Chapter One
It would be overwrought to say I gave up my whole life for a girl I didn’t even like. I mean, it wasn’t my whole life. I still had my spot at school and the bank account set up way before my parents disowned me. And I hadn’t done it completely—or even mostly—for Rory Bloodstone. I couldn’t deny that my first thought when I jumped into this mess had been for myself. Besides, while I hadn’t been all that fond of Rory back then, I liked her well enough now.
But still, sometimes it felt that way.
What was really overwrought was watching the heir of Bloodstone pack her bags while I grappled with the growing sense that I was about to lose the only friend I had left in this place.
Rory stuffed the last sweater from her wardrobe into a suitcase and sat back on her heels, swiping her long brown hair behind her ears. “Did I miss anything?”
Her familiar, a sleek black cat, bounded onto the closed suitcase with a yowl as if to say, What about me? Rory reached to scratch between his ears. “Yes, of course you’re coming, Archie.”
I glanced around the bedroom from where I was perched at the end of the bed. Thanks to Rory’s status as scion and soon-to-be baron, the space was a little bigger than any other rooms in this dorm, with a broad front window that gave a view across campus toward the lake. She’d suggested that I could take it over once she was gone, but hauling all my things over seemed like too much of a hassle. I’d survived in my slightly smaller room for more than three years just fine.
Nothing was left on the walls or the furniture except the smooth university-issue sheet covering the mattress beneath my hands. I swiped my fingers over it and shook my head, the tail of my French braid skimming across the back of my neck.
“Are you sure you can’t take me with you too?”
The question was a joke, but I heard it land a little flatly. So much for the Warburys’ famous acerbic wit. But then, I couldn’t claim to be much of a Warbury at this point, could I?
Rory shot me a wry smile, but her dark blue eyes stayed on me too pensively for comfort. “I can’t imagine you wanting to be known as an academy drop-out. How many months do you have left until you graduate? Three? Four? I’m pretty sure you’ll make it.”
“Fine. Leave me here with the dregs of fearmancer society.” I flopped down on the bed on my back.
Rory stood up, so I saw her roll her eyes even from my new position. “It wasn’t that long ago you thought I was the dregs, Cressida.”
“Two years. Isn’t there some kind of statute of limitations on how long you can hold my former antagonism over my head?”
She didn’t hold it over my head, though. When she’d first arrived at the university named after her family, I’d been the worst. Well, no, Victory Blighthaven and Malcolm Nightwood would have been competing for that title. But Victory was my best friend, and I’d helped her with plenty of schemes against the heir of Bloodstone along with carrying out a few of my own that I cringed to remember now.
We’d thought we were so damned powerful. So right about how things ought to work here and in the world beyond the campus. I didn’t like to think about how many people I’d hurt during my first few years here, most of them Naries—the students with “nary a bit of magic” who were allowed on campus to give us practice at hiding our magical talents from the larger world.
Our parents had always acted as though we were above most other mages, so far above Naries that they were barely even people, and we’d bought into it like freaking sheep. What was there to be proud of in that?
Rory had blazed into all our lives out of nowhere, retrieved from the enemy mages who’d kidnapped her and raised her to know nothing about our world, and she’d immediately started turning that world upside down. I guessed that would have pissed off just about anyone, not that I’d offer that as an excuse. But she’d forgiven me and Victory—and Malcolm, who these days would incinerate anyone who dared to so much as look at Rory funny given the chance—with the same frustratingly genuine compassion that had made her a champion for the Naries and a force strong enough to topple the older barons who’d ruled our society.
“I won’t say anything about ‘former’ antagonism,” she said now, still smiling. “But maybe if you stopped looking at the rest of the student body as ‘dregs,’ you wouldn’t be groaning about spending another few months here?”
“Yeah, yeah.” I sat back up, my stomach twisting uncomfortably.
Truth: it wasn’t so much that I thought of the other students as lacking as vice versa. Out in my parents’ part of the fearmancer world, where the most important things were who had the biggest mansion and the most profitable business holdings, I was a stinking traitor who’d turned on them when it’d been time to take a stand. Here at Blood U, I was the daughter of two of the most prominent supporters of the former barons, so everything about me was automatically suspect.
The frustrating part about Rory’s compassion was that she couldn’t quite wrap her head around the idea that everyone else might keep holding my past and my family ties against me. But then, at least having her support meant that after Victory had graduated last year, I’d had one person around who truly believed I wanted to be here and not just as some kind of treacherous infiltrator.
Rory hefted her suitcase, Archie twining around her ankles. “Anyway, I’ll still be stopping by the university all the time. As long as Holden, Noah, and Agnes are still students, we’ll keep holding a lot of the meetings of the pentacle on campus.”
“I’ll be grateful for any moments you can spare from the important business of ruling all fearmancer kind,” I informed her, managing a smile of my own. “Here, I can carry your other bag for you. I’ve got to head out to my Illusion class soon anyway.”
We weren’t the only ones carting luggage around. Out in the common room, the other two senior students in our dorm who’d stayed for the summer term were gabbing away as they ambled to the door wheeling carry-ons behind them. I’d gathered from conversations previously overheard that they were taking off for a weekend in New York City as soon as they’d finished with their Friday morning classes.
They’d never have mentioned the trip directly to me, of course, let alone invited me along. The best I got was the wary glance and terse nod of acknowledgment they aimed at me now before they beamed much more warmly at Rory. “Don’t forget us after you’re full baron!”
She laughed. “Blood U won’t get rid of me that easily. Enjoy your trip!”
They weren’t even scared of me, which might have been a tiny bit satisfying in a vaguely uncomfortable way. When you dealt in magic fueled by fear, it was easy to tell if you’d provoked that sort of feeling in someone. I’d have felt even the slightest tremor of true uneasiness traveling from them into the thrum of magical energy behind my sternum, but I got nada. No, their reaction to me was only an impenetrable combination of distrust and disdain that I’d rather not dwell on too much.
We all tramped down the stairs and headed across the grounds to the garage with the warm July breeze washing over us. Rory and I tossed her bags in the trunk of her Lexus. I wiped my hands together, knowing I should get a move on to make it to class but feeling awkwardly adrift.