Feral witches made the worst company. Offend them? Cursed. Question them? Cursed. Thwart their nefarious plans to devour your soul? Extra cursed. Me? I was extra-cursed as a child and I've been unlucky since. Unlucky enough that the civilized society of witches told me my curse was there to stay. Ferals didn't make curses out of kindness, after all, and mine was no exception. The only thing I had going for me, was that I was a witch, too.

For that reason, I stood on a mountain path in the towering shadow of Sage University. Circling nearby were six mountains separated by a sea of trees, each one dedicated to a legendary witch of the past. Those witches were long gone, of course, but they would all die again if they saw our education system at work.

In their infinite wisdom—or lack thereof—those in power wrote it into law that witches could only begin casting by themselves at eighteen. Eighteen! It made sense considering the number that lost their lives to foolish mistakes, but it sucked. It left me feeling far more powerless than a witch ought to be at eighteen.

Of all the schools I considered, The Sages was one of the more beautiful ones. The exterior glowed with ancient lines in the sun and looked like a sandy palace climbing out of jagged rock.

Other students bustled past, the wheels of their luggage clacking on stones until I was alone. The wind barreled by with a cold tug and a howl that warned of winter. It was all the encouragement I needed to get moving. Grabbing my luggage handle, I hustled for the stairs.

Slow and steady, and with my eyes glued to my feet, I climbed. I wasn't about to risk rushing. Not with my curse. It was a terrible one, placed upon me by a terrible witch. Weakness of bone. One misstep could break every bone in my body and send me to the infirmary on day one. Been there, done that. No thanks.

As I reached the final step, I hefted my bag up beside me and looked in the direction of footsteps.

A man approached.

"Miss Tate, I assume?" His voice came deep and more pleasant than his impassive, crimson stare suggested, and with the faintest hint of an accent. French? He held an opened book with a pen poised to mark the page.

"Uh, yes." I shifted on my feet while trying to subtly inspect him. He looked a bit young to be a professor, maybe thirty or so with such soft skin. But seeing as he was standing there, intent on bothering me, I couldn't imagine he was anything else. "And you are?"

"Professor Lacroix, to you."

Lacroix? I knew that name, didn't I? Nothing came to mind at that moment, but it was familiar. Really familiar. I didn't have long to think about it, though, as he snapped the book shut and reached for my bag. Too close. Instinctively, I made to step back. Only, there was no step back. A mixture of a gasp and shriek filled the air as I swung backward, hand flying for the rail.

The stranger shot forward and grabbed the front of my coat, pulling me into his lean frame. He muttered something I couldn't fully hear over the rush of blood in my ears. Something about consistency. Whatever that meant.

"Thanks." Putting some space between us, I cursed inwardly for making a fool of myself on my first day.

"Of course." He swept a strand of long, brown hair behind his ear and recovered his book from the ground. As he straightened up, he exhaled a soft hum. "A good thing you did not fall."

Did he really need to say that?

"Be more cautious of your footing in the future."

I dipped my chin in an obedient nod, hiding my annoyance, and bit out a cool, "Yes, sir."

"Leave your luggage. I will deliver it for you, lest you find a way to inadvertently harm yourself." He gestured toward the door. "Please head inside."

"Thanks." Jerk. Balling my hands into fists, I moved around the professor toward the entryway.

Wide doors opened to a hallway with a tile so sleek it reflected the vaulted ceilings above. The dusky blue of the ceiling paired well with the silver chains and wood chandeliers. None were lit. I joined a group that met in the hallway's center beneath one such chandelier. Freshmen, like me. They chittered with an excitable energy that had me wanting to melt into the shadows of the corner.

"Go and sit," a woman yelled while stacking papers at the reception desk. "I'll pass along your room assignments shortly!"

As the group moved across the way, I spotted a familiar face in the crowd. Rhett Collins. We were peers the last four years in a witch equivalent of high school, where we learned theory, control, and history. We weren't enemies, but we weren't friends either. Rivals, maybe.

It seemed he saw me too. His face broke into a pearly smile that gave his brown cheeks a rosy shine. "Tate. I admit, I'm shocked to see you here."

"Oh?" I said blandly, folding my hands at my front. "Why's that, Collins?"

"I had you figured for a local college, certainly not the Sages." Rhett's hazel eyes sparkled with mischief. "Did Hillfort not want you?"

I scrunched my nose. "Even the worst of our peers could get into Hillfort."

"Too true." Rhett moved closer, wheeling his suitcase with him as his gaze skirted across the crowd of freshmen. "I'd offer to help you with your bags, but it seems you don't have any."

"I'd decline, anyway."

Rhett hummed. "I see you still have your fiery spirit."

I didn't bother thinking up a response.

"Now you have me curious. Where is your luggage?"

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

I gestured behind me. "The man at the stairs took it."

"Ah." Rhett rubbed his chin. "Lucien Lacroix. A savant, I hear."

Oh. Oh. I craned my torso around for a peek. He was gone already. Lacroix. No wonder that sounded so familiar. "The Lucien Lacroix?"

"The very one."

"What in the nine planes is he doing here?" I asked quietly. And more importantly, what was someone like Lucien Lacroix doing running bags around? He could work anywhere and do anything.

"Rumors suggest he's working on something. Research." Rhett's shoulders rose in a shrug. "No time to be heir and whatnot."

"And who's she?" I nodded to the woman behind the desk. Thick black hair fell in frazzled curls around her face, complimenting her dark makeup and the green of her robes.

"Headmistress Haywood. All I know about her is that she's older than time and has connections deeper than my own." Rhett stared at her, his eyes flashing with determination. "You won't want to make a bad impression."

"Hm. I would have guessed she was forty-something."

"May we all be so fortunate, hm?"

I nodded.

The headmistress came around the desk and flashed a disarming smile. "All right, my dears, I have your rooms—oh!" She stopped, her eyes taking me in. "You look almost the same as I last saw you, Miss Tate."

I furrowed my brows, racking my mind for a memory. "We've met?"

"Years ago, dear. You wouldn't remember." The headmistress waved a hand and shuffled through the pages. "You're the spitting image of your mother."

Now that was a lie. My hair was like Mom's in that it was long and coppery. Aside from that, I didn't take after her so much. My eyes were gray and tired, like Dad's, and we had the same sharp nose and downturned lips that gave us a "resting sadness" as Mom so poetically put it.

"Here you go, dear." The headmistress handed me a sheet of paper.

"Thank you, Headmistress."

"Of course," she answered, moving away so elegantly she could have been floating. "Line up, if you will!"

"Well, Tate. I'll see you around. We've no reason to be at odds. Let me know if you need anything." Rhett offered his hand.

"Unlikely." I shook his hand all the same. "Later, Collins."

As I walked further into the hall, I examined the paper. It was a map with a mark where my dorm was. Room seven on the first floor, right side. I stepped into a round room with eight arches. Four went in cardinal directions, and the four in-between had staircases winding upward. Above me, globes of light cascaded between the railed balconies of the other three floors.

Joy of joys. I breathed a miserable sigh wondering if I'd be climbing stairs all year. At least I was on the bottom floor. Lifting the paper, I turned right and started along a curved hall with doors on one side and windows on the other. The windows overlooked a shadowed court between old, castle walls with a garden of purple roses. Each door was marked in Roman numerals. I stopped when I found VII. The door lacked a knob or keyhole. I re-examined the paper. We had to use magic to unlock it. Good thing I knew the Open spell.

With a flick of my hand, the door clicked open. I caught it before it swung shut and entered. It was nicer than expected, especially compared to my last school. Right away, I breathed in the cinnamon of the candles burning on a coffee table between a couch and some chairs. A bookshelf took up the center of one wall, half-filled with variously-sized spell-books.

I started down a narrow hallway with three doors. The first door had no markings, but I saw a bathroom through the crack. The second door had Blake scrawled on a little plaque. The one across from Blake's read, Vera & Naomi. Inside, a giant window brought in the morning light. The only visible furniture were the beds that framed a sliding door. A closet, I was sure. My suitcase stood between the beds.

A door creaked opened behind me. A witch emerged, toying with a sapphire pendant that hung to her collarbones where platinum hair touched down. A smile raised her freckled cheeks and dragged my attention to a tattoo of a tiny, crescent moon beneath her eye. She stepped close, a little too close, and took my hand.

"Heya. I'm Blake Nelson. I'll be your resident senior."

"Vera."

"Nice to meet you. I'm a student of clerical magic, primarily. If for any reason you guys can't get to the infirmary, I'll be able to handle most things. Just don't accidentally cut off a hand or something because, well, I can't fix that yet."

My lips curled upward at her laughter. Blake was funny. I liked that. It was also nice knowing I wouldn't have to crawl to the infirmary if I broke my foot on a stool or something. I had done that before. "Understood. Thanks."

"Sure. Bathroom is the first door." Blake pointed into the hall. "Feel free to put your things on a shelf in the cabinet. There are three. I'll leave you to get unpacked."

Instead of moving toward my suitcase, I went to the window and pulled back the sheer curtains. The room didn't impress me half as much as the view of the green forests that circled a decently-sized body of water. A lake, most likely. I turned upon hearing voices from the hall.

"Here's your room. You'll be sharing with Vera." Blake herded the other girl inside.

Nearly a foot shorter than me, Naomi had purple highlights in black hair and piercings on her lip and nose. Judging by the mixture of a half-robe, jeans, and buckle-fastened boots, I was almost certain that, like me, she came from a more mundane upbringing than that of old magic.

Even as she dragged her hand in a mellow wave, her purple eyes widened with undeniable interest. "Oh, wow. I'm so sorry."

I tilted my head and glanced at Blake.

Blake coughed into her fist. "I think you mean, hello."

"Cursed by the feral, right? I never forget a face. You were in the Cleric Review for a time because of your . . . condition."

The Cleric Review? I didn't know anything about that, but at the time of my cursing, I met with many witches on many occasions. I shouldn't have been surprised to find my story in a publication of some kind.

"Oh. Okay." Blake looked at me, her brown eyes searching until she pinched the bridge of her nose. "To avoid any trouble, let's keep her curse a secret, yeah? Witches like their privacy."

Naomi offered a hand. "Forget I said anything. Let's be good friends."

My anger fizzled out as I inclined my head at her, considering the possibility. I didn't have many friends at Hillfort, and I didn't care to change that, but she was my roommate. A weird one, too. Maybe weird enough to put up with me. Resigned, I took her hand. "Vera Tate."

"Oh, whoops, introductions. I'm Naomi Morimoto."

"This is nice," Blake said with an easy grin. "We should be good."

|***|

A new moon hung low. I stood in a forest so filled with chilling fog that I could barely see the pine needles underfoot. I licked my lips, sweeping up the moisture that rested upon them, and breathed the pine and rot. This was the Witchwood, the forest plane that existed between our world and many others. I'd been there once before, on the day I was cursed, but this time it felt different. Thinner. Like a dream. My body shook as I spun around, heart pumping, until the wind shrieked a warning from above, Run. Run. Run.

My feet weighed like stones as I fled down a path with no sense of direction. The forest grew darker, shadows bleeding into the fog and swirling like ink. Spirits burst past me screaming, their eyes sewn shut and their teeth sharpened into needles.

A root caught my ankle. I slammed into the mushy ground, mud splattering on my face, but nothing had broken. Not yet. My arms trembled as I pushed myself to my feet. A shadow rose to an impossible height, with eyes as red as blood. The witch who cursed me, Nimda, stepped from the darkness.

"Regrettable that I should be undone by a child," Nimda said, her voice deep and hoarse like a monster's. She twisted a twig between sharp fingers.

"Please, no," I begged, stumbling backward and shielding my neck with my hand.

"Live like the twig broken by wind; weak, never whole, 'til the day you grow old." Nimda stabbed the twig into her jugular and dragged it across the front of her neck. Blood cascaded down her front and pooled at her feet as she tossed the twig into the air.

I ran in the opposite direction, my scream echoing through the vacuous space and the wind hot on my heels. At the snap of the twig, I swung into darkness.