The Hidden Court

by Vivienne Savage

  Blinded by my spell, all four nosferatu recoiled and backed away while striking out in wild, uncoordinated attacks. Steam arose from their skin, and the female closest to me shrieked before abandoning the fight and taking off for the shadows.

  Breaking rank drew attention to her. Gabriel charged in, hurled her to the ground, and before she had the chance to fend him off with more than a few desperate punches, he thrust a stake into her chest. She spasmed on the ground. Quicker than my eyes could track his movements, he dropped a holy wafer in her mouth. As she erupted in flames, her comrades fled and left her ashes behind.

  Panic exploded around us from the remaining humans on the street corners moving through the city. “Call for an ambulance!” someone screamed from the sidewalk. Hopefully the innocent onlookers didn’t view us as the aggressors.

  “Where the hell is Monica?” Gabriel demanded. He made a low noise, an inhuman growl in his chest—not surprising since the history books said ravens, wolves, and bears had a common ancestor. “We need a top-level Serenity glamour now.”

  “I don’t know what to do!” I cried, voice shrill despite my attempt to stay cool. As a freshman, we hadn’t received those lessons yet, and while I knew the theory, I also knew my frazzled state would make it worse. Doing it once for Sharon in the relaxed setting of the restaurant wasn’t the same as consoling a traumatized crowd.

  “We don’t have time to cool the crowd. We have to find Monica,” I blurted. Why had she run? Keeping with your sentinel was the safest place to be during an event.

  Gabriel grabbed my hand and we ran, abandoning the battle scene before police could arrive and start asking questions. I trusted he had a way of tracking her down, and he didn’t disappoint. Soon as we found Monica huddled inside an AT&T store on the corner, Gabriel hustled us to his Dodge. Monica scrambled into the rear cab while I claimed the front passenger seat.

  The poor girl looked so lost I leaned into the back seat and fastened the belt for her before buckling mine.

  “What if more of them are coming?” she asked in a quiet voice, the hauteur and arrogance gone.

  Gabriel peeled out into the road and blew through the empty intersection. The bad vibes there echoed through the area, and a black, ashy silhouette remained where the nosferatu died. “Been taking classes in evasive car maneuvers since last year. If they want us, they’ll have to put some work into it.”

  Apparently he’d earned an A+, because he drifted around the corner like a stuntman training for a role in The Fast and the Furious.

  “What do you need us to do?” I asked.

  “Call the 7-line.”

  Monica huddled in the back seat of his truck and blubbered as if she’d been the one knocked down and drooled on. She babbled out what happened to whoever answered the call, and then she broke into sobs again. My palms stung, but I resisted the urge to wipe them against my jeans and drew in a few breaths meant to calm my racing heart.

  Gabriel stared straight ahead, brown gaze occasionally darting to his mirrors. He merged onto a highway. “Are both of you okay? Anyone hurt?”

  “Fine,” I murmured.

  My mentor whimpered something incoherent.

  “Good. I need an Inconspicuous glamour on my truck before a cop pulls us over for speeding.” The spell made mortals ignore everything within a specific radius of the caster. It was what Monica should have cast while he fought the vampires.

  “That was really amazing, what you did,” I mumbled in a low voice. Gabriel had been impressive, and he looked completely in control, even now. Stoic and cool, like he’d done this a dozen times already. Maybe he had.

  “It wasn’t that much,” Gabriel said.

  When Monica didn’t cast the spell, I found enough power in my reserves to do it for her and cloaked the vehicle in an inconspicuous bubble. At least I hoped the spell worked. Maintaining concentration took everything I had.

  Without traffic slowing us down, we reached the school in record time, and by then I realized Gabriel was putting on a show. He parked the car and got out, holding his side and leaning against the closed driver’s side door with his eyes closed.

  “Go check in,” he told Monica.

  Some of the color had returned to her cheeks. “Right, Provost Riordan should be waiting for us in her office,” she said, heading straight for the quad. I didn’t follow her. Instead, I rounded the car and moved over to Gabriel’s side.

  “C’mon, big guy, I’ll walk you to the infirmary.”

  “Ugh, no. I’ll get there. Catch up with Monica so you can tell Riordan what really happened. She’ll babble some nonsense about how she saved the day or something.”

  He hit the lock button on the key fob and moved slower than molasses for the walkway. His eyes squeezed tight, and his breaths became erratic. Pained.

  “Screw Monica. You’re hurt and pale as a piece of paper. I can give Riordan my accounting afterward, because it’s not like Monica will let me get a word in edgewise anyway, right?”

  What a stubborn man. The keys rattled in his quaking hand. He’d killed a monster, and that had to shake anyone.

  “Okay,” he agreed. He didn’t make it far on his own, and while shifters could regenerate, their healing wasn’t quick enough to walk it off. He leaned against me most of the way until Nurse Kristi saw us enter and rushed over to take him.

  “Thanks,” he muttered quietly before the bear spirited him away.

  With Gabriel in good hands, I stepped outside and sprinted across the campus.

  Provost Riordan’s personal assistant greeted me with a smile when I reached the top floor of the administrative office. Its plush carpet, a spotless stretch of wine color beneath flawless wooden furnishings in antique styles, reminded me of plum velvet. Portraits of former headmasters decorated the walls, and the scent of a woodland glade perfumed the air.

  “Go straight ahead. She’s waiting for you,” the secretary said.

  Afraid to charge in, I nudged the door open and slipped inside. The scent of a fair meadow in springtime greeted me.

  The provost’s office matched the exterior rooms, a melding of old-world antiquity and modern elegance with silk damask wallpaper in shades of blue supporting numerous Tir na Nog-inspired wall tapestries.

  And then there were the shelves and a spiraling staircase that ascended to the upper level. Walls and walls of shelves too numerous to count offset a breathtaking art collection.

  “—and then he made us walk to find his car and that’s when those things attacked,” Monica was relaying. “If we’d just waited for my car, we’d have been fine.”

  My body trembled with a rush of anger. That lying skank.

  At the conclusion of Monica’s banter, the provost smiled thinly and lowered her pen to the table. “Thank you for your accounting of the events this evening, Miss Cunningham. You may leave now. Miss Corazzi, have a seat.”

  Monica and I exchanged places. Then the leader of the school fixed me with a quiet look. She didn’t speak until the office door closed. “What happened this evening?”

  “For starters, Gabriel made us move to his truck because we arrived in different vehicles and Monica’s was with the valet. We would have been standing around waiting for them to retrieve her ride when the vamps attacked.”

  “I see. Start from the beginning for me.”

  Squirming beneath the provost’s inquisitive gaze wasn’t an option. I had to be tough and show I wasn’t a terrified freshman. After sucking in a calming breath, I came to a decision.

  Monica had been a brat, but snitching to the head witch in charge wasn’t exactly a reputation I wanted to gain.

  “Okay. Things went right for Sharon, but after we left, Gabriel said something didn’t feel right. And it didn’t. So he started to lead us to his truck. The valet was taking care of the diners ahead of us.”

  Provost Riordan focused on my face. It was disconcerting, as if she could see right into my head and tell if I was being truthful or not. Hell, maybe she could. Mag
es had all sorts of abilities.

  “And then?”

  “That’s when the nosferatu showed up.”

  “I see. And what happened afterward.”

  I gave her an accounting of the actual battle, leaving out no details regarding Gabriel’s courage.

  “And Miss Cunningham? Where was she during this altercation?”

  I sighed. “To be honest, I don’t know precisely. She… ran off. Afterward we found her in a nearby store.”

  “I see. I’ll pay a visit to Mr. Fujimoto in the infirmary later once I’m sure he’s had a moment to rest from your ordeal. As for you…” She clucked her tongue and looked me over again. “Have the nurse see to your injuries and get some rest.”

  Great. There’d be rumors flying around the school for sure, and since Jada had been happy to convince most upperclassmen I’d picked a fight with a stone guardian, I didn’t look forward to finding out what shit she would stir up this time.

  12

  The Heartflame

  My injuries had been so minor the nurse in the medical center rinsed my hands, smeared some cream on my palms, and dismissed me to the dorm with orders to rest.

  Exhaustion took the place of the adrenaline that had rushed through my veins, making every step to the elevator an effort. Before I reached the room, my frantic parents called.

  I spent an hour convincing Mom and Dad they shouldn’t burn their magical reserves to teleport to the closest Faerie Ring near the campus. Then Liadan coaxed me into the bath for a shower, and I passed the rest of the night huddled on the couch as she turned nosy busybodies away from our door. Word had already spread around the campus that Monica and I had been assaulted by vampires.

  Eventually, Pilar cast a Mute glamour over our threshold and charmed it to create absolute silence for anyone short of campus security or administration. I envied her ease with the spell as much as I appreciated it.

  Further attempts from our fellow students to contact me fell on deaf ears, although Ben texted and asked if I was okay. He promised to bring pizza if we let him hang out with us, and he brought over a movie his roommate had picked up from Redbox. Holly promised to join us but never showed, canceling later over a text message because she was too busy with some new boyfriend she met on Halloween night.

  When morning came, the aroma of breakfast awakened me from a hard, nightmare-filled slumber. I couldn’t remember much of the dream, only that there were toy puppets chasing me and flocks of foul ravens gathering like storm clouds in the skies.

  Stupid Jada. Stupid prankster raven friends. I blamed her bullshit and the attack for my poor night of sleep and ambled from the bedroom to peek into the cramped kitchen. Lia was cooking.

  “Morning!” she called, eyes bright and chipper. “Or should I say, good afternoon.”

  “Morning… Huh?” I glanced at the clock. It was half past noon.

  “You were tired, and it’s Saturday, so we let you sleep in. Pilar went to fetch donuts from the food court.”

  “She’s breaking her diet?”

  “Sure is. I’ll be done with this in a moment.”

  While Liadan made what looked like a full Irish breakfast, complete with sausages, beans, and soda bread, I woke myself up in the bathroom with a shower and slipped into fresh sweats. When I returned to my bedroom to stuff my dirty laundry into the hamper, a glint of red winked at me from the pillow.

  “The hell?”

  Someone had left a ruby necklace in my room. A delicate card of starlight parchment shimmered beside it. I picked up the faerie-made stationery and threw open the curtains for a look at it in the sunlight. Opalescent ink gleamed against the page in flowing script.

  Keep it safe and close to your heart until it is time.

  “Time? Time for what?” I scooped up the necklace and headed back to the living room. “Lia? Pilar? Which of you put this in my room?”

  “Put what?” Liadan asked.

  “This.” I held up the jewelry for them to see. The five ruby cabochons threw ember beams around the room, and every time I looked down at it, I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was real and not a five-dollar piece of costume jewelry.

  Pilar flew off the couch to see it, eyes growing wide. “These are flame rubies from Mount Cloudfire in Tir na Nog. Priceless rubies.”

  “Flame rubies?”

  “Yes! See how they shine without direct light on them?” She leaned closer, scrutinizing my necklace with the trained eye of a rich girl who probably had a dozen like it. “It is a beautiful replica of the necklace Queen Titania wears. Who sent it?”

  Suddenly lightheaded, I wobbled around the couch and sank onto it. “I’m not sure. I thought you guys did it because there’s no name on the card. It was just lying on my pillow.” But it hadn’t been there when I woke up. “You two seriously aren’t pulling one over on me?”

  They shook their heads.

  “Could another student have snuck it inside?” I asked.

  Pilar shook her head this time. “There are top level wards on all windows and walls to prevent students from shadowstriding or teleporting into places they don’t belong. If anyone less than a high wizard tried to open your window, the alarm would be heard around the campus.”

  “Then that means…” I looked down at it again, heart thumping harder in my chest.

  “It is a gift from the fae,” Liadan said. “Perhaps your grandmother sent it.”

  “Maybe…”

  “Here, let me help you.” Pilar took the necklace and fastened the heavy silver chain around my neck. It warmed me right away and countered the slight chill in our dormitory. She picked up one of the gemstones and studied it, squinting while smoothing her thumb over the polished surface. “It looks lovely on you.”

  “Thanks. I just wish…” I shook my head and traced my fingers across the center stone, wondering if I had a secret admirer.

  We ate lunch in front of a movie, stuffing our faces with Irish delicacies Liadan’s mother had shipped over until the drowsiness of a food coma threatened to tug me under. Even then, I nibbled lazily on a glazed, buttermilk donut as my mind drifted to Gabriel and whether he’d been released yet from the infirmary.

  Without having Gabe’s phone number on hand, I couldn’t text.

  Why didn’t I have his number? Oh yeah, I had never been brave enough to ask, and with Jada giving me hell, I didn’t want to give the wrong impression either and wind up on the receiving end of another raven prank. We’d limited our conversations to e-mail only.

  Screw her. I’d never try to convince a guy to cheat on his girl, and I’d have never respected him again if we had kissed in the haunted house basement.

  Liadan made a gentle humming sound beside me. “Do you think Gabriel is still in the medical center?” I stared at her. My expression must have been comical, because she laughed, voice musical and warm. “What? Did I do it again?”

  “Yes.”

  Even Pilar glanced away from the television and grinned. “A sign that you should take some of these donuts to him perhaps. We will not finish them all.”

  What would I do without my friends?

  Once Pilar tossed a few hair-taming glamours my way to manage my wild curls, I gathered the remaining pastries and crossed the campus to the university medical center. I’d tucked the necklace inside my sweatshirt, wary of anyone seeing it until I knew where it came from.

  A wolf shifter nurse with a shock of white hair waited at the nurse’s station. She eyed the white paper sack in my hand. “May I help you?”

  I put on a sunny smile. “I’m here to see Gabriel Fujimoto.”

  “He’s resting.”

  “Oh c’mon, just this once? He deserves a donut after what he did.”

  The older woman sighed. “Room 105.”

  One of the nurses had left the door to room 105 half ajar, and through the narrow opening, I saw Gabriel in the hospital bed texting on his phone.

  After rapping my knuckles against the doorframe, I called out, “Knock,
knock. Up for company?”

  He glanced up from the phone on his lap and blinked at me. “Hey, Skylar. How’re you feeling?”

  “I should be asking you that. Hungry? I snuck you in some sweets.” When I shook the bag, his eyes lit up.

  “In that case, come on in.”

  While he demolished an eclair, I pulled a chair up to the bed and settled into it.

  “Provost Riordan came by about an hour ago for my accounting of what happened,” he said while licking chocolate off his thumb. “Told her Monica beat feet and left you alone with me. What’d you tell her?”

  “The truth. I didn’t mention much about what happened in the restaurant, because the rest is pretty damning on its own.”

  “What did happen in the restaurant? I didn’t have the best view of what was going on, but I didn’t want to argue with her about me coming inside to join you. Better that I didn’t, I think, otherwise I might have missed out on the vampire scent.”

  “I dunno, she was texting the entire time and muttering about why her boyfriend wasn’t going to be somewhere or something.”

  He snorted. “Probably because he was going out with his other girlfriend.”

  “Wait, he’s dating two girls?”

  Gabriel’s grin widened. “More like three, but I don’t think Monica’s caught on to the third yet. They had a big fight a couple weeks ago about him making out with some other mage.”

  “He’s a mage? Wait, I remember now. You said he’s Mrs. Hansford’s nephew.”

  “Yep. You remember that guy I mentioned a few weeks ago? Trevor Nichols?”

  “Yeah?”

  Gabriel bumped his brows up and grinned.

  “No way!”

  “Oh yes. Top-level sorcerer actually and graduating this spring. A couple of us have been, uh… holding his secrets hostage since he can’t keep his dick in his pants.”

  Not too long ago, Anji had warned me about Jada lurking in my windows and following me for the same reason. I shivered, divided between disapproval and satisfaction. “Blackmailing him.”