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Chapter 1
Athne
I stared up at the building through the tinted window of the car, then let my gaze wander to the other people strolling the grounds, before wrapping my hand around the straps of my bag and pressing the door open. I didn’t want to be here but the choice had been made for me.
I already knew I would hate every minute.
The driver opened the door and I thanked him, pushing my chestnut hair back before slipping him the couple folded bills I had pulled from my wallet. He looked at them and grimaced. Shit. I was really hoping he wouldn’t look at them until after he’d gotten back in the car to drive away. I pretended to be indifferent as I made my way towards the back of the car where he’d left my two suitcases near the sidewalk.
The car pulled away, practically running over another student in the process. I’m sure with the prestigious school, the driver had been expecting a better tip.
It looks like we both had expectations that weren’t going to be met.
I grabbed the handles of the suitcases, wheeling them towards the dormitory that was so large, it looked more like a gothic version of the Great Wall of China with crenelated towers and steeply pitched gables. It stretched across the lawn, disappearing on both ends behind manicured trees and walled gardens.
Pointed ivy covered arches ran concurrent to each other over a paver pathway that led all the way to the door. I made my way towards it now, dragging the suitcases behind as clusters of students stepped out of the way as I passed by.
Either all the students had already moved in and I was one of the last to arrive with my bags, or they all had staff helping them to carry and unpack their bags while they reunited with friends or fraternized with the new students.
This was not the college experience I had imagined. I’d relegated myself to the community college route, working a customer service job between classes, living from home with my mom while she worked her waitressing job in the evenings and nannied during the day.
But Aunt Catherine had other ideas for my future. She worked in admissions at Wellbright Academy, an ‘academy accepting a diverse array of students from all backgrounds with the aim of producing a successful and enterprising body of students to promote a cooperative future,’ or whatever the hell the brochure had said.
It seemed like a good school, even if it did have little internet presence. I couldn’t even find it on a Google search. Aunt Cathy had to send me the official link. The moment I’d received the email, I’d already decided it was out of the question. It was elite. It just screamed expensive.
But my mom had put her foot down. She wanted me to have a connection with my dad, even though he had died when I was six. Apparently Aunt Cathy was the connection, and I would be at Wellbright, despite my preferences. And Aunt Cathy had gotten me a scholarship. It was practically the same price as community college.
I knew though that my mom needed a break. She’d been raising me for the last twelve years on her own while working multiple jobs throughout the years. If I was at school, with several states between us, she could finally just worry about herself.
It wasn’t that we didn’t get along. My mom was my best friend. I already missed her, even as the wheels of my thrifted, mismatched suitcases bumped along noisily.
I stopped at the entrance and pulled a folded piece of paper from my crossbody bag.
Wing D.
I stared up at the doors for some type of plaque that might give me some indication as to where I was going when someone plowed into my suitcases from behind, pushing them into the back of my legs, causing me to stumble. They fell open, sending clothes across the path. I righted myself, avoiding a collision with the ground, but turned angrily.
“Whoops. Looks like the scholarship students have arrived with their trash. You might want to move your refuse from the path. We’re trying to walk here,” the brunette flipped her hair, flashing green eyes at me before stepping around my spilled suitcases to head up the wide stone staircase to the dormitory.
Oh hell no.
I grabbed her arm as she passed and spun her around. She gasped and yanked her arm away, as if my touching her had been the biggest insult.
“This is Dolce and Gabbana, you pathetic human!” She stared at the sleeve of her shirt, examining it for blemishes.
“Pick it up,” I demanded.
“I’m not touching your shit. I don’t want to catch a disease,” she spat back.
I took a step closer, fists curled at my side. I’d never hit anyone before, but I wasn’t going to start four years of school setting the precedent for being treated like a pushover.
“Pick it up or I swear you’ll regret it,” I narrowed my eyes.
“Oh you’ll be the one to regret it, you trash,” she smirked and suddenly flashed her nails in front of me. Except they weren’t nails. They were claws. Sharp, pointed keratin waving in front of my face.
What the hell?
I couldn’t help staring at her hand in shock. She laughed. The claws suddenly retracted and she looked down at her slender fingers.
“You bitch. You ruined my manicure.” She harrumphed and spun away again, but this time I let her go. I watched her disappear into the dormitory building and wondering again what I was doing here.
I shoved my clothes back in my suitcase, ignoring the stares of the students as they walked by. It seemed like my first evaluation of this place was accurate. I was going to hate it here.
I made my way up the wide stone cut stairs, through the archway with open double doors. I was hit instantly with cool air and I wondered if it came from the thick stone walls, or if they’d expertly hidden the most impressive air conditioning system ever installed.
I was surprised to see a receptionist desk like the kind I’d imagined in a ritzy hotel lobby. I walked over to it with my bags and the woman with the tight blonde bun and blazer looked up with a smile.
“Can I help you?” She exuded cheerfulness as she leaned forward. It practically oozed out of her pores and grated on my already soured mood. I sighed heavily.
“Can you tell me how to get to Wing D?”
“Oh Wing D.” The smiling facade crumbled from her face. “Go straight down the hallway to the very end,” she pointed. “Then go up the spiral staircase and go all the way to the other end of the hall. That’s Wing D.”
She was already looking over my shoulder for someone else who needed help. Unfortunately she was just stuck with me.
“Is there a map to the campus or something? I didn’t do any tours or anything. I’m kind of a late applicant, so I’m not sure where anything is.”
“Here,” she shoved a paper across the counter.
“Thanks,” my voice dripped with sarcasm as I took it, crumpling it around one of the suitcase handles as I wheeled them away from the entrance, down the hall where I’d been instructed to go.
The hallway was long, and I felt like I was walking the entire length of the building. I finally reached a wall and frowned then back tracked and saw a narrow staircase that curved upwards. There wasn’t even enough room for both of my suitcases side by side. I slid the bar down on one and grabbed it by the handle, carrying it awkwardly in front of me while I dragged the other bumping along behind me over the steps.
I tumbled out of the narrow passage and looked for another hall, but the only one stretched back the way I had already come.
With every step I started to mutter curses in my head, a black cloud enveloping my mood. I walked past a bank of elevators and swore out loud just as I reached a common area. A girl with silky black hair looked up from the couch in a lounge area. She grinned at me.
“First year?” She looked sympathetic, her smile and brown eyes warm.
“Yes. Is it that obvious?”
“They made you do the long walk, so yeah,” she giggled. “They do it to all Wing D newbies.”
“What makes Wing D so lucky?” I grumbled, setting my suitcases to the side, plopping down on another couch.
“Wing D is the human section of the building. Wing C is for the witches, Wing B is for werewolves, and Wing A is for the dragons.”
I started laughing at her, impressed with the conviction in her voice. She looked at me in confusion, her forehead crinkling.
“Okay, fine. But how do I get to my room?” I pulled the folded paper out and looked at it again. “112.”
“You’ll be that way,” she pointed back the way I’d come. “I’m across the hall from you,” she flashed another smile.
I glanced around. “Are we the only ones here?”
“There’s not a lot of humans. Most of them get scared off even if they ever did get an invitational letter to Wellbright. But there’s a handful around here somewhere.”
“Okay. What are you talking about? I passed hundreds of other students on my way in.”
“Do you not know anything about Wellbright?” The girl frowned.
“Just what little there was online.”
“Okay, I didn’t even realize they had anything online. But you definitely won’t find the important stuff there,” she snickered into her hand.
“What are you talking about?”
“Wellbright is a special kind of academy. One of a kind really. At least in this country. There’s another in Europe, founded by the same families. It’s a school for children from the different branches of magic, except for vampires. They, uh, kept having problems with the vampires so they were pretty much kind of ‘uninvited’ from the school. And then the selkies of course. They’re all but gone, extinct practically. But the witches and werewolves and dragons and humans still get along well enough. I mean, as well as they can.”
I just stared at her, my pulse thudding.
“Like I said, there’s never that many humans. We’re kind of the bottom of the totem pole. I’m Nyah by the way.”
My brain was still trying to form words, but I seemed to have lost the power of speech.
“Dragons?” I finally managed a word, even if it came out as a stutter.
Nyah stared at me for a minute, concerned. “Did you not know, like, any of it?”
“No,” I whispered, confused.
And I suddenly wondered if my mom and my aunt had known all along. And if they had, why would my mom have agreed to send me here?
