Chapter Twenty #2
“The old ones! A hundred years ago, Creators put up buildings overnight. None of us can do that anymore, unfortunately. Except Leland. Actually . . .” She pointed at a gold skyscraper covered in square windows. “I’m pretty sure that one’s his.”
“The . . .” I stammered, trying to wrap my head around it, “the whole building?”
“Plus the grounds!” Belinda added like it was nothing. “You can usually tell which ones are his because he’s very thoughtful about how he designs public seating. None of those dividers that chop up the benches so no one can stretch out!”
I broke my stare at what was, presumably, his bench, strategically located under an awning for shade.
Why would Leland have so much more magic than anyone else? He could put buildings up overnight. He had a high spell count. He could, very probably, do more than just creation magic, even though he denied it. He said his mother was a priestess. And his father was . . .
He didn’t say. I wasn’t sure if he knew anything about him.
“And . . . just to confirm, Leland’s just a Seven?
An Aspirant? He only has creation magic, until he goes through fifth year and gets all the other magics?
” The way I understood it, that was the process Sevens had to follow to become an Allwitch.
Four years studying one school of light magic, and then a fifth year, if they were chosen for it, where they acquired the rest. But there was something undeniably different about Leland.
Maybe the Council made an exception for him?
“I know,” Belinda said. “It’s hard to believe he’s one of us.
But yep! He picked creation magic at his Selection, and now he’s an extremely above-average student.
It’s honestly so lucky Starvos assigned you to him,” she carried on, “especially since I know for a fact Leland was only supposed to be getting honors students. Oh — not that — I didn’t mean you weren’t an honors student!
So not what I meant!” She smiled nervously. “I just meant you’re lucky.”
Lucky?
I didn’t feel lucky. I felt tied to a pyre, surrounded by flames and told not to let them touch me. “Will I have classes with the Echelon?” I asked. “Or you?” Or anyone who isn’t Leland?
“Sadly, no. The Echelon doesn’t teach. He comes around for announcements, attends the solstice balls, but he doesn’t lecture. He hasn’t taught since he lost his leg to the sea serpent.”
“The sea serpent?”
Belinda cupped a hand around her mouth and whispered, “From what we can tell, he also still has both legs, but such is the legend.”
“I . . .” What was happening right now? “So no classes with you, then?”
“Oh. Definitely not. The Echelon wants you with Leland and only Leland.” She patted my arm to — I don’t know — revive me?
“Speaking as someone who’s shared a washroom with him for three years, he’s pretty wonderful.
I know. Hard to believe because he’s all — ” She crushed her eyebrows together.
“Oh, Goddess,” she panicked. “Don’t tell him I did that.
But you know what I mean? Leland, he’s — ”
“The most eligible bachelor in Everden?” I suggested.
Belinda snorted. “Highly — and I can’t stress this enough — how highly I do not recommend you bringing that up. On Monday, a couple of second years stopped by, asking him to autograph their magazines, and he Disintegrated them. The magazines — not the second years.”
“In case anyone was wondering,” Skye groaned, dusting off her hands, “I’m not dead.”
With her feeling better, the three of us began the trek to the academy.
It was evening, yet still thirty degrees hotter than Hartik’s Hollow at noon.
Skye’s pale skin was bright red. I would’ve offered her Leland’s cooling jacket, but I couldn’t take it off without exposing the cuffs around my wrists, which I’d promised him I wouldn’t do.
Belinda blew out a raspberry. I ignored it, my focus on the beautiful, glittering towers lining the concrete street. Then she blew out another one, and Skye elbowed me in the ribs. Her eyes flicked a glare from me to Belinda.
“Oh, um, what?” I asked.
“So I’m not sure how to break this to you,” Belinda said, nibbling the corner of a tangerine thumbnail. “You seem so impressed by the city, and it is fun. Great, great place to live, super recommend it! But where students stay is less shiny and spectacular and more, heh, rocks?”
“That’s okay,” I said. “I wasn’t expecting . . .” I motioned to the penthouses ahead. The Olympic-sized swimming pools suspended in midair and Gardens of Babylon courtyards, lush buttercup-yellow, flowering bushes, and trees with pale-pink blooms. “Rocks are probably fine. I don’t need a lot.”
“Okay,” Belinda said doubtfully. “It’s just, the academy’s kinda archaic. Bare bones? I guess it’s supposed to fuel us . . .”
Once the city district ended, we had to cross the desert for what felt like miles.
The sky was cloudless, and the ground was flat.
Every cactus, plant, or thornbush we passed looked the same.
Greens that could be browns and browns that could be greens.
And the trek was taxing. Sweat rubbed between my thighs, and the cooling jacket was rumpled with sweaty creases.
How Skye was managing with the sun beating down on her black muscle shirt . . .
Skye slapped her forearm over her forehead like a sun visor. “Big orange thing,” she said. “When does it set?”
“The sun?” I looked straight up at it.
“Soon,” said Belinda.
“I hate the sun.”
“Yet you’ve chosen to join me in the desert,” I said.
While Pepper coasted along in Belinda’s satchel, Nova leapt between dried-up plants for cover, looking back at us, then dashing ahead to the next one. Clouds of dust kicked up as we walked, the orange haze obscuring my vision. Even still, I saw them. The rocks.
We were surrounded. The entire desert, the city district — all of it — was set inside a border of immense, red-rock mountains.
And the Creation Academy, isolated in an otherwise barren part of the desert, was a colossal rock monument that would’ve been a national park in the human realm.
It glittered in the sun, the color of sunsets and sand.
On my right, a field of purple groundcover looked like dried-up ivy.
“Bup bup bup.” Belinda’s arm jutted out from nowhere, the beads of sweat on her tan skin glistening prettily. “Purple ivy,” she said. “Highly poisonous.”
Skye skipped around to Belinda’s left side to distance herself from it.
To enter the academy, we had to climb a long, low-sloping, rocky pedestal, so massive in width that an entire city of interconnecting caves could’ve been housed within it.
A thousand feet of cave-like rocks, then the formation sprouted up into a gargantuan pillar.
We climbed for five minutes before reaching the hatch, a steel door in the rock that Belinda pushed on. It opened inward.
Belinda held her arm out, guiding us into the cave.
“Welcome to what is basically a full-time sleepover! Only a few staff hang around in the summer, so right now we’re mainly just a small band of fourth-year teachers.
Everyone else will start showing up after Selection, but until then, we’re all just hanging out until classes start!
First things first, I’ll introduce you to Rayne and Vyra. Then we’ll all go to — ”
“Vyra?” I twisted a hand around my wrist, checking for the cuff. “Vyra Lennox?”
“That’s the one!” She closed the hatch behind her, its rusted steel groaning loudly over her words. “Another fourth-year teacher. You know her?”
“We’ve met.”
“Perfect!”
Yeah, perfect, I thought as we traveled through the low-lit cave, grateful for my cuffs.
Thick rock walls insulated us from the outside’s heat, and cooled air refreshed me as the sound of us walking across stone echoed tranquilly through the long passage. I skimmed the rock walls with my fingertips, tracing the bumps in the cool, rough walls. My new residence.
We exited the passage into a great hall called the arcade. It was an open common room, all natural and hewn from the massive rock pillar I’d noticed sprouting up from the pedestal. And the size of it —
The ends of my hair grazed the base of my spine as my head tilted back at a ninety-degree angle to take in the scope.
Repeating arches encircled the arcade and spiraled up floor after floor in a corkscrew.
There were no stairs, only the stone ground sloping in a spiral curve, all the way up to a giant skylight.
The vibrant, blue sky had dulled, and pale-blue light filtered in, twisting with the rock’s reds and oranges, casting the entire column of the arcade in a romantic, fiery glow.
How could this place not be enough? I was so busy looking around, I hardly noticed when we came to a stop in the center of the room, where the three other fourth-year teachers were lounging. Where I was grateful for so much to look at vertically. Because in front of me . . .
Vyra nestled happily in Leland’s lap, snuggling her back against his navy-blue polo. His nose was in her neck, and his eyes were as good as closed.
“Awkward,” Belinda mouthed.
“I would puke if I could,” Skye said, grimacing.
“Hello,” said the elegantly tall and slender woman sitting next to them, holding a small bundle of roses in front of her chest. She had a septum piercing and stylish shoulder-length, dirty-blond hair half-up in loose waves.
Her white skin had a golden undertone and might have been as golden as mine with any time in the sun, but it was light, pale, like she specifically avoided it.
“Oh, right!” Belinda thunked herself on the head. “This is Rayne.”
Rayne handed me the roses, and with the small bouquet out of the way, I noticed Rayne’s pink baby tee had the trans pride flag printed on it. “I’ve heard so much about you,” she said warmly, and nodded hello to Skye. “I was friends with your sister.”
“Nice to meet you,” I replied, twisting the roses, missing Ash.