#learningmagic

Terry bolted upright and stared around, disoriented, as Martin the Magnificent’s voice echoed in his ears. They’d stopped in a pioneer-style village, the kind he’d visited on school trips where everyone dressed like it was the early eighteen-hundreds. In a tone that reminded Terry of one of those boring documentaries his parents would watch on remote tribes who wore more beads than clothes, Martin the Magnificent explained that several towns in this land were very old and kept their traditional ways. And no, Pudding Bowl, they were not Amish or Mennonites.

“I’ve heard of this place.” The boy beside him nudged Terry’s side with his elbow. “Tourists pay through the nose to 'experience' how people lived hundreds of years in the past. The inn down the road is almost three grand a night! And that’s during the week—Saturdays is twice as much!”

“That’s insane,” Terry said. He’d had beyond his fill of rustic by now, but this was exactly the sort of thing his parents and their friends would go for in their scramble to impress each other on Instagram.

“They even mint their own currency,” the other boy added.

Dust billowed in their wake as they went along a dirt road past an assembly of brick two-story buildings with white columns flanking the entrances. They rounded the corner and came into a large square. Each side was jammed with rickety market stalls, the oilcloth canopies flapping gently in the breeze. Clucking chickens hopped past. Somewhere on the far side, Terry could hear goats or sheep.

They stopped on a side street near the center of the square. All the neophytes began loading the baskets onto flimsy wooden tables under the direction of the Adepts, who were dressed in friar’s robes including a rope belted around the waist. He joined Katya and Pudding Bowl at the far end of a row of tables shaded by thick, grease-stained fabric. Countless smells invaded his nostrils—wood smoke, flowers, animal poo, meat, frying eggs, syrup, bacon and rotting fruit.

According to a clock tower at one edge of the square, it was ten in the morning. Terry revelled in the festive atmosphere, almost forgetting all his accumulated aches and pains. The market quickly grew busy, imbued with a Disneylike quaintness. All the patrons wore costumes suited to the era, no doubt provided as part of their three-thousand-a-night stay at one of the inns.

Ms. Huston set a cash box on the table for them and Terry sifted through the various coins. They bore rough images of old fictitious kings along with the heads of various animals, laurel wreaths, dragons and other assorted symbols. He was even given a small allowance. On his first break he purchased a pair of thin-soled leather sandals that would be perfect for sneaking around Archon Castle grounds late at night.

They spent the morning selling vegetables, trading in bronze pennies, iron ingots and even the odd silver coin. It was only when Terry went to make change for a clipped gold coin at a booth near one of the inns that he learned what the currency actually amounted to. In his somewhat flawed math, he calculated that a straw basket containing four potatoes cost nearly twenty dollars. Archon Castle must make a killing from the sales of vegetables alone! And here Terry and other others were paying to work there! He’d had just enough time to scoop all the tiny coins into a fabric drawstring bag when the shutter in front of him slammed down. The faded red paint on it read, “Closed for Lunch”.

Terry backed away and gawked around, his heart racing. He had a purse full of coins, and was just one boy of dozens wearing these stupid scratchy breeches. Eyeing a family of tourists, he realized there wasn’t any way of telling who was a neophyte and who was a tourist. Now he was glad he’d kept to himself, especially around his superiors at Archon Castle; he was invisible to them. This could be his one chance to take off.

Not for a second did he consider whether this was a good idea or not. He slipped around a sandstone building that looked like an old courthouse, and looked up and down the wide dirt road in each direction. He was smack in the middle of town. Beyond blocks of storefronts in each direction were empty fields and then woods. Finding his way back to the main road shouldn’t be too hard. Keeping in the shade, he peeked once more in the direction of the market stalls. Nobody was looking his way—not the Adepts, not the boys he’d ridden in with, not even Katya. Katya was glued to Stevenus’s side, laughing about something, her beautiful face lit up like a ….

At the crack of dawn and to a chorus of crowing roosters, Ms. Huston led everyone outside. The surrounding buildings appeared ghostly under a pale mauve sky. Terry shuffled across the cobblestone square into a lane that ran between the dining hall and a long, low building. Inside were several stalls containing a wash basin beneath a rusting, dripping faucet, a marble-hard bar of soap, and a bristly scrub brush. Shivering and miserable, Terry quickly washed himself in the freezing water. If he were still home, he’d be having a nice hot shower right about now. Actually, he’d still be sleeping for the next several hours first.

He put on a fresh robe over top of his jeans and t-shirt, and stumbled back outside. The sun was just rising above the outer walls, piercing his tired eyes. Tendrils of mist swirled up from the dewy cobblestones. There was a strange stillness in the air, sounds of bustling activity far off like in a dream. Distant shouts, iron clinking on iron, trotting hooves, wagons clattering and wood being sawn filled him with an eerie sensation that he’d been transported hundreds of years into the past. In his half-asleep fugue, he followed the other neophytes into the main dining hall.

After a quick breakfast of tea, scrambled eggs and soggy toast, they were sent into the forest beyond the walls of the castle to learn more about the fire and earth elements. In other words, they were to chop and haul firewood. Terry and Pudding Bowl were paired to the same the travois, which they loaded with segments of logs that had been chopped by another group of neophytes. As he helped drag the travois along a dirt trail towards a side gate, Terry added the area to his mental map. This part of the forest was northwest of where they’d originally come in. The castle grounds had four gates, one for each of the cardinal points. The main entrance faced south and was much grander than the western gate they were heading to now. The plain wooden drawbridge was flanked by conical watchtowers. Terry spotted two black-robed patrols inside each tower. These beings were larger than the ones he’d seen in the dining hall, though otherwise similar. The way they paced while keeping sentry made him think of lions on the prowl for a meal.

Katya, who was just ahead of them, stopped her wheelbarrow at the edge of the moat. Hers was filled with smaller branches tied into neat bundles with twine. Once enough neophytes had assembled, a guard began lowering the drawbridge. He or she had a beaky nose, beady eyes and long, sinewy fingers that looked as if they could snap Terry’s neck as easily as a dry twig.

“What do you suppose air will consist of?” Katya rubbed her sleeve across her glistening forehead. Terry didn’t answer. All he wanted to do was get through the day, eat, and then sleep.

“I just hope this is all part of the initiation process and we get to learn real magic soon,” Pudding Bowl said. “I saw a flying carpet in my brochure—I always wanted to ride on one!”

“Me too,” Terry sighed, only half paying attention to them. His eyes were fixed on a littler guard clambering up into a wooden booth next to the gate. Either the booth hadn’t been there seconds earlier or, more likely, he hadn’t noticed it before. Although it was fairly high up, he was sure he spotted footholds on the walls of each side of the moat. The being moved with the speed and agility of a monkey and he still hadn’t figured out what they were, exactly.

Terry, Pudding Bowl, Katya, and five other pairs of neophytes dragged their loads across the drawbridge, and through a quadrangle towards a woodshed. They waited while another group unloaded the wood and piled it alongside the shed. Afterwards they hauled the empty travois and carts back into the forest. Already Terry dreamt of escape. Archon castle felt more like a gulag than a summer camp.

All morning while they trundled back and forth between the castle and the clearing where some trees had been felled, Terry matched the lay of the land with what he’d noted from his parent’s SUV on the way in. Farther to the west lay a mountain much higher than the rest. He remembered seeing the volcano-like peak from the highway. After that was the whistle-stop town where they’d eaten lunch. They’d crossed a bridge over a deep ravine at some point, though, and the main way into Archon Castle grounds was guarded with security cameras concealed among the trees. The entire property was surrounded by a second high wall, something he’d forgotten about in his initial excitement. Deep in his heart he knew he just had to stick it out. There was no escaping here.

“ENOUGH DAYDREAMING GET A MOVE ON!”

Terry gasped, his eyes searching through the surrounding pine and maple trees for Martin the Magnificent. He felt a terror similar to if a giant grizzly bear had just reared up in front of him. None of the other neophytes were standing at attention, which meant the voice must have been delivered to his ears only. Could Martin be watching them from somewhere? He shuddered, and continued loading logs onto the travois.

By the time lunch rolled round, Terry barely had energy to eat. Worse, lunch was leftover stew and yesterday’s bread. Katya was right, he feared. However having to do the cleaning up afterwards was preferable to going out to haul logs again, so he ignored her grumbling. Supper was the same: more leftovers. Yet the dining hall was filled with the scents of roast chicken and fresh corn, so obviously some people in Archon Castle were going to be eating well tonight.

Terry grinned, his heart practically soaring up into the vaulted ceiling. The dining hall was exactly how he’d imagined. Weaponry and ancient tapestries of glorious battle scenes hung on the whitewashed walls. Above, iron chandeliers holding massive white candles hung on thick chains from the massive beams. It was as if he’d walked straight into a George Martin novel. Everyone seated on long wooden benches flanking the trestle tables gave the room a festive atmosphere that reminded him of being at a giant picnic. As he ambled around in search of somewhere to sit, he could practically smell mead and roast boar.

Katya sat alone beneath a tapestry of some man getting a sword thrust into his chest. She flashed him a nervous smile, which he took as a welcome to join her. At the other end of the dining hall, he spotted Stevenus The Chosen One taking a seat across from the same four mean girls. “I went to sit with them and they told me to go away,” Katya whispered bitterly. “They were saving the seat for him.”

“I’m sorry.” Terry reached his hand out to touch hers, but pulled back before their fingers made contact. If his dad or mum were here, they’d be telling him to go sit with the Chosen One and the mean girls, and try making friends with them.

Katya hunched her shoulders. “It’s okay. My mum says they’re all fat with three kids, a cheating husband, and a boring office job by the time they get to her age.”

He chuckled. His own mum was how he’d always imagined mean girls turned out, until one day when his Gran showed him old school photos of her with braces, thick glasses and a woolly perm. All the popular jocks in her class had since turned out to be balding underemployed losers who installed drywall for cash. Stevenus, Terry suspected, would win at life regardless. The easy charm the blond Adonis showed to the four girls watching him tell a story would serve him well in any situation.

“He’s really gorgeous,” Katya mumbled, gazing wistfully at him and deaf to Terry’s sigh. Not that he was interested in her, either, but did she have to make it so obvious?

“Hi!” The boy with the pudding bowl haircut took a spot on the bench across the table from Terry. Perfect, just perfect. So much for forming a semi-decent first impression around the more popular kids. The boy stretched out his hand. “I’m Pudding Bowl!”

Terry glanced sideways at Katya, who’d taken to studying the tapestry on the wall as if she had to memorise every detail for a quiz.

“That’s … your name?” Terry asked, shaking his hand limply.

“Nah, but I hear kids mumble it often enough that I figured I’d own it.” He sat, grinning a grin of tiny teeth. Since none were missing, Terry guessed he was somewhere around his own age, just unusually small. He hadn’t yet figured out whether the boy was “special” or just had a very strange sense of humour.

“What’s your actual name?” Terry asked. The boy scowled and shook his head violently from side to side. Perfect, he was being befriended by a nut-job. He already didn’t like Stevenus, but he could see why the others were crowding around him.

“No one gets my real name—it’s dangerous!” Pudding Bowl clutched Terry’s shoulder for balance as he leaned across the table. He dropped his voice to nearly a whisper. “People can curse you if they know your real name!” He sat back down, folded his arms, and nodded sagely.

Terry was still trying to figure out some way to respond when everyone stopped talking. A tall set of wooden doors at one end of the hall flew open. Martin the Magnificent came in through the archway. If tension were measured in decibels, the speakers had just blown. He wore a glimmering burgundy robe and carried a gold scepter in his hand. It was topped with a crystal globe that scattered the candlelight like a disco ball. His voice carried loud and clear to Terry’s ears: “Welcome to your first meal at Archon Castle, where you will be sampling the outcome of today’s alchemical processes. It is here that miracles happen. Proceed.”

Martin the Magnificent whirled back out, the doors shuddering closed behind him. Seconds later on the opposite side of the room, the doors from the kitchens burst open. The tiny black-robed people—swarms of them—came out and laid down platters of roast beef and chicken, cauldrons of stew and soup, plates piled high with baby potatoes and corn-on-the-cob, baskets of fresh bread, then bowls of salad and fruit all along the length of each table.

Terry eagerly watched the platters being set down in front of him, so many delicious smells mingling together. They were going to eat what they'd spent the past several hours preparing. Take that, Katya! He helped himself to beef and barley stew, a slab of steaming pumpernickel bread, a thick slice of roast beef, gravy, two cobs of corn, roast potatoes, and a chicken breast. He even braved a piece of broccoli and some green beans.

“I can’t believe we’re getting to eat all this!” Katya stared wide-eyed at the steaming dishes.

Terry couldn’t understand why she needed to say every thought aloud, especially since every other person in earshot was probably thinking the exact same thing. Thankfully that was all she said and they tucked in. For the first while, the only sounds were cutlery clattering on plates, smacking lips, and the odd whisper to pass something along. In no time he was helping himself to seconds, then thirds. In his exhaustion from today’s labour, he hadn’t realised how starving he was.

While trimming a rind of fat from his roast beef, he watched a dozen or so neophytes near Stevenus whispering excitedly. Stevenus lifted his fork and knife into the air, clicked them together, and uttered something Terry couldn't hear. Going by the way his lips were moving, it was around seven or eight syllables.

"Ooh, now I don't have to pick at the bones," a blonde girl squealed.

"Can you do that for me, too?" a darker girl asked.

"Show off." Pudding Bowl tapped Terry’s hand. "Watch," he said, his brows knitted over the indented bridge of his turned-up nose. He'd loaded some peas into his spoon and he aimed his mini catapult straight at The Chosen One. He sent them soaring. Like military planes in formation, the five peas split apart, bopping Stevenus and each of the girls on the head.

"Ow!" said one of the blonde girls, though a pea couldn't possibly have hurt her.

Terry shrunk in his seat; all five glowered straight at him. Pudding Bowl crammed his hands under his thighs and was staring at his plate as if it was the first time he'd ever encountered a chicken leg and was expected to dissect it for science class.

"YOU," Steven Stevenus said, rising from the bench. Everyone in the dining hall turned to stare at Terry. He wanted to blurt out that it wasn’t his fault, but found himself frozen in fear. "Have absolutely fantastic aim. I am impressed."

"Thank you," Pudding Bowl said, bowing his head. Terry wavered between joining in the laughter and throttling the boy’s skinny neck.

"However, I recommend your future targets be directed elsewhere, hm? I'm not someone you wish to cross," Stevenus said with the grace of a king.

"Yes sir." The boy nodded like his head was on springs.

"Absolutely," Terry said, suspecting in Stevenus's eyes he was guilty by proximity.

Before sitting again, Stevenus smiled at Katya. She blushed and turned her face down.

"Why are girls always like that?" Pudding bowl whispered to Terry, who threw up his hands in frustration. There were nearly a hundred boys in the room and all the girls were pining after the exact same one. To take his mind off of it, he snagged the last piece of chicken breast on the platter between them, and the second last bread roll.

By the time Terry was done eating, he was ready to pass out for weeks. His stomach felt as if it were about to explode into his throat. The little people in black robes cleared the plates away and he gazed around at the other similarly over-sated neophytes. A smirk spread on his lips as he watched two of the mean girls surreptitiously unbuttoning waistbands underneath their robes. His sister always did that, and he found himself missing her, of all people. He never thought he would.

After supper, they were reacquainted with their lessons on the elements of water and earth via washing up the dishes and cutlery and cooking pots, then mopping all the floors.

By the time they reached their bundles of straw in the stable, most of them were too tired to talk or do anything apart from lie down. Miss Huston told them they were to rise at dawn and meet in the courtyard next to the keep. She switched the lights off and left. Terry lay on his back, sinking in and out of consciousness as if he were floating on ocean waves.

“Hey! Psst!” Katya hissed.

He rolled onto his side to face her. Now that he’d roused, every muscle in his body ached. What he would give right now to be sinking into the hot tub on his parent’s deck right about now.

“Don’t you find it odd we were allowed to eat all that food tonight? It must have cost them a fortune!”

Terry widened his eyes and hunched his shoulders exaggeratedly so she’d be able to see his reaction even in the faint starlight coming in through the high, barred windows.

“I’ll bet we only get to eat like this once and maybe some other time at random,” she whispered, “so that we don’t think to pull pranks or slip poison into any of it.”

“Why would anyone do that?” he asked, his voice husky from trying to keep it down. What a dreadful thought.

“Watch.” With that, she flopped onto her stomach and faced away from him.

After they were done watering the vegetable garden, everyone trudged back to their sleeping quarters for a rest. Terry curled up on top of his burlap blankets and closed his eyes. Muscles he never knew existed ached and throbbed. While all modern devices and gadgets were strictly forbidden in keeping with the historic atmosphere of Archon Castle, surely a garden hose wasn’t that recent an invention. Even better would be a nice, hot bath he could soak in. Baths had been around since Roman times.

“My arms are killing me.” Katya groaned on the bed next to his. She lay on her side facing him, hugging her knees to her chest. She’d arranged all her clothes underneath her body to provide as much cushioning as she could. “And my back. And my feet.”

“Mine too,” he said. She smiled. He did too.

For the next hour everyone lay quietly moaning or snoring. Terry only realised he’d dozed off when he bolted upright to the sound of bells clanging from somewhere outside in the courtyard. Katya propped herself up and rubbed sleep from her eyes. “What are we supposed to do now?”

Before Terry could answer, Ms. Huston appeared at the entrance. “Everyone, follow me!” She turned and disappeared up the corridor. Everyone stumbled after her through the stables and back outside. They headed in a different direction this time, though Terry was too drowsy to take in much of his surroundings. All these courtyards and squares were beginning to look the same. To orient himself, he looked up. They were now on the far side of that same imposing keep. The sky had darkened and clouds were roiling in from the north. It looked as if it was about to rain any minute.

“Look.” Katya elbowed Terry and pointed up at the clouds. “What a waste of effort!”

“I know,” he sighed, wondering if she was going to spend the entire summer pointing out the obvious to him.

Everyone quieted as Martin the Magnificent strode towards them from an elegant limestone building that reminded Terry of the academic halls in Oxford. Or had that been Cambridge? Last summer he’d gone to visit distant relatives all over England and the trip was already a distant memory.

“AS YOU CAN SEE,” Martin the Magnificent said, pointing up to the louring sky, “MAGIC WORKS. WE HAVE SUCCESSFULLY APPLIED THE HERMETIC PRINCIPLE OF ‘AS ABOVE, SO BELOW’.”

From somewhere to his left Terry heard a sound somewhere between a sneeze and a swearword. Martin’s eyes flashed in that direction. “DO YOU DOUBT THE VALUE OF YOUR FIRST LESSON HERE?”

Terry saw the boy with the pudding bowl haircut shaking like a tuning fork that had just been struck. People don’t normally ... vibrate like that. “N-no sir,” the small voice responded.

“GOOD.”

The boy was still again. Terry watched Martin the Magnificent pace in a large circle around the courtyard, his footsteps making the only sound in the place. Terry didn’t even dare breathe.

“And now. Your next lesson involves manipulating the elements of fire and earth.” Martin’s voice was a more normal volume now, with the wind carrying it in such a way that it sounded to Terry as if he were standing right next to him. Terry saw everyone else perk up and he gathered they’d experienced the same thing.

“This way.” Martin the Magnificent led them along another alleyway past one of the larger buildings. Dense wood smoke hung in the air. It was only their first day, Terry kept reminding himself, they’ll be learning actual magic soon enough. Maybe this was another test to sort the weak from the strong, similar to his first impression of the keep being a pile of timbers and rock about to cave in on itself.

They came into a smaller courtyard surrounded by low, rambling buildings made from weathered wood and topped with corrugated metal roofs. In each direction Terry noted the various laneways leading off. He began forming a map of the area in his head. Whenever he went to a new town or shopping center or even a very large house, he tried to visualise as much of the layout as possible so he could know where he was at all times. And get out quickly if he had to. His parents insisted he’d never been in a house fire, mass shooting, or significant earthquake in his life, but his instinct to always know the fastest way out was a strong one.

Once the remaining stragglers had joined them, Martin the Magnificent continued: “Fire and earth are the remaining elements you will learn today, and their interactions with water and air. You will split into four groups—one for combining fire and air, a second for fire and earth, a third for air and water, and the remainder for fire and water. All of you in turn will have a chance with each.”

That sounded more exciting than watering plants. Anything involving fire had to be good. Terry watched four Adepts join Martin’s side. He, Katya and several dozen others were corralled into an alleyway on their right, towards the cavernous entrance of a building next to the keep. A smell similar to freshly paved roads wafted out. If Terry was right, they were now on the far side of the set of low rambling buildings housing the kitchens.

They descended a set of stone stairs and headed down into a long passageway. The floor was dirt, impacted to the hardness of concrete. Arched wooden doors flanked each side. Shafts of light came in from above, illuminating their path in a dull orange glow. Terry looked up and realised they were beneath yet another passageway lit with sconces. Most of their way the ceiling was stone, but every few paces he spotted a square of metal grating similar to the ventilation shafts in city subway systems.

Farther along, a wagon blocked their path. Everyone halted and watched the Adapt fumble with a ring of iron keys. He was an older-looking man, with a mess of greyish white hair poking out from the hood of his red cloak. So far he hadn’t said a word to them. He pushed a heavy wooden door open. He raised his palm up to them, signalling for everyone to back out of the way. He hauled two more wagons out into the corridor and lay a square shovel on top of each.

“Your current lesson,” he said in a voice that slithered into their ears, “involves the separation of fire from earth.”

Terry covered his nose with his sleeve. The asphalt smell was overpowering now.

“Here.” The Adept handed a shovel to Katya, took her arm, and led her through the door he’d just unlocked. Their next task was obvious: they were going to be shovelling coal onto the wagons.

Katya and three other boys dutifully filled the wagons while Terry and the rest dragged them along the stone corridor into a large kitchen. This room was massive, with a dirt floor and cavernous fireplaces along the far wall. Inside of each fireplace were large iron cauldrons, the only witch-like object Terry had seen so far. In front of the fireplaces, he eyed rows of long wooden counters piled with onions, potatoes, fruit, bowls of rising dough and slabs of meat. His stomach rumbled at the sight and smells of all that food. He did his best to tune out Katya’s ramblings about climate change and the environment in order to immerse himself in their surroundings. This was how people had prepared their meals for centuries. He still found it hard to believe he was inside a real, functioning castle, where people seemed to live just as his ancestors had hundreds of years ago.

While dumping his load of coal into a bin by the fires, Terry watched the neophytes at the counters with mild curiosity. This was where they’d be working next, he guessed.

He was right. They hauled coal, fed fires, chopped vegetables, stirred cauldrons, and removed feathers from chicken carcasses. Terry didn’t actually mind the work, even the chickens, though he stayed out of the pranks where some of the kids held them up and moved their limbs around as if the creatures were still alive. Terry laughed while Katya glared stonily in disapproval. She also complained about everything and he found she was beginning to drag him down too. While they shucked corn cobs she said, “What do you bet we don’t even get to taste any of this.”

He shrugged. They were competing to become Initiates. From what he remembered of his dad’s college stories, initiation always involved something extremely unpleasant the first day. “At least they haven’t made us prepare any gruel.” So far, he added to himself.

“They’ll probably serve it cold. Or we’ll have to take turns serving it cold to each other.”

She’d just finished her sentence when a dozen kids around age seven or eight streamed into the kitchen from the various corridors. With long fingers like sharpened sticks, they began herding all the neophytes up a wide staircase. Terry’s heart leapt into his throat when he realised they weren’t kids after all—they had the mature, craggy faces of people who were fully grown! They didn’t quite look like regular people either, besides being so small. Their bodies under their black robes were long-limbed and sinewy, and their skin appeared to have the texture of wood covered in flour. The colour of their flesh changed depending on angle of light; at one moment ghostly white, then a ruddy dark brown that was almost iridescent.

Everyone assembled in the courtyard. The sun blazed down on them, their light blue robes shimmering like a tropical sea. Every neophyte now looked more or less the same and Terry knew there was nothing to make him stand out. He was only a little taller than average height. Brownish-black hair, blue eyes that weren't too far apart or too close together, straight but not perfect teeth. Girls were starting to pay attention to him, not that he had a clue how to respond. He watched the Adepts themselves like a row of poppies along the base of the giant rectangular tower.

"ALL RIGHT, LISTEN UP," a voice boomed. The Adept that stepped forward was taller than the others, with aristocratic cheekbones and a knife-sharp nose. His dark hair was combed back from the widow’s peak on his domed forehead. His burgundy robe’s ornate gold trim shimmered around the edges of the sleeves, the hood, and along the bottom hem. "I AM MARTIN THE MAGNIFICENT. WIZARD ADEPT OF THE NINE SEAS AND MASTER ADEPT OF THE SEVEN MOUNTAINS."

Everyone grumbled in response with various hellos and nice to meet yous.

"OUR FIRST ORDER OF DUTY IS TO TEACH YOU THE FOUR ELEMENTS. THESE ARE THE BUILDING BLOCKS OF ALCHEMY. CAN ANYONE TELL ME WHAT THESE FOUR ELEMENTS ARE."

Somewhere to the right of Terry, a small hand shot up into the air.

"YES."

"Earth, water, air, and fire," the boy said, lifting up proudly on his toes. It was the boy with the pudding bowl haircut, of course.

"GOOD. TODAY YOU WILL BE LEARNING TO MANIPULATE TWO OF THESE ELEMENTS. COME. THIS WAY." Martin the Magnificent turned and began striding across the square.

Everyone followed him confusedly like a flock of chicks behind their mother hen as he headed around the side of a shorter square tower. They went down a long narrow alleyway, through twisting lanes that made Terry think of a medieval village minus the effluent being tossed out of overhanging windows. They came out into another, much larger courtyard. As they marched across it, Terry made note of a sprawling low-lying building to his right. Steps led down into what he guessed was a kitchen. Steam wafted out along with the scents of baking bread. To his left, the area was surrounded by two-story buildings with leaded glass windows. Green and blue lights sparked beyond the darkened panes, and he hoped the Adept was taking them into a workshop.

To his disappointment, Martin led them straight past this building, around the corner, and into an open area at the edge of the castle grounds. A giant stone well with a peaked roof of cedar shingles sat in the middle of a yard paved in cobblestones. Wooden buckets lay all around, some of them on their sides and rocking gently in the wind. Piled against the wall of an imposing building on their left were dozens of rusted watering cans. Beyond that building was an enormous garden. Assorted plants stuck out of the dirt in long neat rows, roping up wooden stakes, tendrils stretching into the sky. The area was roughly the size of a football pitch and surrounded by neatly pruned fruit trees. At this time of day, the entire area was in full sun.

Martin the Magnificent traced a symbol in the air with his finger. "ONLY WHEN WATER MEETS EARTH CAN LIFE FLOURISH. YOUR TASK FOR TODAY IS TO FUSE THESE TWO ELEMENTS TOGETHER."

He held one of the buckets up high for all to see like the head of an enemy soldier he’d just decapitated and strode to the circular stone well. He attached the handle of the bucket to a hook and turned the crank, easing it down. After a minute or so, Terry thought he could hear a faint splash. Martin the Magnificent signalled for the nearest blue-robed neophyte to take the handle and crank it the other way.

Although she was quite tall, she was very slight. Her black pony tail looked thicker than her spindly brown wrists. It took several minutes of the girl forcing the crank with both hands to hoist the up out of the well. Martin summoned the boy with the pudding bowl haircut and had him remove the bucket from the hook and haul it to the ground.

" TAKE THE BUCKET TO THOSE WATERING CANS AND FILL THEM. FROM THERE, TAKE THE WATERING CANS AND WATER THE GARDEN, STARTING AT THE FAR END BY THE OUTER WALL."

Groans rose from the neophytes, sounding like two hundred wooden doors creaking open. The red-cloaked Adepts herded them towards the well like wayward sheep in glossy blue, handing the taller ones buckets and sending the others scrambling to the pile of watering cans. Terry found a metal can that was less patchy with rust than the others, and without too many holes near the bottom.

"I'll not stand for this," said a stern male voice behind him. He turned to see a blond neophyte of around seventeen standing next to the pile of watering cans. He had angular features of the sort favoured on the covers of his mum's Romance novels. His muscled arms were folded defiantly across his chest. He gave one of the buckets a hard kick. It dribbled across the cobblestones, landing with a spin at Martin the Magnificent's feet.

Martin’s angry expression was tempered by the boy's impressively accurate kick from fifty feet away. "IS THERE A PROBLEM."

"I am Stevenus Steven-Svenborn and my great-great-great-grandfather," the lad said in a voice not quite as loud but definitely amplified by some sort of spell, "was Ascended Wizard Master of the Nine Seas, Seven Mountains AND the Eleven Realms. My great-great-grandmother is from the distinguished Lilith coven of Witches and Sorcer–”

"THEN YOU ARE ON CRANK DUTY," Martin the Magnificent said.

"I AM A CHOSEN ONE!" Stevenus’s booming voice caused a nearby grove of fruit trees to shudder. Cherries thudded to the ground like hailstones.

Everyone, including Terry, stopped what they were doing as if they'd been bathed in liquid nitrogen and frozen into place. One knock and they'd shatter into splinters. Terry looked to his left and even the bullies and mean girls were statue-still.

“Did you hear me?” Stevenus asked in a far quieter voice, though no less imperious.

“And it is your Destiny to pass through the ranks same as everyone else,” Martin said. “If you are a Chosen One, then it should be that much easier for you. NOW GET TO WORK.”

Martin's robe swirled like wine being poured into a decanter as he wheeled around and strode back up the alleyway. Terry gulped. His heart was racing like it was powered by a turbo engine. He couldn’t believe how insolently Stevenus had just confronted one of the Order of Nine. Either he was incredibly brave, extremely stupid, or he was untouchable and knew it. If Terry was going to secure his own place as one of three Initiates, he better find out which.

He held his bucket steady as water sluiced into it. Some of it splashed onto his hands, feeling wonderfully cool. He let the neophyte fill it only three-quarters of the way up, figuring completely full buckets were heavier and harder to pour from. The watering can seemed fairly light the first dozen or so trips, but grew more cumbersome each time he hauled it along the row to where he’d last watered. Since he’d started at the far end by the wall as instructed his trip grew shorter each time, but it still felt longer.

Terry trudged up the gravel path, already dreading Archon Castle was not going to live up to the promotional material. The ravens and vultures, perched like Halloween ornaments on a sprawling oak tree, looked embarrassingly fake. Bald patches of black plastic gleamed between the glued-on feathers. He should have figured. His parents had warned him. At fifteen, he was no longer a child. It was stupid to believe magic existed outside of camera tricks and CGI. Yet he held onto a fraying thread of hope, the same way he had with Santa Claus each Christmas until he was nearly in middle school.

A caw loud as a falcon’s screech startled him. He stopped at the edge of the trail and gawked up. The blackbirds had come alive. They fluttered their wings, still looking a bit mangy. They stared down at him as if they were sizing up their next meal. Terry continued walking, more slowly now, and glancing over his shoulder at each odd sound in the woods. None of the other hundred-odd kids traipsing along the same trail appeared at all spooked. They all had eager expressions on their faces, eyes wide as if they’d never seen trees in their wild habitat before.

The stone walls of the castle came into view above the canopy of evergreen trees. Terry felt his breath sucking deep into his lungs at the imposing sight. Archon Castle sat atop a black, craggy cliff, menacing and ancient. Clouds had gathered overhead. Mist swirled around. He came around a bend and trail ended at a drawbridge flanked by a pair of watchtowers. The top of a turret beyond had crumbled as if a bad-tempered giant had kicked at it. Even after studying countless pictures online, Terry still found it hard to believe such a castle existed in West Virginia of all places. It looked as though it belonged off the coast of Ireland or had come from another realm.

A large boy bumped against Terry. Terry did his best to ignore him as he bumped against him a second time. Probably Chad. Terry’d noticed him in the parking lot earlier, picking a fight with an Asian boy until his dad called him away. Again he found himself staring at the castle, filled with an uncanny sensation he was being drawn into another time and place. The walls looked so ancient. Rock had crumbled away from the narrow arrow slits. Most of the tiles on top of the watchtowers were cracked or missing. The wooden timbers used for the drawbridge must be over a thousand years old. The trail turned sharply and descended again. The castle was no longer in their view.

“Hey. You.”

Sweat trickled down Terry’s spine as he braved a glance. Chad’s eyes were locked on someone else thankfully, a small blond boy with a bad haircut. Terry froze, unsure what to do. He wasn’t one to take on bullies, but this kid was half Chad's size. Terry's hands curled into fists. His fingers flexed. He used to be the little guy everyone had picked on but he’d grown quite a bit since the seventh grade. Chad wasn’t that big; he could take him. Terry had fantasized, repeatedly, of exactly this scenario where he’d seize the bully by his shoulder, force him around, and land a hard boxer’s punch to knock him out cold.

Paralyzed with indecision, he watched Chad grab onto the boy’s yellow tennis shirt and pull it over his head. The boy went to head-butt him, missed, and plowed into a red-haired girl. Enraged, she let out a shriek and tore at both of them, her fingers like bared claws. Terry ducked away from the melee and stood on the grass verge. He was about to pull Chad off the boy when a man in long black robes fluttered up to them.

“ENOUGH!” the man roared, grabbing Chad by the scruff of his hoodie. “Any more of this and you won’t be wondering whether this castle has a dungeon.”

Chad went pale. His body quivered. Eyes bugged out, he stammered, “Y-y-yeah. S-suh-sir.”

The blond boy pulled his yellow shirt back down, smoothed his hair, and gulped as if he were staring into the face of Death. “I’m sorry mister.”

The scuffle was over. Terry’s chance at a moment of glory had passed. Disappointed and yet also relieved, he secured the strap of his backpack against his shoulder and got back on the gravel trail. The man in black was gone as quickly as he’d appeared. Chad and some of the others craned their heads around, brows furrowed, until someone pointed out a shadow slinking through the trees. The tall dark figure was moving way too fast and smoothly for it to be a person running. Terry's skin flushed with excitement––the man was flying! He was only a foot or two off the ground, but still, he was skimming into the woods like a hovercraft.

The trail veered upward again. Terry wondered if they were ever going to reach the gates. The last he’d glimpsed, the castle had looked so close and now he could see nothing again but pine and fir trees.

“Oh my God, this is Archon Castle?” a girl’s dismayed voice cried somewhere up ahead. “What a dump!”

Terry caught up with her at the top of the hill and stared ahead, dismayed. She wasn’t kidding. To say this castle was in disrepair was like saying a bombed-out ruin just needed a little fixing up. The entire western wall had crumbled to rubble. The castle still looked as if it had been built much earlier than the mid-1800s, and had been under siege for most of it.

He gulped and eyed the sagging roof of the keep. He’d seen abandoned farmhouses in better condition. The gatehouse was even more dilapidated. The tower on the left had partially collapsed. The timbers keeping the tower on the right propped up looked about as sturdy as twigs for a hermit shack. A sewer-like stench wafted into his nostrils. The stink was coming from the swampy, algae-filled moat.

“May I have your attention!” a surly voice called. Different from the one who’d broken up that fight. Everyone huddled together, keeping their distance from the figure in front of the gatehouse. He also wore a black cloak, his face hidden in the shadows of his hood. His arms were raised up high so that he formed the shape of a cross. He looked more like the figure of Death than a wizard. All he was missing was a scythe. “Once you have passed onto the grounds of Archon castle, you will be unable to leave before summer end. I strongly advise anyone wishing to turn back, to do so now.”

A boy on Terry’s left raised his hand.

“Yes?”

The boy gulped, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. “Do we get a refund, sir?”

“NO.”

Terry was torn. All his life he’d dreamt of becoming a wizard. Yet his parents were practical people, who stressed the importance of having a backup plan no matter what dreams you aspired to. Although not quite ready to let go of his childish fantasies, he did have an alternative career in mind. He’d be a journalist. That way if he failed at becoming a wizard this summer, he’d have a good story to write about. His Uncle Pete said the boilerplate non-disclosure form Terry’d had to sign was bull-puckey. If he turned back now, he’d have nothing. He watched Chad whisper to the one asking about the refund.

More loudly Chad said, “Only welfare cases think ten grand is a lot of money. Let’s blow this joint!” Chad patted the boy’s shoulder and the two of them began jogging back down the trail. It figured, bullies were always the biggest wimps. Another two dozen or so followed.

“Good riddance,” a dark haired girl whispered in a singsong voice to no one in particular. “The fewer people who go inside, the higher my own chance of becoming an initiate.”

She had a point. She began striding forward and Terry followed her onto the drawbridge. A sharp, cracking sound sent stabs of terror into his chest as a plank gave way beneath his foot. He stumbled onto a sturdier plank, and stayed put until his heart was no longer pounding against his rib-cage. He looked down. Through a gap between two rotting planks, he could see rusted spikes jutting out of the algae below. He also caught sight of an odd ripple on the surface near a patch of lily pads.

“Oh my, that was close,” the girl said. She, too, was staring down at the spikes. She looked up at Terry, wide-eyed. She grinned, her face flushed with excitement. “We nearly died!”

“Um, yes,” he said for the sake of saying something. He looked up, and immediately regretted doing so. The bottom of the portcullis suspended in the archway he was passing under had spikes like iron teeth about to chomp down on them.

“What are those holes up there?” She pointed at a series of charred holes in the ceiling, each about a foot in diameter.

“Murder holes,” Terry answered. “If invaders managed to storm the gates, soldiers would pour cauldrons of boiling oil onto them.”

“What a way to go!” She made sure to avoid walking directly under any large holes the rest of the way. So did Terry. Archon Castle was definitely creepy—it felt creepy—and not in a good way like a haunted house theme park, but in a bad way like a car following at a walking pace just a few feet behind.

The girl continued along, testing her weight on each plank before stepping onto it fully. Terry followed right behind her. Being heavier, he had to be even more careful going across. He’s already had one break from under him. He glanced over his shoulder and figured they were halfway along. Several had already given and were heading back up the trail.

Terry was tempted to join them. But this might be his only chance to learn any form of magic, the only place that mysterious online message had said it existed. Real magic was supposed to be scary. In the material that had accompanied his application forms, the first line explicitly stated that this camp was not for the faint of heart. And, according to Uncle Pete, the waivers his parents had had to sign assuring Archon Castle LLC that Terry was in good health, were ironclad.

He edged forward, tensing with each step and then breathing a sigh of relief as the boards held. Rusty chains creaked. The drawbridge shuddered beneath his feet. Behind him, a voice called, “Get a move on!” They were raising the bridge already! Terry leapt along the firmest looking planks until he was safely on solid ground again. Others pressed against him as they were herded into a courtyard. The drawbridge was rising more quickly now. He watched at least two dozen kids clamber back over it with the desperation of last-minute Christmas shoppers. Fighting the urge to follow them, he reminded himself that the more people who chickened out, the fewer he’d have to compete with.

The drawbridge closed with a thud. The ground shook like a small earthquake. He even felt that same queer liquid sensation under his feet that he'd experienced back home in California a few times.

Dreading whatever he’d just gotten himself into, he turned to face the castle. And gasped. He blinked, rubbed his eyes, and gawked around in amazement. The surrounding buildings now looked as though they’d been created for a theme park they were in such good condition! The massive rectangular keep stood tall and proud, weathered just enough to assure Terry it was nearly two centuries old. The whitewashed plaster on the rambling Tudor-style buildings to his left gleamed in the noonday sun. The earlier decrepitude must have been an illusion to frighten away the weak-willed. Pride swelled him at the thought he may have passed his first test, though it deflated just as quickly.

“Form a line side by side!” a deep voice barked. A hand gripped Terry’s shoulder, icy through the thick fabric of his t-shirt. The man was an Adept, dressed in a crimson silk robe with gold stars embossed along the hem. A shadow fell over Terry and cool, slippery fabric slid down over his head and arms. He was then jerked around and shoved next to a girl in a light blue robe. The same dark-haired girl who’d been in front of him as they crossed the drawbridge. Terry looked down to see he was now wearing a similar robe.

“Why does it have to be blue?” she mumbled, bunching the fabric in her fists. On her feet she wore a pair of pink and white polka dot flip flops. “Blue is a boy’s colour.”

“It doesn’t have to be,” Terry said. “My sister’s favourite colour is a light—”

“QUIET!” the same Adept who’d grabbed his shoulder yelled. “Everyone form a line.”

Terry stood behind the girl. The Adept snatched his shoulders again and made him stand next to her. “A side by side line.”

“Wouldn’t that be a row?” She jerked back as if she’d been slapped across her face, yet the Adept’s hand hadn’t moved anywhere near her. She scowled, rubbed her cheek, and glowered at Terry.

“It wasn’t me.” Terry waited until the Adept was out of earshot. “I think he used his Astral hand on you.” He tried to remember what else he’d read about Astral combat. Everything he’d brushed up on the past few weeks was beginning to blur.

“This place is awfully sexist,” she whispered and Terry nodded. Whenever that word came up he’d been trained from early childhood to nod and say nothing. “I only see ten other girls here. Fifteen at most. Though you did make a good point about blue. Cerulean is a lovely shade. And so is lapis lazuli.”

Already she was getting on his nerves. Hoping she’d take a hint, Terry fixed his gaze at the row of Adepts assembling across from them. They stood at the base of a square stone tower that dwarfed everyone in the courtyard. A portly Master Adept, in a burgundy robe covered in gold and black squiggly marks, stepped forward. He pulled back his hood. He had jowls like a St. Bernard and wisps of white hair sprung from his head in a feathery crown. “Welcome to Wizard Camp,” he said. His voice sounded like a bulldozer with engine trouble. “As you may already be aware, I am Quindalore the Querulous, Learned Master Adept of the Order of Nine.”

An Adept behind Quindalore coughed lightly into his fist. According to Archon Castle’s own website, the Order of Nine was down to seven. The fate of the missing two was unknown. According to a thread on the unofficial Archon Castle forum, one of the Order had ascended into a Being of Pure Light and Energy, while another claimed he’d run off with an underage neophyte. Terry knew what underage implied, but not neophyte, though he assumed it was equally as lurid.

“Presently,” Master Adept Quindalore said, “there are a hundred and six of you joining us today, of which three will be invited to become Initiates. Initiation is the first step on the path to becoming a wizard proper. Sixty-eight of you, so far, turned back at the drawbridge.”

Everyone chuckled uncomfortably like someone had just farted during a funeral speech. Terry glanced around, dismayed. With everyone massed together, he realised how terrible his odds actually were. Roughly two percent. Then again, if everyone was able to grasp the true odds of success in any endeavour, no one would take risks.

Quindalore continued, “During the next two months you will learn basic spell casting, rune reading, dowsing and divining, and, before anyone asks, there will be no handling any wands.”

“Do we get to summon demons?” a voice piped up. A boy around ten or eleven, with a blond pudding bowl haircut, grinned eagerly. The collar of his canary-yellow t-shirt poked from under his blue robe. The boy Chad had been bullying.

“NO!” There wasn’t much force behind Quindalore’s voice, but the volume was deafening.

Terry gulped. He had questions, loads of questions, and decided it would be wiser to let other kids do the asking.

“For the time being you will each be assigned a group number. The Adept in charge of your group will show you to your sleeping quarters. We will meet back here in precisely half an hour for your orienteering session.”

Orienteering session didn’t sound frightening; it was the sort of thing his dad did for a living. But it was the way Quindalore had said it that made the hairs of his arms stand on end.

The poppy-robed Adepts split apart. They each carried an iron cauldron hanging from the crooks of their arms with the ease of an empty picnic basket. Super-human strength would be cool to learn, Terry thought. His parents had bought him a weight set, but he kept forgetting to use them.

The Adepts proceeded to take slips of paper out from their cauldrons, pinning one to each of the blue robes nearest them.

“I wonder how they select us,” the girl next to Terry said. “We’re being assigned different numbers.” She had fine brownish-black hair that went past her shoulders and a nearly perfect profile. He hated when he noticed such things in a girl. Especially ones who got on his nerves.

Leaning close enough for him to smell the strawberry scent of her hair, she rasped, “Matching vibrational energy, do you think? Or maybe they can see auras in broad daylight!”

Terry said nothing. He had no idea what vibrational energy involved and didn’t want her thinking he was stupid. Besides, he doubted there was any deliberate selection process at all. Each adept was speeding through with the efficiency of a factory production line. Once they were done, Terry and the girl looked down, then they looked at each other.

“We’ve been assigned the same number. But it had been different Adepts who had …” She stared off, as if she’d seen the first crack in what she’d always thought was solid ground beneath her feet and was afraid to check if it was widening. Terry didn’t care; he was just happy he’d been assigned a lucky number. Nothing was luckier than seven, surely.

“Number sevens, follow me!” A female adept with close-set eyes signalled to them and marched towards a set of low stone buildings beyond the square tower. A couple of reddish horses with black manes were tied to a post near the side entrance. One of them snorted and stamped its hoof as Terry filed after the other twenty-odd kids into the building. The coolness after the hot noonday sun was refreshing but inside it was damp, dark, and reeked of manure.

They were led past a maze of horse stalls into a large, rectangular room with stone walls and a peaked wood ceiling. Sunlight slanted in through high, small windows, giving the place a subterranean feel. Here the stench of manure wasn't as overpowering, more like a room where people had been smoking cigars the night before and figured opening one window a crack was enough to air the place out. The stink was bearable.

The Adept turned on a switch next to the entrance. Floodlights attached to the wooden beams above flickered as if each of them wanted to keep hitting the snooze button before finally getting up and doing their job of illuminating the room.

“Oh no,” Terry said in a hushed voice as he looked around. Surely their beds weren't going to be ... blankets on top of bales of straw? He already knew he'd be sleeping in far less comfort than he was accustomed to. It wasn’t canopied feather beds he’d been expecting. But he was positive one of the online pictures had showed rows of hammocks, and in another he’d seen cosy little cots similar to ones in his grandfather’s summer cottage. These accommodations were what tourist brochures worldwide described as rustic, looking wonderfully quaint until you got there and discovered half the walls were missing.

He blinked and rubbed his eyes. Unlike after the drawbridge had closed, nothing changed. All the beds consisted of three bales of straw secured together with thick twine. A pair of scratchy-looking burlap blankets lay folded on top of each one. At the foot of each––he was loath to call them beds––was a slab of rough wood. No pillow, no storage box, and what if it got cold at night?

"No pillows?" the girl next to him whined.

The Adept traced a vaguely figure eight symbol in the air with her index finger.

"ALL RIGHT THEN," her voice boomed, shaking the rafters. She traced something else in the air and more quietly said, "One cot per person. Later this afternoon, leftover apple crates will be arriving for you to store your things in."

The same boy who'd asked about Demon summoning went up to her. "Which one's mine?"

"Any of them—just choose one per person," she said in the same irritated tone of voice his sister would use whenever she was waiting for some boy to call her back. “You neophytes get worse every year, I swear.”

A memory sprung up in Terry’s mind like a jack-in-the-box head popping out of its compartment. Of course, a neophyte was the level below Initiate. There were several other ranks above that. Junior Adept, Adept and Senior Adept followed, then onto more complex, important-sounding titles that rivalled those of a large bank or advertising firm.

“What’s your name?” the same boy asked. The pudding bowl haircut made him immune to non-verbal cues that would terrify other kids, Terry reckoned. With hair like that, he’d probably grown a very thick skin. If the school he went to was anywhere like Rosedale High, he’d need it.

“My friends, my parents, and my mentors, call me Natasha,” the Adept said, her shadow growing into that of a giant behind her. “To you, my little worm, I am Miss Huston. Don’t. Wear. It out.”

He quivered away from her.

Everyone else stood frozen like pieces on a chessboard. Seeing his chance at securing the best spot, Terry dodged around to the bundle of straw in the farthest corner. The rest elbowed their ways towards the remaining corners. Guarding his makeshift bed, Terry watched a fight break out on the opposite side of the room. A wiry boy was trying to push a larger boy off the spot he’d staked out. Terry sat to watch. He quite enjoyed fights, so long as he wasn’t involved in one himself.

The bigger boy held the other one away with his rod-straight arm, his body well out of range of the flailing fists. “Get lost, Mark—I was here first!” He ducked, sending Mark pitching forward. Before Mark could recover his balance another boy lunged at him, scrabbling at his shoulder and trying to get him into a choke-hold. Miss Huston waved her arms and the three of them flew apart from each other like exploding shrapnel.

Miss Huston addressed the quarreling boys. Her smile had a lot of teeth for someone with such a small mouth. “There’s nothing in the rules saying the two of you can’t share a bed. We wizards are very enlightened as far as romantic preferences go.”

“It's yours, cry-baby.” Mark gave the smaller boy a shove, then went to the cot in the remaining corner and pushed that kid out from it. Miss Huston watched, but said nothing.

"Miss," the girl with pink flip-flops said, tugging Miss Huston’s sleeve.

"What is it?" She wheeled around and glared at her as if the girl had just smeared mud on her nice crimson robe.

"Where are the girls supposed to go?"

"Wherever! It says dorms are co-ed right in the brochure! We do not assume gender at Archon Castle. We're very progressive here. At sixteen surely you're old enough to have acquired immunity to boy germs."

The girl swallowed and stared around, her gaze passing Terry without a glimmer of expectation. He wasn’t relieved though; he felt sad for her. Four other girls had chosen spots next to each other on the far side of the room from him, and they glared at her in that way girls glare at anyone who Does Not Belong. Mean girls, like his sister and her friends. The place next to Terry was still empty, so he rose and gestured at the spot he’d staked out. How could he not offer it under the circumstances. "You can stay here if you want. I ... I have a sister so ... I’m already used to …"

She kept her head bowed and went to stand on the far side of the one next to his, meeting his chivalric gesture halfway. He tossed his backpack into the corner and sat again.

"I'll leave you to settle in. We will meet back in the courtyard in twenty-five minutes, where you will be given your very first lesson. In alchemy," Miss Huston said, and left.

Terry’s burning excitement at the sound of the word alchemy was doused by the sight of the girl sitting on the edge of the bed next to his, facing away from him and sobbing. Crying was always more painful to watch when all you could see was their back and shoulders shaking uncontrollably, head turned down.

"I’m Terry. What's your name?" he asked softly. Across from them the other girls were snickering and whispering, hands shielding mouths, eyes wild with malice.

She sniffled. "Katya," she said at last.

"That's a nice name," he said, again for the sake of something to say. There wasn't much a bully could do with a name like that. It didn't rhyme with anything nasty like Terry Fairy or hairy Terry. The worst they could do was Fatya, but she was too slim for that to work as an insult.