Tag: POV: Corrie

Chatoyant College, Chatoyant College Book 14: Ghost Stories

Chatoyant College Book 14: Chapter 17: See Her Coming

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The next person to be called asked, “Are you sure there aren’t any vampires on campus? Couldn’t they come here if they wanted to?”

Professor Lal assured them that while vampires could, in theory, enter campus, it had never been a problem in the four hundred years that the college had been in operation, and that vampires had proper respect for and fear of faeries. She then assured another person that the vast majority of faeries in and around campus were on the side of humanity and would help protect the students against those faeries who were not. Then she had to assure someone else that the risk of a werewolf attack was extremely minimal.

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Chatoyant College, Chatoyant College Book 14: Ghost Stories

Chatoyant College Book 14: Chapter 16: Magic People

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The picture had changed to that of an ordinary, smiling young man, and then it changed again, to an older woman with silver hair. In the picture her calm expression turned to a smile, and two of her front teeth lengthened into fangs.

Corrie’s eyes widened and she glanced at Roe, who was frowning and watching the screen. She could have guessed… faeries and werewolves both existed, so why not vampires? But it seemed strange that, with all the supernatural experience she and her friends had had, they should have completely avoided learning about vampires until now.

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Chatoyant College, Chatoyant College Book 14: Ghost Stories

Chatoyant College Book 14: Chapter 15: The Best Way to Defend Yourself

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Lal waved her hand, and a projector screen lowered. The lights dimmed, an image appearing on the screen. Corrie smiled, remembering how impressive it had seemed when she went to her first magic class and Professor Lal had made things happen without touching them.

“Faeries can look like almost anything, though we generally have a humanoid base,” Lal said, moving to stand beside the screen. It showed a picture of a young woman and, beside her, a creature with gills and huge, blue, shining eyes. The picture changed, showing a young man, then the same man with his head turned to the side, showing a delicately lacy ear.

“Do not think I am giving you the full range of faerie appearance,” Professor Lal said. “These are merely examples. The point is, we can look like many things, and we can all hide our true appearances with glamour, so that we look like ordinary humans if we choose.”

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Chatoyant College, Chatoyant College Book 14: Ghost Stories

Chatoyant College Book 14: Chapter 14: How to Protect Yourself

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Saturday, August 26

Corrie, Edie, and Dawn arrived early to the magic building that morning, wanting to make sure they could get to their assigned rooms easily. After all, if everyone on campus was required to attend one of these classes, it would be a huge crowd.

To Corrie’s disappointment, the class list pointed them each to a different classroom. She and Edie were each in one of the big amphitheater-style classrooms, and Dawn was in the same one where they’d had trance class last semester. Corrie was on the top floor, so she waved goodbye first to Dawn and then to Edie as she trudged up to the classroom.

It was only about a quarter full when she got there, so she was able to find a seat in the front row, near the far side of the room. Professor Lal was standing at the front of the class, talking quietly to a couple of students Corrie didn’t recognize. No one seemed to be intimidated by Professor Lal, but she was in her usual glamour, and maybe they didn’t remember that she was a faerie.

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Chatoyant College, Chatoyant College Book 14: Ghost Stories

Chatoyant College Book 14: Chapter 9: Crushing

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“This is a good start,” Ginny said at last. “As your homework, I want you to continue with this exercise through the tarot. Tonight, find the Magician card and write down a few impressions of it from your chosen deck. Then choose another random card, put it next to the Magician, and write down the impressions you get from that. Continue tomorrow with the High Priestess, and so on until we have class again on Tuesday. Any questions?”

The class was quiet until Derwen suddenly lifted her head. “Uh, how do we know what the order of the cards is?”

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Chatoyant College, Chatoyant College Book 14: Ghost Stories

Chatoyant College Book 14: Chapter 8: Freedom

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After everyone was seated again, Ginny picked up a deck of her own from the packs scattered on her desk. “All right, now I’d like each of you to locate the Fool in your deck. That’s the first trump, or Major Arcana card, numbered zero—in case you’ve forgotten the list from your Intro to Magic class. If your deck has never been opened before, it will be the first card, or the first after one or two explanation cards.”

Corrie looked down at her deck. She didn’t know whether her grandmother had put the cards in any order. She carefully slid them out of the box and looked at the first card. It was a familiar woman dressed in stars she’d seen so many times in her life—the Empress. She smiled and started flipping through until she found the Fool, a man staring at the sky with a stick over his shoulder. This card was relatively crisp and new.

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Chatoyant College, Chatoyant College Book 14: Ghost Stories

Chatoyant College Book 14: Chapter 7: Tarot Decks

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Corrie gave a farewell wave to Edie and Troy as she headed for her second class of the day, Divination, which was right after Literary Analysis. She was excited to learn divination; she was sure Professor Lal had barely scratched the surface in their Intro to Magic class last year. This class was supposed to focus on tarot, pendulum, and astrology, which seemed like they could take a lot more than a single semester.

She was also curious to see who would be teaching the class. When she’d signed up, Professor Strega had been listed, but she’d left the school—or she could have changed her mind at the last minute, of course. So Corrie was expecting either Professor Strega or a brand-new teacher. There had been a teacher she didn’t recognize, Professor Cantrell, at the assembly at the end of last semester; maybe she was the new magic teacher.

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Chatoyant College, Chatoyant College Book 14: Ghost Stories

Chatoyant College Book 14: Chapter 4: Reassurances

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“Hey, Corrie,” Belinda said, waving and laughing. “You brought a whole escort just for me?”

Corrie laughed and waved back. “These are my closest friends. You know Edie.” She gestured at each of her friends as she said their names. “These are Dawn, Roe, Annie, and Rico.”

“Hi,” Belinda said, waving again at them all. “Do they all know about, uh… how we know each other?”

Corrie nodded. “Yeah, they know about my dad.”

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Chatoyant College Book 14: Chapter 3: Return to Gilkey

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They passed a number of other people moving in as they headed down the stairs and out the door. Corrie, Edie, and Dawn waved and said hi to Shannon, the girl who had shown them her dorm last year in a bid to get them to move into Sayer. Roe greeted an Asian girl Corrie vaguely recognized as Lin, who’d been in Intro to Magic with them. And they walked past Chris, who had been one of the friends of Leila, Edie’s faerie ex-girlfriend. They didn’t speak to her. Corrie wasn’t sure how she and Edie felt about each other now, but it probably wasn’t good, considering their complicated history.

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Chatoyant College, Chatoyant College Book 14: Ghost Stories

Chatoyant College Book 14: Chapter 2: Horns, Eyes, Teeth

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As Corrie started to unpack her notebooks, laptop, and pens, she saw another familiar face approaching the open door. But she had to blink a few times to get through her surprise enough to speak. “Derwen? Is that you?”

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