Page 2 of Academy of the Wicked, Year One

But it’s necessary.

Wicked Academy hadn't admitted a female student in over five hundred years, and I wasn't about to let that minor detail stop me from saving my sister.

A sexist Academy isn’t stopping me from saving my last living family member.

The ornate double doors of the Artifacts Chamber loomed before me, their ancient wood carved with runes of protection that made my skin prickle.

I pulled out the skeleton key I'd spent months enchanting, praying it would work. This stuff is usually what gets me labeled as some crazy haunted bitch whose mental illness should be studied because I should be thrown into a mental institution than walking among the living.

Well, that’s what all the whores who hated my ass would say, but any who.

I don’t see the problem with liking skeletons, bats, and voodoo dolls or even thinking cemeteries and graveyards are fascinating.

At least I wasn’t a necromancer summoning the dead, right? Not to say I haven’t tried but apparently, you need Duskwalker energy coursing through your veins for that.

No one meeting a Duskwalker lives, period, so I have to put that dream to the side.

Sliding the key into place, I turn it slowly while enhancing my senses to ensure I can pick up on any sounds of activated traps. The lock clicked open with a sound that seemed deafening in the silence.

One step closer…

Inside, hundreds of magical items glowed with their own inner light, arranged on shelves that stretched up into darkness. To think such a vast collection would be so easy to have access to makes goosebumps rush along my flesh, making me feel a nervous tingle brew in the pit of my stomach.

My heart thundered in my chest as I moved between the displays, scanning for anything that matched the chalice's description.

Time was not on my side — dawn approached, and with it, the return of the academy's full population of supernatural students.

There!

On a pedestal near the back wall, a goblet of twisted silver caught the dim light. The runes etched into its surface matched the drawings in my grandmother's book perfectly.

“Finally,” I dare to whisper as relief rushes through me.

All I can think of is my sister lying in that hospital bed, matching the sheets of white with how pale and clammy her flesh had become. Unlike me who was this odd hybrid, my twin was blessed with our mother’s traits only.

Missed our father’s somehow…

"It’s now or never,” I encourage myself, trying not to be mortified with nerves as I reached for it with trembling fingers…

That may have been why I didn’t notice…

A ward flared to life, bright enough to blind.

I yanked my hand back, but it was too late.

The floor beneath my feet vanished, reality twisting like a kaleidoscope. My body tensed up as I plummeted through the darkness; wind rushing past my ears as I fell through what felt like an endless void.

OOF!

The impact, when it came, was surprisingly soft.

I landed on something that definitely wasn't stone.

My vision cleared slowly, adjusting to the dim light of what appeared to be an opulent bedroom. Horror dawned as I realized I'd landed on a massive four-poster bed, its black silk sheets cool against my skin.

Where the hell did this chalice take me?

"Well," drawled an amused voice that ignited chills that consumed me, "this is certainly a novel way to introduce yourself."

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