The Accidental Apprentice - Episode 1: The Favor

  Rain hammered against the window of my dorm room as I arranged my pens by color for the third time that evening. Outside, Millhaven looked like it always did: wet, dark, and depressing. The college brochure had called it "atmospheric." The travel guides called it one of the worst places to live in America.

  I called it a mistake, but it was the only school that accepted me.

  On my desk, my half-written midterm paper for Professor Thorne's Theoretical Foundations class sat next to yesterday's quiz, the red D-minus glaring up at me like an accusation. The cursor blinked mockingly next to the sentence: "The fundamental principles of transmutation can be explained by..." I had no idea how to finish it. Seven weeks into the semester, and I was failing three of my five classes.

  When I'd tried to type anything about transmutation, the text had simply disappeared, character by character, as if the document itself was rejecting my attempts. The same thing happened in class—pens drying up mid-sentence, pages tearing themselves from my notebook. It was like the subject matter itself had decided I wasn't worthy.

  My coffee mug—the one I'd placed at the corner of my desk—now sat inexplicably in the center, still steaming. I frowned. I could have sworn I hadn't moved it. When I reached for it, it slid fractionally away from my fingers, as if reluctant to be touched.

  My phone buzzed. Unknown number.

  "Hello?"

  "Ben. It's Oliver." My roommate's voice sounded tight, controlled—each word precisely measured. "I require your assistance with an urgent matter."

  I almost dropped the phone. Oliver Reed had been my roommate for nearly two months, and this was maybe our fifth conversation. He was never around. His side of the room remained pristine, bed perpetually made, desk organized with strange glass bottles and odd-smelling books. The perfect roommate.

  "You need my help?" I repeated, surprised by the formal phrasing.

  "I hit a deer. On Blackwood Road. Near the north campus boundary." His words came in staccato bursts, efficient and emotionless.

  "Jesus. Are you okay?"

  "I'm fine. The car isn't. And I need help with the deer."

  I glanced at my unfinished essay. Midterms were next week, and I'd barely started studying. "Can't you call campus security or something?"

  "No." His voice hardened. "Not an option. I need someone I can trust."

  That was rich. We barely knew each other.

  "Please, Ben." Something in his voice changed. "I'll owe you."

  Twenty minutes later, I was trudging through the rain toward the campus parking lot, wondering why I'd agreed. Maybe because in all these weeks, Oliver had never asked for anything. Maybe because I was failing three classes and needed a break from staring at my empty Word document.

  The ancient Toyota's heater barely worked. I hunched forward, squinting through the fogged windshield as I followed Oliver's texted directions. Blackwood Road snaked through dense forest, the kind of place horror movies loved.

  As I drove, I passed a bulletin board plastered with soggy event flyers. One advertised a "Midnight Conjuring" at the student union, with a disclaimer in tiny print: "No familiars allowed." Another promoted "Levitation Yoga" with Professor Winters. I'd seen these posters around campus but had always assumed they were jokes or themed club events. Tonight, something about them made my skin prickle.

  My headlights caught a reflection – Oliver's sleek black car pulled onto the shoulder. He stood beside it, his tall figure unnaturally still in the rain. He didn't even have an umbrella. More strangely, his clothes appeared completely dry, as though the raindrops simply curved around him at the last moment.

  I parked behind him and stepped out, immediately soaked.

  "Thanks for coming," he said, as if we'd met for coffee instead of a midnight animal disposal. He adjusted his wire-rimmed glasses with his middle finger—a peculiar, precise gesture that seemed rehearsed.

  "Where's the deer?"

  He gestured to his trunk. "I managed to get it in. Didn't want to leave it on the road."

  "You put a dead deer in your trunk?" I blinked rain from my eyes. "That's going to smell for weeks."

  Oliver just shrugged. "I have cleaners."

  His phone chimed. He glanced at it, frowned, then silenced it without responding. "Family," he muttered, a muscle tightening in his jaw. "Always the worst timing."

  He popped the trunk, and I steeled myself for gore. But nothing could have prepared me for what lay inside.

  It wasn't a deer.

  The creature was horse-sized but more delicate, with pearlescent white fur that seemed to glow faintly despite the blood matting its flank. Its slender legs were folded awkwardly in the confined space. And from its forehead protruded a spiral horn, like polished ivory in the beam of my flashlight. The horn itself seemed to pulse with an internal light that cast prismatic patterns across the trunk's interior.

  "That's..." My voice failed me. My mouth went desert-dry, heart hammering against my ribs like it wanted to escape.

  "A problem," Oliver finished. "Help me get it into the woods."

  My mind spinning, I grabbed the creature's back legs as instructed. They were still warm. We hefted it out of the trunk and carried it into the forest, following a narrow path that I hadn't noticed from the road. The scent of its blood—like cinnamon and lightning—made my head swim.

  "This isn't a deer," I finally managed, my voice barely a whisper.

  "Observant." Oliver's voice was flat, his breathing perfectly controlled despite the weight we carried.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

  "It's a fucking unicorn." The word felt ridiculous leaving my mouth.

  "Technically, it's a juvenile alicorn. Hence the small size." He spoke with clinical detachment, but his eyes gleamed with something like reverence when they fell on the creature's horn.

  We stopped in a small clearing. Oliver set down his end of the creature and pulled a folding shovel from his jacket. He tossed it to me, his movements economical, precise.

  "Start digging. I have something to take care of."

  My hands shook as I unfolded the shovel. "Are unicorns even real?"

  Oliver stared at me for a long moment, his expression unreadable in the darkness. "You've been at Millhaven since August, and you're just now asking that question?"

  I didn't know how to answer, so I dug. The ground was soft from the constant rain, at least. As I worked, Oliver knelt beside the creature, producing a pair of pliers from his pocket.

  "What are you doing?"

  "The teeth. They're valuable." His voice took on a clinical tone, like a surgeon describing a procedure.

  My stomach lurched as he pried open the unicorn's mouth. "That's disgusting."

  "That's practical." He worked methodically, extracting tooth after tooth with practiced efficiency. Not a single wasted motion. "These are rare. And unlike the horn, they don't lose their properties after death."

  "Properties?" I paused my digging. "You're talking like..."

  "Like magic?" Oliver glanced up, rainwater streaming down his sharp features. For a brief moment, something like excitement flashed in his eyes—quickly suppressed, but unmistakable. "You really haven't noticed anything strange about Millhaven, have you, Ben?"

  "Like what?"

  "Like Professor Blackwood's habit of turning into a raven during lectures? Or the mandatory moonlight potions lab? Or the fact that your Physics of Transmutation textbook occasionally growls?"

  I stared at him. "Is this a joke?"

  He sighed, returning to his grisly work. "I knew you were oblivious, but this is impressive even by freshman standards."

  "I'm not a freshman. I'm a sophomore transfer."

  "Whatever. Keep digging."

  By the time the hole was deep enough, my arms ached and my clothes were plastered to my skin. Oliver had finished his extraction, carefully placing each tooth in a small velvet pouch. Together, we rolled the unicorn – alicorn, whatever – into its grave.

  As we covered it with dirt and fallen leaves, a distant howl echoed through the trees. The sound wasn't quite wolf-like – it contained too many tones simultaneously, as if multiple throats were producing a single cry.

  Oliver froze. "We need to leave. Now."

  "What was that? Wolves?"

  "Worse." He shoved the pouch of teeth into his pocket. "The carcass is attracting attention. The university's boundary wards end about fifty yards back."

  "Wards? What are you talking about?"

  Another howl, closer now. Oliver grabbed my arm. "Run. I'll explain later."

  We sprinted back toward the cars. Behind us, branches snapped and undergrowth rustled. I didn't look back. For once, I was grateful for all those mandatory physical education credits that had seemed so pointless.

  As we reached the road, something large crashed through the brush behind us. The air temperature dropped suddenly, frost crackling across the puddles. Oliver shoved me toward my car.

  "Drive back to campus. Don't stop for anything. I'll be right behind you."

  I didn't argue. The Toyota's engine protested but finally caught, and I peeled onto the wet road, heart pounding. In my rearview mirror, I caught a glimpse of something massive and dark emerging from the trees. It had too many limbs, arranged in a configuration that made my eyes hurt trying to understand it.

  Then Oliver's headlights flared, and the creature retreated back into the darkness.

  ---

  I didn't remember the drive back. One moment I was on Blackwood Road, and the next I was sitting in the dormitory parking lot, engine idling, knuckles white on the steering wheel.

  A tap on my window made me jump. Oliver stood there, looking perfectly composed despite the situation. His clothes remained inexplicably dry, though his hair had finally succumbed to the rain and clung to his forehead in dark strands. He gestured for me to follow him.

  Back in our room, I peeled off my wet clothes and changed in silence. Oliver did the same, hanging his expensive-looking coat to dry. Now that I looked more closely, I noticed the subtle embroidery on the lining – some kind of family crest with a Latin phrase I couldn't make out. The symbols seemed to shift slightly when I wasn't looking directly at them.

  "What the hell just happened?" I finally asked.

  Oliver sat on his bed, studying me with those unnerving pale eyes. "You helped me bury an alicorn that wandered too close to campus. They're like magical pests – pretty but problematic. They drain ambient energy."

  "Magical," I repeated. "You're serious."

  "Completely." He pulled out the velvet pouch, untied it, and spilled a collection of pearly teeth onto his desk. They glimmered under the fluorescent lights, unnaturally bright. Tiny prismatic rainbows danced across the ceiling where the light reflected from them. "These are worth a small fortune."

  "I don't understand any of this."

  Oliver selected one tooth and held it up. "Millhaven College of Arcane Sciences. Did you think the 'Arcane' in the brochure was metaphorical?"

  I thought back to the application I'd filled out late one night, barely reading the questions. The obscure school in the middle of nowhere that had somehow accepted me despite my abysmal grades.

  "But I'm not... I can't..."

  "Do magic?" Oliver finished. "No, you can't. Which is actually fascinating." For a brief moment, that scientific excitement returned to his eyes. He examined me like I was a specimen under glass. "The entrance exams are designed to screen out non-magical applicants. Somehow you slipped through."

  He stood, moving to his desk drawer. From it, he produced a small vial of powder and a piece of chalk. With quick, practiced motions, he drew a circle on the floor between our beds, then sprinkled the powder around its edge.

  "What are you doing?"

  "Insurance," he said. "This tooth is going to attract attention tonight. Normally I'd do this kind of thing in one of the labs, but campus security has been cracking down lately. Too many... incidents."

  He placed one of the unicorn teeth under my pillow, then retreated to his own bed.

  "Keep it there until morning," he instructed. "And whatever happens, whatever you see or hear, don't leave the circle."

  "This is insane," I protested. "I'm not keeping a dead animal's tooth under my pillow!"

  "You already helped me bury a magical creature. This is hardly the line to draw." He flicked off the light. "We'll talk more in the morning. I have plans for these teeth, and now that I know what you are, you're going to be very useful."

  I wanted to argue, to demand more answers, but exhaustion hit me suddenly, like a physical weight. Before I knew it, I was lying down, head on my pillow, the hard shape of the tooth pressing against my cheek.

  Sleep came instantly, dreamless and heavy.

  Until I woke to the weight of something on my chest.

  My eyes flew open. Straddling me was what looked like a middle-aged man in a stained, undersized suit. He was short and round, with thinning hair and a face that would have been comical if not for the faint blue glow emanating from his skin. Stubby wings buzzed frantically behind him, stirring the air with the nauseating scent of copper pennies soaked in mouthwash. Tiny, perfectly formed incisors filled his mouth in multiple rows, like a shark's.

  "Where is it?" he hissed, his voice incongruously high. Fat fingers prodded beneath my pillow. "I can sense it, human. Give it to me."

  I tried to scream, but no sound came out. The creature – man – whatever it was – leaned closer, his breath smelling of sour milk and copper.

  "The alicorn tooth. Hand it over, and I'll make it worth your while." He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively. "I know what you humans like. Money? Power? Or perhaps," he ran a pudgy hand down my chest, leaving a trail of blue luminescence, "something more... intimate?"

  A shadow moved behind him. Then came the sound of a jar lid unscrewing.

  The creature's eyes widened. "No—"

  Oliver stepped forward, sweeping the jar upward in one smooth motion. The fairy was sucked inside with a sound like a vacuum sealing. The lid slammed shut.

  "Tooth fairy," Oliver said conversationally as the creature frantically beat its wings against the glass. "Disgusting, but useful."

  I scrambled up against the headboard, heart hammering in my chest. "What the actual fuck?"

  "I told you to stay in the circle." Oliver flicked on the desk lamp. The chalk outline glowed faintly before fading back to normal. "But this worked out better. Now we have leverage."

  The fairy pounded tiny fists against the jar, mouthing what were clearly obscenities. Oliver examined the jar with clinical interest, tapping the glass occasionally to observe the fairy's reactions.

  "You know, they're not all this crude," he said. "The older ones can be quite dignified. This one's clearly from the lower courts." He made a face. "Probably deals exclusively with children's teeth. No standards."

  The fairy flipped him off with all six fingers on one hand.

  "Leverage for what?" My voice cracked.

  Oliver smiled, the first genuine smile I'd ever seen from him. It wasn't reassuring. For just a moment, his features seemed to soften, become almost friendly – then returned to their usual precise arrangement.

  "For getting into Club Nether. I need access to someone who frequents it, and our little friend here," he tapped the jar, making the fairy flinch, "is going to provide an introduction."

  I stared at the jar, at Oliver, at the remaining teeth on his desk. At the textbooks on my shelf that I suddenly realized had symbols that sometimes shifted when I wasn't looking directly at them. At the various campus flyers I'd been ignoring all semester – "Familiar Adoption Day," "Wand Crafting Workshop," "Defensive Spells for Beginners."

  "I need to transfer schools," I whispered.

  "It's a bit late for that, Ben. Midterms are next week."

  He set the jar down and picked up the tooth from under my pillow. "Besides, you're about to become very valuable to me."

  "Why?"

  "Because you're completely non-magical in a magical institution. Do you have any idea how useful that makes you? How many experiments require a neutral observer?" As he spoke, he took meticulous notes in a small leather journal, recording the fairy's reactions with scientific precision.