by Leigh Kelsey
Kati exchanged a wide-eyed glance with Naia, who was looking more ashen with every word out of the teacher’s mouth. This woman wasn’t fucking about; Kati made a mental note not to get on her bad side.
Of course, just having the surname Wilson could get her on everyone’s bad side these days.
For a split second, Kati cursed her brother for whatever he’d done, for all the fallout he’d run off and left them to deal with. But she couldn’t hate him; she had to believe in him. She was the only one who did. Everyone else, even their mum and dad, thought he’d done it. Killed that guy.
“Is everyone listening? Speak now if you can’t hear me clearly,” the professor spoke, her voice raised. A quiet rumble of confirmation went through the crowd, Kati nodding absently even though the professor couldn’t possibly see her over the heads of much taller students. “Good. Now—Albright, Harley.”
Harley Albright awkwardly lifted her hand, glanced around as if for help, and answered, “Here?”
“Present,” the professor corrected in a cool voice.
Damn. Kati’s stomach writhed harder, nervousness clutching her hard.
“Present,” Harley corrected awkwardly.
“Hmm,” was the teacher’s only response. “Archer, Marigold”
The register went smoothly after that, no student daring to step out of line. The snooty bitch responded to Chen, Alexandra, a name Kati filed away. Even when Kati heard her own name and responded, “Present,” no one moved a muscle. If the students in the rows before Kati were surprised, they daren’t show it.
“Good,” the professor said when the last student—Valentine, Georgia—confirmed her attendance. “At this point, I am sure you’re all wondering at my identity. I am Mrs Balham. You’ll see me for your potions and poisons lessons on Wednesday evenings. I expect you to arrive prepared to learn, and to pay proper attention. Failure to do so will result in the poisoning of yourself or your fellow students, and could cause a plethora of potion-related injuries, my least favourite being the inevitable face melting.”
Kati gulped, picturing her own face sliding off her skull. No, thanks.
“Now that you’re all present and accounted for, follow me into the assembly hall where Madam Hawkness, our esteemed headteacher, will formally welcome you to your first term of Second Breath Academy.”
A LIST OF TEACHER’S NAMES YOU’LL FORGET IN A MINUTE
As Mrs Balham led them up the stairs and into the academy, Kati got her first glimpse of the woman. She blinked, staring at the teacher as she briskly ushered them into the entrance hall, muttering to keep up. Kati had been expecting a tall, pinched-faced woman with a tight chignon and a long, dour dress. Instead Mrs Balham was a sturdy woman with a square jaw and cropped blonde hair tipped in red, dressed in biker leathers and big, heavy-looking boots.
Well. That’d teach Kati to jump to conclusions.
Naia gasped, grabbing Kati’s arm and earning her a slant of a look. “Look,” Naia breathed, gazing up at the ceiling, undeterred by the flat glare Kati had sent her way. “The Diamond Rotunda! I’d heard the stories and read all the books about it, of course, but to see it…”
Kati pried the girl’s fingers off her arm, throwing a casual glance above their heads—and inhaled a surprised breath. Above the entrance hall, and past two floors of staircases, was a glittering dome made of what appeared to be diamonds—white, red, champagne, green, cognac, and black varieties, all clustered into a stained-glass-like window. It threw multi-colour spotlights onto the double sweeping staircases in the lobby and the many mezzanine levels that hovered above their heads.
It was, Kati had to admit, pretty damn awe-inspiring. Would they take any lessons up on the top floor, just underneath it? Kati couldn’t imagine ever being stressed or angry up there; it must have had the same wonder and grandeur as a cathedral.
“Keep up,” Mrs Balham barked ahead, and Kati realised almost everyone had stopped to stare at their surroundings, from the marble busts of previous headteachers—Kati’s favourite was a severe looking woman with a knife between her teeth named Ingrid the Terrible—to the vaulted windows letting in pale light and setting dust motes spinning through the air, to the many corridors and rooms branching from the lobby, and that impressive staircase.
There were statues, busts, and paintings everywhere, and Kati even recognised a few of their subjects—an oil masterpiece of Mistress Halliwell, who’d established the academy and taught for over a hundred immortal years; a bust of Lord Montag-Mayhew, who’d first discovered that the underworld could be reached by portal sigils; and Gracious Campbell, the world’s first necromancer.
“Into the assembly hall,” Mrs Balham ordered. “That’s it, this way, chop chop.”
Kati followed the stream of new students through the vast hall, wondering for a second how it was so bright and airy when the whole thing was made of dark stone before she remembered the castle was steeped in magic.
“Do you think we’ll get our dorm rooms tonight?” Naia gasped. “I’ve been dreaming about mine ever since I was small. I hear the female dorms are on the west side of the castle, and you can see all the way across the valley, the lake, and the woods!”
“The teachers don’t assign dorm rooms,” a bright voice said to their right, and Kati peered over Naia’s shoulder at the girl who’d spoken: she was almost as short as Kati with a delicate pink hijab, matching sari and coat, and the most flawless make-up Kati had seen outside of Instagram.
“Cute cactus,” she said, beaming at the spiky little plant in Kati’s hands.
Kati just blinked at her in wonder for a second before she scrambled her wits and re-applied the resting bitch face. But she had seeerious winged-liner envy. And that contour. Kati wondered if the girl could teach her how to get that look before she shook herself; she wasn’t here to make friends or master make-up. She was here to learn how to be a necromancer, graduate, and under no circumstances get noticed, in trouble, or involved in anything relating to the prophecy.
Naia meanwhile was opening and closing her mouth. “If they’d don’t assign them, who does? The matron?”
“No,” the girl said with a bubbly laugh. It was unexpectedly kind, no nastiness in it despite the popular girl vibe Kati got from her. “We pick who we room with. Isn’t it brilliant?”
Naia looked personally offended but she managed a nod and a smile. “Yeah. Definitely. I love having free reign and absolutely no rules or guidelines to follow.”
“Right?” the girl said emphatically. “Me too!” She held out her hand to Naia as the three of them finally reached the doorway into the assembly room. “I’m Rahmi Qureshi.”
“Naia Clarke,” she replied, going from surly to stunned, possibly at Rahmi’s exuberance.
“And you?” Rahmi asked, smiling at Kati.
Kati sighed, muttering, “Katriona Wilson. Call me Kati.”
“Bloody hell,” Rahmi whispered. “Theo Wilson’s sister?”
“Yep,” Kati said caustically, glancing around at the vast room as they stepped into the assembly hall. Chairs were arranged in rows from the back of the room where they entered all the way to the front, where a podium hulked on a set of stairs, presumably so everyone in the back could see. All along the left wall were tall, arched windows depicting scenes in stained glass—the windows Kati had been able to see from outside, with the same glorious and gruesome images.
The right wall was occupied not by more paintings as she’d expected but by newspaper clippings in frames. Huh. Were they students’ accomplishments or articles on the academy’s bloody history? Kati wanted to snoop but she was being herded down the aisle between chairs and didn’t have the opportunity to.
“Well,” Rahmi said, battling the flow of students to keep up with Kati. “It’s good to meet you, Kati. You should know I don’t believe everything I read online or in the papers.”
Kati didn’t know how to reply to that. “Thanks,” she went with, not that her tone sounded very grateful. She duck
ed into the next available seat, dropping her bag at her feel and hunching over, her face set in an expression that, if all went well, broadcasted the fact that she wasn’t interested in small talk.
“I can’t believe they even let her in,” Alexandra Chen’s sharp voice came from the seat behind Kati. Perfect. She wasn’t even keeping her voice down. Well, fuck her. Kati wasn’t going to be intimidated; she straightened her shoulders, kept her face forward, and pretended not to hear even as her ears went red hot. “It’s a safety hazard, honestly. What if she kills someone like her psycho brother?”
Kati’s hand itched to slap her but she resisted, if only because she didn’t want to get thrown out of SBA.
“Ignore her,” Rahmi whispered, leaning across Naia. “She’s always foul like this—I live down the road from her.”
Kati shrugged, keeping her eyes fixed forward at the dais and the row of chairs around it. For teachers, she assumed. “I don’t care,” Kati muttered, monotone. But it was pretty obvious by the dead feeling inside her chest and her hands curling into fists that she did care. She could handle people talking shit about her, but Theo … hell no. He was her brother.
And no matter what anyone said, no matter what the papers proclaimed in bold headline print, he wasn’t a murderer. He wasn’t. It had to have been an accident. Theo would never have hurt anyone on purpose; it just wasn’t in him.
“Ooh, look,” Naia breathed, inching forward in her seat and gripping her stack of books hard enough to whiten her knuckles as a door set in the wall to their right opened, admitting a stream of people. There were men and women of all sorts of ages, sizes, shapes, ethnicities, and appearance.
There was a sixty-year-old man in a faded brocade waistcoat and jacket, using an eagle-headed walking stick to cross the room despite the fact he was a ghost and could have floated; a woman with curly red hair staring at the new students with a discerning eye; a distracted-looking old woman wearing a moth-eaten chintz-pattern dress; a forty-something man built like a tank who marched to his chair; a big woman with candyfloss-pink hair who gave them a beaming, welcoming smile; and a man who looked abnormally ordinary after the parade of eccentrics.
The last man was only a few years older than the students, and had a tired, friendly look about him, curiosity in his bespectacled eyes as he scanned the new students. He wore what Kati considered standard teacher fare—a pale blue dress shirt rolled up at the sleeves, a thin tie, and brown trousers with a wand sticking out of the pocket—and his muddy brown hair flopped over his forehead in a very teacher-like manner, his face fairly forgettable until his curious stare passed over Kati and those eyes. Damn, they were as sparkly as the Diamond Rotunda, and the brightest blue Kati had ever seen. Her nan would have said he had Paul Hollywood eyes, and she would have been right.
“Oh here she comes,” Rahmi whispered, and at Kati’s side, Naia bounced in her seat.
Kati was still looking at the blue-eyed teacher—quite shamelessly trying to glimpse another flash of those Caribbean blues—but she turned to face the open door as a woman breezed into the assembly hall. She was the epitome of headmistress-ness, in a sweeping peacock-blue cloak, her strawberry-blonde hair artfully arranged on her head, and a pair of horn-rimmed glasses dangling on a chain around her neck. The woman, who had to be Madame Rosalea Hawkness, didn’t take a seat like the other teachers had; she headed right for the podium and tapped the top of it with a pure white wand.
Naia made a noise somewhere between a squeal and a whimper. “The Angel-Wand! The wand that defeated the Black Brooms and finally took down Lady LaVoire after thirteen years! I never thought I’d see it in person.”
Kati stiffened at the mention of the Black Brooms. Nobody spoke of them anymore, except in hushed whispers, as if anything louder might bring them back. The papers had thrown around the idea of Theo being the new Lady LaVoire after the events of last December. Not that anyone thought a seventeen-year-old boy could massacre and terrorise the entire supernatural community.
It had been nine years since the Black Years ended, since the woman standing at the podium in front of them had led a team of gentry—law enforcers and powerful death magicians—into a secret base of Black Brooms and obliterated them, and even though the fear lingered, and even Kati’s parents seemed convinced they’d appear again, it was pretty clear they were disbanded or dead.
The body of Lady LaVoire had been petrified and put on display outside the York Museum of Darke Magic, there for anyone who was still afraid of the Black Brooms to look at and know they were safe. And the wand that had done that was a couple meters in front of Kati, shining like a white star as Madam Hawkness’ voice rose to fill the room.
“Good afternoon, students.” She had a rich, velvety quality to her voice that was unexpected for a former gentry. Kati’s heart raced, expecting the headmistress to glance down at the register that had been placed on the podium, notice Kati’s name, and instantly tell her to leave. But the woman just glanced up and gave them all a wide smile. “As you’ve probably deduced, I am Madam Rosalea Hawkness, the headteacher of Second Breath Academy for Necromancers and Reapers. The impressive array of people in the seats behind me are your professors, two of whom are your dorm masters. Ladies, you’ll report to Miz Jardin.”
Miz Jardin, not Mrs Jardin. The fat candy-floss haired woman gave a wave, the beads on her tea dress rattling.
“And gentlemen, you’ll report to Lavellian.”
The brocade waistcoat ghost stood and bowed, twirling his golden walking stick like a baton. Kati blinked at the dramatic display, but she kind of admired his flair.
The headteacher went on to introduce all the other professors but Kati didn’t even attempt to keep all those names in her head. She was having trouble just holding onto Naia’s, Rahmi’s, and Alexandra fucking Chen’s names. The one she did remember was Mr Worth, the guy with the floppy brown hair and sparkly blue eyes, their new-to-the-academy death magic teacher.
“Now that the introductions are out of the way,” Madame Hawkness said with a wry smile, “I’d like to thank you for choosing to attend our great academy. There are many important decisions in your futures, about your career, your magic specialisation, and simply who to befriend and who to become arch enemies with.” She gave a smoky laugh, awkwardly echoed by her audience. “But by choosing Second Breath Academy, you’re already on the best path available to you. You likely already know of many of our graduates, so I won’t bore you with the details, but simply make a promise to you: whether you want to become a gentry, a practising necromancer, a private reaper, or join the Congregation of Paranormals, the fine teachers behind me will do everything to help you achieve those goals.”
Kati debated yawning. It was all so predictable.
“Now,” Madame Hawkness concluded, “Ladies to the left, men to the right, and your dorm masters will show you to your rooms. Have fun selecting your roommates, and choose wisely at your first SBA dinner. Some food is more than it appears...”
Kati rolled her eyes. No part of this would be fun, not with Theo’s darkness hanging over her like a shadow blotting out the sun. And eating dinner in a hall full of people who either hated or feared Theo and the Wilson name sounded like hell.
“I’m so excited,” Naia breathed as they got to their feet, her brown eyes so wide behind her glasses and her face split by a huge grin. “Aren’t you, Kati?”
“Thrilled,” she deadpanned.
CATGOYLES … WHO KNEW?
Miz Jardin led the way from the assembly hall, back through the lobby and past its collection of busts and statues, and up a black stone staircase. Vaulted arches led to more corridors and rooms than Kati had seen in her life, the scope of the castle beginning to impress itself on her as she followed the pastel pink head of Miz Jardin up twisting staircase after twisting staircase, sunlight slanting through the many windows and making the Diamond Rotunda sparkle like it had an inner sun.
Their voices sounded different up here, echoing off the cool
stone. Across the network of stairs and landings, Kati could make out the gold-tipped walking stick and bright red waistcoat of Lavellian—Professor Lavellian? Mr. Lavellian? The headteacher had introduced him simply as Lavellian—his jubilant voice amplified by the acoustics.
“Keep up, dears,” Miz Jardin said, pausing at the next wide landing to gather them together. “Now, don’t you go worrying about getting lost—it’s inevitable on your first week at the academy, and don’t worry about remembering this route. I thought I’d take you the long way around, just for fun, but you can access the dorms from the ground floor. If you lose your way, don’t hesitate to ask any member of staff for directions, or if none of us are around, the catgoyles can help you.”
“Catgoyles?” a reedy voice asked, and Kati craned her neck, trying to place the voice to a face. The horsey-looking girl who’d been clutching a designer satchel behind Alexandra Chen on the bus had spoken. Kati didn’t know her name, nor did she care to, but she marked the girl by appearance if only to head in the opposite direction whenever she saw her. Honey-coloured hair straightened within an inch of its life, a pastel lilac headband holding most of it back, and a dozen necklaces hanging from her neck.
Kati could have spoken up and said that her brother had told her about the stone guides and guardians of SBA—though he’d neglected to mention they were feline-shaped—but she kept her mouth shut. She’d had a shitty enough day; she didn’t need to remind them of the shadow Theo had placed over her entire family.
“Yes, dear,” Miz Jardin said with a sunny smile. “You must have noticed them on your way into the academy. These delightful creatures.” The teacher reached a pudgy hand towards the wall beside them where a scrunched-face stone cat with wings and massive claws hulked, and scratched the statue under its chin.
