***

Leora pulled up to the building. It was a rather sizable building for the area so even if she didn’t google the address, she would have a good chance to find it. She parked and exited her company’s car.

Better get this done and over, she thought.

She entered the building but as soon as the automatic door closed behind her she noticed the star marking on her company’s phone was erratically blink all over the map. She shook it a few times. “Oh for fuck’s sake,” she said. She tapped the phone against her palm. She frowned. “Maybe bad reception here. Now how am I going to find out who ordered this?”

As if on cue, her phone rang. Unknown caller flashed across her phone’s screen. She hesitated to pick it up, but it might be her boss. His number sometimes showed up as unknown on her personal phone.

“Yeah, boss?” she answered.

“No. I am one of the betas for Gimme Munchies. You are in the building,” a young man’s voice answered.

Leora lifted her eyebrows. “How do you know that?” she asked. She hasn’t seen anyone at the moment.

“GPS. You’re in the app,” said the beta.

“What? How come I can’t see you? Trashy company app,” mumbled Leora. Then she realized she shouldn’t have said that in front of the customer. “Forget I said that and you don’t have to tip me!”

The beta chuckled. “Deal. Find me in the room with the door that sparkles.”

“Sparkles? Like glow-in-the-dark?” Leora noticed how dimly lit the building was. Especially the hallway just ahead of her. Something was making her skin crawl, and it didn’t help that she noticed nobody was in the hallway.

“Something like that. See you soon! Oh, and if you’re late by thirty minutes, I get the meal for free.” The beta hung up.

Leora clenched her jaw. “Dickhead. Could’ve just given me the room number,” she grumbled. She really wanted to punch the beta but that would be very bad PR and she didn’t want to get fired.

So she sucked it up and went down the hallway. Was the beta joking? Or, more likely, trying to rip her off? So far, with the lights in the hallway getting dimmer and dimmer, there was no way any door would sparkle.

“I’ll be damned,” she said. She stopped. Just to the right of her was a door and an iridescent glow outlined it. This was some fancy door.

She knocked on it. “Uh, I’m Leora from Golden Arches. I am here to deliver your order,” she said.

The door opened and immediately Leora had to shield her eyes for a second from the light that entered. She could hear the sounds of chairs and desk moving. When the light settled, a group of twenty people were standing up and staring at her. Apparently this was a classroom.

“Oh my, she is cute! Rachel is not going to like this,” said a dark blonde woman who was next to a large desk in front of the room. Her green eyes sparkled with mischief. “Come in, come in.” Then those eyes zoned in on the greasy paper Leora held.

“Your food?” said Leora as she stepped in and lifted up the delivery. She arched an eyebrow. She recalled the beta sounding male but who knows? Like the app, the company's phone was likely trash.

“Oh, no, Marcus ordered it but I’ll take it,” said the dark blonde who swiftly took it from Leora’s hand. “I’m Barbara by the way.”

“Wait, who’s Marcus if you’re not the beta?” said Leora. She was confused.

“Me. I was the one that ordered,” declared a young man in the back of the room. He stood out with his arms crossed despite the only one sitting in his desk. His curly red hair also didn’t help.

“Um, okay. So it’s done. All I need you to do is mark five stars for our app and I will be happily on my way.” Leora smiled.

Marcus wavered at Barbara who then moved to close the door.

“Sure but after you answer me some questions,” said Marcus. He puffed his chest.

Leora’s smile faltered. She wasn’t liking this but if Marcus complained—well, she needs a job. “Okay,” she said with a shrug. “But only for a few minutes. I gotta jet and I just found out about this delivery today. So I’ll answer the best I can.”

The thought of just hypnotizing Marcus crossed her mind but if she failed, like she just did with Jones, she would have a bunch of witnesses and she could see that spiraling into a gigantic hot mess. Considering what transpired these past few days, she was not in the mood.

Marcus scoffed. He was tall so when he looked down on her, his disdain was magnified ten times. Leora wondered if he was one of those customers who found, much to her confusion, her job as an affront to their sensibilities.

“Come over her. I don’t want to throw my voice across the room,” said Marcus.

Leora looked around. All eyes were glued to her. People were whispering among each other. “Kay,” she said slowly. She made her way to Marcus and with a nudge from his chin, she sat at the desk next to him. “Again, this can’t take long. I need to get back,” she said and made sure her voice was firm.

“Just a few. I have to be quick. The professor can show up any moment,” said Marcus. Then he fired off. “How are you roommates with Elijah and we’ve never heard of you or seen you before?” he accused.

“Oh shit,” whispered Barbara loudly.

Leora scrunched her eyebrows at first. She looked around but now finally seeing the desks, chalkboard and all the books had the same symbols that ran through Elijah’s book. Her eyes lit up. She was in Elijah’s magic class!

“Oh, you guys are all of Elijah’s classmates!” Leora was excited. Elijah had mentioned them in passing and always as if they were an exhaustive burden to him. “Where is he? Is he that late?” She looked around wildly for him.

“Probably but I asked about you?” said Marcus as he positioned himself to sit on the desk platform instead of the chair. He deepened his voice.

“Ah, yeah,” coughed Leora. She finally realized that Marcus was grilling her. She gulped. If she didn’t answer correctly, Marcus might go blab to Elijah’s mom who will at minimum kick her out of the apartment or worse. “Well we met, and I was, uh, telling him about my problem—that I was under the witness protection. So he offered me his place to stay. Of course, I am paying rent,” she smiled, but it quickly went away as Marcus' face hardened.

“Met where?” he asked.

“In the streets,” answered Leora.

“Just out of the blue on the streets?” scoffed Marcus.

“Yeah. But not out of the blue. By the museum,” said Leora, barely hiding her frustration.

“What were you doing?” Marcus' voice started to rise.

“Walking?” Leora raised her voice to match.

“And you decided to tell him your issue even though he was a total stranger? And what is this the witness protection from?” said Marcus in disbelief.

“You’re getting a little too upset over this,” snapped Leora.

“Oh for the love of the Horned God! Are you dating Elijah?” yelled Barbara. “That’s what we all want to know!” She clutched her chest.

“No. We’re friends,” said Leora. She got out of her desk and looked up at Marcus. She repeated. “Friends and you can ask him yourself when he shows up if you don’t believe me. Now I am going to leave.”

“He enchanted your eyes. You wouldn’t be able to find our room if he didn’t,” said Marcus, but it sounded like he was about to cry.

Leora squinted her eyes. Now she realized why Elijah doesn’t talk much about his classmates. They were all crazy. “Uh, he actually d--”

The doorknob twisted.

“Shit, the teacher!” yelped Barbara who quickly went to the door.

***

Elijah slumped his shoulders as he leaned into the wheel of his car. He let out a long sigh. All day long he couldn’t stop thinking about Marcus ever since he possibly saw him when he dropped off Leora this morning.

As far as Elijah knew, Marcus was—even if the red haired man didn’t say it—stayed away from him. Was it because of the museum incident? Or perhaps there was more to it. Marcus was from a lower witch family and associating with him could bring a world of trouble both from the council members and socially.

Elijah took a deep breath. Yeah, that’s probably some other red-haired guy. He thought. It had been months since he had seen Marcus and he had no reason to see him now.

He looked at the time on his car’s clock. He was late but not that late. Hell, maybe he should have just skipped class, but he knew he couldn’t, really. These teachers report to his mom. Might as well show up, get a check off and then go pick up Leora, he thought.

He got out of his car, taking his backpack with him. In front of him was a building with a big, red ‘A’ against a white circle sign on the roof. This was the San Francisco Art Academy. Unlike other campuses, the academy was made up of a handful of buildings like this one spotted around Market Street in the financial district.

Also unlike other campuses, the academy also doubled as a secret witch school. Though, It wasn’t the only witch school in the area. There was one other on the other side of the bay that Marcus had transferred to. With a sigh, Elijah made his way to class.

He entered the building and went down a hallway. He looked for the sign—a glimmer radiating around a door. Witch schools had to be careful from rival covens and normal people accidentally stumbling into one of their classes. Each day the rooms change and enchanted in such a way that only those of their coven could know which room.

Elijah found the door. A small iridescent glimmer flowing around the door knob. The moment he opened it, he was met with his classmate named Barbara.

“For once you’re not late. The teacher is running really late,” said Barbara who also made a half bow.

Elijah ignored Barbara. She always tried to befriend him but not because she wanted to. He noticed that the seats behind Barbara were empty. “Where’s everybody?….” His voice trailed.

To the far back of the room his classmates had surrounded two people. One of them was Leora. The other was Marcus.