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She pats the floor next to where she sits, a MacBook with pink and teal leopard skin open on her lap. “Then come. Time to cram a year’s worth of studies into your brain. All of the other students attended a ‘Summer camp’ every year run by the Evermore where we learned most of the basic stuff. But I brought along some materials as a refresher. We can use those until your books show up.”
I grin; I can already tell Mack is a great student. I’d bet anything she was top of her class in high school.
My heart clenches as I remember how much I used to love school. I wasn’t a next-level-overachiever like Mack, but I liked learning about worlds outside our small little town.
“I can help you study this weekend and then in the off hours this week,” she continues, all business. “We shadow our keepers from after lunch to sundown, then an hour of fight training. After that, the rest of the time is ours.”
“How generous,” I mutter. “Wait, back up. Fight training?”
“Yeah. That’s what we do as shadows. Protect our charge.”
“But, they’re Fae, basically gods. Why do they need us to protect them?”
“Obviously you’ve never seen darklings around Fae,” she says. “Something about the Fae’s magic makes the darklings go into a feeding frenzy.”
“Yeah, but the Fae have magic, and they’re infinitely stronger than us.”
“True, but darklings are incredibly hard to kill, and only one thing can finish them off. Know what that is?”
I shrug.
“Here’s a hint: it kills Fae too.”
“Iron?” I offer.
“Exactly. A Fae can’t get within ten feet of the stuff. But guess who can?”
“Us.”
She nods. “And infused with oils from rowan berries and the ash tree? Absolutely lethal. So . . .” She stretches her arms as a proud smile splits her lips. “In short, they may be gods, but they need us.”
“Could have fooled me.” Resigned to enduring a weekend of studying, I sit cross-legged beside her on the floor and eye the clothes inside her suitcase. “Wait, I thought we couldn’t bring anything but the clothes on our backs?”
She snorts. “We were allowed to send our bags months ago to be inspected and approved. You didn’t . . .” The truth dawns in her eyes, and she bites her lip. “Of course you didn’t have time. So that means you have . . . nothing?”
I sweep a hand over my outfit. “Just my lucky hoody, my ass-kicking boots, and my awesome self.”
Her gaze slides to the mound of clothes in her suitcase. “I would let you borrow an outfit, but I don’t think it would fit.”
She’s right. She’s short and curvy; I’m tall and one lost meal away from withering into full-blown starvation.
“Anyway,” she continues. “That’s at the bottom of our priorities. First thing we need to do is give you the rundown on this place and the rules.”
I watch as she pulls out a manila envelope with glossy 8x10 photos from the nearby desk. When she hands me the first picture and I spy the face of Inara grinning menacingly at me, I nearly recoil, fighting the urge to rip the picture into tiny shreds.
It doesn’t help that the pictures are imbued with some sort of magic so that Inara’s face actually changes from a smile to a sneer inside my hands.
“Be gone, Satan,” I whisper, flipping Inara’s face onto the ground.
“Here.” Mack slides an entire stack of portraits toward me. “Memorize these. They have every Evermore student in the school, along with their court, ranking, and powers on the back.”
“This will take years,” I grumble.
“You don’t have years. You have ten minutes.”
I glare at my bossy new roommate overlord as she hops up, rifles through her clothes, and then pulls out a Nespresso coffee maker. “Technically we’re not supposed to bring any modern technology that isn’t school related to the academy, but everyone does it. Memorize those bios and you get one of these bad boys.”
She waggles a shiny orange espresso pod in my face.
