PERIWINKLE

“I think you’ll like it here,” Pearl says with a swish of her blond curls as she leads me through the pale blue halls of one of the school buildings. “There are so many interesting students with different stories. Lots of emotions flowing. You won’t be hungry!”

The most upbeat of my interrogators volunteered to show me to my dorm and introduced herself as a succubus. I’ve never met one of those before that I know of, but I think it means she feeds on very specific types of mortal energies.

I peer around me at the various doorways and the light streaming through their frosted glass windows. “And there’ll be classes that will teach me how to keep control of my power?”

“Yep! And all sorts of other support to help you out there among mortals.” Pearl pats my arm. “Just follow the rules, and you’ll be fine.”

The rules. I look down at the badge attached to my dress, the metal crest Shanty pinned there right before I left the interrogation room.

You start at level one, she told me, tapping the number imprinted at the top of the crest. Then she touched a triangle underneath it. You’re in the reform division, for beings who’ve been actively struggling with their behavior. The weekly schedule for each level and division is posted in each dorm area. We expect you to attend all your assigned classes. Show commitment and perform well, and you’ll graduate to the next level.

There’s something I forgot to ask at the time. I glance over at Pearl. “How many levels are there?”

How much graduating do I need to do before I can be sure it’s safe for me to leave?

“Five!” Pearl replies brightly. “And level five is really just some final finessing. Once you make it even to three, you’re well on your way.”

A couple of other symbols mark the sides of the badge. One is a swirling line, the other a starburst with six points.

I tap them. “What do these mean?”

“Oh.” Pearl giggles, but the cheerful vibe beaming off her like buttered popcorn dampens a little. “That’s to help the staff and other students know what precautions to take. The left side indicates how cooperative or defiant you are. The swirl means we’re not sure yet. The right side tells people how dangerous you might be. The star means you’ve harmed mortals. They can have up to ten points.”

I stare down at the imprint for a few more seconds, my stomach lurching. If the school’s overseers knew how much more damage I’ve caused beyond the recent incidents they talked about, would they have marked me with all ten?

Pearl chatters merrily onward. “It’s not a big deal here since almost everyone is shadowkind anyway. You want to watch your step a little around anyone who’s got a ring around their star. That means they’ve hurt shadowkind too.”

At least I can say I don’t think I’ve ever done that.

When I look up again, we’re passing several beings standing in small clusters in the halls. Their gazes slide over me with traces of curiosity, but no one speaks.

I smile at them. Most avert their eyes to go back to talking to their companions.

Well, they don’t know me yet.

I’ll show how cooperative and helpful I can be. I’ll learn everything I need to so I can undo the damage I caused before.

We head up a flight of stairs. After a few steps, a jolt of pain quivers up from my ankles through my calves.

I suppress my wince, but Pearl catches on to my discomfort anyway. She pauses. “Are you all right?”

I nod quickly. “It’s not a big deal. My legs are just a little… weak. Sometimes I get wobbly when I’m in this form for a while.”

The succubus’s mouth slants with a hint of a frown. “It is policy that students stay human-like as much as possible for practice. But if you need to take little breaks in the shadows here and there to look after yourself, that’s totally okay.”

Will the other board members think that’s me being defiant, though?

I give her my brightest smile. “I’m sure it’ll be all right. It doesn’t bother me that much.”

Not anywhere near as much as the memories of how my legs got that way, which I’ll keep shoved way, way down in the back of my mind.

Pearl doesn’t look totally convinced, but she accepts my answer and climbs on up the stairs. “If you need guidance any time, you can always look for me or the other board members… Well, maybe Al wouldn’t be the best bet—I don’t know if it’s a vampire thing, but he acts like emotions are cooties he might catch.”

She rolls her eyes.

Al—vampire—the pale man at the table? The new name reminds me of another one I never got to attach to a being. “What about Rollick? You were talking about him—who’s he?”

Pearl’s expression turns wistful. “He’s the one who came up with the idea for this school and got it off the ground. Really he’s the big boss—all the final calls go through him. But he’s had some other important stuff to deal with, always very busy, so he hasn’t been around all that much the past few months.”

As we reach the top of the stairs, she taps her own badge: a simpler one than mine, bronze instead of tin, with a single symbol like a church spire. “Really you can turn to any of the staff—we’ve all got badges like this. It’s better for all of us if you have everything you need to thrive.”

On the second floor, late-afternoon sunlight beams through a series of skylights set in the angled ceiling. The illumination buoys my hopes.

Getting dragged into this school might be the best thing that could have happened to me. If I’d known it existed, I’d have come looking for them instead of the other way around.

We take a right, and Pearl motions to an arched doorway just a few steps ahead. “That’s your dorm area.” She peeks at her phone. “It looks like you’ve been assigned to room 5. The schedule will be posted just inside the dorm. Since the day’s almost over, you can get started with that tomorrow. Take some time to get to know your dormmates and settle in.”

She flashes me one of her sunny smiles and sashays back the way we came.

I study the door for a moment, summoning all the optimism I can. With my lips stretched into a smile of my own, I reach to open it.

As I step into the wider hall on the other side, my breath catches in my throat. It feels more crowded than the other school areas we passed through, with several doors spaced close together down both walls while sofas and armchairs are spread out down the middle of the hall with an occasional side table in between.

All sorts of beings lounge on and around the furnishings. Many of them look over to see who the new arrival is.

My gaze flits from face to face as a flurry of understated emotions tickles me from across the distance—intrigue and irritation and anticipation, swirled together in a salty stew.

My attention stalls on a group of students off to one side of the hall. Several beings have gathered around a tall, slim man who’s propped against the wall in a cavalier pose.

I’d imagine many people’s eyes would be drawn to him. He’s handsome in a particularly striking way, with blond hair so light it’s almost silver, sharp features that could have been carved out of ivory, and startlingly dark blue eyes gleaming amid all that paleness. Even leaning nonchalantly, he gives off an impression of cool authority.

Not only that, he has some interesting magic going on. Despite his dispassionate expression, a figurine that looks like a castle tower is forming over his hand with an icy gleam. He’s conjuring it out of the air while the beings around him exclaim with much more enthusiasm that he’s showing.

And that’s what’s caught my attention more than his looks or his chilly power: the undercurrent of emotion drifting off him. For all his apparent cool and the friends around him, frustration bubbles beneath his surface like a bitter curry.

One of his companions cuts off my view of him, stepping toward me with a graceful but haughty air. She’s nearly as tall as him and equally gorgeous, her snow-white skin contrasting with her fall of smooth black hair.

“We have a new rogue,” she says in a smooth, crystalline voice that fits her looks perfectly. Her gaze flicks to my badge. “And a threat to humankind as well. What did you do to get yourself tossed in here?”

I resist the urge to dive under the nearest sofa. “I, um, it was an accident.”

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Another shadowkind woman, shorter but similarly svelte, sidles up beside the haughty one. Her tone is teasing but with a sneering edge. “That’s what they all say.”

The first woman taps her friend with her elbow. “We can be welcoming.” She holds out her hand to me, displaying elegantly sculpted fingernails. “My name is Gloss. I sometimes drop in on the reform division for the… invigorating company.”

She tosses a grin over her shoulder toward the icily handsome man, and I notice her badge, pinned to the bodice of her sleek burgundy dress. It has a circle etched on it beneath the number 4 rather than a triangle like mine.

Not part of the reform division. Does that mean she’s a student who came voluntarily?

I give her hand a tentative shake and smile wider in an attempt to make up for my hesitation. “I’m Periwinkle. But you can call me Peri. I didn’t mean to end up here, but now that I have, I’m happy I’ll have the chance to learn.”

I catch a few muffled giggles and snorts, cotton candy fluffs of amusement. But everyone who’s here made the choice one way or another, didn’t they? They must all have thought it was a good idea.

“So sweet,” Gloss says mildly.

Another woman steps around her to peer at me. “She doesn’t seem like she could possibly warrant a six-pointed star, huh?”

“Well, we all hide things, don’t we, Tansy?” The look Gloss gives her seems a bit pointed too, but she gives off so little emotion it’s hard for me to tell. She offers me a reserved smile. “What room did they give you?”

“Five!” I announce, relieved to find that piece of information stuck in my head.

“Hmm.” Gloss taps a finger to her lips. “I think there might have been some informal shuffling. Rush, why don’t you check whether room five is actually free and which one has an opening if not?”

The shorter, sneering woman jerks to attention and darts off down the hall to make her inquiries. The other shadowkind following our conversation watch Gloss avidly but with a prickle of anxiety.

They want to make sure they don’t disappoint her.

I can understand how she might have earned some loyalty, considering she’s the only one who’s done much to welcome me since I arrived at the dorm. And it isn’t even her dorm!

“Where’s your room?” I ask her out of honest curiosity.

Gloss gives a light laugh and flicks her fingers vaguely toward the wall. “Oh, the voluntary students stay in the Citrine building. Reforms aren’t allowed into other dorms until they’re at least level 4. Some of my friends are very bad at playing nice.”

She tsks her tongue playfully and glances back at the other women and the icy man. But for all her effortless confidence, a trickle of doubt seeps off of her—a tart splash of insecurity only I can taste.

She’s been kind enough to me that my mouth moves without thinking. I want to reassure her—I want to do something kind for her too.

“You don’t need to worry,” I say. “They really do care about what you think.”

Her attention snaps back to me. “What?”

I fumble under the sudden intensity of her stare. “I just mean, you’ve already impressed them. They want to listen to you. So you don’t need to worry.”

For a split-second, Gloss’s eyes narrow. A jolt of fury hits me right in the throat, searing like charred peppers.

Then it’s gone. She takes a step back with another crisp laugh, and my sense of her inner state dwindles to nothing.

“It sounds like the only one here who’s worried is you.” She turns to Rush, who’s just hurried back to join her.

The other woman touches her arm. “Mica moved into room five. But there’s a bed in—”

“In room twelve.” Gloss’s eyes glint at me as if nothing went wrong, but several of the beings around her stiffen.

“Twelve,” Tansy hisses. “Are you sure—”

Gloss clasps her slender hands together. “I think room twelve would be perfect for Periwinkle. Exactly the atmosphere she needs. Unless anyone else wanted to claim that spot.”

The hall has gone silent, broken by a brief chuckle from the icy man. The tower he was conjuring flits apart into a puff of snowflakes. “Brilliant as always, Gloss.”

Gloss’s face lights up, and she gestures for me to move on. “You won’t have any trouble finding it. They’re all in order.”

My chest feels oddly tight. I bob my head in a gesture of gratitude I’m not sure I should mean. “Thank you.”

As I weave between my watching dormmates down the hall, no one speaks other than a few murmurs. A hum has come into the air that’s all edgy anticipation.

What are they waiting for? What do they think is going to happen?

The room labeled twelve is right at the end of the hall on the left side. When I turn the handle, it opens easily. I guess there isn’t much need for locks when we can all slip through the shadows beneath the doors if we like.

I push it open and step inside.

At first, the room appears empty. At least, of other people. Two twin-sized beds with simple wooden bedframes stand at opposite ends, with small coordinating dressers next to them and even smaller desks with rolling chairs just beyond their footboards. The walls are the same light blue as everywhere else I’ve seen in this building, and a square rug in a darker shade covers most of the floor between the beds.

I’m not alone, though. My senses quiver with the awareness of another being nearby, merged with the shadows around the lefthand bed.

A being that’s radiating outrage.

Before I can even turn toward the impression, he materializes out of the shadows. A huge man looming nearly as high as the ceiling, ropey muscles bulging across his limbs and chest, a tan face that might have been stunning otherwise set in a fierce expression. Thick brown hair that gleams like buffed bronze bristles from the top of his head.

His badge shows a number one like mine… and a ten-pointed star with a ring around it that Pearl says means he’s hurt shadowkind as wel las mortals.

He growls more than speaks. “What are you doing in here?”

I hold up my hands appeasingly and step back toward the other bed. My heart is pounding. “I—they told me this is the room I should be in. With a free bed.”

I can hear my voice going squeaky. A smattering of light touches the walls as my hair lights up with a flare of fear.

The immense man bares his teeth. “This is my room. I don’t share. Get out!”

My pulse outright lurches. I step backward, on the verge of fleeing, when a giggle reaches my ears from beyond the door.

My dormmates—and specifically Gloss—sent me into this situation on purpose. They knew the room’s current inhabitant would react this way.

They’re waiting for me to scurry back out so they can laugh at me for failing.

My legs balk at the thought of playing the horrible game they made up. If I do what they want… what will they try to make me do next?

In my hesitation, the man lets out a snarl. “Can’t you hear? Get the fuck away!”

With the words, another waft of emotion washes over me. Not rage this time, but fear that’s not mine, as suffocatingly sour as a flood of cheap whiskey.

This being… is afraid of me?

That can’t be right, but I know what I’m tasting. I don’t like the idea of abandoning a being in some kind of distress any more than I want to submit myself to my other dormmates’ judgment.

I back up another step, but this time toward the bed. Sitting down on the mattress, I keep my hands raised and my voice soft. “I promise I’ll keep my distance. I’m not going to bother you at all. I just need a place where I can sleep.”

I’m prepared for the man to lunge at me, and I’m not totally sure what I’d do then. But he stays where he is, confusion trickling through the unpalatable mix of anger and fear.

“You’d better stay away from me,” he warns, and vanishes back into the shadows.

I swallow hard and lower my hands to rest on the bedspread. My pulse keeps hammering away, but a knot of resolve solidifies in my gut.

These are the circumstances I’ve been given. I made Gloss upset—she thought I deserved this.

She doesn’t know how much I can endure. I won’t let her or any of the others shake me.

I’m lucky to be here at all, so I’ll just have to make the best of it.

After all, I’ve lived through way worse before.