I’d gotten my invitation. I’d been accepted into the academy, or at least far enough I’d be attending orientation. It was better than nothing, and more than I could have hoped for.
Yet still so far from the finish line.
“Elfwaite?” I called out, slowing as I approached the area she claimed as her own. “Are you there?”
Glancing around, I saw I was alone. My senses remained on high alert, where they’d stayed since the encounter with Kendrick. I refused to be taken by surprise again.
The pixie popped her head out from a whorl no larger than an acorn in the trunk of a nearby tree. “Tavi! You finally came to see me. It took you long enough.”
I held out my hand to her and Elfwaite darted forward, resting on my open palm. We smiled at each other. “I know it’s been a while. I haven’t had the opportunity to get away,” I said.
Since the disaster at last night’s dinner, Uncle Will had decided he wanted to keep a close eye on me today. He’d tried to make it seem as though the extra attention was nothing. We both knew better.
Elfwaite’s eyes went wide. “Something happened to you.” I watched her eyes darken, black taking over the white as she saw me without seeing. “It’s fresh. An emotional wound you would rather hide. Talk to me.”
I told her about last night. I told her about Kendrick cornering me outside of the powder room and how I’d tried to fight him off and could not. There were no scratches on my neck to show her. I healed quickly on the outside.
“He’ll pay for what he did. Trust me. Did you hear back from the academy?” Elfwaite tucked her wings behind her, those odd upturned eyes catching mine and holding.
My stomach clenched. “I did.”
“And what’s wrong?” she blurted out.
The email had seemed like a life preserver. Until I read the fine print. “The orientation email gave me a specific list of acceptable half-breeds. Wolf shifters werenotthere.”
My blood had gone cold upon closer reading of the orientation email, warring with the excitement I’d felt from receiving it in the first place. I really should have known better. My kind would never be accepted by the Fae. Just as the Fae were seen as substandard by weres. The two breeds did not mix.
Except for me. Except for my parents, who’d decided to flout the longstanding and unwritten rules of their two kin, and look where it got them.
Elfwaite looked me over from head to toe. “You can’t let this stop you, Tavi. You need to keep moving forward. You need to fight.”
I didn’t want to smile, and I tried not to, but a hint of a grin tugged at my lips. No one had a better outlook on life than Elfwaite. “You know I love you.”
She winked at me, her skin a deep periwinkle in the hush of twilight. “I know. I love you too. And I’m sorry this is causing more stress for you.”
“I hate asking you for more…” I began. “But you mentioned someone who might be willing to help me?”
Elfwaite made a sound that might have been a scoff were she human. As it was, with her tiny pixie body, it more resembled a slight shift in the low murmur of the wind. “We’re friends, and friends help each other. I know a way around this problem. Or rather, I know someone who can fix it for you. The witch I mentioned to you has the magic to get you through orientation.”
I swallowed hard. “She can fix my being half wolf-shifter?”
Elfwaite nodded. “She’s a powerful creature of much renown, as long as you are willing to pay the price. It is nothing to scoff at.”
A part of me relaxed. Money was no issue. Uncle William did well as a defense attorney. Our comfortable living situation attested to his prowess in court. Although I had little cash of my own besides a bank account set aside for me by my parents before they died, I knew I could get the funds one way or another.
Elfwaite and I finished talking and I jumped up from the ground before she could issue another warning about price. Orientation was in two days. If everything went well, this could well be the last time I saw her for a long time.
We said our goodbyes, Elfwaite assuring me it wouldn’t be forever and me shrugging, trying to laugh it off. I’d be foolish to assume one way or another. I didn’t know what would happen. But I left a small piece of myself behind with her.
The directions to the witch’s house bounced around my head as I ran home, the distance providing a chance to conceive some sense of a plan for the future. And then I did what I needed to do.
* * *
Every town has a house—creepy, dark, and sinister—where the neighborhood kids spin tales of mayhem and despair. Where the shell of the home is long past its glory, surrounded by dark woods, and inspires new urban legends about children-eating monsters and scary things going bump in the night.
In reality, the only things going bump along the aged and weathered floorboards are those running on four legs and scrounging for scraps. Spiders and raccoons and opossums and the like.
The “witch’s house” at the end of Everly Lane was such a place.