A specter swept through my basement. Professor Manaba's light-brown skin, her purple sorcerer cloak, and her thin chin looked so real that even I occasionally forgot she was merely an astral body of light.

I sat on the cold basement ground. My knees touched my chest while my long, flowing black robe kept me warm. Even though they weren't in the same room, Mark, Christa, Nick, and the others saw me just as I saw their ghosts floating next to me. Students had to activate Magia Phones apps that scanned our souls and sent ectoplasmic holograms to each participant. They saw every nervous glance and hiccup I produced.

At least they couldn't see the cramped food storage room I sat in. Besides me, a tiny, gnome-like creature knocked over rotten sacks of onions and potatoes. This wizened, bat-eared, wrinkly-skinned, three-foot-tall goblin looked like Dobby's younger brother, only that he went by Bill the Brownie. He belonged to my mother and watched the house in our absence. In exchange for milk, he produced glamour that made Dad overhear my nightly astral courses.

"Apprentice Carter," Professor Manaba said softly.

I gulped.

"Explain the two principles borrowed from sympathetic magic that are important to transfiguration."

Mark's hand shot up like an arrow. Aw. He tried to save me from that question. He was the nice and intelligent type; a bit like Simon, only straw-blonde, better-looking (like a younger version of Chris Evans...), and so out of my league due to the whole "double school" thing. As much as I liked his help, I needed to do this alone. I was smart, I knew the answers.

"Well, transfiguration is often done through potions. It's even in the name of our course." I hoped to lighten up the mood through a joke, but it didn't have the intended effect. "And for potions, you either need components related to what you wanna shapeshift into or symbolic stuff."

Sorcerer Manaba nodded, even if I didn't use the technical terms ("spiritual essence", "sympathetic bond") she liked to hear. "I would like more elaboration on what you call 'symbolic stuff'."

The nature of our astral classes made exams difficult. Most apprentices couldn't do an astral projection, so every student had a crystal storing specifically trained spirits for that. The spirits, however, only transmitted our spiritual essences, like our looks and voices, to the others, not written sheets of paper. So, instead of writing exams, Manaba gave us verbal examinations. Which were a trillion times more nerve-wracking than writing stuff.

Since I waited too long, she gave Mark the word.

"She means amplification components," Mark said. "For a healing potion, you for example take herbs that are associated with good health. It psychosomatically boosts our body's natural regenerative capacities and it strengthens the positive effects its herbal components would naturally have anyway."

"Very good," she said and turned back to me. "And why is it easier and safer to shapeshift into an animal than into an Otherworlder?"

"Well, the more similar your target is to you, the lower the power or shaping you need," I said. "Otherworlders look more like us than animals, but animals are made of proteins while Otherworlders have plenty of weird ectoplasm stuff in their bodies."

"That, and, despite their lower sapience, animals are more similar to us in their wants and desires than Otherworlders are," she added. "Although I presume you did read the book chapter you were supposed to read for this lesson."

"I-I didn't have time to study."

"I am aware. You were not coerced to pursue a mundane education parallel to this."

Just. Shut. Up!

"I am aware you might have sentimental bonds in the mundane world," she said. "But please keep in mind that it will be difficult for you to be yourself in their ranks. They preach that we receive our abilities through the devil and that the Archmage Merlin was a half-demon."

"Yes," I said. There was a reason the education here was relatively cheap and yet highly encouraged. Half the lessons were magic, the other half were propaganda against mundanes. "But the mundanes are still humans like us and somebody needs to protect them."

While Mark anxiously clutched his rod, Sorcerer Manaba remained soft-spoken in her response. "You are entirely correct, Apprentice Carter. But note that the greatest danger to humanity is not the Otherworlders, but the so-called Enlightened. The best we can do to prevent an escalation with them is to maintain the Veil and forming personal attachments to mundanes might present a risk factor."

"Of course, Professor."

"Very well. Our lesson has reached its conclusion. Melas is great!"

"Melas is great," everyone repeated before the projections disappeared.

Lesson over. Despite all, Potions and Transfiguration was among my favorite courses. I could do it on myself without much range. Plus, I did tons of shaping exercises (using aether to turn the pages of a book, magically lifting a glass without spilling it - that stuff) and got my body used to transfiguration. By chugging healing potions, I closed tiny skin cuts I made before to build my "shapeshifting muscle memory".

"You need a stay-awake-at-night potion!" Siris said besides my Mom's old copper cauldron. "I heard mandrake leaves help! They're a bit toxic, so, if you do it wrong, you might not stay awake, but sleep forever."

I yawned. Siris had a point. The day didn't have enough hours and I kept falling asleep in high school. It felt so overwhelming. On WitchsApp, other practitioners told me that relatives or support networks helped them to manage their double lives. I could try the same. If I still had a magical relative that was available.

What did my mundane classmates think about my tired bags? Should I try a beauty potion? I think I already tried one before for the confidence boost, but I had to believe I'm pretty for it to work... It didn't help that the male apprentices already ranked the girls on a "hot or not" scale. "Boys be boys" applied to the natural and supernatural worlds, unfortunately.

3 AM already. Tomorrow, Mrs. Crenshaw wanted an essay on the behavior of bees and I had the first three sentences. Such useless knowledge. At least the potions course taught cool stuff. I needed sleep.

"More! More! More!" Bill the Brownie said, pointing at his empty tray.

Brownies were special goblins that could leave the Otherworld and live in the houses of people who let them in. But just because they helped with the household didn't mean they were slaves. They were roommates. Noisy roommates. And if you don't please them, Seraphiel forbid if you want your house intact.

"More! More! More!" Bill shouted.

"Listen, Bill," I said. "I don't have any milk left, but if you let me go upstairs, I can give you ice cream."

Bill clapped and shouted like a child. "Ice cream! Ice cream! Ice cream!"

"Yes, you pronounced it right. Now, could you please?"

Before Bill stepped aside, my phone buzzed.

A message from Isa. "omg r u fine? plz be alright."

And another. "pls answer. Your always so quiet now."

And twenty more I left unanswered. Some of them were recent.

"You're still awake this late?" I texted back.

"the moon is when i shine!" she answered.

Does Isa even need to sleep?

She sent me a voice message. "I could ask you the same, Ms. 'I sleep in class every day'! I thought there was something wrong with you and that you don't get enough sugar, but now I know that you're binging too much Netflix! Anyway, the reason I'm calling this late is that a cop just died from a heart attack. I wanted to know if your Dad is fine because he's a cop, too, and that death sounds fishy. Even if Simon will think I'm just seeing things again."

Her voice message stopped.

I checked the news and Detective Phineas Devons of the Summer Hill Police Department indeed died a few minutes ago for no reason. Very fishy.

My robe trembled from my shuddering body. Was Dad still right? I didn't hear his snoring upstairs and even he didn't work this long. How could I answer truthfully?

Horrors lurked in the depths of Summer Hill every day. First, they claimed, Mrs. Turner. Then, the horses caught a disease that killed them one by one, and now, not even our friends on the force were safe. It didn't help that we experienced the night of the September equinox. The time when summer ended and autumn began. The balance shifted from the Seelie fairies of Spring, Summer, and Life to the Unseelie fairies of Autumn, Winter, and Death, with the latter being the Erlking's court of alignment.

Isa sent three final text messages.

"gotta go to sleep."

"hope the night witch comes."

"don't care what they say about witches cursing everyone. im sure she'll curse the things that cause curses."

"I hope so, too," I texted back.

This wasn't just a platitude. It was a promise. Ever since I joined this Academy, I swore to myself that I'd keep this town safe. And, in that time, I practiced beverages more brutal than potions.

Two glass bottles waited in Bill's corner next to the goblin's milk tray. Those bottles got filled with gasoline from a canister in our garage and sealed with a cloth wick. A fuse peeked out of them, ready to be ignited by my lighter. Molotov cocktails. I personally count those as potions, fight me.

Yes, yes, this was highly illegal. Dad would ground me for a lifetime if he learned about it, but I had no other choice. I was a fragile mortal who still felt the barghest's wound. And even if I had shaping or power for it, any potion that'd give me vampire super strength or whatever could also corrupt me by linking my essence too strongly to its source. And with my still F-ranked range, I couldn't practice offensive elemental magic without harming myself.

Maybe I was paranoid. Maybe I should ask Darcy per WitchsApp, I sent her an emoji of a bearded man with a child. She understood that this meant "father" and responded in less than a minute.

"Don't know where he is," she wrote. "My poppet won't show me."

The phone shook between my fingers.

"He could have gone to the PPE research facility as Detective Devons died there," she said. "Hunters searched it. No traps, Domain possible."

The PPE Research Facility. Dad mentioned it before!

Darcy added another response. "Don't do anything stupid, okay? I'm responsible for you. The police consider this warehouse a crime scene and apprentices aren't allowed to enter monster-infested zones without a mage's guidance."

By that logic, I shouldn't go to school either. It was also monster-infested, but no-one cared. What happened when I told the Hunters about the basement? "We found nothing", "We don't have enough staff", "We'll put a ward around the school", and "We'll get to it later, kiddo"; those responses. All Hunters stationed near New York were apparently asked to go after evil sorcerers named the Coven of Primordial Revenants while the Black Knights played border war against the Blood Covenant.

I sent Simon a message on my normal phone. "hey, i know, it takes you a while to get the books on turner's disease but i need answers NOW."