by Megan Linski
It was from rage.
Forget this. I wouldn’t be looked down upon because I was different. I was ditching. I grabbed my backpack and headed out of there without another word. My next class wasn’t for another hour, but I didn’t care. I wouldn’t be seen as the weak one.
I was thinking about ditching Basket Weaving too, but I really couldn’t afford to get into anymore trouble. If I skipped too much, I’d get kicked out. I hardly cared, but I knew what my tribe would think, so I forced myself into Professor Amber’s classroom at eleven.
Her classroom was one giant wicker basket perched on top of a tower. Inside, tons of blankets and rugs were scattered all over the floor, alongside giant pillows. Incense holders hung from the ceiling and created a smoky atmosphere. I had to resist gagging when I saw Amber’s Familiar, an orangutan, actually playing a wooden flute for ambiance.
This class was full of gossiping girls. Not one single male soul in here but me. I sat on a pillow before a loom and let myself be engulfed by the estrogen.
What a hippie class. At least it was an easy credit. And I got to sit down.
Professor Amber waltzed in. She was wearing a long skirt, covered with a draping shawl and actual feathers weaved into her curly hair. She danced… literally danced… into the room with bare feet while she twirled her arms above her head like some sort of witch.
“Greetings, fair children,” she sang. “I am Professor Amber. Welcome to Basket Weaving.” She bowed to us, and her Familiar mimicked the movement.
“Today, you will be learning the art of storytelling through the magical art that is weaving. In this class, you will understand how to intricately bind together the forces of thread and straw into a unison of sensual and delightful purpose.”
Professor Amber made making a basket sound sexual. She sat down at her loom.
“Pay attention, everyone,” she said while taking out a collection of threads. “This technique is to be used for your blissful understanding and pleasure.”
Yep. Definitely sexual.
She demonstrated the technique. The girls watched in interest and I tried not to fall asleep. She then handed out thread to all of us in baskets, and stood at the head of the room.
“I will be playing the drums and the gong for sound healing while you work. Feel your soul heal through the vibrations that are played,” Amber soothed.
I was ridiculously spiritual, but this was even pushing it for me. I winced as she struck the heavy gong again, then got to work. I had nothing else to do for these two hours.
After a while, I fell into a kind of stupor. Weaving the blanket wasn’t difficult on my body, and it didn’t require that much concentration. It was repetitive work, one that required me to focus, but not think overly hard. It was sort of nice… like being there, but your body is just existing, doing the same movements over and over, and the rest of you is floating.
Kind of like being high. Maybe.
“Liam, your weaving is so perfect!” Professor Amber praised. She snapped me out of my concentration. I found that everyone was staring at me jealousy as Amber displayed the loom, and my blanket, to the class. “Never have I seen a beginner make such a beautiful beginning of a piece!”
I looked around the room and saw that while the thread on everyone else’s looms looked choppy and loose, my stitches were tight and uniform. I blushed so hard everyone could probably see it through my dark skin. I had to resist punching my loom.
Professor Amber continued to brag loudly about me to the rest of the class until it was over. I shot out of there as quickly as I could when we were finally released. I was definitely switching this class the minute I could. Stupid-ass Basket Weaving.
I wolfed down lunch and headed to my last class of the day. Magical Herbs and Plants was held beside the greenhouse, off a small connecting room called the Alchemist’s Lair. Inside were circular stone tables with small wooden bowls, pestles, and vials. Each desk had an alchemy brewing station. Professor Perot strutted around with his peacock Familiar, teaching everyone what the different plants in the greenhouse meant and how to use them.
I scowled. This class was for Elementai who wanted to be medicine men and women, healers. Something I definitely wasn’t interested in.
Yet I didn’t know my place in society anymore… which Baine had made clear this morning... so I figured I could at least try it. Professor Perot taught us that plants like burdock, clovers, chickweed and dandelions could be consumed in a food shortage emergency, something that was in high stock around here. The lecture was long, but interesting. I was happy when I successfully made a poultice for stopping bleeding wounds out of clay and cayenne pepper.
Magical Herbs and Plants wasn’t going to be so bad. It might even help. Alchemy was going to be something I needed after I graduated. Familiars and Elementai got hurt all the time, mostly by magical afflictions. If some sort of potion or plant could help them feel better, or create some sort of spell that could save them in a pinch, I wanted to know.
If I couldn’t help myself anymore, maybe I could at least still help my tribe.
I left Magical Herbs and Plants feeling more positive than I had in months. This semester was going to be easy. I turned to head back to the Toaqua dorm to, you know, brood and be alone.
And maybe work on my basket weaving in private. But I’d die before I told anyone that.
I halted in place when my eye caught Sophia in the middle of the hallway. She was looking at her folder, shuffling through her papers like mad and turning on the spot. It was obvious she was lost and trying to find her way around. No one stopped to help her, not even anyone from her own House. That was typical of Koignis. You had to keep up, or they’d literally throw you to the flames. They didn’t take well to weak members. The Koigni House valued strength and power above everything. Something Sophia did not emulate.
Sophia looked really upset. Tears were welling up in her eyes, and her bottom lip was trembling. She was two seconds away from a breakdown.
Oh, by the ancestors. I needed to go save this girl, before she embarrassed herself in front of everyone yet again. People didn’t let things slide around here. They’d remember it forever if she broke down in the middle of school.
But before I could, I hesitated. How far had I actually gotten in life by being nice? Being nice was only for two things. One: making hurting people feel better. And two: using it to get what you wanted. Nobody ever got anywhere by being nice. If being polite didn’t work, you had to take what you wanted by force.
Sophia had to learn that, or she’d get eaten alive out here.
I stood there watching her, wrestling with a decision. She wasn’t my problem anymore. Yet, she was.
People were funeral pyres. Every single one of them was scrambling to light the nearest match as quickly as possible, and then, once they were on fire, they complained that the fire burned.
I was no exception to this rule.
Nope. If I had learned anything about people, it was that you could give them a hundred options, and every time, they’d always pick the worst decision they possibly could.
Sophia was a bad decision. But she was one I couldn’t help but make.
I rolled my eyes and stomped over there. Her expression cleared as I came into view. Without a word, I yanked the folder out of her hands, opened it, and scrolled through her schedule. Typical First Year stuff. Except...
We had Medical Care of Familiars together tomorrow. Fuck.
“Your first class is Beginner Koigni Magic I. It’s down the hall, to the left. The door is by the statue of the dancing sprite. If you hit the cafeteria, you’ve gone too far.” I threw the folder back at her. She scrambled to catch it, and papers got jumbled in her arms.
“Th— thank you,” she stuttered.
“Don’t mention it,” I told her sharply. “Like, ever again.”
I shoved my hands in my pockets, turned around, and stormed off. Which I was getting exceptionally good at doing lately.
I g
lanced behind my shoulder, just to double-check on her. Well, she seemed a bit more organized, at least. She had a clearer direction of where she was going.
I sighed. Sophia was sweet, but she needed to learn how things ran around here. She couldn’t keep being lost and confused. She had to find her place at Orenda Academy, fast.
And I needed to learn how to stay away from her.
I was grateful for Liam’s help in finding my first class, but it would’ve been more helpful if he’d told me what a sprite actually was. I wandered down the hall, my folder shaking in my hands. I gave myself an hour to explore the castle and find my first class, but it looked like that wasn’t going to be enough time, even with the map in front of me.
I was starting to think Liam gave me the wrong directions just to get in a good laugh. It wasn’t hard to doubt the guy when he acted like a total ass.
What was with him, anyway? He always had a stone-cold look on his face and often breathed heavily, like he had no concept of simple relaxation. He acted like just being alive was difficult. Weird.
Eventually, I hit the cafeteria Liam had mentioned. I turned around and headed back the way I came, looking for any signs of a dancing statue. I ran my hand across the fabric of my jeans— Amelia’s jeans— hoping they would bring me luck. So far, I felt so out of my element that I wasn’t sure they weren’t cursed.
I need you, Am. I wish I didn’t have to do this without you.
My eyes finally fell upon a statue of a woman wrapped in flowing fabric. She rose on one bare foot, the other off the ground and her hands in the air.
This must be it.
I glanced into the open door beside the statue. The room was one of the biggest I’d seen so far in the castle, with a high ceiling and a massive fireplace along the far wall. The area in front of the fireplace was empty, and there were scorch marks along the hardwood floor. Several large couches faced the empty area. I guessed the space was for training and the couches were for observing. Tables and chairs were set up in front of a chalkboard in the opposite corner of the room. Tall bookshelves lined the classroom area, and candles burned all around the room.
A red-headed woman sat behind a large desk near the chalkboard, shuffling through papers. Besides that, the room was quiet. I was the first one here.
Madame Doya looked up from her desk. She had that same hard look on her face as the first time I met her. I was starting to think it was a permanent expression.
“Can I help you?” she asked, like she had no intention of actually helping me.
I glanced down at my schedule, as if one more glance might help me make sense of everything I’d been trying to understand since yesterday. “Um… yeah. Is this Beginner Koigni Magic I?”
“It is,” she answered. “But you’re early.”
Since when did teachers chastise you for being early?
“I— uh— wanted to make sure I was on time,” I said lamely.
Madame Doya looked up at me with tight lips, but simply nodded and gazed back down at her papers. “You may take a seat and practice conjuring a flame in your palm until the rest of the class arrives.”
Practice conjuring fire? I thought that was what this class was for. To teach me how to do it.
“What are you just standing there for?” she snapped without looking up from her desk.
I sank into the closest chair two rows back. “I don’t know how to conjure fire yet."
Madame Doya’s head snapped upward. “Excuse me?”
I fiddled with a corner of my folder. “I mean, I used my fire once, but it was an accident. I didn’t know I was supposed to know how to use it before class started.”
Great. I was going to be light years behind my classmates.
Madame Doya frowned deeper— if that were possible considering the ever-present downturn of her lips. “You should know how to conjure a basic flame by your age.”
“My dad said my powers would be weak until—"
“Your dad?” Madame Doya interrupted. “It was my understanding that you’d never met your father.”
What? Who would tell her a lie like that?
Realization dawned. She was talking about my biological father.
“I meant my adoptive father,” I said. It felt so wrong to call my dad that.
“Robert Henley is not your father,” she stated in a tone that stung.
“Oh, I, um…” What was I supposed to do? Agree with her?
Madame Doya stood from her desk. That was the first time I noticed the creature lounging at her feet. My blood ran cold as a huge African cat with blonde fur stood and followed Madame Doya over to one of the nearby bookcases. I swore the cat scowled at me, like it knew something.
It does, I told myself. I licked my dry lips, but my tongue felt like sandpaper. This was the cat that had attacked Amelia and me just days ago.. Naomi. I knew it. I urged to demand an answer from Doya about what her Familiar was doing hundreds of miles away, stalking my sister and me in the Salt Lake Valley, but fear blocked my words. I didn’t want to draw any more attention to myself than I had to, and I had a feeling that the more I dug into that, the more danger I’d put my family in.
Madame Doya didn’t seem to notice I’d gone completely tense at the sight of her Familiar. She pulled down one of the thickest books I’d ever seen and flipped it open. She walked over to me and dropped the book so hard onto my desk that I jumped back a few inches.
“Your father’s name was Anthony Greyson, and your mother’s name was Lucy Greyson. They were both highly respected members of the Koigni House.”
Madame Doya pointed at the page in front of me. I glanced down at it, but continued to watch the lioness out of the corner of my eye. She stood still but stared back.
Names and birthdates lined the page. It was a genealogy chart, and sure enough, the names Anthony and Lucy were written beside each other, with a line connecting them to the name Sophia Greyson. My birthdate was written below the name. It wasn’t exactly a shock considering my parents admitted I was adopted, but it still didn’t feel right to see my name written that way, connected to a man and woman I’d never met.
“Your adoptive father was nothing more than a thief,” Madame Doya accused in disgust. “He stole you away from this world when you were only a baby. You must learn to accept that fact.”
I sat there dumbstruck. She couldn’t actually believe my parents stole me, could she? I mean, apart from the whole lying-about-being-adopted thing, my parents were the best. I was sure that whatever happened when I was a baby, the Greysons wanted my parents to have me. And I didn’t care what anyone else said. Robert and Susan Henley were the people who raised me. They were— and would always be— my real parents.
God, I missed them. And thanks to Doya, I couldn’t even call them to tell them that.
I forced down the lump in my throat, but my voice still came out small. “Do they— Anthony and Lucy— know I’m here?”
“They don’t know anything,” Madame Doya said coldly, “considering they're dead.”
“What?” I asked breathlessly. I wasn’t sure I’d heard her right.
“Your parents died shortly after you were born.” Madame Doya spoke without emotion, as if she wasn’t delivering earth-shattering news.
I sat still for several beats, absorbing the information. “What does this mean? Am I the prophesied one?”
Whatever it meant to be the prophesied one. With all that talk the day before, no one cared to tell me what the prophecy actually said.
Madame Doya’s nostrils flared as she inhaled a deep breath. “I believed you could be, but anyone capable of fulfilling the prophecy should actually be able to do magic.”
What was it with this woman? She knew how to deliver a blow with the most minimal of words. Talking to her felt like being thrown into a lion’s den without a weapon. At this rate, this lady was going to chew me up and spit me out by the end of next week. She petrified me.
Voices from down the hall met my ears, and a gr
oup of students entered the room. I turned to see Haley at the front of the group, her phoenix on her shoulder. I noticed she was the only first-year Koigni in the group with a Familiar. She stopped talking the moment she laid eyes on me.
Madame Doya slammed the book on my desk shut, stealing my attention from Haley. She scooped the book up in her arms and began her way back to her desk. The lioness followed.
“Everyone please take a seat,” Doya said in a bored tone. “We’ll get started shortly.”
To say I was behind my classmates was an understatement. These people could light a fire in the palm of their hand with a snap of their finger. Literally. I didn’t even have the snapping-my-fingers part down.
Haley showed off by lighting up the wood in the fireplace from halfway across the room and sending it whirling up the chimney like a fire tornado. If that was the kind of thing Koigni could do on their first day, I wasn’t sure I wanted to see what they were capable of after four years of training.
Maybe by then I’d be good enough to burn Haley’s perfect eyebrows off, if I was lucky.
“Come on, people!” Madame Doya yelled across the training area. Apparently, my classmates weren’t doing as well as I thought. “This isn’t Nivita magic. We’re not moving mountains here. All I’m asking is to see you sustain a flame for ten seconds. It’d be nice if some of you could conjure a flame at all.”
She shot a glare my way. It didn’t go unnoticed. Haley followed Madame Doya’s gaze and smirked.
Maybe if Madame Doya actually tried teaching us something instead of just yelling like a drill sergeant, we’d have made some progress since the beginning of class. I didn’t dare ask her how it was actually done. I probably wouldn’t get a direct answer, anyway.
“I want to move on to fireballs by next week,” Madame Doya said. “At this rate, it’ll take us a month, and everyone but Haley will be repeating this class next semester. Sophia!”
I immediately froze from where I stood near the fireplace, my fingers pinched together in preparation to snap them. I knew it wouldn’t work since I’d already tried a hundred times since class started.