It was Friday evening in Pixie Tower. I was sitting in my room trying not to think about the ache in my foot. Apparently walking back and forth to class had caused it to swell a bit. It looked red and irritated and was clearly still healing. I wasn’t shocked. Healer Sealie had warned me before turning me loose that it would recover in time and that this was a likely outcome of walking between classes. I just need to stay off of it for a little while.

  The bite mark, while looking better overall, was still very clear on my skin. The scar tissue, white and bumpy against the swollen and irritated skin around it, was clear enough that I could see the spots where the spider’s fangs had broken off into my leg.

  Healer Sealie apparently had them in a glass jar in her office. She offered them to me but I had enough reminders of that night. No thank you.

  But I had made it through my first week of classes. Only thirty-nine more to go for this school year. We would get our first grade report. Not that it would say much of anything at this point, but it would be routine for the rest of the year and they wanted us to get used to the rhythm of the school as quickly as possible.

  I sighed and leaned back into the pillows, purposely trying to not look out the small arched window next to the bed.

  The thing about Pixie Tower is that it spins. I knew that. Everyone knows that. It was enchanted to have a rotation that completed once an hour. When inside the Tower, the spin is unnoticeable. That was part of the spell. The problem is that looking out a window and seeing the spin we couldn’t feel gave me motion sickness. It was disorientating.

  How high up I was didn’t help either.

  Here’s another thing about Pixie Tower, and likely other Towers based off the exteriors: is that while we entered the tower on the ground floor of the castle, it wasn’t ground floor for the tower. For Pixie Tower, we entered it on the fourth floor. Meaning I was seven floors off the ground, nearing eighty feet.

  So in conclusion: looking out of a window in Pixie Tower was not fun, enjoyable, or relaxing.

  Which was a shame really.

  What was the point of sleeping in a Tower of an ancient castle if I couldn’t even enjoy the view?

  I rubbed the swollen bite mark, the bruise-like ache making me wish for home. But this was what I had wanted. Over three thousand miles away from home surrounded by strangers and magic and unfamiliarity. I buried my face in my hands.

  “Get a grip Serafina. It’s just a stupid spider bite. You’re probably just homesick,” I mumbled into my palms. Saying the word out loud only helped a little. I could still handle this.

  An eager knock on my door made me move my hands. “You can come on in,” I informed the other side of the simple wooden door.

  It was Angelina. “We got mail for you!” She grinned from ear to ear while hiding her hands behind her back. Mail? For me?

  She skipped over and set a plain white cardboard box next to me. It was heavy and rectangular. The only thing identifying it was a return address that I knew by heart. From home.

  “If you’re curious, you can stay,” I told Angelina and her excited puppy dog eyes. I opened the box carefully as she sat down on the floor next to my bed.

  It was a textbook. Mostly light blues with white lettering. A phantom image of the periodic table formed the main image. A name at the bottom brought a smile to my face.

  Angelina looked confused.

  An Introduction to Chemistry written by Victor Stewart.

  I hugged it to my chest, the dark cloud in my brain clearing a bit. The solid weight and fresh book smell were more comforting than anything else this past week. I almost missed the note that slipped out of the box.

  Lucinda informed me that the library will only have texts related to magic. I understand why. I was worried you might be overwhelmed by it all. Magic is a part of you. But so is this. You will always be my daughter. No matter what path you choose in life. That school is in your blood. You belong there as long as you want to. But you’ll always have a place amongst us non-magical folk.

  Wishing you the best, your father.

  My dad was a sap. I missed him.

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  “It’s a piece of home from my dad,” I told Angelina eventually.

  “Aw…” she cooed. “that’s so cute!”

  I rolled my eyes a little. She was right, but hearing her say it made it sound shameless. “Did you just come in here to play mailwoman to the cripple?”

  There was a flash of panic, “You’re not actually crippled, are you?”

  “No. I was joking.”

  She relaxed a little from relief. “The first and second years are going to go to tour the club openings. We can’t join some of them, but we can still go look. You think you’re going to be able to come with us?”

  I had nothing better to do. “I’ll let you know at breakfast. If I try and push myself too far Healer Sealie will have my head.”

  She nodded and smiled brightly.

  (*********)

  The next morning at breakfast, me with my plate of fruit salad and toast with jam, and Angelina with some kind of omelet with vegetables in it, I told her that I was feeling better. Which was true and the concept of clubs made me curious. I had no intention of joining any, but what harm was there in taking a look?

  The dozens of apparent clubs here had all set up booths and demonstrations outside the castle.

  At least it was a nice day.

  “Do you have your eye on anything?” Angelina asked.

  “Not really, but why not look?”

  She frowned and led me by the hand towards the massive crowd. We split off from the other Pixies, through the multicolored crowd but going the opposite direction the majority were walking in.

  “You don’t have to drag me everywhere,” I informed her.

  “Sorry.” She let go of my hand.

  “I’m not upset.” Well, not upset enough to want to make it a big deal. I slipped my hands into my pocket.

  “It’s just…I worry. We worry. You’ve barely even smiled since getting here and-”

  I sighed. “You do know that not everyone is like you Pixies, right? Not everyone’s default expression is cheery.”

  “You’re a Pixie too.”

  I shrugged, my hands still in my pockets, “Technically. But there is a reason it didn’t choose me. But don’t mistake indifference for something it isn’t. If I’m actually upset at anything I’ll let you know.”

  “Like that Pegasus guy the other day.”

  I nodded. “Exactly.”

  “I think he might have it out for you. He was glaring in Spellcraft yesterday.”

  “Was he?” I asked, more curious than anything. I was terrible at paying attention to people around me. I only really knew Angelina out of the Pixies and the only classmates whose names I confidently knew were the other would-be Dragons.

  “Do you just…not care at all?”

  “Pretty much. I only have so much energy you know? If I spent it all worrying about others I’d never get anything done.”

  She blinked at me. “You’re…an odd one.” She stated, “Not in like a bad way or anything!”

  I rolled my eyes at her. “Did you have any clubs you wanted to join?” I asked, changing the subject deliberately. “I forgot to ask earlier.”

  She flushed. “Well…I was going to try out for Chaser Support. It’s a bit of a Pixie tradition.”

  Ah. Of course. The group in charge of refereeing, cheering, and organizing events for the Chaser team. “I can see that. If you want emotional support I can sit on the side-lines and clap for you.”

  She laughed. “Thanks.”

  We walked for a bit, side by side with her chattering about Chaser tryouts.

  “The team is usually mostly Salamanders and Slyphids,” she was saying excitedly. “They’re so cool.”

  Of course, the highly competitive Tower and the eager for every new adventure Tower made sense for the sport team. I hummed in agreement to reassure her I was in fact listening.

  “They aren’t doing tryouts today for the team. Just letting people sign up. They’ll probably do it next weekend.”

  “Are you going to watch the tryouts?” I asked despite guessing the answer was yes.

  “Yep!” she grinned. She gasped and then stopped in her tracks. I stopped a few feet ahead of her.

  “Something wrong?”

  “No one told me we had a fortune telling club!” she shouted in joy. “Can we go check it out?!”

  “Why not?” I told her.

  “Yay!” she clapped and nearly ran towards the booth. I sighed and followed her. I stopped once to apologize once to someone she nearly bumped into in her excitement.

  The Fortune Telling Club’s set up reminded me a bit of a tent I had once seen at a fair my parents had taken me to. The sign for it had constellations and horoscopes on it. The people were wearing their school uniforms. It was a mix of Banshee white, Kelpie green and Basilisk brown.

  We were greeted by a male student in green with silver hair. “Hello ladies, would either of you be interested in knowing your future?”

  I pointed silently towards Angelina, who was practically vibrating with excitement. Her eyes nearly doubled in size at the actual crystal ball set up on a table. A Banshee sat there smiling at a couple of other students hanging around.

  “Yes. Very much so,” she said.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Angelina Farsee.”

  He nodded. “I know your family’s reputation. Why don’t you try out the crystal ball on your friend?”

  She turned to me with wide eyes. She looked like a sad puppy. I sighed in surrender. Not that she needed to go to such lengths.

  “Sure,” I told her.

  “Yes!”

  And that is how I ended up sitting in front a crystal ball across from Angelina. The ball sat neatly on a metal stand that looked like tree roots sprouting upwards and holding the volleyball sized orb of glass. It was perfectly smooth and inside I saw flecks and specks of glittering shards and fragments of stones. I remembered my mother reading to me about these. The various gemstones allowed the channeling of energy while the glass enabled the energy to produce an actual image. Like the screen of a projector. This was my first time seeing a real one.

  Angelina was sitting up much straighter than I had seen her do in any of our classes so far. Her eyes held a hint of seriousness to them. She wiped her hands on her shirt then held them out to me.

  “I can do this. Just give your hands and I’ll tell you what I see. Maybe there’s someone cute in your future.”

  I sincerely doubted that. Not the future seeing part, the ‘someone cute’ part. But that was not a conversation I felt like having at this point. She seemed nice and all but no reason to go there a minute sooner than I have to. I gave her my hands despite my misgivings.

  Angelina took a long deep breath and closed her eyes. I counted to three before she opened them again. Her irises were glowing with a red color that I hadn’t seen before.

  The crystal ball filled with red smoke, swirling and clouding the glass. I couldn’t look directly at it. Something about it made my head hurt.

  “I see two shades of red,” she said calmly and more quietly than normally spoke. I only saw one shade of red but I felt no urge to interrupt her. “One is…relaxed. Gentle. It will feel like home and comfort. But the other shade…it looks like blood. Danger. They’re…intertwined. You can’t have one without the other. But you won’t be alone.”

  The smoke emptied and she blinked a few times, the red fading back to her natural blue. She gasped.

  “Huh. It that how it’s supposed to go?” I asked. The headache was fading quickly.

  She frowned. “That was more vague than what I normally see. It was like…something was blocking me. But I wonder what it meant.”

  I snorted. “Clearly the universe is telling me that going back to Dragon Tower will be just as much fun as the first time.” Because the only things red in this school were related to Dragon Tower.

  She laughed. “Then you should stay in Pixie Tower!”

  “That isn’t up to me. That’s up to the Headmaster, Professor Hearth and whoever else makes decisions here.” From what Mom had told me, decisions of that level were usually made by a group of the most senior staff.

  There was clapping from nearby. “Impressive, Miss Farsee. To be expected of the family that invented most of modern Fortune-Telling.”

  Angelina blushed brightly. Someone might have forgotten we had an audience. “Well…I mean…yeah? Can I join your club?”

  “You have fun,” I told her as I got up from the table. Maybe I would go find the Alchemy club. The chances of there being one had to be pretty good, right?