I could have cried with relief. A huge weight lifted from my heart. “Right.”
“Since that’s decided, c’mon. I actually had something I wanted to show you out here besides my excellent kissing ability, and if we don’t hurry, we’ll miss it.”
“Miss what?”
“That’s the surprise.”
Hand in hand, we continued through the forest, veering from the Yellow Brick Road onto an unmarked trail. He moved with a confident ease, so I trusted he wouldn’t get us lost in faerie territory. Tir na Nog seemed to stretch out forever, and I wasn’t familiar enough with the realm to make my way back on my own.
He took me through a gorge with a bubbling brook then into a thicket of tall, slender trees with silver trunks and dark violet leaves. A couple of moss-colored bunnies scampered away from us.
“How much farther?”
“Just ahead.”
The moment we stepped from the tree line into the meadow, a cloud of winged creatures took flight and swirled above us in a spiral of rainbow hues. There must have been at least a thousand of them, and no two looked alike, each little faerie creature no larger than my palm. Some were in earth tones and others in jewel colors, different patterns as unique as thumbprints.
I gasped, one hand on my chest, the other still joined with Gabriel’s. Minutes passed before either of us spoke, and when he did, his voice was a gentle whisper against my ear.
“So I figured since you’re a sylph that you might want to see the migration of the sprites. They move once a season from one grove to the next. Like it?”
“Like it? Gabe, I love it.”
In one thoughtful gesture, he proved exactly why I wouldn’t—couldn’t—surrender our relationship to the school’s archaic rules and regulations.
Gabriel was mine.
No one could make me let him go.
2
My Personal Coach Beast
It had been a mistake to take Channeling class first thing in the morning on Monday. Tristal taught as our glamours instructor for the third semester, promising to teach a dozen new charms, from spinning everyday clothes into ball gowns to turning squash into automobiles. We’d even learn to turn dilapidated shanties of plywood and tin into sturdy buildings.
Unfortunately, these acts were incredibly complicated, draining, temporary, or all of the above—thus requiring us to make our own Dream Boxes soon to hoard faerie dust.
I couldn’t wait.
As fae were like honeybees, we collected happiness and elation from mortals, gathering their warm emotions in our souls and clarifying it into particles of condensed magic—faerie dust. But we needed combs to store our figurative honey, hence when a Dream Box came into play. A fae could store near-infinite amounts of dust into one for emergency situations or large and exhaustive, intricate glamours.
I chugged an energy drink to make it through Tristal’s lecture and Biology but struggled to sleep during the afternoon, finding myself too full of nerves to doze for more than two hours. That night, while my faerie classmates and roomies crawled into bed after a long day of classes, I reported in for my first martial arts lesson.
The instructor was this enormous bear guy with a Russian accent, and the class size was small and personal. Just eight of us assembled in the padded gymnasium room.
Holly and I had organized our schedules together over the phone to make sure we signed up for the same block, but I didn’t recognize the six freshmen students. One was a raven girl, two were werewolves, another two were bears, and the last was a vampire guy who looked like he’d walked offset from shooting a scene for The Crow.
One of the werewolves appraised me from a distance. “You really the faerie who killed Carmilla?”
“I didn’t kill her. The sentinels did that.”
The raven snorted. She was dark-skinned and tiny, her eyes a golden-brown contrast in her round face. “Yeah, but they said you turned the room into day and softened her up so they could do it. That counts.”
Who was “they” and what else had the mysterious they said about me? Before I had the chance to ask, our instructor stomped his foot on the mat and called us all to attention.
“I am Antonin. No Coach. No Professor. I expect your full and absolute attention in my class. Phones and food are prohibited. Water is allowed. This is Gabriel,” he said, gesturing to the raven who entered from the locker room, “and he is my student assistant this semester. If at any time I am unavailable, you will find him.”
My jaw hit the floor. Gabriel crossed his arms over his chest, which only stretched his shirt tighter over his muscles. I smirked as the raven girl eyed him up and down.
“Do you think he’ll go easy on us?” Holly whispered.
“Hell no. He’ll make me work harder, because I’m his partner,” I whispered back.
“Warm up with five laps around the room,” Antonin ordered. “Then we will see what I have to work with.”
The two wolves took off at a sprint, but the rest of us paced ourselves. Gabriel jogged up beside me and flicked my clenched fists. I shook them loose and glanced at him.
“You’re his student assistant?”
Gabriel’s grin widened. “Did I forget to say that? Antonin kinda offered the job to me over the summer, and I couldn’t refuse when I found out you’d be in his baby class.”
“Baby class?”
“Yeah. Since you and Holly missed out on last year, you’re in the beginner’s martial arts class with the freshies. Didn’t you know that?”
I scowled at him. “You don’t have to rub it in that I’m behind.”
“Don’t worry. You’ll catch up.” He dropped back to talk to the other students.
In one hour, I learned the difference between legitimate martial arts lessons and the very basic self-defense Gabriel had taught me. Last year was about brawling, enduring a fight, and pure survival when against an opponent.
This year was about repetition, control, and self-inflicted bodily punishment, because Antonin forced us to spend the half hour after our jog learning proper punching and kicking form, then repeating the same strike over and over again. I had a slight advantage over Holly and the vampire freshmen.
After that, we broke into pairs with focus mitts but no gloves. We weren’t allowed gloves or hand protection, because real threats didn’t give a damn about our safety either.
I guess Antonin had decided if he couldn’t break our spirits, he’d at least bust our knuckles.
A cruel stroke of fate and conflicts in the scheduling meant that I was spared a mere half hour to lie in the grass on the quad before reporting to sentinel boot camp, but it was more like fifteen minutes, because Antonin had kept us over since we were so slow on the laps.
During the snowless months, sentinel boot camp took place outdoors on the obstacle course. Our class of about eighty students met there, the area teeming with shifters, vampires, and a dozen battlemages in training who watched me like I had two heads.
There were five coaches, two of them vamps, the remaining three each a different type of shifter, and all of them were badasses who looked like Spartan warriors in school polos.
A werewolf stepped forward and crossed her intimidatingly huge arms against her chest. “I’m Coach Bregman, and it’s my job to make sure you toughen your baby muscles until you can endure whatever life throws at you once you leave PNRU—even if I have to break you myself.”
A collective sigh shuddered across the lawn with groans of varying volume and depth.
“Gripe all you want, but we’re here to make sure you survive to actually be a sentinel one day. Three of your fellow students didn’t return this year, because they were Bound.”
One of the vampire coaches nodded. He had muscles like he powerlifted elephants for fun. “This is serious, y’all. Listen to her. Maybe you’ve heard this all before, but that didn’t save one of us from getting staked over the summer. Know what I mean?”
They had the crowd then, all eyes snapping to the gr
oup.
The other vampire coach took over. Her red-tinted gaze stared unwavering over our group. “Listen to Coach Bregman and Coach Willis. You may have heard the gossip, or even noticed the absence of Denise Buckland. What she did, you can’t come back from. A staking, much like a Binding, is a one-way street. When it’s done, it’s freaking done.”
The horrified silence persisted—worsened—faces ashen gray, eyes staring, mouths agape as people unaware of the story worked through their feelings. Hearing it from Holly beforehand didn’t help. Beside me, she’d turned paler than bleached bone.
The coach I suspected was a raven shifter spoke up. “And that goes for us as well. While no single type of shifter is more likely to turn than the others, a wolf, a bear, and a raven were all Bound. They will never again know what it’s like to run free, to sprint through summer grass, fly through clear skies, or enjoy the thrill of the hunt. Their gifts are gone.”
A raven had been Bound? My pulse hammered against my ribs. I wondered why Gabriel hadn’t mentioned it.
Coach Bregman clapped her hands together. “Now then, let’s get you all into shape.”
After her little speech—like she hadn’t petrified all of us—she took one look at me, eyed my scrawny arms, and directed me to the pull-up bar. I managed five chin ups before my arms started to burn.
“So, you’re our little experiment.”
“No, ma’am. I’m a sentinel trainee like everyone else.” I grunted and pulled myself up again. Six.
“Are you now?” Her mouth widened into a chilling smile before she barked, “Four more, Corazzi, then you can show me your best speed on the obstacle course. I’ve decided to give you my special attention this semester.”
Someone kill me now.
The coaches didn’t believe in speaking at a normal volume. Everything was raised voices or yelling. Coach Bregman hollered at me the entire way to the obstacle course. “Faster! Knees up! Hustle!” She clocked my time but didn’t give me any clue as to whether or not I met or failed her expectations.
Without time to even catch my breath, one of the vampire coaches called me over to do a series of burpees that may as well have been torture. After three sets of ten, every muscle screamed in protest. My thighs became jelly.
Fatigue set in before we reached the lecture portion of the boot camp, which was more of a demonstration than anything. We weren’t allowed to take notes or record on our phones. Everything we learned was designed to save our lives one day, and because we were new to boot camp, they performed a recap about slaying nosferatu.
“Though it would appear some of you are already experienced in the matter,” Coach Barrett said, glancing at me. A few dozen eyes followed the werebear’s attention, and I grimaced. “Corazzi! Get up here.”
Shit.
I moved to the front on trembling, uncooperative legs, my thigh muscles threatening to pitch me down to the grass every step of the way. He passed me a silver stake and took me to a training dummy.
“Fae are usually among the physically weakest of the races,” he announced to the class, while a few students snickered. “Followed by magicians and then wereravens.” Some of the giggling stopped. “But it’s important to know that strength isn’t needed to stake a nos. It’s all about where you aim. If you hit the bastards in the right spot, it doesn’t matter how strong you are. This stake’ll glide through them like they’re made out of butter.”
I nodded.
“Now, show me how you’d do it.”
I assumed the pose I’d seen some of the students take before when practicing and drove it forward. A red, heart-shaped light glowed in the chest cavity to reveal where I’d landed the blow. Not only had I failed to achieve the depth required, but the point was against the ribs.
“Not bad for a first try. You need to strike the intercostal space if you want a chance of piercing the heart. Otherwise, you’re just going to piss them off,” he explained. “Me, I can slam this home through the sternum or crack ribs if I want to, because I’m a big damn dude.”
The wereraven coach next to him chuckled.
“Where do I aim?”
“Like this.” He removed the stake and passed it to me again, directing me in slow motion at an angle that went beneath the breastbone toward the heart. I practiced it a few times before driving it in. This time, I didn’t miss. “Good job, Corazzi. Go have a seat.”
They spoke for a while longer, warned we would be doing staking drills next class, and dismissed us.
Moving as slow as an ungreased robot, I walked into the locker room to shower. Holly didn’t look any better.
“I want to die,” she said when we emerged.
“That was only day one.”
Gabriel met me at the food court with my favorite sushi in hand, as well as a big bowl filled to the brim with noodles and teriyaki chicken. I shoved it all down without a single word.
“You survived your first night.”
I grunted and guzzled a lemonade.
He laughed at me more. “Need me to roll you back to your room?”
“More like make sure I wake up in time for my morning classes. Pretty sure when I hit the bed, that’s it. Wanna tap your beak against my window and be my alarm?”
“I’ll do you one better. You can crash on my couch if you want. I’ll kick you out when I go to bed.”
“Okay.”
His brows shot straight up. Maybe he thought I would wave off his suggestion. We headed back to his place in silence, mainly because I couldn’t dredge up the energy to talk. Twice, he caught me by the arm when fatigue took my legs out from under me.
“You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m just really tired. Coach Bregman has it out for me.”
“Nah, she just wants you to succeed. Remember what I said about passing the obstacle course? You gotta make the time next year, woman. Then you gotta do it for the big license at the end of senior year.”
“It’s the first day,” I whined. Gabriel only laughed and led the way into his building. Lucky for us, we didn’t have to wait for an elevator to the third floor.
“Yeah, it is, but she doesn’t believe in waiting until the last minute to get in shape, and uh, unfortunately with you, we need to make up for lost time.”
His apartment hadn’t changed since last year. He and Rodrigo shared a two-bedroom, two-bath unit with a full kitchen. And the guys used lots of guns and weapons as decorations like an old spy movie or tactical armory.
His bear shifter cousin sat on the sectional in front of their high-def TV, the big screen flanked by a couple video game systems on the entertainment stand. He pressed the pause button and glanced at us. “What’s up, baby girl?”
“Hey, Rodrigo.”
Gabriel chuckled and disappeared while I dropped to a seat on the opposite end and kicked off my shoes. He reappeared a minute later with a pillow and a blanket.
“Sky’s gonna crash here so I can make sure she’s up for her next class. You mind?”
“Nah. Want me to turn the game off?”
“Nuh-uh, you’re fine,” I mumbled. Lying down had never felt so good.
“Get some sleep. You deserve it. I’m off to class.” Gabriel stroked my hair back from my face then headed out.
“It gets better,” Rodrigo said after a moment. He’d turned the volume down, but I enjoyed watching his character run around shooting aliens.
“Better needs to come soon.”
His low laugh sounded like a rumble, but in a pleasant way. Last year, I hadn’t really gotten to know him much. This year, I wanted that to be different.
3
The Black Effigy
Two things stood out in my foggy brain when I woke up hours later. First, I wasn’t in my room, and it took a full minute to remember I had crashed at Gabriel’s place. Second, there was something watching me—a colorful something.
A gold and green feathered gargoyle perched on the edge of the pillow, leaning toward me with her neck extended, devilish beak
open. Startled, I jerked upright on the couch and away from her. The sun conure took off flying back to her cage.
Gabriel laughed from the kitchen. “Morning, sleeping beauty. I was about to wake you, but I guess Ama didn’t like you chilling in her space and beat me to it.”
“Pretty sure she was gonna eat me.”
“Nibble your hair a little maybe. It’s colorful.” He brought over two plates covered with scrambled eggs and sausage patties. His had salsa poured on top.
I shoveled everything down like I hadn’t eaten in years, then chased the meal with a tall glass of orange juice. My body had stiffened like my joints were made of rust, and I wondered how the hell I’d make it through the day.
“Stretch,” he said, as if reading my mind. “I know it sucks, but you’ll get through it.”
“Ugh. How am I supposed to focus on International Magical Policy when everything hurts?”
“Same way anyone else does. Remember, you had vampire students in your classes last year.”
“Yeah, I always wondered about that.”
He shrugged and took my plate. “They don’t need as much sleep as the rest of us.”
“I guess.” My knees protested as I stood. “Hey, can I ask you about something?”
“Sure. What’s up?”
I wet my lips with my tongue, suddenly nervous, like I was asking a question with an answer I already knew. And I did, didn’t I? “The coaches said a few shifters were Bound this summer.”
“Yeah. Sheldon, Abby, and Edmund.”
“Wait, your friend Edmund?”
Gabriel’s expression darkened. “Yeah. Ex-friend.”
“Not because of me, I mean us—”
“It had nothing to do with what we told Simon and Sebastian.” When I waited for him to clarify, he sighed and raked his fingers through his hair. “They got busted that night helping the Hidden Court. I guess Edmund was sabotaging efforts to find the nosferatu. He did something to the communication network. Then they found out Denise had been fucking with the sign-in sheets and letting them all sneak out at night to do Carmilla’s work. People died because of the shit they did. Helping the Hidden Court made them complicit in anything that happened, and they were lucky they didn’t go to prison too.”
The Scary Godmother Page 2
