The Sheridan Institute Files

Chapter 2: Eleanor

“Who is here?” Eleanor Fitt demanded from before the blackboard, her stub of chalk in the middle of drawing a pentagram. Every one of her fourteen students now had their eyes on Lizzie Brown, who stood at the door with a pile of Joseph’s test papers in hand and her nose scrubbed red with cold.

Lizzie’s mouth bounced open and closed, an annoying habit she had when she was nervous. Very squirrely. But she was an excellent assistant, so Eleanor forgave the high-stress ticks.

Most of the time.

“Who. Is. Here?” Eleanor repeated, more slowly—and also much more sharply. She dropped the chalk onto a waiting tray and wiped her hands on her black skirts. It left streaks (Laure would snap at her later, as she always did, and demand to know why Eleanor hadn’t worn an apron like the rest of the professors) and several of Eleanor’s more ladylike students winced.

When Eleanor swiped stray blond hairs from her eyes, the girls’ winced all the harder—and Eleanor had no doubt she’d just covered her forehead in chalk.

But she hardly cared, and if Lizzie didn’t spit out the name of this guest right now, then Eleanor was going to shout in front of the students and mortify Lizzie completely—

“Oliver McIntosh,” the girl blurted. “That’s who’s here.”

Eleanor’s air choked off, and though it drove her mad, she could feel her own mouth opening and closing exactly like Lizzie’s had.

“Oliver McIntosh?” Tristan Lang repeated, perking up for the first time since class began. He always sat nearest the door—for late entrances and quick escapes. “Isn’t that the demon we learned about in first year?”

“Yes,” Eleanor murmured. Or she tried to murmur, no words would come. She gaped at Lizzie, as if Lizzie were somehow responsible for Oliver’s arrival. As if this were all a giant joke and she were waiting for Lizzie to suddenly laugh and cry, “Not really, Professor Fitt! Oliver would never come back!”

Except that Lizzie was hardly the kind of person to make jokes. She took her assistantship too seriously for that.

“Class dismissed,” Eleanor finally squeaked. Then without another word or glance or anything at all, she kicked into a run. Around the students’ desks, past Lizzie, and finally through the door.

Her boot heels echoed off the pine floor in the narrow hall, and she had no doubt the classrooms on the floor below could hear every groan and tremor of the wood. The Sheridan Institute was really nothing more than an enormous old house, and Eleanor’s class for Introduction to Necromancy was in the former servant’s wing—as was Laure’s French class and Joseph’s History of Voodoo.

The school had expanded so quickly in five years that the professors had had no choice but to take over the servant’s quarters…and then the attic too. Then the gardener’s house, and finally the carriage house as well. They wanted to add more buildings, but they weren’t allowed to do so until Cassidy Lang came to approve everything (she owned half the school, after all), and the woman had been detained for months now with her dying sister.

Eleanor reached the rickety staircase out of the servant’s wing just as Laure poked into the hall. “Where are you going?”

Eleanor ignored her. Laure could see Oliver later—as could everyone else.

Eleanor wanted to see him first. She needed to see him first.

Alone.

Her heels kicked off the final step and onto the ornate tiles of the third story. Past two small offices—one was hers and the other Joseph’s—she ran. Then the ceilings opened up into vaulted skylights, and Eleanor reached the main stairwell. She spiraled down, skipping two steps at a time and holding her skirts high.