STATUE

Gideon Hall, Bealnora School of Magecraft, Londaria

Between Moonday and Fireday every student is required to stay in the dorms. Which means the locals have the privilege of heading home for the weekends. Not me and Tegan though. We’ll be lucky to see home for the winter holiday. Which means between now and Yuletide this is home.

Gideon Hall, a four-story dormitory that could house everyone in our tiny Welsh village several times over. Tegan’s over in Imogen Hall because Bealnora’s dormitories are separated by gender. However, because of reasons that are too idiotic to even get into, there’s a single entrance into the dorms. 

The dormitories are separated into two types: one for First through Fifth Years with a single large room for ten fledgling mages that have names instead of numbers. And one for Sixth Years and above that has a smaller room for just two mages along with a pair of work desks, wardrobes, and a set of shelves.

As me and Tegan step out of the rain and into the entrance hall, we’re greeted by one of my least favorite people. 

“Look who it is—the Welsh kin,” Dorm Brother Bernard comments with a sneer. “Don’t you have your own magikal school?”

I scowl. You know that we do, why do you keep asking?

My cousin gives him a withering look. “But yours is so welcoming.”

The dorm brother’s lip curls as he holds Tegan’s glare for a moment before shoving the old wooden box into my face. 

“Good luck, Keen,” he snorts. 

I roll my eyes as I thrust my hand into the box to draw my room assignment. 

As if luck has anything to do with it. 

After Fifth Year all the dorm room assignments are mixed by random draw. Because while some leave at sixteen to start their apprenticeships, the rest of us stay until the bitter end of twenty-two. Which for me, unfortunately, means dealing with Bernard.

I swish my hand around twice and snatch up one of the remaining bits of paper. As I unfold it to reveal Room 137, Bernard snorts.

“Looks like you’ve got lucky Room 137,” he comments with an unkind smirk.

My gaze darts to him. He’s smiling in a way that makes me queasy.

Marvelous. To say Dorm Brother Bernard hates me would be an understatement. He’s basically loathed my existence since me and Tegan first came here just after I’d turned twelve. Back when I’d accidentally set the bedsheets ablaze in my sleep. 

And I’ve never forgiven him for embarrassing the shit out of me. For accusing me in front of the whole boy’s dorm of burning the sheets to cover up the fact that I’d wet the bed. Which I hadn’t.

It’s not my fault things just spontaneously burst into flames around me. When I get scared. Or hurt. Or just really really pissed. 

* * *

128, 129, 130…

As I pass my old dorm room and dormmate I breathe a sigh of relief. Fucking Markus. I swear by everything sacred that by the end of last term I thought one of us was going to strangle the other to death.

135, 136… Room 137! Here it—

Huh… There’s someone already hesitating just inside the doorway of the room. Maybe a half-head shorter than me. Fine-framed—willowy even—like how they draw the Fae Folk. The Elves of the old stories. But unlike the Fae, his hair is so silky black it looks like spilled ink. Like loose wavy brush strokes that come down to the middle of his upper arm. 

Holy crow! How does someone even get skin with such a lustrous quality? It doesn’t even seem humanly possible. 

And the way he’s built… He looks just like that statute of Zephyr Astaroth.

As I think it, the floorboards creak loudly beneath me and the obsidian-haired beauty snaps his head in my direction.

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“Statue” ExSpelled © 2024 by Kat Vancil

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