Page 4 of House of Ydril

“Soit’snotsomethingthat normally happens?” I ask Nuala as she leads me through a huge archway behind the statue and into the biggest room I’ve ever laid eyes on.

“A Pied Piper personally coming for students?” she says, craning her neck to look at me. She laughs, the sound both deep and flowy. “Not since, like, the nineteenth century.” She pauses, frowns and then shakes her head vigorously. “Yeah, since the Unveiling. So this here is the Main Hall,” she adds in her formal tour-guide voice as she stops to let me take a look around.

Don’t mind if I do, I think to myself. It’s loud and packed with groups of students who all seem to be busy catching up with their friends after the summer break. My eye is drawn to so many different things at once that I can barely register anything in particular. Weird statues lining the walls, some of them covered in moss even though we’re inside. Animals, large and small, climbing the colorful couches and armchairs everywhere I look. And let’s not forget the piles of old books everywhere around us. I drool a little.

“It’s where we come to hang out,” I hear Nuala say, “although there’s a lot of common rooms, too. But this one seems to be everyone’s favorite.”

“Uh-huh,” I nod, my eyes fixed on a couple of students sitting at a low table, all staring at a metal cube levitating in the air above them. As I watch it, the cube shifts into a spiked ball and I see one of the students lean back in his chair with a smug smile on his face. But almost instantly, the ball turns back into a cube and I hear that same student curse loudly, wiping blood off his cheek.

Nuala’s voice snaps me out of my trance. “I think you’ll have a lot of fun here.” She’s leaning in so I can feel her breath on my skin. “But if someone asks you to play a game with them…” She pauses and I turn to look at her. “You better think twice before you say yes.”

I raise my eyebrows slightly, but she just gives me a shrug and keeps walking. “Chop, chop,” she chirps out, “I have a lot more to show you.”

I don’t protest. I just pick up the pace and patiently let her lead me through a million more hallways as she explains where most of my classes will be held, where I can get books, what professors to avoid and so on and so forth.

At one point, after she tells me Ireallyhave to try the cafeteria cheesecake for the millionth time, I feel the urge to stop her. We’re in the middle of a wide hallway with rows of double doors, the classrooms behind them still empty. “I’m sorry if this is rude, Nuala, but I think there’s someone in this castle, someone in charge of student selection, who thinks I have amuchfatter wallet than I actually do.”

She quirks an eyebrow at me and then lets out a laugh. “You don’t pay for this yourself, silly.”

I just blink at her stupidly. Back at the center, we can’t even make sure all the kids have roofs over their heads. And here, it’s ‘Let them eat cheesecake’ day, every day.

Of course, Nuala has no idea what’s going through my mind. And she seems to have agendas of her own. “You know, it just crossed my mind…” She throws me a hopeful look. “You probably don’t want all this info being forced on you on your first day here.”

I hesitate. The more I learn about this place, the better my chances of surviving it. The Castle That Isn’t has a certain reputation and I’m far from fitting right in.

“And I’ve no idea how much you know about the Academy,” Nuala interrupts my train of thought, using the same gently persuading tone, “but it’s fucking huge and it never stops changing. Trying to give you the full tour is kind of pointless. But of course, if that’s what you want...”

I almost burst out laughing, that’s how funny the look on her face is. It’s like she’s bracing herself for hearing me say yes and trying not to look too sour about it.

“If you’ll just show me the Towers,” I say with a smile, “we can call it a day. I’ve read lots about the castle in, well, human magazines.”

She throws me a dazzling smile, her face visibly relaxing. “Oh, you have to tell me all about those.”

I smile back, feeling actual excitement about seeing with my own two eyes what us humans generally only ever get to see in photos.

Ushumans?

I shake my head as I follow Nuala back to the entrance hall. Right opposite the archway leading into the Main Hall, I spot what seems to be an elaborate brushed-brass lift.

How the fuck did I miss this, I think to myself as we walk up to it. But it’s really no surprise.

“This,” Nuala turns to say as she presses one of the million buttons to the side of the lift, “is something they installed right after the Unveiling. It’s clumsy, I know,” she chuckles as we enter and she presses another button, “but the Architect at the time was kinda obsessed with all things human.”

Just as I open my mouth to tell her none of this could ever seem clumsy to me, the lift opens and I suck in a breath.

As soon as we step out of it, the Elevator disappears and we find ourselves outside, the deep, dark forest looming from the horizon as I take in the garden overgrown with moss, reeds and prickly bushes. There are gravel paths leading to its center, where I see a solitary stone statue that I recognize from photos. It’s the statue of Dame Gothel, one of the most famous Originals of all times, her long cloak and wild hair made to appear as if they’re billowing in the wind.

But of course, what draws my attention are the Towers themselves, the only part of the castle that’s not underground. Plenty of distance between them, they shoot up into the darkening sky as if they were three enormous fingers threatening to pierce it.

“Lemme guess,” I say, raising my hand to point at the one nearest to us, the one leaning dangerously to one side, all covered in vines. “Thatis the House of Ydril.”

“Yep,” Nuala nods, shifting from leg to leg as if she’s having trouble staying in one place. “That's yours.” She turns slightly to the left to point at the one with a surface so smooth, it seems to reflect light. “That right there is the House of Lilith,” she recites, “and the one bordering with the forest is the House of Lycan.”

As she says that, my eyes sweep up and down the tower that looks the oldest, probably because of all the rough stone.

“That’s yours?”

She nods.

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