We stopped in front of a door with my room number on a plaque next to it.
“Your key should be in your handbook,” he said. “It’ll unlock the charm when you activate it.”
I opened my student handbook while he waited, remembering a string of random letters and numbers under my name and room number. Looking at it now, I understood. It was a password.
“Don’t say it out loud,” he cautioned me. “Think it as you try the handle.”
One flitter gee bidjit ninety roo!
Either it worked, or the door wasn’t locked, as the handle turned easily in my hand.
“Okay, “he said, standing in the open doorway. “Looks like your roommate is already settled in, and your stuff is on your bed.”
I walked to the window next to the head of my bed and looked out. A grass expanse gave way to forest where trees went from green and leafy to bare and laden with white along the horizon.
“Is that snow?”
“The Winter Court,” he said. “Home sweet home.”
So that’s where he was from, just like my mother and my aunts, originally.
“Anyway,” he continued, “I’ve delivered you, and your stuff all appears to be here, so I’m done. Your class schedule should be pinned to the bulletin board. Just remember what I told you about Lydia. She was a royal at our old school, and no doubt will be here as well.”
Lydia. I now had a name for an enemy that I wasn’t sure how I’d made.
“I will, and thanks.”
He looked at me then, gazing at me as if only just then actually seeing me. He gave me a tight smile. “Welcome.”
As I watched him leave, I wondered if he meant it in response to my thank you, or if he was genuinely welcoming me to the school, or both.
Chapter 5
I was busy unpacking my stuff when I heard muffled voices on the other side of my door. One of them sounded suspiciously like Lydia. I thanked my lucky stars when the door opened to reveal a red-headed girl with freckles who definitely was not Lydia. Catching sight of me, she stopped in surprise.
“Oh, hi. Guess you’re my roomie, huh? I’m Rina,” she said.
“I’m Tuesday,” I replied. “Nice to meet you.”
My heart plummeted as Lydia followed her into the room, followed by a brown-haired girl with long hair I hadn’t seen before.
“That’s the girl I told you about. The poor girl from the bookshop hanging all over Laurie,” Lydia said, shooting daggers at me with her eyes.
Rina sat down on her bed and looked at Lydia with disinterest. “Laurent is a grown man and can look after himself. That includes choosing who he likes to spend time with.”
“But he’s mine,” Lydia whined, crossing her arms.” Her eyes lit on my pens in the cup on my desk. “Oh, my god! Look at her pens!” She giggled. “Do you draw hearts and circles over your i’s and o's, too?”
“No.” I wasn’t even going to try to defend myself against her bitchiness, I knew there’d be no winning.
“Lyds, stop it. The pens are cute, and Laurent is his own, not anyone else’s. If he wants to chain his star to a sinking rock, he can.”
Gee, thanks. Here I thought we might get to be friends.
Rina turned her attention to me. “I don’t know you, but this is how it works. This is my side of the room. Just don’t touch anything over here, and we’ll be good. Got it?”
“As long as no one touches mine,” I agreed.
“As if,” Lydia muttered, getting a dark look from Rina as she did so.
“And if I have friends over, don’t bother us. You can speak to us if you’re offering to bring us snacks or something, but that’s it.”
Me bring snacks, huh? Bet they never offer me any.
“If that’s how you want it, sure. No skin off my nose.”
“Eww, gross. Is that a human saying?” the long-haired girl asked.
“Leave her alone, Jen. I have to live with her. I don’t want to have to put up with someone sulking twenty-four seven.”
I turned away, placing my new sheets in the laundry bag with a scented sachet. While the charmed bag did its thing, I hung up my already laundered uniforms. The wardrobe had a sliding door with a pull-out shoe rack on one side under the hanging rail, so I pulled it out and placed my other pairs of shoes on it, along with a pair of slippers that must have come from Aunt Tillie and Uncle Joe. Once my sheets were ready, I took them out of the bag, put my blanket and pillow inside, and let them freshen up while I made my bed.
“She’s doing that herself,” Jen whispered.
“Well, it’s not like she’s a royal and can have someone else do it for her,” Rina replied. “If all you two are going to do is snipe about my roommate, you can go. It’s boring.”
Lydia stomped over to the door. “Fine! But when she tricks your brother into making her his girlfriend, you’ll be sorry!”
Jen looked between the two of them, looking torn. Then she, too, walked over to the door, paused for dramatic effect, and said, “Yeah! Then we won’t each have one of the princes!” She slammed the door behind her.
I couldn’t help it, I laughed. That was probably the most ridiculous thing I’d ever seen in real life.
Peals of laughter from the other side of the room joined me. “Okay, that was funny!” Rina gasped. “As if I have control over who Laurent dates or hangs out with!” She wandered over to my side, where I was now smoothing out my fleece blanket. “Hey, human girl, can you do nails? I chipped the paint on mine somehow.” She held out a hand to show the damage. Sure enough, some of the paint was off one of her middle fingers.
“I used to do my aunt’s as well as my friend Marla’s,” I told her. After the cold shoulder earlier, was she seriously expecting me to cozy up with her and paint her nails? Just how self-entitled were these people?
“Good enough,” she said, walking back to her side of the room where she began pulling out polish remover, pads, and all those sorts of goodies. I stare. The girl could open her own nail bar with all that shit. Also, can’t they just magick their nails or some shit? “Well, come on,” she says. “We can get to know each other better while you fix my nails. I think I want a change of color, anyway.”
Fine. Maybe if I do this and we bond or whatever, she’ll ease up on the bullshit she was spouting earlier and keep Lydia off my back. It looked to me as if the two of them were vying to be the queen bee. I was pretty sure I’d rather it be Rina than Lydia.
“So, Launrent’s your brother,” I said, crossing the room and turning her desk chair sideways to face her, so I had better access to her hands.
“Yep,” she said. “We’re twins.”
Interesting. Why hadn’t he said anything? Surely he’d recognized his twin’s personal belongings?
“Despite what Lydia thinks, we’re not close. Our parents split when we were little, and I went to live with our father and Laurent with our mother. We went to different schools until we were twelve, then the social expectations started, so we were sent to the same middle school and attended functions together. Once we hit high school, our parents paired us with each other’s friends as our plus ones out of convenience. Somehow Lydia got it in her head that it meant we were all destined to get bonded, and Jennifer goes along with it. Funny thing is, Jen doesn’t even like Brent that way.”
“Who does she like?” I asked, enjoying the gossip despite myself. I finished removing all of her polish and began moisturizing her hands, paying close attention to her cuticles.
“Winston LaForge, but he’s not a student here. His uncle is the headmaster of Icehaven Academy, so after we graduated from high school, that’s where he went. He was only at our high school because his parents own a pub in the same village as the school, and they didn’t want him to have to board.”
I picked up the bottle of polish she’d chosen and gave it a shake before uncapping it. “Sounds complicated.”
“I get really tired of all the bull shit,” Rina confided. She tilted her head at me
. “You seem really nice. It’s a shame I didn’t know you before. We might have been able to be friends.”
“Even though I’m half-human?” I asked, smiling sardonically as I brushed a layer of the royal blue paint over her pinky’s nail.
“Yeah. It wasn’t so complicated, back before all the arranged dates. I could have had you there instead of Lydia, or else Laurent could have found another boy for you.”
“Mreowww,” George commented, materializing suddenly. It was a good thing I had just put the brush back into the bottle.
“George! Give us some warning!” I chastised him.
He turned around, tail in the air, showing his butt in response.
“Uh huh, I get it. You give zero shits.” My lips twitched at his antics. The stinker was too damned cute for his own good.
“You have a familiar?” Rina gasped.
“Yeah, this is George. The more my powers manifest, the more anchored to this world he becomes, apparently.”
“What’s your last name again?”
I hadn’t said, but I let that slide. “Adamski.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know that line.”
“It’s my father’s name,” I told her. Then, feeling mischievous, I kissed my elbow. “Fae genes.” Her jaw dropped. Feeling emboldened, I added, “My mother’s family is from the Winter Court, same as yours. My mother was Marietta Dupree.”
Rina continued to stare at me. She finally roused herself from her stupefaction long enough to say, “You’re telling me you are the Dupree’s granddaughter, and you’re not half-human, but Fae.”
“Not completely half-Fae,” I corrected. “Just part. It expressed dominance in me, though, apparently.”
“Holy shit!” Rina began to giggle, holding her wet nails out so as to not smudge them. “Lydia is going to shit a brick! The Duprees are higher in social standing than her family, well, and ours too, to be honest, not to mention Jennifer’s. Add to that you have access to Fae magick and are bonded to a familiar, well, she will not like finding out you have more magick than her, too.”
I grinned. Put like that, Lydia didn’t seem so much of a problem. But then, bullies rarely saw sense, and I could still end up the butt of cruel taunts and mean tricks. I needed to be careful.
“You know what?” she continued to laugh. “The only other thing that would piss her off even more would be if Laurent, Brent, and Charles were planning to form a magickal quartet.”
That didn’t make any sense to me. Quartets had four people, not three, but whatever. “Come on,” I said. “Let’s do your other hand.”
Rina again looked at the hand I’d just finished, admiring my handiwork. “You really know what you’re doing. You know, you could probably earn a fair bit of cash if you did this for a few other girls.”
Not my first choice of job, but as far as a little side gig around classes that would give me a bit of spending money without having to ask my aunts and uncle, it wasn’t so bad. “Maybe,” I hedged. It all depended on who asked me and how they did so. If it was Lydia, she could take a hike.
Rina held out her other hand. Silence descended, and I painted the first two nails. I’d just started on the third when she spoke again. “I know Laurent is considered good-looking and a lot of girls, well, and some guys, crush on him. But be careful. While he needs to find a wife of a certain pedigree, and while yours is more than okay, I think he has his mind on something else.”
“Like a husband? Or do you mean a career?”
“He still needs a wife to continue the family line, but yeah. I think any woman who marries him will be in name only. I’ve …heard things when outside the guys’ rooms.”
I didn’t need to ask what sort of things she’d heard. Some sounds were unmistakable. “Each to their own,” I said. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“I just don’t want you to get hurt. You seem way too nice to get mixed up in any of our shit.”
I raised my eyes to hers and quirked a smile. “So do you.”
She glanced away. “I wish I wasn’t.”
“It’s all about choices, but I know sometimes the right ones can feel like the wrong ones because of the possible fallout.” I finished the last nail and released her hand, recapping the bottle of polish.
“We’re all done,” she said, sounding happy. “That didn’t take long at all. Thank you.”
We both knew we might be done with her nails, but as for the rest? Yeah, we weren’t done yet. Not by a long shot.
Chapter 6
Morning came far too soon, the same as always. Rina took off for the showers without waiting for me, calling over her shoulder at me. “Remember to keep him out of sight! You’ll get inundated with questions.”
I knew she meant George, and I didn’t know how to get him to stop popping into view at whim yet.
“Please stay here,” I begged him.
“Mreowwww,” came his guttural response.
I thought he understood me, though, which would make total sense if he’s supposed to help me make magick, I decided. In any case, George leaped off the end of my bed and curled up on top of my desk. I made my bed and pulled out a uniform to change into. I decided against showering, as I’d had one the night before. Skipping having another shower would give me time to look over my class schedule once more and make sure I had everything I needed. Once satisfied that I did, I ran a hand down George’s still wispy body.
“I’ll see you after class, buddy.”
He yawned and stretched before resettling down into his spot.
I smiled at the sight, then grabbed my bag and hurried down to breakfast. If I missed getting into line before the Second Years were due, I could kiss my chance at getting breakfast good-bye. The handbook allowed us to all remain in the cafeteria to eat until the end of the Third Years’ mealtime, but you had to get your breakfast during the time slot allocated for your particular year. This meant I had to be in line no later than seven-thirty and no earlier than seven. It was seven-fifteen now, so I had to hurry.
The first thing I spotted as I went in was Laurent, Charles, and Brent exiting the line, having gotten their food. They headed to the one table no one else was sitting at yet, settling themselves down at one end.
“That’s the royal table,” a girl behind me said, catching me looking. “Don’t even think of going to sit there. Oh, there will be empty seats between them and the other royals. Third Years will occupy the other end, the Second in the middle. The empty spots they leave are by invitation only, for favored friends.”
I turned to face her. “Oh, I wasn’t wanting to sit there or anything,” I said. “Just, Laurent showed me around when I arrived, so I kind of noticed him and looked.”
The girl smiled. “Uh huh. Laurent claims another victim. He is ridiculously good-looking, I admit. I’m Joanna and this guy here,” she hooked a thumb over at the guy standing beside her, “is my brother Jacob. And yes, we’re twins even though we don’t look alike.”
I laughed. “Seeing as you’re fraternal, yeah.”
Joanna laughed. “I was thinking more about how his ass is so damned skinny while I have these luscious curves.” She smiled, her rounded cheeks dimpling. “I also got the great hair.”
“My hair is fine,” Jacob protested. “I just like to wear it short.”
“Mhhm.” She patted her curls with one hand.
“I’m Tuesday.”
“I made it!” a girl squeaked, joining us. “One minute to spare!” She noticed for the first time that Joanna and Jacob had been talking to me. “Oh! Sorry to interrupt. I’m Felicia.”
“Tuesday,” I replied, giving her a nod.
“It’s Monday, right? I didn’t miss a day already, did I?”
Jacob smothered a laugh.
“No, my name is Tuesday.” This happened more often than I liked to admit. I really needed to be clearer when introducing myself. Why did my parents name me after a day of the week, anyway? And now that I think about it, why did this world use th
e same name days? Argh!
Felicia blushed and looked flustered. “Oh, sorry. That makes more sense in context.”
“It’s okay,” I assured her.
“So,” Felicia said, “where’d you go to school? Before here, I mean. The three of us went to Brookfield together the last two years.”
The line moved, and I turned around to move along with it. “You wouldn’t have heard of it,” I told her.
“No?” Joanna replied. “Jacob and I have moved around a fair bit, so you never know.”
“You guys moved a lot? Was it because of your parents’ jobs?” I countered.
“Yeah, they’re soldiers, so change garrisons to where they’re needed. At least they get posted together since they’re bonded.” Jacob tilted his head at me as if trying to figure out a puzzle. “You?”
“Me? No. Apparently, I was born in the Winter Court, but we moved when I was still too little to remember. Then, when I was still really young, I went to live with my aunt and uncle and stayed in the same place until now.” I gave them a bright smile.
“Wait…” Felicia snapped her fingers as she spoke. “Are you that half-human girl everyone’s buzzing about? The one who’s lived in the human world her whole life?”
“Guilty as charged,” I answered. “But apparently, I’m not just half-human. My father was part Fae, too.”
“Whoaaaaa,” Jacob replied. “Witch and Fae with a dash of human. That’s some combo, alright.”
Joanna and Felicia nodded in agreement. “That Fae blood is going to add a kick to your powers,” Joanna said.
“Being a plain old human isn’t a crime,” I retorted.
“Of course, it’s not,” Felicia agreed. “It’s just that if you were, you’d have no magick, so wouldn’t be here. And since most of us here have never been in the human world, it’s kind of a novelty.”
My anger dissipated as quickly as it came. She was right. Of course, never having seen a human made people curious and some would think them having no magick made them somehow less. For example, asshats like Lydia, but these guys hadn’t made out anything like that at all.
Discovery of Magick (Dark Light Academy Book 1) Page 5
