Page 57 of Prey It By Ear

From up here, the quad is a blur of motion and scents, every direction filled with converging currents of staff and students. It is only the first day, which means the newer students are still dumb enough to run around alone. There’s a canine blond with a bruised cheek lugging a duffel half her bodyweight, a reptilian sunning itself by the salty lake between destinations, and a big cat—a jaguar, I believe—pushing a cart full of boxes toward the stadium. They’re all blissfully unaware of how much danger lurks on this campus because they’ve been raised to believe they are untouchable.

The returning ones, meanwhile, do not present such appealing targets for me and my brethren. Packs of wolves, bear sleuths, and a group of lesser preds all move together with the nonchalant violence of creatures who expect the world to challenge them. Two big cats in junior-level red ties break off from their main pack to circle a lone fox girl in the freshman blue plaid skirt, not bothering to mask the way their voices dip and the scent of blood sharpens on the wind. The fox flirts a bit, but I can tell she’s calculating the most efficient escape route. I won’t help unless they dare to be brutes in broad daylight, but it’s obvious that shifter mothers do not train their spawn as Fae do.

Except for my parents, I suppose. They didn’t prepare me to be killed for love, nor for their betrayal.

Bare-bones staff prowl the perimeter with the look of frustration and boredom I’d expect from exiled rich shifters who are forced to take jobs at their schools. They keep their heads up, eyes on the cameras and the growing number of students filling the open area. The administration’s answer to last year’s ‘incidents’ was more surveillance. Idiots… as if magicals aren’t gifted in manipulating their tech because we too evolved over time. Cameras function on mirrors and reflection, which is bread and butter for some of my allies, so they’re nearly useless in stopping our campaign of terror.

However, nothing I’ve ever seen of those running the pred government or secret society has shown that they are smart enough to realize that. They’ve all been living on stolen land, stolen magic, and stolen dominance for so long that it’s bred innovation and intelligence right out of them. They’re left with lazy, feckless speciesist monsters who mistreat everyone, even their own children, in pursuit of something to make their lives less mundane.

That’s their downfall; mark my words.

Near the lower lake, two bumbling wolf security guards pretend to read opposite pages of Le Monde, all but screaming that they are not to be noticed. Their mirrored sunglasses catch the light with each tilt of the paper, showing both sets of jaws tight above their well-bred collars. Neither speaks, not even to each other, but they’re not really watching anything but the short skirts on the girls. Gross, but I log their positions, which hand is dominant by how they angle the cups of espresso, and which one will be the easiest to corner if I come upon them. L’Academie has about fifteen of these morons who rotate shifts—or they did last year—and I need to know the weaknesses of every single one by the end of the week.

The feeling of being surrounded is baseline since I crawled out of the grave, but at their most elite schools, the leaders of our world are lax with their internal protections. All their focus is on the outside: location, walls, cameras, and exclusivity. It’s made it criminally easy to infiltrate, especially since the one they are least prepared for, no matter where you go, is magic.

However, this year, in this school, I am encountering something new. Over the past few days, I’ve noticed a faint but persistent buzz in the air. It’s a pulse that rolls up through the grass and stone, humming at the edge of my consciousness. There is power gathering here, and it is not the leftovers from our assault, nor residuals from myself or my minions.

I close my eyes to listen, tuning out the morning wind and the distant bell from the tower on the library. I run my thumb over the silver token in my hand—a flat oval, stamped with the original crest of the Fae Society, worn smooth by time and my own fidgeting. The metal is cold, and I let it sink into me as the weight settles me until I can think straight.

The token is a relic from the boundary markers that once rimmed the Veil, centuries before the predators codified their rules and exiled us. I keep it close as a reminder, as motivation, and as a challenge to the universe not to fuck with me. It grounds me, especially when I am caught in the infinitely more personal aspect of my vengeance, and I use it to keep me on track for all the magicals who have been wronged.

My head is clear now, and my brain is whizzing through my observations. The additional security measures are mostly cosmetic. The best camera on this side of the building is already out—killed by a whispered hex and a well-timed power surge. The guards at the gate are bigger this year, but they are bored and resentful. It will take less than a week for the student body to map out all their patterns so they can avoid them, and that will only benefit me.

Next, there was an online rumor that every classroom would have an observer for the first month, but it’s not true. The Council has always been cheap with anything that doesn’t involve luxury travel or assassination, and they would never pay for that.

Despite the ‘incidents’, enrollment is up from last year, which means they will have to bring in more prey staff to handle the various tasks across the campus. That will give me the ability to recruit dissidents among the new hires. The prey have long been abused by the predator overlords, and one of our goals is to expand our ranks by bringing them into the fold. It’s not a fast process; those shifters have been downtrodden for so long that they don’t even see hope for a better world at this point.

Their liberation is coming, though; I guarantee it.

Of course, the most important piece of the long game—our perfect hybrid savior—is back on campus now and already activating her band of misfits. She moves as if she expects to be watched at all times, but also like she is done being afraid of it. The distinct signature of her magic is raw and unfocused, but that is not a bad thing. If anything, it is stronger than in the spring, which is why I feel the shift in the air. I make a mental note to watch her more closely, if only to see how long it takes before someone tries to muzzle her again and ends up breaking her resolve.

As I go through the pieces of my plan, I notice one of the men from the lake is moving. I track him from above as he folds his paper and crosses toward the main entrance. He does not look up—none of them ever look up, which is how you know they are too soft to defend anything—but he checks his phone, and the flicker of the screen is enough to let me know he’s been called somewhere.

I smile and lean out over the edge just far enough that the wind lifts my hair and whips it around my face. The shadow spells hold, so anyone looking from the quad would see a dark shape flicker against the stone and then vanish, like a cloud blown loose from its morning tether.

In the corner of my vision, another shadow on a far roofline shifts, moving to a low crouch. The black uniform is identical to the lake men, but the posture is wrong. It’s too loose and casual. For a second, I think she has noticed me, but she leaps, dropping down the side of the building in a four-point scramble that leaves nothing for the cameras to track but a blur.

That is new, too. They have sent their hunters this year, and they’re being disguised as security personnel.

I do not move until I know it is safe. When I finally slide off the gargoyle’s back, it is with the grace of someone who has hidden for centuries. My feet land on the narrow gutter ledge below; I run my fingers across the carved script that lines the base of the statue. Most of it is nonsense about strength and loyalty, but one phrase is etched deeper than the rest.

IN FERRO VITA, IN FERRO MORS.⁠*

My eyes narrow as I translate the threat. While most would think it’s about the warrior living and dying by the sword, that’s not the word-for-word interpretation. No, this was added to their buildings after the Treaty, and it’s a warning for any stray magicals, especially my kind. The evil within that organization runs deep enough that they inscribed their buildings with sayings meant to spook the strongest of the magic users—the Fae.

Let them believe that will save them; I’m not afraid.

Moving away from the gutter barely holding me, I leap and land like a spider. Below me, a maintenance ledge runs the length of the building designed for a generation of caretakers who were suicidal or desperate for work. In the downspout's shadow, I step laterally three paces and press my right hand to the stained glass, a narrow lancet set between the regular windows of the admin building. The glass is unlatched and cracked at the hinge, so I slip two fingers into the seam and ease it open. There is a moment of silent resistance as it protests; and then gives. Within moments, I am inside.

This section of the building is designed with secret places that are no longer on the maps. In 1887, a fire in l’Academie’s records room erased those nooks and crannies from institutional memory; what survived were whispered rumors, and that is how I prefer it. The corridor is low-ceilinged and smells of wet limestone and old ink. The only light is a dim green haze leaking from the moss patches I have cultivated for years, each one a tiny lamp nurtured to illuminate just enough for the work.

Did I mention that I set the fire in that room?

If not, then I should relate that it was not the only one over the years. Having secret areas for our eventual rebellion in every school, government building, and institution in the major buildings of the shifter world was always part of the scheme. This has been a long time coming, and securing our bases of operation was planned in intricate detail.

On the left, stacked along a shelf made of scavenged wood and reinforced with copper bands, is the haul from the summer. Most of it was lifted from forgotten vaults, snatched in midnight raids, or intercepted in transit by idiots who thought wards and iron cages could slow us down. A few things I won in card games, which is funny because a simple glamour tricked those who should have been wary of anyone new in their sphere. But they weren’t, and it amused me greatly.

I run my hand along the line of prizes, smiling as I verify everything is here. Three codexes, all water-stained and bound in rusted iron. Each is sealed with a different clasp that is preventing me from accessing its spoils. One has the sigil of the Laveaux family; one is blank but for a string of Old Fae runes burned along the spine; and the last has a lock that is rumored to bite the fingers off any who attempt to open it without invitation. I will figure out how to get them open; it’s necessary for our cause. But at the moment, they elude me, and I need to find the right people to assist.