It made Mina nervous enough that she had to find out. “Are new students not supposed to practice?” she asked as quietly as she could. But the girl’s frown only deepened. And she shook her head.
“I don’t even know what it is you’re practicing.”
“It was in the guidebook. The chapter on basic forms.”
“Oh. I see. We couldn’t afford anything like that.”
“But we didn’t buy it. It was sent to me. I thought it was sent to everyone.”
The girl didn’t say anything to that. She didn’t need to, however. Mina could tell what her expression meant. It was half angry and half resigned, as if she knew full well how brutally unfair that was but also hadn’t expected anything better from a place like this. It was run and ruled for rich white people.
Honestly, it seemed like a miracle that she even had a guidebook.
But she didn’t intend to keep its secrets to herself. She glanced around to see if anyone was watching for illegal sharing between the sort of students who didn’t quite fit the aesthetic, and then lowered her voice even further. “Okay, look. You have no reason at all to trust me. For all you know, I’m a rival trying to sabotage you for a place in some advanced class. But we don’t have time for me to prove otherwise, so you can either take this advice or not. The five basic forms are these: cupped, closed, clenched, reached, and opened. You start with cupped—cupped hands, like this.” She made the shape the diagram had shown her. Two curves through the air, as perfectly symmetrical as she could make them, and ending with something that looked like she was gathering water to drink. “That’s to draw the magic to you. And then right after that move, fast into closed. Arms together, hands together like you’re praying. Or you can do clenched too, with your fists. Those are the ones that are supposed to be good at creating something to defend you. Does that make sense?”
No, she thought despairingly.
But the girl’s expression said something else.
She watched Mina put her arms together, hands clasped, and a spark seemed to light her eyes. Like she’d seen something she recognized on some deep level. Or maybe knew, in that moment, thatMina wasn’t trying to trick her.It’s my earnestness, Mina thought. And for once in her life, she didn’t regret it.
There was no punishment waiting for her because of it.
The girl grabbed her hands instead. “Thank you,” she said in a tone Mina recognized all too well. It was the same one she would have used upon realizing someone was actually doing right by her.
Instead of the usual.
“Don’t thank me. It’s only fair,” she said. Then before she could offer her name, the girl lurched forward. Someone pushed her from behind, she pushed into Mina, and finally Mina stumbled, half turning, and almost crashed into the professor waiting at the front. The bored-looking one, with the clipboard and the pen that definitely wasn’t fueled by anything ordinary.
No ink flowed from the tip.
Only a kind of silvery light.
“Name?” he asked. Because apparently this was it.
“Mina Morrow,” she replied, the words barely out before he started in on the same spiel she could hear all the other register takers spinning out.
“Wands and other magical aids go in the lockers provided; none are permitted during the assessment. Flying spells are prohibited, and attempts at performing them will be punished. Other than that, there is only one rule: Make it as close to the center of the maze as you can before the clock strikes midnight, to secure your place in any of the classes. Good luck,” he said in the flat drone of someone who had been forced to say it a thousand times.
Then he pushed her through the door behind him before she could ask any of the million and one questions she had.If you don’t get there in time, do you get expelled?she thought frantically,as she stumbled from a well-lit hall into whatever was out there. And after that, she had no time to think at all. She barely even managed to register the grass under her feet, or the towering walls of a hedge maze on either side of her, or the fact that there was an inexplicably night sky somewhere above them.
Cool air and cold darkness slapped her in the face, and a second later it was followed by heat. A searing, blazing heat that actually seemed to singe her hair as it flew past her face. She smelled burning. Her cheek was suddenly hot.
But it was only in the aftermath that she grasped what had happened. She shot a look down the narrow alley behind her, and saw the blazing glow of it as it disappeared into darkness. A fireball. Someone had hurled a whole goddamn fireball at her head.
And if she didn’t move fast, they were definitely going to do it again.
She glanced back at the direction it had come from and saw them there, at the end of this shadowy lane. Hands already cupped to try a second time. Confidently, too. Like they’d done this a million times before. Like they’d been coming here for years or understood everything about the place before they’d even walked in the door, and finally they were going to get access to the elite classes they belonged in. That they wereentitledto.How is this fair?she found herself thinking for the thirtieth time. Though this one definitely had a keener edge than all the others. Now she wasn’t just sitting in her bedroom, reading that new students were assessed alongside old. She wasn’t just thinking about what an advantage people would have if they could pay for the information early or came from families who already understood and taught and practiced all this.
She was about to be murdered by that deranged level of inequality.
Unless, of course, she did something about it.
The only question was:What?
She glanced behind her and saw nothing but a dead end. In front, the next turn out of this lane looked to be a good thirty feet away. This guy was going to reduce her to cinders before she covered half that. And there was nothing to use as protection just lying about. No bin lids, no big rocks, no tree branches to use like a cricket bat.
The only thing she had was magic.
