PERIWINKLE
Approaching the school cafeteria gives me a strange sensation. Two totally separate streams of impressions waft out to meet me—a jumble of mild but cluttered emotions in various flavors and a flood of savory, spicy, and sweet scents drifting off actual food.
I don’t think I’ve ever encountered so many beings in combination with so much cuisine in the same place before. My head is spinning before I’ve even stepped through the broad doorway into the vast room.
Taking the space in, I halt in my tracks and then jerk myself to the side so I’m out of the way of the other students arriving.
I have to keep my cool and make good impressions. Just because my first dorm experience seemed to piss more people off than not doesn’t mean school life has to continue that way.
Making fellow shadowkind happier would be great practice for when I’m out among humans again, especially since I can’t hurt beings like me. And the staff might be watching. They should see I’m putting in an effort to fit in and learn.
The last thing I want is them changing their minds about letting me stay here. I restrain a shudder at the thought of the shadow realm’s dreary gloom.
No one feels much of anything there, and how could you blame them?
I study the cafeteria’s layout carefully. The schedule said that today’s breakfast theme was “casual hangout.” The tables spread out through the room can seat anywhere from four to ten beings—no tablecloths, just paper plates and plastic cutlery set out for people to grab. The students already eating are swiping morsels off platters of sausages, boiled eggs, pancakes, toast, cut fruit laid on each table and dropping them onto their plates. Some of the sweet scent carries from bottles of maple syrup, enticing enough that I lick my lips.
The students who are already eating have dropped into the chairs chosen apparently by their personal whims, chattering away with each other. As I continue hesitating, debating which group I should join, a slim woman with deep brown skin slips past me.
She pulls her wavy black hair back from her shoulders in a nervous gesture, revealing violet scales gleaming on her forearms, and then tugs the sleeves of her dress down to cover the lingering shadowkind feature. We all have one bit of our monstrous selves that we can’t conceal in human form, mine being my oddly colored hair.
Her obvious uncertainty draws my attention with a twinge of sympathy. She meanders over to one of the larger tables, pauses, and then reaches for a plate.
The beefy guy next to her bumps his elbow into her arm. He turns with a huff and wrinkles his nose at the sight of her. “Oh, it’s the drip.”
The woman cringes and slinks away, her head low. I frown and march over to join her.
“Hey,” I say, nudging her gently as I come up beside her. “I’m new here, so I don’t really know what I’m doing. Maybe we can find a table together?”
Both the woman’s face and the emotions trickling off her brighten. She turns to face me, and my gaze catches on her badge—level 1, reform division, compliant, no harm done to mortals or shadowkind. Why would anyone be mean to her?
She glances around and points to a small table near the wall that no one has grabbed yet. “We can take an empty one if there’s at least two of us. Since it’s supposed to be a ‘hang-out,’ the staff want to see us being friendly. Every meal has a different theme like the different ways mortals eat. You’ll get used to them.”
I beam at her. “I’m glad I have someone to explain the rules. I’m Peri. Have you been at the school long?”
She rubs her face with a flicker of embarrassment. “Several months. I sometimes have… unfortunate reactions. Anyway, I’m Fen. It’s nice to meet you! Let’s get some pancakes.”
I feel like I’ve already passed whatever test this meal was supposed to conduct. I’m getting to heap fluffy pancakes on my plate and drizzle them with butter and syrup, I’ve made a friend and cheered her up, and nobody has died. Wins all around!
I might not need physical food to sustain myself, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t tasty. I dig into my heap of bready, syrupy goodness while peering around the cafeteria at all the other beings. I recognize a few faces from my dorm, but my growly roommate, who hasn’t spoken to me since our first standoff, isn’t among them.
Across the room, another guy jumps right on top of one of the tables. Vibrantly red hair flares above his golden-brown face, and his wide grin reveals canines narrowed into sharp little fangs.
As the dishes rattle around him, he lets out a whoop and springs into a handstand. “I bet I can eat more eggs upside down than any of you!”
The students around him either laugh or shake their heads. The fanged guy bounds around on his hands with impressive nimbleness, his legs wheeling in the air.
Fen lets out a soft laugh. “That’s Mirage. He’s always goofing around. He might startle you sometimes, but he isn’t mean about it.”
She says that like lots of other students would be. I guess I’ve already encountered a little of that meanness.
A woman with a bronze staff badge has materialized out of the shadows. She folds her arms over her chest and gives the fanged guy—who’s still upside down on the table—a stern look. “Mirage, you know mealtime is for eating, not acrobatics.”
He cocks his head at her, his vivid hair standing on end with his pose. His voice is a lively tenor. “Are you telling me humans never have a little fun with their friends?”
She lifts an eyebrow. “Not like that, not in the middle of breakfast. Get down, now.”
Mirage pushes himself onto one hand and whirls himself around. For the space of a breath, four more identical figures spin on the table around him.
I blink, my jaw dropping, and then the extra Mirages vanish. The real one leaps onto the floor on his feet and gives the staff woman a jaunty salute.
He’s too far away for me to taste any emotions seeping out of him. But even though he’s still grinning, I can’t help thinking there’s something a little tight in his expression.
“He can multiply himself?” I say to Fen.
“He can make you see pretty much whatever he wants. He’s a fox shifter—they’re usually good with illusions.” Fen’s smile stretches wider. “You should have seen, the other day in the gym he—”
The blare of a horn cuts off her story. All around the room, the other students snap to attention, many of them peering down at themselves and fiddling with their clothes.
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Fen tugs the cuffs of her sleeves, though they’re already resting at her wrists. She glances at me and knits her brow. “I guess you don’t really have to worry. Your hair is your holdover feature, right? But a human could dye it that shade.”
“I usually keep it covered anyway. When I’m around humans.” I tug up the hood of my jacket. “Why, are they bringing humans in here?”
My pulse skips with sudden anxiety. I thought I was going to learn more about how to control my powers before I faced more vulnerable mortals.
Fen simply snorts in amusement. “Oh, no, definitely not. That was an adapt check. It goes off a few times a day, totally random to keep us on our toes. When you hear the horn, you make sure you’d fit in as a human as quickly as possible. Stops us from getting lazy if there are parts we need to remember to keep hidden.”
She glances down at her arms.
“It’s too bad,” I tell her. “Your scales are pretty.”
Her skin is too dark for a blush to show, but her pleased awkwardness tastes like cinnamon toast. She fidgets with her sleeves. “Thank you. I wish they weren’t so low down on my arms so they were easier to cover, though.”
“Maybe someday scales will become a new human fashion trend, and then you won’t have to.”
Fen giggles. “I don’t know about that, but it does seem like with mortals, anything is possible.”
A gurgle of pouring liquid draws my attention. A guy a couple of tables over is pouring himself a glass of orange juice from a pitcher.
Our table is tragically devoid of pitchers.
I spring up, grabbing my plastic cup. “They forgot to put drinks on this table. We can borrow some from another one, right? Sharing is a friendly thing to do.”
Fen pushes to her feet too, her dark green eyes glinting. “I’d think so. I am kind of thirsty.”
I set off, but I’ve only made it a few steps when an elegant, pale-skinned figure sweeps by in front of me with a swish of sleek black hair. “Excuse me.”
I lurch to get out of her way and set down my foot at an angle that sends a needle of pain lancing up through my ankle. With a stumble, I bump into the nearest chair.
As I grasp the top to catch my balance, Gloss glowers down at me with her nose lifted disdainfully. “It looks like the newbie is as clumsy on her feet as she is when she’s talking.”
The cluster of other students who apparently follow her everywhere tinkle with laughter. Half the cafeteria seems to be craning their necks to see what’s going on.
My face flushes—and a tingle creeps over my scalp into my hair.
Gloss covers her mouth with a guffaw she somehow manages to make sound dainty. “Oh, look, she’s just glowing with embarrassment. That peachy shine really isn’t a good color on you.”
I yank my hood back up over my luminescent hair, which is definitely not something any human has, and dip my head. “I’m sorry I almost bumped into you.”
“You should watch where you’re going a little better,” Gloss says with a benevolent air, as if she’s doing me a favor by not dropkicking me for my transgression.
The glow of my embarrassment is already dwindling, the tingling fading away, but her gaze flicks to my companion. Her crimson lips curl condescendingly. “You poor things—it’s the hopeless leading the hopeless. Impressive that you’ve found each other so quickly.”
I glance back at Fen, who appears to have shrunk in on her already slight frame. “We were just getting some juice,” she says in a small voice.
“Oh? I would have thought you had more than enough liquid in you already, Drip.”
One of Gloss’s friend’s speaks up in a sneering voice. “The way she piddles, she should be in puppy school, not here.”
Gloss tsks her tongue. “Look, there she goes again.”
The patter of falling water reaches my ears. It’s coming from the hand that’s dropped to Fen’s side as she hugs her other arm across her waist.
Droplets of murky water dribble off her fingers and plop onto the white-tiled floor. The nearest students wince and move away.
Their reaction only makes the dripping thicken into a steady trickle. Fen squeezes her hand into a fist, but she can’t contain the water leaking off of her.
It must be something to do with her powers. This is what she was saying she can’t control.
Gloss provoked her on purpose.
The shame radiating off Fen now chokes me with its vinegar sourness. She was perfectly happy a moment ago.
She shouldn’t have to feel like this.
I take a step closer to Gloss, steady on my feet now, and stare up into her gleaming amber eyes. “It’s just a little water. Better than spewing out insults. I’m proud to be her friend.”
Gloss rolls her eyes. “We’ll see how far that pride gets you, I suppose.” She motions to her cluster of followers, and they all sashay off.
“Here.” I take Fen’s cup from her and hustle to the table where I fill them both up with juice. When I return, she’s left behind the little puddle of marshy water on the floor and retreated to her seat.
I sit down next to her and set down her cup. “I don’t understand why people say things like that. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
Why does it make anyone happy to see other beings hurt? How can they not feel guilty for every jab they land, especially when they do it on purpose?
Fen takes a sip of her juice and lifts her shoulders in a weak shrug. “It’s okay. The staff encourage us to hassle each other as long as there’s no real harm done. It tests our tolerance, gives us practice at holding in our powers even when we’re annoyed or upset.” She grimaces. “Like you just saw, I usually fail that test.”
I let out a dismissive huff. “We’ll figure it out. I’m here because I have trouble keeping my powers in too. We can work on our control together.”
Finally, a glimmer of pleased relief seeps through Fen’s gloom like a dab of strawberry jam. She smiles at me. “You think so?”
“Absolutely. Everyone knows it’s easier to tackle problems when you’re not alone.”
A streak of red at the corner of my vision catches my attention. Mirage is just loping over to the cafeteria door, pausing to swipe a sausage off another student’s plate to their indignant yelp.
Resolve bubbles up inside me. I can find out what’s going on inside him too.
But as I get to my feet, a bell chimes, light but emphatic enough to reverberate through the room.
Fen stands up and squares her shoulders. “Time to get to class and do some more tackling.”