Lol, well it has been three weeks, but at last… school has officially started.

I discovered this at breakfast this morning, because I was sitting on my bench, staring into the middle distance, dutifully chewing a slice of apple, when Lydia handed me an actual schedule. With like… times on it and stuff.

“What do you have?” Bass asked immediately, leaning across the table to get a look at my page.

“Arcane sciences,” I read, skeptically, because what the fuck is that.

“Oh good me too,” Bass said.

“I think they’re keeping us all with our floors,” Rook said, holding his schedule out, too. “You all have Professor Ellesburg?”

Which seems kind of ridiculous, right? Like if they were gonna just put us in classes by floor anyways, what’s the point of three weeks of touring the different colleges?

“It’s so the professors have time to prepare their upperclassmen,” Andie said when I voiced this question, which wouldn’t have been an ominous thing to say at all if it weren’t for their tone and also their expression.

“…prepare their upperclassmen for what?” Bass asked.

“Depends on their major,” Andie said. “Sophomore sorcerers are all preparing for the house of shadows. Seniors are getting ready for their internships.” They shrugged. “Different things. After the first few weeks professors time opens up again, and that’s when we get them.”

“Internships?” Bass asked and Andie shrugged.

“Yeah, sure,” they said. “You know. Some people stay and pursue a senior thesis, but other people go off and get hands on experience. Just depends on your goals.” They paused a moment and smiled. “It’s super weird you don’t know this, everyone at school was like… defined by their Palefish plans.”

“School?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Andie said. “What, you think Councilor families sent their kids to public school before coming here?”

I’m assuming by Councilor families, they meant the descendants of the dudes that founded Palefish and indeed, when I glanced down the table at Marina and her circle, Lynlea Bettercourt, Terran Von Trostan, March Radionov, I had to admit: there was just no way they went to public school.

“I figured private school,” Rook said, somewhat uncertain.

“Well, yeah,” Andie scoffed. “It was definitely private school.”

But whatever private school looked like we didn’t get to find out because at that moment the cathedral bells started ringing, and the scrabble to bus our table and get to class began.

All four of us were late.

Lily’s classroom was a one room cottage down the hill in the grove, with a bunch of old, roughly hewn wooden tables arranged in a rectangle seminar style.

For all Adrian Prescotts dire warnings about how much Willowa asks of it’s students, Lily’s room was warm, bright and welcoming. There were vining plants framing the windows, and intricate diagrams layered on the walls.

“There you are!” she said when we entered, beaming at us. “Get lost?”

I nodded sheepishly as we filed in to sit in the only remaining seats — the four on either side of her.

“That’s alright we’re just getting started,” she said. “Welcome to your first arcane science class. In this room we will lay the groundwork for all your future magical endeavors. Do we have people with innate powers in here?”

Once again, Bass put a cheerful hand in the air, Marina raised a couple fingers, and a few other people sullenly gestured, not even putting their hands above their heads.

“Hey, c’mon!” Lily said, rising from her seat. “No need to be so miserable about it, raise your hands! You have magical powers, do you know how rare that is? You’re gifted! Lift your chins, put your shoulders back! Mx Maddox! Miss Jones! Mr Miguel! Mr Paul! Shiloh! Yes, I know who you all are, put your hands up!”

I think we were all a little taken aback, but I was mortified. Andie was, too I think. The whole class was looking around for who had their hands raised, expressions ranging from curiosity to confusion, but it was Rook’s expression that was agony to me. His eyes snapped onto mine, brow furrowed. He opened his mouth, and then closed it again without saying anything, thank god.

I wanted to sink into the floor.

Lily went on, “I know that for many of you, the path to this room has been difficult — and not only for our magical students, for all our students. But you’re here now. We found you. You’re not alone with your powers anymore.”

Something in me was unstitching itself, I could feel my throat closing around it, and had to force myself to take deep breaths before I dissolved completely into panic.

Lily climbed up onto the table and sat on it cross legged. “Alright,” she said. “Let’s loosen this up a little bit, shall we? Do any of our magicians want to share how their abilities manifested?”

Silence.

“Listen, this class is going to feel like a lot of complex theory, but it’s important that we remember that this stuff is important to us! It upends our lives! The study of magic is also the study of people!”

Still, none of us spoke up.

“Alright,” Lily said. “I’ll start.” She cleared her throat. “I was fifteen when I began learning sorcery, and I did it completely by accident. I was best friends with Lana Sorely when the Guardian spell activated in her. In those days, the Councilors still had ultimate control of everything the Guardian did, and if they’d had their way she would have been whisked away and I’d have never seen her again. But luckily for me — and for many of you — Professor Protsman was assigned to be her handler, and he was a bit of a radical.” Lily smiled, remembering the good old days. “He refused to separate the Guardian from her life, which he hoped would keep her connected to the world she was supposed to protect. Which I suppose it did. But it also introduced her friends and family to a whole world of magic, and that was it for me. I was enchanted. I entered my house of shadows when I was sixteen under Protsman’s supervision.” She spread her arms in invitation. “And that’s the story of how I got my magic. Who’s next?”

There was a long silence. I could feel the whole room glancing between the other magic users and my insides shriveled horribly. Then, finally, Bass raised his hand.

“I can go,” he said brightly. “I’m a witch, so I was born into my magic. I’ve been doing it my whole life.”

When Lily gestured for him to continue he laughed awkwardly. “I mean there’s really not much more to tell,” he said. “My family runs a sanctuary for… people like us, I guess. People who know about magic and cryptids and the other worlds. We have our rituals and patterns, and as long as we keep doing them the magic keeps coming.”

“What kind of rituals?” asked Wayne Muir. “Like, Satanic rituals?”

LOLOL WHAT??? BRO???? YOU CAN’T ASK A COVEN WITCH IF HE’S A SATANIST DUDE!!!!! Like okay Mr Satantic Panic I didn’t realize it was 1985!!! YIKES

Bass hesitated, laughing uncomfortably. “Uh —”

“Traditionally covens have no ties whatsoever to Christianity or Satanism,” Lily interjected patiently. “Covens trace their lineages into prehistory, before Christianity existed. Your mother coven was Mediterranean isn’t that correct Bass?”

“Yeah,” Bass said. “Our coven is originally near Rome, but we’re older than Rome is. Way older. I mean, we didn’t come here until later, but we never had anything to with Satan. We really like technology, so a lot of our rituals have to do with experimentation. That’s how I convinced my grandma to let me come here, actually.”

Lily thanked Bass for sharing, then asked, “Who’s next? How about you Mr Paul?”

Darius Paul is this stocky, athletic guy who I haven’t talked to much. He generally keeps to himself.

“Oh, uh,” he shifted uncomfortably. “I can uh. See dead people or whatever.”

There was a rustle of uncertainty in the room.

“I mean not really. Like they don’t like… talk to people or anything. They just like…” he trailed off and glanced at Lily.

“You’re a medium,” Lily supplied. “You can sense the force that people leave behind when they go. It’s a valuable skill. Anyone else want to share? Miss Jones?”

Marina raised her hand, and when Lily gestured that she should go ahead, she said, “I’m a wizard.”

Lily smiled. “Does anyone know what that means?”

“Andie does,” Marina said and Andie flushed.

“Why don’t you explain, Miss Maddox,” Lily said, brushing by the awkwardness.

“It just means that I am the source of my magic,” Marina said. “I don’t need to get it from anywhere. I have my own.”

Silence in the room. I exchanged a look with Rook, then Bass, who was flabbergasted.

When no one seemed to have any idea what to say, I raised my hand. “I thought that was impossible,” I said. See Julian, I remember some of the shit you taught me last year.

“It is,” Marina said, fixing me with a look. “If you’re born in this world.”

Which is how I discovered that Marina, like Jasper, and Clementine, and Cara wherever she is, was not born into the world she now inhabits.

Lily went on to explain to the class that some worlds have more inherent magic than ours does, and that if there is enough magic, you might learn to use it, but I’d sorta tuned out. I was thinking about Marina’s other world, and what it might be like there. I was wondering if maybe it was the same world Cara is in now. I was wondering if there was a way I could ask her whether she remembered it without it being weird, when Lily slid off the table and her tone changed.

“In this class,” she said, raising her voice, “I will be introducing you to the basic tenants of magic. We cannot hope to cover everything we know, everything we have surmised, and every limit we are testing inside of a single year, but we can at least lay the groundwork, so that you understand the state of magic in our world at this time — especially as our world changes. In this class you will experiment with magic — even if you have never used it before, even if you have no access to any yourself. Any questions?”

There was a long pause. Then Bass raised his hand.

“Hit me,” Lily said.

“What magical limits are you testing?” he asked and when Lily hesitated, he added, “Was that what Robert Pennington and his friends were doing? Testing a limit?”

Lily, who had been her usual bubbly, cheerful self this whole time, seemed to deflate. “Yes,” she said. “But that’s all I can tell you. Any other questions?”

There weren’t any.

“Alright then,” she said. “In that case, I’d like all of you to choose a type of magic and describe it to me. Three pages, typed, double spaced, and in my hand by Wednesday.”

Let the homework begin.

After Arcane Sciences with Lily we had an open hour before lunch, which I let Andie peer pressure me into using to get started on that paper for Lily, and then after lunch we had Intro Level Cryptozoology, which I had been looking forward to until I realized it was in one of the big auditoriums. Turns out Intro Level Cryptozoology is a series of lectures by an ancient, upright old man with spectacles that magnify his eyes. We spent the whole hour learning about where cryptids come from — which I, and also you, if you’ve been reading this blog, already know — and then were assigned about a hundred pages of Beginners Guide to the Cryptozoologicalwhich I started reading after dinner, and guess what — it’s somehow boring. HOW is it possible that a book about paranormal, extraterrestrial creatures is boring?? Inexplicable. Makes absolutely no sense. The whole 100 pages is just about the process of discovering that cryptids were indeed coming from other worlds and not just like… weirdos from this planet. I can sum it up in like a single sentence: we saw weird, magical creatures coming out of a rift. But unfortunately, a bunch of dusty old dudes did a whole bunch of very boring research in order to prove what anyone can see with their eyeballs.

Okay, with their eyeballs and like… a lot of being in the right place at the right time or whatever.

According to Andie the book is fascinating and I’m being a huge baby (they didn’t actually say the I’m a huge baby part, but it was heavily implied.)

Lol okay I have to go Bass just showed up and wants to go to the library to study. I guess homework is real again hahahahahaha oh NO