1

The morning sunlight shone onto Cloisters Boarding School for Boys. It shone as best it could, but it was no use. No amount of sunlight could disguise the coldness that clung to its black bricks like ancient robes. The sun might as well have shone on a gravestone.

The view from the front gates didn’t exactly leave the best impression on newcomers. The first thing they’d see would of course be the gates, wrought iron and rusted. The plaque on the bars was the only part that was ever cleaned nowadays. Its words gleamed to a high sheen in the sunlight:

The plaque was a grim reminder of how many years had passed since the school was first built. Back then, the Outskirts had been filled with towns and villages, but they had long ago been abandoned. Except for the barbed-wire fences lining the horizon, where the secretive world of the Cusp was hidden from view, and where the outermost edges of the Forbidden Land finally began, the school was the only sign of life for miles around.

You could forgive those standing at the wrought-iron gates for imagining that the black and crumbling building ahead had been long abandoned too. With nothing else but barren fields to look at, visitors would have no choice but to stare at the grand entranceway lying at the base of the tallest tower before them. It was a miserable sight. No matter how many times you stood before the tower, it always looked like it was plummeting down on top of you.

Matthew was no exception. It didn’t help matters that he was an hour late for his first day at school, and that he was soaked to the skin in old ditchwater. And it certainly didn’t help that he was wearing a blazer two sizes too big for him.

Or that he was supposed to be starting as the new Headmaster.

‘Hello?’ he called out, banging his briefcase against the railings. ‘Er … can someone let me in, please?’

Silence. He wiped his mud-smeared