d cheated. What sort of person would turn a Death Viper into a weapon? And besides, there were only three years between Emily and herself. There were at least five between Lillian and Penny.

But Emily did kill a necromancer, she reminded herself. Necromancers were dangerously insane, yet extremely powerful. I wish I knew how she did it.

“I know.” Lillian looked up at her. “Are you still going to mentor me?”

“Yes,” Nanette lied. The die would be cast on Saturday. She’d flee the school on Sunday, win or lose. “And Penny is going to help you too.”

Lillian tensed. “Help me? Her?”

“She has to make it up to you, somehow,” Nanette pointed out, patiently. “And giving you some extra help will go a long way towards it.”

“And what happens if I refuse?” Lillian sounded reluctant. “I don’t want anything from her.”

Of course not, Nanette thought. She knew how she would have reacted if someone suggested she play nice with Ophelia. The wretched girl hadn’t tried to kill her. Penny nearly killed you.

“She does have quite a bit to offer,” Nanette said, instead. She felt a pang of guilt, which she ruthlessly pushed aside. “And you could ask for something you want in return for letting her help you.”

Lillian frowned. “Like what?”

“She could teach you how to duel,” Nanette said. “Or she could teach you how to fit into society. Or she could simply introduce you to powerful people who could do favours for you.”

“Really?” Lillian didn’t sound convinced. “I had the impression she wasn’t that important.”

“She’s Deputy Head Girl and will be Head Girl next year,” Nanette said. She rather suspected that wouldn’t be true. “No matter her origins, being Head Girl will open doors for her. She’ll have an apprenticeship, she’d graduate ... and she’ll be in position to help you by the time you graduate. And she’ll be grateful if you let her kiss your ass a little right now.”

Lillian blushed. “Kiss my ass?”

“Old saying,” Nanette said. “The ass you kick on the way up may be the one you have to kiss on the way down.”

“Oh.” Lillian giggled. “I don’t think she’ll kiss my ass.”

“Not literally,” Nanette agreed. She leaned back in her chair and spread out her hands. “It’s like this. She screwed up, big time. It’s knocked her down a peg or two. She may continue to fall unless she finds a way to slow and stop the fall. If you let her help you now, showing she’s learnt her lesson, she’ll reward you when she’s climbed back up again.”

“I see, I think,” Lillian said. “And how do I know she’ll reward me?”

“Because it’s in her self-interest to reward you,” Nanette said. “If she cheats you, everyone will know she cheated you. They’ll never trust her again, no matter what she offers. She might not care about you, one way or the other, but she’ll care about her reputation. She’ll want to repair it ... she does want to repair it.”

“And you think she can do it by kissing my ass,” Lillian said. “It doesn’t make sense.”

“That’s because you’re not thinking like her,” Nanette said. “Or the greater community.”

She grinned. “Look at it this way. There’s a man - a handsome man - who’s married to a friend of yours. He cheats on the friend with another friend and gets divorced. You think he’s really handsome, but would you marry him? Of course not. A cheater who cheats is always a cheater, a betrayer who betrays is always a betrayer ... it’s not easy to like a betrayer, even if he betrays in your favour. You’ll always be wondering when it’s your turn to get betrayed.”

“And you think they’d care if she betrayed me?” Lillian snorted. “I’m a commoner.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Nanette assured her. She could tell Lillian hadn’t done much socialising outside her dorm. “They’ll look at patterns of behaviour. A person who betrays once, whatever the motive, might betray again. Safer to deal with someone who hasn’t betrayed anyone. And believe me, Penny knows it.”

“Very well.” Lillian held up a hand. “But I want you to be there too.”

“Of course.” Nanette grinned. She’d happily play messenger if it meant she got to rewrite the messages a little. Neither of the other girls would suspect anything until it was far too late. “I’m sure it will work out for you.”

She chattered to Lillian until Lights Out, then returned to the bedroom. Penny was already asleep, tossing and turning under the blanket. Her desk was covered with parchments, each one outlining part of the planned flying display. Nanette studied them for a moment, then undressed and clambered into bed. She had a week - just under a week - to finalise her plans, then place a knife in Penny’s back. She regretted it, even though she was fairly sure Penny would escape blame. The investigation would reveal the truth. And she’d have to be well away from the school by the time the penny dropped.

And if this goes wrong, she thought as she closed her eyes, I’m dead.

10

“You have to give the papers to Betty,” Nanette said, calmly. “And make sure she understands she’s to use them.”

“I understand,” Lillian said. “I won’t mess up.”

Nanette nodded, dismissing the younger girl. The last week had been hectic, the student body consumed with a growing sense of excitement as the time for the flying display drew ever nearer. Penny might have been grounded - and Nanette was banned from the display anyway - but that didn’t keep her from running around like a headless chicken, constantly checking and rechecking her spellwork until the final hour. Nanette hadn’t expected it to be quite so hard to make the tiny changes, before convoying the documents to Lillian. She’d had fewer problems caused by people who actually were trying to stop her.

She smiled, coldly, as she made her way back to the bedroom. The morning had been spent in the hall, watching a series of speeches from former students who’d become important after graduating. Some of them she knew by reputation; others were complete strangers. She had no way to know if they really were as powerful and influential as they claimed, but it was quite hard to fool magicians. A person who lacked competence would reveal herself very quickly. Even the least amongst the teachers was an expert in her field.

Penny was lying on her bed when she entered, trying to look nonchalant. “Did they mention me?”

Nanette shook her head. “No. Were they meant to?”

“No, but ... you never know,” Penny said. She waved a hand at the stone walls. “Out there, they’re heading down to watch the display. And they won’t know my team is following my plan.”

“Lillian will tell them.” Nanette had a feeling Penny was going to regret everyone knowing her name. “Don’t worry about it.”

She glanced at the clock. The display was scheduled to begin precisely at two o’clock. Half an hour to go. Her mouth felt dry. She didn’t dare start until the school was nearly empty. Once she started, she was committed. She snorted. She’d been committed from the moment she’d turned Nadine into a goldfish and taken her place. There was no way she could play the innocent, if she were caught. People would want to know how and why she’d done it.

“I do worry about it.” Penny stood and paced the room. “I ... how can you be so calm?”

Nanette patted the bed beside her, inviting Penny to sit. “It doesn’t matter that much to me,” she said. “You did all the work.”

Penny eyed her, darkly. “Do you really think it doesn’t matter?”

“There’s nothing you can do about it now, is there?” Nanette smiled, dryly. Outside, she could hear feet pounding down the corridor. “All you can do is wait and see.”

Penny sat, reluctantly. “I suppose you’re right,” she said. “I just wish I could see.”

Nanette wrapped an arm around her shoulder, feeling the girl relax as the seconds ticked on. She understood Penny’s frustrations, although she didn’t share them. Lillian could try to tell the guests that Penny had prepared the spells, but it wouldn’t be the same. Her teammates would steal most of the credit and there was no way to stop it. And afterwards ... her lips quirked. Penny might be better off not being credited with anything.

She felt another pang of guilt as she ran her hand down Penny’s back. She didn’t have to put the plan into action, did she? She could run and hide, but ... there was no point. Cloak had her over a barrel. And even if he didn’t ... she wanted - needed - revenge. She’d do whatever she had to do, betray whoever she must, if it gave her a clear shot at Emily. She wouldn’t just kill the girl. She’d burn down everything she’d created and dance on the ashes before cutting her throat.

Penny shifted. “I’m sorry you’re trapped with me.”

“I’m not.” Nanette turned her head towards Penny. “I like being with you.”

Their lips touched, lightly. Nanette felt a flush of pleasure as Penny’s arms went up and around, holding her close. It was tempting, so tempting, to just relax into the touch, to spend the next few hours making out instead of doing something - anything - else. But time was rapidly running out. The diversion was about to go into effect. And ... if she was caught in the school, after the chaos faded, she was dead.

Penny sighed, pressing against her as Nanette triggered the spell. Her body seemed to soften, then sag to the bed. Her eyes were open, but glazed. Nanette breathed a sigh of relief as Penny succumbed to the compulsion. She’d steadily - and subtly - weakened Penny’s mental defences over the past few weeks, but it had been impossible to tell how well she’d done until she tried to take control. Now ... Penny was hers. The entranced girl favoured her with a pleasant smile, her mind elsewhere. Nanette hoped she was happy, wherever she was. She wouldn’t enjoy her return to the real world.

Time to go, she thought, as she glanced at the clock. The school was silent. The entire population would be in the arena, watching the display. There’s no point in hanging around.

She opened her trunk, removed her knapsack, checked to make sure the second copy of Lamplighter’s Lines was where she’d left it and looked down at Penny. The girl’s lips were twitching, as if she were kissing an invisible face. Nanette smiled, trying to ignore the gnawing guilt. The first time she’d used the spell, she’d had a volunteer. Now ...

“Stand up,” she ordered, quietly. In her entranced state, Penny shouldn’t be able to resist. “Come with me.”

Penny moved like a drunkard, her arms swinging around as if she were trying to dance or fight. Nanette took her hand and guided her to the door, then into the empty corridor. She listened for a moment, just to make sure she couldn’t hear anyone, before steering Penny down the corridor and up the flight of stairs. Penny seemed to glide through the air, unbalancing with every third or fourth step. Nanette started to tighten her grip before she caught herself and cast a levitation spell. If she squeezed too tightly, if she brought Penny out of the trance, she’d know something was wrong.

She felt nervous as they half-stumbled, half-glided towards the library. The wards didn’t bar their passing. Penny’s mere presence was enough to subvert wards that would have balked at Nanette alone. Nanette smiled, then unlocked the door and steered Penny into the library. The chamber appeared deserted, but ... she ordered Penny to stay put as she checked the stalls and the librarian’s office. She didn’t have to subvert those wards to confirm the chamber was empty. The library felt eerie as she turned back to Penny. She thought she saw things lurking in the shadows, hiding at the corner of her eye. She blinked, and they were gone.

The wards must be having an effect on me, she thought. She’d seen stranger things, a long way from human civilisation. Or perhaps they’re trying to drive me out.

Her lips quirked. Wards weren’t very smart. It wasn’t easy to fool them, but it could be done. Even wards linked to wardmasters could be circumvented, if one put enough thought and magic into the process. The magicians couldn’t respond to alarms if the alarms never sounded. She silently thanked Aurelius for her lessons as she walked back to Penny. The girl’s hands were encircling the air, hugging an invisible friend. She was deeply entranced.

“Penny,” she said, quietly. “Open the restricted section.”

Penny stumbled forward. Nanette braced herself, knowing she might have to start running at any second. It was easy to give simple directions to the entranced girl, but more complex orders might defeat the enchantment. She wished, suddenly, it was as simple as getting a password out of her and using it to defeat the wards. That would have been easy. She could have entranced Penny, taken the password and then put her to sleep before raiding the library. As it was ... she had no idea how the wards would react if she stunned Penny. There was a very good chance they’d raise the alarm.

She watched, feeling dirty, as Penny opened the section. The cage doors swung open, wards parting as they sensed an authorised user. Nanette gently pushed Penny forward, following her into the cage. The books seemed to look back at her in disapproval, their spines sparkling with wards that would do everything from colour her hands if she so much as looked at them funny to freeze her in place or turn her into a rat. Her eyes narrowed as they wandered the shelves, picking out Lamplighter’s Lines. The book was rare, but it wasn’t that rare. There were books on the shelves in front of her that were worth a great deal more. She was tempted to try to steal them instead, despite the risk. It seemed a lot of trouble for one book.

The notes must be very important, she thought, as she ordered Penny to remove the book and carry it out of the cage. The girl obeyed, a blissful - and creepy - smile on her face. What are they?

Penny started to lower her hand, threatening to drop the book. Nanette caught it, placed it on the nearest desk and ordered Penny to sit in the corner. The enchantment would keep her in her fantasy world. She sat down, opened the knapsack and removed the second copy. The spells seemed confused as she put the books together, spine to spine. She gritted her teeth, then began the transference spell. The wards shimmered around her, as if they weren’t quite sure what to make of it. She hoped they didn’t decide to raise the alarm.

There’s only one book keyed to the security spells, she told herself. And that’s all the wards need to keep them happy.

She concentrated, holding the security spell in her mind as she transferred it from one book to the other. It was a relatively simple enchantment, simple enough to make it difficult to fool. She could have overpowered it in an instant, or simply torn it away from the books, but that would definitely have set off alarms. Sweat prickled down her back as she guided the spell forward, holding it together as she moved it to the other book. She held her breath as the enchantment took root. If it failed ...

The spell solidified, again. Nanette sat back in her chair, breathing a sigh of relief. As far as the wards were concerned, the second copy had become the first copy. No, it had always been the first copy. She took a moment to centre herself, then carefully separated the books and placed the school’s copy on top of her bag. It wouldn’t do to mix them up, not now. She smiled at the thought as she looked at Penny. She’d gone too far to be stopped. And she was damned if she was going to be defeated by her own stupidity.

She picked up the school’s copy and flicked through it. Whoever had owned the book had written a lot of notes, but none of them seemed particularly new or insightful. Nanette had read newer books covering the same points, presenting them as long-established facts rather than new discoveries. She didn’t see anything new, certainly nothing that appeared unique. The whole mission struck her as pointless. There were definitely darker - and more interesting - books in the cage.

But it’s what he wanted me to do. Nanette looked at her repaired wrist. And he paid for it.

“Penny,” she said. “Come here.”

The enchanted girl ambled forward, swinging her hips in a ludicrously sexy manner. Nanette wondered, idly, what she was seeing. Or where she thought she was. The enchantment didn’t force its victim into a specific scenario. Instead, it guided the target into crafting their own reality. It worked, if only because the victim didn’t want to look away. Their own mind filled in the gaps. Penny was trapped, and would remain so until she fell asleep or was shocked back to reality. Nanette watched her, carefully, as Penny took the copy. The moment she fell asleep, the spell would collapse.

“Put the book back on the shelf,” she ordered. “And then close the cage.”

Her heart beat like a drum as Penny drifted back into the cage. The alarm would be raised, sooner or later, but she wanted to put as much distance as possible between herself and the school before the staff realised something was wrong. And they would, if Nanette was still in the library when Penny fell asleep. The wards weren’t supposed to allow Nanette to enter without the Deputy Head Girl.

Good thing they didn’t demote Penny when she blasted Lillian, Nanette thought. That might have been awkward.

She watched Penny gliding back out of the cage, her hands moving in a manner that that suggested she was unsure of whether or not she had a purpose. They moved in fits and starts, starting to drop to her sides before being raised again to carry out her orders. Nanette smiled as the cage door closed, feeling a flicker of victory. She’d transferred the spell, put the copy in the original’s place, and now ...

“Sit down and enjoy yourself,” she ordered. She didn’t need Penny any longer. The girl could lose herself completely in her fantasy if she wished. “And don’t go to sleep.”

A dull alert flickered through the wards. Nanette tensed, expecting to feel magic crackling around her at any second. But nothing happened. It took her a moment to realise the diversion had finally gone into effect. She glanced at the clock, noting it had taken longer than she’d expected for her hacking to work. The flyers had cast the spells in the wrong order, creating a whole new framework of magic. She wasn’t sure if it would kill anyone - it depended on how quickly the staff and guests reacted - but she was certain it was a display they’d never forget. And Penny was lucky not to be there.

She scooped up the stolen book and shoved it into her knapsack. The clock ticked faster now. It wouldn’t take long for the staff to realise what had happened and come looking for Penny. Once they found her, they’d realise she’d been enchanted and start looking for the enchantress. Nanette hoped they’d check Nadine’s suite in Pendle. The aristo brat didn’t deserve to spend the rest of her life as a goldfish. Probably. If nothing else, the experience would probably teach her a lesson or two.

A surge of magic flashed behind her. She sensed it, too late. A hex slammed into her back, blowing her right across the room. She cursed her mistake as she hit the far wall and crashed to the floor. She’d lowered her protections when she’d enchanted Penny. It had been the only way to do it, but she hadn’t thought to rebuild them when she’d left the bedroom. She could have kicked herself. Making that sort of mistake at Mountaintop was just asking to be hexed, or forced to act like a buffoon, or turned into a frog.

And the alert snapped Penny out of it, she thought numbly. The impact had jarred her badly enough to make it hard to focus. A desk floated into the air and threw itself at her. She tried to dodge, too late. She felt her arm break - again - as the desk struck her. Good thing she’s not thinking too clearly either.

“You ...”

Penny threw a wave of magic at her. Nanette felt herself lifted into the air and pressed against the wall. She forced herself to think, to try to muster a countercharm, as Penny advanced. Her blonde hair was billowing around her, as if it were caught in a storm; her eyes flashed anger and murder and a guilt Nanette didn’t understand. She’d never looked more beautiful. And terrifying.

She’ll set off the alarms if she does something more dangerous, Nanette thought. It looked as if Penny didn’t want to really hurt her. That was going to change. She’d seen one girl hex another girl into a bloody mass for cheating on her and ... and what she’d done to Penny was far worse. She couldn’t have been angrier if Nanette had slipped her a lust potion and then had sex with her. All she has to do is aim at the wall and fire.

“What did you do to me?” Penny raised a hand. The pressure on Nanette’s ribs started to grow. “What did you do?”

Nanette found herself speechless. There was no good answer she could give. The confusion in Penny’s eyes was the only thing standing between her and death. She wasn’t sure what was real and what was part of the fantasy, not yet. It would take time for the disconnect between wherever she thought she’d been - and where she was - to settle. But it wouldn’t take long. Wherever Penny had been, it wasn’t the library.

“What did you do?” Penny’s voice rang with betrayal. “What did you do?”

“I ...” Nanette started to gather herself to cast a counterspell. It might set off the alarms, but Penny was going to do that anyway in a moment. “I gave you what you wanted, and you ...”

Penny’s magic grew, pressing Nanette harder and harder against the wall ...

... And then she crumpled to the floor as someone hexed her in the back. The magic vanished a second later. Nanette fell to the ground, her legs buckling. And ...

“Nadine,” Lillian said. “What happened?”

11

That’s why Emily does it, Nanette thought, numbly. She was in pain, terrible pain, but ... she forced herself to get to her feet. She helps people and they help her in return.

“The spells went wrong,” Lillian said. “The flyers started dropping out of the skies! Did she do it?”

Nanette felt an odd pang as she muttered a pair of healing spells. It wasn’t safe to heal herself, but no one else was going to do it for her. Lillian didn’t have the training and Penny ... she stared down at the girl. Lillian had saved her. And yet ... she’d turned against the school. She didn’t know it, but she’d turned against the school. She’d be in real trouble when the staff figured out what she’d done. Just as Frieda had been expelled ...

She felt guilty as she raised her eyes to study the younger girl. The guilt gnawed at her, tearing at her soul even though she knew she should be grateful. She’d copied Emily’s tactic and it had worked out. Lillian had saved her, at the cost of destroying her schooling. She might get the blame ... she might be blamed, even if they interrogated her under truth spells or probed her mind until they’d uncovered and explored every last one of her secrets. The school would want a scapegoat and Lillian, poor common-born Lillian, was the best candidate. And she’d only tried to help.

I could take her with me, Nanette thought. She dismissed the idea almost as soon as she had it. Lillian seemed to have had a happier home than either herself or Frieda. She wouldn’t want to go on the run, let alone tie herself to a shadowy magician with uncertain motives. Nanette knew she was committed. Lillian didn’t have to be. Not yet. She doesn’t deserve it.

“I’m sorry,” she said, quietly.

Lillian blinked. “Sorry for what?”

Nanette shaped a charm and cast it. Lillian crumpled to the floor as her muscles went limp. She wouldn’t be able to do anything more than breathe for the next few hours, unless someone applied the countercharm. Nanette stared down at her, feeling pang after pang of bitter guilt. She’d proven Lillian’s innocence - she’d hardly attack a co-conspirator - at the cost of the younger girl’s regard. Emily never lost that regard. But then, Emily had never had to smack one of her admirers down.

“Listen carefully,” she said. It wasn’t as if Lillian could do anything else. “Tell them, when they come, to go to my suite in town. And pay special attention to the goldfish.”

She took a breath. “And ... and I owe you something,” she added. Magicians had to acknowledge - and repay - their debt, even renegades like herself. “I’ll make it up to you somehow. I promise.”

Lillian stared at her, tears forming in her eyes. She couldn’t move, but ... she knew she’d been betrayed. Nanette looked away, unable to take it any longer. She picked up her knapsack, looked around the library to make sure there were no clues suggesting she’d opened the cage and headed for the door. Penny’s memories would be useless, she told herself. She’d been trapped in a fantasy world, unaware of what her body had been doing. She wouldn’t know what she’d been made to do.

I’m sorry, Nanette thought again. If things had been different ...

She broke into a run as she closed the door. The staff would be clearing up the mess, healing the wounded ... and then coming for her. She had to get out of the building before it was too late. The thought mocked her as she ran, reminding her she might have been happy at Laughter. She understood the school, she understood the students and how to manipulate them ... she could have been on top. And yet, she couldn’t have hoped to maintain the deception for long. If someone who knew Nadine turned up ...

The main staircase gaped open in front of her. She hurled herself down it to the entrance hall. The building still felt deserted, but she thought she could hear an angry mob behind her. She would be expelled ... she almost laughed at the thought. Impersonating a student, sabotaging a flying display, enchanting another student, stealing a book ... it was going to be hard to get a job with a record like that! They’d expel her ... no, they’d kill her. The best she could hope for, if they caught and exposed her, was slavery. She doubted they’d be so kind.

She braced herself, then ran through the door and into the courtyard. The sound of shouting grew louder, echoing from the rear of the school. Flickers of magic darted through the air, suggesting that her diversion was still working. She was surprised no one had dismissed the spell by now. They could have defeated it simply by casting a series of cancelation spells until all the spellwork came apart. Perhaps it still held some of the flyers within its grasp. They’d be a little more careful if lives were at stake.

The courtyard was empty. She was surprised it wasn’t heaving with horses, carriages and everything else, before remembering the guests could either teleport or fly. She ran through the gate and down the road, feeling oddly uneasy as she hurried towards Pendle. A trio of climbers - teenage boys - were clambering up the rocks to the school, trying to blend into the stone as she ran past. Nanette remembered something Penny had told her, about local boys trying to sneak into the school on a dare, and snorted. They probably expected her to hex them in passing. She ignored them instead. They weren’t her problem.

And they might confuse any searchers, she thought, as she passed through the last ward. They might not think to look for me.

She stopped and turned to look at the school. It stood against the sunlight, somehow both welcoming and sinister. She could see figures flying around the spires, witches looking for ... someone. They probably didn’t know - yet - just who they were looking for, but they knew something had gone wrong. She felt another pang of sympathy for the boys - they’d picked a bad day to test the defences - as she mustered a teleport spell. There was nothing to be gained by hanging around, not now. Lillian would tell the staff about Nadine and ...

Nanette closed her eyes, cast a pair of confusion spells, and teleported. The safehouse - a small building in Beneficence, where she’d lived while her wrist was being rebuilt - loomed in front of her when she opened her eyes. She breathed a sigh of relief - they wouldn’t be able to follow her, not now - and hurried into the house. The wards twanged, sending a message to their master. She wondered, as she walked into the kitchen and sat down, just where Cloak lived. The safehouse wasn’t his home, just a place he could put her while she prepared for the mission. She opened her bag, put the book on the table and flicked through the pages. She seemed to have gone to a lot of trouble for a book that was hardly worth it. It made no sense.

Cloak arrived, an hour later. “You did well,” he said. “What do you think?”

“I feel dirty,” Nanette confessed. She had few qualms about manipulating and cheating people who thought themselves her betters, but ... Penny and Lillian hadn’t been bad people, merely in the wrong place at the wrong time. “Why did you want the book?”

“I didn’t,” Cloak said.

Nanette stared at him. “This ... this was some kind of test?”

“No.” Cloak seemed unmoved by her anger. “I wanted you to put the second copy in the school. And that’s what you did.”

“But ...” Nanette shook her head. “I could have just slipped the book onto the shelves and vanished again. I ...”

“No,” Cloak said. “The important thing is that the book is within the wards - and they don’t know it. As far as they know, you stole nothing.”

Nanette looked at the book on the table. “I ...”

Cloak sat down. “What did you think Aurelius was grooming you for?”

He went on before she could muster an answer. “He wanted an agent, a person who could go places he couldn’t go and carry out his orders ... whatever they happened to be. There’s no room in that for doubts or scruples. He wanted someone who was ready to lie, cheat and steal on his behalf, to manipulate and seduce and blackmail her way across the Allied Lands, all in the service of a greater cause.”

“And Emily killed him,” Nanette snarled. “I’ll see her dead for that.”

“Perhaps you will,” Cloak agreed. “But, for the moment, you’ll keep your oaths to me.”

Nanette lowered her eyes. She’d sold herself to him. There was no point in trying to deny it - or the simple fact he could swat her in an instant, if she turned against him. “Yeah.”

Cloak picked up the book. “Get some rest,” he said. “You can have the next few days to recuperate. Explore the city a bit more, if you like. And then you’re going to Swanhaven.”

“Swanhaven?” Nanette had seen the Zangarian barony on a map, bordering Cockatrice and only a few short miles from Beneficence, but she’d never visited. “What’s there?”

“A spark,” Cloak said. “And you’re going to fan it into an inferno.”

Epilogue

It was traditional, Lady Damia had discovered when she’d joined the staff, for the teachers to meet their gentleman callers in Pendle, rather than allowing them to visit the school. The tradition had never made sense to her - the girls knew the facts of life perfectly well - but she had to admit it provided cover for other activities, activities that would incur the wrath of the headmistress if she ever found out. Damia respected the older woman - and admired her - but her thinking could be quite limited at times. The school had a responsibility to the wider community as well as the sisterhood alone.

Master Lucknow raised his hand as she entered the inn, beckoning her to join him in his room. There was a certain irony there, Damia knew; he was about as interested in women as she was interested in men. But better to let them think it was a romantic meeting of the minds than a private chat about recent events. The headmistresses might let it pass, if she found out the truth, or she might demand Damia leave the school. And she didn’t want to leave the school.

“I swear,” she said, as they entered the room. “This place gets dingier every year.”

“There’s a bed,” Master Lucknow said. He cast a series of privacy spells, each one more complicated than the last. “And that’s all people want from a shithole like this.”

He sat on the bed, resting his hands on his knees. “I understand you had some excitement ...?”

“That’s one way of putting it.” Damia sat on the hard, wooden chair. It wasn’t particularly comfortable, but she was fairly sure the bed would give her fleas - or something worse - if sat on the mattress. “And it just makes no sense.”

She ticked off points on her fingers as she spoke. “We had an intruder,” she said. “This intruder, who remains unidentified, replaced Lady Nadine of Hightower. The unfortunate girl was turned into a goldfish and left here, in Pendle, while the replacement sneaked into the school, enchanted another student, sabotaged the flying display and vanished. We didn’t even put the pieces together until hours after she was gone.”

“Ouch.” Master Lucknow stared at his hands. “Is Nadine alive?”

“She was a goldfish for a month,” Damia said. “She’s back to normal, but ... a little traumatised by her experience. The healers think she’ll be having nightmares for a long time to come. Thankfully, she seems to have picked up a kind of glamour from the whole affair. The other girls aren’t being horrid to her.”

She ran her hand through her long hair. “We still haven’t figured out the point of the whole exercise.”

Master Lucknow considered it. “Nadine’s father is an important political figure in Zangaria,” he said. “The whole affair could have been designed to embarrass him - or her.”

“Perhaps,” Damia agreed. “It’s also possible that Penny - the enchanted girl - was the target. Or someone was trying to discredit the school. Or ... maybe something went wrong and the intruder had to retreat without completing her mission. Penny did break out of her enchantment. Whatever she was trying to do ...”

“You don’t know,” Master Lucknow said. “Just because you haven’t seen it doesn’t mean it isn’t there.”

Damia shot him a sharp look. “I can work that out for myself, thank you,” she said, unkindly. “Point is, everything she did, all the motives we can imagine ... she could have done it without risking herself so drastically. It makes no sense. The planning alone would have required a quite remarkable degree of insight into Nadine’s schedules.”

“Which might help us to figure out who was behind it,” Master Lucknow pointed out.

“Apparently, one of Nadine’s former tutors vanished shortly after she left for school,” Damia said. “If that’s a coincidence, I’ll give up magic for good.”

She winced, inwardly. The reports had suggested Nadine was a brat. Damia had braced herself for entitlement, for an attitude that would rapidly make Nadine one of the most detested girls in school. It had been almost a relief to discover she wasn’t that bratty. She’d even helped a common-born girl against her tormentors. Damia knew she’d made a mistake. She should have noted the disparity and looked closer. But she’d been too relieved to ask more questions.

“We think the idea was to embarrass someone,” she said. She didn’t pretend to understand Zangarian politics, or mundane politics in general, but she knew they were important. “And yet, there were easier and simpler ways to embarrass Nadine, Penny, or Laughter itself without so much risk.”

“So we are left with a mystery,” Master Lucknow mused. “And one that may never be solved.”

“We have to solve it,” Damia said. Nadine, Penny, and Lillian had all been blameless. She was sure of that, after weeks of intensive interrogation. But none of them could shed light on what the intruder actually wanted. The whole exercise seemed pointless. “If the intruder managed to get into our school and ... fit in, at least until she went to work ... what is she going to do next?”

“I don’t know,” Master Lucknow said. “But I think we might be about to find out.”

Christopher G. Nuttall is the author of the Schooled in Magic series, the Zero Enigma series and many others, covering everything from high fantasy to alternate history, military science-fiction and thrillers. He currently lives in Edinburgh with his wife and sons.

Website: http://chrishanger.net/

Blog: https://chrishanger.wordpress.com/

Most Likely to Succeed

P. A. Piatt

High school wouldn’t be high school without drama, and the magical Wainwright Academy is no different. For the Class of 1520, their high school drama peaked when Headmaster Shadwell was forced to cancel the election for “Most Likely to Succeed” due to voting irregularities. His decision sparked a magical war that would last until tonight, their 500th-year class reunion. Are bygones ever really bygones?

Most Likely to Succeed

Edgar Campbell steered his wheezing jalopy past the flashing marquee that read, “Welcome Wainwright Academy Alumni Class of 1520” and into the almost-deserted parking lot. He parked next to a gleaming white Cadillac with pink pinstripes and shiny chrome wheels and shut off the engine. The engine knocked and rumbled until he silenced it with the tap of his finger. The vehicle gave one last shudder and fell silent.

He was a Master of the Dark Arts, but the workings of the internal combustion engine escaped him. Edgar tried to grasp the concepts involved, but it was all just so much alchemy and steampunk foolishness. It was easier to bring the vehicle to life with the wave of his hand than it was to change the oil or do other routine maintenance tasks, and he absolutely refused to pay some grease monkey to do it for him. Graduation from Wainwright Academy had not been the gateway to fortune and fame for Edgar as it was for many of his classmates, and he lived a life of forced frugality.

Edgar grabbed the handle of the door and stopped when he caught his reflection in the glass. What he saw disappointed him. His tall wizard’s cap flopped down over one ear, and a series of small scorch marks and unidentifiable stains marred it. The fur collar of his robe had been sewn from the brilliant white pelts of baby fur seals, but it was now dirty gray and rubbed hairless in several places. His once-black robe had faded to a dingy shade of dark purple, and it didn’t take an experienced eye to see where he’d repaired tears and patched burn marks. His robe was unadorned because Edgar had lost the distinctive red, black, and gold cords that signified a Wainwright graduate. The ragged hem hid his worn sandals, and he was long past caring that his cuffs hung lifeless around his bony wrists.

After one final deep breath, he pulled the door open and stepped inside the lobby. Directly in front of him was a folding table decorated with balloons and a hand-lettered sign that announced ‘REUNION REGISTRATION’ written in letters of alternating colors. Little hearts dotted the ‘I’s’, and the ‘O’s’ were smiley faces. Edgar groaned.

The sorceress who manned the table wore a brilliant white robe that shimmered when she waved him over. Everything about her was perfect, from the coiffure that curled out from under her pointed cap to her gleaming white smile and perfectly manicured nails. Even her graduate cords looked brand new despite their age. Edgar got a thick feeling in this throat.

Grisella Youngblood. She hasn’t changed a bit.

“Hello, and welcome to the 500th Reunion of the Wainwright Academy Class of 1520. You are?”

Her finger poised over a sheet of paper as though she needed to search a list for his name. Edgar considered a cutting retort but opted to play along instead.

“Edgar Campbell. C-A-M—”

She tapped the paper and interrupted him. “Here we are.” After she made a careful mark on the paper, she pushed the only nametag on the table to him. “Just peel and stick this anywhere.” After a pregnant pause, her face reddened at her accidental double entendre and she gave an embarrassed giggle. “On your robe.”

The entire scene was absurd. Grisella knew damn well who Edgar was. Still, his time at Wainwright had instilled a deep respect for ritual and ceremony, so he went along with the farcical procedure.

He peeled the waxy backing from the nametag and carefully affixed it to his robe. Grisella gave him another brilliant smile and gestured to a wicker basket on the end of the table.

“Trash, please.”

After Edgar crumpled the paper and dropped it in the basket, Grisella pointed to the gymnasium door. “Go on in and remember, have fun tonight!”

Doubtful.

Edgar stepped through the gymnasium door and straight into Hell, if the Devil decorated Hell in pastel crepe streamers, balloons, and hand-lettered signs. A projector flashed images of student life at Wainwright Academy on a blank wall above a set of bleachers. A steam table on the opposite wall featured an array of hot finger foods, and a portable bar next to it held a large punch bowl with a sign that encouraged self-service. On the wall above the bar were poster-sized pictures of various student luminaries. Class President, Valedictorian, etc. Edgar scanned the wall and smiled with satisfaction when he didn’t see one particular award.

Voted Most Likely to Succeed.

On the stage at the far end of the gym, he saw a karaoke stereo set-up. A large disco ball glittered from the ceiling, illuminated by a small spotlight positioned by the stage. There was one table and two chairs set up in the middle of the gym floor, with a crepe flower centerpiece and matching bunting.

He investigated the bar and discovered that the only beverage offered was a fruity red punch. He eyed it with suspicion but decided that Grisella wasn’t the type to serve poisoned beverages. Edgar ladled out a cup, drank it down, and took a refill over to the table.

Right after Edgar sat down, Grisella bustled over with her own cup of punch and flashed her permanent smile.

“May I join you?”

Edgar nodded, and the white-clad sorceress sat down in the seat next to him. He saw that she’d taken the time to put on her own nametag, and it was all he could do not to burst out laughing. He hated to admit it, but she looked fantastic. The smell of her perfume was intoxicating, a pleasant mix of fresh spring flowers and summer rain. Edgar imagined himself walking through a grassy field, the bright sun warm on his face, and—

Stop it!

Edgar cleared his head with a rapid shake and shot Grisella a suspicious look. She might not have spiked the punch, but concocting a perfume to captivate an unsuspecting man was easily within her powers. Grisella gave him an innocent smile and arched her eyebrows as if to say, “What?”

The pair sat in silence and watched the slide show flash on the wall. Wainwright Academy was a K-12 school, so there were pictures of the Class of 1520 throughout their years there. Six-year-old Grisella flashed a toothless smile as she displayed a trophy from cheerleading camp. A long-range shot of the Dark Arts wing showed several anonymous dark-clad figures ducking away from the camera. Nine-year-old Grisella struck a pose on the balancing beam during gym class. Fourteen-year-old Grisella led the sophomore cheerleading squad on the sidelines during a rain-soaked homecoming football game. A blazing bonfire illuminated a midnight pep rally for the basketball team, replete with cheerleaders and the school band. In the shadows on the far side of the bonfire, a few out-of-focus pale faces were visible.

“You know, Griz, there sure are a lot of pictures of you up there. If I didn’t know better…”

Edgar purposefully used her nickname because he knew it would irritate her. He also knew that the veiled accusation about the pictures would anger her. If there was one thing the white hats prided themselves in, it was the outward appearance of fair play. They were all about the rules until you turned your back on them.

“That’s not fair!” Grisella rose halfway out of her seat before she caught herself. She sat back down and unclenched her fists. “That’s not fair, Edgar.” Her voice was tight as she adopted the scolding tone one might use with a difficult child. “The reunion committee searched for many years to locate pictures of all remaining Class of 1520 members. We sent out many requests, but we received no responses.”

“The reunion committee, meaning you?”

“Well, yes, eventually the committee membership was reduced to me, but that doesn’t change the fact that we tried very hard to find pictures of you. You didn’t even sit for a yearbook picture. It’s not my fault you’re not photogenic.”

There it was. The classic white hat one-two punch of blame-shifting combined with a personal insult. Beautiful students like Grisella learned the technique at an early age and perfected it for twelve years at the expense of students like Edgar.

Edgar considered ending the charade right then and there, but he decided that he enjoyed sitting close to Grisella, basking in her undivided attention. He’d had strong feelings for her since kindergarten, but she never returned or even acknowledged his affections. Her supernatural pedigree was pristine, and she could trace it back several generations. Edgar grew up an orphan in a village on the edge of civilization, brought to Wainwright Academy to serve as a kitchen boy. It was only a chance encounter with one of the Dark Arts professors that rescued him from a life of servitude.

They lapsed into silence and watched Grisella’s school memories flash on the wall. A picture of Wainwright’s headmaster, Bosley Shadwell, popped up. His face was twisted with fear, and his intricate headmaster’s miter was caught in mid-flight as it tipped off his head. Edgar and Grisella burst into laughter at the sight of the normally stern-faced Shadwell caught in a moment of panic.

“Oh my God, I’d forgotten all about that,” Edgar blurted out between spasms of mirth.

“I wonder who reanimated all the specimens in the biology lab with a necromancing spell, Edgar?” Grisella’s eyes twinkled, and their earlier tension dissipated.

Edgar shook his head. “Good old Shady Shadwell. He was such a tyrant.”

“Too bad about what happened to him.” Grisella cast a curious glance at Edgar. “You heard about it, didn’t you?”

He shrugged. “I heard somebody blew a hole in his back with a Power Bolt.”

“Somebody?”

“You’re not accusing me, are you?” Edgar’s face flushed.

It was Grisella’s turn to shrug. “It’s no secret you hated him.”

“Everybody hated Shady, Grisella. Even you and the rest of the goody two-shoes despised him.”

“Not like you did.”

“Believe what you want, but I didn’t murder Shadwell. I’m a lot of things, but I’m not a back shooter. Speaking of back shooters, maybe it was Skippy? He has a history of that sort of thing.”

Grisella stiffened and the color drained from her face. “Lancelot Breedlove did not murder Headmaster Shadwell, and please don’t call him ‘Skippy’.”

Edgar chuckled. “At least you don’t deny he was a back shooter. I guess you can’t, since he shot me in the back.”

“It was an accident. And it wasn’t full strength.”

“I took a lot of comfort from that knowledge when I was in the hospital.”

The tension reappeared and draped over them like a wet woolen blanket, heavy and itchy. The slideshow continued to play, and a picture of all the Homecoming Parade floats lined up in the parking lot appeared. In the rear of the procession, a large box covered in black crepe flowers was visible.

“Hey, look at that. The Dark Arts were well represented that day.”

Grisella scoffed. “Well represented? You guys made a box and covered it with black flowers, like the parade was some kind of funeral procession. How did that represent you well?”

“It caught on fire, didn’t it?”

She tried to stifle a giggle.

“Come on, it was a little funny when it crashed into the firehouse and burned it to the ground, wasn’t it?”

Grisella started to laugh and Edgar joined her. Like magic, the tension disappeared again.

“Oh, Edgar, I wish I could have seen the look on Shadwell’s face, but I…”

“You were at the front of the parade on the cheerleader float.”

A frown darkened her face. “Yeah. Up front with the boring people.”

“Like Skippy.”

Grisella slugged Edgar on the arm. “I asked you not to call him that.” It was a half-hearted blow, almost flirtatious, and Edgar instantly read too much into it.

“I’m sorry. The boring people, like Lancelot Breedlove.”

She slugged him again, harder.

“Lance wasn’t boring. He was just, well…”

“Uninteresting.”

Grisella laughed. “No, silly. Lance was just, well, Lance. He was an interesting guy once you got to know him.”

“You know, I spent years being tortured by him and his football team henchmen until I learned how to cast the Spell of Protection. That’s when he shot me in the back, so forgive me if I didn’t find him very interesting.”

“We all have our roles to play, Edgar. Even you.”

On cue, a Senior Prom picture appeared. Lancelot and Grisella, arm in arm, beaming into the cameras. Lance’s expression was one of smug self-confidence, and the way he wore the Prom King crown cocked down over one brow screamed pretentious ass. Giselle was the epitome of chastity in her gleaming white gown and diamond-studded tiara. Edgar slapped his forehead and made a noise in his throat.

“What’s wrong, Edgar? It’s been five hundred years. Don’t tell me you’re still steamed about the prom?”

“Not a chance. I didn’t attend a school function in twelve years, do you think I’m upset I missed the prom? No, I’m just amazed at how fake it all was.”

“What do you mean, fake? We won the voting.”

“I don’t mean that. I mean that smarmy look on Lance’s face. Like anyone would vote for anyone but him?”

“You took care of him with the Most Likely to Succeed balloting, didn’t you?”

“Damn right I did, and I’d do it again. My favorite memory of my time imprisoned in this dump is the day Shady announced that he canceled the election because of fraud. I laughed so hard that I almost cried.”

“That’s hateful, Edgar. You started a war over a high school election.”

“It wasn’t just an election, and you know it, Grisella. Most Likely to Succeed is the one award every Wainwright student covets, and I wasn’t about to let Skippy have it. Anything but that. Besides, I didn’t start the war. I messed with the ballot, but someone else started the war. I’ve just been fighting it.”

“You denied Lancelot a nice honor out of pure spite.”

“An honor he didn’t deserve. He was a Breedlove, for Pete’s sake! He wasn’t 'likely to succeed', his success was guaranteed. You deserved it, not him.”

Grisella frowned and stared down at her punch glass.

“What’s wrong, Grisella? It’s been five hundred years. Don’t tell me you’re still steamed about the election?”

Her annoyance at having her own words thrown back at her was visible, and Edgar thought maybe he’d gone too far. Instead, she drained the last of her punch and held out her glass.

“Be a dear and get me another glass, would you?”

Edgar tossed back his own glass and went over to the punch bowl. When he turned back to the table, he saw Grisella at the karaoke machine.

“Put those down and dance with me, Edgar!” she cried.

Edgar broke out in full-body goose pimples. The girl of his dreams who shunned him for centuries wanted to dance with him?

I’ve never danced before.

“Uh, hey, Grisella, why don’t we just sit and act like normal people? I promise I’ll try to be nice.”

“Oh no you don’t, Edgar Campbell. March your butt out here right now and dance with me.” She stamped her foot. “Your Prom Queen commands it!”

Edgar put the punch glasses down on the table and walked out onto the dance floor. His legs were wooden, and his mouth dried out.

“Look, I don’t want to disappoint you, but I—” He felt a magical sensation, the tug of a spell cast on him, and he immediately dissolved it with a defensive counter spell. He glared at Grisella, who laughed at him.

“Relax, silly. I was trying to help you dance. You think I don’t know that you’ve never danced before?”

The magical sensation returned, and this time Edgar allowed it to engulf him. His limbs loosened up, and he could feel the beat of the music. Grisella swayed to the music, and Edgar tried to mimic her movements. He gave up and just let the music move him, and soon the pair danced and whirled under the twinkling disco ball.

After several songs, Grisella laughed and grabbed his hands. “Edgar, we have to stop,” she exclaimed breathlessly. “I’m exhausted.”

The spell broke, and Edgar discovered his legs were trembling and his own breath came in short gasps. He nodded, and Grisella led him back to the table where they collapsed into their chairs and gulped their punch.

“That was fun,” Grisella said as she fanned herself with her hands. “I can’t believe how well you dance.”

Edgar chuckled. “That was the magic and you know it. I should let you cast spells on me more often.”

The irony of his words cooled their conversation, and they grew quiet. The slide show had looped around to the beginning, and Grisella’s school career began anew.

Finally, Edgar gestured around the room. “You did a nice job with the decorations. This place looks great.”

Grisella blushed. “Thanks for noticing, Edgar. I know it’s not your cup of tea, but I think it’s important to set the right mood.”

“It’s… uh… festive.”

Their eyes met, and after a long second she realized he was teasing. She smacked him on the arm and they both started to laugh.

Edgar decided that he enjoyed making her laugh, and he resolved to make their evening together last as long as possible.

“Do you remember—”

“I always wondered—”

They both stopped and giggled.

“You first,” said Grisella.

Edger shook his head. “Not a chance, m’lady. I insist.” Any other time, Edgar would have chosen death rather than effect an exaggerated British accent, but it didn’t feel stupid with Grisella.

Grisella giggled again. “I was going to say, I always wondered what you guys studied down in the Dark Arts wing. Care to share any secrets, five hundred years later?”

Edgar scoffed. “Sorry, I’m sworn under pain of death to keep the secrets of the Dark Arts.” It wasn’t too far from the truth, actually. Still, he looked around the room and leaned forward until their faces were almost touching. “We learned the basic spells along with some eye of newt, hair of toad stuff,” he said in a conspiratorial stage whisper. “Dark, evil stuff.”

“Don’t be silly,” she replied. “I’m serious.”

Edgar thought for a second. “Okay. If you must know, we learned the same stuff you did, mostly. We just hid it behind the mystique of the dark arts label. It was boring.”

She gave him a skeptical look. “Okay, Mr. Cryptic Secrets. I believe you, I guess.” Her face brightened. “Your turn. What were you about to say?”

“Hmm. I don’t remember.”

“Liar. C’mon, what was it?”

“Okay. Do you remember when the football team’s tackling dummies started tackling the players back?”

Realization dawned across her face. “That was you?”

Edgar smiled. “That was my very first animation spell ever. Freshman year.”

Grisella clapped her hands and laughed. “Ha ha. Lance suspected it was Bezel Ramshead, but he couldn’t ever prove it.”

“Nah. Bezel wasn’t much for spells. He was more into potions and concoctions. That’s probably why he, eh, never mind.” Edgar kicked himself mentally for talking. He was usually stoic and restrained, and suddenly he couldn’t keep his thoughts to himself.

“He what? What did he do?”

“It’s nothing.” Edgar shook his head. “Pretend I didn’t say anything.”

“Oh no, no way.” Grisella nudged him with her elbow. “We’re having a nice time, chatting like friends are supposed to, so tell me. Bezel what?”

“That’s probably why he was so easy to kill.”

“You killed Bezel Ramshead?”

“No, not me. Skip—er, Lancelot did. Ambushed him, shot him in the back.”

“That’s absurd. Lancelot Breedlove didn’t shoot Bezel in the back. Lancelot wouldn’t do that. He was an honorable sorcerer.”

“Ha! That shows what you know about dear old Lancelot. I know he shot Bezel in the back. I saw it.”

“You saw it? How?”

“Bezel and I were friends, remember? We teamed up to take out Lance.”

“Since when do Masters of the Dark Arts team up? Aren’t you guys supposed to be angry loners?”

“We may be angry loners, but we’re not stupid. Lance was a braggart and a coward, but he also a skilled and potent sorcerer. Anyway, someone must have tipped him off about our plan, because he ambushed Bezel.”

Grisella’s eyes narrowed. “Someone?”

Edgar shrugged. “Okay. I tipped him off.”

Grisella sat bolt upright, and her rising anger was plainly visible. “You have some nerve, Edgar Campbell! You called Lancelot Breedlove a coward and a back shooter, and yet you sit here and confess that you set up your friend to be killed. What kind of sorcerer are you?”

Edgar plucked at his robe. “I’ve never claimed to be anything but a black hat, Grisella. That means I’m a cheater and a liar, and I’ll use every dirty trick in the book. I may lack honor, but at least I’m not a hypocrite like Skippy.”

If looks could kill, or if Grisella knew how to kill with a glance, she would have. As it was, Edgar imagined the heat from her glare.

It’s show time.

“You know what’s hilarious, Griz? How did Bezel know where to find Lance in the first place? It’s not like he was in the phone book.” Edgar stroked his straggly beard. “I wonder who could have given Bezel that information. My guess would be someone who Lance trusted, someone whose job it was to keep track of us all. Someone in charge of organizing a class reunion, maybe?”

Grisella’s mouth opened and closed several times as she struggled to respond. Her face contorted with anger and her skin grew blotchy and pink.

“You!” Spittle flew from her lips, and the veins in her neck stood out. “I’ve heard enough from you.”

Edgar held up his hands in mock surrender. “Hey, don’t hate me for speaking the truth. I thought it was a brilliant move, even better than setting up Bezel for Lance to kill.” He stood up. “All this dancing and chatting is making me hungry. Care for some nosh?” He walked toward the steam table. “Something smells de-lish.”

Just before he reached the steam table, Edgar saw a bright blue flash reflected in the polished stainless steel light hood. He cast Freeze Frame, and in the two seconds of time that the spell afforded him, he whirled around and dove to the side. Grisella’s Power Bolt sizzled overhead and slammed into the wall, and a shower of white-hot sparks and shards of concrete sprayed the area.

Edgar was up and moving as soon as he regained his feet. There had been a lot of power in Grisella’s attack, but he knew she had plenty of strength left. He scanned the room as he ducked along the wall toward the karaoke machine, but the white-clad sorceress was nowhere in sight. A greenish-blue ball of plasma skipped across the floor and splashed against the wall where Edgar had been standing. It was a Wait-A-Minute, designed to immobilize him if it hit Edgar’s feet.

“Very impressive!” Edgar shouted as he fired a low-energy Power Bolt at the ceiling. All the light fixtures exploded in a shower of sparks, and the balloons held by nets tied in the rafters poured down into the gymnasium. The only illumination came from the small spotlight focused on the disco ball hanging resolutely over the dance floor, and multicolored shafts of light danced around the room.

Edgar caught a flash of white along the back of the bleachers, and he ducked down into the pile of balloons and crawled back the way he came. When he gained the relative safety of the bar, he stopped and listened. The only sound was the strains of some long-forgotten love song from the karaoke speakers.

“You know, Griz, you never asked me how Skippy died,” Edgar shouted. He peeked around the bar toward the bleachers but didn’t see Grisella. “I’ll spare you the gruesome details, but I want you to know that he died screaming when I melted his face.”

Power Bolts crackled and hissed in all directions and Edgar was forced to take cover behind a Body Armor spell. He glimpsed where the Power Bolts came from, and he threw a weak Angry Bees at the spot. It wasn’t a spell she would expect, and it could be very irritating. Grisella shrieked.

“Very funny, Edgar.”

He chuckled at the obvious pain in her voice and peeked out from behind the bar. He saw a shadow move behind the bleachers, and he considered his options. Grisella was in a good position to defend against his attacks. She was difficult to see, so spells that required extreme accuracy like the Heart Punch and Brain Freeze would be ineffective. The heavy wood and steel bleachers would diffuse larger spells like the Power Bolt unless he put an enormous amount of power into them, which would leave him weakened.

I bet she scouted that spot out ahead of time.

Just then, Grisella jumped out from her hiding spot and hurled an orangish blob towards the ceiling. In an instant, the balloons spread across the floor whirled into the air in the grips of an invisible tornado and popped among the rough edges of the exposed steel roof girders. It irritated Edgar that he didn’t recognize the spell.

“Does that one rake up the leaves in your yard, too?” he called.

Edgar cast the Fog of War, and waist-high blanket of purple smoke rolled across the gym floor. His attempt at deception didn’t fool Grisella, and she blew the smoke away with the Gales of November.

The tit-for-tat battle of silly spells would not last forever, and Edgar knew that Grisella would eventually throw something big enough to destroy the bar and leave him with no cover. She would then have a significant advantage, because she was well hidden and wouldn’t need to use much power to defend.

Retreat and escape were unlikely. He couldn’t remember if there were doors behind the stage or where they led, and he knew he wouldn’t make it out the front doors. Somehow, he had to lure Grisella out from behind the bleachers.

The bleachers!

Edgar paused for a moment and emptied his mind. When it was blank, a tiny speck of red light appeared in the darkness, and it began to rotate as it grew in size and intensity. When the swirling red lights filled his consciousness, he stood up from behind the bar and focused his energy at the bleachers instead of Grisella behind them.

A narrow beam of red light illuminated the front row of bleacher seats. At first it was unfocused and danced along the top edge, but as Edgar released more energy to it, the ray intensified. Soon, the entire first row of seats glowed with energy. It was an awesome display of power concentrated in a spell Edgar had only ever read about. The Suicide Squeeze.

Boom! The first row of seats collapsed back against the second row. Boom! Boom! Boom! The gymnasium trembled with thunderous noise as the bleachers accordioned against the wall. Edgar sensed momentary resistance before the final row collapsed against the wall, and then the gym fell silent.

Edgar stood in the middle of the gymnasium floor with his head down and his shoulders slumped. The Suicide Squeeze had exhausted all of his energy. This was the moment of truth. If he had miscalculated even a bit, he would have to live with his failure forever.

A ghostly white figure emerged from the deep shadows by the doors. At first, it shimmered in the darkness like a mirage, but as it came closer Edgar saw it was Grisella. Her robes glowed with bluish-white light, and sparks of lightning crackled from her fingertips. Her elegant beauty was so lustrous that tears blurred Edgar’s vision and he blinked them down his cheeks. His unrequited love for her, as intense as it was five hundred years earlier, fluttered his heart and burned his cheeks.

“That was an impressive spell, Edgar.” Grisella’s eyes twinkled in the light from the disco ball, and her voice was warm and soothing, without a trace of her earlier haughtiness and scolding. “It’s a shame you failed.”

Edgar smiled and braced himself for what he knew was coming. “I didn’t fail. I won.”

Grisella raised her hands in front of her, and a luminescent ball of cracking energy formed around them.

Power Blast.

She paused. “You’re about to die. How did you win?”

“You’ll see.”

Just before her powerful spell hit him, Edgar launched a final spell skyward.

Grisella’s Power Blast struck hit him full in the chest and threw his body across the gym and he crashed into the bar. The sound of the impact echoed throughout the gymnasium. After it faded, Edgar’s final spell landed. It was the Echo Across Time, and his voice boomed from the rafters.

“Grisella Youngblood, with my death I choose you Most Likely to Succeed.”

P.A. Piatt was born in the 60’s, grew up in the 70’s, matured in the 80’s, and has been regressing ever since. He is the author of The Walter Bailey Misadventures including Redcaps Rising, The Conjurer of Chaos, and Heretic’s Fork (summer 2020). He is also the author of the Abner Fortis Space Marine novels including Honor Flight, Cherry Drop, and China Mike (summer 2020), and stand-alone novels The Marchioly Project (vampire horror) and Father’s Son (sci-fi thriller). You can find links to all of his books and other published short stories at https://www.amazon.com/P-A-Piatt/e/B07BB1G9WL

Rachel Griffin and the Missing Laundry

L. Jagi Lamplighter

Rachel Griffin is a young sorceress with a perfect memory who attends Roanoke Academy for the Sorcerous Arts. Like the little girl with the curl in the middle of her forehead, Rachel is very good at some things and very bad at others. This story, which takes place toward the end of her freshman year at the Roanoke Upper School and includes laundry, bwbachs, her blood brother Sigfried Smith the Dragon Slayer, and much more, follows her adventures as she tries trying to sort out which of her talents falls in which of the two categories.

You can read more about the adventures of Rachel and her friends in The Unexpected Enlightenment of Rachel Griffin.

Rachel Griffin and the Missing Laundry

The thing Rachel Griffin feared had come upon her.

If she wanted to successfully complete her freshman year at Roanoke Academy of the Sorcerous Arts, she had to pass a practical test in Music.

She stood by the open window of her dorm room in Dare Hall, flute poised before her lips. Her shoulder-length, straight black hair fluttered in the breeze. Outside the window, ferns bloomed beneath the paper birches. In the mirror atop her roommates' vanity, she could see her reflection: a tiny girl in a black academic robe with a heart-shaped face, eyes that displayed her part-Korean ancestry, and a mortarboard cap atop her head. In the cage above the second set of bunkbeds, on the far side of the room, the familiar of one of her roommates, a red-winged blackbird, pecked rhythmically at its seeds. Closer at hand, atop her own bottom bunk, her black and white cat that was just a cat purred softly where it lay curled upon her bunk.

She lifted the silver instrument to her lips and paused.

Rachel hated practicing her flute. She had no idea why. Normally, she was a very diligent student. She worked hard and dutifully completed assignments. The flute itself was a lovely silver instrument that had once belonged to her grandmother. It should have been a joy to play. Yet practicing struck her as such a dreadful chore that she could not get herself to do it.

In the fall, it had not mattered. The assignments had been simple, and Rachel had impressed the tutor, Miss Cyrene, with her quick memorization and competence at reading music. However, she had known all along that she could not rely on her perfect memory alone to pass the class. To perform enchantments, she needed to be able to play an instrument. Sooner or later a time would come when she would be asked to play something too difficult for her current mediocre skills.

That time was now.

Did Roanoke have a shame flute, such as they had used in the Middle Ages to punish bad musicians? Would her neck be forced into the ring that held the heavy iron instrument and her fingers into the holes in the top bars, so that she would have to stand in front of the class, stuck in the position of playing a flute, enduring the mockery and derision of her fellow students? Or maybe they would further imitate this earlier form of punishment by parading her all over campus so people could throw rotten fruit at her. Rachel pictured various people she knew throwing tomatoes and rotten peppers at her and sighed.

Maybe it would be better if Roanoke did employ the shame flute. Rachel hated being the center of the attention of a crowd. Avoiding such a fate was one of the few things she could think of that might induce her to actually practice.

“Hey, Rachel,” the voice of orphan-boy Sigfried Smith issued from the calling card in her pocket. Like Rachel, he spoke with a British accent, though his was lower class. “Lucky and I struck something.”

“Wouldn’t it be more accurate,” came the gravelly voice of Lucky the Dragon, “to say we didn’t strike something?”

“Lucky and I struck nothing,” corrected Siggy’s voice. “Did you know that there was nothing under our dorm?”

Rachel, who still stood by the arched window of her room, her dreaded flute in hand, reached into her pocket for the calling card from which their voices were issuing. She peered into the small rectangle of glass. She could see Sigfried’s nose and part of Lucky’s jade eye. This contributed precisely nothing to trying to figure out what they meant.

“I say, that makes no sense at all?” Rachel began, thinking that this was not unusual when speaking with Siggy. “Could you…”

She started to ask him to move the calling card so as to show this supposed nothing, but an idea struck her. If she went in person, she could postpone practicing her flute.

“Never mind!” she cried, “I’ll be right down!”

Rachel ran down five flights of stairs to the basement. In one hand, she carried Vroomie, her steeplechaser-model bristleless broom. Waiting for her in the cellar of Dare Hall was her blood-brother, Sigfried the Dragonslayer, and his familiar, Lucky the Dragon. Sigfried was a well-built, impossibly handsome fifteen-year-old with wild blond curls. Lucky was a golden Asian lung, or water dragon, with ruby-colored stomach scales and long, long whiskers, horns, back ridge, and a tail tuft of flame red. They both awaited her arrival with eager faces.

The carpet that normally covered an area of floor in the back corner of the large music room in the cellar of Dare Hall had been rolled to one side. In the bare spot was a roundish hole. Rachel peered into this hole. It went down three or four feet. Below that was air and a dim light.

“See!” Sigfried crowed, pointing at the floor. “We struck nothing.”

“Struck...” Rachel’s eyes went very wide. She straightened and crossed her arms. “Sigfried Smith! Don’t tell me you were trying to burrow through the floor with flaming dragon acid again!”

Sigfried and Lucky glanced at each other and then back at her. Siggy said, “I thought you’d be pleased. Don’t you hate being stuck inside? Now, we can get out anytime.”

He had her there.

She knelt and peered into the hole, adjusting her black robes and tossing the tassel of her cap out of her eyes. Below was a tunnel, most likely a maintenance hallway. She had seen such hallways beneath the school once in a dream, but she had never stopped to consider whether they might be real.

Glancing up, she said, “Shall we pop in and take a look?”

Sigfried grinned a grin so bright that there was a danger of blindness. “That’s why I like you, Griffin. No, ‘maybe it’s too dangerous’ Or, ‘You’re not supposed to go there.’ Just “Let’s pop in and take a look.’” He turned to Lucky. “You want to do the honors, Lucks, and go first?”

“Sure thing, boss!” said the dragon.

In a flicker of red and gold, he plunged headfirst into the hole.

Ten minutes later, they were exploring the tunnels, only Sigfried’s girlfriend, Valerie Hunt and her familiar, Payback the Norwegian elkhound, had joined them. The five of them stood atop a wooden boardwalk that ran the length of the entirely-round corridor. Or rather three of them, Valerie, Siggy, and Payback, stood. Rachel and Lucky both hovered; Rachel sat side-saddle upon the seat of her steeplechaser, and Lucky, who was naturally buoyant, snaked lazily through the air.

“Do you know,” Valerie asked as she ran her hand along the smooth black substance, “that they have discovered new rocks on Mars? Rocks not of this earth?”

She wore her camera with its red strap over her long black academic robe and held a magnifying glass, with which she peered at the substance of the wall, her golden hair in bright contrast to the dark, glassy coating. Her familiar paced back and forth across the boardwalk, sniffing at the many interesting scents to be found.

“I want to go to Mars!” Siggy crowed. “Lucky, we could be the first humans to own new rocks. That might be almost as good as gold. Some might contain gold! Griffin!” He turned to Rachel, who hovered beside him. “Can we Sorcerers make a broom that can carry us to Mars? If so, I’m in!”

“I’m not sure,” Rachel replied. “We can put it on our list of things to look into.”

She looked both ways down the long tunnel, lit by the soft glow of domestic will-o-wisps. She half expected to see Sarpy, as the students called Umberto Sarpento, the sleepy custodian who kept Roanoke Academy going and herded the various fey that ran things behind the scenes, but there was no sign of him.

She turned to Valerie, gesturing toward the smooth, shiny walls. “Do you have any idea what this substance is? I’ve never seen it before. I do recognize this stuff over here.”

She floated her steeplechaser forward about fifteen feet to where the black walls changed to white and knocked against one of the plates of smooth, porcelain-like substance that lined the round walls.

“This is the stuff of basic conjurations,” she continued, “which is interesting, because it could not have been conjured directly onto the wall, or it would have vanished again twenty-four hours later. It must have been fitted here, carried outside—where it could be put out under the full moon three months in a row—and then carried back here. Still, makes a rather nice wall covering. I’m surprised it is not used more often.”

Rachel floated back to where the other two stood, surrounded by the black rock. “But do you know what this is? It almost looks like obsidian.”

“It is obsidian,” Valerie replied. She raised a finger. “Cool factoid from your favorite rock hound, me.” She pointed the finger at herself and grinned. “If you heat granite hot enough that it melts, what you get is obsidian.”

“Really?” Rachel leaned forward. “Are you sure?”

“Positive,” replied Valerie. “Before I found out about the World of the Wise, back when I had no idea that magic was real, I was in Rock Hounders, the geology club at my junior high. One day, they took us to see this guy who had a Freshnel lens—this enormous magnifying glass—in his back yard. The thing was about two-foot square. It could concentrate ordinary sunlight up to three thousand eight hundred degrees. The guy picked up a perfectly normal piece of granite gravel and put it under the lens. Then, he used the lens to heat it until it was so hot that the rock melted. It turned into obsidian.”

Valerie knocked on the smooth black glassy substance coating the inside of this section of the hallway. “Looked just like this.”

“Do you think that is what this is?” Rachel asked, awed. “Melted granite?”

“Do you think this was done with magic?” asked Sigfried. “Could a cantrip or a talisman be hot enough to melt through stone? Man, that would be wicked! We could melt an entire side of Roanoke Hall and never have to go to class again!”

“A cantrip? Maybe,” she murmured, flying her steeplechaser up higher so she could run her hand over the smooth, cool black glasslike substance of the corridor’s ceiling. “Usually, when they move earth and stone with cantrips, it...doesn’t look like this. More like someone stretched the rock. I haven’t seen anything like it before.”

Rachel peered down the corridor, burning with curiosity. What else might be down here? Would there be clues to how these corridors were made or why they were entirely round? But then she sighed. She was not supposed to be exploring the corridors beneath Roanoke Academy. She was supposed to be studying for her dreaded enchantment final.

“Listen, I think we should...”

From father down the corridor came the sound of weeping.

The three students and their two familiars crept forward, seeking the source of the sound.

“Can you see it?” Rachel whispered to Sigfried.

Siggy touched his robe in the middle of his chest, where Rachel knew his All-Seeing amulet was hidden. Then he scrunched up his face. “I see something. Take out your calling cards. I’ll share what I see.”

The two girls pulled out rectangles of green glass the size of old-fashioned calling cards. An image appeared in the glass of both cards. Rachel stared at hers.

Boiling hot water flowed out of a pipe in the wall of an underground chamber. The water flowed into a gigantic tub filled with soapy water, in which garments, mainly black robes, were being washed. Around it stood a group of old women. The women were fishing garments out of the hot water with long hooks and rubbing them against old-fashioned, ribbed washboards before depositing them into a second gigantic tub, this one filled from a second pipe, which seemed to be cold water. The women themselves were tiny, maybe two feet tall, if that. They wore neat dresses of brown burlap and green bonnets. Some wore white aprons or red shawls. All of them, to a woman, had wild, wispy, white hair that seemed to escape any bun they might have tried to fasten it into.

A second group of the little old ladies fished the robes from the cold water and waved a stick over them. Water fell from the robes back into the gigantic tub, and the robes were instantly dry.

Valerie’s voice rose shrilly. “Washer’s-at-the-Ford! We’ve seen them! We’re all going to die.”

“What? Where?” Siggy spun in a circle, his hand on the hilt of his knife. Why he always went for his knife rather than his fulgurator’s wand with its charges of useful spells, Rachel did not quite understand. Though, it occurred to her, maybe it was because he had only known about magic for less than a year, while he had been an orphan trying to defend himself on the dangerous streets of the bad areas of London for fourteen years before that. Sometimes habits die hard. “Lucky, prepare to burninate it!”

“I’ll burn its face so much it won’t have a face!” the dragon cried loyally.

“The old washing ladies!” Valerie cried. “It doesn’t help to burn them. It’s already too late. If you see them, you die!”

“You are thinking of bean-nighe,” Rachel laughed kindly. “These are bean-tighe. They are very kind, friendly domestic fey who do laundry.”

“Oh.” Valerie pressed a hand against her chest as she caught her breath. “Not going to die today because I accidentally saw an old lady after all.”

“Aw!” Siggy let go of the knife hilt. “Thought I was going to get to fight something.”

Valerie ignored him, gazing carefully at the tiny old ladies pictured in her calling card. “So, they are called ban-tee, like tea is banned here? They don’t look particularly scary. Actually, they look rather jolly.”

“They are,” Rachel agreed. “At Gryphon Park, our bean-tighe are very friendly. I used to like going to sit with them when I was very little. They would give me hazelnuts and fresh berries, or whatever was in season.”

“Is that how our laundry gets done?” Sigfried gaped. “Tiny old ladies scrub it by hand? Why don’t they install a washing machine? Doesn’t Ouroboros Industries make washing machines using magic?”

“They do,” Rachel nodded. “But they only invented those recently. I suspect laundry has been done this way at Roanoke for a number of centuries.”

“Where does all that water come from?” asked Valerie.

“College creek, I guess,” Rachel replied.

“How do they get it so hot?” asked Valerie.

“I...” Rachel frowned at the huge gushing pipe “…don’t know.”

“Ace! Bet we could take out a lot of enemies with that much boiling water. Annoying kids from math class, too.” Sigfried opined. “Oh, there’s the crying bloke. Hold on.”

The scene in the calling card shifted. It now showed a little figure who was hidden behind one of the gigantic tubs. The tiny man was as brown as a nut. He wore no clothing except for a red turban and a matching red loincloth.

“What, in all that is sacred, is that?” gawked Valerie.

Again, Rachel, who had grown up with domestic fey her whole life, could not help laughing. “It’s a bwbach. They clean our rooms.”

“Oh! You mean when I put a bowl of milk with honey in it outside my door, this is what’s drinking it?” the other girl’s face took on an odd expression. “Naked. In a loincloth. Not sure I want one of those cleaning my room. Touching my stuff.”

Rachel giggled.

“And you’re okay with this? You grew up with these Loincloth Larrys?” Valerie demanded.

Rachel shook her head. “No, we have bwca at home. They are furry and dress...more normally. Bwcas are a kind of cousin to the bwbachs.”

From off the side of the card came a voice. Sigfried shifted the image back to the bean-tighe. A new creature stood there. She was a foot taller than the tiny cleaning ladies. Her humble appearance, peasant skirt and embroidered blouse and a green kerchief over her hair, was offset by the fact that she walked on chicken feet and her face had a beast-like snout.

“What’s that?” asked Sigfried. “A Muppet?”

Valerie snickered.

Rachel narrowed her eyes, searching her perfect memory for drawings or descriptions that might come close. “Not sure. A kikimora, maybe?”

The sharp and shrill voice of the newcomer asked, “Where is the laundry from Dare Hall, Rooms 2A to 2D?”

The little old ladies looked up with their beneficent smiles. They answered one after another.

“Fenguth has not brought it.”

“He says it was taken.”

“Missing.”

“Fenguth is the butt of a prank by a mischievous fey.”

“That is no excuse,” screeched the chicken-legged being. She scowled. “Wasn’t it only just last week that he broke the water jug?”

“He claimed it was not him,” replied one of the bean-tighe as she scrubbed. “He claimed a miscreant.”

“He claims a lot of things,” scoffed the kikimora. “Well, no longer. If Fenguth does not bring the laundry...every robe that is missing...his time here is done. He will be cast out. Marched to the edge of the wards and expelled from the campus!”

“But...” a bean-tighe with an apron that could have been made from a lace doily, spoke up. Her face drawn with concern. “If a bwbach loses its place, isn’t it...”

“Bwbach, bogle, what is it to me,” scoffed the kikimora. “He has until nightfall to bring the garments or his days at Roanoke are through!”

Back in the hallway, Rachel covered her calling card, which returned to its green-tinted state.

“Oh, no,” she whispered softly, pressing a hand against her chest.

“What’s wrong?” asked Valerie. “What does that mean, bwbach or bogle?”

Rachel’s voice seemed to stick in her throat. “Bwbach are good fey. Helpful. But if things go all pear-shaped for them, they turn into bogle, which are a kind of malevolent sprite.

“I could eat the pear,” Lucky offered hopefully in his gravelly voice, “if it would help.”

“You mean the loinclothed, naked bloke is going to transform like the Hulk! Wicked! Can we watch?” asked Sigfried.

“Can I eat the Hulk?” Lucky asked hopefully. “Is it a hulk of cheese?”

“I don’t see what’s so bad about turning into a bog-whatsit,” Sigfried declared. He crossed his arms. “I’d pay to be more malevolent.”

But Rachel understood. She understood, all too well. She herself had once faced a decision where, had things gone otherwise, she would have lost who she was. It would have been the same as death. That was not so different from what would happen to this Fenguth if he did not find the missing laundry.

In that instant, she resolved in her heart that if there was anything she could do to help the little fey retrieve the stolen clothing, she would do it.

Except…

She was supposed to be practicing her flute.

Rachel sighed. She wished she could understand why practicing was so difficult. It was such a beautiful instrument. She could recall her grandmother, the august Lady Amelia, Duchess of Devon, standing on Dartmoor playing the silver flute, her long fingers moving gracefully over the instrument as she called the horses in from the moors or the hounds in from the hunt through music alone. Her grandmother had spent nearly a century as a Vestal Virgin—the Wise lived longer than mundane folks—before she had left the order to marry Blaise Griffin. Rachel liked to picture Lady Amelia playing her silver flute as she stood with the other Vestals, defending the Eternal Flame.

Rachel glanced over her shoulder, back the way she had come. If she returned to practicing now, would it really make such a difference? Wasn’t she going to fail her music final no matter what she did now? Wasn’t it better to keep one bwbach from turning into a bogle than to spend a fruitless few hours practicing an instrument that—if she was thoroughly honest with herself—she was never going to learn to play in time?

“Come on,” she announced, turning back to the others. “Let’s help him. Let’s find the missing laundry.”

“Hallo, there.” Rachel walked right by the bean-tighe who paid her no mind and sat down with her back to the wall near the sniffling bwbach. She was careful not to look right at it. She knew small fey of this kind hated that. So she looked up at the gigantic tub holding the laundry and the hot water rushing into it from the enormous pipe in the wall.

Sniffle.

“I’d like to help. Find the laundry, I mean.”

Sniffle.

“Can you show me where you last saw the laundry? Maybe my friend’s dog can catch the scent of the culprit—she calls it a perp—and we can track him down for you.

Silence.

Then his red turban-covered head turned toward her. Out of the corner of her eye, Rachel glimpsed large brown eyes, round as saucers, blinked rapidly.

“Student-girl help Fenguth?” it inquired in a high reedy voice.

“Student-girl help Fenguth,” Rachel replied, nodding.

“Fenguth come.”

The little bwbach in its strange red garments led the others down the round hallway until it came to a random spot that did not look any different from other random spots to Rachel and her friends. It was in the middle of one of the black obsidian lengths of hallway. Nothing particular marked it as distinctive, but Fenguth stomped upon the boardwalk once and announced that this was the spot.

“What spot?” asked Valerie, forgetting for a moment and looking directly at the bwbach, which shrank away from her until she remembered and averted her eyes.

“Where Fenguth last saw laundry.”

“Very good,” Valerie nodded crisply. “Payback, do your stuff, girl!”

Valerie made some hand gestures to the dog, who sniffed the area carefully, barked twice, and set off at a trot. The others, even Fenguth, exchanged glances, shrugged and followed.

“Rather creepy to think that my laundry could be going through all this. Makes me want to wash my intimates in the bathroom sink,” muttered Valerie. She turned to Rachel. “Does this happen often?”

“What? You mean losing laundry?” Rachel asked as she floated forward. “Not that I’ve heard of. Neither my parents, who attended Roanoke in their day, nor my older siblings ever mentioned losing clothing.” She glanced in the general direction of the little fey. “Has it happened before—that someone’s lost laundry?”

Fenguth shook his head. “Bwbach very careful with laundry. Guard with our life! None ever lost before.” He paused. “Except Moilpubh. One time, Moilpubh misplace whole load of boys’ underwear.”

“What happened?” asked Rachel. “Did they forgive him?”

Fenguth shook his head. “Got the boot. Marched off campus.” He shrugged. “It okay. No one like Moilpubh.”

After a time, they saw a black lump on the walkway ahead of them. Fenguth let out a gulp and a cry of joy. He ran ahead and, sure enough, lying on the ground was a black robe. Fenguth snatched it to his chest and cradled it in his arms, cooing to it and rocking it while rubbing his cheek against the rough cloth.

“Maybe Fenguth not become bogle!” he cooed in a hopeful tone.

“Is that all of them?” Rachel asked.

Fenguth’s shoulders slumped. “No. Fenguth took from boys’ floor seven robes. This only one.”

“It’s a good start,” Valerie said cheerfully. “Payback, find the next one.”

Payback led them down a tunnel and then a second tunnel. They reached a musty hallway that Rachel suspected was seldom traveled.

“Oooff,” Valerie held up her arm in front of her face. “Dusty.”

“Your wish is my command!” Sigfried produced a silky red handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to her.

“Ugh! I don’t know where this has been!” She put her hand out, blocking him. “I don’t want some cloth you blew your nose on!”

“Blew my nose!” Sigfried cried, outraged. “I would never blow my nose on a handkerchief! I keep a snot-rag for that!” From his back pocket, he pulled out a matted, yellowy something that might once have been a piece of cloth. Both girls backed away simultaneously. “Handkerchiefs are for ladies. That’s why we knights-in-training carry them.”

Valerie gingerly accepted the red handkerchief and held it over her mouth. Underneath it, she said, her voice a bit muted, “Can’t one of you enchanters just blow and, poof, the dust is gone?”

Whipping out his trumpet, Siggy blew upon it. Silvery sparkles gathered at the mouth of the trumpet and whooshed down the corridor in a dramatic, gale-strength blast. This produced a wonderful garden-fresh scent, but it also stirred up a huge amount of dust that must have been lying on the ground, making the air even dustier. It also blew away all the domestic will-o-wisps that had been providing light.

“Thanks, boyfriend,” Valerie said wryly, as they stood in the dark. She and Rachel both began coughing.

“Lux,” Rachel commanded, but nothing happened. The Word of Light was not one of the cantrips she had practiced assiduously.

“Lux!” Valerie tried, but she, too, was not especially good at cantrips.

“Lucks!” commanded Sigfried.

Lucky the Dragon breathed a long plume of red-orange flame, lighting up the corridor. Valerie both chuckled and sighed.

A few minutes later, they were back in a well-used section of corridor, surrounded by the pleasant golden glow of will-o-wips.

“Okay, fey-guy,” Valerie pulled out her reporter’s notebook as they walked, “as a reporter for the Roanoke Glass, I have some questions.”

“Questions?” Fenguth cocked his head, his turban wobbled dangerously.

“When did you last see all the laundry?”

“Fenguth gather it. Bring into tunnel. Put down to shut door. Hear chuckle. Turn head. Laundry gone!” The little fey let out a heartbreakingly sad moan.

“A chuckle?” Valerie noted this down. “I see. Did you recognize the chuckle? Any idea what made it?”

The little man hung his head. “Bad fey.”

“But you don’t know which bad fey?”

Fenguth shook his head. Meanwhile, Siggy and Lucky began making faces at each other in the reflective surface of the shiny obsidian.

Valerie shook her head at her boyfriend, amused, and then turned to Rachel. “Griffin, you’re the walking encyclopedia. What kind of fey might it have been?”

Rachel tipped back her head, thinking. “Well, we have a lot of mischievous fey on Roanoke Island. Most of them live outside the wards around the campus and cannot approach the school; however, any of them might have snuck in back in February, that time that the wards were breached. So…a spriggan?” She turned to the bwbach. “Was there a wind?”

He shook his head.

Rachel said, “Spriggans pop around, sometimes in the ground, sometimes flying.”

Valerie asked, “Wouldn’t that not leave a trail for Payback to follow?”

“Oh!” Rachel’s eyebrows shot up. “No. I guess not. So, not a spriggan.”

“What other mischievous fey are known to live on Roanoke Island?” Valerie asked.

“Let’s see. Hmm,” Rachel went through her memory. “A trow? Trow live in the meadows at the northwest end of the island. They are famous for tying shoelaces together. Anyone have their laces tied together?”

They looked down. Rachel and Valerie were both wearing boots. Siggy’s feet were bare.

“Hmm. That tells us nothing. Could be a trow, but…no proof.” Rachel said. “A phooka? Always a possibility. A Redcap? They are often more destructive, and a redcap probably would have stopped to taunt. Foidin seachrain? They trick travelers by looking like false sod…so probably not stealing clothing. I would say trow or phooka. Most likely a phooka.”

“Does this help us find the clothing?” asked Valerie.

Rachel sighed. “No.”

Valerie turned back to the bwbach. “How often do the domestic fey here at the school lose their jobs? Often? Almost never?”

“Almost never! We work hard!” the little man cried.

“And if you don’t find these…” Valerie continued, “…boys robes from Dare, apparently? You get escorted off campus?”

Fenguth nodded forlornly.

“Don’t worry,” Rachel said encouragingly, “We’ll find them.”

“Or Siggy can buy you new ones.” Valerie gave her boyfriend a friendly punch.

“He’s rich,” moaned Lucky. “That’s my hoard of gold you’re eyeing. I know the name of every coin! Are you asking me to part with Huntington McCoffey the Third for this red-diapered…whatever it is…I just met?”

Valerie rolled her eyes.

Another fork brought them into a third tunnel. This third one was not round with sections of obsidian and conjured porcelain, like the first two, but was a regular, rectangular access tunnel such as one might find in mundane buildings. It was also rather musty.

This time, Rachel whistled the three notes Sigfried had played upon his flute. She could not produce a gale wind like he could, but that was not what was needed. Silver sparks flew from her mouth, and a pleasant vanilla-scented breeze cleared the air of dust.

“Thank you, Rachel,” Valerie said politely. She glanced at her boyfriend. “See, some people can freshen the air without plunging us into darkness.”

“We can’t help if some people’s winds are inferior,” Sigfried replied magnanimously. “Right, Lucky?”

“Right, Boss. Dragon-light is the best light!”

Both girls sighed.

The corridor they were following merged with another, which soon slanted upward to a trapdoor that opened into the menagerie.

All around them were stalls for animals. Some were wooden. Others were made of metal or of the white porcelain of basic conjuring material. Yet others were of unfamiliar substances, perhaps meant to better constrain a specific type of magical beast.

Through the bars in the stall doors, the students could glimpse a chimera, a grayhound, a sheep, a warthog, a giraffe, and a lioness. Sigfried and Lucky immediately ran to examine the chimera. Valerie gazed in puzzlement at the warthog with its big, curving tusks.

“Who wants a warthog for a familiar?” she gawked. “Wouldn’t that be annoying to bring to class?”

Rachel looked around, but there was no sign of Flora Towers Skaife, Roanoke’s Mistress of the Beast, nor of any of the three, blonde young women who worked as her student helpers. Turning around, she watched Payback. The elkhound sniffed around the doors of the stalls and paused outside one, sniffing more carefully.

Climbing onto her broom again, Rachel floated up higher, so that she could peer down into the stalls. Inside the stall Payback had singled out, she saw a strange sight. A pile of dark robes seemed to be moving on their own. No, she was looking at a robe—or possibly two or three robes—being worn by a short, hairy man maybe two-and-a-half-feet tall. The creature had shaggy rust-colored hair, oblong ears, a long, protruding nose, and wide, bare feet. Tufts of bristly hair stuck out from its face, forming a beard of sorts or perhaps something that might better be called whiskers.

It was a fenoderee, a fey known for helping with domestic chores, particularly around the barn—a fenoderee wearing some of Fenguth’s missing laundry. Was that a pair of boys boxer shorts upon its head like a hat?

Rachel could not help herself. She blurted out, “But I thought fenoderee disdained clothing.”

The legends all claimed that one would reject clothing in a huff.

The fenoderee spoke in a surprisingly deep voice. “Much colder in New York than back on the Isle of Man.”

Rachel looked at the fey for a time. This was a bigger one, so she dared looking it in the face. It stared back.

“I don’t think those belong to you,” she said slowly.

“Mine now,” muttered the fenoderee.

“Fenguth’s laundry! Fenguth’s laundry!” cried Fenguth, jumping in the air in an attempt to see over the stall. The little thing did not come close. “Give back, you bully! Why steal it?”

“I didn’t steal it,” grunted the fenoderee.

“Where did you find them?” Rachel asked kindly.

“Lying in front of my hidey hole.”

“Those robes belong to students,” Rachel said gravely. “If we don’t get them back, Fenguth will lose his place and turn into a bogle.”

The hairy fey shrugged. “Don’t matter to me. Bwback, bogle.” It paused. “Though bogles are trouble. One tore through here several years back, throwing feed everywhere. Took hours to clean up.”

“So, you don’t want more bogles, right? More feed thrown around?”

The fenoderee pouted.

Valerie called from where she stood looking up at Rachel, “Ask it if we could buy them back. Give him something else instead.”

The creature paced around the stall, the long robes dragging behind it through the hay. Then it let out a high-pitched screech.

Lucky hung over the stall wall, gazing down at it. The fenoderee gawked at the dragon, alarmed.

“Get that one out of here! No fire in the menagerie! No fire!”

“I’ll take it away,” Rachel countered, “if you give me back the robes.”

“I’ll give you back the robes,” it replied, “if you deliver this week’s feed to the dorms.”

“Feed. You mean for familiars? The ones that don’t live in the menagerie or eat in the dining hall?” asked Rachel.

It nodded its head, the boxers bobbing up and down.

“All seven dorms?”

“All seven, even Raleigh,” replied the fenoderee. There was a gleam in its eye that Rachel did not like.

Siggy, who was still over by the chimera, could not see the gleam. He cried, “Sure! Deliver feed. How hard could it be? We deliver the feed. You give us the clothing back. Capeesh?”

“Capisce,” growled the fenoderee.

“We go!” Fenguth cried joyfully.

The pallet of various kinds of meats and feeds was enormous. Rachel tried lifting it with the tiathlu cantrip but could hardly get it off the ground. Even using charges from her wand, a slim length of silver that had once belonged to her grandmother, she found herself groaning with the effort of keeping it afloat.

“Hang on, Griffin,” Sigfried gave her a brotherly bump with his shoulder and picked up the rope hanging from the front of the pallet. “Heave ho!”

With a grunt, he started pulling.

The pallet that was so heavy that Rachel could not lift with magic, that pallet, Sigfried pulled with the strength of his muscles alone.

Rachel watched, gaping.

Valerie looked on with that happy look that girls get in their eyes when they are proud of their boyfriends. Lucky flew along overhead, gazing down at his boy with fondness. Fenguth jumped onto the top of the pallet and let Siggy pull him along, like a child on a hay ride.

They made their way down a tunnel that ran along the west side of the campus. The others seemed to be in merry spirits, but Rachel found her feet dragging.

The truth was, she was heartbroken.

She had spent hundreds of hours, literally as she had kept careful count, working on three spells: two enchantments, the wind spell and the paralysis hex, and a cantrip—the lifting cantrip. Yet, after a year of hard work, she still could not lift something that Sigfried could carry with muscle power alone. True, Sigfried was amazingly fit, but magic was supposed to be able to do more than muscles could do. She should be able to lift more with a cantrip than a boy—even an amazingly strong one—could pull by brute strength.

But a year of work, and she couldn’t even do that.

If she couldn’t play the flute and she couldn’t master cantrips, like lux and tiathlu, what kind of sorceress was she going to be?

As she plodded down the maintenance tunnel behind the others, an idea cheered her up. The enchanters who lived in Dare Hall used music to perform their magic, control the weather, cast hexes, heal, summon, and the other things enchantments could do. If playing the flute was too hard for her, maybe she was not cut out to be an enchantress. What if, as they made this tour of the seven dorms—one each for the seven Sorcerous Arts—she considered, however, briefly, each kind of magic and what it was that she truly wanted to excel at. If she picked a different specialty, something other than enchantment, she could afford to fail her test in Music.

What kind of sorceress was she, truly?

The first dormitory they came to was Marlowe Hall, the home of students who specialized in conjuring. By the time they reached it, Sigfried was barely sweating. Valerie was carrying a few objects that had fallen from the pallet. Rachel was seated on her broom, hovering beside them. Fenguth, still atop the pallet, was snoring quietly. She had not realized that fey creatures could snore.

Rachel had never been in Marlowe before. The trapdoor from the maintenance tunnels opened into a hallway filled with statues. Brightly-colored murals covered the walls. Through open doors off this hallway, they caught glimpses of art studios where students painted at easels or stood before conjuring shelves pulling objects from the air. In the hallway, two girls played with a tiny panda who might have been someone’s familiar, but which Rachel suspected was a snowdoll—a conjured thing that would last twenty-four hours and then vanish.

To the left was the room where the familiars’ food was stored. They transferred the feed and meat marked for Marlowe to the appropriate bins and dishes. As they worked, Rachel thought about Art class. She loved drawing. It was a skill that she had picked up just this year. She had started out rather awkwardly, but she often drew in classes while her tutors reviewed their subjects as, with her perfect memory, she never needed to hear anything twice to remember it. Her pictures were beginning to actually resemble real objects.

Would she want to be a conjurer?

Problem was, conjuration required a familiar, and Rachel’s cat had turned out to be…just a cat. She could fake part of conjuration with her perfect memory, but if she wanted to be a serious conjurer, she would need to get a real familiar. The thought of replacing her beloved Mistletoe was too painful.

With a sigh, Rachel put aside the idea of specializing in conjuration.

As they left Marlowe, Fenguth remarked, “Marlowe all right. Some bwbach not mind it. Fenguth prefer Dare. Dare best hall.”

Rachel and Siggy grinned at each other.

“You can say that again!” Siggy and Lucky high-fived each other.

“You Dare show-offs,” Valerie rolled her eyes. “Dee is the best dorm, and you know it. Well, maybe you don’t, Siggy. I can’t see you reading a book, but Rachel does.”

Rachel smiled, “It was the dorm I wanted to live in before I came to Roanoke, but my siblings put me in Dare with them.”

“What’s so great about Dee?” asked Siggy.

“Library,” said Fenguth. “Books and books and books.” He paused. “Book boggles live there. No need for bwbachs.”

“Do book boggles clean our rooms, too,” asked Valerie, “or just organize the books?”

Fenguth shrugged. “Some bwbachs go there. But not Fenguth or Ulpath or Moilpubh or Gilpus. We prefer Dare.”

Next, they headed for Spenser, the home of the Canticlers—those who spoke the Original Tongue, the individual words of which were known as cantrips. Inside the dorm, every object was labeled. Every widow, doorjamb, shelf, and painting had a little label on it bearing the word for the thing in the Original Tongue.

Rachel paused and peered at the labels. “Why are these here?”

Valerie said, “It’s for learning languages. They do that at the National Language School in the mundane world as well—the school where diplomats learn the languages they need for their work.”

“But, what’s the point?” Rachel asked, puzzled.

“The idea is that if you look at it enough times,” Valerie explained, “you’ll eventually remember it.”

Oh. Of course. Rachel bit her lips together before she said something that would embarrass somebody, probably herself. Sometimes, she forgot that other people had to see something more than once to remember it.

As they continued north to Dare Hall, Rachel considered becoming a canticler. Learning the Original Language would be easy. She already knew some words and she would only need to encounter the rest of them once to learn them.

But knowing the words was the least of what a canticler had to do. The real task was performing the cantrips—convincing the world around you to listen and obey. She had just seen how well she did with tiathlu and lux. Spenser Hall was not for her.

The room for familiar feed in Dare Hall was in the cellar off the music room—the room where Siggy and Lucky had dug their hole. While Rachel and Valerie unpacked the food, Sigfried surreptitiously slipped off and pushed the rug back over the hole in the floor. The Ginger Snaps were on the stage at the far end of the music room, rehearsing. While the students finished unpacking, Fenguth sat on the floor gazing wide-eyed at the band, which consisted of a group of red-haired musicians and some of their friends and relatives. Rachel did not blame him. The Ginger Snaps were good. Their music was lively and urged one to dance. That was one of the joys of living in Dare Hall, hearing all the musicians play.

Next, they returned to the tunnels and set off through a corridor that crossed under the commons to the east side of campus. They did not stop at Roanoke Hall, where classes were held, because no familiars lived there, and any familiar who chose to eat with the students in the dining hall did not need a delivery of special food.

As they walked, they discussed the culprit responsible for distributing the seven robes to the far reaches of the campus and mused about what it might be. Rachel gave the others several pointers for recognizing phooka, including that they were usually black or white, or black and white, and that they often had red eyes. The conversation drifted from the wild fey, to speculation about how many might have slipped on campus the night the wards were breached, to a discussion of the events of that night, including the epic battle between Sigfried and the ogre. Fenguth listened with great excitement as the orphan boy described how he had fought the nigh-invulnerable creature and, after Lucky broke the charm that protected the brute’s life, leapt up on its back and slit its throat with his Bowie knife.

“Sorcerer-Boy very brave!” the fey murmured, wide-eyed.

“You can say that again!” Valerie declared, adding, “That was one of the most terrifying moments of my life! Facing off against that ogre after he knocked you out, Siggy—okay, I thought you were dead—as we waited for Lucky to come and break the charm. Boy, was that terrifying!”

Sigfried grunted as he pulled the pallet, which was growing lighter each time they stopped. Drawing a deep breath, he asked cheerfully, “I never did hear what happened while I out cold. How did you girls live?”

Valerie shivered. “Luck, I guess, and Rachel.”

“Rachel?” asked Siggy.

“She walked right up to the ogre and started talking to it.” Valerie shook her head in admiration. “Kept it busy for a minute or two. Probably saved all our lives.”

“What did you say to it?” Siggy turned to look at Rachel. Valerie and Fenguth and Lucky all turned to look at her, too.

Uncomfortable under everyone’s scrutiny, Rachel ducked her head, “I-I called it by its name. Reminded it of its humanity.” She added with a wry smile, “Didn’t help in the long run. It was still evil. But I did slow it down for a bit.”

“How did you know its name?” Valerie asked.

Rachel shrugged. “Now and then, odd bits of knowledge I heard over the years snap together in my head. It’s one of the advantages of perfect recall, I suppose.”

The next dorm was DeVere Hall. The trapdoor was locked. Above the lock was a plaque showing pictures of a redcap, a merrow, and a chimera. Beside the door, a rock with a hole in it hung from a string.

“What’s this?” Valerie asked.

“It’s locked!” Sigfried declared. “Shall we open it with magic? Or have Lucky burn it open?”

“Burninate it!” Lucky cried. “Turn it to sludge!”

“Or we could hit it with a sledgehammer,” said Siggy.

“Or,” Lucky offering hopefully, “eat the food and just say we left it.”

“I like that one!” Sigfried nodded. “Let’s do that.”

“Ew. No. Some of these foods are…not very appetizing.” Valerie shuddered.

“I don’t know about that!” Siggy picked up a few containers. “Grains with meat juices!”

“Juices are good!” said the dragon.

“Or meal worms.”

“They make a meal, right?”

“Or dried meat!” crowed Siggy.

“We could eat dried meat all day,” said Lucky.

“And still have room for dinner.”

Valerie cleared her throat. “Rachel? You’re our fey expert.”

Rachel lifted the stone with a hole. “DeVere is for warders. You wouldn’t ward off a chimera with a rock with a hole in it. Or a sea creature like a merrow. Rocks with holes are for woodland fey, so…”

She touched the rock to the panel showing the redcap. The trapdoor clicked open.

“DeVere scary place,” murmured Fenguth as he crept over the threshold. “Bwbachs not like to work here.”

“Why is that?” asked Rachel.

“Easy to get trapped. Stuck between two warded doors. Can’t get out. Moilpubh once stuck in between two doors for a week.”

“But it’s okay, right, because no one likes Moilpubh?” asked Valerie.

Fenguth shivered and quickly ran back outside to the tunnels below.

As they continued south, heading for Drake Hall, Rachel wondered about DeVere. Should she ditch enchantment and become a warder? It would be very easy for her, memorizing what stopped what. It would be hardly be any effort at all. In fact, just by reading books from her family library, she knew more possible warding combinations than some professionals in the field. There was an art to it, of course, but her experience so far suggested that she might be able to master it. And yet…

Warding took patience and, in many cases, having your feet on the ground, literally. There was very little warding that could be done in the air. It was not an ideal Art for someone who practically lived on her bristleless. Rachel, who was currently walking, leaned over and patted Vroomie, where the steeplechaser lay atop the pallet Sigfried was dragging. Somehow, she did not feel the calm, patient, grounded way was for her.

Drake Hall came next. The tunnels passed under the moat and opened into a room off of the summoning chambers in the cellar. Rachel had been here once before, during a battle against a teacher who had turned into a dragon. The students in Drake studied thaumaturgy, which was an intriguing Art. It used math and precision to combine other arts together to make spells that accomplished things that no other magic could accomplish.

Would she like to be a thaumaturge? The process was interesting, and, while many of the kids in Drake were snobbish, there were a few here, particularly two young men, who were dear to her. Might it be a better place for her than Dare?

Then their path took them outside, and both Valerie and Rachel balked. Ahead of them stood cages holding goats, rabbits, doves and more. Rachel’s heart began beating oddly in her chest.

“Oh, look, Lucky!” Siggy declared. “It’s the convenient to-go lunch boxes.”

“Oh, boss, can I? Can I?” Lucky swooped forward.

“No!” Valerie’s voice cracked. “Lucky, those are not for you.”

“But Goldilocks,” Lucky hung his dragony head. “They’re just going to be eaten.”

“But not by you,” Sigfried’s girlfriend replied firmly.

Rachel stared at the cages. Sacrificial beasts, meant to be fed to the creatures the thaumaturges summoned. Rachel was not sure she could stomach such a thing. True, she fed meat to her cat. By accompanying this outing, she was helping feed meat to animals now. Yet, somehow, that felt different from feeding live goats to chthonic monstrosities.

No, she decided, she could not stomach Drake.

Fenguth also shrank away from the cages, hurrying back inside the moment the creatures were fed.

“Bwbachs in Drake very brave,” he murmured to Rachel. “Fenguth not want to go there. Fenguth like Dare.”

“Why do you like Dare?” Rachel asked him.

Fenguth’s face lit up. “Music. You hear it? Like liquid honey kissing the ears.”

“Yes, I rather guess it is,” Rachel admitted slowly. “Unless you are listening to me playing. That’s a bit more like sandpaper on the ears. But, yes…I understand.”

“Sometimes, when work is done, we creep in and listen. To boy with cello. Girl with tuba. Fenguth and Moilpubh and Ulpath and Gilpus. Our ears grow happy. Sometime, even when working, Moilpubh and Fenguth slip into practice room and hear violin or woodwinds that make hearts brave and thews strong. One time, we heard young man singing. He sang song about fairies and white bells. Ears grew so happy.” He sighed, contently, as if remembering a scrumptious feast, his gaze starry-eyed.

“I thought nobody liked Moilpubh,” said Rachel.

“Maybe Fenguth like Moilpubh a little,” Fenguth admitted grudgingly. He looked sad.

In a sudden moment of discernment, Rachel squatted down beside the little fey. “Fenguth, is that part of what you are afraid of? That you will become a bogle, and, like when Moilpubh was stuck in DeVere, no one will notice or care, because they don’t like you either?”

Fenguth trembled like a leaf in the wind.

She gave him the kindest smile she could. “Well, for what it is worth, I like you.”

As they walked, Fenguth’s words echoed in Rachel’s memory. Our ears grow happy. She, too, loved music. Some of her happiest memories were of singing for her father when she was a little girl. She had begun singing for them at four and started formal lessons at six. She recalled her father and her beloved grandfather listening with pleasure as she sang, her mother smiling encouragingly in the background. Even her august, Victorian grandmother had looked down over her pince-nez and declared her tiny granddaughter’s singing to be “Passable, I suppose,” which was high praise from Lady Amelia.

Since coming to school, Rachel had learned to cast some simple enchantments, particularly a few hexes, by whistling. But this only worked for short spells—two or three notes. More than that and the magical energy buzzing through her body disrupted her ability to whistle. For longer enchantments, an instrument was required.

The next stop was Raleigh Hall, the home of the alchemists who made magical talismans. Siggy, who was looking a little tired now—or maybe he was just irked about Valerie having stopped Lucky from eating the sacrificial animals, it was hard to say—pulled the pallet to a stop on the ramp in front of the next trapdoor.

“Halt! Who goes there?” called a cultured, elegant voice.

Rachel looked around. It was not a voice she had heard before, so it wasn’t one of the proctors, or the custodian, or the groundskeeper.

“I say! Don’t you ignore me, you unruly students!”

“Who's talking?” whispered Valerie, looking left or right.

Sigfried made a kind of a squawking noise and pointed. “The door! The door is talking!”

Rachel peered closer. Sure enough, there was a face carved into the trapdoor through which they needed to pass in order to enter Raleigh Hall. The face was entirely made of wood, but the eyes seemed to track them, and the mouth moved as it spoke.

“I am speaking, you ungrateful wretches! Do you expect me to open for you after the respect you have shown me? I think not. Stand out here and cool your heels all night for all I care!” declared the face in the door.

“What in…things that things are in…is that?” asked Valerie, babbling in her surprise.

“Animated door.” Rachel kept her voice low, not wanting to offend it more. “This is Raleigh. I have heard that every object in this dorm is either alive or a talisman with magical powers.”

“Why is that?” Sigfried asked, straightening up and stretching, first to one side and then to the other.

“Because they practice on their dorm. Making magic items, I mean,” replied Rachel. “Or so I’ve been told.”

“Creepy!” Valerie declared in a singsong voice.

Rachel took a deep breath and walked forward. Curtsying to the trapdoor, she said kindly, “Honored door, we do not mean any discourtesy. We have never visited your august dorm and do not know the etiquette expected.”

“Oh, is that so? Well, I might be convinced to make an exception for a bunch of greenhorns. What’s your business?”

“Bringing food to the familiars who live here.”

“Bringing food, you say?” The door gave a snort of amusement. Rachel was unpleasantly reminded of the gleam in the fenoderee’s eye. “Very well. You may pass.”

The door swung open, and the small group entered Raleigh Hall.

The walls had eyes. The doors had eyes. The doorknobs turned of their own accord if anyone approached them. Feather dusters moved independently, dusting the wainscoting and paintings. Some of the banisters were singing.

Inside the room where the feed went, the bins all had eyes. They opened their big mouths with excitement as Sigfried dragged in the pallet. However, the moment the group of them began unpacking the food, they snapped their mouths shut and refused to budge.

Fenguth said, “Raleigh bwbachs life difficult. Doors slam on them. Dressers try to eat. These bins famous throughout school. Always give a hard time.”

“I bet that is why the fenoderee said ‘Raleigh, too’. He probably doesn’t like to face off against the obnoxious bins.” Rachel stared up at them. The openings were above her head.

“Oh, really,” Siggy chuckled, rolling up his sleeves. “Let us at ‘em.”

Siggy strode forward and grabbed the handle of the bin. It popped open easily, gaped, and, with a snap, caught him, drawing him in head first, and snapped shut again. His legs kicked from the top of the partially-closed feed bin.

The bin made a low, dark chuckling noise. It moved the lip of its opening out and in, as if trying to chew on the young man.

Sigfried was entirely undismayed. In a loud voice, he declared, “What shall it be, Lucky? Shall I pull them out of the wall? Explode them? Shred them to bits? Or would you rather burn them?”

“I could melt them?” suggested Lucky. He snaked down from above and hung over the bin. “Or just bite them. Dragon bites can be deadly.”

“I’m learning to box, you know,” replied Siggy’s muffled voice. “I could use ‘em for boxing practice.”

There came a few sharp knocks, and the bin made an oof sound.

“And then I could burn ‘em,” Lucky replied happily. “And then eat them.”

Siggy’s legs kicked. There came another two or three sharp blows from inside the bin, which let out a groan of pain. Lucky tipped his head back, opened his mouth, and sucked in air, preparing to breath fire.

“No need for all that! No need for all that!” cried the bin, flapping its mouth open and spitting out Sigfried.

“See, we’re open! We’re open!” called another.

After that, they had no trouble with the bins.

As they left, Rachel considered life as an alchemist. She rather liked alchemy, actually. She was not a natural like Sigfried, who seemed to have a real knack for it, but she had a sense of how to combine influences to make effective talismans.

Problem was, in the long run, alchemy came down to a cantrip, the one used to transfer the alchemical influences to the item being created. And she was not at all good at that cantrip. It seemed a silly thing to be an alchemist who had to constantly rely on other people to do the final step for her.

Besides, occasionally alchemy was fun, but she was not a person who wanted to carry an arsenal of talismans, or even wear a charm bracelet, as many alchemists did.

Alchemy just was not for her.

The final stop was Dee Hall, Valerie’s dorm. It was also the secret home of Rachel’s heart, the place she had wanted to live when she first came to Roanoke, the home of scholars and books. Living in Dee was like living in a library.

The trapdoor for Dee had shelves to either side of it. The halls were lined with books, as were the window alcoves, the risers between each step, and the doors. Even the room where the familiars ate was lined with books. Some of them, Rachel noted, were on how to care for various animals, and what they ate.

Rachel paused a moment and breathed in the wonderful book scent.

Ahhhh. It smelled so good. Was this the place for her? Should she make Dee Hall her home? Then she could be a scholar and spend her days studying and researching. She loved to learn; it was the thing she loved the most, knowing things, finding them out. Surely, this was the place for her.

Only if she moved to Dee, everything would change.

Suddenly, the thought terrified her, so much so that a tightness in her chest made it hard to breathe.

“Girl looks sad?” The little fey tugged on her robe, looking up. “Scared?”

He looked so solicitous that Rachel knelt down and spoke to him.

“I am thinking of making a change. Of moving, from Dare to Dee. Only,” she swallowed, “moving means changing who I spend my time with. My roommates. My core group—that’s the people I take classes with. I love Dee. I love learning. But…”

She looked around with longing, but the lump in her throat was growing larger. Would she be happy with Valerie and her roommates as her new friends? Or would she feel…

“Girl afraid that if she leave Dare, she change?” asked the bwbach with surprising discernment of his own “New place. New life. Maybe become new self. Maybe not girl anymore?”

Was that what she was afraid of, becoming a sort of human bogle? If she gave up on being an enchantress, changed dorms, changed classes, ultimately, probably, changed friends, at least the ones she spent the most time with, would she like who she would become?

“Fenguth not want to be bogle,” the little fey said, his eyes wide with fear. “Fenguth not want to go away.”

Rachel looked him in the eyes. She figured they knew each other well enough know that he would not shy away. She smiled. “Don’t worry, Fenguth. We won’t let that happen.”

As she straightened, she thought that all it took to save Fenguth was to regain a few robes. Would it be that easy for her?

They returned the pallet to the fenoderee in the menagerie, who reluctantly removed his new wardrobe and gave it back to Fenguth. The little fey carefully counted all the laundry they had retrieved and announced that of the seven missing robes, they had gathered five.

“Look at that, little guy,” Sigfried crowed. “Only two more robes, and you’re home free!”

“Maybe Fenguth not be bogle after all,” the little fey said happily, hugging his laundry.

Valerie called Payback and had her sniff the place where the fenoderee had found the robes. And then, they were off again, following the silver and black elkhound.

They brought the five robes they had recovered to the laundry and gave them to the bean-tighe, then they continued following Payback. This time, as they walked, following tunnels that led them under Roanoke Hall, the passageway grew warmer and the air bore traces of cinnamon!

“Salamanders!” Rachel cried, smiling as they rounded a corner. “I bet there’s a whole enclosure of the ones they put in the hearths in the dorm during the winter. Do you think they…”

Her jaw gaped.

Ahead was a gigantic chamber filled with enormous pipes through which, from the sound of it, water rushed. Beneath the pipes, warming them, was the most enormous salamander she had ever seen or even heard of. Most salamanders she had encountered were hearth-sized, not much bigger than iguanas. The boiler back at her home had one about the side of a Komodo monitor dragon.

This salamander was ten feet high and at least fifty feet long. She had no idea they could grow so large. Even a hundred feet down the hallway, she could feel the heat radiating from it.

“Look at the rocks behind it!” Valerie pointed at the black and ember-colored lizard. “Some have been slagged to obsidian. This thing made all these tunnels!”

Rachel gawked at the titanic heating-fey. Valerie was right. The salamander must have burrowed through the earth, forming the tunnels they had been exploring all afternoon. The tunnels were obsidian where it burrowed through rock, and where it had passed through earth, the white, conjured wall slabs had been put up to reinforce the earth.

“What is this place?” Siggy asked. Lucky flew up into the heights of the chamber, flying around the giant pipes.

“The school’s boiler room,” Rachel guessed. “All that hot water must come from here…and the heat in the winter.”

Their group approached the boiler room. Up close, they could see that the salamander was in an enclosure walled off with brass and gold, just like a hearth salamander. The great pipes were supported by lesser pipes, giant wheels, and massive levers leading to vents designed to carry heat away from the boiling room toward the main hall. These levers and wheels were tended by a squat, furry fey maybe three feet tall with a long beard, longer mustache, and a hat that looked like a brass teapot. Or maybe it was wearing an actual teapot on its head. It frowned when it saw the students, but when it saw Fenguth, it shrugged and returned to its tasks.

“Domovoi,” Rachel murmured to the others.

“Whatever that is,” Valerie whispered back. “Et’s-lay et-gay out-ay of ere-hay!”

Valerie tried to continue down the hall, leaving the boiler room behind, but Payback followed the scent path right into the boiler room. The domovoi frowned forbiddingly at the elkhound, who paid it no heed. The students followed, sweat beginning to form on their brows from the oppressive heat.

The dog paused and barked.

“Hey, Furry Beard Guy,” Sigfried called to the domovoi, “have you seen any—”

Then he fell silent because two black robes floated into sight. They hung in the air, to the puzzlement of both the students and the domovoi.

“Hey, boss!” called Lucky. “Up here!”

“Look!” Sigfried cried, pointing up into the pipes. “There it is! The thing that took the robes!”

Overhead, a little fey squatted on a pipe. It was skinny and gray with a tuff of wild hair tied with a ribbon sticking up between very large ears. It grinned maniacally, pointing and cackling.

Oh, of course.

“What is that?” Valerie asked. She raised her camera and snapped a photo. “A phooka? A trow?”

Rachel shook her head. “Bogle.”

“You mean like this guy will become if we don’t get those robes back,” Siggy stuck his thumb at Fenguth. “That makes sense. You said these bog-whatevers are troublesome.

The bogle gestured. With a whoosh, the two flying robes tumbled into the salamander’s enclosure. Instantly, both robes began to smolder.

“No!” Fenguth let out a bloodcurdling screech.

He ran forward, arms outstretched. When he reached the enclosure, he tried to climb the brass fence. It must have been very hot, because he screamed and pulled back his hands.

The salamander turned its huge head with its snub, salamandery nose and began moving toward the fallen robes. Rachel gasped. If the salamander touched them, they would burst into flames.

She did not hesitate. She did not even think. She just whistled. Blue sparks burst from her lips and struck the titanic salamander. Sparkles played across the gigantic black and red creature.

It froze.

Valerie gawked up at the motionless salamander. “Wow, Rachel,” she breathed, “Did you just freeze the entire, dinosaur-sized salamander. It’s huge! First that breeze in the corridor and now this. You’re amazing enchantress.”

Rachel did not answer, but she blushed with pleasure. Maybe she was not so bad at enchantments after all.

The robes were still in danger. Smoke issued from them now.

“Tiathlu!” she cried, performing her favorite cantrip.

The two robes were much lighter than a pallet of familiar feed. With a gesture she whisked the last two robes out of the salamander enclosure and into the arms of the waiting Fenguth, who shrieked with joy, hugging the garments and rubbing his cheek against them.

Up on the pipes, the bogle cackled again and dashed away. No longer able to see it, Rachel remembered back, recalling what she had seen earlier and examined it in her memory: the gray, knobby limbs, the scrap of ribbon tied in its hair.

No, not ribbon, red cloth. Like a bwbach’s turban.

Suddenly, everything Fenguth had told her, the sadness she had seen in his eyes, came back to her. A dozen little things snapped into place in her mind.

Oh. Her lips parted softly. An idea had struck her, an idea so crazy she was almost afraid to speak it aloud, and yet…

“Wait!” She jumped on her steeplechaser and flew up toward the hot pipes. It was uncomfortably warm here, but the idea buzzing through her thoughts was so powerful that she hardly noticed. “Bogle, wait!”

Seeing no sign of it, Rachel called downward. “Sigfried, where is it?”

Sigfried did not even look her direction. He tapped his chest lightly, where his All-Seeing amulet lay and then pointed upward at a different section of pipes. Rachel flew that direction.

A creepy cackle sounded from the direction Sigfried had indicated. Rachel caught sight of the bogle again. It waved its hand. A force sent Rachel and her broom flying. She spun sideways. Knocking into the hot pipe, she screamed.

Keeping a hold on her bristleless, she darted away, her cheek and arm aching where they touched the metal of the pipe. Turning around, she faced the bogle again. Was she crazy? Should she even try? Was it too dangerous?

But it had worked with the ogre. He had remembered…

She looked the bogle in the eyes and called it by its name: “Moilpubh!”

The bogle stopped. Its maniacal grin took on a strange, strained quality.

“You’re Moilpubh, aren’t you?” she asked softly, not breaking eye contact. “It’s not true that no one liked you. Fenguth misses you.”

The bogle took an uncertain step back. Rachel wiped sweat from her face. It was beginning to run into her eyes.

“Isn’t that what happened? You were stuck in DeVere for over a week, and no one noticed? After that, you thought no one cared, and it became hard to do your work? So they let you go?” She gazed deeply into the bogle’s eyes and blurted out, “I think if you forgive Fenguth and the others, you might be able to turn back.”

“Fenguth,” she called downward, wiping her face again on her sleeve. “Ask Moilpubh to forgive you?”

“Forgive?” the little fey gazed up, puzzled. Its eyes grew very, very wide. “Moilpubh?” A huge smile creased its face. “Moilpubh!”

And, just like that, everything became clear. It was not just Moilpubh who needed to forgive. If Rachel wanted to move forward as an enchantress, she would have to forgive her grandmother. It was not practicing that Rachel hated. It was the flute.

Lady Amelia had long graceful fingers, but Rachel’s were short and slender, like her half-Korean mother. When she played the instrument, a part of her mind recalled previous attempts to learn to play, back when her disapproving, Victorian grandmother was still alive. Rachel remembered the tall, august woman criticizing Rachel’s fingering, criticizing Rachel’s playing, criticizing Rachel’s mother—of whom the duchess disapproved.

As a child, the duchess’s judgmental manner had wounded her, but since coming to school, Rachel had learned a great deal about Amelia Griffin, Lady Devon that she had not known as a child.

Her grandmother had loved Blaise Griffin all her life, but when they were young, he had fallen in love with and married someone else. Amelia had become a Vestal Virgin.

Vestal Virgin vows were for life, but when a demon murdered Blaise Griffin’s wife and children, Amelia had broken those vows to leave the order and marry him. Breaking her vows weakened the Eternal Flame she had devoted so many years of her life to guarding. While she had loved her husband, Amelia had never forgiven herself for breaking those vows.

Blaise Griffin, much as Rachel adored him, was not an easy man to live with, and yet Lady Devon had enjoyed a good life with him and bore him two sons. Then, twenty-five years ago, her younger son had been slain in the Battle of Roanoke.

It had broken her grandmother’s heart. She had never truly been the same again.

By the time she tried to teach her tiny granddaughter to play the flute, she had become a cold, critical woman, but considering what she had been through, Rachel suddenly found that she could not fault her. It was time to forgive.

All this came in a flash, but it was as if Rachel’s world had turned upside down, or maybe, it turned right-side up for the first time.

“Miss Griffin! Get away from there!” From below came the voice of Mr. Fuentes, Rachel’s favorite proctor. “That’s a bogle! It’s dangerous!”

He stood in the tunnel just outside the boiler room. With him were two other proctors. They all looked up in great concern.

No! Not now! Panic threatened to overwhelm Rachel.

“It’s okay! I can do this!” She called back.

“Miss Griffin, those are dangerous fey. You need to come down right now.”

“Please, I…” Rachel bit her lip.

The craziness was creeping back into Moilpubh’s eyes. If she lost him now, there was little chance that she could ever get him back again.

A new voice spoke below them, an older masculine voice, one Rachel had seldom heard before.

“Let her be, Fuentes.”

Rachel glanced down. Beside the domovoi was an older man with a somewhat bulbous nose, a hairline that had receded halfway across his head, and short gray hair behind that. It was Mr. Sarpento, the school janitor.

“Sarpy, the boiler room is dangerous,” Mr. Fuentes objected. “Miss Griffin’s going to get hurt. Not to mention the bogle. Those things are...”

“Let her be,” the janitor said gruffly. “I want to see what happens. Never seen one of ‘em do that before. You keep doing whatever you’re doing, child.”

Hope leapt in Rachel’s heart. Was it possible, restoring a bogle to his former bwbach state? What else could she do to remind him of who he used to be?

Suddenly, she felt embarrassed and ashamed. How in the world could she have thought that she could do this? She knew nothing about this Moilpubh. There was nothing she could say or do that would remind him…

Only, there was.

Slowly, Rachel flew her steeplechaser back to the ground. She stepped off it and knelt on the hot stone floor of the boiler room. For a moment, she just knelt there, sweat streaming down her face and neck, her eyes closed.

Then she opened her mouth, and she sang:

White coral bells

Upon a slender stalk,

Lilies of the valley deck my garden walk.

Oh don’t you wish

That you could hear them ring?

That will happen only when the fairies sing.

She finished singing, but no one spoke, not even Siggy or Lucky. Rachel opened one eye. Fenguth stood before her, his little jaw slack with amazement. Next to him stood a second little bwbach, its face, too, was suffused with joy.

“Moilpubh?” Rachel asked softly.

“Yes. Moilpubh is back! Moilpubh—” the second little fey suddenly realized that it was naked and let out an ungainly squeak, covering his loins with his hands. Valerie stepped forward and proffered Sigfried’s red silk handkerchief. Quick as a flash, the little fey grabbed it and tied it into a new loincloth.

“Not taking that back.” Sigfried muttered to Lucky. “No girl should wipe her mouth with it after that!”

The Music final had arrived. Rachel stood in the back of the classroom, her silver flute in her hands. At the front of the room, Sigfried was playing his trumpet. Indigo sparkles came from the instrument, and all five of the bean-tighe seated to the left side of the room, rose from their chairs and obediently trotted across the classroom to stand in front of him. Only three other students had been able to summon all five of the little old lady fey. Some of the others had not been able to summon even one.

One of those had been Rachel.

Each student was allowed three tries. Rachel had tried twice. In a moment, she would be allowed to try one more time.

She practiced the fingering without blowing on the mouthpiece. She could see now what the problem was. Her fingers were too small for this flute. This made it a little easier. At least, she knew that stretching farther might help. She would need to find a new instrument, but that was for the future. There was no time to learn something new in the next few minutes.

As Sigfried finished, Rachel took a deep breath and went forward to take her final turn. Lifting the silver flute, she began to play. Her lips were tired from her earlier attempts, yet she forced herself to concentrate doing her best. At first, nothing happened, then a few indigo sparks left her instrument and drifted to the left. After a few more bars, a single bean-tighe slowly began to stand, as if she might possible be thinking of walking over to where Rachel played.

Oh please, Rachel begged mentally. Just one. All I need is one to pass.

She could not bear it. She closed her eyes.

She played the piece as best she could, wincing at each missed note. When she finished, there was a moment of silence and then gasps. Rachel opened one eye.

Five shapes stood before her.

Rachel whipped her head to the left, but only one chair was empty. The other bean-tighe sat complacently in their places, knitting and ignoring her. Rachel turned back to the front of the room.

A single bean-tighe stood in the center of the room. Next to her were the fenoderee, Fenguth, the domovoi, and Moilpubh. Fenguth winked at her.

As she prepared to leave class that day, Miss Cyrene, the Music tutor, came up beside her. “That was quite a performance, Miss Griffin.”

Rachel hung her head. “Actually, it was not a particularly impressive performance.”

A glint of kindness came into the blonde woman’s eye. “There is more to enchantment than summoning. Befriending the things you summon is also a very important part. However…” she pinned Rachel in place with her steady gaze. “Next year is Sophomore Choir. If you want to continue with enchantment after sophomore year, you are going to have show great improvement.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Rachel took her leave and headed for the door. She was not sure how she would go forward, but she knew now that she loved music, loved enchantment, and loved living in Dare Hall. Maybe she would figure out how to play this flute, or maybe she never would. Yet, somehow, she would find a way to become an enchantress.

As she left the classroom, she caught sight of two familiar little fey hiding in the shadows, their heads wrapped in bright red turbans, loincloth of a similar color their only other garments.

“Thank you,” she whispered. “Both of you.”

From the shadows came the answer: “It okay. Fenguth and Moilpubh like music.”

L. Jagi Lamplighter is the author of the YA fantasy series: The Books of Unexpected Enlightenment, the third book of which was nominated for the YA Dragon Award in 2017 and the fourth book of which won the first YA Ribbit Award. She is also the author of the Prospero’s Children series: Prospero Lost, Prospero In Hell, and Prospero Regained.

She has published numerous articles and short stories. She also has an anthology of her own works: In the Lamplight. She also edits for Superversive Press and teaches The Art and Craft of Writing.

When not writing, she switches to her secret identity as wife and stay-home mom in Centreville, VA, where she lives with her dashing husband, author John C. Wright, and their four darling children, Orville, Ping-Ping Eve, Roland Wilbur, and Justinian Oberon.

Halloween Dance

David Breitenbeck

When it’s announced that the Van Helsing Academy for Troubled Youth will be hosting its first school dance come Halloween, Sean finds himself faced with two conundrums. First, to figure out just why anyone in their right mind would want to host a dance at a school of monsters housed in a haunted mansion. Second, how to face the terrifying task of asking a girl out on a date.

Halloween Dance:

A Story of the Van Helsing Academy

“Ladies and gentlemen,” called Professor Arthur Van Helsing. “Your attention please.”

The usual dinner hubbub in the dining room died away as all eyes turned to the tall, broad form of the Headmaster.

“Before we send you off to bed tonight, I have a small announcement to make.”

Sean Paulson’s first instinct, on hearing that was to roll his eyes and stop paying attention, but he caught himself. After four months at the Van Helsing Academy for Troubled Youth, he had learned that announcements at this school tended to actually be important. The last time this had happened, it was to warn them that there was a demonic spirit lurking about the school that took the form of whoever you cared for the most in the hopes of luring you in. At his old school, announcements were always about something stupid, like a school dance.

“This Halloween, we will be hosting our first school dance in the north ballroom,” the Professor announced. “The staff agrees that this will be a good opportunity for you all to mingle in a relaxed and friendly atmosphere.”

A low rumble of amazement broke out among the students. Sean could hardly believe his ears. A school dance at the Academy of Monsters?

“Needless to say,” the Professor went on. “There are many things to be done and many potential concerns. No doubt you will be able to think of some that we have not, in which case, the staff urges you to bring them to our attention. Nevertheless, we believe that, with all your cooperation, this will be a very enjoyable–and safe–time for all. Thank you.”

Professor Van Helsing sat down and the rumble became a roar as everyone began talking at once.

“This is great!” cried Euryda the gorgon, waving her hands about and nearly knocking over a glass of orange juice. “I can finally wear that new evening dress I got! I was just thinking that I’d like to make a few small alterations; it’s not quite va-va-voom enough!”

She tugged a little at her extremely tight red blouse, as though gauging whether it would be a good baseline. Since anyone who looked at her face would be turned to stone, she had to wear a wooden mask with tinted lenses at all times, while her hair was always covered by a (often wriggling) headscarf. This being the case, she indulged a naturally open nature by wearing the most demonstrative clothes the school would permit.

“The Professor just said they wanted this to be a ‘safe’ party,” said Hugo the living dummy, tottering on a pile of cushions in order to see over the table. “You get much more ‘va-va-voom,’ you’re gonna poke someone’s eye out.”

“She’s not gonna be wearing a drill, so I’m sure you’ll be fine, chatterbox,” said Meredith in between massive bites from the eggs and toast piled high on her plate. She was an extremely thin girl with pale gold hair who ate enough for three or four large men due the fact she had an otherworldly creature (which she called ‘Baby’) living on her spinal column and leeching off of her life energy. She was required to perform a short ‘soothing’ ritual every day to keep it from waking up and overriding her mind to search for more sustenance.

Meredith drained her fifth glass of orange juice, then added, “I think a dance’ll be fun.”

“What do you think, Medved?” Hugo asked, turning to his and Sean’s other roommate.

Medved, huge and hairy, pulled back his lips in a horrific grin of jagged teeth.

“Dancing!” he bellowed. “I like dancing!”

“That figures,” Hugo said. “Must be hereditary; dancing bears and all that.”

Medved’s father had started life as a brown bear before an extended session with the infamous Doctor Moreau had rendered him human enough to eventually sire Medved once he had escaped from the doctor’s island.

“How about you, scaly?” Hugo added to Sean.

“I think Euryda’s outfit’s going to be the least of our worries,” he grumbled, looking down on his knobby, scale-covered hands and wincing a little at the idea of a formal affair.

“I think I should be offended by that!” she answered.

“It’s a question of competition,” he said. “This is the school where students regularly snap and try to eat each other, or where we have outbreaks of madness-inducing mold…”

“Or when certain people nearly open a door to the Other Place because they’re too stubborn to listen to the rules,” Hugo put in.

Sean scowled. He was never going to live that down, was he?

“Just reinforces my point,” he said. “Do we really want a big, emotionally charged gathering at this school?”

“Well, certainly not if your only emotions are variations on the theme of ‘grouchiness,’” said Euryda. “But I think that’s just you.”

“She’s got you pegged, pal,” said Hugo.

“That’s rich coming from someone made of actual pegs,” Sean answered.

“Pigs?” Medved grunted in some confusion. “You are made of pigs?”

“No, he said ‘pegs’! Pegs!!” said Hugo. He held up one articulate wooden hand and indicated the wrist mechanism. “These things!”

“Pegs in a poke,” said Euryda. “Which, now I think about it, sounds like it means something kinda dirty.”

“What did you intend it to mean?” Sean asked, momentarily distracted.

She threw up her hands in a gesture of cheerful ignorance. “Who knows? Just sounded good in my head.”

During this digression they got up from the table and, still talking, joined the crowd making its way out of the dining room. Meredith was finishing up her last plate, while Hugo swayed on Medved’s broad, hairy shoulder.

“No dancing for me, I think,” Hugo mused. “There’s a fine line between ‘date’ and ‘accessory’ and I don’t think I quite make it. Figure I’ll get on the planning committee; that’s a bit more my speed.”

Hugo, being currently made of wood, lacked most ordinary sensations, so he compensated by seeking intellectual stimulation. This made him one of the best students in the school and a mainstay of most extracurricular activities. It also made him prone to chattering.

“You do that,” Sean growled. “Meanwhile, I plan to go to bed early and hope no one dies.”

“Someone’s cranky,” said Euryda. “Got something against dances?”

“I just don’t think they’re worth risking, you know, all the millions of things that could go wrong in a school for monsters,” he said. “Seriously, what idiot thought this was a good idea!?”

“As a matter of fact, I did.”

Sean froze, feeling as though the bottom had dropped out of his stomach. There was no mistaking that voice. Big and deep, like thunder, yet also painfully precise and with a strange kind of tremor in it that made it land like a bolt of lightning on the ear.

“Professor,” he said, turning. “I’m sorry, I…I didn’t realize you were there.”

The Deputy Headmaster looked down from his seven-and-a-half-foot height, regarding him with those deep-set, inscrutable eyes that Sean had come to know so well. Then he beckoned. Swallowing slightly, Sean left his friends and followed him down a side corridor, to a spare room filled with furniture covered in dustsheets. The professor closed the door and turned to face him.

Sean had grown up in a rough neighborhood, under the nominal care of indifferent guardians. He had quickly developed a strong independent streak and a degree of contempt for would-be authority figures. For a long time, he neither feared nor respected any adult in his life.

That changed soon after he met Professor Adam Von Frankenstein.

“So,” said the professor once they were alone. “You have concerns about this dance, Mr. Paulson?”

“You could say that, sir,” said Sean. He hesitated a moment, then just went for it.

“Last night, on the way back from the library, I saw this black orb hovering in the corridor outside Professor Loren’s classroom. As soon as I looked at it, it came rushing toward me, and I had to duck into the room to get away from it. When I came out, about ten minutes later, all the lights in the corridor were out and there was this creaking sound, like something metal twisting in the wind. I got out of there as soon as I could, but when I got back to my room, I found this cut on my forehead.”

He indicated the bandage over his right eye.

“No idea how it got there,” he concluded.

“David Harker told me about that,” said Von Frankenstein. “We investigated and are keeping an eye on it.”

“Yeah, but things like that happen all the time around here, don’t they? A couple weeks ago you made us all barricade ourselves in our classrooms for two whole days while you guys hunted down something you called ‘the Swine Centipede.’ And what about the shadow walking on the ceiling? Did you ever figure that one out?”

“The mansion, as you know, exists on the Borderland,” said Von Frankenstein. “It stands on a kind of nexus between our world and others. These things are to be expected.

“Right, sir, but that’s my point. There’s all that, not to mention the usual incidents of people just losing control or experiencing something weird when, how does the Professor put it? When ‘something brushes by you in the dark.’ With all that, a school dance seems like a big extra risk. What if someone has a meltdown right in the middle of it? What if another weird thing comes through out of the Other Place? What if…well, I can’t even imagine all that might go wrong around here. I mean, you know that I’m not much of a worrier, but I just don’t see why you’d want to try our luck like that for something so…silly.”

Von Frankenstein regarded him thoughtfully.

“I appreciate your concern, Mr. Paulson. You have certainly come a long way since your arrival here.”

Sean winced a little at the reminder of his first days at the Academy.

“It may surprise you, but I have considered all these things. Yet I still think it worth the risk. Knowing that, can you imagine why?”

Sean thought a moment. Even now his first instinctual response was along the lines of ‘because you don’t really care about us,’ but he knew, if he knew anything, that that wasn’t the case. The staff of the Academy, and especially Von Frankenstein, cared about their students, cared about them more than anything in the world. No one who had been there for any length of time could doubt that. Therefore, the dance must be important somehow. But he couldn’t see how.

“No, sir, I can’t,” he admitted.

“Hrm,” said Von Frankenstein. “Then maybe you will understand better after the event.”

“I guess,” Sean said with a shrug.

“Then consider this an assignment. I want you to attend this dance, to think very hard about it, and to decide why it is so important for us to hold it.”

Sean didn’t much like that idea, and his face twitched a little in annoyance. But there was no point in arguing with Von Frankenstein.

“I’ll be impressed if I can figure it out, sir,” he said.

“So will I, Mr. Paulson. So will I.”

The Deputy Headmaster dismissed him with a motion of his huge hand before Sean could work out whether what he said came to an insult or not. He didn’t wait around to find out, but beat a hasty retreat.

Sean returned to the dining room corridor to pick up his path back to the dorms. The Van Helsing Academy was housed in an enormous, sprawling old mansion that had been purposefully built with no floor plan and was constantly being added to (it was said that it could never be finished), so that it was often a nightmare to navigate. Being lost, especially at night, was an experience that no one ever wanted to have more than once. Therefore, sticking to familiar paths was the safest option by far.

The dinner crowds had moved on by the time he got back, leaving only one person waiting on a bench outside the dining room, humming to herself.

“Ah,” said Euryda, springing up at the sight of him. “Another day, another tussle with the Frankenstein Monster, right?”

“What’re you doing here?” he grumbled.

“Just waiting to see the damage,” she said. “I keep thinking sooner or later he’ll just eat you and be done with it.”

Her cheery voice sounded odd in the empty corridor. Sean had the impression that the mansion did not appreciate such a carefree sound within its walls.

“It’s not every day,” he answered. “And anyway, how is it even possible that he can sneak up on me like that? He’s the size of a tree!”

Sean hastily looked around to make sure Von Frankenstein wasn’t lurking behind him yet again, but it appeared they were alone.

“Serves you right for being such a killjoy,” she said, falling into step beside him. “I mean, come on; what’s to be angry about with a school dance? Who doesn’t like dancing?”

“Me,” he growled.

“Oh, yeah? Maybe this’ll change your mind.”

“That’s kind of what he said. Which means now I can’t just skip the damn thing without him getting on my back.”

“Don’t be such a grouch,” she said. “It’ll be fun!”

“If you say so.”

“I do say so,” she said. “I love dancing!”

She did a little pirouette in mid step. Sean watched her and had to admit she made it look enjoyable. He liked talking with Euryda; she annoyed him, but in a way that somehow made him feel better for it.

“So, who’re you gonna ask?” she said, as though an afterthought.

“Ask? Ask what?”

“Ask to the dance, lizard brain,” she said. “What’ve we been talking about?”

“We have to ask people?” he exclaimed. “Like, on a date?”

“And I thought Hugo was supposed to be the dummy,” she said, casting her hands up in an exasperated gesture. “Yes, genius, it’s a dance. You ask someone to go with you as your date. That’s how it works. I mean, what did you think was going to happen?”

Sean felt his face–the only human part of him–going red.

“Oh, come on!” he growled. “Like this wasn’t bad enough; now we’ve gotta find dates?”

“Yeah, I can see where you might have trouble with that,” she said in a rather scathing voice. “Best of luck!”

So saying she waved and turned down the hall leading to the girls’ dormitories. Sean watched her go, then shook his head in frustration and turned down to the boys’ dorms. He thought it would take a lot to convince him that this whole thing wasn’t more trouble than it was worth.

“I suppose this is part of our ‘life skills training’,” Sean grumbled as he got ready for bed. “Not enough we have to keep adding to the school, now we have to go on dates with one another.”

“I don’t know what you’re complaining about,” said Hugo, sitting atop his bed with a book on his lap. “You ain’t gonna have any trouble finding a date.”

Sean, who had just taken off his shirt to get into bed, turned an incredulous eye on him.

“Yeah, girls just love them their monitor lizards, don’t they?” he said, gesturing at the hard, knobby scales that covered almost his entire body. “And these claws will be just perfect for holding hands. I’m every girl’s dream come true.”

“You really think that counts around here?” said Hugo. “At least you’ve still got a human face, and one that works, no less.”

Sean eyed himself in the mirror. His face was indeed still his own, though it was the only part of his body that remained recognizably human. Everything else from the crown of his head to his clawed feet was reptilian: the result of a cursed amulet that he had stupidly put on and then even more stupidly tried to get off by himself. He’d been lucky to come away with as much humanity as he still had (his lizard brain was now mostly relegated to a strong taste for very rare meat). He owed Hugo and Medved for that.

“I mean, around here, you’re practically Cary Grant,” Hugo went on. “Me, I’m Charlie McCarthy with better grades and less cash.”

“Yah!” said Medved enthusiastically. “You will do good!”

“Women like Charlie a lot more than they like lizards,” Sean pointed out.

“Well, you got me there,” said the dummy, turning a page.

Sean had to admit, Hugo had a point. Compared to some of their classmates, scales and claws weren’t much to worry about. Nicholas Mumber had a mouth on the end of his tongue that periodically shrieked obscenities in Latin.

“While we’re on the subject, you got any idea who you’re gonna ask?”

Sean didn’t answer right away. He hadn’t even considered the idea of dating at the Van Helsing Academy before now; with his condition, he’d figured all that was over for him. But now the idea had been forced on him, and he as thought over his female classmates, he realized that it wasn’t really a difficult choice.

“Euryda wanted to know the same thing,” he muttered. “I suppose I might just ask her.”

He tried to make it sound as casual as possible. Hugo, however, looked up, his head popping up a little in interest.

“Ah, so, now that she’s asked you, you’re gonna just go ahead and ask her?”

“What are you talking about? She didn’t ask me to take her to the dance; she just asked if I knew who I was going with.”

“Yeah, when a girl asks you out of the blue if you know who you’re going to a dance with, that usually means she’s asking you to go with her.”

“Since when?”

“Not sure; how long do you reckon humanity’s existed?”

“Very funny. What makes you such an expert on girls, Pinocchio?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know? The point is, if you actually ask her, I guarantee she’s going to say yes.”

“All right then,” said Sean, growling as he got into his bunk. “I’ll just ask her tomorrow then. It’s not like it’s a big deal or anything.”

But Sean didn’t ask her tomorrow. Nor the day after. Nor the day after that.

He saw her often enough. His team (him, Hugo, and Medved) sat with her team (which at present was only her and Meredith) in class and at meals as usual, and of course he saw her in the halls during break time. She generally spent these showing off her dancing skills, whether alone or with any partner she could grab, and had swapped her tight skirts for ones that flowed out when she twirled, showing off her athletic legs. These times made him all the more determined to ask her, but somehow he couldn’t make up his mind to do it.

Meanwhile, the whole school seemed to have been transformed overnight, especially the girls. Most of them were wearing noticeably nicer clothes these days, and there was a lot more giggling and gossiping in the halls and break rooms and courtyards than Sean had ever seen before. The change even extended to the female staff members. Anna Harker had traded her usual leather work-clothes for dresses and was offering dance lessons to anyone who asked for them. Professor Thompson, their no-nonsense psychology teacher, had been seen arranging flowers along the main corridors to ‘stimulate affectionate associations,’ as she put it. Even Dr. Lyle, the school counselor (who was summoned by saying her name five times into a mirror) had let it be known that she would be available to help with both relationship advice and style tips.

As for the male students, they were considerably more subdued than usual. Everyone seemed to be adopting a pose of not caring much about the upcoming dance, though they all seemed to be dressing with rather more care than usual and attempting to carry themselves with greater poise. There weren’t as many pranks or ribald remarks in the hallways, and as a mass the guys were going out of their way to be polite to the girls, holding doors, offering to carry books, and other little courtesies that Sean had almost forgotten existed.

Students began pairing up all over the school. Meredith came to lunch the very next day accompanied by Spoons McGoovin, a friendly Scottish boy who had been bitten by a werewolf a few years back and whose nickname came from the fact that he was extremely protective of his collection of silver spoons, which he carried around with him everywhere in a leather case (what made them so special was the one thing he never talked about).

Not long after, Medved was asked out by Lillibeth; a strange, quiet, and extremely good-looking girl who had wandered out of the forests of Northern Michigan one day, stark naked, knowing no English, and able to make people do almost anything she wished with just a look. Fortunately, she was a sweet, innocent hearted creature who never (intentionally) harmed a soul, and through patience and understanding the staff had brought her to the point where she now had very few accidents. Just what she saw in the hulking half-bear, Sean couldn’t imagine, but it was a little embarrassing to realize that he had been the first of the team to get a date.

Decorations were going up in all the major rooms and corridors. Torgo the groundskeeper could be seen puttering about on his goat’s legs, trimming the trees and flowers with extra care. Work hours, which ordinarily were spent adding to the ever-growing mansion, were now mostly directed to cleaning and preparing for the party. Classes continued as usual, but in some cases the preoccupation with the dance penetrated even there. Professor Loren, the skeletal English teacher, set them to reading Jane Austen (whom Sean didn’t care for at all) and gave long lectures on proper etiquette, along with lamentations of how the world had declined. Professor Thompson lectured on the many psychological pitfalls that came with romantic feelings and the ways they could unbalance you, particularly how they might affect your dreams (which had made them all extremely uncomfortable). And, of course, the weekly group therapy sessions among the boys turned into discussions of all they had ever known or experienced about the fairer sex.

And still, Sean hadn’t asked Euryda.

“Really?” Hugo said after nearly a week had gone by. “Still nothing?”

“I’m trying to catch her alone,” Sean said. “Don’t want to ask with everyone looking at me. But it’s like she draws a crowd after her wherever she goes.”

“That’s ‘cause she’s what folks call ‘friendly’,” said Hugo. “You wouldn’t know about that, but basically it means people like being in her company, and vice versa. It doesn’t tend to lead to a lot of alone time.”

It was also why he wanted to ask her out in the first place, he thought ruefully. She was optimistic, outgoing, and cheerful; everything he wasn’t (not to mention that, whatever her face might look like, she had a great figure). He liked her a lot. He was realizing just how much with every abortive effort to ask her. But he didn’t like admitting it. His recent one-on-one therapy sessions with Dr. Lyle had involved a lot of dodging that particular question.

“I was gonna ask her yesterday,” he grumbled. “But something started screaming in the other room before I could get around to it.”

“Oh, yeah: the voice in the wall,” Hugo said. “Wonder if they ever figured out what that was? Hey, did you hear about Chloe?”

“What about her?”

“Well, the whatever-it-was making the voice tried to pull her through a closet. Least, they think it’s the same thing.”

“What? Is she all right?”

“Yeah, that’s the point. Ramon happened to be about, and he pulled her free, or at least held onto her ‘til Father Gascoyne got there, and now they’re going together.”

“They still don’t know what it was after that?”

“What I gather, it was something they couldn’t see. But you know, maybe that’s what you need with Euryda; arrange for unspeakable evil to make a pass at her, then you might seem a good choice by comparison.”

“I’ve still got time,” Sean growled defensively. “Halloween’s not for another week.”

“Uh huh. You have a backup option?”

“What?”

“I mean, worst comes to worst, you can always ask Madam Melnitz. I’m sure she’d love to go out for a bit of fun.”

Madam Melnitz was the ghost who haunted the school library, terrorizing anyone she suspected of mistreating her precious books.

“What are you talking about? I thought you said she wanted me to ask her.”

“Yeah, and you haven’t. By now she probably thinks you ain’t gonna. Anyone else asks her…”

Sean swore.

“Why the hell did they come up with this stupid dance anyway?” he shouted.

“Just sayin’, either ask her soon, or come up with a backup plan. I’m sure we could find something for you in the band. You any good with a triangle?”

“Oh, shut up!” Sean snapped, but there was no denying that Hugo had a point. Either he made his move soon, or he’d miss his chance. Maybe he already had.

Fortunately, the next day his team and Euryda’s had work hour together. They were cleaning and decorating the northeast courtyard, just outside the ballroom where the dance would take place. With a little help from Hugo and Medved, Sean managed to get assigned to the job of hanging streamers over the trees alongside Euryda.

Now was the tricky part: working up to it.

“What the heck is this thing anyway?” Sean asked as they tossed orange and green streamers over a twelve-foot object that looked like a sickly purple ginger root thrusting up out of the earth. It’d been there for a few months and had a tendency to move at odd times when there wasn’t any wind. At the moment, it was faintly pulsating.

“Who knows?” she said. “I mean, around here, it could be anything. As long as it doesn’t break out of the ground or try to eat anyone, I think they’re just going to leave it. Kind of fits the aesthetic theme, doesn’t it?”

She nodded over at the great, twisted black-barked tree in the center of the courtyard, like an enormous skeletal hand reaching up to the sky. Around the school they called it the Black One.

“Black One’s the whole reason we’ve got this courtyard,” Hugo called from the veranda, where he was scrubbing the tiles with soap. “They wanted to cut it down when they first built the house, then again when the Van Helsings bought it, then again when they expanded in this direction. Thing wouldn’t come down no matter what they did, so they just built around it.”

“Stubborn wood; a close relative perhaps?” Sean called back.

“No, but I think I saw one of yours scurrying into a crack over here,” Hugo answered.

Sean smiled. Euryda giggled. Now was the time. It was now or never.

“So…been meaning to ask you something,” he said as they moved from the mysterious Growth to the Black One.

Her hand paused over the box of streamers.

“Oh? What?”

He opened his mouth, and the words seemed to catch in his throat.

“…Your hair isn’t dangerous, right?”

Her mask turned to him sharply.

“What?”

“I mean, why do you keep it wrapped up like that? It’s not like anyone’s gonna mind a few snakes around here.”

She stared at him for a moment, then shook her head with evident irritation, grabbed a streamer and threw it at the Black One.

“They’ve been known to bite,” she said shortly. “You know, when they get annoyed or something. I’d rather not have to keep an eye on them all the time, so I wrap ‘em up whenever I go out.”

“You ever let it down?”

“Sometimes,” she said, grabbing another streamer with rather more force than was necessary. “On special occasions.”

“Anyone ask you to the dance yet?”

What on earth had made him do it that way?

She paused with her hand drawn back, ready to throw.

“That’s an abrupt change of subject,” she said.

“Talking of special occasions, I mean,” he muttered, somewhat belatedly.

“A few people have,” she admitted, tossing the streamer with more grace and less force than before.

His heart sank.

“Yeah, that doesn’t surprise me,” he muttered. “Figured you’d be one of the first around here.”

“Is that why you waited until now to ask me?”

He opened his mouth, felt himself go red, and closed it again. This hadn’t gone right at all.

Euryda laughed.

“You’re cute when you blush,” she said. “It’s the scales; they emphasize the redness.”

He growled a little.

“So, who’re you going with?” he asked.

“No one yet,” she said.

“I thought you said…”

“I said people asked, but I haven’t said yes to any of them. I don’t go out with someone just because they asked me, you know? It’s a girl’s prerogative to choose her own date.”

“Oh.” Sean wasn’t sure whether that was an encouragement or a discouragement.

“Are you asking me?” she said.

He swallowed as he picked up a green streamer and threw it as hard as he could into the Black One’s top branches. Much too hard. He far over-shot the mark and the streamer disappeared over the roof. He was really batting a thousand today.

“Yeah, I am,” he said. “You want to go to the dance with me?”

She tilted her head a little, regarding him. He really wished he could see her expression.

“Sure,” she said with a shrug. “Why not?”

She bent over to pick up another streamer and tossed it lightly over the Black One as though they had said nothing more important or interesting than agreeing to do a homework assignment together. Behind her the Growth twitched and shuddered, but Sean ignored it, preferring to watch Euryda, her tight clothes sliding over her athletic body. He felt quietly elated.

“Thanks,” he said. Then, somewhat to his own surprise, added, “You know, I really wish I could see your face.”

“It is worth dying for,” she said.

“I bet. How’d it happen, by the way?”

He’d asked without thinking, and immediately wondered how she would take it. Personal histories were something of a sensitive topic around this school; it was best to let someone offer theirs without asking. Again, she froze for a moment but then went on with her usual light tone.

“Oh, nothing special. This elder demon wanted me to…you know.” She made an expressive gesture. “And I was all, ‘I’m fifteen!’ and he was all ‘doesn’t matter’, and I was all ‘you’re a creep!’ and…well, this.” Her hand strayed to the faintly wriggling scarf on her head. “The worst part is that I didn’t even know what he was at the time; just thought he was an ordinary slimy jerk until the snakes started coming out.”

“That’s rotten,” he said. It didn’t covey the vehemence of his horror, but it was all he could think to say.

“It is rotten,” she said in a conversational tone, as though talking about the weather. “But,” she added, stretching, “I’d do it again. I’m just not that kind of girl.”

Sean watched the way her blouse rode up her stomach and couldn’t help smiling a little.

“What?”

“Nothing,” he said. “Just…it’s rather funny hearing you say that when you’re dressed like this.”

She dropped her arms, folding them across her chest. Her whole demeanor changed abruptly.

“Just because I like looking good doesn’t mean I’m a slut.”

“I don’t think you are,” he said, taken aback. “It was just the…” he fumbled, not sure how to put what he meant.

“You’d dress like this too if you couldn’t show your face without killing someone,” she snapped. “You’d dress like this if people kept flinching the moment they saw you.”

Sean realized that, without meaning to, he’d violated one the key unwritten rules of the academy. Their conditions were to be laughed about at best, ignored at worst, but never, ever made a cause for blame.

“Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Sure,” she said, turning away. “You know what? Just forget the whole thing.”

Sean grimaced and looked around. Hugo was still scrubbing the veranda, while Meredith was planting flowers along the walk and Medved sweeping up leaves. No one was looking at them, though he strongly suspected they were all listening. He scowled; couldn’t be helped.

“Look,” he said. “Where I come from, there were a lot of girls dressing just like that, but they were all, you know, that kind of girl. And I know you’re not that kind of girl, so to me it’s kind of like you’re playing dress up or something. There’s a…disconnect, I think Professor Loren calls it. In any case, I think it’s cute. That’s what made me smile.”

Again, she looked at him and he really wished he could see her expression.

“There, you’ve made me share my feelings. I hope you’re happy,” he growled.

“I am, thank you,” she said, and he was relieved to hear that a little bit of the jauntiness had come back into her voice. “But you gotta do more than that.”

“Like what?”

“I shared mine, you share yours. It’s only fair.”

He grimaced.

“Thought everyone knew by now,” he muttered.

“Only that you tried to open a door to the Other Place.”

“No, I didn’t!” he said. “That was an accident.”

“So, what really happened then?”

He sighed. “Mine’s a bit more complicated than yours. See, I was on this field trip to an archeological dig place, and I wandered off, ‘cause I was bored. And I was a bit of a self-righteous smart ass…”

“What do you mean ‘was’?”

“Ha ha. Anyway, long story short, I got lost and found this amulet thing and swiped it. Later I put it on and couldn’t get it off. It was like it welded to my skin. Then I started…acting strange and eventually got sent here.”

“So, it gave you scales?” she said. “Just like that? Some kind of lizard amulet?”

“Kind of,” he said. “It was a relic of this dark deity or something. When I first got here, I somehow got the idea in my head–well, the Amulet put it there–that I could get it off in the Odd Rooms.”

“Oh!” she said, comprehending. The Odd Rooms were the original part of the mansion, now strictly locked off and forbidden to students. It was there that the border to the Other Place was thinnest.

“Long and short of it is, I got it off,” he went on. “Or, Hugo did. He needed a new hand after that. Only, when we tried to leave, something tried to come through after us. Von Frankenstein got there in time to stop it, and then after we got out, I was like this.”

He flexed his scaly claws, remembering the terrible pain and other, indescribable sensations that had gone through him that night.

“So, to sum up, it was all my own stupid fault.”

“Yes, I see that,” she said, rubbing her hands thoughtfully. “Though I don’t suppose there’s much point in making a fuss about it now. I mean, if you didn’t learn your lesson after all that, it’s not like a stern talking to’s gonna do much.”

“That’s more or less what Hugo said,” Sean admitted. “I guess it’s only reason I wasn’t kicked out then and there.”

“No wonder Frankenstein keeps an eye on you! He knows you’re a problem child.”

“You could say that,” he shrugged. “Always have been, probably always will be.”

“At least you can admit it,” she said. “Just for that, I will go to the dance with you after all.”

He blinked, taken off guard, then grinned in relief.

“Good,” he said. Once again, it seemed completely inadequate, but it was all he could think of.

The Growth shook again.

The night of the dance came at last, and Sean eyed his reflection dubiously. Hugo had left early to help supervise the set up, but not before giving him some advice on dressing, which Sean had attempted to follow. Formal wear never having been previously required at the school, and Sean never having had much use for it before coming, he, like many other students had had to rent his suit. It was old and made of dark red velvet that contrasted well with his black scales. He still thought he looked a little ridiculous, though he was grateful at least that he didn’t have any hair to brush anymore. He had also remembered to round off the tips and edges of his claws, just to be safe.

Medved had, of course, had trouble finding a suit to fit him, as not only was he better than six-and-a-half feet tall and very broad, but his body was proportioned differently from any normal man’s, including the fact that his right leg was considerably longer than his left. In the end, Sean had had to employ a lot of safety pins to get his suit looking acceptable, though personally he thought the contrast between his formal wear and his semi-ursine features only made Medved look more horrifying than ever.

That’s Lillibeth’s problem, not mine, he thought.

“There, you look good,” he said aloud.

“Thanks much!” Medved boomed, smacking Sean affectionately on the shoulder and nearly knocking him off his feet.

“Don’t mention it,” he grumbled, rubbing the place where he’d hit him and feeling thankful for his scales.

They left to meet their dates in one of the entrance halls. Several dozen people were milling about, pairing off or waiting for their dates. Lillibeth was staring dreamily out of a window, looking stunning in a long, silvery dress. Medved stumped over to meet her, his lips pulled back in a ghastly grin. Sean, however, forgot all about his roommate’s date when he saw his own.

Euryda had put on a new mask for the occasion, this one with bright, painted flowers on the brow and a carved, smiling mouth. Her promise of making her dress “va-va-voom” was amply fulfilled with a low-cut, form-fitting number of black and bright green silk, skin-tight on top, with a loose and flowing skirt slit up the side to allow tantalizing glimpses of her long and shapely legs.

Most striking of all, her hair was down, and the dark brown serpents were twisting and nosing about her shoulders or else nuzzling her under the chin in evident affection. It was a little shocking at first, but the overall effect was hypnotic and dreamlike, as though she were underwater.

“Hi,” said Sean, croaking a little.

“Hi,” she said brightly. “You look nice. That color suits you really well.”

“Yeah, you too,” he said emphatically. “Uh, look nice, I mean.” He looked her up and down and felt, for the first time, that he really might enjoy this dance after all.

“I try,” she shrugged cheerfully. “Shall we go then?”

He took her hand in his claw. Several of the snakes raised their hoods and hissed warningly at him, but Euryda patted them reassuringly with her free hand. The snakes calmed down, though they continued to watch Sean with evident suspicion, as though daring him to make any sudden moves. He understood why she usually kept them under wraps and wondered if he’d get through the night without being bitten.

“Goes like this actually,” she said, detaching her hand and looping her arm through his.

“Oh, right,” he muttered. “Loren told us that, didn’t he?”

“Don’t worry, you’ll get the hang of it. Eventually. Maybe. I mean, I’m not depending on it or anything.”

“No, I wouldn’t do that,” he said with a grin.

Conversation lagged as they made their way through the twisting halls to the ballroom. Staff members were patrolling the route at intervals to ensure the students didn’t get lost or meet with any strangeness, so for a time the only things they said were the greetings they tossed out to them.

“Hey, Mister Harker! Hi, Professor Muller! Evening, Dr. V!”

Sean thought they ought to talk about something, but the only topics that came to mind were how much he was dreading the moment they had to start dancing and how “va-va-voom” she looked, neither of which he thought would make much for conversation.

“Medved looks nice,” she commented after a while as they went down a particularly long passage.

“You think so?”

“Well, relatively speaking,” she said in a lower tone, glancing over her shoulder at the couple coming along behind them. “At least he looks like he’s enjoying himself.”

“Yeah, well, he’s with the best-looking girl in the school,” Sean muttered, looking back. “After you, I mean,” he added hastily.

“Ooh, close one!” she said. Then she giggled. “She is beautiful, isn’t she? And so sweet in her own way. She’s just not really all here, you know? I mean that literally. It’s like her mind is off in fairy land or something.”

“It probably is,” he said.

“That’s what I mean. But she’s sweet for all that. Suppose that’s why she decided to go with him.”

“Because she’s sweet?”

“No, because her mind’s elsewhere. I mean, I guess she sees things other people don’t.”

“Lucky her,” Sean muttered.

“That’s not nice!”

“Hey, he’s my friend, and I love the guy, but let’s be honest; even around here he won’t be winning any prizes for beauty. Or manners. Or hygiene. Or…well, a lot of things.”

She giggled, playfully hitting him in protest.

From there they fell to talking about the school and their various friends and teachers, which carried them into the ballroom. It was easy, he found; just like talking with her over breakfast.

The hard work of students and staff had made quite a change in the formerly dusty and empty space. The floor had been polished until it fairly shone, and tables and chairs were set out all around the edges, while a wide empty space before the stage had been left clear for dancing. The walls were hung with banners depicting the crests of the Van Helsing, Frankenstein, Talbot, and Harker families, alternating with full-length, antique mirrors set up to create a greater impression of space, as well as (Sean suspected) to ensure that Dr. Lyle didn’t miss anything. Black, orange, and green streamers hung from the ceiling, jack-o-lanterns grinned from all corners, and the school crest was displayed on a great banner behind the stage.

He had to admit, it was impressive.

There were already quite a few people there. Most of the staff were walking about, checking their preparations. The towering figure of Professor Von Frankenstein stood in a corner by the window, talking quietly to old Quincey Harker. Dr. Lyle had been summoned and was flitting about the room greeting people. A few couples were already waiting on the dance floor, including Meredith and Spoons, who waved at Sean and Euryda as they came in. Hugo was up on the stage, running down a checklist with Professor Loren while Christian, the school’s eccentric music master, was warming up at the piano (Christian, who had been raised in the catacombs under the Paris Opera House, was not technically a monster, but was so deformed that he wore a porcelain mask at all times).

Sean wasn’t really sure where to go, but Euryda soon took the decision out of his hands by dragging him over to speak to Chloe and Ramon. Chloe was a nice girl with a very sweet face, whose body had been about two-thirds replaced by some kind of plant. Professor Van Helsing had managed, with great effort, to arrest its growth, so there was no danger of its consuming her completely, but there was no removing it as far as anyone knew.

Ramon had been partially-transformed into an alligator by a Voodoo priest. Unlike Sean, the only recognizably human thing about him now was his bare outline; his whole body was covered in scales and his face had a long, tooth-lined snout. But he greeted Sean enthusiastically and began at once to tell his version of how he had saved Chloe from the whatever-it-was in the closet. At least, Sean was pretty sure that’s what it was, though between Ramon’s alligator mouth and Cajun accent, he was only catching two or three words at a time. But he nodded and made a few tentative remarks, and Ramon smacked him genially on the shoulder, so he figured he must be pretty close to the mark.

“They’re having a good time,” said Euryda after the other two had gone off to talk to someone else. “Doesn’t Chloe look nice? Perfect dress for her. I think Dr. Lyle gave her some tips. Not that I mean to say anything against her own taste, which is good, I only mean that it’s expert-level suitable, you know?”

Sean nodded, watching Ramon eying the buffet. Between him, Medved, and Meredith, Sean doubted the food would last beyond the first half hour.

The room quickly filled with milling couples, and before much longer, Professor Van Helsing ascended the stage and all fell silent.

“Good evening,” he said. “I wish to thank you all for your tremendous effort over the past few weeks. Now, let the dancing begin!”

There was a smattering of applause, and, at a sign from Hugo, Christian struck the first notes out of his piano. The low, haunting music filled the space, summoning echoes from the walls and seeming to vibrate the whole mansion. Sean felt his bones trembling at the music, as though it were reaching him from some far-off place beyond human ken.

A few chords of this eerie strain, then Christian raised his hands over the piano and let the final note quiver away into the night. Then he set his fingers back to the keys and lighter, dreamier music came out; music for dancing. The waiting couples, stunned by the opening, recovered and one by one began to dance.

Sean looked at Euryda and felt himself go red. He could feel the expectation in her hidden eyes and drew a deep breath.

Okay, he thought. Here goes nothing.

He took her hand in one claw, laid the other on her waist, and began.

It wasn’t as bad as he thought it might be. Euryda was light as a feather and moved perfectly to the music. All he had to do was follow along and not step on her feet. Once he stopped watching himself, he soon caught onto the rhythm of the dance and flowed along with her, not nearly as gracefully, but at least in step. It was a strange sensation, as though they were floating across a lake of sound, carried along by the music as by a strong current.

The dance ended, and everyone applauded. Euryda clapped eagerly, and Sean gently put his hands together a few times. It had, he decided, actually been rather fun.

The next dance was quicker. Medved created a bit of a stir by plowing through several other couples as he swung Lillibeth around in what charitably could be described as dancing. Ramon and Chloe were doing an energetic kind of quickstep, while Spoons and Meredith swung impressively to the music.

Several of the unconnected students were also moving onto the dance floor now. Matthew the half-spider, who unsurprisingly had not secured a date, was moving with a jerky, would-be rhythm to the music, the insectile appendages on his back twitching and flailing in time. Even Kenny, who like Hugo had had his soul transferred into another object (in his case an animatronic cartoon badger from a theme park), was at least tapping his foot and bobbing his head along with the music, which was about as enthusiastic as Sean had ever seen him.

He could see some of the staff joining in as well. Joshua Van Helsing, the Professor’s eldest son, and Anna Harker were making an enthusiastic pair near the front of the room. Professor Thompson was dancing with David Harker, and Dr. Lyle with Professor Van Helsing. Professor Loren was cutting a would-be elegant figure with Lady Caligeri, while Professor Joan Muller, the history teacher, was dancing with Professor Delambre, the mathematics teacher.

Professor Von Frankenstein, he saw, still stood in his corner, watching the dancers with his glittering eyes. Sean fought down an urge to wave at him.

By the time of the third dance, Sean had lost most of his nerves and was genuinely enjoying himself. He was no longer simply following Euryda’s lead but was throwing in some (probably very un-rhythmical) moves of his own, which seemed to make her laugh as she gracefully leapt and twirled and danced about him, like a bird flitting around a bull.

By the time the fourth dance was underway, Sean was beginning to feel in need of a break. He was considering the best way to suggest it when the dancing suddenly came to a halt amid shrieks and the sounds of fighting. His stomach lurched with dread: Something’s gone wrong after all.

It had, though fortunately it was nothing too serious. It seemed that, in the excitement of the day, Meredith hadn’t performed her ritual correctly and so “Baby” woke up in the middle of the dance and made her take a bite out of Spoons. Since her teeth weren’t made of silver, this of course did no permanent damage, but the sight of his blood unfortunately triggered Zenobia the Spider Woman to try to get more, leading to a snarling, savage wrestling match between the two girls over who would eat whom, while Spoons and Ichigo (Zenobia’s date) tried to separate them.

The staff was on hand in an instant, and the music paused while the two girls were subdued and hustled off to calm down, and a quick accounting was made to ensure no one else was about to lose it. The only other person who seemed to be affected was Nicholas Mumber, whose tongue had been excited by the commotion and was sticking out of his mouth, shrieking curses in Latin while he tried to quiet it and it tried to bite his hand in between classical obscenities.

Sean definitely felt a need for fresh air.

“Mind if we take a break while they fix this?” he muttered.

“Thought you’d never ask,” she answered, a little out of breath.

They slipped out through the crowd, leaving the staff to get Mumber under control, and escaped onto the veranda. It was a brisk, clear night, the stars shining bright overhead. The streamers they’d hung on the Black One had all disappeared without a trace, but the other trees and the mysterious Growth still had most of theirs, even though the latter was waving and pulsating violently in the still air. They didn’t pay much attention to it. The Growth followed its own laws, as did many other things around the school.

“Poor Meredith,” said Euryda. “I hope they get Baby back to sleep while there’s still time for her to do some more dancing. She was really looking forward to it.”

“Yeah,” said Sean. “Are you having a good time?”

“Oh, yes!” she said. “I can’t remember the last time I had so much fun! Thank you so much for asking me.”

“Not like you needed me to,” he muttered. “You could’ve gone with one of those other guys.”

“Maybe, but it wouldn’t have been nearly as good a time.”

“Really? Why not?”

“Because I wouldn’t have had the novelty of seeing you actually enjoying yourself for a change,” she answered.

He went red.

“Who says I’m enjoying myself?”

“You do,” she said. “It’s written all over your face.”

He broke into a reluctant grin.

“It’s really not fair that you get to see my face and I don’t get to see yours,” he said.

“Life’s not fair,” she said. “I mean, if we learn one thing here, it’s that, right?”

“I suppose so,” he said.

They fell silent for a moment, watching the stars and the shaking and twitching of the Growth. Behind them the music had started up again and the dancing had resumed. Sean’s gaze drifted down to look at her, admiring the way the light from the ballroom fell on her dress and her skin and the scales of her writhing snakes.

“What’re you thinking about?” she asked, still gazing at the sky.

“Does it matter?”

“Of course it matters.”

“I was thinking,” he said, “that at a dance at any other school, this is probably where I’d try to kiss you.”

She looked at him sharply. Her throat tightened, and her snakes became suddenly stiff as though they had caught the scent of a predator. It was hard to tell with her mask on, but he had the impression that he had said something wrong.

He didn’t get a chance to find out.

At that moment, there was a sudden, ear-rending scream, then another on top of it, and another. Sean and Euryda covered their ears and looked out into the courtyard.

They saw the Growth, partially illuminated by the light from the ballroom, as shapeless mouths opened on all sides of it and screamed. A second later, eyes began to appear; wet, red, oblong eyes with black slits for pupils stuck at seemingly random points along its length. They rolled madly, then several of them fixed onto Sean and Euryda. Tendrils unwound themselves from the main barrel of its body, and the whole thing started tearing itself out of the ground as they watched.

Sean swore, seized Euryda by the hand and pulled her back to the ballroom as the Growth’s tendrils lashed the sides of the veranda, wrapping around the columns that supported the roof.

“Watch the skies!” they both screamed as they entered the ballroom. “Watch the skies!”

In a place like the Van Helsing Academy, all kinds of strange things could happen; things that wouldn’t easily go into words but were no less deadly for the fact. Therefore the rule was that, if any danger threatened, “Watch the skies” was the universal warning sign. It meant that something terrible was happening, and everyone needed to pay attention.

The screams of the Growth had already brought the music and dancing to a halt, and all eyes were on the door to the courtyard as Sean and Euryda came flying through, shouting the alarm. The staff leapt into action at once. Some of them began herding students back in the direction of the other doors at the head of the room, while others moved forward to meet the new threat, drawing weapons.

The Growth squeezed its shapeless bulk through the doors, screeching with all its many mouths at once, its eyes roaming across the room. It was pulsating like an exposed vein and appeared to be growing bigger before their very eyes. Certainly its tendrils were thicker than they had been.

Professors Van Helsing and Von Frankenstein moved forward, large pistols at the ready. The ballroom rang with the roar of gunfire as they poured silver bullets into the growth, but this only seemed to make it twitch and pulsate even more.

“Get back with the others!” Von Frankenstein roared at Sean and Euryda as he reloaded with superhuman speed.

Sean looked back at the Growth. It wasn’t stopping. In fact, he had the repulsive impression that it was in an ecstasy of sensual pleasure under the gunfire. Something about the way those many eyes were rolling over…

Many eyes…

He still held Euryda’s hand in his. Now he pulled her suddenly close and lifted her bodily off the ground.

“What are you doing?!” she shrieked. Several of her snakes tried to bite him, but couldn’t get through his scales. He ignored them.

“Stand back and shield your eyes!” Sean shouted to the staff members as he carried Euryda in front of their ranks. He had no time to explain, no time to check that all was safe. The Growth was surging toward them.

“Keep looking at it!” he ordered Euryda as he set her down and, with a single swift motion, tore the mask from her face.

She screamed, and so did the Growth. It reared up, its many eyes fixing on her. Then in the space of a moment, beginning at the eyes, it turned grey and hard and froze in place with a loud cracking sound.

For a long minute, the ballroom was silent, stunned. In the pause, Sean’s eyes drifted to the mirror on the wall to his right. In it, he saw Euryda’s pale, horrified face.

He saw it only for a moment, for as soon as she regained mastery of herself she seized the mask from his hand, pulled it back on, then turned and ran out of the room.

“All things considered,” said Hugo the next morning. “That went about as well as could have been expected. A few minor injuries, no one died, took us almost a whole hour to run out of food, and, as a bonus, the ballroom ended up with a nice new abstract modern sculpture. Did Euryda have a good time?”

“Don’t know,” Sean growled. “I haven’t seen her since she ran off. Went looking, but didn’t find her. Dr. Lyle said she went back to her room.”

“That’s too bad. You missed the whole second half, when Matt had a panic attack, climbed the wall, and ended up getting tangled in one of the banners. They had to take him off to a dark room to calm down, I gather. Not to mention the Professor’s impromptu lecture on how the Growth must’ve been a kinda thing that feeds on strong emotions and that’s why it woke up during the dance.”

“Can’t catch a break around this school, can we?” Sean muttered.

“Most folks seemed to have a good time regardless,” said Hugo. “I call that getting a break. We didn’t end till about three in the morning.”

Sean only response to this was to growl. He felt rotten. He knew he had done the right thing; Professor Van Helsing himself had commended him for his quick thinking. But he also knew that, somehow, he had hurt Euryda very badly by doing it. Not to mention the fact that the last thing he’d really said was that he’d wanted to kiss her, which she had reacted strangely to.

They really needed to talk.

It was Saturday, and students were given free time in the morning. Most of them would be sleeping off the party, but it was just possible that Euryda would be at breakfast. As soon as Sean was dressed, he headed down to the dining room, but she wasn’t there. Not wanting to have to wait until tomorrow or even Monday, he wandered about the halls a little in the hopes of finding her, taking care not to get lost. He was just considering applying to Dr. Lyle for help when he found her sitting outside the library, her usual mask back on. Her clothes were rather more subdued today, showing almost no skin. It was as though, for once, she didn’t want to be noticed. But she still wore her hair down, and the snakes all lifted their hoods as they caught sight of him.

“Hey,” he called on seeing her.

“Hi,” she answered without enthusiasm.

“So…about last night…” he began.

“Never touch my mask again,” she snapped at once. “I don’t care if the devil himself is coming up through a portal to Hell, with Dracula and all the vampires with him, don’t ever, ever touch it!”

“Sorry,” he said. “It just came to me, and there wasn’t time to discuss it.”

“That’s not the point,” she said.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you…”

“Well, you did.”

He felt sorry, but also annoyed.

“It was kind of an emergency, in case you didn’t notice,” he said. “I didn’t really have time to worry about embarrassment, or…”

“You don’t get it!” she snapped, standing up suddenly and glaring at him while her snakes hissed furiously. “Last night, I felt…I felt normal for the first time since it happened. I felt pretty, I felt appreciated, I…I was myself again. It was the most wonderful feeling in the world! Then you had to go and rip my mask off and make me turn that thing to stone, and just like that I was back to being a monster.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “That thing was about to start killing people, and they weren’t stopping it…”

“I know, I know, I know!” she shouted, gripping her head. “That’s the worst of it. I know I shouldn’t be mad at you, since you did the right thing and really were very dashing and heroic. But I can’t help it! And, because of that, I also get to feel guilty about being so selfish!”

He stared at her a moment, then nodded.

“I get it,” he said.

“Not to mention,” she went on. “That before all that craziness happened, you had to go and tell me that you would have…would have if it weren’t for…” she swallowed and seemed unable to get the words out. “I guess you were trying to be nice and all that, but it hurt. It hurt a lot.”

Sean frowned at her. She was right. He’d messed up the whole thing from beginning to end; made her forget her curse only to remind her of it once more by bringing up something she couldn’t do. He remembered the expression on her face reflected in the mirror, shocked, terrified…

Achingly beautiful.

Suddenly, he seized her by the hand.

“Come on.”

“What? What’re you doing?”

“Just come with me,” he snapped. “By hell, I’ll make up for it!”

“That’s ever so slightly alarming,” she said, trotting after him as he kept a firm grip on her wrist. Her snakes hissed angrily at him, but he ignored them. He dragged her along until he found what he was looking for; that room full of disused furniture where he’d spoken with Von Frankenstein. He practically threw her inside and ripped the curtains open to let in the sunlight, then yanked the dust cover off of a big full-length mirror.

“I caught a glimpse of your face last night,” he said. “And I want to see it again.”

“No,” she said. “Absolutely not!”

“It won’t hurt me if I see it in the mirror.”

“What if someone walks in on us?”

In answer, Sean grabbed a chair and shoved it under the doorknob.

“What if…what if something goes wrong?”

“I’ll take the risk,” he said. “Now stand over here.”

He positioned her before the mirror, resting his claws on her shoulders. They looked a fairly ridiculous pair, he thought; he with his scales covering most of his body like a suit of armor, she with her halo of snakes around her mask.

“I won’t take it off,” he told her. “But I’m not leaving until you do.”

“You think this’ll make me feel any different?”

“I think it’ll show you that you don’t have to hide your face your whole life, whatever your curse. Right now, you’re just a pretty girl showing off.”

She hesitated a long while, then reached up and took hold of her mask. Another second’s hesitation to make sure he was really behind her, and she took it off.

Sean gazed at the pale, nervous face blinking into the mirror under its halo of snakes.

“You were right,” he said. “That’d be worth dying for.”

A smile twitched at her mouth.

“I’m going to shut my eyes now,” he said. “And then I am going to kiss you. And I don’t care how many bites I get.”

He shut his eyes tight, then turned her around, placed a claw on either side of her face, and kissed her deeply. The snakes didn’t try to stop him. Instead, he thought they were nuzzling him affectionately, though he wasn’t in a noticing mood right then.

After what seemed a long, wonderful time, they broke apart. He could feel her hot breath on his face and feel her trembling under his claws.

“Wow,” she whispered, “I never thought I’d get to do that.” Then she kissed him again. A moment later, her felt her gently remove his claws from her face and after another second’s pause, she told him he could look. He opened his eyes and found that her mask was firmly back in place.

“You know,” she said. “When I woke up this morning, I didn’t think anything could do that.”

“Do what?”

“Cheer me up.”

They walked out of the room together, hand in hand. They hadn’t taken more than a few steps into the hallway when…

“Mr. Paulson. Miss Drakos.”

Sean and Euryda jumped. Professor Von Frankenstein was waiting for them.

“How the heck did you know where we were?!” Sean blurted out.

Von Frankenstein ignored that.

“What were you two doing in there?” he asked.

“We…we were…” Sean stammered.

“He was kissing the devil out of me, sir,” Euryda said matter-of-factly.

Von Frankenstein’s heavy brow raised a little.

“I hope,” he said. “I don’t have to remind you…”

“What, of the dangers of being turned to stone?” Sean interrupted. “Forget it. We’re dealing with it and the less it’s mentioned the better.”

“I was going to say of the school policy against improper fraternization,” said Von Frankenstein. “Though that would also be a concern.”

“We’re being careful,” said Euryda. “I mean, in both senses.” She swallowed hard and seemed on the verge of a giggling fit.

“See that you are. It might be best if Dr. Lyle were consulted any time you wished to…repeat this experiment. She will be able to ensure you don’t make any mistakes.”

Sean didn’t like that idea at all. But, as always with Von Frankenstein, he was too intimidated to really argue.

“It’s okay, sir,” he said. “She tells me she’s not that kind of girl.”

Euryda’s giggling fit broke loose. Sean found himself grinning broadly, something that certainly hadn’t happened often in the presence of the Frankenstein Monster. Then a thought occurred to him.

“Sir,” he said as Von Frankenstein started to turn away. “I think I know why you wanted to have the dance.”

“Yes?”

“It was for this sort of thing, wasn’t it? I mean,” he added hastily, seeing Von Frankenstein’s brow lifting again. “You wanted us to not think of ourselves as monsters, at least for one night. You wanted us to see each other as normal kids, worry about normal things, and feel…well, normal for a change. That’s it, isn’t it?”

A smile twisted the Frankenstein Monster’s ghastly mouth.

“I am impressed, Mr. Paulson.”

With that, he inclined his head and walked off.

“Nice guy, really,” said Euryda.

“If you say so,” Sean muttered. Then he looked sideways at her. “So…about this ‘illicit fraternization…’”

“Watch yourself, lizard boy.”

“Rather watch you, snake girl.”

“Oh, you had better,” she said as they set off hand-in-hand back to the dining hall. “Remember, lots of guys asked me out before you did. Some of them really good looking, too. I’m not letting you forget that any time soon.”

“You monster!”

By an unfortunate mishap, David Breitenbeck was born several centuries later than intended. While this has been inconvenient for all concerned in many ways, it has given him the opportunity to become exposed to many, many glorious fictional worlds and to start to produce some of his own. He has worked as a professional freelance writer for several years, peddling essays and articles and the occasional self-published book, including the mystery The Ten Commandments of Murder and the non-fiction The Wisdom of Walt Disney.

A Word from Chris Nuttall

If we shadows have offended ...

First, I hope you enjoyed this anthology. If you did, please review it. Now, onto more serious matters <grin>.

The purposes of anthologies such as this one, and its predecessor, are two-fold. First, to tell stories that might or might not fit into a mainstream book - Gennady’s Tale, Nanette’s Tale - and, second, to give aspiring authors their first real exposure. The former stories are often side-tales, or too short to make novels of their own; the latter are sometimes crude and unpolished, but showing hints of the maturity their writer will - hopefully - one day develop.

A writer cannot live on exposure alone, as many people have pointed out over the years. Free content may or may not be worth what you pay for it, and the writer obviously gets nothing out of it, but it does put the writer’s name in front of a larger audience. By associating newer writers with older ones, anthologies hope to ‘pass it along’ by encouraging readers to take a look at the stories written by unknown authors. There is, of course, no guarantee that the readers will like the stories - each and every book, novella and short story has one reader who thinks it's absolutely brilliant and another who wouldn’t lower himself to use the story for toilet paper - and no guarantee of future success, but there will be a chance.

We are hoping to produce more Fantastic School anthologies in the future and are opening slots to the new and unpublished as well as well-known authors. If you’re interested in submitting a story idea for consideration, or doing a piece of artwork for the cover (we intend to showcase a different artist for each book), visit the link below, read the rules and email us.

https://www.superversivesf.com/fantasticschools/fantastic-schools-anthology-2/

We don’t guarantee acceptance, of course. But we’ll consider every idea we’re sent.

Christopher G. Nuttall

Edinburgh, 2020

About the Editors

Mr. Nuttall has been featured in the wonderful story just a few pages ago: Nannette’s Tale

Website: http://chrishanger.net/

Blog: https://chrishanger.wordpress.com/

L. Jagi Lamplighter is the author of  the YA fantasy series: The Books of Unexpected Enlightenment, the third book of which was nominated for the YA Dragon Award in 2017 and the fourth book of which won the first YA Ribbit Award. She is also the author of the Prospero’s Children series: Prospero Lost, Prospero In Hell, and Prospero Regained.

She has published numerous articles and short stories. She also has an anthology of her own works: In the Lamplight. She also edits for Superversive Press and teaches The Art and Craft of Writing.

When not writing, she switches to her secret identity as wife and stay-home mom in Centreville, VA, where she lives with her dashing husband, author John C. Wright, and their four darling children, Orville, Ping-Ping Eve, Roland Wilbur, and Justinian Oberon.