The day of the party arrived.

Max had, after much internal drama, decided on a favourite sash, and had updated his outfit appropriately. Kylie and I were simply wearing the robes we’d bought for the previous party. I was a lot more comfortable in mine, being used to mage robes by now, but it was more fitted than my normal robes, so I’d invested in a binder. And binders? It turned out that binders were awful.

I mean, I’m not an idiot. I’d been practicing wearing it for a couple of weeks; I didn’t debut it at the party. But there was only so used I could get to something clearly invented by someone with a vendetta against the human ribcage. The binder alone was a good reason to avoid ever putting on too much weight, at least until I found a more permanent top solution, because I did not want to get big enough to have to wear the damn thing under my normal bulkier clothes. How did anybody wear those things as a matter of course?

I also had one other new accessory, and I waited until Max left the room before unveiling it.

“How do I look?” I asked Kylie.

“Ridiculous.”

“Perfect.”

I’d invested in a flower crown. A yellow and crimson flower crown, made from inappropriately large flowers. In fact, I’d invested in two identical flower crowns, and I was carrying the other in a small bag I’d bought for my tablet.

This would show Magistus what he got for striking back with candy hearts.

“Great. Let’s go; I want to see if there’s any good food.” Kylie made for the door, but I hesitated, turning a chip of wood over in my hands. A chip that was, hypothetically, just thick enough to wedge in a bedroom door so it wouldn’t lock and cut off other people’s access. Kylie glanced at the chip, then at Max’s desk. “Everything should be in place if you want to go ahead with – ”

“No. No; it’s safer to stick to the plan.”

“Either there’s a suspicious letter or there isn’t. It’s kind of too late for anything to go wrong, right?”

“People can always make something go wrong if they panic. Let’s go.”

Five minutes later, we entered the party. Magista had calmed down a bit this time; the fancy art was limited to a couple of tasteful sculptures, the rest having been replaced with comfortable seating and more food. There were no big fancy illusions, and everyone looked a lot more relaxed. Most of the legacy mages were still working the room, walking about and talking to the right people in the right order as determined by some complicated formula I didn’t know, but even the ones who were worse actors than Max didn’t seem to be quietly panicking about it. Unfortunately, several other people were wearing flashy jewellery or too-fancy accessories, so my flower crown didn’t look quite as silly as I’d hoped. Ah well.

Simon looked up from a conversation with Clara and caught my eye. I glanced at Max, and gave a tiny nod.

Now, where was my boyfriend?

I took a slow tour of the room and eventually found Magistus in the far corner, talking to a girl with bright pink nails. I threw my arms around him and gave him a peck on the lips.

“Kayden! So wonderful of you to come. And might I compliment your headwear?”

“Glad you like it, because I brought yours.” I pulled the flower crown out of my bag and fluttered my lashes innocently, folding the empty bag up. “Aren’t they just divine. I thought we should match. You know, so everyone knows you’re my trophy boyfriend.”

Magistus laughed and stuck the crown on his head. “Magista is going to give me hell for this.”

“Max hasn’t seen mine yet.”

“I definitely want to see that reaction.”

Max was over the other side of the room, in polite conversation with a couple of boys I vaguely recognised from science class. Nowhere near the door.

“Yeah, I think we’ll get a better reaction than that tonight,” I said. “Are you and Magista free after this?”

“For what?”

I winked. “It’s a surprise.” I glanced around the room. Simon was nowhere to be seen; he should be nearly done by now. Had he been delayed? Max was still in his conversation. Magista was introducing Kylie and Clara to some girls I didn’t know.

“You wanna take a break from this?” Magistus whispered in my ear.

“It’s your party!”

“Magista has it well in hand. Come on.”

“I kind of, ah… promised to…” I hedged, but just then, Simon came back in. He caught my eye and we exchanged tiny nods. “You know what; screw it. Let’s go.”

We didn’t go far. We shut ourselves in an empty classroom down the hall, dropping our flower crowns at the door. I picked up Magistus by the waist and sat him on a desk; he ran his hands over my shoulders and down towards my chest and I felt a sudden stab of panic; this was not how I wanted him to find out about my body. I pushed his hands away, so instead he laced them behind my head, kissing me deeply.

Then, after a few seconds, he stopped. “Are you okay?” he asked me.

“Huh? Yeah. Of course I’m okay.” I leaned forward, but he held me back.

“You don’t seem okay.”

“I’m distracted,” I said. “Stuff’s going on. And I don’t think we should be here.”

“You want to go somewhere else?”

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“No, I don’t want to go somewhere else. We’re supposed to be at the party. What’s with you today? You don’t normally ditch Magista for anything.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. I should get back.” Reluctantly, he slid off the desk.

“Seriously, is something wrong? You weren’t this upset about the previous party.”

“The previous party wasn’t celebrating the possibility that we all might die in a couple of weeks.”

“Ah. You’re afraid of the Initiation?”

“Aren’t you?”

I didn’t have an answer for that. Sure, I was afraid in theory, but… well, I’d spent my entire life with the curse hanging over my head, not knowing what it would do or when. The nebulous possibility of death wasn’t that unusual to me, and I’d learned not to be afraid of it, to avoid exciting the curse. It hadn’t occurred to me that the feeling of impending doom would be new and difficult for others to handle.

“I’m sure you won’t die,” I told Magistus. “After all, you’re the second most – ”

“I’m not worried about me! I’m worried about her!”

“Magista?”

“She’s just so… big-picture. Everything has to involve a hundred moving pieces, every detail is important, which is a great thing for someone with her future, but in there? If she can’t focus? Those spells are going to tangle her in a web of her own thoughts and she’s going to die.”

“You really think your sister can’t handle it?”

“Of course she can. But what if she can’t? What if I walk out of the Pit and never see her again?”

“Have you talked to her about this?”

“I don’t think bringing down her confidence right before the Initiation is going to be helpful.”

“Maybe not, but she probably wants to tell you how afraid she is for you, too. I mean, now that you mention it, a bit party seems like just the sort of thing that Magista would plan to cope with her own fear. Maybe you should be in there with your sister, instead of in here with me.”

“Yeah. Yeah, you’re right.” He kissed me. “Thanks.”

“Don’t forget your flower crown,” I told him as he headed for the door.

Alone in the quiet classroom, I leaned against the door and fiddled with my own flower crown. I was worried about something, too, and it wasn’t the Initiation.

I couldn’t stop thinking about Magistus’ hands gliding down my shoulders, towards my chest, and the stab of pure panic I’d felt.

If we kept doing this, I was going to have to tell him. Wasn’t I? I mean, it was my body, my personal business; it certainly wasn’t anyone else’s, unless I decided to share it. But it was the sort of thing that might be a dealbreaker for some people, so he had a right to know before we got, well, physical, right? What was the rule here? Was it a ‘disclose by the third date’ kind of thing? Was it a ‘tell him before undressing’ sort of deal? There had to be an accepted rule, right?

It didn’t feel like something I should be in a hurry about. I certainly wasn’t ready to go all the way; I’d only accepted the possibility that I could have romantic attachments a few months ago. And I knew Magistus would never push me into anything, so in theory, me being trans wasn’t going to be relevant for a long time. Except… that kind of made it more relevant, because if it was a dealbreaker, and I dated him for another six months or a year before it came out, wasn’t I leading him on? Wasn’t it worse to waste all that time? Or would I be in the right and he be the arsehole, for making inaccurate assumptions about my body, and for judging me on it? I mean, it was my private business, not his. But people couldn’t help what they were attracted to. So maybe it was… it was kind of equivalent to if I had an awful scar that someone might find a turn-off. If that was the case, when would be the appropriate time to tell them about the scar?

Argh, that analogy didn’t help at all!

None of this was helping, because everything boiled down to this: I didn’t want to tell him. I was looking for reasons not to.

Because here’s the thing. I wasn’t ashamed of my body. I wasn’t.

I wasn’t.

But.

My whole ‘journey’ was a lot easier than most trans people’s. As a socially inept six-year-old, I hadn’t realised what a big deal gender could be when I’d come out, and most of my peers, being of the age where they treated ‘boy’ and ‘girl’ mostly as arbitrary fashion and behavioural categories, mostly took me at my word. I wore pants and blue jackets, my teachers got used to calling me ‘Kayden’, and it wasn’t until years later that I learned that the only reason I’d been able to grow up without being a magnet for child and adult bullies alike was that my parents and my friends were furiously beating down any opposition before I could get hurt. My parents had a lot of after-school meetings the first few months, and Chelsea got into an uncharacteristic amount of fights, and the pattern repeated at high school.

But me being trans had never been a secret. There’s never been an option for that. I’d lived in the same town my whole life, and most of the people I knew had known ‘Chelsea, Kelsie and Mellzie’ right from when we were toddlers. There were always a few bullies and bigots around, and whenever someone new came to school, some ‘kind hearted’ soul was always ready to take them aside and whisper “Okay, just so you know, about Kayden…”, and it seemed deceitful to raise a fuss about that, even though it was my personal business.

And the truth was, a boy growing up whose best friends are girls, who isn’t allowed to get angry or play contact sports, and who can’t explain to his classmates that it’s because of a curse, is going to get called a girl a lot even if he’s cis. If everyone knows he’s trans? Forget it. It made asserting masculinity thrice as difficult, and it was never easy to tell who in my life was looking at me and seeing Kelsie, playing make-believe.

It had been the background radiation of my life. It had been tiring as fuck, but I’d never really thought about it. Not until I’d come to the Haven, and it was suddenly gone.

Not until Magistus had run his hands down my shoulders and threatened to, just as suddenly, bring it back.

Was I ready for that? Was I willing to tell everyone, to throw myself back into a weary grind of constant self-justification that I hated and should never have to do? Did I care about our relationship enough to make that sacrifice?

No. I didn’t.

Was I ready to take Magistus aside and quietly explain, burdening him with something I had no idea how he’d react to? Ready to trust that he wouldn’t run and tell Magista, ready to trust that he’d love me anyway, ready to trust that he’d still see me as Kayden, not a nameless girl playing make-believe? Did I trust him enough? Did I care about Magistus enough to take that risk?

No. I didn’t.

So if I couldn’t do that for him, did that mean…?

That was all something I could worry about later. I was supposed to be at a party.

The rest of the event passed well enough. I made small talk with some people, tried to avoid others, and apologised to Magista for making her brother wear stupid headgear. I confirmed with her that she and Magistus would be able to drop around quickly after the event, brushed it off as a ‘surprise’ when questioned, and moved on.

Maybe Kylie had been right. Maybe we should’ve gathered the witnesses and gone through Max’s letters together before the party.

I hung around long enough to be polite, bid my farewells, and got out of there. The first thing I did was put my normal robes on, pulling that stupid binder off in the process and gritting my teeth against the ache of muscles suddenly being asked to lift things that had previously been compressed by reinforced fabric and elastic.

Kylie and Clara were the first of our witnesses to arrive. Clara looked vaguely puzzled while I served tea and coffee from a coffee maker we’d hastily ‘borrowed’ from a larger, unused dorm. Having one of Dorm Magistae in our room made me suddenly conscious of how scruffy it was; it was clean-ish, but we didn’t have nice soft guest chairs or a proper tea area or even dice for yahtzee. Just a giant bear, some broken furniture, and the marks of an explosion still on Max’s old wall. Was it too late to spruce the place up?

It was. The Magistae arrived not long after, followed quickly by Simon and Max. We stood in tense silence for a few moments before Magistus ventured, “So… why are we here?”

Now that we were at this point, I was kind of nervous. But there was no going back. I swallowed around the lump in my throat.

“Because we need witnesses,” I said. “And we trust you.”

“Witnesses? For what?”

“We know who’s been trying to kill Alania Miratova. And we’re here to prove it.”