physicality—my parents’ respective specialties—and that it would fade on its own, my terror had a mind of its own.
My lungs heaved for air. My hands leapt up to claw at my face as if I could pull the thing off. I’d have shrieked myself if the spell hadn’t been choking me.
Then the magic disintegrated, just in time for one small yelp to escape me. I found myself standing alone on the green, panting and clutching the sides of my face, my cheeks stinging where my fingernails had scratched them. The girl whom my parents or one of their staff must have persuaded into delivering that message had scurried away. The other witnesses, various classmates and younger students, had pulled back to the fringes of the green while they stared.
Heat flared beneath my skin. I fixed my eyes on the dorm windows of Ashgrave Hall ahead of me and marched toward the building with my head held high, as if I wasn’t burning with embarrassment. As if my nerves weren’t still quaking all through my body.
My parents would know the blow had landed, even from a distance. My panic would’ve flowed straight into them to fuel whatever other awful spells they cast next. Just like they knew I couldn’t stand being in total darkness. They’d always taunted me about the nightlights I’d used to conjure in my bedroom back home.
They’d sculpted their spell specifically to provoke that fear, because right now what Mom and Dad wanted more than anything was to cut me as deeply as they could. And they probably also knew that those seconds of oblivion hurt more than if they’d persuaded the girl to stab me with a knife.
There was nothing I could do about that but pretend it wasn’t true and keep on walking.
Chapter Two
I’d just returned to my bedroom after my shower the next morning when my phone lit up with a text from the newly minted Baron Bloodstone. Can you come to the Office of the Pentacle at 1pm? There’s something we’d like to discuss with you.
Somehow I suspected that when the former barons had called a person to a meeting of the pentacle, they hadn’t been half as casual or considerate about it. I wouldn’t know, though, because thankfully the older barons had never paid any attention to me. The summons still made my pulse stutter, as if I might have committed some horrible crime I’d totally forgotten about that the rulers of all fearmancer society were going to come down on me for.
Unless I’d taken up murderous sleepwalking—and sleep-covered my tracks incredibly well—I definitely hadn’t committed any horrible crimes recently. Maybe it had something to do with the malicious “letter” from my parents and my freak-out on the green?
Whatever the case, even though the request was phrased like a question, I didn’t feel like I could refuse any more than if it’d come from the ruthless barons who’d ruled before.
I can do that, I typed, and risked adding, What’s this about?
I wasn’t really surprised when Rory wrote back, We’ll fill you in during the meeting. At least, because it was Rory, she was benevolent enough to follow that with, It’s nothing you should be worried about.
Since the new barons had established a base of operations at the university, I could take a little additional comfort in the fact that I didn’t need to trek all the way out to the Fortress of the Pentacle for this meeting. They’d set up their “office” right across the green in Killbrook Hall in a large renovated room that had once been a teacher’s office and apartment.
I showed up at the door five minutes early. I’d done my best to appear poised, picking an outfit more professional than fashion-forward and hiding the scratch marks that still stung faintly on my cheeks under a careful cosmetic illusion. Hopefully they wouldn’t add any new scars to go with the faint one left over from a magical wound I’d taken during the final battle with the old barons.
Despite my efforts, trepidation coiled around my gut. No matter what Rory had said, I didn’t see how being called on like this could be a good thing.
Malcolm Nightwood’s little sister, Agnes, poked her head out of the office a moment later. “Well, come in,” she said, as if I should know the proper way of handling a summons like this, but at least she flashed me a quick grin.
Inside, the furniture was arranged into five points, just like the pentagram table I