Page 8 of Faerie Marked

I lifted the laptop lid and clicked the power button, giving the machine time to wake up. The screen glowed blue in the dim hush of night. I had work to do.

Thirty minutes later I still hadn’t found the right website. There were a few links that seemed promising at the time but led to something either completely different or a blank page asking if I wanted to purchase the domain name.

So yes, someone had updated their online application process, but then made it insanely hard for any normal person to find.

A way to weed out the weak before they even applied?

It took me another thirty minutes to get through enough false starts and leads to fill a ship.I’m never going to find this damned site. Fatigue and frustration went hand in hand, and another glance at the clock assured me it was hours past my bedtime and my birthday was long over.

No wonder I wanted to throw the computer out the window. Good thing Uncle Will wouldn’t expect me to rise early. He probably wouldn’t be out of bed before noon either.

Then I thought of my “fated mate.” I thought of the lustful sneer on Kendrick’s face the one and only time I’d seen him, and all of the nasty things I’d heard regarding his temperament. I could deal with the sleepiness if it meant anoutfrom a lifetime with him.

I clicked around with whatever combination of words I could think of to find the website.

And got a hit right when I was about to call it quits.

“It can’t be…” I muttered, leaning closer and blinking blurry eyes to read the text.

Probably not. The longer I looked at the page, the more it seemed like a joke. A silly thing, similar to the Harry Potter sorting hat quiz online. Probably fiction and a waste of my time.

But I clicked anyway, the way I had every other site before this one.

The Fae Academy for Halflings. Along with an address in Massachusetts.

A light came on inside of me.

Another click gave me a full page containing a brief history of the place including pictures of the old castle. It rose three stories high with turrets in an antiquated style one rarely saw anymore. Old stone and mortar with quintessential English ivy suffocating parts of the walls. Old wavy glass reflected light from the sun burning overhead when the pictures were taken.

It seems like a nice place, I thought, leaning closer still. A place where I couldescape. If it was real.

In that respect, it didn’t matter what the school looked like. It only mattered if they accepted me.

The castle housing the academy was located on fifty acres set well back from the road. It made for more privacy, certainly, and if there were many Fae located in the same place, then they more than likely had magic to protect them from prying eyes.

Though my eyes burned, I read through the process of enrollment and graduation, including how to earn permanent residency.

And then I clicked the button to enroll. Now or never.

The questions seemed ridiculous at first, like pictures of treasure chests and a space for me to answer which one I would choose and why. There were questions asking about Fae weaknesses and strengths with options where none of them appeared to line up with usual lore. An example:

Faebane—deadly poison, delicious tea, or party favor.

Which should I choose?

Those questions were most likely intended to weed out the real submissions from the fake ones. Except I was half Fae and Istilldidn’t know the answer.

Anxiety roiled beneath my ribs. Maybe I should put this off until I could get some sleep. Wait until I had a clearer head—

Kendrick Grimaldi.

Yeah, nope. No time to waste.

Besides the strange multiple-choice questions, the rest of the application read like an online quiz and I finished it easily. There was a space for me to fill in my information toward the end of the enrollment, along with a blank space for me to write about why I wanted to go to the academy.

I paused, biting my thumbnail. I couldn’t tell the truth or they would never accept me.

They won’t accept you anyway. They will never let somenobodyin.

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