Page 9

On each side of the gate were large stone pillars with lichen encrusted sculptures on top that I thought were supposed to be animals, but were too worn and weathered for me to be sure what kind. Stone walls spread out from those pillars in each direction, covered in ivy and blending into the surrounding woodland. It was as though the school didn’t want to be noticed.

The steady stream of cars dropping people off at the gates kind of gave it away though. And these weren’t run of the mill cars either. These were the kinds of cars that my mother would cross to the other side of the parking lot to avoid even being close to for fear of us somehow damaging it.

I walked through the gate and started up the long gravel drive. I walked through acres of grass so green it looked like it cost more than my parents made in a year to maintain and as I did so I realized that everyone else had proper luggage, not just a rucksack and duffle bag like I did. They had trunks, the kind that I saw in period movies and TV shows, the kind with brass fittings on the corners and leather covering them, the kind I expected footmen to be lifting on and off carriages, only they weren’t being lifted anywhere.

They were floating.

Not high in the sky, just a little way off the ground. Just enough that they coasted over the gravel as though they were on wheels.

Only they weren’t.

It was as if gravity was a rule they had been taught but did not personally respect.

Or maybe it was their owners that had been taught but decided not to follow the rule because none of them seemed concerned about their luggage. Their owners walked ahead laughing, adjusting cuffs, calling to each other across the drive. Some of them looked ready to go off and play tennis or golf, others like they had just been on one hell of a spending spree at the kind of stores I wouldn’t even look at, because glancing in the window alone might cost more than I could afford.

One girl flicked her fingers without turning and her trunk veered around a puddle. A boy’s set of three cases followed him in perfect formation like trained dogs.

Nobody screamed. Nobody pointed. Nobody said, hey, your luggage is haunted.

I stood off to the side for a moment and just watched, trying to wrap my brain around what I was seeing. Ms. Mercer hadn’t come out and said that this was a magic school, even if she had heavily alluded to it, but seeing the luggage I had to think that it was something like that, or else I was losing my mind.

My gaze traveled up the drive and the line of people and trunks and finally saw the school itself. It rose from the top of a hill that I hadn’t even realized I’d been walking up in stone towers and steep roofs and narrow windows, a place half castle and half threat. My bags were biting into my shoulders so I set off once more, heading toward the ominous stone towers.

As I got closer I saw a few people milling around.

“Lane?” a voice called.

I turned to find a girl with an immaculate honey-colored braid standing by a table, checking names against a clipboard. She wore the charcoal robe from the welcome packet like she had been born in it. My robe was still folded in my duffel because I had opened the packet, seen the amount of fabric involved, and decided I was not putting on something floor-length until I knew whether I would need to run. Also, who voluntarily wore robes like that? I’d stick to my jeans and flannels for as long as possible, thank you very much.

“Billie,” I said.

Her eyes went to the list. “Sybilla Lane. Late addition.”

“Billie.”

“Right.” She put a mark beside my name, then touched the little enamel pin on her collar, once, the way people touch a thing they are proud of. “Pippa Doncaster. First-year prefect. One of six they picked this year. I’m to take you to the east range.”

I waited for a handshake. None came. She looked at my duffel, then at the stream of self-propelled trunks, then back at my duffel.

“Can your things⁠—”

“No.”

“Of course.” Her recovery was almost kind and somehow worse for it. “Here.”

She flicked two fingers.

The weight vanished from my shoulder. Not eased. Gone. My body tipped sideways, still braced for a duffel that was no longer there. The bag hung in the air beside Pippa, two feet above the gravel, the paperclip on the broken zipper turning slowly in the light. Half of everything I owned had left my hand because a stranger moved hers.

I grabbed the strap. It pulled away, not hard, politely.

“Put it down.”

Pippa blinked. “It’s only a carrying charm.”

“Put it down.”

“It’s only a lift.”