The Beginning of Adventure

Once, there was a chronicler, who wrote down all the history of the world. When he finished, he shuffled the pages until he arrived at the first paragraph of the book. He focused his eyes on the opening sentence as he let it resonate in the privacy of his mind: "A great event has an insignificant beginning, and an epic adventure starts with a great event."

Then he looked outside the window and saw snowflakes, which began falling from the sky. He smiled as he closed the book and approached the window.

The clouds were slowly drifting outside, above and beneath his abode. It wasn’t unusual for the snowflakes to fall at this elevation, but he wondered whether they would make it to the ground before turning into raindrops. After all, down below the weather wasn’t as cold anymore.

He walked up to the calendar on the wall near the fireplace and his eyes skimmed through the names of months.

Among the eight seasons of the world, Peizh was always the season of rebirth. It started cold and snowy, but as it progressed, it became like the fresh breath of a new life after many days of deadly frost. As the season of Peizh was nearing its end, both people and animals could joyfully walk among the green plants, which all at once were returning back to life.

Followed by Peizh was the season of Faev, when the land finally said goodbye to all the snow and covered itself with green grass and flowers. Powerful thunderstorms occasionally passed through, threatening to cause major damage, yet usually they just drifted away leaving almost no trace behind. In the season of Faev, young animals could often be seen running around in the wilderness.

And then, the season of Dzon quickly followed with long days full of sunshine. Throughout the season, the sun was already up when the early birds awoke, and it still hung in the sky when the night owls fell asleep. The nights were warm, but the mornings were still chilly, giving goosebumps to those who decided to go outside without a shirt.

After Dzon came the season of Dees, together with vacations for all the schools. The days began to shorten, but the weather got hotter. After many days of constant sunshine without clouds, the air was always hot, sometimes even sultry. However, even in this heat, many businesses remained open on workdays.

With the coming of the season of Byzh, which always started the new school year, the days were only a bit longer than nights. Then by the time Byzh came to an end, the days and nights were of equal length. The weather was still hot throughout this season, and occasional warm rainshowers made children dance in joy as they played outdoors. However, for adults the season of Byzh was the time to prepare for the months of cold and snow.

By the time the season of Veuf came over, all trees had lost their leaves. The nights were longer than the days, and the days were cloudy and rainy. Last fruits were gathered from the orchards, and late grains were collected from the fields. The sunny warmth of abundant daylight was about to fade into the dark cold of lengthy nighttimes.

When the season of Tsun visited the land with its first snows, it was too late to do any farm work anymore. The gates of storages were closed, and the farm animals were gathered inside barns. Outdoor decorations were limited to the most sturdy ones, mainly statues made of stone and chairs made of metal, while the more fragile wooden decor, fabrics as well as living plants in their planters were safely stored inside homes.

After the season of Tsun came the holy day, or two holy days, depending on the year. With these holy days came the end of the year.

Afterward, a new year started with the season of Toas, which always began after the shortest day of the year. Even though the daytime slowly got longer, the season of Toas remained as the time of short days and long dark nights. Cold winds and blizzards kept people inside their homes most of the time. Yet an occasional day of sunshine with neither winds nor clouds was always a pleasant opportunity to take a walk outside amidst the snowy landscape for those unafraid of the cold.

* * *

It happened on the last day of Toas in the year fifty seven hundred ninety.

Among the snow and evergreen trees, deep in the woods and far away from any civilization, stood a two-story family house with a raised patio and a four-step staircase leading to the front door. In the snow that gathered on the staircase, there were two sets of footprints, which continued through the patio to the front door.

In the kitchen on the first floor, Larch Dolyan Kedaung River had a conversation with two guests. Larch was a short man with a beard, somewhat chubby, and with a deep look in his eyes. He was sitting by the table, which had a total of six chairs.

The taller one of the visiting men was standing by the wall full of cabinets near the kitchen entrance, while the other visitor was lazily pacing around the kitchen, listening but not interrupting.

Across from the cabinets, the stove had its own place under the window, while the adjacent sink was hiding in the corner of the kitchen. A narrow old wooden door between the sink and the cabinets led to the pantry, while a wide entryway connected the kitchen with the living room.

Right by the corner in the living room, the stairs led upstairs to the bedrooms. The first bedroom, directly in front of the last stairstep, was for the guests, but without any guests, it was used like a storage room. The other bedroom, right by the hallway window, was where the family slept together. There was one more room next to the staircase, but it wasn’t used for anything and remained empty.

Safflower Ngau Jastrabok Wind of River, who was Larch’s wife, stood by the crib in the family bedroom. She was a beautiful tall woman with smooth skin, a long golden braid and eyes like sapphires.

She was swaying left and right as she was lulling her baby to sleep in her arms. When the child finally fell asleep, she heard loud shouts and the sounds of a fight coming from the kitchen.

"You’ve betrayed us!" someone yelled from downstairs.

Upon hearing the words, her heart started beating rapidly as her face showed the first signs of worry. She stood still as if frozen, listening in, but all the noises quickly died down and were replaced by silence. That’s when she realized that her worst fears just came true.

Downstairs, the two guests looked at each other.

Larch, the owner of the house, sat down on the floor visibly in pain, but with no signs of wounds. He leaned his back on the wall, and quietly murmured something to the tall man, who squatted next to him, while his shorter companion stood right beside them.

Unlike Larch, Mesquite Bereza Kalikal Wind was a very tall man with straight, dark gold hair. He had an air of royalty around him, but his face made him look as if he would easily betray anyone willing to put even the slightest trust in him.

Mesquite nodded in response to the words, which he had heard from Larch, then he quickly got up, left the kitchen and went toward the staircase.

The shorter man, Pine Sharinga Titoki Fire, remained in the kitchen and while Mesquite was climbing the stairs, he drew his sword out of its sheath.

After mortally wounding his best friend, Mesquite left it to his knight to quickly end Larch’s life, while he himself went up the stairs.

When Safflower heard the footsteps on the staircase, she knew that it was already too late, so she hugged tightly the baby boy, and gestured on his forehead her final blessings, before gently putting him in the crib.

Mesquite quickly strode to the door, which led to the main bedroom and opened it with one swift motion. Inside, his eyes met Safflower’s. She was unusually calm for a woman who knew she was about to die. When she looked at Mesquite, tears began collecting in her eyes. She slowly shook her head, and opened her mouth, but he didn’t give her any time to talk. Before she could say anything, he took one step forward and swung his hand in the air as if he was cutting something with his fingers.

She stood at least two meters away from him, at a distance where he couldn’t touch her, and yet a thin line of blood appeared on her neck. When Mesquite put down his hand, her body fell to the floor.

He approached, knelt down next to her, and said a short prayer reserved for the deceased.

Afterward Pine, who had ensured the death of Larch River, came upstairs.

Pine was only several years younger than Mesquite, yet he didn’t look like a man about to turn fifty yrold at all. Quite on the contrary, Pine could easily be mistaken as a man still in his thirties. His face shone with life and energy, even though at the moment he had a concerned look on his face and a solemn look in his eyes.

Mesquite stood up and both of them looked at the baby in the crib, born less than six weeks ago.

Little Yew Chirabilva Araukaria River was crying loudly, awakened from his sleep by the noise. He didn’t understand what was going on around him, but the man, who had just killed his mother, came up to him and looked kindly upon the baby.

"There is no reason for an innocent child to be punished for his parents’ sins," Mesquite Wind took the crying baby into his arms and said to Pine, "He deserves to have better parents."

Then, after calming down the baby, Mesquite handed Yew over to Pine, who already knew what to do.

The village of Catriddle with its population of roughly ten hundred inhabitants, lay at the side of the mountain, not far away from the metropolis - Swanmaze. Most people living in the village were either miners or goatherds, while other professions, although present, weren’t prevalent.

Kapok Charascal Motooi Sky, a man with short unruly red hair, was a merchant, who specialized in weapons. With one glance, he could tell apart high quality swords from cheap knock-offs.

He travelled around the world, selling weapons made by the smiths from Catriddle, who were known for their skills. Those weapons sold at a hefty price, allowing Kapok to return home with unique items, which couldn’t be bought anywhere in the small village.

Other than being a talented merchant, Kapok was also a skilled swordman. Surely not as skilled as the best swordmen in the world, but in Catriddle he was certainly known as the best fighter. His money making abilities combined with his fighting skills made him a very respected man among all the villagers.

His wife, on the other hand, could easily be mistaken for a typical housewife. Nettle Iliau Adacayi Rainbow of Sky usually wore only plain clothes, with no jewelry or make-up, as she had no need for them to do housework.

Her straight black hair evenly cut around her neck, and neatly combed, depicted perfectly her organized personality. She always kept the house in order, and nothing could ever be out of its place, neither objects nor people.

However, her big round downturned eyes spoke a different story. They had a mesmerizing gleam to them, which easily charmed men and made them forget how to speak, whenever she smiled in that mysterious feminine way of hers, as if she had a secret that nobody knew of.

Yet contrary to her sweet appearance, Nettle was an intellectual and a graduate of Athena - the school most famous for the extensive knowledge and wisdom of its teachers and students. Moreover, she was a renowned book conservator, capable of repairing even the most torn-apart and brittle volumes, or texts which had been heavily damaged by water or fire.

Everyone in Catriddle knew that Nettle used to work for the Imperial Court, but after marrying Kapok, she abandoned her luxurious lifestyle and chose to live together with her beloved husband and children in this modest village.

Their home was built on top of Kapok’s workroom, with the staircase on the right leading up to the porch connected to the balcony. The handrails encompassing the staircase and the balcony were adorned with dozens of pots of flowering plants, which Nettle took care of all year round.

The wooden front door, which was custom-made by a local carpenter at Kapok’s request, was thick and heavy to effectively keep the cold weather out of the house. Along with tightly packed walls, the house was a warm piece of heaven for the whole family, especially during the coldest darkest days of the year.

On the second day of Dees in the year fifty seven hundred ninety nine near midday, a carriage led by two black horses with white spots, arrived in front of the house.

The driver stood up from his seat, stepped down onto the ground, approached the side door and opened it. With a gentle bow of his head, he offered his hand toward the gal sitting inside in order to help her dismount.

She took the driver’s hand and descended from the carriage. Once her feet were on the ground, the driver let go of her hand. He pulled out two big suitcases and followed her as she pulled up her long brown skirt and began climbing the staircase.

Hyssop Virali Goa Sky was an intelligent and beautiful maiden, who looked a lot like her mother. She kept her long black wavy hair tied in a high ponytail, and wore earrings that only added to her natural beauty.

She was already fourteen yrold, and just like her mother, she attended the prestigious school of Athena, where each year she ranked among the top ten students of her year.

On the day of her return, she wore a long-sleeved light-blue blouse with an ornate lace around her neck, a straw hat decorated with a navy-blue flower, a long brown skirt and stringed sandals with a short thick heel.

At the top of the staircases, Hyssop turned to the driver. "Thank you, sir. Just put them down here," she pointed at the wall adjacent to the front door.

The carriage driver did as told, wished her a good day and left.

Hyssop let the suitcases lie on the porch, as she opened the front door and entered the house.

The front door led to the entry room, as was the custom with all homes. Every entry room had two doors. The front door, which was also called the exterior door, led outdoors, while the interior door, sometimes called the main door, led into the main living areas of the house.

In the entry room, Hyssop changed her shoes. She put her sandals on a shelfcase among other outdoor shoes, and wore a pair of cozy slippers instead, before she opened the interior door and walked into the living room.

As soon as she closed the main door, she turned right and entered the kitchen through a beaded curtain, which was used instead of a door. There, sitting by the table, she found her mother, who was so immersed in reading that she didn’t hear her daughter entering the house.

"Mom?"

Nettle raised up her head, and smiled as soon as she realized who was calling out to her.

"Hyssop," she got up and went to embrace her daughter, who returned the hug. "I’m so glad, you’re back."

"Me too, mom," Hyssop said. When Nettle finally let go of Hyssop, the gal asked, "Where’s Yew?"

"Oh," Nettle said.

Hyssop chuckled. "I bet he forgot that I’m coming back today."

"Let me check," Nettle said and stepped out from the kitchen. 

She passed through the living room and down the hallway toward her son’s bedroom. She opened the door, but she didn’t find anyone inside.

Hyssop approached her mother and waved her hand, dismissing the problem. "He’ll be back soon enough," she said. "Do you need any help making lunch?"

"Of course," her mother responded. "Change clothes and come to the kitchen, when you’re ready."

"Okay, and…" Hyssop suddenly remembered something. "I left my suitcases on the porch."

"You should have said so earlier," her mother responded and the two of them went to retrieve the luggage together.

They carried one suitcase each directly to Hyssop’s bedroom, where they had to stop for a quick breather since neither one of the suitcases was light to carry.

Yew left his outdoor shoes in the entry room of the house, and used the shirt in his hand to wipe off any excess dirt from his feet. As silently as possible he opened the interior door, and listened.

He heard noises in the kitchen, so he knew where his mother was. She would surely get mad at him for coming back so dirty, and he didn’t like her nagging, so he quickly tiptoed through the living room via the hallway into the bathroom.

He threw all his dirty clothes into the basket under the sink, and cleaned himself with a wet towel. Before leaving the bathroom, he wrapped himself with a dry towel, and sneaked a peek outside.

Thankfully, his mother was still in the kitchen, preparing dinner.

He quickly leapt out into the hallway, and a second later slithered into his bedroom through a barely opened doorway.

Yew’s bedroom had a desk and a shelfcase on one side. His bed and a wardrobe were on the other side, and a dresser stood next to the door. An elaborate painting of a ruby dragon sleeping among the snow-covered trees hung above the dresser, and right in the center, a blue oriental rug stretched on the wooden floor like waves on an ocean.

Yew moved about the room, quickly putting on clean clothes while trying not to imagine what his mother was going to say about the muddy ones, which he had left in the bathroom.

Afterward, he slowly opened the door and looked at the hallway, toward the living room.

Although the summer sun was still up, it was already late. His mother would surely want him to stay home. However, he still wanted to play outside.

He tiptoed into the living room. With his back on the wall, he looked toward the exit with the kitchen’s entrance between him and his goal. He swiftly and silently crossed the distance. As he was opening the interior door, he heard his mother’s voice.

"Yew?"

Of course, she had to notice him. His mediocre luck could never allow him to bypass the kitchen unnoticed twice.

"Why are you barefoot?" she asked and put her fists on her hips.

Yew was barefoot for the simplest of reasons. He was sneaking around the house, and it would have been so much more difficult to be fast and nimble in slippers.

He knew that no matter his response, he was going to get scolded. Thus he froze in place, hoping that time would resolve the situation and calm his mother’s anger.

At that very moment, Kapok entered the house through the exterior door, and was greeted with the sight of his son crouching down, while holding the knob of the interior door.

Kapok’s wife heard him enter, so she approached and stood behind Yew.

"Good evening, Nettle," he greeted her, as he took off his shoes and exchanged them for slippers. "Something happened?" he half-asked, what he was already certain of, based on his wife’s mysterious smile.

Yew took that moment to slip away, and shoot for the exterior door, hoping to get out and let his parents work out their anger without him around.

"Yew!" his mother yelled out. Her smile suddenly gone.

Right after Yew snatched his outdoor shoes, Kapok grabbed his son under the armpits and lifted him up. He didn’t let him go, while he renewed his conversation with his wife. "So? Something happened, right? You look quite happy."

Nettle smiled widely and finally answered him, "Hyssop returned from school."

"Hyssop?!" Yew suddenly shouted, and threw down his outdoor shoes. His father let him go, and the boy ran out of the entry room and into Hyssop’s bedroom.

"Yew! Your slippers!" his mom shouted after him.

Hyssop’s room was a bit bigger than Yew’s, and it took him a moment to carefully look around, but his sister wasn’t present in the room, so he checked his parents’ bedroom, but got the same results.

Frustrated, he wondered where Hyssop was, but in a split second he realized where he had to go. He ran to the kitchen, cutting off in front of his parents, who were also about to go inside.

"Hyssop!"

The gal, who was washing the vegetables, didn’t even have time to look around before Yew hugged her from behind.

"Slippers," his mother walked into the kitchen carrying her son's shoes.

Yew let go of his sister, and put on the indoor shoes. Then he hugged her again, "You’re back!"

"And you forgot aaaall about it!" Hyssop poked his forehead with her wet hand.

Kapok entered the kitchen as well, and sat down on the chair by the table.

"I’m sorry," Yew said. "I remembered it this morning, and I was planning to come home earlier, but it totally slipped my mind, when I was trying to catch this big fish," he stretched out his arms to show how big the fish was. "Argh, why did it slip away?" he grabbed his head with his hands. "If I had gotten that one, I could have given it to you as a present!"

The family laughed.

Hyssop put the last vegetable on the cutting board and dried her hands. Nettle took the board with the washed vegetables to another counter. Meanwhile Hyssop sat down at the table beside her father. Yew sat next to her, immediately asking his sister about her school life.

"By the way," Nettle interrupted, after she finished cutting the vegetables, "Yew is already ten yrold. He’s about the right age to send him to school."

All kids had to attend a local kindergarten before the age of eight in order to learn basics, such as writing and reading. Yet when it came to schooling, most parents preferred to keep their children home until the age of ten.

Kapok looked at the calendar hanging on the fridge. "He was born nine years ago, so that really makes him ten this year. Hah, I didn’t even realize it until now!"

His bad acting might have fooled Yew, but it didn’t fool Hyssop, who realized that her parents were setting the stage for a more difficult conversation.

Even though Yew always wanted to hear school stories from his sister, he himself didn’t want to go to any school. Thus as soon as his parents mentioned this topic, he made a sour face.

Hyssop decided to save her younger brother by changing the topic. ""Mom? Why are babies already one yrold, when they’re born? Pregnancy doesn’t last that long." She recalled something new, which she had learned in school that year.

"You don’t know?" Kapok asked, mildly surprised. "But I guess it’s not that unusual. Many people just think of it as a tradition."

"Well, the reason is very mystical," Nettle seasoned the soup, before she directed her words to Hyssop. "We all know that a human cannot be born without a soul. But a soul can exist without a body. For this reason, the soul is always born first. They say that the soul chooses the mother and the father for its body. And unless selected by the soul, the couple cannot have a child. No matter how much they try, the woman won’t get pregnant."

"Okay, but still why one yrold?"

"Because, according to a very ancient legend, a soul is born one year before its body is born."

"I’ve heard a different version," Kapok objected, "that all souls were created before the existence of the world, but they arrive in this world one year before their birth."

"But in the spiritual world, there is no flow of time. Nothing ages there," Nettle pointed out. "No time passes in the spiritual world, so it all arrives at the same conclusion. We count from one, because we count the age of the soul."

Hyssop looked interested but skeptical as she questioned, "isn’t all of this just a legend?"

"Even legends have a piece of truth in them," Nettle responded. "How about you research more about it once you return to Athena?"

"Yeah, I'll do that."

Seeing an opportunity, Kapok reverted the topic back to Yew's education. "So…," he pinned his son with a stare. "Do you have a school in your mind? Somewhere where you’d want to go?"

"Any school is fine." Yew wasn’t lying. He liked hearing about his sister’s achievements in Athena, but he didn’t care to choose a school for himself. In his opinion, all schools were inhospitable and apathetic, so it made no difference which school he would attend.

"You cannot say that!" Hyssop got angry. "You should always aim for a good school. Of course, there are some schools that you won’t be able to attend, but still."

"I agree with Hyssop," Nettle nodded. "How about Athena?"

"It’s hard to get accepted, so there’s no point talking about it with my scores from kindergarten." Yew felt unhappy that his family was pushing him to go to such a prestigious school. He didn’t want to stand out. If anything, he wished he was average.

Nettle and Kapok smiled at each other. Kapok left the kitchen for a moment, then returned with a big stack of acceptance letters. He set them down in front of Yew and exclaimed enthusiastically, "Here we go!"

Nettle laughed gently. "To be honest, we already sent out applications to every school."

"And you got accepted into every single one!" Kapok said, pleased with his son.

Yew looked at the mountain of paper, displeased that so many schools were willing to accept him even after he sabotaged his own scores in kindergarten. He thought about his father’s words and he voiced out his latest idea.

"Every single one? Including Hades?" For a moment, Yew had hoped that he could go to a school with the worst notoriety. If he couldn’t avoid standing out, at least he could stand out in a way that made others avoid him.

"Oh, come on!" his mother scolded him, taking his words as a bad joke. "We would never send an application there!"

His father sat down and crossed his fingers on the table, "Well, there were some schools we didn’t consider, like Hades." He scowled at his son with a countenance, which translated to «you-know-why-not-Hades».

Yew began to look through the letters. He didn’t understand why so many schools were willing to take him in, when the scores on his final year in kindergarten were no higher than average.

"We also did not send any application to Zeus or Hera, because these schools only accept people from royalty, or in rare cases, from nobility. So we had no chance to begin with," Kapok continued listing schools, which he could never send his son to, for one reason or another. "And you know that Nike does not accept applications."

The school of Nike was known for valuing independence. It was the only school, where connections, money, and fame meant nothing. The school was levitating high above the clouds, and constantly travelling through the sky. It was hard to know its position, and it was even harder to reach it. Those who wanted to study in Nike, had to personally find that school, then find a way to get there using their own skills, strength and intelligence. If the school found out that a student received help from anyone, that student would be disqualified and banned from the school of Nike forever.

"Naturally, we also did not send any application to Nemesis or Dionysus," Nettle added.

The school of Nemesis had a questionable reputation. Officially the school trained their students in the skills of investigating and spying. Certain famous graduates of Nemesis worked for the Emperor and protected the citizens by catching the criminals. However, there were also some infamous assassins, who graduated from the school of Nemesis.

"But I could get into Dionysus," Yew stated. "You’re a merchant, so of course you have a lot of money."

The school of Dionysus was the most expensive school of all. With its luxurious and extravagant sustenance provided to the students, it could easily rival schools like Zeus or Hera. However, it wasn’t a school for royalty or nobility. Instead it was a school for anyone, who had too much money and wished to pamper their children with a lazy life of free stuff and no work.

"We’re not made of money," Kapok noted the reality in a harsh tone. "And graduates of Dionysus have a reputation of being rich spoiled brats. That’s not something we want you to become."

Yew quickly checked the school name at the top of each paper, as if he was searching for one specific school. "I don’t see Tyche here," he pointed out with a smirk of victory.

Nettle rolled her eyes with a sigh. "You know that Tyche doesn’t exist."

The school of Tyche was a rumor. Many researchers carefully checked every place throughout the earth in search of this alleged school, and officially it has never been found. Most people came to the conclusion that there was no such school. Yet some people still believed in its existence, and once in a while someone appeared, who claimed to have graduated from there.

"I don’t know, I cannot decide," Yew said as he pushed the letters away.

His father looked at his mother, hesitating over something. Yet when Nettle slowly but surely nodded, Kapok bit his lower lip. He took out an envelope from his shirt and handed it to Yew.

"What's this?"

"This one surprised us, to say the least," Kapok said. "And honestly, we didn’t want to give it to you. But if all these schools aren’t to your liking, then this one is still better than nothing."

The envelope was addressed to Yew, but it had already been opened by his parents. He took out the letter from inside the envelope, and read the short sentence written at the top of the page: Yew Chirabilva Araukaria Sky, thou hast been officially invited to the school of Hypnos. Sincerely, Chairman of Hypnos.

Hyssop, who sat next to him, leaned over to read the content, and was just as shocked as her brother. "What?!"

Yew was speechless.

The school of Hypnos was a mystery. At first glance, the schoolground was nothing but abandoned ruins. Sometimes students were spotted on the premises from a distance, but none could ever be found from up close, making these encounters no different from ghost sightings.

No one knew where Hypnos held its classes, if it did hold any classes, or what it taught. The only thing widely known to the public was that the school accepted no applications. Instead, it would send out invitations, but no one knew the criteria used by Hypnos to select its students, and that’s why a letter from Hypnos was always as unexpected as a shooting star.

"We would prefer for you to study in a school that we can trust," Kapok said, "but if you decide to go to Hypnos, we won’t stop you."

Nettle put her hand on Yew’s shoulder, and said in a concerned voice, "But I want you to tell us everything that happens there."

Graduates of Hypnos were as mysterious as the school itself. No one really knew what they could do, but every so often, an incident here and there shed some light on their skills. The most famous of those incidents happened roughly two hundred years ago, when two students of Hypnos got into a fight in a forest adjacent to the town of Lizardtongue.

When the town's authorities arrived to stop the fight, the graduates had fled, leaving behind a white flame. This mysterious magic defied all known laws, because even though the flame had been blazing for centuries, it never scorched anything or anyone. All kinds of scientists and wizards studied it, but no one ever figured out its composition, and the manner of its creation remained a mystery to this very day.

This artifact, adequately named the White Flame, became worldwide famous in the following decades. Nowadays, it was the most-visited tourist attraction and the main profit source for Lizardtongue.

"Can you give me some time to think it through?" Yew asked.

"Of course, as much time as you want," his father said. "The most important thing is that you like the school, which you choose."

Yew took all the letters and went to his bedroom. He put the letters on his desk, closed the door, and sat on his bed. The sight of so many acceptance letters would make anyone else explode with gaiety, but it made him feel sick to his stomach.

Mpingo had gotten rejection letters from every school except the school of Hestia. Whereas Yew was accepted by every single one of them. On top of that, he got the invitation from Hypnos, which Yew decided to decline without any deeper consideration. He didn’t want to attend a school, which would crush his best friend’s soul.

He decided that, if he must choose a school, he would choose the worst of the best.

He sat down at his desk, took the envelope from Hypnos and threw it onto the floor. He did the same with the papers from Athena, Ares, Hermes, and any other school with a good reputation. In the end, he was left only with the school of Hestia - the very school, which accepted his best friend. He couldn’t go there either, because Mpingo wouldn’t forgive him for "wasting his talents" like that. 

He added the paper from Hestia to the pile on the floor, leaving nothing on his desk.

In the end, Yew couldn’t decide.

He wanted neither fame nor success. He wanted to go to a school, which wouldn’t put him in the spotlight or make him a celebrity. Yet apart from Hestia, all the other schools had a good reputation. In other words, there was no other "bad" school among the acceptance letters, which his parents gave him.

He sighed in defeat, knelt down by the pile, and started looking through the papers again. This time he wasn’t looking for the worst school, but instead he was looking for an odd school - an outcast which stood out from the rest.

The acceptance letter from the school of Hecate had caught his eye, and he pulled it out from the pile.

Hecate was a school of magic with a fairly good reputation, but it wasn’t common to attend this school. The magical talent, which was required in order to learn magic, was rare and just like any other talent, hereditary.

Neither Kapok nor Nettle, nor their parents or grandparents, had any magical talent. This meant that their children would also remain magicless. This was true for his sister, but not for Yew.

He put the letter from Hecate on the desk. Then he pulled out a book from an adjacent shelfcase. He ran his fingers on the ornamental cover around the title «Magic for Beginners», before he opened a random page, and read the content. It described a spell to create a water bubble shaped like a butterfly.

As instructed by the book, he drew the shape of a butterfly in the air. Then a water butterfly manifested right above his open palm.

It was always the same. No matter which spell he had tried, it had always worked. That was how he knew that he was magic-talented, but his parents weren’t. He understood what it meant, and it vexed him.

He closed his hand into a fist, causing the water butterfly to drop down to the floor, where it left a small puddle, which quickly evaporated.

Yew sighed as he recalled the day, when he first saw this book in a bookstore almost a year ago. Back then, he had thought that he was magicless. Nevertheless, he had begged his mother to buy him this magical book, after seeing so many beautiful images of animals behaving as if they were alive on the paper pages.

Nettle had smiled upon seeing her son so fascinated by moving images, so she had bought him the book with a caring warning, "in order to use magic, you need to have a talent, so don’t cry if the spells don’t work for you!"

Later that day, Yew had tried the spells. He had no desire to embarrass himself in front of others, so he had tried them alone. And they had worked, and he had no idea what to do about it. Afraid to tell anyone, he had kept it a secret.

Months passed, and he was still the only one, who knew about his magical talent.

He frowned at the book, as if he didn’t know whether to blame or thank the object. He merely wanted to have it out of childish curiosity. Yet if he hadn’t seen this book, or if he hadn’t been so enamored by its images, or if his mother refused to buy it, he would have never found out about his magical talent.

He would have never found out that he was adopted.

It was common for children, who lost their parents due to an illness or an accident, to be adopted by another family. However, it was uncommon for adopted parents to keep the adoption a secret.

About three years ago, Yew had asked his parents, why he had no younger siblings. At that time, his mother had explained that she had become sick after giving birth and had to have a surgery. As a result, she could no longer become pregnant.

Yet just several months later, when Yew was eight yrold, he found Nettle’s medical papers by accident.

He had been looking through drawers, trying to find where his mother had hid his favorite chocolate. Under a pile of papers, he had found a wooden box, and in the box he had found the documents. He couldn't understand most of the content, but he certainly understood that the surgery had taken place on the third day of Tsun in the year fifty seven hundred eighty nine - a month before he had been born.

Back then, he had ignored this confusing info, and had continued his search for chocolate.

However, after discovering his magical talent, Yew had became certain that he wasn’t Nettle’s biological son. He also realized why Nettle and Kapok had adopted him. They wanted more children.

He understood that both Nettle and Kapok saw him as their real son, and Hyssop saw him as her younger brother. There was no reason for him to bring up the topic of his adoption, and destroy the harmonious life of his family. Until now, he assumed that his parents were waiting for him to grow older, before telling him about his adoption.

However, today this secret had turned into a problem. His parents were sending him off to a school. This marked the beginning of a new stage in his life, and the first step toward adulthood. It was at this time, when all family secrets were revealed and all family traditions explained.

Usually a month before children were sent off to school, parents would pass down their family secrets to their offsprings, and explain everything in order to prepare them for the vast world far from home.

However, Yew’s parents were sending him to a school with no word about his adoption. And there could only be one reason for this silence. His biological parents were criminals, and his adopted parents might have deemed it better for Yew not to know about them. Yet if this was true, then Yew felt an even stronger desire to find out about them - who were they, and what crime had they committed.

Once again he looked at the application to the school of Hecate. No one knew that he could use magic, so it wouldn’t hurt Mpingo too much if he went there as a magicless student, or so he tried to lie to himself.

Even though Hecate was a school of magic, even those without a magical talent could apply. Unlike magic-talented students, who learned how to control their inner magic, magicless students studied the magic in nature in order to learn how to produce magical items. The second option required no magical talent, but a lot of knowledge.

If Yew declared that he wanted to go to Hecate, his parents would assume that he was planning to learn how to make magical items, and while at Hecate, he could find out something about his parents. Like this, he could kill two birds with one stone - keep things a secret from his adopted parents, and search for infos about his biological parents. Not to mention, that he could keep his relationship with Mpingo as cordial as possible, and that’s what mattered the most. 

The next day, on the third day of Dees, Yew told his parents about his wish to attend the school of Hecate as a magicless student.

Kapok and Nettle were mildly surprised but accepted his choice. They helped him fill out the confirmation letter for the school of Hecate, while they themselves wrote polite annulment letters to other schools.

Yew sent out his response to the school of Hecate the same day, and just two days later he received a welcome letter from the school, with three documents: an admission statement, an introduction pamphlet, and a list of essential instructions for new students.

Yew was directed to arrive on the fortieth day of Dees, in the afternoon. In case, if he couldn’t make it, he was supposed to contact the school immediately in order to reschedule the day of his arrival.

Around the same time, Mpingo also completed his application to the school of Hestia, which sent him a different set of instructions.

In the following five weeks, Yew and Mpingo were playing with each other like always, but they didn’t enjoy it as much as before. Mpingo kept asking Yew, why did he choose Hecate, but Yew wouldn’t tell him the truth, and Mpingo noticed it.

Even though the school of Hecate had an average reputation, Mpingo still felt like the ravine between him and Yew was growing bigger and bigger until it got so big that he couldn't cross it anymore. He didn’t feel like there was anything in common between him and Yew, so he quietly distanced himself from his best friend.

The suffering in Mpingo’s heart caused by the rejection from all schools except Hestia, slowly turned into an indifferent acceptance of his own defeat. With each passing day, Mpingo’s behavior was getting more and more sullen and reserved.

However, Yew couldn't see the negative changes in Mpingo, as they had no time to play together anymore. Both boys were busy, preparing for a year spent away from home.

Then on the thirty eighth day of Dees, before the sunrise, Mpingo left for the school, leaving Yew without a word.

Later he felt guilty about ignoring his best friend like that, but he had found for himself a justifiable explanation. He made himself believe that there was no need to say goodbye, because they were going to see each other again.

Yew himself was so nervous and so excited about his own day of departure that he didn’t even realize that Mpingo had suddenly left. 

Soon it was his turn to leave - his big day of becoming independent. For the first time, he would leave the comfort of home in order to experience the wonders of the outside world, and he couldn’t stop thinking about it since three days prior to the appointed date.

Early in the morning, on the fortieth day of Dees, when everyone else was just waking up, Yew was already awake and dressed up.

There was no major transportation in the small village of Catriddle, which had only one dirt road connecting it to the outside world. Kapok planned to take Yew in his merchant’s carriage, but Hyssop offered a better alternative.

Each year, the top ten students of Athena had the privilege of a private carriage transporting them to and from school, all of which was paid for by the school. Hyssop contacted the driver of her carriage, and requested to return to Athena in the morning on the fortieth day of Dees, with a quick stop in the city of Owlway to drop off her younger brother at the train station.

The carriage had to pass through the city of Owlway anyway, so the driver agreed to her request, and arrived on the appointed day. He walked up to the front door, and knocked.

The family had just finished their breakfast.

"Your carriage is here," Kapok said after he looked out the kitchen window.

Nettle opened the door, and invited the driver to come inside.

He immediately saw Hyssop’s suitcases standing ready in the living room, and asked if he could take them. Hyssop confirmed, and the man took the suitcases to the carriage.

Meanwhile, Hyssop changed her shoes, and put on her favorite straw hat with three yellow bees as a decoration.

Yew grabbed his backpack. It had been packed-ready since ereyester and occupying the armchair in the living room, patiently awaiting the day of departure.

With the backpack in his hands, Yew followed Hyssop into the entry room, where he put the backpack down on the floor, while he changed his shoes.

Nettle and Kapok went outside together with their children. Nettle followed them down the stairs to the carriage, but Kapok remained on the balcony, leaning forward on the handrail above a flowerpot.

The driver was already holding open the door to the carriage.

Hyssop hugged her mother as usual, and as usual, she heard the same words: "may God bless you, my child. You bring so much honor to our family".

Then Nettle moved to tightly hug Yew for much longer than she hugged her daughter. Her son had never before been that far away from home, and yet he was going far, alone and for months.

She knew that it was inevitable. Sooner or later, all children had to grow independent from their parents. But what mother could ever watch the process without panic or anxiety?

Four years ago, when Hyssop had been starting her first year in Athena, both Nettle and Kapok had experienced the difficult ordeal of letting a child fly out of the nest, while not knowing what would happen to her in the unknown wilderness of the world.

On that day, Nettle had left Yew in care of Mpingo’s parents, while Kapok had drove his wife and daughter to the city of Owlway to see her off at the train station. All day long, Nettle had been drowning in emotions. She had cried the whole way, while her daughter had kept reassuring her with sincere words of a child, who didn’t understand.

They had waited together for the train, hugging each other and saying the same blessings over and over. After Hyssop had entered the train, Kapok had to hold his wife in a strong embrace to keep her from following. It was her maternal instinct, which had fought against the separation. Even if she had understood in her mind, her heart had refused to concede until the train was out of sight.

Afterward, she had turned around and had cried on Kapok's shoulder, while he had gently stroked her hair. He himself had felt a strong desire to guard his daughter anywhere at any time, but he had also understood that no child can grow up, unless parents let go of the reins. After all, a grownup who had never learned independence was no different from a disabled, and Kapok would rather burn in hell than cripple his own children.

Nothing had happened to Hyssop for four years, and as a result, with each passing year, farewells became less nerve-racking for Nettle, even if her maternal instincts had continued to lament inside her heart.

While stroking Yew’s head, she softly murmured into his ear, "may God protect you, my child. May He protect and bless you. You don’t have to bring honor to us, if you don’t want to, but please be careful and return safe."

After the hug, she put her hands on Yew’s shoulders and added, "this will be your first year, so if anything bad happens let us know immediately. As your mother, I know how easily you get into troubles. May God protect you all the time, or else I won’t be able to sleep."

"Mom, I’ll be fine," Yew quickly responded. He was feeling uncomfortable by such an outburst of anxiety from his mother.

"Notify me immediately, if anything happens," she said sternly.

"I will," Yew conceded.

Hyssop and Yew waved at their father, who was watching from the balcony. Kapok waved back with a sad smile.

After Yew turned toward the carriage, he heard his father’s voice.

"Hey, Yew," Kapok shouted, "I know you don’t care about it, but while you’re in Hecate, at least bring a little bit of honor back to this house. Don’t make us the disgrace of the whole village."

Yew knew that his father was joking, but nonetheless he didn’t like getting accused of something that he would never do. "I’m not that stupid," he shouted back.

Yew entered the carriage first, and Hyssop followed, but before she sat down, she reminded the driver, "sir, please make a stop in the city of Owlway, near the train station."

"Of course, missy," the driver responded and bowed down. He closed the door, returned to his seat, and ordered the horses to go.

Slowly but surely the carriage moved forward on the dirt road down the hill. And when the carriage finally left the forest at the foot of the mountain, the passengers could see the city of Owlway appear on the horizon behind the wide farming fields.

Owlway was built in a valley between the mountains. Yet the valley itself wasn't an even plain. As a consequence, the cityscape was garnished with intertwining hills and dales. The streets went either up or down, while buildings stood on either higher or lower grounds.

The roads leading into the city were wide enough for a two-way traffic, and they ran parallel to the city walls, which supported the structural integrity of its buildings and prevented landslides.

Anyone leaving the village of Catriddle had to pass the city of Owlway no matter where they headed. Moreover, it was common for the villagers to visit the city, when in need of goods, which couldn’t be bought in their tiny village. Thus both Hyssop and Yew were already acquainted with the city.

By foot, it took about a day to get from Catriddle to Owlway, but with a carriage it was much faster, and in less than two hours the siblings were inside the city.

Normally, Hyssop’s driver took the westernmost road to quickly drive through the city, but the train station was on the eastern side of Owlway, so a detour was necessary. 

The train station was built at the foot of a fairly tall hill. The top of the hill was flattened and turned into a commercial area with a booming city life filled with plazas and gardens, while a residential area could be visible on the mountainside beyond.

Many tunnels were built inside the mountainous region to provide access for the train to come into the city. On the southern side, the train tracks came out from a tunnel built under the hill, while on the northern side, the tunnel was built inside a steep mountain range.

The driver stopped right in front of the train station, and stepped down to open the door for Yew, who quickly jumped out of the carriage and said, "thank you, sir."

"You’re welcome, lad," the driver bowed his head then closed the carriage door before heading back to his seat.

From an open window, Hyssop wished her brother good luck, and he thanked her. Before the carriage got too far away to see it, she leaned out the window and waved to her brother, who waved back.

As Yew's hand returned to rest by his side, his heart began filling with an odd emotion of fear that comes from loneliness. He realized that it was his first time being alone in the city of Owlway.

However, he didn’t allow himself to panic. It would be nothing but an embarrassment to cry until someone called his parents. Thus he gathered all his fortitude, and approached the timetable for the trains.

He saw that the train to the city of Sheepcrown was coming next, and was glad that he didn’t have to wait for a long time. He wasn’t sure whether Hyssop scheduled it that way or it was just a lucky coincidence, but he liked this outcome. He wanted to get onboard fast in order to calm down in a seat by the window. He refused to use the benches at the train station, afraid that he might not have enough courage to stand, once he sat down.

From the side pocket of his backpack, he took out the ticket that his father had bought him last week. He checked whether the train type matched. It did, so it certainly was the train that he needed in order to get to the school of Hecate.

He showed his ticket to the guard, when he walked through the gate onto the platform, where many people were gathered, waiting for the next train.

Before Yew had time to take a better look at his surroundings, he heard the train whistle in the distance. The sound was coming from the northern tunnel. It echoed through the mountain walls in an eerie, but somewhat magical pitch, and it made Yew feel more excited than scared. All at once, his anxiety was transformed into anticipation at the prospect of something wonderful awaiting him at the end of his journey.

"The train is approaching. Please DO NOT stay close to the tracks," a voice warned the passengers through a loudspeaker.

Some people obeyed the instructions and moved away, while others went against the rules and moved closer to the tracks, as if they were worried that the train wouldn’t stop for them if they didn’t endanger their lives.

The train, colored lemon green at the top and light blue at the bottom, shot out like a bullet from inside the tunnel. With its long continuous car devoid of any doors, it looked more like a caterpillar than a train.

Even though it had an amazing speed, it came to a perfect stop right at the station. Those who had never seen this train before, were often surprised at both its appearance and its ability to come to a sudden stop regardless of its speed. However, Yew had already seen this unique magical train, so none of it surprised him.

In less than a second after its instantaneous halt, the train’s sidewall had disappeared, revealing the interior of the train. Only one thin crevice separated the concrete platform from the wooden floor of the train’s hallway. 

Passengers began to casually board the train. They passed through the luxurious high-class hallway into elegant cozy compartments, which were big enough to accommodate up to eight adults.

Yew was among the last to board the train. He would have never guessed that one day the train, built by the graduates of Hecate, would take him to that very school.

He walked along the hallway, looking through the windows of narrow compartment doors in search of a place to sit. Many compartments were full, but some had one or more empty seats. Yew decided to check all sixty compartments, before deciding where to sit. But he didn’t reach the end of the train, because he had found a completely empty compartment, and that was where he decided to sit.

He was overjoyed at his superb luck.

The compartment’s seats were soft and comfy. There were free blankets on a long flat shelf above the seats, but it was too high for Yew to reach them, so he would either have to do without them, or ask someone taller for help. Luckily, it was summer, so he didn’t need a blanket, although he wouldn’t mind an extra cushion for his head to lay down on.

He settled by the window and looked outside at the platform beneath the steep cliff of the hillside.

Soon afterward, the sidewall of the train reappeared like a transparent glass that turned opaque. And the train began to move mostly in silence with some occasional squeaks from the tracks.

Yew took one final glance at the city of Owlway, knowing that he wouldn’t return for at least two months, if not longer. He felt anxious and wished to go back home, but this state of his mind didn’t last for more than two moments.

The train rushed headfirst into the tunnel, heading south. The scenery outside turned into total darkness, and the train conductor might have forgotten to turn on lights, because the compartment turned pitch black.

Yew’s longing for home instantly shifted into confusion. Was he supposed to turn on the light himself? How does he turn on the light now, when it’s so dark? Do other compartments have lights on?

When the lights finally lit up on the ceiling, Yew was no longer alone in the compartment. A teen couple was sitting across from him, hugging and kissing each other.

Yew’s eyes grew bigger in surprise at the unexpected visitors, but he didn’t know what to say without awkwardly announcing his presence.

The gal was the first one to see him. She pushed her partner away and beckoned her chin toward Yew. The guy looked to his side, and Yew looked right back at him.

With an embarrassment painted on their faces, they quickly apologized and soundlessly teleported out, leaving no trace of their presence.

Teleportation was an ability that required either a magical talent or a magical item. Since the couple used it without an item, it was logical to assume that they were students of Hecate, possibly from the seventh or eighth year, on their way back to school.

Some time passed with Yew being alone and contemplating the scene, which he had just witnessed. Why do adults do something as disgusting as kissing?

Then the door to the compartment was opened by a guy, who was a year or two younger than previous visitors. He stepped in and gave Yew a questioning look. Yew didn’t react, so he stepped out, looked above the door, then once again at Yew.

"Can you read?" he asked. His long cyan hair was tied with a ribbon behind his back, but he didn’t look feminine at all. He had a very masculine build, and his voice was unexpectedly deep for his age.

"Huh?" Yew was taken aback by the question.

"You know, this is compartment twenty one," the guy spoke in a condescending tone. He wore expensive clothes decorated with gold, and flawlessly tailored to his body. His attire reminded Yew of a prince from picture books with fairytales.

"So?" Yew raised an eyebrow, equally confused at the topic of their conversation and at the visitor’s behavior.

The guy blinked twice at the oblivious boy’s response. Then he looked left and right at the hallway, as if he was checking if anybody saw him, before he entered the compartment.

He moved his long hair to the side to avoid sitting on it, as he took the seat by the window across from Yew. He took a small pack of cigarettes out of his pocket, pulled out one and carefully put it in his mouth, as if he was trying it for the first time. The cigarette lit up on its own, and he smoked for a while before he spoke again. "First year?"

Even if the guy was a fellow student of Hecate, Yew still felt uneasy talking to an older student, who was acting like a delinquent. He wavered before he shyly answered, "yeah".

"Your parents didn’t tell you?" the guy half-stated, half-asked.

"Tell me what?" Yew got riled up after hearing poorly masked derision in the guy's tone.

"About compartment twenty one." He exhaled some smoke toward the boy, but it didn’t reach across the seats. "The rumor has it that whoever rides this compartment will never graduate from Hecate. My grandma said that a gal from her class once rode in compartment twenty one, and died in an accident two days before graduating."

"But you’re also riding it," Yew pointed out, skeptical about the story.

"I’m only here for a moment," he said. "Teachers always check other compartments, so this is the safest place to avoid them. This doesn’t count as riding it."

"How old are you?" Yew asked, wondering if the guy in front of him was older than he looked, because why else would he be smoking?

"Fifteen. You?" the guy answered. A bit of ash from his cigarette dropped to the floor, but as soon as he snapped his fingers, it was magically gone.

"Ten," Yew answered, and courageously added, "and you’re too young to smoke."

The older student looked at him, and moaned mockingly, "I’m so sorry, mom, I won’t do that again." Then he held out the cigarette pack toward Yew and explained in a disinterested voice, "but the funny thing is I don’t smoke. I took this from my father, when he wasn’t looking. I wonder why he likes them so much."

Yew looked at the title on the pack, which read «Herbal Puffs: Relax and Think», before he waved a hand over his nose and complained, "it stinks."

"Then go to another compartment. If you go now, maybe you won’t flunk Hecate."

"Or I can call a teacher over here," Yew suggested with a smug grin.

The older student gave him a cold stare, before he got up and sat right next to Yew, who ended up squeezed between him and the wall.

"If you start picking fights with your seniors, then even without compartment twenty one, you won’t graduate from Hecate," he threatened, then with the tip of his cigarette, he lightly seared Yew’s cheek.

"Tsss…" Yew jolted away from the burning sensation, and in consequence he banged his head on the wall. "Ouch."

The older student got up. He spun the cigarette in the air turning it into smoke, which dissipated into the air. Then he clapped his hands, causing all the smoke to vanish, refreshing the air and leaving no proof of the crime. He put the cigarette case back into his pocket, before he addressed Yew with a wide grin.

"By the way, my name is Cypress Robellini Saman Sea. If you want to have a great time in Hecate, don't make me dislike you."

Yew didn’t respond. Instead he kept massaging his cheek, ignoring the pain in the back of his head.

After several moments of silence, Cypress stepped out and closed the compartment door, leaving the boy alone.

Yew wasn’t knowledgeable in the names of famous people, but even he, who had no interest in VIPs, had known about the Sea household. It was an ancient family of the best magi in the world. Most of them served directly under the Emperor, and many of them were true geniuses. Even the most stupid person would not make an enemy out of them.

However, Yew had no plans to be liked by Cypress Sea, nor did he care about the school. Whether he graduated or not didn’t matter to him. He was going to be content with the results as long as he got some infos about his biological parents.

During the rest of Yew’s journey to Sheepcrown, the door to his compartment opened two more times. One time it was a group of giggling girls, who immediately stopped giggling, when they realized that the compartment wasn’t empty. They nonchalantly walked away after changing their plans.

Another time it was a man, who introduced himself as a teacher at Hecate. He was searching for students, who were secretly misbehaving. Yew wished that he had come earlier, but he didn’t say anything about Cypress. After the teacher had left, Yew had no more visitors for the rest of his journey.

Pensively, he observed the scenery passing behind the window. Except for the tedious darkness of the tunnels, the view was more than beautiful. It consisted of lush forests, shining lakes, distant mountains, golden farmlands, and diverse cities filled with life.

Many hours later, the train conductor announced, "we’re arriving in Sheepcrown. We’re arriving in Sheepcrown." He repeated twice to ensure everyone had heard him.

The speeding train came to a sudden stop at the train station. The passengers didn’t even feel this drastic change of speed. They began opening the compartment doors and stepping into the hallway, long before the train was ready to disembark.

Once the sidewall was gone, a large crowd of mostly young people poured out from the train like a tsunami. All at the same time proceeded onto the platform, through and away from the train station.

After exiting the almost empty train, Yew didn’t know where to go, but he decided to follow other students, all of whom were heading in the same direction.

The exhausted school-aged travellers dragged their luggage behind them as they headed to the main road. Some were using magic. Others were using magical items to carry their belongings. All in all, each student of Hecate had a peculiar way to deal with their load.

"Look at this," a studentess, who walked by Yew, showed a box the size of a peanut to her friendess, who was walking with her. "This shrinking magic is amazing. I knew it was worth learning."

"Agh, I should have practiced that too," her friendess moaned in frustration, while five different boxes were literally walking behind her. "The magic to give legs to inanimate objects requires too much stamina."

Yew thought about the backpack on his back. It was a good idea to take only the minimum of what he needed, and have his parents mail him the rest of his belongings, which should arrive within a week.

All the students walked out of the station, and proceeded to go north on the main street toward the schoolground of Hecate, which from a distance looked like a town fortified by walls.

It was almost evening, but the summer sun was still up and would remain in the sky for another two to three hours.

While still in the city of Sheepcrown, Yew looked around and above his head, where countless stone bridges connected the brick buildings. It surprised him, because normally bridges were built over rivers, but these city bridges were built over streets.

Yew saw not only adults but also little kids playing high up there, but it was safe for them to do so, because all the bridges, balconies, and terraces in the city were protected by ornamental railings.

Other than its unique bridges, the city looked ordinary. It had stone streets wide enough for a tram to pass through. Bicyclists and passerbys were strolling on broad sidewalks, made of tiles decorated with leafy patterns. Trees were growing in a line between the tramtracks and the sidewalk. Bushes were growing in craters surrounded by rocks near the buildings, while potted plants hung all over the street.

In less that fifty steps from the moment Yew left the train station, he arrived at the train crossing, which also marked the end of the city. Just like all the other students, he went onward past the tracks. In another fifty steps, he arrived in front of a huge iron gate - the entrance of the Hecate schoolground.

The gate was at least six meters tall, and another eight meters wide. It stood wide open. Its hinges were attached to a meter thick wall, which was made of white bricks, and covered with ivy near the ground.

The gate led onto a triangular plaza, with its narrowest point facing south toward the city, while its widest side faced north toward the school buildings. Each corner of the plaza was connected to a road.

Yew stopped walking midway through the plaza and observed the students, who headed either east or west. The plaza was large enough to hold thousands of people, so after most of the students had left, Yew felt like an ant standing in a desert.

Without any students blocking the view, Yew could finally see the scenery around the plaza. All of the unpaved areas were covered with a tidy lawn enriched by robust tree giants. They grew scattered far apart from each other, yet due to their size, the distance between them didn’t feel as vast as it indeed was. Their lower branches were neatly pruned, if they hung less than two meters aboveground, but the upper ones were allowed to grow far and wide.

In the distance, Yew saw two roads at each corner of the triangular plaza. The roads were five meters wide - enough to fit two carriages side-by-side. And just like the plaza, they were made of white stones tightly packed together and smoothed over the centuries by the weather and wheels. Whereas, infrequent cracks provided an opportunity for weeds to grow and supplement the monotonous landscape.

Yew wondered whom he should ask for directions, as he looked at the people, who were still around. Then he caught sight of a person in the center of the plaza, who stood with her hand raised toward the sky. She was surrounded by kids his age, and two words were floating above her palm: «FIRST YEAR».

She was a middle-aged woman, with blue curly hair kept away from her face by a hairband. All her clothes were multicolored, as if a painter had sprayed them with his entire palette. Her long skirt had a slanted cut at the bottom. Her shirt covered the left shoulder, but not the right one. Yet its right long sleeve covered her whole arm, but its left short sleeve ended just before her armpit. Her shoes were also of different colors. The left one was red and the right one was blue.

Within the next five minutes, all the older students had left the plaza. Only the first year students remained, and all of them were gathered around the woman. She looked toward the gate, checking for any latecomers. But with nobody coming from the direction of the city, she lowered her hand, and the words «FIRST YEAR» dissolved like a mist.

"I hope I have all the first years here," the woman in her fifties muttered to herself, as she looked at the students gathered around her. She pointed her index finger at her throat, then slid it up in the air. "Welcome to the school of Hecate," she said in a voice as loud as a megaphone.

All the students stopped chatting, and concentrated their eyes and ears on her.

"My name is Sorrel Arfaj Avarai Cave, and I’m one of the teachers. You can call me professor Sorrel or madam Sorrel. After all, there is no manner of address more respectful and polite than the very name bestowed by one’s parents, which carries their blessings and divine graces."

She pointed at the buildings beyond the plaza. "As you can see, Hecate is a large school with more than two thousand students - not two hundred, not twenty hundred, but two thousand. I know it’s hard to imagine such a big number,” she smiled at the puzzled students, who surely didn’t use such big numbers in kindergarten.

“And every year we have anywhere between five to thirty hundred new students. In order to properly accommodate them, we ask them to come on different days at different times. I was assigned to greet your group, but there are many other teachers in Hecate, so there’s no certainty whether I’ll be teaching your class. Today might be our first and last meeting, but who knows? Maybe one day, you will have a class with me."

She swiped her hand in front of her, and a set of letters appeared in the air. It looked like a list of over hundred names.

"Your group has hundred twelve students, but before I take you to your new homes, I need to properly introduce you to our school, because I’m sure that some of you didn’t bother to read the welcome letter."

Many kids, including Yew, got embarrassed at how easily the teacheress saw through them.

"The name of our school is Hecate, just like the name of the guardian who has been protecting our school for millennia. As some of you may know, there are powerful spirits in our world. It’s rare to meet them, but if you’re lucky you might encounter Hecate herself, when she comes to visit our school." She winked at the students.

Her voice held a lot of delight and respect, whenever she talked about the school, but it smoothly turned into a tone of compassion and vigilance, when she spoke to the students, who looked at the buildings beyond the plaza with great hopes in their sparkling eyes.

"I’ll read your names one by one," the teacheress fixed her eyes on the list of students still floating in the air. "When you hear your name, please come over to collect your guidebook and your badge."

She picked up a book from a pile floating aboveground, as if there was a table beneath them. It was a thin book with less than fifty pages. Its cover was half-blue at the top and half-green at the bottom.

"It’s easy to get lost in Hecate due to the size of our school, which is more than two kilometers from one end to the other. Luckily for you, this guidebook has a map, which will help you get around the schoolground, so please carry it with you until you get better acquainted with our school."

She put down the guidebook, and with her other hand, she summoned a badge, which flew out of the basket near her feet. She held it up for everyone to see, but the badge was only five centimeters tall, so from a distance Yew couldn’t see anything other than its somewhat rectangular shape.

"This badge will allow you to enter buildings located on the schoolground. If you want to know more on how it works, you can read all about it in your guidebooks. Don’t forget to attach this badge to your clothes before you go out. And if you ever lose it, report it to a teacher immediately," she punctuated the last word.

Afterward, she looked at the list of students and read the first name at the top of the alphabetical list. A girl came from the back of the crowd, and received a guidebook and a badge - the daily essentials of a Hecate student.

One by one, Sorrel called out each student, and Yew had to wait a long time until she got to the letter Y.

In the meantime, he observed other students, who upon returning back to the crowd, got very innovative with the placement of their badges. Most placed them on their chest, stomach or arms, which wasn’t that odd. But several girls hid theirs under their skirts, whereas some boys attached theirs to their underwear or shoes. Yew liked their ideas, and he considered attaching his badge to his socks, until his irate mother’s face appeared in his mind and hurled this idea out of his head.

Sorrel called out Yew’s name. He approached, took his essentials with a shy "thank you", then stepped away from the teacheress.

Yew noticed right away that the guidebook had his name in black letters on the cover page, but he examined the badge first. It was shaped like a white shield with a black Roman numeral one in the center, representing his school year. On the red border, there were white letters: "Hecate" above the number, "school" to the left side, and the word ""of" to the right side. On the other side of the badge, Yew found his full name.

Yew placed the badge on his arm, but then he changed his mind, took it off and placed it on the side of his stomach. He was about to open his guidebook, when Sorrel spoke again.

"The badges are magical, so they won’t detach from your clothes by themselves, and other people cannot remove them either. However, they’re small, so I recommend you pay attention, where you leave them."

Yew was the last person on the list of names, which had disappeared the moment Sorrel clapped her hands, together with the remaining guidebooks and badges of students, who didn’t show up.

The teacheress cleared her throat before she continued.

"For the next nine years, all of you will be learning magic. However, that’s not the most important thing. The most important thing is for you to set your own goals. Any work started, but unfinished, yields no results. So don’t waste your time trytesting. Decide once, and don’t change your mind. Stay on one path until you reach the finish. Don’t give up halfway. Don’t stray. Finish one thing, before you start another."

She took a deep breath, and spoke in a calmer voice.

"Finally, I want to remind you that Hecate, like all schools, has its own reputation. It is a school, where we care deeply about our students and we want all of you…" She cut off, then she repeated the last three words with a clear break between each one. "All… of… you… without exception, to succeed. As teachers, we’ll do all in our power to help you, but you, as students, must do all in your power to help us."

Some of the students looked confused after they heard the last sentence, but Sorrel quickly explained in a voice akin to a general giving instructions to his regimen.

"You’re not here to blindly obey. You’re not here to please anyone. You’re not here to just pass the minimum requirements. You are here to excel."

"There is nothing more glorious for teachers than to see their students becoming better than them. And that is what we always wish for. We want you to surpass us, your teachers."

A lot of girls giggled, and some of the boys smirked in anticipation. Yew didn’t do either, because he felt like her words weren’t directed at him. After all, he didn’t come to the school to learn. He had other more important goals.

Sorrel continued, "I am glad to see that so many of you have high ambitions. That’s how it should be. But whatever you do, always remember about your honor and the honor of our school. And I hope that as graduates, you’ll bring nothing but honor to your parents and to your teachers."

Yew rolled his eyes at the idea of honor. His kindergarten teachers also talked about it all the time, but in the end, it never mattered. All bad behavior was always explained as kids being kids, so even bullies got away without damaging their or their parents’ honor.

"Now I’d like to check how many of you are magicless. As you should know, the term "magicless" is an abbreviation of the longer term "magic-talentless", and our school admits both magic-talented and magic-talentless students. Out there in the world, magic-talented people are the minority, but in this school, it’s the magic-talentless who are rare."

Yew also wondered how many magicless students there were among the group.

"If you’re magicless, please come forward and stand on my left," she beckoned at the area. "Please, hurry up."

Yew moved together with five other kids. He had registered as magicless and for that reason, he had to act like one, if he didn't want his secret out.

Out of hundred twelve kids, only six stood by the teacheress. This didn’t surprise Yew, because most magicless people would go to a school, where their lifegoals were easier to accomplish. Not many would go to the school of magic and work hard for a future that was never meant to be.

Yet Sorrel was astonished. "Six? This is more than usual. The most I’ve ever seen was three people in one group. But anyway," she straightened up her posture. "I sincerely thank you from the bottom of my heart for choosing our school." She bowed her head slightly toward them. "If there's anything you don't understand, I'm sure everyone will gladly help you the best they can."

Afterward, she faced the magic-talented students. "As I'm sure at least one of your parents graduated from Hecate, you must already know a lot about our school. Therefore, I expect you to teach and learn from each other as schoolmates ought to do, and to take good care of those who might need your help."

Yew didn't like that sort of guidance. On the contrary, he would have preferred it, if the teacheress had told other students to avoid the magicless kids, but he understood that that was impossible.

"Lastly, please raise your hand, if you have already decided who'll be your roommate."

Majority of magic-talented students raised their hands. Yew recalled that in the confirmation form, there was a box at the bottom to write the name of his roommate. He didn't have one, so he left that box empty.

"Among those with your hands up, is there anyone who failed to pre-register? If so, please come over here."

Several kids approached her, and she commanded the others to lower their hands. She asked the kids for their names, and took some notes in the air.

Yet all Yew saw were colorful circles and dots popping and sparkling, as she waved her hands like a mystical dancer.

After Sorrel finished pairing up the kids, she drew a big rectangular circle, and waited. A short moment later, a long papersheet materialized in front of her. She took it into her hands, and looked at the content.

"Okay," she said. "Your cottages have been arranged. Please follow me, and don't stray away. If you do, your badge will sound an alert, and you'll only embarrass yourself."

She pointed toward the school. "We'll need to walk for half an hour across the schoolground, but if anyone among you cannot walk for that long, please raise your hand right now."

Nobody raised a hand.

"Great. Let's go."

She walked at the front of the procession, while more than hundred kids followed behind her. Most of them knew each other already, and they talked as they walked, but Yew knew no one and he didn't want to know anyone.

Some of the friendly kids approached and asked him questions. Yet each time, he had answered in a tone that discouraged them from any further questioning.

Eventually most talkative kids moved forward, while Yew ended up walking near the end of the long procession among all the quiet kids. However, he enjoyed observing the scenery more than opening his mouth.

His first impression of the school could be summarized in one word: white.

The school of Hecate had only white buildings made with white stone walls, white epoxy doors and white metal rooftops. The paved roads were five meters wide and entirely made out of white pebbles. The pathways between the buildings were one meter wide and filled with dense white sand.

Yet the white color was scarce in comparison to all the shades of green, which dominated the landscape.

Countless trees grew all over the schoolground, many of whom were equal or taller than the buildings. The bushes reached up to the windows, ivy plants climbed the walls, flowers lined up the pathways, and wild grasses bordered the roads. Even the lantern poles weren't spared by the vines, which half-obstructed the lights at nighttime.

While it was hard to find a color other than green and white in the architecture, it was easy to spot any color in the clothes of the passerbys. The school had no uniforms, so teachers and students alike were free to dress as they wished.

When Sorrel Cave arrived in front of the hamlet, she stopped on the paved road, which divided the hamlets from the schoolground. She waited for all the students to get closer.

Yew looked toward the hamlet - at the cottages near the paved road. They were made of the same white stone as the school buildings, but they had green moss growing on their roofs. Each cottage was roughly ten by ten meters in size, and had only one floor.

Where several cottages stood in a row, there was no more than two meters of space between them, filled with flowering bushes instead of a fence. Yet, where the three-meter wide alleys weaved through like rivers, the distance between cottages grew considerably.

At each side of an alley, there were gardens of perennials and shrubs growing beneath vast marvelous treetops. A narrow path made of flagstones led through the gardens, and connected the alley to each cottage porch, which had two steps and a roof.

Sorrel gave a compassionate smile toward the students, who began showing signs of fatigue, as they chose to sit down on the ground instead of standing. Some also took out snacks and drinks, such as juices, bottled teas, and flavored waters.

Growing up in a village, Yew was used to walking kilometers without a break, but today even he felt tired. He had been up on his feet early in the morning, before anyone else had woken up. He rode the carriage to another town, then spent hours on a train, before he walked to the school and through it.

Sorrel pointed at the hamlet on her left side. "There are a total of ten hundred cottages in here. This year, we have more than twenty two hundred students, so we also borrowed the adjacent hamlet. Most students have already unpacked, but more are to arrive tomorrow and overmorrow, so please be considerate of your roommates and neighbors, who are already living here."

She pointed at the number engraved at the gable above the porch. "All cottages are numbered, and you should follow the numbers to reach your new home. But there's a hamlet map in your guidebooks, if you get lost, so always remember to carry your guidebooks with you."

Sorrel had already told them this previously, but she had to repeat it, because years of experience have taught her that students rarely listen.

"I'll now present you with your cottage number. If you share a cottage, then I'll read both of your names together. Otherwise, I'll read just one name. Come up, if you hear your name."

She looked at the long papersheet in her hand, and read two names.

Yew observed two girls, who received one card each, and a simple set of instructions. He sat down on the ground, expecting to be the last person called, and waited patiently. Indeed, when Sorrel finally read his name, there were no other first year students on the road.

He approached the teacheress, who circled his name on the papersheet. The circled piece smoothly cut itself out and grew into a card no bigger than his school badge.

She handed him the card, which had his name and his cottage number four and four hundred thirty six.

"Take the alley in front of the cottage four and three hundred seventy nine, and follow the numbers."

Yew thanked the teacheress, and did as told. On his way, he was surprised to see other kids lost and walking in groups, trying to help each other, or desperately looking at the map. He didn't find the numbering system that difficult, although it did get confusing near the meandering intersections. But in the end, Yew managed to find his destination all by himself.

His cottage was the third one in a row of cottages numbered from four and four hundred thirty four up to four and four hundred thirty nine.

Yew looked at the number on the gable. He got blinded by the sun, which hovered above the roof, so he moved to the shade, where the thick foliage of tall trees obscured the rays.

It was the number four and four hundred thirty four, just two numbers away from his destination.

He felt relieved, and looked forward to getting cozy in his bed after a long day of travelling. When he was passing the cottage number four and four hundred thirty five, he heard someone shouting.

"It’s here! I found it!" A boy ran from the other side of the alley and stood next to Yew, looking at the cottage four and four hundred thirty five.

Yew recognized him from the school orientation, because he stood next to Yew among the magicless students.

He had a cheerful smile on his face, which contrasted with his dark cherry red hair. Even though he had good quality clothing, his hair looked as if it had been trimmed by an inexperienced drunk hairstylist.

He looked at Yew, then sneaked a peek at the number on Yew's card.

"Four hundred thirty six. We’re neighbors," he said and showed Yew his card, "My cottage is four and four hundred thirty five." He held out his hand. "I’m Spruce."

Yew lazily took his hand, and let Spruce vigorously shake it.

"Yew Chirabilva Araukaria Sky," he introduced himself in a solemn tone, trying to cover up his annoyance at someone trying to be his friend, when all he wanted at the moment was to get into his new home.

"My full name is Spruce Phalahi Menteng Fire." The boy's response was filled with elation. "It’s so nice to have another magicless student as a neighbor," he said as he looked at Yew’s cottage, which stood adjacent to his.

"Yeah," Yew agreed with him, but in reality he didn’t care. He didn’t want to chat, so he responded mechanically, "sorry. I’m tired. Maybe we can talk tomorrow?"

"Sure," Spruce cheerfully accepted the suggestion.

"Then see you," Yew quickly waved a bye, and headed straight for his cottage.

In no more than thirty steps, he arrived at the porch of his cottage. He opened the door, which appeared to be unlocked, or maybe it was the school badge, which allowed him entrance. Either way, it wasn't as important as the fact, that he finally arrived in the cottage, where he would reside as a student of Hecate.

He scanned the tiny entry room, lit only by one round window next to the exterior door. There was a wardrobe on the left and a hutch on the right, with someone’s shoes already present on the bottom shelves.

Intuitively, he opened all the furnitures to familiarize himself with his new home. Inside them, he found only the usual clothes - jackets, hats, gloves and shoes. Yet this was a definite evidence that his roommate had already arrived and unpacked all of his belongings.

Yew put down his backpack, and from within, he took out his slippers. He hadn’t wanted to take them, but his mother had forced him to.

"You're not some animal to walk barefoot," she had scolded him.

"Monks walk barefoot," he had rebuked.

She had scoffed, "once you're a monk, I'll allow you to walk barefoot."

She had known that Yew had no desire to become a monk. Thus in the end, Yew had to squeeze the slippers into his backpack, and now he was glad he did.

He didn’t know what to expect from his new roommate, but in order to have a good start, he decided to be as polite and well-mannered as possible.

He put his slippers on his feet, and left his outdoor shoes on the shelf.

He opened the interior door and walked out to see the living room, which was the biggest room in the cottage. It had a decent appearance - nothing too impressive, but Yew already liked the place, because there were no parents around to tell him what to do.

There were shelfcases on the right wall, and two study desks on the left wall separated by a curtain. In the middle, a sofa was placed under a large window, and an armchair next to a sofa table.

All the furnitures were made of wood of different kinds, but they oddly matched with the white stones of the exterior walls. The interior walls, the ceiling and the floor were all made of the same wood, which had a consistent golden brown appearance.

Without walking into the living room, Yew turned into the hallway on his left.

He passed by a large wall painting, which presented a scene of a green forest shrouded in mist. Then he stopped in front of the fridge at the end of the hallway, and looked around. On his left, he had a wide doorless entrance to the kitchen, while on his right, he had a nook with three doors.

He tried the first two doors on each side, where he had found the restroom on the left, and the bathroom on the right. As such, he had found all the main rooms of the house except for a bedroom. This led him to believe that it was located behind the last door.

Assuming that his roommate might be inside, he knocked. Yet there was no response, so he opened the door.

Just as he expected, it was the bedroom. Two wardrobes stood by the door, one on the left and the other on the right side. A tall window was wedged between beds at the far end of the room. Each bed had three layers of drawers underneath the mattress, which created a set of stairs at the foot of each bed.

As soon as Yew entered the bedroom, he saw his roommate sitting on the left bed, wearing fluffy orange headphones. Looking baffled, he wondered what was this beautiful girl doing in his cottage. He was pretty sure that boys and girls lived separately.

Did he make a mistake? Or did the school make a mistake? Yew had no idea what to do, so he just gawked at her gorgeous long wavy yellow hair.

"Oh," the girl saw him and took off her headphones. "So you’re my roommate? What’s your name?"

"Yew… Yew Sky," he responded and swallowed, while his feet remained glued to the floor.

"I’m Linden Tamalini Gomat Cave. Nice to meet you," she waved at him.

"Cave?" Yew was sure he had heard this family name before.

"Yeah, I know what you’re thinking, and you’re correct," the beauty responded. "Sorrel Cave, who's today's introducer, is my mom."

"Oh," Yew recalled the teacheress's name. "So you’re her daughter," he concluded.

Before he could blink, Linden jumped out of her bed, and in one swift motion connected her fist with his face.

Suddenly, Yew was on the floor. He opened his eyes, and looked up into her green eyes with long eyelashes, which would have been so lovely if they weren't menacingly glaring at his face.

Linden tightened up his fist, ready to serve him another punch. "Listen here, you pukebrain. I gave you my name, right? It’s Linden. Linden is a dude’s name, you retarded poopkin."

Yew didn’t respond, so shocked he was that the beauty in front of him was actually a boy.

Linden bared his teeth. "I have a dick, and if you dare to call me a girl again, I will make a mincemeat out of you."

Yew was left speechless. The obscenities flying out of Linden's mouth didn't match his lovely appearance.

Linden went back to sitting on his bed, but he didn’t stop talking. Without looking at Yew, he explained his situation in a rather unusual way.

"I cannot help it that I’m more beautiful than girls. My dad is the chairman of Aphrodite. Makes sense, right? And it sucks. I have two parents, and both work in schools. If I went to Aphrodite, I could have graduated with perfect scores, but I’d rather study somewhere else."

Aphrodite was an ostentatious school, where scores were decided by one’s appearance and fashion. Anyone could apply, but only the most glamorous people could graduate. Those less than beautiful were failed upon entrance. As such, Aphrodite was a school some dreamed of attending, while others felt disgusted and wondered why did it even exist.

However, Linden’s words did explain a lot. Certainly, it assured Yew that he was speaking with a boy - a fairly beautiful boy, but a boy nonetheless.

Yew got up from the floor, still shaken by the violent welcome. He went into the restroom, where he took a good look at his face. His cheek hurt, even though the bruises were too faint to see. Just several hours ago, his left cheek had been burned with a cigarette by that damn noble. And now, he got punched on the same cheek by this damn beauty.

The beginning of his school life didn’t look promising.

He checked the shelves under the sink, and found a basic first-aid kit. He applied the gel for bruises to his cheek, hoping that his face would heal by tomorrow. Then he went back into the bedroom.

Linden kept on listening to music, and didn’t look like he was going to apologize. 

Yew didn’t want to start a fight with his roommate on their very first meeting, so he decided to let things slide once, but only once. If Linden ever punched him again, he was going to punch him back, no matter the reason.

Ignoring the damn beauty's presence, he left his backpack on the other bed, then went into the kitchen to see what was there.

A minute later, Linden came, leaned on the entrance wall, and asked, "where are your stuff?"

"My parents mailed them to me. They’ll arrive later," Yew responded and looked inside the fridge. "Why is the fridge empty?" he asked his roommate.

"You didn’t read the guidebook?"

Yew shook his head.

"Your parents didn’t tell you?"

"My parents are magicless," he responded right away.

Linden rolled his eyes. "So you’re also magicless, and you know nothing about Hecate."

He went inside, and took out a pot from one of the bottom cabinets. He filled the pot with water from the sink faucet, and put it on the stove, setting the switch to high.

Yew observed Linden apprehensively, like a deer observing a wolf.

"In Hecate, cottages have all the necessary furnitures and some of the essential commodities, but that’s all," Linden explained, while taking out two plates and setting them on the table. "Everything else, you have to get yourself, such as plates or food." He opened a drawer underneath the counter, and took out two spoons and two forks.

Yew looked at the plates on the table, then at the utensils in Linden’s hand. He figured out that his roommate was preparing food for two people.

Linden put the utensils on the table, between the plates, and walked back to the cabinets. "Normally, parents send their kids to Hecate with money, so they can get whatever they need, while they’re here," he continued as he took out a box of noodles and a jar of spaghetti sauce.

Yew realized that Linden was utilizing only the bottom cabinets, and he got curious, "what’s in the top cabinets?"

"Nothing," Linden replied. "I cannot reach there without a chair, so I don't use them." He put the box of noodles next to the stove on the counter, and carried the jar to the table. "You don’t have anything against spaghetti?" he asked without looking at Yew.

"No," Yew answered, already feeling hungry. His last meal was the breakfast he had before boarding the train. He hadn't packed anything for the journey either.

His mother wanted to give him food for the journey, but he refused, because he didn’t want it squished or spilled in his backpack. Moreover, the school had a cafeteria, so he was sure that he would get fed once he arrived.

He didn’t prepare for the possibility that he’d have to secure his own groceries, but he was glad that Linden was kind enough to realize the problem, and share his rations.

Still Yew found it odd that his beautiful roommate, who had punched him in the face mere moments ago, was making dinner for both of them. Was that Linden’s way of apologizing?

"That’s good to hear," Linden responded, "because this is the only thing I can make at the moment."

He poured some salt onto his palm from a box, which was in the corner of the counter. After he measured out the right amount of salt, he threw it into the pot and put the box back in its place.

"So?" Linden looked at Yew. "Why go to Hecate, if you’re magicless? You wanna be a wizard?"

"Kind of," Yew answered and sat on the chair between the table and the fridge. "Um, about my stuff. I think it’ll arrive within a week, but I didn’t know about…. ugh…"

He looked at the plates and utensils on the table, and Linden immediately guessed what he meant.

"That’s fine, just use my stuff. They’re not technically mine though. My mom bought all that, so I don’t care what happens to them."

"I’ll buy my own, just not now. I did get money from my parents, but that’s for food. I’ll need to ask for more…"

"Don’t bother," Linden interrupted him. The water began boiling, and he threw the noodles into the pot. "The food in the cafeteria is free for students, who score at least ninety percent on their tests," he declared as he took out a wooden spoon from a drawer, then stirred the noodles in the pot.

"But I don’t know whether I’ll have such high scores," Yew responded.

"Give it a try, the first year is never difficult. And this way, you can buy new things using the money you save on food."

Linden continued to occasionally stir, while Yew pondered his words. They didn’t talk for a while. Yew looked around at the kitchen, while Linden was keeping an eye on the pot. Once in a while, Yew glanced at Linden, but wouldn’t dare to stare for too long. He was having a hard time figuring out Linden's disposition.

"It’s ready," Linden said, turning off the stove. He strained the noodles and set them on the table. "There’s no cheese, but it should be good anyway."

He tapped the jar three times with his index finger, and the cover came loose with a tiny pop. He poured the tepid sauce onto the hot noodles on his plate, before he pushed the jar toward Yew.

"Eat, before the noodles get cold."

Yew put food on his plate, and began eating. It didn’t taste as good without cheese, but it was better than staying hungry. Both of them ate in silence, and Linden took a second portion, after he finished his first one.

"I’ll do the dishes," Yew offered after the meal.

"Nice," Linden approved the idea, as he put the leftovers inside the fridge. "The dish soap is under the sink," he mentioned, before he left the kitchen.

Yew took out the dish soap, a sponge, and a drying rack from the same cabinet. He washed the dishes, and left them to dry.

Afterward, he returned to the bedroom, where Linden was already asleep. The hour was already late, but it wasn’t nighttime yet, so Yew was mildly surprised. However, suitably to the situation, he quietly unpacked the contents of his backpack into a wide drawer under his bed.

Next, he took his toothbrush, toothpaste, shampoo, towel and pajamas, and went to take a shower. Ten minutes later, he returned to the bedroom clean and wearing his pajamas.

He left all the toiletries in the bathroom, and brought back only his daytime clothes. While putting them into another drawer, he managed to see the final glimmering rays of sunlight on his bed before the sun had set.

He moved aside the netcurtain, which covered the top three quarters of the window, as he looked outside, where rows of bushes separated the cottages.

The western sun was almost completely hidden behind the moss-covered roofs. Although some of its remaining glow still illuminated the violet sky, which in less than an hour, would turn black.

Yew was captivated by the colors on the horizon. Even though he was far away from his parents, and from the house where he grew up, he felt an eerie familiarity toward the scenery.

Soon every last bit of sunlight had died out. Yet he continued to watch, as the shadows overtook the hamlet, turning every tree and every bush into silhouettes of scary monsters.

His eyelids felt heavy, and he rubbed his eyes. The long summer hours of daylight were deceptive, and it was long past his time to sleep. He climbed the stairs of his bed, and fell asleep as soon as he slid under a comforter.

The next day, Yew was still lying in bed with his eyes closed, when he heard knocking followed by the sound of a conversation. Someone hurriedly entered the bedroom. Then some force dragged him out of bed and threw him across the room at the wardrobe. He hit its doors, and slid to the floor. His eyes sprang wide open.

Linden towered over him with his hands crossed on his chest.

"Don’t sleep in, when you promised to meet with someone, idiot!" he shouted before he stomped out of the bedroom.

A moment later, a different person walked in.

Eyes wide with astonishment, Spruce looked down at Yew, who looked back, with his mouth slightly ajar. He was confused at what had just happened and how he suddenly went from sleeping in bed to sitting on the floor.

Shortly thereafter, they heard a loud bang of the exterior door as Linden left the cottage.

"When I knocked on the door, he was already wearing outdoor shoes," Spruce said. "I think he was planning to go out anyway, so it’s not… our fault," he briefly paused in a futile quest for a better way to phrase it.

Yew slowly came to understand what had happened, and stood up.

Spruce looked at Yew's bed, and said exactly what Yew had assumed. "I think he used magic on you."

Unlike Yew, Linden grew up with a magic-talented mother, so it shouldn't have surprised him, if his roommate knew the spell to throw someone out of bed. He imagined Sorrel Cave using that spell on her son, and instantly his mood got better.

"Are you fine?" Spruce asked, feeling worried about Yew. Watching from the doorway, he had seen Yew fly at great velocity before he hit the wardrobe with the force of a cannon ball hitting a fortified wall. "It must have hurt."

"No, I’m okay," Yew responded, and he wasn’t lying. He didn’t feel any pain other than mild tingling from yesterday’s punch.

However, it wasn’t manly to cry over spilled milk, so he decided to forget all about it for now. However, in his heart he resolved to secretly learn magic and return the favor next time Linden used a spell on him.

He walked up to his bed, took out his clothes from the drawers underneath, and changed out of his pajamas.

Spruce suspected that Yew was afraid to admit his wounds to someone, whom he had just met, and thus suppressed his pain. Spruce would definitely do so, if he was in Yew's position. However, once he saw how swiftly Yew changed clothes, he finally believed that his schoolmate definitely wasn't hurting.

Only once Yew got fully dressed, he regained clarity of his mind. Linden's arbitrary actions were something that he started considering normal, but he didn't know what to think of Spruce. He looked at his visitor, as if he had been caught talking about him behind his back.

Spruce felt awkward at the stare, so he explained his presence. "I thought we could go around the schoolground today." He was holding the school’s guidebook in his hands, as if it was his most precious possession.

Even though Yew had treated him so coldly the day prior, Spruce had come to his cottage with sparkling eyes and ready for an adventure. Did he fail to understand that Yew didn’t want to be friends? Or was he desperate to make friends? He looked too optimistic to be desperate, but Yew wouldn't dare to judge anyone by an appearance. He himself wouldn't show others what he really felt, and the idea of having no friends poked the most at his conscience, as he recalled his own experience.

While folding his bedsheets with a precision that could rival a cat folding freshly laundered clothes, he considered his response. Supposing that it wouldn't hurt to befriend one fellow schoolmate, he agreed, "sure, why not."

With growing joy and anticipation, Spruce asked, "ready to go?"

Yew jumped off his bed and grabbed his backpack, before he answered, "yeah."

When they were passing by the kitchen, Yew recalled the spaghetti from yesterday.

"There’s a cafeteria on the schoolground, right?" he asked, but he already knew the answer. It was one of those things, which he had read about in the introduction pamphlet.

Spruce opened the second page in his guidebook, and unfolded it to reveal a map. All the buildings had names printed on them in a very tiny font, which was barely readable without a magnifying glass. Spruce pointed at the building near the center of the schoolground, labeled «cafeteria».

"We can go right now," he said eagerly. "I also didn’t eat breakfast."

"Let’s go then."

They put on outdoor shoes in the entry room, and left the cottage unlocked, because the door had no physical locks. Spruce, who had already read some of the info in the guidebook, explained to Yew, that all cottages in Hecate had a charm on them, which kept the doors unlocked for those allowed inside, but locked for anyone uninvited.

The charm always allowed the entrance for the chairman, the vice-chairman, the most tenured teachers, and the two students, who were assigned the cottage. Furthermore, if the two students agreed among themselves, they could allow access to other students of Hecate by writing down their names on the list of guests.

Spruce energetically talked about the things he had read in the guidebook as they walked on an alley through the hamlet.

White pebbles shone in the sun beneath their feet, while sideway flowers and tall grasses occasionally brushed against their pants. The alley wasn't narrow, but it wasn't wide either. It was just the right size for comfortably travelling on foot with gorgeous treetops decorating the sky along the way.

Although all cottages in the hamlet looked exactly the same, none of them were perfectly aligned. Even when they stood in a row, each cottage was facing a direction several degrees different than its neighbors.

"By the way, how old are you?" Spruce realized that he still didn’t know Yew’s age.

"I’m ten. And you?"

"Nine, so you're a year older."

"Are your parents one of those? You know, the people who want their children to grow up faster?"

"No," Spruce answered. "Actually, my father is against me attending Hecate. He wants me to study in Ares, but I don’t want to. I want to be a wizard. I was so stubborn about it, that he let me do it on one condition. I can attend Hecate this year, and if I pass with top scores, I can stay for good. But if I don't get the best scores, then next year, I'll be attending Ares."

"I see," was all that Yew responded with.

His own circumstances were troubling him enough. He had no capacity to worry about someone else's problems, especially since he didn't understand Spruce's heart. Why would it matter which school one attended?

"What about you?" Spruce asked. "Why did you come to Hecate?"

"I think that magic seems interesting," Yew lied smoothly, already used to repeating the same response to anyone, who asked him. He knew that it could only bring him trouble, if he spoke about his adoption.

"Yeah, me too!" Spruce exclaimed. "There's this something in magic that just makes it so amazing, right? I tried to explain it to my father, but no matter what I said he wouldn’t understand."

As they were leaving the hamlet, Yew saw a boy waving in their direction. He didn’t recognize the boy, so he assumed that the handwave was directed at someone else.

Just then Spruce reacted, "Oh?! Aspen!!!" Then he ran toward the other side of the road, which was busy with school-aged pedestrians.

Aspen wasn’t skinny like Yew, nor fit like Spruce. His face was a bit chubby, but it was hard to tell whether he was fat underneath his loose tunic and baggy pants. He had warm brown eyes, and straight hair evenly trimmed around his neck. Under direct sunlight his celeste hair appeared more white than blue.

Something about him reminded Yew of the monks, who sometimes travelled through the village of Catriddle.

While Aspen and Spruce talked, Yew leisurely approached.

Spruce introduced them to each other. "This is Aspen. He’s my roommate. And this is Yew. He’s also magicless, just like me, and he’s our neighbor."

Yew bowed his head a bit, and Aspen bowed back.

"Hey, we’re going to the cafeteria right now, wanna come along?" Spruce asked his roommate.

"Sure, I’m free anyway," Aspen shrugged. He sounded like the type, who's always relaxed and kind to everyone.

"But didn’t you have something to do?"

"My parents asked me to contact them as soon as I got here. I was too tired yesterday, so I decided to do it this morning."

"So everything’s fine?"

"Ah, sure," Aspen sounded uninterested, which confused Yew but Spruce didn’t seem to notice. "They’re just worrying a bit too much."

"That makes them great parents!" Spruce exclaimed.

Aspen bent his mouth, attempting to smile, but his eyes showed no joy. "You might be right."

They headed toward the cafeteria, while talking about school and their cottages, which had the same floor plan and same furnishing. Somehow, their conversation shifted to bedrooms, and they argued over what made a good bed.

While still bickering, they arrived at their goal.

The cafeteria was huge. Yet if it had been any smaller, it wouldn't have been able to serve two thousand students. The two-story building itself was hundred by fifty five meters, and it was surrounded by a large plaza-like patio, filled with what seemed like an infinite number of tables and chairs, all of which were occupied.

The bottom one meter of the cafeteria's wall was covered with pearl-like stones. The remaining walls were made of glass, separated by columns made of the same white rock as everything else. While the glass on the first floor was transparent and plain, the glass on the second floor was stained and shaped into flying creatures, such as: phoenixes, pegasi, gryphons, wyverns and dragons.

"So this is the cafeteria?" Spruce looked at the map in his guidebook to confirm.

"It must be," Aspen advanced toward the doors.

They all walked together, as they maneuvered through narrow corridors between the tables, trying not to bump into anyone.

The cafeteria had three pairs of front doors. All of them were wide open, and students were constantly coming in and out. The interior floor was filled with even more tables and chairs.

Upon entering the building, loud reverberating noises of chatting, laughing, and eating disoriented the boys for a moment. Then Aspen pointed at three large queues inside the building. Each one led to a counter with a different sign - a red circle, a blue square or a yellow triangle.

"So we have three choices for breakfast?" Spruce wondered.

"No, we have to stand in each queue one by one." Aspen was the first to notice a large board hanging on the wall near the entrance.

The menu on the board was divided into three parts. The first part had a symbol of a red circle above the title "Drinks". The middle part had a symbol of a blue square titled "Meals", and the last part had a yellow triangle titled "Desserts".

A long list of items was included under every title. The "meals" menu listed dishes that were made of meat, fish, eggs or dairy, while "desserts" included mainly dishes made of fruits and vegetables, but also sweets.

"So I have to stand in all three queues." Spruce looked at the length of each, and he didn’t feel hungry anymore.

In order to help, Yew voiced out his thoughts, "we could split up. Each of us could buy for others."

"Good idea," Aspen nodded.

"How do we split up?" Spruce looked confused.

Aspen explained Yew's proposal in detail, and when Spruce finally understood the plan, he asked, "so who goes to which queue?"

"You can pick first," Aspen offered.

Yew didn’t voice any objection. He concurred that Spruce, who was the youngest among them, should pick whichever line he wanted.

Spruce looked around and saw that the first queue was shortest, albeit still long. "That red circle," he pointed at the sign above the seller’s counter.

"Okay, and you?" Aspen asked Yew.

"Whichever," Yew shrugged, expecting Aspen to select the second shortest queue, leaving him the queue for the meals.

"Then take care of the yellow triangle, and I’ll do the blue square."

Not only did Aspen select the longest queue for himself, he even instructed Yew to stand in the second shortest. If Yew was in his position, he would certainly select the longest one for himself, but he wouldn't instruct others, wary of any conflict this might cause. Thus he felt a lot of respect for Aspen, who not only sacrificed himself to the hardest task, but also calmly braved against a potential disagreement.

"So now let’s decide our breakfast, or brunch, since it's already too late for breakfast," Aspen scanned the options before he said, "for me, I’ll take the walnut coffee, mint fried eggs, and carrot salad."

"Hmm… hard choice," Spruce said as he was carefully reading through the menu, "maybe today I’ll have… raspberry juice, apple omelette, and… maybe strawb… or not. I’ll take cherry pie."

Yew and Aspen grinned at the sweet choices of Spruce.

Afterward Yew, who had been looking at the menu for a while, listed his choices in one breath, "plum tea, cheeseburger and a berry mix."

After the boys decided what each one wanted for their late breakfast, they arranged their orders into meals, desserts, and drinks.

"So, let’s confirm," said Aspen, who volunteered to buy the meals, "I buy mint fried eggs for me, apple omelette for you," he pointed at Spruce. "And a cheeseburger," he pointed at Yew, who nodded in agreement.

"Berry mix, carrot salad, and a cherry pie," Yew, who was assigned to buy the desserts, pointed at himself, then at Aspen, and lastly at Spruce with a merry smile.

"Okay, so I'll buy…" Spruce hesitated, trying to remember, but before he could finish the sentence, Aspen filled in.

"Walnut coffee, plum tea, and raspberry juice."

"Walnut coffee, plum tea, and raspberry juice," Spruce repeated. "Okay, I got it."

"You better not forget," Aspen said as the three of them separated into different queues of the student cafeteria.

The first one to arrive at the counter was Spruce. He bought the three drinks, almost forgetting the name of Aspen's drink, but a friendly barista figured out what he meant by "some-nut coffee".

Holding a tray with the drinks, he approached Aspen, who was still waiting in the queue. "Where do I take this?"

"Find an empty table, and sit down," Aspen instructed his roommate. "I’ll find you once I buy our meals."

Spruce nodded in understanding, then walked away. He searched among the tables inside the building, but couldn’t find an empty one. He passed through the exit, careful with his tray, as he tried his best to avoid colliding with other students.

On the patio, he scanned the surroundings. Yet all the tables outside were just as occupied as the ones inside, with not even one chair left available. It was so crowded that many students decided to sit on the low wall surrounding the patio, which was built there as a decoration rather than a bench.

About three meters to his right, a girl waved toward him using her whole arm. "Hey! Are you looking for a table?" she asked in a fairly loud voice in order to compete with the endless chatter around them.

He looked at her, and immediately recalled her from the orientation.

She was the only girl among the group of magicless students, whom Sorrel separated from the rest of newcomers. She looked fairly ordinary, with nothing specific to remember about her other than her reddish-brown hair, which was evenly cut above her shoulders, and clipped at each side of her forehead.

She was sitting with two older girls at a table for three people, and all their plates were already empty.

Spruce hesitantly approached. Normally he wouldn't talk to girls, but he couldn't be a coward when his friends depended on him. "Uh, yes," he answered.

"Then you can sit down here," one of the older girls tapped the table with her finger. "We’re done, and we were about to leave." She stood up and began collecting all the plates onto the tray.

The third girl also helped her clean up, while Wasabi remained sitting and swinging her legs under the table. Then the older girls took all the dirty dishes to the tray window, whereas their younger friendess remained at the table, staring at Spruce with a lot of interest.

"Aren’t you going to sit?" she asked him.

Spruce flinched, as if her words had pinched his ears. "Ah, yeah." He reluctantly put down his tray on the table.

Wasabi showed no signs of moving, and he himself felt uncomfortable at the idea of sitting next to a stranger. Even if they were both first year students of the same school, he wouldn't consider her a friend unless she was a boy.

Bashfully, he glanced at her, as if he wanted to ask her why she was still there, but he didn't utter any words. Although it appeared that the girl understood his thoughts, because she slowly stood up and stepped away from the table. In response Spruce immediately plunged himself into the seat, as if a delayed reaction could bring her back.

At that moment, her older friends called out to her, "Wasabi, let’s go!"

"Talk to you later," Wasabi impishly smiled toward Spruce before she left.

Several moments later, Yew stepped out of the cafeteria building, stopped in front of all the tables and looked over at the students.

He knew that Spruce wasn't inside the building, because he saw him go outside. Thus right after he bought the desserts, he walked out onto the patio.

Upon seeing mobs of students in every direction, he wondered in despair of how difficult it would be to find Spruce, but his fiery red hair had made it relatively easy.

"Wow, I cannot believe you found us a table. The whole place is so crowded." Yew said, simultaneously impressed and relieved.

"I got lucky," Spruce responded. "The girls, who were sitting here, had left just now."

Yew put down the tray with the desserts on the table, and took a seat. He only had three sips of his plum tea, before Aspen arrived with the meals.

He put down the tray, and tasted his walnut coffee before he sat down. "Good," he said, "it’s not cold yet."

As Aspen settled down, Spruce took the plate with his apple omelette, scanning the other items on the tray - napkins, forks, spoons and knives.

"Can I have some?" he asked, pointing at the utensils.

"That’s why I got them," Aspen looked at his companions’ trays, "I thought that you might forget, and I was right." He exchanged the cheeseburger from his tray for the carrot salad on Yew's tray, while Spruce grabbed some utensils.

Once they sorted out the contents of each tray, they began to eat in silence. Conversely, other students of Hecate had a lot to talk about. Their topics ranged from serious family issues and important world events, through schoolwork, trivia knowledge and all the way into all sorts of gossips, none of which interested the boys, who were still too young to be curious about the affairs of the teens.

Spruce quickly consumed everything he ordered, then opened his guidebook. "How about we go visit a park next?"

Yew, who was still eating the berry mix, looked at Aspen, who just finished his fried eggs.

"What else is there?" Aspen wanted to know more before making a decision.

"Hmmm… just school buildings," Spruce answered, "a lot of classrooms, four parks, one fountain garden, this cafeteria, a fighting arena, and a library."

"A fighting arena?" Aspen thought he had misheard.

"There’s one in Ares," Spruce stated as if it was the most normal thing to find in a school. "Do you wanna visit it?" he asked them.

Yew shrugged his shoulders. His father graduated from Ares, so of course, he had heard about the fighting arena many times.

"I want to see it," Aspen said, doubting that the place titled the «fighting arena» was an actual fighting arena.

After they filled up their stomachs, they headed toward their destination, which was just around the corner.

The schoolground of Hecate had a circular shape with a diameter of more than twenty hundred meters. To get from one end to the other, usually took about an hour by foot unless someone was a fast walker. However, all classes for the first year students were always held in buildings not farther away than five hundred meters from their hamlets, so newcomers rarely had to travel for more than ten minutes to get to school.

Yet any student, who wished to go from their cottage to the city, had to cross through the schoolground, because the gate leading into the city was located in the southwest. Whereas, the hamlets were located on the opposite end of the schoolground.

The school had five parks in total. Four parks located at the border of the schoolground, and one park in the center. The central park, fittingly named the fountain garden, was about two hundred by two hundred meters in size. A road, which surrounded it, also divided it from the school buildings.

The cafeteria was southwest of the fountain garden, while the library was on the southeastern side. The schoolmanor, where all the teachers had their offices and living quarters, was located northeast, and the fighting arena was on the northwestern side of the central park.

The boys passed through the huge iron gates, and walked down a wide hallway into a spacious platform surrounded by spectator seats from every direction. The fighting arena had tall walls like a fortress, but it had no roof.

"It’s empty," Aspen sounded disappointed at seeing no one around.

"Well, the school year hasn’t even started," Spruce pointed out. "And I think you cannot hold magic battles without a teacher’s supervision. At least, that’s how it works in Ares."

It was the forty first day of Dees, which meant that classes were to officially start overmorrow. However, there was no guarantee that the boys would be allowed to enter the fighting arena once the school started since as first year students they had no classes in the building.

After taking a good walk around the fighting arena, checking out several open rooms and a variety of spectator seats, they went to see the fountain garden, which by far exceeded their expectations.

Upon entering the park, the boys were greeted by large fountains sprinkling crystal-clear waters high up into the sky. The droplets were then sent by the wind onto leaves of neighboring plants, where they shone like a morning dew.

Wide shallow brooks ran along the paths with small waterfalls accompanying every staircase. Whereas narrow deep creeks hid themselves behind the bushes, whence they serenaded in their water language. Cherry trees grew adjacent to a pond farther in, while tall walnut trees stood in a circle around the lake in the center of the fountain garden.

Just as its name implied, the fountain garden was the most beautiful park in the school.

The boys spent many hours playing with water. They made ships from leaves and sticks, and let them flow on the brooks, and in ponds, challenging each other to see whose ship would swim the farthest.

They so enjoyed the game, that they didn't realize how much time had passed. After countless sunken ships in several brooks and another twenty or so in the pond, they felt hungry and late in the afternoon they headed back to the cafeteria to eat their lunch - almost dinner.

While eating, they argued over where to go next. They didn't have much of the day left, so in the end, they agreed to see the library, which was closest.

The boys had already seen it from the outside, because they passed it on their way to get brunch.

The library was a very wide three-story building with elaborately designed doors and ornate windows. An abundance of stone statues, built around and into the walls, made it look more like a palace than a library.

A wide staircase with medium walls led to the patio of the main entrance. The entry room was spacious but completely devoid of any furnishing except for several narrow tall paintings. Even though the exterior door was made of wood in an iron frame, the interior door was made of etched glass framed in gold.

"Wow," Spruce pointed at the huge shelfcase right after entering the main hall.

Numerous books lined up the shelves, which stretched up to the ceiling. Each book had a different pair of years on its spine.

"It's a list of all graduates of Hecate," Aspen deduced from the titles.

Yew looked at the volumes of books in astonishment. There was a chance that the names of his biological parents were somewhere in there. Yet even if he read through all the names, he wouldn’t be able to guess which ones belonged to his parents.

He wondered if his adopted parents had any documents regarding his biological parents. He regretted that he hadn’t searched the house before he left. But they didn’t want him to know about his adoption, so it was unlikely that they would have kept around any documents, which could reveal it.

Moreover, Yew realized yet another possibility. His parents’ names might not be listed as graduates of Hecate, because for one reason or another they hadn't graduated. He had to admit to himself that his search for answers would be far more difficult than he anticipated.

"This is just a summary," an older woman, presumably a librarian, was organizing books on a neighboring shelfcase. "There is actually a more complete list of all, who studied in Hecate that includes even their photos."

"Really? And we're also there?" Spruce asked.

"Not yet, but you’ll be added after the first day of Byzh," she answered, before she murmured to herself. "Some students leave before the classes even start."

Before Spruce or Aspen could ask her about students who leave prematurely, Yew intruded with another question.

"Where is that complete list?"

He saw a glimmer of hope when he heard that the complete list had photos. If he could take a look at them, he could narrow down his search to those, who looked similar to him.

The librarian replied in a flat automatic tone, as she returned her main focus back onto her work, "on the third floor, third section. But that area is accessible only to the students of the ninth year and to the teachers."

And that was the end of Yew's hope. As a first year student he still had a long way to go, until he could get access to those records.

Since the librarian looked busy, the boys decided to ask no more questions. They talked in hushed voices as they toured the first floor of the library, which was filled with warning signs at every ten steps. All of the signs had the same message, expressed in three different ways: «Be quiet», «No noise», and «Silence is gold».

With their first year badges, they had access only to section A of the first floor, which also contained sections B and C.

The section A didn't have anything other than basic textbooks about magic, and some other books, which they had already read in kindergarten.

Aspen, who looked forward to reading the books, was disappointed. He was hoping to get his hands on something new. However, upon looking through the section, he didn't find even one book, which he hadn't read prior to enrolling in the school of Hecate.

The sun hung low on the horizon, when the boys exited the library. They headed back to their hamlet, while making plans for tomorrow. As they stood in front of Yew's cottage, Linden returned from his outing, and Yew introduced his roommate to his neighbors.

Spruce told Linden about the places, which they had visited with so much enthusiasm that he looked like a bird about to take off the ground.

"So you visited the main school attractions," Linden summed up in the most disinterested tone humanly possible. "And you went to the cafeteria to eat."

"For breakfast and lunch, yes," Yew answered, "but not for dinner. We haven't had dinner yet."

"The cafeteria was so busy," Spruce recalled. "We barely found a place to sit for our breakfast, and we had to eat our lunch standing."

"Idiots," Linden snickered. "You’re not supposed to stay in the cafeteria. Just get something to go and eat anywhere you want." He raised his left hand with a bag. "Anyway, wanna join me for dinner?" he offered with a smirk of someone, who would intentionally put habanero peppers into a tomato soup as a prank.

"All of us?" Yew asked in disbelief, then looked at Aspen and Spruce.

"Sure," Linden confirmed, "I bought a lot, because I assumed that a certain someone wouldn't have enough money to buy food," he grinned at Yew, before he entered the cottage, and left the door wide open. "Hurry up, slowpokes," he shouted from inside.

"Let’s go," Yew hurried his schoolmates, hoping to get the food before Linden changed his mind.

"Is he a nice person or not?" Spruce was confused by Linden’s behavior.

"Uhm, kind of both," Yew replied.

"A nice jerk," Aspen concluded based on the atmosphere, which Linden created.

Yew's neighbors came into the living room feeling uncertain about the dinner, but as soon as they saw delicious food lined up on the table, all their hesitance was gone. They ate together with Yew and Linden, while sharing their opinions on the places, which they had visited during the day.

Afterward, Aspen and Spruce headed to the entry room, but before they could exit the cottage, Linden stopped them.

"Wait a moment," he came with a marker. "I’ll write your names as guests, so next time you can just come inside without knocking."

"Are you sure?" Aspen asked.

"If I change my mind, I can always cross out the names," Linden waited, marker ready at the board. "So? Your names?"

"Spruce Phalahi Menteng Fire."

"Aspen Elati Boviyamara Breeze."

Linden wrote down both names, spelling them correctly without any instructions from the boys. This amazed his neighbors, as well as Yew, who walked in to see them off.

After Spruce and Aspen returned to their cottage, Yew wrote a letter to his parents, explaining his need for more money in order to buy things other than food. He didn’t specify the amount, but he knew that his parents would send him however much they could afford.

After he sealed the envelope containing his letter, he slipped it into the mailbox by the entrance. On his way back, he took one more look at the guest list in the entry room. He didn't plan to make any friends in Hecate, but it somehow happened, and well, he just decided to let it be.

On the early morning of the forty second day of Dees, the people on the schoolground of Hecate were surprised by warm showers. The rain wasn't unusual in Dees, but it was rare for the water temperature to be so pleasantly warm.

However those, who woke up late, didn’t get to see even one droplet, because they all dried up within minutes after they hit the ground.

In the cottage numbered four and four hundred thirty six, both Yew and Linden slept through the event. While in the neighboring cottage, only Spruce was still in his bed when the unusual rainshower had occurred.

Aspen was always the last one to go to sleep, and the first one to wake up. He didn’t use any alarm clock, yet he woke up regularly at the same early time every day. And while his roommate was still asleep, he had quietly dressed up and left the bedroom.

In the adjacent cottage, Yew also had a fairly average sleep schedule. He would stay up just a bit late in the evening, and still wake up in the morning like most people, although his mornings weren't as early as Aspen's.

Linden, on the other hand, had no sleep schedule. He slept whenever he wanted, regardless whether it was daytime or nighttime, and his sleep hours were anything from a short nap to many hours.

Whereas, Spruce had the most kid-like schedule of them all. He went to bed early in the evening, and slept in until it was time for his classes.

The morning alarm rang.

As usual, Spruce jumped out of bed to turn off the annoying device. The tiny ball-like clock on the floor fell silent when he pushed its lid down. He headed to the restroom, where he did his morning business, before he went into the kitchen.

Just then he heard the sound of the exterior door opening and closing. A moment later Aspen was passing by the kitchen.

"Hey, where were you?" Spruce asked, still in his pajamas.

Aspen stopped and looked at Spruce, who had his hand on the door handle of the fridge. "I needed to talk with my parents. Are you looking for breakfast?"

"Yeah, but there’s nothing inside."

"Dress up," Aspen said. "Let’s get Yew, and we'll go get something to eat."

Ten minutes later, both of them stepped out of their cottage, and came up to their neighbor's porch.

Spruce knocked two times, then he looked around, "why isn’t there a chime?"

"This is the chime," Aspen added two more knocks.

Spruce raised his hand, ready to knock again, but the door opened sharply from inside.

Linden stood there with a grimace on his face. "There’s a reason I added your names to the guest list yesterday," he snapped at them. "So try to knock again, and I’m going to block you forever, idiots." He threw the door shut right in front of their noses.

"What are we to do now?" Spruce looked hurt.

Aspen pushed the knob, and opened the door. "We just walk in, like we live here."

They entered, changed shoes in the entry room, and met with their schoolmates in the living room, where Yew and Linden were having their breakfast.

"So you finally figured out how to open the door," Linden said with sarcasm. "Congratulations," he stated dryly while clapping his hands.

Spruce cravingly gazed at the food. "Is this the same as yesterday?" he recalled the tasty dinner from last night.

"It’s the leftovers," Yew explained. "If you want, you can join. There should be enough."

"Thanks," Spruce immediately sat next to Yew.

Linden sat in the armchair, while the other three sat on the sofa with Yew in the middle. As they ate, they talked about their sleeping habits.

"Any time is a good time for a nap," Linden expressed his permanent opinion.

Spruce took that as a challenge. "And what will you do, if you’re sleepy when it’s classtime?"

"Then I'll skip the class and go to bed," Linden spent no time thinking about the answer.

Other boys didn't believe that he'd actually do that, but before they could reply, a sound of shuffling from the front door interrupted their conversation.

"A guest?" Spruce asked.

"No, that’s mail," Linden went to the entry room, where he took out two envelopes from the mailbox.

Once he came back, he put one envelope in front of Yew, and the other one on the table in front of himself. He held it down with one hand, and with the other hand, he tapped the corner twice and slid his finger across the upper edge. Right afterward, the envelope opened on its own.

Yew looked at the envelope in front of him. It was addressed to him, but he couldn’t open it like Linden, so he just tore off the corner. The contents of both envelopes were the same. It was their class schedule.

"So each class has fifty students," Aspen did the math based on the subtitle, which stated: «Class schedule for cottages four and four hundred twenty six through four and four hundred fifty» underneath the header «four of four B».

"Do we only have three classes?" Yew was surprised.

"Don’t be sad," Linden mocked his question. "They’ll give you more in the future."

Yew decided to ignore him, and instead concentrated on the description of each class.

History of Magic – covers the basic understanding of magic: what magic is, what magic is not, and how magic came to be. The class provides an in-depth explanation of the origin of magic, together with how magic has affected the world around us throughout the ages.

Process of Magic – explains how magic functions. It answers the question of what requirements must be met for magic to happen, and what obstacles exist when using magic in real life situations. It also includes a detailed overview of magical talent, and the basis for production of magical items.

Exercise of Magic – allows students to practice magic in a safe environment. It is for students, who wish to take a closer and more practical look at magic. Any score from this class is counted as extra points toward your final score. The class attendance is optional.

"So we take the same classes, even though I’m magicless?" Yew asked Linden, who was the most knowledgeable about the school among them.

"We don’t separate until the third year," he answered. "It’s in the guidebook."

"I kind of like this schedule," Spruce said. "Two classes in the morning, then lunch, and then Exercise of Magic in the afternoon, which is optional. There's so much free time."

"By the way, where are these classes held?" Aspen furrowed his eyebrows.

Linden drew a circle in the air, and the letter flipped to the other side. "Look it up," he said.

Aspen, Spruce and Yew looked at the map and its summary on the other side of the letter.

"History of Magic is in the History building, classroom A," Yew read the info. "Process of Magic is in the History building, classroom B. It looks like the classrooms are next to each other in the same building."

"Exercise of Magic is in the East Exercise building, classroom G," Aspen read the last bit of info.

Spruce put his finger on the paper, "the History building is right here. And the East Exercise building is not so far away," he swiped his finger on the map.

"So all our classes are in one place," Yew summed up.

"How about we go see the buildings?" Spruce brought up the idea.

Aspen nodded, "sounds good."

"You coming?" Yew asked his roommate.

Linden, as usual, wasn’t polite. "Exclude me. I have more important things to do." He took his empty plate and utensils and carried them into the kitchen, where he left them in the sink. "Yew, you’ll do the dishes. I’m off," he said before he walked into the entry room, and left the cottage a moment later.

After finishing all the leftovers, Yew cleaned the dishes, Spruce rinsed them, and Aspen dried them with a small rag. It went much faster than when Yew did it by himself.

Once they packed their backpacks, they were ready to go. They left the cottage, and went to see their classroom buildings together.

At first they were surprised that the History building was much smaller than they expected. The building appeared to be only two-story tall, thirteen meters wide, and twenty four meters deep. However, once they looked more closely they realized that there were a total of four such buildings next to each other, and they were connected by a balcony in the front and another one in the back.

When the boys examined the map more closely, they realized that the four adjacent buildings were a single structure called the History building.

They came up to the classroom A. Yew pulled on the handle, but the door was locked.

"The classes don’t start until tomorrow," Aspen reminded.

They walked around the building, trying to peek in through the windows, but the view into the classroom was blocked by dark green curtains. The moment they arrived at the classroom B, the door opened from the inside.

The boys paused in track, surprised, while Sorrel Cave stepped out and looked at the students, who were a mere step away from her. She looked neither confused nor surprised, merely interested in their presence outside the classroom.

Spruce felt brave around the teacheress, whom he had already met. "Hello, professor. We wanted to see the classroom, can we?"

"Which group are you?" she asked while closing the door.

The boys had no idea which group they were, so they looked at each other puzzled.

Hearing no answer and seeing their confusion, Sorrel tried again, "Do you have your schedule with you?"

"Ah, yes," Yew said. He took out from his backpack the letter, which he had received this morning.

Sorrel looked at the paper, and nodded, "yes, you’re in my group." She looked at the boys, "if you want to see the classroom, come with me." 

She began walking down the road and the three boys followed her. Even though the route wasn't short, none of the boys dared to chatter around the teacheress. In silence, they dutifully trod behind her all the way into her office in the schoolmanor.

The office was a small room with one desk and many shelfcases on every available wall. The shelves were overflowing with books, boxes, packages, and scrolls, all of which were crammed in an organized manner like puzzle pieces.

"I want you to help me take these to the classroom, since I’ll need these for tomorrow," Sorrel pointed at the three rather big boxes by the door. The first one was packed full of textbooks, the second one had notebooks, and the third one was filled with pens.

"Are we going to… carry them?" Aspen hesitated to ask, as he found the idea absurd.

"Of course not," Sorrel refuted the possibility. "The boxes will walk after me. All I need from you is to keep an eye on them. When I try to take all three at once, they tend to stray away and it is time-consuming to look for a box, once it gets lost somewhere."

"You mean, they run away?" Yew furrowed his eyebrows. "On their own?"

"Unfortunately," Sorrel said and put her hands at her hips. "The more magic-talented a person is, the harder it is to keep things under control. Sometimes I wish I was magicless. Life would be so much easier."

Aspen looked at Yew and Spruce, who looked back at him.

"Anyway, I’ll be taking the scrolls, so I'm depending on you to watch over the boxes."

She extended her hand toward the two-meter tall scrolls, which were standing behind her desk. As her hand, which at first lay flatly with her palm facing the ground, rotated hundred eighty degrees, the scrolls lifted themselves off the floor and began levitating.

"Wouldn’t it be easier to make them smaller?" Yew spoke out his thoughts.

"Magic that makes things smaller removes details," she replied. "If it’s a blank piece of paper, you can decrease its size, and then return it back to its original dimensions without any loss, but if you shrink a detailed piece of art, you will lose a lot. In the worst case scenario, you’ll end up with an ugly smudge of paint."

Using both hands, she carefully navigated the four scrolls to slowly float outside without touching anything in her office. She was moving them with the precision of a talented magus, who has been diligently practicing magic over many years.

Once the scrolls were levitating in the hallway, she stepped outside. On her way, she commanded the boxes, "come."

Upon her words, the boxes moved up off the floor. Four legs, which looked like table legs, appeared underneath each box.

She walked onward keeping the scrolls ahead of her, while the boxes trotted a meter behind her.

"Keep them near me," she commanded the boys.

Just as the teacher had explained earlier, the boxes were acting as if they had their own mind. They would try to walk away, but whenever one of the boxes began to swerve in a different direction, Spruce would run after it and guide it back to Sorrel, like a kid guiding an adventurous puppy.

He was amazed at the boxes and whatever magic the teacheress was using. His eyes, gleaming with curiosity, wouldn't let any of the boxes out of his sight.

Aspen pensively observed the boxes, but he didn't need to do anything else, because Spruce kept running around and preventing all three boxes from escaping. Yew, on the other hand, couldn’t take his eyes away from Sorrel’s hands. Her movements were normal for a magus, but to Yew it appeared as if she was performing a mystical dance.

When they arrived at the classroom B of the History building, Sorrel kept her left hand motionlessly extended toward the scrolls, which stayed in the air. Simultaneously, with the index finger of her right hand, she wrote an invisible word on the classroom's door.

The classroom door opened by itself to its full extent and Sorrel carefully moved the scrolls inside. Once all four of them flew in, she followed.

Two boxes happily walked after her into the classroom, but the third one tried to run away. Spruce quickly blocked its way and pushed it toward the classroom, but it refused to budge.

Inside the classroom, Sorrel let the scrolls rest in the corner, where she secured them with several protection charms. Afterward, she looked at the boxes. Two of them already sat under the blackboard, but the third one was wrestling with Spruce just outside the doorway.

"Enough," she barked. "Get inside," she commanded the box, which immediately stopped resisting.

Obediently it entered the classroom, and sat down next to the other boxes.

"Good boxes," she complimented them, and undid the spell. All three boxes returned back to being immobile objects.

Sorrel approached the boys, who were standing at the entrance. "As you can see, this is a normal classroom like any other."

The classroom had a total of twenty five tables for students. Each table had two chairs, and each row had five tables. In front of all the tables, there was a blackboard that stretched from one wall to the other. The teacher's desk with its seat stood in the center between the blackboard and the tables, and a lonely chair was stashed away in the corner next to the scrolls, which Sorrel had just brought in.

"This classroom was assigned to me, and you were assigned to my class, so you'll be coming here for your lessons, while I'll be staying here the whole day," she sighed with a mild grimace on her face.

"The whole day? Even though our class is only one hour long?" Spruce looked confused.

Sorrel chuckled. "I have other classes to teach. It's just that sometimes I'm jealous of the students. You get to travel from one class to another, while I have to stay in the same room all day long." She clapped her hands, "aw well. At least I get assigned a different classroom every year."

"Professor," Aspen raised his hand then pointed toward the corner. "What are those scrolls?" He had been curious for a long time, but only now he had gathered enough courage to ask.

"Ah, these," she prolonged the word as she smiled. "You’ll find out tomorrow."

She walked up to the door, and stood in the frame. She gave the boys several moments to take another look at the classroom, before she said, "this should be enough for today. You'll be here so often that you'll get bored of this place."

The boys looked at her, and she pointed toward the outside with her hand. They understood the gesture, and left the classroom. She closed the door and tapped it once with her palm. The door squeaked and a low pitched chime came from inside, sounding a bit like beeng-baahng.

"Good. It’s locked," the teacheress murmured to herself.

The three boys stood around her like stone columns, quietly observing her actions.

She found their lack of incentive to leave amusing, so she addressed them with a grin, "if you have nothing else to do, I can find some more work for you."

Her words immediately awakened the boys from whatever thoughts they had. Yew and Aspen shook their heads, looking apologetic as they began to hurry away.

Meanwhile Spruce stayed. He was so interested in magic that he wouldn't mind doing more chores as long as he got to see more magic. He was about to verbally agree to Sorrel's offer, when Aspen ran back, caught Spruce by his arm and dragged him away.

The world was full of magic.

Magic was always present in the world. It was there, when a new life was born. It was there, when an old life drifted into the afterlife. It was there, when a coincidence occurred. It was forever present, when a feeling of intuition became a piece of the future. And it flickered in and out of existence whenever an unexpected thought passed through a mind like a spark of a match.

Magic had always been and would always remain an integral part of the human world. Even though some people never saw it, it was always present. Even though some people couldn’t feel it, it was always around. Even though some people couldn’t know it, there existed men born with magic, and there existed men born from magic.

How magic came to be? Nobody really knew. But one thing was for sure. It existed from the very beginning of the world, so whoever created the world must have also created the magic.

Nobody should remember something from so long ago, and yet the story of the world's creation could be found in every nook and cranny on every land. Over the countless centuries, the stories began to diverge from each other, but they always shared one thing in common - the existence of God, the creator of the whole world.

But who or what was God? No one knew who God was, but all the sages of the world agreed on what God was.

God was a name given to the being, who created the world. This being appeared in thousands of tales, stories, legends, myths, reports, claims, ideas and studies, yet if any of them were true, only God knew.

In the end, the existence of God was the only thing certain. Even those, who didn’t believe in an actual being, knew that the name was real.

The origin of this name was also well-known. In ancient times, people used the word "god" to describe any supernatural being with superhuman powers. Back then, people had millions of gods, because every force of nature was at least one god. Yet the word "God" spelled with the uppercase «G» didn't exist until much later.

Although the words "god" and "God" sounded the same in speech, only a fool wouldn't know that they had different definitions.

The name "God" was derived from the word "god", but because it was a name it was written with a capital letter. It was always the case that names had to be capitalized, or else they meant the thing, which they were named after. So just like there was a distinct difference between a rose and Rose, a lily and Lily, a sage and Sage, a rowan and Rowan, there was also an unmistakable difference between a god and God.

And just like an average human named Rose possessed no biological genes of actual roses, a being named God had nothing in common with the entities called gods.

So why was the word "god" chosen as the name for this being? There was no one answer, but the most plausible theory suggested that ancient people wanted to give to their creator the most powerful name in existence. And there was nothing ever more powerful to men than the powers of nature.

In order to distinguish between "God" and "god" in speech, the men added titles such as "Lord God", or descriptions such as "God of gods". However, all such clarifications became unnecessary once the name "God" became more popular than the common noun, which became obsolete over the centuries.

Yet, the extinction of the word "god" never affected the beings, who still retained their names and epithets. Nevertheless, in order to replace the archaic terminology "god", the terminology "guardian" was created by adding an identity suffix "-ian" to the word "guard." The guardians themselves welcomed this change in language, because it aligned with their duties and the purpose of their existence.

From then on, "God" was used only as a name - a unique identifier for a being, about whom all knew nothing.

Or at least nothing for certain, because there were plenty of stories about God, though none of them could ever be verified. The story with the most diverse and numerous versions was the story of the world's creation. In the most profound of the versions, God used only words.

The first sentence of that story had been known by even the youngest among all the creatures: "In the beginning, God created Heaven and Earth".

The word "Heaven" was a name for the spiritual realm, where all the spirits and souls come from and where they would one day return. The word "Earth" was a name for the material realm, where all the physical beings were born and where they all lived until their death.

In this manner, out of an absolute void, God created two realms - the realm of Earth and the realm of Heaven, which were created as separate yet conjoint, one within the other, mysteriously interwoven yet isolated.

Not many knew the part of the story about the creation of Heaven, but even those who knew it, rarely understood it.

Whereas, the creation of Earth was a simple matter. God said "light" and the light was born. God said "night" and the night was born. Word by word, God created the material realm - light and shadow, brightness and darkness, day and night, sky and earth, fire and water, rain and snow, clouds and stars, oceans and winds, and anything else that could be found all over the world.

Once God created all inanimate objects, He created animals and humans.

However, the story didn't end there. Quite on the contrary, it was merely the beginning. After creating a world so magical, God continued to create all kinds of life forms, equally as magical as the world itself.

From the very beginning, all of God's creations lived in peace, but that peace didn't last forever.

One day, a demon approached God and asked, "which of Thy creations is the greatest?"

Demons were the most powerful of God’s creations. Although their power was nothing in comparison with God’s might, they were proud creatures. They didn't think that any other creation could ever be above them.

The other beings were mostly in agreement, that the demons had to be the greatest among them. Many were certain that God would assert this claim, but that didn't happen.

God gave an unexpected answer, naming a being, which was considered the weakest and most worthless.

Demons were furious. In their rage, they declared a war against God, which they promptly lost. Yet they remained stubborn to their vows to never obey God again. Unable to control their hatred, they waged another war against humans – the very creation, which God had named as the greatest.

In the war against God, the demons were alone. However, in the war against humans, they had made countless alliances with others, who likewise disagreed with God's choice for the title of the greatest.

God sadly looked at the war, but He didn't take any sides. Some say, He wanted it to be a fair battle. Others say that He knew that humans couldn't possibly lose. Yet those sentiments were often overlooked by rumors that God had indeed participated in the war, without anyone realizing when and how He altered the course of events.

The war lasted for thousands of years and affected everyone. Even those, who wanted to remain neutral, had to take sides after they were forced to by others.

What seemed like an endless war had ended ten hundred years ago.

Following their defeat, the demons had disappeared together with their allies, and no one had seen them ever since. The world had once again become peaceful and magical.

Among mankind, there was no one alive today, who saw the day of the victory, because human lifespan was always fairly short. However, among longevous creatures, there were some who had been alive for more than ten centuries and they still remembered the days of the Battle of the End.

A very old tree in a forest looked at a passerby, who appeared to be a matriarch dressed in rags. Her arms and legs were as thin as sticks from a dying branch. And her petrified hair strands reminded of dry wheat stems bent down by hail.

She headed toward the deeper woods, where the trees grew so densely that no sunrays could reach the moss-covered ground. As she passed by the old tree, she made no sound almost as if she was a ghost, but she definitely wasn't. Her steps squashed the plants beneath, and her arms moved branches out of her way. Yet none of her actions could be heard, only seen.

The old tree shook its branches, to wake up the other trees around.

"Did you see that?" it asked.

"That’s unusual," said a younger tree, roughly eight hundred yrold, "a matriarch this deep in the woods. It takes many weeks to arrive at the nearest village, and she was all alone."

"That was no woman," the old tree said in a grievous tone. "That wasn’t a human."

The younger trees looked at it, surprised. "If it wasn’t a human, then what?"

"A witch," the old tree spoke.

In response, the other trees stood frozen in shock for several hours.

Then one of the youngest recovered enough to speak. "But, elder, witches disappeared together with the demons. You must have seen it wrong."

The old tree bent his branches down to the ground to take a closer look at the plants growing on the path, where the witch had passed. The plants lay dead on the ground, withered as if they had no water for months.

"It has been so many years," the old tree said. "So many centuries have passed, since the last time I saw a witch, but even now I can clearly remember them."

"Hey, what’s a witch?" a fairly young and thin tree with only four branches overheard their conversation. At that age, it was rare for trees to care about anything profound, but it couldn't resist the temptation to ask, when all the older trees were so deeply immersed into the subject.

A middle-aged tree of no more than five hundred years answered the question. "A witch is a creature, which at first glance appears to be a human, but a witch is not a human. Witches always look like old women, but they are neither male nor female. Their arms and legs are too thin to be human, and their hair isn’t hair at all. It's more like fishbones growing out from their skulls."

"If their body is so thin, she must be very weak," the young tree came to a conclusion.

"Oh no, you should never think that," another tree, growing near the youngster, joined in. "Witches can use witchcraft. And just like magic used by humans, or like enchantment used by fairies, witchcraft can be very powerful."

"Woooow," the young tree was beyond amazed, "that's so awesome."

"But they’re evil," yet another old tree interjected, getting straight to the point.

Some younger trees, who hadn’t heard of witches before, were confused but curious.

The tree continued, "they sided with demons in the war, and together with the demons, they were defeated. They shouldn’t exist anymore."

Many younger trees expressed their trepidation mixed in with other various emotions with a chorus of "oh" and "ah".

"There is one explanation," said the oldest among the trees - the same tree which spoke first. "It is unlikely, very unlikely. I doubt it could happen, but maybe… maybe…"

The old tree took a long time to speak, but no other tree would dare to interrupt the respected elder. They patiently waited for him to finish, but he never did.

His leaves began to fall to the ground one by one like green snow. Once its shriveled branches became barren, a round green circle appeared around the old tree. The semi-transparent circle passed through its trunk and took the form of a green butterfly, as it flew up toward the sky, where it disappeared beyond the clouds.

The spirit of the old tree had left the realm of Earth.

Other trees stood in silence respecting the death of their elder, who now stood bare and hollow. They remained still and mute for many months, mourning the departure of their elder, whose passing had occurred at such a crucial time.

However the witch, who passed by earlier, had no interest in a tree funeral. He had more important things to do.

Even though witches were neither male nor female, they had a hierarchy and that hierarchy was present in their language. Only the most powerful among the witches, who held the highest positions could be addressed as females. All the other witches were treated as males, and no witch of lower rank would ever dare to address itself as a female.

He was a witch from the lowest among all the ranks. His duty was to mindlessly obey and to die for a greater cause. And that was why he had been sent to wake up a powerful witch, who could kill him if she had a "bad morning".

For hours he kept on moving forward among the trees and bushes of the forest so dense that neither day nor night made a difference to the darkness around him. He didn't stop until he arrived at an old tombstone buried under the moss and fallen leaves. He waved his bony hand, and everything covering the ground dispersed into the forest as if taken away by a whirlwind.

Right next to the tombstone there was an entrance - an old stone staircase, which led underground. The witch confidently trod down without missing a step as if he was able to see everything in the endless darkness of the cave. His bright red eyes shone like two candleflames, but provided no light to illuminate - only dread to give nightmares.

After he arrived at the bottom of the staircase, he walked out of the dark hallway into a large chamber lit up by twinkling blue-green lights, which were floating in the air like sparks of fire yet remained stationed in their position, surrounding a huge block of ice like diamonds on a ring.

Another witch, much older and much uglier, slept standing while sealed inside the ice block for many centuries. She had a long hanging nose and even longer dangling ears. With both of her hands, she held onto a broom, which had a wide rectangular brush facing upward.

The low-ranking witch placed his hand on the block. In response to his touch the ice rapidly turned into fog, which leisurely dissipated.

The newly-freed witch opened her eyes and growled, "who dares to wake me up?" She glared at the visitor, "why did you interrupt my nap?"

"Baba Yaga," he addressed her. "A demon from another world is approaching."

"What does he want?"

"Nothing good."

Baba Yaga, the oldest and most knowledgeable witch, who had ever lived, sighed. "One useless war has ended, and another one is to begin? Will the world never know peace?" As she paced toward the exit, she used her broom as a walking stick. "How many know?"

"Us," the other witch answered. "I don’t know about others," he began following the elder witch.

"How did you find out?" she asked while climbing the first step.

"We felt the aura of a great evil, so we headed towards it to investigate. We found a suspicious circle in the air, so we went closer to check. It was a gate into another world."

"And what did you see in that world?"

"The world was in a state of war between good and evil, the kind of war that has already ended in our world. But the war in that world was even more gruesome than the one that happened in our world."

"What was so gruesome about it?"

"The actions of humans."

"How is that possible?"

"The humans weren’t united. Some fought for freedom. Others served demons."

Baba Yaga stopped mid-step, and turned her face around with eyes wide open in disbelief, "humans... served demons?"

"Yes," the other witch nodded once.

"The humans weren’t united," she weakly repeated the words, still doubting the possibility.

With the speed of a sloth, she moved her face forward and resumed climbing the stairs. After her centuries-long nap, her body felt stiff and needed time to fully regain its usual swiftness.

"Some of them wanted to be slaves," she rephrased incredulously. "So what about that demon, who is coming?"

The low-ranking witch answered, "she has brought absolute death."

"What?!" Baba Yaga shouted and turned around so quickly, that the air moved with her. "That’s not possible! An absolute death? How? Explain," she demanded.

The other witch shook his head, "I do not know."

"Then how do you know that it was an absolute death?"

"We have seen humans die. We have seen their souls leave their bodies. We have seen those souls rot into nihility in front of our eyes. Their immortal souls, which should have prevailed over death, had died."

Baba Yaga’s skin would have turned even paler, if it wasn’t already as white as snow. "Absolute death," her lips trembled. "Who can fight against such an enemy?"

She pondered in silence as she continued to climb the stairs. Once they had reached aboveground, she asked, "where was God, when that demon roamed that world?"

"Silent," the other witch replied, "just like during the war in our world."

"Oh no," Baba Yaga shook her head. "He wasn’t silent during the war in our world. If He truly was silent, humans would have never won." With the bony index finger of her left hand she began stroking her long nose. "I see," she said to herself. "Another war… no, not exactly… a payback… yes, more like it… that makes sense."

The low-ranking witch didn’t understand what she was talking about, but he didn’t ask. He knew that it wasn't necessary for him to understand.

Baba Yaga chuckled, "when is the demon coming?"

"We don’t know the exact time. It may be months. It may be years."

Even without shark-like teeth, Baba Yaga's wide smile would still be creepy, "how sweet - so much time."

"May I dare to ask?"

"Go ahead."

"With whom are we allied this time?"

"Can’t you guess already? Who, in their right mind, would want to be a loser again?" And she laughed in a loud shrieky voice, which made all the nearby animals scurry away in fear. Meanwhile more distant inhabitants of the forest felt a kind of dread, which nobody had felt for the last ten hundred years.

The first day of Byzh arrived in the calendar, and with the new season came the new school year. Yew woke up early, when it was still dark outside. His roommate was snoring loudly in the other bed. Having nothing to do, he tried going back to sleep, but couldn’t.

When the sky started to brighten, he got out of bed and dressed up.

He only had two sets of clothes until the rest of his stuff would arrive by mail. His first set had already been worn for three days and stunk too much to wear it anymore, so he hoped that the package with his other clothes would arrive by tomorrow. Otherwise, he would have to laundry his only clothes, or get reprimanded by the teachers.

He went to the kitchen and opened the fridge, which contained more food brought in by Linden. But Yew wasn't hungry. Instead he wanted to drink milk, so he poured some into a mug and warmed it up using Linden's magical heating coaster.

The item was made of some black shiny material and had a red dot in the center. Whenever a mug was placed over the dot, the liquid inside would warm up. The longer the mug stayed, the hotter the liquid got. Yet the mug itself never changed its temperature.

Yew took his mug off the coaster, when the sides of the milk began to bubble up about to boil. Then he went outside, and sat on the edge of the porch with his feet on the staircase.

It was a chilly summer morning, but Yew warmed himself up with a sip of his milk.

He appreciated the stillness of the sleeping hamlet. With no students outside, it was eerily quiet and enticing. Since there was no wind, all the motionless trees in the gardens surrounding the alleys appeared surreal, almost as if Yew was looking at a painting.

There was something special about this time of the day, when it was so bright outside, but the source of light itself was still hidden beneath the horizon.

He smiled when the birds started their morning choir practice. Even though he was so far away from home, there were so many similarities between this place and his village.

He finished drinking, and was ready to go back inside, when something caught his attention at the corner of his eye. He looked to the right side, and saw a beautiful woman standing several meters away. Her hair was white and long to the ground. She was standing barefoot on the white pebbles of the alley, wearing a long white dress, which drifted around her as if she was underwater.

She stared at Yew with a delicate smile, and he stared back at her. Without moving or saying anything they looked at each other. Yew wasn't sure how long it lasted, more than several seconds for sure, but not longer than a minute, before she turned transparent and faded out like a mist.

Right after she disappeared completely, Yew suddenly heard numerous noises coming from every direction, and he had realized that there were many students outdoors all over the hamlet. His mind was utterly confused, because he didn't see or hear them until now.

"Why didn’t you wake me up?!" Linden shouted toward him from the open kitchen window.

The sun was up in the sky, above the cottages across from him.

"I told you to wake me up!" Linden was glaring at Yew, who was dumbstruck by the sudden changes around him.

"What time is it?" he uttered, wondering if he was asleep or awake.

"Time for our first class!" Linden shouted then disappeared inside the cottage, leaving the kitchen window open.

Spruce and Aspen, stepped out of the neighboring cottage, with their backpacks on and ready for the class. They approached Yew, who was still confused about what had just happened. How did dawn suddenly switch to late morning?

"Where’s Linden?" Spruce asked.

"Getting ready," Yew answered. He looked at the sun again. He could swear on his life that just a moment ago it wasn't even on the horizon.

"If we don’t leave soon, we’ll be late." Aspen tapped the watch on his left wrist.

Yew nodded, then went inside to get his backpack, glad that he packed it the day before. Today he really had no time. With his backpack and a jacket on, he left the cottage. Outside he waited with others for Linden, who came out much faster than any of them expected.

Linden was still angry at Yew for not waking him up. However, Yew was still in a daze, so he didn’t even listen to the sarcastic comments, which his roommate directed at him.

They headed to the classroom A of the History building, where they had their first class - History of Magic. Upon entrance they saw that each table had two nameplates placed in front of each seat. Like all the other first year students, they went searching for seats with their nameplate.

Aspen found his seat quickly, and settled in the second row by the wall. Spruce and Yew sat together in the third row behind Aspen, with Spruce by the wall and Yew by the aisle. Linden's seat was across from Yew, but in the fourth row.

After everybody was seated, the students realized that there were no girls in the classroom, although many of them looked at Linden, questioning the possibility of a girl wearing pants.

"Why are there only boys?’ some students wondered aloud.

Yew and Spruce also found it odd. In kindergartens, boys and girls were learning together, so they have never been before in a boys-only classroom. When they looked questioningly at Aspen, he shrugged, not knowing the answer.

Linden glared at some boys, who openly insinuated that he might be a girl. He was ready to get up and start a fight, when a middle-aged man entered the classroom. He had short, but very curly dark gold hair, and a very curly beard that covered most of his face.

He closed the door to the classroom, and all the students turned around to look at him. He approached the teacher's desk and put down his documents, but he himself didn't sit down.

"Let me explain why this classroom has only boys." He had heard the students, and decided to give them an answer in order to get everyone's attention.

"It's a long tradition, which the school of Hecate has upheld for centuries, and no one plans to change it. If you look at your schedule, you’ll realize that all of you are neighbors. We have always arranged cottages separately for boys and girls: twenty five cottages for boys, the next twenty five for girls, and so on. We alternate for all the students, or at least we try. Some years it's not so easy, but even then, we still manage. Male students and studentesses are never in the same classroom."

He spoke in a low even voice, with a tone of dignity and wisdom.

"Now that I have satisfied your curiosity, I shall introduce myself. My name is Cacao Palas Kurrajong Bark, and during this school year, I’ll be teaching you History of Magic."

He tapped the air next to the blackboard, and the names of all the students in the classroom appeared in the alphabetical order. "Since all the desks are full, I assume that you’re all present, but if you don't see your name on the blackboard, please raise your hand."

As no hand was raised, the teacher continued.

"These are your textbooks." He gestured with his left hand a complex set of movements, which caused the nameplates on the tables to transform into books. Each book had a nametag attached to the bottom of the cover page.

"And these are your notebooks." Cacao made another complex motion with his left hand, and a notebook appeared next to each textbook. "But before I give you your pens, I want you to read this," he said as he pointed at the blackboard.

The list of students disappeared, and a single handwritten sentence appeared in bright yellow letters.

"Please read this out loud," Cacao ordered while pointing at the blackboard.

The students slowly and out of sync read the sentence on the blackboard, "the notebooks are scored. I will be careful what I write inside."

"Good, very good," Cacao said and waved his hand down, causing the sentence to disappear.

He made another complex motion with his hand, and two pens appeared for each student. "The extra pen is in case if you lose one," he explained. "Don’t lose your textbooks or notebooks. But if you do, contact me."

He clapped his hands, then said, "now, open your notebooks."

The students did as told.

"For those of you, who want an extra point in my class, please write down in your notebooks, on the first line, the same sentence that you read a moment ago, exactly as it was written, word by word. I accept no misspellings."

Aspen and some other students began to write, while the majority, who hadn't paid attention, looked at each other in search of help.

"No talking, if you don’t remember – too bad. You lost an extra point. Better pay attention next time."

When the students finished writing, Cacao pointed at the blackboard, where a new sentence appeared: «What is magic? Where did it come from?»

"And now I want all of you to write this new sentence on the first empty line in your notebooks."

After the students wrote it down, the teacher clapped his hands twice. A red number appeared in every notebook. The students didn't have time to wonder what it meant, because Cacao explained right away.

"If you're seeing a plus one in your notebooks, this is the extra credit you earned by paying attention. If you're seeing a zero, it isn't bad at all. It means you followed my instructions. But some of you have just received a minus one. This is a point you lost, because you didn’t do as I instructed."

Yew and Spruce looked at each other’s notebooks. Each one had a red minus one next to the text in black, and both boys knew exactly what they did wrong.

The teacher told them to write the sentence from the blackboard on the first empty line, but they both thought that if they wrote it on the second line, they could still get the extra credit, if they copied the sentence later from Aspen.

They weren’t the only ones in the class, who planned to cheat the system. The majority of students looked like they just swallowed a snail.

"This is the first thing you need to learn," Cacao said gently but decisively. "If you pay attention in my class, you’ll be rewarded, but if you don’t follow my instructions, expect to lose points."

He looked at the board, "so let me answer the two questions on the board. Even though there are two questions, there is only one answer: magic is a talent, a gift from God, so to say."

He was slowly pacing back and forth in front of the blackboard, as he spoke in a low voice that resembled the humming of a bear.

"It is a well-known fact that magic, just like any other talent, is passed from parents to children. Some people are more magic-talented, some are less magic-talented, and some have no magical talent at all. However, even a magicless person can learn one or two spells, though it would take a lot of time and effort."

"But who in their right mind would want to endeavor for decades just to learn one spell? Of course no one, which is why there has never been a magicless person striving to become a magus. However, even magicless people can become wizards."

He snapped his fingers, and the text on the blackboard changed once again. This time there were two words listed, one under the other.

«Magus?»
«Wizard?»

"And now, for those of you, who currently have a negative number of points, let me give you a chance. Please, raise your hand, if you wish to speak. I’ll give one point to whomever can tell me what a magus is."

A forest of hands appeared in the classroom, and Cacao chose a student from the first row.

The student stood up, and said, "it’s a person who is talented in magic."

But Cacao shook his head. "Do you have another answer?" He gave the student another chance, but since the boy looked like he didn’t understand what was wrong with his answer, Cacao told him to sit down.

"Anyone else would like to try?" he faced the students in the classroom.

This time the number of hands drastically decreased to three.

He pointed at Aspen, who stood up and answered, "a magus is a human, who has mastered magical skills."

"Almost," the teacher responded, "but I’ll give you one point."

Aspen nodded in gratitude and sat down.

Cacao drew a U shape with his finger in the air. In response to his actions, Aspen's name appeared right above his head for a short moment.

"Aspen," Cacao read the name, "your answer was good, but slightly insufficient."

Then he explained to everyone, "a magus is a profession, just like a painter. There are many people who are talented in art, but not all of them are painters. And there are many people who are talented in magic, but not all of them are magi. Thus to become a magus, one requires not only a mastery of the subject, but also a conscious choice to pursue this career."

He moved his hand in a horizontal motion near the blackboard, and a definition of a magus appeared next to the word.

"Now, let’s move on to the next question: what is a wizard?" He looked at the class, "anyone?".

Eight students raised their hands, among them Yew. Spruce was surprised that his deskmate knew the answer, but to Yew it wasn’t about the answer. His negative score would not disappear on its own. And he had nothing to lose, if his answer was wrong, so he decided to take the risk.

The teacher pointed at Yew, who looked more determined than any other of the boys.

Yew stood up and blurted out, "it’s a profession, where a person uses magical items to do magic."

The teacher laughed a bit. "Clever, but unfortunately I don’t give points for trying, and you’re wrong. Anyone else?"

Yew sat back in his chair, but nobody raised a hand this time.

"Let me rephrase the definition you just heard. If I told you that a painter is a profession, where a human uses color pencils to draw, would that sound correct to you? By that definition, a lot of toddlers could be professional painters."

Some of the students started to understand the error in the logic.

"There are many people in the world who use magical items, but the difference between users and wizards is that wizards understand why and how magical items work. Wizards are masters of magic comprehension, and their in-depth knowledge of magic allows them to turn regular objects into magical items."

The teacher swiped again his hand horizontally by the blackboard, and the definition of the second word appeared. "I’ll give you a minute to take notes."

All the students began writing down in their notebooks, except for Linden, who stared blankly at the blackboard and looked as if he was sleeping with his eyes open.

Afterward, Cacao used famous historical figures in order to further explain the difference between magi and wizards.

Near the end of the class, he sat down at his desk for the first time.

"And that will be all for today. Please take your books home, and read the first five pages of your textbooks. On the fifth page, you’ll find an assignment. Please do that in your notebooks, and I’ll score it tomorrow."

Some of the students noted down the homework, while the majority opted to remember it.

"Also, today was the first day, so I cut you some slack, but starting tomorrow I want all of you to have proper manners. When you see me entering the classroom, please stand up and greet me with a clear «good morning, professor». Don’t murmur or babble it. Be clear when you say it."

He snapped his fingers, and all the text disappeared from the blackboard.

"And before any of you get the bad idea of leaving the classroom early, let me warn you. This class doesn’t end until I say goodbye to you. When I say «goodbye, students», you stand up and respond with «goodbye, professor». Only then you can leave. The only exception to this would be during tests, when you can leave after you hand me your paper."

He clapped together his hands, then stood up. "So let’s try it. Goodbye, students."

The students looked at each other, then slowly one by one, they stood up and still out of sync responded, "goodbye, professor."

Cacao rubbed his hands. "Well, for a first time, it was acceptable. You can go."

Right after he said that, Linden grabbed his backpack and confidently walked out of the classroom. Other students packed up their books, and soon they also rushed outside.

Once Spruce, Yew and Aspen caught up with Linden, he yawned then said, "that was so boring."

"That was scary," Spruce's voice was shaking with anxiety. "I already lost a point in my first class." He opened his notebook, where he had a minus one written in red ink on the first page.

"Same here," Yew showed them the minus one in his notebook.

"No such problem," Linden grinned and opened his notebook. There was only one line written in his notebook – the very first line, with a red zero written next to it. "I could tell it was a trap."

"How could you tell?" Spruce asked, unable to believe him.

Yew immediately recalled what Linden told him before. "Both of his parents are teachers."

"Really?" Spruce looked at Yew, then at Linden, who nodded. "That sucks."

"Agree," Linden twisted his lips, then looked at Aspen. "And what about your score? Plus one?"

Aspen took out his notebook, and showed them the plus two written in red ink.

"That’s a lie," Spruce cried out. "Why did you raise your hand, if you already had a point from the beginning? That’s cheating!"

"I don’t think that’s cheating," Yew muttered, but he also thought that it was unfair.

Linden nonchalantly shrugged. He honestly didn’t care. Such trivial scores didn’t matter to him, and he had a bigger problem on his mind.

"Next class is with mom." He sighed before he began walking toward the classroom B. "Welcome to Hell."

The four boys circled to the other side of the History building, while the students, who exited from the classroom B, were heading in the opposite direction toward the classroom A. They were all girls, and among them, Spruce recognized a girl, who also recognized him.

It was the same girl, who stood next to him during the orientation - the same girl, whom he met in the cafeteria ereyester.

She stopped and spoke to Spruce, "so your Process class is right after ours?" Some of her friendesses also stopped walking, and stood by her.

Upon realizing that she was talking in their direction, the boys stopped as well.

"Hey, I've also met you before," she said toward Yew, who stood next to Spruce.

Yew, who couldn't remember ever meeting her, looked like a deer in headlights.

"During the orientation," she tried to help him remember. "We're both magicless."

Yew vaguely recalled other magicless students from the orientation. He didn't pay them much attention, so he couldn't be sure, but there might have been a girl among them.

"I’m Wasabi Huacatay Dzmuchaviec Water," she introduced herself. "Anyway, my next class is coming up, but let's talk another time." And without waiting for the boys to respond, she hastened away.

Unlike Cacao’s classroom, where all the seats had been assigned by the teacher, this time the tables had no names on them.

Upon entrance, the students were told to stand under the blackboard by the teacheress, who welcomed each one of them at the door. Once all the students were inside, Sorrel Cave closed the classroom's door, then took a long look at everyone before she said, "good morning."

Confused, but still remembering what Cacao told them, they responded, "good morning, professor".

"Very good," she smiled at them. "As you can see, you’ll be sitting in pairs at the same table for a year," she pointed at the desks. "So I want to make sure I can assign the best seats for you. Since not many people like to sit in the front, we'll start there. So, whoever wants to sit in the front, please raise your hand."

Six students raised their hands, among them Aspen.

"Six, that’s great, please come over here," she beckoned them to approach her.

She discussed their preferences with them. Two seats, next to the wall, were promptly taken, and soon three out of five tables were assigned.

"Okay, can I have four more people? Anyone else brave enough to sit near the teacher?" she looked at Linden, who tried to back off and hide behind other students.

After seeing that, Yew sighed and stepped forward.

"Great," she applauded him. "Since there are no other candidates, you may choose, which of the remaining four seats you want."

Without hesitation, Yew sat at the second desk on the left side - next to Aspen, who sat on the right side of the first desk.

For a moment Spruce looked bewildered at his friend's daring choice. However, after a brief consideration, he stepped out as soon as the teacheress asked for another student.

As the only volunteer, he was also allowed to choose from the remaining three seats. Obviously, he sat at the same desk as Yew.

The last two seats in the front row were hardest to fill, but starting with the second row, there were more and more students volunteering to take a seat.

Linden sat in the last row by the wall - farthest away from his mother.

The whole process of getting everyone seated, then getting them equipped with textbooks, notebooks and pens, took so long that there wasn't much time left for the actual class. Sorrel Cave, who anticipated it, set a short lesson explaining some basic concepts.

"We'll talk about two kinds of magic: spells and charms," she began the explanation. "Spells are active, and charms are passive. Let me show you."

She stretched out her hand toward the lonely chair in the corner under the blackboard, then turned her hand around, so that her palm faced upward. In response to that motion, the chair lifted off the ground and began levitating.

"This is a spell. It lasts only as long as I concentrate in order to actively control my magic. If I were to lose concentration..." Suddenly the chair dropped to the floor with a loud bang. "This is what happens. The spell ends up interrupted."

Afterward, she approached the chair, and put her hand on it. She kept her hand in place for several moments. When she stepped back, the chair began levitating again.

"This is a charm," the teacheress said. "It will continue, even after I leave this classroom. However, charms aren’t eternal. Over time, they lose effect. As they become weaker, they also become easier to break."

She turned toward the classroom.

"Charms and spells vary in strength, which is unrelated to magical talent. Your talent only decides how fast you learn, not how powerful your magic is. The power of magic is dependent on two other factors, which you’ll need to train while learning magic. The first one is stamina, which decides how long you can use magic, before you’re too tired to continue. Stamina is not only important for magic, but also for other activities of the body. If I organized a race, and had you run until you’re out of breath, we could easily see, who has the most stamina in this class."

She winked at the students.

"The second factor is concentration. It will be important for you to start early, because that is where the true power of your spells and charms comes from. Concentration means paying attention. No matter how much magical talent you possess, you won’t be able to cast even one simple spell, if you don’t concentrate on what you’re doing."

She looked at the clock above the door. "Before you leave the classroom today, I want to show you something."

She turned her palm toward the scrolls standing in the corner behind the chair, which was still levitating. She moved her hand gracefully, as if she was dancing, and one of the scrolls levitated to the ceiling. Then Sorrel used her other hand to draw in the air something that looked like an inverted number three, which caused the scroll to unroll.

"Can anyone tell me what is on this scroll?" she asked but everyone in the class remained still.

Yew, who was sitting in the first row, could clearly see the ink, but had no idea what it could possibly be, so he decided not to answer. The scroll content was full of random lines and dots of ink and didn’t look like anything in particular. Sorrel smiled, rolled back the scroll, put it away, then opened another one.

"And how about this one?"

Once again there was no answer. She repeated the same question for the third and fourth scrolls, with the same mute response from her students.

On the first three scrolls, Yew saw nothing but lines and dots, but on the fourth one, he saw something like a faint image among the lines and dots, but he still couldn’t tell exactly what it was.

Sorrel smiled at the students. "I’m sorry, if you think that I'm making fun of you. I know that most people see nothing on these scrolls, but actually there are images - very beautiful paintings. However, the paintings were created with powerful magic, so that only the most magic-talented people can see them."

She looked lovingly at the scrolls.

"It is a tradition of Hecate, to always show these paintings to the new students in order to check if we have any exceptionally talented individuals. I was shown these scrolls on my fourth day in Hecate, and all I could see were two lines on the first painting, and one line on the other three. I was very confused at that time, because no one else could see it."

She looked at the students. "But you don’t have to feel bad, if you haven’t seen anything. That’s normal. It doesn’t happen often that we have a student with an exceptional talent."

Yew listened to the teacheress, and was glad that he didn’t speak up. If he had said anything, his magicless cover would have been blown up with a huge explosion, figuratively speaking. He already knew that he had a magical talent, and maybe, a fairly above average magical talent, but an exceptional talent was a bit too much. Thus his determination to keep his magical talent a secret grew even stronger.

"Professor," someone asked in the back of the class.

"Yes?"

"You said you saw two lines, but were there others, who saw more than that?"

"Of course. In the history of our school, there were many who could see more. Our chairman saw fourteen lines and two dots on one of the images when she started Hecate."

Fourteen? Yew was stunned speechless, when he heard the number. At that moment, he promised himself that he’d never ever speak of what he saw. If the school's chairman saw fourteen lines and two dots, then what would happen, if he told them that he saw more than fifty lines and another thirty or so dots?

"Professor," Aspen raised his hand, "when you said that scrolls appear empty to us, do you mean that they should appear white in color?"

"Yes," she answered, "white empty scrolls for most people, and black lines on white background for those exceptionally talented in magic."

"I saw a violet background on the first one, and the fourth scroll appeared to be dark blue," Aspen said.

Sorrel looked genuinely surprised. She glanced at the scrolls, which were standing back in the corner, then she spoke to Aspen, "did you really see colors?"

"I did," he nodded his head with certainty.

"Based on the records," she spoke faintly as if she was about to lose consciousness, "the first scroll is a painting of a meadow covered with violet flowers, and the fourth scroll is a painting of a starry snowy night. The most prominent colors on the fourth scroll are black and dark blue."

All the students stared at Aspen, including Yew and Spruce.

"But I’ve never heard of anyone seeing colors," Sorrel continued, while the whole class stared at Aspen with wide eyes and open mouths.

"I’ll need to ask the chairman," she said. "Stay here, and don’t leave. I’ll be back soon." She teleported out, soundlessly and without a trace, like an illusion.

"Are you kidding?" Spruce said toward Aspen, then he looked at Yew. "My roommate is a genius."

Aspen looked back at him, and other kids around also looked at Spruce.

Sorrel soon teleported back, but she was smiling peacefully. "The chairman notified me that this has happened before. Although it didn’t happen in the last two hundred years, which is why I didn’t know about it. Seeing a different color on the scroll means that you have a very high concentration."

She glanced at Aspen before she turned to the rest of the class. "It’s something that anyone can train to achieve, and if you want your spells to be strong, you’ll certainly need to practice concentration."

Suddenly a lot of kids in the class voiced their disappointment. They thought that they had a genius in class, but it turned out to be a typical hardworking student, who simply paid attention.

"Well, looks like that’s all for today," she said. "Tomorrow I’ll tell you more. In the meantime, please start reading the first chapter in your book." She looked around the class, before she announced, "goodbye, students."

The students stood up and responded, "goodbye, professor," then hurriedly left the classroom. On their way out, some glanced at the levitating chair, wondering if it'd continue to levitate tomorrow.

While leaving, Yew glanced at the teacheress, who gazed at Aspen with a difficult countenance. He knew that adults sometimes kept secrets. His own parents already taught him that. So, he didn’t really believe that Aspen saw the colors purely because of good concentration. There had to be something more to it. Sorrel knew that, but she wouldn’t tell them.

After their class, the boys strolled toward the cafeteria for lunch, and Spruce began teasing Linden. "Your mom was so talented in magic, when she started Hecate, but you’re not," he smirked and patted Linden on the back.

"Seven lines and one dot," Linden responded casually.

"What?"

"That’s what I saw. The first scroll had five lines. The second one - seven lines and one dot. The third one - six lines, and the fourth one - four lines and one dot."

"You’re kidding?" Spruce took a step back, in order to get a better look at Linden, who just shrugged.

"Why didn’t you speak out in class?" Aspen asked.

"My mom already had me checked several days ago, and I have no interest in becoming a magus, so whatever," Linden said without even looking at the boys. "I don’t care about it, so if you don’t believe me, you don’t have to."

"I do," Yew said. "You use magic all the time. I thought it was, because you grew up with a mom, who’s a magus, but it makes more sense now. Other kids don't use spells all the time like you do - not at our age."

Spruce looked at Yew, then at Linden, then back at Yew, "I thought I’m a roommate of a genius, but it turns out you’re the roommate of a genius."

Yew blushed, and looked away, recalling that the same could be said about Linden.

Linden looked at him with a questioning look, almost as if he wanted to ask, "is there something I should know?" But he never said anything, and maybe Yew only imagined it.

After eating lunch, they headed to their afternoon class - Exercise of Magic. They arrived one by one at the East Exercise building and entered the gym through the door of the classroom G. There were no chairs or desks inside, so they all either stood or sat on the floor.

When a person arrived, they were surprised to see a gal, who although tall, looked too young to be a teacheress. Her black hair was tied in a bun with a hairclaw on the back of her head. She had big light pink eyes and plump cherry red lips. Her face looked like a face of a good mother or a caring counselor.

She stood in front of the confused first year students, and looked around the gym. She was puzzled by something but decided to set it aside and calmly spoke toward the kids, "uhm, let me explain this. Exercise of Magic is not a class taught by a teacher. Normally, the students from the fifth year are in charge of this class, to help you learn."

She looked at the door, clearly feeling troubled. "There were five students assigned to tutor this class, so I have no idea why am I here alone. Give me a moment." She couldn't keep her cool, and burst out of the classroom, leaving all students confused.

Outside, she closed her eyes, and began nervously pacing back and forth. The moment she stopped, she shouted out of nowhere, "What?!"

The students heard her, but no one was willing to go outside to take a look. They still remembered how easily they lost points in Cacao's class, and no one wanted a repeat of that.

"Get here right now, or I’ll fry your ass." For a moment she was quiet, then she shouted again, "right now!" She remained outside, tapping her foot on the ground.

Several minutes later, another student around her age approached her. "Chill," he said. "It’s only the first day. I’m sure these kids don’t even know how to get back home without a map."

He was taller than her, and he didn’t look like a good student at all. He had brown hair standing upward on his head like needles. He wore an M-shirt with a hood, and he kept his hands in his pockets. His countenance looked like he just successfully robbed a bank.

"How do you expect me to handle it alone?" the fifth year gal almost screamed.

The guy sighed then responded, "watch. I’ll show you how to handle it." He entered the classroom, stood in the center and asked, "do you have any questions regarding the topics covered by the teachers in today’s classes?"

Nobody raised a hand.

The guy waited a moment before he announced, "good, class is dismissed. See you tomorrow." He headed to the exit, where the gal grabbed him by the arm.

"What do you mean class is dismissed? You taught them nothing!"

"What’s going on here?" another gal showed up.

She was too short to look like a fifth year student. She had light pink hair tied in a bun right on top of her head, which made her hairstyle look like a mushroom, as it bounced around while she walked. She was wearing a bright red skirt that ended just above her knees, a white jacket decorated with red hearts, and black high heels with an extra thick layer of the shoe soles to raise up her height.

"Why are you late?" asked the taller gal.

In response, the shorter gal shrugged, "it’s the first day of school, so I take it easy." Her voice was slow as if she just woke up from a nap.

"Just let me tell you this: if you don’t take this seriously, I’ll report both of you." Then she addressed the guy, "by the way, where are the others?"

"Beech is sleeping. He stayed up all night, and went to sleep around the morning. Sage hasn't even arrived yet. I think she sent a letter to the teachers that she’ll be late by a week or so."

"So it’s only the three of us?" the gal threw her hands in frustration, but internally she calmly accepted this defeat.

"Two," the guy corrected her. "You’re not alone anymore, so I’ll be going back."

"What? Why?" she asked, looking at his back as he strolled away. Her calm acceptance of the situation was slowly turning into a silent fury.

"Because I already dismissed the class, that’s why," lazily he waved his hand toward the gals.

"Juniper!" the taller gal shouted after him, but he didn’t look back. "Ugh," she stomped her foot in anger.

Meanwhile, the shorter gal entered the classroom, then said, "heya, noobs. I’m Chervil Wanderrie Yidian Sun, a fifth year student. Hecate has this funny system, where for the first four years you are tutored by older students, and the next four years you can tutor young chicks. This is my first year tutoring, but I’m totally looking forward to it."

"Oh," the other gal was surprised at the appropriate conduct of her yearmate, as her mind forgot about the guy, who had left.

Chervil continued, "so, since it’s the first day, there’s really nothing I can help you with, because you know nothing yet, and I’m not a teacher, and I don’t plan to teach you new stuff. It’ll be awhile until you start using magic. So let me make it clear. You do NOT have to come to this class. You are not losing any points, if you totally forget that this class exists. When I was a first year, I skipped all Exercise of Magic classes," she grinned with self-satisfaction.

"You shouldn’t be saying that," the other gal interrupted, and all the first year students looked at her. "Uhm, oh, right, I didn’t introduce myself yet. I’m Maca Applemint Siilkubar Waterfall, also a fifth year student. And about this class - it’s meant to help you study, so if you don’t understand something in class you can come here and we’ll help. There should be five of us, but… well, maybe later the guys will feel like coming."

"Okay, see you tomorrow," Chervil chimed then headed for the door.

"What? Why are you leaving?"

"I already said all I wanted to say, and like you said, this class is meant to help those, who struggle in learning. For those who don’t have any problems studying, this is just a waste of time."

"A waste of time?" Maca was appalled by her words.

"No worries, no worries. I’ll still come often, and help the poor babies get better scores," Chervil promised before she stepped outside.

Spruce moved his head closer to Yew, and murmured, "I’d be happier, if she doesn’t come back at all." A lot of their classmates shared his sentiment.

"Uhm, I’m really not sure how to do it alone," Maca addressed the students. "If there’s anything you want to ask, please do. I’ll try to help you as much as I can."

The students remained silent, and Maca tried again, "are you sure there’s nothing you want to ask me? Because if there’s really nothing, then it’s okay to leave. I mean, let’s do this. If you have no questions for today, then you can leave."

Linden got up first, and promptly exited the classroom. Then Aspen stood up, and left with Yew, who was only two steps behind him. While they were heading for the exit, other students began standing up and following in their footsteps. Spruce, who started a bit later, had to push through, but managed to catch up with his friends outside the classroom.

Once outside, the boys began walking toward their cottages. On their way home, they spotted Wasabi Water, who was sitting on a bench with two older students.

Spruce recognized them as the same older girls, with whom Wasabi had lunch two days ago.

When Wasabi noticed the boys, she waved her hand, then beckoned at them to come closer. The boys looked at each other, and wordlessly pondered among themselves what to do. Wasabi, who quickly got tired of waiting, hopped off the bench, and approached them with cheerful jumping steps.

"What are you? Stone columns?" she joked. "You just finished Exercise of Magic, right?" she looked at Spruce.

"Yeah," the boy answered.

The two older girls slowly walked up as well, and quietly listened to their conversation.

"We didn’t have much time to talk before, but it’s a good thing we meet again," Wasabi's countenance gleamed with anticipation. "I think we have our Exercise of Magic at the same time, in the adjacent classrooms. You walked out of classroom G, right? And I just left a bit before you from classroom H.

"Your lesson was that short?"

"Well, of course. Today was the first day, so there was nothing to practice. Our tutors explained to us about the teaching system in Hecate. Then they told us how older students help younger students. And after each tutor finished his or her speech, they wished us the best, and the class ended."

"Sounds like you have quite good tutors," Linden remarked nonchalantly.

"We have three gals and three guys, and they’re all very responsible," Wasabi further explained. "I already decided that when I start my fifth year, I also want to be a tutor."

"I don’t know," Spruce murmured. "Tutoring sounds hard."

"You don’t have to do it," Wasabi responded. "It’s optional and only for students with at least ninety percent score on their tests."

"How do you know that?"

"Our tutors explained it," she answered, and was surprised that the boys didn’t hear about it from their tutors.

The boys recalled their Exercise of Magic class, which was mostly spent on a squabble among their tutors.

Spruce sighed upon realizing how little he learned and how much time he wasted. Yew felt discouraged to attend the class again but he didn't show or express his feelings. Aspen, who already read through the guidebook and his textbooks, and Linden, who had no plans to ever attend the Exercise class, didn't care at all about the issue.

"Many students apply to become tutors, because it comes with a lot of privileges," Wasabi continued, "like free food, free rides home and free rides back to school. It also helps to review old material and to build stronger foundations." Seeing that the boys were paying a lot of attention to her words, she asked, "didn’t your tutors already tell you that?"

The boys shook their heads simultaneously, except for Linden, who rolled his eyes.

Spruce shook his head more vigorously than others. "No, our tutors just introduced themselves." Two of them, at least, did introduce themselves.

"So who’s your magicless tutor?" Wasabi looked at the boys, who had no idea, so they stared expectantly at her as if she knew the answer. Feeling uncomfortable under their gaze, she added. "In every group of tutors, there should be at least one magicless tutor, as long as there are magicless students in the class."

Once again, she proved to the boys that not all tutors were equal and the ones assigned to her class were far better than theirs.

"We don’t know," Spruce slowly answered.

Wasabi tilted her head. "Okay, maybe they’ll tell you at a later time. Anyway," she changed the topic, and introduced one of the two older girls who had been quietly listening to their conversation. "This is my cousiness, Anise Water. She’s the daughter of my mom’s sister."

Anise looked similar to Wasabi, albeit a little older. They had the same hair color, but Anise's hair was curly and cut short around her neck. Their eyes differed as well. Wasabi had a gleam in her eyes like that of a playful crow, but Anise looked more responsible, mature, and gentle like a doe.

Anise raised her hand shyly and waved a bit. "I’m a third year student, so we won’t meet often, but I’m glad that Wasabi already has some magicless friends her age." Her smile was as gentle as her voice, which sounded like honey to the ears.

"Anise is magic-talented," Wasabi abruptly added, and her ordinary voice suddenly sounded so squeaky in comparison to her sister's soft speech. "My mom is as well, but my dad is magicless. And I drew the short straw. That's how I ended up magicless like my dad. However all of my maternal family is magic-talented," she pointed her hand at Anise.

"So which one of you is magicless?" Anise looked at Spruce, presuming him to be the boy, about whom Wasabi spoke so much.

"Me and him," he answered, pointing at himself, then at Yew. "Are you both magic-talented?" Spruce asked Anise and the other girl her age, who stood next to her.

She was shorter than Anise, and didn’t stand out at all. She had straight purple hair tied in a ponytail at the side to keep it away from her face. She was quiet all this time, and she had the air of someone, who didn’t like to stand in the spotlight, like a deep-sea fish who preferred the darkness of the ocean bottom over a sunny beach.

"Yes," Anise answered his question then introduced her friend. "This is Golpar Sun. We’re roommates."

Golpar waved a hi at the boys, but didn’t say anything.

"By the way," Anise turned her face toward Wasabi. "When are you going to introduce them?" she winked at her cousiness.

"Oh right, I still didn’t ask you for your names!" Wasabi suddenly realized that she only knew the boys' outer appearance. She looked at Spruce, who introduced himself before she asked the question.

"Spruce Fire."

Without hesitation, other boys followed his example.

"Yew Sky."

"Aspen Breeze."

"You don’t need to know," Linden said flatly. "Quite likely, we won’t hang out ever again," he added then marched away, ignoring everyone like an adult who had an urgent business to attend to.

"Did he have a bad day?" Wasabi was genuinely curious and a bit worried.

"Well, since we’re in a different schoolyear, and you’re in a different class, that’s kind of true," Anise gently pointed out.

"Maybe we should also be going?" Golpar spoke in an unusually quiet voice, just a notch above a murmur. "We have quite a lot of homework already," she added in that same quiet voice.

"Sorry, Wasabi," Anise directed her words toward her cousiness.

"No worries, take care," she responded.

The girls waved byes to each other, before Golpar and Anise left Wasabi with the three remaining boys.

"So, I guess we’ll be going too," Spruce turned around.

"No!" Wasabi grabbed him by the shirt, "There’s something I must show you."

"Eh?" Spruce looked at Wasabi's hand on his clothes. He had never been in this kind of situation before, and he didn’t know what to do in case a girl held a boy’s shirt.

"Come this way," she said and took Spruce by his arm, dragging him along before his brain could process her actions.

Yew and Aspen couldn’t leave the poor boy alone, so they also followed. They passed many school buildings, as Wasabi led them toward the Fountain Garden.

It took them more than ten minutes to arrive there. It was plenty of time for Spruce to fight back against Wasabi's hold, but he was too embarrassed to cause a scene, so he allowed her to pull him onward.

After they entered the Fountain Garden, Wasabi continued to hold Spruce’s arm as she guided them through a diverse route composed of paved paths, flatstone walkways, tiled sidewalks, and stone bridges.

Wild grasses and bushes accompanied each route, while trees grew independently in the distance. Streams and rivers zigzagged around them, occasionally crossing their path, whereas ponds and fountains decorated the area like raindrops on a window. 

Wasabi stepped away from the paved route into the two-meter-tall bushes, and followed a barely visible dirt path. When she reached the beach beyond, she let go of Spruce.

"Follow my steps," she said as she parted the reeds, which were growing everywhere. "Or else you'll fall into the lake."

She hopped onto a flatstone pathway, made of large rocks half-submerged in the lake. "Come on," she encouraged the boys.

"Is it far?" Yew asked.

"Almost there," she answered. "Come on, it’s totally worth it."

Spruce, who was curious regarding the hidden path, stepped forward. Aspen followed behind, then Yew, who was least interested.

Hidden by tall reeds, they traversed the waters and reached an isle overgrown with bushes.

Wasabi pushed aside the branches and headed forward between the bushes. Other boys followed her example, and found themselves at an entrance of a naturally occurring cave. It was big enough for an adult to stand upright, and wide enough for three people to walk side-by-side.

The boys looked at each other with mixed emotions, while Wasabi fearlessly went inside. The boys advanced cautiously. After all, if a girl wasn’t scared to enter, they couldn't be scared either.

The cave wasn’t dark, because every once in a while there was a hole in the ceiling letting just enough daylight to see inside. Due to this sporadic natural lighting, shade-loving plants grew on the cave floor and walls.

The deeper they went into the cave, the rarer the ceiling holes became until they all disappeared. It got dark, but at the same time in the distance, they could see hazy blue lights.

Upon approach, they saw countless crystals growing on the walls of the cave. Each crystal gave off a faint blue glow, but together their illumination was strong enough to shine the way.

In front of them, there were stairs leading downward. Each step was very wide, at least half a meter, but no more than ten centimeters high.

They walked down until they reached a right turn at the bottom of the staircase. Then another set of stairs led them upward toward the deepest part of the cave.

Wasabi turned around before she spoke. "My grandpa told me about this. I asked Anise, and she came here with Golpar last year. Not many people know about this passage, but you’ll be shocked." She pointed at the deadend wall. "Do you know that ninth year students actually fight magic battles as part of their class activities?"

Spruce shook his head.

Aspen responded, "this is the first time I hear this."

Yew didn't pay attention to their conversation as he scrutinized the wall in front of his eyes.

There were eight round holes in the wall. Each hole was cleanly carved out and roughly the size of a walnut. All of them were arranged in a single row about a meter above the ground, and about thirty centimeters apart from each other. All kinds of sounds, noises and human voices could be heard coming from the other side of the wall.

"Take a look," Wasabi said, then peeked through one of the holes.

One by one, the boys chose a hole and looked through. What they saw instantly amazed them. It was a real magic battle. Something, which they had not anticipated to see.

The boys realized that they were standing within the fortified walls of the arena, far away from the center and high enough to be near the top. It was the best spot to secretly get a clear view of any event from a safe distance.

At the center of the arena two guys, either nineteen or twenty yrold, were having a magical duel, while more than hundreds of students were sitting in the spectator seats. The teacher stood at the edge of the platform, ready to interfere if necessary.

From the distance of more than fifty meters it was difficult for the secret observers to see the duelists' appearance in detail, but the battle itself was incredible.

Out of nowhere, a water wave like a tsunami appeared out of the ground and headed for the student, who crouched down. He swiftly moved his right hand to draw half a circle on the floor. A tornado appeared around him and sucked in all the water, turning it into rain, and soaking them both. After extinguishing the tornado, he stretched forth his hands, and the water from the rain gathered right in front of him and compressed into one big ball.

The other student used his right hand to tap two rings on his left hand. First, he tapped the ring with a red carnelian, then the ring with a blue topaz. The gemstones started glowing upon his touch. The compressed waterball, which was created by his opponent, shot straight at him like a bullet.

Due to its extreme speed, nobody could see the waterball travel, but everyone saw when it abruptly exploded after hitting a square iron shield twice the size of a human, which materialized right in front of the waterball's target.

The student behind the iron shield, raised up the staff that he held in his left hand, and hit the floor with it. With the sound of a loud crash, the iron shield in front of him broke into hundreds of sharp iron blades, all of them directed at his opponent. He twisted the staff by ninety degrees with its tip facing forward. As if commanded, the blades flew at his opponent.

The other student slammed his palms on the floor. A tall stonewall grew up next to his fingertips and blocked all the blades, except for two, which arrived too fast. One flew by without touching the student, but the other blade ended up cutting through the clothes on his left arm, fortunately without cutting any flesh.

Without paying attention to the damage on his clothes, he stretched his right hand to the back, then in one swift motion he brought it forward. The iron blades went flying back at the other student, who simply clasped his necklace and suddenly all the blades turned into flower petals.

While the petals were falling, he put his staff in a diagonal position with the crown directed at his opponent, who stepped back, just seconds before the floor froze - right at the area, where he was crouching.

"Time!" the teacher shouted.

Both students erased their spells immediately, leaving no trace of any magic on the platform. They approached each other and showed respect to the opponent with a bow. The teacher came over and began to talk with the two of them.

"The guy with the staff is amazing. He avoided all the attacks so easily," Spruce commented.

"He’s magicless," Wasabi noted.

"How do you know?"

"Magic-talented people don’t need staffs, because it’s just extra baggage, which slows them down. Also all his spells come from his accessories, like that staff or his rings, or that necklace he’s wearing… it seems to have some kind of protection magic…"

"You can be that badass without magic?" Spruce was awed.

"Of course, you can," Wasabi said, "That’s why I entered Hecate even though I'm magicless. And this is what I wanted to show to you. Aren’t magical items awesome?"

After the teacher finished his speech, both students stepped away from the platform, then sat down among the spectators. Meanwhile, two other students stood up from their seats and came up to the center.

Yew recognized one of these two duelists. It was Cypress Sea.

"Wasabi, you said that this class is a ninth year?" he asked.

Cypress and his opponent approached the teacher, who talked with them.

"Yes," she affirmed with a definite certainty. "Ninth year students are allowed to fight without restrictions. All the guys in the arena are already on their ninth year."

"Doesn’t he look young?" Aspen asked.

"I think that’s Galangal’s older brother," Wasabi responded. "In which case, he started Hecate early."

"Whose brother?" Spruce looked away from the hole in the wall, and at the girl, who in response directed her eyes at him.

"Oh right, I should explain. Galangal Sea is my roommate. You know about the Sea household?"

Yew and Aspen were still observing. The teacher finished talking with the two students, and stepped away from the battleground. Cypress and his opponent bowed and moved apart from each other.

"You mean that Sea household? The best magi among nobles?" Spruce asked Wasabi.

The next moment, Cypress’s opponent raised his hand forward, but a strong blow of wind threw him off the ground, beyond the seats and straight at the wall.

"Wow!" Aspen was mildly surprised.

"No way!" Yew was shocked.

"Wait, what?" Spruce looked back through the hole, but the duel was already over, "what happened?"

The student, who was thrown away from the platform, was sitting on the floor behind the spectator seats. The teacher was already next to him, with his back bent and inquiring about his wellbeing.

"He got blown off," Aspen calmly explained. "And it was so fast and powerful. He had no chance to protect himself."

The defeated student made his way back to the arena's center, with the teacher right behind him. Cypress also came closer to the center. The two of them bowed down to each other. The defeated student was dismissed immediately, and walked away, but Cypress stayed behind. He listened to the teacher for a short moment, and nodded in agreement.

The teacher walked to the edge of the platform. On his way, he ended the class with a loud "goodbye, students" directed more toward the exit door than to anyone else. Everyone responded in unison with a choir of "goodbye, professor" but no one moved until the teacher left the fighting arena.

Cypress walked off the platform, and toward his opponent, who was sitting on the benches, with his head between his legs. While the students began leaving the classroom, Cypress talked with his opponent. After a while, he just sat next to him without saying any more words, but he was listening to what the others around him were saying.

"Looks like that was the last battle for today," Wasabi commented.

Cypress’s opponent stood up and said something to the classmates, who were around them. Afterward, Cypress together with his opponent, and the rest of his group, all left the arena. However, some students still remained on the benches, either talking among themselves or doing some notetaking.

"So what about the Sea household?" Yew brought back the topic.

"Oh right," Wasabi moved away from the hole now that there was nothing else to watch. "So, Galangal Sea is my roommate, and she’s only seven yrold. I asked her about that, and she said that it is the tradition of the Sea household to send the kids off to school early, because they’re always exceptionally talented in magic."

"So they're generational geniuses?" Aspen asked with a tone of someone, who hadn't known about the Sea household until now.

"Yeah, but even the best geniuses cannot compete against the most powerful magical items," Wasabi exclaimed, clearly looking down on magic.

Spruce joined her in a conversation about the magical items, while Aspen listened in. Yew's thoughts, on the other hand, took him into yet a different topic. 

After finding out that Cypress was a student of the ninth year, he recalled what he was told by the librarian. The only ones, who had access to the detailed list of all Hecate graduates, were teachers and the students of the ninth year.

So maybe it wasn’t a bad idea to befriend Cypress, if his status could be used. Yew didn't see this as a difficult task, instead his main concern was: was it worth the trouble?

The four of them returned the same way they came, and after they exited the Fountain Park, they headed toward their hamlet. On the way to the boys’ cottages, they dropped off Wasabi at her cottage four and four hundred twelve.

Standing in front of her cottage, she told them, "wait here, maybe Galangal’s home. I’ll introduce you." She went inside and came back with a small girl, who looked way too young to be a student.

The boys took a good look at the girl’s face. It wasn’t anything spectacular. She certainly was pretty, but she had the countenance of a terrified kitten taken to a veterinarian, which wouldn’t be odd for anyone, if they had to leave home and attend school at such a young age. Yew looked at her long hair, tied in two ponytails that fell upon her shoulders, and noted that she had the same hair color as her older brother.

"What?" she barked rudely at the boys.

"They’re first year students, just like us," Wasabi said. "This is my roommate, Galangal," she pointed at the younger girl.

"Waste of time," Galangal said and added, "I won’t be spending any time with you anyway, so there’s no reason for us to know each other." She turned around and walked back inside the cottage.

"Oh, wow," Spruce said, "and I thought Linden was a jerk."

"There are all kinds of people in this world," Aspen calmly shared his knowledge.

Wasabi apologized for her roommate, said her goodbyes, and headed back inside her cottage. After she closed the door to her cottage, the boys moved on toward their home.

On the second day of Byzh, Yew woke up late in the morning, but there was still enough time until his classes. After he got himself ready, he shook Linden by his shoulder.

His roommate opened his eyes and with a grimace on his face declared, "I hate mornings," then got up and went to the restroom.

When Yew and Linden left their cottage, Aspen was already outside waiting for Spruce to put on his outdoor shoes. Once Spruce was done, the four of them left toward the History building.

When they walked into the classroom, Cacao was standing by the door and collecting their notebooks.

"If you don’t have your homework, don’t bother coming in, or I’ll give you negative five points," the teacher warned approaching students, some of whom looked scared but glad, that they had their homework done.

"Homework visa," Linden looked angry, but he politely took out his notebook and handed it over to the teacher.

Aspen, Spruce and Yew did the same. Once the teacher touched their notebooks, they promptly flew onto his desk and landed on other notebooks.

The boys took their seats, and watched as one unlucky student confessed to forgetting his homework.

Cacao looked at him sternly, "if you don’t have your homework, do it now, and turn it in after you’re done."

The boy turned around and walked away.

Upon collecting all the notebooks, Cacao entered the classroom, which was missing two students. "What did I teach you yesterday?" he asked after he closed the door.

The students stood up one by one, then greeted the teacher, "good morning, professor."

"Good morning," he responded, and looked at the students. "Forty eight out of fifty - that’s better than the last class," he mumbled to himself.

He snapped his fingers, and a random notebook from his desk flew into his hand.

"The assignment I gave you yesterday was worth five points, so let's see how well you did. The question was easy: List five famous wizards. You should have had no problems answering it, if you paid attention. And even if you didn’t, the textbook lists four very famous wizards, so you should still be able to get at least four points."

He opened the notebook, and in a clear voice, he read the name of the notebook's owner, followed by the score, "Spruce Fire, total score: two points."

Everyone in the class went pale. Was he going to announce all their scores publicly like that?!

He looked around at the students. "When you hear your name, please come and pick up your notebook. If you don’t pick it up, I’ll change your score to negative five."

Spruce jumped out of his seat, and with his head down he approached the teacher. He opened his palms to receive his notebook, then hurried back to his desk.

The teacher continued the process, with several students getting four points, while most of the students received three or two points. There was one person, who got five points, and that surprised everyone. The students began clapping in awe, but Cacao quickly silenced them, and continued to read the score of the next notebook, "Yew Sky, total score: two points."

Yew didn’t feel as bad as Spruce, since he wasn’t the first one to be humiliated.

Several more names were read, and then, "Aspen Breeze, total score: seven points."

Suddenly everyone acted as if they saw a flying cow, except for Aspen, who calmly went to pick up his notebook, while forty seven pairs of eyes gazed at him in disbelief. A lot of students were murmuring to each other, trying to understand how it was possible for anyone to get seven points. The homework was five points, so how did he get the other two points?

Aspen quietly returned back to his desk, while everyone's emotions could be felt in the air. Some felt jealousy and hatred, while others couldn't hide their admiration and wonder. The teacher ignored all of it, and continued to score the homework. He looked inside the prelast notebook, furrowed his eyebrows, and remained silent for a long moment.

Eventually he announced in a gloomy voice, "Linden Cave, negative five points."

The students' interest in Aspen disappeared with the latest news.

Linden confidently walked up to Cacao to receive his notebook.

The teacher looked at him with silent anger, and menacingly shook his head. "This is the first time I get a rebel among the first years. Typically this problem starts with older students." He handed Linden his notebook, but kept his grip on it.

Linden grabbed the notebook, but unable to take it, he looked up inquiringly at the teacher’s face. "Can I have it?" he asked cautiously.

"You’ll do all the assignments on pages five and six for tomorrow. I’ll give you a negative ten for every assignment you skip." Cacao glared at the boy before he let go of the notebook.

The classroom was once again filled with mixed emotions. Some were inspired and amazed by Linden’s lack of fear toward a scary teacher and his courage at receiving bad scores. Others found his behavior to be foolish and arrogant, and felt appalled.

Linden sighed, and his sigh sounded a lot like the word "whatever" but he spoke no words. With the same confident attitude, he went back to his desk.

Right after the teacher announced points on the last notebook, someone knocked on the door. Cacao came to open it, and let inside two students, who didn't have their homework done on time. He checked their notebooks. After confirming that they had done their assignment, he announced their scores as zeroes, and let them take their seats.

"Next time, there will be no second chance," he warned the students, who shivered at the possibility of forgetting their homework ever again.

Afterward, the class proceeded normally. The teacher talked about magic-related archeological discoveries and assigned another homework at the end of the class. The students said their goodbyes, left the classroom, and circled the building toward a brighter future.

The Process of Magic class was much more pleasant. The students already liked the teacheress, because she didn't give them any homework on their first day, and she hadn't yet taken any points from anyone.

They joyfully greeted Sorrel, and she greeted them back. She began with the overview of her previous lecture, before she proceeded to the next section of the curriculum.

"Most of you have enough stamina already to use a simple spell of moving an object." She pointed at the chair by her desk, which moved toward her. As she moved her finger away, the chair moved back behind the desk. "However, you might not have enough concentration to move a big object, so let's try with something smaller."

She spun up her hand, and a pen teleported into her grip. "Please put a pen in front of you."

The students did as told.

Sorrel waited until all the students were ready. "I believe there are two magicless students in this class. Could you please raise your hand, if you’re magicless?"

Yew and Spruce raised their hands.

She took out two small items from her desk, and approached the boys. "Please put these on," she gave each boy a ring with a symbol of one vertical straight line inscribed in gold.

She went back to stand in front of the class then proceeded to give instructions.

"Please stare at your pen, and concentrate on one specific movement. In order to move the pen, you have to know exactly how you want it to move. You must decide on the direction, the speed, the rotation, and the final position. You must imagine it all happening. Use your imagination. Let it play out in your mind, then concentrate on the pen."

Right at that moment, the pen in front of Aspen began rolling on the desk, back and forth, away and toward him, as if magic was the simplest thing to learn. Nobody was surprised, because he had already become known as the smartest student of the class.

Linden felt annoyed at his classmates paying so much attention to nothing noteworthy, so in order to stop them from observing Aspen, he made the pen on his desk jump up and down.

Of course, this caused a fair commotion in the class. Seeing the worst student use a spell so easily gave everyone a lot of confidence, and they tried as hard as they could. Some succeeded moving their pens by millimeters, but most of them failed utterly, as their pens remained motionless.

After checking on other students, Yew looked back at the pen in front of him, then at the ring on his finger. Spruce, who sat next to him, was trying hard and nothing happened to his pen, so Yew decided that he would do nothing. It was a better choice than accidentally exposing his magical talent.

Sorrel allowed the students to try for a little longer before she said, "okay, that’s good enough." She approached Yew and Spruce, collected the rings and put them back in her desk.

She smiled toward everyone in the class, many of whom were still trying hard. "You don’t have to worry about today. Magic was never easy, but if you keep trying you’ll be able to do it. Practice in your free time. Whatever you learn in this class is your homework. If you struggle, you should ask your tutors for help."

If only they had good tutors, was what many of them thought, but no one voiced their concerns.

"As for you two," she said toward Yew and Spruce, "you need to obtain your own magical items, so you can practice with them. I suggest you visit the magical stores in Sheepcrown. Think of it as a special homework," she winked at them.

"And now, let's learn more about the types of magic. By now, we all know about spells and charms, which I have talked about yesterday, but there are two more very important types of magic - blessings and curses. These are more difficult to describe, as they are very different from spells and charms."

She knocked on the blackboard and two drawings of stick figures appeared.

"As you may already know, blessings and curses come from wishes directed toward another person or another object. A blessing means a good wish, and a curse is the opposite. If a person blesses another with, for example, health," a text appeared above the stick figure on the left side «may you be healthy», "then that wish travels to the recipient." An arrow appeared, connecting the wish to the other stick figure.

"However, this doesn’t end here. Because after the wish travels to the recipient, it duplicates and the duplicate bounces back to the giver." Another arrow appeared on the board coming from the stick figure on the right toward the stick figure on the left. "That is a blessing."

She took a quick look at the class before she continued. "That’s the definition, but that's not the end of the story. A blessing can be almost anything, a note on a piece of paper, a sentence carved in a stone, a spoken sequence of words, or even a thought. The power of a blessing is dependent on the strength of one’s feelings, so the more you mean it, the more powerful the blessing becomes."

"However, there’s one more thing that people often don’t know. A blessing doesn’t always arrive at the recipient. If the recipient possesses a very impure soul and is unworthy of the blessing, then the blessing returns to the giver without ever reaching the intended recipient."

Sorrel explained all of that facing the class, but afterward she faced the blackboard. With a snap of her fingers, she erased the text and the arrows, leaving only the stick figures.

"A similar situation occurs with curses," she continued. "This time let’s give them names."

Two words appeared next to the stick figures on the board. The left stick figure was named «Salt» and the right stick figure was named «Pepper».

"So if sir Salt thinks something like this," the text appeared above the stick figure on the left «I hope that sir Pepper dies». "Then that thought becomes a curse, and the power of the curse depends on how strong are the feelings of sir Salt."

An arrow appeared from the text bubble to the stick figure named Pepper. "But just like with blessings, curses also return back to the giver," another arrow appeared from sir Pepper to sir Salt. "Thus if you curse someone, who has a very pure soul and doesn’t deserve the curse, the curse will bounce back at the giver without harming the recipient."

The arrow that pointed at sir Pepper made a U-turn, and now it pointed at sir Salt.

Sorrel sighed. "People of pure souls rarely curse others. The givers of curses tend to have much, much more impure souls than those around them, which is why most curses return back to the givers, without ever harming the recipient."

Yew listened attentively, as did many other students in his class. Ever since he was born, his family always blessed him at almost any occasion. Yet he knew nothing about blessings. Just like other kids in the class, he had thought of blessings as an annoying tradition, until this very moment, when he learned that blessings were magical, and carried amazing powers.

"Do you have any questions?" Sorrel asked.

No one answered, so she moved on.

"Now let’s move away from magic. But first, please record in your notebooks, that magic is divided into four types: spells, charms, blessings, and curses. I don’t want you to forget about it. And I don't want you to confuse it with what I'm about to tell you."

She gave the students several minutes to take notes. Then she tapped the blackboard, which became empty. With another tap, two words appeared on the blackboard: «Incantation» and «Chant».

"So, an incantation," she started. "To an uneducated human, it may appear magic-like, but it is not magic. An incantation comes from words. Most of you have heard the legend of creation, and you know that the world was created from words. This legend has some basis in reality. Spoken words, no matter what kind, carry a special power within them. But that power isn’t magic. The laws of magic and the laws of words are very different."

She stopped speaking for a moment, then apologized, "I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be talking about the laws of magic. That’s something you’ll learn in later years, so I apologize if it confused you. Anyway, if you see anything supernatural occurring after you hear a voice, that will be either an incantation or a chant. NEVER magic," she stressed the negation. "I want you to remember this: magic doesn't use words."

Someone in the class raised a hand.

"Yes?"

"What about magical items?"

"Good question," she acknowledged. "Certain magical items use words to unlock the magic inside them. However, the words are used like a key to unlock a door to a room full of magic. The magic itself works in silence."

She looked around the class, "any more questions?" She waited a moment before she returned to her lecture.

"An incantation occurs when the right sounds are put together in the right order. This is something that we, humans, cannot do. We have fairly limited hearing and speaking abilities. For these reasons, humans have almost a hundred percent chance of saying it wrong, even if theoretically we could use a simple incantation."

She tapped the blackboard, and under the word «Incantation» a list of beings appeared, «Spirits, Fairies, Angels». The students saw the list and some of them wrote it down in their notebooks.

"There are more beings, who can use incantations, but these three are the ones, who are most known for it. In our world, there are millions of vowels, millions of consonants, millions of tones, and millions of other sounds that can be a part of speech. And we, humans, cannot even distinguish between most of them. That’s precisely why we fail when we try to use incantations."

Sorrel pointed at the board. "But some other beings, such as these, can tell apart even the most minor differences between two sounds. They can control with the finest precision every sound they utter, which is why they can use incantations."

"On the other hand, when it comes to words, we have chants." Sorrel walked up to the other side of the board with the word «Chant».

The students followed her with their eyes, eagerly awaiting what kind of awesome power humans can do with words.

"I’m sure all of you have been to a temple at least once, and saw monks and nuns chanting. Chants can be spoken, but they can also be sung. The form doesn’t matter here, but the content does. Chants are holy words. The words are from our language, so we can understand those words. However, chants are weaved not by humans, but by spirits."

Sorrel smiled with warmth at the students.

"I can see that you look very disappointed, but chants have a very important role. They guard us against evil. In ancient times, when no one chanted, the world was full of evil. People murdered each other, and horrible crimes were committed. Those sorts of terrifying acts should have never happened."

She looked at the scenery behind the window, recalling something in her memory. Her eyes appeared distant, as if she was looking far beyond. The students waited to hear more about the topic, but she never shared with them anything else, and the class slowly neared its endtime.

Sorrel looked at the clock above the door, and realized that she needed to wrap up the lesson. Just as she was about to address the class, a student raised his hand. She encouraged him to speak by beckoning her left hand up.

"Can witches use magic?" the boy asked.

His classmates looked at him. Most of them were smirking anticipating his fall, while several openly snorted at the foolish question.

"Witches don’t exist," someone murmured behind the boy.

Sorrel heard the comment. "Well, it’s true that nowadays there are no witches except in fairy tales and old legends, but they used to exist in the past. However, witches never used magic."

The students, who were ready to make fun of the boy, got dead quiet.

"To be precise, witches cannot use magic. Only humans can use magic. The power used by witches is called witchcraft, and it is more similar to possession than anything else."

"Possession?" Yew was baffled by the terminology, and he repeated it aloud without realizing.

Sorrel nodded at him, and he looked away, embarrassed at his actions and at the attention he got from his impromptu question.

"This is not part of the school curriculum," she said. "And we don’t teach here anything about witchcraft or possession, but I don’t want you to leave this classroom misinformed, so I’ll explain."

She looked at the desk on her left side, and with a gentle sway of her hand called over her chair, which smoothly floated toward her and landed right underneath her palm. She comfortably sat on it with one leg over the other and her fingers resting on her knees.

"A long time ago, there were demons and witches in this world. Demons had the power of possession, and witches had the power of witchcraft. On the outside, these powers may have looked similar to magic, but they were nothing like magic."

"First," she held up her index finger, "possession required demons to inhabit the object. It was possible for them, because demons, like ghosts, are spiritual beings. They do not have a physical form. So for example, if a demon wanted to move this chair," she tapped the side of the seat under her, "he would have to inhabit it first - that was called possession. If he was successful, he could gain absolute control over the chair."

"Second," she added her middle finger, "the laws of possession are very, very different from the laws of magic. For example, magic has limits on how it can be used on humans, whereas possession doesn’t. If I wanted to move you from there to the door by using magic," she said and pointed at Yew, "then I cannot do it. I could move the chair underneath you, or drag you by the clothes you’re wearing, but moving your whole body against your will is an impossible task in magic. However, in the case of possession, a demon has a total control over the possessed."

"Three," she raised up her ring finger, "as you already know, magic is based on stamina, so it becomes weaker over time. However it’s the opposite with possession. The longer the possession lasts, the more powerful it becomes."

"And four," she stretched out her pinky, leaving only her thumb bent, "possession damages the possessed. Over time, the soul or the spirit of the possessed deteriorates and grows sick. Those are sicknesses of the spiritual world, which is something too complex to go into, but unlike magic, which only affects the physical world, possession has a strong impact on the spiritual world."

She looked at the class as she felt the dread of the boys in the air. Suddenly aware of how terrifying the topic must be for her students, she made her voice sweeter.

"I really don’t want you to feel scared though. Demons existed a long time ago, and so did witches."

Upon the assurance, the boys relaxed, and Sorrel continued her explanation.

"Witchcraft was very similar to possession, with the exception that witches had a physical body, so they didn’t possess, but instead they marked their belongings."

She once again tapped the chair that she was sitting on. "If a witch wanted to move this chair, first she would have to leave a mark on it - some symbol that would make it hers. Then the rest was pretty much the same as with the possession. The witch would hold an absolute power over the marked object or over the marked creature. And the longer the mark remained, the stronger the bond grew, which would slowly destroy the victim of witchcraft."

Sorrel carefully scanned the faces of the students, some of whom appeared worried but still more intrigued than scared. She shook her head disbelieving herself for going offtopic that much. "Maybe I have said too much."

"Oh no," the boy, who asked about witches, responded right away. "No, not at all. I always wondered why witches are always bad characters in stories, and now it all makes sense. I’m so glad they no longer exist."

"Yeah, me too," several other students agreed openly, while others only nodded their heads.

"Well, I’m glad I made it clear for you," Sorrel said then stood up from her chair. "Anyway, don’t forget about four types of magic: spells, charms, blessings and curses; as well as incantations and chants. Because I’ll test you on that," she smiled toward the students. "That will be all for today. Goodbye, students. God bless you."

The students stood up and responded with "Goodbye, professor." Aspen was the only one, who followed up with "God bless you, too."

Sorrel Cave was the first one to leave the classroom, but all the students stepped out right behind her.

Once the boys were outside, Spruce asked his roommate, "why did you respond with that «God bless you, too»? You made me feel like I’m in a temple."

"It is the Highest Blessing," Aspen responded. "The most powerful blessing in the world."

"What? Really? God bless you! God bless you! God bless you!" Spruce said toward each of his friends.

Aspen looked annoyed.

Linden remarked with a sneer, "the power of a blessing comes from your true feelings. Unless you mean it, it doesn’t work."

"Oh right," Spruce recalled, what Sorrel had taught them less than an hour ago.

"Anyway, let’s go," Linden commanded and moved on.

The boys followed him. Even though they didn't know where he was leading them, they assumed it would be something related to food as it was almost lunchtime. Yet his authoritative voice, which sounded confident and assuring, prevented them from asking any questions or confirming their presumptions.

Yew, who was almost certain that they were heading for lunch, spoke out when Linden had missed the turn on their right. "Hey, the cafeteria is that way," he pointed at the road, which they had passed.

"We’re going to Sheepcrown to buy magical items for you two," Linden finally explained his intentions. "Unless you somehow became magic-talented in the last five minutes."

"What about lunch?" Yew asked.

"We’ll eat at the marketplace. They have plenty of good street food downtown. Also it’s cheaper."

"Won’t we get sick?" Spruce was concerned.

"If you’re unlucky," Linden shrugged. "Never happened to me before."

"Will we make it back to the afternoon class?" Aspen had a completely different worry on his mind.

Linden spun around on his heel, "you want to attend THAT?!"

Aspen said no words as he recalled the class from yesterday.

Seconds later, Linden turned and moved forward, gesturing to the other boys to follow him.

After passing through the Hecate gate, which marked the boundaries of the schoolground, the boys crossed the traintracks. In front of them lay the beautiful city of Sheepcrown.

Just like the Hecate schoolground, the city was mostly built from white stones, which were abundant in the region. The buildings usually had three or four floors, although occasionally they were taller. The roofs and walls were covered with moss and ivy. The balconies were decorated with flower pots, and from each flower pot, a different flowering plant hung down above the street.

The most impressive part of the city were its bridges, which linked the buildings together. These bridges at the same time acted like pathways and like rooftops, protecting the residents from hot sun, rain, hail, and snow.

Yew recalled the day, when he first arrived at the schoolground, and he recognized the area. He was on the same road, but this time instead of heading north, he was heading south. A moment later, he passed the vast train station on his left - the very same station, where he disembarked several days ago.

Afterward, Linden led them to a small station next to tramtracks, where a one-car tram was about to stop. Following his lead, the boys got onboard as soon as the tram doors opened. There was no place to sit, so they stood holding onto the vertical bars.

"Is it free?" Aspen asked after he stepped inside.

"Yeah," Linden pointed at the badge on his arm. "It's free as long as we're students of Hecate," he said but he knew that his answer wasn't exactly correct. After all, nothing in the world could ever be free. Even animals and plants had to pay with their work in order to eat.

Yet among humans, kids were exempt from this reality. They were allowed to live supported by their parents and whatever their parents paid for was classified as free. For this reason, kids understood the word "free", even though they never understood the true meaning behind this label.

Linden could have explained to the boys, that a part of school fees were used to pay taxes to the city of Sheepcrown, which in turn were used to cover the cost of annual tram travel authorization for all the students, but he concluded that it was not a topic worth wasting his breath on, especially not with his classmates, who most likely would require a lengthy lecture to thoroughly understand it.

Moreover, they might even ask him stupid questions about other vehicles, and he'd have to explain that the city of Sheepcrown had banned all vehicles other than trams many centuries ago, and had turned every road into a tramtrack, creating a robust and convenient way to travel around the city, with trams running even at nighttime.

Once Linden mentally reviewed what he knew about the trams in the city of Sheepcrown, he congratulated himself for not getting into this complex topic with his fellow first year students. Instead, he and the other boys observed their surroundings in silence.

The inside of the tram had a walkway through the middle, with seats at each wall. Most seats were in pairs of two, but some were facing each other in groups of four. Vertical and horizontal bars were present along the walkway, with most of the passengers using them due to limited seating.

The tram travelled at a speed of no more than thirty kilometers per hour, which was so slow that the boys could see people crossing the tracks without even waiting for the tram to stop at the next station.

The sidewalks alongside the tramtracks were often wider than the road, and not all the streets had tramtracks. Some of the streets were too narrow to fit a tram inside, but even they were filled with pedestrians and cyclists.

While Yew, Aspen and Spruce were immersed in observing the city and its inhabitants through the tram windows, Linden announced, "Next stop."

The tram came to a stop, and the boys debarked. Linden stood in place, waiting for the tram to move out of the way. Then he and the other boys walked across the tracks to the other side, where they entered a street with an immensely wide sidewalk and no tramtracks.

It was the entrance to the main street of the downtown area.

The ten meter wide sidewalk had a walkway in the center, which was six meters wide. Then the remaining four meters of the sidewalk's width were taken up by two rows of four meter tall columns on each side of the walkway.

The boys began walking down the walkway, with their heads facing the sky as they tried to see the statues, which were elevated by the columns.

Each statue was placed on a square flat rock. And each rock was supported by a set of four columns. And every column was covered by ivy, which grew in a pit between the four columns. As such, the statues couldn't be seen directly from below, but they were clearly visible from a distance, and from the bridges, which ran alongside the main street.

The boys saw a group of tourists gathered on a balcony of a hotel, while their guide was talking in a clear loud voice.

"... the most famous graduates of Hecate. There are currently a total of two hundred sixty three statues along the main street. The oldest statue is more than twenty five hundred yrold, and has been renovated more than twenty times. That over here is the statue of..."

As the boys moved on, the guide's voice became more and more distant, and soon it was lost among the chatter of the people closer to them.

"Where’s the train station?" Spruce asked while looking around the street, expecting to see it.

"You mean a tram station?" Yew turned his face to look at Spruce.

"No, the train station - the station which we came from on the day of our orientation."

"Wanna go home?" Linden teased.

Spruce took a deep breath and decided to stay calm. "Are we really downtown? Because I was expecting to see the train station again, but we've been going on for so long, and I haven't seen it yet."

Linden jeered, "makes sense."

Seeing that Linden wouldn’t explain, Aspen decided to act more mature. "The train station in Sheepcrown isn't downtown, like most train stations. It's located at the northern border of the city. Do you remember? We passed traintracks in front of the school gate."

“I saw the tracks, but I didn’t see the station,” Spruce said.

“The station was on the left,” Yew joined the conversation in order to help out his classmate. “It was really vast, and had a lot of buildings.”

“That was a station?” Spruce furrowed his eyebrows. “I thought they were just buildings.”

"Watch out!" Linden pulled Yew by his arm and pushed Spruce, who fell on top of Aspen.

They all tumbled down between two columns. Less than a second later, a pegasus bolted through the main road, chased by a man on a flying rug.

"What the…?" Yew began but never finished.

Angry pedestrians, who were startled by the sudden event, were shouting at the owner.

"Keep a better eye on your horse!"

"How irresponsible!"

"What an asshole!"

"Don't buy a pet if you cannot control it!"

Whereas others, who although not angry were still appalled, were quietly shaking their heads in disapproval.

"Just a daily life in a big city," Linden offered his hands to help Spruce and Aspen get up. "You can never tell what’s coming, so it’s best to stay vigilant."

Several moments later, two officers came riding chimeras. Their roles were apparent from their attire - long navy blue coats accented with golden buttons and hats decorated with a golden eagle.

Their chimeras were larger than lions and had more muscular bodies. Their tails were long, and ended with what looked like a snake. However, nothing was weirder than their heads. In the front the chimeras had faces like lions, but on the back of their heads, there were faces of goats.

The officers didn't have to ask for directions, because the more angry members of the public loudly instructed them to "catch that bastard" while pointing their fingers toward the street taken by the pegasus and its owner.

"Let’s go," Linden gestured at the boys.

Aspen shook the dirt off his clothes, while Yew and Spruce were watching the officers take a turn around the street corner.

"Hey, I’ll leave you behind," Linden, who was already quite a distance away, called out to his classmates.

Aspen, Spruce and Yew rushed to catch up with him, before he carried out his threat.

The boys reached the end of the street, and arrived at the outdoor marketplace. They stood by the columns, watching the plaza filled with countless booths and more people than tiles on the pavement. It was hard to squeeze in, and even harder to squeeze through.

Linden, who didn't want them to get separated, gave his orders. "I’ll get us something to eat, meanwhile don’t you dare move from here." The tone he used in the second half of the sentence scared the boys, but they couldn't understand why it was so scary.

Aspen, Spruce and Yew, sat on a bench between two columns, while Linden braved into the crowd. Not even ten minutes had passed, when he came back with three fully-loaded bags of food.

"Wow, that was fast," Spruce couldn’t hide his amazement.

"How did you do it so fast?" Aspen sounded skeptical.

Yew looked into the first bag.

"Those are salads," Linden named the content of the bag, which Yew was checking. Then he took out three boxes from the second bag and laid them on the bench, "this is fried stuff. We’re sharing," he warned, before the boys could eat anything. He put the last bag in the far corner of the bench, out of the way.

Spruce opened the first box, "Eggrolls!"

"Fried rice," Aspen looked into the second box.

Yew carefully opened the third box, but he didn't name the food.

"And ravioli," Linden chimed in, then he took out wooden chopsticks from the bottom of the second bag.

"I don’t know how to use those," Spruce vetoed the utensils.

"Then you don’t get to eat," Linden smirked, but then he gave Spruce a wooden spoon. "Anyone else needs baby tools?"

Yew and Aspen accepted the chopsticks. Each boy ate a quarter of each dish, before passing it on. After the meal, Aspen reached for the salads, but Linden grabbed the third bag.

"Hold on. You'll like this better," he took out two boxes and gave one to Aspen.

Spruce grabbed the other one and opened it first, "pineapple cake?!"

Aspen opened the box, which was placed in his hand. "Kartoshki," he named the sweet cocoa desserts.

"Amazing," Spruce said, and looked at Linden with a great amount of admiration.

"Can I have one?" Yew pointed at the kartoshki.

Aspen took one and passed the other twenty-or-so crumbly balls to Yew.

"How do we divide them?"

"Exclude me," Aspen stated firmly and went for the top box in the first bag, which contained a celery salad with cooked lamb pieces.

"I intended that to be an extra, if you’re still hungry," Linden informed him. For some reason, he sounded unhappy that his classmate wasn't delighted by the desserts.

Aspen began quietly eating the salad.

Linden grinned at the sight. "Are you on a diet?" he mocked his classmate.

Yew and Spruce looked at Linden, wondering why he was so aggravated over the food preferred by Aspen.

Not caring to look at Linden, Aspen responded with a tiny hint of irritation in his voice, "I'm not fat."

"Yeah, I can see," Linden grinned even wider.

Aspen kept eating calmly as if Linden had never said anything. If not for his tone of voice it would be impossible to tell that he wasn't bothered by Linden's comments.

"Did you buy anything to drink?" Spruce asked out of blue, breaking the tension.

Yew wondered whether Spruce said that intentionally to redirect the conversation, but Linden, who was the recipient of his question, was certain that the boy was too stupid for a tactical change of topic.

Spruce put on an innocent face as best as he could. He didn't want to look as if he intentionally interrupted them, even though that was exactly what he did. He didn't understand the specifics, but he could tell that Linden was being nasty again, and he wanted him to stop.

"There’s free water," Linden pointed at a small water fountain between two columns across from their bench.

The fountains with drinkable water were located every fifty to hundred meters apart on the main street. They were used by locals when shopping downtown, so most stores and stands in the area weren't even selling bottled water.

"Okay," Spruce acknowledged Linden's answer, and went back to eating kartoshki.

Yew finished one third of the pineapple cake and gave the box to Linden. Once they had finished eating, they stacked all the boxes together into one bag.

"One box is left," Spruce pointed at the box in the first bag.

"That’s a cucumber-radish salad," Linden named the content.

"I can carry it," Aspen grabbed the bag.

"Sure, if you want to," Linden shrugged.

He threw away the trash into the nearest trashcan, before washing his hands under the fountain water then drinking some of it out of his cupped hands.

Linden shook the water off his hands, "now, let’s go to the store."

Aften everyone had quenched their thirst, he led them into a narrow alley barricaded on left and right by tall apartment buildings that appeared as if they were touching the sky above.

Each apartment wall had hundreds of windows - some of which were closed, but most of them weren't. It wasn't unusual for most cities to keep windows ajar, half-open, or fully spread out, when the weather was pleasant, so the boys didn't find it odd. Although the residents leaning out of some of the windows gave them a bizarre feeling of unwanted scrutiny.

Some of those residents were merely getting fresh air. Others were having conversations with their neighbors. Nevertheless all of them were staring with interest at the boys passing by down below.

"Don’t they have anything else to do?" Spruce whispered to Yew. He felt creeped out by so many eyes observing him from above.

"Antique security cameras," Linden spoke with the tone of an advertiser. "Tested and proven to be the most effective surveillance system over many centuries. Nothing can ever escape the keen eye of a bored milady."

"What?" Spruce didn’t get the sarcasm.

"Ignore them," Linden mumbled out.

After making several turns, crossing tramtracks, and going down a not-so-busy but very wide street, Linden stopped right in front of a store with a big banner: «Always the Latest, Always the Best!»

"It’s here," he walked up and opened the door.

Inside the store, a long queue of customers of all ages lined up at the counter, waiting for their turn to be served. Meanwhile others were walking around the store and eyeing up the goods for sale.

Ignoring the queue, Linden went straight toward the counter and waved at the cashier, who looked at him questioningly.

"It’s me, Linden," he pointed at himself.

The cashier almost jumped at the realization. He looked at the boy as if a VIP had just walked into his store. He smiled very welcomingly, put his hands together and started rubbing them, instantly forgetting about the other customers.

"What a pleasure to see you again. How can I help you today?"

"Can I?" Linden pointed at the door behind the cashier.

"Of course, with pleasure," the man responded and gestured to Linden to come to the other side of the counter.

Linden beckoned the boys to follow him, and they did. He walked up to the backdoor, and entered the storage area. The cashier didn't follow them, instead opting to return to his work.

"Was that necessary?" Spruce asked after Linden closed the door. "Everybody was staring at us."

"If you want the best magical items he has to offer, then yes, it was necessary." Linden ignored the packages on the shelfcases and went straight for the huge safe made of rock in the corner of the room. "He always keeps the most awesome items right in here." He knocked on the door.

"The password?" instead of a mouth, the words came from a tiny moving crack in the rock.

"Password? What password?"

Upon Linden's response, the door unlocked and opened by itself, revealing a small room with several shelves on the wall.

"That was a stupid password," Spruce said after Linden walked inside.

Linden snickered, "if you think so, try it next time."

"I would assume that the password requires more than just the right words," Aspen joined the topic. "Things like intonation, accent, breathing, pauses between words, and also I saw you sliding your hand down over the door, when you were saying it."

Linden looked at him with awe, "no wonder you saw colors on those ancient scrolls. You really do pay attention to details. Next time, I’ll remember to be more careful around you." He looked at the five boxes on the shelves, "so what do we have here?"

He checked the first box. Inside, there was a necklace so beautiful that it looked like it had been made for a queen. "Meh," he sounded disappointed.

"That looked expensive," Spruce commented after Linden put the box back.

"Everything here is expensive."

"I don’t have that kind of money," Yew felt anxious.

"Buy it on credit. It’s worth it," Linden provided him with the solution, as he opened the second box. Inside there was a dagger. "This looks good. Hold it," he gave the box to Spruce.

Looking into the third box, which contained an armband, Linden commented "maybe, if there's nothing better." For the shoes in the fourth box, he immediately closed the lid with a "definitely no" and put the box back before other boys could even see its content. As for the fifth box, he paused as he eyed the simple yet elegant brooch.

"Hmm… too difficult," he was going to put it back on the shelf, but then he turned to Yew. "Do you want a powerful item that’s hard to control, or an item that’s super easy to control but isn’t so useful?"

"Of course, he’ll take the powerful item," Spruce answered for Yew.

"What do these items do?" Yew asked.

"The armband can be used to change your appearance. The brooch... It kind of looks like a mix of magic that allows you to control air and gravity. You may be able to fly with this."

"How do you know this?" Aspen inquired.

"Spells of perception can allow the user to see the world in different ways. I have something, which allows me to see magic. And since each magic looks different, it’s easy to tell them apart with one look, at least in most cases." He looked at Yew, "so? Which one do you want?"

"The brooch," Yew answered.

Spruce smiled gloriously, assuming at the time that Yew had ambitions as high as his own. However he was wrong. Yew selected the brooch, because Linden described it as powerful but hard to control. Thus in case of something unexpected, he could always blame the magical item in order to hide his talent.

"I told you, he’d take the powerful item," Spruce marveled at his accurate prediction.

"Okay then. Let’s go pay," Linden took the box with the brooch, and stepped out. When no one was inside the safe anymore, the door closed by itself.

They went toward the exit. As Linden put his hand on the handle, he commanded the boys, "stay here. I'll be back in a moment."

They did as ordered, and waited until Linden came back with the cashier several minutes later. The man immediately looked at the box held by Spruce, then he glanced at the box held by Linden.

"Twenty thousand and thirty five thousand, so a total of fifty five thousand syfras."

"They'll be buying it separately," Linden pointed at his classmates.

"Wait, what? How many syfras?" Spruce yelled out, bewildered at the price.

Yew's mouth dropped open from the shock. The most expensive thing he'd ever bought was his backpack, which had cost him two thousand syfras, and it was the very expensive type, waterproof with a lot of pockets.

The cashier grimaced at the idea of working with poor customers. He looked questioningly at Linden, who gave him a warm smile in return.

"Any discount?" the boy asked.

"You know I don’t give discounts to new customers."

"And how much would that be on credit?"

"Hmmm," the cashier rubbed his chin, as he did the math in his mind. "No less than thousand fifty hundred per month on the dagger or two thousand fifty hundred per month on the brooch."

"They’re students of Hecate," Linden pointed at their badges. "They’ll be here for the next nine years."

"I cannot wait that long," the man crossed his arms.

"Maybe we can buy something else?" Yew quietly proposed to Linden, who snapped back at him with the ferocity of a mad squirrel.

"If you want good stuff, don’t give up so fast!"

The cashier shook his head sideways, disgruntled by the inexperienced customers. "I’m not giving in no matter what you propose," he directed his words at Linden. "Last time I gave you a discount of eighty percent, but I told you that it'll never happen again. Moreover, they're not even regular customers."

"They might become such. They're both magicless."

The man looked at Spruce and Yew, and scratched his chin, as he considered his business opportunities.

"I shouldn't have been so lenient on discounts," he grumbled to himself.

Linden heard him anyway. "I’m not asking for a discount, just a good credit option."

"No less than thousand monthly for the dagger and two thousand monthly for the brooch," the cashier stated in a tone as if he was repeating himself. Yet the boys noticed that he dropped the monthly installments by fifty hundred syfras.

"Spruce," Linden looked at his classmate. "How much money did your parents give you for this year?"

"Twenty thousand, but I already spent some of it," he responded.

"How about this?" Linden spoke to the cashier. "What if we pay half the cost of the dagger right now?"

The man nodded his head, while calculating in his mind. "Hmmm… hmmm… half the cost, then yes, I could drop down the monthly payments to fifty hundred, no, to forty hundred per month."

"Make it twenty hundred per month," Linden pushed.

"Oh no, no, no, no. I am not risking that. Not all students of Hecate graduate, and the last three years are always the hardest. You pay half today, and I can give you a credit for forty hundred per month," he directed the last sentence toward Spruce.

"Wow," Spruce said, "now it looks like I can afford it."

"But your money? What about food?" Yew asked, more aware of how foolish it was to spend half of one's capital in one purchase.

"Food is free for top students," Spruce responded with so much optimism that neither Yew nor Aspen dared to remind him of his latest score in History of Magic.

"Then get your money card out, before the offer changes," Linden pressured Spruce, who took out his money card and gave it to the cashier.

The man walked up to the row of big boxes standing on the floor. On top of one of them, there was a small cash register, with a slot for one money card.

"Ten thousand now and then a monthly charge of forty hundred until the counter reaches ten thousand," he narrated as he inputted the numbers. Then he put Spruce's card inside and charged it accordingly with the push of one of the buttons.

A moment later Spruce got his card back, together with a receipt.

"So about the brooch," Linden immediately restarted his bargaining. "How much credit can we get, if we pay, let’s say, twenty thousand for the deposit?"

"What?!" Spruce looked at Yew, amazed at the possibility that his classmate would spend that much in one day.

"Linden, I don't have that much money!" Yew shouted out. "I only have four thousand from my parents."

"I know," Linden waved a hand, gesturing to his roommate to calm down. "You already told me that they didn’t know that money was so needed in Hecate, so you’re going to ask them for more."

"Yes, but…"

"I’ll pay today, and you’ll return it to me once you get money from your parents."

Yew almost cried at the situation, "I don’t know how much I’ll get… "

"Oh just shut up. You wanted the brooch, so stop talking about money." He directed his words at the cashier, "fifty hundred per month?"

The cashier rubbed his chin again, but he spent less time thinking than previously. "Hmmm… sounds possible. Okay, I’ll agree to this."

Linden took out his money card and handed it to the cashier, "twenty thousand only."

"Yes, I understand. Twenty thousand directly from your card," he charged Linden's card then returned it back to him. "And I'll set up a monthly charge of fifty hundred on your card," he looked at Yew, "until the count maxes out at fifteen thousand."

Yew hesitantly took out his money card. He didn't want to buy it anymore, but he was afraid of making a scene, especially since Spruce had already paid for his magical item.

"All done," the cashier said before he handed Yew's card back to him.

Linden thanked the cashier for his service, and the man thanked Linden for his patronage. They both wished each other a good day as they walked out of the storage room.

At the counter, a matriarch was serving the customers. She looked similar to the cashier, so most likely she was his mother, or another relative.

The cashier walked ahead, and opened the shop's entrance door for Linden. As the boys were stepping out, he bowed his head. "May you have a great day, honorable guests."

All the customers inside the store directed their gazes at the boys. Linden didn't care, but the other three sped up their pace to get as far away and as quickly as possible.

"Um, should I carry it?" Yew asked about the box with the brooch, which Linden held in his hand. Only he had nothing to carry. Aspen carried the salad, and Spruce carried his dagger.

"No," Linden answered. "I’ll give it to you after we write the contract. I want my money back, eventually."

Later that day, Linden wrote on a piece of paper: «Yew Chirabilva Araukaria Sky will return twenty thousand syfras to Linden Tamalini Gomat Cave within the next ten years.»

Then he signed and dated the short note, turning it into a legally binding contract. After Yew added his own signature and date, Linden took the original, but gave Yew a copy together with the brooch.

Yew felt the importance of the moment, because for him it was the first time he signed a document all by himself without any supervision. Although he had signed his application to the school of Hecate just a month ago, he didn't think much of that, because his parents had co-signed every page, and had guided him throughout the process.