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“Not even people I know,” Mom finished. “Go. Be safe. Be amazing.”

The last thing I saw before Ms. Parker pulled me through was Mom standing alone in our shabby living room, one hand pressed to her silver ring, the other raised in goodbye. Then reality twisted, and everything changed.

My head was still spinning from our portal jump to the Denver airport. Ms. Parker said we couldn’t actually portal directly onto the Wickem campus, but we could get as close as possible, which was apparently here.

We waited in a cafe at the busy airport for dawn.

“Won’t they come here?” I’d asked, nursing my caffeine fix, the only thing keeping me going after a sleepless night.

“No, it will take them time to find you across such distances,” Parker said. She’d indulged in a cup of plain coffee, without the three sugars and cream that I needed, but her eyes scanned the airport, in spite of her reassurances.

“Then can’t we go?” I kept checking my phone, but there were no new messages from Mom. I hoped she was okay.

“Best to wait for dawn,” she said. “They’re not as strong in daylight. Not powerless, but… less bold. We’ll be safer travelling then.”

Once the sun rose, we moved purposely across the airport. My single suitcase looked pathetically small, and my worn sneakers squeaked against the airport tile, while Ms. Parker looked crisp and professional, despite the night’s trials.

“Oh look, the Shadow Heir arrives.” A sharp male voice made me turn.

Two men approached us, both with dark copper hair and broad shoulders, and clothes that radiated old money.

The younger one caught my attention immediately—tall and athletic with intense amber eyes.

He was undeniably attractive, but he looked at me like something stuck to the bottom of his shoe.

I was suddenly even more aware of my rumpled clothes and unwashed hair.

“Lord Raynoff.” Ms. Parker gave a stiff bow to the older one. “We weren’t expecting a welcome party.”

“A vampire attack within the city of Albany?” His voice carried absolute authority. “Of course the Council takes interest. Especially given who their target was.” His gaze swept over me, calculating.

I already felt small enough with the height difference, but I resisted the urge to shrink further.

“Marigold Brook,” Ms. Parker said formally. “This is Lord Raynoff. He’s the current head of the Witches’ Council and general of the Shroud Guard.”

I stared blankly, even my now caffeinated brain struggling to keep up with all the new information. “What does that mean?”

“Kind of like the president of witch society,” she said.

My stomach dropped. From cleaning houses to meeting presidents in less than forty-eight hours. Mom would never believe this. I could barely believe it.

“Hello, sir,” I managed, my voice smaller than I’d like.

“Marigold,” Raynoff said. “Three hunting parties, drawn by untrained necromancer magic. Quite the display of power for one so… unprepared.”

He offered his hand, and I shook it. A surge of something—power?—ran through me at the contact. I suppressed a shudder, hoping no one noticed.

“And this is my son, Cyrus.”

The son didn’t offer his hand. The temperature seemed to rise slightly as his scowl deepened.

His amber eyes traced over my disheveled appearance with obvious disdain, the arrogance of his gaze.

I couldn’t help noticing how his broad shoulders filled out his expensive jacket making my pulse quicken traitorously.

I gave him a nod, fighting the urge to smooth my wrinkled shirt.

“You very much look like your father,” Raynoff said, studying me like I was a puzzle he couldn’t quite solve.

“Oh?” I asked, thinking of how often people told me I was the mirror image of my mom—same petite figure, same medium blonde hair, same brown eyes. Was he seeing something more in me than appearance? “Did you know my father well?”

“Yes, I knew him,” Raynoff said, something dark passing behind his eyes. “Before he betrayed everything we built.”

“Traitor,” Cyrus muttered, his voice thick with disgust. The word crackled with heat that made my skin tingle.

No one else commented. The intensity of Cyrus’ stare felt like being scalded. He watched as if he was waiting for me to prove how unworthy I was—the traitor’s daughter.

I ignored him as best I could. “You’ll have to tell me about him,” I said to Lord Raynoff. “I never met him.”

Raynoff’s mouth tightened. “The Council will need a full report on last night’s incident, Guard Parker. The vampires growing bold enough to hunt in cities is troubling,” he continued, “Get her to Wickem quickly. We can’t afford another display like that.”

Parker gave a slight bow to Lord Raynoff and his son, and I did the same, not knowing the protocol. Then I followed her down the hall toward the exit. I could feel their eyes on my back, until we were through the doors.

Parker directed me to the parking garage and her navy-blue Subaru.

As we drove into the mountains, Ms. Parker explained more about witch society—the four Council seats passed down through families, the ongoing war with the vampires, Wickem’s role as a training ground for college-aged witches.

But my mind kept returning to Cyrus’s scorn and his father’s barely veiled hostility.

“The men back there,” I said slowly. “The Raynoffs? They hate me because of my father?”

“Yes,” Ms. Parker said, “But also…” She glanced at me with a frown, then back at the road. “Your heritage is half human, half witch. That will cause trouble for you.”

My mouth dropped open. “Witches aren’t human?”

She gave a tight smile. “Well, we are in most ways human, but when the magic runs through bloodlines, it’s stronger.”

“But I got it from my father?”

“Yes, but your mother has no magic,” she said. “And Council seats are passed down through the strongest witches among us. That’s why they are royal, why they have heirs.”

I bit my lip, trying to understand.

“You may be weaker because of it,” she said with a twist of her lips. “Or others may see you as weaker. They may,” she paused and corrected herself. “They will make you prove yourself.”

I didn’t know anything about magic, and I was going to have to prove that I was strong enough? I swallowed.

I didn’t even want to be here.

Except I had to be.

I had to learn to control my powers, and I had to keep Mom safe.

As if summoned, Mom’s text glowed on the screen of my phone: I’m fine, honey. It’s all quiet here. But I knew she hadn’t slept any more than I had.

We continued on in silence, until Ms. Parker broke it with, “For first-time students, the final approach to Wickem has to be made traditionally. There are magical checkpoints built into the mountain path that help register and protect incoming students. Especially important given your… recent attention.”

Everything felt surreal—just hours ago I’d been cleaning houses, and now I was fleeing supernatural attacks and meeting a magical nobility who seemed to hate me on sight.

The road narrowed as we climbed higher. Ancient pines pressed close on one side while a misty void dropped away on the other. The air grew thicker, heavier, like the atmosphere itself was trying to push us back.

“We’re passing through the wards now,” Parker said.

Before I could even ask what she meant, the magic hit me.

Suddenly I could feel everything—every dead leaf rotting in the soil, every beetle carcass under rocks, every bird that had ever fallen from its nest. The mountain itself seemed to breathe beneath us, ancient bones buried in its core calling out in voices that scraped against my consciousness.

“I’m going to be sick,” I gasped, pressing my hand against my mouth. Cold sweat broke out across my forehead.

“Deep breaths,” Parker advised, but her voice seemed to come from very far away. “It’s the wellspring. Your powers are responding to it.”

Powers. I almost laughed. The mice at the Conrads had been like a spark compared to this inferno. The dead things under the earth whispered to me in voices that felt like home, like they’d been waiting all my life to speak. The shadows of the trees moved and writhed as we passed.

Then Wickem Academy appeared through the mist, all stone walls and towering spires that seemed to stretch into the clouds themselves. Gargoyles perched on every corner, their stone eyes following our approach with an awareness that sent shivers down my spine.

But it wasn’t just stone—I could feel the history in its walls; centuries of deaths large and small, each one calling out to be remembered.

Students who’d died in magical accidents, teachers who’d spent their last breaths in classroom corridors, even the workers who’d fallen during construction—all of them reached out to me with eager whispers.

The iron gates swung open silently as we approached.

Their intricate metal work depicted scenes of magic I was only beginning to understand—witches commanding elements, raising the dead, opening doorways between worlds.

As we passed through them, the whispers of the dead grew stronger, more insistent.

They knew what I was—knew what I could do.

The very stones of the building seemed to recognize me, centuries of accumulated death magic reaching out in welcome.

And for the first time in my life, I knew too. I wasn’t just Marigold Brook, the cleaning lady’s daughter anymore. I was something else—something that made even the mountains remember their dead.

I just wasn’t sure if that was a gift or a curse.