Misfit Magic (Misfits Book 1) Read online

  Misfit Magic

  The First Misfits Novel

  By Niall Teasdale

  Copyright 2017 Niall Teasdale

  Amazon Kindle Edition

  Contents

  Prologue

  Part One: The Misfits

  Part Two: Mean Girls

  Part Three: Exam Hell

  Epilogue: Midwinter Night

  Prologue

  Once upon a time, a handsome prince met a beautiful princess and they fell in love. Everyone in the land of Draconia rejoiced, the prince and princess were married, they had a daughter who was pretty and wise, and they all lived happily ever after.

  Nice story, but it’s missing something… Ah yes, folk tales never get to the happy ending so quickly. There should be a wicked stepmother or an evil uncle, or the princess should be under a curse, or… Let’s try that again.

  Once upon a time, a handsome prince met a handsome princess and they fell in love. However, this princess was no ordinary princess: she had a secret. When she told her prince her secret, he knew that they could never be together, but he also knew that he could not bear to be apart. The prince and princess ran away together and made a home in the deepest, darkest part of the wild forest where, the prince hoped, his family would never find them.

  In time, the prince and princess had a daughter, because adequate contraception is hard to find in the middle of a wild forest. They loved her more than anything, but they knew that the prince’s family were closing in and they would have to go on the run again. With a babe in arms, that would be next to impossible and they might well lose their precious child in the process. So, the prince and princess made a hard decision: they gave up their daughter in the hope that someday they might return for her. And then the prince and princess vanished, never to be heard from again.

  Unfortunately, happy endings tend to be in short supply in Draconia.

  ~~~

  And their daughter? Well, that’s another story, isn’t it? So…

  Once upon a time…

  Part One: The Misfits

  Concord City, Concordance, 27th Day of Highsummer, 999.

  The huge statue of Celestina Nightsky, founder of the Celestina School of Magic, looked down upon the throng of new students searching out their place in the halls of residence as it had done for almost two hundred and thirty years. It was made life size, standing some fifteen feet tall at the shoulder, with its head raised high and its wings unfurled as though to encompass all below it within their reach. Celestina was a venerable dragon, a great magician, and a patron of scholarly pursuits. The dragons who came to study at her school had not attained true dragon forms – they were still far too young for that – but the statue reminded them of their potential.

  Or at least that was what it was meant to do and to Krystal it seemed that the old lady was smiling down on her as she looked up at her image carved in stone. Which was a little ridiculous given that true dragons really had little in the way of facial expressions. They were incapable of articulate speech, never mind anything as mundane as a smile. Krystal still thought the statue had a benign look about it. Or maybe possessive. Maybe that expression said ‘these young women are mine.’ Whatever, looking up at the statue was not getting her to her room.

  The school itself, the teaching part of it, was invisible behind the residency halls which formed a square of Gothic architecture around the lawns and plazas where the statue was the centrepiece. One of the four buildings was the one Krystal wanted, but all she had to go on was the introductory letter the school had sent, which said she was in room North 59. Well, each building was five storeys in height, so she figured she was on the top floor of… the northern one? Which way was north? Well, that was not going to be too difficult…

  A basic spell, which anyone with half an ounce of training could work out how to do, would tell her which way north was. A simple enough matter of aligning oneself with the flow of magic through the world, which did take some effort, but nothing Krystal was not up to. Still, she took her time over it, assembling the symbology of the spell in her head, shaping the magic of the world around her with care and precision. She turned on the spot… To find herself looking past the statue to the building on the far side. ‘Huh. Makes sense she’d be facing south, I suppose. Should’ve thought of that.’

  Pushing her glasses up her nose and picking up her bags, Krystal set off across the flagged path toward what she hoped was the north hall. Now that she looked a little more closely, it seemed like it was the oldest of the four. The white stone was more grey than white and streaks of black marred the walls. The gargoyles on the crenelated roof appeared somewhat the worse for wear. It was the north hall, because there was a little brass plate mounted beside the main doors which told her that this was ‘Nightsky, North Hall of Student Residence.’ She wondered whether the other halls had royal family names attached to them too, but finding out would have to wait: heavy bags did not make for good sightseeing.

  They did not make for great stairclimbing either, and there seemed to be neither a mechanical nor a magical lifting mechanism. With a sigh, Krystal found the broad staircase up and began to ascend. The broad stairs gave way to narrower stairs on the floor above and things just got more difficult as she had to manoeuvre her way around other students, and a few parents, who were moving in at the same time. The hall had been open for three days for incoming students and Krystal realised that she should have pushed to get here sooner; everyone left it to the last moment, aside from those with the forethought to realise that everyone else would be leaving it until the last moment.

  Struggling, and wishing she was fitter, Krystal made it to the top floor, which was a little clearer. The decoration was more obvious here, without dragon girls hiding it behind enthusiastic gestures and flying hair. Gothic, rather dark, and heavy on the mouldings. The wallpaper was a dark red and featured the Nightsky crest, an eight-pointed star above a square of four smaller stars, in gold. The official crest was silver stars on black, but Krystal presumed that some allowances were made for colour coordination. The woodwork was all in a dark oak and looked heavy. Every room had a door which looked like it could hold off an army, and each door had a number carved into it. Krystal found the one marked 59, the last on the north side of the corridor, and tried the handle. It was open, so she pushed through.

  ‘Oh! I think you may have the wrong room.’ The speaker was a blonde girl with pale-blue eyes sitting cross-legged on one of the two beds which occupied a large proportion of the room. She was pretty with quite a long, upturned nose and a slightly rounded, youthful face, and a trim figure clad in a floral summer dress which looked as though it had seen more than a few summers. Her hair was pulled back from her face and fixed by a band at the back of her head, but it fell down past her shoulders. Krystal blinked at her. ‘There’s no way they’d put an indigo in with a grey,’ the girl added.

  Krystal smiled and put her bags down before closing the door behind her. ‘I’m not an indigo, and this is fifty-nine north, right?’

  ‘Yeah, but… Purple hair and eyes, and you’re not an indigo?’

  ‘I’m Krystal, and I’m not an indigo. Or anything. I don’t have my dracoform yet.’

  ‘You don’t? Isn’t that a bit–’

  ‘Dragons normally discover their dracoform between the ages of nine and twenty,’ Krystal said as though repeating a lecture she had heard many times. ‘Almost nineteen is late, but not entirely unusual. Plus, I’m an orphan so I don’t even have parents to use as a guide for what colour I’ll be.’

  The girl on the bed opened her mouth, paused, and then uncurled herself, stepping down onto the carpet and holding out her hand. ‘Let’s start again. I’m Trudy
Black. Pleased to meet you.’

  Krystal grinned wide enough to show her fangs. ‘Krystal Ward,’ she said, taking Trudy’s hand. ‘My friends call me Krys and if we’re to share a room, I’m hoping we’ll be friends.’

  Trudy had a firm grip for a slim girl a good inch shorter than Krystal. She held onto Krystal’s hand. ‘Let’s see… Do you snore?’

  ‘Uh, not that I’m aware of.’

  ‘Are you likely to steal my underwear if you run out?’

  Krystal looked down Trudy’s body. ‘Well, looks like it’d more or less fit…’ Trudy’s eyes narrowed, but Krystal noticed there was also a slight blush on her cheeks. ‘If I do, you can borrow mine if you need to. Not that you’d want to.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘The sisters at the orphanage made sure I came to school with an appropriate amount, and type, of clothing. The Sisters of Perpetual Harmony are not renowned for their fashion sense. I have fourteen pairs of white, very functional panties and four bras you could probably use as armour cladding for a battleship.’

  Trudy’s expression shifted to a smirk. ‘I think we’ll get along fine. Even if you do turn out to be an indigo, you don’t take yourself as seriously as most of them.’

  Krystal gave a shrug. ‘I’m an orphan, just about the lowest of the low. Even greys are allowed to look down on me.’

  Giving Krystal’s hand a final squeeze, Trudy released her grip. ‘Well, I’m a grey, and I don’t look down on anyone. Uh, I hope you don’t mind, but I picked my bed already and I’ve taken the top two drawers in the dresser. There’s room in the wardrobe too. It’s not like I brought a lot of stuff with me. My family isn’t exactly rich. I’m here on a scholarship.’

  ‘Really? Me too. I mean, I guess that should be obvious since I’m an orphan so– Wait, you’re a grey?’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ Trudy replied, settling back onto the bed.

  ‘But you’re studying magic?’

  The smirk returned. ‘This place doesn’t teach carpentry.’

  Krystal beamed. ‘That’s amazing! Greys hardly ever have any talent for magic. And if you got in here, you must be pretty talented.’

  ‘I’m not exactly amazing, I don’t think, but I’ve got enough talent to be accepted. You must too. Everyone here is better than your average magician. Anyway, that’s probably another reason we’re roomies. Two scholarship students. Probably why we’re up here in the top of the oldest hall.’

  ‘Oh, yeah.’ Krystal lifted her largest bag up onto what was now her bed and opened it up. ‘I guess you’re right. I’m not really used to being treated differently. Everyone at the orphanage was, well, an orphan and the sisters are all about humility. Of course, it wasn’t all perpetual harmony, but when it came down to it, we were all in the same boat.’ Pulling out a stack of clothes, she turned to the wooden dresser beside the door.

  ‘Well, this place is probably going to be a shock,’ Trudy said, ‘and you really weren’t kidding about the sensible panties. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything that… sturdy looking.’

  Krystal looked down at the bundle in her arms and grimaced. Her cheeks turned hot. ‘Could’ve been worse. I could’ve been given a dozen chastity belts.’

  ~~~

  The refectory at the school was open, but it was not really serving proper meals until Royalday and it was only Yellowday evening. Luckily, Trudy seemed to know the city pretty well and she knew of a place that served cheap food not far outside the walls.

  Krystal had never seen a ‘patty house’ before and found the entire place fascinating. Trudy found it fascinating that Krystal had never been to one, but Trudy’s fascination was of a rather giggly sort. Krystal announced that, since Trudy had located the food, she would buy it, and Trudy was grinning like a maniac the entire time Krystal spent figuring out how to order from the servers, collect the food, and carry it back to the table they had selected. The last part was made a little more difficult by the crowd; the Patty Royal seemed to have attracted a fair number of students from the school, all after the same thing.

  ‘You seem to have a talent for carrying trays,’ Trudy said when Krystal arrived with the food. ‘Magic and waitressing. Quite a combination.’

  Krystal grinned and dropped a curtsey before sitting down. ‘I’m trained in service. A lot of the orphans end up as servants, so the sisters give us appropriate training.’

  ‘Well, you’re good with a tray. I hope you like the food.’

  ‘Yeah…’ Krystal peered at the bun with its beefy contents. ‘They didn’t have any cutlery.’

  Picking up her own patty, Trudy sank her teeth into it and started chewing. Krystal raised an eyebrow. Trudy swallowed. ‘You just eat it,’ Trudy explained. ‘It’s like… finger food.’

  ‘Okay.’ Krystal gave a shrug, picked up her patty, and sank her fangs into it. It was basically minced beef squashed together and stuffed into a bun after cooking, but it did taste… ‘That’s really pretty good.’

  ‘No need to sound so surprised. They don’t have these in Appleyard?’

  ‘Don’t think so. I didn’t get out of the orphanage much. I’m a bit of a bookwyrm. Okay, a lot of a bookwyrm. The sisters think we should have an education, so they make sure to teach us the basics of science, mathematics, and magic if we have the talent, but I’d study on my own whenever I got the chance. How about you?’

  ‘Not so much. I went to school, and when they noticed I could work magic, one of the teachers put in some extra time with me so I could try out for the Celestina School. I think I learned more about everything else from, well, the street. No one puts a whole lot of effort into teaching greys anything beyond the absolute basics. Most of us aren’t going to do anything with science or mathematics. Most of us couldn’t do anything with magic if we wanted to.’

  Krystal chewed her mouthful of bread and mouth-watering beef, and looked thoughtful. ‘That’s just wrong. I’m an orphan and I got a pretty good education.’

  Trudy shrugged. ‘Way the world works.’

  ‘Maybe it shouldn’t. I mean, a few hundred years ago, the idea of a school of magic for young, talented women was unheard of. Now we’re attending it.’

  ‘Uh-huh, we’re attending the only school of magic for women, and that’s right here on Concordance. You try starting one in one of the Nightsky cities and see how far you get.’

  ‘I guess Celestina Nightsky is a bit of a maverick.’

  Trudy picked up her glass of cider and raised it. ‘Blessed may she be for kicking social norms in the gonads.’

  Krystal giggled and raised her own glass, clinking it against Trudy’s. ‘I might not have put it that way, but I’ll drink to that.’

  ~~~

  ‘You seem to know the city pretty well,’ Krystal commented as they walked back toward the school.

  ‘Well, I was born and raised in Greystone Ward,’ Trudy replied.

  ‘And I don’t know the city very well. I read a couple of things about it. Uh, Greystone is the northern quarter, right?’

  ‘Uh-huh. You’ve got Palace Ward in the middle, where the Palace of Concordance is, obviously. Over on the other side of the city is Eastlook, where the rich folk live. We’re on the south-west corner, pretty much on the border of Westlook and Downtown. Westlook’s got the middle-class housing and the entertainment district. Downtown is mostly warehousing and the harbour. And up at the north is Greystone, where you have the slaughterhouses, tanneries, and the grey dragons.’

  ‘More unnecessary divisions.’

  Trudy shrugged. ‘Maybe, but when it comes down to it, the indigos in Eastlook can afford to live somewhere that doesn’t smell of cattle and shit, and we can’t.’

  ‘Oh. I guess when you put it like that…’

  ‘It’s just how things are. I could live with them treating us more like equals, but at least they aren’t royals.’

  Krystal gave Trudy a quick glance. ‘You don’t like royals?’

  ‘I… don’t like royals. No.’ The way Trudy said it
tended to suggest she did not want to talk about it.

  ‘I don’t think there are any royals at the school,’ Krystal said, which was sort of a change of subject.

  ‘They usually get private tutors if they’re going to learn magic. We’ve got indigos, reds, blues, yellows, greens, and me, but no royals.’

  ‘Well, that’s o–’

  ‘Of course, there are royals in the city. Most of the older ones stick to the palace’s enclosure, but you get the younger ones out on the streets. If you see them, walk the other way.’

  ‘Uh, okay.’

  Trudy gave Krystal a serious look. ‘I’m serious. Royals are privileged yobs. They’re dangerous. You see rainbow scales, you cross the street. They’ll take a girl like you and–’ She cut herself off and glowered at the paving stones at her feet. ‘Just avoid them, okay?’

  ‘I can’t see me having much call to go near them. Oh look, we’re back already.’

  There was a pause and then Trudy managed a weak grin. ‘Sorry. I get a little intense about royals. When I get to know you better, I might tell you why. For now… I have no idea what to do with the rest of the evening.’

  ‘I’ve got a book to read. That’s if you don’t want to do anything else.’

  ‘A book. Your first night in the big city, your first Yellowday, and you want to read?’

  ‘I did say I was a bit of a bookwyrm…’

  ~~~

  ‘A bit of a bookwyrm?’

  Krystal looked at the six books she had taken out of her smaller bag and then at Trudy. The latter was standing there with her hands on her hips, eyebrows raised. ‘It’s only six books. I have six books. The sisters would get me a book sometimes as a reward.’ She lifted a fairly thick, leather-bound volume. ‘I got this one, Mallory Nightsky’s Thoughts on the Nature of Magic, when I got my scholarship. I’m still working through it. It’s, uh, a little dense. I think it might take some second-year courses before I really understand it.’

  ‘I don’t own any books,’ Trudy said. ‘I don’t know anyone who owns any books. Not books with leather covers anyway. My mam has a few paperback novels. I don’t think I’ve ever known anyone with real books.’