Academy of Magic Collection

by Angelique S Anderson et al.

  “Here you go,” Alita said, coming back into the room with a big, clear vase, which she set down on the small table.

  “We have our own bathroom?” I asked, assuming that’s where the water came from.

  “Kind of?” she said, scrunching up her face like she wasn’t quite sure. “It connects to the room across from us, but we can lock the doors, or they can, it just depends who gets in there first,” she explained without taking a breath. “Here, put those in the water and listen.”

  She helped me put the flowers in the vase, and to my amazement, different sounds started filling the air like voices. I stepped back, surprised, because once all the flowers were in the water, it really did sound like an actual chorus singing in wordless harmony.

  “How is that possible?” I asked, fascinated as I studied the strange shapes and colors—tubular yellow flowers with magenta rings, teardrop shaped flowers that were the same color as a cloudless sky. “Do all the flowers sing on this island?”

  “I don’t know. But if so, they only do it when you pick them,” Alita said, nearly vibrating with energy until she suddenly sobered. “But don’t eat anything just growing on a bush or something, whatever you do. Like, not even one berry out there.”

  “Why?”

  “Because anything you eat that’s not from the dining hall will make you shift into whatever you are, and you won’t be able to ask for help because nobody can talk when they’re shifted, and if you’re a mermaid, then you’re really in trouble because you can’t walk, and—oh, hey, what are you?” Alita asked, stopping her barrage of words abruptly, as if the thought just occurred to her.

  I shook my head to clear the dizzy feeling listening to her gave me. “Uh, an eagle, I think?” I answered, feeling ridiculous for even thinking it at all, let alone saying it out loud.

  “Oooh,” Alita said in a low, secret way that made me think an eagle was either really good or really bad.

  “So, this is actually real?” I asked. “It’s not a hallucination, like from drugs they gave us?”

  She laughed under her breath, the sound reminding me of tinkling shells. “I thought that too after they gave me those berries and I turned into a fox. A fox! And a week before I even knew about Eden’s Bluff, I started growing a tail. At least, that’s what I saw. After a few minutes, it was gone. I thought I’d imagined it.”

  “That’s exactly what happened to me. I thought my hands had turned into feathers.” I said, relieved, then explained the unnatural speed and lung capacity I also experienced, the strange screeching sounds…and how I thought maybe I’d become Feral after Lauren had bitten me.

  Alita’s green eyes widened. “I was sure for like, an entire day I’d somehow contracted it, but I hadn’t been bitten or anything. Those things couldn’t get behind The Citadel wall—did they not guard your wall?” she asked, but didn’t stop talking long enough for me to answer. “Ours is guarded by live patrols, Tub droids, and an electric field, so it’s not like anyone from The Swamp could have even come in.” She wrinkled her nose on the last sentence, and the blood in my veins suddenly felt like it dropped several degrees.

  The Swamp. The Grind. It didn’t make any difference, and the relief I’d felt just a second ago knowing she’d experienced nearly the same thing I had vanished, replaced by something hollow. Something angry.

  We’d may have both left our cities, our worlds, our whole way of life. But the wall had come with us.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I’d minimized any further conversation with Alita last night by telling her I was tired from traveling all day and just wanted to take a shower, then go to sleep. Fortunately, it worked, and my biggest problem for the rest of the night was trying to decide if I could use the water from the sink as I brushed my teeth, or if it would give me a beak or something.

  This morning was another story.

  I found my bag and pulled out a bra and a pair of underwear, happy I’d brought them despite being told not to pack a bunch of stuff because there were no replacements here. I put on one of the white shirts in what was apparently my closet, as well as a black skort. It was definitely not my intention to look like I was a runaway server from a wedding, but these were my only options. Ten black skorts. Who even wore skorts anymore?

  Resigned that what I looked like today was not going to be high on my priority list, I pushed a hand through my hair to keep it from falling in my face. For half-a-second I wished it were long like Alita’s so I could just put it all in a braid and be done with it. I settled for pulling it back into a stubby ponytail and anxiously tapped open my queue when I heard the internal ping.

  My excitement crashed and died a fiery death when I saw the message wasn’t from Max. Uri had sent instructions for anyone who had arrived on the island within the last month to report to the dining hall for breakfast, and then go somewhere called The Eastern Arena an hour later. Fortunately, he included a mapping widget, and I blinked twice to start the download.

  I wondered briefly if there were any students here who didn’t have an ocular communication lens, and if not, how they were supposed to find where to go.

  Alita gasped, startling me out of my pondering. “We’re meeting in an arena?” she said, nearly breathless. “Nobody said anything about fighting in my welcome letter,” she added, blinking away what was evidently her internal queue screen.

  “They still haven’t said anything about fighting,” I reminded her. “Maybe there are just a lot of seats there. It says everyone who arrived within the last month needs to come, right?”

  Alita’s expression started to relax, then abruptly changed to wide-eyed excitement. “Wait until you try the waffles here,” she said, not moving a muscle from the frozen state of bliss she’d adopted upon remembering that island waffles were a thing in this world.

  Turn left in ten feet, the map widget said in my ear, making me nearly jump out of my skin since I’d forgotten about the download. I turned it off abruptly and just followed Alita to the dining hall, which she swore was close.

  The island in the daylight was more like a living painting than anything else. The colors of all the plants were more saturated than normal plants, and the grass was thick and plush like expensive carpet. The manicured paths weren’t bare dirt like the one back in the woods in The Grind. The one we were taking was covered in dense moss, which was a few shades lighter green than the grass. Every step felt springy under my feet, and I couldn’t resist taking my shoes off just to feel it on my skin.

  It felt like walking on carpet, at least, what I imagined walking on carpet would feel like. Living in the woods, floors were far less expensive to maintain over the years.

  “What are you doing?” Alita said over her shoulder. She chuckled, but her bold, red eyebrows darted together in a look of judgement I knew well.

  “It could be carpet,” I answered, then remembered she was from the interior in Florida, and carpet was probably everywhere inside their Citadel wall. She would have no idea what this feeling was like.

  She shrugged and turned around again just as a flock of huge, multicolored birds with long, white tails few overhead. I watched them glide gracefully across the sky until they disappeared over the treetops.

  “Halsey, what are you doing?” Alita called to me, and to my surprise she was several yards ahead. I jogged to catch up to her, still surprised by how fast I could move now.

  “Did you see those birds?” I asked. “The flock of colorful ones with the long tails?”

  “They’re seniors,” she said matter-of-factly. I squinted at her. “No, really. Their physical shifts are birds of paradise. They fly overhead everyday to get to the dining hall.”

  She turned down another path, which was covered in cobblestone instead of moss, so I put my shoes back on and tried to make my brain accept the fact that those were people flying above me a few seconds ago. I remembered the feeling of the wings on my back from last night, heavy and cumbersome, and I had no idea how they could ever be used for fl
ying. Wait, could I actually fly? I thought, feeling a little stupid that this hadn’t occurred to me already.

  A few minutes later we came upon a building that must have been the dining hall. It was simply structured, but not industrial looking at all. Instead of the cement and steel I was expecting, this building was made of whitewash brick like my dorm house with a terra-cotta roof.

  Inside, normal looking students filtered through various lines, some featuring buffet bars and others with attendants dishing out selections. I scanned all the different bays in the vicinity of the foyer. They had every fruit I’d ever seen and several I never had, like bananas that were about as big as my thumb with vertical purple stripes.

  “How do we pay?” I asked Alita, who was already a few steps ahead of me surveying our choices.

  “You don’t,” she answered. “Just pick out what you want and sit down with it.”

  I couldn’t do anything but blink at her for a few seconds. I knew my scholarship came with room and board, but I wasn’t accustomed to anything being free. Ever. So I was surprised all over again. Apparently, everyone who was here also must have received a full-ride scholarship because Alita was right. There were no pay stations anywhere to be found.

  The fruits and vegetables in the fresh bar I walked up to were mostly familiar, but they were much larger and much more richly colored than the ones I’d seen at Mr. Burke’s grocery. The strawberries were the size of plums, and the plums were the size of oranges. I spooned a scoop of mixed fruit into a little bowl, nearly spilling it when Alita almost ran into me with her plate full of thick, blue waffles covered in what looked like strawberry pieces and whipped cream.

  “These are not from Earth. I’m telling you,” she said, completely straight-faced.

  “Are they blueberry flavored or something?” I asked, studying her stack of electric blue Belgian style waffles.

  “Something called figberry,” Alita answered, shaking her head at her plate, seemingly in awe of her masterpiece. “I can’t even explain the flavor. You’ll just have to get some,” she added, nodding to the baked goods bay just behind us.

  “All right then.” I said, about to turn and grab a plate when I saw Leo already watching me from the other side of the room. A table of others who were definitely not first-year students surrounded him, and my heart started pounding in my ears. I managed to return his smile with a weak one of my own, then quickly shifted my attention back to the bright blue waffles at the baked goods bar. I put a plate on my tray and added one of the waffles to it, trying to pretend that I couldn’t feel his eyes burning holes into me like laser beams. Just focus on the food, I told myself. Not his abs. Not his shoulders. And definitely not his eyes…which were staring at me right now. No! Carbohydrates. I needed to focus on carbohydrates.

  Right. Every kind of pastry imaginable flanked the tray of waffles, their bright blue color outdone only by the various tubs of syrups directly in front of them. Brown, which I imagined must have been maple, but also chocolate, something called Faya, which was bright green with what looked like finely chopped nuts mixed in, and a golden syrup called Mana. I thought it might have been butterscotch until I stirred it with the spoon and swirls of red and orange appeared in the wake of the ladle. Whoa.

  I had no idea what to choose, so I just opted for a little of the strawberry syrup Alita had on her waffles. I turned to ask her if she’d ever had the Faya or the Mana syrup, but she was already gone. I scanned the room for her, which was starting to get crowded, and after several seconds, I saw her waving me over to her table.

  I only had time to blink before realizing it was also Leo’s table, and he was still watching me.

  Chapter Sixteen

  I took a deep breath and crossed quickly to the juice station, too nervous even to see what I’d poured. It was thick and yellow, thicker than orange juice, but at this point I didn’t really care.

  I started to make my way over to Alita, who finally stopped waving her hands in the air like some kind of red-headed windsock, and Leo got to his feet. What was he doing?

  As I approached the table, he pulled out the closest empty chair for me, much to the surprise of the cat-like brunette sitting on the other side of him. Her electric green eyes looked me up and down a few times before she was able to manage the ghost of a smile. Her long, blonde hair was so shiny it almost seemed like a mirror as she flipped it off her shoulder and rested her pointy chin in her hand.

  “Figberry waffle. Good choice.” Leo smiled and gave me an approving nod. “Have a seat.”

  “Thanks,” I said, a little embarrassed that literally every person at the table was now staring at me.

  “We didn’t have waffles like this in the Miami Citadel network,” Alita said. “I mean, we had waffles, but just the normal color. We did have the strawberry syrup though,” she added, then studied my plate. “Did you have strawberry syrup in your Citadel network in Portland, Halsey?”

  I almost choked on the gulp of air I sucked in at her question. “Yeah, of course,” I said, reasonably sure they had it behind The Citadel wall. I mean, if we had access to strawberries in The Grind—albeit not to any as big as the ones here—they had to have them there.

  A smile pulled at the edge of Leo’s mouth as he met my eyes again, and after a knowing look, he cleared his throat. “Halsey, this is Rhea,” he said, gesturing to the mirror-haired cat-girl to his right. “This is Alec,” he added with a nod to a very pale, blond guy who was shoveling food into his mouth like he was being timed. Leo held out a hand to another boy who was intently reading a tablet in front of him, barely picking at his food with the other hand. “And the professor reading the tablet there is Bryce,” he said, waiting for the boy to look up from under a wing of black hair, which was bleached near the ends. The boy casually raised a fork and wagged it back-and-forth a few times, which I presumed meant hello. Leo chuckled.

  “Nice to meet everyone,“ I said, quickly taking a drink of the juice on my tray. I startled a little, expecting orange juice flavor, but it tasted like peach and something tart that I couldn’t identify.

  “It’s mango,“ Rhea said, staring through me without even blinking.

  I startled again, surprised she’d been watching me, and shook my head. “Oh, I know. I just thought I’d grabbed orange juice,” I added, which wasn’t totally a lie.

  Rhea raised a golden eyebrow before returning her attention to what looked like an omelette on her plate.

  “So, you’re a freshman like Alita?“ Alec asked, then took a bite of the pastry he was holding.

  I nodded. “We’re roommates. I just got here yesterday.“

  Alec’s face exploded in a wide smile as he cut a glance at Leo. “We heard…“ he said. Leo rolled his eyes.

  “What’s your new little job title again? Transportation babysitter or something?“ Rhea asked, squinting at Leo.

  “Transition assistant, thank you very much,“ he answered. “And you’re just jealous you don’t get to ride in private cars and jets.”

  “Why didn’t we have that?“ Alec asked. “They just put us on a boat. And by the way, for a place that gives out so many scholarships, somebody tell me where the funds for private cars and jets are coming from?” He looked around the table, but everyone just stared at him.

  Leo shrugged. “Obviously, there are some donors now or something. Anyway, are we still going tonight?“ he asked, then nudged Bryce, jostling his tablet.

  “Going to what?“ Alita asked around a mouthful of waffles as she leaned in.

  Bryce finally looked up and pushed his bangs out of his eyes, the shade of gold so light it was almost yellow. I gasped.

  “We’re going to the cliff,“ he said absently to Alita, then shot a glare at me. “And before you ask, yes, I’m Chinese, and yes, I still have yellow eyes. Thank you, hurricane berries. Did you land here with purple hair, or are you a peacock or something?” I opened my mouth to respond, but nothing came out except half-words and squeaks.

  “Mi
ne just got darker red,” Alita interjected.

  Bryce shook his head impatiently. “A bluejay? What?” He pressed his lips into a flat smile, daring me to respond.

  “Um, Eagle,” I finally said abruptly. He squinted at me, taking another look at my hair, but then he quickly shook his head again and held up his tablet screen to Leo. “Anyway, you need to take off from the North end and fly south this time.”

  Alita nearly choked on her waffles. “Take off from a cliff?“

  “He flies. Ugh, freshmen…” Rhea groaned.

  “But I can’t fly.“

  “Then maybe you can just scurry around and look for some rodents to eat.“ Rhea gave Alita a sardonic smile.

  “Says the Djin snake.” Bryce chuckled, then turned his yellow-gold eyes back to Alita. “You don’t have to fly to come with us. Not everyone here is a Sylph or Salamander.”

  “Which are you?” I blurted, wishing with every one of the eternal next few seconds that I hadn’t, but the words were in my head one second and out of my mouth the next. I cleared my throat. “I mean, if you’re not a Sylph or Salamander,” I managed, then took another long gulp of mango juice.

  He sighed. “Gnome. My shift is a wolf,” he added with an expression that seemed to dare me to laugh. “Not a werewolf. Those are Lycan and a completely different thing from us,” he added, his tone abrupt and biting.

  “Uh, all right.” I nodded slowly. I could see it in his face—in his eyes, of course, and in his long, narrow nose. I wondered if I resembled an eagle in the same way and made a mental note to check a mirror later. Almost immediately, I felt compelled to roll my eyes at myself for the thought. Was I really starting to believe all this?