I glared at the bandage on my arm.

  The library was properly busy now. People whispered in hushed voices as everyone had homework to do now that the second week of school was in full swing. It was just me and Fethris. The others hadn’t shown up.

  Beneath the white cloth, the mark on my skin was throbbing more than it had all day. Perhaps something meant to dull the pain was wearing off. Or maybe it was getting as irritated with me as I was with it.

  “Do you want some help?” Fethris asked as he watched me fail to use the summoning runes for the fifth time.

  I gave the rune three more taps. Just like I had seen everyone else do without issue. But for whatever reason, it refused to work for me.

  Maybe I really was broken.

  I sighed in defeat. “Please,” I conceded.

  And it worked perfectly for Fethris. Because of course it did. The tiny dark green kelpie with its little horse face, and tangled mess of seaweed for back legs, looked up at him expectantly, eagerly awaiting orders.

  Fethris looked to me.

  “Secrets of The Nine Towers Volume Nine: The Tower of Ancients,” I told him, remembering the book’s title from an earlier bit of research. I wanted to at least have the first draft of the stupid history essay done by Friday.

  Fethris sent the little thing off, and it flew away into the rows of the library’s shelves.

  I crossed my arms on the table and rested my chin on them. I sighed loudly.

  “You’re really going to focus on homework right now?” he asked. He had an open book in front of him that he claimed was for Spellcraft homework. Apparently his class hadn’t done the magic manifestation exercise. I wonder if ‘unplanned maintenance’ was a staff codeword for washing a student’s blood off the floor.

  “Obsessing over what happened isn’t going to get me any closer to answers right now. Due dates are fast approaching and I have to put my energy where I can be productive. I’d rather keep busy anyway.” I said that, but when I closed my eyes I could barely recall a formless blob of pink energy. A supposed reflection of my magic, despite not having a drop of my own mana in it. Why did magic not behave around me?

  My wrist ached and my foot, deciding it didn’t like being ignored, decided to pulse with pain.

  Fuck this day. I should have stayed in bed. My dreamless sleep was better.

  There was a tiny noise as the kelpie placed the familiar leather-bound tome that I had asked for on the table in front of Fethris.

  This was the last one out of the pitiful offerings this place had on Dragon Tower that I hadn’t read. Maybe it could point me in a direction for this paper.

  The Tower of Ancients began its life as the Tower of Memories. It was named by the first headmaster of the Towers of Nine School of Magic Study and Practice, Sir Ivorm of Glensheart. Built and enchanted by Malcarg and Jantres, the Tower holds secrets only understood by the few souls it has chosen to be worthy of inhabiting it.

  That was actually new. I hadn’t known it was the brainchild of Jantres and Malcarg. I had thought all five of them worked on all the Towers together. Neat.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  It is by far the least habited Tower. The number of Dragon students is a small red droplet compared to the oceans in the other eight Towers. In the year 1263 it chose three out of the one hundred and seven new students. The most it has ever chosen at once as of 1372 as I write this.

  Yay. We broke a record! But I’d rather be able to see these supposed secrets in person.

  This seems to be part of the Tower’s design. A quote from Jantres himself about this Tower: ‘The students that come here are meant to grow and change. The students that will belong to the Tower of Memories will be ones that aren’t like their contemporaries. We built it to give the ones that are tougher than dragonhide a place to thrive.’

  Dragonhide? Really? I don’t know about that. I’d hardly call myself ‘tough,’ Jantres.

  Malcarg once said this about it: ‘Challenge is what turns an infant into an adult. The Tower of Memories will give its students a challenge unlike the other Towers. The few chosen by the Tower will have more challenges than the others. And it will only choose the ones it knows can rise to meet those challenges and grow from them.’

  I couldn’t decide if I was worried or relieved that that sounded about right, given these past two weeks. The thought that at least part of the nonsense of my school life so far was part of something that resembled a plan was not comforting.

  Like in the previous volumes of this series we will take a look at the first name of this Tower. Unlike the other original names for the Nine Towers, Tower of Memories is more cryptic. How can a Tower have memories?

  The million-drake question when it comes to Dragon Tower.

  The answer lies in the heart of the Tower. Deep in the depths of the structure behind doors that can’t be opened, lies a chamber. The plans don’t show it, but a handful of students have been inside and all report the same thing. A nine-sided room with a large enchanted crystal at the center. Though how is works remains a mystery.

  Helpful, Mr. Scholar person, helpful. That’s a lot of words to say you have no idea what’s going on with Dragon Tower. Was this why there wasn’t much about it? Because the whole place was locked up tight?

  “It’s been nearly an hour and a half,” Fethris announced. “You want to take a break? You don’t look like you’re making much progress.”

  I sighed and closed the book. “Yeah. I wanted to head to the supply store before dinner anyway. Need new gloves after this morning.”

  “Would you mind if I came with?” Fethris asked.

  “I don’t see why not. Can’t imagine it’ll be too interesting though,” I commented as I stretched.

  “Any excuse to not be around the Kelpies is good enough for me.”

  That was fair. They hadn’t seemed like great company from what little I had seen in Basics on Monsters. I could be wrong. But then I wasn’t exactly their type of person, so who really knew?

  And I wasn’t really spending my time with the Towermates I’d been assigned either.

  (*********)

  The halls weren’t very crowded. Clusters of students were walking in groups of matching uniforms. Except for us. Apparently a Kelpie and a Pixie hanging out was not a normal sight.

  But the joke was on them, we were technically Towermates, despite our current circumstances. But I couldn’t really blame them for being distracted by the horrifically ugly pink overcoat.

  “If only they knew…” I heard Fethris mutter. “We can’t be the only people who don’t care about what color we’re forced to wear.”

  “We might be. At least in our year,” I told him.

  We passed the door for Salamander Tower, the amphibian on the door was kind of cute. Despite-or maybe even because-it was breathing fire.

  The supply store, which didn’t seem to have proper name, was manned by two older students. One was a Kraken and the other was a Basilisk. It was nestled in a cramped little room. Behind a simple wooden counter was a wall of drawers. None of them had labels that I could see.

  “Hi.” I walked up to the Basilisk one. “I’m looking for Pixie gloves in medium size. Can you help me?”

  “Sure thing.” He turned around away from me and towards the drawers. He paused. “Um…”

  “Third column, fifth row,” the Kraken said without looking at any of us.

  “Right. I knew that.” He opened a drawer but the glove he pulled out was Banshee white where it should have been Pixie pink.

  “From the left,” the Kraken interjected.

  “I know what I’m doing.”

  The Kraken rolled their eyes. “Can I help you Kelpie?”

  “No thanks. I’m just hanging out with my friend,” Fethris deflected.

  The Basilisk, with the correct gloves this time, turned to face us. “First-years don’t normally branch out. Good on you.”

  Someone has clearly never walked into a room and then felt the urge to jump out of the nearest window.

  “She’s better company,” Fethris shrugged.

  The Kraken stared in silence. “There must be something odd about the first-years. One of them in my Tower has done nothing but ‘branch out’. You’d think she wasn’t a Kraken at all.”

  Fethris and I glanced at each other. Was it Celica they were talking about? I snorted a laugh at the thought. Maybe causing trouble by just existing was a Dragon thing.

  The Basilisk set the gloves on the counter in front of me. “Three Gobs.”

  I placed three half-dollar-sized copper coins on the counter. That was approximately five dollars in United States currency. Not that there was much exchanging going on, but there was always a market for human objects that the magical world wasn’t interested in making.

  “Have a nice day you two! Good luck with classes!” the Basilisk called out as we left. I put the gloves in my left pants pocket.

  “Thanks for coming with,” I told Fethris when we were about halfway to the Hall.

  “Like I said, you’re better company. Besides, apparently leaving you to your own devices lands you in the healer wing.”

  “No. Look. This.” I held up my left hand. “This kind of thing did not happen before I got here. I was mostly accident free before stepping foot on this campus.”

  “And yet in two weeks you’ve nearly died twice,” he teased.

  “It’s this place! I think it doesn’t like me. It’s going to have to get over it. I am not going anywhere.”

  He laughed. “You let me know how that plays out. I have to go. My wonderful Towermates won’t let me hear the end of it if I ditch them for another meal.”

  He waved, I waved back with my not-mangled hand.

  Yeah, I wasn’t going anywhere.