“That all sounds nice, but I can’t afford a special school,” I said. “I can’t even really afford the school I’m going to now, and it might be the least special place I’ve ever seen.”
It wasn’t an exaggeration. The squat, brick buildings of Pottsboro Community College were so unremarkable that it was hard to picture them at all once they were out of your sight.
“It’s free,” Eve said.
“How?” I asked.
“It’s free for you,” she corrected herself. “Don’t worry about how. Admissions are based on your gift, not your finances.”
Free.
The idea of not having to work so hard to make ends meet was almost too much to get my mind around. I didn’t know how to react.
“I- I have a job, a life,” I managed.
“I can see that,” she replied, giving my apartment a dubious scan.
“I have a plan,” I said.
And the plan was to help Jon, whatever it took.
Crummy apartment and exhausting job aside, this education was the only way I was going to help my brother, the only path to build back the life we had before.
“So make a new plan,” she said, and winked.
Her eyes, which had seemed slate gray at first, were actually a startling blue, in sharp contrast with her raven hair. She somehow looked both older and younger than I had thought before.
“What would I even do there?” I asked again, hoping for a more precise answer. I wasn’t going anywhere, but if I did have a touch of magic, maybe there was something I could learn from her now, something that wouldn’t require walking away.
“You have a gift with plants, so we’d start there,” Eve said with a shrug. “It’s always easiest to nurture strengths first.”
“What else?” I asked.
“There’s combat, transmutation, healing, divination—” she listed.
“Healing?”
I hoped my voice didn’t sound as high-pitched and desperate as I felt. Could there be more than one path to helping my brother after all?
“If you’re good enough,” she said, nodding. “Healing magic takes real talent. But the most gifted witches can hold back Death itself.”
3
Luke
I am a monster.
The voice in the back of my mind screams it, but I don’t care.
Each blade of grass is cold and crisp between my paw pads and the ground seems to spring up to meet my massive body with each leap.
I catch the scent of my prey.
The thrum of its heartbeat pounds like it’s running for its life.
That throbbing heart is dead right. I’m coming for it, and there is no escape. I can already taste the tang of blood, pumping down my throat, feel the exquisite wrench of its limbs beneath me as I drink in its life force to feed my own, juices running down my chin.
The forest reveals itself with the hush of every leaf in the wind, and the scent released by each tiny paw that touches the drenched earth.
My eyesight is weaker in this form.
Or maybe it isn’t. Maybe it’s just that my other senses kick up so much that I don’t care about vision anymore.
I want to touch, to taste. I want to hear the music of the forest and drink in the heady fragrance of fear that follows wherever I go.
The other creatures are innocent. Their terror is intoxicating to a monster like me.
My prey is tiring now, I can feel it beginning to slow.
I can sympathize with how it must feel to be toyed with and chased until its chest aches and it forgets anything but the sound of my paws beating the ground behind it, always closer, but never pouncing.
I take no pleasure from this, not really. I’ve been doing it so long there is no challenge.
Hunger, hunt, chase, tire, kill.
We’ve reached the clearing by the pond. This is as good a place as any.
Soft light dapples my fur and I leap, jaws wide, paws splayed.
I sink my teeth into soft fur and softer flesh and the rabbit crumples under my weight, blood already pumping down my throat as I hold down those convulsing limbs.
The velvet of its blood coats my insides, lights me up, receptors flashing. It’s almost like happiness.
But a tiny piece of my soul stays in the dark.
When the prey goes limp and weightless, I lose interest and lift my nose to the winds.
Something is coming.
The wind changes slightly, carrying something new.
Not something.
Someone.
A new hunger sweeps over me, unlike anything I’ve ever felt.
The tantalizing scent moves closer to the forest. So close, I can practically taste it.
In the back of my mind, my other self is finally silent.
He senses it too. He shares my hunger.
It will be sated, I promise him.
And soon.
4
Bella
I had never been in a horse-drawn carriage before. Though what we were riding in honestly seemed more like a cart.
We bumped our way up a treacherous mountainside, as the sun dipped below the horizon, bathing us in twilight and taking the winding road from picturesque to terrifying.
My pathetic solitary suitcase banged around in the back of the cart while I sat beside Eve, white-knuckled and unable to believe what I had just done.
I had just walked away from everything - employment, school, and an apartment of my own, such as it was, to accompany a witch I’d met less than twenty-four hours ago to a so-called school for magic.
“Everything alright?” Eve asked. “If you have to be sick, say something. Don’t get it in the carriage.”
She looked amazing, just as good as yesterday, better, really. Today’s pantsuit was the silvery grey of a summer sky before a rainstorm. Not one hair was out of place.
I was pretty sure all my hairs were out of place, plastered against the nervous sweat on my face and neck. I wore my favorite jeans and one of Jon’s old marching band t-shirts from high school for good luck. The sweater I had put on was too thin and the cold wind chilling my sweat made me feel almost feverish.
I shook my head. I wasn’t going to throw up, at least not yet. I hadn’t eaten
