Dedicated to a loyal friend <3

Noah Woods walks down the corridors and walkways of the academy. It all looks so lavish to him, and it's definitely a change of scenery. Where he came from in Korea, only the privileged are allowed to even dream about a place like this. This is luxury. And the poor didn't get luxury. Fantasizing about this, would be foolish. Yet, here he stands in what would soon become his home.

When Noah peels his eyes away from the interior work, only then does he notice the eyes that watch his every move and the whispers that follow him down the corridors. Sure, at first when he had left his dorm room to take a tour he had noticed but then discarded it as a figment of imagination. He even excused it as him needing attention, and Noah Woods has never been a fan of attention.

The incident from the witching is still replaying in his head, over and over again. He had never experienced something so mortifying, not even when one of the rich kids caught him stealing and humiliated him in public. Noah always thought he would be a healer witch, not some freak who specialized in two.

Taking a last glance around the corridor, Noah scampers towards the door on the far end. He figures no one would be in the library on their first day. Not that today can be counted as their first day considering all they did is get their timetables and a prep talk. Tomorrow would be their actual first day.

He enters the library and realises that it is mostly empty besides the old male librarian behind the counter, and a boy who looks like he can surf sitting on a table while a pretty redhead sits on a chair reading. Noah's eyes linger momentarily taking in the surfer boy and how casually he lounges.

"So I still don't understand what the huge thing about being a consumer witch is? They're rare? Wait, why are they rare?" The boy asks obviously befuddled. The redhead doesn't acknowledge the boy and simply stares at the open book in front of her.

For a second Noah thinks that she is ignoring him until she replies, "They can sense your emotions, they can find out your deepest darkest secrets really. And since our powers are based quite heavily on our emotions and our mental workings, they can channel that power, and some consumer witches can even absorb our powers entirely."

The look on the blondie's face is so comical - a mixture of awe, excitement, horror and disbelief - that Noah has to suck in his lips in an attempt to not burst out laughing.

The situation seems hilarious to Noah until he hears a group of giggles from outside the library, Noah realises why he had come to hide in the library in the first place - the staring and whispering. Quickly, he grabs a random book off the shelf and grabs a seat at the table, a few chairs down from the pair.

Lucas Faye stares at Noah from the corner of his eyes before nudging Sierra and nodding towards the boy who specialized in more than one. Sierra looks up at Lucas, then Noah, and then averts her eyes back to Lucas. She shrugs, indifferent to the presence of the boy.

"Your book is upside down by the way."

Noah looks up at Lucas at the same time that Sierra does with her eyebrows raised in surprise. Sierra never for a moment even considered that Lucas would try to make conversation with Noah Woods, she had figured that all he wanted to do was jump onto the bandwagon and start gossiping about him. And not much pissed Sierra off than those that jumping on the bandwagon.

Noah looks down at the book he had randomly grabbed from the shelf on the history of witches, which indeed is upside down. Noah blushes. Sierra smiles warmly and bites her lip so she won't laugh and embarrass the blushing boy any further.

"My name's Lucas Faye, call me Lucas," he introduces himself to Noah who's eyes jump from Lucas to Sierra. When he arrives to the conclusion that they do not carry an ulterior motive ulterior motive behind talking to him, he nods and smiles.

"Noah."

"I'm Sierra," she says, joining the conversation.

"Yeah, I know," Noah replies. When Sierra stares at him in question, he elaborates, "I remember your hair, it's kind of hard to forget." A shade that can give Sierra's hair a run of its money, flushes her cheeks.

"So, can you surf?" Noah asks Lucas, remembering the shows that would play on the screen whenever he visited the nearest witching community for his basics in English and witchery lessons. Each program resembled the last, and all of them had people like Lucas – tall, attractive and looking like they had full and healthy meals routinely.

"What, no." Lucas stares back at Noah with a mixture of confusion and amusement. "Why would you even ask that?"

"You've got the whole look going, that's all. Blonde hair, blue eyes, and the almost orange tan."

"Well, the tan sort of comes along with living in Florida, I suppose," Lucas says, lightly itching his chin with the nail of his thumb.

"Huh," Sierra states, looking at Lucas calculatingly. "Not many witches live in Florida. It has to be one of the states in the US with the lowest population of witches."

"I didn't know I was a witch, did I?"

"But magic doesn't just appear in a civisal's blood," Noah adds, looking just as calculating as Sierra. Noah won't lie and say that five minutes ago he had been aware of the small of population of witches in Florida, in fact, he probably couldn't even label Florida on America's map. But, Noah is aware of the workings of magic – that much his cheap and mandatory lessons had covered.

"What the hell is a civisal now?" Lucas asks, his brain unable to keep up with the witch's terminology.

"It's a human without any witch powers," Sierra explains. Lucas nods in understanding looking down at the book in front of him. He had pulled it off the shelf after feeling so lost in this world that was all too new to him. All of his room mates threw this random witching jargon around and Lucas was struggling to remember all of the types of witches. But the book hadn't done anything except confuse him about how Seer witches saw the future.

"I'm adopted," Lucas says, shrugging as if it means nothing to him. "I guess my biological parents were witches."

Noah and Sierra exchange guilty glances, regretfully wishing that they hadn't pushed the topic. After all, they had no intentions to upset their newly made friend.

■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■

The next morning, Day wakes up to his pillow vibrating. With an annoyed huff, Day mumbles the incantation and turns off the alarm. The white polo shirt feels cold against his chest, and he runs his hands through his hair before sitting up in an upright position. Even though the sun is high, fog litters the scenery. The dorm room is chilly, but bearable, and as Day looks outside at the trembling trees, he wonders how cold it is outside. He really hopes that they don't have a class outside.

With a glance at the five other beds in the room, Day realises that he isn't the first one awake. A chubby boy sits on the bed across from Day. When said boy scrambles off the bed and stands up, Day realises that he towers over him by an inch or two and Day has yet to meet a lot of people who can do that.

"Orion Winders," he introduces himself, offering his hand to Day, who nods and shakes Orion's hand.

"Day Blackwood."

Orion opens his mouth to speak when a loud thud sounds and Day and Orion's blue eyes shifts to the bed that is lined up against the corner wall, next to Orion's. The bed is now vacant and the sheets are barely hanging onto it. A painful groan escapes the lips of Terence Belikov as he stands up from where he had been lying on the floor. The Russian witch brushes himself off and shoots the two awake boys a sheepish smile. Day remembers the boy from last night; they had talked before falling asleep.

"I'm okay, no need to worry guys," Terence assures, letting out a deep breath and looking as if he had faced death rather than falling off the bed. Day wonders if he should let him know that they aren't all that concerned.

"What is going on?" the boy in the bed next to Day's groans out. He grumbles, rubs his eyes and yawns as he stretches. The first thing Day notices about the half-asleep boy is his eyes. He has the palest blue eyes that Day has ever seen.

"Nothing, Terence just fell off his bed," Orion replies studying Terence with an amused smile.

Terence points at himself and says, "That's me!"

"Right, I'm Alec Bacani."

The expression on Alec's face makes it extremely obvious to Day that he clearly thinks Terence as an idiot. Alec shakes his head, as he sits up on his bed and grabs the designer frames and then his pale blue eyes hide behind the glass.

"Day Blackwood," Day says, sending a nod of acknowledgement towards Alec.

"I know, you're the consumer witch," Alec replies offhandedly and struts into the shared bathroom.

"I'm Orion, by the way!" Orion yells, leaning over to see if Alec had heard when his voice sounds back.

"I know that too! You told me yesterday!"

"Can you people stop yelling?" the boy whom Day recognises as Scorpius Low, complains before turning to his other side so his back faces the boys. Scorpius pulls half of the pillow over his ears and goes back to sleep. Day looks at the bed on the left side of his, near the bathroom door and wonders how the witch on it, is still snoring softly despite the yelling and Terence's clumsiness.

"That's Denise White," Orion informs nodding at the still asleep boy.

Day nods, not caring about the names of his dorm mates. It is too early for socialising, it is time for food. Before his stomach can swallow itself, Alec walks out of the bathroom and Day runs into it before Orion can.

Barely ten minutes later, the boys except for Denise find themselves clad in their formal navy blue and white uniform as they stand in the hall. It is almost like Day's high school uniform; a white button up, dark blue trousers that almost look black, topped off with a dark blue blazer that hid the bottom of the blue tie. Day can't believe he is wearing a school uniform at the age of nineteen. The compromises a witch has to make in order to study witchcraft and magical arts at Gemini Academy.

"There," Alec says nodding towards a vacant table for six on the left side of the hall. Even as they walk towards it, Day's eyes search for Zoe. His eyes land on red hair before they shift to the South African girl sitting next to her. Day excuses himself from the group saying, "I'll be back in a sec."

With those words, Day cuts through the hall to where Zoe sits with two other girls and two boys. Day instantly recognises the Asian one as Noah Woods, the witch who specialised in more than one. He had also seen the redhead around, after all it was hard to miss her, hair and body considered.

Zoe spots Day as he manoeuvres between the tables, and waves him over.

"Hey," he greets, sending everyone seated a small smile in acknowledgement.

"This is Day," Zoe starts, gesturing to him. "This is Lucas, Minerva, Noah and Sierra." Zoe points at them one by one as they shoot him a smile or a nod.

"I'm gonna be at that table with my dorm mates, okay?" Day starts, pointing to the left side of the hall. "What do you have first?"

"All first years have Incantations first," Sierra Kingsley interjects. Day's eyes shift to the life form of Strawberry Shortcake, before his gaze returns to Zoe.

"Right, I'll see you then." With those parting words and a soft kiss on Zoe's head, Day walks back over to the table his new friends are seated at.

Once Day is out of hearing range, Minerva Cortez leans over the table making sure that her blonde hair doesn't touch her food, and asks, "Your boyfriend?"

After a flicker of confusion, realisation dawns on Zoe's face before she erupts into laughter.

"Gods, no! He's been my best friend since, well, before I can even count. It's hard to find someone attractive after seeing them in their diaper."

"So you wouldn't mind if I had a shot at the hottie?" Minerva questions, with raised eyebrows. Zoe eyes Minerva, trying to figure out if she approves of the Cortez witch dating her best friend. As protective as Day can be over Zoe, she is sure she is more protective of him.

In sync, Sierra and Noah roll their eyes and Sierra tunes herself out of the conversation as she brushes the crumbs that had fallen from her toast and onto her pleated skirt. She almost envies Zoe, Lucas and Minerva as they gossip about possible crushes. No matter how hard she tries, Sierra can't even think about someone romantically when the warning signs of a war are blazing. And by the looks of it, neither can Noah. But she knows he has different reasons.

Looking around the hall, Sierra notices how happy everyone looks to be here. Much to her surprise, even the first years look carefree and that befuddles Sierra. How can they possible laugh, knowing that the heirs are going to be chosen this year? Sure, when you put it in words, it sounds glorious and heroic, but Sierra knows that there is nothing glorious about war.

Even though the hall is anything but calm, Sierra can tell that this is the calm before the storm, and she isn't even surprised when her heart drops at the thought of war.

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