Of Sorcery and Snow

To Colby and Clint,

I would cross frozen wastelands and fight evil sorceresses to save you, too, just so you know

he wolves might not have attacked if we had left right after school. If we'd headed for Golden Gate Park on time, they might never have sniffed us out.

Of course, I wanted to hurry for a completely different reason. I squinted up the hill. Half of our classmates had clustered behind my best friend, trying to convince him to borrow their skateboards.

“We don't have time for this, Chase! We need to get to EAS!” I told him.

Even thirty feet away, with a giant homemade ramp on the sidewalk between us, I could see Chase rolling his eyes. “Trust me, we won't miss the tournament,” he said. He knew how much I wanted to wipe the smug look off a certain sword master's face. “This'll just take two minutes.”

“What's the deal with that Ever After School?” asked the freckled kid who sat behind us in pre-algebra. “You, Rory, and Lena go every day.”

You could tell by the way he said it: He thought eighth graders going to day care was the lamest thing since kids started bringing their teachers apples.

Ever After School wasn't day care. It was a program for fairy-tale Characters-in-training. I'd been going for about two years,
my other best friend Lena for a little longer. Chase
lived
there with his dad.

But we obviously couldn't tell that to a kid who didn't know magic was real. I hadn't even broken that news to my parents yet.

“It's awesome. That's all you need to know,” Chase said coldly. “Hey, Rory! Move, or I might land on you.”

Sighing, I trotted halfway up the steps to our school, Lawton Academy for the Gifted. It wasn't that foggy today, but the sky was gray, the clouds close.

The door opened behind me. Lena came out wearing yellow rain boots, a yellow raincoat, and a waterproof backpack over her shoulder. “Ready! I—” Then she stopped. “Oh, hold on. I forgot my umbrella.”

She rushed back in, and I sighed again.

All I wanted to do was get to EAS, sign up for a duel with Hansel, and kick the sword master's butt. I'd been fantasizing about it for months—no,
years
. During my first sword lesson, Hansel had told us,
You have no idea what you might be up against. You would all be dead in two moves if the war hadn't ended. Especially you girls.
When I'd told him that we might grow up to be even better than him someday, he'd just sneered at me.

Well, today was the day I'd prove it.

But I couldn't do that if we missed the whole tournament. EAS only held it every three years, and it would end in an hour and a half. Plus, we had a pretty long walk ahead of us—four city blocks and the whole Golden Gate Park before we even reached the Door Trek door. If I lost my chance just because my friends were too slow . . .

No. Never mind. I still remembered how much school sucked before Chase and Lena started coming with me.

Because my mom's job made us move every three or four months, I'd been the new kid more times than I could count. I'd gotten used to it. Most of the time, it was just lonely.

Then, one morning last spring, Chase had shown up in my homeroom, and Lena had arrived the week after that. I hadn't asked them to come. My family had moved twice since then, and both times Mom had dragged me to a new school. Chase and Lena had been there too—even if they had to enchant every teacher, secretary, and computer to get themselves into the school's system.

Skateboarding and excessive rain gear were no big deal. I definitely had the best friends in the whole world, magical or otherwise.

“Rory! You're not looking!” Chase called.

I turned back to the top of the hill. “If I watch, can we do a warm-up match when we get to EAS?”

“Only if I hear a big round of applause.” Chase hopped on the skateboard and rolled down the slope. He didn't brake or even take a few turns like the other boys had. He just barreled full tilt for the ramp.

The door squeaked open again, and a second later, Lena clutched my arm. “He's not even wearing a helmet!”

The skateboard's wheels clattered when they hit the ramp. Then Chase sailed off the end, way too high, and he grabbed the front end of the board. Gravity dragged him back down, and he hit the sidewalk smoothly. The boys rushed down the hill after him, cheering.

“I thought you were going to fly straight into traffic!” Lena told Chase. He just swerved to a stop right in front of us and grinned expectantly.

But I didn't have good news. “That jump wasn't human,” I said, and his face fell.

Chase was half Fey. He had wings, which were invisible most of the time, and he couldn't resist using them to show off. It hadn't taken him long to figure out that he was a natural on a skateboard and that regular kids were a
lot
easier to impress than Characters and fairies. He always asked me to watch, so I could tell him if he overshot.

“About eight feet too high, I think,” I added gently, and Chase nodded.

Lena looked at me funny, not getting it. She didn't know that Chase's mom was Fey. I'd tried to convince him to tell Lena a hundred times. She was the smartest person I knew. She was eventually going to figure it out, and then she would probably be furious with us for keeping such a big secret from her. But Chase refused.

So, except for all the grown-ups, I was the only Character at EAS who knew.

The boys reached us, and every single kid was begging Chase to teach them how to get that much air. His grin immediately reappeared.

Lena and I exchanged a look.

“We'll meet you at the crosswalk,” she told him, and we skirted around the crowd, down the sidewalk, to the street corner. We knew from experience that Chase liked to bask in our classmates' admiration for a while, but when he noticed we were leaving without him, Chase broke away and caught up.

I stared at the crosswalk signal and willed it to change. Underneath it, a college student in a red sweatshirt was chatting on her phone. Her enormous black dog stood higher than her waist, and it didn't have a leash. It turned toward us, its eyes glinting yellow.

Chase looked at the bank sign clock over Lena's shoulder. “Wait.
Is it really three twenty-two? Registration for the tournament ended at six fifteen, Eastern Standard Time. I totally forgot.”

Seven minutes ago. I froze. He'd spent weeks helping me train. He
knew
how important this was. I couldn't believe he'd—

“Rory, he's messing with you,” Lena said.

Chase laughed. “April Fool's!”

He loved April Fool's jokes. He'd also tied my shoelaces to my desk in English, stolen Lena's textbook in math, unplugged all the computers in the computer lab, and cast a glamour over our chemistry experiment, turning the sulfur bright blue. Our teacher had a hard time trying to explain that one.

I rolled my eyes to hide my relief. “I can't believe I fell for that.”

The light changed, and we hurried across the street. The giant black dog sniffed at us as we passed, its ears pricked forward. We turned down the hill, the park very green ahead of us.