Probably because I was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, not my school uniform.
“Principal Whitaker.” I pulled the sweater on, shoving my arms through sleeves that hung way past my hands, all the way down to just above my knees. Perfect.
Two other first-year students were standing behind the head witch.
Jack Fairchild and Emily Hawes.
Witch and necromancer.
Fledglings, like me.
My “cohorts,” according to the principal, who had obviously collected them on the way to my room. Necromancers were housed on the ground floor, grouped by year. Jack’s room was just down the long hall from mine. Sorcerers and shapeshifters occupied the middle floors of the residential wing, mostly.
Emily’s blond curls were shoved back by a pink headband, making her green eyes appear even wider than normal. The necromancer was clothed in ripped dark-blue jeans, black sneakers, and an overly large black hoodie. The hoodie was emblazoned with a dark-fuchsia bejeweled skull-and-crossbones on the back. A fourteenth birthday gift from her much-older brother last month. She smiled tentatively, but her fingers were locked in a twist that looked almost painful.
Standing slightly taller than Principal Whitaker — and still growing — Jack was wearing his navy-blue school uniform, but his shirt collar was open. His expression was blank, but his blue eyes were filled with a sullen willfulness. As usual.
I knew that look, and that description. Because the same had been said about me on more than one occasion. Before now. Before finding my family, and understanding how I fit. Dealing with still being a kid. Talented. But not on my own anymore, not abandoned. I had multiple people who wanted to take care of me, and not at all because of my magic.
Still, even more so than me, Jack didn’t like being told what to do by anyone.
Jack’s skin was almost the exact same brown as mine. But he kept his hair clipped close to his head. I liked to feel the wind in mine.
“Come with me,” Principal Whitaker said, turning on her heel without another word.
I tugged on my black boots, leaving them unlaced. They’d been magically shined to a high gloss.
I’d been really bored during my three hours of self-confinement.
Stumbling, I pulled the door to my room shut. The head witch was already halfway down the hall. Emily and Jack were waiting for me. I hadn’t expected to see either of them for days, so this felt awkward.
“What’s going on?” I hissed. “Are we in trouble? Again?” I racked my brain, trying to figure out what rules we’d broken. Aside from the most recent ones. Or at least which rules we’d broken that someone had now found out about.
Emily shook her head, sending her curls bouncing.
Jack curled his lip, shoulders stiff as he shoved his hands in the pockets of his pants and strolled after Principal Whitaker. His long legs ate up the distance, though his pace was slow.
Jack Fairchild was seriously pissed. It would have been an easy guess that the phone call with his adoptive parents four or so hours ago hadn’t gone well. Except I’d seen him right after, and he’d looked pretty pleased with himself. By contrast, Principal Whitaker had looked like she’d eaten something really sour.
Emily crowded next to me, her shoulder brushing mine as we took off after Jack. The phone call with her family had left the necromancer in tears. Her eyes still looked a little red and puffy. Though we were all in equal amounts of trouble for having triggered a potentially deadly suppression spell on an artifact after sneaking off campus, Emily was the one who’d stolen the artifact from her family vault in the first place.
The Academy had subsequently confiscated the heavily spelled music box, which supposedly held a piece of Emily’s great-grandmother’s soul. The Hawes family would not be getting it back.
My phone call with Emma and Aiden had been perfect. I accepted my punishment, and my guardians cared more about my happiness than any stupid school rules I might have broken. Though I’d been worried I was going to get kicked out of the Academy. That wouldn’t have been good, because it would have made Emma feel as though she’d failed me.
Thankfully, even though Emily, Jack, and I had all been given three weeks of detention and a mark on our records, we hadn’t been suspended. Even if the Hawes necromancers were pissed about losing the artifact, convincing Jack and Emily to fess up had been the right strategic move. After almost getting Emily killed.
“What’s up with Jack?” I asked in a whisper.
Emily shook her head, then spoke so quietly that I could barely pick up the words. Her accent was different from Jack’s and mine. East-coast Canadian. “Don’t know. Haven’t seen him since earlier.”
Jack threw a look back over his shoulder at us, rolling his eyes in the direction of Principal Whitaker. Then he smirked.
Okay. He wasn’t pissed at us, then.
Probably just annoyed at the head witch ordering us to follow her without any explanation. Jack liked everything laid out clearly. Not that he wasn’t willing to break rules. He just wanted to be in control when he did.
Despite our similar backgrounds, I was way more adaptable. More resilient. At least that was what I’d heard various foster parents mutter behind my back to various social workers. My last foster parent, Capri Pine, had been both those things in one. But my chosen family never expected me to be anything other than what I was.
But both the Hawes and the Fairchild families were old and powerful bloodlines. For completely different reasons. Mired in tradition, as my soon-to-be adoptive dad, Aiden, would say. So were the Sherwoods, my own familial line. But I hadn’t been raised a witch. Jack was adopted like me, so the blood that ran in his veins wasn’t technically of Fairchild origin either.
His attitude came from the same place as mine — from losing our birth parents and living on the streets, then surviving more than one magical assault. And kidnapping. Not that Jack was chatty about any of that.
Emily had told me the Fairchild coven had a dark reputation. But I figured if you had the power to back it up, it didn’t really matter what other people thought of you.
None of that stopped Jack from thinking that just about everyone was beneath him, though. Or maybe it was more that he didn’t bother fitting in. Conforming. That was pretty ironic, because he was in the top five in our year, like me.
Principal Whitaker led us down the northeast stairs, exiting into a long hall I hadn’t been in before. We walked in silence down the corridor for what seemed like forever, passing door after door. Which presumably meant we were on the ground floor of some wing of the main Academy building.
The hallway ended at a set of steel doors surrounded by a thick frame of rune-carved dark wood. The doors looked heavy.
I resisted the urge to take a picture of the runes for Aiden. My spell-burned phone was barely functional — so my deadly sorcerer-daddy-to-be was shipping me a replacement. But last I’d checked, I could still take a photo and send email. Usually.
Principal Whitaker turned to look at all of us. Then she nodded. “The vessel that Emily stole from her family vault has provided a rare learning opportunity.” Emily shifted her feet, looking at the ground. “Don’t make me regret including you.”
With that weird warning, the head witch wrapped her hand around one of the steel door handles. Energy shifted, and without the witch even pulling on it, the door clicked, then swung open as she stepped back.
Jack grunted quietly.
It took a lot more than that to impress me. The Fairchilds might have had a dark reputation, but my chosen family was off-the-charts powerful. The kind of power that cowed the darkness. Harnessed it and transformed it. With secret identities and everything.
Still, Aiden might like a look at the runes.
Principal Whitaker strode through the doorway. Whatever lay beyond appeared to be cloaked in pure blackness.
I tugged my phone out of my pocket, snapping an in-motion photo as I followed Jack. Emily was at my side. Even if I’d stood still an
d framed it up, the photo might not turn out. Magic was weird that way. And everything in the Academy, except for the shielded media rooms, emanated a lot of power.
Utter blackness engulfed me. A prickling sensation slid over my chest, shoulders, and neck, intensifying across my eyes and forehead and tingling in my ears. Gasping, Emily grabbed me. Her hand was cold.
I tried blinking away the weird energy and clearing my sight. It didn’t work.
Then I slammed into Jack, my nose crunching into his upper spine. Emily stumbled into me. We both teetered on the edge of collapse, but Jack reached back, holding my shoulder to steady me. Sending more energy shivering across my skin, even through my thick sweater.
I blinked rapidly, forcing my eyes to adjust to what I thought might be some sort of magical shielding as I found my footing, still gripping Emily’s hand.
A black-painted room took shape before us. Principal Whitaker was standing just ahead to one side, her eyes and brow furrowed in concern.
She beckoned to us. “Children …” She shook her head. “Students, watch your footing. Stay behind the line. I’d forgotten how disconcerting the null room can be the first time you enter.”
The line?
I glanced down. The floor was also a flat black, and hard like rock. But seamless, not tiled. And I had stepped on a thin copper line that looked like it was etched all around the room. Jack was standing fully on the other side of that line, flexing his hands as if they hurt.
“Now!” Principal Whitaker snapped.
I pulled my foot back, moving with Emily to the edge of the wall. At some point, the door had closed behind us. All the matte-black paint — or whatever was coating the walls — made it difficult to see the space.
Magic. That was what was coating the walls and floor and ceiling.
Or maybe it was a lack of magic?
That was what ‘null’ meant, right?
Jack stepped back over the copper line, which was somehow easier to feel than see. He inhaled, shuddering. Then he threw a nasty look at the principal.
Her lips pulled down disapprovingly, but she didn’t rebuke him.
Taking in the rest of the null room, I crossed to join Principal Whitaker. Emily trailed behind me. My vision seemed to clear in layers, as if I was adapting with every blink. The murky shadows retreated until I could see all four walls and another steel door on the far side of the room. A half-dozen professors with notepads or notebooks in hand were grouped behind the copper line along the opposite wall.
In the center of the room, surrounded by a glimmering shield of power, the Hawes family artifact sat on a pedestal that appeared to have been carved from a tree trunk. I wondered if the dead tree was still rooted in the earth, with the null room built around and over it. If it was, I wondered whether that was supposed to ground magic or allow witches to access it.
As she followed my gaze, Emily bumped into me again. Just a few hours ago, the tiny blue-and-gold music box had tried to kill her. Actually, it had been the suppression spell we’d disturbed that had tried to kill her — to stop her from unleashing whatever else the artifact held.
Emily’s great-grandmother’s name and date of death were etched across the gold bottom of the hinged oval container — only readable with a complex reveal spell that had taken us hours to figure out. And after emailing her cousin to poke around in their family archives a bit more, Emily was left with the impression that her great-grandmother might not have been actually dead when the piece of her soul was harvested and contained in the music box. More like it had been done by the rest of the family combined to weaken her. Because she’d gone all dark and crazy.
We hadn’t mentioned that rumor to Principal Whitaker. Or to our parental figures. As far as I knew, Emily’s elder brother — who had answered the phone call from Principal Whitaker — hadn’t offered any extra info either.
The necromancy professors had collectively lost their shit when they saw the artifact. Or at least ‘collectively lost their shit’ had been Jack’s interpretation of them racing to and from the principal’s office after we’d turned the artifact in. We’d been ordered to stay put in the exterior seating area. Jack had said it with a weird accent and a wide grin, like maybe he was quoting someone.
“Your being here is a privilege,” Principal Whitaker said stiffly — but looking over at the other professors, not us. “But I … and your guardians … believe it is important for you to understand what you were attempting to meddle with. The artifact is an exceedingly dangerous necromancy working.” She glanced at Emily.
She shifted her feet, avoiding the elder witch’s gaze.
Principal Whitaker sniffed. “The Hawes family should have destroyed it long ago. And they will answer to the Convocation for that oversight.”
That was new information.
Except Emily grimaced. So she’d known that already.
Principal Whitaker settled her gaze on the professors across the room again. More necromancers, I guessed. As a first-year witch, I didn’t have classes with any of them. “Unfortunately, the knowledge of the artifact’s creation, and therefore the knowledge of how it might be destroyed, has been … lost to the generations. So the family locked the artifact away.”
Emily was the youngest Hawes necromancer. Necromancy normally only fully manifested in those who were female-born. There wasn’t a single male necromancer currently attending the Academy, and the generation of her family before Emily was born had been mostly male. That presumably meant that certain spells or hereditary talents hadn’t been passed along.
I looked over at the necromancy professors — none of them seemed to know what to do with the artifact currently being stored behind multiple wards in a so-called null room either.
“We happen to have an apprentice currently in residence who is well suited to the task of …” Principal Whitaker trailed off as she flicked her fingers. “Of dealing with the artifact.” Three fingers on each of the elder witch’s hands bore rings. Jeweled bands of gold, probably filled with magic.
I wondered if that power would be stripped away if she stepped across the copper line. Or if the null room just suppressed the use of magic, causing that prickling sensation I’d felt when I entered.
Principal Whitaker fell silent. Waiting, I thought.
The other necromancy professors chatted among themselves, quietly enough that I couldn’t pick up any actual words. I hunkered down and finally tied the laces on my boots, drawing the principal’s attention.
I grinned at her widely, already knowing that it would piss her off. Not because she was scared of me. Just that she’d become colder since she’d met Emma and Christopher. Wary, maybe. And I was totally cool with that.
She sighed quietly.
It was also possible that every time she looked at me Principal Whitaker remembered releasing me into the custody of a dark sorcerer. Ruwa had walked into the Academy wearing my dead mother’s face and kidnapped me right out of the principal’s office. There was nothing the elder witch could have done about it — the shapeshifting abilities Ruwa had gained by binding herself to a demon fooled everyone — but I wondered if she was still waiting for some sort of fallout.
I straightened. Emily had tucked herself up next to Jack. He stood with his arms crossed, glowering at the artifact on its pedestal like it was his sworn enemy.
Jack carried a lot of power. And it had a habit of getting away on him. He had taken a huge hit when his break spell backfired, knocking him out. He’d also been pissed afterward. Annoyed that I had thwarted the suppression spell he’d triggered, possibly saving Emily’s life, before he could wake up.
Not that I’d done it on my own.
Jack turned his glower on me. His dark-blue eyes were flashing. Literally. I could actually see his magic flickering.
“Let it go,” I muttered.
He curled his lip.
Emily angled her shoulders so she was partly between us. It was a position she took often, whenever it seemed like Jack
and I might fight. “Opal’s right,” she said, not actually looking at either of us.
If Emily weren’t part of our group, Jack and I probably wouldn’t have been friends. Just because we were both adopted — or, in my case, about to be adopted — didn’t mean we had much else in common.
“I’m always right,” I said, grinning.
Jack snorted, but he couldn’t outright deny it. We’d known each other for months now, and he’d never proved me wrong once.
For example, I had thought using a break spell on a delicate artifact had been a terrible idea. And, after some deliberation, I’d thought we should add a sorcerer to our group and figure out the runes sealing the music box first. I’d been right on both counts.
I was now actively recruiting a sorcerer. Yesterday, I’d posted a listing on the school’s Exchange — both online and on the first year’s notice board — with very specific requirements. The first three applicants had been duds. Not powerful enough and really boring. I had another applicant lined up to interview at dinner.
“What are we waiting for?” Jack grumbled under his breath.
Principal Whitaker gave him a look, but didn’t answer.
I shrugged, pulling out my phone to see if it worked any better in the null room. Or at least in this part of the null room.
The cracked screen was dead.
So that was a no.
The far door opened, and a person swamped in a red poncho stepped into the room. She strode over the copper line, not even shuddering or faltering as she did so. Her hair was a riot of color. Wisps of blues, pinks, and purples mixed with light brown, dancing around her pale face and shoulders. She waved at the necromancy professors, grinning at Principal Whittaker. “Sorry I’m late! Slept in.”
It was late afternoon.
On a Sunday.
The large satchel slung over her shoulder bounced on her hip as she crossed toward us. The fringe of her poncho was beaded. It clacked and tinkled as she walked. The noise was weirdly swallowed, smothered by the null room, as if some part of it was magic.
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