Aldwyn's Academy Read Online Free PDF

should,” the girl answered. “You should when the bird is the familiar of Helene Miridori, the person who’s going to be your magical guide at Aldwyns for the next year.”
    Dorian stared at her. His stomach twisted.
    “But … you’re a girl. Isn’t my magical guide supposed to be my roommate? Wait—you don’t mean, you’re my roommate?” Dorian gulped.
    Helene rolled her eyes.
    “Of course not, idiot. You’re rooming with some other first year loser.” Helene slapped clinging clumps of snow from her shoulders and cloak. “And don’t blame me. It’s all because of your mother. She insisted that Lowadar bend the rules and assign the best second year information magic student to serve as your mentor. Unfortunately that’s me. We’ll be working together all year.”
    Dorian’s stomach sank.
    Mordenkainen cocked his head and peered out at the boy with one bright eye. Dorian would have sworn the bird was laughing at him if the cruelly hooked beak had been capable of smirking.
    Helene, taking his stunned silence as further evidence of her victory, nodded toward Maverick’s shop.
    “I hope you didn’t
buy
anything there,” she said. “Everything that shifty eladrin sells is banned on academy grounds. I’m not sure why Lowadar and the faculty even allow it to operate here.”
    “No.” Dorian smiled. “I didn’t buy a single thing while I was there.”
    “Good.” Helene spun on her heel and began walking back up the street. She called over one shoulder, pretending she hadn’t just taken a spill and been splatteredwith icy runoff. “Hurry. We don’t want to keep the headmaster waiting.”
    Dorian remembered something the enigmatic Maverick had said.
    “What are the ghosts of Aldwyns?” he called after her.
    Helene abruptly stopped walking.
    She turned and Mordenkainen leaped off her shoulder and flapped away toward one of the towers of the school.
    “You’ll find out soon enough,” the elf girl answered. “Magic is dangerous.”
    She turned and walked quickly away.
    Dorian was forced to break into a run to keep up with Helene. Up ahead, over Helene’s shoulder, he could see his mother and the professors from Aldwyns still standing in conversation at the entrance.
    He put a hand on her arm and stopped her.
    “You’re my guide,” he said. “So guide me.” He used his chin to point at the group of adults standing just outside the school gates.
    “The faculty?” Helene asked. “Didn’t your mother fill you in?”
    “She gave me
A Practical Guide to Wizardry
, and Mother pointed them out to me in the book,” he admitted. “But that’s not really the same. She’s not going to give me the good information, is she? It’s all, ‘This one is very smart,’ and ‘Mind your manners,’ and ‘They’re brilliant,’ and so on.”
    Helene pursed her lips then nodded once. “The scary-looking tiefling is Professor Blackburn, head of destruction magic.”
    Dorian of course already knew by sight the tiefling male in his late fifties with his gray-black hair and blue eyes, wearing black robes. Now a dragon familiar sat perched on one shoulder.
    “That’s Professor Fife, head of information magic and spellwriting,” Helene continued. “You don’t want to get on her bad side.”
    Dorian looked at the older human female with long, curly reddish blonde hair and purple eyes. She wore a purple robe and a lot of jewelry that did little to soften a stern face.
    Like the other professors, she held a wand, this one made of bone with a quartz head and small glass bead charms. On her shoulder perched an owl familiar.
    “And last is Professor Ives, head of protection magic.”
    Something in Helene’s voice changed and caught Dorian’s attention.
    He turned to look at the girl and saw she was blushing brightly for some reason.
    Confused, he turned back around to see a smiling elf who appeared to be in his late 20s or early 30s, with long silver hair, blue eyes, pale skin, and dressed in a white