Author's Preface
The Mirrorroot Elixir smelled like mint, iron, and every terrible decision Tessa had made to get this far. She stared into the silver-rimmed cup.
Was that it? Across the worktable, Morgana checked the potion beneath the lamplight.
“You still have time to change your mind.”
Tessa glanced up. “And waste all this dramatic preparation?”
She had not spent years chasing forbidden histories just to stop over one silver cup. Somewhere inside Night Moonveil was chronomancy knowledge that might take her back to the century where her biological parents had died.
Getting inside was the problem.
Tessa Monroe could not cross those gates as herself. The ruling order had spent generations searching for the missing female heir of the fallen royal line, and Tessa matched that description far too well.
Theo Monroe did not. He was male, a warlock, and ordinary enough to ignore. Apparently, her grand infiltration began with magical mouthwash. The clock above Morgana’s shelves clicked, stopped, then jumped forward.
Four seconds vanished.
Tessa went still. Oh, come on.
The clock resumed ticking as if it had not just misplaced part of the evening.
“Tessa?”
“It skipped again.”
Another clock had lost time around her, and it was not the first. Night Moonveil was supposed to tell her why.
Morgana slid the cup closer. “Be inside the Keeper’s House before midnight.”
“I know.”
“No second dose if it starts failing.”
“I know.”
“Tessa.”
There it was. The voice that meant Morgana had forgotten Tessa was twenty-two and perfectly capable of ruining her own life without supervision.
She sighed. “Keeper’s House. Before midnight. No heroic improvisation.”
A dry rustle came from Ed’s perch.
“Your confidence is touching.”
“It is experience,” the owl said.
Of course the traitor had opinions. Tessa lifted the cup before anyone could offer another reason not to do this. Cold hit her tongue, sharp with mint and metal. Then heat ripped through her bones.
Her balance shifted so violently that she caught the edge of the table. Her shoulders broadened, her fingers lengthened, and her clothes pulled tight across a body that suddenly occupied more space. Even the room looked wrong from several inches higher. She swallowed, and the startled sound that escaped her came out low.
Well, that was horrifying.
Tessa faced the mirror. Short dark hair framed a sharper jaw. Smoky-gray eyes stared back from an unfamiliar face above a lean frame nearly half a foot taller than hers. She knew exactly who she was. Apparently, the mirror had not received the message.
Morgana had somehow transformed her into exactly the sort of man Tessa herself might have made several regrettable decisions around.
Outside, the evening bell began to ring. Theo Monroe stared back at her. Now she only had to convince Night Moonveil he was real.
The taste of iron still clung to her tongue when she stepped into the dusk.
By the time Tessa reached Night Moonveil as Theo, she had discovered three things about being nearly six feet tall.
Her stride was longer, doorways felt suspiciously lower, and walking naturally required far more concentration than anyone had mentioned.
Wonderful. Nothing screamed ordinary male warlock like having to remember how to use her own legs. The first Veil Bell faded as the last human visitors moved toward the outer paths. Then the second rang, and Night Moonveil changed.
Wards shimmered across stone and glass. Blank walls unfolded into shadowed corridors, and silver-lit windows appeared where there had been only ivy. A passage opened in solid stone barely ten feet from her.
Tessa almost stopped to stare. Then she noticed the glowing ward-lines along the archways and the guards stationed where the hidden paths narrowed. Wonder could wait. Tonight, knowing the exits mattered more. One wrong reaction could make Theo memorable for all the wrong reasons.
By the third bell, students were moving toward the academy’s protected sections. Tessa followed at an unhurried pace until her enrollment record appeared exactly where Sarah had promised.
Theo Monroe. Male. Late-awakened warlock. Ward of Sarah Monroe.
It was perfectly respectable and completely fabricated. The entrance ward swept over her. Magic crawled across her face, shoulders, and chest—then stopped.
Her stomach tightened. Every instinct urged her to move or speak, but that was exactly what a guilty person would do. So Theo waited with the bored patience of a man who had nothing to hide.
The ward pulsed once.
For one awful second, Tessa imagined it seeing beneath the face, voice, and body Morgana had given her. If it found Tessa beneath Theo, getting into Night Moonveil would be the least of her problems. Then glowing letters appeared.
ACCESS GRANTED.
Tessa stepped through before the academy could reconsider. She was inside.
Years of planning, hiding, and searching had come down to one magical checkpoint, and somehow she had passed it.
Relief loosened the tightness in her chest. She allowed herself one breath of victory, turned too quickly, and walked straight into someone.
A hand closed around her forearm before she could hit the floor. The grip was strong and hot enough to feel through her sleeve.
Tessa looked up.
Oh, hell.
Zoran Ashencroft. She had never met him, but years of researching Night Moonveil had made the Dragon Heir impossible not to recognize.
He stood close enough that she had to tilt her head back to meet his eyes. Black hair, broad shoulders, amber eyes, and the kind of controlled stillness that made everyone else’s movements seem unnecessary.
Of all the supernatural students she could have collided with, of course it had to be a dragon. Worse, this dragon.
If anyone could notice what the entrance ward had missed, it would be Zoran Ashencroft.
“Careful,” he said.
His hand stayed around her arm. Heat pressed through the fabric beneath his fingers, far too noticeable when exposure could ruin considerably more than her evening. He still had not let go.
“I’ll add walking to tomorrow’s study schedule.”
One dark eyebrow lifted. So Theo became sarcastic under pressure too. At least some things survived magical reconstruction. Zoran’s gaze sharpened, and his amber eyes flashed molten gold. His grip tightened. Tessa’s stomach dropped.
Dragons had senses witches did not. Mirrorroot had fooled the entrance ward, but fooling a dragon standing close enough to touch her was another matter.
Zoran stared at Theo as though something did not fit. His nostrils flared once.
Wonderful.
Tessa resisted the urge to smell herself.
“Name?”
Not Are you all right?
“Theo Monroe.”
His gaze moved over her face with enough concentration to become insulting.
Tessa pulled lightly against his grip. “Do Dragon Heirs usually interrogate everyone they catch, or am I getting special treatment?”
Surprise flickered across his expression before the corner of his mouth curved. He released her. Heat lingered where his fingers had been. Tessa blamed that entirely on dragon body temperature and absolutely nothing else.
That should have been the end of it but it wasn’t. Zoran remained where he was, studying her. Tessa held her ground. Theo Monroe had legitimate records, belonged here, and was supposed to be too ordinary to remember.
Unfortunately, Zoran Ashencroft did not look remotely forgetful then his gaze narrowed.
“You smell wrong.”
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