Shay shuffled over to the metallic storage container. It was big enough to fit a broom, bucket, and mop. And, while it would be cliche, it was also big enough for two regular-sized people to fit inside-- (not that there was a point to thinking about that, since Tyvan said no before.)

On the locker’s front, there was some white, sticker residue at about kid-height. It didn’t have a door handle; there was a button that you had to push down to pull it open. There was a rusty hole for a padlock that could prevent that, but no such padlock existed. Anyone aligned with the forces of evil could steal whatever was inside.

Shay looked back to Bishop. She stared at him for a moment-- then... remembered that just looking at him wasn’t enough to get a response.

“Bishop?”

“Yeah?” he said, “Did you open it yet?”

So she was supposed to open it...

Shay turned back to the locker.

She pushed down on the down-pushing thing. She opened both doors.

And she found...

--another door?

...no broom, no mop; no old, dusty cleaning supplies. She found a door like the ones at school with a window on the side.

--and the view was mysteriously covered with white paint.

“Open that one too,” Bishop said.

Shay pursed her lips as she opened the second door. And behind that... was a brick alleyway covered in graffiti and lit by the yellow of a nearby streetlight.

She stuck her head through and looked left and right. In one direction, she saw a road lit by yellow streetlights. In the other, there was a big dumpster in front of a wire fence.

She took a step back into the laundry room, trying to make sense of what was going on. She and Bishop were on the second floor of the west dorms. If the locker opened up through the building, it should have been second-floor nothing, not a street-level alley?

Oh!

She went to the side of the locker, looking behind it. It wasn’t connected to the wall at all! She reached her hand in the space between-- but that was a mistake. She wiped the cobwebs off on her work apron.

But the locker door! It was magic! It was real and undeniable proof that magic existed.

With the biggest grin on her face, she stepped through the magic portal and took the deepest breath of the magical air of that new world!

--and she almost puked.

It reeked... ahhh... of trash. Gross. Musty. Wet. Rotttttennnnn...

The dumpster... it was a real dumpster.

She cried a little.

Bishop crouched through the door, shutting it behind him. Then he started rubbing her back. That was sweet of him.

“Portal sickness?” he said, “That happens a lot. It just means you’re really sensitive to mana.”

Shay perked up immediately.

She was sensitive to mana?

That was WoNdeRfuL!!

Maybe-- just maybe, she’d be able to get Tyvan to teach her magic.

Magic! Real magic!

She wanted a magic wand! She wanted to call herself a witCH-- or a wizard? A sorceress. Whatever the term was, she wanted to BE it.

She wanted to be it so BaaAd~

She caught another whiff of the fresh trash and shivered in disgust before covering her nose.

eeEegh. Learning magic could wait.

Bishop led her out of the alleyway and out toward the street.

Were they still in Archangel? If they were, they were in an older part of it. The buildings were built a bit too close together. The old bricks and concrete walls had layers of graffiti over white over more graffiti. Across the street was a chain pharmacy next to a familiar donut franchise.

So they probably weren’t in a different world. Drat.

Bishop stopped her and gestured at the building closest to them.

Shay had almost missed it. It didn’t look like a shop of any kind save for a dingy yellow ‘open for business’ sign in the window and a small plaque over the door.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

‘Tužni Ćevap.’

Pronounced ‘Toojney Chevap’, apparently.

The front window had curtains on the opposite side preventing anyone from looking inside. There was something in the window corner, though-- a sheet of printed paper.

“What’cha lookin’ at?” Bishop asked.

Shay leaned in to read the small print, “There’s a paper that says... no entry without ID?”

“There is?” Bishop nodded in wonder, “I had no idea.”

Shay chuckled and shook her head, “Let’s go back for now.”

----------------------------------------

That evening, for the first time in her life, Shay wasn’t dreading the next day.

She wasn’t worried about screwing up in front of all her peers. She wasn’t RuMiNaTing about all the horrible things she said or wished she said (to Tyvan, especially.)

Even better, she wasn’t worried about affording groceries or getting yelled at by her aunt over basically nothing. Those types of concerns were far away in her distant past.

Magic...

Bishop said she might have had potential--

Err. He said she might have been sensitive to mana... and that was pretty much the same thing! Probably!

Mana and magic were intrinsically linked in every fantasy story she’d ever read.

It might have been a false hope. It might have been asking for too much, considering she was already living out her Cinderella story.

But there was nothing wrong with hoping!

There was nothing wrong with dreaming of a better future!

--filled with fantasy...

--and maybe not as predictable or as safe as was reasonable.

Her excitement waned a bit on Wednesday.

She was still a bit hopeful on Thursday.

By noon on Friday, she was back to her usual self.

She hadn’t heard from Tyvan since the day he visited her school-- not really.

She did see him once, passing by his office-- but he only had a nod and a ‘Good afternoon’ to offer before he got chased off by Raia. He had to meet with a client or something. (Raia was actually really good at doing secretary stuff.)

Of course, Shay did some investigative work on her own.

She asked Yeonha if she was going to attend the Friday meeting. She responded with a noncommittal ‘probably’ and ‘somewhere’... which didn’t make a lot of sense.

It sounded like she was invited but was planning on staying in like usual.

Shay hinted at the meeting to Raia, but all she got was a 10-minute diatribe about how much work she had to do, researching something for the Arkham Enquirer while also making sure Tyvan didn’t skip out on his important-person meetings.

The more Shay learned about Raia, the more she learned she was just... a naturally aggressive person.

She did make that iced coffee again, though-- that was nice. (She used sweetened condensed milk as the creamer!)

Heidi had the most to say about the Friday event.

“Only boys spend their time at public houses,” she said.

--which sounded blatantly unfair.

Shay asked Heidi if they should crash their little boys’ club-- to fight against the patriarchy! But Heidi just looked terrified and tried to insist that they have a tea party in the gardens instead.

After a bit more pushing, Heidi admitted that she never planned on going. She said she was far too shy.

Poor thing.

She was so pretty and her voice was so enchanting but she had zero confidence in anything that didn’t have to do with plants.

Of course, Shay loved her, regardless. Also, she empathized with not wanting to be around people who were basically strangers.

(--still a bit weird, though.)

From the information Shay gathered, there was definitely a Friday meeting. But why hadn’t Tyvan mentioned anything to her?

...Did he forget?

Do perfect men forget things?

There were only hours left before that meeting was supposed to happen. And as much as Shay wanted to ditch school to find and ask him, she still felt horrible about leaving in the middle of the day earlier in the week.

But she still had the Aquila option.

It was a little weird that Shay hadn’t heard any rumors about her and a random hot guy making out in a bathroom stall.

--which didn’t happen.

--not that she would have minded if it did.

--and maybe she did think about that every day for way too long after the day it happened even though it didn’t happen.

Haaaugh~

Maybe that was so sensational and so unbelievable that Aquila decided not to tell?

--or maybe she respected their friendship enough to keep it a secret, after all?

Shay found a certain 4’11” Indian girl at lunch break. She was sitting in the courtyard atop a stack of about six chairs.

Aquila was dressed in one of her favorite costumes, an idol princess-- who was also a demon queen? Because anime. Black masking tape held together the side of her frilly skirt as if she got bored halfway through stitching it together. And to complete the look, she had two thick, black, paper-mache demon horns glued to her forehead.

“Great demon lord Aquila,” Shay said, “I have come requesting knowledge.”

“Speak carefully, mortal,” Aquila declared, “yet know that the price of knowledge may be far more than you can bear!”

Shay thought for a moment...

“What’s the best way to clean floors without a strong smell?”

Aquila looked down, resting her chin on her thumb and forefinger.

“And what wouldst thou offer?”

Of course. To gain the secrets of Aqui-lantis, one had to pay the appropriate price.

And thus, Shay retrieved her (not so) carefully selected offering from her bookbag.

An Aquila-sized juice box.