“I can’t believe I agreed to this. What even is this field?” I asked Angelina as she skipped towards our destination, where it looked like half the school was waiting. Why did I agree to this again?

  Oh right. Celica was trying out.

  “What, have you never seen a game of Chaser?”

  “No. I haven’t actually. I know basically nothing about this game.”

  Angelina was giving me a flat, unimpressed look.

  I held back the urge to laugh.

  Was she still upset at me over what I was wearing? Was the cloth puppet held up by chains and leather bracelet too much? Well too bad. I needed a break from the eyesore I was being forced to wear during the school week.

  I wasn’t even wearing anything against the weekend dress code. They’re lucky I was inept at and uninterested in makeup.

  “Serafina!” A hand was waving in the air in a top row seat, Jarec was sitting with a bored looking Russel, and a Fethris who was writing something. The paper and fountain pen were both floating in the air.

  I tried to ignore the twinge of jealousy. Everyone else had magic they could actually use, but there was nothing I could do about it now.

  I had five years here to learn. To figure out something. Anything.

  No. None of that. Relax Serafina.

  “You good?” Angelina asked.

  “I’m okay. You want to meet my other friends?” I asked her, trying to change the tone of my thoughts before it spoiled my entire weekend.

  Her eyes widened. “The…Kelpie and Kraken?”

  “Celica's not over there. She’s trying out for the team.”

  “Now is not the time for jokes, Serafina.”

  “I’m not joking?”

  “A Kraken is trying out for the Chaser team? Really?”

  “Full transparency? She was chosen by Dragon Tower too.”

  Angelina blinked a few times as we went up the stairs to go sit next to the guys.

  “Guys, Angelina.” I gestured between them. “Angelina, guys.” There. I had done my duty.

  “You all are the Dragon Tower students…” Angelina mumbled.

  I sat down where Russel patted the seat next to him. He was leaning backwards in his seat to look up at Jarec.

  “Seriously though, why is it that shape? That is a very strange shape for a field.” he was saying.

  I gestured for Angelina to follow me. She eyed Fethris nervously, but sat down in front of him and next to me.

  “Aren’t they in our classes?” she whispered.

  “Yep. Spellcraft.” I pointed to Jarec, “History.” I pointed to Russel. “And Monsters.” I pointed to Fethris.

  “Traditionally, the shape was meant to keep evil spirits away,” Fethris explained. “It used to be seen as good luck.”

  I had to admit though that an octagon was a weird shape for a sports field. It was covered in some kind of multi-colored grid that boggled my mind. What even was this game?

  “Really glad I am not trying out,” Russel commented.

  “I’ve seen Latin texts that make more sense than whatever is going on over there,” I added. I looked toward the crowd of around a hundred students clustered at the other end. I couldn’t see Celica.

  “They took the first-years to get suited up. You haven’t missed anything,” Fethris told me as he waved his hand, and the pen and paper vanished.

  So cool.

  “Well…except Celica and her brothers arguing.” Russel couldn’t keep the laughter out of his voice. “They do not approve of this one bit.”

  Angelina frowned. “Poor thing… that must suck to have not her family’s support.”

  Jarec scoffed. “She laughed them off and then left with the other first-years that are trying out.”

  That sounded like Celica.

  Angelina gasped. “How can she just do that?!”

  “That’s Celica Fel’Graces for you,” Russel teased.

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  “Doing whatever she wants? I think that’s all of you,” Angelina pointed out.

  I shrugged. “I mean…Dragon Tower picked us for a reason. It might be that. Who knows for sure?”

  Jarec started laughing. “Dragon Tower: We do whatever the hells we want.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  Angelina was shaking her head and looking away from all of us. It was her idea to join me with hanging out while with the Dragons.

  Finally, the first-years stepped out onto the field, brown leather pads around their arms, and some sort of massive leather boot thing on each leg.

  Celica was easy to spot out of the bunch and had a massive grin on her face. I don’t think she saw us. She looked a little busy trying to balance on the floating slab of stone that looked a little bigger than a skateboard, and more square-shaped.

  Mom had shown me a Chaser board before I knew the basics of how they worked. But like every other rune I had ever tried, they never worked for me.

  I rubbed the spot on my wrist where the mark was. I wasn’t wearing any gloves today, and while the scarring had gone down, my wrist still looked like it barely survived a vicious animal attack.

  My foot itched a little at the thought.

  Nope. New thoughts Serafina. There’s nothing to be done about that anyway.

  Not now at any rate.

  “You good?” Fethris asked.

  “I’m all right. Just…distracted. I guess.” I looked back up to see Celica moving in a slow circle on the board. It was giving off a familiar purple glow. Dellik was helping some other students onto their boards.

  Really. You’d think he’s have learned by now what happens when he turns his back on students.

  To the surprise of no one, except maybe Angelina, Celica started picking up some speed. Her feet shifting to new positions.

  She didn’t look worried. Not to me at any rate.

  But she was heading our way.

  And not slowing down.

  Next to me, Angelina started gripping the bench. “You think she knows what she’s doing?”

  I shrugged. “I hope so?”

  “You’re terrible at being reassuring.”

  “Aren’t there like barriers or something?” Jarec asked.

  “I think so.” Russel sounded way too unsure.

  “I’m not worried about us. What about her?”

  “Celica’s not stupid,” I tried. “If she’s going to complain about my recklessness and not be cautious herself then that’s on her.”

  “Those of us who have somehow nearly died twice in the past two weeks don’t get to complain about a lack of caution,” Russel stated.

  Rude! “I didn’t nearly die twice! It was once! And neither of those incidents were my fault!”

  “I don’t know…there was a lot of blood that second time…” Jarec, the traitor, teased.

  “I hate you both,” I informed them.

  “Serafina!” Angelina gasped in shock.

  The boys were both laughing at me. Hmph.

  “Celica’s not slowing down…” Fethris commented.

  And she really wasn’t. She looked like she was actually picking up speed.

  “She’s gonna crash!”

  Admittedly, the look in Celica’s eyes was starting to worry me a little.

  “What is she even doing?” I mumbled.

  But less than a second before there was any kind of collision, Celica, and her board were jumping. She landed on something invisible-the barrier probably-and turned herself around. One hand held onto the board, while the other was brushing against whatever she had landed on.

  There was an explosion of color. Purple swirled in the air, stemming from her fingers. After a few moments of drifting on nothing she hopped off, landing on her feet with her board in hand.

  Angelina sighed heavily and covered her heart with her hands.

  Then, in an attempt to give the poor girl a heart attack, Celica winked at Angelina and turned to leave, a floating purple dragon decal hovering in the air for several more moments.

  Angelina was bright red.

  “You good?” I asked her.

  “She! I…did she do that just to…”

  “Did she do that to flirt with you? Probably,” Jarec informed her.

  “I mean… she did say she was trying out just to meet girls. So…yeah. Fair assumption.”

  Angelina was covering her face.

  There was a bit of irony here. But now didn’t feel like the time to point it out.

  “That was so reckless! What if she hurt herself?”

  “Celica’s smarter than that. She did end up in Kraken for a reason. I hope. Unless they picked Towers for us out of a hat,” I mused.

  “You joke about that, but I still think that’s what they actually did,” Russel commented.

  “You can stay here and hang out. Celica’s probably coming over to say hi properly later,” Fethris offered.

  Angelina stammered for a few moments.

  Ugh. Why?

  “You sure you wouldn’t mind?” Angelina asked me.

  “You and Celica can do whatever you want. But please leave me out of it,” I begged. I did not want to get involved in teen romantic drama. Nope.

  “Okay, sounds fair.”

  Tryouts from that point on were uneventful. No one else felt reckless enough to match Celica’s little stunt, and eventually she started to approach us. Two older boys, one of whom looked very familiar, were following after her.

  “I can’t believe you,” one of them was saying. “What were you thinking? Do you have any idea how dangerous that was? You or your friends could have been hurt!”

  Celica rolled her eyes and continued walked towards us.

  “And you used to think I was the problem child.”

  “You’re both problems. My problems apparently. What am I supposed to tell Mother and Father?”

  “That I made the Chaser team,” Celica rolled her eyes.

  “Dellik has lost his mind. Picking you. How in the hells did you end up a Kraken?”

  Celica scoffed and ran past them to meet with us. “Look who showed up. And you even managed to get here without getting sent to the Healers. I’m impressed.”

  “You don’t get to complain about that after that stunt. I, at least, don’t do it on purpose.”

  “Somehow, I think that’s worse.” She turned to Angelina who was still blushing furiously. “More importantly nice to meet you. I’m Celica Fel’Graces. And you are?”

  “An-Ang-”

  I tried to not let my urge to vomit show. “This is Angelina Farsee. She’s a Pixie.”

  Celica held out her hand with another wink.

  Angelina squeaked but shook it.

  Mistakes were made.

  The two boys were now here.

  I remembered from where I recognized one of them. “Isn’t that the guy from the Fortune Telling Club?” I asked Angelina in a whisper.

  She looked up from the smirking Celica, and her face went pale. “Oh! Uh. Hi?”

  “Nice to see you again Miss Farsee. And these are your friends, Celica?”

  Celica groaned and rolled her eyes in an overdramatic fashion.

  “Guys,” she said in a flat monotone, “these two are my brothers. Adamar and Vulmar. Yes. They are twins. And yes, they don’t have blue skin. Any other questions?”

  They both, however, did have the same silver hair that she did.

  “Are they aware that you weren’t picked by Kraken?” I teased, in an attempt to dodge whatever implications were there.

  The one that hadn’t been lecturing her started to laugh. “No. But that does explain a few things.”

  Celica turned on her heels to face her brothers. “I was chosen by Dragon. And I am not staying in that stuffy place a second longer than I have to.”

  “There’s no way they are actually going to open Dragon Tower. You are aware of that right?”

  I clenched my fist. They had no way of knowing that either. But I didn’t want to cause trouble.

  Celica huffed. “They will. They have to. Rules are rules, as you both like to remind me. Now go find some other people to bother.”

  I was glad I was an only child. Siblings seemed like way too much work.