by S. W. Clarke
Eva had already gotten dressed—her shirt was buttoned to the neck, just like Aiden’s—and styled her hair to purple perfection in a tight ballerina’s bun atop her head. Her wings haloed her body with shimmering softness.
Meanwhile, my red hair just…did what it always did. Which is to say, it encircled my head in bountiful frizz.
Incidentally, Eva reached out and touched a lock of it. “I’ve always wanted to have red hair. Yours is so pretty.”
“You think?” It was, after all, the reason I’d had to break Tommy Wilson’s nose back in school. “I’ve been considering buzzing it off.”
“What? That’s ridiculous.” She made a face, which somehow sent her features into even prettier relief. “Oh!” She spun, grabbed something off the desk and held it behind her back. “This is for you. You might need it, since you left all your belongings back at home.”
From behind her back came a brown leather satchel, and inside sat a pink notepad and pen. The pen was topped with a purple feather pom-pom, its threads floating through the air.
I couldn’t deny the sweetness of the gift. Hell, the twelve-year-old inside me was thrilled. And yet I also wondered how well my new roommate really knew the human world. Nobody had pom-pom pens after middle school.
I smiled at her, took the satchel, and mustered my most sincere voice. (Is it obvious by now that I don’t do sincerity well?) “Thanks. I’m so far behind, I’m sure I’ll need this.”
Actually, back in my regular life, I hadn’t ever taken notes in any of my classes. I wasn’t doing spectacularly at them, but I also wasn’t failing. Which, with Eva standing in front of me with her shirt happily buttoned to her throat, seemed almost blasphemous.
But when it came to academics, I’d been okay with being average after I entered the foster system. Back then, I wasn’t focused on school. I was just trying to get by.
And I realized now, staring down at my new pen, that I hadn’t changed after I’d slid into adulthood. My life had gone on in exactly the way it had since my mother and sister had disappeared: in a constant bid just to get by. Every day felt like an afterlife.
A knock sounded. Eva’s face lit, and she practically flew over to the door. Actually, her wings did flutter, which had an air freshener effect of reinvigorating the scent of fresh meadows.
When she opened the door, Aiden North was standing on the other side. Behind him, fresh daylight filtered in, the harshest rays diffused by the canopy above us. Which put Mr. Button-Up in a nice light. He didn’t look quite so awkward during the daytime. And there was a lot more brown hair atop that head than I’d even realized.
He spied me over Eva’s shoulder. With a once up-and-down, the left side of his mouth ticked up. Here comes the finger in the ribs. “Hey, it fits. Rolled the skirt a bit high though, didn’t you?”
I glanced down. Yeah, I had rolled the waistband over once or twice. I hadn’t even thought about it. I lifted my eyes back to Aiden. “Don’t suppose it’ll matter unless you’re looking, will it?”
He laughed, his gaze snapping away. “Tell that to the teachers. You’ll learn quick.”
Good, I’d embarrassed him a little.
I unrolled the waistband once anyway as Loki trotted up to Aiden, and the two of them exchanged a head-scratching moment. “Where are we off to?” I asked.
“The dining hall.” Aiden gestured us both out, and we followed him from the dorm and onto the tree’s landing. The two of them started down the stairs, Loki following, but I just stopped.
Holy crow, I thought as I looked out over the academy’s campus, dewy and glittering in the morning light.
It was far bigger than I’d realized, and we were way higher up. Some fifty feet below, the topside of the amphitheater’s greeted me with an enormous carving of a blazing sun. Students walked below. Some even flew, their shimmering wings flapping.
This wasn’t the world I’d known my whole life. This was something else entirely.
The dining hall was a short walk across the clearing from our dorm. Except that the entrance was up another flight of stairs carved into the side of a tree, and like I’d thought twice before since arriving at Shadow’s End: even as a city girl, my lungs definitely weren’t conditioned for climbing.
“Why,” I complained as we ascended to the dining hall, “does everything have to be so high up?”
In front of me, Eva shot me a half-amused, half-aggrieved glance. “It’s a protection. Long ago, the forces of darkness attacked Shadow’s End. But those fae who created the academy had thought ahead and built most of the campus into the ancient trees, which themselves bear ancient magic because of the leyline. And they cut down all the ladders, so the evil couldn’t get up to the students.”
Aiden climbed ahead, totally unwinded. For the first time, I noticed a large red birthmark peeking out just above the collar of his shirt. “That’s why the academy has persisted to this day. Because of their foresight.”
“What about the foresight to install lifts?” I asked, not even really joking.
Aiden shot me a wry smile, and I could swear Loki shook his head. “You’ll get used to it. It’s good for you.”
“Most days I just fly up.” Eva’s fingers rose in a graceful arc. “But today I’m walking with you two.”
I stared enviously at her gauzy wings. “So is everyone here either human or fairy?”
“Fae,” Aiden corrected. “And yes, one or the other, more or less.”
More or less. So much was hidden in that simple phrase.
I shifted my scrutiny onto him. “You never did tell me what kind of mage you are.”
“What kind do you think I am?”
More deflection.
“The kind who leaves shaving cream on his ear.”
Aiden’s hand shot up to his ear, where a blob of cream hung onto his earlobe, and he nearly tripped on the next step.
Eva giggled again. “He’s a fire mage.”
Oh, so we were going full-on Captain Planet now. “What does that mean?”
Aiden’s chest puffed a few degrees as I said it. “It means I can manipulate flame.”
“Show me.”
He turned back around, waving a hand over his shoulder. “Maybe later. I’m under strict orders to get food in you and then take you straight to the headmistress.”
Umbra. Good—I had questions for her.
But I didn’t want them knowing that. “Why? Am I in trouble already? I can unroll my skirt another notch.”
“It’s not that.” Eva smiled back at me. “You just need to get your class schedule.”
When we finally reached the landing, I sucked air into my exhausted lungs. “Class schedule? Aren’t there only a few weeks left in the semester?”
“Trust me, you need all the training you can get.” Aiden’s voice had gone unexpectedly serious. “It’s not a small thing to wield magic, Clementine.”
For the first time, it occurred to me that I might wield magic. I was a witch, after all.
I finally straightened as he pulled open the door to the dining hall. Inside was much darker than out here, though a cozy light emanated from within. Aiden ushered Eva and I past him into a buzzing room full of people.
I was hit by a wall of smells. Good smells. Amazing smells.
“Chicken!” Loki threaded through my legs. “Pork, beef, trout, salmon…”
Aiden stopped beside me. “What’s your familiar meowing about?”
I raised an eyebrow as he slipped away. “What else? Food.”
Some ten feet ahead of us, a rectangular dining table was set with covered dishes atop a long oak table carved right from the tree. On the other side of the room, long dining tables stretched through the hollowed-out interior of the tree, whose walls rose so high I couldn’t barely make out the airy ceiling. This hardly felt like a tree anymore.
My eyes lowered. I couldn’t even count all the students seated at the tables—or all the wings. Before me sat a mixture of humans and fae, male and fem
ale alike.
And most were looking in my direction.
I resisted the urge to pat my hair for the first time since I’d been a freshman in high school. No self-conscious pats were going to tame those curls, anyway. Just do you, Clem.
“Ah,” came a male voice from my right. “I see you brought the witch.” Actually, his scent preceded his voice. He smelled like sweat and exertion.
The witch, huh?
When I turned, I found myself staring right at his chest. He was that tall. And I wasn’t short, either, at five foot six.
I looked up, and he looked down. Here was another student, clad in the same uniform as Aiden, but he looked nothing like Aiden. This one was almost as wide as he was tall, and not with fat—with muscle. How did they even find a uniform big enough to fit him?
He had thick, dirty blond hair shorn just below his ears. And his features, even at this unflattering angle, struck me as powerful. High cheekbones, angular jaw, a straight nose, sea-blue eyes. But they were mostly hidden beneath a bountiful beard.
Well, this guy had a lot of natural advantages in life. Foremost amongst them was looking like a greek god.
Now him I didn’t buy as a mage.
I stared straight up at him, unflinching. “That’s me. The witch.”
He studied my face, my hair. My uniform. All of it. “I heard witches had familiars.”
I pointed in the direction he’d disappeared. “He’s off doing my bidding.”
He followed my finger. “What bidding?”
Damn it, Loki. Why’d you have to be stuffing your face when I’m trying to seem legit?
“To feed himself,” I muttered.
I sensed as we spoke that we were being observed by the students seated near us. And I began to suspect that the entire school knew about me, and what I was.
Aiden stepped up beside me. “Torsten, this is Clementine. Clementine, Torsten.”
Torsten reached out and grabbed my hand, shaking it before I had a chance to consent. His hand encompassed mine, nearly dislodging my shoulder from its socket as he shook.
“And what are you?” I asked, my hand still in involuntary motion.
“A second-year shaman of Gaia. I am the house prefect.”
Well, somebody took pride in his stature. I gave him a big, closed-mouth smile. I didn’t know what all Gaia was, but I could tell it was important that I appear impressed. “Gaia. Prefect. Wow.”
“I imagine you will be of Whisper.”
“Of Whisper?”
Eva came up on my other side, slid her arm through the crook of mine. “Come on, let’s get you some breakfast. Torsten, sit with us—we’ll educate Clem as she eats.”
Eva led me toward the dining table, and as she did, my stomach let it be known that it would like to eat now, thank you very much. “Isn’t Torsten cute?” she whispered as we walked. “So rugged.”
Ah, I thought. So Eva likes them tall and Nordic. Good to know.
That was one of my things: everything I learned about people, I stashed away. I had once been told by a teacher that I might have an eidetic memory—which meant I could remember everything I’d ever experienced—but I’d never been tested. Shortly after my teacher had told me that, I’d been expelled from that school for fighting.
What I did know was: knowing things had come in handy more than once. In fact, it had saved my rear on a few occasions. So I made a point of remembering.
And foremost in my brain, for some strange reason, was the way Umbra had stared at me when she’d asked me if I intended to do good. Almost like she didn’t believe in me.
And it was exactly how the other students were staring at me right now.
Chapter Eight
Hunger distracted me from the unwanted eyes on me, the whispers around the dining hall. I followed Eva over to the serving table, where we picked up wooden plates.
When I lifted the lid off a breakfast platter, I hadn’t known what to expect. Boiled frogs, maybe? But what greeted me were perfectly cooked strips of salmon, garnished with parsley. Under the next lid, small potatoes soaked in olive oil and sprinkled with basil and rosemary.
“How”—I lifted another lid and found an assortment of tiny creme brûlées—“is this possible? This is five-star hotel food.”
Not like I would know. But it felt like what they’d serve up at a fancy hotel.
Eva laughed as she picked up a creme brûlée. “Our head chef specializes in conjuration.”
“Like, conjuring food from thin air?”
“That’s right.”
I lifted a puff pastry. “So is this air magic?”
I’d expected Eva to laugh, but she only nodded, clearly impressed. “It is.”
I continued my survey of dishes. Each lid I lifted brought a new delicacy, and soon my hand was trembling under the weight of my overfull plate. I hadn’t eaten in a day—or, I should say, since my old life ended.
Eva and I crossed over to the table where Torsten and Aiden were already sitting across from one another.
From his seat, Aiden surveyed the full dish atop my shaking hand. “When was the last time you ate?”
I set my plate down on the table with a thud of silverware and glasses. “When I was on the other side of the world.”
Torsten’s chest rumbled with amusement. “It isn’t so much food.” He had three plates spread around him, each piled higher than my one.
Eva, on the other hand, had only a strip of fish, some hard-boiled eggs, and perfectly sliced avocado. And her creme brûlée. She set a napkin on her lap and tucked into the fish with a knife and fork in the most delicate, proper display of eating I’d ever witnessed.
Aiden nodded at me from across the table. “I’d try the potatoes first. They’re particularly good.”
I obliged, forking a potato into my mouth…and nearly choked. I’d had potatoes before—even what I’d call good ones—but whoever this magician of a chef was had conjured something otherworldly.
That golden friggin’ potato exploded with flavor across my tongue, pitching my brain into euphoria. And I didn’t even like potatoes much.
That was when I lost all decency. I ate like I’d just stumbled out of a desert.
At some point, I realized Torsten was talking about me to the others. “Surely she will be in Whisper.”
Aiden nodded. “Probably so.”
Eva clapped her hands. “She’d be with me. Oh, can you imagine having a witch? And we deserve it. Whisper is the smallest house, after all.”
I twirled my fork through the air. “All right, explain. Whisper? Gaia?”
Aiden raised four fingers in the air, began ticking them off as he listed names. “The academy has four houses: Gaia, Whisper, Spark, Crest.”
“So…earth, wind, fire, and water. No heart?” I stared around the table, waiting for someone to get it.
No one did.
“Captain Planet.” I offered to jog their memories of the 90s. At least Eva might get it. “You know, ‘Together, the power is yours!’”
Still no dice. Eva tapped her egg with her spoon to break the awkward silence.
All right, so no pop culture references. Not unless I was ready to educate them. Back to the topic at hand. “Why would I be in Whisper, anyway?”
Eva brightened. “You and I are creatures of air. At least, that’s my understanding of witches.”
“Your understanding,” I repeated. “When was the last time the academy had a witch, anyway?”
They all exchanged looks. Finally, Aiden—whom I was gathering was the most bookish—shrugged. “Since before we were born, I think. You’ll have to ask the headmistress.”
No witches for at least two decades. Maybe I really am the last witch. That sent the thrill right out of my breakfast, a strange, uneasy feeling welling in my gut. I set my fork down. “If I was a witch living in America, that must mean they were elsewhere, too. Where did they all go?”
This, too, was something nobody seemed to know. Aiden only shook
his head, while Torsten’s answer was to proceed in on a whole plate of chicken legs.
Umbra would know, I thought immediately. Somehow I knew she would know.
Torsten took a long swig from a sturdy mug, his beard coming away wet. “Whisper only takes those who can fly. Can you fly, Clementine?”
“Do airplanes count?”
Aiden chuckled. At the very least, he found me funny. “Considering you only just learned of your heritage, we’ll count that.”
“How else would I fly?”
Eva started in on her creme brûlée. “Why, on a broom.”
“Seriously? A broom?” I play-punched Aiden in the shoulder. “So you weren’t messing with me after all.”
Aiden rubbed his shoulder as Torsten pressed a hand over his beard, tugging at it. “You have a good fist. I will enjoy seeing your skills on the mat.”
“The mat?” I said. I liked where this was going.
“Go easy on her to start,” Aiden said to him. “She’s not a trained fighter.”
I smirked at Aiden. “You think so, huh? Your shoulder feels differently.”
Torsten set the mug down. “Have you training, then?”
“I’ve got enough.” I speared another potato with a firm hand, a testament to my prowess. “Why?”
Torsten’s godlike lips curled. “You could say I have a special interest in such things.” He nodded at me. “Have your powers manifested?”
I didn’t think so, but… “How can I tell?”
Aiden smiled softly at me. “You’ll know.”
“Like an orgasm?”
Aiden’s neck flushed. Eva nearly choked on her creme brûlée. Only Torsten chuckled, but said nothing.
I raised an eyebrow. We were all adults here, weren’t we?
Eva leaned toward me from across the table. “Don’t let the Professor Milonakis hear you joke like that. You’ll end up sanding the splinters from the floors.”
My head jerked back. “For making a sex joke?”
She nodded, her gray eyes so wide I could see my own baffled expression reflected in them. Clearly she’d had a run-in with this professor. “Milonakis always talks about how we fight for the light. For goodness. How we have to set an example for the rest of the world.”
