The Impossible Awakening

Frey Vandus had spent most of her life waiting to become magical, but if her mother told one more complete stranger that she used to sleep with a stuffed demon named Mr. Bloodfang, she was going to commit matricide before she ever cast her first spell.

“He was adorable,” her mother insisted, directing this information toward an elderly man who had made the tactical error of holding the residence hall door for them. “She carried him everywhere until she was seven.”

“Six,” Frey corrected.

Her father snorted behind the stack of boxes in his arms. “You took him to your seventh birthday party.”

“That proves nothing. He may have been there independently.”

The elderly man laughed and escaped into the late-summer sunshine while he still could.

Frey turned slowly toward her mother. “We discussed this.”

“We discussed embarrassing childhood stories.”

“Mr. Bloodfang is an embarrassing childhood story.”

“He was a treasured companion.”

“He had six horns and a removable spleen.”

“You loved that spleen.”

Her father nearly dropped the boxes. Frey closed her eyes.

She had imagined this day thousands of times. Ashvein Magical Academy had occupied a disproportionately large part of her brain since she was old enough to understand what it was. She had studied photographs of the campus, memorized its history, followed research published by its faculty, and once spent an entire family vacation reading a nine-hundred-page history of the institution while her parents repeatedly pointed out that there was an ocean directly outside their hotel room.

Now she was finally here.

At twenty-two years old, Frey had finished her mundane education, survived the legally mandated four years in which society insisted she enjoy being young and powerless, and earned admission to one of the most respected magical universities in the world.

In two days, she would awaken. Assuming she survived her mother at move-in.

“Can we please finish unloading before you tell anyone about the time I attempted to dissect Mr. Bloodfang?”

Her mother looked scandalized. “I would never tell anyone that.”

“Thank you.”

“That was private.”

Frey narrowed her eyes. Her mother smiled sweetly. There were reasons Frey had turned out the way she had, and at least half of them were genetic.

Ashvein’s freshman residence hall was enormous, a broad stone-and-glass building overlooking the eastern side of campus. Four hundred incoming students would live there, one hundred to each residential floor, and every student had a private suite. The accommodations had featured surprisingly high on Frey’s list when comparing universities. Magical civilization had conquered instantaneous long-distance communication, self-heating roads, and self-cleaning toilets. She saw no reason to share a shower with strangers.

Her room was on the third floor, halfway down a corridor currently experiencing the organized catastrophe of move-in day. Doors stood open. Boxes covered the floor. Families shouted instructions to one another. A woman farther down the hall was crying while her son repeatedly assured her he was only attending university and had not, in fact, died.

Frey’s mother had already cried twice.

Her father claimed he’d gotten dust in his eye.

There had been no dust.

Room 318 was hers.

Frey stood in the doorway for a moment after unlocking it, and everything else faded slightly.

It wasn’t enormous, but it was hers.

A bed occupied one wall, with built-in storage beneath it. There was a proper desk positioned beneath a large window, bookshelves, a wardrobe, two comfortable chairs, and a narrow door leading to her bathroom. Beyond the glass, the sprawling Ashvein campus descended toward the river, its buildings scattered among ancient trees and broad lawns. Towers from the magical research complex rose in the distance, and beyond those, she could just make out the silver dome of the Grand Hall.

The Awakening Ceremony would happen beneath that dome. In forty-eight hours, everything would change. Frey’s stomach fluttered, and she must have made some sound of distress.

“Oh, honey.”

She glanced back. Her mother’s expression had softened.

“Don’t go all emotional on me now.”

“I am an emotional mother.”

“I know. That’s why I recognized it.”

Her mother hugged her anyway.

Frey tolerated this for approximately three seconds before hugging her back.

Her father joined them, trapping both women in arms considerably larger than necessary.

“Dad.”

“My little girl is going to magic school.”

“Magical university.”

“My little girl is going to magical university.”

“I hate both of you.”

“We love you too.”

A knock sounded against the open door.

“Sorry.”

Frey twisted around as much as the parental prison permitted.

A man stood in the hallway with a cardboard box braced against one hip. Her first observation was that he was tall. Her second was that tall was doing inadequate descriptive work.

He had to be several inches over six feet, with broad shoulders that filled a dark T-shirt exceptionally well and the sort of build that suggested he had never needed to ask anyone else to open a jar. His dark hair was slightly too long and had fallen over his forehead, probably from carrying boxes, and his eyes were a warm brown that caught hers before dropping politely toward the three-person embrace blocking half the doorway.

Frey’s father released her.

Her mother did not.

“I’m trying to get into 319,” the stranger explained.

Frey looked down.

One of their boxes was directly in front of his door. “Oh. That’s ours.”

“I suspected.”

Her mother finally released her, and Frey stepped into the hallway. “Sorry. Apparently we decided to annex part of your territory.”

“No harm done.”

He set his own box down before Frey could reach theirs and lifted the offending container. The word BOOKS was written across the top. It was not a small box. He picked it up one-handed. Interesting.

“Where do you want it?”

“Desk, please.”

He carried it inside. Frey followed, because it was her room and absolutely not because she wanted another look at him from behind.

Her mother caught her eye. Frey gave her a warning glare so severe it should have qualified as Mind Magic despite Frey currently possessing no magic whatsoever. Her mother smiled. Of course she did.

“I’m Frey,” she said as he put the box beside her desk.

“Dimitri Kosova.”

“Vandus.”

“Looks like we’re neighbors.”

“Looks like.”

Something about his smile made the flutter in her stomach shift locations. Interesting again. Before she could investigate that thought, a girl’s voice came from the hallway.

“Dimitri!”

He closed his eyes.

The voice got closer.

“Dimitri, Mom wants to know where—oh.”

A girl of perhaps thirteen appeared in the doorway. She had Dimitri’s dark hair and brown eyes, along with the unmistakable expression of a younger sibling who had just discovered fresh opportunities for violence.

She looked at Frey. Then at Dimitri. Then back at Frey. Her grin widened.

“No.”

Dimitri hadn’t even looked at her.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You were about to.”

Frey immediately liked this family.

“This is my sister, Katya.”

“Hi.” Katya stepped into the room and offered Frey her hand with exaggerated solemnity. “I’m very sorry you have to live next to him.”

“Katya.”

“He snores.”

“I do not.”

“And he’s going to turn into a pig.”

Dimitri stared at the ceiling.

Frey blinked. “A pig?”

“He thinks he’s going to awaken as a shifter.”

“I said there’s a history of Shapeshifting in our family.”

“Uncle Petyr is a boar.”

“A boar is not a pig.”

Katya looked at Frey. “Pig-adjacent.”

Frey bit the inside of her cheek.

Dimitri caught her doing it. “You can laugh.”

That made it worse. She laughed. His mouth twitched, and for one peculiar second they simply looked at one another while Katya appeared delighted with the chaos she had created.

Another family emerged from room 317 before Frey could decide whether Dimitri’s smile was something she wanted to study more extensively. They were carrying a potted plant, three boxes, and enough nervous courtesy to supply a diplomatic summit.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” a woman said immediately, despite not having done anything. “Are we blocking you?”

“No, you’re fine,” Frey’s father assured her.

“Thank you. That’s very kind.”

A young woman stood behind them clutching a smaller box against her chest. She was pretty, with thick auburn hair pulled into a loose braid and green eyes that moved cautiously across the collection of strangers.

Her gaze landed on Frey. “Hi.”

“Hi.”

“I’m Rhea Nexar. I’m in 317.”

“Frey. 318.”

Dimitri lifted a hand in greeting. “Dimitri. 319.”

Rhea smiled, small and tentative.

Her mother looked between them and visibly brightened.

“Oh, wonderful! You’re all neighbors.”

“Apparently,” Frey said.

“That must be such a relief.” Rhea’s father shifted his box so he could offer Dimitri his hand. “It’s lovely to meet you. All of you. Really lovely.”

Within approximately ninety seconds, Frey had been introduced to every member of the Nexar family, thanked four times for things she hadn’t done, and offered homemade pastries by Rhea’s grandmother, who apparently believed no major life transition should occur without baked goods.

Katya accepted two. Dimitri made her put one back. Frey’s mother retaliated with drinks. Somehow, without anyone officially deciding it, three separate families began helping unload three separate rooms.

Frey found herself standing in the hallway beside Dimitri while their parents discussed the relative merits of magical laundry services.

“This is getting out of control,” she murmured.

“Our mothers have exchanged numbers.”

Frey looked toward the women. They were laughing. “Oh, no.”

“I think we’re related now.”

“That happened quickly.”

“Should we tell them we just met?”

“I don’t think it matters anymore.”

He laughed softly, and there it was again—that odd awareness that made Frey want to look at him longer than strictly necessary.

Dimitri glanced toward her. “Excited?”

She didn’t need to ask what he meant. Beyond the window at the end of the corridor, one of Ashvein’s towers rose above the trees.

“More than I know how to explain.”

“Try.”

Frey studied him. Most people regretted asking her to explain things.

“I’ve spent my whole life reading about magic,” she said. “I spent my four years studying for this. I know the classifications, the major theories, the historical models, the current research. My parents both have magic. I’ve watched them use it thousands of times. But I’ve never felt mana. Not once.”

“Neither have I.”

“Exactly.” She looked toward the distant Grand Hall. “In two days, something I’ve understood intellectually my entire life becomes something I can actually experience. I finally get to find out what everyone has been trying to describe to me.”

Dimitri watched her rather than the tower. “And if you’re a pig?”

She turned back to him. His expression remained perfectly serious for perhaps half a second. Frey laughed.

“Then,” she decided, “I will be the best damned pig this world has ever seen.”

“That sounded threatening.”

“It was scientific.”

“I somehow find that more threatening.”

From inside 319, Katya shouted, “Dimitri! Mom says stop flirting and come move your bed!”

His face changed. Frey’s parents went silent. Rhea’s entire family went still. Frey felt heat climb into her cheeks.

Dimitri slowly turned toward his room. “I’m going to sell her.”

“You can’t,” Frey said.

He looked back. “Why not?”

“Sibling trafficking is illegal.”

A pause. “Good to know my neighbor respects rules.”

Frey smiled. If only he knew.

She was forty-eight hours away from Awakening, standing inside the university she had dreamed about for most of her life, surrounded by thousands of questions she finally had the chance to answer.

She glanced at Dimitri. “Some of them, anyway.”