What kind of place would Spellwood be?
The name conjured images of thick forests and dark passages and towers covered in vines. Claws and teeth and dark horses. I shivered.
I went downstairs and found my mom and Grandmother Azalea at the table with a clutter of bizarre items spread before them on a leather cloth. Bottles, vials, quills, stones, and other arcane and otherworldly trinkets.
“What are these?” I asked. I touched a finger to a tiny dagger the size of my hand. A purple gemstone glittered at its hilt.
“These are for you to take to Spellwood if you wish,” my mom said. “We went through our old things while you napped. Some of these might prove useful to you.” She pointed to different jars, naming some of the herbs and crystals they contained. Things I’d never heard of before. “Here we have pink quartz. Blue asterine. In this, feathercorn. There, fishwinkle dust.”
I brushed my fingers over the things, wondering.
“What calls to you?” Grandmother Azalea asked. “Choose anything that seems like it ought to be yours.”
In the end, I selected the dagger, a necklace with a jeweled leaf dangling at the end, and a bottle filled with purple shards of crystal. The necklace was my grandmother’s, she said, and the knife and bottle of crystals were my mother’s.
After that, we made dinner together. The three of us, like we always did, except this time my chest was heavy with the knowledge that tomorrow I was going somewhere unknown. Spellwood. The sound of it tasted thorny on my tongue. I silently chanted it to myself as we boiled the noodles, chopped the tomatoes and fresh basil from Grandmother Azalea’s garden, and seasoned the sauce.
As we ate, I asked more questions.
“What happens if I go to this school? Will that make me a high school dropout? Will I be unable to graduate?”
My mom toyed with her food. “I’ve already spoken with your teachers. You’ve finished most of your final projects, and you’ve got all A’s, so you can be exempt from your exams. We’ll tell them you have a traumatic brain injury from the accident, have to see a specialist out of state and receive treatment, and cannot finish the last few weeks. They’ll still give you your diploma.”
“And if they need any persuading, we can buy a spell for it,” Grandmother Azalea added.
“And my friends at school? What will I tell them?” I protested, although honestly, I knew they’d all easily accept the story of my brain injury. I wasn’t particularly close with anyone this year. I’d had a childhood best friend named Lulu, but I hadn’t spoken to her in years, and my last best friend, Amanda Deere, had moved away two years ago. Since then, I’d drifted between friend groups without putting down any real roots.
“What was my father’s name?” I couldn’t believe I hadn’t asked that yet. Somehow, it had slipped my mind entirely. “You always told me it was John.”
My mom looked down at her spaghetti. “That was a lie. I’m sorry, Kyra. Your father’s name was Gajonadral. I referred to him as John when we were in the mortal world.”
“And… his last name? Do the fae have last names?”
“I do not know his family name,” she admitted. “Only that he came from the summer court.”
Gajonadral. I memorized the unfamiliar syllables. A hunger to know more about him gnawed at me even as I loathed him for abandoning my mom and me, and worse, sending his brother to destroy me afterward.
When we’d finished eating, we cleared the table and loaded the dishes. My grandmother made more lavender and chamomile tea. She handed me a cup. “With valerian root,” she said, brushing a hand down my cheek. “For calmness.”
My face must’ve betrayed my anxiety.
We sat in the living room, our feet curled beneath us, and I asked her to tell me about her life among the fae. She was hesitant, her words like water in a broken cistern, slow-flowing and at times unclear. She described a conifer forest lit by distant lights that winked among the treetops in colors of pink, gold, and pale blue, of men with teeth like needles and horses with feathers that covered their hooves and sprouted from their manes and tails. She told me of palaces built beneath hills, and out of interlocking trees, and from crystal stones. It was all wonderful, heady, and strange, and her descriptions were like something out of a fever dream.
“He had horns on his head,” Grandmother Azalea said. “Beautiful, curving horns, like a ram’s.” Her expression turned dreamy and remote, and I wondered how she could find such a thing beautiful, but I didn’t say that. I stayed quiet and listened, afraid that if I spoke, I might break the spell she was under.
Finally, when the clock read midnight, my grandmother and mom told me to go to bed. And while I lay beneath the covers, my stomach twisting with uncertainty, I heard the soft squeak of feet against the floor, and then my mom slipped into my room, lay down beside me, and cuddled me until we both fell asleep in the darkness.
I slept fitfully, my sleep threaded with dreams of men with faces like rams and horses with teeth like needles. I woke abruptly to the sun in my eyes and my mom gone. In the kitchen, I heard the sound of a teapot whistling.
I rose and went into the bathroom to stare at my face in the mirror.
I looked human. My eyes were hazel, my skin dark olive and faintly freckled, my hair black and snarled with a hint of my Grandmother Azalea’s curls. I had no needle teeth, no horns. No fairy wings.
Was this really what I wanted? To disappear to this strange school I’d never heard of before?
I grabbed my toothbrush and brushed my teeth while I thought about it. No, I didn’t want to go. I didn’t want to leave my home, my mom, or Grandmother Azalea. I didn’t want to leave my life and my friends. I didn’t have a lot of plans beyond graduation—I was going to go to the local community college, get a boring degree in something like business, and get a job to help pay the bills. But I wanted to stay here. We were the Three Musketeers. My grandmother, my mom, and me.
I didn’t want to go.
Right?
Actually, if I was honest with myself, somewhere amid the pit of terrible anxiety in my stomach was a flicker of excitement. My grandmother’s stories had taken root, and part of me wondered—what sort of things might be at this school? Would I see horses with feathers and lights among the trees? The words they’d used—Summertide and fishwinkle—drifted through my head.
A knock sounded at the door, and my mom peeked inside.
“We made your favorite breakfast,” she said. “After we eat…” She paused, and I knew.
It was almost time.
~
Mom told me it didn’t matter what I wore, but of course, it did. Even if I was going to change into a uniform later, first impressions were still first impressions.
But what exactly did one wear to a school for people with fae blood in their veins? Should I wear all black? Go all-out with contouring? Dust my cheekbones and eyelids with a glittery highlighter?
In the end, I kept things simple. My favorite pair of jeans, a hunter-green shirt that made my boobs look fantastic and left my olive skin glowing, and makeup and mascara that accentuated my eyes.
I felt casually confident, which is what I wanted to project.
After breakfast—which had been more of a brunch, considering the fact that I hadn’t woken until almost noon—my mom and Grandmother Azalea looked at the clock and then each other They pressed the leather satchel into my hands and walked with into my grandmother’s room. Grandmother Azalea put a necklace around my neck—a locket with both their pictures in it.
“It’s enchanted,” she told me. “Leave a scrap of paper inside, and we’ll be able to read it and respond. You can also send and receive proper letters at the school.”
We stood before my grandmother’s mirror, and she spoke a few words and blew the herbs from the letter onto the shiny surface, dusting it lightly.
“Are you performing magic?” I asked.
“It’s a simple spell sent by the school,” Grandmother Azalea replied. “Anyone
can perform it with the right ingredients.”
The mirror rippled and winked, and a cloudy image appeared within it as if we were looking through a screen.
I reached out a hand and touched the surface of the mirror, and it reminded me of water, with a brush of resistance to my fingers that gave under the slightest pressure. My fingers slipped through the mirror and into what felt like warm air on the other side before I yanked them back in astonishment.
I grabbed my mom’s hands and squeezed as panic threatened to overwhelm me.
“Where does it lead?” I gasped.
“To a place between this world and the fae one,” Grandmother Azalea said calmly. “It borders the fae lands. You will travel there with one step. It’s completely painless.”
“How will I get back to you?” I asked. “How will I contact you?”
“Use the necklace if you need to talk,” my mom said. “And send us letters. We’ll see you soon. Remember, we’ll be working to fix this. We’ll bring you home as soon as we can.” She swiped at a tear that shimmered at the corner of her eye.
“We’ll see you at Wintertide,” Grandmother Azalea added.
“When is that?” I exclaimed.
“Six months,” she promised, and then the mirror rippled again.
I took a deep, steadying breath, kissed them both on the cheek, and stepped through the glass.
CHAPTER SIX
I STEPPED THROUGH the mirror and onto soft green grass, caught a glimpse of lawn and a stone manor beyond, and then I promptly collided with someone else who had also just winked into existence. The force of the blow knocked me backward onto the springy lawn. The locket around my neck thumped against my collarbone.
“I beg your pardon!” the other person, a girl, said in a startled tone. “Are you all right?”
The girl bent over me in concern. She had warm brown skin, straight black hair, and eyes that were slitted like cat’s eyes. She reached down to help me up, and I saw that her hands each had six fingers. But they felt human and solid when she clasped mine, and she smiled at me with a friendly look.
“I’m fine,” I gasped. I had just noticed that she had the faintest striped markings along her temples and arms, and I was still processing this, trying not to stare. “And you?”
“Not a scratch,” she assured me.
We were standing, I noticed, in front of a lichen-flecked stone archway. It looked like a doorway, but the other side was just more lawn.
It must be the doorway that we’d both stepped through to enter Spellwood. We must have both chosen the same moment to enter. Hence our collision, I supposed.
I allowed myself to look around, taking in the scenery.
So, this was Spellwood Academy.
A jewel-green lawn stretched in either direction, surrounded by stone buildings that rose toward a cloudless blue sky. The air was warm and smelled faintly sweet, like roses. Turrets and parapets towered overhead. I saw a domed roof capping a rounded stone tower that was covered in red-tipped, thorny vines. A statue of a winged horse perched on the top, rearing on two legs with one hoof pointed toward the sky.
It was breathtakingly beautiful, and something in my chest lurched with the feeling that I was somewhere that might be called home, and even though the place was unfamiliar, it had an air to it that made me feel that I belonged there. Not in the cozy way that a child belongs in the arms of her mother, but the way a horse belongs on a windswept plain. It was, I suppose, in my blood.
“My name is Tearly,” the girl said, cutting into my thoughts and pulling my attention back to her. “I’m a third year. Have we met before? I’ve never seen you before, so you must be new.”
“This is my first year,” I said. “My name is Kyra—”
Before I could finish, the archway flashed with a bright light, and someone else ran into us as they exited the stone archway. Another girl, this one tall and willowy, with skin as pale as milk and eyes that were completely black. She tossed her pale, flowing hair and bared her teeth at us. They were pointed at the ends. “Get out of the way, mortals,” she hissed.
“We’re all part mortal here,” Tearly said, but the pale girl only flashed a smile bright with promises of pain and blood.
“I might have a few splashes of human blood,” she said in a voice as cold and sweet frozen sap. “But I will live for a thousand years, and you’ll be dead at eighty-five.”
“I should think living a thousand years would get monotonous after a while,” Tearly responded fearlessly. “Think of all those trips to the dentist.”
“You might be a renowned archer, Tearly,” the girl said, “but you’re not invincible. Think of what happened to your family.”
Tearly’s face tightened. “Better move along, or you won’t live to see those thousand years.”
The pale girl only sniffed and then stalked away, toward a stone mansion at the far end of the lawn.
I let out a shuddering breath. I felt as if a cold winter wind had whipped through my clothes and chilled me to the bone.
Tearly’s expression shifted, and she tucked away her scowl like it was a tattered handkerchief she didn’t want anyone to see. She turned back to me with a smile in place.
I wondered what the cold girl with the black eyes had meant about her family, but I wasn’t about to ask. The words had clearly been intended to hurt Tearly.
“Better take a step back,” Tearly said with a short laugh under her breath, and she grabbed my elbow and steered me a few steps away. “Don’t want any more collisions with the more unfriendly of the folk. Come on. I’ll walk you to the registration desk. We’re early, so if you get your room assignment now, you can claim the best bed.”
“Who was that?” I asked, glancing in the direction the pale, terrifying girl had gone. I heartily hoped she wasn’t my roommate.
“Her name is Isadora,” Tearly said. “A fourth-year student. She’s from the winter court. The puns practically write themselves, don’t they?”
“Is it true?” I asked.
“What, that I’m a renowned archer? I don’t like to brag, but I am the best shot at Spellwood Academy.” Tearly grinned at me and flipped her hair away from her eyes. “I know that wasn’t what you were asking. Is what true?”
I swallowed hard. Just asking gave me chills. “Will she live a thousand years?”
“Probably,” Tearly said with a shrug. “She’s the daughter of a queen. She has a lot of magic in her veins—and up her butt, judging by her attitude.”
I was startled into laughter.
“But don’t let me fool you,” Tearly added, hooking an arm through mine and pulling me along as she started to walk toward the largest of the stone buildings. “She’s dangerous and mean. You should probably steer clear of her. I’m just a glutton for punishment, as my father would say. I provoke everyone. But don’t be like me. Don’t shoot witty comebacks at the scary-looking students. Especially the fourth years. They aren’t afraid of anyone.”
“Okay,” I said. “Any other advice?”
Tearly tapped a finger against her chin thoughtfully. “Don’t go into the crypt at night or the labyrinth at all. Don’t attend any Basilisk parties—they’re dangerous. And don’t attend any Toadcurdle parties—they’re boring. Don’t ever go hiking in the south woods alone at night. Don’t go into the west woods alone either, come to think of it. Don’t eat the meat in the cafeteria on Tuesdays, the prevailing theory is that it’s rat meat. The cooks here are rather economical, and we do get large rats in the labyrinth—”
“What’s Basilisk and Toadcurdle?” I interrupted. Rat-meat rumors could wait. I wanted to hear about those words.
“Societies,” Tearly said. “You’ll have to join one, everyone has to.”
“And there’s a labyrinth?”
“Girl,” Tearly said. “You have so much to learn about this place.”
We reached a set of stone steps. At the top was a door of solid wood, carved with intricate depictions of hoofed boys and winged g
irls and old women with snake bodies. It was the kind of thing you could get lost looking at—your eye kept finding new and startling things to focus on—but then Tearly was pulling on the dragon-shaped handle, and the door opened to admit us into a vast foyer with a round skylight of stained glass high above us.
“How many are there?” I asked. “Societies, I mean?”
My voice echoed in the foyer.
“There are six, three for boys and three for girls—well, anyone can join any of them, but there’s a bit of a gender divide anyway. Toadcurdle for the oddest among us, Dewdrop for those who want to sit on the grass and have book picnics and eat cupcakes, Stormtongue for those who like to debate and conversate and put on plays, Flameforge for the valiant and clever who like exploring the wild woods and testing their mettle, and Basilisk and Briar for the evil students.”
“Evil students?”
She waved a hand. “You know—the social climbers, the schemers, the political players. The rich snobs.”
“Which are you in?” I asked. I was guessing she’d say Stormtongue.
Tearly rolled her eyes. “Ugh, I’m in Dewdrop—I was a nervous first year, and I had a crush on a student in that society. Of course, they didn’t give me the time of day, and now they’ve graduated while I’m stuck with the ninnies.” She glanced me over. “You look like you might enjoy Flameforge. Just a guess.”
I liked the sound of cupcakes and book picnics, whatever that was, more than wild woods and mettle-testing, but I didn’t argue with her assessment. “Which one was that again?” I wondered if I ought to be writing this down.
“Don’t worry,” Tearly said. “This will all be explained at orientation. And don’t worry about Basilisk or Briar either, they’re by invitation only, and they only invite the richest, snobbiest, most magic-blooded students of Spellwood.”
Spellwood Academy Page 3
