Chapter Thirteen
First Class

 

“Wait, really?” Jenna put the cat down. “I was trying to make a joke. Like how people name their cats, you know? Did I do it wrong?”

“Um,” Emily said, “no, it’s fine, really.” It did make a certain amount of sense. Jenna would only ever know him as a girl cat, and this way, the relationship between the two of them would be all that much stronger, right? When he was around her, he’d be Emily, and he’d be Jonathan everywhere else. “Yeah,” he said. Would he really be a ‘he’ if he was Emily? He wasn’t sure how pronouns worked. Instinctually, sure, but what if you had a girl name? Maybe Emily could ask Charlie, she seemed knowledgeable about things. “You can call me Emily. It’s a good name!”

“Ooh,” Jenna said excitedly, bouncing in place slightly, “very mysterious. Come on, let’s go sit down!” She got up and ran over to where she’d been sitting. Emily followed her diligently, trying to play the part of Familiar as best he could. When she sat down, she quickly lifted Emily up under his arms again, and put him on her lap so he could just barely see above the table. 

Most of the kids who had been paired up had shuffled off to their respective tables, every Familiar now with their respective Warlock. There was one exception, a younger boy who looked disappointed but not terribly upset. The headmasters stood up one more time. 

“Now, before we shuffle you all off to your respective classes for the start of this trimester,” Lord Mangrove said, “I want to once again welcome our newest additions to the Waxing Weather School for the Exceptional. Every one of you who has just paired up will join Miss Falls for initiation. Yes, that includes those of you who have gone through initiation before. No ifs, ands or buts.” The slightly new-age looking teacher lady stood up with a smile and started to move to the door. 

Lady Lalonde continued. “Everyone else, we expect you to do your utmost. All of you are here because you have a unique ability, and with that ability comes responsibility.” She paused as she took a solemn look around the room. “Which is why study sessions will still be organized by the oldest among you. It’s also why the oldest among you will not be responsible for music anymore, Mister Mackie.” A ripple of chuckles went over the kids, and several heads turned to the boy who had paired up with Dennis. The addressee, Mackie, seemed to do his best to pretend like he wasn’t proud for being called out like this. 

“I just figured industrial would help make us be a bit more industrious, Miss.”

“Ms,” Lady Lalonde corrected him with a barely-noticeable smirk, “and no, you bloody well didn’t, mister Mackie. Agoraphobic Nosebleed, really, I mean really. You couldn’t get something from this century?” The boy made a mock show of being offended. “We’ll just let the new class take care of it, shall we?” She turned to the various new faces in the room. “Consider that to be your homework from me. By the end of the week, everyone who joined us this year has to supply us with their favourite artists. Don’t worry, it’ll be anonymous. You’d be surprised how many people share your musical tastes. Now! Hop on! Everyone to class!” She waved everyone away dramatically, and then, very briefly, Emily thought he saw Lord Mangrove look him right in the eye before turning to talk to Lady Lalonde.

“Come on,” Jenna said, “initiation is pretty neat!” She stood up, and Emily felt himself tumble to the floor. Panicked, his entire body twisted, the ground approached rapidly and… he was on all fours. He looked around to see what had happened, and then to see if anyone had seen him panic about it. Of course the cat-reflexes would have had him land on his feet. That was, like, the thing about cats. “Oh!” Jenna immediately knelt down next to him. “I’m so sorry, Emily! It’s hard to remember you’re not a real kitty, you’re just so small and cute!” 

“It’s okay,” Emily said, trying to give a smile, and realizing that facial expressions were a bit more difficult without traditionally human facial features, so instead, he decided to give Jenna a nudge with his forehead the way he’d seen cats do. She gave him a few pats on the head before the two of them followed the others outside towards initiation. Jenna seemed to know the way, so he was happy to follow. 

On the way there, he also saw Dennis, being held by the Mackie boy, two paws on his shoulders. Simon, meanwhile, hung half out of his own Wizard’s hoodie pocket, still chittering about something. The two of them seemed to have immediately hit it off, and Emily felt slightly… envious of the attention the other boy was getting? That was weird. He wasn’t used to feeling possessive. To distract himself, he looked at the other new kids. There was a snake, an owl and another cat. 

While Emily had found expressions a bit difficult, the other cat, which was large, very hairy, and beige, had somehow managed to conjure up a perfect sneer. Cats were clearly better at haughty and judgemental, Emily realized, but he wasn’t feeling like being either of those things. He had to make sure Dennis felt safe, for example, and now there was Jenna to take care of too. 

They were led into a small classroom by the flowery teacher. It was… well, it was exactly how Emily remembered classrooms being like. There were chairs, desks, and a large blackboard. There were flowers everywhere, slightly wilted, which made sense, given the time of year. But when Miss Falls stood in front of the classroom, they suddenly all bloomed dramatically, in colours from across the spectrum. Simon fell out of the taller boy’s pocket and made a sort of ‘beep’ sound, before jumping up in startled surprise, still staring at the clashing hues all around them. 

“Welcome, all of you,” the teacher said. “My name is Melody Falls. You can call me Miss Falls, or just Melody.” She sat down and gestured to everyone that they could do the same. There were a variety of seats, some with branches for the birds to perch on, and others with little wicker baskets. Emily hopped up to sit on one of his own, and immediately felt his tail curl around his front paws. It was just more comfortable that way. “Now, I’m sure those of you who are new have plenty of questions…”

“You think those flowers actually impress the new ones, Ned?” Emily heard someone behind him whisper. When he looked, he saw it was the big poofy cat, talking to a red-haired boy the next seat over. “As if. I wish we had Vigours already.”

“I think it’s pretty,” Emily hissed back. The idea that someone could look at this many flowers, smell this many smells, see this many colours, and immediately dismiss it, was absurd. “So yes, I’m impressed.”

The cat turned towards him and gave him that look of extreme dismissal cats seemed to have been created to give since the dawn of time. “Of course you would be,” the cat said, and then turned to the other boy again. “I swear, I don’t know why they bother bringing little girls here.”

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Emily was about to spit a rebuttal when he heard Miss Falls clear her throat. It was a very polite but very calculated cough, the kind you could measure in inches. It was, in fact, two inches away. He spun around and almost bumped into the teacher’s flowery skirt, overcorrected, and fell off the table. 

Or he would have, if Jenna hadn’t caught him at the last second. 

“Do try to pay attention on your first day. What’s your name?” Miss Falls asked. She didn’t sound upset, but there was a hint of disappointment in her voice, which was, of course, so much worse. 

“Her name is Emily!” Jenna said. Emily blinked a few times. It was weird how quickly he was getting used to being called that. He’d always hated nicknames. So much that Charlie had apparently noted it in his file. But Emily didn’t… didn’t feel so bad. It was nice. It had a cozy, cat-like quality to it. 

“Y—Yeah,” Emily said. “Hello.”

“Well, Emily,” Miss Falls said, “since you’re so polite, I’m going to let you off with a warning, okay? But what I have to tell you is very important, so you and everyone here are going to have to pay attention. She turned to the others, although Simon was looking intently at Emily, his tiny ferret head cocked to one side. Emily realized he was going to have to answer some questions about that whole “Emily” thing soon. 

“Yes, Miss,” he said. “Sorry, Miss.”

“All is forgiven.” The teacher moved back to the front of the room, and behind her, a piece of chalk started to write and draw on the blackboard. A few concentric circles here, some figures there. All to illustrate a single point, which appeared in big letters at the top of the board. “The Heart of Primaris,” Miss Falls said. “You’ve probably already heard of it before you came here.” She looked at everyone, one at a time. She had a way of looking at Emily that made him feel looked at, which was different from having someone look in his direction. Melody Falls paid attention to people. “Who can tell me what it is?”

“Oh my goddd, get to the good bit already,” Emily heard from behind him. He turned around to give another snide remark, when he heard his name. 

“Emily, since you can afford to look away, do you want to have a go?” Miss Falls asked, and he spun around again to look at her. The big advantage of being a cat, he had realized, is that it was impossible for people to see him blush. The downside was that they could see the tip of his tail twitch when he was flustered, and he did his best to keep it down. 

“Um,” he said, “it’s what gives us all magic, isn’t it?”

“Exactly,” Miss Falls said. The chalk behind her drew an arrow at the middlemost of the two circles. “The Heart of Primaris was created almost fifteen hundred years ago, by a man we know only as Primaris, the first mage, bringing magic into the world. Having given his own heart, it is said that he ascended, and there are many who believe he still looks down at all of us, directing magic to those he believes can help the world the most.”

“Here it comes,” the boy named Mackie whispered to Dennis. He looked almost worried. “This is the big part.”

“Help what, you might think,” the teacher said. “After all, before you came here, you never heard of magic users, did you? You didn’t even really know magic existed.” Miss Melody’s face was a mask. It was impossible to read her. “I hear one of you has already had an encounter. You see, when Primaris sacrificed himself to create magic, he didn’t do it for nothing. He did so because the world needed protection. From spirits.”

In a flash, Emily remembered the giant creature that had attacked him in the alleyway. How Charlie had barely been able to stand up to it. How even a man that looked as in-control as Vigours had been swatted around like a ball. But most of all, Emily remembered it had almost eaten him. He mewled softly, and Jenna scratched the back of his head, clearly sensing his distress. 

“In the centuries since his sacrifice, spirits have been sighted more and more often. Which is why you will be trained in the magic arts. To defend yourselves. And then each other. And then the world.” Miss Falls finally smiled, her very expression an apology. “I’m sorry,” she said. “It will be scary. It’ll be hard. But us adults are very weak compared to all of you. We need your help to save the world.”

Simon fell off his perch.