Page 27 of An Arcane Education
“Do you have anything better to do?”
I shrug. “I should probably get ahead on studying…”
“Nope!” She declares. “You’re coming to the party. I’ll write down the details for you and give them to you in class on Friday.”
I don’t have time to protest before she glances down ather dainty wristwatch and stands suddenly. “Whoops, I’ve got class in five minutes. Gotta go! See you FridayandSaturday.”
She winks, and with that, she’s off, gliding away with the grace of a dancer and the chaotic appeal of a woman who isn’t afraid to advocate for what she wants.
My immediate reaction to the thought of going to a party is stomach-turning anxiety, but I work through it in my head. I need to force myself out of my comfort zone, and if I have a friend—or at least someone who likes me enough to invite me to a party—there with me, maybe it won’t be so bad.
With another hour to kill before my next class, I wander in the general direction of the Natural Sciences building and stumble upon an event with rows of tables, banners, and tents. The extracurriculars fair.
Despite the fact that I’m not at all interested in adding anything else to my plate this semester, I decide to wander and see what the academy has to offer.
I walk slowly, reading the banners and signage while simultaneously trying to avoid eye contact with the people manning the tables. The lineup is pretty typical for a college campus—chess club, specific exercise groups, theater, culture and languages, etc. However, there are occasional tables that pique my interest for no other reason than their magical implications. Runes and occult symbols. Crystal collectors and practitioners. Magical infusions for cooking.
I’m about halfway through when I spot a familiar face. AJ is standing at a table and adjusting his hat with his back toward me, and I grin as I make my way up behind him.
“Hey, you.” I nudge him, and he looks down at me with furrowed brows and a serious expression. His posture is much more rigid than normal, and I take a small step back.
“You must be a friend of AJ’s,” he says with barely concealed annoyance. “I’m Mitchell, his twin brother.”
“Oh my god, I’m so sorry!” My cheeks warm with embarrassment. “He told me he had a brother, but not that he had a twin.”
He thins his lips in a pretense of a smile and says, “It’s fine,” before turning away from me again. It’s a clear dismissal, and I quickly concede, humiliation surging inside me.
When I see yet another familiar face and the name “Meridian House” in elegant script above the entrance of the tent, I duck in to get away from the crowd. Clarissa, the TA of my Intro to Magic class, is standing behind the table, but her expression is scathing.
“Any particular reason why you’re cozying up to my boyfriend out there?”
“What? Oh, no, I um—” I stutter, realizing my mortifying encounter isn’t quite over. “I thought he was AJ, his twin, who I’m friends with.”
The only change in her expression is a slightly quirked brow. “They have very different hairstyles and general demeanors.”
“Well, in case you hadn’t noticed, yourboyfriendis wearing a hat, so forgive me if I didn’t think to checkunderneath for different hair. I was also unaware that AJ’s brother was his twin,” I add.
“Can’t be very good friends if he didn’t tell you one of the only interesting facts about him,” she mutters, and I’m about to snap at her when an older woman steps into the tent beside Clarissa.
“Hi, are you applying for Meridian House?” she asks brightly.
I feign a smile. “Clarissa was just about to tell me more about it. I’m new here, so I don’t even know what it is.”
“You’ve never heard of it?” Clarissa questions, as if she doesn’t believe me.
“Uh, no? Not besides you mentioning it in class. I only found out that magic and this academy existed, like, a month ago.”
“How exactly did you manage to get accepted if you only found out about this place a month ago?”
I shrug. “They contacted me and offered me a scholarship after my magic went wild, and here I am.”
Clarissa taps her long, manicured nails against the table and flashes me a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. “Ah, a scholarship student,” she says with a combination of disgust and amusement. “Well, I’ll just say that Meridian House is averyselective club that consists of the highest-achieving students on campus. Only fifty students are allowed in at a time, and we have a lot of special perks for being part of the group.”
“What kind of perks?” I ask sweetly. There’s no way in hell I’d get into a club like that, and I don’t plan on trying, but the least I can do is waste her time. She had seemedhaughty in class, but her arrogant attitude is even more atrocious than I had previously thought.
“We have our own dorm building with single-person rooms away from the rest of the students, so it’s much quieter, for starters. Everyone there is dedicated to the pursuit of learning, so we often have instructors present specialized lectures in our common room on the weekends. In addition to all of that, we gain access to a network of prominent magicians who have been a part of Meridian House in their time here, which allows for significant career opportunities that thenormalstudents wouldn’t receive.”
Her emphasis on the wordnormaldoesn’t go unnoticed, but I can’t care enough to be offended. If I can even manage to be average in a place like this, I’ll be happy, becausenormalhere is miles greater than anything I’d previously envisioned for my life.
