The next day, when India woke up, she found the other three humans conversing in the common room over the harsh whirring of the coffee machine, holding plates of breakfast foods they seemed to have brought from the dining room.

  “Like guys, you have to help me!” Riri said, sounding exasperated. As the weather was getting cooler, they were now wearing a skeleton patterned sweater, though their usual short skirts stayed.

  “I’m not sure though, we’re both guys, so we might need permission,” James said, looking towards Everest, who nodded solemnly

  “Ugh, it’s not that big of a deal, just help me, won’t— oh hey, India!”

  “Urm, what are you guys talking about?” India said. She didn’t know why, but she had a feeling something sinister was going on here.”

  “We’re—” James started to explain, before Riri butted in:

  “Trying to get into a sorority party!”

  “...why?”

  “Drugs.” Everest said with a straight face.

  India wasn’t sure if he was joking or not, but the prospect of a magical party did sound appealing, and besides, she might see Xiao there.

  “So, can I come with you guys?” she asked.

  “Yeah, we’ll ask,” Riri said with a smile. Then, they quickly changed the subject.

  “So, Ev, did the dean ever get back to you about the graffiti thing?”

  “He said there’s nothing the staff can do, since no-one knows who did it,” Everest sighed, shaking his head.

  India looked out the window. Students were milling about, all in some sort of humanoid form, but none of them human. All the humans were in one location - this dorm. One of the thousands of students - or staff - out there had to have done it.

  “No-one knows - yet,” India corrected, “We can figure this out if we put our heads together.”

  “I don’t know. Is it really safe for us to be trying to figure it out? What if the person who’s behind it is like, really strong?”

  “Bro, what if they’re a dragon?” Riri added, looking concerned.

  India thought about it for half a second. Yes, there could be the possibility for someone powerful to be behind this, but that was okay because…

  “We have our own dragon on our team,” India said triumphantly. She knew that if she asked Xiao, he would definitely agree to help them. Plus, he probably had access to university stuff that she didn’t. Besides, anything to get to spend more time with Xiao was a good thing.

  “Well, I don’t have any better ideas, so sure, let’s go with that one.” James shrugged.

  India wasn’t really hungry, but she forced herself to chew on some toast that Riri had brought. The common room smelled like burnt coffee and the faintest hint of floral air freshener. Everest was poring over a document on an ostentatiously large iPad.

  “Is that the latest model?” James asked, looking over Everest’s shoulder.

  “Yep. That reminds me, since we’ve been sharing chargers, I need to go buy some for when…” Everest responded, petering out as he seemed to remember something, then started packing up hastily. “Uh, Riri and I have to go to a lecture now.”

  Riri looked down at their phone.

  “Oh shit, yeah,” they said with a sharp inhale before turning back to her classmate, “Everest! Please let me copy your answers! I didn’t do the homework!”

  “No.”

  They gave a fake pout, but trailed after him anyway.

  “Hey, let’s find Xiao after our morning classes,” Riri smiled at India as they walked out of the room.

  Her first class on Magical Creatures and Their Care was unbearable. The lecture hall was new and modern, the kind of place with low ceilings and abstract fabric triangles on the walls as soundproofing. India tried to focus, she really did, but the professor - some bird in human form, she wasn’t paying enough attention to know which kind - kept droning on about evolution, cultural exchanges and the divergence between intelligent humanoid creatures and lower level creatures.

  Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

  Honestly, who cared?

  The only thing keeping her awake was the occasional sound of some nerdy elf nearby typing notes aggressively on his laptop.

  India’s mind kept wandering to the graffiti. Maybe it was some fringe political group. Or some edgy student trying to get a rise out of them. Or maybe it was something deeper, something more organized.

  Her knee bounced as she doodled in the margins, her mind racing. Realising the drawings were beginning to look a little bit too much like Xiao in his dragon form, she scribbled them out hastily and began to sketch a picture of the lecture hall from the outside.

  As soon as class ended, she packed up and speed-walked away.

  The walk from the lecture hall to Xiao’s courtyard was a journey in itself. The campus was massive, and she accidentally took a wrong turn down the winding stone pathways between towering buildings covered in ivy, and ended up in another, more popular courtyard with groups of students eating lunch amongst floating lanterns, which apparently were activated during cloudy days. India spun around slowly, trying to get her bearings.

  Nope. I’m lost.

  She approached two pale men, in deep discussion. She didn’t know what Xiao’s courtyard was actually called, so she would have to go back to the dorm to meet the others.

  “Uh, excuse me, do you know where the Human Dormitory is?”

  One of them smiled at her, and his fangs startled her slightly.

  Oh, he’s a vampire.

  “Just take that path and go left at the vending machine,” he said.

  India thanked him and turned to leave.

  “That’s a human,” she heard the vampire mutter to his friend. “We shouldn’t be near humans…”

  “Hey, what brings you here today?” Soyeon said as the four humans entered the courtyard. Xiao was next to her, scratching his head as he tried to decipher a textbook paragraph. India didn’t blame him. From what she could see, it did seem so needlessly wordy.

  “We need your help!” Riri announced, as if they came up with the idea.

  “Really? Well, what can we do for you?” Soeyon asked, nudging Xiao, who looked up to greet the group with a wave.

  “We’re trying to find out who sprayed the…” India paused for a bit to find the best word, “species-ist graffiti on our dorm wall.”

  Soyeon and Xiao looked at her, confused. Oh.

  So they hadn’t heard. India thought it’d be big news by now.

  James pulled out his phone and scrolled through something, then showed the group.

  “I took a photo - here.”

  “The Dean said he couldn’t do anything about it, since they don’t know who did it. Not only that, but the cleaners couldn’t even get to it until next week. We had to clean this ourselves,” Everest said, clearly miffed at having to have done any sort of physical work.

  India didn’t know that the others had cleaned it up - she thought that it had disappeared on its own this morning. Though she felt a little bit bad that she had woken up so late that she couldn’t help, the procrastinator in her did feel a bit relieved that she didn’t have to do anything.

  “Firstly, they refuse to help bring the vandalisers to justice, and secondly, they make us humans clean it up,” India murmured, turning the cogs in her mind. Clearly, whoever did this had some friends in the staff. Speaking of friends in the staff…

  India turned to Xiao.

  “You have access to university records, right? Since your—” She hesitated. “Since you’re a relative of, you know, someone important.”

  He sighed, running a hand through his hair. “That’s not how it works. Besides, I’ll definitely get in trouble for leaking information”

  “Any other way you could help?” Riri asked, watching Xiao carefully.

  A long silence. Then, finally, he nodded. “Fine. But this isn’t just some mystery game, guys. There’s a reason this kind of sentiment exists. Kagako isn’t the world you’re used to—here, humans aren’t exactly safe.”

  India frowned. “Like, unsafe how?”

  He gave her a look, like she was an idiot. “Like being trans in the deep south. Most people are fine, but the ones who aren’t? They’re really not.”

  The humans weren’t sure what to say to that, so they just nodded.

  “Anyway,” he continued, “I’ll look into what I can. But if we find something dangerous, don’t be an idiot about it. There’s only so much we can do. We are still just students, after all”

  “I’m never an idiot,” India said immediately.

  Xiao sighed, but now sounded more amused than before. “That’s exactly what an idiot would say.”

  They ended up grabbing lunch together—grilled rice cakes and some kind of magically-infused herbal soup from one of the floating kiosks. Xiao chatted with the other humans about their classes and how life was going so far at Kagako while they ate, but India wasn’t paying attention. Her mind was still on the case.

  She had to figure this out. And that meant research. Or at least, delegating research.

  “So! What’s the plan?” Riri said, looking at India.

  She had succeeded in dragging Riri, James and Everest to the library, which was the first step of her plan complete. Now onto the next step.

  “Well,” she said, slamming down a pile of books, “we need to look into a bunch of stuff right now. Like the history of human-magical creature relations, how the general sentiment at the school is, and maybe draw up a suspect list. Basicallu, we are going to figure the how, why and who of the vandalism.”

  James picked up one of the books India had put down.

  “Oh wow, I was reading this one earlier. It actually has some pretty interesting information about the history of the two worlds. You see-”

  “Yeah, yeah, save it for now,” India said, “do we all agree with the plan so far?”

  The group nodded.

  “Alright then,” India said, picking up one of the books, “let’s get started.”

  Her blue eyes scanned the pages. It was a heavy tome about the history of Kagako and other what not, but before she could even read half of the table of contents, her phone buzzed, drawing her attention immediately.

  Now, who could that be?

  She picked up the device, and opened up her messenger app to see a message from… Xiao?

  Hey, i think i found somthi ng. Meet me at the hidden courtyard.

  Rindia looked around. The others seemed to be deep in thought, scouring the books for information. She’d need a pretty good excuse to get out of here.

  “Well, uh, guys, I think i left something in the dorms. I need to go get that right now…” India said with an attempt at an apologetic smile. She quickly gathered up her stuff and got ready to go see Xiao. Whatever information he found, it better be interesting.

  AUTHORS NOTE:

  SORRY FOR THE LATE UPDATE GUYS…

  WE HAD EXAMS, THEN NINA GOT COVID FOR LIKE A WEEK. WE’RE BACK NOW THOUGH, AND CHAPTER 6 IS COMING VERY SOON!