Page 29 of Shadow Caster
Yeah … Yeah. I had. Thinking back on it … How the fuck had I done that?
“Get some sleep,” Minnie said. “We hit the books hard once the goblet ceremony is over.”
* * *
“This is the library.”Minnie swept through the huge double doors and did a cute little wave thing as if introducing me to an actual person. “Library, this is Justice, she will be nestling in your bosom soon.”
I shook my head and laughed softly. “I don’t nestle.”
But there was no denying the room had allure. Moonlight streamed in from tall, thin gothic windows but was overshadowed by the lights from two huge chandeliers hanging high above us.
The ceiling was a floor high, and balconies ran along the periphery of the room, but both floors were home to sofas and desks, not books. In fact, the only floor with any books was the one we were standing on. They filled a wall to our left and several stacks in the center of the room. Students sat at long tables, heads down, studying. Others sat on comfy sofas arranged in clusters with coffee mugs and fiction novels. A warm hush filled the room, the hush of knowledge being absorbed and worlds being explored.
Minnie leaned in. “Reference books to the left. Most of the stacks contain plastic slip-covered articles and accounts of attacks and supernatural events that have occurred over the last few centuries. We have a ton of history books to help us study the evolution of man. We also have a cool fiction section, mainly contemporary romance and literary fiction. I mean, who wants to read fantasy when you’re living it, although we do have a few novels that are on the required texts for Supernaturals in Human Society classes.” She led the way through the stacks. “It helps to blend in and to understand the human psyche if we look at what’s prominent in fantasy literature.”
It was cool and silent in the stacks, like a different world. The shelves rose high on either side of us, and even though the ceiling was a floor above us, there was still a sense of being cocooned.
“You’d be surprised how many bookshaven’tbeen written on the supernatural and the mist,” Minnie said. “The ones that matter are kept at headquarters. But we have what we need, and at the Academy, the tutors are the real books.”
I stared at her. “That was kind of poetic.”
Her cheeks flushed. “I suppose it was.” She took a left, and there was a cluster of sofas, a coffee table, and a desk for two. “This is our spot.” She smiled. “I like to come here to study. It’s been a Faraday haunt forever. Lloyd left it to me.”
“You can’t just leave someone a spot in a library.”
She snorted. “Have you met my family?”
“Point taken.”
“This will be our hangout as of tomorrow. Come on, we better get to class.”
* * *
Madam Garnet,the sim tutor, also taught Endangered Supernatural Species in a small room on the first floor of the study wing. It was cramped, but the class was small because it wasn’t a required class, but an elective, one my father had thought it prudent to have added to my schedule.
It was also our last class for the evening. With the goblet ceremony ball pending, the scholastic day had been cut short.
But even though the room buzzed with excitement and anticipation for the festivities to come, there was no tuning out in Garnet’s class, plus, since I needed to keep my grade up, I’d better pay attention.
A couple of months ago, my only worries were which fights to pick, and how to make enough money to avoid having to dip into the fund daddy had set up for me. And now I was wearing an actual uniform and sitting in class, paying attention like a good little student.
It made me sick.
Because this wasn’t me. It was another attempt by Daddy Dearest to make me into the person he wanted me to be. The person I’d given up trying to be months ago.
I wasn’t a student or a scholar. I led with my fists and lived on instinct, not logic. But this was survival. Pass and live, or fail and die. Simple. Once this was over, we’d be given a choice—take up the Nightwatch mantle or decline. I could walk away having kept my part of the deal, because nothing in the deal said I had to actually be a Watch agent, just that I had to come to the Academy and graduate.
“Miss Justice!” Garnet’s voice snapped me out of my reverie. “Morphs. Go.”
Morphs? What the … I looked to Minnie in a panic.
Garnet rolled her eyes. “Points for attending, Miss Justice, but you won’t get the grades if you don’t bloody pay attention. Miss Faraday, how about you educate your friend.”
Minnie shot me a sheepish look. “A morph is a creature that can take the form of any other living thing as long as that living thing has just died.”
“Correct.” Miss Garnet perched on the edge of her desk, booted legs crossed. “Morphs have been hunted for generations, considered dangerous because of their ability to take on not just someone’s form but also their memories. The council has issued a law to protect the species, but it’s been several decades since a morph has been seen.”
“And how would you know even if you did see one?” Harmon asked from the back of the class. “I mean if they can take on any form.”
