Sunday evening and I was hiding in my room again. But I was also having a call with my mother, so whatever. The ComMirror was balanced on top of my now-empty truck, and propped up by a pillow allowing her voice to carry to the room. The door was closed to keep the noise of the Tower out and our conversation in.

  “First week officially done! How do you feel?” Mom was as excited as ever. Her eyes were wide and the smile on her face looked ready to split her face in half.

  “Tired,” I told her while laying out my uniform for tomorrow.

  She sighed, her smile dropping a fraction but her eyes still followed me. “Come on! Give me something! Making new friends? Are you liking Pixie Tower?”

  “I talk to the other Dragon kids mostly,” I told her. Purposefully not answering her question about Pixie Tower.

  “I’ll send you some extra spending money. Maybe you’ll like your room more after decorating it.” She must have picked up on and decided to ignore my attempt to side-step. Ah well.

  I rolled my eyes and turned towards the refection of my mother in the ComMirror. “I don’t think there are enough posters in the world to make me like this room.” As funny as the idea of covering the walls with Iron Roses and maybe horror movie posters to try and offset all of the pink in the room was, that was more effort than I felt this place desvered.

  “It’s not that bad.”

  “Mom. I live in a Barbie DreamHouse. That spins. I would need to burn it all down and start from scratch. Look at this place. Pink wallpaper, pink carpet, pink bedspread. My eyes hurt looking at it. And I might move out any day. Apparently Dragon Tower is a hot debate topic amongst the staff.”

  Mom laughed. “Oh I remember. Getting those old folks to just make a choice, any choice was always a nightmare.” She smiled. “Have you done anything fun yet?”

  “I turned Mercury into a solid in Alchemy, and had my fortune told yesterday.”

  “Ooh! I didn’t know you were into fortune telling, Serafina. Since when?”

  “I’m not. A Pixie I hang out with is.”

  “Do they have a name?”

  “Angelina Farsee.”

  “Oh that’s nice. I bet she saw some interesting things.”

  I shrugged. “Not really. She saw two shades of red. That was it.”

  “Was she trying?”

  “Her eyes turned red and she made a comment about something blocking her. Does that mean anything to you?”

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

  Mom’s eyebrows furrowed, worried. “Hmm. That’s odd. Being in an Awakened state should have allowed her to see more than that. Unless she really didn’t know what she was doing.”

  “She seemed pretty confused,” I told her. “I don’t know what’s up with that.”

  “That’s a little worrying. Being able to hinder something like that is no easy feat.” Mom hummed for a second. “Did you feel anything during the process?”

  “I got a headache from looking at the crystal ball. Does that mean anything?”

  “A headache? Strange. Very strange. Have you told anyone else about this?”

  “No. Do you think I should?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Helpful Mom. Very helpful.”

  “Enough of this downer talk. You said you were spending time with the others chosen by Dragon Tower? Tell me about them!”

  “They’re fun,” I told her. “It’s been a week. I don’t exactly have much to say about them yet.”

  “I’m just glad you’re making friends. I won’t pretend that you would ever want to be the most popular girl in school, but having a few people is good. I had a close-knit group of friends myself when I went there. All from other Towers. I’m still in contact with a few of them.”

  “The Terribles.” I remembered from Mom’s stories of her schooldays.

  “No! That was not our name!” The tone of her voice was a blend of fake and genuine offense.

  “That’s what the teachers called you,” I teased with a grin.

  “We were the Exterreri. And we ruled that school in our fifth year.” And from the stories she told me, they were terrors to the students and staff the other four. All while being at the top of the social ladder.

  “I don’t see me ruling anything Mom,. I shook my head. There was an image that definitely didn’t make any sense, for me at least. Mom had told me all the stories already. Climbing up to the roofs of the castle to hoist a flag on their last day, and then Mom coming back less than two years later to start teaching here.

  There was a reason she was a Sylphid all those years ago.

  Probably the same reason I wasn’t one now.

  “That’s fine. All that matters to me is that you be you. That whatever it is you do, you do it your way. No one else’s.”

  “I’m trying. We’ll see how it goes.”

  (*********)

  Not well. It was going not well. Dinner time. Tofu in teriyaki sauce with fried rice and broccoli. Angelina was chattering with Pixies around me. I had yet to have anything to add their conversation which was mostly hold-over excitement for the clubs they had all joined and the upcoming Chaser tryouts.

  It seemed like every Pixie except me was in at least one club. Many were in several.

  Angelina turned to me and finally asked the question. “Serafina did you find anything you wanted to join?”

  “Nope,” I told her between bites of rice.

  “We have nearly seventy clubs and you didn’t find any you liked?” an older Pixie, I think he was in third year, asked.

  I shrugged. “Not really.”

  Angelina frowned. “Maybe you could start one, we could help!”

  “If I ever have the urge to actually start a club you’ll be the first person I tell.”

  Her frown switched to a pleased smile.

  I was proud that I didn’t roll my eyes. But I was getting the hang of handling the Pixies. Or maybe it was just Angelina. But it was something.

  “By the way, the guys from Fortune Telling wanted me to ask if you were interested in more readings. Apparently our little demonstration got their attention,” Angelina continued.

  “I think being told I might be in danger once is good enough. Thanks but no thanks.”

  She nodded, “That’s fair.” There was a several-second pause from her. “Wait, that means you believed it?”

  I shrugged at her. “Why wouldn’t I? I saw the red smoke in the crystal ball. And you don’t seem like the lying type.”

  “You don’t look worried though.”

  “Well, ‘danger’ could mean anything, couldn’t it? Not necessarily life and death. It might just mean I’m more likely to stub my toe on a daily basis if I move into Dragon Tower.”

  She gave me what could best be described as a ‘confused dog head tilt’ and blinked several times.

  I decided to continue. “Didn’t you also say I’d feel at home? Can’t do that if I’m destined to die or something.”

  “I can’t tell if that’s pessimistic or optimistic.”

  I grinned. “A girl has got to have her secrets.”

  Angelina did not look impressed.

  (*********)

  There was a small sliver of time between sundown and curfew at the Towers of Nine School of Magic Study and Practice. Less than an hour. Just enough to find a bench and get a few minutes of looking up at the infinite stars that were usually blocked out by things like city lights. Here, there was no silly human light pollution to hide the countless planets and burning balls of gas unfathomably far away.

  It was even more beautiful than Mom had described.

  It was also the only thing that had gone the way I wanted it to since getting here.

  But it was going to get better. The worst of all of this was behind me. It had to be. The Aranaea encounter was an accident. An outlying blip in my school life.

  (*********)

  When I got to Practical Spellcraft, there was a strange energy in the room. Metaphorically. The other students all seemed more jittery than they had last week, and the Pixies were even more wide-eyed and excited than they were at breakfast. I didn’t like it. I looked around to see the source of it, and noticed our Professor was not alone.

  Standing next to Professor Telvis, in a near-identical straight-backed stance as that first day, was Professor Vivian Hearth. Not a hair out of place and a serious expression on her face.

  What was she doing here?