Chapter 12. Eloise
Eloise
Grayson’s driving matches his personality. He whips around tight curves and glides through impossible spaces without flinching, all the while giving other drivers a disarming smile.
I try to ignore it, but when the Guardians’ SUV slows and turns directly into what looks like a giant rock, I gasp.
Which apparently, Grayson finds amusing, because he smirks. He flicks his wrist, muttering a spell under his breath, and the large rock flickers like an illusion.
I wince and close my eyes, and when I open them again we’re in a lush valley, where moss tumbles over everything and wildflowers cover the grass. Grayson drives down the curvy mountain road and both cars stop.
My eyebrows push together. “Are we making a pit stop?”
“More like a final one,” Grayson says, as a high, arching wooden gate suddenly appears in the road.
“What would have happened if we didn’t know to stop right here?” I ask, since the gate is obviously illusioned to blend into the landscape.
Grayson only shrugs. “We’d have crashed into the wards.”
I frown at the massive gate, considering the rock where we turned off the road—two barriers to entry that my family would never get through, wouldn’t even know how. Not that we could afford the flight here in the first place.
As Grayson drives us across the threshold, a bustling town appears in the gloom, one that’s fashioned entirely from trees. Wood grain walls and tree bark shingles. The ground floors of the cottages are carved out of enormous trunks, whose branches hold round rooms decorated with twinkling lights.
I immediately put my window down despite the drizzle.
Grayson’s lips quirk up and I have no idea why.
We drive on the wooden road past fanciful bark porches and window boxes made of handwoven vines. Some of the shop owners wave at Grayson as we pass.
By the fourth one I ask, “Does everyone know you?”
“I didn’t spend much time at home when I was a kid,” is all he says.
Before I can think how to respond, we clear the town buildings and the University becomes visible. I swallow.
Its walls are an entire forest of trees grown together five stories high. Branches the size of sycamore trunks hold gorgeously curved balconies all uniquely shaped, like the trees themselves decided their flow—an incredible feat of Botany and Alchemy.
Grayson stops his Porsche by the entrance and two Laborers open our car doors.
“Thank you,” I say uncomfortably, and in my rush to get out I almost walk smack into a Guardian.
No, not just a Guardian—Akari.
“Stone, Belrose,” Akari says with an authoritative tone. “We’ve been expecting you.”
I stand so straight you’d think someone pinched me. There are very few Mages I admire in this world, but she’s one of them. My dream is to be her one day.
Akari’s tall and covered in lean muscle with black hair in a high ponytail that drapes down her back.
There’s a scar running from her left eye to her jaw, and throwing daggers on her belt.
She’s decked out in the customary Guardian black with leather wrist cuffs.
She looks like a character from Robin Hood.
I’m fairly certain I sputter nonwords and lift my hand in an excited wave, wanting to die from embarrassment a second later.
“My name is Akari,” she says with a slight Japanese accent. “I’m the head of the University Guardians.”
Grayson flashes her his disarming smile. “It’s an honor.”
But there is nothing about me that’s relaxed. “Your—your combat skills are legendary. You’re the single greatest ward protector, maybe ever. And you come from a Laboring family, which is—well, it’s amazing.”
Akari lifts an eyebrow and simply says, “Follow me.”
Grayson makes a sound like he choked on his own laugh, and I glare at him.
“What?” I whisper defensively.
“No. Nothing. That was smooth,” he says with a big grin, and I consider shoving him into a bush.
“You will find that the University is much more rigorous than the Academies,” Akari says with pride.
“The magic here is challenging. The weaponry and hand-to-hand training are top tier. And the classes are designed to push you in every way possible.” She looks at me and then adds, “Not everyone is up to the task.”
A little piece of my pride withers and dies. She saw my entrance exam and obviously doesn’t think I deserve to be here. I doubt she’ll be the only one.
“The University was founded by the most powerful Mage in history—Aisling O’Brien,” Akari continues.
“During a time when magic roamed free and Mages didn’t live behind wards.
But Aisling knew that knowledge must be preserved and protected.
So, she started the University, commissioning scribes to record all that was known of spellwork and the four disciplines. ”
“The books Aisling commissioned—are those the ones in the Archive Room?” I ask as Akari leads me and Grayson through two enormous arched doors that open with a flick of her wrist.
The inside of the building is like walking inside a tree, the walls curving and undulating. The foyer is circular with a fanned staircase whose railings are made of twisted white vines.
“No one has been able to confirm anything about those books or that room in more than a century,” Akari says.
“Why do you think no one’s been in the Archive Room for so long?” Grayson asks.
Akari heads for the stairs, ignoring his question. “The two of you have been admitted to the Alchemy Guild. Your rooms are in the East Wing.”
Grayson’s shoulders tense—clearly he’s frustrated he’s stuck in Alchemy with me.
Akari points out the dining room and the student lounges, the training room and the weapons facility. But she doesn’t say one more word about Aisling or the Archive Room.
I keep my eyes peeled for Maggie as we make our way to the fourth floor past a group of girls in linen uniforms. They stop chatting and nod respectfully to Akari.
But the moment she passes, they stare shamelessly at Grayson.
He flashes them that disarming smile and I swear they all sigh, like he’s some rock star and they’re about to faint.
Even as we walk away, I hear them whispering to each other.
You know that was the Chancellor’s nephew, right?
Oh, I know who he is. And I also know this year just got a lot more interesting.
“This is your dorm room,” Akari says, snapping me out of my eavesdropping.
“Wait, did you just say room in the singular?” I ask, hoping I misheard her.
“It’s a two-bedroom suite,” she says flatly, and my eyebrows jump up my forehead. I know the Chancellor said Grayson and I would be together these next couple weeks, but it hadn’t occurred to me that we’d live together.
“There’s a campus navigation spell for your convenience, and your class schedules are on your desks,” Akari continues in a perfunctory tone. “Curfew is at eleven for freshmen. One a.m. on the weekends. No exceptions.”
“And what’s the punishment if you break curfew?” Grayson asks, using a charming tone that makes me roll my eyes.
“This isn’t the Academy, Stone,” Akari replies. “I highly suggest you stick to the rules so you don’t have to find out.”
With that she turns on her heel, leaving me and Grayson alone.
I open my mouth to ask Grayson how in the hell we got her as our greeter, but he answers my question before I can ask it.
“Akari wanted to assess us,” he says, pushing back his dark wavy hair and studying our door like he’s trying to measure it. “The Guardians assess all the new students. This place is the center of power for Mages. Protecting it has always been a priority.”
Protecting it from me? I want to ask but don’t. Instead, I narrow my eyes at him. “How did you know I was wondering about Akari?”
Grayson shrugs. “Everything you think shows up on your face.” He glances at me, pauses and adds, “Yup, everything.”
For the five hundredth time, my cheeks heat, but this time because I’m annoyed. “That’s … ridiculous.”
“No argument there,” he says, and I scowl.
I reach out for the door handle to get away from him, but Grayson steps in front of me.
“Hang on,” he says and places his palms on either side of the wood, muttering an incantation under his breath.
“What are you doing?” I demand. “Because it looks an awful lot like you’re placing a spell on a door that also belongs to me.”
“I’m creating a shield,” he says, stepping back to survey his work. “One that’ll only admit you and me from now on.”
My annoyance is immediate. “You’re doing what?”
He raises an eyebrow. “I think you heard me.”
“I couldn’t have,” I reply. “Because you didn’t ask.”
“I don’t need your permission.”
My hands ball, instinctually readying for a fight. “Remove it.”
“Remove it yourself if you can,” he says smoothly, like we’re flirting instead of arguing. “But I’ll only put it back stronger.”
Then he swings open the door, gesturing for me to go in. When I don’t, he shrugs and walks in himself, leaving me fuming in the hallway.
It’s not the shield that pisses me off, it’s the way he went about it.
These doors don’t have mechanical locks.
Locks are useless against magic. A shield is really the only way to maintain privacy.
But he knows full well that his spellwork is much stronger than mine.
And if it prohibits everyone except us, then that includes Maggie, which is not okay.
I take a deep breath and walk into the suite, feeling a tiny pop in the air as I cross the shield. And without hesitating I craft my own spell—an entirely petty one and attach it to the doorframe.