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now. But the school offices—and one or two of the classrooms—were all in what had been the old Administration Building, built in 1913, and designed to look pretty much like a scaled-down, red brick version of Mad Ludwig’s Castle.
    Outwardly, the school looked like a train-wreck because that was what people expected an “alternative” school to look like, and if it was sleek and posh, or all comfy-English-manor, outsiders would begin to wonder. But the fact was that VeeVee, and most of the other Advanced kids here, could have practically any teacher, on practically any subject, just for the asking. That was the sort of thing that happened when your school’s founder and benefactor was a multi-billionaire—and a half-Elven Mage to boot.
    And that made St. Rhia’s the best school VeeVee’d ever been at in her entire life. She had friends here. She never had to lie about anything—and lies could be fatal to a magician, because words were Power, and when spoken by a Mage could twist and turn and bite you in the butt if you were lying.
    With both of her parents being Guardians, there’d been a pretty good chance she’d turn out to have some sort of magical ability. She wasn’t a Guardian herself, of course. Even though they’d been in existence for thousands of years, even the Guardians didn’t know where their special abilities came from, or just what would confer them—or when.
    The Guardians were a loose—very loose—anarchisticly loose—organization of the extraordinarily Talented and Gifted who stood between the Mundanes and the kind of things you usually found only in horror movies and books with black covers. Their purpose for existing was to protect the Mundane World from the Supernatural World in such a fashion the Mundanes were able to go on believing that “things that went bump in the night” only existed in fiction, and the greatest restriction on their power was that they could never give help unless they were asked to do so by the person who was actually in peril.
    Guardians were, in many ways, the elite of Mages. By virtue of what they did, and some undefined connection to Powers outside themselves, they were granted more strength than they would have had alone, more magical abilities, and had the benefit of being able to call on one another for help. But like the Knight-Mages of the Elfhames, they walked a path strictly hemmed in by what they could and could not do with their power. It was never to be used selfishly, for instance. Never punitively. Guardians were not judge and jury; they were protectors and defenders. And no matter what your heritage, you could not win your way to the position, nor volunteer for it. It was offered to you—or not.
    VeeVee hoped one day it would be offered to her.
    The trouble was, the Other Side didn’t have to play by the same rules the Guardians did, and a lot of nasty stuff in the Guardians’ world tended to take the offensive and come after them and those around them. Which was why a lot of Guardians tended to lead solitary lives—and the few who did marry didn’t tend to start families. The idea of producing “Daddy’s little hostage,” just did not appeal.
    VeeVee’s parents, however, took the position that the last thing a Hideous Death Monster was going to expect was that the tiny blond-haired, blue-eyed child it had just snatched was going to turn around, pull out a Soul-Blade with the Six Runes of Righteous Destruction written on it, and stab it in the gut with it. So the second her Gifts had manifested, her parents began training her in them. It had been a real pain in the rear to have to attend both regular schools and arcane lessons, pull off good grades in both, and keep the latter secret from the former.
    Mind, she’d never regretted it. Especially not after Shadow-Warriors in the pay of the Rudeski family of vampyri invaded the house one afternoon while Mom and Dad were still at work (because being a Guardian didn’t pay the bills,