Hannah furrowed her brow. “You’re talking about that mass shooting last year?”
“It was the vampires who did that and then covered it up. Breanna just exploded.” Red cringed, remembering huddling in an ice cream parlor during the blast, making it to shelter just before the silver shrapnel hit the air. The werewolf had wrapped herself in a makeshift bomb and silver scraps. “She almost got Cowboy Kurt then, but I finished the job later.”
Hannah wiped at her wet face, staring at the tears on her fingers in disgust. Sniffing, she met Red’s gaze. The bloodlust narrowing her eyes emphasized the baby fat in her cheeks. “Good.”
“I’m sorry that we couldn’t have done more. I don’t even know how you survived. I saw the ghosts at the Proctor House. They showed me…” Red trailed off, not knowing how to say it.
“You saw my family?” Tragic hope infused the words.
“When we were hunting Breanna, we followed her into your old house. What was left, that is. She was there with Brian. Well, his spirit.”
Hannah put her hand to her mouth to cut off an errant sob.
“He was trying to talk us down and stop the fight. Your brother seemed nice.” Red ducked her head, not sure how to stop the story now that she’d started. She described being locked in the ruins of the ballroom with multiplying ghosts before the specter of John Proctor appeared as if straight from old Salem. The pilgrim patriarch had been the strongest spirit of them all. Her voice trembled on the next part. “He showed me how…” Her throat tightened. He had shown her how they died. “Let’s just say, it changed how I saw the situation. He wasn’t chatty, but he got a point across. Tossed some cryptic riddles on top of the visions too.”
“Were they for me?” Hannah searched Red’s face as if the guidance from her ancestors would appear in flashing lights. “I mean in hindsight. Do you think?”
Red recognized that fervent need. She looked in the mirror every day wondering where she came from. She tried to find her mother’s face in hers so one day, she might spot her in a crowd. What would Mom have to say to her if they actually met again? That question kept her up at night. She had a feeling that Hannah had the same problem.
Red didn’t have any wisdom for her. She had lost her mother in the way that one loses a set of keys—with the expectation that they will be found. The young woman had lost her mom for real. She searched her recollections. “I don’t know. He said it wouldn’t just be his clan wiped off the map, but he couldn’t say why.” She paused, goosebumps on her arms. Like a cold wind, the old memory slotted into place… You survived hidden in the branches of the juniper tree. Red rubbed her forearms to ease her chill. “He told me about my mother. It’s all I actually know about her.”
Hannah looked away, brushing away the tears on the apples of her cheeks. Her lungs rattled as she hugged herself, breathing deep. “What, were you adopted by the Brotherhood or something? Is that how you have a Bard?”
Red hunched her shoulders, sensing the teen’s desire to turn the conversation, and gave in to confessing the short version of her amnesia. She let silence hang in the air after she finished.
“My mom was so amazing that even a cruddy teenager like me knew it. Then you had my aunts and all the cousins. I couldn’t even keep track of how many were hanging around the house.” Leaning her knee on the bed facing Red, Hannah frowned. “You don’t even know your mom. That’s awful.”
“Please don’t spread that around.” Red chewed at her lip. She had shared more than she usually did. It wasn’t everything that John Proctor had told her, but still. She never talked about her mother with anyone but Vic. “Enough about me. You’ve gone through so much to survive.”
Hannah huffed out a bitter laugh. “Hardly. I did a luck spell so I could sneak out to go to a friend’s house without being caught. Then I when I tried to sneak back…” She bowed her head, sniffling loudly and stood up. Her slender back shook. Without meeting Red’s face, she pointed a shaking finger at an open, white-tiled bathroom off the sitting area. “Um, you can get ready for bed and use the shower first.”
“Sure.” Red didn’t need to be a soulmancer to sense that Hannah wasn’t just being a good host. She needed her space. It was a lot at once. Learning that the vampire that killed your family was dead—that had to be a shock even without a wolf attack. She grabbed her toiletries bag and the borrowed pajamas, then paused at the bathroom door. “Hannah, if you need…”
“I know.” Hannah leaned on her double doors before closing them, hiding her tear streaked face.
Red put her hands on her heart and tried to center herself. The lingering call of her flight or fight response answered her. It had been that kind of night. A dreamless sleep was all she wanted. She didn’t fear flashbacks of her death-defying race through the desert. That was a pleasant romp compared to the last few weeks. If she prayed, she would pray for no dreams of Quinn’s sacrifice, the Brotherhood’s rejection, or what she had left behind in LA.
Locking the bathroom and undressing in front of the mirror, Red felt older than the twenty-four years she guessed that she was. She let her red hair down from her ponytail and shook her head, covering her face. Tired green eyes peeked from the wavy length. Pushing her hair back, she rubbed her desert-dried face and promised to moisturize extra this week. Hunters and Bards had created libraries with their field journals and dissertations, but none had mentioned how hard monster hunting was on the skin. She didn’t know how old she was, but this year had aged her, and it was only February.
Red trod into the claw foot tub and pulled the curtain around it. She let herself indulge in the numbed exhaustion and apple scented body wash. Dressing, she craned her neck to check out her tattoo in the mirror. The thick black lines came together into an elegant lyre like the one she had chosen in Perenelle’s office. She didn’t think about it much, but she had to admit it was pretty nifty.
The steamed mirror reflected a small glimmer on the tattoo like a light on a deep fog. She blinked and rubbed her skin. She checked the mirror again. The shine had disappeared. Red yawned, wondering if she had even seen anything. Magical traces floated in the academy like dust motes.
Wrapping a towel around her head, she stepped out of the bathroom. She glanced at Hannah’s closed, unlit room. Neither the door nor the cawing crows could muffle the sound of crying.
Red crossed her arms. She wanted to knock, but she knew how much she enjoyed being interrupted in the middle of an ugly cry by a stranger. Flipping the light switch off in the parlor, she went into her room. She left the door open a crack in case Hannah decided to take her up on that offer to talk.
Morning came in a blink. Red jumped out of bed with an excited knot of energy bouncing in her belly. That was the power of a change of scenery. In Los Angeles, she had felt heavy from memory. In Las Vegas, she was at a magic school.
She had read every Harry Potter book twice, and now she was at Hogwarts. It was enough to lighten even her jaded and weary heart. What if ravens made her coffee? She had seen magic in her travels, but this academy was beyond her imagining.
Red tottered out of bed and dressed in the only intact pair of jeans and black shirt in her bag. Deciding that hauling around her hunter’s kit would send a negative message to her hosts, she grabbed a big floppy purse for her stuff. She crept out of her room with the intent of finding coffee and not disturbing Hannah.
Hannah sat at the table, hunched over her phone, one knee fidgeting in her skinny jeans. “Oh hey, you’re up. Got your key and I’m supposed to show you around. It’s Trudy’s version of community service.”
“The real service would be finding me coffee,” Red said.
“Ugh, hate the stuff, but I know where to get it.” Hannah went to the door and opened it for Red. “We should be early enough to snatch breakfast, but hopefully late enough that the bird keepers have cleaned up.”
“It’s ambiance. What’s a spooky magical school without crows?” Red asked as she walked out onto the walkway hanging in the
open tower. She put her hands on her hips.
The birds fluttered and flapped from their perches on the rafters. Misty sigils and energy appeared as if superimposed on the real world. Sunlight glowed through stained glass windows, painting the air and stone walls with rainbows. A man in brown robes chatted with a woman sporting a pink ponytail and lime green platform sneakers on the brass spiral staircase below. Red tried to adjust her spirt gaze so she could take in the spell work without being dazzled by the sight. The climb was awful, but the view from the top fulfilled her castle fantasies.
A stinky wet plop hit her shoulder, moistening her sleeve.
Hannah grinned. “Isn’t being pooped on by a bird supposed to be good luck?”
Red glared at her. One borrowed shirt later, they began their climb down.
An elderly man with a top hat and stately cane joined them in the commute on the wide staircase. More people emerged from the halls, trotting over the suspended walkways to the mass morning migration down the stairs. One gray-bearded mage in a Hawaiian shirt chanted into a cellphone. “…And that is how you start the chant to awaken a portal seedling, Neville. Don’t be afraid to put some oompf behind it.”
“Isn’t it weird that they have electric lights and phones? I was imagining more flaming torches and dusty scrolls,” Red said.
“Alchemists are practical. They use what works. You can get your stereotypical kicks in a pile of scrolls in the library. I’ve been here for a few months, and I still haven’t explored the whole academy.” Hannah shrugged. “I’ve gotten lost so many times. I got stuck in a painting for a bit before my Bard came along. Still not sure how I got in there, but it must have been a boobytrap.”
Raised voices stilled the herd, bewitching them with the mundane promise of a fight. Two alchemists faced off in the center of the wide stairs, papers scattered around them.
“That was my manuscript!” The one with a face nearly as maroon with rage as his sweater vest reached out with stiff fingers. Air stirred in the tower, flapping at hemlines and hats. The paper piled up in his arms, lifted by invisible hands. “Merlin’s nut sack, it’s all out of order now!”
“I said I was sorry!” The other alchemist flinched, retracting into his black woolen robes.
“If I don’t make rank…” Sweater vest guy grabbed him by the collar and tugged. A flash flared between the men, and they flew apart, papers scattering again and startling the crows.
“It’s exam time, and it’s making them crazy.” Hannah nudged Red away. “They rank the adepts, so everyone is fixated on their number. Thank goodness, the anti-violence spell keeps them from doing something stupid.”
Red eyed the gawkers. “We definitely have a pecking order here then.”
Hannah flapped her hand. “Don’t worry about your rank. We’re more like exchange students. I don’t think that booby trap was actually for me either. These guys are just serious about protecting their research.”
“This place was built for secrets,” Red said.
“You have no idea. And, weirdly enough, pop quizzes. There’s this one door that forces you to answer trivia questions to unlock it. It gets really mad when you use your phone.” Hannah stuck out her tongue and made a face.
The stairs creaked, and suddenly the steps started to move like an escalator. Sigils all up and down the rail shimmered brightly.
“Finally,” Hannah said. “The senior adepts know a trick to activate it. Don’t bother asking, because they won’t tell you. They figured it out the hard way and so should we—as far as they’re concerned.”
“Are they all going to class?”
“Most alchemy adepts study with a master, either solo or with a few others in a lab. They do have a lot of seminars that we can sit on, but mostly Trudy is guiding me. It’s going to be nice to have another person to study with.”
“Some of these students look pretty old, but some are closer to your age. Can’t you study with them?” Red gestured to a quartet ahead of them taking a group selfie.
Hannah frowned, shoulders slumping. “They’ve been studying together for years. It’s hard to break into a clique around here. High school wasn’t easy, but I thought a witch college would be easier.”
“We’re not going to have to worry about jocks in the cafeteria, right?”
Hannah laughed. “In this school, the nerds rule.”
They followed the growing pack from the stairs through an echoing concourse.
“Good morning, witches.” Draped in velvet, Perenelle found them walking by a suit of armor. “I’m afraid I must delay your breakfast. The Alchemical Synod wants a word about your tribulations. I admit to being curious to learn more myself.” Perenelle directed them to a side hallway, away from the commuting students. She tapped the threshold of the door, igniting sigils along the side. “We’re just rerouting this for a bit. Mustn’t make them wait.”
They stepped through into a long room. The high benches along the narrow far wall drew the eye. Twelve robed alchemists sat there, hoods obscuring their faces.
Two muscle-bound men in tank tops and gym shorts sat together in front of the Synod on low stools. Werewolves, if Red were to guess. Both had a wild ripple to their auras.
Sitting a yard away, an olive toned man—a vampire by the look of his unnaturally white teeth and still chest—checked his watch. Annoyance hung on his heavy brow.
A pale Asian girl in overalls played with her phone. She looked like any other college student except for the fox ears twitching on the top of her head.
Impressed, Red raised her eyebrows at the kitsune.
Perenelle gestured to the front where a glowing glass ball on a podium glimmered before taking a spot in the shadows by the door.
Red lifted her chin and walked to the space between the Synod and the assembled supernaturals, feeling Hannah’s eyes on her. She wondered if this was how Vic felt all those times they had been dragged into trouble, trying to tamp down his own fear for her sake.
One of the Synod lifted his hood to wink at her—Diego Blanco.
The alchemist in the front and center lowered his hood to reveal flowing grey dreadlocks and a wrinkled dark-skinned face. A steely gaze beamed out above pressed lips and a hooked nose. “As the First Alchemist, I call you forward to give testimony.”
Hannah put her hand on the orb, cringing.
Red followed suit. The glass stuck to her skin like ice.
A floating illusion of the four werewolves from their chests up appeared in the air.
Gravitas flowed from the First Alchemist as he intoned, “Our men are already scrying for the assailants. We hold our allies to keep their eyes open.”
The kitsune swiped away from her game app to take a picture. “I’ll pass this around the underworld squats and make even the ones without eyes look at it. These four aren’t with us.”
“Our thanks to the Supernatural Union of Las Vegas,” The First Alchemist said.
“Couldn’t this perp alert have been sent in a text message?” The vampire sighed, shifting on the wobbly low stool to follow the kitsune’s lead and take a picture. “Or this meeting done at night when I’m less likely to burn in the sun on my way here?”
“We didn’t want to drag the Supreme’s representative away from his nightly duties on Fremont Street,” The First Alchemist said, a twinkle in his dark eyes. “Give O’Sullivan my regards.”
“Are you sure they’re wolves?” The older werewolf asked, shoulders slumped and eyes sad as he studied the images.
Red didn’t wait for the First Alchemist to answer. “Their eyes reflected silver, wolfsbane burnt them like acid, and we got a soulmancer to verify that they had the call of the wild in them. Then their leader did a partial shift.”
“He was super furry and scarred. Like something was wrong with his chest. Really gross.” Hannah shook her hands in front of her, mouth twisting. “Not a DILF at all.”
Red scratched her forehead, sure that this was how Vic felt at one of her outbursts. She pr
edicted one of his “I told you so”s coming along when she told him the story. “They remind you of anyone? Had Boston-accents.”
Arms crossing, the beefy gym wolves shared a long glance. “Who are you again?”
The First Alchemist coughed. “No matter. Answer the question, Alpha Gonzales.”
“No, but my pack will be on guard. We keep the desert’s peace and value the truce with the academy.” He turned his nervous gaze on the Synod. “This group is not affiliated with us. We don’t attack humans, especially not their young.”
“I can help track these rogue wolves.” Red stepped to the Synod.
“The academy needs its students to study. Mind your lessons and maybe one day you can join the Gendarme as an investigator.” The First Alchemist flicked his hand, dismissing the two women. “That will be all.”
Hannah skittered away from the ball toward the door.
Red followed, trying to be sedate and calm even as she noticed the vampire studying her neck.
He raised his eyebrow in consideration, not hunger.
She covered her mark, certain he was wondering which vampire had claimed her. The scar was enough to give a hungry demon pause even without hearing Kristoff’s notorious name. A vampire’s claim was something most supernaturals respected. She had left Los Angeles to get away from undead drama. Intriguing another wasn’t on her to-do list.
On the way out, Red stopped by Perenelle’s post at the door. She dropped her voice as the Synod meeting continued behind her. “I can help.”
Perenelle nodded. “Wait until an order is given. Trust is earned in the academy.”
Red’s steps were heavy as she left. The idea of sitting on the sidelines while others investigated felt like an itch she couldn’t scratch. The alchemists had welcomed her, but she doubted she would get brownie points for meddling on the first day. She rubbed her shoulder, trying to loosen up the knotting tension. The Synod meeting had felt too much like a tribunal. She reminded herself that she wasn’t in trouble as she hurried to join Hannah, entering the rush of students in the larger hall.
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