Lock and Key (Nocturne Academy 1)

20

I was woken by a light in my face and someone shaking me by the shoulder.

“Five more minutes,” I mumbled and put my head under the pillow.

The pillow was pulled ruthlessly away and the light came back full force.

“If you don’t get up now you’ll be late for breakfast and let me tell you—anything that’s halfway decent to eat goes early,” Emma informed me. “So you’d better get up, Megan.”

Groaning, I sat up and rubbed the sleep out of my eyes.

Kaitlyn was already dressed in her uniform and sitting on the bed, putting books in her black leather satchel.

“We let you sleep as long as we could,” she told me. “But you’re going to have to hurry if you don’t want to be late. Emma is right—if you’re last in line for breakfast you might as well just skip it.”

I wasn’t starving after the late dinner we’d had the night before but then I remembered that I had a late lunch period. Better to put at least something in my stomach before starting the day’s classes.

I hopped out of bed, took the world’s fastest shower and was brushing my hair and my teeth at the same time when Emma came to check on me again.

“Now that’s what I call multi-tasking,” she said, grinning at me in the row of mirrors.

I finished brushing my hair and spit toothpaste into the sink at the same time before looking up.

“Yup—I’ve never been much of a morning person but I make up for it by being really fast getting ready.”

“Well, I hope you’re ready now—it’s time to go.” Kaitlyn was already waiting for us, her satchel slung over one shoulder and her long, silky hair combed just right to hide her face so that only one lovely eye peeked out.

It occurred to me that, except for the picture she kept on her nightstand, I had never yet seen her full face. I wondered if that had anything to do with her veiled references to a fire and the scars on the backs of her hands but of course I couldn’t ask.

She would tell me when she got ready. In the meantime, there was still a lot my new friends didn’t know about me as well.

The black key nestled between my breasts seemed to get heavier in agreement.

“Everybody ready? Good—let’s go,” Emma said, leading the way.

We trooped out of our bedroom and I looked around the common room.

“Where’s Avery? Isn’t he coming with us?” Our little group felt incomplete without him.

“Oh, he’s probably already upstairs holding our table and fixing his coffee,” Kaitlyn said.

“He lives on that stuff,” Emma explained. “He says the kitchens here at the Academy don’t cook a single decent meal—which is why he doesn’t mind doing a little cooking of his own most nights for dinner. I think tonight he’s planning to make us a roasted chicken.”

I had good reason to be glad that I could look forward to a home-cooked dinner that night because breakfast really was awful. Despite our best efforts and the fact that we literally only had to climb the spiral staircase up to get there, we were a little bit late to the Dining Hall, which meant almost everyone else had already gone through the line. And, as Kaitlyn and Emma had predicted, most of the eatable food was already gone by the time we got our green plastic trays and went through.

I didn’t bother to look at the Fae or the Drake offerings—a delicious looking fruit tart and some kind of thick-cut bacon dish respectively—knowing I had no hope of getting either one. The Sister’s offering was more appetizing—fruit salad and Eggs Benedict which looked pretty good.

But after my dismal failure in Elementary Casting the day before, I didn’t feel like I deserved to eat from the Sisters’ menu, no matter what my tag said. So I stood with Kaitlyn and Emma and got a portion of what appeared to be greasy, hash brown casserole slapped on the middle of my tray, along with a dried-up hockey puck of a sausage patty.

“Oh, I was afraid of this,” Emma sighed as she looked at the unappetizing breakfast. “Usually they have some fresh fruit like bananas and oranges at the end of the line that anyone can take. But I guess they’re all gone now.” She indicated a large, empty silver bowl at the far end of the line.

“Sorry,” I said, feeling like it was my fault we were too late to get anything decent. “I’ll get up earlier from now on, I promise.”

“It’s okay, Megan—we’ll live,” Kaitlyn said comfortingly. “Let’s just get something hot to drink to tide us over.”

After grabbing some hot coffee for me and Emma and hot tea for Kaitlyn, we pushed our way through the crowded hall to get to where Avery was sitting and waving at us.