Francesca, The Great and Terrible: A Reverse Harem Academy Romance Read online

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses,

  places, events, and incidents are either the products

  of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious

  Manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living

  or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2019 JB Trepagnier

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be

  reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted,

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  written permission

  Francesca

  The Great and Terrible

  JB Trepagnier

  Table of Contents

  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

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 1

  Frankie

  E

  merald City Academy had just become pointless. The only reason we were still sticking around was that Saffron had her training with Frabess. History was permanently canceled, and Glinda had all but disappeared. I had no idea where Daxar had gone. I tried asking Frabess because I thought I could trust her. She said she would have told me if she knew, but she said he just disappeared one night, and not even the staff knew where he was.

  Professor Ixius had been standing in as Headmaster when he wasn’t teaching fight training, but it wasn’t the same. He didn’t have the same presence, and he had no idea what he was doing when he took over my training. I missed Daxar. I missed just talking to him, and I missed our games. Professor Ixius seemed to think breathing like a woman in childbirth was going to center me somehow.

  It wasn’t doing a damned thing. I’d been doing Galen’s suggestion and singing to myself when I trained with my sword, but I needed Daxar. It wasn’t just my training. I missed him, and I needed to know he was safe. I couldn’t exactly ask Glinda because she had totally disappeared from the academy and the palace.

  Galen was just pissing me off. He disappeared too, but unlike Daxar, I knew where he was. He was watching me from afar in the gardens and refusing to show himself. I could feel him like I always could, and he never made himself visible again. If he wanted me to beg him to talk to me, he wasn’t going to get it. Frankly, I was getting tired of his little game.

  I was scrying for Daxar every free moment. He wasn’t by any reflective surface. I always checked for Ozma and Dorothy on their little adventure too. It turned out that damned dog had been able to talk all along and chose not to.

  Dorothy, Ozma, and their entire group ended up in the Nome King’s realm trying to free a royal family and were all in the process of getting turned into trinkets for the Nome King. The Nome King didn’t realize Toto was under his throne, listening to the answer to his little riddle. That yappy little dog saved the day, and Dorothy proved she was a fighter and stole the Nome King’s magic belt. Maybe Dorothy could get home after all.

  As for school, it was always lessons I’d learned ages ago. I helped Idris and Oprix learn them, and I was teaching them in our rooms. Saffron and I were giving Emari and Emarus private lessons too. I think all of us knew they would never be Sentinels, but with everything going on with Locasta and the Fisher King and not knowing if I could trust Glinda, I wanted my friends as prepared as possible.

  I didn’t want them taught the way we were being taught at Emerald City Academy. Equora wasn’t teaching the principles of magic properly. Everyone who hadn’t been kicked out yet could brew basic potions, but they had no idea why the potions worked the way they did. They didn’t know how to take those ingredients and mix them in a brand-new potion.

  Saffron and I were filling in the gaps, and I had no idea why. All I knew was that a knowledge transference spell had been done on the staff here, but Sentinel training started at the age of five and wasn’t completed until the age of twenty-five. A knowledge transference spell that would transfer twenty years of training couldn’t be done in one day. It would kill both people. Saffron and I had both been trying to figure it out. Saffron finally just asked Frabess to come to our room to see if the geas would let her talk about it.

  I liked Frabess and thought she would make a good teacher for Saffron. In a lot of ways, she reminded me of my mother. Her skin wasn’t green, and her hair wasn’t purple, but they both had similar temperaments. They could be gentle when they wanted to be, but they didn’t take shit when they needed to.

  Frabess sat on one of the overstuffed chairs in our sitting room. “I don’t know where Glinda is, and I haven’t been able to find out where she sent Daxar. I don’t have any of the answers you want.”

  “That’s not what we wanted to know,” Saffron said. “You’re my tutor, but not one of my teachers. Are you teaching magic to your group of students the same way Equora is teaching us?”

  “You mean, half-assed? It was how the curriculum was assigned. I can’t tell you why because of the geas, but I can tell you my theories. Obviously, there are only four Sentinel seats, and you and Francesca have two. Locasta will have to be removed, and I don’t know what Glinda intends with hers. She kept saying her focus was on finding the heir, but Ozma is here now. She can’t say all her attention is on one thing when that one thing is off saving a royal family as we speak. Glinda could intend to keep her seat, or give it up.”

  “That doesn’t make sense,” I said, leaning my head on Idris’ shoulder. “Glinda told us our hair was this color because the Sentinels have always had colorful hair. It was how Sentinels were chosen when there was more than one child born. They were always the ones with the fortitude to be Sentinels. No one here is like that.”

  Except for Galen, I thought to myself. Galen and his green hair. Was Galen randomly born to some family with green hair because the magic in Oz knew Locasta had gone bad and we were going to need a Sentinel in the North? Galen said his parents were abusive. Did they do that just because he had green hair? I didn’t think that was it. No, Galen was avoiding me for a reason.

  Frabess shrugged. “All I can tell you is that none of us would have agreed to come here if Glinda had been up to no good. I wouldn’t have agreed to the geas if something dangerous wasn’t going on. Glinda has done some questionable things since this academy started, but I don’t think she’s the enemy here.”

  “How was the knowledge transference spell done?” I asked. “There’s no way Glinda could have given you all t
he Sentinel knowledge without killing you.”

  Frabess shook her head. “She didn’t. My family already had inherent magic and practiced in the North. We just had to do a lot of it in secret because we couldn’t let Locasta know we had strong magic. I was given fight training and how to teach Saffron. I was the strongest in magic out of everyone Glinda recruited.”

  “What about Daxar?”

  Where was my Daxar? If I could find him in a reflective surface, I could talk to him. He wouldn’t just leave like that.

  “Glinda had been friends with Daxar’s family for centuries. They had inherent magical ability, but they never tapped into it. That’s most of the professors here. Equora and Ixius were given the knowledge to teach their classes, and that was it. Daxar was given what he needed to teach you, and I think he was given a lot of different spells. Daxar knows magic, fight training, and how to train you, but not the full knowledge of a Sentinel.”

  “I wish I knew where he was.”

  “I’m not blind, Francesca, and neither is Glinda. Anyone could see he was in love with you when he went charging back into the North for you and that you have feelings for him when you went back for him. Glinda could be keeping you apart.”

  “I’m fairly certain she is. But Daxar can’t be found in any mirror. I don’t think he’s back home.”

  “You know Daxar is old enough to be your father?” Frabess pointed out.

  “So?” I shot at her.

  Frabess just shrugged. “Point taken. We need to coordinate. We need to find Glinda and Daxar.”

  “I think Glinda has long teleported out,” Saffron said.

  “Oh, I’m sure she has. She’s enchanted the locks on her doors so I can’t get inside and trace where she’s teleported to,” Frabess said.

  An idea popped into my head. Saffron was always gifted with potions, and I was good with wards. “Saffron, do you think we could come up with a way to teleport into Glinda’s room together? Between your potions and me with wards, we should be able to get in.”

  Frabess just frowned. “If you’re doing this, I’m doing it with you.”

  “Us too,” Idris said.

  “Damned straight,” Oprix said.

  I kissed both of them. “I wouldn’t dream of leaving you out.”

  Chapter 2

  Frankie

  Sneaking into the Quadling dorm to Glinda’s rooms was easy. There was no sneaking involved. All the Quadlings wanted to know where she was too, and I could call them my friends now. The Munchkins knew the truth about Saffron and I. They knew our mothers weren’t Wicked Witches, and they had been spelled to think that. It hadn’t changed a damned thing with the Munchkins. They still gossiped about us and shot us dirty looks. If they hadn’t been afraid of my sword and Saffron’s bow, I probably would have been expelled by now for face-punching one of them for hurting Saffron.

  There were other professors at the school besides the ones I had class with. There was a Quadling professor that watched over the Quadling dorm, and I was told the Munchkins hated that a Winkie was watching over their dorms. There weren’t any Munchkin professors here, and the Munchkins took it personally. The group that I had class with had started disrupting class to demand to know where all the Munchkin professors were and why they didn’t have someone like them in their dorms. They were being pawned off to Glinda knowing she was missing.

  Even Ufora, the Quadling dorm mother, was helping us try to get into Glinda’s room. I liked Ufora. She wasn’t a professor, and she hadn’t had any knowledge transference spell done on her. She was chosen because she was a mother. From what she told me, she raised twelve rowdy sons who were now off raising their own families. She was perfect for keeping a bunch of young people in one building in line, and she was nice to talk to as well.

  Ufora always hugged Saffron and me like we were her children and not two young women trying to sneak into her boss’s rooms. I just needed to put my hands on the door to get a feel for what kinds of traps Glinda might have set inside.

  There was no spell to stop someone from teleporting to where you were, but there were some pretty nasty spells to trap them in place once they did. I needed to get at her door and feel for that kind of magic. Luckily, I learned those lessons before my mother was murdered. Saffron hadn’t, so it was up to me. Frabess was doubling up on Saffron’s lessons and trying to teach her everything she missed. Saffron had things much harder than I did. She was eleven when her mother was murdered, so she missed a lot more Sentinel training than I did.

  As soon as Ufora saw me, she pulled me into a huge hug like she didn’t just see me yesterday. Ufora was a big-boned woman with the Quadling red hair and callouses on her hands from doing labor around her house in the South. I let her hug me and squeezed her back. There was something comfortable about Ufora. The Quadling dorms had a small kitchen at Ufora’s request. She liked to make baked goods for all the Quadlings, and she always smelled like pastries.

  She always gave long hugs and squeezed you hard. It was like I didn’t want her to let me go when she actually did. I missed hugs like that. My mother always hugged me like that. She always pulled Saffron in next, and we couldn’t do anything until the hugging was out of the way, and she made sure we didn’t want any pastries. We usually did. Quadling desserts were delicious, but we didn’t eat them until we finished our work in the dorms.

  Ufora didn’t seem to want to let me go today. “Promise me you can do this without hurting yourself.”

  I smiled into her shoulder. It was nice to have someone worry about me. No one really had before. My mother trained me to take care of myself and expected me to do so. Idris and Oprix would always have my back, but they never questioned my abilities. I knew they worried about me, but they would never say it to my face. Daxar worried about me, or he wouldn’t have teleported back to the North because he thought soldiers surrounded me. It was a new feeling, but I liked it. It wasn’t like they doubted my abilities. They just cared about me and didn’t want to see me hurt.

  “I just need to touch the door and probe through it to feel what kind of magic is in the room. I don’t think Glinda knows about this spell. My mother told me it was a family spell one of my ancestors developed after someone was acting up in the West, and they teleported right into a trap.”

  Ufora just crossed her arms and gave me this look I imagined she gave her sons. “And do you have a plan to get out of one of these traps if you happen to get caught in one, Frankie?”

  “Saffron and I always have a plan. Frabess will teleport in with me. If I happened to miss something and we get trapped, Saffron will break the magical locks on the door and free us.”

  “And if the door traps Saffron?”

  “Magical locks don’t work like that,” Saffron pointed out. “They are more like puzzles you have to solve. They aren’t dangerous. They are just tricky. The craftier the sorcerer, the harder they are to undo.”

  Ufora cocked an eyebrow at us. “And you think a magical lock by Glinda the Good is going to be easy? What happens to Frankie and Frabess while you try to unravel her puzzle?”

  Saffron just shrugged. “My mother taught me magical locks and puzzles before she died. I spent a lot of time alone in a cave hiding from rabid Munchkins. I like puzzles, so I spent a lot of time creating them. My cave is protecting by magical puzzles. Only Frankie, Idris, and Oprix know the answers to actually get to me.”

  Ufora just sighed. “The only reason I’m even allowing you two to try this in my dorms is that I trust you. I’ll expect you back in the common area when you finish. I baked a special Quadling treat for the group, and I’ll expect you there to eat.”

  I just grinned. It wasn’t just that I liked Ufora’s cooking. It felt like sitting back at my family table with my mother when we sat at the Quadling common room, eating her desserts just chatting. She always made sure everyone had everything they wanted, and everyone was included in the conversation. No one was left out when Ufora was hostess. It was like that when my mother was
playing host.

  “What did you make for us today?”

  “A raspberry apple crumble. It was my youngest son’s favorite. I intend to fatten Saffron up if it’s the last thing I do.”

  “We wouldn’t miss it,” I said, yanking Saffron off towards Glinda’s room.

  Saffron’s slim form was one of the things the Munchkin’s chose to taunt her about when we first got here, and she was a little sensitive about it now. No amount of telling her I found her beautiful, and Emarus liked her the way she was got those comments from the Munchkins out her head. I knew Ufora meant well, but I wished she’d stop with the comments on fattening Saffron up.

  Glinda’s room was all the way at the end of the hall. She had an ornate gilded door. The dorms were nice, but I was guessing Glinda’s rooms were more like the palace. All of the rest of the doors here were carved wood, not gold like her doors.

  Saffron and I intended to double team it today. I would have my hands on the doors scanning for traps, and she would be touching the doors too seeing what kind of puzzle we would be dealing with when it came to the locks.

  I squeezed Saffron’s hand as we walked down the hall. “You’re the master of puzzles. If anyone can figure Glinda’s door, it’s you.”

  “Can you teach me the spell you’re doing on the door? I know it’s a big West secret, but we’re in a fucking mess right now.”

  “I don’t have any secrets from you, Saffron. I’ll teach you the spell.”

  “You neglected to tell me you were into getting spanked by our headmaster.”

  “You’re still mad about that?”

  “I just don’t get why Oprix and Idris aren’t.”

  “You might find yourself with more than one boyfriend like the old Sentinels, Saffron.”

  Before my prim cousin could tell me she would never, we were standing outside the door, so I just let it drop. I placed my hands against the cool, gold surface of the door while Saffron handled the locks. I wasn’t paying attention to Saffron. All my intent was sent through the door. I felt my aura pass through the metal and wood of the door and seep into the room. I was in!