Page 10 of Darkest Magic

“What are you, a witch?”

Her expression tightened. “No, I’m not. Plus, we don’t use that word.”

“You moved my bag with two fingers.”

“I used power.”

“You’re literally wearing a robe and using magic.”

“It isn’t the same thing.”

“It is from under the bag. Put it down.”

The duffel dropped into my hands softly enough that she probably thought that helped. The full weight caught my shoulder and bit into the same sore place it had been rubbing at since I got out of the car.

Better. The weight was mine.

“I was trying to help,” Pippa said.

“Then ask first.”

Color climbed her elegant throat. “Right. Of course. You’ll carry it, then.”

“I was carrying it.”

A pause.

“This way.”

I followed her up the rest of the drive. Gravel shifted under my boots. My duffel thumped my hip. The air smelled of cut grass, cold stone, and something older underneath, damp and green and watchful. At the bottom of the grounds, beyond the long sweep of lawn, a black line of trees marked the edge of a wood that probably went down to the wall that must have surrounded the campus.

I looked at it too long, and Pippa saw.

“You don’t go down there,” she said.

“Why not?”

She frowned, not like I had challenged her, but like the question itself was badly made. “Because there’s no reason to.”

That was not an answer.

Pippa kept walking, pointing as she spoke, quick little flicks of her hand. “Main hall is there, that’s where all the classrooms are. Dining room is through the south arch. Library’s the oldest part, though you won’t need it much unless you’re Craft or insufferable. Training yards through there. Washhouses down the slope, but send your laundry, don’t carry it yourself. Sallow’s orientation lecture is tomorrow at second bell. Don’t be late.”

“Who’s Sallow?”

“Professor Sallow.”

“That clears it right up.”

She almost smiled, which made me think that she might actually have a sense of humor and just not be good at letting it out.

As we walked I was overwhelmed by the sense of old money. Everything was stone and iron with intricate stone paths leading from one area or building to another, and what wasn’t stone or iron was glass and wood. There were arched doors with names I couldn’t pronounce on brass plates over them. Students moved through the area like ants or worker bees all trying to get where they were going as fast as possible without disrespecting any of the grounds around them, which I found unusual. I was used to people cutting across grass and making their own paths, but that didn’t seem to be a thing here. Everyone stuck to the walkways.

I had read books like this, and that was the part that kept picking and poking at my mind. Books were kinder. They knew to hand the girl a map, a mentor, a prophecy if they were feeling theatrical, letting the strangeness arrive one wonder at a time so she could keep up.

Æscholt did not care whether I kept up. It had taken my name, paid my way, opened its gates, and then gone on being exactly itself around me, which was somehow ruder than any open insult.

A trunk glided too close and my duffel clipped its polished side, and the trunk stopped. I stopped too.