1
Trouble
Lavinia Lucas was in trouble. Again.
She sat outside the headmaster’s office, stinking of smoke and singed fabric as she slouched in an overstuffed armchair, her feet dangling and her arms crossed. Waiting.
The waiting was always the worst part. The teachers liked to throw her foreboding looks as they passed—-their lips tight with disappointment—-while the other students whispered and giggled behind their hands.
What did Lavinia Lucas do this time?
“Jessie Davies said she was caught with a boy behind the bleachers,” one girl said, loudly enough for her voice to carry. Vin rolled her eyes.
“I heard she tried to set Amy Carmichael’s hair on fire,” piped in an older boy, craning his neck to get a look at Vin as he and his friends passed. That one was at leastclose to the truth. Amy had been there, anyway.
And there had also been fire.
“That’s not it. Her parents wrote the school saying they can’t pay her tuition, and when Miss Thornbury told her, she had a fit.”
Untrue. Even if Vin’s parents paid her tuition—-which they didn’t—-they wouldn’t bother to write the school to refuse. They’d just ignore it, like they did all the letters sent their way.
Vin lurched upright in her chair. Her sudden movement made the passing students jump and skitter away as if she were a rabid dog straining against her leash.
She smiled darkly as she settled back into her seat. That was theone good part about her growing reputation. Since the gossip about her was always so far--fetched and unreliable, nobody actually knew what she was capable of. So, they were afraid of her.
To be fair, evenVin didn’t really know what she might do next. Sometimes it was fire and smoke—-like today—-and other times it was raining ice and sleet . . . or cats and dogs. With every detention and expulsion, with every scorch mark and emotionally scarred staff member, the legend grew.
And after three detentions in one week—-a new record—-she had leapfrogged idle curiosity and mob mentality to land squarely on fear, all before her two--week anniversary. The school year was off to a great start.
“The headmaster is ready for you,” said the secretary, pointing Vin to the headmaster’s open door. The instant Vin stepped through, the door snapped shut behind her.
She walked into the center of the room, chin held high. Her long curtain of dark hair hung lank around her face, smelling of smoke and crusted with fire extinguisher goop. Burnt pieces of her school blazer flaked off, leaving a trail of ashes on the thick woven rug.
The headmaster of Strictland School of Magic watched her approach, seated behind his massive oak desk, looming above her like a judge in a courtroom. He gestured for her to sit, so she perched on the rickety wooden chair before him. There was no point in making herself too comfortable. She knew what was coming, and it wouldn’t take long.
“Lavinia, Lavinia, Lavinia,” he said, more and more gravely with each repetition, until her name sounded like a gong heralding the end of the world. Headmaster Pratt’s graying hair was combed neatly across his forehead, attempting to conceal a shining bald patch, and he wore a sweater vest with the Strictland emblem embroidered on the chest. His hands were knitted together on the desk before him, resting on her open—-and uncommonly thick—-file.
“Vin,” she corrected stiffly. She hated her full name, which always made her feel like she was in trouble. Of course, shewas in trouble, so perhaps she ought to let him use it to avoid confusion.
“Yes, well,” he said, smiling tightly at her. “We have much to discuss today, La—-Miss Lucas, and none of it good.”
Vin squirmed uneasily. If “Lavinia” meant she was in trouble, “Miss Lucas” surely meant she was inbig trouble. Surname trouble.
“It was an accident,” she said automatically. She knew it didn’t matter, that the truth never mattered, but it was all part of the song and dance that was Vin’s life at school.
“An accident?” repeated someone from behind Vin, making her jump. She whirled around to see a woman seated in the corner of the room, next to the door. As the woman got to her feet, she looked to Vin like a flagpole in a tweed suit. She was tall and rake thin, her spine ramrod straight, her curly hair pinned down and stiff with hairspray.
Vin hadn’t noticed her when she’d come in, her own attention too focused on Headmaster Pratt—-her judge, jury, and executioner. But now she had to wonder . . . was this woman here for the defense or the prosecution?
“Ah, yes,” the headmaster said, clearing his throat. He seemed . . . not cross, exactly, but perhaps irked that this woman had interrupted what was meant to behis interrogation. As far as Vin could tell, getting students in trouble was a headmaster’s primary role and single source of joy in any given school year.
“Miss Lucas, this is Mrs. Priscilla Prim. She’s an inspector sent by the school board.”
Well,this was something new.
And also, Vin suspected, something bad.
Mrs. Prim nodded at Vin, her lips pursed, and came to stand next to the headmaster’s desk, hands clasped behind her back. “I am here, Miss Lucas, to determine if saidaccident is likely to occur again. The purpose of magecraft education, as defined in the Treaty of 1695, is to teach discipline and restraint. To teachcontrol.”
Vin wasvery familiar with the tenets of the Treaty, which had been ranted and recited at her all her life.
Magic must be controlled.
Magic must be contained.
Magic is a privilege, not a right.
“Your reckless use of magic and wanton destruction of school property are serious matters, with or without intent,” Mrs. Prim continued. “And thus, we must discuss alternative solutions.”
“Alternative solutions . . .” Vin repeated blankly.
“We requested the presence of your parents at this meeting,” the headmaster began uncomfortably, “but were unable to get in touch with them. It seems their address has changed in the short two weeks since your registration, and their phone number does not appear to be in service . . .” He trailed off, eyes narrowed in either confusion or suspicion, Vin couldn’t be sure.
“Very strange,”  Vin said, pushing him toward the former. The truth was, her parents never stayed in one place long enough to receive mail, and when they did, it was usually so far out of the way that by the time it arrived, the topic was no longer relevant—-and the school on the letterhead a place Vin no longer attended.
They “went where the work was,” according to them. Their field of study? Dung beetles. Vin had never seen two people more obsessed with insects than her parents, who were low--level mages with high--level curiosity when it came to bugs. They weren’t interested in anything with only two feet, and that included their daughter.
The problem was, each time Vin attended a new school, she was required to file new paperwork. Apparently they didn’t like it when you left half the fields blank, so she’d started using fake addresses and a burner phone with an old voicemail recording, which was easier than actually trying to track her parents down. Most of the time, she didn’t even know which country they were living in. Was it Canada or Costa Rica? Mexico or Malta?
So she filled out the forms and forged their signatures, and her school administrators simply assumed her parents didn’t answer mail or return calls, not that they never received them in the first place. By the time they might have started to worry, Vin was usually off again.
She preferred that her parents were never reached, anyway, as they had no idea of their daughter’s nomadic education status—-and they would only complicate matters. They might start asking questions. They might start caring. It would be a shock to Vin’s system.
“While their presence would have been ideal, ultimately it makes little difference,” Mrs. Prim said, well . . .primly. “This is a decision for the school board alone.”
“What decision?”  Vin asked. Surely she was going to be expelled—-these meetings always wound up with Vin expelled—-and they had never needed her parents present to do that.
“I think it comes as no surprise, Miss Lucas, that your time at Strictland must come to an end,” the headmaster said. “According to Miss Thornbury’s account, you terrorized your fellow classmates before setting the entire gymnasium on fire . . .”
“It was only the banners,”  Vin mumbled. Not because she had held back at all; they just happened to be the most flammable.
The headmaster either didn’t hear her or chose to ignore her. “. . . showing a blatant disregard for your fellow students’ safety, not to mention the esteemed accomplishments of the students who have come before you.”
Vin sighed. She knew for a fact that several of the banners she’d torched had hadhis name on them from his time here as a student, and clearly he was taking personal offense at their destruction.
“Furthermore, your file details a long, thorough, and rather sordid track record of similar misdeeds,” the headmaster continued. “Not only was this not the first fire you set in a school, it was not the first in a gymnasium, nor the first time the hallowed school banners paid the price.”
Vin opened her mouth, ready to tell him the whole story—-the fact that it had been a fire conjuring class, and when the teacher’s back was turned, the other students kept throwing sparks at Vin. She did what she always did when she was bullied: she absorbed the pain and the magic, refusing to let them push her into retaliation, knowing how it would end . . . but inevitably, by the time the last burning spark hit Vin’s skin, it was too late. She barely felt it, her own body burning up from the inside out.
And then she lost control. She unleashed all the anger and the magic that had been brimming up inside her, going off like a bomb in the gymnasium, when the strongest fire Conjurer in their school could do no more than summon a handful of flames in the palm of their hand.
Vin wanted to tell him they were lucky the fire had gone straight up to the rafters and not outward, like it had done in the past. She wanted to tell him they were lucky she hadn’t turned her magic on the other students on purpose, like they constantly accused her of.
But Vin’s magic was wild, it was powerful, and it was utterly out of her control. And whether she intended it or not, that went against everything Strictland—-and every other magecraft school she’d ever been to—-stood for.
It waswrong, which meant Vin was wrong, too.
“And so,” Mrs. Prim said, “for reasons the headmaster has pointed out, your time at the Strictland School of Magic is over. You are expelled.”
For some reason, the word hit harder than usual. Maybe because Vin knew there was more still to come.
“Typically,” Mrs. Prim continued, “such a student would transfer to another one of the fine magecraft institutions under the school board’s banner, but alas, Miss Lucas, you have already done a rather thorough tour, from Los Angeles to Montreal and everywhere in between, not to mention several months in Alaska and a few short stints overseas. But it seems you have reached the end of the line.”
“The end of the line?”  Vin blurted, truly alarmed for the first time all day—-including when she’d inadvertently burst into flame. “But what about Australia? Asia? There must be a magecraft school or two in Antarctica?”
“There are indeed schools in those places . . . but none that will have you. I’m afraid your record speaks for itself.”
“I . . .”  Vin began, hands gripping the sides of her chair so tightly the wood creaked. If no schools would have her . . . where would she go?
Would they send her home?
But she didn’thave a home.
All her life, Vin and her parents had slept in tents and trailers, in strange environmentalist communes and even acave once. It had felt exciting when she was young, an adventure around the world, even if her parents barely noticed her and half the time she didn’t have a room or even a bed to herself. But the older she got, the more she saw things clearly.
They weren’t leading Vin on an adventure. They were carrying her around like luggage—-no, like an old piece of furniture. She was a burden, something that didn’t really fit into their life but they were saddled with all the same. That’s why they’d ditched her at boarding school the first chance they’d gotten and hadn’t looked back since.
“What does that mean?” she choked out, panic high in her throat.
“It means,” Mrs. Prim began, plucking a piece of paper from the top of the headmaster’s folder and revealing a large wooden stamp, which had been held behind her back, “that you have been branded a magical delinquent.”
She brought the stamp down onto the paper with a resounding thump, leaving the words glistening in bright red ink.
“And for such students, there is only one place you can go.”
Please don’t say home, please don’t say home. Vin had been to eight schools in three years, nine if you counted that weekend in South Africa before the school was closed down, unrelated to Vin’s arrival—-she was pretty sure—-and all of them, with their uptight teachers and cruel students, were preferable to being sent to her parents.
To being sent where she wasn’t wanted.
And at least at boarding school she had a bed, however temporary.
“See this as an opportunity,” the headmaster said bracingly, adding the newly stamped page from Mrs. Prim to her file before handing Vin a different piece of paper. A transfer form. “We think that with proper focused attention and a rigorous curriculum—-”
“Coupled with stern discipline,” interjected Mrs. Prim.
“—-you could turn it around. But this is your last chance, Miss Lucas. I suggest you make the most of it. If you are expelled again, you will be labeled a dropout and blacklisted from the Worldwide Magecraft School System. Forever. That means no further education, magical or otherwise. No job. Nofuture.”
Vin looked down at the paper, reading the name of her new school. The Last Hope School for Magical Delinquents.
No, it wasn’t just her last chance.
It was her last hope.