Dragons & Divination

Week One, Monday

“Oh my God,” Maija said, covering her mouth. “I can’t believe they let him back in.”

I followed Maija’s eyeline across the indoor quad. Sure enough, there was Ash Moriarty, easily spotted thanks to the platinum blonde hair that seemed to have grown even whiter and longer in his absence from the School.

“I see he hasn’t stopped with the hair dye,” Heather replied. “I hate to be mean, but it really looks ridiculous.”

“Rich coming from you, blondie,” I chirped. Heather smirked at me and ran a hand through her head of fresh braids.

“No way,” Maija retorted, grinning mischievously. “It’s sexy. And I think he got a new tattoo.”

“Gross, Maija. That guy is such a big jerk,” Heather said, turning up her face.

“Easy! That was Linnea’s first boyfriend, you know,” Maija said.

I rolled my eyes at my two best friends. “I don’t think him telling me I was cute, and then immediately pushing me in the pond, counts as having a boyfriend.”

“Also, they were like, eleven?” Heather said. If you couldn’t tell Heather was a California beach girl based on her hatred of any weather under seventy degrees, the way she said every sentence like it had a question mark at the end gave it away. It was only the first day of winter term, but Heather was already in no mood for Maija’s shenanigans.

Maija, who spent her time off school in Iceland with her musician mother, was much hardier — and subsequently in higher spirits. She giggled. “I’d let me push him in a pond any day. And besides, I think his hair is naturally that color. I think it’s just an elf thing.”

“Maija, don’t be silly. That’s a total lie that he spread. I met his mom at our eleventh-grade class banquet. She’s not an elf, she’s just a rich lady,” Heather replied, rolling onto her back and stretching her long legs.

“Anyway, I’m shocked they let him back into the College. All that havoc he caused last term? He nearly burned down the stables,” Maija said, raising her brows.

“Everyone deserves a second chance, I guess,” Heather said, sighing as she rested her hands under her head. “Even big jerks.”

“I thought the stables were struck by lightning?” I said, following Ash with my eyes.

The confident swagger of his walk was visible from a mile away, and we didn’t seem to be the only ones staring — the quad, packed with students relaxing before the winter term’s first afternoon of classes, had suddenly gone quiet. Even from here I could tell he was wearing an outfit that was stupidly expensive: leather loafers, a dark wool sweater, and black slacks. All black, of course. How original.

When Ash left halfway through fall term, none of us thought he’d be back. It didn’t matter how well-connected he was — it seemed like the School had finally had enough of his bad behavior. I mean, in upper school, Ash put a crocodile into the saltwater swimming pool. It was a baby, sure, but still. How did someone even think of that idea? How did a fifteen-year-old at a Maine boarding school even get access to a baby crocodile?

“Lightning bolt, Ash Moriarty, what’s the difference?” Maija said, a wicked smile spreading across her face. “Both are acts of a cruel, cruel God.”

I checked my watch. “The bell’s about to chime.”

Heather laughed. “We’re not in upper school anymore. No bells, remember?”

“Well, either way, I should get going.”

“We have twenty minutes before the next class!” Maija complained, stretching her arms over her head. “You’re going to run off?”

“It's in the Batten-Shaler building, all the way over in Deercroft,” I said, shrugging. “I don’t know how long the ride on the maglev will take to get there.”

“I cannot believe you’re going to capture a dragon,” Heather said, shaking her head. “It seems so dangerous that they’d let a freshman do that.”

“You’re picturing a storybook dragon, Heath,” Maija corrected, rolling her eyes. “A dragon is just a big bird. We only call them dragons because ‘big bird’ was taken. And it sounds kind of stupid.”

“I don’t know,” Heather said. “How do we know that if we’ve barely seen them for centuries?”

“Because when we have seen them, they’re not hoarding gold and breathing fire. They’re just, I dunno, flapping,” Maija replied.

“Also, we’re not actually capturing the dragon. Or the, uh, big bird. We’re just studying them,” I corrected. “There’s a team of graduate students that will actually be getting up close and personal.”

“It’s going to be so annoying when you win the class prize,” Maija sniffed, referring to the academic honors given at the end of every year at the College. “Promise you won’t rub it in.”

I laughed as I got to my feet, dusting the dirt off of my ankle-length pleated skirt. “Not if I keep failing Drawing I.”

I left Heather and Maija to enjoy their few more minutes in the indoor quad. One of the perks of attending a magical school — year-round, there was a warm green space to lie out in. Except for the quiet sound of frozen rain, you’d never know it was an ice-cold January day from under the enormous glass dome of the quad. Pink flowers and cherry trees were in full bloom.

I crossed the quad and headed towards the train, which traveled on a loop through the many campuses of what was known as Rosendorff Park. The school the three of us attended — officially called the College of the Parley School of Arts and Sciences, but more commonly just called “Parley” or “The School” — was only a small part of the great campus that stretched over an uncountable number of acres.

The Park was even bigger if you counted the Wood, but few of us considered it, since students were forbidden to enter unless granted special permission.

Maija, Heather, and I had met while attending Parley’s lower school as sixth graders. Like most of our classmates, we’d never even considered transferring somewhere else for our upper years in high school and college. Parley might have had an unusual reputation amongst the general population, but to the student body — to me — it was Eden.

The maglev emptied out as it got closer to my destination. I was early to class, but I didn’t mind. I didn’t spend a lot of time on this part of campus, the Deercroft campus. This was where the College’s magic classes were taught, and as it was only the winter term of my freshman year, I’d barely explored it. Its adjacency to the Wood was said to give it particular, mystical qualities you couldn’t find elsewhere on campus.

I exited the maglev and braced myself as I headed into the freezing rain, pulling my jacket tighter across myself. I hadn’t expected the wind to be so treacherous, and it immediately flipped my umbrella inside out.

Deercroft’s campus was far more labyrinthine than the Parley School, and I found myself retracing my steps and needing to ask fellow students to direct me the right way. By the time I made it to the building, I was freezing cold. My hair, which I had brushed to shine under a headband, was now wet and frizzy. I didn’t have a compact mirror and I didn’t have time to stop in the bathroom, so I could only hope that my mascara was as waterproof as the labels assured me.

Fortunately, the classroom was only up a flight of stairs. I turned to hurry down the wood hallway, telling myself I’d admire the oil portraits that lined the corridor’s walls later. I ran a hand through my hair, flinging out as much excess water as I could before opening the door. The classroom was tiny, looking more like an office that had a second desk dragged into it. There were two people inside.

One person I expected: Professor Sidney, the young teacher who’d recruited me for the tutorial over winter break, was standing by the front chalkboard. She wore her red hair in a loose braid over her shoulder and was dressed in the standardly tweedy garb of a Parley prof: plaid blazer, loose slacks.

The other person I did not expect.

Ash Moriarty. The Ash Moriarty. The boy who’d pushed me into a pond in sixth grade, the boy who had spent his entire academic career in and out of trouble (but mostly in). This was supposed to be an advanced tutorial for a promising new student. A training stage for a rare skillset the School was in desperate need of. Why would the school delinquent have been chosen? Surely even the importance of his father and family couldn’t have secured a spot?

But Maija was right. The only boy in our year with visible tattoos, he’d definitely acquired a fresh one that just barely poked out from under his shirt collar. Though it’d only been a few months since I’d last seen him in the fall, he seemed dramatically different. Older. His eyes were the same rich, dark brown, but the space around them seemed more defined, his cheeks hollower.

“What’s he doing here?” I said, at the same time Ash said, “What’s she doing here?”

“Good. So you know each other,” Sidney said, walking to stand beside her large wood desk. “Linnea Clark, Ash Moriarty. You two were chosen for this tutorial based on your aptitude scores.”

I felt my stomach fall into a pit as I stared at my once-and-future classmate. Surely this couldn’t be the next eight weeks of my life, my very first winter term at the College. Surely there was a mistake?

Outside of Drawing I, I’d never gotten a bad grade. My Parley scholarship was dependent on my continued high marks. And now, what, they were trying to cheat me out of it by placing me with the worst student in the school?

Ash didn’t seem to share my misgivings, because of course he didn’t. He was probably thrilled to be paired with one of the best students in the School.

I swallowed. I could do this. I’d worked with dead weight on a group project before: it would be no different who the dead weight was. I just needed to keep my head down, do my work, and get through eight weeks without wanting to actually stab Ash. How hard could that possibly be?

“I thought men worked with dragons, and girls worked with unicorns,” Ash said, tapping his chin as he turned towards me. A cruel smile spread across his face. “Or is that only virgins?”

I tried to control the furious blush spreading across my face as my heart pounded. I searched for a comeback, something equally cutting and casual. I had nothing.

“Ash,” Sidney snapped at him, “There’s no need to be crude. You two need to work together, and those kinds of remarks aren’t going to help.”

“I’m… I’m allergic to horses,” Was all I managed to stammer out. Ash raised an eyebrow, and looked like he was about to laugh. I angled my face away so he couldn’t see my expression.

He snorted and turned back to the Professor.

“I think you two will make an excellent team.”

I grimaced and clenched my fists as the cold rainwater dripped from the hem of my skirt onto the floor.

Yeah, right.