Mom was leaning forward and staring at me with narrowed eyes.

  “What?” I asked.

  “It’s official now. Have you thought about which Tower you want?”

  I shrugged. Of course I had thought about it, but that didn’t mean I had my heart set on any of them.

  She gave me a flat unimpressed look.

  “Which one do you think would suit me?”

  She let out a slow exhale and tilted her head to the side, letting it rest on her hand. “You’d be a terrible Banshee. You’re not serious enough.”

  Ah yes, because she was the image of seriousness.

  “You’d do okay in Basilisk. You’d be bored though,” she continued thoughtfully. “The Salamanders would drive you crazy.”

  I shuddered at the thought of being surrounded by competitive hotheads.

  “As much as the idea of you being a Sylphid like me is charming you’d have a hard time making friends there.”

  I wondered if the horror of the idea of being surrounded by tiny versions of my mother showed on my face. I think it did because Mom started laughing. “What about Kraken Tower?”

  She let out a last huff of laughter. “You’d do okay. Until you had a bad day and opened your mouth. And Krakens are judgy anyway.”

  “And I don’t think I’m social enough for Pixie or Pegasus.”

  She shook her head slowly. “Definitely not.” She started frowning, “I don’t think Kelpie would work either. They’d give you a very hard time if any of them learned that your father is human.”

  Well…this was troublesome. “Meaning I’m a bad fit for all the Towers.”

  Mom switched from worried to an attempt at reassuring. “Well…being chosen by a Tower can sometimes produce shocking results. We might both just be missing something.”

  “Were you shocked when Sylphid chose you?”

  “Yes, actually. For years I was convinced I was going to be a Pegasus. I had gotten blue streamers for my room and everything. But the yellow suited me better.”

  “What about Dragon Tower?” I asked after a few seconds of thought. It was a soft and quiet worry in the back of my mind.

  Mom blinked a few times. “It’s still closed, but it might choose you. That does happen. It’s incredibly rare, even way back when it was open.”

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  Did it only take people rejected by all the other Towers?

  “But that would be something, if you were. You want to know something?” She smirked in a conspiratorial manner, like she was preparing to share some horrific secret. “My family has a very long history with that Tower.”

  I sighed. “You’ve always told me The Towers of Nine was in our blood.”

  “It is. Very much so. Ever since it opened two thousand years ago our family has attended it. And the Tower most of them were chosen by was Dragon Tower.”

  “Really?” She rarely spoke about the details of her family. I had never met any of Mom’s relatives. I doubted even Dad had.

  “Your great-grandfather was the first of us to not end up there. He was a Kelpie instead. Though, that was also after it closed. But I think it worked out. That’s how he met my grandmother.” Mom had a soft smile on her lips. “She was more excited than he was about me being a Sylphid. She baked a cake and decorated it in so many yellow flowers. Which was for the best because Mom could not bake for the life of her. It took me being married to your father to actually learn how to be functional in a kitchen.”

  “Baking is like chemistry,” I quoted.

  She laughed. “Yeah. Something like that. Grams always compared it to Alchemy though.”

  “How did your mother react to you being a Sylphid?”

  “She was less surprised than I was. She just nodded at me when I told her. Like she already knew and was just waiting for me to figure it out on my own. But that’s a Kraken for you.”

  I chuckled.

  “You’re going to do great. I know it. You ready to go home?”

  I nodded.

  (*********)

  “How’d it go?” Dad asked as we appeared in the living room.

  “Your daughter got a hundred on Alchemy,” Mom announced.

  “That’s my girl.”

  “More importantly,” I said with a wide grin, “I did it.”

  My father, face as stony as ever, clapped slowly but sincerely.

  Mom sighed happily, “We’re going to have to go shopping for the school year. You won’t know what classes you’re taking until you get there. Do you want to take advance classes? You’ll have to prepare for the placement tests if you do.”

  Mom spoke in a rushed frenzy. Was she even breathing?

  “Breathe, Lucinda,” Dad said.

  “Victor! This is important!”

  “I’m going to need a haircut,” I told them both.

  Mom’s eyes sparkled with mirth.

  Dad nodded. “It’s a boarding school. You’ll be sharing a bathroom.”

  “Yep. Shorter hair will mean less hassle.” At least Dad was helping focus on the practical.

  “But we can still get you decorations! You’ll be living in that room for five years, you’ll want to make it home as soon as possible.”

  “You think they’ll allow rock-growing kits?” I asked her. I wasn’t fully sure what the policies on bringing objects from home were.

  Mom rolled her eyes. “Non-magical objects are almost universally allowed. With a handful of exceptions.”

  Dad was trying and failing to hide a smile. It was his fault I was like this. Though it was miles better than being like Mom.

  How did anyone have the energy to be so excited all the time? Just looking at her was exhausting sometimes.

  I let out a loud yawn. Four hours of testing was catching up to me.

  (*********)

  Four weeks after the Entrance Exams, I stood in my room for what would be the last time for several weeks. I wouldn’t be home until mid-December for the three week winter break we got. My stuff was already packed. I had finished two days ago.

  My rock collection glittered at me, sparkling in the streams of sunlight coming in through the blinds. My babies…I was going to miss them. I would have to make them siblings once I got settled in. My fingers traced over the blue and white clusters and I let out a soft sigh.

  “Are you ready to go?” Mom asked me from the doorway. “We still have a couple of minutes if you need them.”

  I shook my head. “Let’s do this.”

  “I can’t believe you’re wearing that for orientation,” Mom commented once she saw the shirt I was wearing. I had picked it out of my closet a week ago.

  I gave her a grin.

  “What’s wrong with it? No one is going to know what it is, and if there’s anyone who does then maybe I could make a friend.” That was my excuse and I was sticking to it. The shirt in question had the logo from my favorite band over a black background a neon bouquet of roses surrounded by grey metal chains.

  Mom didn’t look fully convinced. “Just be careful. Your father may not be anything to be ashamed of, but that doesn’t mean you should go around advertising it either.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I know. It’ll be fine. Besides, I blend into the background too much. No one notices me here, I don’t see how a fancy boarding school is going to change that.”

  She did not look pleased.

  “Now we should probably get going. The last thing I want is to be late before classes even start.”

  (*********)

  The Towers of Nine School for Magic Study and Practice was both exactly what I had been expecting and not at all what I expected at the same time. I had expected large iron gates and a wide, ruler-straight cobblestone walkway leading up towards a castle. But all of Mom’s stories hadn’t prepared me for how massive it was.

  At least seven stories tall at its highest point, and nearly a thousand feet on each of its nine sides all punctuated by one of the titular Towers. From the front I could see Pixie Tower, its tell-tale spinning gave it away. On the other end of the same wall loomed a Tower with a swirling thunderstorm that blocked the top floors from view, Pegasus Tower.

  I couldn’t see the other Towers from my current vantage point.

  Which one would choose me? The daughter of a college chemistry professor and a witch who left all of this behind to be with her family?

  It was terrifying. Exhilarating. And completely out of my hands now.