Chapter Text
“So, do you like it?”
Melinda’s voice broke Helia out of her stupor, but she still couldn’t manage more than a nod. She couldn’t stop smiling.
“I know it’s a bit overwhelming at first.” Melinda pointed up at the gargantuan tree. “That’s Bartleby, there.”
Helia laughed. “The tree has a name?”
“Of course he does!” Liz exclaimed. “He’s a magic tree, and not just any magic tree. He’s the center of all the magic in The Spiral!”
“And that’s where we are? The Spiral?”
“Ravenwood, and by extension all of Wizard City, are in the center of The Spiral. The Spiral itself has many worlds; this is just one of them.” Liz pointed to herself. “Like me? I’m not from Wizard City. I’m from a place called ‘Valencia.’ It’s another one of the worlds in The Spiral.”
Helia nodded. This was all new information to her, which seemed a bit strange. Maybe because, as Ambrose had said, she was from a world without magic, she was not from The Spiral. That could be why she didn’t remember anything about it. A small part of her felt slightly longing for a place she didn’t remember, but looking at this beautiful place, it was hard to feel upset about being here.
“Miss Sky-Heart! Miss Fire-Spitter!”
The three girls turned to see a crane, wobbling frantically towards them on shaky legs. The voice that had called for Helia’s roommates was naselly, probably due to this crane’s long, thin beak.
“Oh thank the gods, you have Miss Willow-Grove with you!” he remarked.
“What’s wrong, Mr. Lincoln?” Melinda asked sweetly.
The crane, Mr. Lincoln, reached them quickly with his long shaky strides. “I’ve been looking everywhere for Miss Willow-Grove on behalf of her mentor, who was supposed to be the one to show her the campus!” He gestured to the area around them. “But I see you’ve beat him to it.”
Liz frowned. “We were just trying to help! She was confused and wanted to see the school.”
“I have a mentor?” Helia asked, stepping forward a bit.
Mr. Lincoln nodded. “Yes, he’d gone to your townhouse to meet you there and-”
“-and now I’m here.”
The girls looked behind Mr. Lincoln to see another student dressed in brown. He had tawny skin and dark eyes, but appeared to be slightly older than Helia herself, maybe by a year or two. His hair was long and braided over his right shoulder. He was also dressed in brown, the same shade she’d opted to wear that morning. While this boy’s clothes were more masculine in style and still a different style from hers, she remembered seeing a similar, more feminine outfit to the one he wore in her own wardrobe. She understood then: the robes she had on were a uniform! Students with the same or similar color uniforms were in the same school. So this boy, he was in the Balance School.
He smiled amiably at Mr. Lincoln. “Thank you, sir, for looking for her.”
“Of course, now if you’ll excuse me.” He turned briefly to Liz and Melinda. “Let Mr. Star-Strider perform his mentoring duties, please.”
The registrar strolled off, down the path, leaving the two other girls sulking.
“Sorry,” Liz said with an embarrassed chuckle. “We didn’t know she had a mentor.”
“No harm done, really,” he assured her. “You’re good friends for wanting to help her settle in.” He turned to Helia, and extended a hand. “Khalid Star-Strider. Welcome to Ravenwood.”
Helia shook his hand. “Thank you, Khalid. I’m Helia Willow-Grove.”
Khalid nodded. “Great to meet you.”
Melinda interlocked her arm with Liz’s. “Well, Mr. Star-Strider, we’ll take Mr. Lincoln’s advice and let you do your mentoring.” She turned to Helia. “We’ll have dinner together at home tonight, okay? Then you can meet our other roommate, Penny.”
“Sounds good, I’ll be there.”
Melinda and Liz said quick goodbyes before going back through the tunnel to the townhouse.
“You got lucky with them,” Khalid told her.
“I feel like I did.” She folded her hands together in front of her. “So… where do we start?”
“What do you know already?”
Helia gestured to the tree. “That’s Bartleby, the center of the universe and the origin of magic.”
Khalid seemed to expect her to continue, but she didn’t, so after a few beats, he just said, “Okay, so still a lot of mentoring to do.”
“Luckily for you, I’m curious.”
“Do you have any questions then, Miss Curious?” he asked with a raised brow.
“I know that I’m in the Balance School. By your robes, I’m assuming you are too.”
“Yes, Sorcerers - people who study and practice Balance Magic - at this school wear browns, beiges, and creams. Sometimes gray too. Our magic is… a gray area: a combination of all other types of magic. Or a ‘balance’ you could say. I think that you’ll find that most master wizards are experts in their field of magic. For us, it’s not about being an expert. It’s about being multi-faceted and flexible.”
“A jack-of-all-trades,” Helia supplied, not sure where that phrase came from, but knowing exactly what it meant.
“Exactly,” Khalid agreed. “We’re good at a lot of things in order to find our own way of solving problems. Able to see all sides. Empathetic.”
“I take it that magic must have a lot to do with your personality?”
Khalid shrugged. “More like certain types of people gravitate more to certain kinds of magic based on how they act, what they like, and what they believe. And then there are certain people or creatures who actually have magic in their blood. They know it on instinct or are born with the ability to use it. People like us have to learn it.”
“So you and I are Sorcerers,” Helia summarized. “Melinda, the girl you met in blue, is from the Ice School and Liz, in red, is from the Fire School.”
“Thaumaturge and Pyromancer, respectively, yes.”
“So what other schools are there?”
“There’s seven in all. Three elemental schools, three spiritual schools, and Balance is in its own category by itself. Fire, Ice, and Storm are the elemental magics. They’re the base elements that make up The Spiral, essentially. Then you have Death, Myth, and Life, which are the spiritual schools. That magic comes from all the living things within The Spiral. Death is the magic of the body, Myth is of the mind, and Life is of the soul.”
“And Balance… balances all that out?”
Khalid nodded. “See, you’re getting it. It’s also the newest form of magic ever discovered. There are other variations of magic in different worlds, but all of the known ones can pretty much be traced back to one of those seven schools.” He pointed to the right and left of Bartelby. “If we follow the path, each school has its own building. Well, except for ours.”
Khalid pointed over at the group of students Helia saw earlier, learning from the canine gentleman.
“That’s Professor Wethersfield. He’s from a world called Marleybone, but he studied Balance Magic in its origin world, Krokotopia, for years before coming here.”
Helia frowned. “Why don’t we get a building?”
“We don’t have a tree here.”
Helia furrowed her brow, confused. Khalid gestured for her to follow him, and they walked along the path to see the other school buildings. The first three stone buildings bore colored accents of purple, blue, and then red with lightning, snowflakes, and flames. Storm, Ice, and Fire, Helia realized. Beside each building on its left side was a tree. Each tree, much like Bartleby, had a face, though theirs seemed younger. The Storm Tree seemed distraught, as it was being perpetually rained on and living in a pond. Or maybe that was because it was a “weeping willow.” Helia wasn’t sure. The Ice Tree had frozen the ground and part of the pond that had wrapped around the back side of the Storm School. It was a coniferous tree with a long nose and smiling face. The Fire Tree was less of a tree and more of a stump with charred branches that were on fire. That tree, too, was smiling brightly.
“Trees,” Khalid said simply. “They’re Bartleby’s saplings.”
“And he didn’t grow a Balance Tree?”
“He did, but not here. He grew it at The Balance School, in Krokotopia.”
Helia laughed. “But that’s a whole other world, right?”
Khalid nodded. “Seeds can blow through the wind and sky. That seed just blew a very long way. Besides, that’s where the study originated. It makes sense that the tree would be there. So instead, we have an… adjunct professor, for lack of a better term. Much of our study requires travel, especially to Krokotopia, which is fun. Other schools don’t often get that opportunity.”
The idea of exploring or going on an adventure was appealing to Helia, definitely. Her heart fluttered with excitement, but then dropped again as she realized the path before them abruptly ended in darkness and fog. Before them, on their path forward, was a huge chasm. There was nothing to be seen below or around: not land or water. Just open air.
“Right, and then there’s that,” Khalid said with a sigh. “That’s where the Death School used to be.”
Memories flooded back to Helia of the night before, of that “former professor” dressed all in black. Black certainly seemed like it would be a fitting color for a “death school.” Chills ran up her spine.
“What happened to it?” she dared to ask.
Khalid sighed again. “At the end of last year, the professor, Malistaire Drake, used magic to tear it from the ground and he… threw it in the chasm.”
Helia’s stomach dropped. That man was that powerful? So powerful as to throw a whole building into a hole that he ripped into the ground?
“Why?”
“No one’s really sure, and no one really talks about it. Some people think it had something to do with his wife.”
“His wife?”
Khalid nodded. “Sylvia Drake. She was the Life School professor. She passed away not long before he did this. The whole Drake family used to teach here: Sylvia was Life, Malistaire was Death, and Malistaire’s brother, Cyrus, is the only one left. He teaches at the Myth School and is a… notoriously strict teacher.”
“Was anyone hurt when Malistaire did that? Were any students in the building?”
“His teaching assistant was the only casualty. He got all the students out as Malistaire was ripping the building up, but didn’t have time to get out himself.”
“That’s awful,” Helia whispered. “So there’s no school, no assistant-”
“-and they haven’t replaced him. They managed to replace Sylvia because she was sick for several months before she died.”
“So who’s teaching the Death Wizards?”
“There’s an upperclassman, Malorn Ash-Thorn. He’s close to graduating, and he stepped up to teach the Death School classes as best as he could until another professor could be hired. Hopefully, we’ll have one by next year.” He gestured around Bartleby’s trunk. “We can go around that way, there’s enough room, or we can go back.”
“I think I’d prefer to go back.”
They retraced their steps and then ventured to the other side of Bartleby’s great trunk where there were only two buildings remaining. One stone building bore green accents and living vines growing around it, and the other had an accent that looked like some kind of gold serpent or dragon in a deep blue sky or ocean. The tree by the green building had beautiful pink sparkling leaves and smiled sweetly at Helia and Khalid as they passed. The other tree had a very wide trunk and one single eye. It also had golden lights that swirled and bobbed around its branches. Helia wasn’t sure if they were bugs or just magic, dancing lights.
“Here are the Life and Myth Schools,” Khalid said with a shrug. “Still thankfully intact.”
“That’s good.” Helia shook her head. “I still can’t believe someone would do that to this place.”
“Neither could anyone else. That was the end of my very first year here, when Malistaire did that.” Khalid shivered. “Ravenwood has a reputation, and that moment really hit the school and its students hard. Hopefully now most of that is behind us.”
Helia nodded solemnly.
Khalid stepped in front of her to change their topic of discussion. “I’ve been told that you’re not from around here, and that you might have questions. We can discuss all of the details about The Spiral that you might not know just to give you some remedial knowledge when I show you the library. Do you have any questions now?”
Helia’s curiosity was getting the better of her the more time that she spent walking around this school for magic, so she dared to ask, “When do I actually learn to cast spells?”
Khalid laughed. “Eager?”
“Can you blame me?”
He shook his head. “Not at all.”
The doors to the school buildings in front of them opened, and students in shades of green and yellow exited. It seemed as though their classes were over.
“Why don’t we ask our professor?” Khalid suggested, gesturing for her to follow him back to the entrance.
The Balance wizards were vacating their spots on the lawn, and the professor was erasing his chalkboard when they approached him.
“Professor Wethersfield?” Khalid said, prompting the man to turn around.
“Ah, Mr. Star-Strider. A pleasure.” His brown eyes turned to Helia and he looked at her, slightly befuddled. “Um… I’m sorry, dear, I thought I had all of my students’ names memorized, but I seem to have forgotten one.”
“No, no, sir,” Khalid corrected him. “She’s new. She arrived yesterday.”
Wethersfield’s eyes lit up. “Oh! Oh my, well, welcome then! Welcome indeed!”
He extended a hand to greet Helia, and she took it heartily. Despite the fact that Wethersfield was a dog (literally), he did have hands, albeit fuzzy ones. He also had a very distinct accent, more so than anyone else she’d heard. It was polished and proper.
“Helia Willow-Grove, it’s nice to meet you.”
“Yes, indeed! Arthur Wethersfield, at your service. I’ll be your professor in Sorcery for your studies here in Ravenwood.”
“Great.”
Khalid added, “Helia had a question for you.”
The professor looked at her expectantly, and she suddenly felt a little sheepish about asking her question. However, the professor looked excited and encouraging, so she managed, “I was just wondering about when I get to learn my first spell.”
Wethersfield nodded sagely. “Ahh, I see. A fair question for a new student at a magic school.” He sighed. “Well, we are already a month into this new semester. The first years will have already learned their first card spell and been given their wands. You’ll have a bit of catching up to do, but that’s alright. Mr. Star-Strider and I are here to help with that.”
Helia glanced up at Khalid, who nodded at her in response.
“Why don’t I give you as much of a head start as I can?” the professor offered. “But it may involve some homework!”
Helia shrugged. “I guess that’s to be expected.”
Wethersfield walked over to a stack of trunks that he kept close to the chalkboard. Then, he opened a small trunk on the very top of the stack and withdrew a case. He walked back to the two students again.
“Have you ever seen anyone cast a spell before, Miss Willow-Grove?”
She thought back to the headmaster last night, and his decision to throw a card out to protect her. “I have, yes.”
“So you’ve seen one of these.”
He opened the case to reveal a deck of cards. Each card was big enough to fit in Helia’s whole hand and had a black, starry motif on it with a gold spiral spinning out from the center.
“These are spell cards. Wizards use spell cards to cast their spells. I’m going to give you one of these with a spell on it.” Wethersfield turned to Khalid. “Mr. Star-Strider, I’d love to see if you can teach Miss Willow-Grove the basics.”
Khalid chuckled. “I can definitely try, Professor.”
Wethersfield presented Helia with a single card, and she took it gingerly. At first, the card was cool to the touch, but then it suddenly warmed, and the space and spiral art faded for a moment, revealing the head of a brown scarab beetle.
“There you go,” Wethersfield said, delightedly. “Good luck. Once you can show me a successful cast of that card, I’ll grant you a wand.”
Helia nodded. “Okay, thank you, Professor.”
“Anytime. You and I have much to learn together, Miss Willow-Grove, and I look forward to it.”
The two students said goodbye to their professor and started their walk back to The Commons.
“He seems really nice,” Helia remarked.
“He is,” Khalid agreed.
“So, to the library now?”
“To start. But then we have another stop to make after that.”
“Where are we going?”
Khalid smirked. “To do your homework.”
