The Grimoire of Grave Fates

ISBN 10: 0593427467 ISBN 13: 9780593427460

Verlag: Delacorte Press, 2023

Inhaltsangabe

Crack open your spell book and enter the world of the illustrious Galileo Academy for the Extraordinary. There's been a murder on campus, and it's up to the students of Galileo to solve it. Follow 18 authors and 18 students as they puzzle out the clues and find the guilty party.

Professor of Magical History Septimius Dropwort has just been murdered, and now everyone at the Galileo Academy for the Extraordinary is a suspect.

A prestigious school for young magicians, the Galileo Academy has recently undergone a comprehensive overhaul, reinventing itself as a roaming academy in which students of all cultures and identities are celebrated. In this new Galileo, every pupil is welcome—but there are some who aren't so happy with the recent changes. That includes everyone's least favorite professor, Septimius Dropwort, a stodgy old man known for his harsh rules and harsher punishments. But when the professor's body is discovered on school grounds with a mysterious note clenched in his lifeless hand, the Academy's students must solve the murder themselves, because everyone's a suspect. 

Told from more than a dozen alternating and diverse perspectives, The Grimoire of Grave Fates follows Galileo's best and brightest young magicians as they race to discover the truth behind Dropwort's mysterious death. Each one of them is confident that only they have the skills needed to unravel the web of secrets hidden within Galileo's halls. But they're about to discover that even for straight-A students, magic doesn't always play by the rules. . . .

Contributors include: Cam Montgomery, Darcie Little Badger, Hafsah Faizal, Jessica Lewis, Julian Winters, Karuna Riazi, Kat Cho, Kayla Whaley, Kwame Mbalia, L. L. McKinney, Marieke Nijkamp, Mason Deaver, Natasha Díaz, Preeti Chhibber, Randy Ribay, Tehlor Kay Mejia, Victoria Lee, and Yamile Saied Méndez

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

The Editors:
Hanna Alkaf graduated with a degree in journalism from Northwestern University and spent over ten years writing everything from B2B marketing emails to investigative feature articles, from nonprofit press releases to corporate brochures. She writes unapologetically Malaysian YA and MG novels, including The Weight of Our Sky, The Girl and the Ghost, and Queen of the Tiles.

Margaret Owen was born and raised at the end of the Oregon Trail, and now lives and writes in Seattle while negotiating a long-term hostage situation with her two monstrous cats. In her free time, she enjoys exploring ill-advised travel destinations and raising money for social justice nonprofits through her illustrations. She is the author of The Merciful Crow and its sequel, The Faithless Hawk, as well as Little Theives.

With stories from contributors: Cam Montgomery, Darcie Little Badger, Jessica Lewis, Hafsah Faizal, Julian Winters, Karuna Riazi, Kat Cho, Kayla Whaley, Kwame Mbalia, L. L. McKinney, Marieke Nijkamp, Mason Deaver, Natasha Diaz, Preeti Chhibber, Randy Ribay, Tehlor Kay Mejia, Victoria Lee, and Yamile Saied Mendez.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

2:00 A.M.: WREN WILLEMSON, 16, SWORDS


by Marieke Nijkamp


In a small room in the Swords Tower of the Galileo Academy for the Extraordinary sat a young Sorcerer who--according to their stepfather--had been born under unlucky stars. Wren sat cross-legged on the bed while a dead spider crawled across the bedspread. Despite the late hour, Wren still wore their regular clothes. A dark hoodie, easily two sizes too large. Compression gloves on their hands. A bulky walking brace around their left ankle, which had dislocated again. They tugged strands of blue and silver hair behind their ear, and a small bubble of low magical light that floated above their bed flickered.

The light barely illuminated their bland, narrow room, with its pale walls and looming wardrobe. Wren had never made an effort to decorate. The only signs that a student lived here at all were the stack of textbooks near the door, a stack of sketchbooks on the windowsill--filled with endless patterns and paintings that Wren didn’t share with anyone--and the rat skeleton on the bedside table.

The dead spider shivered before its legs gave out from under it, and it curled up again, lifeless and broken.

Wren grimaced. With a wince of pain, they tossed the spider corpse out the open window. The bubble of light above them wavered briefly once more, and their hands trembled.

“Stop it,” Wren hissed--and the light steadied.

“Focus,” they told themself sternly--but their hands kept trembling.

There was a restlessness inside them that set Wren’s teeth and joints on edge. Even though the Swords Tower was quiet and the night calm, Wren felt like their bones were going to crawl out through their skin. Because every time they closed their eyes, their mind replayed the afternoon’s encounter at the Gargoyle Keep, and every part of them wanted to disappear.

They’d needed time for themself after spectacularly failing yet another telekinesis test, and the bestiary had been crowded with Cups students and their biology classes. So Wren had kept walking in the direction of the Gargoyle Keep to stare for a while at the majestic stone creatures--only to collide headlong with Professor Dropwort, Galileo’s history teacher and the school’s prime bully. He was the type of teacher who looked down his nose at any student who wasn’t a legacy student, or at the very least a fine young cis man, whole of mind and body. Wren’s mere existence as a Sorcerer was an abomination and an offense to his sensibilities.

Just like their appearance in the Gargoyle Keep had been an affront to him, apparently. He’d stepped back, brushed down his clothes, and lifted his chin. “Thinking of adding ‘assaulting teachers’ to your list of failures, Willemson?”

Wren had mumbled an apology and turned to walk away, when the professor’s voice had stopped them. “I’ve spoken to your head of house, you know. Professor MacAllister tells me you’re last in all your classes, in direct violation of your scholarship. There’s no place for a disappointment like you here at Galileo.”

The all-too-familiar words had landed like physical blows, and Wren had frozen in place, their hands clenched into fists, and their heart pounding the same rhythm over and over again.

Cursed. Unlucky. Failure.

Professor Dropwort had laughed. “Run along now.”

Wren still didn’t know how they’d made their way back to the Swords Tower, or their own room. They must’ve eaten dinner, but the encounter kept plaguing them, even now. It hurt. It hurt so freaking much.

Cursed. Unlucky. Failure.

Professor Dropwort might have been a malicious malcontent, but he wasn’t wrong about Wren failing their tests. Professor MacAllister had told Wren the same thing just before the school had made port in Stockholm. Wren’s aptitude for kinetics and manipulating approved forms of magical energy was meager, scarcely enough to justify a magical education. If they got kicked out now, they’d be forced to return to an unwelcome home, where their stepfather would know they were all but powerless. There’d be nothing they could do to protect themself or their Neutral sister from his cruelty.

“I hate him, Rat,” Wren whispered.

They slammed a fist into their pillow, and they did the only thing they could do. They took all their pain and rage and flung their awareness outward.

Earlier in the night, the darkness had remained opaque and impenetrable. But now, it opened up to Wren. It flooded with colors. Neon green and pale orange. The softest of pinks and the deepest of purples. Here a bright blue thread stretched out and led all the way to Professor Ram, the head of Wands and a world-renowned textile mage. It rather looked like the magic thread he used to weave spells. Further, the soft golden threads of Principal Fornax’s life force spread like a web across the entire school.

Wren’s shoulders loosened.

They’d never found the right word for what they saw, exactly. It was energy and magic, but not like the bland energy they were tangling with in their classes. It was life, and whenever Wren managed to get their focus just right, it turned Galileo into a kaleidoscope of constantly changing shapes and colors, like the endless patterns they sketched, though they’d never been able to get this sensation quite right.

With their hands in front of them, Wren sorted through the tangle of energy. They reached out beyond their own bedroom toward their neighbor Saga, whose energy was a warm burnt amber, like narrow flames sparking up and away from her. The energy burned radiantly when Saga was casting--or throwing snide remarks in Wren’s direction--but it still danced while she was asleep.

Wren tilted their head and reached a hand toward the flames. They summoned their own energy--glinting like sharp silver knives--and cut a piece of Saga’s energy away. The flames’ warmth seeped into Wren’s skin like molten wax. It curled around their ankle and numbed the pain, and on the bedside table, Rat, the rat skeleton, moved. It turned to face them and chattered brightly.

Wren’s frown softened. They might not excel in kinetics, but they had this at least. This ability to see and control the magic in the world around them. No one else knew about this aptitude, because manipulating life energy and life force, like all other forms of necromancy, was strictly forbidden at Galileo and beyond. But it wasn’t the all-encompassing destructive force that people whispered it was. It helped Wren kill their pain, envision a brighter world, and connect with Rat.

Nothing else.

Until Rat’s squeaks made way for a different sound. A voice, as loud as the brightest colors.

Hunger, it whispered, a dozen voices amidst a swirling slate-gray energy, shaped like small rocks and pebbles, and equally rough.

Wren started. They tried to pull back from the energy, but just like it had been impossible to focus all night long, now it was impossible to let go. Wren reached for Rat and cradled the skeleton close. They saw energy. They’d never used it as a means to communicate. They hadn’t even known that was possible. “Who’s there?”

Their voice wavered only slightly. Who had they bumped into now?

The room stayed quiet.

Then, Come.

Wren shivered. “Show yourself,” they tried again. They reached deeper. Desperation turned to determination. They took more of Saga’s energy. A haphazard snap of another student’s blustery gray. “Who are you?”

Death.

...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Delacorte Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2023
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0593427467
• ISBN 13: 9780593427460
• Einband: Bibliothekseinband
• Anzahl der Seiten: 464
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: preigu; mail@preigu.de; ; Lengericher Landstr. 19; Osnabrück; 49078; Deutschland