Demi didn’t appear fazed by the prospect of having a stranger for a dorm mate. She was already a quarter of the way down the hall, running from side to side scanning doors. As more girls poured in, Hailey decided she’d better get started.
She took a breath and turned to the first door on her left; it contained a single name etched in gold calligraphy: Guinevere Grayson. It took her a moment to realise this was Madam Grayson’s dorm.
‘Hailey, it’s here. We’re together!’ Demi shouted.
Hailey gazed down the hall, seeing nothing but a sea of girls. She pushed her way through the horde, trying to find where her friend’s voice had come from.
‘In here, Hails.’
Hailey spun to her left. Demi motioned at her from inside one of the dormitories, inviting her to come in. ‘It’s so cool,’ she chimed. ‘And we’re roomies.’
Hailey glanced at the door to make sure Demi hadn’t made a mistake. Two names were etched in gold: Demi Evans and Hailey Woods. Hailey traced a finger over the calligraphy, a smile pulling at her lips. It appeared the Tyches of the world had blessed her with good luck today.
Like the common room, the dormitory had two halves, but unlike the common room, they were split lengthways and mirrored each other. A white polished coral desk rested against opposite walls, their bare surfaces and shelves waiting to be cluttered by textbooks and neglected homework. Each desk had a matching scallop-shell chair with coral legs. A few feet from the desks stood mother-of-pearl chests of drawers with seashell-encrusted mirrors hanging above them. And against the centre wall sat two double beds with iridescent blue duvet covers, and sea-silk canopies draping from the ceiling. Beside each one a giant clamshell floated.
Hailey approached one of the floating shells, which opened to reveal a glass and jug of water. ‘It’s a nightstand.’
‘I claim this bed.’ Demi collapsed onto the bed closest to the door.
‘Works for me.’ Hailey leapt onto the bed beside her, sighing in content as the sea-sponge mattress moulded around her body.
A door Hailey hadn’t noticed in the wall across from the beds flung open. The two girls standing on the other side of it looked just as surprised to see Hailey and Demi as they were to see them.
One of the girls had honey blonde hair streaked with red. ‘Sorry,’ Blondie said, her words tinged with an accent. ‘We thought this door might lead to a bathroom.’
‘That’s okay.’ Hailey hopped off the bed and walked up to the two girls. ‘I’m Hailey, and—’
Demi bounded to her side. ‘I’m Demi.’
‘I’m Kora, and this is Tahlia.’ Blondie pointed a thumb at the other girl, whose long ebony hair was gleaming like satin under the crystal orb of light floating beneath the dorm’s ceiling.
‘Are you from Australia?’ Hailey asked, taking a guess at Kora’s accent.
‘Yep.’
‘You must be happy about escaping from the fire-breathing kangaroos,’ Demi said. ‘I heard they kill like one in fifty people.’
Kora and Tahlia burst out laughing, even Hailey cracked a grin.
Demi frowned. ‘What’s so funny?’
‘I think you over exaggerated how many people kangaroos kill,’ Hailey said.
‘Just a little.’ Tahlia smirked, her crystal blue eyes filled with amusement. ‘It’s more like one in fifty-thousand people—and they generally only get a little singed, rather than die.’
‘Oh. Well, that’s not as interesting,’ Demi said. ‘So, what are your powers?’
‘I’m an Asclepius,’ Kora answered. ‘So, if you’re nice to me, I’ll heal any cuts and bruises you get.’
‘I’m a Hypnos,’ Tahlia told them. ‘I can cure insomnia like that.’ She clicked her fingers with a snap. ‘What about your powers?’
Hailey tensed. There it was: the question she’d feared ever since she’d first been asked it in primary school. Demi saved her from answering right away, proudly proclaiming, ‘I’m a Demeter. There’s not a dying plant I can’t save.’
Both Kora and Tahlia’s eyes settled on Hailey, who was biting her lip, trying to think of ways to avoid the question, because she wasn’t ready to relinquish being a nobody. She considered lying and telling them she was something ordinary, like a Hera, but she doubted Demi would let her get away with it. And even if she did, Kora and Tahlia would eventually discover the truth—lying would just delay the inevitable. And they were only two people. She could handle their reaction.
‘I’m a Zeus,’ Hailey confessed and automatically took a step back.
Kora and Tahlia’s jaws dropped.
Demi clapped her hands together. ‘I love it when you tell people.’
Kora, looking as if she’d just found out she had a second power, was the first to speak. ‘There’s one Zeus in the whole world and her dorm is next to mine. So, what can you do? Create monsoons? Blizzards? Hurricanes? What about fireball lightning? That’s a thing, right? Can I see your powers? Please.’
‘I need the sky,’ Hailey said, grateful for the sea above them.
‘Oh, right.’ Kora’s face fell.
‘If you’re a Zeus, why are you here?’ Tahlia asked.
‘Because coming to Poseidon’s Academy is worth giving up my powers for,’ Hailey told the lie she always did when anyone asked her that question. No one knew the real reason—not even her mum. As Zeus’s powers were the rarest, they were also the most coveted, so Hailey figured no one would understand why she didn’t want them.
Kora twirled a strand of blonde hair. ‘I’d sacrifice my powers to get here too.’
‘Please don’t tell anyone I’m a Zeus.’
Tahlia cocked an eyebrow. ‘Why?’
‘Because I don’t want to be swarmed with questions on my first day.’
Kora’s cheeks turned pink. ‘Sorry about that. I promise I won’t tell anyone.’
‘Me too,’ Tahlia agreed. Her eyes flicked to the window to the right of Hailey’s desk. ‘You have a window as well.’ She drifted towards it. ‘And it looks into the back of the grounds, just like ours. Don’t you think that’s weird?’
Hailey walked over and stared out the window. She could see the glistening sea above the palace and the grounds with its glittering jewel trees. There was nothing strange about it as far as she could tell.
Demi scratched her head. ‘What’s weird about it? It’s a window. It’s supposed to look outside.’
Tahlia tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. ‘Yes, but our dorms aren’t at the back of the palace. Madam Grayson said the fourth years live on the other side of our common room, which means this window should be looking into their dormitories.’
‘Huh.’ Hailey frowned, she’d never even thought about that. ‘How’s that possible?’
‘Magic.’
Hailey looked at Kora, who was leaning against Hailey’s coral desk. ‘Magic?’
‘A Hecate probably spelled it to look into the back of the grounds,’ Kora explained. ‘This palace would be pretty boring if there weren’t windows to look out of.’
Demi reached a hand through the window’s open crystal doors. ‘Wow. It’s real, not an illusion. That’s so cool.’
‘All first years report back to the common room,’ Madam Grayson called from the hallway.
Demi’s face lit up. ‘The tour’s back on.’ She ran to the door, yanking it open and vanishing into the hallway.
‘Is she always like this?’ Tahlia asked.
‘Only when she’s excited—so yeah, pretty much.’
‘Well, I like her,’ Kora said, heading towards the door with Hailey and Tahlia.
They caught up to Demi in the common room, where the atmosphere had drastically changed. The first years no longer stood in silence; most of them were busy chatting to someone—their new dorm mate if Hailey had to guess.
Madam Grayson called for silence. ‘Thank you,’ she said when the common room fell quiet. ‘On the first day of the year, a dinner is thrown to welcome students back, so let’s
head to the main hall.’
4
Exciting News
Madam Grayson led the first years back to the entryway, where she ushered them through a wide archway between the two staircases. The room they entered was longer than it was wide, stretching the length of two Olympic-size swimming pools. Over fifty mother-of-pearl tables filled the vast space, each one bordered by ten scallop-shell chairs. Gold plates, goblets, and cutlery covered each table, glittering under the light cast by the big shining orbs floating beneath the ceiling.
‘This is the main hall.’ Madam Grayson attempted to speak over the other students’ echoing chatter. ‘Find a seat, and when dinner is over head back to the common room.’
‘There’s some free tables over there,’ Demi said before vanishing into the crowd.
Hailey followed after her, weaving between furniture and students towards the front of the hall, where she dropped down at a vacant table with her best friend. A table twice as long as theirs stretched fifteen feet in front of them. Teachers sat behind it, scanning the hall, alert for any signs of trouble.
‘Jayden, we’re here.’ Demi waved at Jayden, who was moving towards the other empty tables with the rest of the first years.
‘I was afraid I’d never see you again,’ Jayden said, plunking himself down next to Demi.
‘Who are your friends?’ Demi asked, staring curiously at the two boys who sat down beside him.
‘This is Alec.’ Jayden gestured to the lanky boy with blond hair on his right, who shyly met their gazes before lowering his eyes to the table and feigning interest in its shell border. ‘And this is Aaron.’ He gestured to the other boy, who had tousled brown hair and thick arms that you could only get from lifting weights—or being a Heracles. He smiled at them. ‘Alec, Aaron, this is Hailey and Demi.’
‘Nice to meet you,’ Hailey said. ‘Are one of you Jayden’s dorm mate?’
‘Nah, we’re roomies.’ Aaron nudged his head at Alec, who was busy polishing a shell with his finger. ‘But our dorm is next to Jayden’s, and he came in to say hi.’
‘Who’s your dorm mate then?’ Demi asked Jayden.
Jayden flashed a grin that said he was about to make Demi very jealous. ‘Actually, I’ve got a dorm all to myself.’
‘Well, I think having your best friend as your dorm mate is better than being on your own,’ Demi argued, Hailey tuning her and Jayden’s argument out as she turned her attention to the rest of the hall.
She noticed some of the older students staring at the ceiling or at their laps. Why do they look so nervous? Shouldn’t they be the confident ones? But the really strange thing was the dirty glances those students were receiving from other people, who pointed at them as they whispered to their friends. It was like—
‘Welcome everyone.’ A woman no older than thirty stood before the teachers’ table. She had flawless skin and curtains of platinum blonde hair that draped over her pale blue flowing dress.
Hailey’s jaw dropped. The woman was a nereid. An actual sea-nymph, who was standing so close Hailey could have reached out and touched her.
The nereid waited for silence, her dress seeming to shimmer like the iridescent scales of a fish when she moved. ‘I would like to welcome the older students back, and to the new students, I’m Amathia. I look forward to becoming acquainted with each of you.’ Amathia’s turquoise-coloured eyes fell on Hailey briefly before shifting elsewhere. ‘Being the beginning of the year, I will uphold tradition and recount the creation of Poseidon’s Academy before revealing some exciting news… After the gods’ demise, I continued to reside here with six of my sisters. As the centuries passed, I found the palace too large for us and proposed the idea of converting it into a school, where students could learn the true accounts of history and how to harness their powers.’
Hailey’s eyes widened; Amathia had been alive when the gods ruled. She’d heard nymphs could live a long time, but over 1600 years was a really long time.
‘My sisters, however, rejected my plans,’ Amathia continued, briefly touching the blue glass teardrop that hung from a chain around her neck. ‘I wearied of attempting to persuade them a school was a worthy idea five years ago and opened Poseidon’s Academy without their consent. And here we are today.’
The students clapped and cheered. Hailey wondered what had happened to the other nereids after Amathia had gone behind their backs. Probably moved out.
‘Now for my exciting news,’ Amathia said when the applause died. ‘Poseidon’s Academy was meant to be open to all students. By this I mean I not only wished to teach those possessing god powers, but also those possessing unique powers—I believe you refer to them as Others.’
Others? Hailey frowned. Others were humans the gods’ powers had mutated in, creating powers never before seen. They’d been treated as outcasts since the first one emerged almost four centuries ago, forced to go to separate schools to those with god powers.
‘After numerous enquiries to the School Board, they have finally agreed to allow Others—which I will now refer to as Uniques—to attend here on a trial basis for the year.’
The reaction that followed was varied. Some students shouted in outrage, others gaped, and some gazed around curiously, trying to spot the new additions to the Academy. It wasn’t hard to see who the Others were; they were the ones slumping down in their chairs, attempting to hide from the students’ glares.
Hailey had always envied Others a little, because being one meant you didn’t share powers with a god, so there were no expectations. For the same reason, she also found them intriguing and had always wanted to meet one so she could see what unique powers they had. She wondered what the ones here could do. Control electricity? Suck the oxygen from the room? Climb up walls?
Amathia raised her voice above the students’ cries of protest. ‘I expect you to make the new students feel welcome. I would also like to introduce a new teacher, who has kindly volunteered her services to us from one of the Uniques’ schools. Please welcome Madam Norwood.’ Amathia extended her hand to the teachers’ table behind her, where a middle-aged woman rose to her feet. She smiled tightly as the teachers and a few students—including Hailey and her friends—clapped.
Madam Norwood sat down once the languid applause died. Amathia spoke again. ‘Now that the exciting news is over with, I will remind you that you are prohibited from speaking or approaching my sisters.’ Her eyes hardened as she said this, but a second later she smiled again. ‘Let us eat.’
Hailey turned back to her friends, eager to discuss Amathia’s news. Demi and Jayden were staring at Alec, who was gazing at the table like his life depended on it, and Aaron, who was so tense the veins in his neck were popping out.
Hailey felt like an idiot for not working out who they were sooner. ‘You’re Others—I mean Uniques—aren’t you?’ she asked, making a mental note never to use the word “Other” again.
‘Yes, we are,’ Aaron replied defensively.
‘Awesome.’ Jayden patted him on the back, acting as if Aaron had told them he could conjure a rainfall of coins.
‘Wow.’ Demi gaped. ‘I’ve always wanted to meet an Other.’
Aaron raised an eyebrow. ‘You’re okay with us being Others?’
‘Yeah,’ Hailey said. ‘You’re more interesting than anyone with god powers.’
Alec finally looked up. ‘Really?’
Hailey nodded along with Demi and Jayden, then found herself asking the question she avoided. ‘Do you mind telling us what your powers are?’ She knew it would lead to them asking her the same thing, but she was too curious about theirs to care.
Aaron grinned with the same proudness Demi did whenever she revealed her powers. ‘I can create a force field.’
‘I can walk through walls,’ Alec said.
‘Jeez, and all I can do is control water.’
‘You’re a Poseidon then?’ Alec asked Jayden.
Jayden nodded, leaning back in his chair. ‘Yep, so I should feel right at home her
e.’
‘I’m a Demeter,’ Demi informed them, her proud smile returning.
Aaron’s gaze shifted to Hailey. ‘And you?’
Hailey felt like she owed Alec and Aaron an honest answer, since they’d shared their powers with her. She leaned forward so no one at the surrounding tables could hear, and whispered, ‘I’m a Zeus.’
Alec’s eyes widened, but he didn’t say anything. Aaron, however, smirked as he said, ‘I guess that makes you an outcast like us, being the only one of your kind and all.’
Hailey smiled back, never thinking of it like that before. ‘I guess it does.’
Jayden tapped his hands on the table. ‘I’m starving. Where’s the food?’
A mixture of smells that included honey-glazed ham, garlic bread, and coconut rice had Hailey glancing around. She expected to see servers making the rounds. But all she saw were students gobbling down food and no sign of where they’d gotten it from.
‘Hey, why are we the only ones with empty plates?’ Demi flicked the empty gold plate in front of her.
Hailey caught a glimpse of Madam Grayson sitting at the teachers’ table. She met Hailey’s gaze and mouthed watch as she placed her hands on her plate and closed her eyes. The plate was empty one second, and the next a green salad peppered with roast pumpkin and feta appeared.
Hailey blinked. Did a salad just appear out of thin air?
She’d heard of conjurers, but not of plates that conjured food. Of course, she’d never heard of whirlpools acting as portals or trees growing jewels before either.
Copying Madam Grayson’s example, Hailey touched the rim of her gold plate and closed her eyes. The first thing that popped into her head was the chocolate-chip pancakes her mum had cooked for lunch.
The buttery smell of batter and the sweet scent of chocolate drifted up Hailey’s nostrils. She opened her eyes to find a stack of steaming pancakes on her plate. ‘The plates…’ the words fell away when she saw her friends already wolfing down food.
‘Conjure food,’ Demi finished for her. ‘We know,’ she said, biting into a brownie, having skipped to dessert.
Poseidon's Academy Page 3
