Page 5 of Tall Dark and Evil

School is a familiar agony.

I'm housed with my cousins in the tower of magiks, as far away from the common students as possible on this vast campus. When the faculty proposed that I claim a room on the floor reserved for the Frejr, I protested the arrangement.

The reason whymagik users are housed apart from the rest of the campus is because witches and warlocks can be dangerous while undergoing training. The sorcery syllabi my cousins follow are meant to push their abilities. That doesn't happen without the occasional accident. It makes sense to separate them from the commons.

Me? Not so much. I may have innate magik, but I buried it deep, under layers of carefully crafted spells and shields.

I lasted a month in the common dorms before changing my tune and moving out.

Away from the main building, deep in the grove at the edge of the campus grounds, our tower stands, dark and alone, with shards of crystal glinting on its iridescent roof. It stands to reason that the building is so far from everything else—it occasionally explodes or catches fire, depending on what its students are working on.

I sleep better here than I did in the bright, golden castle. My room's across the hall from Mar. Only a fool would dare mess with me here, and if the students of Five are many things, foolish isn't one of them.

The Frejr dorms are on the top floor, so I have to wake early every single day, descend through the entire building and run through the grove, then across the gardens to make it to my morning lectures.

I'm to become a healer. The gods know my family can use one. The Frejr schooling includes many, many classes in stabbing and potion brewing. Far fewer in remedies and care.

My mother was proud of me when I made the decision, over ten years ago now. Estelle Frejr has a soft spot when it comes to me. The rest of the clan think me a coward or a wastrel. I've learned not to let it get to me.

"Hey, Frejr."

I smile at one of the few friends I have in this place, a common girl as much of an outcast as me, because besides not having a drop of magik in her veins, she's also poor. She got in with a merit scholarship, which doesn't happen. At all.No oneis good enough for that grant; she’s literally the only one who’s gotten it in the entire university. It takes exceptional abilities in everything for the faculty of Five to let inplebians.

It doesn't help that she's from Dorath, a kingdom notoriously ruled by its assassin's guild and merchant's guild. By merchants, read thieves.

We may not be close, butDaria has a bigger target on her back than I do in this school. We understand each other. Which is why she's holding a coffee cup out to me.

"I love you," I tell her.

"Careful, it's hot."

I've already poured half the drink down my throat.

She laughs and shakes her head. "You demis are such freaks." She says it without heat, and I don't get offended. She's right. I am.

"You get straight As in physics. You're the freak."

"I'd get a second-degree burn if I did that." She swirls her drink in her hand and takes a tentative sip as we walk together toward the third floor: science.

Once we're up the flight of stairs, she waves and makes her way down the right corridor. I take the left.

My first class is the anatomy of commons, four days a week, which is by far the simplest course. A blessing this early in the day, before my brain kicks in. I only need to learn a boring old list of organs by heart, and remember how they all connect together. Common healing is a required course to graduate as a healer. I take it because I must, but I give all my focus to studying my kind in the afternoons.

The anatomy of demis—my specialty—is far more complex. I hear the Drakes have two brains, and keep one in a box. The high fae can remove their hearts and bury them to avoid letting feelings get in the way of things. Witches bleeding blue or black or gold react differently to certain herbs: queensbane is an aphrodisiac to blackbloods, and lethal to bluebloods.

Part of the issue is that there are so many kinds of demis, and even assuming we get all of our races straight, each kind can choose their own path, wielding various types of magiks.A born black witch can eventually move to using light magiks, and in so doing, change her own nature.

Before lunch, I study remedies on the first and third day each week—another technical class that I enjoy, boring as it can be. It's a little like brewing potions, just without changing the ingredients with magik. On the second day, I have a free period, and on the fourth, a practical lesson in therapeutic massage.

The fifth and last weekday, I spend away from the university, assisting in an infirmary in the underground of Magnapolis.

Myfirst week back has plenty of growing pains. I'm no longer used to functioning in the mornings, so I spend more than I ought on disgusting coffee from the overpriced vending machine before lunch. It's not until ten days later that I remember that if I sneak into the library's staff room, they have a much better coffee set up, all for free. I only have to pout and beg Grudera for admittance. I volunteer at the library twice a week to keep Daria company, so the crone of a librarian indulges me.

Hunched over a raven-shaped cane, Grudera's skin is paper-thin, gray, and wrinkled, but I can see she was beautiful once, not so long ago. Common lives spend faster than coffee tokens. She'll be gone in a few winters. So will Daria. And I will linger. Not as long as I would if I used magik, but I'll live hundreds of years. A thousands, perhaps.

Raverdays and Luprdays end with my least favorite course: psychology. I don't mind the lectures themselves, it's the company I despise.

I've mostly managed to stay away from the worst of my peers—no one truly awful aspires to become an underpaid, overworked healer—but in my first years at Five, when I had to take the basic required courses such as sciences and theory of magiks, I met the three Cs. The reason I no longer sleep in the common dorm. The reason there's a dagger under my pillow.

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