Sneak Peek Wednesday: Last Chance Academy by Alex Lidell (Giveaway)

“Ms. Devinee, as I truly hope you are aware, you are now a ward of Talonswood Reform Academy. You may call this a reform school, a military prison, or hell on earth—so long as you do it out of my earshot, I don’t care. What I do care about is that you understand that our rules are strict and absolute.”

“I un—” I start to say, shutting up as Asher shakes his head.

“No, you do not. But you will.” He nods to Quinn. “Take Ellis to the post and then meet us at the hose. Samantha, follow Reese and me.”

I spare a glance for Ellis, who seems both unsurprised and unfazed by what’s about to happen to him, and then hurry to follow Asher as instructed. Dammit. Despite myself, I already fear making the man angry at me even more than I fear crossing Quinn again.

Quinn is like mean miniature Dachshund. Asher is a wolf.

Holding on to the strap of my backpack, I walk between Asher and Reese, the two instructors bracketing me like prison guards. I wonder if this is how all new students are welcomed, or if I’m just extra special.

Witch, Ellis’s voice spits in my memory as if in response, making me shiver.

Quinn has said as much too.

I swallow.

As we angle right across the dusky green, tall wrought iron lamps come on along the walkways, and we finally pass other students for the first time, paused to watch the procession. I try not to stare, but it’s hard—so hard. The girls, dressed in blue plaid skirts and white button-downs, all look cut out of the pages of Seventeen magazine, tall, willowy, smooth skinned, with silky hair down to their butts, in every natural color of the rainbow. Not dyed hair like mine—I can tell immediately that none of them would ever be so crass.

The boys, in blue blazers, are all athletically built and as beautiful as the girls, some with porcelain-pale skin like Reese’s, some with a feral angle to their eyes like Ellis’s.

I thought these were supposed to be a bunch of juvenile delinquents. What do they put in the water here? Fuck. Maybe I’ll wake up with muscles and hair down to my butt too.

When I meet the cadets’ gazes, the dislike in their eyes is palpable enough to leave a bitter aftertaste in my mouth. In foster care, another brat meant another threat to what little anyone had, but no one here looks underfed in the least. Nor does Talonswood appear to be lacking in anything but common sense. The four fortress-castle-mansion things could probably fetch enough money to buy a small country, their stone façades in perfect repair, even the ivy growing in seemingly intentional patterns. The metal fences at the corners of the yard are no less gorgeously elaborate, the wolf-head designs on them works of art—and their currently open leaves ready to swing shut. To turn the large green into a grand prison yard in a matter of seconds.

“You are the only witch at Talonswood, Samantha,” Asher says abruptly as we bend around the rightmost building to stop at a piece of soggy ground behind it under a single harsh spotlight, the forest rising darkly in the background. “The demis do not know what to make of you. Frankly, neither do I.”

Demis? Yet another word that sounds like gibberish. “That makes all of us,” I mutter. “What does being a witch mean exactly? Should I be able to fly or do magic or turn men into toads?” My pitch rises with each word until a hard look from Asher silences me at once.

“No. Potentially. No.” Asher tells me curtly, raising his hand to stop further inquiries. “You will learn more in class. Let me be clear—you are welcome to protest, cry, question the truth all you want, just do it on your own time.” Asher is hiding his emotions better than Quinn had, but something unkind flashes in his eyes nonetheless. “I will not abide bad behavior under my watch. You are a witch, a nonhuman species. That carries risks to all two—apologies, three—creature races. I do not expect you to know what I am talking about yet—I do expect you to spend your every waking moment learning.”

For the first time, hearing it in Asher’s cool, logical voice, my brain has a hard time rejecting it. It’s impossible. But when you hear something enough times… I think of cauldrons, frogs, pointy hats, and somehow know that’s not what it means.