Remedial Magic by Jenna Black

 

    Hi, my name is Ethan’s Little Sister. Actually, no, it isn’t. My name is Kimber, but no one really seems to care. I’m the brains in the family—the only fifteen-year-old ever to be admitted to Avalon U.—but is anyone impressed by my mad academic skilz? Uh, no. I’m two years younger than Ethan, and I’m in college while he’s still in high school, but he’s the magical wiz-kid, and I’m the family embarrassment.
    No, I’m not at all bitter about it. Why do you ask?
    I walked home from class on a Friday afternoon, a bundle of nerves and excitement, despite the voice of doom—or, some might say, the voice of reason—in the back of my head telling me not to get my hopes up. Tonight, I was going to stop feeling like a miserable failure for my lack of magic skills, and I was going to do something about it. Never mind that according to conventional wisdom magic can’t be taught. Dee Dee Bishop said she could teach me, and I was prepared to believe her.
    I let myself in to my house, hoping and praying that everyone kept to their usual schedules. Dad was a total workaholic, and I swear if he didn’t think it would make him an irresponsible parent, he’d have just camped out at his office each night. My mom had been out of the picture since I was ten, when she decided she preferred living in Faerie to living in Avalon. And this being a Friday, Ethan was sure to be out on the town with his latest girl-du-jour.
    The house was quiet as I closed the door behind myself, and I let out a breath of relief. The one sure way for my magic tutoring plan to fail was for Dee Dee to run into Ethan. Living with Ethan was like having a rock star and a pro athlete all rolled into one in the house. Girls might not shriek out loud and faint when they see him, but it’s pretty close. When I was in high school, my friends were too young for him to notice, but Dee Dee was eighteen and fair game. If she got caught in Ethan’s orbit, he’d eventually break her heart and she’d end up hating me for it.
    When the doorbell rang—right on time—I had to take a deep breath to calm down. Please, please let Dee Dee be able to help me, I prayed. Just once, I wanted to see my father be really and truly proud of me, to see me standing there, no longer hidden by Ethan’s shadow. And hell, if I could take Ethan’s ego down a notch or three while I was at it, that would be even better. My hands were sweating as I opened the door, but I told myself to smile, and my lips obeyed.
    Like me, Dee Dee is Fae, though unlike me she was actually born in Faerie and didn’t move to Avalon—the only place where Faerie and the mortal world intersect—until she was twelve. Maybe that’s why she was so good at magic, though objectively it shouldn’t matter. Magic is an almost sentient force, and though it’s native to Faerie, technically Avalon is part of Faerie, even though it’s part of the mortal world, too. But seeing as magic is almost sentient, it’s possible it “likes” people who were born in Faerie proper better than it “likes” people who were born in Avalon. Then again, it’s positively in love with Ethan, and he was born in Avalon.
    I led Dee Dee upstairs to my bedroom, chewing my lip the whole way. I’m not usually this nervous, but it was one thing to admit to a powerful Fae that I wasn’t very good at magic, and it was another to show her just how good I wasn’t. I’m not a big fan of humiliation, though I was prepared to endure it if that was what it took to fix me.
    I got my first dose the moment Dee Dee stepped into my bedroom, because her eyes went immediately to the collection of teddy bears arranged on a shelving unit across from my bed. The three-year age difference between us was already enough to make a friendship feel just a little awkward, but the stupid bears were something you’d find in the room of a twelve-year-old. My face heated, and I hoped I wasn’t blushing as hard as I thought I was.
    “My mom gave