Chapter 1
Please tell me I didn’t make a mistake.
It’s the only thought looping through my head as I shiver in the back seat of my Uber, watching the Boston skyline dissolve into mist.
Please. Tell me things will be better here.
As we get closer to the city of Fairford, the mist thickens into a fog pressing against the windows. I didn’t think I’d be so scared, so anxious. But there it is, that sharp, nauseous twist in my belly, proving that even though I know leaving home was the right thing to do, I am still nervous.
The Uber makes a turn, and the road becomes gently bumpy.
Cobblestone street. We must be getting close.
I lean forward, and through the windshield, I watch a towering set of brick and wrought iron gates emerge from the fog.
Beneath an ornate crest at the top are handsome letters carved into marble: Payen University.
My heartbeat quickens as we drive onto the campus proper, passing giant oaks and maples and sprawling, gorgeous buildings of dark stone with elegant spires.
This is what Payen University looks like?
How am I supposed to fit in here? This looks like a university that teaches magic, and I’ve never been outside the state of California.
I squeeze my eyes shut, take deep breaths that don’t really help. Tell myself something I desperately want to believe.
You can do this, Rose. You’re three thousand miles away from anyone who knows you. This is your one chance to redo your life.
I didn’t visit Payen last year. I barely glanced at the pictures in the information packet.
I applied based on one thing only: distance.
The opposite coast felt like the bare minimum required to outrun what happened to me—the accident that almost killed me; the way everyone in Irvine looked at me after, like I was made of glass and might shatter without warning.
I couldn’t breathe there anymore. I needed to go somewhere else. Somewhere no one knew I’d almost died. Somewhere I could be just a girl, not a cautionary tale.
Payen said yes. Gave me a full ride. So here I am.
“We’re here. Coupland Hall.” The driver turns the car off and pulls an umbrella from out of nowhere. She hops out of the car to grab my bags from the trunk.
For some reason it is in this moment, sitting in the slightly stuffy, empty car in the rain, that my panic reaches its peak.
Once I’m outside this car, I will be in my new life, walking through the doors of Coupland Hall, my home for the next four years.
Turning back is the easiest in this moment.
I can tell the Uber driver to take me back to Logan International, book a flight back to Orange County.
Irvine University would absolutely take me, with Mom and Dad being two of their tenured professors.
The thought feels like a knee coming off my chest, even after what happened last year.
Because even though growing up in that town always felt like having a pebble wedged inside the sole of my shoe, even though this past year I became the Weird Almost-Dead Girl, at least it’s a misery I know.
At least I’d have my parents: They may have always been baffled, maybe even a little spooked, by me, but they also love me.
What if it’s worse here?
I close my eyes, put my shaking hand on the door handle. I’ve come this far. I’ll never know any other life if I don’t try.
I open the door, step out into the rain.
The Uber driver wishes me luck as she hands me both of my suitcases.
I swallow hard, pulling on the soaked hood of my sweatshirt, and face Coupland Hall.
It’s beautiful. Intimidating. A three-story brick building with steeply pitched roofs and gable trim.
I make my way to Coupland Hall’s front doors, peering up at the array of windows, wondering which one is mine.
I start to shiver as I struggle to pull my luggage up the three steps to the wooden doors. It’s the beginning of September, but it’s freezing today.
“Need help?”
I glance up from my suitcases to see a petite girl smiling from the open doorway, holding an umbrella, her long dark hair silky and dry.
“Thanks, but I think I’m okay?” I say as one of my suitcases slips from my fingers and tumbles down the stairs.
“Clearly.” She laughs, jogging over to help me. She holds the umbrella over both of us as she takes one of my suitcases and we walk into Coupland Hall together.
My assigned roommate is named Remy Linklater, and I’ve never seen her picture. Maybe this is Remy, I think as she leads me through the building’s lobby.
“I’m Bianca, by the way. Just got in last night.”
“Rose,” I say, trying not to sound disappointed. “Thanks so much for the help.”
“Cutting it kind of close to orientation, aren’t you?”
“My flight was delayed.” I try and shake the rainwater from my braid. “California airports can be a mess.”
“Lucky!” Bianca’s eyes light up. “If I were from California, I’d never leave.” Bianca knocks blithely on the small counter of a tiny office. “We’ve got a live one, Ms. Baker.”
The startled woman at the desk jerks up from watching her phone.
“Hi.” I tuck a dripping lock of my brown hair behind my ear. “I’m Rose Shields. Um, a freshman?” Don’t end statements with a question mark, Rose.
“Welcome, Rose!” Ms. Baker adjusts her glasses and peers at her computer screen.
“I’ll leave you to it.” Bianca gives me a grin. “Later.”
I’m so busy trying to wipe up the puddles I’m leaving on the tile with my feet, I forget to respond.
“Alright, Miss Rose.” Ms. Baker leans forward and hands me a few maps and a thin housing information packet.
I gather them haphazardly in my arms, accidentally knocking over one of the suitcases.
Ms. Baker points down the hall. “Common area is that way. Cafeteria, you take a left and then a right at the water fountain. Breakfast is six thirty to nine, except on Saturdays and Sundays, when it’s seven to ten thirty, unless it’s a holiday, when it’s eight to eleven. ”
“Eight to…and was it a left at the…?” She hands me a set of keys, which I nearly drop.
“The big one’s for the front door. Every night at ten, that gets locked. The smaller one’s for your room, 303, my dear, just up those steps.”
“Oh.” I feel like an owl, swiveling my head and blinking. “Um, is the elevator—”
“No elevator, dear.” She settles back in her seat and pulls up Netflix on her phone. “These buildings are quite old.”
“Oh yeah, sure. Old is…nice.” I glance down at my arms, where the map labeled Coupland Hall is already soaked through from my sopping hair. I look down the hall where Ms. Baker had pointed and see the beginning of a wide staircase.
It takes a couple of trips to get everything up the three flights of steps.
But even though I’m a panting, sweaty mess, I’m feeling an odd, tiny spark of…
hope? There’s something about this building—the sweet smell of ancient oak planks, the cream-colored wainscoting and trim, the preserved echo of things made by hand centuries ago—that stirs something inside me.
Eager to see the space I’ll share with Remy, I unlock the door labeled 303 and shoulder it open.
The room is small, barely big enough for all the furniture stuffed in here.
But the floors are hardwood, the ceiling is vaulted with exposed wooden rafters, and there’s an ancient-looking chesterfield leather sofa pushed under a huge round window.
It doesn’t feel cramped; it feels cozy. Specifically, it feels like the cozy Victorian attic bedroom of my dreams. There’s a pair of beds, wardrobes, bookshelves, and desks on either side of a flimsy partition that splits the room.
The view from the window is beautiful. I draw closer to the large glass circle and gaze through the veil of rain at the tops of trees that are already thinking about changing color.
Beyond the stone spires and pointed arches of the other buildings on campus, I see a cemetery.
There’s a marble sculpture of an angel sitting on top of a mausoleum-looking building: head bent, wings spread, a pale guardian always keeping watch.
Just like the one who saved you last year. The one who they say doesn’t—
No. I shake my head hard, running my hand across the leathery ridges of the sofa’s back. I won’t let the heartbreak and horror of this past year ruin my redo. Especially when there’s so much to give me hope.
“Wow, this is a joke, right?”
I blink out of my reverie and turn around to see an aggressively flawless girl with stunning makeup and long, glossy hair. She blinks in horror at the exposed beams, at the scuffed sofa, and then at me. My heart sinks to my stomach.
“I’m supposed to be getting a single.” Remy lifts a perfect brow. “What are you doing here?”
“Oh, hi! I’m Rose Shields.” I’m proud I don’t make it sound like a question. “Are you…Is your name…You must be…Remy?” Please don’t let this be Remy.
“Yeah.” She frowns. My heart plummets through my feet to the ground floor, landing somewhere near Ms. Baker.
“Oh, cool. So we’re roommates.” I smooth my hair back, feeling that it’s drying frizzy.
“For now.” Remy flings words from her tongue like each one tastes terrible. “I’m texting my dad. He knows the dean.”
I shift on my feet. “I’m not sure they do single rooms for first-years? Definitely not in Coupland…”
But Remy’s already put in her AirPods. She heaves one of her suitcases onto the bed I’d been eyeing and whips out her phone to punch angrily at the screen.
She slams her AirPod case onto her desk.
It’s encrusted in tiny taffy-pink jewels, and in the center, spelled out in bedazzled glory, are the letters RL.
They’re the fanciest things I’ve ever seen.
My headphones still have an auxiliary jack.
I feel a ludicrous urge to make sure Remy never sees me using them.
Crestfallen, I take my suitcases to my side of the room. The room doesn’t feel quite so cozy anymore. There are angry, slammy sounds behind me, and each one shrinks the room until I feel claustrophobic. Nine months of this? That sounds unimaginable.
I unpack as quickly as possible. Luckily, two suitcases doesn’t take me too long. I consider changing into dry clothes, but a quick glance out the circle window tells me it’s still drizzling. Remy starts to sing some off-key Chappell Roan, and that settles it: I’m out of here.
I dig my orientation packet out of my backpack, pull my hood up, and scurry out the door.