Changeling (Sorcery and Society Book 1)

by Harper, Molly

  Could I be a changeling? While I loved my family, I never really felt like I belonged with them. I knew I was different, but I always thought it was because they always seemed so strong and hardy, while I was slowly being poisoned into non-magical frailty.

  I sobbed, realizing that tears were coursing down my cheeks. Was I really my parents’ child or had they simply found me on a doorstep somewhere? Or worse… had my mother betrayed my father with a member of the Coven Guild? It didn’t seem likely. Mum was so worn and grey. It was hard to imagine her flirting with a member of the upper crust. Then again, Mr. Winter had always been relatively kind to me, though aloof. Could he be my father? Was this why Mrs. Winter rarely spoke to me before the incident in the parlor? Because she didn’t want to be faced with evidence of her husband’s betrayal?

  Was it possible that in some time where Mum was a younger, less careworn lady, she had caught some Guardian’s eye? I just couldn’t see it. I’d seen them in the same room many times over the years. There was no spark between them. I knew that any love Mum had for my father had been strained over the years, but I still didn’t want to consider the possibility that she’d wandered on him.

  No.

  This was madness. This was a dream born of exhaustion and the emotional toll of being in a strange new place, not to mention being appointed the keeper of a magical book that I couldn’t read. I swiped at my cheeks with the delicate handkerchief with the Brandywine flowers embroidered in the corners. I just needed a good dream-free night’s sleep, and I would be fine.

  Except for the magical book I didn’t understand.

  And a new mark on my hands that set me apart from the rest of the students.

  And the fact that I didn’t really know any magic.

  “I have to learn to stop comforting myself,” I muttered into my pillow.

  7

  A Faux Pas Before Breakfast

  At the dawn bell, I struggled into consciousness, sitting up and rubbing my hands together. The dragonfly seemed to hum in response. I glanced over to my vanity. Apparently, a maid had come into my room while I was sleeping, unpacked my luggage and laid out my Castwell green dress for the day. Even though I’d entered plenty of chambers with sleeping occupants over the years, delivering breakfast trays and towels and whatever else they required in the pre-dawn hours, I found I didn’t like the idea of someone wandering into I room while I was asleep.

  I did, however, appreciate the maid’s choice of dress. It was one of my favorites, comfortable muslin with a closed collar and pointed sleeves. I also donned the matching gloves. Mrs. Winter may have wanted me to flaunt my dragonfly, but I didn’t want to separate myself from the other students any more than necessary on my first day. It frightened me, how much I liked wearing the DuPont gowns. I was used to simple clothes, rough fabrics, but in the gowns, I felt like Cassandra Reed. I was almost a lady. And while the prospect of growing up, and all the strange new body parts involved, was still somewhat terrifying, I didn’t look like the skinny, undersized girl who hid behind her family. I was my own person.

  I was sure the thrill of new gowns would wear off if I ever needed a corset, too.

  A Snipe girl named Leah arrived as I struggled my way into my gown. She helped me style my hair into a lovely, complicated chignon.

  Walking down the shadowed, black-and-white tiled halls didn’t help my nerves. The other girls seemed to have divided themselves into pods, four girls emerged from each suite and joined arms, strolling in pairs down the steps in their matching green dresses. Their shoulders were straight, their heads high. Their skirts practically swished in unison. It was unnerving.

  Breakfast was less opulent than my morning trays at Raven’s Rest, but the kitchens certainly provided the students with a hearty start to the day. Snipe girls in plain grey dresses carried in heaping platters of pastries, bacon, and eggs to each of the tables, where the students placidly took their fill and ignored their servants entirely. I forced myself to take toast and fruit and offer a smile in return to the sweet-faced blond girl who served me. She practically recoiled in shock and bobbled her tray. The other girls stared at me as if I’d just made a considerable faux pas.

  I’d faux pas’d before breakfast. This was not going to be a good day.

  “Do you mind if I sit here?” a husky voice asked. I looked up to see a tall girl with beautiful teak-colored skin and large doe eyes. Her tightly curled black hair was wound into a high, loose bun that accentuated her high cheekbones. But her clothes did nothing to highlight what looked to be a lovely figure. Her dress, while the usual Castwell green, was cut loose at the bust and hips, making her look a bit like a deflated soufflé. It was trimmed at the wrists and neck with lace in a combination of tan and burnt prune. I recognized the combination of colors as a trademark of the Cowell family, a division of House Drummond that prided itself on the construction of security wards. The Cowells were rolling in money, from what Mrs. Winter told me, why would they insist on dressing their daughter like this?

  “Of course,” I said, waving toward the opposite seat. “Please.”

  “Normally, no one sits here, so it’s safe,” the girl murmured as she dropped into her seat. She sounded resentful somehow, without being so rude as to tell me that she didn’t want to break her fast with me.

  “Did I steal your table?” I asked, cringing slightly. “Did I take your friends’ seats?”

  “No, anyone is welcome to sit here,” she told me. “But no one else ever does.”

  “I’m happy to be the first. I’m Cassandra Reed,” I said, wrapping my lips around the strange new name.

  “Oh, I know. Everybody knows who you are. The Translator. It’s all the other girls can talk about. Not that they talk to me about you, of course, but after you, er, departed the library, I overheard – well, never mind what I overheard. Many of them tried their hands at Translating the book, and it didn’t even open for them. A new girl coming in and Translating before she was even enrolled, that was bound to bruise their pride. I wouldn’t pay them any attention.” She blanched, realizing, I supposed, that she had said too much. “Let me start over. I’m Ivy. I’m Ivy Cowell.”

  “It’s nice to meet you, Ivy. And I’m not so sure about the Translating business. I didn’t have any idea what I was doing. I just touched the book.” I glanced down at my hands.

  “I think that’s what’s making them so angry,” Ivy said, suppressing a throaty chuckle. “You weren’t even trying.”

  “No, clearly, I am trying to make enemies on my first day,” I said, taking a rather aggressive bite of toast. “I am succeeding. Beautifully.”

  Ivy snickered. “You’re being sponsored by the Winter family. You had enemies before you even got here.”

  “You might have laughed less as you said that,” I told her. “It would communicate less enjoyment at my expense.”

  Ivy blushed and ducked her head over her oatmeal, but she was still laughing, so I didn’t think I’d offended her.

  An older slim girl with thick, cornsilk-colored hair and wide, blue eyes approached our table, looking down her nose at me. Her dress was exquisitely tailored with an elaborate brass hammer collar brooch denoting her as a Cavill. The Cavills concentrated their interests on metallurgy and alchemy. They were heavily regulated by the Guild as the government fretted over the House flooding the market with fool’s gold, causing the economy to collapse. From what I’d read, the Cavills were bitter rivals of the Brandywines and the Mountforts, the Mother House to the Winters.

  Flanked by two girls who had clearly tried to imitate her elaborately coiled hairstyle, the blond didn’t bother sparing a glance toward Ivy. She dropped an envelope on my plate and did an imitation of a curtsy.

  “Miss Reed, I am Callista Cavill. I’m the student body representative, president of the Athena Scholars. Headmistress Lockwood asked us to show you around the school grounds,” she said, giving me a smile so sweet it couldn’t possibly be genuine. I didn’t like her eyes. They were over-
bright and reflected nothing, like dolls’ eyes. “She wanted to make sure that you were given the right sort of introduction to Miss Castwell’s.”

  She sneered down at Ivy, who hadn’t looked up from her plate. “Cow.”

  My brows rose. Had I heard Callista correctly?

  Choose wisely.

  Mrs. Winter probably would have advised me to welcome any attentions from a Cavill. She would want me to stay on Callista’s good side, to curry favor with her, if for no other reason than to protect myself and my secrets from an enemy house.

  My mother would have wanted me to travel the path of least resistance. Mary would have wanted me to befriend Callista, if only to try to talk her out of the elaborately worked golden combs tucked in her hair.

  But still, Ivy had been friendly towards me first and seemed to have no reason for doing so beyond kindness. I glanced at Ivy, who was staring at me with wide eyes. “Oh, well, thank you, but I believe Ivy was willing to escort me to my first class.”

  Ivy blanched and flicked her eyes toward Callista, who was glowering down at her.

  “Oh, no,” Ivy said, shaking her head and standing so quickly, she knocked over her chair. Titters of laughter echoed through the dining hall as she struggled to right it. “I’m suddenly feeling unwell. I’m afraid I will not be able to make it to the first class after all. Cassandra, you should go to class with Callista.”

  “Oh, al-alright,” I stammered, more than a little ashamed at the relief I felt, not having to awkwardly excuse myself from a connection to Ivy.

  Ivy was just a few steps away when Callista cleared her throat and called, “Excuse me?”

  Ivy stopped in her tracks and turned slowly.

  “I don’t believe I gave you leave to call me by my given name, did I?” Callista asked sweetly. “Calling me by my first name is a privilege I only grant to my closest, most intimate friends. And trust me, Miss COW-ell, you are not even close to being considered my friend.”

  I squirmed in my seat, watching in quiet horror as humiliation rippled across Ivy’s face. Why was Callista being so blatantly awful to a girl who seemed very sweet and unassuming? Was it because Ivy had African heritage? There were several girls of similar descent sitting in the dining hall, as well as girls whose families originally hailed from other continents. The Restoration had done much to overcome tensions between these cultures as magic users across the globe decided that they distrusted non-magicals much more than they valued keeping to their own ways. No major House was strictly Anglo-Saxon these days.

  Was Callista equally rude to all girls whose backgrounds were different than her own, or was Ivy her favorite target?

  To my shame, I looked down to my hands twisting in my lap. To Ivy’s credit, she didn’t cry or shrink back. She simply nodded and said, “My mistake,” and walked out of the dining room.

  “Now that’s out of the way,” Callista sighed, dropping into Ivy’s abandoned seat. “Welcome to Miss Castwell’s, Cassandra. Given your near-disastrous choices this morning, I am going to take you on as my special friend. And my friends understand the rules here at Castwell’s. Rule the first, we do not attach ourselves to pariahs before we manage to finish breakfast. The Cow is social poison, darling. Keep making this sort of mistake, and you’ll end up friendless and alone, no prospects, no husband. And you’ll have to work for a living, just like –”

  At that very moment, Miss Morton appeared at my left and laid a hand on my shoulder. “How are you this morning, Miss Reed? Did you sleep well?”

  The smug expression that overtook Callista’s face was downright sickening.

  “Yes, Miss Morton,” I said, giving her a tight, uncomfortable smile.

  “Well, do let me know if you need anything at all.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Girls, I know I can count on you to make sure that Miss Reed has a pleasant first day,” Miss Morton said, her dark eyes staring over the tops of her spectacles.

  “Of course, Miss Morton,” the trio chorused in an eerily uniform tone while Callista positively simpered at the woman.

  Miss Morton gave my shoulder one last pat and departed. Callista’s scornful expression returned.

  “The unfortunate Miss Morton only proves my point,” Callista told me. “Follow my advice, darling, or end up stuck here at Castwell’s, teaching the daughters of better families how to go out into the world and have more fabulous lives than you. Now, shall we walk to our first class?”

  Choose wisely.

  I was standing at a precipice, the sort of choice that could determine how I would fare at Miss Castwell’s, and I could feel my toes going over the edge. I wanted to get as far away from Callista as humanly possible, but I didn’t want to end up starring in her next dining room spectacle, or worse yet, get treated to my very own bovine nickname.

  I wasn’t in any sort of position to make someone like Callista angry. A few badly chosen words on my part and she could make my life here at school very difficult. Or worse, she could end up ferreting out the fraud I was perpetrating on the school and Coven Guild society at large. I remembered a snippet of wisdom I’d overheard Mr. Winter giving his son over dinner one evening, when he was having trouble at school. He’d told him, “Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.”

  As distasteful as I found her, I would have to keep Callista very close.

  I inclined my head in a regal fashion that would have made Mrs. Winter proud. “Thank you for your gracious welcome.”

  “Good choice,” she said, rising from the table. “Shall we?”

  I slowly pushed to my feet, resisting the urge to clear the dishes from the table. Callista linked her arm with mine and sashayed out of the room. Her two handmaidens followed as we marched down the hall, and into the solarium. I opened the envelope containing my schedule. I scanned my course list, which included crystallography, remedial symbology, medicinal botany, table etiquette and “independent study.” I supposed the independent study was the time I was supposed to devote to the Mother Book. And then there were electives available to me each day: ritual dance, belomancy, and magical embroidery. I would be so tired from my class schedule that I wouldn’t need to worry about insomnia.

  “By the by, I know that you’re new here, but we typically take our gloves off while we eat our meals.” Callista glanced down at the green silk gloves I’d chosen to cover my dragonfly

  “Thank you for the reminder,” I said in as pleasant a tone as I could muster. While we weren’t late, walking into the spacious glass-walled room, a dozen or so girls were already seated two to a table, their hands cupping fist-sized blue crystals. Each of them had their heads bent over the crystals, as if meditating.

  Morning light poured through the glass panel walls, lending a golden corona to the dark hair of the corpulent woman standing at the front of the room. She stood perfectly still, with her eyes closed, holding a large, cloudy blue crystal aloft. According to my class schedule, this was Miss Selsye, my crystallography teacher.

  Anxiety spread, heavy and cold, in my chest. What if I couldn’t do any magic when the teachers asked me to? What if they called on me and I didn’t know the answers? I’d always been a good student, but these girls had more time to study, private tutors, families who could teach them House specialties. What if they realized I didn’t belong?

  Ivy was sitting in the back of the class, alone at a table, staring into her crystal with red-rimmed eyes. Callista forged ahead to a desirable table shaded by a potted palm, even though it cut us off from the beautiful view of the manicured lawns. Two younger girls were already seated there, deep in meditation. But when Callista seethed, “Move, now” at them, they hopped to their feet and scrambled out of the way. Callista offered me a sweet smile and dropped gracefully into her seat. I followed suit, watching as the younger girls ducked around the classroom to find empty chairs, now that Callista’s lackeys had dethroned two other students sitting behind us.

  Now that I was seated, I could make out the l
ittle oil lamps embroidered at the rounded collar of Miss Selsye’s gown. That would connect her to House McCray, a family that mined and charged rare gems for the crayfire lamps that kept the city well-lit, amongst their many energy-based efforts. Perhaps she was a distant cousin?

  Miss Selsye opened her wide blue eyes. If she noticed that she now had an extra student in her classroom, she didn’t say anything. Callista sat high and straight in her chair, her face the very picture of an eager, interested pupil. I ran my fingers around the edge of the rounded blue crystal, smiling slightly at the low hum it gave in response.

  “Today, we will review the process of charging the crayfire lamps, one of the basic student maintenance duties at the school. As you know, crayfire lamps are made from azurite crystals, due to the valuable copper deposits found within. The copper vibrates at just the right frequency to conduct the necessary energy, providing hours of illumination, safe from the fire hazards or smoke pollution of the lesser Snipe-created methods,” Miss Selsye intoned.

  I tried to keep my expression neutral, but I couldn’t help but wonder if the “lesser Snipe” comments were called-for when discussing lamps? Was it really necessary to drop reminders of the Snipes’ so-called inferiority into conversation quite so many times per day?

  “Aside from being useful in healing spells, azurite also happens to provide an additional ‘spark’ to nearby magical practitioners, fortifying the strength of their casting work. Now, different crystals require different charging rituals. Depending on their use, you might use sea salt or sunlight or even exposure to turbulent weather. But for today’s discussion, we will focus on azurite crystals. Azurite requires a personal sacrifice, if you will, of your own energy. You can’t expect something for nothing, even if it’s just light to read by. Now, hold your crystals between your palms and close your eyes, imagine the copper deposits deep under the surface, imagine the life force that keeps your heart beating from one moment to the next and then picture that same energy pulsing within the crystal. Picture the cold, still rock giving way to life in its depths.”