Hollowfell Huntress: Spellwood Academy, #3

By Kate Avery Ellison

Half-human, half-fae Kyra Solschild still doesn't know who wants her dead, but she's getting closer to the truth. With a clue in hand, she is determined to uncover the identity of the enemy sending assassins after her.

Lucien pretends he feels nothing for Kyra after cutting things off without explanation, but the fiery kisses they exchange in shadowed corners suggest that he still wants her. Can the dark prince of Spellwood be trusted?And as the days grow colder and the autumnal fae holiday of Hollowfell approaches, something disastrous is happening on Spellwood Academy's campus.Something... someone... has come hunting.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kate Avery Ellison
• Release date: Oct 4, 2020
• ISBN: 9798230989264

Book preview

Other books by Kate Avery Ellison include:

Red Rider (The Sworn Saga #1)

A Gift of Poison (The Kingmakers’ War #1)

A Bed of Blades (The Kingmakers’ War #2)

A Kiss of Treason (The Kingmakers’ War #3)

A Circle of Flames (The Kingmakers’ War #4)

A Shield of Sorrow (The Kingmakers’ War #5)

A Court of Lies (The Kingmakers’ War #6)

A Reign of Thieves (The Kingmakers’ War #7)

A Knife of Oblivion (The Kingmakers’ War #8)

All Her Secrets

Frost (The Frost Chronicles #1)

Thorns (The Frost Chronicles #2)

Weavers (The Frost Chronicles #3)

Bluewing (The Frost Chronicles #4)

Aeralis (The Frost Chronicles #5)

The Curse Girl

Of Sea and Stone (Secrets of Itlantis #1)

By Sun and Saltwater (Secrets of Itlantis #2)

With Tide and Tempest (Secrets of Itlantis #3)

For Wreck and Remnant (Secrets of Itlantis #4)

In Dawn and Darkness (Secrets of Itlantis #5)

Once Upon A Beanstalk

Spellwood Academy (Spellwood Academy #1)

Briar Blood (Spellwood Academy #2)

HOLLOWFELL HUNTRESS

SPELLWOOD ACADEMY BOOK THREE

KATE AVERY ELLISON

Copyright © 2020 Kate Avery Ellison

All Rights Reserved

Do not distribute or copy this book, in print or electronic format, in part or in whole, without the written consent of the author.

This book is dedicated to all of the brave folks who are sacrificing and risking their health to save lives in the hospitals across the country, and to those who are marching and protesting to secure justice.

CHAPTER ONE

LUCIEN

YOU DID WHAT?

My voice cracked like a whip in the darkness, but Isadora didn’t flinch.

I got rid of her for you, she said calmly. You seemed to be struggling to make the right decision, Lucien.

Isadora and I stood alone on the rooftop of my dorm, with starlight above us and the silent night campus below. Earlier that day, Isadora had taken me into the forest under the pretense of meeting Tryst, and we’d come across Kyra embracing another student. A few hours later, she’d sent me a note telling me to meet her in our usual group spot.

Now, she was telling me she’d gotten rid of Kyra.

Isadora was ruthless—we all were, we’d had to be since we were little—but still, I was shocked into stillness for one stuttering heartbeat as her words crashed over me.

What do you mean, you got rid of her? The words leaped from my mouth in a snarl. I trembled.

Isadora’s dark eyes were expressionless. I sent her a letter. I copied your handwriting and told her it was over, that she wasn’t to talk to you again.

A letter.

Relief made me dizzy. Isadora had once poisoned the drink of a fae woman who was abusing her sister, causing the woman to become gravely ill. If she thought someone was a danger to someone she loved, she wasn’t afraid to strike.

This wasn’t your concern, I said when I could speak again. Leave Kyra alone and let me handle my business.

You’re losing your head, she shot back. And over a girl who isn’t even faithful.

We don’t know what was happening. It could have been entirely innocent. I didn’t believe myself, but still, I was angry enough to argue with her.

Her mouth pinched in a furious scowl. Oh, don’t be stupidly naïve, Lucien. Your own mother—

Don’t speak of my mother, I said. I don’t pretend to understand your life, don’t pretend to understand mine.

Isadora’s mouth snapped shut. She turned her head, breaking my gaze. She’d crossed a line in bringing up my mother and her affair, but my words were harsh, and Izzie had a temper. She’d probably be angry with me for a while.

Right now, I didn’t care.

I did what you apparently don’t have the balls to do, she said finally. I saved you from a world of trouble. Someday, you’ll thank me for it.

She pushed past me for the edge of the roof and paused, balancing on the balls of her feet.

Think with your head, Lucien, and not with other parts of your anatomy.

With that, she dropped over the side without a sound.

I stood staring into the shadows after her, my head reeling and my heart pounding against my ribs as if I’d run a mile.

I returned to my room, but I couldn’t sleep. I wrote half a dozen notes to Kyra and tore them all to pieces.

Maybe Isadora was right. Maybe I was a fool.

By the time morning came, I still had no note, and no idea what I should do.

~

KYRA

My fist made an echoing sound down the hall as I brought it against Headmaster Windswallow’s door. I’d never been in the teacher’s quarters before, least of all the rooms where the headmaster lived. My heart thumped, and my mouth was dry, but the righteous fury in my veins drowned out my fear. I lifted my hand to knock again, harder this time.

The door swung open, and Headmaster Windswallow gazed at me from the other side.

Kyra Solschild, she said, and something about the tone of her voice made me think that she wasn’t surprised to see me. Come in.

The headmaster stepped aside and opened the door wider, allowing me entrance into her private living quarters. I stepped across the threshold, momentarily startled out of my anger at the sight of the rooms before me.

They weren’t at all what I’d expected.

Not that I’d given it much thought, but I guess I would have supposed that the headmaster’s rooms would resemble her office, all paneled wood and heavy furniture and lots of dark tapestries. Austerity as a decorating theme.

Instead, the room made me think of an open sky.

The ceiling was vaulted in a high arch and painted pale blue. Light streamed through open windows that let in the wind. I caught a glimpse of a bed, bolted against the wall near the ceiling, the blankets dangling over the edge.

I turned my wide eyes to Headmaster Windswallow and remembered that she had functioning wings. How strange that I’d nearly forgotten them in my familiarity with her as the stoic headmaster seated behind her desk.

Headmaster Windswallow gave me a small smile that was more a twitch of her lips than anything else. It’s a bit over the top, she said, following my gaze across the ceiling. But this is the only place where I fly. I like to feel like I’m home here.

She gestured toward a grouping of chairs woven together from thick reeds in a complicated pattern that reminded me of birds’ nests. I sat.

What court are you from? I asked, still staring around me.

Headmaster Windswallow crossed the room to a small fireplace and lifted a kettle that sat near the coals. She poured steaming water into two cups, added tea leaves, and returned with them in her hands. She handed one to me and cupped the other between her fingers as she sat in the chair opposite mine.

I’m not from any of the courts, she said. I’m from a place beyond the fae kingdom, a land called Skisle.

Does everyone in Skisle have...? I gestured to her wings, and then I blushed, worrying I’d said something rude.

But Headmaster Windswallow didn’t seem offended. Those of my father’s people do. They rule the skies of their world.

I’d forgotten—she was a half-blood like the rest of us. All the teachers were.

Who... who was your mother, if I may ask? Suddenly, I was dying to know what woman had married a man with wings like an angel.

She was human, the headmaster said. But not from your world. Her people passed between dimensions and crossed the fey lands centuries ago searching for a new home. They learned to wring magic from the earth to protect themselves from the dangers of their new world. She gazed down into her cup as if the contents held secrets she wished to discover.

Must have been quite the romance, I murmured.

One corner of her lips twisted up. My father’s people despise my mother’s people, and the feeling is mutual. So, yes, it was.

I’m sorry, I said, because an apology seemed like the appropriate response to a literal Romeo and Juliet situation.

Headmaster Windswallow chuckled. Not everyone feels that way, of course. But it did cause some problems for my parents. She tipped her head to the side, studying me. Do you want to talk about why you are here, Kyra? Or would you like to continue discussing my ancestry?

I gulped my tea, and the hot liquid scalded my tongue. The headmaster was always so direct.

All right, I said, balancing the cup on my knees. Let’s talk about why I’m here.

Headmaster Windswallow waited.

I saw her, I said flatly. In the dining hall.

The memory filled my head—Tearly, her face blank, dressed in lavender robes with black stripes along the hem and neckline. Clearing dirty dishes from a table in the dining hall with the precision of a robot. She’d moved like a sleepwalker, eerily unaware of everything around her, but somehow not colliding with any of the chairs or students as she navigated her way back to the kitchen.

Headmaster Windswallow didn’t have ask who I meant.

She knew.

Anger spilled into my voice. How could you have allowed her to return here?

Tearly is under strong spells to keep her from doing anything that might harm anyone, Headmaster Windswallow said. She will not harm you. It is impossible.

I decided to go straight to the point. Do my mom and Grandmother Azalea know?

That question earned me a flicker of the headmaster’s eyebrows and a downward pull of her mouth.

They didn’t, then.

I don’t understand, I said. She tried to kill me, and the whole reason I’m here at Spellwood is to be safe. Apparently, I’m some kind of important royal... Doesn’t this seem like a terrible idea to you?

Tearly cannot hurt you while she is spelled, Headmaster Windswallow reiterated. And while your safety is of concern to this institution, of course, you are not our only student. These walls are not a safehouse for Kyra Solschild. Spellwood Academy exists to serve all half-blooded fae.

I flushed red at the gentle chiding in her tone—she was reproving me—but still, I pressed on.

"But why is she here? Couldn’t she be serving a sentence off in her fey court?" My pulse pounded in my ears. My voice thickened. I realized I was speaking disrespectfully to the headmaster of the school, but I didn’t care.

Headmaster Windswallow rose and paced to one of the wide, pointed windows that looked out on the forest beyond.

Tearly is from the spring court, she said, her back to me. It was recently discussed in the spring court, Headmaster Windswallow said heavily, that any half-blooded fae under their discipline for murder or attempted murder ought to be executed.

Understanding dawned. Oh.

Queen Druisi, the half-blood hater, had just taken the throne there. She wanted to eradicate those of mixed blood.

People like Tearly.

We didn’t want to take the chance that Tearly might— The headmaster paused. I was able to pull some strings and have her assigned here at once as her sentence. She was a student here. We have a duty to her.

My head spun, and my anger vanished, replaced by empty sadness. Tearly had tried to kill me, but she hadn’t wanted to. She’d been under a compulsion, an obligation due to some spell or blackmail. And, I still loved her. She had been a friend. No matter what she’d done, I didn’t want her killed.

So... what happens now? I asked in a small voice.

Headmaster Windswallow turned around to face me.

We make do, she said. Tearly will serve her sentence, and I will do everything in my power to make sure you do not encounter her in the future. And we will continue on.

Thank you.

Headmaster Windswallow nodded. Her somber expression rattled me to the core.

I have a suspicion, she said, that Queen Druisi will continue to cause problems for our students and our school. We have to start thinking about the solutions now and taking action to protect our students. Even the ones who’ve committed crimes.

I’d heard much talk about Queen Druisi and her threats—and Lyrica, one of my roommates, had just been visited by her mother, who was fleeing the court to live in the mortal world with Lyrica’s father. Even so, Druisi had seemed like a distant, vague threat. The kind of thing we’d doze off to a lecture about in history class.

Lyrica, Tearly... Queen Druisi’s taking the throne had affected several people close to me already.

Headmaster Windswallow studied my face. She was silent a moment, as if weighing her words, and then, she asked, Is there anything else you needed, Kyra? Are you well? You seem sad.

My face froze as the memory of the letter I’d received from Lucien last night filled my mind.

I can’t do this.

It’s over between us.

Don’t speak to me again.

Three terse sentences that had cut me with cold, ruthless precision. No explanation. No regrets. No kindness between the lines. Nothing to spare my feelings or let me down easily. Nothing to give me any strings of hope.

Three sentences, three stabs to the gut.

I was still struggling to breathe from the shock.

I’m fine, I said with false carelessness to the headmaster with a smile that was probably as unconvincing as hers had been. It’s just, er, boy problems.

I see, Headmaster Windswallow said, and paused as if choosing her words carefully. I know your situation here is a singular circumstance, Kyra, and at times you must feel that things are, well, precarious. I want you to rest easy in the knowledge that Spellwood is secure and that you are well guarded.

I looked away, blinking at the burning in the corners of my eyes.

I would not cry.

Thank you, I said again, this time with a sigh.

The headmaster twitched her mouth in an attempt at a smile. I’m afraid I have to excuse myself now, Kyra. I have pressing matters to attend to.

I swallowed the remainder of my tea and stood. Embarrassment grated across my thoughts. I was reeling, so naturally, I was glomming onto anyone who was showing me kindness.

Thanks again, I said, striving for breezy calm as I headed for the door.

Once outside, I leaned my head against the wall and shut my eyes. I wouldn’t think about him. I wouldn’t think about the funny things he told me, or the way his voice sounded when he was tired in the early hours of the morning, all gravelly and slow. Or the way his dark hair got tangled across his forehead, and how his eyes always had the light of a dozen delicious secrets in them—

Gah.

With a growl of frustration, I set off for the North Tower. Maybe Hannah or Lyrica would be around, and they could distract me for a few hours.

Maybe I could try doing the damn reading.

At least I had somewhere to be tomorrow night, so I wouldn’t spend the whole weekend thinking about Lucien.

The air smelled like apples and fresh-fallen leaves. Gravel scuffed beneath my shoes. Once, a prickle stirred at the back of my neck as if someone were watching me, but when I turned a full circle to look, no one was there.

CHAPTER TWO

LUCIEN

C’MON, LUCE, YOU’RE barely trying. Get your head in the game.

I glanced down at my hand and then across the table at my opponent. Tryst sprawled in his chair, scowling at me over his cards as he sipped some kind of mortal drink that came in a bottle.

You’re winning, I said. My words came out too harsh. Quit complaining.

Tryst ignored my mood with good humor, as he usually did. I’m never going to beat your brother if you don’t go hard on me, he said, and flicked his eyebrows toward his red hair in gentle exasperation. Focus.

I picked a card from my hand and tossed it down. I didn’t care about this game. I didn’t want to be here at all.

Isadora’s words sliced through my thoughts.

I don’t want you to get hurt, Luce. I’ve heard rumors lately. Rumors about secret communications from another court. Rumors about a student sent here as an assassin.

And then:

I did what you apparently don’t have the balls to do.

Tryst muttered something under his breath as he looked between the cards in his hand and the ones on the table. Declan, who was leaning over his shoulder, peered at me in a way I found far too perceptive.

I didn’t like being looked at like that. Like he could see beneath my skin. I wanted the comfort of night and shadows, the rush of darkness to keep me safe as it always had when I was a boy running from taunts or cruel games that hurt me.

Old habits ran deep, it seemed.

You play, I said to Declan, shoving my chair back. I can’t breathe in this place anyway.

I stalked out the door of the Basilisk society house and into the crisp evening outside. The sun was sinking behind the trees, and the sky was blissfully dark. I tipped my head back and exhaled.

I needed to think.

I was still furious with Isadora for interfering, but maybe she was right about Kyra.

Maybe I was a fool for hoping for another explanation. For hesitating instead of cutting Kyra off for her apparent betrayal.

Or—was walking away without asking for Kyra’s side of things a sign of my father’s influence in me? How many times had he assumed against me when I was blamed for things Griffin had done? How many times had he dismissed me without letting me speak a single word in my defense?

My hands curled into fists.

I would never be like him.

Isadora’s words nipped at my thoughts again—assassins, rumors—but I pushed them away. I had other memories, memories of Kyra fighting to tell me the truth. Memories of talking with her until dawn. Laughing with her. Seeing the light of honesty and kindness in her eyes.

A thought took root in my head, and I was moving without stopping to think too hard.

~

The dusk had turned to night by the time I made my way to the maze of hedges and rose bushes that surrounded the tower. A light gleamed from the highest window—her room. Someone was there.

I moved quick and silent through the hedges until I was beside the gnarled and ancient tree that grew alongside the tower. I scooped up a pebble to throw at her window.

How touching. The lover stealing to his girl’s window under the guise of night.

I froze at the voice that spoke from the darkness behind me. Whirled. Braced myself for an attack.

Relax, prince. You are not in danger. The speaker stepped from the darkness and into the glow cast by the tower windows. A woman, tall and lithe, with silver eyes and hair the color of moonbeams. She wore black from her throat to her toes, as she had two knives strapped to her hips.

I know you, I said, eyes narrowing. You were my aunt’s friend.

Consort, she corrected me. My name is Ollna.

Ollna. I remembered it. She had often been with my aunt when I visited to get more books from the mortal world. She’d watched me with those piercing silver eyes and never spoken to me, although once, when I was leaving, I heard her say to my aunt in a murmur, But do you think he has the strength for it?

That whispered doubt had marked her as an enemy in my eyes. Like nearly everyone else in my life at court, she hadn’t thought I could hold dark and sun court blood in my veins without being corrupted or driven mad.

I remember you, I said coldly, drawing myself up straight. What are you doing here? You’re no half-blood, and you don’t have children.

Ollna tilted her head to the side. I came to speak with you. We have something important to discuss.

I laughed. She must be joking. Me?

Let us go into the woods, Ollna said. Such dark words that I have to say should not be overheard.

She turned and strode toward the trees without glancing back to see if I was coming. I huffed, annoyed at her surety that I would do as she’d said.

But I followed her, partially out of curiosity, and partially because she had been loved by my aunt. I knew her low opinion of me, the same opinion all my family held, and I wasn’t certain she wouldn’t try to hurt me, though I had no idea why she might want to. I was nothing to them, merely a prince without a throne, a boy without a mother or father who cared what happened to him, a half-blood without a purpose.

Pale mist fogged the forest, making sight difficult beyond a few feet. Ollna lifted a jewel-studded ring from her pocket to the moonlight and muttered a spell, and light flashed from beneath the place she stood like blue streaks of lightning.

No one will overhear us, she said as she pocketed the ring.

I stared at it, startled by such powerful magic used so casually. What is that? I asked. I’ve not seen—

Never mind that, Ollna said. I’ll be brief, Lucien. You know of the rise of Queen Druisi in recent months to the throne of the spring court?

Yes, I said. What of it?

A corner of her mouth curled as if she thought me indulgently stupid. My boy, she said, are you so disinterested in the games of power between the courts? You are a prince, after all.

A prince of poison and neglect, I said, my lip curling. My station hardly matters. I’m the bastard born of a lurid circumstance, and I will never sit on a throne. If anyone thought I might, I would already be dead.

Do you really think you have so few supporters? Ollna asked.

Supporters? I snorted. The night court would never accept me because of my sun blood. The sun court has its own heirs.

Lucien, she said. I see now there is much that you do not know. I have much to explain. She sighed. This might take all night.

What don’t I know? Occasionally, nobles from one court or the other got the idea that I could be useful to