That night, I dreamed a menagerie. Lions, wolves, dragons… I dreamed of fire falling from the boy in black’s fists, and I dreamed a waterfall from the redhead which drowned me in a moment. I woke up drenched in sweat. I wasn’t afraid; that was the puzzling bit. I was exhilarated.

I glanced at my alarm clock; two more hours until I could wake up. Two and a half until breakfast. I lay back down and tried to wish away the prickling anticipation. I kept seeing their faces, the girl and boy who had been lions and eagles and dragons, holding the three hoops in victory. I doubted I would get to meet them, but it would be enough to maybe see them in classes.

I even dared to hope I could join their team. What animal would I be? I didn’t know if that was something I could learn, but in my naivete, I wished to be a Bengal tiger, stalking through the jungle. This became a new dream - I was running through a thicket of vines, fast on the heels of the lion and her dragon. The next time I awoke, it was morning.

Breakfast was served in the mess hall, a beautiful, large room with lengthy wooden tables crowded with all the students who had been at the Field the day before. I made myself eat; the food was bland but not awful. I’d had worse. Once, my father had brought us to Scotland with him on assignment, and I’d eaten all sorts of “delicacies” I swore I’d never again touch. Beans on toast and runny eggs were the least of my worries.

I sat at the edge of one of the tables, one seat removed from a girl wearing a gold hijab and red eyeshadow. Being the new kid in the cafeteria, I hoped she would say something to me.

She didn’t.

“Err, hi,” I started. “I’m Erin. I’m new here.” She looked affronted that I’d interrupted, but the boy across from her took pity on me.

“Hey, Erin; it’s nice to meet you,” he said warmly. I noted the tip of a tattoo peeking out from the neckline of his collared shirt. “I’m Jesse.”

He reached across to shake my hand and knocked over a glass of milk. I cringed, but the girl to his left waved it away. When I say she waved it away, I mean she actually waved her hand, and the milk returned to the glass.

“Clumsy,” she rebuked him with a smirk before turning to me. “I’m Cat. You’re new, yeah?”

“Um, yes. C-could you tell me how –” My voice trailed away uselessly.

“How I moved the liquid?” Cat helped me out. I nodded mutely.

“Don’t be ashamed; we’ve all been there. Bending is a science, but it’s also a natural talent.”

As if to punctuate her words, Cat twirled her fingers, bringing the tea from her own cup into the air before me. It spun with her motions in a perfect circle.

“We learn to control the elements,” Jesse added. “But most of us specialize in one or another.” He gestured to the girl beside me. “Vienne and I are Fire Naturals.”

He pulled down his shirt collar, to show the rest of his tattoo, and I saw wreaths of flames twisting against tan skin.

“And what about the others? The Lion, the d-dragon?”

“Oh, the Animagi.” Jesse frowned. “They’re just a bunch of snobs. Most of them are gene-modified anyway, so it’s like playing ball with a bunch of players on steroids.”

I could sense his frustration building, so I decided not to ask further questions.

“So is everybody at this school a Bender or an Animagi?”

“An Animagus, and no,” Vienne spoke for the first time. Her voice was rough as sandpaper, with a bite at the end. “There’s a third group, the Psychics.”

Her voice lowered to a gravelly whisper as she glanced at the table behind us. “They’re a little mysterious. All we know is that their talents aren’t physical. They’ve got something to do with the mind, the psyche. So they don’t compete in the Games.”

“Did you?” I hadn’t remembered seeing her, but I’d gotten there late, after all.

“I was in the first round, but my group went against the dream team,” Vienne said derisively. I didn’t have to ask who she meant.

“Bless, Kyrie, and Sam,” Cat listed on her fingers. “There’s Remy and Dare as well, the wolves, but they mostly play defense. Bless was the lion you saw, and the eagle.” She grimaced, and the tea in her cup froze solid. “She’s one of the gene-modified ones. When you can turn into like, a hundred animals, you kind of put every other team at a disadvantage.”

“A hundred?!” I gasped.

“Don’t exaggerate, Cat,” Jesse rebuked her softly. “Bless has five forms. Kyrie’s got three, and Sam’s just got the one, but it’s a pretty damn impressive one.”

“Impressive,” I echoed. “He’s a dragon. Is that even legal?”

“What about this makes you think any of us are legal?” Vienne’s words cut like a knife. “Headmistress Ward moved heaven and earth with the government to make us disappear. We just can’t leave the school grounds ‘til we’ve graduated and they’ve ‘placed’ us.”

“My old room-mate, Jen, was placed into a meteorology program in the Netherlands,” Jesse offered helpfully. “Cause she was a Waterbender. She sends me postcards and care packages sometimes.”

“Yeah, that’s great, Jess,” Cat shoved him playfully. She looked up, past us, and following her gaze, I saw the kids behind us were starting to pick up their trays and push in their benches. “Like a damn clock, those Psychics.”

“What class do you have first?” Jesse asked, taking my schedule.

“First-level literature, with Professor Daily.

“That one’s inside, Room 128,” the Firebender began.

“Ha, that’ll have mostly Animagi in it,” Cat smirked. “They never make an effort in any of the sit-down classes, so they’ll just fool around. Good luck paying attention. Have you got any upper-levels?”

“Not yet. I’m still a freshman!”

“Well, try your hardest to get into an advanced class. You don’t want to be stuck with the Animagi. If you make a good impression, maybe Daily will let you switch into our class.”

“I’ll try.” But I was nervous. Maybe the professor wouldn’t take kindly to me wanting out of their class on my first day.

Professor Daily was an olive-skinned, petite lady with black hair that fell in curls around her head like a protective barrier. She greeted me warmly, and I asked if there was a placement test I could take. I lied, saying lit had been my best subject at home.

“We’ll see about getting something set up,” she said with a smile.

I immediately regretted my words when I saw a crowd of what were undoubtedly Animagi rushing in. I say undoubtedly Animagi because they were crowded around the main characters of my dream.

“Settle down, everyone,” Professor Daily said indulgently. “Now, we’ve got a fresh term ahead of us, and I know you’ve enjoyed your summer, but now it’s time to get to work.” She didn’t seem at all fazed to have older repeat-students in her class. “Please open your anthologies to page forty-seven, and we’ll read aloud.” I expected groans, but the students happily complied. So far, they weren’t at all like the Benders had described them. I resolved to ask them why they all stayed in lower-level classes, if I got the chance.

“Last year, we finished our sojourn into sonnets; now we get to read the Bard’s plays, starting with the most famous. I’ll assume everyone knows Romeo and Juliet, and skip my usual introduction,” Professor Daily announced. “Let’s get to assigning roles. Who would like to read Romeo?” I glanced around at the handful of guys in the class.

A few hands flickered hesitantly, but they suddenly dropped. I looked back around and saw that Bless had her hand extended. I glanced nervously around, maybe she doesn’t know that Romeo is supposed to be a guy? But the unmistakable Look on the Animagus’s proud, dark face said otherwise.

“Very well, Bless will be Romeo. And for Juliet?” Now the girls in the class were looking at each other nervously. I could only guess they didn’t want to read alongside her.

To this day, I’ll never know why my hand went up.

“Yes, thank you, Erin.” Professor Daily made another mark in her script. “And for Tybalt?” A few girls raised their hands, but they fell back down when Kyrie raised hers.

“Thank you. And for Rosalind?”

Sam raised his. If I’d expected laughter at a brawny, blond dragon-boy reading for Romeo’s spurned lover, I was sorely mistaken. It seemed that whatever the dream team decided, the rest of their class followed suit. The casting went on this way, and before long, we were reading.

I may not have been the best student, but I sincerely enjoyed drama. Bless was easy to listen to – she had a low, sultry voice that gripped you and pulled you out of reality. Onstage, I’m sure the tall, beautiful Animagus would have everyone believing she was in love with me by the second act.

In Professor Daily’s classroom, however, the world was not a stage. Before the intermission, we were interrupted by the bell. The dream team sauntered out, leaving me in the wake of a crowd of Animagi, trying to catch up to Bless, Kyrie, and Sam.

The next few hours passed as uneventfully as a first day ever could; my next two classes were with the Psychics. Unlike the Benders or the Animagi, these students seemed more quiet and reserved.

In human anatomy, I sat next to a shy-looking girl in an oversized sweater, only to hear her declaim every chemical element in the body by its percentage, without glancing at the page. Her voice was quiet without trembling, and like the others, she shrank into herself as if trying to keep hidden. Other than their freakish intelligence, I found the Psychics a bit boring.

As soon as I’d thought this, I nearly groaned aloud. All my classmates reacted in disgust, humor, or anger; a few of them rolled their eyes openly at me, as if I’d blurted it out loud.

I could feel my face flush with heat, and I desperately wished to be in a class with my new friends. Or any other place, really. When it was time to pair up for an activity, I felt ready to crawl into a corner.

“Erin,” said a voice from behind me. “Come partner with me.” Surprised, I gratefully slid into the empty chair next to her, and we set about assembling a model of the cardiovascular system. It was quiet work, at least in this class. The Psychic girl worked, and I tried to make myself small against her Rubenesque figure.

“Why isn’t anyone talking?” I asked my mysterious new friend in a whisper.

“Many of us don’t have to,” the Psychic replied, her voice quiet but clear. “One of the first things Psychics learn is how to communicate without words. On the rare occasion one of us can’t naturally hear another’s thoughts, we teach them what we can and help them along.” She pursed her lips in thought. “But that hasn’t happened in quite a while.”

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“So when did you realize you were a Psychic?” She smiled; she’d known I was going to ask.

“When I was eleven, I had a crush on the boy down the street. When we were walking to the park one day, I heard him say that I was pretty. Except that he’d never said it, not with his voice. So when I told him I thought he was pretty, too, he sort of freaked out and ran off. We were never close after that.”

I looked down at the ground, imagining a chubby child with ocean-blue eyes hidden behind thick-rimmed glasses, rejected for her uncanny abilities. You didn’t have to be a Psychic to know how that must have felt.

For a moment, sadness flickered across her face. “I’m Rachelle, by the way.” I shook her hand, and she smiled. “You’re unassigned. There’s a fair chance you could be a Psychic.” This time, I was better at hiding my feelings.

“You all seem … really smart,” I whispered. “I’m not a genius or anything, so I don’t know –”

“Don’t be fooled. It’s easier than it looks.” I could tell she wanted to say more, but something – maybe some dark Psychic secret she had to keep quiet – kept her from saying more. “We’d better get working.”

It turned out that ‘us’ working consisted of Rachelle assembling our model while I sat there and tried to keep my thoughts quiet.

I never knew when something offensive would fly into my head. It wasn’t that I was a rude person, necessarily; there were things I would never say out loud, but I couldn’t stop myself from thinking them… Could I?

I sat next to Rachelle again in maths, which was held on the Greens – my first outdoor class of the day.

It was unlike any maths class I’d ever taken. The professor, a little Bohemian man in a multi-color suit-jacket, passed out several pieces of pipe, and our assignment for the day was to figure out what they were and how they connected.

“Some of the teachers here value practical knowledge more than written expressions,” Rachelle answered the question in my thoughts. “Especially for us, since we spend so much of our lives outside of the practical world as it is.” I wanted to ask her what ‘outside’ meant, but we were getting enough sideways glances as it was.

“Do they hate me… because I’m not Psychic?” I asked aloud as Rachelle swiftly moved the lead pieces apart and together.

“I doubt it. They just fear the unfamiliar. When you grow up as we do, relating to ordinary people can be… difficult.” There was a pause, and she clicked two pieces together with a satisfying *snap*. “Do you have any ideas as to which family you’ll join?”

“Which family?”

“The Benders call theirs a team, and some of the Animagi call theirs a pride. Bless has them all crazy about lions.”

Rachelle’s eyes crinkled as she laughed soundlessly. “But Psychics know better. The ties we make do not end when we leave Icaerys. We aren’t players on a ‘team;’ we are adopted for life.”

With that, she clicked the final pipe into place. The tiny professor came bounding up to check her work.

“Marvellous, well done,” he chattered. “Let’s take another five minutes to let everyone fin- Oh, you’re all finished already.” He absent-mindedly scratched at his receding hairline. “Does anyone have any ideas for a lesson? We still have ten or so minutes.”

If the idea of the students choosing the lesson was unusual at home, it seemed the norm for Icaerys.

“Observable patterns in behavior?” A student with tawny blonde hair suggested, pushing a pair of spectacles further up the bridge of their nose. The surrounding Psychics nodded in assent. It was so opposite to how the Animagi would respond: I could imagine them whooping and hollering even in the middle of a maths lesson.

With a quiet sort of sigh, I tried to pay attention to their observations. One Psychic would come to the center, and another would say something about him, and we were all supposed to guess from his reaction if it was true.

“It’s not really fair,” I found myself whining to Rachelle. “I don’t know anybody here well enough.”

“You won’t be required to answer,” she said kindly. “More than likely we’ll be observing you instead.” The relief she’d intended faded to a shudder. Luckily, the great bell rang before I was selected, and I let out a huge sigh.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah?” I asked as we parted across the rolling green.

“Definitely.” Her serenity was contagious, and it followed me all the way to lunch.

The Icaerys lunch periods were like nothing I’d ever seen in my other schools. For one, the menu seemed unpredictable and varied: couscous and falafel at one table, a tray topped high with mini-sliders and chicken wings, and another piled to bursting with stews and gumbos. I was elated to see it after the bland breakfast.

This feeling quickly melted when I beheld the long, intimidating tables, divvied almost exactly into small groups of Benders, Psychics, and at the rear of the hall, Animagi. I almost trembled as I walked uneasily between the tables.

“Erin! Over here!” I heard Cat shout. I gratefully sank into the space between her and the next Bender, a peaceful-looking young man with blue tattoos racing up his biceps.

“Hey, I’m Torr,” he said warmly. The name struck me as familiar.

“Torr… and Liam! You were the ones who tried to steal my suitcase!” I exclaimed, after connecting the dots.

“Not steal,” he refuted with a grin. “Never steal. What would we want with it? We only wanted to drive the new guy toward our cabin.”

“How’d you do it, then?” I asked cautiously.

“Bent the air around it, of course,” he said as if it were the most natural thing. “Don’t need to lift the actual trunk to get it to move. Learn Airbending and you’ll see.”

“So Airbending is another kind of Bending? Aside from Fire and Water?”

“Yeah,” Jesse answered. “Fire, Water, Earth, and Air.”

“Aristotle did get those right,” Cat chirped. “Torr and Liam are Air Naturals; Jesse and Vienne are Fire Naturals, and you already know me.” At her arrogant wave, my ice-water rose from my glass and raced through the air around us.

“Hey, give it back!” I called, but I couldn’t help but laugh.

“Sure thing,” Cat countered, lowering the water with a strange crack! I saw that she’d frozen my water solid. With a groan, I stood to get another glass.

“Promise not to freeze this one?”

“Only if you’ll get me a soda while you’re at it.” She smirked.

I crossed the hall of students, a new skip in my step, and so distracted by the feeling of belonging that I ran headlong into the queen herself. Bless was leaning across the beverage cart, her short curly hair falling into her eyes, and as she staggered back from the collision, I saw those golden brown eyes snap wide-open in surprise. We swung around almost comically as I tried to steady us, but my efforts only landed us on the floor, as Bless collapsed over me.

“I’m sorry, oh I’m so sorry,” I was breathless as I looked up at her. The tall Animagus quickly rose to her feet, and to my surprise, offered her arm to pull me up. “I wasn’t paying attention and I just didn’t see you…”

“Well, I can honestly say I’ve never heard that one before,” she said with an unfathomable smile. “Hey, you’re the one from English class, right? My Juliet?” I felt my face heat up as I nodded yes.

“That’s me.”

“A rose by any other name,” she quipped. “You do have some thorns, though.”

She rubbed the skin around her right shoulder, and I could see a bruise developing.

“Oh my gosh, I’m so, so sorry.”

“Don’t mention it.” Her eyes flashed as she flickered her eyelashes. “Seriously, don’t mention it. My pride thinks I’m queen of the jungle - I run with the wolves and soar with the eagles. Nobody can know I got knocked over by a freshman.”

Laughter tugged at the edges of her eyes, and I nervously echoed it aloud.

“I won’t.” I lamely started to walk off, but she caught me gently by the arm.

“What’s your name, then?”

“Erin,” I answered, breathless as if I’d just fallen again. “I’m Erin.” Stupid.

“I’m Bless.” It was superfluous and she knew it. “You should sit with us tomorrow.” There was an unspoken command to this.

“But I already have some frien-”

“Dinner, then. Come on, at this point, you owe me.”

“Okay; I guess I have no choice.”

“That’s right,” she said with a smirk. “See you at dinner.”

“See you!” And with that, I turned smoothly away.

“Erin!”

“Yeah?”

“Weren’t you going to get a drink?”

When I reached the Benders again, they were engaged in a deep conversation about the ethics of using Bending outside of the Academy. I barely heard what Cat was saying.

“Earth to Erin. Erin!”

“Yeah?” I answered sheepishly.

“Geez, you took forever over there. What happened; you get lost?”

“No, I tripped headfirst into Bless at the beverage cart.”

The reaction was immediate. Jesse politely turned his laugh into a cough, but Vienne threw her head back contemptuously and fairly roared. Cat just stared.

“What do you mean, tripped into her?”

“I mean, I wasn’t watching where I was walking, and we sort of collided.”

“And you made it out alive?”

“Come on, guys,” I protested. “She’s not so bad.”

“Not so bad?” Vienne nearly growled. “She’s an Animagus. The Animagus. Like, queen of the dream team.”

“Well, she invited me to sit with them tonight,” I countered defensively.

“Get out!” Cat cried. “Erin, you have to do it!”

“What?” Jesse and I replied in synchrony.

“You have to do it,” she repeated. “And come back and tell us all the stupid things she and the rest of the dream team say. It’ll be fun.”

“Hey, that’s pretty brilliant,” Vienne said with a dark laugh. “Say you’ll do it, Erin. Just this once.”

“Okay, okay,” I conceded. “Just this once.”

But once turned into twice, then three, four, a week I spent with the Animagi, smushed between the royalty and their admirers.

Each night I listened rapturously as Bless, Sam, and Kyrie recounted their days. Each morning, we shared English class, which turned into one raucous debate after another between Bless and me, sometimes entwined with comments from Kyrie or Sam. When we read aloud, as our teacher loved to do, Bless and I inevitably took one lead role or another.

One night at dinner, I dared to ask her a question that had been on my mind for a long while.

“Why are you in the first-level English class?” I had asked too quietly; she beckoned for me to speak louder. “You’re a second-year, right? So why are you behind?”

“For the same reason all of us take it,” she answered in a carefree tone. “We’re a pride. We stick together. When the slowest of us can pass to the higher levels, we’ll progress further. Until then, Professor Daily keeps us occupied, bless her.”

Cat and Vienne have them wrong, I realized. They’re not dumb; they’re loyal.

During this revelation, Bless watched my face, with a look that suggested that I was the only one in the room.

“Did you get anything good out of them?” Vienne asked at breakfast the next day.

“Nothing new,” I lied. “They’re not that different from us, really.” Her disappointment was cut off by a sudden dimming of the lights. At first I thought it was some Bender playing a prank, but the Firebenders around me looked as confused as I did.

Then we saw Headmistress Ward approach the front of the hall. The few stragglers who had queued up for seconds of bacon and eggs sat down sheepishly to await her announcement.

“Silence, please! Thank you.” You would have heard a pin drop in that hall, despite the hundred-something students seated before her.