Free Spells by Aprilynne Pike

supposed to be for humans, trolls—you know, animals. They don’t work the same in faeries.”
    “Like being immune to enticement?” Laurel asked.
    “Not exactly. If faeries were immune to Fall magic, we wouldn’t be able to use beneficial potions. But potions made for animals don’t function the same in plants, and who in their right mind would specifically brew a potion to rob memories from another fae? I mean, Fall faeries did study faerie poisons in the past—long before I sprouted—but there was a faerie who…she took it too far,” Katya said, her voice almost a whisper. “So it’s strongly discouraged now. You have to have special permission to even read the books about it. You’re a special case, because they didn’t want you to be able to reveal anything to the humans, even by accident. But still, having an amnesiac faerie around—to be frank, a victim of magic we’re not even allowed to study anymore—you’re kind of a walking taboo. No offense.” She flicked her head toward Mara. “Mara hates it the worst. A few years ago she applied to study faerie poisons and was refused, even though she’s the best in the class and already an expert with animal poisons.”
    “And she hates me because of that?” Laurel asked, confused.
    “She hates that you are evidence of a potion she doesn’t know how to make. But on top of that, she knows you, or did. Almost all of us in here did, to one extent or another.”
    “Oh,” Laurel said softly.
    “Before you ask, I didn’t really know you before you were selected as the scion, and even then it was only from a distance. But Mara,” she said, flicking her head toward the tall, statuesque faerie, “was pretty good friends with you.”
    “Really?” Laurel said, feeling both stupid that she had to find out from someone else who her friends were and mystified that having been friends with someone in the past could justify such a glare.
    “Yes, but Mara was in the running to be the scion too, and she was really upset when you got the spot instead of her. She saw it as a failure instead of what it really was—that you fit the parameters better than she did. Being blond apparently was the clincher,” Katya said with a wave of her hand. “‘Humans like blond babies,’ they said.”
    Laurel choked a little at that, coughing to clear her throat and drawing quite a bit of attention from the other faeries. Even Mara turned her head to glare at Laurel once more.
    “I suspect she’s been out to prove herself ever since,” Katya said. “She’s really talented; rose to acolyte way earlier than most of us. She’s just about ready to become a journeyman, and as far as I’m concerned, the sooner the better.” Katya turned back to her tree. “She can go study with them ,” she muttered.
    Laurel angled her body that way too but kept peering at Mara out of the corner of her eye. The slender, languid faerie lounged against the counter with the grace and beauty of a ballerina, but her eyes took in the whole room, weighed it in the balance, and seemed to find it wanting. Could they have ever really been friends?
    An entourage of middle-aged-looking faeries strode into the room, the one in the lead clapping her hands for the students’ attention. “Gather, please,” she said in a surprisingly quiet voice. But the sound carried throughout the room, which had gone completely silent. Every faerie had stopped talking and turned to the instructors as they entered.
    Well, Laurel thought, that’s way different than at home .
    The faeries walked in from all sides of the room to gather in a large circle around the twenty or so teachers. The faerie who had called everyone together took the lead. “Anyone starting a new project today?”
    A few hands went up. As soon as they did, the other faeries shuffled and made room for them to come to the front. One at a time each faerie—or sometimes a small group—described the project they were starting, its purpose, how they