My head hurt. I used caffeine as my base liquid and mandrake as my symbolic herb for the insomnia potion. That way, I participated in lessons at the Academy while Dad was sleeping. Didn't make me any less tired.

My astral soul floated through maroon Unseelie forests. One night before Halloween, the spirits allowed passage into the Kingdom of Autumn, Winter, and Death. It wasn't like Seelie. Purple clouds as dark as wine flowed and churned in the sky, casting dark shadows over the gnarly, dew-strewn oaks and spruces. Instead of dryads or unicorns, boogeymen skittered in the shrubs and moving trees peeked in my direction.

Dozens of robed apprentice spirits gathered around a bonfire in a clearing. Since Professor Andrew Wiggs fought Halloween ghosts with his Hunters, the rodmaker Marco Aguilar taught combat magic instead.

It felt so real. I felt everything I touched, even though I was a soul. Being a mixture of a human's essence and life energy, souls could reach places our bodies couldn't. Maybe you heard of astral projection or out-of-body experiences before. We apprentices couldn't do this, but we had assistive technology and our teachers' help. Using our True Names, they tethered our consciousness to ectoplasmic avatars like those our Magia Phone apps produced while our bodies lay in our beds. A bit like VR goggles, tbh.

I moved through crowds of apprentices as if they were flesh and blood until I spotted Aguilar in the middle. Some apprentices sneered at him. Others feigned politeness but traded ugly rumors about the werewolf behind his back. Our substitute teacher wasn't bothered. His face was as crinkled as his cassock, but under the bonfire's flames, his intimidating wolfish grin kept the class silent.

"Tonight," he began, "is the night between the 30th and 31st of October, the night before All Hallows' Eve. This holiday has different meanings to different people, be they Christians, pagans, or secularists. To the Irish, it was the day when the Veil between the world of the living and the dead weakened. To us Catholics, it reminds us of the reality of Heaven and Hell. Professor Wiggs introduced you to important Otherworlders and how to respond during this course! Your textbook has an entire chapter dedicated to Halloween monsters and I hope everyone has read it."

Oh, yeah. The Wind Hunt, the Sluagh, and basically any kind of ghost should be expected.

"I must ask, who of you has encountered an Otherworlder before or knows someone who did?" Aguilar asked.

His gaze briefly lingered on me, joined by the gaze of several apprentices in my vicinity. Besides me, four students lifted their hands, Jaclyn among them.

"Well, it's technically my boyfriend who does monster slaying, but from how I understood the question, that counts, too," she said.

"It does," Aguilar said. "Worry not, tonight everyone can fight monsters in a controlled environment. Let's play a game!"

Besides the bonfire, he had a basket of sweets taken straight from Amadeo's Mansion; lollipops, gingerbread, and candy. Lots of candy. He wanted to play trick-or-treat.

"You will form groups of three!" Aguilar explained. "Each group receives a basket! Your task will be to carry the baskets safely through the forests and fight any candy ghosts you encounter! Make sure not everyone in your group has the same talents as this teaches you to synergize!"

I combed through the crowds. Jaclyn, June, and May smiled as they picked up a basket together. Good for them. Mark's group also reached full capacity. The Cunning Folk Academy lacked a talking hat sorting us into houses, but it had cliques. People with the same talent picked the same elective courses and had more time to socialize with each other. Maybe it was because people disliked Professor Manaba, but there weren't many potion and transfiguration people.

One ectoplasmic basket was left near the bonfire. I expected Aguilar to assign me to a group, but he only closed his eyes and sighed.

"Our number is unfortunately not divisible by three," he said. "Have you already finished all your assignments?"

"Wrote two essays," I said. "One on numerology for my general magic course and one on the history of Chinese alchemy for my Potions and Transfiguration course. Wiggs was the only one who didn't punish me with homework."

"There was no trial and it was up to the teachers to discipline you as they saw fit," Aguilar explained. "I do not blame you for your actions last September. I do not think you acted in bad faith, but I do believe you must learn the difference between good and evil."

"Kinda hard. Different people have different ideas of what is good and evil."

Aguilar watched me with his moon-pale eyes. "This Academy teaches its students too little. It teaches how to perform miracles, but it not why."

When he stopped speaking, I heard June's voice whispering literally behind my back. "I think our Witch of Summer Hill chose 'fame through infamy' as her 'why'."

I gripped the basket – which felt as solid as if it were made of real matter – and picked it up. "I'm allowed to compete, right?"

"If you have no further detention assignments, yes. Do not worry. Your solitude will be taken into account during the grading. Our Savior also faced his greatest ordeals alone. And you smell like someone undergoing a very great ordeal."

"How can you smell my ghost?"

"I cannot. It is as plain as day that you are facing struggles you wish not to talk about."

I do wish to talk. My new familiar just won't let me. Plus, that homeless man already talked enough. He told the mob how a telekinetic girl in black clothing saved him from a "centaur alien" (the Nuckelavee). Most thought he was just crazy, but rumors about the "Witch of Summer Hill" spread because the townsfolk needed a scapegoat for the unexplained deaths. My classmates heard about this. Even now, I heard whispers of discussions in the crowds which, broadly simplified, went like this:

"Hey, you think people from mundane families belong here?"

"Dunno, they get caught so easily."

"But they're still our people!"

It wasn't so much the content of the discussions, which was balanced, but the behind-my-back nature that bothered me.

The trail before us was a jungle of oak trees with little-to-no understory. Only the occasional low-grown hedges for scepters and boogeymen to hide in. Although it didn't tousle my brown bushes, my projection felt the wind blowing through my hair and wished I had packed a thicker robe.

Many of the other kids hid behind their partners, given how few of them ever faced a monster – even a harmless candy ghost. I was alone but experienced. Those candy ghosts were F-ranked jokes. However, if I didn't pay attention, they'd steal my candy while yelling "TRICK OR TREAT" and make me fail this test.

I clutched the candy closer to me. Siris, who unbeknownst to me materialized in my basket, dropped a lollipop out of his mouth.

"It's said that introverted people have close bonds to their familiars," I said.

"Especially if they're cats!" Siris said.

"Especially if they're cats, yes," I said, "but right now, I need the candy to stay the way it is."

"I mean, the others have three familiars to guard their baskets," Siris said. "You have only one. You wouldn't want me to starve, would you?"

"I don't know how often I've told you, but you don't need to eat, Siris!"

Before he could reply, the bonfire behind us became brighter. Like a gunshot, it signaled that we should run.

I still hadn't practiced running. Blame my lack of free time. Since I hated sweating, I reminded myself that this wasn't real. My ectoplasmic soul vessel experienced twigs cracking under my boots, spruces blocking my path, and mud to slip on while my meat-bag body lay in my bed. My consciousness could jump between both, depending on my focus.

What happened to my body also happened to my ghost. We were allowed to bring tools from the real world by wearing them on our bodies while sleeping. I took a ghostly night vision and cleared my sight, overcoming the information disadvantage of lacking a diviner.

I saw dozens of red hellhound eyes glowing in the dark. Students overlooking them suffered the bite of disqualification. Other, more experienced students, used their stealth skills to win by the dirtiest means necessary. They ordered their aetherial familiars to break the rules, steal sweets, and sabotage each other's grades. Luckily, nobody targeted me. I was small, invisible, intangible, like always.

Yet no-one could hide from the candy ghosts. An adorable bedsheet ghost materialized right in front of me. Eyes as big as bonbons stared at my basket while chocolate glaze dripped from its sheet-like body.

I froze. Those ghosts couldn't move as long as you looked at them. Problem was: I had to look away if I wanted to run through the forest and pass.

"Siris, help would be cool," I said.

Siris wasn't in my basket anymore.

"Siris, I'm serious!"

"Siris isn't here anymore," the alluring female voice I called "Evil Siris" spoke.

"What did you do to him?"

"Nothing. Siris is a naughty boy, but he's also a baby boy and baby boys are scared of me. We should talk without him, girl-to-girl. You're a good girl, Marissa, but you're also strict with yourself. Stop repressing your inner lust. You don't have to hide your magic or your power if you just let go! So many people in Summer Hill fear you now and their fear empowers me. I can share life energy orders of magnitudes greater than yours. I can open you doors that would make you as powerful as the Nuckelavee."

She was right. If I drank that potion I made from Nuckelavee pieces, I could crush everyone. Few transfigurators brewed potions that gave them the strength of an Otherworlder without corrupting their minds. Forming a sympathetic link to a monster was a path to the dark side and I wasn't terribly psychologically stable. But familiars protected minds from malicious aether streams. I had two. I could crush everyone. And myself. As if I'd do this in such a low-stakes test.

"The only open doors are for kids that want sweets," I said, "and for the cats that scare them off!"

Siris took this as a cue to jump at the ghost. I kept eye contact, even as my demon distracted me, but now that Siris stabbed his aetherial claws into the ghost's white sheets, the scepter moved. It raised its arms, howled, and glided away as fast as a running child.

Siris jumped to the ground, his chest held proudly and his shoulders raised like a little bear. "My boss only ever needs one familiar and that's the cute one!"

How right he was. I ran through the rest of the forest, always one step behind other students. Anytime there was a jack-o-lantern prowling through the bushes, anytime there was a will-o-wisp catching students too inexperienced to hide, I let others go first. Others trod the dangerous, unknown waters for me while I sneaked behind them like a ghost among ghosts.

Predictably, I finished last. My test results would be corrected for my lack of partners anyway. I passed and that mattered.

Before my euphoria caught up with my fatigue, my soul was dragged back into my body and I woke up in my bed. Forehead dripping with sweat, I watched my alarm clock. 7:28 AM. Right, today was Halloween Homecoming and Let's-Fight-Klaus-Erlking-With-Simon day. My Dad insisted on driving me due to how dangerous everything had become. After I got dressed, I sent somebody an important WitchsApp message and headed for his car.