by Emery Belle
She passed the box of wands to Garnet, who handed one to me and one to Hunter before sliding a third out for herself, examining its thin tip with a look of wonder. I glanced behind me, ready to offer the man in black a wand, but Lady Winthrop vanished the box with a snap of her fingers before I could pull one out for him.
“These are your training wands,” Lady Winthrop continued, looking from Garnet to Hunter to me. “They are designed to be used while you are inside this room, and while you are inside this room only, unless I give you permission to take them back to your dormitories for further practice. If any one of you is caught illegally wielding your training wand, you will be expelled from the academy and banished from the island without a second chance.” She folded her arms across her thin chest. “Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes,” we murmured in unison, exchanging wary glances.
“Very good.” The corners of her mouth twitched into a smile. “I trust that, as adult hatchlings, you will have no problem following the rules we set in this academy. The same cannot be said for our pre-teen students, who seem to take great pleasure in testing the boundaries at every possible turn.”
She let out a dramatic, long-suffering sigh, and Garnet giggled. I noticed Hunter’s eyes sliding her way again, but he quickly focused his attention back on the front of the room as Lady Winthrop rolled up her sleeves, as if preparing to give a demonstration.
“Now then,” she said. “Our first few lessons will focus on the most basic—and least dangerous—types of spells: household and grooming. These include cleaning and other chores, hair trimming, mending clothes, and the like. Who would like to be the first volunteer?”
Before I could fully process the question, Garnet’s hand shot up so high her bottom lifted a few inches out of her chair. Lady Winthrop beckoned her to the front of the room, and Hunter and I leaned forward, rapt with attention. I grabbed my training wand, eager to practice the first spell, and it thrummed in my hand and shot out a few golden sparks as my heart pounded with excitement.
“We’ll begin with the aqua spell,” Lady Winthrop said, stepping back from Garnet, who held her wand at the ready, her eyes wild with excitement. “This is a very useful spell that conjures potable water. I use it myself on a daily basis.”
She pointed her own wand at the ground a few feet from Garnet, and a plastic bucket appeared. “Aim for the bucket, dear,” she said, “and don’t worry about not hitting it right away. I’ve never seen a student who could on their first try.”
Garnet nodded once, then squared her shoulders and held out her wand. For all her enthusiasm, I could see that her hand was trembling as she aimed it at the bucket. “It’s perfectly natural to be nervous,” Lady Winthrop said, noticing that Garnet’s training wand was quivering under the strain of her anxiety. “I’ll count to three, and then you speak the word. Ready? One, two, th—”
“AQUA!” Garnet roared, jabbing her wand haphazardly at the bucket. A stream of black liquid soared from the tip, angled in the air, and hit Lady Winthrop squarely in the nose. I pinched my nostrils together as a putrid boiled egg smell filled the room, and Hunter ducked his head beneath his desk and began dry-heaving.
“Finito,” Lady Winthrop said calmly, waving her hand, and the black sludge immediately stopped pouring from Garnet’s wand. Lady Winthrop withdrew her own wand from her pocket and began tracing it along her face, murmuring beneath her breath, and after a few moments she was back to her normal state. I lifted one finger from my nose and sniffed the air tentatively, then signaled the all-clear to Hunter, who stopped heaving, though his face was definitely still tinged green.
Garnet’s face burned scarlet as she took her seat, her shoulders slumped in dejection. I gave her an encouraging pat on the arm and whispered, “Don’t worry, I’m sure you did way better than I will,” which seemed to perk her up a bit.
“That was a little, er, over-enthusiastic, Garnet, which probably affected the direction of the spell. But that’s okay!” She smiled warmly at Garnet. “That’s what we’re here for, after all. To learn.” Lady Winthrop dabbed at a smudge of black on her otherwise spotless robes, her nose wrinkled in distaste. “Who’s next?”
She looked from me to Hunter, and I slumped down in my chair as subtly as I could. I was in no hurry to show the others just how little I knew about magic—at least Garnet had been able to produce something from her wand, even if it was probably poisonous. I would probably just stand there, looking like an idiot, until Lady Winthrop announced that I must have been admitted to the academy by mistake and sent me straight back to Oregon on the next ferry.
Hunter noticed my hesitation and gave me a small smile, then rose from his chair and ambled to the front of the room, exuding all the confidence in the world… though I had a feeling it was entirely due to Garnet’s presence. When Lady Winthrop counted to three, he steadied his arm and murmured the spell, and a trickle of what was unmistakably water leaked from the tip of his training wand.
“Excellent!” Lady Winthrop said, clapping her hands together once in delight. “That’s just excellent, Hunter. Well done. The volume of water will increase in time—what’s important is that you were able to produce it on your first try.”
Hunter slid back into his chair, trying not to look too pleased with himself, as Garnet shot him a sulky look. I pushed myself to my feet, not quite meeting Lady Winthrop’s eye as I took my position at the front of the classroom. The man in black was leaning casually against the back wall, his foot propped up behind him, his burly arms crossed over his chest. I could feel his gaze burning into me as I angled myself away from him, my pulse ticking the tiniest bit faster, and raised my wand.
“Aqua,” I said, surprised by the steadiness of my voice, which belied the nerves tapping a jig across my stomach. I watched in amazement as a stream of cool, clear water shot out of my wand and arced across the room, landing mere centimeters from the bucket. I twitched my wrist slightly to the left, and the stream shifted, this time hitting the bucket with a pitter-pattering sound that echoed across the room.
Hunter whooped and began clapping wildly, and Garnet followed suit. I dared a glance back at the man in black, but his face remained as impassive as ever. He shifted his feet slightly, and the sunlight streaming in through the window played across his cheek, bringing the jagged scar into stark relief. I shuddered and turned away once more, though his silent presence continued to unnerve me. Why was no one else in the room paying him any attention?
“Miss Winters!” Lady Winthrop was practically squealing as my attention returned to the task at hand. “Never in all my years of teaching have I seen such a superb first attempt at magic by a hatchling! You should be very proud of yourself indeed.”
She opened a folder on her desk and scanned her eyes down the page inside. “The academy’s records show that you were born on the mainland. Do you have any idea of your parentage?” She ran her finger down the page. “If you were born to a witch and wizard, we’d likely have a record of that, so I presume your parents are human?”
All eyes in the room were on me, and that all-too-familiar sense of shame began welling up in my chest. “I have no idea,” I whispered. “I never knew them. They abandoned me at birth.” I cleared my throat and raised my chin defiantly, as if I were merely talking about what I ate for dinner yesterday rather than the identity crisis that had caused me to lose sleep on countless nights.
A flash of sympathy passed across Lady Winthrop’s face, but thankfully, she made no more mention of the subject. The rest of the class flew by, and by the time the bell rang, signaling the end of the lesson, Garnet had managed to lighten the color of her water from jet black to a dull gray, and Hunter’s trickle had increased considerably.
The three of us chatted amicably as we walked back out into the sunshine toward the dormitories, and by the time we finished laughing about the look on Lady Winthrop’s face when she got a mouthful of Garnet’s black sludge, I had completely forgotten about the man in black, who
had followed us out of the classroom without a word and seemed to have disappeared completely.
“Do you want to come to my parents’ house for dinner?” Garnet asked me after Hunter had waved goodbye and trotted off to the dorms housing the male students. “My mother’s making needleberry pie, my favorite, to celebrate my first day of classes.”
“I’d love to,” I said, shifting the heavy beginner spellbook Lady Winthrop had passed out to us at the end of class to my other arm, “but I’ll be spending the rest of the day at work. I have a lot to catch up on.”
Though the entire island seemed to be buzzing about Cassandra’s death—it was the hot topic at the breakfast diner Garnet and I had visited that morning—I hadn’t yet confided my role in the investigation to my new roommate. Percival wanted to keep it under wraps so we could avoid finding ourselves on the receiving end of Kellen’s ire, which suited me just fine. The less time those red eyes spent scrutinizing me, the better.
We arrived at the street leading to our dorm and were just about to part ways when I remembered the mysterious man. “Hey,” I said, catching her arm before she could walk away. “What was up with that guy at the back of the classroom. Was he a student, or…?” I trailed off as she cocked her head and gave me a puzzled look.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said. “Where—”
“Wren!” a familiar voice interrupted, and I swung around to see Sebastian walking toward us. When he lifted his hand in greeting, I heard Garnet’s sharp intake of breath beside me. Her face flushed as he gave her a pleasant smile before he turned to me and said, “You coming to the office today? I just finished up my lunch break and was heading back there now, if you’d like to join me.” He held out his arm and gave me a roguish grin.
“S-sure,” I said, momentarily stunned at the sight of his dimples. “See you later?” I added to Garnet, who nodded and headed back to the dorm alone, every so often turning to watch us as we walked away.
Sebastian and I enjoyed a pleasant walk through the center of town, laughing and joking around like old friends, and by the time we reached The Islander offices, I’d completely forgotten about the man in black.
Chapter 9
“Here you go,” Sebastian said, dumping an armful of old newspapers onto my desk. “This is every issue of The Islander for the past three months. I figure it’s a good place to start looking for suspects. Like I told you before, Cassandra made a lot of enemies while she was alive. She was the best gossip columnist this island has ever seen, and at the end of the day, it didn’t do her any favors.” He pursed his lips, looking grave. “Clearly.”
“Thanks.” I sighed as I stared at the teetering pile of papers, wondering for about the fiftieth time in the past couple hours just what I’d managed to get myself into. Luckily, I’d decided to confide in Sebastian, who was happy to help me in my search for Cassandra’s killer. “We weren’t close,” he’d said, his eyes darkening as we discussed Cassandra’s fate, “but you don’t sit in the cubicle next to someone for five years without caring what happens to them. Whoever did this needs to pay. Whatever I can do to help, Wren, you just let me know.”
We decided to start with the obvious—the targets of Cassandra’s most recent articles. As I flipped through the newspapers, one name stuck out at me again and again. “Mayor Thane,” I said, jabbing my finger at yet another column laying out the juicy details of his private life. “Cassandra exposed the affair he was having with his secretary for the entire island to read about. If that’s not a motive for murder, I don’t know what is.”
“Maybe.” Sebastian looked doubtful. “But if you ask me, Mayor Thane got the better end of the deal. His wife, Fiona, is an absolute nightmare, and after the affair went public, he decided to leave her. Word on the street is that Fiona forced him out of their mansion, and he moved in with the other woman the very next day.”
I winced at the idea of Fiona Thane being forced to endure such public humiliation. Thanks to Jason and Clarissa, it hit a little too close to home for me. “Then we’ll start with her,” I said confidently, picking up one of the newspapers and studying Fiona’s haughty, beautiful face. I looked at Sebastian. “Any idea where I can find her?”
“The same place as always,” Sebastian said, running his fingers through his thick hair so that it looked effortlessly tousled. “She’s a health nut who runs these exercise and clean eating clinics all over the island, and I know for a fact that she’s hosting a broomrobics class at the Saltwater Gym this afternoon because my sister signed up for it.”
He rolled his eyes. “Fiona swears that one class is enough to melt away two pounds of fat, and my sister fell for it hook, line, and sinker.” He glanced at his watch. “If we leave right now, we’ll probably make it for the last few minutes.”
“Then we have no time to waste,” I said, grabbing a notebook in one hand and Sebastian by the other. “Let’s go catch a killer.”
The Saltwater Gym definitely lived up to its name, given that the entire first floor was submerged in ocean water. “It’s the brainchild of Lillian, the merwoman who owns the place,” Sebastian said, tapping me on the head with his wand.
A glass bubble reminiscent of the one I wore on my journey to the Magic Island Ferry enclosed my head, and Sebastian did the same to himself before we began paddling into the water. “She was banished from her tribe for falling asleep while on guard duty and allowing a human cruise ship to pass by the island. It caused quite the uproar. I guess it worked out in her favor, though, because her water aerobics classes always have a waiting list.” Sebastian’s voice reverberated in my bubble as we waded past a lifeguard stand, where a sea lion sat with a whistle around its neck and an inflatable life ring wrapped around its flipper.
“Hi, Magnus,” Sebastian called, saluting the sea lion as we passed. “Shifter,” he added to me in an undertone. “This is Magnus’s daytime gig. At night, he’s a bouncer at The Feisty Frog. Trust me when I tell you he isn’t someone you want to cross when he’s in human form.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” I said, swinging my head every which way in an attempt to soak up the scenery around me.
To my left, a finned woman with glowing blonde hair led a group of female zombies—I recognized them from their blood-red lips and pale eyes—in some kind of synchronized swim, and to my right, a trio of ghost-white men with pronounced widow’s peaks and even more pronounced fangs were camped out on a tiny island in the middle of the water, catcalling at a group of fairies splashing each other with their wings.
As I gawked at the vampires, my feet got tangled up in something that felt terrifyingly like arms, and I shrieked so loud that Sebastian whipped around, wand at the ready, only to find me battling against a few tendrils of seaweed that had wrapped around my ankles.
By the time we swam up to the underwater elevators, I was exhausted and could barely muster up enough energy to push the button leading to the upper floors. As we stepped inside, the bubble around my head evaporated, and I hurried to check my notebook—but, like the rest of me, it was completely dry.
“What happened to the cruise ship?” I asked as the elevator ticked upward. “You know, the one that Lillian accidentally let pass by the island?”
Sebastian shook his head and lowered his eyes to the ground, and my stomach sank as the weight of his silence hit home. “Are merpeople… dangerous?” I asked, imagining a tribe of them wielding spears and pitchforks swarming the innocent cruise ship passengers and dragging them down to a watery grave.
“Not in the least,” Sebastian said, gazing down at Lillian’s aerobics class through the see-through elevator walls. “In fact, when the merpeople heard about what happened, they lobbied hard for the humans on the ship to be allowed to continue on unharmed. Lord Macon wasn’t having any of it, though.”
“Does that man have a decent bone in his body?” I asked furiously. His callous treatment of me still stung, and it would be a long time before I forgot the look of disdain
on his face as he glared down at me, as though I were nothing more than a piece of old gum stuck to his shoe.
“He had his reasons.” Sebastian’s face hardened. “Can you imagine what would happen to the people on this island if the human world discovered us? It’s not a risk Lord Macon was willing to take, and most of the islanders supported his decision.”
He paused, and when he spoke next, I could tell he was measuring his words carefully. “Sometimes tough decisions need to be made for the greater good.”
I opened my mouth to argue—frankly, murdering an entire cruise ship full of people on the off chance they would recognize the island for what it truly was went way beyond a “tough decision”—but the elevator slowed before I could get the words out. The doors chimed and then opened, and as soon as I caught sight of what we were stepping into, all memories of the cruise ship evaporated from my brain.
What must have been two hundred broomsticks were floating in a wide-open atrium, and behind each broom was a woman huffing and puffing and looking like she wanted to die as she performed a series of complicated-looking exercise steps.
“Come on, ladies, mount those brooms!” a perky brunette called from the front of the room, and I immediately recognized her as Fiona Thane. The women began hopping on and off the brooms in time to the music pumping through the room, and I held my breath as the stench of sweat permeated the air.
“What is this?” I hissed to Sebastian, who was watching the women in amusement. It looked like some kind of torture chamber to me, although, admittedly, the most exercise I usually got was heaving myself off the couch to dig a pint of ice cream out of the freezer.
