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He caught me off guard. Despite watching a few others be assessed first, I froze on a plan until he stepped in front of me and asked me the same damn question.
If I’d been smarter, I would have gone with a sun spell, or large object levitation.
Those would have made me seem more like the slightly more skilled half of the class.
More like a run-of-the-mill witch, an average student of the craft.
My heart sinks as the assessments go on and no one else displays anything close to my skill set.
I don’t want it to be like it was back home. I don’t want to stand out. I don’t want to be pressured to do something more than everyone else simply because I can.
I just want a chance to be normal, to enjoy having friends and mates and to get the chance to be happy and carefree.
Is that too much to ask?
I guess, maybe, it is.
I can’t change who I am, and if I’m honest, I wouldn’t trade my magic for anything. It saved my mates’ lives more than once. Things would be so different right now if I didn’t have the power I accepted and cultivated from the moment I started to study magic.
The warlock finishes up his assessments and picks up a pile of books from his desk. He passes them out to the witches with the most basic abilities. Amanda gets one. It’s a book of spells for beginners.
My shy friend seems mortified, even if she’s not exactly in the minority.
Half the class were raised under similar circumstances, which meant their witch sides were ignored or paid very little attention to. They’re just starting out learning spells I was breezing through before I really came into my powers in high school.
No one seems too sympathetic about the poorer students’ upbringings. Most of the more average witch hybrids seemed unimpressed by them. Worse, a few are visibly amused. I watched the little trio of girls at the back of the room laugh and whisper when Amanda struggled to cast.
It took all of my self control not to sew their hateful mouths shut with a particularly nasty silence spell I learned during Halloween a few years back. I would have loved nothing more than to see them panic when they could do nothing to break the simple but vicious spell.
Mean girls are nothing special, even if they act like the sun shines out of their asses twenty-four-seven.
I paid extra attention when it was their turn to show what they could do, waiting and watching them each go through a basic as hell quick-fire repertoire of summoning elements and light levitation of small objects. It’s pathetic, really. Those bitches have nothing on me.
The things I could do to them without lifting a finger...
I file those thoughts away for later. When an overly observant warlock elder isn’t staring at me, wondering how he can convince me to become his apprentice or familiar or something equally awful. I might have been fated to come here, but I definitely wasn’t fated to end up enslaved.
I’d prefer not to be kicked out of the Academy, either, but as far as destinies go, college drop-out is a million times preferable to glorified slave.
I keep that in mind as their sniggering continues until the lesson is over and I’m ready to snap my pen into pieces in my hand. I get up quickly and pile my notes into my bag.
Amanda stuffs her new book into her bag and we make for the exit.
“Well, that was fun,” she mutters as we leave.
“It’ll get better,” I tell her. “Come by the house after dinner tonight. We can practice more stuff.”
I might be more powerful than I’m willing to admit in class, but I think it’s time my new friend saw what I can do. She trusted me enough to admit she was worried about not being advanced enough with magic to do well here. I’d promised to help her, but she has no idea about my secret.
“Thanks,” she tells me with a sad little smile.
She feels awful about needing help like this. She’s not good at hiding her feelings. Everything just shows on her face. Usually, she looks kind of worried or lost. The only time I’ve seen her really, truly look happy is when one of her mates is around.
“Are you meeting Dante for lunch?” I ask, watching her green eyes light up as she nods. “Then I’ll see you in Math for Magic.”
We go our separate ways in the entrance hall. Her sullen Omega is dressed in dark colors and has one of those haircuts that’s either a few weeks overdue for a trim or a few more weeks short of becoming a completely different style. I don’t spend too long wondering which.
Carter appears and scoops me into his arms before I realize what’s happening.
