New Student

Rowen sat in the car and looked up at the Academy. She kept rubbing her hands on her pants, her heart racing. She had hoped that the first day of school nerves would be avoided after everything.

"You'd think, after the shit I've been through that this wouldn't phase me."

"The unknown is still the unknown no matter how many horrible things you've seen."

Austin spoke up from beside her. He stepped out of the car and came around to open her door. Brooke had wanted to come but she had been working the graveyard shift and would get off work half an hour after class started. Instead, Brooke would pick her up from school.

I can rip a man's arm off with little effort, going to a new school is nothing. Rowen told herself as she grabbed the backpack sitting next to her legs on the floor and climbed out. She looked up at the Academy again and let out a sigh.

Austin had parked along the road a short distance from the entrance to Gailuri. Austin did not want anyone to make any connections between him and the headmaster and use that to cause Rowen trouble. He knew that she would have enough as it was.

"All right, I'm off."

Rowen looked back and gave him a smile and a wave before she started to walk away.

"Good luck."

He called out to her and she waved back in response, her attention now fully on the school she was approaching. The tower seemed more intimidating than it had when she came to meet with the headmaster.

"Gods, I don't like how nervous I am."

~Just think the worst that happens is someone makes you mad and you tear them to pieces.~

Rowen chuckled. When she came up to the doors of Gailuri Magic Academy the headmaster was standing at the doors that had been propped open and were personally greeting everyone that came in.

"Good morning, Rowen."

"Morning, sir."

"Here is your class schedule and times each class starts. Your regular classes are on the seventh floor, while your specialized class for summoning is on the eighth floor."

Kelos handed her a paper with the names of six teachers, five of which taught regular classes. She thanked him for the schedule and proceeded to the elevator. When she looked over the schedule she found that classes were separated into days rather than trying to fit all classes in one day.

The first day of school started with history for the first half, then specialized class for the latter half. The second day had language arts and science. The third day was P.E. and specialized class. The fourth day was completely devoted to math.

The fifth day was for elective classes, of which Rowen had chosen to take herbology. For the second half of the day, it was open for tutoring and studying. It was the perfect time to work on class projects.

All that gave them one day free to do whatever they wanted. Rowen did not mind that since her one free day would be spent working with Gabriel. All of her free time would be spent with Gabriel learning how to use her powers and to figure out how they were going to exist together for the rest of her life, or theirs depending on how things go.

Rowen made her way to the seventh floor and went on the hunt for room 704. She was one of the last to make it to the classroom, which made it easier to find her seat. Something she had discovered during her break was that Gailuri kept class groups together.

So, the classmates that you were assigned on the first day as a freshman were the same classmates you graduated with in your senior year. This fact did not help her nerves, knowing that every one of her classmates had a year to get to know each other. She was an interloper being thrown into the mix and only luck would keep her from being completely ostracized.

Rowen's seat was third back and second to the right. To her right sat a girl with long blond hair and light blue eyes that gave her a smile and a small wave when she sat down. To her left was a girl with shoulder-length blue hair with silver streaks and pale green eyes, her skin had the slightest green tint to it marking her as having a strong fairy bloodline.

She could not see much of the boy that sat in front of her, though she was certain he was of orc bloodline. He was the tallest in the class, by a good couple of inches, his hair was short and black and his skin tone was the same burnt cocoa shade that Austin was. There was one other in the class that had black hair, one redhead, and a mix of blond and brown hair. The eye-catching ones were the purple and pink hair mixed in the group.

Not long after everyone was seated a man with black hair and a suit walked in. She could not tell for certain, but she was pretty sure he had brown hair. His skin was the shade of tan that you get from spending a lot of time outside. Their teacher either enjoyed the outdoors or sought artificial means of darkening his skin tone.

"Greetings, class. I am Mr. Muir and I will be your Sophomore history teacher. Most of you were together last year. This year you have a new classmate. Ms. Nieves, would you please stand."

Rowen took a deep breath and stood. She smiled as everyone turned to look at her and hoped that it was a friendly smile. Awkward was still preferable to creepy.

"Thank you, you may sit back down."

Mr. Muir turned to the whiteboard on the wall and wrote his name to the side. He then proceeded to fill up the board with highlights of what they had learned the previous year.

"For the remainder of today's class, we will review what you learned last year and start on chapter one of your sophomore year history book."

Rowen tried hard to appear as if she were paying attention. She had gone over the textbook they used for freshman classes and had been watching a lot of history documentaries with Gabriel. She felt like she could teach this class after all that.

She was excited when twelve o'clock came around and class ended. Their next stop was the cafeteria and lunch. Rowen needed a break to refresh her brain before moving to the next class. When she stood up her classmate to the right turned to her and offered a hand.

"Hey, I'm Nazeri Collins."

Rowen smiled, "Rowen Nieves."

"I was surprised to find out we had a new student, I didn't see you in the dorms yesterday."

Nazeri followed behind Rowen as they moved through the chairs and left the classroom, then she walked beside Rowen down the hall.

"I'm not staying at the dorms. I know it's not normal, and I'm not supposed to say why it's like that."

"That's cool. If I could skip it I would. I'm sharing a room with Rosina Walker and it's not comfortable at all. She's big into nature so half the room looks like a forest with vines on the walls and plants everywhere."

They took the elevator to the fourth floor and got in line for food. Rowen looked around and was surprised at the number of kids. She knew that each grade had about five classes and each class had a maximum of sixteen kids. There were other magic academies, but Gailuri was the best.

"I could see where that would be annoying. Is there anyone in class I should watch out for?"

Nazeri glanced around before she replied, "Zidon Sarkis. His family is the oldest dragon bloodline and he makes certain you know this. Lysander De Clare and my cousin, Saraiva Dias are his closest friends. The three of them have made a point of picking on everyone else in the class that isn't from an important family."

Nazeri looked away and stared at her tray in silence as they walked down the line and got their food. The headmaster had given special instructions for Rowen so she waited until she was at the end of the line and gave them her name. A moment later they brought out a tray with her lunch on it.

Rowen felt like her day had hit its peak when she saw what was on the tray. The food at Gailuri was already ten times better than public school, but what they gave her was a burger that was barely browned on the outside. There was no bread, no vegetables on it. To the side were two chocolate pudding cups.

"That doesn't look like it was properly cooked."

Nazeri eyed Rowen's tray with a worried look as they walked over to an empty table and sat down. Rowen simply grinned and cut into the burger. It bled when cut into and Rowen quickly took a bite. Nazeri's pale skin took on a green shade when she saw the state of the burger and the fact that Rowen did not hesitate to eat it.

"Oh, gods, how can you eat that?"

"It's good. I couldn't eat what you're eating. How can you even be full after eating it?"

Rowen pointed at the salad, topped with cooked chicken and shredded cheese. Nazeri had only chosen a salad to eat.

"It's good for me."

Rowen shook her head then turned her attention to her lunch. When she was done eating she pushed the tray forward with a sigh. Nazeri was almost done with her salad.

"So, does this Sarkis character mess with you?"

Nazeri looked up suddenly, fork in the air and mouth partially open.

"What makes you think that?"

"The way you reacted when you said that he didn't pick on the important families. This is me assuming that you're part of that since your cousin is friends with him, but that the rule doesn't apply to you."

Nazeri set her fork down and stared at the tray. "My magic isn't any better than your average human off the streets. Because of my bloodline, I should be a lot stronger than I am, which makes me a failure as a mage."

She sighed and looked up at Rowen, "I've actually thought about being a Summoner instead. I've got until halfway through the year to change before I'm stuck as a mage."