by D. R. Perry
Lotan sat up on Noah's left shoulder, his tongue flicking in and out as his forked tail waved on the right. I recognized that as a serpent greeting, and sure enough, a bird with brilliant plumage fluttered down from a rafter somewhere above to perch on Elanor's shoulder. It warbled at Lotan, then shook its tail feathers, which were pink and orange and yellow.
She had a firebird familiar, the sort that usually partnered with magi in musical or other performance arts. I wondered what kind of talent Elanor had and was about to ask when someone interrupted.
"Hi, I'm Logan." The boy grinning at me was drop-dead gorgeous, like a tall ship in the harbor at sunrise. That was the most stunning thing I could think of besides this fellow.
His shoulders were broad, his waist narrow, and his face could have been chiseled from marble. I realized my mouth was wide open, like a fish’s or a frog’s, which was kind of gross.
"Um, Aliyah." I stuck my hand out, hoping it didn't remind him of dead fish. It felt awfully clammy when he clasped it.
"Yeah, Noah's sister." His smile showed off teeth impossibly straight and white. "I know."
"You know?" I blinked.
"Elanor talked all summer about how her best friend had a sister my age starting here the same year as me and how we had to meet, of course." He shrugged, smiling again. "And here we are. She never mentioned you had a dragonet familiar, though."
"That's sort of a recent development." My voice came out more monotone than usual. "I just bonded with Ember this summer."
"Ember?" It was his turn to blink. "She's a fire critter? And you actually bonded with her?"
That statement was a bit odd, but I let it pass. Maybe Logan felt nervous and awkward, too.
"Yeah." I turned my head, intending to show her off, but my little friend had burrowed all the way under my collar and behind my hair. "Come on out, girl."
She didn't. Instead, Ember huddled in there. I got the feeling she’d hidden intentionally. I could hardly blame her since she’d probably picked up the jitters from me.
"Huh." Logan peered at the space between my blazer's lapels, or maybe just into space. I finally noticed one flaw—his hands. His fingernails and the cuticles were downright ragged, like he worried at them all the time.
"Um." My face felt as hot as a couple of years ago when I got the flu, except without all the phlegm and puffy eyes and nausea.
"Oh, sorry." Logan’s grin was like an obvious backdrop on a movie set. "It's just that I thought I saw some tail there." His face went magenta.
He’d called me tail and then pointed at my chest. I took a step back, totally not used to guys dropping innuendos about me, even by accident. That was when I realized what was off about Logan—besides the social gaffes, I mean.
"So." My lips twisted into something between a smile and a grimace. "Where's your familiar, anyway?"
"That's hardly important." Logan flapped one hand dismissively. His lips went pale and thin, along with most of his face. "I mean, um, he’s around—"
"Hey, Aliyah." The person behind me cleared his throat. "Is this guy bothering you?"
"Um, I don't know?" I turned away from blazing hot Logan to find relief in a familiar face—a literal breath of fresh air. "Hi, Dylan."
"Hi, yourself." He wore the school blazer with a black shirt and a green barista's apron. "Haven't seen you in a week. How's things?"
"Oh, the usual nerve-wracking experience of arriving at a new place." My laugh was way too high-pitched. "You know."
"Yeah, all too well." His smile was a soothing balm.
"So, what are you up to, now that the Willows doesn't need summer help anymore?"
"I'm working here ten hours a week." Dylan jerked his thumb toward the hall. "They've got an espresso bar in the main student lounge, and I've got café experience."
"Cool."
"Aliyah, I need to introduce you to someone." Noah tugged my sleeve like a toddler.
"Duty calls, I guess. See you later, Dylan." I let Noah drag me away, hoping it wasn’t in the direction of another embarrassing boy.
"Later!" He waved, then turned his back on Logan, who looked like he was about to say something.
"Please don't push me at another dude, Noah." I shook my head. "And you didn't introduce me to Elanor back there, you know."
"Yeah, sorry about that." He shrugged, a gesture I recognized as apologetic only because he's my brother. "This time, it's someone in your grade I haven't met in person either."
"Oh?"
"Yes. We chatted online, and she's also looking to go into extraveterinary at college. Not a boy." He grinned. "Just someone I think you've got a lot in common with."
"Cool." I took a slow breath, hoping to relax a bit before having to shake another hand.
I couldn't exhale since he was leading me straight toward the last person I wanted to see—Faith Fairbanks. Yes, the girl with the yappy Sha who’d called me a "moronic assistant" last time we met.
"Aliyah, this is—"
"Uh, Noah—" I tried to pull away.
"I've met her before." The other girl gave me an icy stare. "And she doesn't look one bit like a Morgenstern."
Faith wasn’t wrong. I looked like my mom, who was only a Morgenstern by marriage. I had no idea what to say, because I didn't know her maiden name or whether she was from a magical family. All I knew was she used to go here.
"Oh, but she is." The cool, collected voice behind me belonged to my mother—a tone I was used to hearing during her long work conferences through the office door. "I'm Mrs. Morgenstern, Aliyah's mother."
"Is that right?" Faith put a hand on her hip, tilting her head. The Sha inside her handbag flashed a canine grin I wasn’t certain I liked. "Because to me, you look an awful lot like a Hopewell."
You know how sometimes in a room full of people, the conversation sort of pauses to the point where everyone can hear a pin drop? Well, that happened right then, at the exact moment Faith dropped that name.
Hopewell. The silence continued, stretching in anticipation of my mom's answer.
Now, where had I heard that name? On television. Finally, my fried brain let me remember.
Richard Hopewell, the extramagus murderer who’d tried to take over both Faerie Courts. My mom was a good person. She couldn't be related to that despicable man from the news. I’d never seen her lose her temper, and couldn’t imagine her ever harming another person.
"Noah's totally a Morgenstern, but everyone who takes after the Hopewell family is pure evil," Faith continued. "So, are you one or not?"
"I was a Hopewell, yes. That criminal's sister, in fact. I married after attending this fine institution and stopped associating with my birth family." My mother put her arm around me. "And if you or any other student has an issue with that, I've already arranged for you to take it up with Headmaster Hawkins."
"Mother, you didn't have to make a fuss about—" Noah looked like he was about to take a step backward, but Mom put her other arm around his waist, stopping him.
"Apparently, I do." Her smile could have melted butter.
I thought it was strong, parental, and protective, but almost everyone else in this room took a step back, continued their silence as though they feared her. I couldn't imagine why.
"Come on, Angie." My father held out his arm, elbow crooked. "I believe we've overstayed this particular welcome."
"Yes. I agree." My mother hugged Noah and then me, both somehow warm gestures despite their rapidity. "Remember, we are right around the corner if you need anything."
"Thanks, Mom." I grinned at her, more than a little in awe of how unexpectedly badass she was.
As our parents escorted each other out of the lobby and through the door, it occurred to me that maybe taking after her wasn't such a bad thing.
But the fearful looks on all the faces around me drove home the idea that I might be wrong.
Chapter Eight
Noah pretty much abandoned me once the door closed behind our parents. There was nothing m
uch to do except stand there with my two ridiculous suitcases. Unless I wanted to start crying.
I totally could have. I'm the niece of a man who tried to kill a pack of students at Providence Paranormal College. What would happen when I graduated and tried applying there? Would they reject me? Maybe the headmistress would spell me into orbit or something.
Legacy magi at a stuffy old private prep school are super-privileged. Noah’s rubbed elbows with Fairbankses and their ilk. He didn’t seem to care if they all acted like Faith, either.
I felt like a total outsider, and I didn't even have a good reason, like the end of the world or being some kind of foreseen chosen one. Nope. Instead, I was a privileged princess from one family I don't share magic with and another that's flagrantly abused its power.
All my problems were secondhand, with no way to counter them.
I had at least an hour before that required welcome assembly. At least I knew what to do next. The far wall was covered with pneumatic tubes, a way to send messages around the entire pocket-universe campus. I headed toward one of them, then fired up my hand with magical energy to touch it.
It lit up to a brilliant orange-red, and in moments, a slip of paper fluttered down to the little hatch in the plexiglass. The paper sailed into my waiting hand after it opened. I unfolded it and read the directions to my dorm room.
"Cool."
I was talking to nobody, technically. This message system wasn't run by ghosts. Hawthorn Academy didn't employ any psychics, not even a medium. Because it didn't exist in either world, the dead couldn't haunt this campus.
Instead, all the paper and the energy that moved it came from a magus working somewhere in here. So, it was them I thanked, even if they couldn't hear me.
"Thanks."
"Why?" It was Grace. She stood two tubes over, blinking.
"Because I was raised with manners and thanking people is part of that." I shrugged, jostling Ember, who was still tucked under my blazer. "Secret evil extramagus uncle or no."
"Makes sense." She peered at her dorm slip. "Well, it's off to the third floor for me."
"Same here."
"You wouldn't happen to be in 322?"
"That's the place." I sighed, shaking my head. "We're roommates, I guess. Sorry."
"Don't be." Grace grinned. "I should be the one apologizing. You're the one who's going to be stuck staring at a bunch of K-Pop posters, after all. So sorry back, from this here Canadian."
I covered my mouth to stifle the laugh, not wanting to draw any more attention to myself. Grace helped by padding quietly toward the wide set of stairs in the near corner. Once we both stood on the bottom step, she said our floor number, and they started moving upward.
The staircases didn't change positions or become some kind of tricky maze. What kind of monstrous headmaster would want a feature like that in their school? I mean, it was hard enough being away from home for the first time without dealing with something like that.
Of course, I knew all this because Noah and my parents had talked about good old Hawthorn for practically my whole life. But what about Grace? She clearly knew her way around, and her family was all the way in hecking Quebec, for crying out loud.
I kept my shirt on and waited to ask her. We were roommates, so there'd be plenty of time to chat in the future. At least I actually liked Grace.
Hopefully, she liked me too, and this wasn't all some kind of elaborate ploy to ridicule me for “social capital.”
"Social what?" Grace stepped off the top stair and then moved aside to let me by.
"Oh." I tittered, hands going clammy. "Um, I have inside versus outside voice problems sometimes."
"Hmm." She nodded. "My cousin's a fire magus. He has that problem too."
"I'd say cool, but it's literally not." I hung my head, and Ember used that gesture as an excuse to headbutt me on the temple.
"You're right." Grace smiled. "Fire. The opposite of cool."
Our chuckles carried us down the hall to room 322, which wasn't far, actually. The doors were all artistically carved from wood with numbers worked into the designs, setting them apart from the plain old stained paneling on the rest of the walls. Grace apparently didn't know everything because she clearly blinked at the flat and unadorned area on the door where the doorknob would be.
"I got this."
I held my hand out, palm toward the small rectangle in the wood. Then I projected my magic energy toward it. There was a click and the door opened, swinging slightly inward.
That feature was one reason Hawthorn Academy will probably never accept mundane students; none of them would be able to get into their rooms. Without the correct type of magical energy, this door would stay shut.
Although I bet all of them responded to Headmaster Hawkins's space magic.
I shook off the paranoid thoughts. Noah said that Hawkins went here when Bubbe got the job after his own father retired. This place wouldn't still be prestigious if the headmaster was a creepazoid. Right?
Pushing through the door activated the magical solar lighting system, a feature I was accustomed to at home. I wasn’t used to how ornate the walls were. They were the same wood as the door, with similar baroque carvings.
The walls must have been decorated so extremely to make up for the lack of windows. Not a single bare space existed for Grace to hang her K-Pop posters. Even the lights hung from the ceilings, mini versions of the downstairs chandelier.
"That's the most natural supernatural lighting I've ever seen." Grace strode toward the bed on the left. "Is it cool if I take this one?"
"Sure, go ahead." I grinned, heading toward the identical bed on the right.
She set her bundled familiar down at the foot of the bed and then slipped her arms out of an enormous backpack, a re-purposed hiking rig.
I heaved the larger suitcase up onto my bed, then wheeled the smaller one to the dresser on the right-hand wall. Unloading it was easy, especially with Ember flapping around, opening the drawers for me as I worked.
I zipped the suitcase up before it was completely unpacked, however; Grace didn't need to see that last item rolling around in the bottom. I stowed it under my bed, then got to work on the other suitcase, hanging each piece Noah had chosen on the rail inside the slim wardrobe beside the simple desk. At least the furnishings in here were unassuming enough not to be distracting.
"Ahh." Grace sighed, stretching her arms over her head. She hadn't started unpacking, but I wouldn’t judge a person over something like that. "It's so good to be out of that stupid pack. You can come out now, Lune."
The bundle of blankets moved, rustling. Ember sat back on her haunches, looking down from her perch on top of the wardrobe. After a few moments, a whiskered nose emerged. It wriggled rapidly, and then the rest of the moon hare's head shook free.
Lune's fur was mostly gray, with a silvery streak down his back, which was what I’d expected to see, based on Bubbe's books. His ears were long, and he held them at a relaxed angle, which meant Ember's presence didn’t alarm him.
This made more sense when he came all the way out of his blankety burrow. He was longer and stronger than my dragonet, outweighing her by at least five pounds. Also, Lune was a full-grown adult moon hare, while Ember was still a juvenile of her species.
When he stretched, I noticed a scar on his left rear flank, and when he took a few exploratory hops around the bed, I noticed his limp.
"He's a handsome fellow." I smiled, crouching by Grace's bed and holding my hand out for Lune to sniff.
"You think?" She sat on the edge of the bed. "Most people find moon hares a bit boring to look at, you know?"
"No, he is." I nodded at him. "Coat's got a healthy sheen, and his ears are nice and straight. He looks strong, too. How long have you two been bonded?"
"He showed up when I was eleven." Grace averted her eyes, then reached out to give Lune an affectionate pat. "I really needed a friend that year, and he pretty much rescued me. Hears trouble coming a mile away." I wa
s about to ask her what kind of trouble, but she changed the subject. "Your dragonet's a real cutie."
"Yeah." I chuckled. "Ember's a lot of fun, but I'm still not sure what she's good at besides breaking awkward silences. I have a lot of those, though, so I'm lucky to have her."
"Well, I haven't heard any since we met." Lune stepped into Grace's lap, edging toward her knees to peer at the floor.
"Um." I winced. "I don't want to womansplain, but—"
"That particular incident wasn't your fault—which was why you wanted to escape, of course."
"All the same, I could have handled it better."
"Not really." Grace helped Lune down from the bed and he loped around, exploring the room. "I mean, she's a Fairbanks. Long line of mostly earth magi and mentalist psychics, and every one of them is a world-class pain in the ass."
"All?" I watched as Ember spiraled down from the wardrobe to the floor, where she followed Lune around, mimicking his movements. "Wait, there are more of them?"
"Oh, yeah. Aunt Mabel told me to watch out for them while I'm here." Grace shook her head. "Steer clear as much as possible."
"There's really more than one?" I blinked.
"Yes. Faith's a middle child. Her older sister's a senior, and her younger sister starts next year."
"Wow."
"How is this a wow moment, exactly?" She reached down to help Lune with an itchy spot on his shoulder, looking up at me out of the corner of her eye.
"Um."
I wasn’t sure what to say next because this was more like the sort of conversation Noah would have about someone who's not present to stick up for themselves. Was it right to continue on a sour topic like this? Bubbe always said you attract more bees with honey than vinegar.
But I didn’t want to say anything like that to Grace. I had to get along with her all year, regardless of whether she gossiped or not. So, I sat like the proverbial bump on a log, saying and doing nothing. That was at least a familiar enough course of action to feel comfortable.
"You're an oddball, Aliyah Morgenstern." Crap. She did think I was weird.
