Chapter 3
CHAPTER 3
“ M ars is bright tonight.” Lying on her back, Neve squinted at the glimmering ruby planet. “Aggression and war.”
“It can also mean a spark,” said Lumi, reclined beside Neve on the cool, slanted tiles of the castle roof. “Something energetic and bold.”
“How do we know the right answer?”
“Fouzia says there are few definitive answers in astro-reading. What does your intuition say?”
The night sky was a vast, glowing purple ocean of stars. When viewed from within Starlight Gardens, several times more stars were visible than outside. Whole galaxies sparkled in elegant spirals, and the stars were so densely packed that no blackness was discernible.
The view of the sky was the reason for many sorcerers remaining at Starlight Gardens long-term. Everything was written in the stars, if one only knew how to astro-read. Beyond the Gardens, the night sky looked blank in comparison, and made sorcerers feel blind.
“Blood,” replied Neve with a shiver, despite her warm robes. Ever since the queen’s visit, she’d felt on edge for no good reason. “My intuition says it means blood.”
“Mars can certainly mean that. Speaking of blood, how’s the cut on your hand?”
Neve inspected her fingers, where the cut had healed to a pink line over the past few days. “Better.”
“I wonder if Meliohr will come back to Starlight Gardens. I don’t believe for a moment that her visit had anything to do with her sex life, whatever Caryn says.”
“If she desires something from us, I expect we’ll find out, sooner or later. Or perhaps she made demands of the High Magus already. It’s not as though he’d tell us if she had.” Neve let her hand drop. “Are you going to Klatos for the Harvest Festival next week?”
“I don’t think so. Unlike you and Caryn, I have no family in the city. Are you going?”
Neve shifted on the hard tiles. “Yes, I’ll be staying with my mother. Why don’t you join me? You’d be welcome at our house. It’s not plush by any means, but there’s room enough, and my mother would love to meet you.”
“You’re so fortunate your mother is supportive of you. My parents nearly disowned me for being a mage. I thought I’d have to run away to be able to attend Starlight Gardens, never to see them again.”
“After I graduated the girls’ academy in Klatos, it was she who suggested I present myself at Starlight Gardens for admission.” Neve pondered the sky, recalling her first intimidating meeting with the High Magus. He’d glared at her in silence for a long time, his gray eyes skirting the space around her head and shoulders. Reading her aura, she now understood. “That surprised me, because she always encouraged me to keep my head down and blend in. But with sorcery, she said I may as well learn how to use it, because magic is power and power is protection.”
Lumi turned her head. “What do you need protection from?”
My father, she thought. Or people like him. Dark and dangerous people.
He’d been a raider and had taken her mother, Brigit, by force. Brigit had told the story to her daughter only once, in a hollow tone and with sparse details. The anguish in her voice had been a knife to Neve’s heart.
Neve had an awful suspicion the abominable circumstances of her conception somehow caused her ghoulish abilities. Like the darkness had followed her from the womb, circulating silently in her veins and heart. Waiting for Neve to free it.
Perhaps she’d even inherited her darkness directly from him. She could have, if he was a mage. The idea made her revolted and frustrated and strangely forlorn.
“Protection from what?” pressed Lumi in a gentle voice.
Neve looked at her, trying to decide how much to say. Her friend’s glasses reflected the twinkling indigo sky as she waited for an answer. Lumi’s presence was calming, and Neve considered telling her the truth, or at least some of it.
“Found you!” said Caryn, making the two women jump. His freckly face poked over the edge of the roof. He hauled himself up and lay next to Lumi, placing his hands behind his head. “I tracked you all the way from the dining hall. It’s getting easier and easier.”
As a sorcerer gifted in aura reading, Caryn was fine-tuning his ability to sense traces of energy left in a person’s wake. Neve and Lumi could do the same, but not nearly to his level of precision. Hiding from him was borderline impossible.
Neve was glad for his sudden appearance, though. It meant she could push her difficult thoughts and feelings aside, if only for a little while. Caryn was nothing if not distracting.
“Venus is bright tonight,” he noted. “Love and beauty.”
“Really? We were just talking about Mars,” replied Lumi. “Neve thinks it means blood.”
Caryn guffawed. “She would think that.”
“Why?” asked Neve, stung.
“Because you’re dark and spooky and mysterious.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Yes, you are. I never know what you’re thinking.”
“Are you supposed to?”
Lumi cut in. “Blood can mean many things, and not all are spooky. It can mean life. It can mean family. Commitment. Passion.”
“Passion,” repeated Caryn. “I saw Junie and Wendall kissing behind the great oak on my way here. It did look rather passionate.”
“That’s sweet,” said Lumi with a little squeal. “They’ve been flirting with each other for months.”
Neve’s stomach twisted as she gazed at the glittering stars. The last time she kissed a boy, she was sixteen and he spent a fortnight in a coma. It had been the worst two weeks of her life.
“I’m going to bed.” She sat up and stretched, suddenly eager to be alone. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Alright,” said Lumi. “Sweet dreams.”
Caryn watched her lower herself onto the drainpipe to climb down. “I hope you dream of love and passion. And me.”
She rolled her eyes. “Goodnight, Caryn.”
Neve dropped onto the dark walkway and crossed to the dormitory wing of the castle, surrounded by the night noises of the forest. Crickets chirruped and small creatures foraged through the leaf litter. Beatrice would likely have been asleep for hours, or perhaps she waited for Neve in the dormitory hallways.
The cool night air nipped at the sorceress’s exposed hands and she drew her robes more tightly across her chest. The castle was quiet, as most of the residents were already asleep. The only footsteps were her own, light and fast on the walkway, and she thought longingly of a steaming hot bath and her soft bed.
As she turned a corner, she gasped at a pale face staring directly at her from the forest’s tree line. The eyes were intent and unblinking. Before she could back away, the owl took flight, soaring over her head with a dead mouse clutched in its beak. The silvery-purple starlight illuminated the wings, making the owl look otherworldly.
Neve laughed in relief, clutching her chest. Owls were good omens, if she recalled correctly. No cause for alarm.
Moments later, she turned her brass key in her door, Beatrice nowhere to be seen.
Neve’s chambers were on the third floor of the dormitories, at the very end of a corridor. She’d chosen the location for peace and quiet, plus the forest view through her diamond-paned windows.
The room was spacious, with a bookcase, wardrobe, writing desk, and bed. Books overflowed from the shelves and lay in haphazard stacks on the floor. In the hearth, the fire had burned out to a cluster of glowing red embers.
Neve lit a candle and removed her robe, hanging it on a hook by the bookcase. In the bathroom, she ran hot water into the tub, obscuring the windows and mirror with steam. She shimmied from her dress and lowered herself into the scalding water with a sigh.
The heat seemed to absorb the worry and heaviness from her body, her mind becoming blessedly free of thought. Minute by minute, her muscles relaxed. When she closed her eyes, she could almost forget the never-ending, indefinable restlessness she felt.
Neve stayed in the water until she could ignore its cooling no longer. While drying off with a towel, she gazed at her reflection in the dark window, unable to see the forest. She slipped on a red silk nightgown and returned to her chambers with the candle.
A looming figure waited for her. She nearly dropped the candle in fright, and her magic churned and swirled through her blood, ready for her to defend herself.
Then, she blinked. The looming figure was her own robe, hung on the wall. She gave herself a little shake. What on earth was wrong with her tonight?
Her heart galloping, she crossed to the door and double-checked the lock. On impulse, she set her candle down and pushed the writing desk in front of the door.
But her intuition still screamed at her, the tiny hairs on the back of her neck standing up.
There was another person’s energy in her room, and it wasn’t familiar to her. It was subtle, but it was there. Had someone come in while she was bathing?
She kneeled next to the desk to peer through the keyhole. There was no movement or light in the corridor outside. Lumi had a key to Neve’s room—perhaps she had stopped by for some reason.
But that wouldn’t explain how the energy was unfamiliar.
From her vantage point on her knees, Neve caught a glimpse of white beneath her bed. She scrambled over, put her shoulder against the frame, and pushed. The four legs scraped loudly across the wooden floorboards until the bed nearly touched the bookcase.
Dread creeping into her gut, she stood back and stared.
A large and intricate arcane symbol was painted in white on the floor. She didn’t recognize the symbol’s meaning, but the lettering was Shirrani. How long had it been here? What did it mean?
Feverish with worry, she flicked through book after book for information about the symbol, her bed frame askew. The answer lay in a spell book she borrowed from Fouzia months ago and never got around to reading.
The symbol was a protective charm. But who put it there, and why? If she needed protecting, would it not be prudent to tell her?
As her thoughts spiraled, she pushed the bed straight and crawled under the covers, wanting some kind of comfort. Within minutes, the candle sputtered out, casting her into darkness.
The room was quiet enough that all she could hear was the in and out of her breath, and her hammering heart. So when a scratching sound came from the corridor outside, she snapped to attention. The sorceress slid from bed and tiptoed to the door.
“Beatrice? Is that you?”
There was only silence in response.
Neve tried to rationalize her fear away. This was Starlight Gardens. Who would dare trespass on these lands, let alone attack a mage? Even Polinth never attempted it, knowing the High Magus would’ve annihilated him. No one could be so foolish.
The moments ticked by. What if something was wrong with Beatrice? Her age was advanced, and Neve would never forgive herself if harm came to the hound because of her paranoia and cowardice.
Making up her mind, she pushed the writing desk aside and unlocked the door.
The corridor was empty and still.
A metallic object flashed from a mahogany console in the hallway. Neve frowned, trying to recall if it’d been there when she returned to her room earlier. With another glance down the deserted hallway, she stepped through her doorway and reached out.
The object was a silver ring in the shape of a spider. Its size was too large to belong to any of the residents in her wing, who were all young women. The metal pulsed with energy, as if someone had just been touching it.
Before she could summon her magic, a large hand clamped over her mouth and the ring fell soundlessly to the carpeted floor. A hard body pressed against hers from behind, an arm snaking around her waist and drawing her flush.
In the blink of an eye, she’d been rendered unable to move, or make any noise apart from a panicked whine in her throat. He leaned down, his breath warm against her ear. His voice was very low, very soft, and very dangerous.
“Tsk, tsk, Neve. Curiosity killed the little witch.”
He dragged her farther down the unlit hallway, her bare heels scrabbling against the floor. Where was he taking her? Nothing was at the end of the corridor except for an open-air archway, and a sharp drop to the rocky forest floor below. The fall would kill them both.
But he did not slow down. At the archway, he carried her over the edge while she kicked and struggled in vain. Together, they plunged headfirst into the darkness.