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  “She tried, but…I’ve never…”

  I had never been able to do magic.

  Never.

  It just wasn’t my gift.

  “You’ve never been able to do it,” my aunt filled in the blanks. “That’s to be expected. Usually, when a child is a hybrid, they have a dominant trait. Yours is your ability to shift.”

  “My what?”

  “Your dad wasn’t a witch, Max. He was a shifter. A wolf shifter, to be precise.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means your dad could change from being a human. He could shift into being a wolf. He was both wolf and human. He was a shifter.”

  “And you think I’m a shifter, too?”

  “I know it.”

  Aunt Erin seemed totally certain that I was a shifter like my dad, but I wasn’t so sure. I mean, it was crazy, really. All of it was crazy.

  “So you’re saying that I can’t do magic because I can actually turn into a wolf?” I shook my head. “Shouldn’t I have known about this? Wouldn’t I have accidentally turned into a wolf by now? You know, if I could.”

  My aunt frowned. “It does seem strange that you haven’t shifted, but you never know. That ability sometimes presents itself later. Usually, shifters are able to change into their animal forms sometime around the start of puberty.”

  I glared at her. “I’m well past the age of puberty, Aunt Erin. I’m 19!”

  “I know,” she said, stroking her chin. “It’s a bit strange, but I’m sure you’ll figure it out. If not, the Academy will help you with it.”

  “Um…what?”

  “That’s where we’re going. Max, someone was after your grandmother. They might come after you, too. The safest place for you is to be with your own kind. You’ll be hidden in plain sight, sort of.”

  “That’s ridiculous. I don’t want to hide. I want to go find her.”

  “She’s dead, Max. You need to accept it. I know this is going to be hard. It’s going to be hard for both of us. She was a wonderful woman, and I’m sad that I hadn’t seen her in so long.”

  “Why today?” I whispered, shaking my head. “You said they warded me. What does that even mean?”

  “Before your parents left on their trip, they cast a special spell to protect you. They always put spells on you to keep you safe, Max, but this time was different. They knew something was wrong. They suspected that they might not come back for a long time or even at all, so they cast a blood spell.”

  “A blood spell?”

  She nodded.

  “It was supposed to keep you safe and hidden away for as long as they needed you to be.”

  “With a maximum protection period of ten years, was that right?” I asked drily.

  She nodded again and considered me.

  “You said that you mentioned to your boss you had a grandmother.”

  “I did.”

  “It’s possible that he was able to follow your scent back to your grandmother. With your ward gone, he could have tracked your genetic scent to her. Did you go straight home after you talked with him?”

  I thought about it for a moment.

  “No,” I shook my head. “I walked around for awhile first.”

  And that had gotten her killed.

  It had destroyed her.

  “It’s possible that your boss worked for one of the vampires who hunted people like your mom and dad. He might even be a vampire himself.”

  “It was daytime, though. Aren’t the stories…” I felt stupid even asking. “Aren’t the stories about vampires real? Can they go out in the sunlight?”

  She shook her head. “Not usually, but like anything else, magic can be used to manipulate vampires, too.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Meaning there are potions and spells designed to give them some time in the sunlight.”

  “Of course, there is.”

  “Max, this is important. Your grandmother was working on something. Do you know what?”

  I shook my head. “No. She kept it from me. She kept all of that from me.”

  Erin sighed. “Your mom and dad,” she looked around and lowered her voice. “They were conducting research for something important, something I can’t talk with you about. Not just yet. But I believe that your grandmother continued that research. I warned her not to, but she’s a sneaky woman, and she kept you away from me for all of these years in order to keep you safe.”

  “To keep me safe from you?”

  “Max, I’m not a full-shifter like your dad. We were only half-siblings,” she smiled gently. “I’m a hybrid like you: half witch, half shifter. Your grandmother knew that if we were together, I’d want to train you and teach you. I’d want you to go to the Academy, like I did.”

  “Well, I guess you’re getting your witch,” I smiled at the play on words, but Erin didn’t seem impressed.

  “This isn’t a joke, Max.”

  “I know. None of it is. And it’s all my fault, which is worse. I don’t even want to be here, Erin. I want to go find my grandmother.”

  “You’re not a prisoner, Max.”

  “No? So you’re telling me that if I go to open that door,” I jerked my head toward the tiny door of our suite. “It’ll just open? You didn’t cast a locking spell on it?”

  “Well,” Erin at least had the decency to blush. “A girl’s got to be careful, right?”

  “What’s going to happen at this place? The Academy?”

  “You’re going to be trained.”

  “I’ve already been trained to be a witch.”

  “Now you’re going to be trained to be a hybrid,” my aunt said. “You’ll learn how to shift, hopefully, and how to use your shifting abilities with your magical powers.”

  “I can’t use magic.”

  “Yes, that’s still a little baffling,” Erin’s brow furrowed. “But who knows? Maybe once you’re able to shift, you’ll unlock your magical abilities, too. We can only hope.”

  “And what about you? Are you going to stay with me?”

  “No. My time at the Academy is over. It’s a three-year program. I went when I turned 18 and stayed until I had completed my classes. Then I became an apprentice to a witch and now…well, the rest is history.”

  “So, I’m going to be all alone.”

  The thought made me more uncomfortable than it should have. I was a little embarrassed to admit that I’d never been away from my family. I’d never spent a night away from Grandma. I’d never…I’d never done any of that. Now I didn’t have a choice. At 19, I was old enough to be independent, but I’d never been alone a day in my life.

  I felt Erin’s hand on my knee and looked up.

  “Hey,” her eyes were gentle. “It’s going to be totally fine,” she said. “I was new there once, too. You’ll be a first year, so everyone is going to be new.”

  “It’s long past the start of a normal school year,” I pointed out. It was September. Not just September, but the end of September. I hadn’t been out of high school so long that I’d forgotten what that meant.

  It meant that even the “new” kids would have settled into a routine.

  Even the first-year students would have their cliques, their groups of friends, their buddies.

  They would all know everyone else.

  Except for me.

  I wouldn’t.

  I wouldn’t know any of them.

  Why did that terrify me so much? It made me nervous. Dread tossed and turned inside of me, choosing to settle in my stomach. I felt nauseous. Sick. It wasn’t just because of my grandmother, either.

  There was more to this day than I could have ever imagined.

  When I woke up, the biggest thing I worried about was whether I’d actually have the guts to face Tony.

  Now there was a chance that Tony was a vampire.

  He might have captured my grandmother.

  He might have eaten her alive.

  And now my long-lost aunt was here to tell me all ab
out her powerful witchiness and to banish me to a school I didn’t want to go to.

  The train went around a curve and my aunt looked out the window, smiling.

  “Oh, good,” she said. “We’re here.”

  The train lurched to a stop and my heart sank.

  This was it, then.

  There was no going back.

  Welcome to my new reality, I guess.

  I stood up reluctantly and looked out the window.

  It was going to be a long year.

  Chapter 5

  Hybrid Academy was nestled in the foothills of the Dragon Mountains. The train didn’t stop directly at the school. Instead, Aunt Erin and I had to take a taxi from the train station to the grounds of the school. I wasn’t exactly happy about my future, but I also knew better than to argue with an all-powerful witch. Hey, unless and until I got my powers, I wasn’t about to cause any trouble for myself or anyone else.

  I’d managed to do enough of that on my own. I didn’t need anyone’s help to be a screw-up: a failure.

  I stared out the window of the taxi like my life depended on it because as far as I knew, it did. I was about to be thrust into an Academy for people like me. For hybrids. I was about to go to a school where everyone around me had two different powers. Most of them were shifters and witches, according to Erin. Some were demons and witches. Some were demons and shifters. I was about to be thrust into a school where magic ruled.

  More importantly, I was about to go to a school where everyone knew how to use their powers.

  I didn’t.

  I’d instantly be at a disadvantage and I wasn’t sure what to do about that. It’s not like I could look this up online to figure out exactly how to shift into my animal form. I mean, I could try, but I don’t think it would do me much good. Mémère was the smartest woman I knew and she hadn’t been able to teach me magic. Would she really have been able to teach me to shift? And if she couldn’t, why would someone else at this school be able to teach me?

  “Are you sure this is the right choice?” I asked Erin as we stepped out of the taxi. I didn’t have anything with me except for my leather bag and my cat. Boo perched on my shoulder, which was wildly uncomfortable, but I wasn’t about to complain. I’d lost enough for one day. I didn’t need to lose the trust of my best friend, either.

  “What do you mean?” Erin turned to me. “Of course, it’s the right choice. Hybrid Academy is the safest place for you right now. Besides, they’ll teach you to shift, and we need you shifting.”

  “Why?” I asked, raising an eyebrow, but Erin pretended like she couldn’t hear me. Instead, she started marching toward the front of the school, which looked like it was some sort of old castle.

  The school grounds were large and beautiful. With the sun setting, the school looked like something out of a movie. There were trees everywhere. I imagined that in the springtime, students would spread out blankets and study under the trees. It was already getting too chilly for that. It was only September, but something told me it was going to be an early winter.

  A long winter.

  “Look, Erin, I can’t afford this place,” I said, following her. “I know you said I have an inheritance, but I don’t even know how to access that,” I started. “And even if I did, I’m sure it’s not enough to cover this.”

  Erin stopped and turned to me. She seemed a little impatient, but I figured that was just exhaustion from everything she’d been dealing with that day. After all, finding your long-lost niece couldn’t have been easy.

  Something told me that Erin had been looking for me for a long time.

  “I don’t have access to anything your parents left you. Apparently, you don’t, either. I’m guessing your darling grandmother either burned through whatever was left or she invested it somewhere. I don’t know. Either way, it doesn’t matter anymore because you’re here and I’m here and we’re going to hide you away where you’ll be safe.”

  “Hide me away?”

  I didn’t want to be hidden away, damn it. How much clearer could I be?

  But Erin had powers I couldn’t begin to understand.

  And she had been gone for a long time.

  I wanted to believe that Erin was a good witch, but what if she wasn’t? Was she the type of witch who would cast a spell on me if I didn’t do what she wanted? Was she going to hurt me if I tried to escape this plan she had for my life? I didn’t like that idea very much at all. I didn’t like any of this.

  Erin spun on her heels and glared at me.

  “Yes, Max. I’m going to hide you away, okay? I lost my brother. I lost my sister-in-law. I lost everything. Everything, Max. And I’m not about to lose you, too, okay? So, if sticking you in this shifter school is going to keep you safe while I can figure things out is what it takes, then I’m going to do it, okay?”

  The scent of her emotions overwhelmed me and for a second, I thought I was going to be sick because I could smell it all: fear, anger, resentment, loss. She really had been through hell, hadn’t she? Erin was a strong woman, but she’d been dealing with this all on her own. It was a lot to handle, even for a witch.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I guess…I guess I hadn’t thought of it that way.”

  She sighed and ran a hand through her short hair.

  “Look, I know this isn’t going to be easy, okay? It’s weird for me, too. But…you’ll be here for the school year and then you can spend the summers with me.”

  “I’m not a kid anymore,” I reminded her. This wasn’t going to be like some sort of boarding school romantic comedy situation where I looked forward to swimming lessons and a summer camping trip. This was my life. This was my entire future at stake.

  “None of the students are kids,” she said. “Think of this more like a college and less like a high school.”

  “So, I’m not going to have to take Bullying 101?” I raised an eyebrow.

  “Okay,” she laughed. “So maybe it’s a little bit like high school. I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

  I looked up at the building that loomed over me.

  “How much does tuition cost at this place?”

  “Let me worry about that,” Erin said, biting her bottom lip. “Okay? I’ve worked out a deal with the principal.”

  “Headmaster? Shouldn’t this place have a headmaster?”

  She laughed, and the sound of her laughter helped me to calm down a little bit and feel a lot less tense. Maybe this place wouldn’t be so bad, after all.

  “If you want to go classic, it’s headmistress, but yes. Alicia Gregory has been in charge of the school since I was a student.”

  “That couldn’t have been too long ago,” I commented. I didn’t think my aunt was all that much older than me.

  “Ten years,” she said. “I graduated the year your parents were lost.”

  That must have sucked, I realized. She had been away at school when Mom and Dad disappeared. Their deaths had been a tragic loss and no one really knew exactly what happened to them, only that they died. As Dad’s kid sister, I knew she looked up to him.

  How had she dealt with that loss?

  Well, apparently, she’d dealt with it by becoming an all-powerful hybrid witch.

  Go Erin.

  She turned and kept walking toward the building, obviously expecting me to follow her. That was fine. I could do that. I trotted along after my aunt. I let my eyes roam as we moved. The building loomed over us. It was intimidating, to say the least. I figured it must have been heavily warded. How else had it stayed in business for so long? If vampires and monsters lurking in the darkness really were after hybrids and shifters and magic users like our family, how else could a place like this have been left to stand?

  It seemed like the secret to survival was staying hidden and lurking in the shadows.

  It wasn’t until I splurged my secrets that Grandma and I were in trouble.

  It wasn’t until I stepped out of the darkness that anyone had been able to find me.

&n
bsp; Was that the secret here?

  Hybrid Academy was a school for the elite and the unusual. That’s what Erin had said. She spent quite a bit of time on the train discussing her experiences at the school and it seemed like most of them – most of them – had been positive. Still, there was no guarantee I’d have the same experience. Maybe I’d get into my dorm room and just hate it. Maybe I’d despise the place. Maybe I’d feel like I was lost or being thrown to the wolves.

  I wasn’t sure.

  What I did know was that whatever happened, I was going to be okay.

  I was a resilient person. My grandmother raised me that way. She always told me that no matter what obstacle I faced, I would be okay. I’d be able to manage it because I was strong. On a day like today, I needed strong. I needed brave.

  Erin and I approached the front of the school. Two large, heavy doors were shrouded with mystery. I could practically feel the magic wafting off the place. This was it. This was the first day of the rest of my life. Whether I wanted this or not, I was going to be spending the next three years here.

  At least, until I could figure out how to escape from my aunt’s watchful eye and search for my grandmother.

  There was no doubt in my mind that Erin had friends and spells in place to look after me. One misstep and I was certain she’d be informed. I didn’t think she’d do something extreme like lock me up, but if I didn’t listen to her, there would be consequences. I wasn’t sure what those would look like or what they would entail, but something told me I wouldn’t like them.

  Besides, the reality was that maybe there were worse things than hanging out at a school for freaks. The reality was that maybe this really would be good for me. I could meet some people who were like me. I could connect with some other young adults who understood exactly what it was like to be strange and unusual. Maybe I wouldn’t feel so alone if I could find people who understood me. Maybe they would be able to use their powers to help me find my grandmother.

  I stared at the front doors of the school. This was it. This was the moment. Everything was going to change as soon as I walked through those two doors. Was I really ready for all of that? I didn’t have a choice. Erin whispered a spell I couldn’t hear, and the two doors opened at the same time.