10

I follow the map up the stairs and down a corridor, my head alternating between looking down at the paper and up at my surroundings. Fortunately, it seems impossible to get lost, seeing as the route would immediately turn from black to red.

The only upside of not having Kaz present is getting to move at a slow pace, giving me ample time to drink it all in. Me eyes are peeled at the tapestries lining the walls, the sceneries on them moving as though alive, and telling stories. Too awestruck by a scene of a band of pirate Magians controlling the weather, I almost miss the turn to the ladies’ dormitories.

Only to halt dead nonetheless when I round the corner to be met by an empty hallway. There’s not a single door in sight, and a dead end where the hall stops. And yet, the map indicates that my dorm lies behind the second door on my left.

Little did I expect the wall to ripple when I approached it. The closer I was, the more it resembled a door. When it’s finally visible, I’m pleasantly surprised to discover that the door is divided in four sections, each representing the girl who lives in it. It almost reminds me of the doors in Encanto.

The first section shows a girl surrounded by crystal balls with a third eye on her forehead. The girl in the second section has fire for hair, and the third…

“Eisley?” I blink, my heart jumping in delight at the possibility of sharing a dorm with my cousin. It’s undoubtedly her, surrounded by books and flying quills like the studious academic she is.

What are the odds?

“Okay, you got this,” I pep talk myself, hand hovering over the doorhandle. “Just be yourself and they’ll like you. Just act cool.”

Twisting the handle, I enter the room with my breath held, not completely sure what to expect. But I can tell you, it wasn’t this.

The room is larger than I expected – or from what I saw in movies and TV shows – and drowns in natural light that pours through the floor-to-ceiling window at its furthest end. The space seems to be divided into four sections; each corner claimed by one of its inhabitants as their own.

For a minute, I assess the room and the three girls in it.

In the corner to my left, the girl with the fiery hair had taken up the space. She sits on her window seat with her headphones on, painting her toenails the same colour as her red hair. I almost stare at them, tucked into her hoodie but the ends swirling like actual flames.

To my right, the girl with the crystal balls sits on her bed in a meditative pose, eyes closed, and with concentration visibly etched into her frown. I’ve met one or two seers who came to Odds and Ends a few times for crystals to help with focusing their third eye, but never saw one practicing their craft before.
Finally, looking at head at the spaces ahead, I spot Eisley pacing in front of the giant window, book in hand, and memorizing its contents. She’s always been a dedicated study, always interested in learning new things and being the top of her class.

Whereas I didn’t care for studying that much. I sometimes call my magic Magian Dyslexia, seeing as it can’t be bent by normal standards into evolving. Spellcasting is like cooking; you have your tome (recipe book), your ingredients (magic), and the steps (the incantation). And to succeed at it, you must follow each step to a T.

And that’s something wild magic can’t do. Which explains why the Academy think it uncontrollable. And anything the Academy can’t control, is considered an Anomaly, something that needs to be detained or disposed of.

Perhaps I should’ve thought about that before I came up with the brilliant idea to enrol as an Acolyte. How was I planning on blending in and attending class like a ‘normal’ student if I can’t follow the books to spellcast? Surely. That would be a dead giveaway to what my magic is.

But, as always, I shoo it to the back of my head to figure out later. Right now, I want to greet my cousin.
“Knock, knock,” I announce my presence, resulting in the red-haired girl to look up from her toes and slip one of her headphones off.

Nail polish forgotten, she calls to the others, “Hey, it’s our new roommate.”

The seer blinks from her meditative state and turns her head to me. Her lilac eyes brighten the room when she sees me. “It’s you! I just saw you in my vision.”

“You saw her but she was already here?” The redhead says bluntly, arching a dark brow at the other girl.
“Hey, it’s progress. We all know I’m better at predicting with crystals.”

However, their chit-chatting broke Eiley from her studious trance and she steals a glimpse of my, seeming uninterested in the prospect of a new roommate.

Only to stop dead in her tracks and do a doubletake. The book slips out of her hands and hit the floor with a heavy thud. “Syl?”

Anticipating silence weighs in the air as the other two girls look back and forth between us, trying to make sense of the situation.

“Wait,” the redhead holds up her hands for a timeout, “you know each other?”
“Syl?” The other ponders my name before recognition flashes in her purple orbs. “As in Sylvina? Your cousin you told us about when we met?”

“The one and only,” I say cheerfully, grinning at the journey their expressions undertake.

The redhead frowns, the ends of her hair dulling like cooling embers…only to ignite when she remembers something, no doubt the time Eisley told them about me. The seer claps her hands in glee, her shoulder-length black hair bouncing with the motion.

Eisley, on the other hand, looks petrified, her normally rosy skin lacking its glowiness as she gawks at me standing in their midst – in Alcove Academy. The last place in the universe where Magians with wild magic should want to be.

“Can I have a word with my cousin, please?” she manages to say calmly, adding a forced smile to the mixture.

The other two agree in a beat. I watch as the redhead gets dragged to the exit by the seer, leaving me with my cousin and whatever scolding she’s planning to give me.

As soon as they’re gone, Eisley had crossed the room and seizes me by the shoulders. “Are you out of your mind? What are you doing here? Why are you wearing the uniform? What the hell’s going on?”

“I’ve enrolled as an Acolyte,” I tell her, unable to suppress the smidge of pride in my voice. If Elle Woods could become a lawyer, then I can become an Acolyte at Alcove. Like it’s that hard.

“Why have you enrolled as an Acolyte?” She stresses, hands squeezing my upper arms in panic. “Syl, if someone, anyone suspects you of wielding wild magic, bad things will happen. Very, very awful, terrible, unimaginable bad things. Do you want what happened to your parents happen to you?”

The mentioning of my parents dulls my spirits. I feel the icy grip of dread creep over my heart, threatening to squeeze the life out of it. No, I don’t want what happened to my parents happen to me. I don’t even know whether they’re alive or not. All I know – and what Gran told me that my parents dedicated their lives to keep me safe from the Academy, and in the end, vanished without a trace.

That, and that my mom was like me. Wild magic runs in the Kemp bloodline. Gran has it, my mom had it, and I inherited it. but only two of us managed to get away with it.

“Listen,” I tell Eisley, “that blight you warned me off is real, and it has spread. My friend Zari was infected, and if I don’t find a cure, she’ll die by the next full moon. We both know Alcove’s recourses are limitless, so this is my best and only chance at saving her, and hopefully everyone who was hit.”

Eisley opens her mouth to argue, or perhaps attempt to talk me out of this crazy plan. But no words follow. Instead, she looks at me with conflict swimming in her hazel eyes. She knows this idea is dangerous, and she loves me too much to lose me because of it. But she also knows I care too much about those dear to me to not so something about it.

She also knows I’m an excellent healer and potion crafter despite never receiving formal education. If anyone has the drive and dedication into finding a cure, it’s me.

Taking her silence as a sign, I unleash the breath I was holding. “Thank you for understanding, Eis.”

“Yeah, yeah, don’t get all cute about it, okay.” She scoffs, but there is a softness to her eyes that betrays her true feelings. “Well, if you’re going to be here for a while, I should introduce you to the others. They’re probably wating for us in the dining hall.”

At the notion of food, my stomach rumbles and I follow her in a beat, and without thinking of what I might encounter when we reach our destination.