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She shakes me, and I let her. I know better than to fight back.

I tried once, and it didn’t end well for me.

“Well? Aren’t you going to say sorry? I ordered you to stay in the house just last week, and I expect you to follow my orders while you live under my roof!

” I wince as that conversation comes back to me.

I completely forgot she told me that over dinner—two weeks ago, not last week like she thinks.

“If you are lucky enough to get the marking for Bloodstone Academy, I would like to be here. Where have you been?” I open my mouth to lie, but she carries on.

“I checked in at your silly friend’s house, and her father hasn’t seen you today like you told our cook. Where have you really been?”

“Just for a walk. I’ve been nervous. Today is important for me.” Today is everything to me. She digs her nails into my arm, leaving marks on me, but I barely feel pain anymore thanks to her.

“Do not lie to me! I won’t have you off with boys, like that dark-haired friend of yours, being a slut under my roof.

” I almost want to tell her my best friend, Parker, is gay and has a boyfriend, but she wouldn’t take that well.

Witches are not meant to be gay, and they pretend people aren’t.

It’s horrid and unaccepting. They only care about breeding and the war.

Anything else is an issue. “If you do not get into the academy, we will be having a serious talk about your future. The only merits you have are that pretty face of yours and that you’re the last of the Daygan clan, with the namesake, too.

” My heart slams against my ribcage. I know I’m the last of the Daygan clan, and that pressure is always there.

If I fail at anything, I let my entire family down.

My mother named me after Juniper Daygan, the first witch ancestor of my clan.

No pressure considering she was a saint and a very powerful witch.

“At least I will be able to marry you to a good, respectful family.”

She lets me go as my fast-beating heart feels like it plummets into my stomach. I do not want to marry, have kids, and make them grow up in fear of the war. I want to help win the war the only way I can—with knowledge and spells. Bloodstone Academy is my only hope, and it has been for a long time.

“Well, has a mark appeared?” she asks. “Show me your neck and move that horrid braid.”

I touch my neck on instinct, pushing the braid back, and it hits my lower back.

Braiding my wild, dark brown hair is the only acceptable way I’m allowed to have it outside the house.

I can’t get my unruly locks to behave, and they will never be dead straight like Melody’s hair.

Even though I’m foolishly hoping, there is nothing on my neck.

I’d feel it if the mark appeared. Magic can always be felt on your skin.

This day, the ninth day of the ninth month, is the only day that you get an invitation to Bloodstone Academy.

“Shame, but not unexpected. If you got in, you’d be just like your foster sister, and we both know she is far too exceptional for you to compare.”

“I can only hope and pray.” I smile through the lie, biting down on my inner cheek. I do not want to be anything like my foster sister, who is a third-year at Bloodstone Academy, but she isn’t half as bad as Melody.

Melody doesn’t call me out on my sarcasm, on how she knows I don’t mean it, and instead walks to the stairs.

She brushes her finger over the top of the banister to check for dust, and if she finds some, she has a reason to shout at our human housemaid Diamond.

“Today I woke up happy that you seemed smart enough to be considered at Bloodstone Academy. I’d finally, finally get some praise for taking you in when your silly parents died. ”

“May the three-faced goddess protect their souls in her afterlife,” I snap. They weren’t silly. They are dead, though.

Melody ignores me, pacing up and down in front of the long wooden staircase that winds up into the house.

“Everybody else in this town didn’t want anything to do with you and your cursed family.

All dead, the scandal! The Daygan clan was strong and formidable, even as much as the dragons!

You might have had a nice inheritance to come with you, but that was all you had.

No other relatives, no one to take you in, no family friends.

Everyone was dead that ever knew you, except for me.

I knew your father in Bloodstone Academy as he helped my mother with library keeping and I was allowed to visit.

That was the only reason that I took in his daughter after all was said and done. ”

I want to add that she had a crush on my father in school, according to people I’ve spoken to, and that’s likely the reason she took me in.

But the problem is I don’t look like my father.

I have my mother’s face, my mother’s hair, my mother’s eyes, and I’m every bit the image of her.

I look at a photo of them in my room and wonder why the goddess didn’t give me a bit of my father’s looks when it would have made Melody like me more.

I only got worse as I got older, more like my rebellious mother.

Not that I remember them much anymore, but Melody said she was rebellious.

They both died when I was a kid, and all I have now are photos and paintings.

The house we lived in is burnt down. The money that we had was given to my foster mother and is likely invested into this house or Melodies every want and desire.

I know I won’t see the money and I don’t care.

I don’t have much from them except for a few old spell books, a rusty cauldron in my room, and some clothes.

No jewelry, nothing to mark the clan. Sometimes I wonder if they even thought about it, thought about me when they were fighting in the war, why they decided to have a child when they were still in the war, still fighting for Bloodstone Academy and in their last year of service.

I will never know. Not many people have kids in a war.

They know that you could die at any moment and there are enough orphan witches around.

“But maybe Bloodstone Academy wouldn’t take you.

You’re smart, I’ll give you that. You passed all your schoolwork, you are at the top of all your exams. You spend all your time with your nose in books—studying.

But character…character is important for Bloodstone Academy.

I was never allowed to leave the library, but I knew the students who came in.

First-years, second-years and third-years were all more than just smart—they were brave and special.

Even if you did get in, you’d probably die as a first-year.

They will throw you into the Bloodstone Forest to try to get you to bond with a changeling shifter and make him or her fight for you in the war. ” She huffs.

That part of Bloodstone Academy makes me nervous.

The academy is built in the center of the Bloodstone Forest, and the forest is the home to the changeling shifters.

They can’t leave the forest or academy without bonding to a witch—and that is what the academy is for.

Witches and changelings bond for life, fight together in the war for five years, and then we are both free to live wherever we wish.

There isn’t much else known about Bloodstone Academy—all witches are magically sworn to keep the secrets of the academy on their first day.

“Rue did it and is bonded with a wolf! So very uncommon, and we are so proud of her. Well, we all know that’s not going to happen to you!” She laughs. “You’d be lucky if a rabbit shifter bonded with you.”

I dig my nails into my palm. “I think?—”

“I’ve told you more than once that no one cares what you think, Juniper.

I don’t, I never will, and no one else will either.

We only care about the war and winning it.

” At least she is telling me the truth. I may hate her, but she doesn’t lie to me about the state of the world and the witches’ goal—to win.

I want to help us win, to get revenge for my parents, and to make this world better.

I can do that, I just need a chance. I need to get out of this house and away from the life Melody is planning for me.

We both stare at each other in an impasse as the clock strikes six.

A grandfather clock right at the top of the stairs rings out across the house, each beat echoing in my ears as I feel cold.

The icy sting of magic presses on my neck like a brand—not a marking.

My eyes widen as I touch my neck, and I run across the room to the mirror, watching as the mark appears.

The dragon wing wrapped around a dagger, the tips pointing up just underneath my ear.

The Bloodstone Academy mark. There is a single rune written on the dragon wing in the old Latin language of the witches, and my mouth feels dry as I whisper the words.

“We bleed for the stone; we bleed for the war. We are the witches, and we bind our lives to the changelings.”

I got in.

I’m a student of Bloodstone Academy.

I’m free from this fucking house.

Hope burns in my chest like a fire as I stare at the mark, and tears form in my gold eyes.

Melody’s high heels click across the floor as she comes to stand behind me.

She grabs my chin, forcing my gaze to hers.

“You will not embarrass me, Juniper. I will be watching, and if you do, I’ll end the Daygan clan myself. ”