“I do,” Tearly said, a proud note in her voice. “I’m the best shot at Spellwood, and in my court too, except for my brother—” She broke off, looking pained, and I wondered what about the mention of her brother caused her heartache. I remembered Isadora’s cruel remark the first day we’d met, and how Tearly’s face had stiffened with hurt and rage.
I wasn’t going to ask.
“Well, is there anything for those of us who aren’t amazing archers?” Lyrica asked.
“Most students spend a great deal of time with their societies,” Tearly said. “Or they hang out with friends. Playing games on the lawns, going on adventures in the west woods, asking questions at the wondering well—”
“Wondering well?” I interrupted, intrigued. “Do you mean wishing well?”
“No,” Tearly said. “The wondering well answers questions. It doesn’t grant wishes.”
A well that answered questions… I could think of a few uses for that.
“I’ve heard about the wondering well,” Lyrica said proudly. “Is it as magical as people say? Does it really work? I want to ask it about Alcorn.”
Tearly looked thoughtful. “I’ve got a break between classes soon. We could go together, all of us.”
“And I can skip mine,” Lyrica said. “It’s just Minor Potions. The professor never takes roll. He won’t even notice I’ve gone.”
Hannah and I were more reluctant.
“I’m already in trouble,” I said. “I don’t want to cut class and end up with more detention.”
“You all might be used to skipping school,” Hannah said, “but I never missed a day in the mortal world. I got awards for it every year.”
But as luck would have it, our next class ended up being cancelled due to a stink bomb released in the classroom, and we were left to wander on the great lawn in unexpected freedom.
Lyrica and Tearly found us soon after.
“We heard about your good fortune,” Tearly said with a grin. “Shall we check out the wondering well, then?”
~
The wondering well was located at the end of Westerly, behind a crumbling, moss-covered stone wall and a brace of trees with silver bark. The well was a bit unremarkable—just a circle of stacked stone, with a dilapidated roof smothered in vines and brambles.
We peered over the edge at the dark water far below. Our faces and a patch of sky reflected back at us, rippling and distorted.
“How does it work?” Lyrica asked, her voice echoing off the walls of the well.
“I read that you have to drop in a stone and ask a question,” Hannah said.
“Stones never work,” Tearly said. “Everyone’s thrown in a stone. The well doesn’t want stones. You have to put in something unique, or something that matters to you. A pencil. A journal. A piece of jewelry.”
Lyrica stared at her hand a moment, then pulled off her ring and held it out.
“Am I meant to marry Alcorn?” she asked, and let the ring drop with a plunk into the dark waters.
We waited, but no sound came from the well.
“Is it supposed to answer right away?” Hannah asked after a pause.
Lyrica leaned over the side and scowled. “I should bloody hope so. I just threw in my ring!”
“Hello?” I called, peering into the well, my locket dangling from around my neck and my hair falling into my eyes as I stared down into the musty darkness. “Can you answer our question, please?”
A ripple of wind brushed over me, raising the hairs on the back of my neck, and I felt the prickle of something like words forming at the edge of my hearing.
Sometimes love is fast as fire, sometimes love is fraught with ire, sometimes love is doomed at birth, and sometimes love has unexpected worth.
Tearly gripped the side of the well. “You got an answer!” she whispered in hushed excitement. “I’ve never heard it give an answer before!”
“But what does it mean?” Hannah asked. “How can it be an answer if you don’t know what it even meant?”
Lyrica appeared unperturbed by the perplexing nature of the answer. She clutched her hands to her chest, her eyes brimming.
Another brush of wind teased the edges of my hair. I stared deep into the well, my own question on my lips as I leaned far over the ledge, getting as close to the water as I dared.
“Who is trying to kill me?” I whispered to the water below, keeping my voice too low for the others to hear.
But I didn’t have any coins. Anything to throw in. With a sigh, I reached behind me to pull myself up, but the rock my hand landed on came loose. I pitched forward with a cry, and Tearly grabbed my wrist.
My locket caught on the lip of the well as I scrambled up again. The chain snapped, and the locket tumbled into the dark water as I cried out in horror.
Lyrica and Hannah rushed forward to haul me down from the well.
“My locket!” I yelped.
But the locket was gone.
And the otherworldly whisper came again, sweeping over me like a shiver.
Sometimes foes are mistaken for friends, and friends mistaken for foes. Sometimes danger is found in delight, and delight in dark of night.
I slammed my palm against the edge of the well as tears sprang into my eyes. “That isn’t an answer!”
I’d lost my locket, the only tangible reminder of my home, for that stupid, incomprehensible riddle?
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“I’M SORRY, KYRA,” Tearly said in an effort to comfort me at dinner over the loss of my locket. She had a frazzled look about her, as if she wasn’t used to her jaunts of fancy going so awry, and she wasn’t sure quite how to fix it. “I’m sorry you lost it. Truly I am.”
Lyrica added, “But on the bright side, I heard that once a girl caught her sleeve on the side, fell into the well, and drowned.”
“How is that the bright side?” Tearly demanded.
Lyrica’s eyes widened. “I just meant, she isn’t dead. You grabbed her arm and saved her from falling.”
I sighed. “You’re right. Thank you, Tearly. Truly.”
Hannah said, “You can get another locket, can’t you? Maybe one of the other students will trade you in exchange for one of your mortal things.”
I rubbed my forehead. The words from the stupid well kept running through my mind. It wasn’t just about the locket, but the dreams I’d had the night before, and that perplexing riddle.
Sometimes foes are mistaken for friends, and friends mistaken for foes.
Perhaps the person threatening my life didn’t seem so threatening from the outside? Were they someone my family believed they could trust? I thought about how my uncle had come to kill me as a baby and shivered.
Was it my family who was trying to kill me?
Sometimes danger is found in delight, and delight in dark of night.
Was that supposed to mean I was in danger at night?
“Let’s talk about something else,” Tearly suggested after another look at my face. “No more stories about drowned girls. There’s lots of other, more exciting things to talk about, like the war, for instance.”
“The war?” Hannah said in alarm. “What war? That wasn’t mentioned in orientation!”
Tearly grinned. “We haven’t talked about it yet, have we? It starts afresh in the fall every year. They don’t say anything at orientation because the teachers stay out of it, you see. It’s strictly student-led. And secret.”
“What is the war about?” Hannah asked.
“Oh, different things every year,” Tearly said. “Last year, someone pushed a fourth year into the lake at the edge of the west woods. The year before that, someone stole someone else’s journal.”
“People go to war over these things?” I asked, feeling somewhat alarmed.
“Oh, it’s just an excuse,” Tearly said. “Then, we strategize. Hold meetings. Make alliances. Of course, they’re all the same—Dewdrop and Toadcurdle, Stormtongue and Flameforge, Basilisk and Briar. Except on the years when Fl
ameforge wants to be loner heroes, and then Stormtongue sides with Dewdrop and Toadcurdle. There was one year they joined forces with Briar, but… well. It didn’t end well for them, so they vowed never again. Not that Stormtongue does much, usually—they’re more interested in putting on plays and debating useless topics like the mermaid question.”
I hesitated. “And the teachers don’t know?”
“What is the mermaid question?” Lyrica asked.
“Oh, the teachers know,” Tearly said. “Lots of them were students here once. But they look the other way as a professional courtesy, so to speak. I’ve heard them say it builds tenacity and fosters leadership skills among us. Or some nonsense like that. Anyway, as long as we aren’t breaking any of the rules, they don’t seem to care.”
“The mermaid question is an oft-cited argument among intellectual fae,” Hannah said in answer to my second question. “In the advent of a great battle between sea and land, do the mermaids owe their allegiance to the fish, or the humans?"
“What’s the answer?” I asked.
“There isn’t one. It’s just something people like to debate,” Hannah explained. “The answer you choose—and why—reveals your reasoning style and perspective on the world.”
“Typical Stormtongue,” Tearly added with an eyeroll. “They don’t want to fight in a war. They just want to spend all their free time debating about a hypothetical one.” But she sounded a little wistful, like she would have enjoyed being a part of the irony.
“Who usually wins the war?” I asked.
“Oh, Basilisk and Briar, usually.” Tearly made a face. “They both cheat egregiously, the bastards, and being elites, most of them know how to skulk and backstab and bribe the right people. Flameforge has its honest triumphs, however. Dewdrop and Toadcurdle almost never do.”
Lyrica looked over her shoulder like someone might be lurking behind her to drag her away by her hair. “But… we don’t even have societies yet. What happens to us?”
“Oh, the war doesn’t start until after the Summertide celebration,” Tearly said. “You’ll have pledged before then.”
I wanted to ask more questions, like what exactly was Summertide, and how did we celebrate it?
But then, a chime rang, and dinner was over. I reluctantly left my friends for the second round of my punishment, and the spoiled prince Lucien.
I was not looking forward to this.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
ONCE AGAIN, I arrived at the Cistern before Lucien. Dutifully, I accepted the offered hoe and shovel from Gallis and waged war upon the stubborn moss.
The patch I stood upon was dotted with white mushrooms, some of them smaller than my pinkie finger, others large enough to serve as a table for dolls.
I paused amid my struggle to pry up the clinging moss. A faint, silvery sound was coming from somewhere close by. Almost like the sound of wind chimes, if someone took the sound and stretched it out like taffy.
I looked over my shoulder for the source of the sound and saw Lucien on the other side of the Cistern, ignoring me as he bent over his shovel. The wind blew, catching the edges of his hair and blowing it over his eyes.
As if he felt the weight of my stare, he turned his head and caught me looking.
I blushed and looked away.
The silvery sound shivered in my ears and crawled into my head, and I found myself absently humming to it as I chipped away at the moss.
I glanced at Lucien and saw him gazing at me with an intense expression that made my stomach somersault.
Heat rose in my cheeks, but I was angry too. “What?” I snapped after he kept looking at me.
“Where’d you learn that song?” he asked.
“I just made it up,” I said, astonishment triggering an honest answer from me.
We looked away from each other at the same time. My ears burned, and I kept myself from humming for the rest of the time, though the song in my head begged to be given voice. It itched in my throat, but I ground my teeth together and stayed silent.
I didn’t see Lucien leave, but when I realized the stars had come out in the purplish night sky, he was already gone.
~
My most interesting class, called by the short and easy title Danger and Defense for Mostly Mortal Minds and Bodies, was held in the basement of the library on the third day of the week.
Our teacher was a young, handsome fae who introduced himself simply as Joras. No title of professor, nothing like that. He was barely older than a student, and he had dark hair, dark eyes, and pointed ears and teeth. Everything about him was sharp and hinted at lethal danger. Strange, shifting tattoos coiled around his arms and shoulders, images of suns and snakes doing battle.
The first day, when I arrived, a few jokes flew around the room about the incident in the other class. A few students jostled each other and teased each other about being turned into frogs.
“Students,” Joras thundered. “Silence.”
The class abruptly quieted.
Joras glanced down at a leather book inscribed with the names of the students in the class and then pinned his dark gaze on me. “Miss Solschild, is it?” he asked without looking away.
A shiver flitted across my skin. “Yes, sir,” I said, flushing at being called out immediately. What could I have possibly done? Did I already have a reputation as a troublemaker?
“There will be no charms used in my class, is that understood?”
I hadn’t performed the charm. I hadn’t done anything, and meanwhile, the elites strutted around campus acting like bullies and doing whatever they wanted. Was this a class thing? Was it because I was a middling who’d caused trouble? A nobody without a daddy as a king to smooth the way for me?
The injustice of it rose like bile in my throat, but I clamped my jaw on the protest I wanted to make and nodded stiffly.
“Good,” Joras said. He clasped his hands behind him and paced in front of the class. “This course is intended to teach you mostly-mortals about the dangers that could await you in the fae courts. Most of you here have barely set foot in one of the courts, and right now, you’re as defenseless as changeling infants. I intend to see to it that you all become wise and careful enough to avoid fae trickery and keep your heads should you venture into the fae kingdom someday.” He paused, and I was certain he was focusing his attention on me again, even though he was not looking at me. I straightened, determined not to do anything to get me sentenced to more punishment.
“What is your best defense against danger?” Joras asked.
“A sword,” one student called out.
“Spells,” cried another.
“Wrong. Both wrong,” Joras said severely. “Your best defense is the same as that of a mouse. Running away. Hiding. Playing dead. You only fight back if you must. And don’t even think about trying to work a spell. You’ll get yourself maimed or killed. Understood?”
We murmured assent, a few of the students looking disappointed. I think they’d been expecting a class filled with hand-to-hand combat and sword fighting. Instead, we were getting the fae version of abstinence-only sex ed.
“Let’s review just a few of the dangers that you could encounter in the fae world,” Joras said.
The dangers, it turned out, were many. There were flesh-eating unicorns that roamed the wilderness. Sirens that could sing their prey to sleep and then suffocate them with something called Death’s Kiss. The fearsome spidrys had the body of a scorpion but the face of a man, with bulbous black eyes and a cry like a woman in danger. Memory eaters devoured mortal thoughts, with attacks causing amnesia or death, and horses called nightmares that appeared only at night and caused strange, unsettling dreams in those who slept near them. And two-headed sunsnakes, and basilisks, and winterfolk, and wrogs and drogs, and babakoors, and simmergrins, and on and on. By the end of it, I was sure I’d already forgotten half of the things that could kill me, never mind the reasons why they were deadly.
When the class was over and we were gathering
our things to leave, Joras called out, “Miss Solschild, if you would see me after, please.”
“I’ll wait for you outside,” Hannah whispered, and then she joined the rest of the students and left me alone with my teacher.
Joras waited until I’d reached him. I stood before him, my fear of getting in trouble replaced by a simmering fury at being singled out and humiliated for doing absolutely nothing. I’d been a model student. He had no reason to pick on me. No reason at all.
“Yes?” I ground out through clenched teeth.
Joras pursed his lips. “I’ve already heard of your exploits, Miss Solschild. I wanted to remind you that I will not tolerate such behavior in my classroom.”
“You’ve already said that to me in front of everyone,” I said, trying to keep my tone even and failing.
“Temper, temper,” Joras tsked. “That’s exactly the sort of thing you need to be controlling, Miss Solschild. I will be watching you closely. No spells.”
“I don’t know any spells,” I burst out. “It was all a misunderstanding.”
“Dismissed,” he said simply, and ignoring my protest, he turned away.
Radiating anger, I stalked outside to meet Hannah.
“How did it go?” she asked as we walked back to our room together.
“I think we should call him Jor-Ass,” I growled.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I DISCOVERED THAT I enjoyed most of my classes, but Joras’s Dangers and Defense for Mostly Mortal Minds and Bodies was a constant thorn in my side over the next several weeks of the school year. It was useful—we learned the tricks and strategies of fae safety, like how to politely decline the invitation of a winterfellow, or how to fend off a nightmare with mint and wild fennel, about poisons and draughts, of bitterbliss water that made the drinker seek out foul and brackish water to drink, and charmwine, which made its fae drinkers drunk and its mortal and mostly mortal drinkers bound to obey fae commands.
But Joras didn’t seem to like me. He was forever snapping at me to pay attention, even when others around me were whispering and I was listening carefully. When we began learning methods of self-defense, he always picked me to be the one to go first. I was knocked on my back more times than I could count as Joras conjured beasts from mud and sticks to simulate the monsters we might encounter. He shouted instructions at me that I frantically tried to implement. More often than not, I ended up covered in mud while Joras informed me flatly that I would be dead in the fae world, eaten alive by a spidrys, trampled by a drog, or roasted by a flaming simmergrin.
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