Chapter 4
VERONICA
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I muttered to myself as I peered through the peephole.
Sighing, I unlatched the deadbolt and swung the door open. “Wendy? What are you doing here? Do you know how late it is?”
The girl bit her lower lip, a look of worry and apprehension on her face. She’d transformed her hair again. The mohawk she’d sported earlier were no dark purple dreadlocks that hung to her knees.
“Hey. It’s me,” she said.
“Oh my god,” I muttered, rubbing the bridge of my nose. “I know that, Wendy. I can see you, and I literally just said your name. What are you doing here? Aren’t you in trouble with your uncle?”
“Can I come in?” she said, casting an anxious glance up and down the corridor.
“Come on,” I hissed, waving her in.
She nearly leapt into my room, and I closed the door behind her, though not before looking down the hallway myself. The last thing I needed after having such a good talk with Balthazar was for him to see his niece coming into my room after hours.
After relocking the door, I rounded on Wendy, who looked even more guilty than she had in the hallways.
“What the heck are you doing out and about? Did Balthazar give you reprieve or something?”
Wendy gave a pained smile and wouldn’t meet my eyes. That alone was enough of an answer for me.
“So…uh…this is about what I was saying earlier in class,” she said slowly.
“Kid, I like you, but you’ve got to get to the point,” I said, flopping down into a small chair that sat near the door.
“Do you know Candace Marrion?” she said, clasping her hands together and looking at me with the urgent hope that only younger children seemed capable of.
“Uh…is that a student I don’t know?” I said, a deep frown creasing my forehead.
“Ugh, seriously?” Wendy said, putting a hand to her head.
“The point, Wendy,” I said dryly. “Remember the point? Otherwise I’m kicking your butt back into the hallway.”
“Sorry,” she yelped. “Candace Marrion is a novelist. A human novelist. She’s my favorite writer of all time. She’s written a few series I’ve already read, but her newest one is by far my favorite. She released the first two books already, Fire and Flames and A Wave of Wings.”
“Okay?” I said, growing more confused by the second.
“They’re all about these dragon riders. They go to battle and fall in love, and there’s magic and swords, and—ugh, I love it so much. The third and final book in the trilogy comes out tonight. It’s called The Rider Reborn.”
This was getting me nowhere.
“Gwendolyn,” I said, trying to put on my best motherly tone. “I know this is hard, but I need you to focus, and I’m going to go ahead and say pardon my language, but what the fuck does this have to do with me?”
She sank into my desk chair, looking at me miserably. “Uncle Balthazar is”—she glanced around the room as though someone other than us was there to hear—“pissed at me.”
“Oh, I noticed,” I said, crossing my arms.
She rolled her eyes. “Yeah. A few weeks ago, he promised to take me into the city to this super cool supernatural bookstore for the midnight release. We were gonna take his car there.”
A car? It never crossed my mind that Balthazar might have a car.
The academy was designed, built, and decorated to look like an old-fashioned boarding school.
Sometimes, I actually forgot I was living in the twenty-first century.
No televisions, computers, or tablets were allowed.
Students were allowed a phone to text and call family and friends, and a few other tiny modern tech conveniences—like Wendy’s speaker—but those were strictly forbidden during school hours and could only be used in our rooms before breakfast and after dinner.
Of course, people still found a way around the rules, and more than a few used their phones to access the internet and social media.
Balthazar’s thought process was that too much technology might mute the aura of magic. Honestly, I kind of thought that was bullshit and that he just had a hard-on for cosplaying an ancient wizard or something, but I’d never say that to anyone—especially not his niece.
“He grounded me and won’t take me now,” Wendy said.
“I get that. I was there when he chewed your butt out. What does this have to do with me?”
I had a sneaking suspicion what it did have to do with me.
Wendy bit her lower lip again, a sure sign she was going to say something she thought might upset somebody.
“I thought you might help me.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Help you do what?”
“Could you take me to the city and get the book? Please? I’ve got to have it tonight. By tomorrow, there will be spoilers all over the internet. People are going to be posting about whether Torian falls in love with Kanth or Buroval and—”
“Who?”
“They’re the main characters. Follow along, Veronica,” she said absently. “It will ruin the surprise, and I’ve been waiting for this book since…” she trailed off, her face crumpling slightly. “Since…well, it’s been a couple years since the last one came out.”
The sadness in her eyes was enough to tell me what she hadn’t said.
She’d been waiting on this book since before her parents died.
I could picture a younger Wendy, begging her parents to take her to the bookstore to get the first novel in this series.
I could see her sobbing and crying after they died, then diving into the story with her whole heart and soul.
I loved books and understood the appeal.
Books helped you forget all your pain and sadness and allowed you to throw off the shackles and chains of agony for a little while.
“Let me get this straight,” I said, my resolve beginning to crack.
“You want me, a student at Balthazar’s school, to take you, his niece and only living relative, over thirty miles to the city?
At midnight? On a school night? Against his wishes?
All so you can buy a book you really like? Is that the gist of it?”
Wendy nodded, her purple dreads bouncing back and forth as she grinned. “Yup. I know where he keeps his car keys.”
“Oh good. Grand theft auto too?”
“He’s already asleep,” Wendy said. “And he barely uses that car. It’ll be fine.
As long as you don’t do anything to get pulled over.
” Her smile faded, and I saw that bitter sadness in her eyes again.
“Veronica, I need this. It… It’ll remind me of my parents.
Even if it’s just a little while, I’ll feel like they’re with me while I read it. ”
Fuck. I heaved a sigh. “Go get the keys.”
The car was tucked inside a small garage that I’d never noticed on the grounds.
The Honda Accord looked as old as I was, but it was clean and in good condition.
Heart rattling, I got in and started the engine, my breath pluming out in the cold night air.
With every passing second, I was more and more worried that Balthazar would step out from behind a tree or wall and give me that disapproving look.
“And I thought you were a good student,” I imagined him saying, then expelling me.
“Can you get in the freaking car?” I hissed to Wendy.
She opened the door and leapt in, grinning like a giddy child on Christmas morning.
“I can’t believe we’re actually doing this!” she said as she shut the door.
I grunted. “Yeah, neither can I.”
To my surprise, once I started driving, a lot of my anxiety faded. I cranked the heat, and by the time we turned out of the gates, I’d tricked myself into imagining this as a normal road trip—a quick jaunt to town with my annoying surrogate sister beside me bouncing up and down with excitement.
“I hope you know how much you owe me for this,” I said.
“You have no idea. I’ll do your homework for a week,” Wendy said, and swept her hand through her hair.
The dreads shrank, and the purple transformed until it was her natural black. When she was done, short braids hung just below her earlobes, a colored bead on the end of each one.
“A week?” I shot her a sidelong glance. “I just stole the dean’s car, Wendy. You’re doing it for a month, and you’re gonna take my kitchen and dining room shifts until Thanksgiving.”
She winked at me. “That’s a fair trade.”
This kid.
It took longer than I thought to get to the bookstore, since it was in Downtown Chicago. Even this late on a weeknight, traffic was rough, and I was extra careful to stay right below the speed limit, use my signal, and stop at every yellow light.
“Ooh!” Wendy squealed as I circled the block trying to find parking. “We’re gonna be early. Yes! We’ll get a decent spot in line.”
“Yeah. It’s great. Fantastic.”
The store was well hidden from the normal population, tucked into what looked like an abandoned strip mall.
Even from the distant parking spot I’d found, I could sense the magical barriers placed around it to keep humans away.
Only people with our gifts would be able to get into the store.
Yet another secret hidden right under the humans’ noses.
Even with a warming spell on our jackets, it was freezing outside. After waiting and shivering in line for almost thirty minutes, the bookstore’s doors opened, and dozens of people filed in. I held Wendy’s hand, paranoid that she might get separated from me and vanish. Kidnapped—or worse.
“This place is so cool,” Wendy said as we stood in yet another line to get her book.
That much I could admit. Apart from the books that took up a majority of the building, there were large sections for educational toys, magical supplies, enchanted board games, and vinyl records. It was the best of both the human and supernatural worlds.
“It is,” I said.
At the front of the line, a harried-looking woman handed Wendy a hardcover book from a huge cardboard box. On the cover, a woman sat astride a massive, crimson dragon, holding a flaming sword in the air, with a lightning bolt striking the tip.
“I supposed that’s the main character?” I said, nodding to the cover as we moved aside to let others get their copy.