Grumbled assent. I was the only one who piped up with a clear, “Got it!” That earned me more stares, and I fought not to wilt under their intensity. My first days at Blood Rose were not turning out at all like I expected.

  We trooped into the kitchen, lining up along the wall. There were around thirty of us, and we looked to be the same age. That didn’t mean we were though. Most supernatural races were long-lived, which meant I could easily be the youngest here.

  Mads began listing off names, assigning two groups of girls to hand-squeeze pitchers of lemonade and orange juice. Two groups of boys were dispatched to the coolers to grab the meat and eggs, while still more were poised at the ovens, ready to begin cooking when the ingredients arrived. And so it went, until there were only three of us left.

  “Elly, Oleander, an’ Astrid will be peeling and frying the potatoes. I’ll be chopping the onions an’ overseeing all o’ you. Now, hop to it.”

  Elly shuffled forward obediently; head down, very interested in the stone floor of the kitchen. The remaining young man, Oleander, I assumed, pushed away from the wall, hands shoved into his pockets, and followed after her with considerably more pep in his step. He was at least a head taller than both of us, with a frame so thin that even the form fitting polo bagged off him. His hair was a bright, summery yellow. He’d pushed a pair of glasses up the bridge of his beaky nose. He smiled faintly when he spotted me still pressed to the wall. Between his height and the faint greenish cast to his skin, and that hair, the first, uncharitable thought that sprung to mind was: beanpole.

  “You coming, new girl, or you just going to watch us work?”

  “I’m coming,” I said, belatedly realizing that I’d be learning by doing, instead of observing for a day or two. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize,” Oleander said, elbowing me when I fell into step beside him. “Just peel your fair share and I won’t have to sour your milk or anything.”

  I eyed him. “Faerie, huh?”

  His smile turned puckish. “A Summer sprite. What about you? With the hair I’d say... ah... an Autumn faerie? Or maybe a fox shifter. You’ve got the features for either, anyway. Not the right ethnicity to be a kitsune, or I’d have guessed that too.”

  “She’s a witch, Oleander,” Elly said under her breath. “From the Depraysie line. Mads told me this morning before sending me to wake her up and get her dressed.”

  Oleander did a double take, his large, violet eyes widening in shock. He turned, giving me a startled once over before shaking his head once in denial.

  “Not possible.”

  “Possible,” I answered.

  Oleander was still frowning. “If you’re a witch, what in the world are you doing down here?” Before I could respond, he continued, this time shaking his head. “Witches live in the dorms. Legacy staff work down here. That’s how it goes—how it’s always gone.”

  “It’s possible,” I answered dryly. “Because I am a witch, and I am working down here until further notice.”

  “Um… who did you royally piss off?” Oleander asked.

  I laughed at that. “Let’s just say Vivian was kind enough to tell me that my scholarship had been revoked about ten minutes after I arrived.”

  “What a bitch,” Oleander said as we approached a workstation piled high with potatoes. There had to have been at least a thousand of them scattered across the table. He plucked one from the pile and ran it under a nearby tap before handing it to Elly. “Though I guess that’s to be expected, given she’s a witch.” Then he looked at me. “No offense.”

  “None taken. Trust me, I know what we’re like. Even we don’t like each other.”

  “Don’t call Vivian names,” Elly said, mouth mashing into a reproving line. “We’ll be in trouble if she hears.”

  Oleander rolled his eyes. “Do you really think that Vivian Grimsbane has nothing better to do than listen at keyholes of the kitchen, Elly? There are puppies to kick and babies to swindle of candy.”

  I took the next potato from his hand without prompting, drying it on a towel before reaching for a potato peeler. Thankfully, I’d had some experience with peeling potatoes after so long in Haven Hollow. I actually made most of the meals at home because Wanda was such a dismal cook. Babysitting had prepped me for this too. Louisa Rutledge’s youngest, Zane, would only eat mashed potatoes when he was over. I knew the best way to skin a spud and had the peel off in under a minute.

  Oleander raised an eyebrow. “You’re good at that.”

  I shrugged. “I’ve had practice.”

  “Sure,” Elly muttered bitterly. “Because a Depraysie witch would just love slumming it with the kitchen staff in her enormous manor at Crescent whatever it’s called.”

  “It’s Crescent Circle,” I corrected her. “And that’s no longer my coven.”

  “Well, I don’t know what you did to land yourself down here,” Elly continued, “but you’re not going to do yourself any favors by lying to us.”

  “I’m not lying,” I insisted. “I’ve been living in Haven Hollow for a while, and I do slum it in the kitchen of my cousin’s duplex. If I let her cook, she’d probably start a house fire. She’s a culinary disaster. It’s safest for all of us if I do the meal prep. I can also make a mean cocktail if I have the right ingredients.”

  “Ah, that explains it,” Oleander said, starting on a potato of his own. He tossed the peels into the trash bin at our feet when he was done. I did the same.

  “Explains what?” I asked.

  “Your... attitude, I guess. You’re not like most witches I’ve met. They tend to have their noses so high in the air, I can count their nose hairs. I guess living in a Hollow gave you the opportunity to mingle. It’s made you... mellower.”

  “Yeah, Scapegrace witches aren’t like other witches,” I said with a weak laugh.

  “That’s your new coven?” Elly asked as I nodded.

  “What happened to your other one?” Oleander questioned.

  I shrugged. “I was kicked out for asking too many probing questions. High Witch Celestine didn’t like people all up in her business. So, I went to live with my cousin, Wanda, who was ousted as well, for being a Blood Witch.”

  “Is that a thing?” Oleander asked. “I thought they were just legends.”

  “Nope, they’re a thing,” I answered and then remembered Wanda’s little faux secret. “But then she was turned, so she’s a vampire now, so you can guess how well that’s gone over with Crescent Circle. Vivian says it’s the reason they yanked my scholarship here. As if Wanda could help what happened to her. She didn’t ask for any of it.”

  That last bit was a bald-faced lie—well, about the vampire stuff, anyway. Wanda was still technically a Blood Witch, though some magical shenaniganry had given Lorcan his Kiss back, which meant he wasn’t driven to kill Wanda to get it back. They’d managed to trick the broader magical community into thinking she was a fully blooded vampire. It helped that said shenaniganry had resulted in her needing to drink at least a little bit of blood. Which was gross, but something I’d gotten used to by now.

  “She was turned?” Elly repeated, eyes wide, lips parted in horror. “Against her will? Shouldn’t that have kicked off another blood war?”

  I nodded. “It was close. My mother allegedly smote Rupert for it, so the Grimsbanes and the Thornes eventually judged it to be even. But yeah, it was tense for a while.”

  Which was another whopper of a lie. It had been my big brother, Maverick, who’d called down lightning to fry Rupert, not my mother. Maverick had become a Blood Warlock, one of the most unstable blooded creatures yet and his abilities were showing themselves in very powerful ways. In the end, though, Wanda was safe. The Hollow was safe. So, there was no need to rock the boat with the truth.

  Oleander whistled and shook his head. “Ooh boy, sounds like Coven Gossip 101.”

  Elly let out a soft sigh as she looked at me. “You’re going to have a time of it here, Astrid.”

  I frowned. “Why’s that?”

  “Because it seems like the witches aren’t going to befriend you.”

  “Right, I already figured that much.”

  She nodded. “But you’ve also got to watch your back where the vampires are concerned.”

  “Why’s that?” I asked, curious.

  She shrugged. “At Blood Rose, the covens and clans hate each other.”

  “That doesn’t really sound so different than the real world.”

  “It’s different,” Elly insisted, nodding. “It’s much worse here.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  Oleander was the one who answered. “Because the original families have been trapped together in this one place for centuries. It’s a powder keg of resentment and barely contained violence. If one of the hostages dies, game over. Blood War three will kick off with a bang.”

  “Hostages?” I repeated, frowning at both of them because it sounded like they were talking about the plot of a movie, not my new school. “What do you mean, ‘hostages?’”

  “Um… don’t you know all this?” Oleander asked, frowning at me.

  “Obviously not,” I grumbled in response.

  “Don’t be a jerk, Ollie,” Elly said as she leaned over and elbowed him and he gave her a quick smile. Then he turned back to me.

  “Okay, Blood Rose Academy History lesson recap: the original families that started the feud that led to the blood wars between the vamps and the witches had to exchange prisoners,” Oleander explained, tossing more peels into the trash. “It’s a way to keep both sides honest. Anytime a blood war breaks out, a hostage dies. The last several blood wars were more like skirmishes, though, not actual wars. There have only been two of those skirmishes, and they’re always resolved by people coming here.”

  “Coming here?” I repeated.

  Elly nodded. “Yeah, this place is like consecrated ground—neutral for both sides.”

  “The first skirmish was settled by a treaty where both the covens and the clans first agreed to trade members of their respective families,” Oleander continued. “The original set of hostages were executed when Blood War Two kicked off. Now there are new hostages.”

  “Do you know who they are?” I asked, amazed with all this information as I’d never heard anything about it.

  Oleander nodded. “The witch that was picked eventually killed herself, so her sister, Morgana Grimsbane, was slotted into her place. The vampire hostage remained the same. His name is Chesley Thorne.”

  “That’s awful,” I muttered, sliding my potato over to be diced by Elly. “Those poor people...”

  Oleander gave me the side-eye again. He clearly wasn’t used to a witch expressing anything but disdain. Compassion was pretty much utterly alien to most witches. I tried not to feel insulted by his reaction. I knew what sort of people witches usually were. Snooty, self-aggrandizing, backbiting bitches.

  “It is awful,” he agreed.

  “But necessary,” Elly put in.

  We worked in silence for a while, the sound of sizzling meat and eggs, and the metronomic chop of Mads knife filling the gap. My stomach growled, reminding me that I hadn’t eaten since early last night. I’d only been able to manage a few granola bars, too nervous to eat the steak and green beans Libby had prepared for my farewell dinner. I was regretting that now.

  Elly smirked when she heard the sound. “Hungry?”

  “Starved,” I admitted. “When do we eat?”

  “We don’t,” she sighed. “There isn’t time with our schedules.”

  “But,” I started.

  Oleander interrupted. “We don’t have to work again until evening, so we do get lunch. But breakfast? Nope. They’re downright Draconian about attendance in Day Class. They’ll shut you out if you’re even a second late.”

  “What?” I spluttered. “Why?”

  “To weed out undesirables,” Oleander answered, scrubbing dirt from a potato much more forcefully.

  “Undesirables?”

  Elly nodded. “It’s all about legacy families here. The original founders, and then the legacy staff.”

  “Elly and I are from a long line of townspeople who work to get an education here,” Oleander continued. “Except the system is pretty much rigged in the founder’s favor. We have to fit in homework around our actual work. If you lag too far behind in either, you get expelled. They keep us tired, hungry, and on edge constantly. Most people wash out, go back to their villages, and start the cycle over again with high hopes that get dashed by reality.”

  “We still try, but almost no one graduates without kissing some serious witch ass,” Elly added.

  “Why do you play into the system then?” I asked and couldn’t keep an edge of anger out of my voice. “Why do you let them win?”

  “Because the only way to really get ahead in the magical world is to have an education,” Elly answered. “Well, around here, anyway.”

  I couldn’t think, could barely breathe around the anger bubbling in my gut. They were keeping the surrounding towns of Blood Rose in a sort of feudal system, passing the burden down the line, ad nauseam. It wasn’t right. Wasn’t fair. As I’d understood it, Blood Rose had always been a place where miscreants were sent. But it seemed that wasn’t the case—it seemed the covens had taken control of the place and basically bent it to their will. And the vampire clans had had their own say in it, as well. I’d thought this school had been updated for the better—that it had become a place of magical learning, but it seemed that nothing the covens touched could ever walk away unscathed.

  “My, that’s a look,” Oleander said with a smirk. “Thinking murderous thoughts, Astrid?”

  “You bet your pointy ears,” I muttered. “I’m just wondering what I can do about it.”

  “Short answer?” Oleander responded with a shrug. “Nothing.”

  I breathed in deeply. “Clearly, you’ve never met a Depraysie witch before.”

  Chapter Five

  My fingers were smarting by the time eight o’clock rolled around.

  Dirt and bits of potato skin were wedged beneath my nails, and I didn’t have time to pick them out before runecraft began. I’d have to start wearing dark polish to disguise the fact they’d be dirty most of the time.

  Fun.

  It was eight-fifteen by the time we changed and gathered our bags. Oleander and I would be sharing a class schedule for most of the day. While faerie and witch magic differed, there was an overlap in enough places that it made sense to group us together. Elly had to leave us at the top of the stairs and jog the other way to reach her first class.

  I’d learned she was a werewolf, which made her presence here unusual. Wolf packs were patriarchal, which meant they liked their women at home, barefoot and pregnant. The only other werewolf I knew was Louisa Rutledge, back in Haven Hollow, and she didn’t have much in the way of higher education. She’d also discouraged her daughter from going to college. So that made me figure the meek Elly was actually something of a rebel. It made me like her more. Unfortunately, we wouldn’t see each other much, except for general education courses. Shifters had a very different skill set.

  “Where are we going?” I asked when Oleander cut through the courtyard, rather than taking the corridors that would lead us to Professor Hecate’s classroom. “Shouldn’t we be going that way?”

  Oleander just smiled. “I know a shortcut.”

  “Um,” I started, looking around because if anything, this seemed more like a longcut.

  “Trust me.”

  So, I figured I’d trust him and hopefully, we wouldn’t end up in Narnia.

  We emerged into a quad decorated with trees and benches. Several uniformed students lounged in the morning sun while birds tweeted cheerful melodies. As far as I could tell, the students were older (maybe juniors or seniors) and they gave the two of us uninterested glances.

  The air smelled like ripe apples and honey, and the dry, earthy scent of autumn leaves as they crunched beneath our feet. I’d always loved that smell. It brought back memories of Samhain, when our Coven would light bonfires, make costumes, and bribe the Autumn Fae with the best fruit in our orchards. Last I’d checked, though, it was January so why the air felt like October was anyone’s guess—I just figured like all things regarding Blood Rose, things here were… different.

  “Why do you look so happy?” Oleander observed with a frown.

  I smiled sheepishly. “Oh, I was just enjoying the weather which is weird to say, considering it’s January.”

  “Outside of Blood Rose it might be January,” he answered. “But the weather here is on its own schedule.”

  “What does that mean?”

  He shrugged. “It means it could be winter one day and spring the next.”

  “Hmm,” I answered, not really knowing what to make of that. This place certainly was like no other place I’d ever been, which made sense because it existed in its own space. The only way to reach Blood Rose was by portal—you couldn’t just drive or hop a flight here because it didn’t exist in the mortal world. “Summer must be your favorite since that’s your court?”

  He shrugged. “It’s alright. I was born on the very last day of summer, so I straddle the line between Summer and Autumn, so I like both.” Oleander then glanced at the clock tower looming over the quad and paled, picking up the pace even more. I struggled to keep up. I was going to have to start some kind of exercise regimen if I was going to be running around like this all year.

  He dipped beneath a stone archway that opened onto a long atrium full of blossoming trees. The sweet smell intensified, but I didn’t get a chance to fully enjoy it because we were doing a great impersonation of Kevin’s mother at the airport when she realizes she forgot her kid at home. Our footsteps echoed on the stone walkway beneath the trees as we veered quickly off the path. Oleander paused for a moment, whipping his head this way and that, no doubt to check that there was no one around. Then he produced a bundle of leaves and, putting a spark of power into them, tossed them at the space between the trees. The air rippled like a summer heat haze.