Page 3 of House of Ydril

“The Pied Piper?” he asks, letting out a chuckle and waving an arm around. “She’s a very busy person. But don’t worry about it, you’ll have one of the students show you around.”

“Show me around?” I snap at him. “What the fuck do you all think you’re doing? If you think I’m just going to stand around and let you keep up with this sick joke…”

The young man throws me such a surprised, sad look that I instantly regret my outburst. He takes a step back, his face tensing up right before my eyes. He seems to be fighting not to show how much I’ve offended him. “You’re fae-blooded and you’re twenty-one. We’re only doing what’s required of us by the Law.”

I let out a laugh. “Fae? Look, dude,” I start, raising my eyebrows in amusement, “the only supernatural thing about me is how much chocolate I can eat in one sitting. So I think you’ve made a mistake.”

I turn to grab the door handle.

“That’s not possible,” he replies dryly. “If you weren’t one of us, the Pied Piper wouldn’t have been able to use the Flute to get you here in the first place.”

My hand is left hovering above the handle. I turn to face him again. I can feel my eyebrows pulling down into a frown, but I can’t do much more than blink at him stupidly.

Chapter three

Ican’tseemtowrap my head around it. It’s been an hour since I was discharged and told the student in charge of showing me around will be waiting for me at the Brothers’ Grimm statue. I still haven’t found it, mostly because I keep stopping every time I pass a mirror.

Under any other circumstances, if somehow I found myself in The Castle That Isn’t, more commonly referred to as Grimm Academy, I sure as hell wouldn’t feel the need to look at my own stupid face. I’d probably be running around, scrambling to take in as much of my surroundings as I can. The ancient tapestries on the stone walls, the gargoyles staring at me from every corner, the views from the windows that shouldn’t even exist… because we’re underground, for fuck’s sake. For the most part, at least.

But it’s not exactly the right time for me to do any sightseeing. I’ve just had my entire world shattered, after all. So I do it one more time. I stop in front of a very old-looking commode in the gazillionth hallway I’ve entered since I left the hospital wing.

Of course, the face staring at me from the ornate silver mirror hanging above it is the exact same face I can see in my bathroom every morning. Still, and I don’t know if it’s because I’ve started losing my mind or what, I start to see why someone might think I’m a fae. Sure, I’m curvier than they normally are. But my jawline is sharp, my eyes are large and I have that heart-shaped forehead.

So do a lot of humans, Quinn, I tell myself as I let out a frustrated breath. It’s easier with vampires and shifters. Physically speaking, faes and regular people can easily be mistaken for each other.

But how many regular people spend their entire lives feeling like fish out of water among others? I guess I always assumed I felt that way because I was an orphan. And now, now I don’t really know what to think anymore.

I make myself snap out of it and keep walking in the direction of the Main Hall, following the instructions the young man gave me. At first, the hallways were mostly deserted. I guess not a lot of students end up in the hospital on the very first day of school. But then the hallways become wider and I start seeing a lot of them, strolling around and cracking jokes, as if this was all perfectly normal.

It is tothem, I remind myself as I try not to stare. I’ve seen a couple of shifters before, but other than that, I’ve had no contact with any of the royal bloodlines. I know enough to be able to assume that the young man from the hospital was a fae, but so am I. Supposedly.

I do manage to keep myself from staring, at least until I see one of the shifters, well,shift, right before my eyes. I suck in a panicked breath and force myself to keep walking as I watch the giant snake wrap itself around a stone pillar. Of course, no one else bats an eye.

The shock I’m feeling almost makes me miss it. But as soon as I turn the corner, there it is, smack in the middle of what looks like an entrance hall. The statue of the brothers who first revealed the Originals to the world. It’s so large and imposing, showing the two of them holding actual balls of light in their palms, that I get a bit mesmerized by it despite my current state. I walk up to it and read the inscription.Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, 1847. That’s all it says, but of course, everyone knows who they were and what they did. The two brothers responsible for the Unveiling, the biggest event in world history in at least the last two centuries. The day when the veil fell and the Scions were made aware of the existence of the Originals.

For one long moment, I just keep staring at the statue, trying to picture what it was like. To find out that the creatures from fairy tales were living and breathing beings.

Then, curiosity gives way to uneasiness. I’ve found myself in a world I know next to nothing about.

Whatever I do, I can’t let myself forget that.

Can I even be sure that it’s true? That the Concordium is still a thing? I glance around, making sure the student assigned as my tour guide isn’t already looking for me. Then I take a seat on the upper of the three steps leading to the statue and I whip out my phone.

I do a quick search, using ‘breaking the Concordium’ as the keyword. It feels weird because this pact is something I’ve always known about, but it was never of any actual interest to me. And there’s not a lot of results, but one of them is fairly recent. News of a shifter who refused to enroll in his academy because he believed education equaled brainwashing. The sentence passed? Death by Mind Magic.

I feel myself shudder, my mind threatening to stop keeping panic and despair shoved away for when they’re more convenient to deal with. But just as I open up my social media to see what Lisa’s up to, trying to find comfort or at least a shred of sanity in my usual tricks, I feel someone’s eyes on me.

I look up and find a strange girl standing only a few feet away from me. “You Quinn?” she asks as she tilts her head in a questioning way. Her body is toned, tattooed and tan, while the hair is blonde streaked with the purest white I’ve ever seen. A shifter, I’m almost sure.

I barely manage to nod in reply to her question before she slides closer to me, her eyes growing wide. “I heard you were brought here by the Pied Piper herself. You need to tell me all about that.”

I raise my eyebrows, throwing her an amused look.

“Oh right,” she says as she takes a step back, looking away for a second as if she’s embarrassed. “My name is Nuala and I’m supposed to show you around.”

For the first time in what feels like forever, I let out a chuckle. There’s palpable tension in the sound. After all, I haven’t exactly had time to process everything that’s going on, let alone figure out whether it’s good or, um, catastrophically bad. But at least I think I could like this girl.

Chapter four

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