“I can’t tell you how safe I feel,” D.C. said, still sniggering.
Alex decided to keep her mouth closed, but that just caused the king and his daughter to laugh even more.
“At least she’s enthusiastic,” King Aurileous said.
“That she is,” D.C. agreed, smiling fondly at Alex.
“Don’t we have to go?” Alex asked, trying to cover her embarrassment.
“Yeah,” D.C. said. “We don’t want to be late.”
“Make sure you say goodbye to your mother before you take off,” the king said, hugging his daughter again. “She misses you when you’re gone.”
“Of course,” D.C. promised.
King Aurileous smiled at her one last time and turned to Alex. “You take care, Alex. I have a feeling we’ll need you more than we yet know.”
She looked at him wonderingly, trying to fathom the meaning behind his ominous words. But then he winked at her, easing her concern. She couldn’t tell if his comment was serious or a joke, but she was certain he didn’t mean to cause her any anxiety.
“Thank you, Your Majesty,” she said with a slight bow.
D.C. led the way out of the room and Alex followed her through the corridors and up the numerous staircases until they reached the princess’s room.
After some quick packing, D.C. grabbed her small bag of belongings and said, “Okay, I’m ready. Let’s go find Mother and get out of here.”
Locating the queen in the palace’s butterfly garden— and yes, to Alex’s shock, it was an actual garden full of live, fluttering butterflies—D.C.’s goodbye with her mother was short but heartfelt. Queen Osmada even wrapped Alex in a motherly hug, saying that she looked forward to getting to know her daughter’s best friend better in the future.
After their fleeting farewell, D.C. handed Alex a Bubbler vial and, with an excited gleam in her eyes, offered, “After you.”
Alex grinned and threw the glass to the ground, sending butterflies scattering when the Bubbledoor rose up in front of them. As she stepped into the colourful mass, she thought of exactly where she wanted to arrive, and within a matter of moments she was out the other side and staring up at the academy’s Tower building.
D.C. stepped through after her and they both grinned at each other, pleased to be back at Akarnae.
After stashing D.C.’s belongings with Alex’s in the dorm room they’d shared the previous year, they headed directly over to the food court.
Alex was relieved that the noise covered their entrance so no one noticed them sneaking in a few minutes late. She’d never seen the room so full of people. Normally the hungry occupants came and went as they pleased within the designated eating times, but now the court was packed full of students and teachers alike.
“Alex! Dix! Over here!”
Alex heard Jordan call out for them and she led D.C. over to where their friends were sitting.
“We were worried you weren’t going to make it in time,” Bear said as they took their seats between the two boys.
“Us? Late?” Alex asked with wide eyes. “Never.”
“Right. I’ll remember that next time we have to barge into your dorm to get you up in time for PE,” Bear said.
“Once. That only happened once,” Alex grumbled. “And I was the one who opened the door and let you in. There was no barging
Ignoring the stifled sounds of amusement from eavesdropping classmates, her attention moved to the rest of her table. Normally the food court was set up into clusters of randomly shaped and sized tables, but tonight all the furniture was larger, with groups of people seated together. Looking around her table, Alex recognised many faces from her classes last year.
Jordan must have seen her curious expression because he spoke before she could ask. “The first night of every new year we all sit in age-based groups so it’s easier to organise getting our new class schedules.”
That seemed logical. But unfortunately for Alex, she’d been so overwhelmed by the transition into Akarnae—and Medora—during the previous year that she hadn’t had much of a chance to get to know many of her fellow classmates.
“I don’t know most of these people,” she admitted quietly to Jordan. “Can you give me a brief rundown?”
“No problem.” He turned away and called out loudly enough to draw the attention of everyone at their table, “Hey, guys, let’s do an icebreaker!”
“Jordan!” Alex hissed.
“What?” he asked innocently. “This way we’ll all get to know each other even better.”
“Sparker,” called one of the guys sitting further down the table. “What gives?”
“You know, an icebreaker,” Jordan repeated. “We’ll each say something random about ourselves. Something that not many people here know. Fun, right?”
No one else seemed thrilled by the idea, but in true Jordan fashion, he managed to get them all to grudgingly agree.
“I’ll start,” he said. “My name is Jordan Sparker, and when I was three years old I shoved a pea so far up my nose that it had to be surgically removed. Your turn, Alex.”
Turning to eagerly awaiting eyes, Alex’s mind suddenly blanked. “I’m Alexandra Jennings—but just ‘Alex’ is fine—and I, um, like reading?”
She wished she hadn’t made it sound like a question. In fact, she wasn’t sure why she’d said it, since she didn’t read all that much. But it wasn’t as if she could have said she was from another world.
D.C. went next, then Bear, followed by Connor and Mel O’Malley, the cousins who Alex had spent some time with in the previous school year. The introductions continued around the table and Alex had a chance to learn about some of her other classmates.
“I’m Savannah Hill, and I’m a virtual reality addict,” said a blond girl who Alex remembered from her Delta PE class last year. “The projector in the Rec Room here is way better than the one I have back home, so I’m a little obsessed with it.”
“Kelly Gleeson,” said the next girl, who had short brown hair and squinty eyes. “My favourite movie is Beyond the Crescent Moon.”
Next up was a tall, lanky, extremely tanned guy with spiky hair who, when he spoke, sounded like he’d walked straight out of a surfing commercial. “Whazzup! Friends call me ‘Blink’. I’m into extremes—extreme sports, extreme food, extreme music—anything extreme. Embrace the rush!”
The introductions continued until the names all blended together and Alex knew she wouldn’t be able to remember everyone. Chelsea Jones… Kimberly Cooke… Mathew Parker… Andrew Nickles… Tate Golde… Ruth Voran… Anna Ford… Elliott Parvie… Samuel Hortham… The names kept coming until there were only two people left.
“I’m Sean McInney,” said a bulky guy with long hair. He looked pointedly at Jordan. “I don’t like icebreakers.”
Alex grinned along with everyone else and turned to the last person who sat directly opposite her, a short girl with mousy brown hair and owlish eyes. She was so tiny that it looked like the slightest breath of wind would snap her in half.
“I’m Phillipa Squeaker,” the girl said. “I hate my name, so call me ‘Pip’ or ‘Pipsqueak’. Anything else will result in me shaving off one of your eyebrows while you sleep. You’ve been warned.” Pipsqueak glared threateningly around the table until her scowl transformed into a brilliant smile. “Oh, I forgot to mention that I love rainbow cupcakes and fluffy bunnies.”
Alex tried to turn her laughter into a cough but wasn’t very successful. Pipsqueak turned to her and Alex tried harder to steel her expression into something more serious, but it was impossible. Just as she managed to get rid of her smile, the small girl winked at her, and Alex couldn’t help but laugh again. At least Pipsqueak had a sense of humour. No one else at the table seemed to know how to take the diminutive girl.
“What’s the story with you anyway, Alex?” Pipsqueak asked out of the blue. “I mean, you arrive halfway through last year looking like a lost sheep in the middle of a wolf-infested forest, you get potential-tested
into some pretty hard-core subjects, you end up in the Med Ward more times than most students do in their entire stay at Akarnae, and then you disappear for the summer without a trace. What’s the deal with all that?”
Alex squirmed uncomfortably in her seat, noticing that many of the others around the table were nodding in agreement at what Pipsqueak had said.
“I didn’t realise my life was so interesting to you all,” Alex said, hoping that if she seemed unconcerned then they would as well. “Would you like a copy of my diary? Perhaps that’ll give you some insight into the boring life of yours truly?”
“Yo, sweet!” Blink said with a fist pump into the air. “Count me in!”
“Blink, man, I’m pretty sure she wasn’t being serious,” Connor said from across the table, with Mel shaking her head beside him.
“Oh,” Blink said, deflating. “No fair. You just killed my vibe.”
Alex watched the interactions of her classmates and turned back to Pipsqueak who was looking at her, waiting for an answer.
“I have nothing to say that you don’t already know,” Alex said vaguely. “I transferred here partway through last year, like you said, and I’m not sure why my potential test came back as it did. Believe me when I say I wish the results had been different. My numerous trips to the Med Ward are because of those ‘hard-core classes’—as you so appropriately named them. And didn’t everyone disappear over the summer when term finished for the year?”
Pipsqueak frowned but the truth of Alex’s answers rang clear, despite being somewhat evasive.
“You’re just mysterious,” the small girl said. “We were in the same classes for a good eight months, but none of us know who you are.”
Heads were nodding all around the table and Alex found herself on the defensive. “Is that entirely my fault?” she said to the group as a whole. “Did any of you make an effort to introduce yourselves to me?”
“Whoa, whoa.” Blink raised his hands in surrender. “What our Squeaking-Pippa is trying to say is that we want to get to know you better. Anyone who gets sliced and diced by a knife is, like, seriously awesome. We salute you.”
Alex was too surprised to react when he actually saluted her. She shifted nervously and repeated, “Sliced and diced?”
“Sure, sure,” Blink said. “Despite the bogus food poisoning rumour that went around, everyone knows you were, like, stabbed or something at the end of last year. That’s epic.”
Alex must have looked panicked because Jordan leaned towards her and whispered in her ear, “It’s okay, they don’t know what actually happened. But news travels fast and there was a lot of commotion that night with half the teaching staff running off and you coming back all bloodied and everything. Word spread quickly, but no one knows anything solid.”
She wasn’t sure what to say to all the curious faces staring at her, but thankfully she didn’t have to worry about a response because at that moment, lollipops appeared on the table in front of all her classmates. Alex picked up her own, knowing exactly what it was but still looking at it with curiosity.
“Why do we have to get potential-tested again?” she asked, copying her classmates and popping hers into her mouth. Just like the first one she’d tasted, it had a fruity flavour, changing from orange to apple to banana, then mango, passionfruit and pineapple. The taste continued to change as she swirled it around her mouth.
“It’s rare, but your potential can change after certain life experiences,” Bear answered.
“Does that happen much?” she asked around the lollipop stick.
“Nope, not often,” Jordan said. “Bear was bumped up from Delta Chemistry to Epsilon two years ago. Actually, most of the people who are currently in any Epsilon classes weren’t there to start with. It’s almost unheard of to start out at the academy and be put straight into Epsilon-level anything. Delta, too, sometimes. That’s why the harder classes tend to have mostly older students in them.”
“Which is why I’m such a freak of nature,” Alex mumbled.
Her friends grinned at her but none of them disagreed with her statement.
“Can potentials be downgraded?” Alex asked.
“Sure,” Bear said. “I started out as a Beta in Equestrian Skills, but in my second year I was dropped back to Alpha. Horses and I don’t mix well.”
“Hmm,” Alex hummed thoughtfully, mentally crossing her fingers.
She was down to the dregs of her lollipop when she absentmindedly crunched down on the candy to get rid of it faster. She then pulled the stick out of her mouth, wondering what she was supposed to do with it. As if reading her mind, a small plastic bag materialised out of nowhere and she dropped her stick into it. After sealing the bag, she placed it on the table where it blinked out of sight.
Within a few minutes everyone in the court had finished their lollipops and there was a hushed silence as they waited in anticipation to find out their results. Seconds later, the tension was broken as little slips of paper appeared on the tables in front of every student. Alex eagerly picked hers up, scanning her new class timetable.
She looked up to meet her friends’ eyes and sighed in disappointment, sending them a wry smile. “No change in my potential. Next year I want a different lollipop.”
It turned out that none of them had any changes either, which was both good and bad; bad because it meant Alex was stuck in Epsilon Combat without her friends again—she only hoped Kaiden and Declan would still be with her—but good because it meant she had their company in all of her other potential-based classes. D.C. was with her in Gamma Archery and Epsilon Equestrian Skills, both D.C. and Jordan were with her in Gamma Chemistry, and both Jordan and Bear were with her in Delta PE. And they would all be together in their age-based classes.
“Whoa, they must be trying to kill you this year,” Jordan said as he looked over Alex’s shoulder.
Alex squinted at the paper, trying to make sense of his words. But then she noticed where he was pointing and groaned.
“PE, Archery, Equestrian Skills and Combat all in one day? And three times a week! Who did I kill to deserve that?” Alex grumbled. Starting any day with Finn and ending it with Karter was just not nice.
“At least Thursday will be easier,” Jordan observed. “Only age-based classes all day. And your Tuesday isn’t so bad.”
He was right, but that didn’t make her Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays any better. It was going to be a very long year.
“If I can have your attention for a moment,” Darrius called out, standing in the middle of the room. “After you’ve finished dinner, the rest of the night is yours to spend settling in. Feel free to leave here at your leisure, but do remember there’s a nine o’clock curfew for first through to third year students, and ten o’clock for fourth years and up.”
Alex looked at her timetable again and was excited by the change of curfew that she hadn’t noticed before.
“And one final thing,” Darrius announced. “Fourth year students, I’ll need you to remain behind after dinner to hear about one of your upcoming curriculum options. Thank you.”
Apparently that was all he had to say, since menus immediately appeared in front of everyone. Alex eagerly picked hers up and, after a brief glance, she touched the circle beside the lasagne with chips, deciding to treat herself with a glass of bubbly purple dillyberry juice as well.
Within seconds her food appeared and she dug in with relish. She hadn’t eaten since Mrs. Gribble’s, and after the day’s events she was starving.
After she’d swallowed a few mouthfuls, she turned to her friends.
“Why do you think Darri—um—Professor Marselle wants us to stay behind?” Alex asked, hoping no one else at the table had noticed her slip with the headmaster’s name.
“I’m presuming, and hoping, it’s about Hunter’s class,” Jordan said, cutting into his steak. “We’re meant to be able to take Stealth and Subterfuge this year.”
“Yeah, I think it’s that too,” Bear agreed after taking
a sip of his drink. “But I guess we’ll see.”
They finished eating in silence, mostly because there was so much noise in the food court that it was difficult to maintain a conversation. When they were finished their meals, their dirty dishes were whisked away by the TCDs, leaving the table immaculate once more.
Eventually the other students started to leave until only the fourth years lingered. It was then that the headmaster walked over to their table, followed by a lone figure whose face was hidden by a hooded cape.
“As I’m sure some of you have guessed, being in your fourth year means you have the opportunity to apply for Hunter’s Stealth and Subterfuge class,” Darrius said without preamble. “Since it’s an optional study extra, it’s held during your free time after dinner for two hours on Tuesdays and Thursdays. There are also mandatory classes held every alternate Saturday morning, along with the occasional whole-weekend assignment. It’s not an easy subject by any means, and I recommend you think long and hard before deciding to apply. Hunter, if you will?”
The caped figure raised his hands and pulled back his hood, revealing the darkly mysterious Hunter—or ‘Ghost’, as Alex knew he was sometimes nicknamed. There was no doubting the man was dangerous, especially considering the cache of weapons strapped to his belt, not to mention those which were likely hidden on the rest of his body beneath the dark cape.
“I don’t accept new students lightly,” Hunter said quietly, as if knowing they were hanging onto his every word. He glanced around the group with disinterest. “In fact, I’ll be surprised if I accept more than a handful of you this year. At best.”
Alex’s eyes roamed the table and she saw twenty apprehensive and slightly disappointed faces. She wondered briefly why Hunter’s class was so highly regarded. All she knew was that she certainly didn’t want to be a part of it, not with a name like ‘Stealth and Subterfuge’.