Chapter 3
Lyra
AT THE EDGES OF MY awareness, I feel a featherlight touch on my cheeks. It’s pleasant. Comforting. At least at first. But then it turns a tad cold. And a tad wet.
I crack one eye open. It’s somewhat dim in our loft, with the drapes still drawn over the window.
And I’m being snowed on. Indoors. In my bed.
Snowflakes fall around me silently, drifting down to land on my cheeks and in my hair. On the pillow beside my head, Juniper twitches her whiskers but doesn’t wake up.
“You awake yet?” Alina asks, voice still thick with sleep. She has the curtain around her bed pulled back and is staring at me through heavy eyes.
“No,” I grumble.
In response, more snowflakes start to fall, and my irritation spikes.
“Stop it.” I bat a few of Alina’s magical snowflakes away. “What are you—”
“Your community service,” Maeve says from her bed. Her curtains obscure her from view and distort her voice slightly. “You’re going to”—she yawns audibly—“be late.”
Shit.
My irritation spikes again as I recall that today is my first day of “community service,” as Headmistress Moonhart so gently put it.
She should’ve just called it what it is: punishment.
I’m never up before the sun, so it feels sacrilegious to push my warm, cozy comforter aside and sit up in bed. The chill nips at my skin. I glare at the snowflakes still falling around me.
“Can you cut it out with the blizzard now?” I say.
Alina gives me a sleepy smile, then plops back down in bed. The snowstorm stops immediately.
“What is it?” Juniper asks from where she’s still lying on my pillow.
I look down at her. She’s now awake—but just barely—and stretching out her little paws.
“Community service.” With a groan, I scrub my hands down my face, trying to wake myself up, then reach back and start untwining my hair from its braid.
“Oh, yeah.” Juniper pads around on my pillow, then flops right back down in the warm spot where my head was a moment ago. “Forgot about that.”
“Wait, you’re not coming?” I ask, tone aghast. Is she going to make me go by myself?
In answer, she closes her eyes and wiggles her nose into the warm pillowcase.
Guess I’m alone for the punishment, then.
“I thought you were my spirit companion,” I grumble down at her. She doesn’t respond, but I swear she’s smiling.
After forcing myself out of bed and into a comfortable pair of trousers and a sweater—Headmistress Moonhart at least had the decency to assign me to community service on Saturdays only—I plod down the stairs and find Poppy already sitting in front of the fire, reading a book and sipping a cup of tea.
Her legs are tucked up under her, a knit blanket draped across her lap.
“Why are you up so early?” I ask around a yawn.
Poppy holds up her book and smiles. “I like to get some reading in before the world wakes up. More peaceful this way.”
I shake my head at her while I pour a cup of strong black tea—I’m gonna need the caffeine. “I’ll never understand you, Poppy Waverly.”
With a shrug and a smile, Poppy goes back to reading her book. And I think I can already hear Juniper snoring.
Another flare of irritation goes through me. The teacup I’m holding grows warmer from my fire magic, and steam rises from the dark liquid.
Chill. It’s fine.
I take a sip of tea, promptly burn myself, and realize that today is destined to be a very bad day.
THE ACADEMY GROUNDS ARE FOGGY and drizzly. When I tip my head back to look up at the dense gray clouds, my cheeks get misted on. This weather is going to turn my hair into an uncontrollable mess of frizzy curls.
Unlike the other students, who are probably warm in bed or curled up in front of their fires, I’m tromping through the wet toward the groundskeeper’s hut.
I have to pass through the big stone wall encircling the academy, and when I move under the barbican, the air gets even colder.
My hands are buried deep in my trouser pockets, and the toes of my boots are already spattered in moisture and leaf matter.
Thankfully, my fire magic keeps me warm despite the cold hanging heavy in the air.
Of course this guy lives on the edge of civilization, I think, still feeling half asleep and grumpy from having to get up so early for something I so dearly want not to do.
If only my magic would cooperate, I wouldn’t be in this mess. But I don’t know how to get it under control.
Maybe Mom could’ve taught me.
The thought sets me immediately on edge, and I banish it as quickly as it arose. There’s no room for things like that in my head. I’ve already got enough going on without letting myself perseverate over what-ifs and if-onlys.
And besides, she doesn’t deserve a thought from me. Not one.
Huffing out a breath that steams in the chill air, I continue down the winding cobblestone path, which meanders through an open field toward the Mistwood, and toward the dense tree line at the edge of the grounds.
I see and smell the woodsmoke before I see the hut.
The smoke curls through the fog, thick and tinged with the light scent of sage.
The trees in the Mistwood are dark with rain and moisture, their trunks creating a backdrop of shadow that’s almost impossible to see through.
And there, standing at the edge of the woods, is the groundskeeper’s hut.
It’s quaint, with a thatched roof and a large front door.
Potted plants crowd the area in front of the hut, dripping with moisture, the flowers and exotic plants lending bright pops of color to the otherwise dreary autumn atmosphere.
A few orange and red leaves cling to my boots as I approach the front door.
I can’t believe Moonhart is punishing me like this . . .
With a furrow in my brow and a downward turn of my lips, I pull one hand from the pocket of my trousers and rap my knuckles against the door.
There’s movement inside the hut, the thumping of steps across the floor.
Then the door to the hut swings open.
And I have to tip my head back to meet the groundskeeper’s eyes.
I’ve seen him around the academy grounds, though I’ve not exchanged a word with him since the Samhain festival last year, when he was gruff and unfriendly at the mead table.
Even now, his dark brown eyes are narrowed, and his lips are pulled into a deeper frown than mine.
His face is human in appearance, though his nose is a bit wider than is typical, and his septum is pierced through with a golden hoop that winks in the low gray light.
He’s got a scruffy dark beard and long dark hair, and his ears are slightly elongated and pointed.
His most noticeable feature—apart from his hulking frame, swishing tail, and hooves—is his spiraling black horns.
They’re ridged and glossy, twisting up and out from either side of his head.
Some minotaurs choose to adorn their horns with jewelry and delicate chains and other items, but his are bare.
They catch some of the light from the fire burning in the hearth behind him, their surface twinkling like faceted onyx.
I cease my observance of him and refocus on his narrowed eyes. He says nothing, just stands there in the doorway, looking down at me like he’s considering slamming the door in my face.
And honestly, that’d be just fine. I could report back to Headmistress Moonhart, and maybe she’d assign me community service with someone else, like the cook. I wouldn’t mind hanging around in the kitchens, taste testing pastries and learning how to whip up the perfect spiced hot chocolate.
“I’m Lyra Wilder,” I finally bring myself to say, since he seems uninterested in speaking first. “Headmistress Moonhart sent me—”
“You’re late,” he says, deep voice silencing mine with a heavy rumble.
I give him an approximation of an innocent smile. “Am I? I could’ve sworn I left on time.”
Yeah, I’m late. I may have agreed—or been forced to agree—to this ridiculous community service, but I don’t have to be eager about it. And besides, it doesn’t look like he was busy or anything.
My gaze slides to one side of the hulking minotaur.
He’s too tall for me to see over his shoulder, but through the space under his arm where he’s holding open the door, I can make out a quaint living space, a fire crackling in the hearth, and a hot cup of something steaming on a side table beside a well-worn book.
Yeah, looks like he was real busy. I let out a quiet scoff.
When he notices my curious gaze, he shifts in the doorway, blocking my view. His dark gaze appraises me from curls to mud-stained boots. “Those your work clothes?”
Glancing down at myself, I shrug. “Guess it depends on the work.”
He huffs out a breath. It doesn’t sound entertained. “Gloves?”
Now I cross my arms and arch a brow at him. “No one told me what I’m supposed to be doing, but you expect me to come prepared?”
His brows pull low over his dark eyes. Irritation flashes in them.
For a moment, I think he may want to put one of those sharp black horns right through me.
But then he steps back and says, “I’ll get you a pair. Wait here.”
Of course, he doesn’t invite me in out of the damp. Instead, he just shuts the door, leaving me standing there on his drizzly doorstep.
Irritably, I blow a frizzy curl out of my eyes.
While I wait, I drift around his hut, curious about all the potted plants and flowers.
Most are foreign to me, with stunning colorful blooms and petals that unfurl to catch the thin light of day.
Around the side of the hut, there’s a pastoral fence built of woven branches, and it looks like the groundskeeper—Mr. Axton, I think Headmistress Moonhart said—is growing an abundance of food: tomatoes, assorted greens, onions, peas, beans, and more plants I don’t have a hope in the world of identifying.