Magic Bound

by Theresa Kay

  It’s all rather pretty. And ridiculously fancy looking in that old money estate type way. I don’t know if I’ve ever felt more out of place in my entire life.

  My parents aren’t poor. Everyone in the Blue Ridge region does pretty well for themselves thanks to the various businesses Connor has set up to support the packs.

  But the way I grew up was nothing like this. This is . . . rich. Freakishly rich.

  I glance down at my jeans and try to recall what outfits I might have thrown in my bag, suddenly wishing I’d taken a bit more care with packing. The black boots I have on are decent enough, but I don’t think running shoes are going to cut it. And flip-flops? I cringe.

  Basil points at the building on the left. “The boys’ dormitory.” To the building on the right. “The girls’ dormitory. The first floor of each is made up of various common rooms: theaters, study rooms, game rooms and the like. Anyone can use those. The athletic fields are behind the main building there in the center, and starting by the corner of the boys’ dorm there’s a trail that goes around the lake. All classes will be in the main building, and that’s where staff offices are as well, but the top floor is faculty housing and off limits to students.”

  This is all so overwhelming . . . What the hell am I doing here?

  “Why Ravencrest?” I finally ask.

  “Because it’s where Helen went? Because it’s the best? I can’t tell you anything for sure except that Ravencrest is apparently what Helen wanted for you. Otherwise she wouldn’t have included me as part of her contingency plan. She left the Order only a couple months after she graduated and didn’t confide in me regarding her plans—or regarding you. I was just as surprised as anyone when your uncle called me this evening,” says Basil, his voice going quiet for a moment before he puts his cheery smile back on and pats me on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. I’m sure you’ll fit in just fine.”

  Yeah. Right. I want to ask more questions, find out more about my birth mother, but I don’t have the energy to process any of that right now. I’m sure I’ll have plenty of opportunities to get more information later. Like after I’ve had a good night’s rest and my head has stopped spinning.

  The tour continues, but I only listen to half of it, managing to catch where the dining hall and the library are located before he starts blabbering on about the history of some stairwell. Trying to remember all the room numbers and information he’s throwing is just making me dizzy again, so I tune out his voice and focus on figuring out how I’m supposed to deal with all this.

  I want to go home. I want this night to have never happened. I want to be in my own bed so I can wake up to Mom cooking pancakes and Dad ruffling my hair.

  But instead I’m here. And I was too angry and too selfish to give them a real hug goodbye.

  “There, there. It won’t be as hard as you think. You’ll have a map and a student guide,” says Basil brightly as he hands me a piece of cloth. A handkerchief.

  The burning in my eyes and the dampness on my cheeks finally registers. How embarrassing. I must be more exhausted than I realized.

  I offer up a tight smile and wave away the offered cloth before swiping my hand over my cheeks. “I’m fine. Just a little overtired.”

  He nods. “Very well then. We have a little paperwork to take care of, and then you can get settled.”

  “Okay. Sure.” Nothing is really ‘okay’, but there’s no point in arguing about it now.

  He leads me into the middle building and up a narrow corner staircase. Six flights of stairs later, we exit into a darkened hallway. The air is a little musty in that old building kind of way, but the carpet is plush, and art pieces line the walls. At the other end of the hallway, Basil stops in front of a door and runs two fingers over the wood as he mutters something under his breath. There’s a click before he pushes the door open and gestures for me to follow him inside.

  “Most doors at the school are simply warded, but as an extra security measure my door is spelled as well,” he explains.

  I smile and nod as if that makes sense.

  The office is quite large with overflowing bookshelves lining every wall. Lopsided piles of paper cover the desk located in the far corner, and yet more books are scattered throughout the room in tall piles that appear as if they might tip over at any moment.

  My brows rise as I take everything in.

  “Now where did I put it?” Basil totters around the room, running his fingers over the bookshelves, flipping open a few covers of unshelved books, and rifling through a few pieces of paper. He scratches at his temple and looks around the room again. Distractedly, he motions at a chair. “Please have a seat, dear.”

  I lift a stack of spiral-bound notebooks from the chair and glance around. There’s not really anyplace to put them, so I set them on the ground next to the chair and take a seat, letting my bag rest on the floor.

  “How long is this going to take?” I drag a hand over my face. “I’m exhausted.”

  Basil’s gaze moves over me, and he raises a finger. “I know just what you need. I’ll be right back.”

  He hustles out of the room before I can say anything. A few minutes later, he returns and shoves a mug into my hands. “Here, drink this.”

  I tilt the mug up and take a large sip then immediately start coughing as liquid fire burns its way down my throat. “What the hell?”

  “You should probably slow down. That’s my best brandy. More of a sipping drink really,” says Basil.

  Another cough works its way from my chest. “No kidding. A warning would have been nice. I thought it was coffee.”

  His brow furrows. “No. I don’t drink caffeine. It’s awful for you.”

  My mouth opens, but I swallow the words at the last moment. There’s no use in trying to argue with him. I don’t know much about Basil, but I’ve come to realize he doesn’t quite follow things the way other people do. I take another sip, a small sip, and this time the liquid goes down much better, the warmth of it curling in my stomach and sending out a pleasant feeling to the rest of me. Brandy definitely isn’t something I’d pick for myself, but I guess it will do.

  “So . . .” I say as Basil flips through a stack of papers on his desk and then sifts through his drawers. “What’s next?”

  No response. He pushes his glasses up his nose and continues fiddling with the papers.

  “Do I get a room or something? I’m really tired.”

  “No, no, no,” he says, shaking his head. “You haven’t been admitted yet. There’s some paperwork here somewhere . . .”

  Admission paperwork? You’d think with the late night cloak-and-dagger antics, filling out paperwork would be unnecessary. I snort under my breath. This situation keeps getting more and more ridiculous. Next he’ll be telling me there’s a placement test. Wait . . . Is there a placement test? Well, if there is, I probably won’t have to deal with it until tomorrow—or next week at this rate—so there’s no use worrying about it now.

  I stand and walk over to the desk. Sitting just on the edge is a thin sheaf of papers stapled together, clearly marked as admission forms. It even has my name across the top in shaky capital letters.

  “Is this what you’re looking for?” I ask, holding the forms up pinched between two fingers.

  His face brightens with a grin. “Yes!” He grabs the papers out of my hand before setting them on the desk. “A pen . . . a pen . . . Where did I put that pen?”

  I gently tug the forms out from under his hand and grab one of the pens in the narrow holder hidden behind a pile of notebooks. “I’ve got it.”

  “Wonderful.” He directs me around the desk and gestures for me to take the chair. “You can use my desk. I’m sorely lacking in any other space in here.”

  No kidding. I eye the haphazard piles of books and the desktop nearly covered in stacks of paper. Him missing the form is understandable. I glance at my name written across the top. Almost understandable.

  The first page is simple enough, asking for bas
ic details like birth date, address, parents’ names—I put down George and Aileen—and things like that. It isn’t until I get to the second page that I have to pause. Power affiliation? Concentration area? Manipulation scores? Clearly, there’s a lot more to being a witch than I know.

  “I’m not sure how to fill the rest of this out,” I say, handing the papers back to Basil. “I don’t know any of that stuff on the second page. I don’t know much about being a witch in general.”

  He takes the papers and pats my arm. “No worries, dear. I’ve already notified Director Burke. He’ll arrange for any necessary testing to get the rest of this filled out. It should be fairly routine.”

  Fairly routine. Right. Like anything about any of this has been routine.

  “Let’s get you to your room. You should probably try to get a little sleep before you meet with the director in the morning.” He pauses. “Oh yes, let me take that talisman off your hands for now. It won’t do much within the boundaries of the school wards.”

  A sudden sense of loss coils in my chest as I slowly remove the pendant before handing it to him. “Will I . . . get it back?”

  “Of course, of course,” he says. “It does belong to you after all.”

  Huh. I guess it does since it was my birth mother’s.

  Basil places the pendant inside a small box on his desk and then makes a shooing motion with his hands as he ushers me out of his office before I have time to say anything else. We go down the stairs and across the quad to the building he previously identified as the girls’ dorm. I follow him up five more flights of stairs and down another long hallway to a door at the end marked 513.

  “This will be your room for the duration of your stay here. You have a roommate, Isobel Cardosa, but she’ll probably be sleeping at this time of night.” He presses his fingers against the doorknob and motions for me to go in as the door swings open. “It’ll be keyed to you once you’re fully registered. Get some sleep, dear. Director Burke will be expecting you at his office, room 419 in the main building, at 8:00 a.m. sharp. He’ll key the wards to your magical energy, set you up with some uniforms and books, and tell you about your classes and school procedure and all that.”

  He pats me on the head and gives me a gentle push into the room. He’s gone again before I can find enough words to form any of the million questions flying through my mind. I suppose I’ll have to wait until the morning for more answers.

  I take in my surroundings. The room is simple but cozy. Two beds, two desks, two dressers, and two narrow doors to what I assume are closets. The side of the room farthest from the door is decorated with simple solid colors, mostly teal and yellow, and there’s a person-shaped lump underneath the geometric design on the comforter, most likely my roommate. The fact that she’s asleep already is almost a relief. I don’t know if I have it in me to deal with anyone else tonight.

  I flop down on the empty bed, tossing my bag on the floor, then eye my roommate’s cluttered desk. There’s a precarious-looking stack of books on the desk and one fairly thick book left open in the center. That’s quite a lot of reading for this early in the school year. Is the course load going to be that heavy?

  The lingering anger that’s held me together is fading into a deep hopelessness. One of the tears I’ve managed to hold back escapes and tracks its way down my cheek. I sniffle and eye my sleeping roommate. Will it wake her up if I completely lose it right now? Does it really matter?

  Another sniffle. Another tear.

  By habit, I reach for my phone to text Reid. But my phone is gone. Next week, Reid will be in New York, and who knows what’s going to happen with my parents.

  Connor said they’d be in touch as soon as they could.

  And I have no idea when that might be.

  The fragile hold I have on my emotions shatters, and the tears come down full force, followed by a hiccupping sob.

  I can’t do this. I don’t want to be here. I want to go home.

  When I wake up, the person-shaped lump in the other bed is gone. I’m not normally one for sleeping in, but after everything that happened last night, I must’ve been more tired than I realized, because I could sleep for another twelve hours. But the brightness of what has to be at least mid-morning shines through the window.

  Which means I’m late. Very late.

  Crap.

  I really could use my cell phone right about now, if only for its alarm clock feature.

  My eyes are gritty and my head is pounding from not getting enough sleep, but staying in bed isn’t an option. There’s too much at stake for me to mess this up. I need to put on a happy face and just do it. Push through adversity. Don’t let the witches get me down and all that . . . Ugh, I sound like a motivational poster. If nothing else, today I need to figure out what the deal is here so I can try to make it work. Emphasis on try.

  I jump out of bed and search frantically through my bag for an outfit that isn’t wrinkled beyond recognition. No luck, and even if I had time, there’s no iron in sight. Once again, I’m hit with a large dose of regret for not taking the time to pack properly. I pull on yesterday’s jeans, shove my arms into the dressiest-looking shirt I brought, a pale-yellow, short-sleeved blouse, and pull on the first pair of shoes I can find: my flip-flops. This is certainly not the most fashionable outfit, but who do I need to impress? Basil mentioned uniforms, so I’ll only be wearing this until someone issues them to me. I can deal with it until then. Right?

  There’s a paper cup sitting on my desk with a short note.

  Tried to wake you, but you weren’t budging. Hope you like vanilla lattes.

  -Isobel

  I don’t know much about my new roomie, but even though she’s a witch, she’s my favorite person in the world right now, no contest. The latte is cold, but I down it anyway, willing the caffeine into my system as quickly as possible.

  Feeling a little better even if it is only psychosomatic, I pull my unruly mass of dark hair into a messy bun and put on enough makeup to look somewhat presentable: eyeliner, mascara, and a touch of lip gloss.

  I grab the admission forms Basil gave me and rush out the door, realizing only as the door shuts behind me that I don’t know how to open the thing. I grimace. Basil mentioned something about getting the wards keyed to me, so hopefully I don’t need anything else from the room until either that happens or I meet up with my roommate for an actual conversation.

  I dash through the hallways—the empty hallways—and run down the stairs to the ground floor.

  Administrative offices are in the middle building, but what room did Basil say I was supposed to go to? I have no freaking idea. Glancing down at the admission forms, I flip through them. Maybe Basil wrote the room number on here. Please, please, please. No luck. I guess I’ll—

  I slam into someone. Everything in my hands goes flying, and I land on my butt on the ground. Dammit. I should have been paying more attention.

  The guy standing over me, clearly another student as he’s wearing what must be the school uniform, stares down at me. As in, literally looks down his perfect, lightly freckled nose at me. His hair is barely on the blond side of dirty blond, neatly combed, and trimmed close to his head at the sides and a little longer on top. Golden-brown eyes the color of dark honey go from the top of my head to my flip-flopped feet and my purple toenails. I’d say he’s the hottest guy I’ve ever seen if his lip wasn’t curling in distaste. The expression makes the high cheekbones and sharp lines of his pretty face turn into something cold and hard.

  “Sorry,” I say, offering a weak smile and a shrug. “I’m late, and I wasn’t looking where I was going.”

  His gaze makes another pass over me, and then he huffs and steps around me without a word, leaving me to gather the scattered papers alone. Wow. What an ass. But pretty much what I expected from Ravencrest and witches in general. I hope he’s not in any of my classes.

  Admission forms reassembled, I brush off my jeans and make my way to the main building. The door is locked.
Crap. Basil did warn me to be on time . . .

  There’s a pad by the side where students are supposed to scan IDs or something like that, but I clearly don’t have one. I glance frantically around, but the quad is deserted. I give the door another shake, and it rattles in the frame. I resist the urge to kick it. More because I’m wearing open-toed shoes than from any sense of decorum.

  Behind me, someone clears their throat. I spin around to face a guy with an amused look on his face. He has tan skin and dark, glossy curls that tumble over his forehead, the kind of hairstyle that looks effortless but really isn’t. A fancy watch graces his wrist, and his clothes, a perfectly fitted pair of navy-blue trousers and a white button-down shirt with a blazer bearing the school crest on it, look like they were made for him. Another student then. Here’s hoping this one isn’t an asshole too.

  His gaze flicks down to my flip-flops. “Are you lost?”

  “Um, yes? Well, sort of. I’m new and I’m supposed to meet with the director, but I’m late and don’t have a student ID yet.” I shuffle from foot to foot and give him a nervous smile.

  “A student ID?” His brows pull together, and a hint of mirth flashes in his dark-brown eyes.

  I gesture at the pad beside the door. “To get in.”

  “You don’t need an ID. It’s a ward.” He places two fingers against the pad, much like Basil did with the doorknob at my dorm room, and there’s a soft click. “Your magical energy will be keyed to it, and any other doors you’re permitted access to, once you’re fully registered.”

  So that’s what Basil was talking about. My cheeks heat, and I shrug. “Yeah well . . . this is all a little new to me.”

  He tilts his head to the side and rubs his chin. “New to wards? How is that possible? All witches learn the basics as children. What, were you raised by wolves or something?”