10. Chapter 9
Her clothes went from sopping wet to damp during the walk back to Embry Hall.
The sweatshirt chafed uncomfortably, and it took everything in her not to immediately strip as soon as she set foot inside.
Maeve gawked at her, wondering what the hell had happened this early in the morning, to which Ivy explained everything after she changed.
“Huh, strange; I haven’t heard of magic doing that before,” Maeve said, tapping a finger against her chin as they neared Arcania Hall. “We could always try looking in the main library for answers sometime. I’m hoping to get a work-study position there, and I should probably get to know the layout.”
“You’re going for a work-study on top of all your classes?” Ivy asked, her eyes widening. “How do you have time for everything?”
“It’ll only be a couple of days a week. Supposedly Professor Xu, whom I’m dying to impress, frequents the library for research.” Maeve shrugged. “But if nothing else, I can take advantage of the quiet and get homework done.”
“Well, I’d be happy to figure out whatever is going on with my magic so I can learn to ignore it.” Ivy pulled open the side entrance door into the hall.
Maeve laughed. “I wouldn’t write it off so soon.”
“If you only knew how annoying he was, you would agree with me,” she groaned.
As they entered the hall, Maeve removed her purple sunglasses and tucked them into her school tote bag, which she had picked up from one of the booths they had passed earlier.
Nearly every student around them wore one form or another of Arcania gear, and Ivy clenched her jaw.
She opted not to change into her T-shirt since it had gotten windy.
Now she wished she were wearing it instead of standing out in her emerald-green sweater and skirt.
The tables from the day before were gone and the large doors in the center of the hall were propped open to reveal a huge auditorium.
She let her jaw hang open for a moment once she stepped inside.
At least thirty rows of seats stretched out in a semicircle around the room, divided into multiple sections.
The aisles had cobalt-blue rugs decorated with silver details of the constellations.
As they went down one of the rows to their seats, she noticed the same pattern on the seat cushions.
As they shuffled through to the next available seat, she noticed two additional balconies above them with more seating.
She expected the auditorium to hold many, but its capacity must be well over one thousand people.
Likely to accommodate special events like concerts or indoor graduations on rainy days.
They continued following the flow of traffic until they sat in a pair of seats about seven rows from the stage, to the right.
They settled into their seats, and Ivy watched as the rest of the students continued to fill the room until that tugging sensation pulled from behind.
She looked back, ready to have some semblance of satisfaction that he was still drenched.
Except he was completely dry, and he wore the same clothes as before.
There wasn’t even a hint of water in his hair.
“How the hell is he dry?” she hissed, watching as he went to a row in the opposite direction. She flipped back around in her seat, crossing her arms as she tried to ignore the slow descent of a water droplet from her hair down the back of her neck. But she failed. Miserably.
Ivy huffed and instead focused on the stage at the front of the room. Large blue velvet curtains were pushed open to show a screen of the same size between them. A projector from somewhere above them had the Arcania logo blazed across it.
On the left side of the stage were eight folding chairs, and in the center was a podium, which had the school’s crest intricately carved in the oak wood.
Professors gathered in the wings of the stage.
The first—an older man with broad shoulders—glanced at his watch and sighed as if he wanted the orientation to be over with.
A moment later, after the last handful of students had taken their seats, the professors came onto the stage and took seven of the eight chairs.
Ivy leaned over to Maeve. “Do you recognize any of the professors?”
She shuffled around in her seat to see between the heads of those sitting in front of them. “The bald white guy with the mustache, broad shoulders, looking like he wants to be anywhere else, is Professor Krenngil. He’s the chair of the School of Warfare.”
Maeve shifted again and pointed at the professor at the opposite end of the lineup.
The woman wore a bulky emerald-green sweater which complemented her rich umber skin tone.
She had tight black curly hair tied into a bun at the top of her head, and bright cat-eye glasses shooting off mini, silent fireworks in their rims.
“There’s Professor Liandra Sparks. She’s the chair of the School of Intellect, the most accomplished astral arcanist of the last generation, won awards for her astral summons and projections, and only my idol,” Maeve said all in one breath.
She finally inhaled and relaxed in her seat.
“Professor Sparks was the first woman to identify the formula for inter-arcanial spontaneous teleportation, which secured the safety of teleporting long distances and reduced the burden on our magic, making it a little more accessible to people. Of course, there’s still a heavy burden with teleportation, but her discovery has been instrumental in the progress in her field. ”
“Wow. That’s incredible,” Ivy said, her brows raised.
“And I can’t believe I’ll only be like…five professors away from her. Even to sit in the same room with her is incredible. I’ve packed and read all of her books just in case I stumble into a conversation about her theory on astrophysical extrapolation in the arcane celestial plane.”
Ivy wished she understood exactly what it all meant so she could be nearly half as excited as Maeve was, but in the meantime, she smiled brightly.
“I’m sure you’re bound to meet her in the next four years.
Maybe you’ll study directly under her. I saw in the booklet last night that students can apply for a mentorship with the school’s chairs in later years. ”
“That’s what I’m hoping for. I’d be the first in my family if I were accepted to—” The student sitting next to her handed her a handful of neon-blue flyers. “Oh, thanks.” Maeve grabbed the stack and read the paper. “Looks like there’s a party on Friday night at Belarune Hall.”
Ivy grabbed one of the flyers and passed it to the person next to her. In the center of the page was a large black-and-white disco ball with the words BACK TO SCHOOL PARTY in bold block text over it. Giant speakers were behind each side of the disco ball, and at the bottom were all the details.
SEPTEMBER 5TH 9 P.M. – 1 A.M.
BELARUNE HALL, SCHOOL OF GLAMOUR
ALL STUDENTS WELCOME
She looked around, and each row had the same pages passing around and students chattering about the event. “Seems like everyone wants to go.”
“You in? It’ll probably be the only party I go to all year before studying gets too intense,” Maeve said as she tucked the flyer away in her bag.
“Maybe,” Ivy said. “I’m not much of a party person.”
Before she could be convinced either way, a tall woman stepped out from the wings of the stage.
Her black and gray hair was pin-straight down her back, contrasting her cobalt-blue pantsuit, and small oval glasses sat just above the tip of her nose.
She approached the podium, flipped some pages, and pushed her glasses closer to her small, teardrop-like eyes.
“Good morning, students!” she called out, her voice echoing through the speakers around the room, and she smiled warmly.
“Welcome to Arcania Academy. I’m Dean Ophelia Wren, and it is my belief that every single one of you is the key to a brighter tomorrow.
Many of the most intelligent, strongest arcanes have walked these very halls and sat in these same chairs, and now you are one of them. ”
“But do not think your time here will be easy.” Wren’s voice took an ominous turn as she studied those who sat in the rows closest to her.
“Our fine school is a beacon for magical energy, drawing on the well’s power leagues beneath the surface, making our campus and the forest surrounding it a place to push the boundaries of your abilities.
You may encounter anomalies across the grounds where the very environment around you transforms into a challenge. ”
Snapdragons. Ivy crossed her arms and huffed. Guess she already experienced it firsthand.
“To create a structure around the magic, each year our faculty designs a series of arduous exams to test your strength, knowledge, willpower, and, most importantly, collaboration. Starting this Friday morning, each of you will participate in an assessment, after which you will be placed into small teams to go through these exams together. We advise you to treat your teams as allies, or better yet, friends. You will need one another to succeed.”
Ivy’s mind drifted. Did Briar’s team treat her like a friend? Or were they part of the reason she seemingly faked her death? She wasn’t expecting to get any answers on her first couple of days at school, but she didn’t think she’d have this many questions so soon.
“Now, it may alarm you at first, but it is not unusual for people to get lost in the exams. Most find their way out, and our staff rescues the others,” Wren said firmly. It pulled Ivy out of her thoughts, and she glanced at Maeve, who gave a nod that that was what she was referring to on the train.
“There are a few start-of-year announcements to be made…”
The dean talked about current road closures in the surrounding city, the student apartment quiet hours, and work-study positions opening for applications tomorrow. One by one, she introduced the other chairs for each school of magic.
Professor Harvey Sonya—a short man with cropped black hair, ivory skin, and thick black square glasses—with the School of Constructs.
Professor Jasmine Nadir—a tall woman with warm bronze skin, long thick black hair, and a royal blue scarf tied around her neck—with the School of Summons. Professor
Professor Victore Walsh—a lanky man with pallid skin, dark circles around his eyes, and short salt-and-pepper hair combed back. He wore, what seemed like from a distance, a bolo tie with a skull motif—with the School of Fates.
Professor Isla Veronsche—a short, curvy woman with luxurious auburn brown hair pulled into a French braid and pale freckled skin wearing a golden yellow V-neck sweater and brown plaid slacks that flickered every few minutes to a shimmery illusion of a luxurious ball gown—with the School of Glamour.
And last, Professor Harry Lithe—a white man of average height and a round belly, his auburn hair a curly mess on his head, suspenders on his torso, and he waved quickly with his dirt-stained fingertips—with the School of Nature.
After the dean wrapped up her address, the students filed out of Arcania Hall, dispersing in different directions depending on what they wanted to do first during the orientation. Ivy and Maeve wanted to check out the booths first to find out what clubs there were.
They stepped out the back door of Arcania Hall into the courtyard and, unlike earlier this morning, all the booths were fully set up with banners, flyers, and some playing music or games. Some students were even tending to plants at the gardening booth.
Ivy stopped as she remembered her conversation with Professor Thorne, who was now elbow-deep in a bag of potting soil.
If Thorne had never returned Briar’s essay, what were the chances it was in her office?
She could try to ask for the essay. But she didn’t miss the way the professor had drifted off when it was brought up this morning.
Why would Thorne never hand it in to the authorities for their investigation?
If nearly all the students were preoccupied somewhere else on campus one night, then maybe she could poke around without causing suspicion.
“I’m gonna stop over at the gardening booth,” Ivy said to Maeve.
“Okay! I’m going to check if there are any student study groups. Meet up near the tours in an hour?”
Ivy nodded, and they split ways. She made her way to the gardening club group, smiling at the sun-kissed woman sitting at the desk who looked up from her drawing of the nearby oak tree.
“Oh, hi! Um, welcome to the gardening club booth,” she said, adjusting her wire-rimmed glasses.
“Ivy!” Professor Thorne greeted with a cheerful smile. “You stopped by. Glad to see you! Want to join the club?”
The student, a shorter man with golden-brown skin and cropped black hair, next to Thorne grinned and placed his pruning shears on the table beside the bonsai tree he was shaping. “We meet every Tuesday and Thursday from four-thirty to six.”
“I’ll think about it,” Ivy said. She wasn’t sure if she’d have time for it, with her classes and solving Briar’s disappearance. “I actually wanted to ask earlier…you wouldn’t happen to have a clay pot large enough for an eight-year-old cerulean fern lying around, would you?”
Thorne paused for a moment, then nodded. “Yes, I do! I have a few around the size you should need in the greenhouse. If you want to come with me, I need to head that way to grab a few things from there and my office.”
Ivy nodded. Two birds, one stone—learning where Thorne’s office was and getting a new pot for Lou.
For the first time since leaving her parents’ house yesterday, tension eased from her shoulders.
She only hoped breaking into a professor’s office would get her a step closer to Briar and not on the first train back home.