Page 27 of Mud

The Iridian School of Chromatic Magics was in front of me, the building twice as big as the private offices I was used to studying in with our private tutors. This was an actual school with over six hundred Iridians in attendance every year. A school of magic, not a class of eleven stinking rich, privileged children of the city’s wealthiest families.

An actual school swarming with teenagers of all colors, and I was to go in there, and I was to be a part of it starting today. For the next six months.

Six months of freedom from Baltimore. Madeline. Poppy.Everyone.

Most importantly, six months of freedom from Rosabel La Rouge.

For a moment there as I stood at the bottom of the long stairway that led to the school, I allowed myself to smile. Andmaybe I wanted to allow myself to smile more often while I was here, too. And maybe I wanted to allow myself to talk to people and make friends and give some color to my life—whileI did what the IDD wanted me to do. What David Hill had brought me here to do, despite Madeline’s objections.

I looked at the papers in my hands that I’d been given by the driver, who dropped me and my suitcases off right by the sidewalk at my request. From this moment on and for the next six months, I would be Rosabel Miller, a Redfire from a small town on the other side of the country, come to finish her studies in school for the last semester before she went back home again.

That’s how I took those stairs, dragging my suitcases behind—as Rosabel Miller.

And I’d never felt more likemesince the day my parents died.

Students everywhere. Teenagers of all ages, big groups of them hanging together, their uniforms simple—white shirts, charcoal black pants for boys, and skirts for girls—and the details, like the threads and the pins and the color of their shoelaces told you exactly which coven each one of them belonged to. The corridors were wide, the ceilings tall, the entire building made out of yellowish white stone. The tapestries and the lamps on the walls, even the benches on the sides of the hallways were in the colors of the covens as if to show that they all owned this building. It belonged to all schools of magic equally, and I loved them more than I thought I would.

Everybody was an equal here, by the looks of it. For the first time in my life, I felt like I might actually fit in—only because nobody knew, and nobodycouldknow who my family was. Who my grandmother was.

So liberating I couldn’t stop smiling even while carrying my heavy suitcases all the way to the administration office.

It took them two hours to find my name, give me a list of books I needed, a list of classes to register for, then to process my application for said classes. Then they had to find my room in the dorms and an available scout to show me there, as well as to tell me about the main parts of the building made of four—what they called—towers.

All the while, Iwasn’ttreated any differently than the other seventeen students who were transferring to this school this semester, just like me, probably for different reasons. They didn’t look like spies to me, but then again, neither did I. That’s what Hill loved about me—I lookedso perfectly innocent, he said.

The memory of our conversations made me uneasy, so right now I didn’t think about it at all. I just went along happily, didn’t think about who I needed to find or what I needed to do while I was here.All in due time.

The dormitories for the girls in senior year were located in twenty differentchambers,the boy who took me there said. Each chamber had fifteen rooms, complete with a bathroom, a kitchen, and a common studying area. Who slept where was decided randomly, not by coven, which was another thing I found amazing. Back home in our private tutoring, we were all divided, each coven on their own side, on their own set of tables in the huge classroom. Our uniforms had been different, too—fancy and with a hundred layers—but that already seemed like a lifetime away now.

I was here. I was in an actual school, and I was going to enjoy it no matter what.

They put me in the third chamber with fourteen other girls, most of whom weren’t there right now, but aboutseven sat in the loungers and recliners in the main studying area. They introduced themselves, showed me to the free room—up the stairs and to the end of the corridor on the right.

It was a small room, smaller than my bathroom back home, but it wasmine.The bed looked old, the wardrobe not even nearly big enough to fit all my clothes, the desk cracked and engraved with names of students who’d lived here before me, stained with ink everywhere—and I absolutelyadoredit. Every little detail, every crack and every surface—I adored all of it.

That was my first day in the Iridian School of Chromatic Magics.

On the second, I met him.

I was starting to get a little bit frustrated waiting there at the corner of the courtyard, which was basically a large field full of grass and trees and benches for the students to relax, study, or just hang out with each other. The cafeteria was at the other end of the building, and there were plenty who chose to eat on the grass, too.

One of the professors was supposed to meet me here on the morning of my second day to deliver all the information I needed about the guy I was supposed to spy on. Right now, all I had was a name. Once I had his file, I’d know who he was, what he was after, and what to look for while I basically followed him around to map out a schedule for Hill. I was to report directly to him about it, too. I had a special phone that I was always to keep fully charged and never use for anything else.

But it had been almost an hour of me waiting herealone. I was hungry, and I wanted to go join the girls of my dorm who’d told me to catch up with them later.

Actual girls my age who didn’t hate me on sight and who didn’t contemplate how they could benefit from me the second we met. Again, it was because they didn’t know who I was, but I took it.Undercoverwas the name for this. And I’d stay under this cover for years if they let me.

An hour and a half.

No professor in sight, and classes started in forty minutes. Today we would only be introduced to the general program for this semester. The actual classes began after the weekend. Iridian schools had different programs than human ones, but introduction was important. I wasn’t going to miss it for the world, and I was most definitely not starting the day with a growling stomach.

The mysterious professor could find me later when he was free. I’d waited long enough.

So, I made my way to the cafeteria to get myself a nice breakfast.

It wasn’tniceby any means, but it was eggs and sausage and bread and milk, which didn’t exactly look fresh. But still, it could have been worse—that’s what I told myself.

Then he came.

---