Page 8

W ith multi-colored cobblestones under my feet, the pathway lined with forest on one side and the lake in the distance on the other, you’d think it would have been a relaxing ten-minute stroll from the Nevershoppes to the wall surrounding the academy.

Ten minutes of excruciating silence that I felt bubbling up in my guts like indigestion gone sideways.

Back when I’d been at school, I’d walked on eggshells and prayed no one noticed me, even in my assigned house.

The whole time, I’d struggled with my spells.

Rune crafting was taught under the strictest guidelines.

The skill required the user to trace a series of shapes in the air and then fill them with magic in the form of energy.

The more pristine and precise the rune, the less magic it needed to power it in the same way that a properly executed push-up resulted in stronger muscles over a poorly executed one.

Hence why inexperienced witches and wizards invariably got caught if they try to use unsanctioned, low-rent magic out in the Unlit human world.

They didn’t get it quite right. And I could hardly blame them.

The runes they taught at Neverthorn had always wound up jumbled in my mind.

Too many shapes for a single spell. I’d botch the order or get mixed up and forget to close a loop, so the magic would just trickle out, rendering the spell weak or completely useless, stinking up the entire class.

Which was why I did magic my own way once I left this place.

It had been so easy once I wasn’t bound by their rules.

And I’d gotten damned good at it, making most of my spells untraceable.

But I could still hear the giggles as I messed up the same rune over and over ... could still see the scorn, or worse, pity in the teacher’s eyes ...

I blew a shallow breath out between my teeth.

“What are you hissing about now?” he growled at me.

“Hissing?” I tipped my head to the side as if to get a better look at him.

“You do know what humans sound like when they breathe, don’t you?

Or has it been that long since you’ve interacted with real people?

” I shook my head and took a deep breath.

“I’m stressed . This place is my own private hell, overseen by you – my own personal nightmare.

” I hitched my bags up farther on my back, my feet stilling as we came to the only entrance in or out of Neverthorn’s grounds.

I swallowed hard as I looked at the thorns and brambles that made up the gate – thick and solid as if made of steel, dark-bronze discoloration that could have been rust but wasn’t, and even spots that were peeled away.

The gate was far stronger than steel, though.

Tarquinius had created it to protect the students, imbuing it with all manner of protection wards.

A protection and a prison. At least in my estimation.

Arching a good twenty feet over our heads as well as twenty feet across, the opening was big enough that I wondered for the first time what it had been made to accommodate.

A giant?

No, they’d been gone for over a hundred years.

A dragon?

Also extinct.

Maybe a griffon, with the body of a lion and the head of an eagle. There were a few of those left, and they could get pretty big.

Typhon stopped and pointed at the gate. “You know the drill. You open the gate, and it will sense which house you belong to and set you in it.”

“I already have a house.” My tongue felt thick in my mouth. “Felinita.”

Considered by many to be one of, if not the, weakest of the six houses, but also the smartest. When they beat out a stronger house it was always through strategy. I was not opposed to being put back into the smart house.

Felinita was what my first arm bracer had been marked with upon entering the gate. The crest was a small housecat with a delicate set of wings perched on her back.

I found myself glancing at Typhon, knowing a Draconell house crest wrapped around his forearm and down onto the back of his hand. The serpent’s head was in an attack position, all fangs and flame across the top of his hand.

Top of his class, top of the houses. Draconell was the best of the best. They had the most power behind their rune casting, were generally the quickest at it, too, which made them lethal in battle.

Unfortunately, they also tended to come from the most prestigious families.

All of Opie’s relatives had been House Draconell.

Add to that, the Senate who pretty much made all the rules governing magic was made up primarily of House Draconell.

Which made them top of the asshole heap, as far as I was concerned.

“Put on your new bracer. Things change.” Typhon tucked his hands behind his back. “The gates have been set by Tarquinius to ensure you end up in the proper house.”

“Wait ... and we weren’t before?”

His mouth set in a grim line, and I knew I wasn’t going to get an answer. But maybe his lack of answer was enough. Had things been rigged my first time around?

“Why would the school have wanted students to be sent to the wrong house?”

Silence.

I snorted and shook my head. Trying to talk to this man was an exercise in frustration. And still, I kept on, desperate for information. I circled back to an earlier question, hoping he’d give me something more.

“Tell me about the others. You said there were more people that could take the place of Heronius? How many? Is it going to be me and a bunch of kids?”

Crouching, I dug around in my bag as he spoke. The thing wasn’t all that deep, but I’d shrunk my new supplies to fit into it and they were hard to find.

“Seven others. They are all from a different house originally too.”

That was good at least. I wouldn’t be the only fish out of water.

“Of course, they all have their first house crest etched into their arms since they didn’t give up half a semester in and quit when things got tough.”

Shots fired again, and this round hit home.

Rage shot through me, melting away my anxiety. “After what you did to me, you have the nerve to act like I’m in the wrong for leaving? I got news for you –”

“As for age,” he continued as if I wasn’t even talking, “some are in their twenties. Most aren’t quite as old as you. Now get the bracer on, let’s get this done. I have a class to teach.” He jerked his chin toward the gate, as he stepped to the side.

Patience had never been his strong suit. Apparently, that hadn’t changed.

The wind around us picked up, keening through the trees at the base of the wall that wrapped around the grounds. Clouds drifted across the sky, dampening the light until it might as well have been early evening instead of morning.

Behind the wall but still out of view was Neverthorn Academy, and while I was mostly pissed about having to go back, there was a tiny part of me that couldn’t help but wonder what might’ve been if things had gone differently.

If I’d started school with the others at the age of thirteen.

If I’d lived a life that didn’t involve constantly being on the run.

If my mother had never gotten sick.

If I’d never left . . .

I still remembered the stories my mom had told me. How she had lived with her friends in the girls” dorm of Felinita. Of the fun they’d had and the magic they’d made. Of course, she’d been a pretty decent runecrafter, and popular to boot.

Everything I wasn’t.

My throat tightened as I thought of the last time I’d seen her. I’d begged to stay with her instead of going to Neverthorn. How she forced me out the door, teary-eyed but determined ...

“I’ve already held you back for too long. It will make you stronger. And stronger is safer, my heart.”

Nope, this was not the time to think about that memory, or her.

I stood and put the new leather bracer onto my right arm, sliding it up.

The bracers always went onto the dominant hand. Most Dwims were lefties. Not me. Had to be different, even in this.

The leather molded itself to my arm, slid around my thumb and sealed itself to me.

It wouldn’t come off now until the Sage announced that I had graduated.

Not a dog collar, exactly, but it might as well have been, and I squashed the rising sense of panic, of being collared and chained to this place again.

“Who helped you get your first one off?” Typhon asked suddenly, motioning at my wrist.

I shrugged. “A mixture of half-cooked spells and a sixteen-year-old’s stubborn determination.

” I squared my shoulders and started toward the massive gate that seemed to shiver on my approach.

“To be crystal clear, there was no one to help me with anything ever once I left Neverthorn, Typhon. I did it myself or it didn’t happen. ”

The weight of his gaze was heavy on me, but I refused to look at him. Refused to let him see the pain of the past in me.

I stood with my toes brushing the bottom edge of the gate. The thick vines flexed, like a snake constricting, sensing my presence. “You know, this isn’t any less terrifying than the first time.”

Typhon stepped up behind me, blocking my exit, the heat off his body flooding my back. “Lift your hand and open the gate.”

I turned my head, and we were so close. I drew in a slow, subtle breath and wrinkled my nose. Damn, he smelled good.

Twisting back around, I reached out and set my hand over the thick Neverthorn crest that held the two halves of the gate together.

Staring at it, I took in details that I hadn’t my first time through the gates.

The round emblem was the size of a dinner plate, with spokes sliding out from the center of it.

Seven of them, thick enough that there were details engraved into them.

Details that made me think of the different houses on the other side of the gate.

Typhon pressed closer to me, his massive body pinning mine to the gate, taking my attention from the crest. The thrill that ran through me was all too familiar, and I hated it.

How I’d misinterpreted his darkness for sadness.