by B. C. Palmer
“Magic,” I repeated, and searched his eyes for some hint of amusement or a tell, or… something. “You just… you just said all that as if you really meant every word. You’re a remarkable con man; I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone lie with such earnest skill before in my entire life.”
He sighed softly and dropped my hands. “Twenty-three days. That’s it. That’s all you need to sacrifice. This is your room.”
Lucas gestured at the next door and took a few steps backward to lead me to it. He turned the door handle and pushed it open as he knocked on it. “Hunter? You’ve got a new roommate.”
I paused at the threshold to the room as I realized my roommate was a man. “Co-ed dorms? Seriously?”
‘Hunter’ didn’t even look up from his desk. The room was a small disaster in beige and chocolate. There were two narrow beds to either side, very much like any other dorm room on any college campus in the world—but the whole of it was covered with old books, stacks of papers in varying states of neatness, and there were all manner of stones and crystals hanging from the edges of the ceiling, standing or lying on bookshelves, and even tucked under the edges of the beds. What’s more, the walls had been scratched to hell with pictograms kind of like the ones on the doors outside but less angular and more twisted and curving.
“Hunter,” Lucas snapped. “You’ve got a new roommate?”
Hunter looked up finally and squinted at me through a pair of glasses with one blue lens and one purple. He took them off as he turned in his chair and glared first at me and then at Lucas. “The fuck is this?”
“This,” Lucas said with strained patience, “is Amelia Cresswin. Your new roommate.”
“Cresswin,” Hunter echoed.
I looked from one of them to the other. “Right. So, is there some possibility that I could just stay with another female student while I’m—”
“What exactly are you implying?” Hunter asked, face scrunched into disbelief. He shook his head, hair falling out of the man-bun tied haphazardly on the top of his head, and turned his attention to Lucas as if I no longer existed. “Put her somewhere else. I don’t need the distraction or the passive accusations.”
“It’s not my call, Hunter,” Lucas said. “Admin put her here; you know the deal. The bed’s hers already.”
Hunter looked me over disdainfully. “Fucking great. I’m in the middle of something, Lucas. Something important? So kindly fuck off for the moment. She can come back later.”
“She’s meeting Serena here,” Lucas said. He leaned toward me. “Hunter is a sweetheart, once you get to know him. That steely exterior may be about six feet thick but underneath there are layers of granite, limestone, sandstone. Deep down in the middle there’s about six ounces of soft gold, though. I promise.”
“Why… do I have to stay with him?” I asked. A school for magic was one thing, but a room with a douche? No thanks.
Lucas spread his hands helplessly. “Admin never explain themselves to me. I’m just the headmaster’s PA.”
“Just the headmaster’s PA,” Hunter mocked, his hand waving in the air. “Fine. Leave her here, but you can go now.”
That sounded rather personal. A nervous tremble flooded my stomach as Lucas shook his head and turned to leave. “W-wait,” I said, and left the room to join him in the hall. “You can’t just leave me here. Hunter obviously values his privacy. Maybe we can talk to the headmaster or something? I don’t want to invade his space.”
“I wasn’t lying,” he said regretfully. “Admin has a system for assigning rooms and roommates and I don’t know what it is, but if I put you in a different room you’ll just wake up in that one. Look, Hunter is… troubled and honestly a little obsessive but not about you or anyone else. He’s a workaholic; he’s got this project that he’s been dealing with for the last year and if you just don’t interrupt him or bother him, he’ll basically forget you exist. Believe me, he’s very good at that.”
I frowned. “Is there like… do you two have some kind of history?”
Lucas held his hand out, palm up as if inviting me to take it. I did, thinking there was some heartfelt confession about to happen, but instead he turned my hand over and tapped my palm right where it had been itching.
I looked down to see a tattoo on my skin. “The fuck?” I scratched at it as he let my hand go, then licked my thumb and tried to smudge it off.
“That’s your student compass,” he said. “Serena Venturo will meet you shortly to give you the official tour. She’s… an interesting person. Whip-smart, even if it doesn’t look like it at first, and she knows this campus very well. That little arrow will point you to whatever you’re looking for, and lasts about a month.”
“I don’t… when did this happen?” I demanded. “Was I drugged or something? Oh my god, it moves.”
I turned my hand and then my whole body one way and the other. The little arrow didn’t settle on one place; it moved under my skin first one way and then the other.
“You have to focus on a task,” he said. “Need the restrooms?”
I did, actually, now that he mentioned it, and the moment I agreed mentally that I really had to pee, the tiny arrow inside the circular tattoo snapped to one side of the circle and stayed there. Of course, once I acknowledged it, the need quickly became urgent, and the little arrow began to tremble as though it, too, desperately needed to go.
“How is this… is this some kind of…” I stared at the tattoo. “It must be, what, some kind of nanite technology? Is this a tech school because that would—”
Lucas laughed. “If it makes you feel better—yes. Call it a very, very high-tech school. Follow that arrow; it will take you to the restrooms. When Serena gets here, she’ll be able to find you. Just don’t leave this floor. She’s dark-haired, dark-eyed, will look like she wakes up beautiful. Kind of like you, but darker.”
I glanced up at him, unsure from his tone whether that was actual flirting or just some kind of casual aside. Lucas was a hard man to read—like he was both totally focused on me and also entirely disinterested at the same time. I reminded myself I didn’t care and only intended to be here, at the most, twenty-three days. “Right,” I muttered. “Well, thanks for being honest with me for once.”
He hung his head briefly, flashed me a smile, and shook his head as he walked away.
“Welcome to Rosewilde, Amelia,” he called back without looking. “I’ll see you around.”
Amelia
Once Lucas was gone, I turned to find the restrooms, but saw Hunter in his—well, our, I guess—room, head bent back to his work. If I was going to stay in that room with him, I certainly didn’t want there to be some kind of animosity happening. “Um… Hunter?”
He stopped scribbling notes on a piece of paper and slammed his pen down as he turned to me. “Um… yes?”
Prick. I ignored his mocking tone, though, in the interest of making peace. “I’m really sorry they stuck me with you. I didn’t ask for it. I’m only going to be here until the next bus comes, so… I’ll just do my best to stay out of your way, okay? I know you didn’t ask for this.”
His lips were largely obscured by a beard that needed a trim, but he did wear it well once I got a good look at him. He was a burly looking guy, I thought, though it was hard to be sure with him sitting like he was. He combed his fingers over his chin. “The bus? You’re not staying?”
Hunter was attractive in that caveman lumberjack way that made girls as turned on as they were intimidated. He definitely didn’t have a creep factor higher than the standard dude, else I’d have demanded a new room. I didn’t need to deal with creeps on top of magic shit.
“I got accepted to MIT,” I said, “and I really… really should have just gone straight there. I’ve been making bad decisions lately, I think. Anyway.”
He showed just a hint of amusement. “You would rather go to MIT than Rosewilde? What the hell for? You can go to MIT afterward. Hell, you can go wherever you want afterward; why would you
not want to be here? You have any idea how lucky you are?”
Now that I knew I had to pee, it became overwhelming. “I don’t, actually. Maybe you can tell me about it but, um, I’ve really gotta…”
Hunter rolled his eyes and turned slowly back to his work. “Just don’t fuck with anything in the room while you’re here. Don’t touch the stones, don’t touch the ward glyphs, don’t touch anything that doesn’t look like your bed, basically. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” I breathed.
He shrugged. “Fine. You can stay. Just don’t bring anyone back to the room either. I don’t fuck anyone in here, you don’t fuck anyone in here.”
“Wha—I’m not… I wouldn’t… excuse me?”
He didn’t look up. “I wasn’t speaking Akkadian. Don’t you have to piss or something?”
I colored, and started to let him know that I was not that kind of girl, but… I really was running out of time so I left the room and closed the door just slightly louder than was necessary, and looked down at my palm to test this freaky nanite tattoo out. Hunter’s tone and his assumption about me rankled all the way down the hall to the end, where there was a connecting hallway with stairs at either end and three doors. I didn’t even want to be here. Why would I be looking for someone to bring back to my dorm?
Each, again, had indecipherable pictograms on them, but the compass pointed me toward the door on the far left so I took that one.
It opened into a bathroom that could only be described as opulent. Everything was white marble and gold fixtures. Through one archway there was a line of stalls visible, and through the other a row of showers and even three chambers at the far end that looked like bathtubs. Palatial—that was the word. I didn’t think I’d ever have a need to use it but if anything was palatial, it was this monstrosity of a bathroom.
I went through the first archway, chose a stall, and went about my business.
Before I finished, the door to the room opened and closed, and I heard the tap-tap of heels as someone came in. It only lasted a moment, and when I finally finished and emerged from the stall I saw a woman at one of the gold sinks. She was tall, all legs, and wearing a shimmering red dress that barely made it past her panties—assuming she was wearing any, and just from the way she held herself I wasn’t certain she was.
She was messing with something on the counter, and before I could speak up to say anything at all—which I wasn’t sure I could because she was painfully gorgeous—she bent at the waist and snorted something from the counter.
“Uh… hi,” I managed to get out.
The woman straightened, delicately wiping her nose with her middle finger. She rubbed whatever was there on her teeth, eyeing me up and down as she did. When she was done getting high, she turned to face me and put one hand on her generous hip. “You must be Amelia. I’m Serena. Your mentor.”
I pointed at the counter. “Were you just… is that cocaine, or something?”
Serena barked a laugh. “What? Mithra’s wooly balls, no. Who even does coke anymore? It’s an alchemical powder for the party tonight. Helps with hangovers and makes your pussy taste like cherries. Want some?”
“Gosh, not for me,” I said. “I’ll pass this time, thanks.”
“Suit yourself,” she said. “So. I’m supposed to give you the tour of the Enterprise, where I show you all the magical stuff around here and you get all bug-eyed and confused about everything and that’s so adorable but there’s a lot of ground to cover and I have to douche at some point before this party so how about you walk with me and save all your questions for the end, and ideally for someone else, mkay?”
“I—”
“Thanks so much, you’re a trooper,” she said, and spun on one of her six-inch stilettos to tap-tap toward the door. “Let’s go, fresh meat; we’re on a timetable.”
I hurried to catch up with her. Serena led me to the right, toward one of the staircases, as she started her version of a tour speech. “So, this stairway is great for a late-night blow and go. Nobody uses it, and the acoustics are great. Also, it leads to the dining hall, which is good, too.”
We took a set of double doors into a dining room that looked like it could seat several hundred people along tables with white tablecloths, already set with silverware. “You’ll eat at the far right table. At first,” Serena explained as we strode down the length of the room, “for the first term. It’s admin’s way of making sure we ‘socialize’ with our peers before we start forming cliques and shit. The term will be over before you know it, though, so if you turn out not to be like entirely unbearable you can join whatever friends you manage to make for winter term. But you’ll see the other freshman next year if you survive, so don’t like piss anyone off—trust me, it comes back to get you. Through these doors—”
“Survive?” I asked. First Lucas and now Serena. What the hell was this place?
Serena only glanced back at me, and went on like I hadn’t spoken. “—you get to the central courtyard. It’s where basically everything that isn’t studying or eating happens, and a lot of the time that includes getting fucked but sound carries so you’ve gotta be quiet.”
“Why is everyone—”
“Remember what I said about questions?” She pushed through one of the two large rectangular wooden doors and we emerged into what I assumed was the Garden of Eden. It was the most manicured, eclectic garden I had ever seen.
The courtyard was arranged in five tiers, each tier edged with flowers and small trees and lined with stones that led down to the next level, all the way to a massive, ancient willow tree bigger than I thought they were supposed to grow. The branches had trinkets attached to them, so that in the slight breeze there was a tinkling of metal, stone, and glass where some of them rattled against one another. Students congregated in clumps all over, and from a small pond by the willow four streams flowed away and up the tiers in little reversed waterfalls, babbling backwards until they passed into dark, grate-covered tunnels that ran underneath the mansion.
“How are they doing that?” I asked.
Serena gave me a tortured look. “Again, questions. The end. Someone else. So look, all the fruit trees will make fruit all year long but be super careful because the fucking druid students like to mess with them and while it’s usually pretty harmless you can end up tripping balls for a few days if you eat the wrong thing so, you know, give everything a sniff first. Now, the north end of the Academy is all staff and private labs and grad students so just like never go in there. We just came from the south end, which is freshmen classrooms and all the dorms. East is for second- and third-term classes, and west is for senior classes and apprenticeships and the library. Follow please.”
She stalked across the garden courtyard waving and winking like the most popular girl in school, which it’s possible she was given all the eyes that turned when she passed. As we made it to the far end, I spotted Lucas standing with another student, a guy with dark hair, dressed with a lot less overt class, with a dusting of stubble over his jaw. Both of them watched me as I followed Serena. I gave Lucas a small wave—he was the only other person besides Serena and my angry roommate that I knew.
He waved back. So did his friend.
“Lucas Turner and Isaac Roth,” Serena said. I almost ran into her as she stopped to wave at both of them and blow a kiss. “So fucking hot. I guess you met Lucas, right?”
“He… actually I’m not sure what he does, but he filled out some—”
“I bet he did,” Serena cut in. “I’d give my left tit and half my right to get between those two. Sadly, they aren’t taking applicants.”
“Oh,” I said. “Oh, so Lucas is…”
Serena raised an eyebrow, the corner of her mouth curling as she assessed me. “Oh, had your eye on Mr. Turner, did you?”
“No,” I countered. “No, I didn’t. And it’s none of my business if he’s gay. I was just curious.”
“Oh, he’s not gay,” Serena corrected me. “He’s a magician. We don’t
go in for limitations; everything we do is about breaking the rules. But he and Isaac for sure fuck on the regular. Used to have this whole group thing, but some shit went down last year and now it’s just those two.”
“You keep track of their sex life?” I asked. I wrapped my hands around myself. Sex had been brought up too frequently for my understanding. Was this place obsessed with it? I knew college was where people experimented, but I got the feeling these students took it to the next level.
Serena scoffed. “Uh, yes. Obviously everyone knows what everyone else is doing, and who they’re doing, and how. I’ve got eyes everywhere, and break wards as a hobby—still paranoid after I spent three weeks in this sheikh magician’s sex dungeon. Only supposed to be there for two, the asshole. Anyway, it’s a school for magicians; the whole point is to plumb for the secrets of creation. You don’t think we spy on one another for fun? Last year, I hosted a straight-up gang bang and half the guys and girls showed up as astral apparitions and doppelgangers. Astral sex is amazing; it’s like taking it up your soul, and there’s no practical limit to how many you can take at once.”
My jaw had dropped, again, and Serena reached out and closed it for me. “Bless your heart, are you a virgin?”
“No,” I said. “Not that it’s any of your business. Sex dungeon? I don’t even… look, Serena, this all is so… this is some kind of joke, right? A hoax? Am I on TV right now? You can just, like, nod once if I am and I’ll act like I don’t know but right now I need something to pin the world down for me because I’m spinning and I just… Can you just clue me in, please?”
