Chapter 3

I don't know if you've ever had the absolute pleasure of learning your new roommate was the son of one of the most famous and decorated Hunters of Irregulars. Or even if you were one of those said Irregulars summarily executed to prevent their magic from driving their 'feeble null minds to insanity and ruination.' However, I can assure you the experience is not one I recommend.

Between Sylas announcing to the world that his father was John Bloody Thorne and the distinctive sensation of being a cow having its throat cut by a fat-fingered butcher burned into my brain, I choked on my bite of sandwich.

My eyes watered, and I began hacking. Sylas stood quickly with an outstretched hand, possibly to help me or sear me with some sort of Irregular identifying spell. I shook my head to stop him and took a big gulp of water to force the bit of roast beef down.

Tears stung my eyes, but the slaughterhouse imagery had finally stopped blazing in my mind. Sylas had risen from his seat, his eyes wide. "Are you alright?" he asked.

"Sorry," I said, taking another gulp of water. It tasted metallic. "I'm fine, just surprised."

"Oh," Sylas said, looking down at his own sandwich. "My mother is from the Theocracy. Egyptian."

"Alright?" I said, more sure that I'd kept the confusion from my voice. I knew little about the Egyptian Theocracy, aside from it controlling most of a continent and that the people there worshipped pagan gods. I looked around the cafeteria, searching for an excuse to get away from Sylas as soon as possible. If he didn't already realize I was an Irregular, it was probably best to scamper off before I did something that made my null background too blatantly obvious.

Aside from a pair of gloves aggressively scrubbing a splotchy stain at a nearby table, nothing presented itself.

Sylas rubbed the skin on the back of his hands, almost like he was scrubbing at them, and cleared his throat. "Which hall are you planning on rushing?"

"I…" my mind went completely blank. Lord Woodman had prepared me for the question, I knew he had. But for the life of me, I couldn't remember what to say. "I thought I'd mull it over a bit?" I said quickly. "Can't be too careful about these things. How about yourself?"

"Lion Hall," Sylas said immediately and looked at me expectantly.

"I'm sure you'll get in?" I ventured. Lion Hall was one of the important ones. I thought I'd heard Lord Woodman say something of the like, but I couldn't focus on anything but the clear and present danger Sylas presented to me at that very moment.

Sylas smiled tightly at me, "I don't think it'll be easy as all that, I'm afraid."

The two of us sat in an awkward silence until a bell rang somewhere.

"It must be time for the assembly," Sylas said, standing up. The two of us placed our trays in the mess area and returned to the hallways, flooded with an ocean of students in Angitia red.

I let Sylas pull ahead of me and get lost in the crowd before I joined. The less time I needed to spend around him, the better it would be.

I followed the river of students out a door and back out onto the overly grey rock that covered the grounds of Angitia. More students bled from surrounding buildings; some chattered along, talking about which estate or that they liked to winter in. Others, though, wore somber expressions and moved along with their eyes scanning this way in that with cat-like calculation.

I did my best to straighten my own face into a vague approximation of Lord Woodman's own cold stoicism, brow furrowed and lips pressed together in a firm line. But judging from the looks a few of the other students gave me, I probably just looked constipated.

I just started scowling after that, and that seemed to convey a message of "Don't fuck with that one" well enough for people not to look at me for too long. Either that or they found their eyes fixed on one girl walking with a large berth of space given to her.

Her hair was blacker than coal and she walked with the confidence that gave you the impression she looked down her nose at everything. When she turned to glance at something, I caught sight of her expression. It reminded me of a fox sniffing around a hen house. Carnivorous and curious.

I lost sight of the girl as the crowd of students hustled forward, and we all walked into a large auditorium. Stained glass windows hung high on the walls, depicting different events in the empire's history. There was the crowning of Queen Victoria the Eternal in her youth before magic was revealed to the world. Then there was the consolidation of the European continent under the leadership of the British Empire after the decade long Unification Wars. Then there was Walpurgis Night, 1888. The night that magic returned to the world. The night that marked the end of nulls running things.

Mum used to tell stories about the days before that Walpurgis Night. How our ancestors had been doctors, barristers, and inventors even before we'd been plopped down in the farms of this lord or lady and made to work in the fields more than a hundred years ago.

I never believed her growing up.

The thought of nulls, the thought of us having ever been anything other than farmers, servants, or anything really wasn't something that sounded real. It was a fairytale, like Jack and the Beanstalk or Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

But, if there was anything I had ever learned from Lord Woodman after that day he took me from my home and into his to prepare me to be his pet Irregular, it's that all Narrative, all stories have an element of truth to them. Some sharp bit of flint you can find and twist into a spell that can rip and tear at the world until it gives you exactly what you want.

A student jostling into me snapped me out of my reverie, and I glared at his retreating back.

The crowd of students talked among themselves, joking about this and that. What Halls to rush, what classes people were excited about, and other such nonsense. My Witch's Mark twinged slightly, sending a shiver of pain through my chest. I fought the urge to scratch it.

A sound, a hissing whisper, a clearing of the throat that sliced through all other sounds. Everyone hushed, and we all found our eyes drawn to a podium raised above the mass of students. On it stood a man who seemed to draw all the room's light directly onto him. He was crisp and clear. Far more visible than he should be, given how far away I was from him and the sea of students between us. I could almost feel the Working that must draw all the room's attention to him.

The man was on the cusp of middle age, white hair creeping slowly into his mane of blond hair trailing down his back. His face had some slight lines, wrinkles around the eyes and mouth. I found I could not look away from him. Every ounce of my attention was drawn to his face. There was a part of me that yearned to hear what he must be on the verge of saying. It had to be profound.

Perhaps, I thought, if I get closer, I might be able to hear this man. Hear this god even better. I took a step forward, not seeing anything else besides the glorious man and—

And I walked smack into the girl standing in front of me. There was a sharp stinging, breaking feeling in my head, and I found myself, ass on the ground, looking at my hands.

"What the actual hell?"

"Hmm," a voice said above me. "That was rather rude, I think." The voice, a girl's voice, spoke in an accent I didn't know. It wasn't like how Lord Woodman talked, all proper and posh, like how I was supposed to speak. But it wasn't like how Mum or Da talked, either. It was different, like the words weren't used to being in her mouth and were still trying to figure out where exactly they fit.

I looked up to find that girl from earlier looking down at me; black hair, dark eyes, and a face like a fox, sharp and hungry. "I'm sorry," I said quickly. "I didn't mean to—" but the man at the podium chose that moment to speak, and the girl turned away from me to listen.

I quickly climbed to my feet to hear the next bit of the speech.

"Angitia has had the pleasure of helping sculpt the minds of many young wizards since the dawn of the 20th century," the man informed us in dignified tones. "Dear freshmen, who join us from the scope of our great empire and even beyond its borders." He took a moment there to pause, and you could almost feel his eyes searching the crowd. There was something about them, something snakish and reptilian, that made my blood feel cold. I didn't know why I hadn't noticed it before, but there was something… wrong with that man.

"Regardless of where you come from," he continued after finishing his survey of the gathered students. "I am pleased to be one of the first people to welcome you to our fine school." There was a murmur of excitement that was quickly silenced when the man continued speaking. "Now," the man said, "allow me to introduce our most honorable headmistress, Tabitha Griffin."

If there was meant to be applause, none was given as the man walked off the podium and was replaced by a white-haired woman wearing a severe black dress and a scowl on her lips. "Thank you, Professor Dumont, for your introduction."

She pursed her lips in a thin line and drummed her fingers on the podium absently. After a long, dusty moment, the headmistress spoke again. "I am Headmistress Griffin, a retired member of Her Majesty's Royal Coven and an alumnus of this very institution. I once stood in this very hall and listened to the then headmaster prattle on about all the wonderful things we would do and all the lifelong friendships we would make."

If it was possible, the frown on her face grew even deeper. "A bunch of sentimental nonsense. This school prepares you for the real world, for your future in the empire. You have found yourselves in a nest of vipers, poisoned-toothed and willing to do whatever it takes to make it on top. It is our duty to society to nurture the strong and to cull the weak. To reward the ambitious and to cast down the timid."

Whispers broke up the silence in the auditorium, but our honorable headmistress didn't even slow down.

"Those of you who make it to your senior year will either become one of those vipers yourselves or have clung onto the coattails of one of your more gifted classmates." There was a curl of Griffin's lip that let us all know what she thought of the latter students. "Those of you who don't make it to senior year, or graduation for that matter, will find yourselves dead or very much wishing you were. Some of you may consider this unfair, but this directive has existed for as long as our Eternal Queen has reigned, and it has been successful in producing the wizards our empire needs to enjoy its continued prosperity."

There was a pause. Most of the freshmen had been hoping there was a punchline to whatever joke our beloved headmistress was clearly telling us. But she kept on giving us ominous warnings because, apparently, she was dead serious.

"I strongly discourage any freshmen from entering the Labyrinth beneath the school, for while it offers chances to improve one's spell craft and experience real combat situations, none of you have a prayer of surviving it with whatever modicum of education you have arrived with," Griffin continued. "I would also advise to avoid the mausoleum, the forest surrounding the school, especially whenever a Fey Ball or Goblin Market occurs, and most of the buildings at night aside from your rooms. Each one of you will commit to one of the seven halls by the end of your first semester here at Angitia, but the official rush will not begin until the end of October. Pre-rushing of any sort is strictly forbidden. I wish those of you who survive that long here all the best."

And with that rather delightful and motivational speech, Headmistress Griffin walked off stage.