I fumed about my failure at the Sentinel trial for a while, and things felt a little forced between Ellie and I since the train heist, so her attempts to cheer me up fell flat, not that I needed the help. I listened as Tea tried to frame it as a learning experience, but once again, I had trouble following her explanation…
‘Many years ago, I read a pre-Dusk book. It had a character who was sort of like a prince. He was described as being capable not because he had the best tutors or brain, but because he learned how to learn. You’re very adaptable, Amborella, so try to imagine this as a chance to learn how to learn.’
‘Learn how to learn,’ I repeated, before going back to my hammock.
‘It’s good advice,’ Xandria said.
‘I learned Vandagriff students are pathetic, insane, or like to argue.’
‘Best be wary of your words, given that you, as well, are now a Vandagriff student.’
And what a happy reality that was.
The semester started and students were expected to attend an orientation. Stefan needed to scout a new heist with Wei, and Tea busied herself making poison for one of Galahad’s schemes, so Ellie and Solomon—again using Rhiannon’s illusion magic—posed as my aunt and uncle. I told them I could go alone, but I think they wanted to see the Academy for the fun of it.
The orientation was pretty boring. We walked the grounds and listened to how the Academy got founded in the Mage Era. At first it had been integrated into the University of Melbourne, but as magic gained prominence, the Academy cannibalised the University.
A whole lot of repairs and renovations meant most of the campus was different. Though, some buildings were pre-Dusk, and some were a mix of new and old. But all had some element of vines or moss overtaking the walls. It gave a sense of being part of time – if that makes sense. Like, the moss and vines were pieces of time moving forward, and we studied among them, learning at the same time as their growth.
The pre-Dusk buildings were stylish and made me feel like walking through a fantasy film: Material and architecture that couldn’t be achieved anymore.
Magic showed everywhere. Not in a wow-so-enchanting kind of way, but a literal, practical way. Magic water bubbled from fountains, or floated as a mist to keep lawns green. Kinetic magic allowed for easy transport around the growing campus, using what amounted to conveyor belt hallways. Magically-enhanced music played at different parts, but there was never any messy overlapping. You could take one step from the quad into a study hall and the music would smoothly change, like a soundtrack for your life.
I guessed they wanted to have constant reminders of what magic could do.
The Academy felt like a city within the city.
Constellations decorated the walls of newer buildings. Sagitta, Caelum, Auriga, and more. I searched in vain for Scutum, my magic, and might’ve etched it with a knife if nobody were around.
‘This place is kinda cool,’ Ellie said, resting her chin on my shoulder.
I shrugged her off. ‘Cool to visit.’
Solomon had his arms crossed and brows furrowed, a sure “Solomon Signal” that he felt uncomfortable and wanted to leave. ‘You be careful here,’ he told me. ‘You’ve got your you-know-what to keep you safe, but I don’t trust the people. Magic is a fickle, unpredictable element. If someone wants to shoot you, they’ll have a gun. If they want to turn you into a toad, who knows how they’ll do it.’
Despite being a high-ranking member of a gang renowned for powerful, illegal magic, Solomon had weirdly archaic views of how magic worked. It amused me most of the time, but in this instance it made me uneasy.
‘Relax, both of you.’ Ellie flicked her head at a passing group of students and faculty. Some wore pendants or circlets, with part of the metal shaped into constellations. ‘You think people like that will turn you into a toad?’
‘I think you can’t trust appearances,’ Solomon countered.
I watched the passing group. The students wore dull grey robes, which represented the Dusk, and the faculty wore slightly less grey robes with gold accents at the hems, which represented “mastering” the Dusk. These particular members of faculty were called “hierophants” instead of teachers. Some of them made a big deal about that distinction. The hierophants taught magic or how to acquire it, while teachers taught regular school stuff. Some people felt that teachers were lesser than hierophants because the knowledge of core subjects was primarily learned for the sake of getting magic.
We reached a lecture hall, so the orientation person covered the topic of acquiring magic. It was called the Deal, or Dealing. Every mage had to go through it. No way around. No Deal, no magic. The Deal was why Vandagriff Academy accepted young students. All that mattered was knowledge, and young people absorbed knowledge better.
In the Deal, a person had to exchange knowledge with an Entity, and then it would grant you magic corresponding to a constellation. A mage could only have magic from one constellation at a time. They could give up one category of magic and do another Deal to get a new one, but most of society viewed that as being a pretty big misstep.
Basically, learn a bunch of stuff, commune with an Entity, and get magic. Easier said than done. Each category of constellation needed knowledge from its own unique field of study, and the Entities within it wanted their own unique facts.
For example, pretend you wanted fire magic. Category: Fornax constellation. Knowledge required: Literature and history. In the process of the Deal, the Entity you communed with might demand facts about the Battle of Gettysburg, Japanese literature, followed by an outline of the Russian revolution.
You’d tell the Entity what you knew, and you either would or wouldn’t get magic.
To be clear, you didn’t need to be in the Dusk to commune with an Entity. That’d be suicide. Instead, you’d wait in the amber zone, nice and liminal, and do a whole ritual thing that puts you in a trance-like state. I didn’t know the details back then, and I didn’t need a ritual to get Scutum magic since the train heist put me in the Dusk directly.
You might think the method of getting magic led to a equality, but it didn’t. If anything, magic widened the gaps in society. Mages and non-mages. Families with magic, hoarding techniques. Knowledge and education that could only be acquired at Vandagriff.
Getting distracted. Back to Vandagriff Academy.
The orientation program ended on three statues. The Vagabond, Speaker, and Adept. They were the three figures who brought an end to the Chaotic Era. The Vagabond had a roguish appearance, but his eyes, despite being carved of marble, left a kind, welcoming impression. The Speaker wore a casual suit and looked to be in the middle of a speech. And the adept had really good posture and sharp, formal attire, with a sort of condescending look and incline of her head.
Between the three statues sat a sconce with fire that hadn’t gone out since the discovery of magic. Other sconces dotted the city, arranged into the Sagitta constellation, the first magic discovered, to represent the continued prosperity of magic.
At the flaming sconce, the orientation ended. Parents chatted with their kids. Ellie and Solomon gave me a gift wrapped in newspaper. It was a DVD. A movie. I stared at it for a while, until they asked if I liked it. I did, more than they knew, but I kept aloof as I hugged them both. Better to act like being alone at the Academy didn’t bother me. Fake it to make it, that kinda thing. Ellie tried to catch my eye, but I avoided hers. Soon after, she and Solomon had to go, and I waved at them until they rounded a corner. I should’ve held and talked to them for longer, and more sincerely, and I regretted it then and would regret it a whole lot more in the following days.
Steeling myself, I walked past students with trolleys of luggage, or porters bent over with turtle-like shells made of suitcases and duffel bags. I envied the idea of having lots of stuff, but when I thought about what stuff I wanted, I couldn’t imagine it filling multiple suitcases. Food, clothes, DVDs—not much else.
I shouldered my backpack and weaved through the crowd entering the building.
During orientation, Xandria had travelled across my body like she were on a grand journey. From my shoulder to hip, up my side, down my arms, and back around to my neck. She risked my collarbone, causing me to pull my jacket tighter. Her movements felt like a sliding piece of ice, and I made a great effort not to twitch. Xandria wanted to take in everything about the Academy, but now that we went into the dormitories, I didn’t understand why Xandria kept moving.
I fixated on the cold spot and tried to find a pattern. She moved consistently but slower, like a compass needle. After a few minutes, I found the target. A girl. ‘What’s her name again?’ I asked Xandria.
‘Victoria F. Fornax.’
‘You’ve been staring at her.’
‘Observing, Amborella. Observing.’ Xandria shifted from my collarbone to neck. I pretended to scratch my cheek, to cover her. ‘Staring is prosaic; observing gets results.’
‘What results?’
‘There is knowledge in that girl. I can sense it.’
‘You did say she had good answers on the exam.’
‘No, no. She knows more than rote facts.’
I shook my head and left Xandria to her new obsession. If she was so interested, hopefully she’d hop from my body onto this Victoria F. Fornax.
The dormitory was a single, vast building, shaped like an elongated capital X. The intersecting point of the X housed the entrance and facilities, including study rooms, library, and a common room. Boys and girls got separated down the upper and lower parts of the X. Our cohort was called junior-1, and the junior-2 students were in rooms above us. Senior-1 and senior-2 were above those, but breezeways connected them to nearby buildings, so they didn’t have to constantly take the elevator or stairs. There was also something called an auxiliary class, but they didn’t stay on campus.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
I got assigned room 14, adjacent to the north-east corner. When Stefan and Wei first posed the plan, I’d freaked out about having to deal with a roommate, but they assured me that Vandagriff offered single-person rooms. My room had a bed, desk, lamp, and shelves fixed to the walls. The Academy left plenty of space for personal decorations, but I didn’t have anything. Unpacking my backpack took either three seconds or three minutes, depending on how you defined unpacking. Clothes, snacks, knife, toiletries, and the movie Ellie and Solomon gave me.
The movie was called Near Dark and had vampires. It was a pre-Dusk DVD, which must’ve cost the gang a decent bit of cash. All the movies made post-Dusk felt cheap compared to the old stuff, and with only a single city to use for scenes, things started looking the same. A while back, a daring and stupid group tried to make a movie in the Dusk. A bunch of the actors and crew got killed, and the rest either disappeared or got put in the Qronyurch Institute. Rumours claimed a bunch of footage was out there, waiting to be found and edited into the greatest post-Dusk movie ever made.
Once, I told Tea I should’ve been born before the Dusk, which made her laugh a lot. She explained that a lot of teens felt the same way, but that didn’t make me feel better. If I’d been born about a hundred years earlier, I could’ve watched all the movies I wanted. Pre-Dusk texts talked about dozens of movies coming out every month. I’d even heard about a book that listed one-thousand-and-one movies to watch before you died.
I appreciated the gift from the gang. Loved it, actually. But, one problem…I didn’t have a way to watch it.
Tossing the DVD onto my bed, I looked out the window. Students walked the campus. Girls in the neighbouring rooms or hallway chatted and laughed. ‘Do you feel that?’ Xandria asked me. ‘There’s an energy to this moment in space and time. Youths embarking on a new adventure.’
‘Don’t be dramatic,’ I replied. Yet, the energy was infectious. My gaze shifted from out the window to my reflection in it. A student of Vandagriff Academy. Of course, I couldn’t help wondering how my new life would turn out.
Based on my results in the exam, I’d been placed in junior-1, class-C. There were three classes, with class-B and class-A being for better students. Part of me was pissed off that I hadn’t made at least class-B, but mostly I didn’t mind. I think. My objective was Wira Kusuma. Once we’d dealt with him, I’d leave anyway.
#
Regular days at the Academy started.
I’d liked the Sentinel trials, aside from the part we failed. It made me think life at the Academy wouldn’t be boring. I was wrong. My days consisted of breakfast, class, lunch, class, free time, dinner, boredom, and then sleep. Nothing happened in class. Teachers or hierophants talked about information we’d need for Deals, which Entities liked which things, and advice on the type of magic we wanted to pursue. I didn’t need any of it.
Every passing day I slipped further into a dazed trance. And I still hadn’t found a way to watch movies. The cinema was too expensive. The common room had a DVD player, but I didn’t want to watch with other people around. The only decent part of my day was going for a run after class.
There were also…other issues.
I hadn’t gone to school before. Everything I knew came from the gang. That should’ve been plenty. Stefan, Wei, and Tea taught me how to read. Solomon taught me to fight. Aoide, how to fire a rifle. Marshal told stories. Batari, our treasurer, tried teaching me numbers. The Khan taught me to cook, though he had a watch-don’t-talk kind of teaching style. What nobody had taught me was how to do well at school.
It wasn’t enough to stay awake in class. I needed to listen and take notes. I saw other students do it, all fancy with highlighters and different colours of ink. If kids in the lowest class, class-C, were doing that much, what did the kids in class-A do? I figured they recorded the lessons, did illustrations, and had secret memorisation techniques. But my basic attempts left me with papers of confusing black and blue scrawl. I couldn’t understand my own notes when I re-read them days later.
Turned out I couldn’t go to the bathroom without asking permission. I got a couple demerits before this made sense. Teachers thought I was being disrespectful, but maybe I didn’t want to interrupt their lesson by asking. Did they think of that? No. Is that why I didn’t ask? Also no.
Speaking of not realising things, it took a while to respond to Eleanor Wilson, my registered name at the Academy. Teachers and other kids thought I was being rude because I didn’t respond, but really I had a hard time hearing a new name.
Disdain from teachers and hierophants wasn’t too bad, seeing as Xandria made sure I passed assessments. But, I hadn’t expected the other kids to become enemies. They couldn’t mind their own damn business:
Whispering stopped when I entered a room. Rumours spread about me being from the clans, a charity case, or a child of mages with illegal magic who’d been locked in Qronyurch Institute. They talked about my stained, worn clothes, or the loose papers and gnawed pencils I used in class, or hygiene. The gang had different standards. During a heist, it didn’t matter if your hair wasn’t silky smooth, or if you smelled. At the Academy, yeah, people noticed.
Classmates laughed at how I drank water because I drank from the corner of my mouth, so I could keep a clear line of sight ahead. Honestly, it didn’t bother me. I guess it affected me in a general sense, but it didn’t bother me.
I also found it harder to concentrate. My senses were always alert, like I was about to be attacked by Entities, and I continually avoided eye contact or conversation because everyone—kids and faculty—seemed like an enemy, but it shouldn’t have been a big deal. Wira Kusuma. Wira Kusuma. I told myself to focus on what mattered.
If I was going to investigate Wira Kusuma, I needed to stay in the Academy. That became difficult when my belongings started to disappear. Papers and pencils, at first. I had to borrow stuff from the faculty when tests and quizzes got passed around. Then a couple minor pieces of clothing. Then my crimson hand wraps went missing. That went too far. It was a good thing I didn’t leave my room after I discovered them missing, or I’d have punched the first person I saw.
When I got heated like that, Xandria circled my abdomen, a sort of hypnotic ring of cold, which helped suppress my impulses.
Bravery Sansing was the obvious culprit, but he was in class-A, and he was part of a bunch of other clubs and things. He could’ve done some of it, but not everything. I may have hated him, but he was blunt about how much he hated me. He told me to my face that I needed to leave the Academy because it’d make space for more deserving students. One time in the hallways between classes, he swiped a pencil from my pocked, snapped it, and handed me the halves. I would’ve jammed the sharp end into his arm, but teachers were around. Point being: Bray didn’t bother with underhanded tricks.
Someone else had to be behind my problems.
Within a couple months, my room had been emptied of most things aside from my mattress. I didn’t complain to the faculty. You could call it pride or stubbornness or whatever. Fuck ’em, all of them.
The walls were covered in wordy and graphic graffiti, which I painstakingly erased, only for it to return within a couple days. So, I stole newspapers and magazines, and tore them up to stick over the graffiti. The faculty didn’t punish me, since I obviously hadn’t written about how I was a whore who sucked Sentinel dick for—you get the idea.
‘This can’t continue,’ Xandria said.
‘No shit.’
Xandria’s tone changed. Sort of…motherly? ‘Are you alright?’
I didn’t respond. Too busy. Wira Kusuma. And the culprits. I wrote a list of possible names. Well, a couple. Bravery Sansing. Victoria Fornax. Shit. I didn’t know anybody else.
‘What will you do if you find the person responsible?’ Xandria asked.
‘What d’ya think? I’ll make ’em stop.’
‘Hmm.’ Xandria travelled to my writing hand. ‘I have noticed a girl the other students both fear and respect. She seems to command a certain influence. It is possible she knows something about your harassment.’
‘What’s her name?’
‘Cecilia Harkenfield.’ I repeated her name a few times, letting it run over my tongue a few times, like it had flavour. The name Cecilia had slippery hisses, while Harkenfield had harsher, solid sounds, as if her first named wanted to lull you before the surname struck. ‘What class?’
‘Class-B.’
‘That makes sense,’ I said. People in class-A were too good, too interested in their futures. Class-B and class-C were more likely to have rivalries. Class-B had people to look down on. Class-C had people to surpass.
I hopped off my mattress, feeling better than I had in a week. Xandria wanted to know my plan. I didn’t tell her, but I didn’t have one. Not my style. If I knew my enemy, I could defeat them.
An hour remained until students had to be in their rooms, so I knocked on doors and asked about Cecilia Harkenfield until I learned her room number. She was in number 30, not far. I stalked down the hall. Music came from rooms. Doors hung open, kids hanging out; they cast uneasy or dark looks at me. I made it to Cecilia’s room and slammed my palm on the door. No answer. I turned the knob, shoved my shoulder against the door, and stormed into the room.
Cecilia’s room looked untouched. Closed suitcase in the corner. Bed was made, a sleeping bag unrolled alongside it. The window was open. Thin strands of smoke came from outside.
I peered out the window. A girl leaned against the brickwork, peaceful in the evening. I suited the morning, but everything about this girl made her part of the evening’s cold light: Olive skin. Hair so black it almost had a blue-purple tinge. Calm, casual posture.
Her outfit didn’t match the temperature, though. Black crop top and shorts with orange accents. Midriff exposed. A beige trench coat.
She also had a smoking pipe. Not the kind old dudes used, those ones with a curved stem and bulbous bowl. No, hers was straight, slender, and had ornate snakes engraved into the metal, with a tiny metal bowl at the end. The usual pipes I’d seen were held between thumb and forefinger, the bowl almost resting on the palm, whereas this thin pipe wasn’t really held but instead sat upon an outstretched forefinger, supported by other digits.
‘Are you Cecilia?’ I asked.
The girl didn’t look my way. ‘Nope.’
‘…Okay.’ I pulled in from the window, peered out, and changed my mind.
‘That was likely Cecilia,’ Xandria remarked.
‘How d’ya know?’
Xandria travelled between my shoulders, her version of a shrug. I stuck my head out the window again. ‘You’re not Cecilia Harkenfield?’
The girl shook her head. Black hair, long and perfectly straight past her shoulders, reflected the moonlight.
I was about to leave, when I spotted rolls of crimson fabric beside the sleeping bag. My hand wraps. The wraps that had been stolen. Heat pulsed through me. I seized the wraps and went back to the window. ‘Where’d you get these?’
She turned to me, finally. ‘Found them. They yours?’
This bitch, I thought. So smug. I climbed out the window and swung at her gut. Her pipe fell from her hand as she doubled over. Clutching herself, she wheezed and tried to recover. I threw punches at her face, but one of them caught her coat. Pain bloomed on my knuckles, like I’d hit pure steel.
Cecilia caught her breath and kicked my shin, before launching herself at me. She didn’t look heavy, but I fell backward and hit the ground hard. Good thing it was grass. Bad thing was the grass had gotten wet with afternoon rain. The slipperiness made it hard to stand, giving Cecilia the advantage.
‘What’s your damage?’ she said, palm to my cheek. ‘Gloaming out the gate, you freaky kale.’
What’d she call me?
I pushed her shoulders and got my knees to my chest, enough to put her off-balance so I could kick her aside. We both scrambled to our feet, clothes muddied, fists raised.
‘Stop messing with my stuff,’ I snapped.
‘What stuff?’ Cecilia asked. In answer, I brandished my hand wraps. ‘I told you, I found them. They were in the common room with the pool cues.’
‘I don’t believe she is lying,’ Xandria whispered. But, if she wasn’t lying…
‘What about my room?’ I said. ‘You do that?’
Recognition flickered across her face. I knew it! She was lying. I readied to attack, until Cecilia said:
‘Are you Eleanor?’
‘No—yes.’
Cecilia gradually lowered her fists. I did the same. ‘I’ve heard about you,’ she said, voice smooth and low. ‘A lot of maids want you gone, you know?’
‘I’ve heard.’ Did she say “maids” or mates?
‘If a kiddie leaves Vandagriff, the next highest on the exams gets to jump straight in, no Qs or cuts, you know?’
‘…What?’ I burdened that single word with a lot.
‘The students almost full-mark are friendly with each other, but they don’t know you, so if you resign, their maids can jump in.’
She definitely said maids.
‘Why did you say no when I asked if you were Cecilia?’
‘I’d’ve rather shelved the hassle,’ she shrugged. ‘I get what’s going on. You think I’m part of the group trying to get under your skin. Would you believe me if I said I’ve been trying to stop them?’
‘No.’
She laughed, short and soft. Wished I could’ve heard more. ‘Good, because I haven’t been. Wish I had some names to give you. Then you could go, you know, punch them instead.’
‘…Sorry,’ I muttered.
‘I’ve had worse.’ Cecilia went back to the window and retrieved her pipe, only to find it’d broken in two. One or both of us must’ve stepped on it, before we hit the ground. She cradled the halves with open mourning, like she held a dying bird. ‘This…I’m going to…yeah.’ She gestured to her room, climbed inside, closed the window, and drew the curtains.
I toyed with my hand wraps, rolling and unrolling the end. That could’ve gone worse. Could’ve gone a lot better. For some reason, I didn’t care about anything anymore. I just wanted to sleep.