Chapter 6 #2
“To enter the school grounds, you need to have a blank.” Liam went to his bag and pulled out a round, golden pendant that was about an inch across and hung from a gold chain.
There was no image on it, just a flat blank space.
“You each need one of these before you go through the gates. Your house will be etched into the gold.”
“That’s a problem,” I said. “House Phoenix will show up immediately.”
He held up a finger and winked. “No, because House Phoenix was shut down across the board at every school. But, unlike Neverthorn, you’ll be put into the house closest matching your specific strengths, not the other attributes that would put you into House Phoenix.”
I frowned. “What does that mean? We won’t all be in the same house?”
He pointed at me, grinning. “Exactly! Which is why you’ll be safer.
If you all came through into the same house again .
. . it would be too obvious. It’s common to get a surge of new students arriving at the beginning of the new semester.
Homeschooled or self-taught types that still need their certificate to legally practice magic as an adult.
Heathermoor runs in three-month cycles that loosely follow the seasons.
July, August, September are considered high summer.
October, November, December, autumn. Then winter, which is right now.
Our timing coincides perfectly with an influx of newbies who have chosen to start late, and students returning after a season off. ”
“A season off?” Marina asked. “That’s allowed?”
“See what I’m saying?” Liam said with a grin.
“Not like Neverthorn. Students here are encouraged to take what they learned out into the world and practice, then come back when they’re ready for more.
So long as it’s sanctioned magic for their age, the Senate doesn’t stop them.
Thalienne has such a great track record of training strong, well-rounded Dwimmers, they don’t much care about the means.
Now . . . one of you go ahead and try the pendant. ”
Ellie took the round blank and rolled it in her fingers. As she held it, her features instantly began changing. Her hair lightened, skin took on a dusting of freckles, her cheeks softened and . . . youthened.
Was youthened even a word?
When she looked up, my jaw dropped. She looked like the eighteen-year-old cousin of the Ellie I knew. Like her . . . but not.
“What is that spell?”
She tipped her head, her now curly hair flowing over one shoulder as she frowned. “What do you mean?”
Liam took the chain from her. “I’ve got a friend with a pretty unusual Quirk, and he was able to lay a rune into the gold that changes your appearance.
Not so much that you are totally different, but enough that someone looking at you wouldn’t recognize you!
Younger, slightly different hair, subtle changes to your features, that sort of thing.
Long as you wear these – which by Heathermoor rules you are required to as a student anyway – no one will recognize you as the students who left Neverthorn, even if Tarquinius sounds the alarm.
Except for me, of course. I will see you as you look normally.
We added that little extra feature to the rune so I didn’t get confused and would always be able to recognize you all, even in a crowd. ”
The others all reached for the gold blanks, except for me and Fable.
She backed up until she stood next to me, her brow furrowed with worry. “I don’t like this. It feels too dicey. Like we could get caught if the pendant isn’t touching our skin or something.”
A lot of similar charms did work based on contact in that way . . .
“Is that a concern?”
“No, I took that into consideration when helping develop the pendant – that’s what took me so long, I had to get them before I came home.” Liam held one out to her. “Once you’re wearing it, the spell encompasses you, as long as some part of the chain or pendant is touching your skin.”
The pendant caught the light, and I stared as it slowly spun. He’d gotten them before he’d arrived here?
Fable didn’t take it, shaking her head slowly. “I . . . I don’t know.”
I got it. She wasn’t exactly in a trusting space, and who could blame her? We’d been betrayed by Typhon, and Tarquinius, Zeed was gone . . .
Liam offered it to me. “It’s no rush. Doesn’t have to be right now, Fable.”
She crossed her arms and took a step back. “I – yeah, I just need a minute.”
I wanted to ask her what the problem was, because it surely wasn’t about looking different. She didn’t have a vain bone in her body. Was it just fear? Or something else? Because being the smart one, she might see something I was missing.
I stared at the blank gold pendant, then slowly took it and slipped it over my head. The magic washed over me, and the feel of it was familiar, as if it tugged on a memory I couldn’t pinpoint.
The ends of my long white-blonde hair darkened to a more burnished gold, then shrunk and drew up into a series of soft curls. I looked down at my arms and watched my skin darken to a deep tan.
“You look like you stepped off a beach in Cali,” Marina laughed.
The tone of her voice was the same, but the pendant had taken her Midwest American accent and made her sound decidedly British.
And the changes didn’t stop there. The gorgeous riot of black corkscrews with a lock of jade that hung over one brow had lightened to the color of warm honey and had been pulled into gleaming cornrows.
Her skin slightly darker, her eyes a few shades lighter, her cheekbones were higher and . . .
“Are you taller?” I asked with a laugh, eyes popping open at my own posh, new accent. “Bloody hell!” I added, trying it on for size.
I glanced over at Fable reluctantly putting the pendant over her head, almost as if she expected to be hurt by it.
A sigh of relief slid out of her as the amber in her hair darkened to a deep auburn, and her eyes to a shade of gray-green.
In fact, all my friends had changed in different ways, their voices, faces, and bodies shifting just enough to be unrecognizable, but not so much that the spell had a hard time holding the illusion in place. Really, it was brilliant.
Kinda like my move to avoid Brick all the way back when in Rio – those changes could easily be enough to fool anyone who knew us.
But not Typhon. He’d know you anywhere.
“Let me see!” Calypso demanded.
I pulled her out of my pocket and opened the locket, showing her each of our faces, ending with mine.
She squinted. “Hmm. An improvement. That white-blonde hair made you look older than you are – an old maid, if you will.”
I snapped the locket shut and shoved Calypso and her comments back into my pocket where I could ignore her easier.
“Okay, so we have disguises, we just have to take off our leather bracers.”
Liam clapped his hands. “Right, here we go.” One by one he cast a simple rune – pressing all his fingers together and then flicking them outward – over each of our bracers. Different than the rune Typhon had used. Not that it mattered what Typhon did.
I sighed as the bracer fell off and rubbed my wrist.
Caterina shook her head, sending her now-golden ponytail swinging. “Wait, is my Felinita mark from the first time I went through Neverthorn actually gone?”
That had everyone taking their blank pendants off to check. Not me, I didn’t have a mark. I’d never made it through to the end.
Go me.
“Yes.” Liam motioned to the wall and an image started playing across the space like a TV. It showed the image on their arms dissolving to nothing. “The bracers you had were designed to remove the old mark and eventually replace it with House Phoenix. Of course . . . we never got that far.”
Ellie’s lips trembled and Caterina pulled her into a hug.
“We earned those marks. No one should have taken them from us.”
“I agree,” Liam said. “Nothing will be taken from you here. Like I said, this place is nothing like Neverthorn.”
Only I wasn’t so sure.
. . . Especially once I read the contract we had to sign.