Page 7

Marigold

For a long moment after Keane left, I just leaned against the closed door, my hand still tingling where I’d touched the skull sigil. The magic had felt…right. Like coming home, if home was a place you’d never been but somehow remembered.

No one can enter without your permission.

After years of living in apartments with broken locks and paper-thin walls, where every strange footstep in the hallway made me hold my breath—the thought of having a space that was truly secure made my throat tight.

Especially after Elio’s cruel tricks and Cyrus’s barely contained rage. But then there was Keane…

I touched my lips, remembering the taste of the chocolate croissant he’d given me. Such a small thing, but it meant something. The way he understood what I needed—without making me say it out loud. He wasn’t like the others. I just couldn’t figure out why.

I forced myself to breathe, to really look at my new rooms. Like something out of a storybook—except this time, I wasn’t the maid scrubbing floors. I was the girl with power in her blood.

Magic thrummed through the walls, flowing like water through invisible pipes. I could feel it. Pure, alive.

And the tower’s magic, or the wellspring’s or whatever it was, made my own power surge in response, and suddenly every dead thing in the building seemed to wake at once.

Their whispers filled my head—mice and rats and birds that had lived and died in these walls, all trying to welcome me at the same time.

“Quiet,” I whispered, overwhelmed.

My fingers found my ring without thinking, twisting the silver band on its chain. The chaos settled slightly, like turning down the volume on too many voices.

Dust lay thick over everything—coating the furniture like gray snow. But dust didn’t bother me. I’d cleaned plenty of other people’s messes. This one, at least, was mine to tackle.

“Hello?” I called softly, feeling slightly foolish. But now that I’d managed to quiet the chorus of dead things to a manageable level, I wanted to properly introduce myself. Mom would think I was nuts, talking to the shadows, but it felt right.

Nothing appeared, but the room itself seemed to stir, like a cat waking from a long nap. Dust motes swirled in patterns too deliberate to be random.

A single skeletal mouse emerged from the wall, delicate as lacework bone. Its tiny skull tilted as it crept forward on needle-thin limbs, joints clicking softly with each step. Bits of shadow clung to its ribs like scraps of fabric, twitching like whiskers as it sniffed the air.

Unlike the overwhelming wave of welcome from earlier, this felt… manageable. Familiar.

Maybe I was learning how to hold it—this power, this place.

I moved through the space slowly, taking in everything with fresh eyes. The main room reminded me of a living room—if living rooms came with velvet armchairs, carved tables that looked like they were grown from the forest, and a fireplace of black stone that drank in the light.

The magic here hadn’t left. I could still feel it in the air—thick and alive, pressing against my skin like mist from a waterfall. Not hostile. But not passive, either.

The study made me pause in the doorway. Shelves stretched from floor to ceiling, crammed with leather-bound books with titles like Advanced Magical Theory and Necromantic Creatures . A large desk dominated one wall, its surface bare except for a fine coating of dust.

Years of silence pressed against my skin. They’d said that no one had sat here since my father was a student, learning to wield the magic that now surged through my veins with too much force. I suspected it hadn’t been so hard for him, since he grew up in this world.

I went back to my suitcase where I’d left it in the living room, and pulled out my box.

Collecting little things—a feather, a pretty rock, a pendant—had been my habit for as long as I could remember.

Nothing expensive, nothing stolen, just whatever pretty things I could find, buy, or trade for.

After dumping out my pockets a hundred times, Mom had finally caved and got me a carved wooden box from the thrift store to keep “my treasures” in.

I turned it over in my hands and smiled, then took it into the study and placed it on the dusty desk.

There. Now it’s mine.

The bedroom was beautiful. A queen-sized bed, draped in green and black covers that, beneath the dust, promised softness I’d never known.

Fluffy pillows piled high enough to drown in.

And the glass doors—actual glass doors—that led to a balcony overlooking the school grounds and the mountains beyond.

I pushed them open despite the cold, letting the wind whip my hair back.

The view stole my breath—mountains reaching into clouds, the campus’ gothic architecture making every building look like it was from a fairytale.

I’d never been this high up, never seen this far.

The world seemed endless from here, full of possibilities I’d never dared imagine.

Except I was living them. A witch in a brand new world of magic.

As I stood there, my emotions must have leaked into my power.

Small shapes stirred in the garden far below—birds that had died on windowsills, mice that had lived and died in the grounds.

My hand flew to Mom’s ring—I still couldn’t think of it as my father’s—as I tried to rein it in.

Too much, too much . I hadn’t meant to reach that far.

I stepped back inside, closing my eyes and tried to focus until the magic retreated once more. Going through the wards had caused something to awaken in me, and now I was brimming with power I neither understood or could control.

Shaking myself, I moved on to the bathroom.

It nearly made me cry. Not just a bathroom—a truly private bathroom, with a separate shower and tub.

The tub was deep enough to actually submerge in, with elegant copper faucets gone green with age.

Big fluffy towels sat stacked on the counter, and a beautiful silver-framed mirror hung above a marble vanity.

After years of sharing cramped apartment bathrooms, this felt impossibly luxurious.

I spun slowly in the middle of the bathroom, elated and terrified and overwhelmed all at once. All this space—all of it mine.

No one can enter without my permission. No one can take it away.

The skeletal mouse from earlier had followed me, his tiny bone feet clicking softly against the marble floor. He watched me with hollow sockets that somehow still held intent, tilting his head in that curious way as I ran my fingers along the cool countertop.

When I opened a cabinet, he gave a sharp little chitter—encouraging? Judging? Honestly, hard to say—and scurried after me as I moved back into the main suite.

I texted Mom that I was here and safe. Then I went searching for cleaning supplies. Maybe there were spells for this—probably there were spells for this—but I didn’t know them or even where to look for them.

And after the insanity of the day, I needed the familiar comfort of actual work. Something I knew how to do without the magic that kept threatening to spill over every time I moved.

Somehow I found a bottle of lemon soap and some cleaning cloths under the sink in the bathroom. I didn’t know how or why my dad would have had to clean by hand, but I was grateful. Pulling out my phone from my suitcase, I set it on the counter and hit play on my indie playlist.

I filled the massive tub with hot water and soap, then stripped the bed and dragged all the linens in. The towels followed, then the velvet cushion covers. Steam rose around me as I scrubbed, turning the water gray.

I sang along as “Complicated” played. The dead things in the walls picked up the rhythm, their quiet clicking like odd percussion.

The familiar motions helped settle me, helped me find a rhythm with the magic pulsing through the tower.

It was like learning to breathe with too much air—not fighting it exactly, but finding a way to handle the excess.

The silver ring felt warm against my chest, almost like it was helping maintain that delicate balance.

I dragged everything out to the balcony afterward, hanging sheets and towels over the railing. The wind whipped them like flags announcing my presence. Let the other students stare if they could see this high. Let them whisper about the half-breed heir doing manual labor.

At least the dead birds up here kept their distance, only watching curiously instead of all trying to crowd close like before. A crow cawed in the distance, and this time, it sounded like a live one.

These rooms were mine. This space was mine. And I refused to sleep on dusty sheets on my first night home.

Home. The word echoed in my mind as I watched my laundry dance in the wind.

The power in the walls thrummed in response, like the whole tower was acknowledging my claim. For now, I just stood on my balcony, letting the wind and the sunset and the carefully controlled presence of dead things remind me that I belonged here, whatever anyone else might say.

Morning light painted weird shapes on walls I didn’t recognize.

For a second, panic spiked—had we been evicted again? Was this another shelter? Then a skeletal mouse clattered across my nightstand, its tiny bone feet tapping like impatient nails, and it all came rushing back.

Wickem. Heir. Necromancer. Right.

I grabbed the orientation packet, accidentally jostling the mouse. He gave me an offended chitter and skittered to the edge. The elegant script made my stomach clench:

Welcome to Wickem Academy

Today’s Schedule: Wednesday, September 1st

9:00 AM - New Student Orientation (Main Hall)

2:00 PM - Campus Tours

5:00 PM - Welcome Ceremony (Auditorium)

*Note: All Heirs required to participate in the ceremonial procession. Traditional robes mandatory.

Ceremonial procession.

In front of people.