Instead, the silence was so deafening you could hear the old fashioned clock ticking above our heads.
A minute before class was set to start, the doors opened and a tall, willowy woman walked in. She stood close to six feet tall. Her jawline was strong and her nose gave the appearance of maybe some Native American in her bloodline, though her skin was pale. A long, thick braid rested across one shoulder and her gaze did not fall on us as she went to her desk to set her things down. The dark braid swung forward as she shrugged her jacket off. I was disappointed when all it revealed was a simple white button-down shirt and a pair of dark slacks.
This was a magical academy, was it not? I wanted to see someone come in with a glorious cape and a massive owl sitting on their shoulder while muttering about where they stuck their eye of newt at.
So far, I considered myself super underwhelmed.
"Good morning, Freshman," the woman spoke. Her voice was soft but commanding and there was no hint of an accent. I could not place her origins at all. Perhaps this is how she wanted it. A lot of magical users liked to keep their background secret. Others preferred to spout their pedigree in every single conversation.
"Good morning," most of us said.
"Welcome to the Merlin Academy. My name is Professor Livingston. Welcome to your intro course. This is simply a two-day class to help you find your way around this massive place. Some of you I know from your siblings." Her dark gaze skimmed the class. "Others I've never seen before today. When I call on you, I'd like you to stand, introduce yourself, and tell us about your strongest magic." She nodded and pointed to the boy with the misfortune to sit in the front seat on the right-hand side.
That's what he got for being an overachiever. I swallowed hard and thought about what I would say. There was no way I could reveal my real talent. I'd have to say something I was good at, just in case she required a demonstration.
"All of you are familiar with the Headmaster's desk, I assume?" Her gaze skimmed over us as she waited for us to nod. "Good. So you know you will need to narrow your choices down to three before your Commitment Ceremony. The desk will help you narrow it further down until you're placed into the strongest magical fit. In some rare cases, if the desk cannot choose between two, you will be allowed to have a minor field of study in one of them. In the case of shifters, vampires and some other creatures, the choice is already made for you due to your shifter or clan magics." She nodded for the boy to speak.
His hair was blond and he possessed a widow's peak far too aggressive for his age. Poor guy. He'd be bald in less than five years. "Hello," the boy said, his voice a quiver in his throat. "My name is Allen. I prefer the art of Animancy." Allen shoved his glasses further up on his nose as he looked at the teacher then quickly away. Eye contact seemed hard. As did life apparently.
"Bestiality is what he meant," some horrible person whispered. Most of the class tittered with amusement. Embarrassment filled me for the poor guy.
"That isn't -" he began, his face flooding crimson.
The horrible person was that girl in the cafeteria. So ... she just had a horrible personality. Good to know. "Aw, Allen," she said. "It's okay to love animals in that way."
"I - I don't -" Allen said. His hands trembled before he clasped them together.
"Animals are some of the strongest bridges between our magic and foolishness," I said, rueing the fatal personality flaw I had of taking up for the little guy. "I thought by now you should know that." I eyed the girl and watched as her eyes flashed in fury. "Or do you not have a familiar?" I shrugged. "Not surprising with that attitude considering animals choose us." I glanced over at Allen. "Animancy is cool. If you ever have a unicorn in your room, I call first dibs.”
A grateful smile flickered over Allen's mouth and he gave me a shy nod before ducking his head.
The teacher cleared her throat. "And you are?" she asked me. One of her dark eyebrows lifted on her forehead. She didn't seem angry. More curious. And maybe a little annoyed.
"Ah, um," I started, trying to remember. "Harmony," I blurted. "Harmony LeCharme." I sat back against the hard metal of my seat.
"And your specialty?" the teacher drawled.
Color flooded my face. "Herbology." It was my second best subject. "And minor illusion," I said, just in case something happened and some of my magic slipped out. It was the best, yet the most dangerous way to cover it up. Put it right out in the open and no one would suspect. As long as I used my best effort to keep it under wraps, I should be fine."
The teacher's gaze narrowed as she lifted a clipboard up and peered at it. "Harmony. The LeCharme family? I've never heard of them."
She wouldn't. Charme was literally the French word for a person who enchants, ie., a magician. Or someone exceedingly attractive. Only one of those was true for me. "It's a minor family," I confessed, lying through my teeth. "Simple magics. My family tends to work in apothecaries." I gave an apologetic shrug. "A benefactor is paying my tuition. Right after graduation, I’ll find a job at a shop." Perhaps a lie. I had no idea who was paying if anyone. But this was a super fancy school to allow people to go here for free.
"I see," Professor Livingston said and set her clipboard down, promptly losing interest in me. I tried not to breathe a sigh of relief, but my shoulders dropped as she moved on to the next kid's introduction. I wasn't doing a great job so far of staying under the radar.
There were twenty-seven kids in the intro class. All freshmen, most of them pedigreed magicians. The mean girl was a shifter from what I could tell - a cat shifter, though I didn't know what kind. Once I got a good look at her, I could see the tell-tale slant to her eyes and the odd yellow-green of them. Not all cat shifters possessed those odd eyes, but the vast majority did. This told me two things: she would be curious. Bad for me. And the kitty had claws. I would do well to look out for her.
I sat patiently as everyone introduced themselves, only paying attention to the people who looked like they were trying to hide something. When they were finished, the professor asked us to remove our wands from inside of our desks.
I cringed, not wanting to touch my wand, but also not sure how to avoid it. It wasn’t like it would bite me, but I could hear the song of the willow calling to the magic in my blood.
I raised my hand, hoping I wouldn’t regret it.
“Yes, Miss LeCharme,” Professor Livingston said.
“Could I trade mine for an oak wand?” I pretended to be sheepish. “I grew up working with an oak wand and it’s one of the only ones we can afford back home.”
I heard a snicker and figured it was the cat shifter. It didn’t matter anyway. In a couple of days, we’d be out of this class and hopefully out of each other’s hair.
The professor stared at me a little longer than was comfortable but finally gave a short nod and reached inside of her desk drawer. She walked the wand over to me and held it out handle first. Keeping my expression void of relief, I took it from her. The steadiness of the oak soaked into my skin the moment I touched the handle with my bare hand. It was like it was whispering, "there, there. Let me help you."
It was the wonderful thing about wood. It was always strong. Always steady. If it sensed my hesitation to perform magic, it would steady my unruly emotions.
Not like Willow. Willow was the wood that if I decided to smoke a little weed, it would be the devil on my shoulder looking for Doritos.
"Thank you."
She nodded at me and went back up to the front. "Today we're going to test your basic capability with magic."
There were a few shouts of outrage from the students, but the professor rolled her eyes. "I'm well aware most of you've been tested, but those tests were at home." A smile that didn't quite reach her eyes lit her face. "You knew well in advance and had advantages available to you that you no longer have. So we're doing it again." She held her wand up and took a couple of steps over to the jar on her desk that held a few dozen pencils. "First, I want you to teleport a pencil from me to you. J
ust one," she said. "Points will be deducted for any injuries or exploding graphite."
She pointed to Allen first. His gaze went serious and a little hazy as he held up the wand. Allen whispered something and the first pencil levitated from the jar. With little fanfare, he sent it sailing through the air and caught it with an upraised hand.
"Good!" Professor Livingston said. "Next." She pointed to a girl with unruly hair and a desperate need for an eyebrow wax.
The girl did the same, wearing an extremely bored expression. With how little power she expended, I couldn't help but wonder what family she was in.
So on and so forth until it came to me. It had been years since I performed such a simple spell. Unfortunately, those were often the most difficult. Budding magicians started off with the basics like this, but as the years went past, most magicians had to go back and relearn them once their spells started going wonky. I held the wand up and concentrated on the pencil closest to me. It stuck out of the jar, lead first, and wiggled just a little once I focused my attention on it. The other pencils rattled as mine began to move, but I couldn't quite get it to move out of the jar.
Frustration rose inside of me as I strove to be careful and just release a hint of power. This was different than my illusion magic. Every single magician stored a well of power within them. The first was for the simple stuff. Cleaning and other mundane chores no magician wanted to do. The other was for the magic they specialized in. You could use both pools for that, but I couldn't touch mine. Not without potentially giving myself away.
I flicked my wand up. Pencils shot up out of the jar.
A gasp went around the entire classroom as projectile pencils flew to the ceiling like it was a magnet. They stuck in the tile perfectly and wobbled at the end as they settled in.
My pencil still stood in its jar perfectly content to make me look like an idiot.
The professor smirked at me. "Trouble, Miss LeCharme?" she asked.
"I meant to do that," I said dumbly.
Snickers from the other students rang out as I once again moved my wand to call the pencil.
Damn. It. I had no notice and now I had to perform like a dancing monkey. Except ... all I was doing was making myself look inept. Not the way I wanted to start off here. I wanted to look perfectly average. Not like an idiot.
"Come," I whispered to the pencil, putting every ounce of seductiveness into my voice I could.
Nothing happened at first. A second later, the pencil hovered, wobbled, and slowly floated over to me. I released the command. Almost like a delayed reaction, the pencil dropped.
I took a quick look over my shoulder to gauge everyone's reactions, but mostly everyone looked bored. That was good. Especially because I wasn't the one who made the pencil do anything.
I softly cleared my throat, but Professor Livingston was making a note on her pad. "Good, Miss LeCharme. Maybe keep practicing that." I turned to look again.
A boy sat at the very back of the class. Blonde where Mannix was dark and smiling where Mannix brooded. He gave me a wink and a smile and set his willow wand down without a sound. No one but me noticed.
Why he'd helped me, I had no idea. I looked away and frowned down at my wand. Being out of the game too long, even though not my fault, had affected my magic. Before all of this happened, my parents engaged me in mental exercises during the evening. Once I'd learned the art of meditation, it was easier to grasp how my power worked. And to control it. Without those mental exercises, my brain was like a toddler, trying and failing to grasp onto my slippery thoughts.
Guess I knew what I'd be doing during my evening downtime.
Class ended soon after, with everyone but me easily passing the pencil test. Once the chimes went off, a sound that had everyone jumping out of their seat, I picked up my backpack and waited for everyone else to get ahead of me.
Allen, the Animancy student, waited back for me. I gave him a wary glance. He was on the shorter side, just a couple of inches taller than me. Besides his tremendous receding hairline, Allen was kind of cute, if not a little too pale.
He stuck out his hand and I shook it. "Nice to meet you," he said. "What's your next period?"
I rummaged around in my backpack and unfolded the crumpled schedule. "Herbology," I said as I scanned down the paper.
"Nice. I have Animal Magic study next. Herbology is 4th period for me." He held the classroom door open for me. "I wanted to say thank you for sticking up for me back there."
I shrugged, uncomfortable with his gratitude. "It was nothing. Maybe someday you can do the same for someone else."
A snort escaped him. "I'd think it would be a rare day indeed when someone like me gets to stick his neck out for someone else, but I hope you're right."
We walked down the hall, dodging bodies left and right as Merlin students flooded into the hall. "Are you nervous about the Commitment ceremony?" I asked.
He shrugged. "Not really. The only thing I'm worried about is getting stuck in a specialty I don't want to be in."
"Me too," I said. It was the truth. For the most part. Mostly I didn't want to get stuck in a dungeon in a prison I couldn't get out of. Because that's what would happen to me if anyone here figured out who my real parents were. "Is it true the desk extracts your DNA?" I phrased the question casually, but I noticed his brow wrinkle with curiosity.
"DNA?" he echoed. Allen shook his head. "Physical? Probably not. Even magical users have rules concerning the collection of it. It could be a powerful tool in the wrong hands."
Boy could it, I thought.
"I think it works on something similar to a heat signature. All magic users have a signature that defines their magic. I'm not sure how to explain it. So for wolf shifters, we know their magic is tied to the moon. They all have the same magic embedded within them. For magic users, it's a lot more complicated, but the gist of it is still the same. The desk finds those parts of us and determines which is stronger. It's sort of like a computer." He grinned, and I blinked at how it transformed his face from something average into something quite extraordinary.
"Cool," I said. "It's bad enough we have magic but to add in magic and technology?" I shudder in a joking way. "The end of the world is nigh," I said.
We rounded a corner and above us was a huge arch with the words, "Natural," painted on the stone. Allen performed a little bow. "And this is where I leave you. Maybe I'll see you at lunch?" he said over his shoulder.
"Maybe!" I called back. "Whenever that is."
A small smile lifted his lips and he waved before he disappeared into the throng of students. Squaring my shoulders, I took a deep breath and kept walking to my class. I missed Allen's calm presence immediately and had to shake myself to snap out of it. I'd been alone before.
I could do this.
10
A short crop of caramel hair was the first thing I noticed when I walked into the classroom. Relief flooded me as I realized it was Trixie. I quickened my steps and slid into the desk right next to her. Her gaze brightened when she was me.
"Hey! Just the girl I've been wanting to see. Honey cornered me to tell me we’re having the first prom committee meeting tonight after dinner, down in the old library. You in?"
I wanted so badly to say no, but I liked Trixie and getting close to her and Honey could be a good way to get info about the school and some of the students. "I don't know anything about planning a prom, but I'll do my best to make it."
She gave me a long look with her strange brown eyes until she nodded. "Good enough."
She waited for me to take my backpack off and get settled in before she spoke again. "So who've you met today?"
I blinked. "Umm. A lot of people. I don't know how many students go here, but it's a lot."
She snorted. "No, dummy. Who have you actually talked to?"
I told her about Allen, but she shrugged. "Don't know who that is. Who else?"
The cat girl floated through my mind. I told Trixie about her. Even before I finished
my first sentence, her eyes narrowed. "Super pretty, but super bitchy?"
I nodded. "She's got weird eyes, too."
Trixie's nose wrinkled with distaste. "She's a screecher. No one can nail down what kind of cat she is. She refuses to tell us. Her name is Brittney. Cheerleader." She rolled her eyes. "One of them will be on the prom committee. Let's just hope it isn't her."
"So she's like that with everyone?" I asked, feeling a little bit better about myself. If she were mean to everyone, I wouldn't take it so personally.
"Almost," Trixie said. "Except for Mannix." She snorted. "Those two have a history. I've never seen anything like it. It's like as soon as he moves on and is happy for once, she comes back in like a seagull and starts shitting all over everything."
A bark of laughter escaped me at the image she'd put in my head. "So they dated?" The thought didn't sit well with me, but I had no business thinking about Mannix as anything other than a potential enemy. With the information he had, he could destroy me. I had to tuck away my softening thoughts about his raven hair and dark eyes before they got me into a world of trouble. Still, though, I could see Brittney and Mannix together. They'd make beautiful, terrible babies.
She studied her nails. "I think dating is too tame a word for what those two have been doing," she remarked. Trixie's eyes narrowed. "So how'd you get into a sophomore-level class anyway?"
I blinked. "Excuse me?"
She waved a hand around. "This class is sophomore year usually. You got some unusually powerful gardening skills or something?"
"Or something," I said. "I'm pretty strong in Herbology. Maybe they could sense it." I shrugged, unwilling to give her any more info.
Her gaze lingered on me for a moment. "Keep your secrets," she murmured. "We all have them. Especially in a place like this. Just don't forget that everyone needs a friend sometimes."
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