We’ve scrambled for our lives,” she said softly. “Now we have to scramble for our world.

What did she know about the Black Forest? Only what she’d been able to glean from the maps in the library and from Luc’s fairy tales: Castles hidden in glens. Trees as tall as city buildings. Wolves and stags and bears. Mad princes who drowned in lakes. None of Mada Vittora’s books described an ancient academy deep in the woods, a place where it always snowed, where girls wanted magic badly enough to die for it.

And it was true, there were rocks and there was smog, but there was also stars. The city was like life itself: good and bad, pretty and ugly, kindness and cruelty all in one. But most important, it simply was. And that felt like a kind of magic too.

She could feel energy thrumming in the prince’s movements, but it was tightly contained. Everything about him whispered control. Maybe that was the problem, she thought. Too much control made for a rigid heart. Hearts were made to beat steadily, yes, but they were also meant to tremble.

There’s dark magic there,” Luc warned. “Creatures who like the cold, who like girls who wander into their woods. Whatever you do, don’t let them kiss you.

Something breathing, something bleeding, something blue.It was time to cast her first spell as the Gargoyle.