The Hidden Court Read online

  “Good morning, everyone,” Gaspar said from an altar in the front. In the spirit of the day, she wore a nun’s habit and had applied dark eye makeup to resemble a certain demon from a popular horror flick. A few of the boys nodded in approval. “Today I thought I would let you handle a few artifacts. Please keep in mind that these are not harmless relics and should be respected. Please form two lines and work your way around the room.”

  “Hey, Professor, is there going to be a quiz on all this?”

  Gaspar’s smile revealed all six of her fangs. “All subject material is likely to show up on a quiz, Miss Andrews. However, for today, there will be no test. Enjoy yourselves.”

  Ben snagged the lead spot in the first line, but I was right behind him. There were three objects on each table, each of them beside a laminated identification card.

  “Oh wow, look!” Benjamin lifted an old mirror from a velvet cushion. The elegant, black-lacquered wood frame had been carved into beautiful curves and swirls surrounding a pane of oval glass.

  “The Oracle Mirror,” I read while Ben gushed over the craftsmanship. “It’s supposed to reveal our true selves. This says it’s from the 16th century and belonged to—”

  “Margaret Aitken,” Ben finished.

  “Do you know everything?” God, he was as bad as Pilar.

  “Hey, she’s pretty infamous among the mages. I mean, c’mon, a convicted witch who turned on her own to save herself by claiming she could detect other magic users. She turned over a lot of innocent people to save her own skin.”

  He stared into it for a few seconds then passed it over so he could move on to the next artifact. The mirror weighed heavy in my hands, and the reflective surface had a yellowish tint, betraying its old age.

  Did I want to know who or what my true self was? Damn straight I did.

  Glowing butterflies shimmered across the grayscale image, imparting nothing useful I could interpret. A jagged streak of white lit the entire field behind them, startling me into hastily setting the mirror on its velvet bed again. Even though I knew its vision was meant for only me, I glanced left and right. Ben had already moved to the next artifact.

  We shuffled along together from one item to the next, but when I glanced behind me, Lia was gone. I saw a few bouncy red curls as she slipped out the door, and Ben didn’t even notice because he was infatuated with the Egyptian dagger once owned by some centuries-dead high priest of Anubis. I didn’t even bother reading the cards since he babbled about their contents in greater detail.

  “It eats souls,” he proclaimed, whirling with the dagger. “I can’t believe she even has this out for us to look at and touch.”

  A few kids in our vicinity leaned back.

  “Maybe don’t swing it around so much,” I suggested.

  Ben blinked owlishly down at the blade in his hands. “Oh. Right.” He set it down and tucked his hands in his pockets. “Sorry.”

  The last item on our table paled in comparison to the first two. The hammered bronze chalice had been enchanted to provide infinite water flavored to the preference of whoever held it. The final line on the laminated card invited anyone interested to have a sip.

  “I’m totally not concerned with possible backwash right now,” Ben said as he wiped the lip of the chalice with his sleeve then raised it to his mouth. He tilted some of the contents into his mouth, and then his eyes grew wide.

  “Well?” Pilar demanded.

  “It tastes like… like the thousand-dollar brandy my old man bought in Europe.”

  Probably desperate to know what thousand-dollar booze tasted like, Pilar snatched it from him.

  “It tastes like—”

  “Like what?” Ben asked eagerly. “Wine? Champagne?”

  “Sunny Delight.”

  Ben’s face fell. “Seriously?”

  “What?” Pilar asked, lifting her chin. “It’s delicious.”

  Knowing that Pilar’s favorite drink in the world was a sugar-laden, totally bad for you, no-fruit-involved juice concoction made her seem more normal. “Okay, my turn.”

  A citrusy tang coated my tongue with the nostalgic taste of my grandfather’s homemade limoncello. That shit was magical, and he’d first let me have a taste of it a couple years ago during a summer visit. We’d sat outside in the afternoon breeze to share a full bottle.

  I swallowed down three mouthfuls before forcing myself to pass the chalice to the next person, the weird and quiet mage girl with the silver-sheen to her dark skin.

  Pilar and Ben eyed me impatiently.

  “It tastes like the limoncello my grandpa makes in Italy. Maybe this summer I can sneak a couple bottles home past TSA with some fancy glamours.”

  Finished with table one, we moved on to the one across the room. Liadan still hadn’t returned. As much as I wanted to check out the other relics, my friend came first.

  “You guys go on ahead. I’m gonna go ask the professor something.”

  “What’s it taste like to you, Tricia?” someone asked in the line for the chalice.

  “Probably tastes like a mouthful of blood,” another fae said without lowering his voice.

  Tricia stiffened. I paused to speak up in her defense, but Pilar surprised me when she whirled on the offensive student.

  “Even if it does taste like blood to her, you are going to have a mouth full of the real thing if you do not leave her alone. The bullying is old, and no one thinks you are funny anymore. Leave Tricia alone.”

  Go Pilar, I thought while moving away toward Gaspar’s desk. “Professor, do you have any idea where Liadan went?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t.” She frowned and glanced toward the door. “I thought she slipped out for a quick breath of air. The mirror can often show us unexpected things.”

  “But nothing bad, right?”

  “That depends, Miss Corazzi, on what we hold in our hearts.”

  “So what are butterflies supposed to mean?”

  She canted her head and studied me. “Transformation. They’re often used as symbols representing metamorphosis and evolution.”

  “Huh?”

  “If you’d like to check on your friend, you’re excused. Please give her my apologies about the mirror. I should have suggested she skip it.” Gaspar kneaded her temples and sighed. “I truly do hope she forgives me. I meant for this to be a fun day.”

  “Thanks, Professor. I’m sure she will.”

  About an hour later, the hunt for Liadan ended at the food court, where I spotted her sitting at our usual table. I’d searched everywhere from the academic hall’s lobby to our dorm.

  “Hey, I’ve been looking all over for you,” I said. “You didn’t respond to my texts.”

  “Sorry, I had my phone off. You know Gaspar’s rules. I just didn’t turn it back on.”

  “Everything okay?” I plopped down on the seat beside her.

  “Yeah. I needed to clear my head is all. Really.” She put on a strained smile. “Go get your food before the lines get busy. They have the sushi you like today.”

  “Fine, but remember I’m here if you want to talk.”

  Her smile relaxed. “I know, Skylar. Thanks. Now go on, the bell’s about to ring.”

  As promised, the little Asian kiosk had my favorite meal, so I snagged a couple packages and paid right before the bell rang and the cafeteria flooded with starving students.

  During my brief absence, Holly had joined Liadan. She waved and bounced in her seat.

  “Wasn’t today great?” she asked.

  “Yeah. I wish every day could be fun.” I claimed my usual spot beside the window and cracked open my iced tea bottle.

  Ben plopped down beside me. “I loved Magical Artifacts.”

  I eyed his nachos enviously, but decided my lunch was better. I’d bought two massive sushi rolls covered in spicy mayo and orange roe because there was something magical about the salty little satisfying pops.

  “That Oracle Mirror was neat,” Holly said. “Did any of you see anything
when you looked in it?”

  “Not me,” Ben mumbled around a cheesy mouthful. “Just my own reflection.”

  “Really? Same here,” Holly said. “Maybe it doesn’t show anything for mages? What about you, Sky?”

  “I thought I saw butterflies, weirdly enough. Or maybe it was moths. Everything was in grayscale, so it was hard to tell,” I answered.

  Ben hastily gulped down his food and leaned toward Lia. “What’d you see?”

  Liadan speared her salad with a fork. “I’d rather not say. It wasn’t pleasant.”

  “But—”

  Instead of stabbing him with my chopsticks, I cut in. “To be honest, I thought the story behind the dagger was a lot cooler.”

  “Egyptian things are always fascinating,” Lia said, jumping on the subject.

  “There were a few other Egyptian items on the last table,” Pilar said. “But hardly anything fascinating. You missed looking at the seal that inhibits travel through the Twilight.”

  Holly propped her chin on her hand and sipped her soda. “I wonder if that dagger really does suck up souls. You’d think she would be worried about someone stealing it now that we know she has them in her collection.”

  “Gaspar keeps all that stuff locked up in her office, and I can’t even imagine what sort of gnarly protections she has,” Ben said. “Anyway, you all excited for tonight’s festivities?”

  After savoring a bite, I glanced up at him. “What’s going on exactly? I mean, I’ve seen the flyers about a costume contest and a haunted house, but that’s the usual Halloween stuff, right?”

  “You mean no one back home told you?” His eyes widened behind his glasses.

  “Look, the only thing my parents ever discuss about PNRU is all the sappy stuff they did while dating. Dad’s always going on about experiencing it all for myself.”

  “Samhain night they encourage us to cross over into Tir na Nog,” Liadan explained. “Once dusk falls, everything becomes a huge celebration.”

  “There’s going to be so much to do,” Ben continued. “A scavenger hunt, a haunted house put on by the senior vampire class, and magical demonstrations from the wizards and the ravens.”

  “Seriously?” My folks had totally dropped the ball.

  “Maybe you shouldn’t have zoned out at orientation,” Holly teased.

  “Ha ha.” She had a good point though, even if I didn’t want to admit it.

  “What are you guys gonna dress as for the contest?” Ben asked. “I have the best mage costume around.”

  Holly beamed. “Har—”

  Ben groaned. “There’s gonna be like a dozen Harley Quinns.”

  “That’s because she’s awesome.” Holly sniffed.

  Before the two mages could butt heads, I jumped into the conversation again. “Pilar has a great Cleopatra outfit that makes mine feel boring and drab as hell. I have this stupid Malevolent costume from a couple years back that I’m wearing again to get my money’s worth out of it.”

  “Is your shifter pal going to be your raven sentinel?” Ben chortled.

  “Damn. I should have asked him.” Especially since Jada didn’t seem to trust us together, and I’d come to the decision that Gabriel was his own person. During our last work out, he’d confessed to telling Jada she could handle our friendship or break up with him. Since she chose acceptance, it was on her to get over it.

  “What about you, Liadan?” Ben sipped his drink.

  “Jessica Rabbit.”

  His eyes glazed over. Giggling at Ben’s trancelike stare, I gestured to my mouth and whispered to him. “Hey, Ben, you have a little something right here. May be drool.”

  We split up to attend our afternoon classes, and when the last bell rang, the whole school made a mad dash to their dorms to get ready. Rather than wait in line for the elevator, I took the stairs and nearly screamed when a skeleton with glowing green eyes and fangs dropped down in front of me. Snickers from above echoed down the stairwell.

  “Good one, guys,” I called up to my mystery assailants.

  I only had to pass a hundred more replica spiders to get to my room. Someone must have bought them in bulk from Hong Kong or something.

  Since both of my roomies were shut away in their bedrooms when I arrived, I beelined to my room and wiggled into my tight black dress. Pilar and I had done a dress rehearsal the previous night, and with magic, transformed the flowing hem to the ideal length. I strapped on both enormous wings and somehow brushed all my hair into two puffs I could fit within the hollow horns of the dark faerie godmother’s massive headpiece. The movie had been a hit a few years back, a flick about a darkling fae who found her way back to the light for her goddaughter.

  Too bad that wasn’t possible in real life.

  Contrary to her words at lunch, Liadan didn’t emerge in a skintight red sequin dress and heels. Instead she wore a scarlet trench coat and matching fedora. A temporary dye-job glamour transformed her hair to a dull, mousy brown. She probably covered up so Ben wouldn’t pass out with an anime style nosebleed.

  “I always knew Carmen had to be hiding in America.” My lame joke brought a grin to Liadan’s face, and she did a little twirl.

  “How do I look?”

  “You look fantastic,” I told her. “Ready to go?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Down in the quad, we found dozens of other students gathered to participate in the festivities. I coordinated with Ben over text message and found him with Holly by the fountain where a senior faerie and a faculty member took down names and a mage passed out charmed sheets of scavenger hunt clues.

  “Finally,” Holly said. “We’ve been waiting forever for you guys to get here. Even Pilar beat you.” True to her word, she’d colored the tips of her hair and donned the famous outfit from the recent movie.

  Ben frowned at the instructions, bringing life to his comical dark wizard disguise. He must have used magic to accomplish the flat nose, bald head, and slit nostrils. “It’s only two people to a team—”

  “I claim Liadan,” I blurted. Before he could protest, I scribbled my name next to Lia’s on the sign-up, then put my arm around her shoulder. “My own personal guide to Tir na Nog.”

  Liadan beamed and took a list from one of the assistants.

  “I’ll team with you, Ben,” Pilar offered. “I have traveled many times to Tir na Nog with my father.”

  “So I just get left out?” Holly stared at us all.

  Shit. “Er… Ben, I thought your roomie was coming too?” I’d invited Radha and Anji, but they each had plans.

  He shrugged. “Jake changed his mind and said he’s gonna team up with his girlfriend.”

  Holly huffed. “Ugh. I guess I’ll do this stupid thing alone then.”

  I winced. “H—”

  Before any of us could apologize, she stalked away in her booty shorts and made me envy her ability to walk in stilettos. She may not have been the only one dressed as Harley Quinn, but she pulled it off the best.

  “Well, good luck to you two,” I told Ben and Pilar. Lia hooked her arm through mine and we maneuvered out of the crowd.

  To keep things fair for everyone, Riordan had enchanted the list’s writing to remain invisible until a predetermined time, but we passed several groups trying to break the spell for an early peek. Beneath a tree with naked branches to our right, a pair of mages chanted above their blank sheet. Two half-fae tried a similar method with glamour, tapping it simultaneously with their wands.

  “Well good luck there. If they can’t do it in class, they aren’t going to manage it here,” I muttered. With exception to three students, most of our class was riding the line on a B to C average. My B+ taunted me, a flippin’ 88.9 I couldn’t overcome no matter how much I studied.

  Holding a wireless microphone in her hand, Provost Riordan moved to the steps of the administration building.

  “I know all of you are excited to begin, so I won’t keep you waiting with a long speech. Instead, I wish each of you good luck a
nd a merry night of safe festivities. Let the games begin!”

  With a snap of her fingers, the enchantment vanished and a combination of rhyming riddles and vague clues scrawled over the sheet of parchment in fancy penmanship.

  None of them made any sense, and the longer I stared at it, the more frustrated I became until a line at the bottom of the parchment caught my eye.

  What once rolled around now lies flat on the ground, too torn to spin again.

  “Do we have to go in order?” I asked.

  “No, we only need to collect the items from each spot to prove we’ve solved the puzzles.”

  “Great, then follow me, I think I know the solution to this riddle here.”

  Taking Lia by the hand, I led the way across campus to the training ground Gabriel and I used for practices. I knew everything there intimately by now, including the ripped tire in the obstacle course. I’d tripped over it enough at the beginning.

  Tucked inside the tire, we found a baggie filled with golden marbles. After we took one, the enchantment recognized we’d successfully found the item, and magic slashed a red line through the hint associated with it.

  “First one down! What’s next? Does anything look familiar to you?”

  Lia studied the paper. “This one here might be the north fountain.”

  We marked off three more clues on the campus grounds before the riddles became tougher to figure out. I wondered how well Pilar and Ben were doing, or if Holly had made any progress on her own out there, but my curiosity didn’t taunt me enough to text them and ask. Out of breath from our frantic dashes back and forth, we settled on a bench on the edge of the quad to rest.

  “Aren’t you glad you didn’t dress up as Jessica Rabbit now?”

  “Immensely. But you’ve got to drag around that enormous robe and those wings.”

  I tugged on the long train of the black robe, thankful it hadn’t torn despite me catching it on numerous obstacles since the hunt began. “It’s warm at least. I bet Holly is freezing by now. I swear it’s like the weather dropped twenty degrees overnight. It wasn’t this chilly yesterday.”