I sighed and ducked under the magnolia tree by the fine arts building. It was the only secluded area I could find – the rest of campus was overrun with college students celebrating the end of finals. I settled in under the roots, trying to drown out the cheers and throbbing of the music around the corner, focusing instead on the small pond situated behind the hedges.

Suddenly, the pond stirred. I frowned, leaning forward. It was…bubbling. Why? I thought for a moment, then I tensed. My intuition was screaming, despite my mind racing to find some sort of logical explanation for the disturbance.

Something's coming.

I had two options. The safest choice was running away. No explanation needed behind that choice. But I could stay… Perhaps it wasn't dangerous… But then again, I thought, my heart pounding as the bubbles increased, maybe it is. For some reason, that excited me more than anything, and my curiosity overwhelmed my fear. I waited with baited breath. The noises of the crowd seemed to dim and for a moment, everything was silent.

It wasn't the water that broke the silence. Instead, a crack rang out and a person appeared next to the water, eyes wild, a robe bellowing around her, her hand clutching… I blinked. A wand? I thought, bewildered.

Then the water erupted. I only caught a glimpse of the creature – webbed feet propelling it upward, the body and head of a horse… but no horse had teeth like these, jagged and dripping with blood. Before the woman could turn, it clamped onto the back of her neck. Blood spewed forward and the wand slid from her grip. The creature shook the corpse a few times before tossing her body aside, snorting as if with disgust.

Two more cracks rang through the silence and two more beings appeared beside the pond. The first – a thin woman clad in a shimmering, green dress, her eyes and skin so pale she seemed to glow in the night – turned to the creature in the pond, stroking its slimy, green mane with affection. "Be still, kelpie." Her soft voice carried on the wind. The other, a stout, furry man who was naked except for what looked like a short kilt wrapped around his waist, bent to pick up the wand.

But then I slipped up. I should have stayed put against the tree, but there was some part of me that ached to be in that man, wrapping my own hand around that wand – bloodied or not. I had leaned forward when the man had moved and my leg pressed too hard against the twigs beneath it. There was a snap.

Before I could blink, the furry man was before me, one hand clutching my throat, the other drawn back, claws extended, a moment away from spilling my life-blood.

"Brody!" The woman's voice cracked like a whip and the man twisted his head in anger. "He said to only kill the witch."

"A muggle couldn't have gotten through his barrier," the man snarled. I shuddered at the hatred in his gravely voice, struggling for breath, even while my mind started at the word. Muggle? The thoughts flitted through my mind in a stream. As in Harry Potter? This can't be happening. It must be a dream. It can't be real because a magical creature just killed a witch in front of me and that must be impossible because witches and wizards are more powerful than creatures but how would I know they're all fiction anyways how are they standing there…

"If she was a witch, she would have had her wand pointed at us by now," the woman said patiently.

The man lowered his hand. "Than how do you think she got through, selkie?" he spat, but he hadn't loosened his grip on my throat. I gasped, fingers clawing at his paws. The world was fading around me, but I caught a few pieces of the woman's words before I succumbed to the darkness.

"One of the Lost… records destroyed… Take her with us."

My head pounded. I tried to press my hand against my head, but something held it back. I blinked, the world coming into focus. I was in a chair. Tied to a chair, and from what I could tell based on the feel and wood of the legs, it was something out of a mansion, not a college campus. There was a wood floor beneath my feet and a fire crackled to my left.

"Awake, are we?"

I breathed in and raised my head. A man was leaning back in a chair, one hand tapping his chin, the other rubbing gently over an elegant, black cane. His black hair was bound back loosely, strands coming free to delicately frame his eerily beautiful face. He watched my face, amusement dancing in his bright blue eyes. "Speak, human," he said. "Tell me what you think. Tell me what the first thoughts of a captive are. Intrigue me."

I struggled to find my tongue – my head continued to throb. "You…you're not human, are you?"

He snorted, standing swiftly. "Is that the best you've got," he mocked, striding forward, his cane tapping casually on the floor. He doesn't need it, I realized. But that's a rather… out-of-date fashion accessory. His hair fell back as he lifted his chin, revealing pointed ears. "No, I'm not human. If you can't recognize one of the Fair Folk – or a half-Folk at least – when you see one, you're more ignorant than I thought." He stopped a few feet from me and leaned on his cane. "Now, what should I do with you?"

I swallowed. "Let me go?" I suggested.

His eyes went cold. "Really?" His voice was mocking again, but darker. "After you witnessed magical creatures murder a witch? Oh, don't try to deny it – it's obvious what you've seen."

I pressed my lips together against sudden nausea. My mind was spinning the images before me now, emphasizing the details – the sound as the teeth sunk in, the scent of the magnolia blossoms tainted with the iron bite of blood…

"The question is," he drawled, still looking at me, "Whether or not you are truly one of the Lost."

He waited. I refused to speak, refused to ask. I wasn't about to give him more words to twist, but it must have been obvious what I was thinking. He smirked. "Cat got your tongue?" he said. "I may not be able to see dreams like my father could, but I can still catch glimpses of thought. You don't know about the Lost, do you?"

"No," I said coldly. "But as you clearly pointed out, I am ignorant. If you could be so kind, please enlighten me."

His smirk broadened and he held my eyes for a long moment, drawing out my patience, before responding. "Do you like to read, human?"

I blinked, somewhat caught off-guard. "Yes."

"Then you've read those Harry Potter books, I'm sure."

"Yes."

"For the most part, they are true," he said. His amusement was back as he watched my reactions – jaw dropped, then clenched again, eyes widened, then narrowed in speculation. "Lord Voldemort destroyed a considerable amount of magic-detecting devices used to find muggleborn witches and wizards when he took power, and the destruction spread even to America. The knowledge to make them was also lost until recent times. There are a considerable number of muggleborns being discovered now, in their teens and twenties, and they are referred to as 'the Lost' because of the length of time it has taken to find them."

His eyes glinted as he read my expression. I hoped that the glimmer of hope – the childish dream that had gripped me from the moment I read the stories – hadn't reached my eyes. But it was kind of hard to suppress. "Are you saying… I'm a witch?" I asked, somewhat breathlessly.

He threw back his head and laughed – a smooth, chilling laugh that left my insides recoiling in terror. "No," he said, leaning forward once again so I could feel his breath brush against my face. "I'm saying that I'll take you to the magical department to be tested. If you have sufficient magic to get into a school, then I will use you. You will bring me information on the professors and material taught in whatever school you end up in."

"What will you use it for?" I blurted out, my hands clenching.

He tilted his head, his eyes narrowed in irritation at the interruption. "The humans suppress magical creatures like us," he said simply. "I'm looking for ways to fight back."

The image of the kelpie's teeth in the body of the witch had me cringe. "And if I refuse?" I said, unable to keep the tremble from my voice.

He smirked. "I have power to keep you alive for quite a length of time while killing you," he said. "How does thirty years of torture sound?"

Words fled me and I pressed my lips together against another wave of nausea at the thought.

His smirk broadened and he continued. "And if you're not magical, I'll simply have them wipe your mind of that encounter, then throw you in front of a car so what you witnessed tonight, if not erased by the impact, will simply be interpreted as a traumatic delusion." He snapped his fingers and the chair disappeared. I fell to the floor my hands – freed of their bindings – barely lessening the impact on the wood floor. I gasped – more in shock than pain – and rubbed my wrists as he looked down on me. "Do we have a deal?" he said mockingly.