With that, she slipped inside.
I turned on my heel and returned to the North Tower, my head spinning.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
“ELOME?” LYRICA INHALED in astonishment. “She’s a princess from the autumnal court! You’ve made a politically powerful friend!”
“To be fair,” Tearly interjected, “the autumnal court has a lot of princesses, since the king has twelve wives.”
“Thirteen,” Hannah corrected automatically. “And half of the wives have consorts of their own. It’s a polyamorous situation.”
“Still,” Lyrica said, her eyes wide. “She’s a good person to make friends with.”
“I don’t know that we’re friends,” I protested. “She seemed more pleased about the fact that Marit seems to hate me than anything else. But she was nice to me, I guess.”
We were sitting on my bed, eating the cupcakes Lyrica and Tearly had brought back from their meeting. Apparently, the others girls’ introductions to their societies had gone well. Dewdrop had served cupcakes and sang songs the whole time, and Flameforge had made all their new members climb a cliff and jump into the river. Both Lyrica and Hannah were thrilled.
I was just relieved to have the taste of dirt out of my mouth.
“And I’m on the student council now,” I said, licking a crumb from my finger. “Is that good or bad?”
“Well, in most of the societies it’s a coveted position,” Tearly explained. “But you have to go to meetings and do a lot of extra work. Naturally, lazy elites don’t want any part of it.”
“Do we have any power?”
“Not really,” Tearly said with a shrug. “You listen to student complaints, plan events, solve disputes, and fix problems around the school. Except the council usually doesn’t get much done, because they can’t come to any kind of consensus. Any new measures have to have five votes to pass, and good luck getting that kind of agreement from everybody.”
“Wonderful,” I muttered. “I wish I’d joined Stormtongue. I bet they had tea and a nice debate for their induction ceremony. Or Dewdrop. Hell, I’d be happier in Toadcurdle, I bet.”
“Have another cupcake,” Lyrica said in sympathy.
I took the confection from her gratefully. These cupcakes were less elaborate than the ones from society night—they were topped with lifelike flowers made from spun sugar—but they tasted just as delicious, and I was hungry and nervous for the future.
What had I gotten myself into?
~
The first student council meeting was held the next day in the bottom level of the library. I arrived early, not wanting to enter to a wall of stares, and found Toadcurdle’s representative already sitting at the table with his hands folded in front of him. He wore thick eyeglasses that were rimmed in brass and looked like something from a steampunk cosplay. His hair was reddish brown, his skin was the color of amber, and he had impossibly long fingers.
“Hello,” he said jovially as I took a seat. “I’m Gill. You’re the middling that got into Briar, aren’t you?”
“Kyra,” I said, and I sighed. “And yes.”
Gill appeared sympathetic. “What made you do it?” he whispered.
“Spite,” I replied, and he chuckled.
The library door opened, and two more representatives entered. A curvy girl with silvery hair carrying a binder stuffed with pages, and a boy with eyes like a snake. They sat down and introduced themselves. The girl was from Stormtongue, the boy from Flameforge. Their names were Fallon and Iain.
Dewdrop was next, and its representative, Lula, was as sweet as one of its famed cupcakes. She had pink hair and big, blinking eyes. She sat next to me nervously, as if she wasn’t sure what I was going to do if she got too close. She was also carrying a binder stuffed with pages.
The Basilisk chair sat empty, and we waited. Finally, Iain sighed as if he wasn’t surprised and suggested we begin our meeting.
“Can’t,” Fallon said primly. “It’s against the rules.”
“We’ll be waiting all day,” he argued.
I got the sense this was a common disagreement between them.
Just then, the door opened, and the Basilisk representative strode inside.
My stomach dropped.
It was Lucien.
His dark gaze swept over me without stopping. He pulled out a chair and sat without a word.
“You’re late,” Fallon said.
Lucien shot her a glower, and she apparently decided not to press the issue further.
“First item of business,” she said, opening her binder to the first page. “I’ve catalogued all of the things that we should attempt to accomplish this year—”
“Of course,” Iain interrupted. “Let me guess. You want the wishing well bricked over, and the paths into the forest closed off, and the labyrinth filled with dirt?”
“First years keep filling the well with junk,” Fallon exclaimed. “And someone is always getting lost on the forest paths. It’s a looming threat. And don’t get me started on the labyrinth—”
“We have to have a little risk in life,” Iain argued. “If you had your way, we’d all be locked up in the school with spells all around and nothing to do but study and look out the heavily charmed windows.”
“And what’s wrong with that?” Fallon shot back. “Spellwood is dangerous—”
“And it’s meant to be,” a voice interrupted.
We looked up and saw a woman dressed in the billowing school robes of a teacher approaching us. She had hair the color of kelp and webbed ears that reminded me of fins on a fish. Her eyes were bright and restless, like jewels. I recognized her as Professor Yuri, who taught classes for the elite track. She was from the water court, and in addition to her professor duties, led swimming classes in the lake and rivers around the school.
“Hello, Professor Yuri,” Fallon said in a tone that was less than hospitable. “I see you are still sentenced to student council duty.”
“Hello, Fallon.” The professor took her place at the head of the table with a sigh that spoke volumes about her enthusiasm for student council duty. “I see you have managed to get elected for a fourth time.”
Fallon folded her hands. “I was unanimously voted in.”
Professor Yuri rubbed a hand across her eyes. “And yes, Spellwood is dangerous. A little danger in a safe setting is necessary for the students to learn to navigate the perilous courts that await them at home, especially our mostly-mortal students. If we pad every corner and spell every step, they might be safe here, but what about when they leave?”
“Agree to disagree,” Fallon said, jutting out her sharp chin.
I got the feeling Professor Yuri and Fallon disagreed a lot as well.
“But,” Fallon added before anyone else could speak, “surely even you can see the prudence in closing the labyrinth? It’s a death trap. Nobody is allowed down there anymore. Not after what happened—”
Professor Yuri’s gaze sharpened.
“Even I know when to move on from a dead horse, Fallon,” she said. “Let’s continue with the agenda, shall we? Summertide. Who’s in charge of the maze?”
“Dewdrop,” Fallon announced with a frown. “As usual.”
After what happened? Curiosity rose in me, sharp and insistent. I needed to know about all the dangers here at Spellwood.
To my disappointment, nobody said anything else about the labyrinth.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
SUMMERTIDE DAWNED BRIGHT and clear, which Lyrica said the water court would be sad about. Apparently, they fervently hoped every year for a rainstorm. The air was hot and still, the morning heavy with anticipation of the holiday.
While we brushed our teeth and changed out of our pajamas, Hannah and Lyrica tried to explain Summertide to me.
“It’s the longest day of the year,” Lyrica said. “The fae—particularly the sun court and other seelie courts—have feasts and bonfires to commemorate it. My mother always invites every single one of m
y cousins, and they dance all night long. Everyone catches fireflies and makes small wishes, and then we leave sweets outside the front door in case the wisps overheard, because if they hear your wishes and then you leave them food, the wisps might grant your desires.”
“Is it real?” I asked. “The wishes, I mean? Do they come true?”
Hannah shrugged and grinned. “Sometimes.”
“Can you wish for anything?”
“No,” Lyrica said. “And they don’t last forever. One year I wished for black hair, and it was the color of a raven’s wing all summer long, but then it turned green, and I had to cut it all off.”
“Like Anne Shirley,” I said, and thought of Lucien and his books with a funny feeling in my stomach.
“Who?” Lyrica said.
“It’s a mortal thing,” I said.
“Oh,” Lyrica added. “Everyone carries things in their pockets that remind them of the people they love most. I’m going to be carrying a letter from my parents and a lock of my sister’s hair. What about you?”
“I don’t know,” I said, thinking of my lost locket. “I suppose I could carry a letter—”
A knock at the door interrupted us. Hannah opened the door and found a palm-sized envelope lying on the ground.
“Oooh,” she cried, and snatched it up. “A spellogram!”
“What’s a spellogram?” I asked.
Both of my roommates looked at me, and then each other.
“You open it,” Lyrica said.
I accepted the envelope and turned it over in my hand. A dab of blue wax sealed the paper.
“It’s a haunter,” Hannah murmured to Lyrica.
I slid my fingernail underneath the wax to break the seal, and the envelope snapped open like a trap. Sparks exploded from the paper and swirled up toward the ceiling. I dropped the envelope with a shriek.
A blue ghost screamed forth from the volley of sparks, its mouth gaping wide and its arms outstretched. It shot up and vanished in a cloud of smoke.
“What WAS that?” I gasped, both hands clutched to my chest.
Lyrica clapped her hands in delight. “A spellogram! The haunters are my favorite!”
“It’s a little piece of charmed paper,” Hannah explained when she’d wiped the tears of laughter from her eyes. “They’re only allowed on holidays, since they’re charms, but they’re just harmless illusions. I bet Tearly sent it.”
We found a giggling Tearly waiting at the bottom of the staircase, a hand clapped over her mouth.
“I could hear the screams from here,” she said with a laugh, swatting at the crumpled up spellogram that I threw at her head. “Come on, let’s get breakfast.”
There was no school, and the students roamed the campus in groups, released spellograms and shot off poppers full of flower petals, and played bowling games in the gardens. Decorations had appeared overnight—round, golden lanterns were strung everywhere, and lush greenery twined across the windows and doorways and in arches over the paths. The whole school buzzed with excitement, and the feeling was infectious.
Lyrica was practically skipping as we walked to the dining hall for breakfast.
“Later tonight,” she said, “there will be feasts, and roasted nuts and fruit on sticks, and of course, the maze.”
“Maze?” I asked.
“The Summertide maze is a tradition,” Hannah explained. “My grandfather’s annual mazes were always the best at our court.”
“And of course, the gowns,” Lyrica added. “And we can use charms on ours because it’s a holiday!”
Lyrica had been planning her dress for weeks, and even Hannah had been drawn into the fervor. They’d begged me to let them style me, and I’d agreed with nervous anticipation. I had no idea what I’d be wearing to the celebrations that evening.
“You’re going to love your dress,” Lyrica assured me. “I’m so excited.”
We reached the main buildings and stopped to stare. A maze had sprouted seemingly overnight on the great lawn, made of bloodbrambles, the same thorny bushes that crawled up the sides of the main school buildings. It was so big that I couldn’t see the end.
“How far does it go?” I asked as we skirted the edge of the maze on our way to the dining hall.
“You’ll have to find out tonight!” Lyrica called in delight, dancing ahead of us up the steps of the main building.
I felt someone watching me, and I turned in time to see Lucien slipping away around a corner. I might have tried to follow him, but then someone set off a round of spellograms on the path, a whole host of haunters that screamed and swirled toward the sky in a cacophony of shrieks, and then Lyrica and Hannah dragged me inside to get our own spellograms from the school office, where they were passing envelopes out like candy.
I didn’t see Lucien again.
~
We spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon ambushing each other with spellograms and playing a fae game on the lawn that reminded me of chess, if the chess pieces were made from large stones that had to be dragged into place with leather slings. In the evening, when dusk approached, we returned to the North Tower to get ready for the night celebration.
My dress was still a mystery to me. The girls made me close my eyes to get dressed. They wanted a big reveal.
“Okay, open your eyes,” Hannah said, and I dropped my hands from my face and looked down at my Summertide gown.
“What do you think?” Lyrica demanded. “Did I do a good job?”
A gown of soft green and gold silk fell in asymmetrical folds to my knees. The bodice was green with gold roses creeping up it and wrapping around my left shoulder and arm in a single, cunning sleeve. The roses spilled down the skirt, transforming into a shower of silken petals that shimmered and rippled as I turned.
“It’s amazing,” I whispered, running my fingertips across the fabric.
Lyrica beamed. She was dressed in green and violet, with butterflies spelled across her skirt. Their wings fluttered as she moved. “Summertide dresses need to be good for dancing and running through mazes. And of course, the roses were a must. This way, everyone will remember that you’re Briar. We won’t let the bastards forget.” She added in a pleased tone, “Hannah told me that’s what mortals call annoying people. It doesn’t always mean they are illegitimately born.”
“Right,” I said, laughing.
Hannah wore a shiny black jumpsuit with a long over-dress that fell almost to her ankles. The edges of the fabric flamed and smoked as if they were on fire, but they never burned up.
“Look,” Lyrica said to me as she fussed with my skirt, “there are pockets for your lucky things that remind you of the people you love most. Right here, amid the folds. Isn’t that cunning? Sometimes people forget to include them, and then they have to wear little bags around their necks called pocket necklaces. But you’ll have the real thing.”
“Thank you,” I said. I still wasn’t sure what I was going to put in my pockets to represent my mom and Grandmother Azalea. My gaze fell on the shelf above my bed, where I’d placed the things they’d given me before I came: my mom’s dagger in its jeweled scabbard, and my grandmother’s jewel-leafed necklace and bottle filled with purple shards of crystal.
I selected the knife for my mom and the necklace for my grandmother and placed one in each pocket.
“Enough hanging around,” Lyrica said impatiently after we’d admired each other’s outfits for a few minutes. “Let’s get to the celebration!”
The sunlight had turned a drowsy golden-orange when we left the tower. The air was warm and still, and music drifted from the direction of the great lawn. The sound of it filled me with the itch to dance, and I remembered society night and felt a thrill of foreboding.
But no. I was safe now. I was a member of Briar, and nobody would mess with me. I’d stay with my friends and away from anything that might be charmwine.
The golden lanterns decorating the campus had already be lit, and they glowed above our heads as we rea
ched the festivities. The doors of the school were thrown wide open, and music spilled outside along with the sounds of laughter and chatter. Bonfires flickered along the paths, and students clustered around them, dressed in loose, glittering finery.
Tearly spotted us from where she stood beside one of the bonfires, her expression anxious, and she rushed over to link arms with me.
“There you are,” she said. “I’ve been waiting and waiting.”
She was dressed in a two-piece dress of dark gray that showed a strip of her stomach above a silver sash. The folds swirled like mist as she moved, and silvery blossoms fell to the ground in her wake.
“Tearly, stop stressing about the maze,” I said, because I hadn’t missed the anxiety still sparkling in her eyes. “It’s going to be killer.”
“I hope so,” she said, brushing her fingers across her eyes. “Everything hangs on this.”
“Remember how worried you were about society night?” Hannah adds. “And think about how amazing those cupcakes turned out.”
“I guess so,” Tearly murmured. She gave me an extra squeeze. “I’m a worried mess. I’m sorry.”
“Let’s eat,” Lyrica said, pointing at the open doors to the school. “It’s Kyra’s first Summertide ever, and we have to do everything.”
Long tables were laid out with a feast inside the dining hall. All the small tables and chairs had been cleared away to make room for a banquet of roasted game hens, fresh greens, piles of fruit, and bowls dripping with sweet and savory sauces.
We piled our plates high with food and went back outside to eat on the steps. As the sun sank beneath the trees and the day deepened into evening, the music played on, and the bonfires burned higher, piled with scented wood that smelled delicious and magical. Students danced around the fires. Fireflies winked in the darkness, and we watched as everyone got up to catch them in paper boxes.
“Here,” Tearly said, handing me one of the paper containers. “Make a wish, friend.”
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