Magic Exchange: A Supernatural Academy Romance (The Velkin Royal Academy Series Book 1)

by Emmeline Winter

  The capital of Velkin, inventively named Velkin City, sat deep in the heart of our kingdom, and boasted several of our world’s most renowned institutions. The Magical Congress sat against the Eastern gate, overlooking the Trikalian River. The Museums of The Magic marked the Western gate, leading out into Elven country and the wild lands beyond. And then, situated directly across the city from one another, were the Castle Bloc, which housed the Academy of Velkin in the south, and Crestmore Palace, the seat from which House Starborn had reigned for nearly two thousand years. On a clear day, from my most of the south-facing rooms in the palace, I could see clear across the city and straight to the Academy. My parents told me it was built that way on purpose, that the school was there to remind the rulers of Velkin of their duty to the future, of the importance of their role as the parents to all of Velkin’s children.

  As far as I was concerned, it was all sentimental dreck. The real reason the city had been built that way was probably because one of the previous rulers would rather watch the children than the Magical Congress. Or possibly he had a son he wanted to be able to keep a watchful eye on even from hallways across the capital.

  In any event, as I stood in the grand dining hall, which was usually reserved for occasions of state and the celebratory festivals that guided our calendar, and stared out of the window and towards the Castle Bloc, I suddenly, for the first time, actively hated the view.

  Not because it wasn’t beautiful. It absolutely was. The Academy was one of the most beautiful, most mysterious, most picturesque places in all of Velkin. I hated it because it was a symbol of everything eating away at me inside. Adric and Tormin were both right, in their own ways, whether or not I wanted to admit it to either of them. The humans had been here all of three days and I hadn’t yet figured out their plot. I hadn’t even found a ringleader or divined what their plan might have involved. Three whole days, and all I’d managed to do so far was exchange words and looks hot enough to scald with Carolyn Connors.

  That wasn’t good enough. Not for a future King. Not for me. Every minute the humans were here was another opportunity for them to strike at the heart of us. That couldn’t be allowed.

  Behind me, my family was in the beginning phases of the supper. Every seventh day, we met together to dine and talk about the events of the week, the affairs of state, the goings on in the kingdom. Usually, I enjoyed these meals. Even if I did have to face my parents—something I wasn’t entirely comfortable with, given that they were constantly judging my readiness to be king of Velking— dinner as a family gave us all time to take off our crowns and be ourselves instead of the royalty we normally were. But tonight, the anxiety of facing them outweighed the relief of unwinding. I hadn’t even gone to the table once yet, a fact that apparently irritated my father to no end.

  “My son, you look so pensive. Something on your mind?” He paused, and the crackling of the fire underscored the silence that followed. “Or is it someone?”

  Ah, yes. This was the part where we talked about his ridiculous marriage treaty. That wasn’t a conversation I was interested in having. All of the humans were fine enough—the men and the women—but marriage was not an option I was currently considering. Father could have his aspirations for the future, aspirations I would kill once I uncovered whatever it was the humans were planning.

  “I’m just not hungry,” I answered diplomatically. Unfortunately, this wasn’t enough for my father. His voice sharpened like the edge of a blade, which he wielded squarely in my direction.

  “Then don’t eat. But do join us at the table. You’re bringing down the whole mood of the evening and brooding isn’t good for digestion.”

  “If I’d known I was going to be ordered around, I would have stayed home,” I growled, striding over to the table and taking my place at father’s right hand and directly across the bountiful feast from my mother. I chafed at my father’s commands and the fact that I didn’t know quite how to deny them. He was my father. My King. And rebellion—at least, public rebellion—simply wasn’t something I was able to do. Adric may have known how to break free of the chains of this family, but I didn’t.

  I thought of Carolyn again. Yesterday, there had been a mail call, where every other human student had received a letter—or, more accurately, a deluge of letters and packages—from their families. Carolyn had received nothing. Had she successfully broken free of her family? If she had, I suppose that was something worth envying about her.

  “You are home,” my father shot back.

  “Fine. I would have stayed in my dormitory where I wouldn’t have had to endure this asinine conversation.”

  “I wasn’t aware that caring about my own son was asinine.”

  “Care about me like you cared about Adric?”

  The words snapped from between my lips, a cracking whip that slapped my father directly across the face. He balked, slack-jawed. I couldn’t look at him, not directly. His eyes shone with the pain I’d just caused.

  Father hadn’t wanted to banish Adric. I knew that. Everyone in the kingdom knew that. But still, his bowing to the pressure of the humans and the Magical Congress had torn a rift between us. Seeing Adric yesterday, even through magical flame, had only stabbed deeper into the wound, reawakening the pain I thought I’d buried.

  Silence stretched out between us. Awkward. Tense. Uncertain. My mother brightened, a false glow reddening her cheeks as she tried to salvage the evening...and our relationships.

  “So! Boys. School. How has it been being back at school? How are the new students faring? Any of them catching your eye, Anatole?”

  My mind immediately flew to Carolyn. Damnation, I couldn’t even escape her in the comfort of my own dinner table. Picking up my goblet, I tried to drown out the sound of her strong, distinctly musical, distinctly human voice by downing all of the wine I’d been poured. My mother couldn’t be allowed to know that Carolyn Connors had caught my ey...Mostly because I was still denying the fact that she had. In my silence, Tormin mercifully picked up the conversation my mother had tossed out, speaking as he loaded his plate with every delicacy he could get his hands on.

  “The humans are delightful!” He boomed, his voice echoing through the mostly-empty hall. “Absolutely dizzying. Can you believe that they have never seen real magic before in their lives? Not even a little bit. I used a little bit of magic to pull some cloud cover over us during luncheon yesterday and you’d think I’d pulled the planets out of alignment instead.”

  More harsh words escaped my lips. “So, you’re happy to be a party trick to them? A distraction from their dull, pathetic little lives?”

  I should have known that’s why Tormin was so attached to the human’s cause. It wasn’t because he thought it was right or because he believed that we could defeat them no matter what threat they posed. It was because they’d played his ego like a fiddle, drawing them over to his side with a few wide-eyed compliments.

  Tormin waved his fork in my direction. “Brother, you’re missing out.”

  “And you’re being manipulated. They can see your arrogance from a mile away and know a little bit of admiration is enough to sway you.”

  “At least I can be swayed. You’re so blinded by your hatred that you can’t even speak to any of them.”

  “That’s not true.”

  Oh, Gods. I shouldn’t have said that. The entire tenor of the room shifted as they spotted the tiniest weakness in my bold facade. Confessing that I’d spoken to Carolyn Connors hadn’t been part of my plan this evening. I couldn’t believe I’d let my pride—and my overwhelming desire to never let Tormin win an argument against me—ruin everything. My mother’s eyes sparked, this time with genuine delight. Dammit.

  “Really,” she asked, dropping everything to focus the entirety of her energy in my direction. “Who have you spoken to?”

  “No one. She’s...” I thought back to the way we’d spoken, when I said she was nothing, a non-entity as far as I was concerned. Her shoulders had fallen the
n, her impenetrable fortress of strength had crumbled slightly. I ignored the stab of guilt that manifested near my heart and finished. “No one.”

  This time, it was my father’s attention that caught. He brightened as much as he ever allowed himself to in my presence. His eyes betraying everything he was thinking. “A she? A future Queen perhaps?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  Liar, a traitorous voice in the back of my head whispered. The second my glass magically refilled itself, I threw back another few gulps of wine and wondered when the damn stuff would take effect.

  “No,” Tormin snorted, helping himself to more of his wine glass as well. “I’m sure he’s just using her as some part of his plot against the rest of them.”

  My father’s face dropped. “A plot? What plot?”

  “Brother,” I began through a locked jaw, staring Tormin down with all the fury I possessed. “I think you’ve had too much wine for your own good. Maybe I should bring you back to Castle Bloc.”

  “Don’t be silly," Father said, his face grey and severe. "Your brother is just getting started and I’d like for him to finish. Tormin, what do you mean, a plot?”

  I glanced across the table at my mother, who watched the entire exchange between us with distant, hesitant eyes. She was usually my only ally at this table, and from the way she folded her hands in her lap and leaned back from the table, from all of us, I knew I wasn’t going to get any help from her today.

  “Anatole thinks that the humans are up to something and he wants to figure out what it is. He’s trying to investigate them so he can prove to you all that they’re dangerous before they try to hurt us. It’d be a decent plan if any of the humans were actually capable of doing anything to stand in our way.”

  “Anatole. Whoever she is, you will not harm a hair on that girl’s head. Or any of the humans for that matter,” my father snarled, his fist so tight around his wine goblet that his knuckles shone white.

  “Of course I won’t. Because someone put laws in place against that. But it would be easier to root out their plot if I was able to use any kind of advanced persuasion in my plot.”

  “You could just talk to them,” Tormin snarked. I didn’t dignify the joke by pretending it mattered at all.

  “They would lie. Saboteurs always do.”

  “There are no saboteurs,” Father cut in. I turned on him, shooting the full weight of my anger squarely in his direction. How could they not see? How could they allow themselves to be so willingly misled? What kind of spell were they wrapped up in that I’d managed to avoid? How could I break them free of it?

  “Because you’re a blind old man who has no idea how the world really works. They are trying to kill us, to wipe us out from the inside and you don’t want to see it because you’re terrified of the human menace.”

  “Or because I want peace with them and you can’t have peace without trust!”

  “How can I trust a people who are bent on destroying us?”

  It was then, when my father and I were at the edge of our seats, just a breath apart from exploding in anger and using our magic against one another, that my mother finally spoke up. Her voice was calm and still as a winter lake, placid and only mildly curious. She placed one calming hand atop my father’s, and even without injecting him with magic, she managed to somehow relax him out of his stupor. His breathing slowed. His crow lines softened. And he sunk back into his seat, relaxing against the backrest as my mother took control. “How do you know that there’s a saboteur? What makes you so certain?”

  “Adric told me. And I trust him more than I trust these humans.”

  Father raised an eyebrow. I knew that I should want to hide the truth from him, but he deserved to know that his exiled son still wanted to make a difference in our world, still wanted to do his part as a ruler. “You have been speaking to your brother?”

  “He sees the world clearly. Unlike you. He has told me there is a destroyer in our midst and I will not stop until he is found.”

  Another silence. Not awkward this time. Just...silent. And then, as she loved to do, my mother interjected with a bit of quiet, mystical wisdom.

  “Anatole, you should keep a close eye on Carolyn Connors.”

  My heart stopped. How did she know about Carolyn? I hadn’t once said her name. I hadn’t even given a hint of the mystery human girl’s identity. That could only mean one thing.

  There was magic in the air. Magic between Carolyn and I. But good or bad magic...my mother would never say. She never played chance with her visions.

  “What?” I asked, dumbfounded.

  My father’s voice turned acidic as he stared at my mother. “Wife. Do not encourage this—”

  But Mother wasn’t going to back down. Not about this. I didn’t know the reason. All I knew was that the set of her shoulders and the look in her eye was the kind she usually reserved for handing out royal proclamations. “Speak to her. Find out what she knows. She is the only one with no allegiance to Earth, with no reason to lie to us. Son, you must get close to her if you’re to find the truth.”

  I shook my head, unwilling to believe what I was hearing. “Carolyn Connors is a no one. She wouldn’t know the first thing about a plot to—”

  “Do you trust me, son?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then at least try.”

  For a moment, it was as if there was nothing in the entire universe but me, my mother’s pleading eyes, and Carolyn Connors. If this was what the magic of Velkin wanted, if this was part of a vision that my mother had...I had no choice but to obey. Or, at least, to pretend that I was obeying.

  “If you think it will help me find the truth.”

  “I do. She’s your only hope, Anatole. You need her.”

  And I would use her. Just probably not in the way that my mother was hoping.

  Chapter Nine

  Carolyn

  First days of school were actually, weirdly, one of my favorite things in the world. At least, they had been back on Earth. Summers were spent in my mom’s house, where I was unable to escape her and had no excuses for leaving the house whenever I sensed she was about to get too bad. First days of school, on the other hand, were a symbol of freedom. No matter how crappy school was, at least it was eight hours a day when I didn’t have to be anywhere near my mother or her clutches.

  That day though, when I woke to the sunlight and the birdsong of Velkin that marked the morning of my first day of school, there was none of my usual excitement or anticipation. I didn’t jump out of bed, throw my clothes on and escape out of the door before anyone could say anything to me. This time, dread knotted in my stomach, sitting there like a block of lead weighing me further and further down into the sheets until getting out of bed seemed next to impossible.

  If I went to class today, I’d have to face The Elf Girl Gang, a load of coursework I didn’t have the first clue how to approach (Runes? Tarot Card reading? How on Earth was a human supposed to learn stuff like that?), and the possibility of getting in close with Anatole. None of that seemed particularly appealing. At least, not as appealing as staying in bed with a good book and pretending that the world outside of my window didn’t exists.

  Kyra didn’t share my dread. As the clock struck seven a.m., she slammed the door to my bedroom open, let herself in, threw the curtains around my bed back and shouted, “That’s it! I’ve let you sleep long enough! It’s the first day of school! The best day of the year! And it’s time for you to get out of bed, young lady!”

  “Young lady? We’re in the same class, Kyra,” I grumbled, rolling over and covering my head with a pillow to drown out her excitement.

  “That may be true, but Pixies are eternal, so to get to your maturity level, a pixie has to be at least two-hundred years old.”

  I was never going to get used to this place, was I? Everything was such a weird surprise; not even my best friend could just be normal. Ripping the pillow away from my face, I bolted upright in bed, watching her as she sel
ected a few outfits from my new wardrobe. “You’re two-hundred years old?”

  “Afraid so,” she said, shrugging as she compared a deep green skirt-set against a white dress with crimson trim.

  “I don’t think I can handle much more culture shock. My roommate is a two-hundred year old pixie. Learning this much crazy stuff all at once can’t be healthy.”

  Kyra disagreed with an all-too practical shake of her head, which sent her ringlets bouncing. “Learning a bunch of crazy stuff all the time is literally the definition of high school. Come on. You’ve got to get up if we’re going to make you look first-day fabulous.”

  My mind flashed to yesterday’s bathroom clash, where my clothes had been the thing to set them off, as if I were trying rise above my station as a pathetic little human or whatever just by wearing nice clothes. Standing out just wasn’t in my best interest at the moment. “I don’t want to look first-day fabulous. I just want to fit in.”

  “Why would you ever want to do that? How dreadful.” She smacked the heavy bedclothes, disturbing the rich fabric around my legs. “Now, come on. Get up before I charm a bunch of snakes into your bed.”

  I hadn’t told her about my run-in with the Elf Girl Gang yesterday or the way they’d ruined my clothes. When I’d gotten home from my meeting with Queen Freia, I slowly peeled off what was left of my dress and tucked it into a box under my bed, hiding the evidence from her entirely. I didn’t want her to feel like she’d let me down by not protecting me, and I didn’t want her to discover what they’d done to the beautiful dress she’d given me. Kyra was too sweet to have her heart broken like that.

  Without opening my mouth to make that particular confession, I crawled out of bed, despite the fact that my entire body protested at the move.