The Hidden Court Read online

  The rain mellowed to a calm drizzle as the vamp writhed beneath the magical spotlight, and little flecks of ash flaked from his skin. He was closer to becoming a nosferatu than I’d predicted, because vamps never sizzled this fast unless they’d already taken human lives, becoming more sensitive to sunlight with every death until they were completely corrupted.

  I’d almost committed suicide by vampire. If I had been thinking, I would have charged into the pizzeria, ordered a large pepperoni, and held Mindi up until some adult gave us a ride home. But I hadn’t been thinking. I’d become emotional and impulsive.

  My parents would finish what the vamp began and kill me for him.

  “Skylar Corazzi?”

  “Um… yes?”

  The man reached down, grabbed my arm, and hauled me to my feet. Once he pushed his hood back, I saw a middle-aged man with a salt-and-pepper goatee and smooth, dark skin like he’d been carved from an obsidian block. His kind brown eyes calmed me. They were soft despite his chiseled features and the stern set of his mouth.

  “Chief Wizard Examiner Simon Bostwick,” he introduced himself. “I came to administer your test.”

  “This was my test?” My voice squeaked up an octave, so I cleared my throat and took in a deep breath through my nose. The placement exam was the paranormal world’s best kept secret, our relatives and older friends sworn to a blood oath never to utter a word about its details. Now I understood why.

  “Yes.”

  “Did I pass?”

  “Test results will be released by your guidance counselor during registration. Now, give me your hand.”

  I held out my left hand, and he pricked it with a deft stab from a knife I hadn’t seen in his hand. “Ouch.” Blood welled up from my thumb, and the vampire on the ground gnashed his teeth.

  “You are sworn to a blood oath, Skylar Corazzi. What you faced here shall never be shared with the uninitiated. Do you so swear?”

  “I swear.”

  Simon pressed my thumb to a yellowing page in an aged book. Energy zipped up through the small cut as a rune flared beneath the bloody print I made.

  “It is done. Head on home and get warm before you catch cold.”

  “What about him?” I nodded toward the vampire. Even from the ground he appeared ominous, his bloodshot eyes following my every movement.

  “Sebastian and I will take him to the depot where he’ll be processed and delivered to the Sanguine Court for trial and punishment.”

  Which meant he was as good as dead. I’d heard the king and queen had become more intolerant to poaching in recent years, staking lesser vampires on the first offense whether blood was drawn or not.

  “Thank you,” I mumbled. After fishing my phone from the puddle, I scurried from the alley and beat feet home.

  Nothing had gone right. My friend thought I was a judgmental creep, I didn’t guide her to the appropriate path, and to top it all off, I had to be rescued from a vampire. So much for passing my test.

  And Dad was still going to rip me a new one for busting my brand new-to-me phone he’d bought used off Amazon.

  2

  A New World to Explore

  Magic school didn’t have a red locomotive or a flying car to retrieve its students. Transportation to the college was entirely our responsibility.

  After bitching and moaning about the rising costs of airfare, Dad convinced Mom to endure a two-day, scenic drive from coastal Virginia to northern Illinois. With an Inconspicuous glamour disguising our car from police officers and radars, he sped along the highways, and we occasionally stopped to sightsee at landmarks. It wasn’t exactly illegal, but it was usually frowned upon to use our magic for things like that. For once, Mom didn’t chastise him about it.

  The entire vampire fiasco had made them wary. While there were no terse words regarding my foolish behavior—and an uncharacteristic lack of criticism for the damaged phone—I sensed an odd change in their behavior. Why the hell hadn’t they been furious with me? Mom spent a half hour hugging and rocking with me, and Dad had asked me a thousand times if I was sure I was okay, but no one yelled. He didn’t even mention the phone.

  The drive to Chicago brought back memories of being a little girl facing the first day of kindergarten. I wondered if they’d hold my hand, too, while escorting me into the office to receive my schedule.

  As we approached the city, I listened to them discuss White Castle with the fervor of a pair of potheads attacked by a case of the munchies. I shook my head and declined on account of my queasy stomach when Dad hit the drive-thru for a dozen tiny burgers.

  “Are you okay, baby?” Mom twisted around again to peer at me through alarmed gray eyes. “You never turn down food.”

  “A little nervous,” I admitted.

  “There’s nothing to be afraid of. Remember your father and I are only a call away. We’ll stow away enough magic to come visit you in a pinch if we have to.” Teleportation cost an extraordinarily high amount of magic, and even the strongest fae had to save essence for emergencies in their Dream Boxes. I couldn’t wait to have one of my own for hoarding faerie dust.

  “I’m not going to call you to hold my hand the first time something goes wrong,” I mumbled.

  “The second time then,” she said thoughtfully. “Either way, we’ll set aside some magic each week. If you ever truly need us, you call. We’ll be there as quick as we can.”

  I considered it. “Didn’t you tell me most places are naturally warded against teleporting?”

  Dad glanced at me through the rearview mirror. “Faerie Rings, Skylar. There’s always one guaranteed to be nearby, right? It isn’t easy to travel so far, but sometimes you have to look and find a way where it seems no other path exists.”

  In the years since I was born, my famous dad had raised over a dozen godsons, and every single one of them currently lived a charmed life. His ancestor was the faerie credited with leading Cinderella to the ball, and the talent for making miracles out of shit situations had passed to my father.

  Dad’s soft spot for homeless guys and abused children led him to pick the most difficult cases from the Godparent Databases, because he liked weaving rags-to-riches stories worthy of our family history.

  Whenever you turned on the news channel and you heard about the next big sensation in the music industry who came from a broken home with an abusive father and an alcoholic mother, that was my dad’s work. Some bum with a “golden voice” discovered by a radio show producer or jazz club owner? Dad did that too. He stayed in their lives long enough to create a solid future, and then he picked his next charge. Sometimes he worked several cases at a time.

  Mom’s deal was different from Dad. She had made a name for herself by finding women trapped in domestic violence and liberating them from their husbands. Those stories about chicks with no education or job experience who escaped their marriages to open their own businesses? All my mother. She usually stuck around longer than Dad, because it took about five years or more to turn a scared former housewife into a business tycoon.

  How was I ever going to live up to their expectations?

  “Ah, perfect. We’re almost there,” Dad said.

  We approached huge, wrought-iron gates decorated with the school’s gryphon mascot. Dad stuck his hand out of the window and did a magical gesture I didn’t recognize. The gates opened, and as we passed through onto the private road, a magical hum encompassed my body. They were enchanted to ward away evil entities and true danger, like the vampire who came close to tearing my head off last week.

  Dad’s classic Impala cruised a mile-long drive bordered by colorful plant life. Eventually, thick trees thinned to reveal manicured flower beds and a pristine emerald green lawn. The grounds were peppered by buildings influenced by old architecture, and the visitor center resembled a mansion more than a college office.

  Everything about Padraig N. Riordan University screamed opulence, identical to other private institutions in appearance but differing in function. To be
accepted at PNRU, students needed more than good grades, fancy applications, and respectable references.

  They had to be magical.

  Mom poked Dad in the shoulder. “Look, Marco, it’s hardly changed since we attended.”

  “We’ll have to revisit our spots while we’re here, dolcezza.” When he waggled his brows, Mom blushed. If being back on their old stomping grounds was going to make them act like randy teenagers again, I needed to get out of the car.

  As much as I loved that my parents were still over the moon for each other twenty-five years after their wedding, I didn’t want to hang around for their shameless flirting while they reminisced about every tree they’d kissed beneath.

  Dad was big on expressing his love for us, and I guess I couldn’t blame my mother either for giggling like a high school girl. I had inherited two of my best features from my handsome pops, receiving his multi-hued hair and green eyes. My golden-brown skin, oval face, and full lips came from Mom.

  “You two go on a tour while I register.”

  Before they could protest, I hopped from the car and sprinted toward the Student Services building. I signed in to see the academic counselor handling students A through G and took a seat, filled with the nervous jitters. Aside from a few vague paragraphs about educational excellence in a pretty brochure, I knew next to nothing about the school. Dad claimed it was an experience they couldn’t put into words, but I mostly thought he was just screwing with me.

  The girl to my left jerked when I settled behind her, snapping out of an apparent daydream. I envied her flame red hair at first sight. “Hello. Are you also new?” Strands in red to gold ombre framed her alabaster face, a sure sign of fae blood. We all naturally sported unnatural hair colors like we’d sat in the salon for expensive dye jobs.

  “Yeah. I’m Skylar Corazzi.”

  “Liadan Maguire.” Her voice rolled with a lyrical cadence.

  “So… Ireland?” I guessed.

  Liadan’s laughter cocooned me in comfort like a warm blanket from the dryer. “Yes. This is my first visit to the States. And you?”

  “I’m a native. Furthest away I’ve been was Italy to visit my grandfather.”

  Her shy smile didn’t waver. “What’s your major? Maybe you and I will share some classes.”

  “Criminal Justice.” Heat crept up my neck. It wasn’t a preferred choice among fae, but it wasn’t uncommon either. “What about you?”

  “Art History.”

  I cracked a grin. “At least we should share stuff like Supernatural Politics, right?”

  “Yes. It will be nice to go in and know someone already.”

  The call of my name from the office door cut me off before I could reply. Liadan gave me a little wave and mouthed “good luck” as I stood up and followed a woman with a severe bun restraining her silver-streaked brown hair. My guide waited for me to step inside then closed the door behind us.

  “Miss Corazzi, welcome. I am Mrs. Hansford, and I will be your contact at the guidance office. I have your class schedule here. Please take a seat.”

  My smile dropped. “I don’t get to choose?”

  Mrs. Hansford rounded her desk and eased into a leather executive chair. She passed over a folder thickened with brochures, maps, and paperwork. “All courses required for your chosen major are laid out for you, as well as those for your mandatory fae studies. There are a few electives available to freshman, and they fill quickly. We’ll select those now.”

  I crinkled my nose, unimpressed with the short electives list presented on the first page of my packet. The school offered a few language courses, different art classes, music, and a disinteresting handful of competitive sports, like tennis and women’s volleyball.

  “Fencing,” I said.

  The sorceress peered over the top of her halfmoon spectacles. “That’s an unusual choice. Wouldn’t you prefer art? Perhaps music. What instrument do you play?”

  “I don’t.”

  “Don’t what?”

  “I don’t play an instrument.” My parents didn’t believe in forcing me into unenjoyable activities, except for the dishes and occasionally vacuuming the entertainment room.

  Disappointment tugged the corners of her mouth into a frown. She cleared her throat and added fencing to the schedule. “Very well. What about your language requirement?”

  “My father is Italian. I’m fluent already.”

  “Then this will give you a third language to master.”

  Her idea of guidance slammed into me like a freight train. I sighed. “Spanish, please.” At least they were similar.

  Silence lapped between us while she typed on her laptop, so I flipped through my course schedule and a daunting list of prerequisites.

  “Orientation is tomorrow afternoon. Details are inside your packet, which you’ll want to bring with you at the scheduled time. Your room assignment is here.” She passed a second folder over with a keycard clipped to the thick manila. “Good luck and welcome to PNRU.”

  “Thanks,” I mumbled.

  “Are you forgetting something?”

  I froze, halfway between sitting and standing. “Er…”

  “Your test results.”

  Trepidation churned in my stomach, and I sank back into my chair. “Look, I know I didn’t exactly follow proto—”

  “You passed.”

  “—col…” I blinked. “Excuse me?”

  “I said you passed, Miss Corazzi. You’ll be allowed to shadow a junior faerie godparent this semester while most students take the remedial course and wait until spring. Isn’t that fantastic?”

  “But I didn’t sway Mindi.”

  The counselor offered a small, sympathetic smile. “You won’t be able to sway every charge. What matters is that in the face of danger, you maintained composure and made the attempt rather than quit when the hotline wasn’t available to tell you what to do. Most importantly, you didn’t allow a mortal to die. We’ve had our eye on Mindi Robinson for quite a while and look forward to watching her develop into a remarkable woman. Congratulations.”

  A cool head? Obviously Simon neglected to tell her I ran screaming down the alley while a few dozen bats hurled their furry bodies at me.

  “What would have happened if I walked away?”

  “Chief Examiner Bostwick would have intervened.”

  She said nothing about my altercation with the vampire, so I followed her lead and stood. “Thank you, Mrs. Hansford.”

  When I returned to the lobby, the girl with the fiery hair had left or moved on to her appointment. I frowned, disappointed I’d missed the chance to get her phone number.

  Outside, a cool Chicago breeze rustled my hair. Virginia’s humidity was gone, and in its place, I had persistent wind and cloudy skies. I breathed in the fresh air, enjoying the flowers on the breeze.

  Mom and Dad waved from a bench at the edge of the square.

  “You ready to go, baby girl?” Mom asked.

  “Yeah, let’s do this.”

  Dad’s car rumbled down a narrow university road and parked in front of the dormitory building. Every structure had been kissed by the timeless past, constructed from stone and glass, but beautiful. While my father did the heavy lifting, I wheeled my suitcase inside and summoned the elevator.

  A literal blank canvas awaited us, and with my mysterious roommates absent from the dorm, I had first pick from the three identical rooms. I took the one with a tree outside the window, furthest from the shared bathroom. Every surface gleamed white and void of color from the walls to the spotless furnishings in the shared living room.

  I instructed Dad where to place the heavy things, positioning the mini-fridge and setting up my desktop computer while Mom swished her magic wand. Between my elbow grease and their faerie magic, we transformed a dull space into my colorful and cozy haven. With one snap of his fingers, Dad turned an old bedsheet and flimsy chain into a hanging hammock made from thick canvas and wood. He didn’t need a wand.

  “Go on. Get i
n.”

  Eyeing it warily, I placed one knee into the curve and tested it with my weight. “This isn’t going to become a bedsheet again and fall apart while I’m sitting it in a week from now, is it?”

  Dad grinned. “No, of course not. I perfected the glamour just for you.”

  “Can the color not be hot pink.”

  He snapped again. It faded white and neon polka dots popped into place.

  “Perfect. Love you, Daddy.”

  “Love you too, bambolina. Where do you want the PlayStation?”

  “Eh, just put it on the living room couch.”

  They hung around long enough to join me for Panda Express at the campus food court, and then I walked them to the car.

  Mom hugged me tight. “I’m going to miss you so much, Sky. We’ll book you plane tickets around the holidays, okay? Be careful.”

  “Call every day,” Dad said. “At least until you get a life and forget about us.”

  “If I can get the phone,” I grumbled.

  “Yeah. About that.” He passed me a small silver box wrapped with a purple bow.

  My heart leapt in my chest. The new iPhone 9? Or 12? Whatever number they were on, I’d lost track since Dad made it clear I wouldn’t be getting one until I could afford it myself.

  “Dad, you’re the best!” I cried while fumbling it open.

  He waited with a big grin on his face—it should have been my first clue something was amiss—while I tore open the packaging. Inside, my old phone lay nestled within tissue paper. “I managed to save it, good as new, but don’t trust it to survive another accident. Magic won’t bring it back from the dead again.”

  “Many grains of rice died to bring you this phone,” my mom deadpanned. “Because your father is too cheap to buy you another.”

  I scowled but ultimately launched myself into Dad’s arms and hugged him. “You’re still the best no matter how much you troll me. I’ll miss you two crazies.”