The Hidden Princess At All-Boys Alpha Academy

“Oh, god, Rafe,” I sigh. shaking my head up at him and glancing down the hall. “Do we have to do this now? My schedule says we have ten minutes for lunch before. our next mystery class –”

“Here,” Rafe says, dropping a wrapped power bar and a bottle of water on top of my books. “Academy isn’t big on hot lunch – just a snack before a big dinner. Eat while you walk, talk while you eat.” He puts a firm hand between my shoulder blades and urges me forward, making me keep pace with his quick stride.

“How do you even know where we’re going.” I murmur, struggling with the wrapper of my lunch with one hand. Rafe sighs, taking the food back and unwrapping it for me before slipping it into my hand.

“I looked at the map, obviously, and don’t try to change the subject,” he says. “What was going on with Luca this morning? He was staring at you, completely freaked out, and Jesse almost had a conniption he was laughing so hard.”

“How the hell should I know!?” I ask, blatantly lying and talking with my mouth. full.

“Ari!” Rafe sighs, glaring at me. “I know you’re lying – I’ve known you since you were born –” This content © Nôv/elDr(a)m/a.Org.

“You were just a baby,” I mutter, even though he’s right.

“Fine!” he snaps, moving on, “pressing subject number two! Why the hell did you invite Jackson to have breakfast with us yesterday?”

I stare up at him for a second, forgetting to chew in my surprise, even though he keeps me moving. “What?” I ask, swallowing hard. “Rafe, that was like, a million years ago –”

“That was twenty–four hours ago,” he says, giving me a withering stare.

“Well a lot has happened in the meantime!”

“A lot that you were hoping would make me forget!” he counters, pointing ahead to a door that I understand from his body language is our destination.

I grin up a him, because…yup. He’s got me there.

Rafe stops, grabbing my arm, making me stop with him. “Ari, we had a deal – that guy tried to kill you, and you promised never to speak to him again, and all of a sudden he’s at our breakfast table? What the hell!?”

“Rafe,” I sigh, glancing towards the door, knowing that we’ve only got a few minutes to get in there and I really, really hate being late for school. “I promise I’ll tell you, all right? Jackson – he saved me in the obstacle course –”

“What?” Rafe asks, leaning closer, shock all over his face. “He what?”

“He is the only reason I made a better time- and considering that I was the 90(th) candidate let in? If he hadn’t, I wouldn’t be here. We owe Jackson – and I promise that I will tell you all about it, but can we just get to class? None of this is pressing right now, right? We have time.”

Rafe scowls, glancing between the classroom door and me.

“Fine,” he says, tugging me forward by the arm before I wrench it from his grasp, not wanting whatever professor is in this classroom to see my big brother dragging me around. “But you and I are taking a

long moment tonight to have a chat about Jackson McClint…”

Rafe doesn’t finish his word, though, because as soon as we round the corner into

the room…

We come face–to–face with the man in question.

Or, at least I do. Rafe has to look down at him. But seated at the desk in the front row, Jesse lounging in the seat behind him? Jackson’s just about eye–to–eye with

1. me.

Rafe doesn’t even bother to hide his groan as he walks into the room, shoving me in front of him and heading for the desk next to Jesse. When I hesitate, Rafe barks my name, pointing to the desk next to him.

I blush, glancing around and realizing that not only Jackson is witnessing Rafe boss me around like a little kid, but so is another dark–haired cadet and the professor – who is, of course, the handsome professor who handed us all the weird orb yesterday, his dark hair tied back low at the base of his neck. He grins at me, amused, but I sigh and do as my brother says, taking the desk next to him.

“Well,” says the professor, nodding to all of us and moving to the door, pulling it

shut. “Now that we’re all here, we can begin.”

I look curiously around the room now, confused.

Seriously, a class of five people?

What the hell is going on here?

“My name is Professor Alves. The five of you have been gathered here because out of the 96 cadets admitted to the program, only the five of you showed a particular aptitude for my teaching specialty. Unlike the rest of your peers, you will be enrolled in this class for the entirety of your time at the Academy. There will be no examinations and no cuts made. Instead, the time will be spent learning your own particular affinity and cultivating your…talent.”

He go

goes quiet now, smiling around at each of us in turn, I think enjoying the fact that each of us are completely confused. Silence reigns in the room and he just lets it hang there.

Jackson is the first to break it, frustration in his every word. “I’m sorry,” he says, though he certainly doesn’t sound it, “I don’t understand. What are these affinities. you’re talking about?”

“Each of you,” Alves says softly, moving to the book satchel perched on the edge of the desk and pulling from it the black orb, “demonstrated an affinity for magic. I will be here, over the course of the next several months and years, to see whether or not your particular skills can be honed for the battle field or otherwise in service of the nation.”

My eyebrows go up almost to my hairline.

I mean, our moms told the three of us when we turned sixteen that the Goddess has given each of us a particular magical gift. But that is a BIG family secret, and none of us have spilled a word of it to anyone.

hint of it, I’m also pretty damn sure that none of the three of us have shown any either. Which mom and Aunt Cora said not to worry about – they didn’t find out about their own gifts until later in their lives either.

So…how the hell did the Academy find out? My eyes dart immediately to the black ball.

“Yes,” the professor says, perhaps seeing the direction of my gaze and probably

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everyone else’s as well. “The sphere measures magical aptitude – one of my own inventions, very useful. And while it does allow us to identify candidates who have an affinity for magic, it does not at all tell us what kind of magic that person wields.

So!”

He deftly tucks the ball back into his satchel, smiling around at the five of us. “Does anyone know what they can do?”

The five of us sit in absolute silence, staring at him.

I mean.

He just very, very casually told us that we’re all magic, and that he’s going to train us in battle magic –

And even if that is maybe the coolest thing I’ve ever heard…

It is definitely a surprise.

“Oh come on,” Alvez says, coming around the desk and shocking me by casually sitting on it, tucking his leg in beneath him. “Surely one of you is aware of what you can do? Sinclair?” he says, his eyes moving immediately to Rafe.

Rafe just stares back at him, unreadable.

“I’m aware of your mother’s talents,” Alvez says with a casual shrug, which makes Rafe’s eyes narrow. I feel mine doing the same. Mom – her healing magic isn’t precisely a secret, but she’s been very careful to never specifically confirm it. “She and your mother,” he shifts his eyes to Jesse now, “were instrumental in the formation of this department! They designed it!”

My lips part in shock now. What!?

Rafe sits back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest, glaring at the professor a little bit. And I realize that the professor is trying to get us to casually confess our mothers‘ magical affinities, which we have long sworn to never do.

“Oh come on,” the professor says, looking around at all of us and laughing casually. “We’re going to have to learn how to trust each other a little more. After all, we’re going to be spending a great deal of time together. In the spirit of trust and full disclosure…how about a little demonstration.”

I look over at Rafe and Jesse, who look between each other and at me. Together, we

nod.

“All right,” Rafe says, speaking for us and no bothering to consult with Jackson or the other boy, who I see scowling at the other side of our line of desks, displeased to be left out. “You demonstrate first, then we’ll…have a conversation.”

The Professor smiles at him and then pulls a large piece of candy out of his pocket — a jawbreaker, I think. “Me first,” he says, his voice low with pleasure, and then he tosses the candy into the air towards the center of the room.

We all turn to stare at it and I gasp when, suddenly – almost from the bottom up- the jawbreaker stops falling and instead just…disintegrates in the air. The very miniscule pieces of it float through the air to the ground in a fine pile of pink dust.

“Whoa,” I breathe, shocked and impressed.

“Disintegration,” the professor says with a casual shrug. “My affinity also allows me to rust things, though it’s a longer process that mostly yields the same results.”

“How do we know it’s not a trick?” Jackson asks, clearly more suspicious than me. “That the candy wasn’t going to fall apart as soon as you threw it?”

“Give me something else,” the professor says, looking around at us. “I’m an open book in this classroom we all have to be. I promise, I’m not lying to you about my skills or what the class is for, though it might sound unbelievable now.”

“Here,” I say, ripping a blank page from the back of my chemistry notebook and balling it up in my hand. “Can I just… toss it?”

He nods to me and so I do, lobbing it high into the air.

Like the jawbreaker, the paper likewise just falls apart into microscopic pieces that drift down through the air.

“Holy shit,” Jesse whispers, watching it. “That is…incredibly cool.”

“So,” Alvez says, smiling around at us, his voice a little self–pleased. “Does anyone know what they can do?”

But we all just look around at each other, completely silent.Until the dark–haired boy on the far side of the room heaves a sigh and raises his hand.