CHAPTER ONE
Somewhere in the back of her mind, Ivy knew she was in shock. She couldn't concentrate on anything beyond putting one foot in front of the other, following the same path to her bed that she'd taken for the last twenty-three years simply out of habit.
Pulling open the door to her dorm room proved to be a monumental task. It took both of her trembling hands to make it happen. She didn’t even noticed she wasn't alone until someone waved a foul-smelling potion under her nose.
It made her eyes burn and her lungs constrict with enough force to snap her out of the buzzing numbness. She was surrounded by the worried faces of her friends.
“Ivy, honey, can you hear me?” Rowena Little was holding Ivy's hands, her long auburn hair twisted up into a sensible bun. The big round glasses perched on her nose should have made her look like a crone, but they suited Rowena's heart-shaped face and perfectly framed her big Bambi eyes.
“Headmistress Le Douche called her into the office,” Kerrigan Gray informed them all, dressed head to toe in her usual black-on-black wardrobe. A stereotypical Gothic witch—pale skin, smoky eyeshadow, pale violet eyes, her long wavy hair graduating from blackest night to palest gray.
“One of these days, you're going to slip up and call her that instead of Headmistress Le Doux,” Juliet Van Horn warned, her chin-length bob a shockingly bright lime green, still wet from washing out her latest color-changing potion. The wild color made her aquamarine eyes pop.
“Today was probably the worst day to be called to the office. I blew up another alchemy potion this morning, and the whole lab smells like cat piss and dead pharaoh,” Callie Proctor confessed with a wince, tucking away the little vial of whatever horrible thing she'd waved under Ivy's nose back into one of the many loops sewn into her leather alchemy satchel.
Callie must have been wearing her goggles during her experiment because the only part of her face not covered in soot were two large circles around her mahogany brown eyes. When everyone looked at her, she shrugged and wrinkled her nose. “Too much scarab.”
“You never follow the recipe.” Astrid De la Rosa sighed in exasperation. Astrid sat down next to Ivy and curved her arm around Ivy's shoulders. “Take your time. Tell us what happened.”
Ivy tried to form words, but she only managed to open and close her mouth like a fish due to the worry and concern on her friend's faces.
The six of them had been assigned to the same dormitory at Haggara Conservatory for Witches. None of them shared the same discipline or shared any classes over the years, but they'd bonded together and become the best of friends almost immediately.
Rowena practiced practical magic. Kerrigan favored the darker arts and communed with the dead. Juliet's magic was as wild and chaotic as her hair. Callie wanted to be an alchemist, a creator of pure magic, but her experiments often blew up in her face, literally. Astrid practiced cosmic magic, working with the stars and studying the universal ebb and flow.
They'd been friends for twenty-three years. As Ivy replayed the humiliating moments spent in the Headmistress's office, reality set in.
As of tomorrow, Ivy would be on her own.
“Miss Greene, I don't see any reason for you to continue further study,” Headmistress Le Doux had informed her bluntly, folding her bony fingers together, staring at Ivy from across her silver and glass desk with eyes as black as pitch. “You were accepted as a student despite the circumstances of your birth because your mother was an astoundingly powerful witch.
“I had high hopes that you too would prove as equally powerful, but unfortunately, in the twenty-three years you've been with us, you've shown about as much aptitude for magic as a human.
“The hard truth is your mother was never supposed to have a child, but she wanted you so badly she used every ounce of her power to change her fate, leaving only the smallest amount of magic to be passed on to you.
“You do seem to have a green thumb, but the ability to keep plants alive and flourishing isn't enough. Without the ability to cast spells of even the most basic kind, you will not be asked to join a coven, and undergoing the Pairing Ritual is a waste of time.
“I've done the best I can to compile a list of employment opportunities for you, Ivy, but the rest is up to you. It's