PERIWINKLE

The first class of the day for level one and two reform students is called Geography & Culture. Fen perks up as she leads me to the room, knowing how to navigate the interlocking hallways better than I do. “I wonder what place we’ll be hearing about today! I think if I can ever really integrate, I’d want to see a whole bunch of them.”

Her enthusiasm lifts my own spirits. I’m looking forward to the class until we walk through the doorway into a large room with several rows of tables… and I find myself staring at the sorcerer who compelled me into my latest cage.

My muscles tense so swiftly I nearly trip over my feet.

Jonah glances over from where he’s standing by a whiteboard at the front of the room. He’s smiling, white teeth bright against his cedar-brown skin, but when his deep brown eyes meet mine, his friendly expression falters.

I get a whiff of sour-stale discomfort that makes me wish I could gulp more of the maple syrup we left back in the cafeteria.

Fen tugs my wrist. “We should sit in the front. Then we get the best view of the pictures.”

I let her drag me over to the table that’s front and center, recovering my equilibrium as I do. It shouldn’t be a surprise that the sorcerer has other roles at the school. Hopefully there aren’t so many shadowkind going around upending mortal lives that he’d need to make a full-time career out of dragging them in.

When I dare another glance at Jonah, his smile has come back, though it’s a little cautious. He dips his head in greeting with a sway of his wavy black hair. “It looks like you’re already making friends. That’s good to see. Fen will do a good job of helping you get your footing.”

His tone stays steady and professional, but my new friend beams at the compliment anyway. “I definitely will,” she promises, and motions for me to sit next to her.

It only occurs to me after I’ve followed her lead that sitting up here means I’m as close as possible to the sorcerer in our midst. I breath slow and deep to even out my emotions. The last thing I need is my hair shining my anxiety for all to see.

There’s nothing to be afraid of anyway, is there? Jonah didn’t know who I was or that I didn’t mean to hurt anyone when he used his magic on me. I’m glad I’ve ended up at the school.

I should be grateful he stepped in, really.

It’s just hard not to remember the strands of sorcery digging into my essence every time I look at him. And that memory stirs up echoes of so many other times…

So I do my best not to look at him at all. As the other students file in, I check out our classmates instead.

The icy man with the unnervingly dark blue eyes who Gloss was hanging around in my dorm enters and drapes his lanky frame into a chair halfway back at the edge of the room. When he catches me looking at him, he gives me a smile so cold it feels more like a knife-stab.

Thankfully Gloss won’t be joining us, since she isn’t even reform. I do spot a few of her other companions from breakfast—they all sit near the chilly guy, like they’re forming a barricade around him from the rest of the room.

To my delight, Mirage bounds through the doorway, grinning with a flash of his fangs. He vaults over one of the tables to land on the chair feet-first, spin around, and then drop into the seat. Applause kicks in like the laugh track in a TV sitcom.

Jonah gives him a stern look. “Let’s keep the illusions to a minimum today, Mirage.”

“Just giving myself the recognition I’m sure I deserve,” the fox shifter replies cheerfully.

A few dozen more beings drift in and take their seats until almost all the chairs are taken. When a particularly looming frame passes through the doorway, my heart skips a beat, but it isn’t my roommate.

Shouldn’t he have this class too? He was level one like me.

Is he all right? I didn’t see him at breakfast either. He was off at his end of the room ignoring me when I got up, still keeping to the shadows.

Which is obviously better than biting my head off, but surely he’s supposed to come out at some point?

As I consider asking Fen, Jonah clears his throat. I yank my gaze to the front of the room and notice a shadowkind woman has arrived to stand next to him, wearing one of the staff badges.

Well, that solves one problem. I’ll just look at her instead of him and still be perfectly attentive.

Jonah taps the whiteboard, which must have some kind of computer display built in, because its surface flickers and forms what looks like a digital photo album. “Today, we’re going to be talking about Berlin. That’s the capital city of the country of Germany, in the continent of Europe.”

He brings up a map of the entire mortal realm to show exactly where the city lies. It takes my breath away seeing how big the world humans move around in is.

I guess the shadow realm might be equally large, but it’s so vague and dark that it’s not as though any one part is particularly different from another.

Jonah goes on, showing a few more photos as he talks. “If you like an urban atmosphere, Berlin is one of the best cities to blend in among humans. It has a strong presence of alternative culture with a wide variety of unique fashion and personal styling. Many shadowkind features won’t raise any eyebrows—people will assume they’re body modifications.”

The photos he flips through show young people with ink coloring their skin and hair all the colors of the rainbow. Metal glints from every place I knew you could insert piercings and a few more besides.

I wind a lock of my own hair around my finger. No one would see the turquoise shade as strange in that kind of crowd.

At least, unless it starts glowing.

At a light drumming of fingers on a tabletop, I peek over my shoulder. The icy man’s lips have curved with amusement.

“I’ve heard they have clubs where you can be very free with your desires, for those who might want to indulge,” he says languidly. His cool voice gives away no suggestion that he has a personal interest, but he aims a suggestive look at one of the female students sitting near him, and she flushes with a flirty giggle.

Jonah’s expression stays mild, but wasabi-bitter irritation wafts off of him. “That’s a topic better addressed in your Personal Relationships class, Hail.”

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

The icy man—Hail?—leans farther back in his seat with a blasé attitude, but I pick up a lick of satisfaction like a dab of whipped cream. “It seems like a rather key feature of the place to me.”

His remark provokes another giggle from his neighbor.

A slight edge creeps into Jonah’s tone. “When you’re teaching the subject, you can make that call.”

He cuts off the conversation by turning toward the woman who joined him. “Our guest instructor, Crinkle, has spent the past few decades living among the mortals in Berlin. She’ll be able to fill in details I can’t and give you the direct shadowkind perspective on life in the city.”

Jonah and Crinkle go back and forth discussing the benefits of the city, the potential problems most likely to arise, and which types of supernatural inclinations it can best accommodate. Throughout the presentation, the sorcerer encourages us to think about whether we could see ourselves fitting into this place.

“It might seem far off for some of you,” he says. “But brief real-world practicums start at level two, and by level three we want you to be seriously considering and trying out locations where you might settle down for your first year.”

A lot of the aspects of the city he mentions sound lovely, but I have another voice in my head, going back years. Gracie’s soft laugh and awed tones as she told me about the city on the lake where she wanted to go as soon as she was old enough to leave home—the music festivals there, restaurants with every kind of food you could imagine, so many parks and trees…

She drew pictures in my head with her words. I haven’t seen her since that last night—since the night when I escaped—

I’ll find her again. I already know where I’m going when I’m ready to leave this school.

If there’s anyone I owe a heap of joy to, it’s her.

The talk shifts to questions from the students. After the first few, the brawny woman behind me raises her hand. “Isn’t there a higher chance of having a bad interaction with a mortal if you’re living in a city? I mean, with so many of them around?”

“Being surrounded by a lot of people can actually make you safer,” Jonah says. “If someone takes an issue with you, you can slip away, and the chances of running into them again are a lot less than if you were in, say, a small town.”

The woman lets out a jovial chuckle. “Right, of course. And it’s not like any of them would stand a chance against us if push came to shove anyway.”

Her posture is all bravado, but a current of lemony terror touches my tongue.

I turn in my seat to give her a reassuring smile. “You don’t need to be scared of humans. Most of them aren’t bad at all.”

The woman stares at me and then pulls her lips back in a snarl. “I wouldn’t be scared of any puny mortal.”

Her tablemate extends claws from her fingertips and flexes them at me with a menacing scowl. “A runt like you should think before you speak.”

I’ve obviously messed up again. And even if she’s trying to look and sound ominous, all I can taste from the second woman is more fear.

She doesn’t have any starburst points on her badge—she’s never hurt any shadowkind before. Her implied threat is all defensive.

I try to make my smile even kinder in apology. “I only wanted to make her feel better. Neither of you need to be afraid of me, I promise.”

The second woman growls and shoves to her feet. “What are you trying to say?”

I open and close my mouth, my thoughts turning into babble that won’t help anyone coming out of my mouth. I thought I’d said exactly what I meant. What is she confused about? Why is she acting angry?

Jonah lifts his voice, calm but firm. “Sit down, Vim. I’m sure Peri didn’t mean anything by it.”

I did, though. I meant to comfort them.

Apparently I handled it all wrong.

A faint scoff carries from Hail’s seat. “The newbie’s going to have to fight her own battles sometime,” the icy man remarks. “From the looks of her, they’ll at least be short.”

Jonah folds his arms over his chest. “If we could get back on topic, please—”

The chime of the bell interrupts. Everyone pushes back their chairs.

As soon as I can tell we’re meant to leave, I hustle to the door. Fen rushes after me and touches my arm. “It’s okay. Don’t worry about any of them. We’ve got an hour before the next class. Do you want me to show you the courtyard? It’s really nice.”

I don’t want to upset her too, but I’m not sure I can give off the cheer I’d want to either. I manage a smile, aiming for sunny. “I think I just want to rest in my room for a bit, but I’d love to see it later.”

Despite my best efforts, Fen deflates a little. “Oh. All right.”

I hurry through the halls to the dorm area, my stomach twisting into knots. She didn’t realize that it’s not the other students I’m worried about. It’s me.

Why do things go wrong when I’m trying to do something good? Why can’t I fit in properly even here where I’m surrounded by beings who are supposed to be just like me?

It’s okay. There’ll be more classes. Not everyone hates me. I’m still figuring things out.

It’ll get better. It has to.

When I reach the dorm, I walk straight to my room and step inside. I’ll just take the next hour to sort myself out on my own, and then I’ll be ready to face whatever’s next.

Except I’m not alone. The instant I walk into the small space, I pick up on my roommate’s stormy energy from the shadows.

I turn toward the spot where I can tell he’s lurking. The question tumbles out before I can think better of it. “Why weren’t you at class?”

If he spoke from the shadows, I’d still hear him, if in a distant, blurry kind of way. Instead, he ripples out into his full, immense form, glaring down at me with his ropey muscles tensed. “Some of us have to go to different classes. Because there are more important things to worry about."

He points at his badge--the ten-pointed star, the circle around it.

“Oh,” I mumble. “I just wondered.”

He grunts and vanishes again. I sink onto my bed and draw my knees to my chest to hug them.

I seem to be pissing people off left and right, and one of them is a shadowkind so fearsome he needs special classes to make sure he doesn’t hurt the rest of us.

I close my eyes. All I can do is keep going, keep doing my best.

Because it’s either that or starve.