He winked at me.
I could only blink back in bewilderment, still clutching the scroll.
Before I’d recovered, Valor disappeared through the glass doors and into Malcroix Manor, his blue and silver wolf trotting at his heels.
8
Back To School
Present Day
September 19th
Valarian College Dormitory
Malcroix Bones Academy
“You’re insane. As usual,” Miranda said fondly, staring at my course schedule where she held it in her hands. Her eyes lit up, and she let her hands drop. “Oh! Are you planning on going to the Second Years’ Party? Jolie wanted me to ask. It’s not for a few weeks yet, but if you don’t have a dress for it, we should all go to Bonescastle and have something made. Everyone goesabsolutelyall-out mad for this thing. It’s tradition.”
My mind had been elsewhere, lost in the list of books I had to get from the library that night, four for my theurgy class alone.
When her words penetrated, I looked at her in confusion.
“A party? Already? We’ve only had a week of class.” My mind scanned through dates, trying to make sense of it. “Is it a holiday?”
I’d thought I’d got all the Magique holidays on my calendar finally, at least those celebrated in Britain. Had I missed one?
I glanced down at her corgi, right as it head-butted into the chest of my monocerus, causing it to tumble backwards and into the wooden leg of the sofa. My primal leapt up at once, stomping its feet and snorting before it ran after after the delighted corgi, head down, its black horn aimed right at the dog’s rear-end.
“It’s notthisweek,” Miranda said impatiently. “We just have to order the dresses soon, especially if we want a decent designer. Shoo, you!” she scolded her corgi, before turning back to me. “…Second week of October, I think? And it’s not a holiday, weren’t you listening? It’sSecond-Year’sparty. Forsooth’s the one throwing it this year, since he’s our class faculty head. Nyx’s older sister said he hasn’t done one in years and years, and he’s got a rep for going all-out. She figures there’ll likely be crashers… upperclassmen who want to see it for themselves, especially since he won’t do another while they’re in school.”
I tried to be as excited about this as Miranda clearly wanted me to be.
Honestly, I was more interested to hear that Forsooth was our faculty head. How had I not known our entire class had a faculty head?
We were sitting near the brick fireplace in the common area of our new dormitory apartment.
Second-years got housed in Valarian College, which, unlike Grathrock, offered three-person accommodations, in addition to two. Jolie and I shared with Miranda now, after making the request at the end of last term.
I’d honestly worried that having three of us in the same space might be too much, particularly given Miranda’s more expansive personality, and her much more packed social calendar compared to me or Jolie. But the dorms were also suites thisyear. We each had our own bedrooms, and the shared spaces were larger than our entire room had been as first-years.
Miranda, who’d never managed to get rid of Elysia Warrington as her roommate the previous year, was so happy about the new arrangement, she’d bought me and Jolie four “housewarming” and “roomie-bestie” presents over the summer already, including a magical scratching post for Wraith, a full-sized magical-anatomy model for Jolie, magical mugs that never got cool for hot drinks or warm for cold drinks, and magical wall-calendars more complex and personalized than the maps supplied by the school.
She’d also insisted on taking the smallest bedroom in the suite, despite my arguing that: 1) she had literally four times as many belongings as me, 2) she had five or six times as many clothes as I did, and lent them out to me all the time, anyway, 3) all I needed was a window, a desk, and a decent bookshelf, and 4) Wraith would make herself at home in ALL the rooms, regardless of where I slept, so they should be allotted larger rooms to compensate. Miranda dismissed every single argument I made.
So I huffed and tried to get Jolie to argue on my side, but in the end, Miranda wouldn’t budge, and I ended up with a too-large room for me and Wraith, with a too-large closet. Mir, meanwhile, had a closet so overflowing with dresses, blouses, trousers, shoes, coats, hats, scarves, skirts, robes, jackets, stockings, socks, and every other article of clothing one could imagine, she could barely squeeze into it, or find anything.
I couldn’t get her to hang even her formal robes in mine.
I set up one corner of my bedroom with Wraith’s water and food dishes, her magical litter box, and Mir’s new scratching post. I moved my desk under the window, where I had a gorgeous view of The Eyrie, with Devil’s Fall in the background. By the time I’d come back from dinner on that first night, fourbookshelves had appeared on the open walls on the other side of my desk, already half-filled with books, both mine and books I’d pulled from the library, including an entire shelf on castes, the Obeah, and Sanctum Occulus.
I even had my own fireplace, with its own armchair.
Needless to say, I felt guilty about it.
I also loved it, and wondered if I’d ever leave my room again, apart from classes, meals, the library, and the occasional trip to Bonescastle on a weekend.
I hadn’t planned on going anywherethatweekend, though.
