The Shadow Cadets of Pennyroyal Academy Read online

  ALSO BY M. A. LARSON

  Pennyroyal Academy

  G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS

  an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  375 Hudson Street

  New York, NY 10014

  Copyright © 2016 by M. A. Larson.

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  G. P. Putnam’s Sons is a registered trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

  eBook ISBN 9780698173866

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Cover illustration © 2016 by Antonio Javier Caparo

  Cover design by Kristin Smith and Kelley Brady

  Version_1

  Contents

  Map

  Also by M. A. Larson

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Acknowledgments

  For Delilah

  “COME ON, GIRL, just build it up in your gut and let it loose!”

  Evie scowled. Her sister had been calling her “girl” ever since she’d returned from Pennyroyal Academy at the start of summer. She supposed it was meant as a term of endearment, or perhaps a not-so-subtle joke that she was the only human in a family of dragons, or . . .

  No, she didn’t know why her sister called her that, but there was no doubt it had become annoying.

  “My name is Evie.”

  The great dragon smirked and turned her head toward the marsh. From where they stood at the edge of the forest, the bulrushes glowed gold in the late-afternoon sun. Across the marsh, in the distance, mountains cut high into the sky, each bigger and greener than the next. Lazy clouds drifted past, headed east. Soon the stifling heat would end, giving way to another cool night, another black sky scattered with stars, and more memories of the Academy and the friends Evie had made there.

  But first, she had something to do. She picked out a bunch of grass that was swaying gently in the breeze and stared at it, narrowing her eyes. She was trying to focus, but in truth she wasn’t really that bothered. She was doing it only to please her sister.

  Besides, it was impossible to concentrate with those huge, black swatches her sister had already burned into the bulrushes on her right.

  “Come on,” said her sister, in the charred grumble common to all dragons. “Once you’ve done this, you won’t be able to stop, believe me. Then we’re on to flying!”

  Evie sighed and turned to her sister, exasperated.

  “Oh, go on, don’t give me that look.”

  “Well, maybe if you’d stop talking . . .”

  “All right, all right,” the dragon said, chuckling.

  Evie turned back to the marsh while the birds sang merrily in the forest behind her. A drop of sweat ran down the back of her neck. It felt like the crawling legs of a fly . . .

  Focus, Evie, focus. Engage the heart—that’s what Father always said.

  Father, that’s who she needed. She tried to picture him. His eyes appeared first, soft and tender, then the scar-crossed slope of his snout and the massive spikes of his teeth. His scales were white and gray, his right horn sheared off at the top from a battle that had happened before she’d even known him. He smiled, and her stomach roared to life.

  It’s working, she thought. I’m actually going to do it. A charge of excitement shot through her. Excitement and hope. Maybe this time would be different.

  She inhaled so deeply that her throat and lungs began to tingle like they did in the dead of winter, when the air was so bitterly cold it hurt to breathe.

  It’s really working!

  This had never happened, not in all the times she’d tried to breathe fire before. The details of the marsh faded away until all she could see was the paintbrush outline of the grass. She burped, grimacing from the acid taste creeping into the back of her throat. A cauldron was bubbling in her stomach.

  Now.

  She sucked as much air into her lungs as she could. The pain was so intense that tears began to fall from her eyes. Do it!

  She opened her mouth. Searing heat lanced up from her stomach and . . .

  “Ack!” she cried, clutching her chest. “Ahh! Ugh!”

  She could hear her sister roaring with laughter. Evie spat out saliva and disgusting greenish bile as she choked for air.

  “You’re thinking too much, that’s all,” rumbled her sister. “You’ll get it. Look, you did manage a nice bit of smoke. That’s a first.”

  Evie rolled onto her side and forced one eye open. She was still hacking and coughing herself red in the face. Her insides were on fire, from the pit of her stomach up through her nostrils and mouth.

  But there it was. A cloud of black smoke wafting up to the sky. A second later it was gone, but it had been there.

  Splash! Frigid water hit Evie like a fist. She clenched into a ball from the shock of it, still unable to breathe. A moment later, she reached out to her sister.

  “Give it,” she said, though her throat was as scorched as the grasses her sister had used for demonstration. The dragon reached over, a wooden bucket speared between claws as long as broomsticks. Evie slurped down the water left inside. The relief was overwhelming.

  “You’ve nearly got it,” said the dragon. “You just need to develop a bit of scar tissue in your throat.”

  Evie planted her hands in the soggy earth and leaned back, letting the water soothe her insides. “Stop talking.” Her voice had almost completely burned away.

  Her sister shrugged, then stood and stretched her hind legs. She’d grown immense since Evie had last seen her. That had been halfway through Evie’s first year at Pennyroyal Academy, when she’d run away and come back home. Her sister had persuaded her to return to her training, but when she’d tried to help Evie sneak back in, a dragonslayer’s lance had complicated matters. And now, midway between the dragon’s shoulder and hip, a small patch of scarred flesh peeked out from behind the scales. Evie winced. She hated looking at it, but couldn’t stop herself. Only a foot or so difference and the lance might have pierced her sister’s heart.

  “Right, shall we go find some fireflowers, then?” said her sister, rolling her serpentine neck from side to side like she’d been sitting still too long.

  “Let’s,” croaked Evie, and she collapsed in another coughing fit.

  “Oh, it’s not as bad as all that. A dragon can’t have fire without a bit of heat, now, can she?”

  Ev
ie lapped up water that had pooled on the ground. “I’m not a dragon!”

  “That’s right. You’re a princess. Well, come on, then, Princess, let’s go take care of that throat you just scorched by nearly breathing fire. As princesses do.”

  The dragon loped away with a chuckle, her feet crunching through the forest undergrowth. Evie stood and brushed dirt and grass off the backside of her sodden dress. It had been like this ever since she’d returned from the Academy. Strained. Of course they were all thrilled to see one another at first, Evie and her sister and mother, but then a strange tension had settled in, and had only gotten worse as the weeks dragged past.

  Evie hiked after her sister while birds called to one another from the treetops, warning of the dragon in their midst. She ran her hands down her pale pink tunic dress, bordered in gray with matching sleeves. It was smudged and stained from months in the forest, and it didn’t fit her properly, but the feel of it still made Evie smile. She let her mind wander back to the Kingdom of Waldeck, where she’d been given the dress, and to the incredible thing that had happened there . . .

  Evie and Maggie had been two of the last to depart Pennyroyal Academy at the end of term. They’d just been made second-class princess cadets, and they wanted to linger in the joy of that as long as they could. Finally they’d found a spot on a half-empty coach bound for the Kingdom of Waldeck, somewhere along the northern border of the Dortchen Wild, one of the most dangerous enchanted forests in all the land. After many hours rumbling through the forest, they’d arrived atop a mountain range and entered the Kingdom of Waldeck. It stood at the cliff’s edge, hundreds of feet above a sprawling lake that reached into the forest with curling inlets all along its shores. Waldeck’s outer walls were relatively low, at least in comparison to Marburg, the kingdom where Evie had first enlisted to become a princess cadet. Marburg had been a stunner, a powerful limestone fortress overlooking vast pine valleys. After a life spent in the forest with dragons, it was the place where she’d first seen and fallen in love with humanity. But partway through the year, Marburg had been taken by witches.

  Waldeck, however, was still free. From inside the walls, she could see millions of miles in every direction as the red sun slowly sank to the horizon. Tiny specks of torchlight flickered from another kingdom on a distant mountaintop. The coach deposited them in a courtyard, and they walked together to the high street, lined on all sides with merchants’ stalls. People milled about, inspecting the ironwork, the produce, the fine linens. Millers and coopers, bakers and barbers. Tradespeople haggled and bartered. Children tugged on their mothers’ skirts in boredom. Ordinary life was being lived. And right there in the middle of it stood Evie and Maggie.

  “I’m so sorry, Evie, but I’ve really got to go. If I miss the coach to Darmancourt, it’ll be a month before I can make it home.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.”

  “Are you sure you won’t come with me? You can spend the whole summer if you like. It’s just going to be me and Dad.” She let out a long, rueful sigh. “Me and Dad . . .”

  Evie knew how thrilled Maggie would be to host her for the coming months. Maggie’s mother had died not long before she’d come to the Academy, and she hadn’t had much of a relationship with her father even before that. In addition, her desire to be a princess and constant studying had left her with virtually no friends back home in Sevigny, a remote kingdom so far removed from the rest of the realm that no one there much cared about the comings and goings of royalty.

  “I’d love to, Maggie, but I’ve got to get back and see my own family.”

  Maggie smiled sadly. “All right, but send me a note if you change your mind. Or don’t. Just come. I won’t be doing anything except waiting for next year. With Dad.”

  Evie laughed and hugged her friend. “Next year! Can you believe it?”

  “I know!” said Maggie with wide eyes. Her curly hair was illuminated a brilliant red from the setting sun behind her. “How are you getting home, anyway?”

  “I’ll manage,” said Evie, though in truth, she had absolutely no idea how she’d make it back to the Dragonlands. “Go find your coach.”

  “Bye, Evie.” Maggie took off her knapsack and ran off down the high street.

  Evie stood alone in an unfamiliar kingdom with no idea what to do next. But not for long.

  “Pardon me, miss,” said a man behind her. “Did that girl just call you Evie? Cadet Evie?” He was short and stout, his spine curved dramatically to the left. A woman with wild, frizzy hair stood next to him. “You’re that one they’ve been talking about, ain’t ya?”

  “Sorry?”

  “It’s her, Liesa, what’d I say? She’s the one what found that witch!”

  “It ain’t!” squawked the curly-haired woman, her face screwed up questioningly. “You ain’t really her, are you?”

  “Look here, everyone!” called the old man. “It’s that girl from Pennyroyal Academy! The one who found the witch! It’s her!” He turned back to Evie with a nervous smile. Several of his teeth were missing, and those that remained were various shades of brown. “I can’t believe you’re here! We’ve been hearing about you all day long, we have. Every coach to come through, ‘the girl who saved ol’ Pennyroyal,’ they all say. And now here you are!” He clapped his hands. “Blimey, I never—on my life, I never!—thought I’d be standin’ here with someone as famous as you.”

  “That ain’t her,” said the woman.

  “Listen, now, what you done,” said the man, his face suddenly solemn. “It’s a hero’s work. If anything happened to that Academy, why . . .” He trailed off, shaking his head.

  He was referring, of course, to what had happened during the Helpless Maiden, the final test for the third-class cadets. After a full year of princess training, the girls had been dropped deep in the enchanted forest with only their wits and their training to help them make it back to the Academy. Evie’s stepmother, Countess Hardcastle, was supposed to be assisting the staff in protecting the cadets. But Evie had discovered that she was a witch in disguise. Even more insidiously, her daughter Malora, a fellow third-class princess cadet and Evie’s stepsister, was also a witch. Had Evie not uncovered Hardcastle’s plot to create a witch with the powers of a princess, the fate of the Academy, and indeed the rest of humanity, might have been very dire indeed.

  A small crowd began to gather. One woman leaned down and whispered to the little boy holding her hand. “She’s the one who . . .” was all Evie could make out before the boy’s face bloomed with excitement.

  “You sure that’s ’er?” said Liesa, the skeptical woman, looking Evie over like she was some sort of strange insect.

  “Of course it’s her!” snapped her husband. “Go on, fetch the blade! The ironmelt one I made yesterday!”

  “You’re not giving it to her.”

  “Certainly I am! Go!”

  The woman walked away toward one of the stalls, peering back over her shoulder at Evie. More voices in the crowd, more smiles and expressions of shock.

  “It’s her! Only the Warrior Princess could have turned away those witches!”

  “She’s the one they’ve all been talking about!”

  “She’s finally come to save us all!”

  Evie’s cheeks went pink. Early in the year, a witch had prophesied that the fabled Warrior Princess, a leader who would rise and rid the world of witches once and for all, was in the current third class. Evie’s class.

  Now, because of what she’d done during the Helpless Maiden, these people believed she was the Warrior Princess. “I’m sorry, but I really must be on my way—”

  “My daughter would’ve been older than you by now if the witches hadn’t got her,” said the old man. “One morning the cock crowed, and when I went to fetch her for chores, she was just . . . gone.” He snapped his soot-stained fingers. “Like that. Snatched right out of her bed.” />
  Evie glanced around the crowd, unsure what to say or do.

  “I don’t really know why I’m tellin’ you that. I just want you to know that Pennyroyal Academy is one of the most special places in all the land. And you’re a hero for stoppin’ them witches. A true hero.” He nearly choked on the words, wiping his eyes with trembling fingers.

  “Hear, hear!” called a thick man with a shiny head and bushy beard.

  The old man’s wife shoved through the crowd, carrying a glinting sword. The blade was as red and shiny as copper. She handed it to her husband, who took it by the hilt and offered it across his other forearm.

  “For you, Princess.”

  “For me? But I don’t know the first thing about swords.”

  “Please. Take it. I’m only an armorer, but this is the best I’ve ever made. And you should have it.”

  Evie reached out and cradled the blade in her hands. It was cold to the touch, lighter than she’d expected, and the shiniest thing she’d ever seen. “Thank you. Thank you very much indeed.”

  “’Tis my sincerest pleasure.”

  “Are you sure that’s her?” squawked the man’s wife.

  As Evie studied the sword, she was beset by other townspeople offering gifts.

  “Do you need a room?” shouted a woman.

  “How are you getting home?” called a man. “My cart’s got only one wheel, but you’re welcome to it.”

  Within minutes, she’d been handed several new dresses, two leather saddlebags stuffed with dried meats and fruit, and a beautiful brown horse to put them on. One man had even given her a map of the world inked across a delicate parchment and shown her how to get home, though none of them could quite believe she was really going to the Dragonlands.

  With the crowd growing ever bigger, she had mounted the horse and offered an overwhelmed thank-you to the villagers. She rode through the kingdom and out of the gatehouse, where the rest of the world was growing dark. Once she was alone beneath the stars and the moon, she could no longer contain her emotions. It had been kindness unlike any she’d experienced before. She rode all the way home atop one villager’s gift, filling her belly with another villager’s gift, entertaining herself with the swoosh of the blade of a third villager’s gift . . .