“You’re a Foxway student, right?” The middle-aged woman asked.
I nodded. “You’re the new one that started today?”
“Yeah. My name’s Emilie.”
“So, you liking Foxway then?”
I nodded hesitantly.
“It’ll take some getting used to. It’s a pretty weird place. Ended up at a Nightrain party though.”
The woman laughed.
“Oh, I remember those. I was an Emerald girl myself. Never really cared much for parties. You?”
“Ealing,” I replied. “I got special permission from Professor Greyford to live off-site,” I explained. “Anyway, I should be getting home now. It was nice to meet you.” I smiled. “Bye!” I wasn’t sure why I was being so nice to the random woman that worked in the shop, but I guess I was in a good mood.
I walked through my front door at about five. Even by bus, it took best part of an hour to get home. And that’s definitely not because I got distracted and spent 20 minutes in a book shop. And if that were the case, it definitely wouldn’t be because I wanted to compare Foxway to Hogwarts (Side note, JK Rowling, great writer, but she was clearly didn’t know what she was going on about when it came to real magic. Wands?).
I dropped my bag down on the floor and dropped straight onto the sofa. I could barely keep my legs working, I was so tired…
*
“So, how was your first day at school?” Mum asked as she walked through the door at half five.
“My brain hurts…” I groaned.
“That bad, huh?” she joked. “Raven not here?” she questioned.
I shook my head.
“She said she had work to get done.”
“That’s a shame. So, Pizza?”
*
The pizza arrived at about half-past six. When it came, me and mum just sat on the floor eating.
“Make any friends?” she questioned. I shrugged.
“There’s Matt and Leigh, they’re… Not quite friends, but they seem alright. They’re a little obnoxious, but I think they mean well. And I met Raven’s roommate Mary, she’s really nice.”
“Enemies?” Mum joked.
“Well… There was this one girl…” I muttered.
“You didn’t…” Mum laughed. “What’s her name?”
“August Flamel.”
Mum laughed.
“What sort of name is that?”
“No one has normal names! Some of the first names are kind of normal, but so far, I’ve seen a Flamel, two Silvemists, Merriway. It’s mad!” I exclaimed. Mum burst out laughing.
“Well, this school sounds completely insane. You’re starting to make my brain hurt now.” she decided. “Well, it sounds to me like you’ve definitely earned this. I’m proud of you, you know.” she smiled.
“Really? I must be going insane…” I joked.
“Seriously though. I may understand even less about magic than you do, but I know that it takes a lot of courage to do something like that. To jump straight into something new and weird and to just… do it,” she decided. “Seriously. Well done, Em. I really am so, so proud of you,” she assured me as she pulled me in for a hug.
“I love you, mum,” I sighed.
“I love you too.” Mum smiled.
*
Me and mum spent the rest of the night watching crappy history documentaries on the TV. They weren’t even that interesting, but there was just nothing better to do.
“Hey, Em, could you pass me the controller.”
I smiled. This was the perfect opportunity to show off. I held out my middle and index fingers. I turned my hand over and clenched my fist. I turned my first back over and stretched my hand out. The remote slowly lifted up. I turned my hand over and rippled my fingers, and the remote slowly moved towards me. Mum’s eyes widened.
“Holy shit! That’s insane!” she shouted.
I burst out laughing, accidently letting the remote drop onto the floor.
“What?” mum questioned.
“I almost never hear you swear. It’s funny…” I wiped my eyes. “It is insane though. I can’t do a lot though. I have my ice, and I’m making pretty good progress on telekinesis. It takes a lot out of me though.”
“I’m sure it’ll get easier with practice,” Mum reassured me.
“Yeah, I guess…”
“Don’t you want to?” Mum questioned.
“I… I don’t know. Magic was hardly something I thought a lot about when it came to me future. I’m not sure if I can even do it.” I explained. “Like, is it even worth it?” I wondered. “I… I think it’s just that I had no idea what I was going to do before, and now I’ve literally had an entire new world opened up to me. I have to do something with my life. But I don’t know what.”
Mum sighed.
“Emilie, how many people do you think actually know what the hell they’re doing with their lives? At your age especially?”
I hesitated. “If anyone tells you that they’ve got their entire lives planned out, down to the finest point, then I assure you, that’s bullshit.”
I smiled.
“Yeah, I guess that makes sense… I guess it’s just a lot to deal with…”
I’m sure you’ll work it all out eventually,” Mum reassured me. “Now, can we please try to find something better to watch…”
5
“Do you think I should apologize?” I asked.
I was walking to Beginner’s Magic class with Matt and Leigh, and trying to decide what to do with the whole situation with August Flamel.
“Apologize? To August Flamel?” Matt laughed. “It’s not like she would have done the same thing. Besides, she started it.”
“You’re useless…”
I turned to Leigh. She shrugged.
“I hate to say it, but Matt’s right. She was the one who was saying all that stuff about your sister. You did nothing wrong.” she agreed.
“I know… But I don’t really like the idea of making enemies… I kind of just want to end it…”
“She’s not really the type for getting over stuff; not from my experience.” Matt sighed. “You’d be best to just leave her, to be honest. Maybe she’ll get over it, maybe she won’t,” he shrugged as we walked into the classroom.
I took my seat at the front, and Matt and Leigh carried on to the back of the classroom. I turned around. Flamel was still staring at me from across the room. Crap… Why is she still pissed at me? I wondered as I quickly span my head back round. I rested my head on my hand. My sleeve fell down, revealing the jewel that I still had tied around my wrist. I quickly pushed it back under my sleeve. I looked around to see if anyone saw. August Flamel had seen everything. She was still staring at me, but her face had changed. She almost looked scared. Does she know what it is? I wondered as I tried to pretend that nothing had happened for the rest of the lesson.
*
After class, I had to walk to my next lesson on my own. Given I started a good month into the year, I had basically been put in whatever classes had space. Because of that, I was currently walking, completely alone, to a room on the other side of the school for an ‘Applied Magical Physics’ class, though I never really knew what that meant. Honestly it sounded far too scientific for me, but I didn’t have much of a choice. I turned around a corner into a worryingly small path. There was someone waiting for me.
“What was that in class?” August Flamel asked me.
I stopped.
“I don’t know.”
“Bullshit. I know what I saw. You have one, don’t you?”
“I have no idea what it is.”
“Then why do you have it?”
“Professor Greyford gave it to me.”
August charged forward and pinned me against a wall. She seemed a lot more aggressive than I’d expected, for your traditional social alpha-type…
“Why would he give you, someone who doesn’t have the first clue what magic is, something as powerful as that?!”
�
��I swear, I have no clue what this thing is. I found some room in the Nightrain Dorm, he appeared and told me to take it. That’s all I know, I promise… Please, just let me go…” I pleaded. I closed my eyes. “Archaeus, Invoco, Elementum, Gelus…” I muttered. Ice crept up my arm. I expanded the ice, slowly pushing Flamel away until I could squeeze out.
“No, you don’t…” August muttered. She flicked her fingers into a telekinesis spell and held her hands by her pocket. Four square cards shot out of her pocket and into her hands. She held her other hand out and flicked her fingers, and a strange energy arced around them. She brought her arm around to the cards in her other hand, and the cards absorbed the energy. They flickered as they ignited in a dark blue flame. She swung her arm forward, flinging the cards towards me. I instinctively brought my arms up to protect me. Before I knew it, I had created a wall of blue ice in front of me. The cards hit the wall and exploded, sending shards flying. But, getting hit with a bit of sleet is a lot better than being blown up by flaming cards.
“What is your problem?” I shouted. “You could have killed me!”
“I’ll have to try harder…” August hissed as she ignited another set of cards and sent them flying towards me. Just as they were about to hit me, August constructed another spell. Suddenly, the cards stopped in mid-air, and dropped to the ground. August sighed. “Shit…” she muttered.
“What’s with the change of heart?” I hesitantly questioned as I slowly backed away. I looked at August’s face. There was something… different. The scared look on her face was still there, but she didn’t seem as murderous as before.
“You don’t know what that thing around your wrist is. It’s dangerous, and I don’t want to get caught up in any of it… Don’t come anywhere near me again…”
Well, I say threatened, but again, even though her words, even her tone came across threatening, her face said a lot more. I turned around and walked away, without saying another word.
*
Greyford jumped as I stormed into his office.
“What the hell is this thing?” I interrupted him. “You’re going to tell me at least something now. I just got attacked because of this thing.”
“Firstly, can I just remind you of our positions. I am your headmaster. You are my student. You do not get to speak to me like that. Is that understood?” Greyford’s voice was worryingly calm. “Secondly, I do understand your dilemma. I regret to say it, but the item you are in possession of is dangerous. I can tell you very little about it at this moment, but I can tell you that it is a powerful magical artefact, that needs protecting.”
“If it’s so important, why give it to me? I barely know that magic exists? Why give it to me?”
“You found the room. That means that you are its rightful owner.”
“What, like, ‘sword in the stone’ or something?” I asked.
Greyford shook his head.
“Not quite. It’s not fate or some prophecy. Essentially, the room itself is a puzzle. You see, the room is built far underneath the school. However, the entrance is on the first floor. Most people don’t even consider looking at it. In fact, even to anyone who does happen to stumble upon it, the stairs are nothing but another path to the ground floor.”
“So… How did I find it?”
“The stairs are enchanted with a perception spell. It shift’s a person’s perspective, and even space, to fit in with what they expect. However, you, someone to whom magic is completely new and strange, could find it because you had no expectations. It takes very little observation of you to deduce that just about everything here at Foxway is surprising to you. Most people would try to rationalise it all, try to find a logic that fits, try to find an explanation. The enchantment simply manipulates the brain’s perceptions so that the rational explanation is that it isn’t there. But you, Emilie George, somehow keep a completely open mind. Though everything surprises you, there is nothing that you do or do not expect. Your brain couldn’t rationalise that the door was or wasn’t there, because you had no expectations of whether it should be there. So, you were able to move past the perception spell,” he explained. “The perception spell was put there as a test. To fully understand what this item is, and to be able to protect it, its owner can have no doubts at all of what it is capable of. That is why I cannot tell you what it is. When the time is right, it will reveal itself to you. And then I will explain what it is. Do you understand?”
I hesitated for a second, but I nodded.
“I… I think I do…” I replied. At that point, it was all that I could think of to say. Honestly, none of it made any sense. In my head I was still screaming, wondering what I had accidently gotten myself into; wondering what I could do to get out of this strange duty to protect whatever this was. It got to a point where I wasn’t even wondering how to stop it, or whether I should just throw in the towel and go back to my normal life; I grew to feel like I did have to protect it. I walked out of Greyford’s office without saying anything else.
I walked into my class about 20 minutes late. Typically, the entire class fell silent when I walked in, almost as if they wanted to make me crawl into a hole and die.
“And where have you been?” the teacher asked.
“Mr Greyford’s office…” I muttered. I heard people whispering around the room. I knew they were probably talking about me, or more likely Raven, but I really couldn’t be bothered to argue. I looked at the work on the blackboard. ‘Applied Magical Physics: The process of applying the principles of Magic Energy Distribution to the non-magical world’.
Well, that sounds fake, but okay, I thought to myself as I scribbled down the notes.
What the hell is ‘Magic Energy Distribution’?
I had been starting to feel a little more comfortable with magic itself; at least I was feeling a little more comfortable being around it. But this was horrible. It was like physics at school, but even more mind-numbingly complicated. Not that I’ve done physics since GCSE. I got a D. I put my hand up.
“Yes?” The teacher responded.
“What is Magic Energy Distribution?”
*
After ‘Applied Magical Physics’ class, and after I had at least begun to understand ‘Applied Magical Physics’ class, I looked for Raven for lunch, but I couldn’t seem to find her anywhere.
I looked around most of the school before I eventually found her in a corner of the library. The library at Foxway was possibly the most impressive part of the school. A massive, five-level, spiralling hall, which was just about the only thing in the school that genuinely screamed ‘school teaching magic’. I think I read somewhere that it was built a good hundred years before Foxway was founded, and it definitely showed. Even compared to the dorms, which were clearly modelled on Victorian buildings, the real thing was something to admire. The entire library was laid out in five floors, accessed through a staircase spiralling around the inside, almost in a circular shape. The main floor itself was separated into three levels. The middle was open, all the way out to the top of the building, and there were balconies on every level. Honestly, it’s kind of hard to explain, but you get the idea. It was pretty cool. Anyway, I found Raven sitting against the wall of the top-floor balcony. I frowned as I noticed her face. She had been crying.
“Shit, Raven. Are you alright?” I crouched down and threw my arms around her.
She nodded slowly.
“I’m fine…” she grunted.
“That was a rhetorical question, I know you’re not. What’s wrong?”
Raven stood up and looked over the balcony.
“Everyone here knows about me. About my past…”
“What do you mean?”
“I… I’ve done things, got involved with people that I shouldn’t have. The Syndicate… Like the person who attacked you the night we met. They’re a… It’s hard to explain… But they’re dangerous. My mother always told me not to get mixed up with them… I should have listened… Anyway, I did… things for them… Eve
ntually, I left. Came here… But the Syndicate don’t just let you walk away. They told everyone. Everything that I ever did, everyone in the school knows. Thankfully, Greyford didn’t care, so I could still study here, but… Everyone thinks… Everyone knows what I’ve done… I dealt with it, for the most part. I told myself I didn’t care about what they said. And that’s true… I didn’t have anyone who I would care about anyway… But now, you’re here, and… You’re the first family I’ve had since she left… and I don’t-”
“It doesn’t matter,” I cut her off. I knew what she was about to say. “Whatever they say you did, whatever you did do, it doesn’t matter. That’s the past. You’re my sister. Nothing changes that.”
“But… I… You don’t know what it is I did.”
“Then tell me. Go on, whatever it is, it won’t change anything. I promise.”
Raven turned around.
“Promise?”
I nodded.
“I… I killed someone.” she quietly told me. I stayed completely silent. I was shocked, of course. But, if anything, I intended to hear her out. “They told me to ‘follow up’ on an old member, who was apparently leaking information to other groups. I tracked him to a safehouse and… And I burned it to the ground… I knew, I knew that there was someone in there. I knew what I was being asked to do. And I did it. Without hesitating.”
Raven’s story hung in the air for a moment. How was I supposed to know what to say to that?
“Did you… Did you care? Did you feel bad for what you did?” I eventually asked.
“Not at the time…” Raven admitted. “But afterwards… Not long afterwards I found out what the person I killed knew… I… I realised what I had done… What they had done… So, I ran. I just left. That was two years ago…”
My eyes widened in shock.
“You were 15…”
Hearing that had pretty much solidified my opinion on this. There was no way that Raven could have stood up for herself in that situation. I sighed and stood up.
The Arch Stone: Foxway Academy: Book 1 Page 4