An Education in Longing

Prologue

Mina knew the rule was that people could only see Harrowhall if they had magic in them. Yet when their creaking Ford Fiesta

crested the hill everyone called the Test, and her dad parked in a good spot to view the valley where the university hid,

she couldn’t bring herself to look.

She stared out of the side window instead, at another family who were doing the same thing as them. The mum all dressed up,

out of the car right away. The dad snapping pictures of his lithe, long-limbed daughter posing in a way that said she’d expected

this to happen.

And the daughter was probably right to. Families with money—they had all kinds of ways to tell if their kids would blossom

into magic wielders and go on to learn how to use their abilities at universities like this one.

Expensive assessments, by rogue witches.

Illegal blood tests, by unlicensed alchemists.

Mina had heard of them all, even through the meager grapevine a girl like her could access. But the prices had always been

too high for her family to afford. All she had was the feeling of not quite belonging, for most of her life. And a hope that

she finally would was burning a hole through her body.

Just for once, she thought.

Then looked through the gap between the front seats.

Quick, like ripping off a blood sticky bandage.

Every bit of her expecting to bleed in a big frightening rush, and then unable to fully process when something else happened instead.

She simply stared at the squashed-down view she’d allowed herself.

The hint of a spire, so sharp it seemed to pierce the sky. Some sense of higgledy-piggledy bricks stained by years of soot

from chimneys she couldn’t quite see. A single narrow window like a dragon’s eye, winking in the dying light; a spiral of

smoke tinged with a strange violet hue.

It made her breath catch in her throat to see it. For a second, she couldn’t move or speak—not even when her mother tried

to commiserate. Never mind love, she said. We still think you’re something special. Then her dad reached back to pat her hand and offer her a tissue.

He only stopped when she sat forward in her seat.

Fumbling and greedy about it, every bit of her trying to get at more of that beautiful place. To seize more of it, now that

she knew it could be hers. She was about to walk those halls, and live among real witches and wizards, and learn those magical

lessons. And that meant it was okay now to let herself enjoy the view.

But as she went to drink it in, the view was abruptly obscured. One second there was that beautiful, sprawling building surrounded

by trees and rolling greenery and grounds too extensive to follow.

The next, there was him.

Just him, strolling up to their car in a way that quickly devoured everything she most wanted to see.

She watched his broad shoulders swallow the hedge maze by the fountain, and the lake that looped around the easternmost wing.

Then his height stole the turrets, the towers, the most fairy-tale parts.

Until finally he stood there, filling the glass.

Face almost turned into a silhouette by the sun behind him. Most of him nothing more than an impression—of messy, thick, dark

hair; beautiful bones; blazing eyes. Every bit of him seemingly oblivious to her and her family. Like some monstrous cat that

finds you so unthreatening it barely registers your presence.

It only cares if it wants to eat you.

But he already had something for that.

She saw it more clearly than the rest of him—a fat, gleaming apple, red as a ruby, resting in his hand. He tossed it up, as

she watched, and caught it again. Then he took a bite, big enough that it verged on disturbing. She caught a glimpse of a

lot of teeth and a deep curve carved into the flesh. Past the core, almost all the way through to the other side.

Followed by slow, lazy-looking chewing. Rude, incredibly rude, she thought.

But her parents didn’t seem to notice. Her mother said, “Oh, Jeff, I think she can see it,” and her father said, “You’re bloody

right, Marjorie. I know that look.” While she sat there, seeing nothing but gleaming teeth and a hollowed-out apple.

And the words he mouthed after swallowing that enormous bite.

Clear as anything somehow, despite how little she could see of his face.

You will never, ever belong here.

Then as her face burned, he turned his back to them. He walked back down the hill to the beautiful place he had come from, with everybody he did think was worthy to be with him. A boy wearing something that looked bespoke, another with the most amazingly styled hair.

And the girl from the car next to theirs.

Beautiful and perfect, in all the ways she knew she would never be.