The Hidden Academy

Stone steps slid apart beneath the water, revealing a narrow passage. A current rushed through it, pulling loose shells and strands of seaweed into the glow.

Then something struck her ankle.

Mara kicked wildly. Her heel connected with a length of rope, and the rope whipped away. She forced herself upward, but the surface had vanished behind a spinning ceiling of bubbles and broken planks.

The light below brightened.

With her last breath, Mara seized the edge of the doorway.

The stone felt warm.

A tremor passed through it, like a pulse beneath skin.

The water around her twisted. Instead of lifting her, the current dragged her through the doorway and down the first step.

Mara opened her mouth in panic. Saltless water flooded her throat.

A hand closed around her wrist.

She expected fingers. She found cold metal.

A brass ring, fixed into the wall, held her fast. She clung to it while the passage groaned around her. The stairs had changed. They no longer sloped straight down but curled sharply to the left, vanishing behind a wall of wavering blue.

Her chest convulsed.

She pulled herself onto the step and kicked upward. The stairway answered with a violent shudder. Stone folded over stone. The opening above narrowed to a silver coin, then vanished beneath a slab.

Mara struck the slab with both fists.

The sound came back muffled and small.

“No,” she gasped, though the water stole the word.

A pocket of air trembled along the ceiling. Mara pushed toward it and broke through, coughing so hard her ribs hurt. She sprawled across three narrow steps while water streamed from her hair and sleeves.

For several seconds, she could do nothing but breathe.

The storm raged somewhere above. Its thunder arrived as a distant, wooden knocking. The stairway beneath Bellwether Harbor was quiet except for the drip of water and the faint scrape of stones moving in the walls.

Mara rolled onto her knees.

Her wrist glowed.

Not brightly. The light came from beneath her skin, a thin blue line circling the place where the brass ring had touched her. She rubbed at it, but the mark did not fade.

At the bottom of the stairway, a door appeared.

Mara was certain it had not been there a moment before.

It stood upright in the flooded passage, made of black wood veined with silver. No handle broke its surface. Above it, letters had been carved into the stone.

She could read them, though she had never seen the script before.

THE ACADEMY OF BRINE AND STAR.

A wave burst through the stairwell behind her.

Mara scrambled upward, but the steps shifted under her knees. The stairway turned like a corkscrew. A landing that had been above her slid sideways, and the door below drifted farther away.

She grabbed a jutting stone.

“Come on,” she whispered. “Just let me out.”

The passage answered with a deep bell note.

The sound passed through her bones.

Every seam in the walls lit at once. Blue symbols flared beneath the moss, racing down the stairs toward the black door. The silver veins in the wood brightened, and a line of light opened across its center.

Mara’s grip tightened.

The door swung inward.

Beyond it lay no room, but a vast hall beneath a dark, star-flecked sky. Towers rose from an underground lake, their windows glowing amber and green. Bridges curved between them. Far above, a moon hung behind rippling water, as if the whole sky had been drowned.

Mara stared.

A figure moved on the nearest bridge.

A girl in a dark coat leaned over the rail, looking down into the hall. Her hair floated around her face as though she too stood underwater. She lifted one hand.

The stairway lurched.

Mara slid toward the open door.

“No!”

She drove her elbow into the step. Her fingers scraped stone, found nothing, and then caught the edge of the threshold. The current seized her legs and pulled.

The girl on the bridge shouted something. Her voice reached Mara distorted and distant.

The door began to close.

Mara looked back toward the sealed stairway above. There was no surface now. No pier. No Jonah. Only black water pressing against the stones.

She had one chance.

She let go of the step.

The current hurled her through the doorway.

She landed on cold marble, coughing up water. The door slammed behind her with enough force to shake dust from the high ceiling.

Mara lay still, cheek against the floor.

The hall smelled of wet stone, lamp oil, and something sharp like crushed mint. Water dripped from her coat in widening pools. Beneath her palm, the marble was warm and faintly vibrating.

Footsteps approached.

“Don’t move,” said a boy’s voice.

Mara lifted her head.

A boy stood several yards away, holding a wand pointed straight at her. He looked about her age, perhaps fourteen, with dark hair plastered to his forehead and a silver school badge pinned to his collar. Behind him, the girl from the bridge hurried down a curving staircase.

“I told you not to come near the gate,” she said.

“I didn’t come near it,” Mara managed. “It pulled me.”

The boy’s wand did not lower. “That’s what everyone says.”

“I’m not everyone.”

“No,” the girl said. She had reached the floor now. Her gaze fixed on Mara’s glowing wrist. “You’re a surface girl.”

Mara pushed herself upright. Her clothes dragged at her, heavy with water. “Where am I?”

The girl glanced at the sealed door.

The symbols surrounding it were still lit. One by one, they began to turn red.

“That,” she said, “is a very bad question to ask after waking the wards.”

The boy’s expression changed. “Lio.”

“I can see them.”

A bell rang somewhere beyond the hall. This one was louder than the harbor bell, and deeper. The towers beyond the lake answered with flashes of light.

Mara stood unsteadily. “I need to get back.”

“You can’t,” said the boy.

“I have to.”

“You can’t,” he repeated, sharper now. “The tide passage only opens from the harbor side at low water. The gate is sealed until - ”

The black door boomed.

A crack of blue light split the hall from floor to ceiling. The lake beyond the arches rose in a smooth wall, held back by invisible glass. Far above, the drowned moon flickered.

The girl seized Mara’s arm.

“Move!”

They ran.

Mara stumbled after her across the marble. The boy followed, glancing over his shoulder as the symbols on the gate burned brighter. The hall seemed to lengthen with every step. Pillars slid sideways. Staircases uncurled from the walls and folded back again.

“What is happening?” Mara demanded.

“Your arrival activated the welcome wards,” the girl said.

“Those are welcome?”

“They’re supposed to identify students.”

“Then tell them I’m not one!”

The girl stopped so suddenly Mara crashed into her.

Ahead, the floor ended at the edge of the underground lake. A narrow bridge extended across it, but the bridge was retracting stone by stone into the far wall.

The boy pointed his wand. “Wait!”

A spark leapt from its tip and struck the nearest slab. The bridge halted.

“For three seconds,” he said.

“Plenty,” said the girl.

She shoved Mara forward.

They crossed as the lake churned beneath them. Shapes moved in the dark water below - long, pale forms that turned just out of sight. Mara kept her eyes on the far archway. The bridge stones began sliding back.

The boy reached the other side first. He caught the girl’s hand and pulled her across.

Mara jumped.

Her boot landed on the final slab as it withdrew. She fell forward, striking the stone hard enough to split her lip. The boy grabbed the back of her coat and hauled her away from the edge.

The bridge vanished behind them.

A wave slapped against the empty air where it had been.

Mara pushed herself up, shaking. “I’m going back.”

The girl looked at her with something close to pity. “There is no back.”

“I have a family.”

“So do we.”

“I have a brother on that pier.”

The words came out broken. She saw Jonah’s red scarf again, twisting in the storm. He might be searching the water. He might be calling her name.

The boy lowered his wand at last. “If the harbor took you, the harbor may not give you back.”

Mara rounded on him. “You don’t know that.”

“I know the gate has sealed.”

Behind them, the distant doors of the academy groaned. Red light spilled through the cracks.

The girl stepped closer. “What’s your name?”

Mara wiped blood from her mouth. “Mara Venn.”

The girl’s eyes widened.

The boy looked from Mara to the glowing mark on her wrist. “Venn?”

Mara felt the floor tremble beneath her boots.

“Why?” she asked.

Neither answered.

Across the lake, every window in the academy flared awake. Bells began ringing in different towers, answering one another in a pattern that made Mara’s skin prickle. The red light around the gate changed to gold.

Then words appeared above the archway in burning letters.

MARA VENN - ADMITTED.

The last bell struck.

Behind her, the gate sealed with a sound like the ocean locking its jaws.

End of chapter one. 9 more chapters in the full book.