Persie Merlin and the Door to Nowhere by Bella Forrest Page 0,10
wanted to cry out to the selkies and warn them off the beaches. But that story had already been told, and the real selkies were likely in the Bestiary somewhere, or in a coven Aquarium, being used as back-up generators.
Genie plucked me out of my thoughts by pointing out the towering septet of white marble dragons. There was one at the head of the room, standing sentinel over the stage, and three down each side of the hall. I didn’t know if they were loadbearing or just decorative, but they packed a heck of a punch. They glowered down at me with golden eyes, which sparkled in the rainbow light cast by the overhead dome.
“Do you think they’ve got dragons in all these places?” Genie asked, giggling. “How did we end up with bronze ones at the SDC? I wonder if it’s a hierarchy thing—a sign that a coven or an institute is compensating.”
I clung tighter to the cloister pillar. “I don’t know, I kind of like our bronze ones. They’re homey, and this is all very… regal.”
“Maybe that’s why I feel like I should be whispering.” Genie beamed, drinking in the atmosphere.
Everything had a clean, luxurious air, down to the rows and rows of plush white and gold chairs that everyone shuffled to. And beneath all of that were white marble floors streaked with veins of pink and gold. The stage rose up in a balustrade of that same veined marble before giving way to a semi-circle of polished white stone that was neither marble nor the Institute’s favorite concrete. There, figures began to emerge from the wings, but I only recognized one: Victoria.
Two of the women were sharply dressed in identical tailored suits of ruby red. Very fitting, considering they looked identical, too. I assumed they were the famed Basani twins. Beside them stood a younger woman who bore a startling resemblance to the twins. She was a bit older than Genie and me, dressed more casually in dark gray pants and a crisp white blouse.
“That’s Charlotte, right?” I nodded toward the younger woman.
Genie gave an approving nod. “Bingo!”
A few marble statues caught my eye as my gaze drifted away from the stage and back across the hall. I’d missed them the first time. They were embedded everywhere, gracing the front of the stage, the recesses in the walls, and all the cloisters opposite. Smaller than the dragons, they were no less striking. I spied a chimera, a griffin, a unicorn, a quartet of kelpies pulling a chariot, a pair of loup-garous, and a cluster of feathered snakes, amongst more obscure monsters that I’d seen in my dreams. Wherever I looked, I found more, as if I were playing an elaborate game of hide and seek with these statues, and I was “it.”
Gradually, the hubbub of the crowd died, and Victoria Jules took center stage. Her voice boomed around the hall, making me think there was some magical amplification on display there. I couldn’t see a mic, but it sounded like she had twenty.
“Welcome, everyone, to a new season at the Basani Institute,” she began, drawing everyone into her formidable gravitational pull. “As we draw away from the hardships of winter, we must look to the buds of oncoming spring—the nascent sprouts who will bask in the Institute’s knowledge and bloom into fearsome hunters under the tutelage of our expert educators. Please, put your hands together for the new arrivals, for it may be the encouragement they need to endure the trials to come.”
She paused for applause, and the crowd gave it to her. Reverence hung thick in the air.
“For our new students, I would advise patience and modesty as you learn what it is to be a hunter. There will not be a single day that passes that you will think of as easy. If you do, you are not doing it correctly. As those who have graduated will tell you, the real world of hunting is far more challenging than anything you will face here. We will prepare you, but your education will never stop.” Victoria surveyed the hall with her intense black eyes and swept a hand through her oh-so-cool hair. “You will hurt, and you will curse the day you came here, but you will build bonds that last a lifetime. And you will understand that your limits are merely guidelines.
“To our existing classes, I would advise continued patience and modesty for you, also. You walk in the shadows of giants: the great hunters