Chapter Twenty: Journaling

  I'm not sure how to start one of these. I've never actually written in a journal before. Never had the need to. I explained this to Lyra and she simply handed me a spare notebook of hers and told me to do it anyway.

  I think she's tired of me after this last week or so.

  Can't imagine why.

  I know a lot of people keep diary entries, but I've never been someone that does that. I guess when your life isn't interesting you don't feel a need to record it. "Dear Diary, today I went to class and came home. The end." Riveting stuff. Now that I've found myself in a fantasy world where I've committed armed robbery and been chased by knights, I should probably take notes. You know, for the inevitable trial.

  I'm writing this as Kaela hovers over my shoulder making little encouraging noises like I'm a toddler learning to use a spoon. She is closer than I expect; everyone is always closer than I expect. If I don't write something soon she's going to start narrating my life out loud. Again.

  "Fey takes a bite of her breakfast," she started this morning, like I'm another one of her stuffed animals. I might as well be, given that she's been tasked with keeping the runes on my supplies running since I still can't seem to activate them. I'm basically a very complicated doll that complains. Which, to be fair, is pretty on-brand for me.

  I borrowed one of Lyra's pencils for this. "Not stolen. BORROWED." I announced this very loudly because after our encounter with the squirrel Kaela kept talking about crimes like I'm some kind of career criminal.

  "Write it down for the invisible jury Fey," Lyra had said without looking up from her book.

  Kaela had cared immediately. She leaned in close enough that I could feel her breath on my hair and whispered like she was sharing state secrets. "Stealing pencils is a gateway crime."

  "It is not," I said.

  "It is," she insisted, voice grave. "First you steal pencils. Then you steal jewels. Then you steal..."

  "Jerky," I said automatically.

  Kaela gasped in delighted outrage. "Yes! See? You understand the criminal pipeline."

  Mira was leaning against the wall with her arms crossed, watching the whole exchange like she was witnessing a ritual she hadn't consented to. "She already stole jerky. From a squirrel."

  "It stole it first," I argued.

  "That's not how theft works."

  "It is in my heart," I said.

  Kaela nodded solemnly, like this was established legal doctrine. Like I'd just cited precedent.

  So here I am, sitting on Kaela's bed because Kaela decided I belong here and arguing with Kaela about seating arrangements is like arguing with gravity. You can try, but you're going to lose and look stupid doing it. She's still hovering, making tiny hums and soft gasps like she's reacting to the page even though she can't read English.

  I look up from the journal, watching Kaela scurry aside on her bed before trying to act like she wasn't watching. "You can't read English," I remind her.

  "I can read feelings," she says, deeply offended.

  "You can't read feelings off paper."

  "I can. Your letters look angry."

  "That's just my handwriting. My handwriting is terrible." My handwriting looks like a spider got drunk and confessed in my opinion. I haven't had the opportunity to practice writing in English often.

  Lyra murmurs from her desk, very dry, "Your personality is terrible."

  "Rude," I say, but there's no heat in it because it's objectively true and we all know it.

  I go back to writing.

  It's strange to write like this. Not because I don't know how, I do, technically, but because on Earth writing was never like this. Back home I used a braille stamp for quick notes. Little click-clicks, raised dots, neat and orderly. If I needed something longer, I used my computer with my braille keyboard and screen reader.

  Writing by hand feels weirdly primitive. Like I've been transported back to the 1800s except with more magic and fewer top hats.

  One thing that hasn't changed is the privacy of my writing. Sighted people don't often learn to read braille. I could trust my notes to be kept secret. Eve was the only sighted person I knew that took the time to learn. It was one of the many things that made her a great friend. She had bought a braille slate and used it to pass notes in class. Our calculus professor last semester would catch us and make Eve read the notes for the class, but since neither the professor nor the rest of the class knew braille she would make stuff up. "Do you think the professor knows his fly is down?" She had said once, to much applause as he uselessly checked his perfectly zipped pants. After a few times he learned to leave us be. Academic surrender tastes sweet.

  I'm off track. Which feels fitting. My brain is a series of tangents held together by spite.

  Okay. What I actually meant to write about. What happened after the knights left.

  After the knights finally left, after the footsteps thinned, after the voices faded, after the corridor went quiet, someone knocked on the door.

  Because of course they did.

  "Who is it?" Lyra had asked.

  "Open the door," came the reply. The headmaster. I'm getting better at recognizing voices. When faces aren't an option you learn to pick up on the details. His gruff tone and flat pitch make him easy to identify. Also the general aura of "I'm too old for this nonsense" that radiates off him.

  Kaela made a small strangled sound. Mira muttered, "Of course," like this was the natural next step in a bad joke. I whispered, "Tell him we're closed."

  Lyra shot me an angry look. It had weight. Lyra's disappointed looks have actual mass.

  Then she got up and opened the door, clearly reluctant to part with whatever book she was reading. I heard her hesitate, like she was genuinely deciding whether to ignore the headmaster and go back to reading. I respect that level of commitment to literature.

  The headmaster stood in the doorway. I could hear the rustle of his robe, perfectly arranged. His eyes moved over us, scanning the room, landing on me.

  "You're alive," he said, like he was pleasantly surprised.

  "That's a weird greeting," I replied before I could stop myself.

  Headmaster Aldric sighed the sigh of a man who has made peace with suffering. He rubbed his nose and pushed his glasses up. "When I found your room empty, I assumed you had done something short-sighted again." He took a step inside. "I have no idea how you managed to get through the lock I placed on your room... But... let's start from the beginning. What happened after you decided it was a good idea to leave the academy grounds?"

  The way he said "good idea" made it very clear he thought it was the opposite of a good idea.

  Kaela spoke first. "We were attacked by the Forest Scurrier!"

  Lyra and I both turned our heads toward Kaela at the exact same time. Kaela froze, tail flicking. "What? It's relevant."

  "A... Forest Scurrier," the headmaster repeated, and his tone was so neutral I couldn't tell if he thought she was joking or if he was trying to decide whether to call a healer.

  "It's a criminal," Kaela said, utterly sincere. "It stole our jerky. . . well. . . we got it back but it's still theft. The crime occurred."

  I expected the headmaster to shut that down. To snap at us. To lecture. To threaten. To do literally anything except what he did.

  Which was step further into the room with the energy of a man who has given up.

  "Sit," he said.

  We sat. Kaela perched on her bed like she was trying to take up as little space as possible while still radiating moral outrage about squirrel-based crime. Lyra sat at her desk, posture straight, expression carefully blank. I sat on the edge of the bed because it was closest, and because Kaela was aggressively looking at me with an expression that said, "If you sit anywhere else I'll be upset and it will ruin my entire week." I'm not sure whether I learned to read expressions, or I learned to read Kaela specifically. It's impossible to say. She's very loud in all possible ways.

  The headmaster stayed standing. Power move.

  "Again... Start from the beginning?" he asked, and his voice was almost gentle. Which was somehow more terrifying than if he'd yelled.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  So we did. We told him everything about town. About Finch's shop. About the squid thing. About the knights.

  I decided to leave out the part where I committed armed robbery. That felt like information that didn't need to be shared. Some things are private.

  Kaela described the Forest Scurrier again like she was delivering testimony in a court of law. "It's a repeat offender. It ambushed us, demanded payment, and fled the scene. The Academy should send a patrol to apprehend it."

  She's going to get that squirrel arrested. I'm weirdly proud.

  We told him about the doors. About the corridor.

  We did not tell him about Willow or the fact that I opened the doors. Lyra and I came to the same unspoken understanding, telling the headmaster I can open magical locks was a direct path to him using physical locks if he decides to lock us up again. Which, given the concern and horror on his face as we finished speaking, was probably a good idea. I could see him mentally calculating how many chains it would take.

  Kaela almost said something. I heard it in the way her breath caught, the way she shifted like she was about to blurt out the missing piece. Lyra stared at her until she understood. Lyra's stare is a weapon of mass destruction.

  When we finished, he was quiet for a moment. Then the headmaster looked at me. "You're seeing mana?"

  "Yes," I said, motioning to my eyes. "Only sometimes. I've learned to control it."

  Then he asked to see my eyes.

  "It may help us understand what we're dealing with," he said calmly.

  What we're dealing with. Like I'm a problem to be solved. Which, fair.

  He stepped closer, notebook in hand, and studied my eyes. "Hold still."

  I shifted into mana vision. The room transformed into the increasingly familiar multicolored blizzard of reds and browns and other colors that I've come to associate with the academy. Normal sight still feels new, like I’m wearing someone else’s eyes. Mana sight is worse, it’s like the world decided to show me the wiring. I could see various runes throughout the room pulling in types of mana. Brown mana was being drawn towards something inside Lyra's bag, and I could see a various assortment of colors diving into the folds of the Headmaster's robes.

  His robes are a mana buffet. It's actually kind of impressive.

  "I'm doing my best," I muttered.

  The headmaster sketched quickly. I felt ridiculous, sitting there like a portrait subject while my insides vibrated with anxiety. When he finished, he stepped back and stared at what he'd drawn. I couldn't read his expression, but it had changed from what it was before.

  "This will take time to interpret," he said, closing the notebook with deliberate care. "For now, you will remain under observation."

  "Meaning what?" Kaela asked.

  "Meaning you will attend classes and not leave the grounds again."

  Lyra asked about the knights, her voice polite but edged with something sharper. The headmaster said they'd left.

  So. House arrest. Great. Love that for me.

  After he was gone, the room settled into that particular kind of quiet that makes everything feel heavier. No one spoke. Kaela fidgeted with her tail. Lyra went back to her book like nothing had happened, but I could hear the tension in the way she turned the pages. Angry page-turning is a specific sound.

  That was the end of that night.

  I don't know how much time has passed since then. Days? A week? Time here doesn't work the way it does on Earth.

  The next morning we met up with Mira in the nurse's office and explained what happened. Nurse Runa was nearby, but she seemed more interested in the romance novel she was trying to secretly read. She was hiding it behind a much larger book. I only knew it was a romance novel because I noticed the cover peeking out when she shifted her legs, a bright pink heart.

  The subterfuge was not subtle.

  At least she had the right idea. Escape into something that doesn't require understanding the rules. Just vibes and questionable relationship dynamics.

  Days blurred together after that. Or maybe they didn't, and I just stopped counting them. The Academy's rhythm swallowed time whole, made it impossible to tell if a week had passed or a month.

  I started noticing night. Not Earth night. Not the kind with stars that makes you feel small in a good way. Here night feels like the Academy becoming quieter for a few bells. The world just dims and turns foggy, as if someone turned down the brightness settings on reality. Thankfully the various lanterns around the academy grounds make it easier, otherwise I feel like I would have gone blind again.

  Which would be ironic in the worst possible way.

  Lyra explained this as there being a lack of ignis, similar to a blackout. The only difference is that this regularly happens every so many bells. I've come to call this time 'night' for my own sanity, even though it's not really night. It's more like the world taking a nap.

  Sometimes it's peaceful. Sometimes it's just annoying. Sleep schedules here are according to bells, so often I find myself pressing a pillow over my eyes trying to block out the brightness flooding in from the window. Sleeping here is like trying to sleep in a room where someone keeps turning the lights on and off at random intervals.

  I'm so tired.

  Food here is still weird. I've tried so many strange things I can't even remember the names of. I've luckily avoided the more horrifying options, like one dish that looked like a purple rat, skinned and pinned in place on a tray like a live dissection for a biology class on Earth. I recoiled as Mira reached for a tray at the time, and it took every ounce of my willpower not to throw up.

  Mira ate it like it was a snack and I was the weird one for having morals. Didn't even blink. Just picked it up and bit into it like it was a normal thing to do.

  I'm still not over it.

  Kaela decides this is the perfect time to be loud. She plops down beside me on the bed like she's staking a claim and announces, "Fey sits here," as if anyone had been contesting the concept. Kaela is so close I can see the tiny hairs on her arm lift when she breathes. That is not information I asked for. She's clearly bored with both Lyra and I buried in books. I reach over towards her and pat her on the head. She makes a soft noise that I've come to recognize as Kaela's happy sound and seems satisfied.

  It's like having a very enthusiastic pet. Except the pet can talk and has opinions about crime.

  I continue to write.

  In between classes and meals that insist on happening whether I'm emotionally ready or not, I've grown closer to Lyra, Kaela, and Mira. In small ways. Not in a dramatic blood-oath-under-moonlight way. In the quiet ways that actually matter.

  The way Kaela starts saving me the sweeter pieces of fruit even when she pretends it's accidental. The way Lyra gently corrects me in class without making me feel like an idiot. The way Mira spars with me without hitting me too hard. Well. Without hitting me as hard as she could. She still hits pretty hard.

  And maybe the biggest sign: they start treating me like I belong. Not like a guest. Not like a problem. Like I'm part of the shape of their lives now.

  It scares me.

  Because belonging here feels like betrayal. Because every time I laugh with them, some part of me whispers that I'm forgetting about Eve. She sits in the back of my mind like a sore tooth I can't stop poking at. I think about her constantly, at meals, in class, in practice rooms. I imagine her furious, rolling her eyes at me for going to a magical academy without her.

  She'd love it here. She'd hate that I'm here without her. Both things can be true.

  Lyra started teaching me to read their language. She does it with the patience of someone who's decided this is necessary suffering and will endure it with dignity. She brings me written out large characters and simple words and lays them out like she's teaching me how to be a person.

  It works. Slowly, painfully, I start recognizing symbols. Not reading fluently. Not even close. But I can pick out a few letters on a sign. I can recognize the word for library now, which feels like the universe mocking me.

  Which, to be fair, she kind of is. I'm functionally illiterate here. It's humbling in the worst way.

  "Congratulations," the universe says. "You can read the one word that doesn't help you at all."

  I haven't forgotten about trying to get home.

  Portal practice has become my obsession. I can't stop thinking about it. Once I realized the portal opening was tied to mana my brain just latched on and won't let go. It's like when you learn a new word and suddenly you hear it everywhere, except the word is "interdimensional travel" and the stakes are slightly higher.

  Lyra keeps telling me mana doesn't work like that. The headmaster says the same thing. They say mana is not something you store like a battery.

  But I think they're wrong. Or at least, I think my body works differently. Which is becoming a theme. If mana isn’t a battery, explain why my ribs feel like they’re negotiating with my lungs.

  We've been experimenting. Lyra took me to a practice room yesterday. Or maybe it was two days ago. Time is still weird and I've given up trying to track it. Kaela sat in the corner the entire time like she was watching a performance, hands clasped together, completely silent for once in her life.

  It was unsettling.

  I learned to absorb mana faster. It feels like drinking something too fast, flooding into me until my chest feels too tight for my ribs. It's a painful, uncomfortable process that refuses to get better the more I practice. You'd think I'd get used to it. I have not gotten used to it.

  I've learned that the more mana I hold, the more my body strains. Like it's holding its breath. And when it strains enough the portal wants to happen. Not because I'm skilled, but because my body is trying to get rid of pressure. I'm basically a mana balloon that's about to pop.

  It's horrifying. It's also useful. It means there's a mechanism. A rule. And rules can be exploited.

  And if I need a lot of mana to open a portal, I'll need a lot of mana to open a portal big enough to get back to Earth. My brain keeps supplying the simplest solution: get a lot of mana fast. Which, based on my limited experience, means robbing a bank again.

  I brought it up to Lyra earlier today like I was suggesting we go shopping.

  "No," Lyra had said without even looking up.

  Kaela had gasped like I'd suggested murder. "That's illegal!"

  "I know it's illegal. That's not the point. The point is I need to get home," I said.

  "Prison is bad, Fey," Kaela said.

  "I'm aware."

  "Are you though," Mira said from the doorway, because apparently everyone has opinions about my theoretical crimes.

  I hate it here. (I don't hate it here. That's the problem.)

  That's where things stand right now. Some amount of time has passed, enough for meals to start tasting less foreign. Enough for Mira's insults to feel almost like affection, in the way a cactus could be affectionate if it tried really hard. Enough for Lyra to hand me this journal and assume I'll keep going. Enough for Kaela to think hovering counts as emotional support.

  Spoiler: it does not count as emotional support.

  I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know if this is helping. But at least it's something. At least I'm doing something instead of just sitting here.

  Okay I'm going to stop writing now because. . .

  "Fey."

  Kaela's voice is right next to my ear. Too close. Too cheerful. The kind of cheer that means she's already decided what's happening and my consent is a decorative detail at best.

  I'm blinking at the journal. I'm blinking at my pencil. I'm blinking at Kaela's hand, which is currently on my sleeve like I'm a balloon she's worried will float away.

  "Kaela," I say, because apparently I'm still trying to negotiate with inevitability. "I'm busy."

  "With what," Mira's voice cuts in from the doorway, dry as ash. "Writing your dramatic memoir? 'My Life as a Criminal: A Tragedy in Three Acts'?"

  Lyra doesn't even look up from her book. "If she doesn't eat, she'll pass out again."

  "I'm literally fine."

  "Fey," Kaela says, "Your stomach has been doing that angry noise all day."

  "It has not."

  "It has. It growled at me. Multiple times."

  "My stomach didn't growl at you."

  "It did," Kaela says with complete sincerity. "It was like..." She makes a horrifying sound with her mouth that sounds like a dying whale. ". . .like that."

  Mira makes a noise that might be a laugh if she didn't hate joy. "That's pathetic."

  "I hate all of you," I mutter, but my voice doesn't have any real bite, because Kaela is already hauling me up like I weigh nothing and my body is betraying me by standing without permission.

  "Good," Kaela says cheerfully. "Hate us while you chew."

  "I'm taking the pencil," I say, because if I don't get one small victory I might implode.

  "Take the pencil," Kaela says, as if she's granting me a royal privilege. "Take all the pencils. Steal them. Embrace your criminal nature."

  "That's not helping," Lyra says.

  I grab the journal, shove it under my arm, and Kaela immediately hooks her arm through mine like she's escorting me to my own execution. Or dinner. Same energy.

  "Dinner," she announces again, triumphant.

  I don't even get to argue. I'm already being dragged toward the door, half-laughing, half-protesting, pencil still in my hand like I might stab a piece of fruit.

  Which, honestly, I might.