Sarala scowled. “I’m not an emotional person,” she grumbled, her hold tightening on her wand.

“Apparently you are, otherwise there wouldn’t be a hole in the ceiling,” Ak-tu pointed out, smiling. “Speaking of which, I’d better go patch that up. I hope the student whose room you damaged was out at the time.”

Sarala frowned. She hadn’t even considered if there was anyone in the room above the classroom. She hoped she didn’t accidentally knock someone out with the stone.

“Return to class, Sarala,” Ak-tu told her. “I’ll have that hole fixed soon. And get a new cauldron.”

Sarala nodded and went down the spiral stairs. When she looked back, Ak-tu was gone. But where did he go? There’s only one staircase, Sarala pondered.

As she reached the first floor again, she realized that Ak-tu had slid down a tree. He hopped off the slimy blue branch and hurried towards the front of the Greenhouse. Sarala snorted lightly and trailed after him at a slower pace.

By the time Sarala reached the Magic Channeling classroom again, Khurshid had moved onto a different exercise. The students were still around their cauldrons (or their rock, in the case of the three earth magicians), but now they were attempting to move their element in circular motions.

Khurshid walked over to her as she entered. “What did Mr. Caihong say?” he asked.

“To not let my emotions get out of control,” she muttered grumpily.

Khurshid chuckled. “Good advice. He’s fixing the hole right now.”

Sarala glanced up at the ceiling. Ak-tu saw her and waved, then set back to work. She looked at Khurshid, waiting expectantly.

“You can join the earth students again, but I want you to watch them,” Khurshid told her. “You’re to go last in each exercise for the remainder of class today.”

“Yes, Mr. Jihan.”

Sarala returned to the other students. Raimugi grinned in greeting, Beanna shot her a glare, and Ebony quickly moved away from her in fear.

“You didn’t miss much,” Raimugi told her. “We moved the rock side-to-side, and now we’re doing a circle. It’s pretty simple!”

Sarala nodded once.

She waited for the other students to do the exercise, each taking five turns again. She then lifted her wand, took a deep breath to make sure she was calm, then ordered the stone to move in a circle. It worked on her first try! She was happy to see it working—but not too happy—and had success on her next attempts.

The last exercise they did was moving the element to spell out their names in the air. Sarala had a bit of difficulty moving the stone to write each individual letter, and she almost misspelled her name, but it went fine otherwise.

She left the class feeling confident about her magic. As the students exited the room to go to the Greenhouse for Plants, Sarala glanced for Ren and Zyn. She saw them hanging back, and hurried over.

“I’m hopeless!” Zyn was crying out to Ren in a panicked way.

“Shush!” Ren hissed in a whisper.

Sarala frowned. “Why are you hopeless?” she asked bluntly. “Those exercises were easy.”

“Zyn didn’t have much control over the air, that’s all,” Ren said quickly. “I mean, it is a bit hard to see it, right?”

Zyn sighed and made no response.

Sarala glanced from one sister to the other. They’re hiding something, she thought. As they crossed the hot Courtyard quietly, she could have sworn they were whispering to one another. But whenever she looked at them, they weren’t moving their lips at all—which only made her more suspicious. 

Yet she did not press the issue as the students went through Plants and Potions. They were too busy sketching out plants and mixing their first “potion” (which was actually cooking a soup as practice for real potions) to speak much.

The bell rang for the end of Potions class. Sarala grabbed her wand from the table and got to her feet, glad that they could go to lunch now. But before Ren and Zyn could join her, there was a loud bang, a splashing noise, and a yelp of pain. Sarala whirled around to see what had happened.

“Whoops. Sorry,” C3 said indifferently, and he rushed from the room.

Sarala glared after him, then looked over at Ren and Zyn. Zyn was on the floor, next to a knocked-over cauldron. Large soup stains covered her robe, which was steaming. Ren was helping Zyn take off the burning robe. Sarala hurried over to pick up the fallen cauldron, though it was a bit pointless considering it had already lost its contents.

“Are you okay?” Sarala asked Zyn.

Zyn crossed her arms over her chest, appearing suddenly small without her crazy robe. “Yeah,” she muttered. “I don’t think I got burned.”

“I just got a little burned,” Ren said, showing Sarala her forearm, where the soup had splashed her. “No biggie!”

At that moment, Fern crossed over to them. She handed Ren a small vial and said, “Cover the burns with that. They’ll be gone in two days. I’ll clean up here.”

Ren nodded and opened the vial, taking out a sticky purple substance. She spread it out on her forearm with a little difficulty, then offered it to Zyn. But Zyn shook her head, keeping her arms around herself.

“Should we get some food?” Sarala asked, as Ren pocketed the vial. 

“Yeah, I’m starving!” Ren said. “Come on, Zyn!”

But Zyn didn’t move.

“What’s wrong? You didn’t get burned, did you?” Ren asked, looking at her sister in concern. “Did the cauldron hit you?” 

“I’m fine!” Zyn said in a bit of a high voice.

She grabbed her soaked robe and made to put it back on, but Ren stopped her.

“You can’t wear that! It’s covered in hot soup!”

“But—”

“You don’t always have to wear a crazy robe, you know,” Sarala jeered.

Zyn looked a bit hurt by this. “I know, but…I just…”

“We have Kung Fu after lunch. It’s not like you’d be wearing your robe in that class, either,” Sarala pointed out.

Zyn shifted uncomfortably. “I just…don’t like to wear this shirt…by itself.”

“Why?” Sarala asked, peering at the stripy shirt.

“It’s a bit…revealing,” Zyn said uneasily.

Sarala remembered how Zyn always had her shirt only halfway buttoned, leaving the top and bottom open. She always assumed it was because the robe made her hot. Why Zyn thought it was “revealing” made no sense to her though. Many people would walk around without shirts on (especially in the summer), so having a half-buttoned shirt was no different in her eyes. It wasn’t the most professional, but as long as she was wearing clothes, what was the big deal?

“Just button up your shirt, then,” Ren scoffed playfully.

Zyn stood stiffly for a moment, then lowered her arms. She quickly buttoned her shirt the rest of the way, but still appeared uneasy.

Sarala rolled her eyes. “Can we get going? I bet we’re the last ones to get food!”

She turned on her heel and went across the Courtyard, the sun hot on her back. Behind her, the twins were muttering in low voices, and she remembered how they were keeping something from her. She pricked her ears to listen in.

“But it feels so…weird and…awkward,” Zyn was saying.

“You’re just used to wearing your robes all the time, that’s all,” Ren chuckled.

“But…”

“Don’t worry about it! Let people see you for once!”

Zyn made no reply as they finally reached the Eating Hall. Sarala opened the door. There was indeed a line, but it wasn’t as long as she thought it’d be. They’d apparently taken some time to arrive, that the start of the line was already seated.

“Let’s eat outside,” Sarala said abruptly, once they got their trays of food.

“Okay! It is a nice day!” Ren said cheerfully. “And then Zyn’s robe can dry out a bit in the sun.” 

The three therefore left the crowded Eating Hall and went out to the bench in the nearby garden. Zyn sat on the ground, still in a bad mood, her whole body tense. She put her soup-covered robe on the grass beside her, in a patch of sunlight streaming through the plants. Sarala and Ren took the bench, but Sarala didn’t bother touching her food.

“What’s going on with you two? What happened in Magic Channeling? I know it wasn’t me. I didn’t throw the rock at you,” she added, trying to sound light-hearted rather than accusing.

“Nothing,” Ren said, pushing her glasses up her small nose. 

“Then why’s Zyn being so quiet for once?” Sarala asked, signaling to the girl on the ground. “This isn’t like her at all! Surely she’s not that sad she can’t wear her robe!”

Ren frowned. She seemed to fall in deep thought, as she stared over at Zyn with a concentrated look on her face. After several minutes passed, Sarala wondering if she should just drop it or investigate the sisters further on her own, Ren spoke.

“Zyn doesn’t have her magic yet,” Ren said quietly. “But please, you can’t tell anyone.”

Sarala stared at her. “But…how can she not have magic? Didn’t she pass the assessments? If she didn’t have magic, she wouldn’t be allowed to take classes.”

“I did magic for her, at the very end, on the very last assessment,” Ren explained, shifting uneasily. “It was the only way to get her to attend school.”

“You cheated.”

Ren sighed at the bland statement, dropping her purple eyes and scuffing the dirt with her bare foot. “Yes…but why should Zyn have to sit out another year just because her magic didn’t come soon enough? What if it comes tomorrow? It wouldn’t be fair if it came a day late and she missed out again.”

Sarala frowned over at Zyn. Ren made a good point, but… “What happens if her magic doesn’t come?”

“It will,” Ren said confidently.

“What happens if she shows no sign of magic the rest of the year?” Sarala pressed roughly. “Are you just going to keep cheating for her to pass classes?”

Ren’s shoulders slumped. “What else am I supposed to do? We can hardly tell Dad. Besides, it’s like I said—Zyn’s magic will come. So what if it’s a bit late? It’ll come, and then she can do all those exercises on her own. Sure, she might have to catch up a bit, but she’ll pick it all up!”

Sarala doubted that. Yet she was never one to have faith in the first place. She turned to her food, picking up her bread roll and biting into it.

“You’re not going to tell, right?” Ren asked in a shaky voice, setting her angular eyes on Sarala.

“Why would I?” Sarala grunted back. “So long as you don’t come running to me for help, I don’t care. It’s not hurting anyone if Zyn doesn’t have magic—besides Zyn, of course. And maybe you, if you’re having to do double the work.”

Ren looked over at Zyn, her eyes growing watery. Sarala gazed in the opposite direction, not wanting to see the other girl cry. Nobody said anything else as they picked at their food in an unappetizing way.

Way to ruin the mood, Sarala, she thought bitterly. That’s all you’re good for, isn’t it? 

Oh, well. It’s their own fault, she argued with herself. Zyn shouldn’t be enrolled if she doesn’t have magic. It’s common sense. They’re just going to hurt each other… Zyn better hope she gets her magic soon…