Aldwyn's Academy Read Online Free PDF Page B

robe.
    Ives was addressing Dorian’s mother and she laughedout loud along with him. He held a crystal wand with a jade head and dragon scale charms.
    A rat with fur such a singular color of gray that it appeared almost periwinkle poked out of a fold in the elf’s robes.
    Dorian could hardly believe how easily his mother seemed to fit in with this motley group of strange, almost frightening individuals. She seemed to fit in here as well as she did among the royalty, generals, and heads of state at court.
    She fits in everywhere, he thought, and I fit in nowhere.
    “Will I get a familiar?” Dorian asked, trying not to dwell on things he could do nothing about.
    “Of course.” Helene stared at him. “You know, your mother is one of the most powerful wizards in the realm and you don’t seem to know
anything.”
    Dorian opened his mouth to give a sharp comeback, but his mother chose that moment to acknowledge him. She turned half in his direction and called out to him. “Dorian, come meet your new professors properly before I return to court.”
    “You’re leaving?” Dorian burst out. “We were almost killed and you’re not even spending the night?”
    The smile on his mother’s face froze for just an instant and he knew he’d embarrassed her, but he didn’t care.
    “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said. “You are in the safest place in the realm. More importantly,” she continued,voice growing a little firmer, “you are in exactly the place you need to be while I must return to the place that
I
need to be.”
    Dorian stopped before her.
    He still felt like this was all a huge mistake.
    He would never move like Maverick, or form a bond with a creature as beautiful and noble as Helene’s falcon, or conduct magic like either his mother or Lowadar. He would never invoke feelings of respect or even fear the way Blackburn did.
    All he could do was make mistakes and put people in danger. He didn’t belong here—no matter what his mother said, or who she was.
    “Yes, Mother,” was all he said.
    Serissa rewarded him with a smile of such brilliance he was momentarily consoled. She looked him deeply in the eyes.
    “Make us proud, Dorian,” she whispered.
    With that, Serissa stepped back and nodded to Lowadar and the assembled faculty. Her lips moved quickly but silently as she ran down the spell. Her wand gestured through a predetermined pattern and Dorian felt the shifting of magical energies.
    Then she was gone.
    He turned and looked at the expectant faces of his new teachers. Just off to one side Helene smirked at him. Her homunculus appeared and fluttered around her shoulder.
    He watched the elf girl, and a seed of suspicion that had already taken root blossomed. He remembered the warnings of Maverick and narrowed his eyes as he studied the girl intently.
    Something was going on beneath the surface and he was going to find out what.
    In just that instant something began to change for him.
    Home seemed farther away and Aldwyns more readily in his mind. I’m not my mother, he told himself, but I’m not the idiot that girl thinks I am either. She’s hiding something and I’m going to be the one to find out what.
    It was then that he saw his first ghost.

PART TWO

    “Wizards’ lives are full of change, but one thing stays the same: they always have their familiars by their side.”
    —A Practical Guide to Wizardry

Chapter 10
    D orian felt the skin along his arms and back of his neck tingle.
    A shrouded figure glided out of nothingness, trailing gray robes behind it. The figure was translucent and insubstantial, but there was no denying that it was there.
    It shifted its hood to look down over the battlements of Aldwyns’ tallest tower, and a nearly fleshless skull with dark hollows for eyes stared down.
    The lipless mouth opened wide and a ghastly wailing echoed from above the group. Dorian staggered back and a feeling of dread sank into him like teeth.
    “No,” he whispered, and felt tears in his