The thought of my father, the lawyer, who placed a premium on everything being correct and orderly, whipping out a magic wand was frankly laughable.
“Hm, well, it would be odd of him to have kept it from you, and not told you about any of this,” Kelsey said, her brow knitting. “But the tree has never made a single mistake in the entire history of Dragondale.”
“I don’t know what to tell you. I guess I’m just the odd one out.”
“You’re not wrong about that,” Kelsey said, steering us round a corner and up a steep flight of stairs – the fourth, if I’d kept count correctly. “I’ve never heard of Professor Talendale summoning a first year into his office. Not before they’ve had a chance to get into trouble, anyway.”
She looked at me askance, as though she was suddenly worried about being seen with me, and ventured,
“You’re not a troublemaker, are you?”
“Not usually.”
“Good. You do know what happens to druids who are expelled, don’t you?”
I sighed with what little breath I had left by the time we’d crested the stone stairs.
“Kelsey, I hadn’t even heard of Dragondale this morning. How do you think I could possibly know the answer to that?”
“Their magic gets bound.” She stared at me, and when I apparently didn’t look horrified enough, she clarified, “Stripped! Your magic gets stripped and you have to live like a mundane.”
“Terrible,” I said, with mock horror, though my new friend didn’t pick up on the mock part.
“Yes, it would be,” she said with a shudder. “I can’t think of anything worse.”
I stared at her in disbelief for a long moment, deliberating on whether she was completely insane, or if she’d just led a very sheltered life, before I realised we’d stopped walking. We were standing in front of a huge wooden door, which reached halfway to the high ceiling, and was wide enough for four people to enter abreast. The metal hinges were almost the width of my hand, and I could see no visible handle.
“This is it,” she said. “Professor Talendale’s office. I’d best be going. It was nice meeting you, Lyssa.
“You too, Kelsey.”
I raised my hand and knocked once on the door. From within, a voice boomed.
“Come.”
I looked again at the heavy door with no handle and wondered exactly how I was supposed to do that. I was just about to try giving it a shove when it swung inwards of its own volition.
I ventured one foot through the threshold, then hurried the rest of me across lest it swung shut while I was in its way. Doorways were definitely going to be a problem for me here. It might help if they weren’t all triple the size of normal doors and made of enough heavy wood to crush me if they decided I wasn’t magical.
The room was expansive and elegantly furnished, with woven rugs covering some of the stone floor, and the remaining exposed stones were immaculately clean and smooth. Banners hung from the walls: one elemental colour on each side, and in between them were dozens of bookcases, packed with volumes whose names I couldn’t read from here.
In the centre of the room was a large desk made of pale wood, etched with hundreds of intricate carvings. My eyes didn’t linger long, because the man behind the desk rose to his feet, commanding my attention. He was no less impressive up close, nor any less intimidating.
“Ms Eldridge,” Professor Talendale said. “Thank you for coming. I appreciate your punctuality.”
He waved a hand, and a creak sounded from behind me. I spun round in time to see the door ease back into its frame, and a shimmer of green light pass over it and then vanish.
“Please, take a seat,” the headmaster said, gesturing to one of several chairs positioned in front of his desk, carved with the same designs as the monstrous desk itself. I sank into one, feeling like… well, like a kid who’d been summoned to meet the headmaster, I suppose. The fact that these chairs were clearly designed for someone several feet taller than me wasn’t helping. I perched an elbow on the chair’s armrest and tried to find an angle that was comfortable.
The headmaster didn’t take his seat. Instead, he clasped his hands behind his back and started to pace.
“Yours is a most unusual case, Ms Eldridge. As you may know, the Tree of Tilimeuse detects those druids who belong here at Dragondale, as well as their primary element. In your case, it seems it was unable to do the latter.”
He frowned deeply, like that was somehow my fault, which I thought was a bit harsh, considering I’d never even seen the Tree of Tilimeuse. I meant to nod and keep a serious expression, but what I actually did was open my mouth and let the first thought that came to mind escape.
“It was mistaken about me there only being one newgen, too, sir.”
He stopped mid-stride and glared at me.
“The Tree of Tilimeuse is not mistaken. It does not make mistakes.”
“But–” I almost lost my nerve then, with those pale green eyes boring into me. I swallowed my cowardice. “But my dad isn’t a druid, sir. Nor… Nor’s my mum. I mean, they can’t be, they’ve never done magic before.”
I was dangerously close to blabbering, so I clamped my jaw shut. Meanwhile, Professor Talendale’s eyebrows shot right up.
“Not magical, you say?” he muttered. “Impossible, impossible. Unless…”
He placed a palm flat onto his desk, and the carvings started to crawl across the wooden surface, like snakes through grass. I stared in equal parts fascination and horror, until I felt a prickling sensation on my skin and looked down at my chair. The engravings on my seat had started moving, too. I leapt out of it, almost knocking it over in the process, and scratched furiously at myself.
“How are they doing that?” I stammered.
“Hush, hush,” the headmaster said, still staring at his desktop and the newly-formed patterns on its surface. He glanced up at me through his brows. “Sit back down. It’s perfectly harmless.”
I wasn’t convinced about that, but Professor Talendale’s tone left no room for discussion, so I crept back towards the chair, and perched on its very edge, touching as little of it as possible, and kept one eye on the roving etchings. At least none of them were trying to move from the chair onto me. In fact, now that I’d finished panicking, it was kind of fascinating. I stretched out a tentative hand and prodded a bit of wood that’d had an etching on it just moments ago, before it had slithered away. It was perfectly smooth, like it had never been engraved. How peculiar. I wondered what would happen if I held my finger in the path of one of the engravings, and was just psyching myself up to do that when the professor spoke.
“Ah, most interesting.”
I pulled my hand back and looked across the desk at him. He was still gazing at its surface. Some of his engravings had arranged themselves into pictures and words. I craned my neck for a look but couldn’t quite make them out.
“Interesting, indeed.” He rubbed his chin and continued to stare at the desktop, until my nerves felt like they might snap.
“What’s interesting?” The words burst out of my mouth without permission for the second time in a matter of minutes. This time I gave a mental shrug and let it go.
“Your biological parents have magic, or at least, your biological mother–”
“What do you mean, biological?”
The professor looked irked by my interruption, but I didn’t much care at that moment, because I’d only ever heard parents referred to as ‘biological’ in one context.
“Why, the parents who gave birth to you, of course, not those who raised you.”
“What are you talking about?” I was on my feet again without meaning to be, my hands curled into fists by my sides.
“You’re adopted. Did you not know?”
“I’m supposed to believe that, just because some carvings say so?”
“Hm?” He followed the direction of my eyes, which were fixed on the desktop. I had a much better perspective to read from, now I was on my feet.
“Oh, there aren’t carvings. This desk is formed from wood harvested from the Tilimeuse Tree. The messages you see come directly from the tree itself.”
“Well, it’s wrong then!”
“Ms Eldridge, control your temper. I understand this may have come as a bit of a shock to you–”
Now that was the understatement of the century… but, well, it couldn’t be true. It just couldn’t. Could it?
“–but you will conduct yourself with respect inside this academy, if you wish to remain a student here.”
I swallowed both my anger, and my pride. I didn’t want to get kicked out on my first day. Besides, if what he was saying was true, how else would I find out about my real parents? Or biological ones, whatever.
“I apologise, Professor.”
“Hm? That’s quite okay, dear.”
The professor’s mercurial moods were making me dizzy. His attention was back on the desk again. His thick eyebrows were knitted together.
“I’ve never seen anything quite like it,” he muttered to himself. “No wonder there was some confusion…”
“Uh, Professor?”
“Oh. Yes. You see, the tree keeps detailed records of the lineage of every druid who attends Dragondale. Yet here– The tree seems to have no record of who your father is, nor anyone on your paternal side.”
“How is that possible?”
“I don’t know.” He stroked his chin again. “He was almost certainly a former student here at Dragondale, otherwise the tree would not have summoned you to attend, yet there is no record of him. I’ve never seen this before.”
He coughed and waved his hand over the desk. The etchings dispersed and then stopped moving.
“No matter. That’s not what we are here to discuss.”
“It’s not?”
“No. The tree was unable to determine your primary elemental power. It has been fluctuating between water and fire since the moment it revealed your name. Now, Lyssa, an elemental druid can manifest more than one element, though usually not until much later in their studies, and never an element opposite to their primary, therefore you cannot possibly possess both water and fire powers. Have you any idea which element your powers favour?”
He’d been leaning further and further forward during his speech, until he was looming halfway over the desk and staring into my face.
“Um…”
How on earth was I supposed to know? I didn’t know a thing about any of this until earlier today. And I’d certainly never shown any sign of magic powers. Nothing even remotely weird had ever happened to me. Except…
“A few weeks ago, I was holding a letter, and one corner kind of… caught fire? I’m not sure how it happened.”
The professor nodded sagely.
“Then it’s settled. You are a fire element. Very good. I suspected as much from your fiery nature. You may return to your dormitory; a bed will be assigned to you by the time you reach it.”
“Um, Professor?”
I figured I might as well keep pushing my luck, while I was on a roll.
“My parents… I mean–” Well, they were still my parents, even if we weren’t biologically related. Family is more than just blood. “They don’t know I’m here. I didn’t really know anything about it until Rufus turned up.”
“Don’t know that you’re here? Goodness, girl, you must call them immediately. Though,” he broke off and stroked his chin again, a habitual gesture that made me wonder if he’d recently shaved off a beard, “No, you mustn’t reveal the true nature of our academy to mundanes to whom you are not related. Tell them where you are, but do not reveal the subject of your learning.”
Well, that should be simple enough, since I hadn’t learned anything yet, aside from the fact I might be adopted – and I was absolutely not having that conversation with the professor listening. I wasn’t even sure I believed it.
Talendale handed me a phone which seemed completely out of place on the campus of a magical academy, and in an office which housed a desk made of magical wood capable to communicating with an ancient tree. The small black device seemed too mundane to belong in these settings. I could hardly picture all the students walking around in heavy robes, casting magic with one hand and holding mobile phones in the other.
“It is the only phone that works within the academy grounds,” the professor said, as if reading my mind. “Though it is not powered by electricity.”
I dialled the number and waited for the line to connect.
“Hello?”
I breathed a sigh of relief when I heard my mum’s voice. This conversation would have been way too hard to have with my dad – it was virtually impossible to get anything past him. The lawyer in him could sniff out a half-truth a mile away.
“Hi, mum, it’s me. Lyssa.”
“Lyssa, I tried to call you. What time are you home?
“Yeah, that’s the thing,” I said, watching the professor from the corner of my eye. “Good news – I got accepted into a university out of town.”
“Lyssa, that’s wonderful! But isn’t that a little short notice? Term must be starting in the next week or two.”
I could practically hear her counting out the calendar in her head, and pressed on before she could work out the discrepancy.
“It starts tomorrow. I’m already here. There was a mix up with my acceptance letter.”
“Your father will be thrilled. Wait... Don’t you need you stuff? Your clothes and your books?”
“I can get everything I need here. Listen, I need to get everything sorted ready for tomorrow. I’ll speak to you soon, okay?”
We said our goodbyes before I could blab anything about druids, or about them not being my birth parents, then I thanked the headmaster and made my escape from his office before I could say anything to him I shouldn’t, either.
I found my way through the academy’s ancient and maze-like hallways in a daze as I headed to the Fire dorms.
I couldn’t believe it. I was a druid. The professors were going to teach me how to use magic. And I couldn’t wait to get started.
Chapter Five
I reached the fire common room after only a small amount of getting lost – three wrong turns, and two helpful guides setting me back on course – and waited for the massive oak door to open itself. After a moment, I realised that wasn’t going to happen.
“Oh.” I grinned to myself, feeling like an idiot and giving it a shove. It was just an ordinary door.
A locked door. It refused to budge, even when I leaned my weight on it, just to be sure.
“You must be a first year.”
I glanced back over my shoulder and saw a tall, heavy set guy in a red cloak watching me with a friendly smile on his face, and amusement crinkling the edges of his eyes.
“What gave it away?” I asked, returning his smile and gesturing my completely ordinary clothes with one hand.
“I take it you missed Dan’s little chat with all the first years?”
“I guess so… is there some sort of password?”
“Sure is. Watch.”
He leaned past me and planted his hand firmly on the door. I was just about to make some sort of sarcastic remark about how well that had worked for me, when my jaw popped open and refused to close again. As I watched, his palm gave a bright red pulse directly into the wood for a long second, and then three shorter pulses, then two more long ones. Was he… was he using magic? Fire magic?
“Whoa.”
He removed his hand and the door swung open. He made a sweeping bow and gestured me inside, then followed behind me. As soon as we’d both crossed the threshold, the door swung shut with a dull thud.
“See you around, new girl.”
He cut his way through the hoard of students easily, leaving me standing by the door, looking around in amazement. The room was huge and yet homely at the same time, with dozens of sofas and armchairs scattered around. Red rugs and banners decorated the stone floors and walls and as I looked more closely
, I could see what looked like vines or twigs woven through the stones, leaving a trail of natural brown through the grey. More traces of the Tilimeuse Tree?
Fireballs hung suspended by the ceilings all around the room, so that even if large windows hadn’t been set into each wall, there still would have been plenty of light. Each wall also had a large fireplace filled with yellow flames, and around one of them was a small gathering of students. One of the students – a girl with freckles and frizzy brown hair pulled back into a ponytail – was holding out her hand, and the flames changed size and shape seemingly at her command. They went from a homely fire to a roaring blaze that seemed as though it would set the entire room alight – yet somehow didn’t – then right down to embers in a split second. Then flames erupted again, taking on the shape of a horse. I squinted as it sprouted wings and leapt from the fireplace then raced round the entire room, dodging the fireballs as it soared to the ceiling, and narrowly avoiding students’ heads as it ducked low through the crowd.
The girl clenched her fist and the horse vanished as if it had never been there, the flames extinguishing themselves. Around her, the small circle of students clapped and cheered.
Insane. This whole place was insane. And incredible. My face split into a wide grin and I turned around – and almost walked straight into the girl from earlier. Kelsey.
“Lyssa, hi!” She smiled and stepped aside, her eyes glistening with excitement that spilled over into her rapid tones. “So, Professor Talendale placed you in Fire? That’s great news. Do you know which room you’re assigned to yet? There’s an empty bed in my room, I bet that one’s yours! I hope it is.”
She clamped her hand over her mouth, and her face fell.
“I’m sorry, I’m talking too much again, aren’t I? I always talk too much when I’m nervous, everyone says so. You can tell me to shut up. I don’t mind.”
I just chuckled.
“It’s fine. You’re fine. In fact, you’re great.”
She gave me a puzzled look.
“I am?”
“Yes, you are. You’re the most normal person I’ve met since I got here.”
Druid Magic (Druid Academy Book 1) Page 3
