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“Is that why you’re in this closet?” I figured the snake was on time-out or something.
“No,” it responded. “I prefer to take my repose in the dark and this out-of-the-way closet is exactly that.”
“Well, sorry for waking you up then.”
But my mind was still on the fact that the headmistress had set the mirror portal up as a test. I supposed it made a sick amount of sense. If the other students were as ignorant of the tradition as I was, they were probably beside themselves by the time they were let through. It made it that much easier for the headmistress to assert her authority. Good little witches would fall into line for fear of being expelled. I bit back a snort of disgust. Typical witchy psychological warfare.
“Thanks for turning on the light. I’d hate to break any of the headmistress’ things,” I said to the snake who nodded at me. “I’m Astrid Depraysie, by the way. What should I call you?”
“And the child is so polite, too,” the snake hissed. “My mistress calls me Daegal.”
Ah, the snake was a ‘he’ then. I could feel his bubbling amusement. I had the feeling he liked me, against his better judgement. Or maybe ‘like’ was too strong a word—he was amused by me. I was getting good at reading the thoughts and motives of the animals I came across. It was a gift that came with zoolingualism, the most recent power I’d manifested. It wasn’t a common witch talent, which meant I’d probably inherited it from a non-human parent. But I didn’t have time to speculate who my baby daddy had been. It wasn’t important. He wasn’t important—after all, I’d never even met him.
“Thanks again, Daegal, but I gotta go now. Talk to you later?”
“Almost certainly,” he said. Yes, he was definitely amused.
I took a deep breath to steady my shaking hand before twisting the doorknob and stepping into an office.
Chapter Two
The first thing that struck me was the smell.
It was a thick, cloying smell of… clove? Maybe patchouli oil too? Whatever it was, it reminded me of the long, often grueling hours learning potions in Poppy’s backroom while Finn sat opposite me, doing his homework. Thinking about Finn and Poppy gave me a happy, warm feeling, and I felt myself smile: just what I needed to bolster my failing nerves.
The walls of the office were curved stone, painted mauve. There were no windows. The room was lit by a large oil lamp that sat on a great wooden desk, lending the place a cozy feel. Most of the curved walls were covered by tall bookshelves, filled almost entirely with books, more books than I’d ever seen in one place. And that was really saying something, given where I’d grown up. Aunt Celestine’s library had been her pride and joy. I’d spent more hours than I could count in the cavernous place, yet this collection put hers to shame.
On the floor were thick carpets and dark red and green rugs with beautiful mandala patterns. The elaborate fireplace was unlit and boasted a large antique clock sitting atop the wooden mantle. I’d arrived with a minute to spare. Four plush red armchairs were arranged nearby, and three of them were already occupied by two women and one tall man who was hunched over a book.
They were all attractive in their own way. The oldest woman was tall, even sitting down, and held herself with the sort of grace one usually associated with royalty. Her hair was dark, threaded through with gray. That had to be Headmistress Aurea Grimsbane, if I had to guess—she just had this air of authority. The woman sitting beside her was an almost exact copy of the headmistress if you shaved off about a hundred years and twenty pounds. Her daughter, most likely.
But it was the man that held my attention. He was the oddity with his thick, shoulder-length chestnut hair, sharp, angular features, and thin but intriguing lips. He glanced up from his book as I stepped through the door to the office, hazel eyes twinkling with good humor, seeming mildly amused at the sight of me. The two women were considerably less pleased, which only seemed to make him smirk more.
I couldn’t help but flash them a cheeky smile. Just in arriving here, I’d passed their stupid test and gotten one over on them and they knew it. Score one for me. And the man knew it too—in fact, my smile made his smirk tick up a notch. At least someone was pleased by my success.
“Astrid Depraysie,” the headmistress said, stiffly. “You were very nearly late.”
“Nearly,” I emphasized.
She didn’t seem pleased. “Do you have anything to say for yourself?”
“I apologize,” I responded, but even I could hear the insincerity in my own voice. “It won’t happen again, I promise.”
Her full lips pressed into an angry line, but she had enough decorum not to call me on the lie. She gestured at the empty seat across from the three of them. “Sit.”
I sat, eyeing more of the artifacts on her shelves. Glass jars and beakers, bird skulls of varying sizes, taxidermized rodents, and strange photos of grim-faced, white-haired women in robes staring seriously at the viewer. There were also unsettling glass jars filled with strange and disturbing specimens. One looked like it housed a human eye suspended in clear liquid. I got the unnerving feeling that the eye wasn’t merely floating, but, instead, that it was watching the goings on in the room around it, its pupil dilating as it observed me scanning the shelves.
The headmistress offered me a hand. It wasn’t a friendly gesture, but more of a queen extending a dubious honor to a peasant. I wasn’t sure if she wanted me to shake it or kiss one of her many rings. I debated on milking her fingers while telling her the old joke about a farmer’s handshake but decided that might not go over well. So, I settled on a simple handshake and instantly regretted it. Her grip was impressively tight—almost like she was trying to crush my bones. Hmm, maybe she’d gotten a whiff of that farmer milking his cow joke and didn’t like it?
Once I’d freed my hand from her iron grip, she turned to face the other woman in the room.
“And this is my daughter, Vivian. She’ll show you to your room after this formality is concluded.”
I repeated the handshake, with similar results. I could only hope I’d packed some icy-hot because I had a feeling that steel grip of theirs would make itself known in my hand later. Then I leaned toward the man, hand extended. If it was tradition to trade bone-shattering grips, it seemed wrong to leave him out. But when I offered my hand, his eyes widened in surprise, and he stared at it like he’d never seen one before. Hmm… weird.
The headmistress sucked in a shocked breath and then snapped, “Ms. Depraysie! What do you think you’re doing!”
I frowned at her. “Um, offering to shake his hand?”
