Dane’s eyes flick to the feline next to me, then he shrugs and shakes his head. At that moment, the cat rises to her feet and pounces onto the floor to scurry through the small flap at the bottom of the door.
Well, then…
I approach the front door, pushing through the bickering crowd of men, and pull out my student identification card. “Those are the keys for the windows,” I say to them, and they fall silent.
I tap my card against the box above the door handle, and it beeps once before allowing the door to pop open. A gust of vanilla and lemon escapes, the scent familiar in a heart-breaking way that both sours my stomach and makes my mouth water. God this place smells like—
“Mm… is that lemon cake?” Rory hurries past me and dumps his luggage on the couch before searching for the kitchen.
The rest of the guys move past me and do the same, but my feet remain rooted in the entryway, unable to look away from the common area. The dark wood of the floors makes the champagne walls and the pale-gray, corner sofa seem brighter than they really are. Square paintings line the walls, bringing color to the room and matching the bean bags stacked in the corner.
Everything looks so… homey. Is this what it’s like to live in a house or is this just a Light thing? I can barely remember what my own house looked like; I’ve lived in the Academy of the Dark ever since—
“Serena!” Declan calls out, his head popping out from the doorway next to the stairs. “If you don’t hurry, Rory’s going to eat the entire contents of the fridge.”
I nod, stepping farther into the house and shutting the door behind me. The black cat meows from the couch before curling up and falling asleep. I frown at it as I dump my bags on the ground.
Following the smell of lemon and vanilla, I head through the kitchen doorway. My eyes roam over the cabinets and island, then toward the guys sitting around the dark wooden table, devouring plates stacked high with food.
“Where did all of this come from?” I ask as I take a seat between Dane and Paxton who slides me a plate of pastries. I eye their unusual bright-yellow color and realize after a quick sniff that they’re curried.
“One of the reasons why we chose this place,” Rory begins, taking a sip of water, “is because the elite housing comes with a brownie.”
My eyes move to the mountain of brownies in front of Dane. “I can see that…”
Rory shakes his head. “No. Like a brownie-brownie,” he says. “You know, one of the fae folk. They come in at night to clean and cook.”
I open my mouth to speak but nothing comes out as I stare around the table with wide eyes. Eventually, I manage, “Fae are real!?”
Declan raises an eyebrow at me. “Of course they’re real. Did you really think gods are the only magical beings on Earth?”
“Well… no.” I stare down at my plate. “But I haven’t really had a chance to get out much. Seeing is believing, and all of that.”
“Does it surprise you though, Mistress?” Lore says from my shoulder, then hops down to land on the candlestick at the center of the table.
Pursing my lips, I drum my fingers against the table. “I guess not. But I still want to know why we weren’t taught about an entire civilization. You’d think that it would be a pretty important detail so we could learn to defend against them.”
Declan snorts. “Only you would want to fight the fae.”
I frown at him, then look back to Lore. “I mean, if they can teach us which veins to slice to cause the most bloodshed or which bones to break to cause the most pain during interrogation, you’d think they’d have time to teach us about damn fairies,” I growl. “What else is out there that we don’t know about? What if—” I cut myself off, realizing I may have shared more information than I should have.
I flick my eyes around the table, and a part of me is satisfied by the fearful expressions looking back at me. “What? You learn how to do Light Academy things, and I learned how to do Dark stuff. What did you expect? That they taught us how to knit?”
Lore hoots her disapproval. “But you did learn, Mistress. And I like my knitted bed.”
My cheeks heat, and I look away. And that is a tidbit I will never share with anyone. Unless they’d like to die afterward.
Paxton’s lips twitch and his green eyes sparkle as they move between me and Lore, catching on to what our conversation probably entailed.
“Anyway,” I begin, shooting him a glare, “how do you guys want to do this? I wasn’t really given much information when I was chosen to come here.”
Rory reaches behind him and retrieves our packets from the small kitchen island and passes them out, sticky icing stains and all. After giving me a sheepish look, he opens his first, pulling out a wad of paper that probably cost a few trees their lives. They could have at least loaded it all onto a USB stick.
“Well, we’ve never really had to discuss how we’d split up into classes before… We’ve known each other for a while now,” Rory explains and the guys nod, each opening their packets and retrieving their wads of paper. I do the same.
“So, how does school here work? How many classes do you go to? When’s lunch? Do we get free periods? Extracurricular activities?” I look down at the papers in my hand and skim over the one on top. I chuckle, “You’d think they trust their students more. Has someone got a pen so I can sign this thing?”
Rory looks
