Discovery of Magick (Dark Light Academy Book 1)

by Tabatha Stephenson

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you like that. I guess I’m feeling a bit defensive after a couple people made some nasty comments.” I looked at them entreatingly, hoping they forgave me.

  “It’s okay. Some people can be real assholes,” Jacob said.

  “Sure can,” Joanna agreed and Felicia nodded her head.

  I relaxed. These guys were nice, and I could see myself hanging out with them if they’d also like that.

  “So, did you always know about the Fae blood, or did you get tested before you came here?” Felicia asked.

  “I went shopping for school supplies and got asked to kiss my elbow.” I demonstrated.

  Jacob began laughing. “You know that’s not foolproof, right? It’s extremely rare, but some people can kiss or lick their elbow and aren’t part Fae. Plus, there’s an old story that if you can do that, you’ll turn into a boy if you’re a girl or a girl if you’re a boy. It’s nonsense, obviously.”

  “Something else happened that proved I was Fae,” I admitted.

  “Yeah?” he asked, looking at me expectantly. I picked up a tray, having reached the counter. I selected a fruit pastry and moved down the counter.

  “Yeah.” That’s all he was going to get out of me for now. I snagged an empty cup and moved over to the coffee urn, filling my mug and adding my milk and sugar before leaving the line and looking around for a place to sit. My eyes roved around the room, settling on the so-called royal table despite myself.

  “You don’t want to go sit there,” Felicia said, appearing at my elbow.

  “We already told her that. Laurent showed her around campus, and I think she might like him a bit,” Joanna said.

  “He’s a player,” Jacob said. “He and his friends are infamous for taking girls out but only having eyes for each other. Don’t let him play you like that.”

  I sighed. What was it with everyone warning me away from Laurent? I was a big girl, and Laurent had already shown me he wasn’t interested.

  “Uh huh,” I replied, trying to sound nonchalant.

  Felicia pointed to a table in the far corner. “There’s empty spaces at that one,” she said. I followed my new friends over to that table, forcing myself to not grit my teeth at how close Lydia pushed her chair to Laurent’s when Felicia noticed me looking again. We sat our trays down, and as she pulled out her chair, she said, “He might be after your inheritance. Your mom was an only child, right?”

  I shrugged. I didn’t know if she was or not, but after my grandparents disowned her and never came for me after my parents died, I seriously doubted that I had anything coming to me from them at all. “There’s no inheritance,” I said simply.

  “Well, he and his friends might think there is.”

  I gave her a wan smile. “Maybe, but somehow I don’t think that’s it.”

  Jacob nodded, taking a spoon of his porridge. “It’s more likely they’d want her in order to sire an heir. Their families are already as rich as they come.”

  A surrogate, huh? I had no intention of having any babies so soon, not for years yet. If that’s what Laurent wanted, he could hang that idea up right now.

  “Hey, look, isn’t that Jack Knowles?” Felicia asks, tilting her head to a Year Two who was getting into line.

  “Oh, my, gosh, it is!” Joanna squealed.

  Jacob rolled his eyes. “He’s a guy from our old school who left a year ahead of us. His father was the garrison commander, and he was school royalty.”

  “Do you think they’ll let him sit at the table?” Felicia asked Joanna.

  I was getting bored with all the fake celebrity bullshit, so I decided to change the subject. “Where do you all have to go after this? I have some potions class thing.”

  “I have Mathemegrams,” Felicia groaned.

  “Yeah, what even is that? These classes are nothing like anything I’ve ever heard of.”

  Felicia turns to rummage in her bag. “I’ll show you, mathemegrams are the magickal shapes-oh, shit! I forgot my book!” She pushes her chair back with a loud scrape and hefts her bag up onto her shoulder. “I gotta dash. I need to go grab my book. I can’t believe I forgot to put it in my bag!” She grabs a triangle of toast off of her plate and dashes off.

  “She forgot to put her tray away.” Amusement laced Jacob’s voice.

  “Yeah, that’s Felicia for you. She’d forget her own head if it wasn’t permanently attached.” Joanna shook her head in mock dismay. “I’ll put it away when we go if she doesn’t come back.” She turns her full attention back to me. “I have Potions first thing, too. We can walk together!”

  We spent the rest of breakfast comparing schedules, Joanna and Jacob, both trying to remember what Felicia’s was.

  “I know the three of us had Fae for Beginners just before lunch,” Joanna said.

  “I’m in that class, too!” I said excitedly.

  “Cool! We can all sit together.” Jacob smiled at me.

  “And be study buddies!” Joanna enthused. “Spells are cast in Fae though some of their words are magick in themselves. Not that they do anything magick if a non-Fae says them, so you have to do the mathemegrams and all that to wield witch magick to make the spell work.”

  Wow. I really wasn’t in Kansas anymore. I never dreamed I’d have a conversation like this over breakfast or any other time at all. Now to hope that none of my teachers were the kind of witches who should have a house dropped onto them.

  Chapter 7

  Joanna and I made it to class in time despite the throng of students we had to wade through. I was surprised to see a familiar scene in front of me as the classroom pretty much looked just like the chemistry lab back at my old high school. I’d walked in expecting old wooden tables and cauldrons, so I had a really good chuckle at myself.

  “Okay, everyone pair up and take a seat at your chosen stations.” The voice came from a woman entering from what was likely a storeroom or some such at the front of the classroom. I couldn’t help but stare at her in astonishment. I don’t know what I’d expected Cherie Leveau to look like, but this was not it. She stood about five feet, maybe five two at most, but her hair gave her added height. She had light brown, sun-streaked shoulder-length hair, which she wore in an 80s style perm with the teased bangs and everything. A lace bow that screamed 80s music video nestled behind her bangs, keeping the long, curly strands back to show off her dangly earrings to best advantage.

  And what earrings they were. Fuchsia pink, one was a blocky letter A and the other a Z. They appeared to be chosen to match her fuchsia kitten-heeled pumps that her lace-trimmed fold-over anklet socks peeked out of. Not to be outdone, her bright green, loose-fitting cropped trousers and retro white t-shirt with Garfield sunbathing on a beach towel entreating us to “Relax” was topped by an open lab coat with fuchsia, green, and neon yellow ABCs.

  Even her make-up was on point- lipstick and blush in shades of fuchsia, green and purple eyeshadow paired with royal blue eyeliner, and blue mascara. Her nails had a different color on every finger; fuchsia, yellow, white, bright green, all vied for attention. She was a sight to behold but somehow, not ridiculous.

  “Oh, wow,” Joanna said, looking at her. She tugged at my sleeve. “Come on, we can be buddies.” We took the empty seats at one of the lab tables close to the front.

  “Looks like this will be a fun class,” someone giggled.

  “Quiet! This is a classroom where you need to be using your ears to listen. You can go gossip with your friends on your own time.” More giggling.

  “You, there,” Ms. Leveau pointed, her brown eyes hardening. “Stand up. Your name, please.”

  “Lydia Falcourt. I’m sorry, I just wasn’t expecting-”

  Ms. Leveau cut her off. “I didn’t ask what you were expecting, nor are your expectations anything worthy of consideration right now. You will find that in life, expectations and reality often do not match up. Now sit down and be quiet. Any further disruption, and you will be sent to the office.” Professor
Leveau’s expression relaxed as she looked over the rest of the class. “While I expect you to take this class seriously, that doesn’t mean we can’t have a bit of fun along the way. “She gestured down at herself. “I wore this because I wanted to underscore that this class is all about fundamental magick, and we will be learning it from A to Z.” She smiled. “Plus, I really loved living in New York City in the 80s’.” She winked, and the class laughed. Once the laughs died down, she continued. “There is a time, place, and occasion for everything, though, and being inattentive here is a big no-no. One misstep and that bath potion additive that should have healed your bruises might make you sprout leaves from your hair follicles instead.”

  Eww. No, I definitely didn’t want that to happen. I didn’t fancy having to learn to trim and shave my armpits, legs, and nether regions with a pair of hedge trimmers, thank you very much.

  “With that in mind, I’m going to take my cue from Lydia here.” Lydia blinked, her mouth opening as if to ask a question. “I said to be quiet,” Professor Leveau said, sounding decidedly testy as she spoke. She lifted a polished dark wooden wand and drew a complicated pattern in the air. Pretty aqua light lit the sigils in the air before dissolving into a shower of sparkles that made a beeline straight to Lydia, who shrieked and tried to duck to no avail. The sound cut off, though her mouth was still working. “Now, that’s much better. You trade places with him,” Professor Leveau indicated a guy who was sat at the table directly in front of her desk. He scrambled up off his stool, hurrying to where Lydia still sat.

  If looks could kill, the professor would be dead, I was sure of it. Apparently, the professor thought so, too. “Plotting my demise, are we? Fine, Hargreaves can deal with you and your poor attitude.” She waggled her fingers good-bye. One moment Lydia was seething in self-righteous defiance, and the next, she and the stool she was sat on was gone. “All of the seating in my classroom and several of the others as well, are charmed so that with a thought, they can be sent to Hargreaves, Olivant, or, if in dire need, to the local garrison’s holding area.” She gave us a bright smile. “But we’re not going to have any further problems, are we?” She turned to the young man who was to have swapped places with Lydia. “Just sit back down. You can partner with-” she looked inquiringly at Jennifer, who sat looking stunned.

  “Jen- I mean, Jenny Hargreaves, ma’am.”

  “You don’t look anything like your aunt.”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Call me professor.”

  “Professor,” Jennifer parroted.

  Professor Leveau looked at the young man as he sat back down on his stool.

  “I’m Kyram Locke, Professor Leveau,” he answered hurriedly.

  “Good, good,” she replied, sounding cheery. She moved a few more people about, then had us call out our names one by one so she could put names to faces. Lydia never made it back to finish the class. I was secretly glad. That bitch deserved a bit of comeuppance. “Now that’s settled, let’s get the rest of your names so we can begin.”

  I had thought college would be a whole different ball game. It turns out, not so much. Some of my fellow classmates were still immature kids (cough cough, Lydia!), while others acted like the young adults I’d imagined. The professors were all an eye-opener as well. I don’t know if it was because I’d read all the Harry Potter books and watched the movies as a kid or what, but while the professors I’d met so far were every bit as quirky. they weren’t as otherworldly looking as the HP crowd. Though, somehow knowing they were real and in charge of my future made them feel larger than life and even, well, weirder.

  Fae for Beginners was taught by one Professor Symonds. I walked the short distance to the listed classroom with the twins and Felicia, unprepared for the sight that met my eyes as I went through the door. Professor Symonds was a very tall man, easily over seven-feet tall. He was just placing the chalk down on the blackboard’s tray after finishing writing his name on the board in an elegant script. The four of us quickly took seats under his watchful gaze. I was trying and failing not to stare. He caught me and smiled. I looked away, startled.

  “He’s got fangs!” I whispered to my friends.

  “I heard he’s part Darkling,” Jacob informed us. Felicia and Joanna both gasped at his announcement.

  “What’s a Darkling?” I asked, dreading the answer.

  “It’s what you humans call a vampire.” I jumped as the person behind me spoke, their breath kissing the back of my neck.

  “You startled me!,” I said, indignation coloring my tone.

  “Sorry.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. Laurent did not look in the least bit sorry, in my opinion. Nope, he looked amused. I glared. He held both of his hands up and leaned back into his chair.

  “If the rest of you will take a seat, please,” Professor Symonds said as a group of stragglers came in just as the bell rang, announcing the start of class. “Hello, I’m Professor Chip Symonds, and this is Fae for Beginners. Let’s get all of this out of the way, shall we? Yes, my grandfather was a Darkling. No, I do not drink blood, I inherited the fangs but not the thirst. What else?” He fingered the royal blue bow tie he wore around his neck. “Ah, yes, I really do always wear a bow tie and never the same tie twice in one year.” He smiled then, taking off his round, gold-rimmed spectacles and wiping them with a soft cloth he pulled from his shirt pocket.

  “He must own hundreds of ties,” Felicia said under her breath, her eyes wide.

  I wondered how he kept track of which one he’d worn when. I found myself wondering if he was a fan of Pinterest, like one of my old neighbors. They’d seen a card catalog from some old library repurposed to hold embroidery thread or some such and went hunting on eBay to find one. I imagined the professor doing that, only cataloging his bow ties in the small, neat drawers. My mind boggled as much about the ties as it did over him having the same name as that little teacup in the kids’ movie.

  He reached into his pants’ pocket and pulled out a length of golden chain. He lifted the long, substantial length over his head and settled it around his neck. It was quite the long necklace, the sizeable gold medallion suspended from its length nestling against his chest. He stroked the pale blue crystals inset within the design etched upon the pendant as he spoke once more.

  “While it’s true that you need to become proficient in Fae to read their ancient spellworks, what you may not know is that the individual words themselves can be imbued with unexpected power if uttered by one with Fae blood.” That made me sit up straighter. My Fae blood could cause me to accidentally do magick simply by saying a single word, even if I wasn’t doing a spell? “Obviously we do not want to experience random chaos in the classroom,” a low muttering of disappointed awwws sounded at that, “so I have brought this to help prevent that.”

  He walked out from behind his desk, and for the first time, I could see that even his shoes were dapper, being wingtips like the ones my uncle used to stop and admire in the shoe store window. My aunt would tell him he didn’t need another pair of dress shoes.

  “While this looks like a simple amulet, it is, in fact, a Fae construct designed to ferret out hidden Fae blood. The Fae would send rangers out to comb the realms, looking for lost Changelings so they could bring them home when it was time to begin their training.”

  My mouth dropped open. Those fairy tales about fairies swapping children were real? Why would they even do that?

  “Of course, they didn’t always manage to track down all of the children, so Fae blood sometimes entered human and witch bloodlines unknowingly. Unknown, that is, until a mishap occurred when learning to speak and read Fae. These mishaps sometimes proved fatal not only to the person uttering the fateful word, but those in the immediate vicinity, so before we start, I will be asking you to come up one at a time to be tested.”

  Oh, shit. I hoped this wasn’t going to hurt.

  Professor Symonds dropped his hand from the amulet and made a come hither motion. “You four, there
in the front row, come on up here.”

  The classroom was so quiet now that the screech one of the students made with the leg of their chair as they got up sounded incredibly loud. Symonds made them stand in a line facing us. He walked in front of them, stopping before each one in turn. He muttered something singsongy, too quiet for those of us still seated to hear. He paused, and when nothing happened, he moved onto the next student, and then the next.

  “Thank you, you may sit down.” He gave us a wry grin, which looked more than a little creepy what with the fangs and the tie and all. “The amulet will react if it detects Fae blood,” he explained. “Okay, you, in the next row. Up.”

  When he got to the second girl in line, a faint glow shimmered around both the amulet and the girl. It died down nearly as fast as it appeared. The remaining two didn’t cause any reaction.

  “Just a drop there, um...” he paused, waiting for her name.

  “Bethany,” the girl supplied. “Bethany Oakwood.”

  “Ah, there it is. You knew you had Fae ancestry?”

  “It was rumored,” Bethany admitted. “The family story was that one of my many times great grandmothers fell in love with a Fae, just before they all disappeared. She discovered she was pregnant and gave her son his father’s name.”

  “Well, looks like it’s true, though it is quite dilute. Still, we’ll keep an eye on you.”

  Bethany nodded, looking apprehensive. Four more students caused a weak glow in varying degrees. Then it was our turn. My friends and I already knew I was going to glow, but I certainly had not expected a miniature sun. Gasps broke out around the room, including from me. To cap it all off, the light wasn’t the soft white of everyone else’s either. It was pink, a very Barbie pink.

  “A locii,” Professor Symonds breathed. “Please stand to one side.”

  I moved to stand next to his desk, where he pointed. As I moved away, the glow faded from the amulet, but not from me. I stood there watching as he tested Jacob, Joanna, and Felicia. Jacob gave off a very faint glimmer, but Joanna didn’t, which I thought was interesting.