The first thing I noticed about the Angitia Academy for Sorcerous Youth, aside from the abundance of ghosts, was how much of it was just grey stone. It's all cloud grey stone, smooth as river rock as far as the eye can see. Much of the campus consisted of a series of buildings haphazardly placed at seemingly random intervals, as if they were toys misplaced by a sticky-fingered toddler. The only structures that seemed to break the trend were the clock tower in the center of campus and seven towers that stretched into the sky at different points around the academy. A flag that proudly displayed the visage of a different animal; The seven halls where the upperclassmen lived.
I kept stride with Lord Woodman as the porters carried my two trunks of luggage behind us, their steps clicking and clacking on the pavement. My neck felt weird and stiff from keeping my eyes off the ground. Two years wasn't long enough to unlearn a lifetime of null instincts and habits.
I felt Lord Woodman watching me from the corner of his eye. He released a small sigh that I quickly interpreted as disapproval.
We received my room assignment at a long squat building. "The cafeteria," Lord Woodman informed me as I received a yellow card with the number 202 printed on it in block letters. "This is where you'll eat your meals."
We continued walking through campus and Lord Woodman absently pointed out notable landmarks, the different halls housing the administration and where classes are held. Then, of course, there were seven halls.
Eventually, we reached Letus Commons, the freshmen dormitory. It was the color of old soap, yellowing and cracked. We stepped inside and I almost gagged. The building smelled like old cheese.
We were hardly the first to arrive. Null porters and maids were everywhere, carrying bags and bustling around like busy ants. Parents seeing their children off with all sorts of bravado and flourish. I almost wondered if Lord Woodman expected the two of us to put on a similar performance of our own. I hoped not.
When we reached my room, the porters neatly stacked my things on one side of the room. Lord Woodman patted me on the head like I was one of his dogs as the porter put away my clothes. I felt another Working snap around us briefly.
"I'll send word of your first task soon." Lord Woodman informed me. Then, before I knew it, he'd left the room, the porter trailing behind him, leaving me alone. I sat down heavily on what would be my bed and breathed deeply through my nose.
I should start unpacking. Organizing my clothes in the old wooden dresser next to my bed, lining up all my pens on the desk. I could hear other students in the hall doing just that. Or trying to, at least.
"I have to do it?" a boy whined across the hall. "Why do I have to be the one to unpack?"
Nulls aren't allowed to stay on Angitia's campus. Something about the magic melting our softer brains, making us go crazy. It's the same thing they say about Irregulars. Our null blood makes us unsuitable for magic, prone to insanity and destruction.
We are an inferior caste of humans and are as such unworthy of the glory and tender gifts of magic. It's why nulls are servants, farmers, and factory workers. Irregulars are called such because that's what we were, errors in nature best culled before they ruined everything around them.
I shivered. If everything I'd ever learned was true, then an Irregular's life was one that only brought misfortune to others. I couldn't dwell on that for too long. Thoughts like that, doubts and worries were liable to cause me to hesitate or brood, and I needed to be on edge. Dangerous pitfalls and traps to help cull the weakness from the noble bloodlines filled the place. Worrying about my own troubles was liable to get me killed.
Turning to my trunks, I shifted through clothes, placing shirts and coats on hangers in my closet and tucking away books on the slender shelf allocated to me. Putting things away, bringing a bit of order to my belongings was soothing in a way and it allowed me to focus on getting my heart to stop hammering in my chest and taking in slow, deep breaths of air. I crouched onto the ground to place some spare notebooks in a drawer at the bottom of my new desk.
Calmness was what I needed. Calmness and rationality and—
"Erm. Hi?" a voice asked from behind me, and I had to stifle a yelp of surprise. My heart beat so loudly in my ears that it felt like my blood was trying to tear its way out of me. I'd have to tame my nerves at some point or I'd be liable to give myself a heart attack well before any of the actual dangers at the school got their teeth and claws into me.
Quickly, I turned around to see a boy in an Angitia uniform staring down at me. "Hello?" He said again, and it sounded almost like he was asking a question.
He kept staring at me with his dark eyes, a rather confused look on his face, before I got sick of crouching on the ground and stood up.
"Hi?" I said and brushed off my pants.
The boy took a quick breath of relief and in a quick rush said, "I'm um. This is room 202, right?"
"Yes…" I said slowly, "That is what it says on the door."
He blushed, color rising to his tan cheeks. "I'm Sylas. I'm um… your roommate?"
"Do you end every sentence with a question?" I asked before I could stop myself and winced inwardly as Sylas flushed even more deeply.
"Sorry, I'm just kinda nervous," Sylas said, not meeting my eyes. "I haven't really roomed with someone else before."
"No," I said quickly, cursing myself. If he was going to be my roommate, there was no reason to give him an excuse to hate me. "I'm sorry, it's my first time rooming with someone, too."
It was a ball-faced lie. I'd shared a room and a bed with my brothers for most of my life. But Sylas seemed to swallow my fib rather easily. His flush cleared, and he even managed a thin smile.
I offered him my hand. "I'm Theo. It's nice to meet you, Sylas." He paused and looked at my outstretched hand. For a moment, I wondered if it was improper for two nobles to shake hands. If it was another null quirk, Lord Woodman hadn't quite dredged out of me. I should know if it was, but my mind had gone totally blank.
But Sylas eventually took my hand and gave it a firm shake. "It's nice to meet you too, Theo." His hand was cold, and I felt the faintest buzzing in my ears. Some sort of spell? I wonder. "I hope we can be good friends."
That I found doubtful. But wasn't going to tell him that.
The buzzing intensified even after Sylas released my hand. "Where are you from?" he asked me, his posture relaxed.
"Yorkshire," I said, ignoring the buzzing. It was like a hundred angry bees whizzing around my head. Was he trying to cast some sort of spell on me? "How about yourself?"
"Oh, I was born in London, actually," Sylas said, looking abashed again. "But I sort of grew up all over the empire."
At that point, the buzzing had erupted into a full orchestra, and I knew for a fact Sylas wasn't causing it. The ghost of a girl had crawled out from under what I assumed would be Sylas's bed. Her hair hung down to her waist in knotted gnarls and tangles. Big yellow-jacketed spectral hornets buzzed all around her, and her face was a swollen mess of purple welts. She made a gurgling, sucking noise like she's trying to take in air, and I felt her eyes lock on me.
A chill traced its way down my spine.
I grabbed Sylas's arm, and he almost leaped out of his skin in surprise. "Say," I said quickly. "I'm hungry. Are you hungry?"
"Uh… sure?" Sylas said, looking at me in surprise.
The ghostly girl made a suckering sound.
"I think we have some time before that big assembly we need to go to, right?" I said, dragging Sylas along. "And I'd wager it'll last awhile too, so why don't we drop by the cafeteria and grab a quick bite to eat?"
"I guess so?" Sylas said, looking quite baffled as the two of us exited our room. I shot a glance at the ghost, but she didn't follow us. She did, however, stop at the edge of the door and make a series of angry gurgling noises at me as I continued to drag Sylas along. I didn't stop holding his arm until the ghost faded from sight, and long after we were halfway to Letus Commons.
I released him then and took a deep breath of relief. There was something… wrong with that spirit. She felt more aware, less trapped in her own story, somehow…hungrier than the other ghosts I'd encountered before.
Not for the first time, I really wished I had a primer talking about all the necromancy nonsense. It's not that necromancy was forbidden, per se. Rather, it was considered a highly unfashionable art by most of the tonne. There's something about people going into cemeteries, both null and noble, to dig up the heads of hanged men, the thumb bones of lively children, or half a dozen other uncomfortable things necromancers apparently used in spells. Uncomfortable enough that most wizards had done everything they could to discourage the practice in the empire's borders, short of actually hanging would-be practitioners.
That's not to say we don't occasionally crop up. From what I'd heard, Her Majesty's Royal Coven even employed a few professional necromancers. Though then again, I was the only 'naturally occurring' necromancer Lord Woodman had ever heard of, or at least that's what he always told me.
Frankly, I didn't really understand why necromancy was so reviled by most 'respectable wizards,' and it's just another secret I need to keep to maintain a low profile.
Sylas kept glancing at me as we walked across Angitia's campus, and I thought about that ghost girl.
"Everything okay?" he finally asked as we entered the cafeteria, and the smell of bread baking and meat roasting hit us.
"Yes," I said quickly. "Everything is completely fine; I'm just hungry from the train ride here. Aren't you?"
"Oh," he said, looking away as the two of us entered the queue for lunch. "I actually came here in my family's carriage."
I tried not to frown as I received a roast beef sandwich from the platter held in line by a pair of disembodied gloves. I glanced about but didn't see any meat-free options. Deciding to risk it, I sighed and the two of us searched for a table to sit at.
Few students milled around the cafeteria, mainly it's just gloves moving around, straightening chairs, and dusting things off. I paused, not sure where to sit, or if I should be the one to decide where we sit.
I glanced at Sylas out of the corner of my eye and saw he was doing the same thing. Watching me with a furrowed brow, small frown lines tugging at the corners of his brown eyes. I stood perfectly still, and the two of us stared at each other for an impossibly awkward amount of time.
Oh dear god, I thought. I must have already done something wrong. He must know something is wrong with me.
Sylas cleared his throat. "How about that table over there?" he asked, pointing with his chin at a table in the far corner of the cafeteria. He hurried toward the table and, after a pause, I followed suit.
The chairs weren't terribly uncomfortable to sit in, but Sylas still made a slight frown as he tried to position himself on the wood. I opened my sandwich and removed the strips of roast beef, leaving them in little ribbons on one side of my plate. I stopped when I felt Sylas staring at me again with that confused look on his face.
"Too much meat," I said quickly, slapping the sandwich back together and taking a big bite. I chewed and gulped. I didn't get all the roast beef off the sandwich and I almost make a sigh of relief when it goes down easy.
"Right," said Sylas, and he took a bite out of his own sandwich and chewed thoughtfully. "Which family did you say you belonged to again?"
The air seemed to suck out of the room, and my mouth went dry. He knew something's wrong. Bollocks. Bollocks. Bollocks. I've been there less than a day and someone already knew something is off about me.
The words Lord Woodman drilled into me worked their way out of my throat. "My father was a gentleman named Albert Crowley, but I'm a ward of my uncle, the Lord Woodman." The lie twisted itself in the air and I pushed focus off it before it could sink in. "What family did you say you were from again?"
Sylas looked a bit taken aback. "Oh. I, erm," he looked down at his sandwich. "My grandmother is the current Duchess of Brittany."
I took another bite of my sandwich and chewed it slowly.
"My father, though… he's a member of Special Branch. Lord John Thorne."
At that moment, my necromantic gifts hit me like a sledgehammer and I got to experience the distinctive feeling of a cow being led into a slaughterhouse and having its throat cut with a knife.