Blood of the Fey (Morgana Trilogy) (5 page)

Smile glittering in the waning darkness, Percy points to the embroidered cross on my drenched uniform. “Not accordin’ to yer blazon.”

“What, this doesn’t mean I’m going to another Catholic school?” I ask.

But Percy just gives me a small bow before rushing down the grassy hill.

I watch him disappear in the ever-growing throng of people herding toward the strange-looking school, their way lighted up by so many torchlights it looks like some of the constellations have sunk beneath Lake Winnebago as well. Maybe it is a madhouse, after all.

Behind me are empty fields with the dark outline of a forest cut out against the lightening sky-lake. If I want to escape, now’s the time to do it. I take a few rigid steps toward the unwelcoming expanse, then stop, eyes blinking rapidly. Did I really just see a fish poke its head out of a cloud? I breathe in deeply, letting the chill air fill my lungs and hopefully clear out my obviously delirious mind.

“Miss Pendragon!”

I whip around, sheepish. Poking from over the hill is the face of the red-haired woman.

“If you don’t hurry,” she says, her tone sharp, “you’ll miss Mass, which means you won’t get breakfast.”

I hesitate only a moment longer before following her orders. Better the devil you know, I suppose. Besides, with food in the equation, how can I refuse?

I join the last rank of freshmen, behind a boy with a severe limp and next to one with dark hair.

“You ask her,” another boy with short black hair says, nudging the one next to me with his elbow.

My neighbor pokes him back in the ribs, and he yelps. I roll my eyes—not only have I somehow been held back three years, but on top of that, I’m a full head and a half taller than everyone
else, which makes me stand out like an ogre amongst children. How utterly humiliating.

The tall torches fizzle and crackle on both sides of us as we march down the gravelly path toward the school.

“My name’s Bri,” the boy next to me whispers to my shoulder in a high-pitched voice—a girl then. “What’s yours?”

“Morgan,” I whisper back, keeping my eyes trained on the teacher’s back. She strikes me as the type of person one does not want to cross, and in this crowd, I make a very obvious target.

The black-haired boy in front turns around, and it’s clear now that he and Bri are twins. “So how come we’ve never seen you here before?” he asks. “I can’t believe you swam all the way down here, by the way. That’s so rad! Didn’t think people could do that without the use of oghams.”

I blink at the boy’s dialect, completely unsure what an “owe-em” is.

“Don’t be rude,” Bri says, kicking him in the calf before adding for my benefit, “That’s Owen, and the other’s Jack.”

Very violent siblings, it appears, which reminds me of Arthur. For a very brief moment, I wonder where he is and whether he can help me clear things up so I can avoid the torture of going through high school all over again. But seeing how he’s already abandoned me to my own devices twice now, I seriously doubt it. All thoughts of my brother, and any subsequent murderous intent, disintegrate the moment I take in the full massiveness of our school.

The granite building rises five stories high, straight out of the ground, and stretches the span of a stadium. Dotting the ramparts like gaping wounds are arches and windows, soft light glowing through them. As we pass through the titanic wooden doors, I can’t help but gawk first at the hunting scene carved into them, then at the rows of colorful standards hanging along the high walls of the entrance hall.

“There’s over seven hundred of them,” Bri says. “But the most prestigious ones are hung in the KORT room.”

She pulls on my sleeve to force me to accelerate. We turn left into a narrow hallway, then engulf ourselves in a dark staircase where the din of voices is amplified tenfold. On the third landing, we encounter a young woman, dressed in an old-fashioned full-length black skirt and apron, who bows to us as we pass by before we head up another set of stairs.

“Just a servant,” Bri explains when I ask her, but she’s too engrossed in her brother’s conversation with his neighbor Jack to pay much attention to me and I have to quell the thousands of questions warring in my already overtaxed brain.

“Didn’t you see the news?” Jack asks, limping ahead. “They had to close all the schools in the Bayou Bartholomew area of Louisiana”—he lowers his voice even further—“for frog invasion!”

“I’m sorry, did you say frogs?” I ask.

“I would love for that to happen to us,” Jack continues as if I’m not there.

“You’re crazy,” Owen says. “This is the week we finally get to practice EM!”

“That’s exactly why,” Jack says.

I have absolutely no idea what these people are saying, and the farther up we go, the more lost I feel.

“We’re in the mental hospital, aren’t we?” I finally ask Bri.

She looks askance at me. “Does it look like we’re in an asylum? Am I wearing a straitjacket?”

“The asylum’s next to the church,” Owen says as we arrive at the final landing, which does nothing to reassure me. “So I know that they usually start off with sprites,” he says, switching topics, “but I want to try a salamander first!”

Bri chortles. “Right, like they’d let you. You nearly turned our yard into a swamp when Hadrian let you play with his ogham this
summer.” She turns to me and adds conspiratorially, “Mother had a fit. You should’ve seen how he tried to hide behind the chicken coop.”

“Do you eat salamanders here?” I ask.

All three turn to me, shocked into silence, then burst out laughing.

“Not unless you want your intestines to burn,” Owen says.

I nod and try not to let the smile melt from my face—the fewer questions I ask from now on, the less I’ll stand out. I’ll just figure things out as I go along.

“Right then,” Lady Ysolt says, her voice ringing out around the rafters, “time to leave your school material here. And perhaps get a little cleaned up.” Her eyes linger on me for a moment. “Miss Pendragon, I believe you are not yet acquainted with the layout of the grounds or school proper. Your room’s the third door to the right, which Miss Kulkarni will be glad to show you.” She raises her voice over the din. “Miss Kulkarni? Come over here, please, and show your new roommate around.”

A dark-skinned girl with plaited hair makes a short curtsy, then heads straight down the left hallway. The room we are to share is small, with bunk beds set over their respective desks, and two large trunks lying at their feet. One side of the room has already been claimed, as I can tell from the slew of pictures hung over the bed and around the desk.

Most of them are of a set of three boys, and it doesn’t take me long to recognize them. Percy I can very well understand why; his easygoing manners have already won me over. The second boy is the tall, devilishly handsome but moody boy who’d been with him when they rescued me from drowning. But the third…

“Looks like someone’s got a crush on Arthur, eh Kulkarni?” I say, braying out a laugh.

The girl draws near me, her perfume hanging in the air behind her. She doesn’t look too pleased with my reaction. “My
name’s Keva,” she says, “and he’s the head of KORT. Who
wouldn’t
like him?”

“Is that right?” I mumble.

The girl darts me a malevolent glare; she clearly can sense sarcasm, and does not appreciate mine.

“Great,” I hear her mutter, “now they give me a Sudra
⁵
to live with. Next thing you know, they’ll pick a frigging untouchable!”

Before she can gouge my eyes out, I promptly head for my side of the room, where I rummage through what I assume is my trunk for a change of clothes. Thankfully, amongst a slew of very battered books that constitutes the majority of its contents, I find what I’m looking for. But before I manage to get more than my skirt on, the lights go out, and the door slams shut.

“What the—” Great. Just great. Not only does my roommate have poor taste, but on top of that, she’s vindictive. Couldn’t have hoped for more luck than that.

Not wanting to trip on anything, I feel my way over to the door and try to find the light switch. But my fingers only encounter the coolness of the stone wall.

“Are you done?” Bri asks, slamming the door open smack on my face. “Oops, sorry. What are you doing in the dark?”

“Looking for the light,” I mutter, rubbing my sore nose.

“Oh, here you go.” She taps on the wall, and the light fixture on the ceiling, a glass ball, turns red to display a creature stuck inside it.

Rooted to my spot, I point a shaky finger at the incandescent lizard still clearly visible. It stares at me for a second with one large eye, sticks its tongue out, then becomes too bright, and I’m forced to look away.

“I think we just killed a lizard,” I say.

Bri stares up at the ceiling. “You mean the salamander?” She slaps her hands together. “Cool, huh? But don’t worry, the elemental’s well controlled. It won’t set fire to this place. Come on, let’s get to Mass, or we’ll get detention. Besides, you definitely can’t miss the oath taking,” she adds, tapping the wall so the light shuts off.

“I knew you guys were high-tech, but to use radioactive animals like that…” I say, craning my neck up as we walk out, but the light fixture is now empty.

The sound of bells in the distance makes Bri jump. “Malediction! We’re going to be late for Lauds! Hurry up and put on your jacket, unless you don’t mind showing up to mass half naked!”

She flashes me a grin before dashing back into the now-deserted hallways. Struggling to put my shirt on the right way, I hurry after her.

“North,” Bri tells me when we hit the ground floor.

We hurry after a couple of other stragglers. The bell rings once more, then remains silent.

“Oooh, not good,” Bri says, bolting through the north door and into the open air.

At the other end of the long paved path stands a large white church with a single steeple and long, narrow stained-glass windows. We make it inside before the double doors close and, gasping, stop long enough to dip our fingers into the holy water bowl and make a hurried cross sign, then head down the aisle to find Owen and Jack.

“What took you so long?” Owen asks, scooting over to let his sister and I sit.

“Hey, we’re on time. Give us a break,” Bri says.

“Just in time,” Jack says, pointing toward the front.

Dressed in a long black cassock, a priest is now making his way to the front of the altar. He bows, crosses himself, then turns to face us.

The heady smell of incense reaches me before I see two boys and two girls walk down the nave toward the front, then settle to each side of the altar.

“Greetings, brothers and sisters, daughters and sons,” the priest intones in a steady voice. “Let us begin this day in prayer. In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti.”

“Amen,” I say in unison with the rest of the congregation.

Once the first notes of the Kyrie Eleison ring out, my brain clocks out. From where I sit, I have a direct view of the priest and, in front of him, a cordoned-off section of pews where, to my surprise, is Arthur, his back straight, dark blond head held high.

My gaze roams about my new surroundings, resting occasionally on some of the people assembled—more students, I guess from the uniforms. Even with the whole school present, only a third of the benches are filled, giving the place an impression of emptiness.

Large votive candles hang along the pillars above us, their flickering lights turning the capitals’ carved figurines into grotesque demonic forms that seem to be laughing at me from their lofty heights.

Despite my best intent, my eyelids start to droop, and I nod off. I get brutally awakened when Bri jabs me in the ribs with her sharp elbow.

“Ow, what?” I snap, blinking.

My words echo under the now-quiet ribbed vaults. Bri gestures toward the front of the church, where the priest is focusing his whole attention…on me.

“What?” I mouth to Bri, shrinking lower on my bench.

“You’re supposed to go up there,” she replies in the same manner.

I force myself to my feet and nearly trip on the kneeler. I hear a couple of people laugh, but I remain stoically standing.