CHAPTER 1
Present Day
“Is this your idea of revenge?” I asked the twenty-year-old young woman in the mirror, noting that her skin looked extra pale today.
“Like the first snowfall of winter,” Mom used to say.
Personally, I thought “ghostly” was a better description for my appearance. Much more fitting, especially considering I was talking to my reflection as if an undead spirit would possess it and answer back.
When nothing of the sort happened, I sighed and resumed applying my lipstick.
The dark red color made my skin look even whiter, but it also gave my features the edge they desperately needed.
Combined with the black smokey eyeliner framing my nearly colorless eyes, my face went from wide-eyed innocence to “Don’t mess with me. ”
I finished applying the lipstick and paused again to scrutinize my reflection. She stared back at me unblinking, her expression cold and . . . haunted.
“I didn’t do it, you know,” I told her, dropping the lipstick on my vanity. “I don’t know how Heartstone got my application, but I swear I never sent it. If it wasn’t for my family, I wouldn’t even be considering this.”
Silence.
I sighed again, my nerves growing with each uttered word. This was a mistake. A terrible, terrible mistake. Probably the worst decision I’d ever made—one of the top five, anyway. But no amount of guilt-tripping myself was going to get me out of this.
I’d made a choice, and there was no backing out now. The Mayweather Coven—what was left of it—needed saving, and I was the only one who could do it.
If I didn’t die first.
Ever since my acceptance letter had mysteriously arrived in our mailbox three weeks ago, I’d been plagued by an endless string of what-ifs.
What if I’d unknowingly sent out my application during one of my sleepwalking incidents?
What if my acceptance was a mistake and they kicked me out the second I arrived?
Even worse, what if this was simply a sadistic joke meant to mock my family?
And, worst of all, what if I failed epically and came back home in a body bag?
That last what-if plagued me the most, especially since it was a real possibility.
Heartstone wasn’t like the other magical academies scattered throughout the world.
The school had opened only two years ago, its sole purpose to birth the next generation of community leaders.
Anyone who survived all four years earned a seat on the newly-formed council.
The Conclave of Magic was meant to replace the elders whose positions had remained empty for the past decade.
Ever since they’d been excommunicated, our entire community had been without leaders.
As a result, our powerful position in the supernatural world had diminished.
What had once been a collective whole was now divided, the hundreds of covens around the world isolated from each other and directionless.
Change was desperately needed, and so Heartstone Academy had been born.
The second I’d learned of the elite college, I’d started to draft my application letter. There were only three criteria for admission: You must come from a powerful bloodline. Check. Have mastered your magic. Check. And be prepared to face death. Check.
Deadly magical trials? Cutthroat students all bent on proving themselves worthy of being our next leaders?
No problem.
I was a Mayweather. Facing impossible odds was in my blood.
But I’d filled out that application as an eighteen-year-old naively determined to fix my broken world. Little did I know that it would only break more a few months later, that all of my resolve would vanish like smoke in the face of unthinkable tragedy.
And so I’d stuffed the application in a drawer and forgotten about it, resigned to live out my days in obscurity.
If only that acceptance letter hadn’t come. If only that deep sense of family duty hadn’t gripped me once more.
“Winter, are you ready? You’re going to be late!”
As my grandmother’s words filtered up the stairs, a million nervous butterflies burst alive in my stomach.
Certain I was going to be sick, I jumped up from my vanity stool and rushed into the ensuite bathroom.
Grabbing my hair, I pulled the black mass to the side right before dry-heaving over the toilet.
Nothing came up. Probably because I hadn’t eaten breakfast this morning—or dinner the night before.
“Winnie, Gran wants you downstairs!” a new voice yelled through my bedroom door, punctuated by a few pounding knocks.
“Coming,” I called. Pausing another few seconds to make sure I didn’t throw up, I straightened and turned toward the sink to study my ashen reflection in the mirror for the final time. “Please say you understand,” I whispered to her, holding my breath as I waited, prayed, for a response.
I just needed a sign. One tiny little sign that I shouldn’t do this, and I wouldn’t.
Silence.
Swallowing my disappointment, I turned away and headed for the bedroom door. The second I opened it, a fluffy white furball scampered inside and leapt onto my bed.
“Really, Pearl?” I grumbled at my grandmother’s cat familiar. “You could at least wait until after I’m gone.”
The Persian blinked her yellow-green eyes at me, then slowly circled a few times before curling into a ball in the middle of my bed. I glared at her, and she stared back, her flat face devoid of expression.
Rolling my eyes, I left the devious feline to her devices, knowing this was a battle I wouldn’t win. She went where she pleased and when she pleased, just like a regular cat. Even though she knew how much I hated finding her fur all over my stuff, none of my glares or threats fazed her.
When I hit the stairs, my ten-year-old brother raced from his room to join me, speaking a mile a minute. “Can I have your phone while you’re gone? Please, Winnie? Just so I can text my friends.”
“No,” I immediately told him, frowning a little before adding, “And what friends? You don’t have any.”
“Yes, I do,” Wyatt argued, annoyance edging his tone.
“Where? I’ve never seen them.”
“Just because they’re online doesn’t mean they’re not real,” he said, his ire increasing. “I game with them every day, and we talk about all sorts of stuff.”
I gave him a sharp look. “Normal stuff, I hope.”
He returned my look with one that every little brother mastered. “I’m not stupid, Winnie. We only talk about human things.”
“Good, but you’re still not getting my phone. Those online friends could actually be fifty-year-old pedophiles.”
His freckles shifted as he scrunched up his nose. “What’s a pedophile?”
“Winter Snow, don’t scare your brother,” Gran chastised, her pale eyes disapproving as she watched us descend the stairs.
“Well, he needs to know that not everyone online is who they say they are.”
“Yes, but he’s only ten. Let him have his fun.”
I arched a brow as we reached the bottom and joined her in the bright foyer, the morning sun beaming through the glass panes of the front door. “So I should give him my phone?”
She harumphed. “Hell, no. He already spends way too much time online.”
A faint smile twitched my lips.
“Aw, Gran, come on,” Wyatt pleaded, rounding his big puppy-brown eyes at her. “I’m gonna be all alone once Winter’s gone. I need someone to talk to.”
“You can talk to me.”
Wyatt huffed and crossed his arms over his thin chest, looking so much like Dad with his stubbornly set jaw and white-blond hair that my throat tightened. Without warning, I turned and dragged him into a hug.
“Hey!” he protested, struggling to break free, but I only hugged him harder.
“I’m gonna miss you, Wy-Fi,” I murmured, and he finally relented, wrapping his little chicken arms around me for a quick squeeze.
“I’ll miss you too, Winnie,” he mumbled back, then started to squirm until I reluctantly let him go. “But I still don’t understand why you’re going to school. I thought you liked your job at the diner.”
One glance at Gran, and I cleared my throat to carefully say, “I did like my job at the diner, but it’s in the human world.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing. It’s just . . . We’re witches, Wyatt, not human. Going to this school could help restore our place in the community again. You know how important it is to have friends.”
His blond brows pulled together in a troubled frown. “But they don’t like us. What if they’re mean to you or try to hurt you?”
I opened my mouth to reassure him, but my nerves suddenly returned with a vengeance, robbing me of speech.
“Then she’ll remind them who they’re dealing with.
” Gran spoke for me, a sharp glint entering her pale eyes.
“Don’t you worry, Wyatt. Your sister might have been denied the opportunity to hone her magic at one of our community academies in the past, but she’s received the very best education possible from your parents and me over the years.
Winter is more than capable of defending herself. ”
Worry still lined my brother’s face despite Gran’s confidence, and I couldn’t blame him. He’d only been six months old when everything had fallen apart. The witch community meant nothing to him but turmoil and grief.
“Now finish saying goodbye, then go get ready for your lessons,” Gran continued to tell him. “You have a potions test today, and don’t forget our agreement. If you fail another test, you lose video game privileges for a week.”
“Aw, Gran,” Wyatt complained but knew better than to argue. Gran might look frail, but she was a queen lioness at heart who expected to be obeyed. I tousled my brother’s hair, and he ducked away, waving at me with a quick “Bye, Winnie” before scampering out of sight.
Staring after him, I inhaled a deep breath before facing my grandmother again. The second our eyes locked, I knew her discerning gaze saw far more than I wanted it to. Instead of questioning me, she scanned my appearance with a cluck of approval.