Jacob had never been on an airplane before. His parents printed out the safety guidelines for airplanes. They made him recite them, made him practice going through airport security, made sure he knew the drill in case the plane went down or was taken over by terrorists or the pilot lost consciousness for 'any number of accidental reasons.'

Jacob wondered how much of what his parents were doing was compulsion and how much was really them. The day after Mr D'Angelo had told him he'd be going to the Academy a sharply silent man in a high-collared grey uniform had come to the door. He had a silver pin on his chest. Two circles crossing each other, like a Venn diagram. He introduced himself as Agent Marks of the Order's Magical Exposure Department, Student Contingency Division. He shook Jacob's hand and showed him a badge that Jacob nodded at even though he had no idea if it was authentic or not. He then went and sat in the kitchen with both his parents. After a while, he emerged and handed Jacob a sheet of paper filled out with the details of what his parents thought he'd be doing this summer. Then he left without another word.

Apparently, they believed he was going to an eight-week biology camp in Kelowna where the campers would be studying the local ecosystems. He wasn't sure he loved the idea of someone coming into his house and affecting the minds of his parents, but the encounter with the rogue mage was fresh in his mind and he knew this was the only way he would get to go to the Academy. He engaged his magic around his parents several times and tried to sense something of the spell Agent Marks had put them under, but he couldn't sense anything.

Throughout the ride to the airport, the hugs and kisses and tearful farewells from his mother and father, the security lineup, waiting in the terminal, Jacob kept telling himself that flying on an airplane wasn't as scary as fighting a magical tiger; that it wasn't as terrifying as facing down the rogue mage when everyone else had been defeated; that it couldn't possibly be as nerve-wracking as finding his way through that labyrinthine other world. It was just flying on a plane, for Chrissakes. Hundreds of thousands of people did it every day and were fine. He kept telling himself this while he fumbled his carry-on bag into the overhead compartment, nearly dropping it on some old lady's head; while he buckled his seatbelt as tight as it could go, making his waist cramp; while the plane shuddered into motion and rolled down to the runway exquisitely slow, almost as if they were trying to build the suspense. He was going to a magical academy, for crying out loud, how could he be worried about flying on a plane?

But once the wheels came off the ground and their glorified little bus with wings took to the air, Jacob's stomach did a little low-gravity cartwheel. Sure, it wasn't as electrically terrifying as other things he'd been through over the past week, but he had no control over himself and the situation, and despite the layers of carbon fibre and steel or whatever they made planes out of between the soles of his feet and the empty air rushing beneath them, his body knew he wasn't on the ground. Suddenly those funny little tales of sailors kissing the earth after spending months tossing at sea didn't seem so crazy. But there were no terrorists or emergencies. The biggest danger he had to face during that flight was boredom. And once they'd been in the air for a couple hours, his panic faded and the excitement at the trip, the elation that here he was, flying, flying for Chrissakes, and on his way to a magical freaking Academy sunk in. His seat belt turned from a safety measure to a restraint.

Then it was all over and he was standing at the exit of the baggage claim area with his backpack, holding the handle of his carry-on and his suitcase in each hand, his stomach grumbling. O'Hare Airport didn't look different than the one in Vancouver in any distinct way, there were no eagles screeching overhead or ghillie-suit-wearing gun-toting crazies screaming about freedom. Just a bunch of people ready to leave, and a chauffeur dressed in a suit holding a big sign that read: Caibo.

Jacob half expected the chauffeur to be a golem like Arturo, but he wasn't. He was just a weathered-looking, elderly man who seemed politely bored with Jacob and his surroundings. He shuffled Jacob into a black sedan. He didn't speak, which was just fine with Jacob. It let him watch the city in a fascinated, secretly scared silence. Chicago passed by in a blur, some impossibly tall skyscrapers cresting the edge of the horizon before dropping away into the distance. A totally different city. In a totally different country. Would it be like Vancouver? What were the sights to see?

Was he even going to get to see any of it? Mr D'Angelo had said they'd be stuck on campus for the term because of some sort of time-dilation process. Sounded more like prison than school.

Despite his nervous excitement, Jacob smiled. Here he actually was, away from his parents. He'd flown the nest, for the time being at least. He'd never have imagined it would have happened this soon. It was something that was always years away, after high school, after he grew up, after he gained the courage to do it, somehow. There was so much he was scared about. Being away from home. Being away from his parents. Sharing a dorm room with some random. But through it all, he kept repeating to himself that this was what he'd dreamed of, even if it was so soon, even if it was for frigging magic. Here he was.

He wondered if Camilla was already there. Did she know anyone? Would all the other students be like her? He felt like he knew nothing.

They passed into a quieter area of the city that seemed a mix between a residential neighbourhood and a park. They turned off the street onto a short avenue lined with shrubbery. A low stone wall beside the road proudly declared the location:

Tisdale Academy

Founded in 1904

"Full hearts, strong minds"

Great, bushy century-old oaks planted in one long row obscured the campus from the street. They passed beneath them, entering into a sprawling, shaded property. A single building stood at the end of a small cul-de-sac. It was a stone academic building built over a hundred years ago by the looks of it, but what baffled Jacob was that it was only a little bigger than his house. It stood in the centre of the shaded lawn, dark and dormant, almost as if it were shy.

The chauffeur pulled the car around the cul-de-sac. The little locks on the car doors clicked open and Jacob got out.

The chauffeur took his bags out of the trunk, laid them on the curb, hopped back in the car, and drove off without a word, leaving Jacob standing on the sidewalk at the end of the cul-de-sac.

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Jacob turned and watched the chauffeur's car retreat back down the avenue, then disappear onto the distant street. Jacob turned and looked at Tisdale Academy. This was it? There didn't seem to be any buildings behind it, just a back lawn ringed by those artificially spaced oak trees. He realized he had no idea how many students would be at Tisdale. Was this going to be a seminar-type boarding school for gifted children with an intimate class of ten or twelve? Or was it going to be more like a sprawling college with dozens or hundreds of students? Certainly couldn't be the latter. The building in front of him could only house a handful of small classrooms.

Perplexed, and unsettled by the hush of the wind in the eaves of the oak trees, he dragged his bags up the broad stairs leading to the Academy. None of the windows had lights on, and he didn't see anyone moving inside either.

He reached the front door and hesitated before pushing it open. It creaked open. The smell of dust and old paper and a faint cleansing antiseptic wafted out. A dim marble hallway greeted him. He wanted to call out 'Hello?' but was too afraid to break the silence.

Taped to the back wall was a paper sign arrow pointing left. It read: Tisdale Academy First-years.

Jacob followed it. He passed an empty office and an empty classroom, the chairs put up on the desks. Another paper sign pointed him down a stairwell into the basement. There was a massive industrial elevator that looked vaguely out of place. Its polished surface gleamed.

Jacob took the stairs.

He could hear sounds now, coming up out of the basement.

He crept along another broad hallway. People were up ahead. At the end of the hallway, a librarian-looking lady sat at a makeshift desk that looked like it had been set up for a school event. Bay doors opened up to the side, and within several men were talking, accompanied by rhythmic whooshing noises.

"Hello." She offered Jacob.

"Hi." Jacob said. "Um, is this Tisdale Academy?"

"It most certainly is. What brings you here?"

Jacob was hoping the lady would somehow magically recognize him. "Um, I'm here to go to school. I'm a first-year."

"Ah, what is your name?" The lady unfolded a laptop and typed something in.

"Jacob Caibo."

"Can I see your passport?"

Jacob fumbled around his backpack and handed it to her. She checked it and scanned it through a little device like the one the clerks had used at the airport.

The sound of a rolling trolley came from behind Jacob.

"Afternoon, Margot."

The librarian lady perked up. "Harry! Headed in for another round?"

A greying workman in scuffed jeans and a burgundy polo shirt pushed a trolley of cardboard boxes labelled Fragile. He had a pencil tucked behind one ear.

"You bet!" Harry chuckled.

"You told me last year you were done. 'Finding greener pastures' if I remember correctly."

Harry shrugged. "The pay's good. And four months isn't really that long." Harry wheeled the trolley past them and through the bay doors. He waved to Margot. "I'll see you in September."

Margot shook her head and turned back to Jacob. She mulled over her laptop for a moment, then nodded. "Alright, Mr Caibo, you are good to go. Head into the Transfer Chamber there. Enjoy your first semester at Tisdale."

"Thanks."

Jacob made his way through the open bay doors into a large warehouse space. At the far end of the space, a large cinnamon bun portal swirled on the wall. Flanking it were two identical men in identical business casual outfits, sitting in identical chairs. They were dark-haired, maybe in their thirties, with blank expressions on their plain faces.

Boxes and carts scattered the space. Another, shorter man in construction gear rolled a box over to the portal. One of the identical men nodded, and the man in construction gear picked up the box and pushed it into the wall. It vanished into the swirl.

In front of all this was a large, snaky machine like the one at airport security. A bored-looking woman stood on the other side of it.

Harry was in front of Jacob. The conveyor belt was filled with his boxes.

The woman instructed Jacob to put his suitcase and backpack in bins on the conveyor belt. giving him an odd sense of deja vu. The woman scanned his body first with one modern device, then with a gnarled, wooden staff with a blinking red jewel embedded in the top.

"You're clear. Go wait for your stuff."

Jacob went and stood by the exit.

"First time?" Harry asked. He was waiting for his final few boxes to emerge from the scanner.

Jacob nodded.

Harry grinned. "I was pretty spooked out my first time too, but don't worry, it's nothin' scary. They're just making sure no one's bringing in any weapons or magical artifacts. What's your name?"

"Jacob."

Harry nodded as if this made sense. "I'm Harry. Always nice to meet the first-years coming through."

Jacob thought it would be polite to ask a question. "Do you go to Tisdale?" Harry looked like the plumber they'd had in a couple months ago to fix the kitchen sink, not like a mage. But then again, apart from the Rangers, Jacob didn't really know what a real-life mage looked like.

Harry laughed. "I'm a bit old for that. I'm the campus electrician at Tisdale."

Jacob's confusion must have shown on his face.

"Oh yeah, the campus might exist in a magical space, but the heat, AC, lighting, localized internet all run off generators, just like any other place. A lot of kids don't realize that. And when campus goes into lockdown for the summer term, they need me to stay on. I'll be there all four months, just like you guys."

"Lockdown?" Jacob asked.

Harry quirked a bushy eyebrow. "Don't they tell you this stuff? Once they start up the time dilation spell, everyone's stuck there until it ends. Bit of an odd way to do it, but it works."

Jacob chewed on that. Mr D'Angelo had said something about being stuck on campus, but Jacob hadn't thought he'd meant it literally.

"Don't worry, I hear it's quite fun for the kids," Harry said.

Jacob's suitcase and backpack came through the scanning machine fine. He grabbed them and said farewell to Harry, who told him he'd see Jacob on the other side.

Jacob picked his way around the scattered objects and boxes to where the two identical men flanked the portal. The man in the construction outfit was in the middle of putting a trolley-full of boxes through.

The identical man on the left waved the construction man off. "Hold on. Students take precedent."

The construction man went off to the side and folded his arms.

"You are a first-year?" The man on the left asked in an accent Jacob couldn't place.

Jacob nodded.

"Your bags first. Gimme a second to recalibrate the exit location."

The man on the right snapped his fingers to get the other man's attention. "Scan him."

"But he already got through security."

"It's protocol. Just do it."

The man on the left sighed. "You do it."

"It's not my turn."

"'It's not my turn.'" The man on the left said in a mocking voice. "Fine." He stood up and Jacob felt him cast a vaguely blue spell. Nothing happened. The man sat back down. "He's fine. Your backpack goes first."

Jacob unslung his backpack and tentatively pressed it into the portal like he'd seen the construction guy do earlier. It slipped into the wall and disappeared. Jacob moved his suitcase up but the man on the right held up his hand.

"Wait." His eyes were distant, searching some unseen cosmos. They refocused. "It's through. Next bag."

Jacob's suitcase went through without a hitch.

"You ever been through one of these?" The man on the left asked.

"Yes." Jacob nodded.

"Oh." The man looked surprised. He glanced at his identical counterpart. "What do you know?"

"You always get the easy ones." The man on the right folded his arms grouchily.

The man on the left grinned. "Well, you know what to do."

Once he was in, he wouldn't be able to leave. There was no going home after the first night if he didn't like it. There was no chickening out halfway through. It should have felt like more of a commitment, something he'd have to mull over for a few days, but now that he was here he knew there was no other option and he was viciously eager to do it.

Jacob stepped through the portal.