Page 2 of After Darkness Falls

Chloe couldn’t even recall a time when she hadn’t had Priss. She didn’t even think. The pet carrier against her chest, she walked right out of the vet and into Michelle White’s distinguished home.

She’d left without her cat. Because the moment Priss had come to, after the healing, she’d jumped on Chelle’s lap and claimed a new owner.

Animals took to witches, sometimes. Chelle apologized profusely, but Chloe had just been glad Priss was healthy and happy.

Still. That the queen would go through the trouble of writing her a recommendation blew her mind.

Chloe had refused to let herself believe that her luck could finally have turned, that she could really have a future—a good one that didn't involve her killing her back, legs, and wrists while sleazy assholes called her names and touched her ass. She didn't have a thing against waitresses—they were practically saints for putting up with the amount of crap customers dished out at them—but God, she really, really didn't want to do it until retirement.

Telling herself that she might get into the Institute, and then having to face disappointment when the refusal came, was not something she wanted to go through again.

But the letter that had arrived from England had started with "Congratulations."

If someone had told her seven years ago that she’d be admitted to the Institute someday, she would have snorted and recommended that they lay off dodgy mushrooms.

There were a lot of things she wouldn’t have foreseen back then.

Now she was heading to another country, where the name George Miller meant nothing, and Chloe Miller, even less.

This was a chance, a new beginning, and she wasn't messing it up. Even if it killed her.

* * *

Chloe grinned as the customs employee stamped the very first inked logo onto her brand-new passport.

"Welcome to London, miss."

He smiled pleasantly as he handed the documents back to her.

"Thank you. Glad to be here. Anything I shouldn't miss while I'm in the city?"

It occurred to her then that the tall, handsome man with sun-kissed skin, Indian features, and a delightful British accent was part of the border force, not a tourist guide, but, as always, her tongue had worked faster than her brain.

The man leaned forward, lowering his voice to a whisper.

"You want to take a hop-on hop-off tour; it'll stop at every landmark so you can get off and visit. And if you're into that sort of thing," he added with a wink, "there's also ghost tours."

She beamed, glad she’d asked.Ghost tours.

"Thank you, Henry," she said, glancing at his name tag. "You have a good day."

“Same to you, miss.”

He tilted his hat and rearranged his features into a severe expression before calling the next traveler forward.

As she only had a backpack, she headed right out of the terminal and took the train from Heathrow to Paddington, in great spirits and ready to immerse herself in the unfamiliar city.

Chloe had slept most of the six-hour flight, which had left at seven in the evening and arrived at seven the next morning. What a headache. It was now one in the morning back in Louisiana, and if she hadn't crashed, the jet lag would have been a thousand times worse.

Shefelt a wave of gratitude toward the stranger who’d written the highly detailed correspondence to her. Along with her acceptance letter, the Institute had added a thick envelope with the most useful welcome pack she’d ever seen. Bubbliness oozed from each of the three pages of longhand advice written on thick, grained paper by someone named Blair Lawson, who perfumed her letters and sealed them with wax and a bit of lavender.

Blair was Chloe's mentor. On the first line of her long message, she informed Chloe that this was her second time mentoring, and that the subject of her first mentee should never, ever be mentioned. And then, she merrily launched into what she called the "Survival Manual 101."

Bullet point seventeen said, "Travel: crash on your way to Europe. As a general rule, I find that if I'm going to the right side of the globe, I need to sleep and bring on the coffee."

Chloe hadn't been sure she'd be able to sleep in the plane, but the comfortable business-class seats were better than her bed back home.

She owed that, and so much more, to her boss. She never would have been able to pay for the cross-Atlantic travel on such short notice, on top of all her expenses. The school was funded by its alumni and didn't accept tuition fees from students, but still, the dorms and meal plans hadn't been cheap. Charles had made it a non-issue on the very day she received her acceptance letter.

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