“So,” it mused. “You got through in time. Curious.”

  “Is it?” I managed. I still sounded breathy, but I’d found my voice. Go me. And I managed to release the handle of the broom, leaning it carefully against the wall.

  “Quite. You have no idea how seldom little witchlings manage it. I’ll have to keep an eye on you.”

  Oh, hell no. I didn’t want this snake keeping its anything on me. The sooner I could get away from its dark, probing gaze, the better. Just as I was about to turn on my toes and hightail it out, the words the snake said finally punched through my overwhelmed mind, and a wash of irritation banished the choking fear.

  “Are you saying that was a test?” I asked and couldn’t keep the indignance out of my voice. “That the headmistress was... keeping the portal door closed so that we’d all turn up late?”

  “Yes,” the snake said simply, tongue flickering with every word. “She can be difficult when she chooses to be.”

  “Is that why you’re in this closet?” I figured the snake was on time-out or something.

  “No,” it responded. “I prefer to take my repose in the dark and this out-of-the-way closet is exactly that.”

  “Well, sorry for waking you up then.”

  But my mind was still on the fact that the headmistress had set the mirror portal up as a test. I supposed it made a sick amount of sense. If the other students were as ignorant of the tradition as I was, they were probably beside themselves by the time they were let through. It made it that much easier for the headmistress to assert her authority. Good little witches would fall into line for fear of being expelled. I bit back a snort of disgust. Typical witchy psychological warfare.

  “Thanks for turning on the light. I’d hate to break any of the headmistress’ things,” I said to the snake who nodded at me. “I’m Astrid Depraysie, by the way. What should I call you?”

  “And the child is so polite, too,” the snake hissed. “My mistress calls me Daegal.”

  Ah, the snake was a ‘he’ then. I could feel his bubbling amusement. I had the feeling he liked me, against his better judgement. Or maybe ‘like’ was too strong a word—he was amused by me. I was getting good at reading the thoughts and motives of the animals I came across. It was a gift that came with zoolingualism, the most recent power I’d manifested. It wasn’t a common witch talent, which meant I’d probably inherited it from a non-human parent. But I didn’t have time to speculate who my baby daddy had been. It wasn’t important. He wasn’t important—after all, I’d never even met him.

  “Thanks again, Daegal, but I gotta go now. Talk to you later?”

  “Almost certainly,” he said. Yes, he was definitely amused.

  I took a deep breath to steady my shaking hand before twisting the doorknob and stepping into an office.

  Chapter Two

  The first thing that struck me was the smell.

  It was a thick, cloying smell of… clove? Maybe patchouli oil too? Whatever it was, it reminded me of the long, often grueling hours learning potions in Poppy’s backroom while Finn sat opposite me, doing his homework. Thinking about Finn and Poppy gave me a happy, warm feeling, and I felt myself smile: just what I needed to bolster my failing nerves.

  The walls of the office were curved stone, painted mauve. There were no windows. The room was lit by a large oil lamp that sat on a great wooden desk, lending the place a cozy feel. Most of the curved walls were covered by tall bookshelves, filled almost entirely with books, more books than I’d ever seen in one place. And that was really saying something, given where I’d grown up. Aunt Celestine’s library had been her pride and joy. I’d spent more hours than I could count in the cavernous place, yet this collection put hers to shame.

  On the floor were thick carpets and dark red and green rugs with beautiful mandala patterns. The elaborate fireplace was unlit and boasted a large antique clock sitting atop the wooden mantle. I’d arrived with a minute to spare. Four plush red armchairs were arranged nearby, and three of them were already occupied by two women and one tall man who was hunched over a book.

  They were all attractive in their own way. The oldest woman was tall, even sitting down, and held herself with the sort of grace one usually associated with royalty. Her hair was dark, threaded through with gray. That had to be Headmistress Aurea Grimsbane, if I had to guess—she just had this air of authority. The woman sitting beside her was an almost exact copy of the headmistress if you shaved off about a hundred years and twenty pounds. Her daughter, most likely.

  But it was the man that held my attention. He was the oddity with his thick, shoulder-length chestnut hair, sharp, angular features, and thin but intriguing lips. He glanced up from his book as I stepped through the door to the office, hazel eyes twinkling with good humor, seeming mildly amused at the sight of me. The two women were considerably less pleased, which only seemed to make him smirk more.

  I couldn’t help but flash them a cheeky smile. Just in arriving here, I’d passed their stupid test and gotten one over on them and they knew it. Score one for me. And the man knew it too—in fact, my smile made his smirk tick up a notch. At least someone was pleased by my success.

  “Astrid Depraysie,” the headmistress said, stiffly. “You were very nearly late.”

  “Nearly,” I emphasized.

  She didn’t seem pleased. “Do you have anything to say for yourself?”

  “I apologize,” I responded, but even I could hear the insincerity in my own voice. “It won’t happen again, I promise.”

  Her full lips pressed into an angry line, but she had enough decorum not to call me on the lie. She gestured at the empty seat across from the three of them. “Sit.”

  I sat, eyeing more of the artifacts on her shelves. Glass jars and beakers, bird skulls of varying sizes, taxidermized rodents, and strange photos of grim-faced, white-haired women in robes staring seriously at the viewer. There were also unsettling glass jars filled with strange and disturbing specimens. One looked like it housed a human eye suspended in clear liquid. I got the unnerving feeling that the eye wasn’t merely floating, but, instead, that it was watching the goings on in the room around it, its pupil dilating as it observed me scanning the shelves.

  The headmistress offered me a hand. It wasn’t a friendly gesture, but more of a queen extending a dubious honor to a peasant. I wasn’t sure if she wanted me to shake it or kiss one of her many rings. I debated on milking her fingers while telling her the old joke about a farmer’s handshake but decided that might not go over well. So, I settled on a simple handshake and instantly regretted it. Her grip was impressively tight—almost like she was trying to crush my bones. Hmm, maybe she’d gotten a whiff of that farmer milking his cow joke and didn’t like it?

  Once I’d freed my hand from her iron grip, she turned to face the other woman in the room.

  “And this is my daughter, Vivian. She’ll show you to your room after this formality is concluded.”

  I repeated the handshake, with similar results. I could only hope I’d packed some icy-hot because I had a feeling that steel grip of theirs would make itself known in my hand later. Then I leaned toward the man, hand extended. If it was tradition to trade bone-shattering grips, it seemed wrong to leave him out. But when I offered my hand, his eyes widened in surprise, and he stared at it like he’d never seen one before. Hmm… weird.

  The headmistress sucked in a shocked breath and then snapped, “Ms. Depraysie! What do you think you’re doing!”

  I frowned at her. “Um, offering to shake his hand?”

  “That’s Headmaster Thorne,” Vivian said, her eyes as large as her mother’s. Now the two of them looked like two owls with their feathers all ruffled.

  “Oh,” I said as I frowned and dropped my hand. “I guess that means I shouldn’t shake his hand?”

  Vivian cast the man a contemptuous glance that had nothing but hatred within it. “Headmaster Thorne oversees the night class.”

  “Okay,” I started, having no idea what that had to do with anything.

  “Which means,” Headmistress Grimsbane added, “that his presence here is only a formality.”

  “Okay,” I said again, clearly not on the level when it came to school propriety.

  “Which means you don’t have to waste courtesy on him,” Vivian explained, rolling her eyes all the while. “Leave him to his books.”

  Oh. That night class. Vampires, demons, and all things that witches wouldn’t deign to teach. That explained why they kept looking at him like he was something that had just crawled out of the gutter, and why he seemed so surprised when I’d tried to shake his hand. I doubted he’d ever had a witch so much as glance at him during the entrance interview. They’d either be too scared or too disgusted by his presence to look him in the eye, let alone attempt to touch him. Maybe once upon a time I would have thought the same way—back when I was in Crescent Circle Coven. But vampires didn’t scare me. Not any longer. Not after knowing Lorcan.

  The lack of fear on my face must have earned me a toothy smile from Headmaster FangFace. Speaking of, his fangs glinted in the low light, sharp enough to be noticeable, but not frightening. He wasn’t hungry at the moment. Before I moved to Haven Hollow, that smile would have made my heart race in sudden, irrational fear. Now it was just a fact of life. I had a vampire stepdad, two vampire cousins, and a Blood Warlock for a brother, all of which sort of dampened the fear factor.

  “So… Headmaster Thorne’s a vampire… so what?” I continued, not wanting him to think for one second that I didn’t respect him for that fact. I even offered him a smile which he returned.

  The headmistress went ramrod straight, mouth screwed up in disgust and disbelief—like I’d just told her where she could stuff her broom. Her daughter wore an identical expression. They couldn’t have looked sourer if I’d shoved a lemon between their lips.

  “So… so what?” Headmistress Aurea said in a deadly whisper, shaking her head as if she couldn’t believe the words that had just come out of my mouth. “I would have thought that you, of all people, would have a problem with him, given your history!”

  “My history?” I repeated, eyeing her narrowly because I wasn’t aware that she knew anything about my history—other than what I’d included in my application, of course.

  “You were attacked recently by the war criminal, Janeth!” the headmistress nearly wailed at me.

  “And not long after,” Vivian chimed in, “your cousin was kidnapped and turned into a fully blooded vampire, is that correct?”

  “Yeah,” I said slowly, figuring I’d get to the bottom of just how in spell they knew that in a second. For now, I had to come to the vampire’s defense. “But unless Headmaster Thorne’s fangs were somehow involved in either incident, I don’t see how that’s relevant.” I even gave them a shrug to say their indignation was lost on me. “Last I checked, there are assholes in every species,” I continued as Vivian’s mouth actually dropped wide open until she looked like a trout freshly plucked from a lake. “I don’t hold Janeth or Rupert’s actions against Headmaster Thorne anymore than I’d blame my human neighbors for John Wayne Gacy or Ted Bundy.”

  Thorne chuckled at that. But I kept my attention on both women. “So, with that being said, I don’t see the point in being rude.” At that, I turned to the vampire, offering him my hand again. But instead of shaking it, he lifted it to his mouth and brushed his lips over my knuckles in a brief, chaste kiss. It made my skin tingle, and I fought not to blush.

  “A pleasure to meet you, Miss Depraysie,” he purred. “And I must say I admire your… pluck.”

  I drew my hand back hastily. I hadn’t expected that. Trust vampires to make things more seductive than they needed to be. Wanda had warned me about as much and now it seemed that warning was probably a good one.

  “Yeah,” I said shakily, giving him a smile. “Nice to meet you too.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Vivian make a face. I decided then and there that I didn’t like the headmistress’ daughter—almost as much as I didn’t like the headmistress. Mainly, I didn’t like rude, entitled people and Vivian had all the hallmarks of being a mean girl—just like I was sure her mother had been before her. I’d steer clear of them both, if I could.

  “You are the daughter of High Witch Tabitha Depraysie, correct?” Headmistress Aurea asked, voice clipped.

  I nodded. “Tabitha’s my mother, yes, but I’m not in her coven any longer. I joined the Scapegrace Coven before Scarlett’s assembly.”

  “I see,” she said. She didn’t sound pleased, which wasn’t exactly a surprise. Scapegrace was known as a bunch of misfits, hence our name. “Owing to your mother and your aunt Celestine’s… status, your application was given some… weight. I trust that you will comport yourself in a manner worthy of the name ‘Depraysie’. Any infractions will be met with harsh punishments. Demerits for your first, second, and third. Additional infractions will result in a transfer to the night class. And after that, expulsion. Do you understand?”

  “I understand.”

  “Good.” Then the headmistress turned to her pucker-faced daughter. “Vivian will provide you with a list of rules, your class schedule, and then she shall show you to your room. Someone will give you a tour tomorrow morning. Please be aware that curfew is at sundown and that curfew is strictly enforced.”

  “Why is that?” I asked, even though I was fully aware of the reason.

  The headmistress swallowed hard and shot a quick glance at Headmaster Thorne. “We want you in your rooms before the night class begins milling about.” She paused and then added. “As they are vampires and the demonic, they are… dangerous.”

  “Got it,” I said. Though I didn’t like it. What was the problem with rubbing elbows with a few vampires or demons? I’d done it in the Hollow, and I was still breathing—if anything, I was stronger for it. I’d learned how to interact with creatures that were different from me.

  “Good,” she said curtly. “You’re free to go.”

  The dismissal sounded a lot like, ‘get out of my sight, freak’ but I did as I was told. I’d antagonized them enough—something I was fairly sure was going to come back to bite me on my generous backside. But I also thought I might have found an ally in Headmaster Thorne. Regardless, I was excited to take a look around Blood Rose Academy, even if I had to do it with Vivian at my side.

  After all, I’d made it.

  I’d bested the test, I’d gotten on one headmaster’s good side, and maybe I’d even made a friend with a familiar.

  It was a great start to the year.

  Chapter Three

  Vivian was taller than I was, and moved at a fast clip, forcing me to jog to keep up with her.

  I had a sneaking suspicion that was intentional. She’d made it pretty clear that she couldn’t stand me—she probably would have left me to wander around on my own if her mother hadn’t given her express orders.

  But even bitchy Vivian and her equally bitchy mother didn’t dampen my good mood. I was at Blood Rose Academy, and I was going to learn magic from professionals. Wanda had done what she could in the early days of our banishment, but she was just one witch, and most of her time had been devoted to setting up and maintaining her business. Not to mention the fact that there were areas in witchcraft in which she was completely lacking, like potions. So, I’d been forced to learn from Poppy, our resident gypsy mom. My lessons had gotten a little broader after we’d had enough witches to form a coven, but I was still behind in my education, and I’d have to struggle to catch up. I was just grateful to have the opportunity to do it at one of the most prestigious magical academies in the world.

  If the brochures were to be believed, Blood Rose Academy was almost a city unto itself, occupying miles of land in the Harz Mountain Range, which ensured privacy for the students and surrounding towns. The castle had been transported here from France and rebuilt long ago. It was in the French Gothic style, with soaring ceilings, rib vaults, and flying buttresses. Night had already fallen, so the stained-glass windows didn’t cast dazzling shapes onto the flagstones, but in the morning, the halls would probably resemble a dizzying kaleidoscope of color. I couldn’t wait to see it.

  The walls were covered in rich tapestries and murals depicting the histories of a few dozen magical races. If I’d had time, I’d have stopped to examine each oil painting, drinking in the details. As it was though, I only caught a few snippets here and there: An angel with golden wings wielding a sword as tall as I was. A devil crouched on the chest of a swooning woman. Austere vampires staring out at the moon. Werewolves in mid-shift. Succubae tangled with men, sweaty and in the throes of ecstasy. It was almost too much to take in, even in short bursts.

  “Fall behind and I’ll leave you to be eaten by one of the night class students,” Vivian warned. She was waiting at the end of the corridor, one hand cocked on her hip, scowling at me.

  I flushed and sprinted down the hall after her, passing throngs of night class students as I went. Most of them were lounging in the alcoves, talking in low murmurs. There were incubi in their natural forms, still somehow intriguing despite their bat-like wings, scarlet complexion, and curling horns. One of them smirked at me and reached out to trail his fingers across my shoulder as I passed. Desire, immediate and primal zinged up my spine, and I stuttered to a stop, eyes wide, and lips parted, staring at him as my heartbeat started to pound through my face.

  “Hello, pretty,” he said.

  His voice was rich and throaty and sent my hormones into a tizzy. Suddenly, it seemed like a very good idea to stop and chat. To let him pull me into an empty classroom and do something unspeakably inappropriate to me.

  “I haven’t seen you around here before,” he continued, his voice as rich as chocolate. “I’d remember you. Red-haired witches are rare. And feisty. I like that in a woman.”

  “Good for you,” I said, pleased when the words didn’t come out on a breathy exhale as I fought to remember myself—the last thing I wanted was to look like a fool in front of Vivian. No doubt, she’d report back to her mother. “Look, I’m sure you’re God’s gift to women and all,” I continued, keeping myself from reaching out to touch him because I really, really wanted to. “But I can’t stay to stroke your ego. Or anything else you want me to stroke, for that matter. Curfew, you know.”