Alexis groaned and slumped forward over the desk, arms crossed beneath her to cushion her head. Beryl, leaned back and rubbed the back of her neck as she stared down at her new friend without any sympathy.

“Why does it have to be in Latin?” Alexis asked, lifting her head just enough to look at her friend. “Like, all these summoning rituals are in Latin. Do demons and spirits only speak that language?”

“Of course not!” Beryl reached down to flip through the pages of the heavy, leather-bound book on the table before them. “Look, this one’s in… ah, well, okay, still Latin but it’s a bit closer to Classical Latin.”

“Seriously, why Latin?”

Sitting at the table next to theirs, Duron Pasco, turned to them, grinning. His rounded face was full of mirth as he had listened to their complaints for the past ten minutes. It had been all he could do to not burst into laughter at Alexis’s complaints.

“The dark ages,” he said, and the two girls looked up at him.

“What?”

“Look, go back far enough and you’ll find spells in other languages, yeah? But not that many because few people were writing that stuff down. It was more oral traditions with witches teaching the spells and rituals to their apprentices.”

“Okay,” Alexis said. “What changed then?”

“When the Romans were out there conquering as much of the world as they could, they had scribes and scholars writing everything down. But more than that, they had a boom in writing throughout their empire. They loved to label things and children were taught the basics of reading and writing.”

“During this time, witches took advantage of the increased literacy rates and were able to better preserve their knowledge by writing it down in books and scrolls and stuff.”

“Right,” Beryl said. “What does that have to do with the dark ages?”

“It was called the Dark Ages for a reason,” Duron said with a laugh. “Literacy rates dropped and it was mainly the clergy who could read and write. By the middle ages, barely ten per cent of people could read and write in England.”

“So no one was writing things down?”

“Some did, but for the most part, by the time writing was a bit more common it was just traditional to use Latin for spells. People kind of thought it was necessary.” He laughed again, his good humour infectious enough to raise a smile on Alexis’s face. “Can you imagine how annoyed those folk were back then having to learn Latin to use magic when it wasn’t necessary?”

“How do you know all this?” Beryl asked, leaning forward, curious to hear the answer.

“I like history, mate. Just something about it that I enjoy.”

“Learning for the sake of learning.” Beryl smiled coyly. “I get that.”

Alexis rolled her eyes and threw up her hands in exasperation. “Yeah, great, but that doesn’t exactly help me does it?”

“What’s the problem?” Duron asked, sharing a smile with Beryl. “I aced my languages exam last year.”

Alexis’s eyes widened in horror as her mouth fell open. She stared at the young man in despair. “You have language exams too?”

The other two students laughed as she buried her head in her arms once more and Duron rose from his seat and gathered his books, bringing them over to the table the girls shared. He set the heavy pile down and sat down opposite Beryl.

“I’m Duron,” he said.

Beryl smiled in greeting as Alexis raised a hand to wave, “Alexis. Yeah, feel free to just join us.”

“Thanks.” Duron said, not seeming to hear the sarcasm. “Yeah, I know who you are. You’re kind of all people are talking about.”

Another groan from Alexis as Beryl shook her head. In the three days since the Crawler in the showers, and just a bare day since seeing the girl dragged through the floor to wherever it was the creature had come from, Alexis had been trying desperately to focus on her studies. Despite the late start, she had quickly found that she was a quick study, which was entirely different from the last time she had been in a school.

Part of it, she suspected, was due to the subject matter. English was taught so that the student could study the written texts and treatises, while the language lessons focused on Celtic and Latin, rather than the French she had been forced to try and learn in her secondary school.

All of those subjects that she had struggled so hard with seemed to make more sense when they were put in the context of how they applied to magic. Alexis, to her surprise, had found herself actually enjoying the day of lessons, which was likely due to the fact that no one else had been hurt or died.

“I need a break,” she said, lifting her head up from the table. “It’s Friday night, don’t you people have fun on a weekend?”

“This isn’t fun for you?” Duron asked, gesturing at her open books. He laughed as she glared and raised his open hands, waving in mock surrender. “Sorry, sorry.”

“There’s the senior’s party,” Beryl suggested. “It’s the one party a month where any senior, no matter their discipline or clique, can all get together. There’s booze, dancing and some herbs that the Green Witches grow.”

“Potent stuff,” Duron agreed. “I tried some last month and lost the entire weekend.”

“Sounds fun,” Alexis said. “Why are you only just telling me about it now?”

The other two students exchanged a look. Duron shrugged and tilted his head towards Beryl as if to suggest it was up to her to say something. The young witch sighed in reply and looked back at her friend.

“People are curious about you. I’ve kept most of them away, but I thought it might be a bit overwhelming for you. These parties get pretty wild with the Green’s herbs and the sex magics.” Colour flooded her cheeks and she grimaced. “Throw in the trainees being allowed to join in too and there’s a whole lot of hormones and hot bodies.”

Alexis’s eyebrows rose as her friend spoke. While she wasn’t a prude in any sense, she still had a fairly conservative view when it came to orgies. Which is exactly what the party sounded like it might be.

Still, she reasoned, she wanted to experience everything the Academy had to offer and the idea of spending the night studying was enough to make her scream.

“I’m in,” she said. “Sounds fun. Let’s go.”

Duron and Beryl exchanged a knowing look and laughed. “Okay,” Duron said. “Can leave your books and stuff in the cubby behind the librarian’s desk then we can head straight there.”

Alexis gathered her books eagerly and with the other two close behind her, made her way to the cubbies. A long row filled the wall behind the desk, made of the same polished wood as the tables and desks, each square gap could fit a number of books. A small round tin token slotted into a bracket on the side of each cubby, with each being unique.

Each of the students placed their books into a cubby and slid the token out of the bracket. Upon their return, they could exchange the token for their books ensuring that any work could continue without the research materials going missing.

Once done, Beryl took the lead, chattering animatedly as she led the way out of the library and through the ornamental gardens and on across the training fields where the wardens practised their craft. At the edge of those fields were the wild woods, a patch of woodland that had existed for far longer than the Academy had.

For Alexis, raised in the heart of a city, walking into those woods was like stepping into a place ripped out of time. The aged trees, their trunks green with moss and lichen, had stood so long that they had a feel of belonging to that place, or of that place belonging to them.

Their branches stretched high overhead creating a protective canopy from the light rain that fell, while their leaves had fallen, forming a carpet among the ferns and perennial, Dog’s Mercury, with its bright green pointed leaves.

Paths had formed amongst the trees, made by generations of students who had gathered plants during the day or gathered for rituals beneath the moon at night. Glowing lights, pebble-sized orbs that flickered and danced in the air, lined the path leading to the very heart of the woods and it was to this place that they headed.

Music filtered through to them as they walked, growing louder the closer they came and it washed over them as they stepped out into a clearing. The golden orbs filled the air, floating beneath the protective canopy of the trees, while the bass-heavy dance music thumped as the crowd leapt and danced to the beat that could be felt on their skin.

Wooden barrels had been filled with bottled beer and ice, while bottles of wine and spirits were piled in wicker baskets that hung from the lower branches of the trees that formed the clearings edge.

The crowd, seventeen and eighteen-year-olds, was packed into the clearing, drinking and dancing, boys and girls kissing and moving together, their joy rising from them in an intoxicating mix of hormones and heat.

Alexis was entranced as she stared, open-mouthed at the crowd. The memory of clubs seemed to pale in comparison as she felt the pull of the music, of that manic energy, pulling her in. Beryl laughed, while Duron was bouncing on his heels as eager as she to jump in to the crowd and move in time with them.

The air was charged, an electric tingle running across their skin as they stepped into the crowd and were swept along. Alexis moved gracefully amongst the dancers, moving in time with the beat of the music.

A girl threw her arms around Alexis’s neck, pulling her close as they moved together, bodies moulding together as their limbs moved as one. Her lips were soft, her breath hot on Alexis’s skin as heat filled her breast.

Sweat beaded her skin, as the winter chill was banished, the heat of the crowd almost stifling as she moved with an energy she’d not felt in a long time. Alexis leaned in, responding to the dancer’s kiss. The girl threw back her head, laughing with pure joy before slipping away, merging with the crowd as a tall boy, all sinewy muscle with a body as firm as the oak trees that surrounded them, took her place.

For what seemed an eternity, Alexis danced without inhibition. There were no worries, no fears, just that moment and the thumping beat of the music, the eager mouth of another, their hands delicately tracing lines over her skin as she ached with a need unlike anything she had felt before and that was almost beyond her control.

A hand grasped hers and pulled her away from a bare-chested girl with raven black hair and eyes filled with lust. An ache in her breast, Alexis was drawn out of the crowd and fell back into the heather and fern, gasping for air as Beryl, face streaked with sweat, dropped down beside her.

“Fuck.” It was all she could think to say, and all of her will went into forming that single word as she desperately sought to pull back some form of control.

“You could say that again,” Beryl laughed. She raised her head and pointed at the crowd where Duron had stripped off his shirt and was pressed up against the toned torso of a warden trainee. “He’s having fun.”

Alexis could only shake her head, not quite capable of lifting herself up. She had been going to clubs since she was fifteen and she had never in her life experienced anything quite like what she had just experienced.

“You need a drink,” Beryl said, standing up. “Wait here.”

She wandered away, her legs shaking as she moved past the edge of the crowd, fighting the pull of the dance. Alexis watched her go before turning her head back to the tree branch canopy above and the silvery glow of the moon beyond.

A feeling of something she couldn’t identify came over her, a prickling of the tiny hairs on her skin, a sense of something or someone close by. She looked to her right, and there, through the trees, he stood.

Black shirt hanging open to reveal a flat stomach and muscular torso, over black pants. He stood with hands in his pockets and head thrown back as though breathing deeply of the hormone laced air. She watched him for a long moment and he turned, beautiful brown eyes meeting hers as though he had known she was watching him.

Alexis was on her feet and moving before she could even register that and with a wry smile, he turned and walked away, leading her through the trees and away from the too-loud music and excesses of the crowd.

“Wait,” she called, pushing through the knee-high ferns. “Hold up!”

His silent form had almost vanished but at her call he stopped, turning back to watch her approach. There was a smile still in place as he tilted his head, curious. There was something about him that called to her, a loneliness that seemed to cover him like a cloak, and she felt herself responding to that, recognising it as something she was all too familiar with herself.

“Who are you?” she asked, stopping two feet away from him. Away from the crowd, the cold air against the sweat on her skin chilled her.

“No one has asked me that for a long time.” He paused, considering, then with a slight nod his smile widened. “Corbin.”

“Corbin,” she repeated, tasting the word on her tongue and finding it pleasing. “I’m Alexis.”

“I know.”

For a moment she stood, wondering what to say next. It was not usual for her to be at a loss for words and she crossed her arms, rubbing at the skin of her bare arms.

“You were at the party?”

“Party?” His lips twisted as though he were trying to hold back his amusement. “Yes, I was there. I like the energy of the… party.”

“Don’t need to be a dick,” Alexis snapped.

“Forgive me,” he said as she moved to turn away. “It has been a while since I had such pleasant company. My usual companions are a rougher sort. I apologise for any offence.”

Alexis hesitated, but she didn’t want to leave. There was something about the strange young man that was deeply appealing to her. She wanted to be around him, to talk to him, to know more about who he was.

Plus, there were questions to be asked about why he had been in the showers.

“Why did you find it amusing when I mentioned the party?”

Those beautiful eyes of his stared at her unlinking as one corner of his mouth lifted. “It amused me that so much has been forgotten.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your party is a tradition that goes back to the First Great Casting,” he said, and Alexis blinked, not knowing what that meant. “Each month, beneath the light of the moon, a celebration would be had in memory of that casting, of an end to a war and in praise of the God’s who aided the witches in their endeavours.”

His eyes grew distant as though remembering details learnt long ago and his smile grew sorrowful as though those memories were unpleasant.

“Three thousand years is a long time,” he said. “Memories fade and much is lost, but while they don’t remember why they celebrate, they continue to do so anyway.”

“You remember?”

“Hardly.” He gave a short bark of laughter, shaking his head. “Surely I do not look three thousand years old?”

Alexis gave a shrug. “I’d believe stranger things in this place.”

His eyes had only warmed further with the humour that danced in them and he beamed at her. “I am not three thousand years old, I can assure you. I did have a tutor who truly loved history and was more than happy to share his knowledge with a lonely boy.”

She had no real reply to give to that and they stood in silence for several long seconds while she thought of something to say and ignored the rapid beating of her heart in her chest.

“Why were you in the showers?” she burst out and blushed, cheeks heating.

“I had a sense of the Crawler,” Corbin replied. “It was something different and I was curious.”

“You weren’t scared of it?”

Another wry twist of his lips as he said, “No.”

“Why not?” It was hard to keep the accusation out of her voice and she was sure he heard it, but if he did he didn’t respond.

“The Crawler could not harm me,” he replied honestly.

A call from behind caused her to look back just as Beryl and Duron stepped out from behind a tree. At the sight of her, Beryl pointed and called out her name again before they headed over. Alexis turned back to Corbin and scowled at the empty space between the trees where he had been standing.

“Thought you’d gotten lost,” Beryl said. “Sorry, I should have kept a better eye on you. First time at a senior’s party can be a bit much for some people.”

Alexis didn’t immediately reply as she thought back to the conversation she had just had. As strange as it had been, it had also set her heart to racing and cleared the fog from her mind. Whatever it was about Corbin that so attracted her, it was something she could not deny.

Besides, she reasoned, it hadn’t been a total loss. She had found out his name and that meant she was one step closer to finding out just who he was and what he was doing at the Academy.

“Lexi?” Beryl asked, and Alexis started and glanced back at her friend, eyebrow raised.

“Lexi?”

“Thought I’d try it out,” Beryl grinned. “I’ll stop if you don’t like it.”

Alexis had never had any really close friends. She’d had people she called friends, and like the many boyfriends she’d had over the years, they had known almost nothing real about her and certainly hadn’t been close enough to shorten her name as affectionately as Beryl had.

“No.” She smiled at her friend. “Lexi is fine.”