Make Yourself at Home

• More Cursed than Blessed
• The Thanksgiving Mission

Wendel Moretti

We took the shuttle together, Taliesin and Aletheia in the back, twittering to one another beneath my hearing, Pele next to me in the middle. The Lock sat up front, largely ignoring that he had charges to whom he ought to have been attending.

I said hello to Pele, but she looked out of her window even more intently. I would save myself time with her by keeping my mouth shut.

We passed through a small city, a few fast-food restaurants and a movie theater in a mini-mall. It reminded me of one near my house, as all these looked nearly the same no matter the town. Different restaurants, but the same aesthetic. I found it reassuring, as though I hadn't gone anywhere, as though home were no more than a few miles down the interstate.

After ten minutes, the van turned up a long hill, the path going from pavement to dirt, no sign that would make a person curious. It did not seem that the driver knew to make the turn until the Lock indicated it. Was the driver not one of them-- us?

It was easily half a mile between the street and the Academy. If you did not know this was here, you would never find it.

The Lock began saying something to us about how lucky we were to be at the Academy, but he had two teenagers who were booted out of their last Academy and two girls all but abducted after their naming. It was a rote speech, one he wanted to say only slightly less than I wanted to hear it.

I secretly hoped the road would end before a sprawling Gothic estate, but it was a series of yellow-sided buildings with green roofs, each with a plaque identifying which were classrooms, which dorms, which the gym, and which the dining hall. The trees were pretty enough, their buds coming in. It would be green here in a few more weeks, and it would be impossible to see the world beyond the branches.

There were worse prisons.

The Lock suggested we get breakfast, but I told him I was not hungry and would rather see my room. He gave me a hard look but did not contradict me.

I did not know the rules of dealing with the Locks. There were rumors, but few people who went to Academies wanted the plebs to understand what happened there. How could I know what was forbidden and allowed if no one would tell me other than pressuring adults until I annoyed them? I had been a teenager only a couple of years, but I already had that down pat. I suspected, however, that Locks were a little savvier than my father and would not fall so easily for my tricks.

He pointed me toward a dorm and told me the number.

There were no keys. Clinging to a jagged bit of metal would have been soothing, like a talisman in my pocket, something proving that I belonged here, even if I were here under duress. The Locks said that if you were supposed to open a door, it would open. I didn't know how that worked, if it were a matter of technology or someone's abilities. I wasn't sure which would have bothered me more. I looked at the bangle on my wrist, wondering again how I would get it off. Surely, they didn't mean for me to have it on when I showered.

No one passing on their way to classes took any particular notice of me. Good. I didn't want to seem any more like an outsider than my age and ignorance of my abilities would make me. I was pleased to see a diversity of clothing, meaning no uniform. There might still be a dress code, but I was not worried about transgressing there given the amount of skin that some showed--boys and girls. Whatever my other flaws, I was not immodest.

Before I was halfway down the hallway to my new room, I heard a girl loudly curse at the Locks, then fall into an irate grumble. I knew that it had to be coming from my room. There was no way it could have been a coincidence or that there would be any part of this day that would be easy.

When I got to the door, the cursing continuing, I did not bother knocking. There would be no point to it. The door flung open, revealing a sour-faced girl, her brown hair shoulder length, her posture indignant.

"How the hell are they could shove you into my room?" she said, all flaring accusation. "They know how much I need a single."

"I didn't ask--"

She scratched her eyebrow. "Your name is Cassie?"

"Yeah..."

She snorted. "Short for Cassandra of Le Fay. You don't know your old name. You're fourteen," she listed.

"Mindreader?" I guessed.

She rolled her eyes. "I see thirty-five seconds into the probable future. So, don't bother talking if you don't need to. I've already heard in the potential future when you did," she paused, her eyes distant a moment. "You don't know what you can do," she huffed but softened enough that I didn't have to hate her defensively. Since I lost the resentment that Trevor was special and I was not, since I acquired the guilt of that, I couldn't ignore the sloshing within me of venom seeking a target. But it wouldn't be her.

"Do you? Know what I can do?" I asked. If she could tell me that, I could promise never to hate her-anything to give me a more even footing at the Academy.

She rolled her eyes at my obtuseness. "Do you expect you are going to figure it out in the next half-minute? Then I don't." She motioned for me to enter.

"Is it always? The seeing the future?" Having that burden would drive me out of my mind.

"Only big things, like you invading my room. Unless I focus--which hurts," she said. "And changing anything drastic gives me a migraine, so don't test me."

"What's your name?"

"They didn't tell you." Few things with her would ever be questions, I knew, but it was hard to break the habit. She was not out of the practice of making me ask my own, though. Or it was that it was not worth her effort to keep looking into the future when she had already decided that she knew all the answers. "Astraeus."

"Of?"

"Of none of your goddamn business. It's rude to ask that if it isn't offered. You don't know that yet, but you are sure as can be going to learn it hard." She held up a hand. "But not in the next thirty-five seconds. It is an expectation based on knowing you for a minute, not an actual prediction."

There was not a spare bed for me. A bed, yes, but one that Astraeus had turned into a sofa. As I feared, this room belonged entirely to Astraeus, and I would always be an interloper. I couldn't help assuming that the Locks had done this on purpose, that there was a vacant space for me elsewhere that I might have liked better, but they decided to spring me on Astraeus instead.

"We won't be friends," she said. She held up a hand to stop me from asking. "Not seeing into the future, Cass. I'm letting you know: I will tolerate you until room selection in the summer. I will make space for you because the Locks won't change this assignment. I'm not your enemy. That would require too much energy and stress for something that is not your fault. Just don't try to make friends, okay?"

I told her that I understood, though I knew she didn't need me to. I said it because, even if she knew it, I needed to say it anyway as part of the social contract. I didn't want enemies on my first day at the Academy, let alone an enemy with whom I was stuck living, but I would have appreciated an easy friend.

My things had not been delivered here, nor were there clothes awaiting me, or Astraeus would not have needed to expend what little energy she had for me. I did not even have possessions I could use to assert my presence.

She said she would see about turning her sofa into my bed after class. Seeing no other reason to linger about a room where I had no place, I said bye, and she waved me off as though I mattered not a bit to her.

I was not required to attend classes today, a mercy to allow me to get acclimated to the Academy. I might have preferred jumping into this with both feet. I was an above-average student in school (was that part of my nebulous powers?), but I hadn't the foggiest clue what the curriculum of the blessed might be. They couldn't only make us do subjects like writing, history, and math, or what would be the point of taking us from our families? What else could there be?

Away from Astraeus and my dashed hopes of my roommate liking me and thereby making this transition easier, my stomach chastised me for skipping breakfast. I hadn't eaten anything since lunch yesterday, aside from the hot chocolate.

In the quad, Taliesin was pestering some girl on the way to class. Even from a hundred feet away, it was plain that he was flirting, that she was amused but not receptive.

When he saw me, he brightened, abandoning his sport to come to me.

"Baby Cassie!" he said, going for a hug I did not have the composure to deflect. "How are you finding your first hour at an Academy?"

"Not a fan," I said. "My new roommate sees into the future."

He put on a defensive pout. "But that's your thing!"

"That's not my thing," I said. "At least that I am aware."

"Well, yes, but oughtn't it be?" It would be a feat not to be at all charmed by him, so I let myself be only a little charmed so that I did not have to force myself to resist it entirely. "So, what did she say about your time here?"

"She only sees thirty-five seconds, and it mostly occurs when she is focusing on it--aside from finding out that the Locks have assigned her a new roommate in the middle of the semester."

He puckered his lips thoughtfully. "Minorly useful skill."

Was he only sticking around me because I had yet to give him any sort of a read on me? I hadn't decided.

"Is the dining hall still open?" I asked, a more crucial question for the moment.

He dramatically deflated, slumping his shoulders and allowing his arms to go as limp a cooked spaghetti. "Regrettably, no. I was just following one of my fellow diners out after the Locks gave us quite the tedious lecture about the rights and responsibilities of life at an Academy. Nothing I haven't heard before or that I imagine you will regret having missed."

I pouted despite myself.

He shook his hands at me. "Oh, didn't we agree that you would holster your moping, Cassie?" He then formed his hands as if around an invisible crystal ball, saying with contrived spookiness, "I too see into the future."

"No, you don't."

"No, I don't," he conceded. He dropped the nonexistent ball, pulling bagels in plastic bags from his satchel. "This one has peanut butter and jelly. This one is bacon, egg, and cheese."

I took the latter offering.

"I figured you'd be hungry. I was just on my way to find you, as a point of fact."

I doubted this highly, but it wouldn't benefit me to call it into question.

I took a bite. I might not have accepted his consideration in better circumstances--you didn't have to meet a Pandora or Persephone to know that gifts could come with obligations attached--but I wasn't going to turn it down this once. Still, I added, "Remember, not competition or conquest."

"You don't know your power and are on the first hours on campus." He snickered. "Don't worry. I'm just taking pity on a hungry child."

He wasn't. There was a chance he was being kind, that he might be a friend, which I needed more than a lukewarm bacon, egg, and cheese. This did not mean that I didn't want the sandwich.

Twenty-four hours ago, I was waking to the day when my brother would be named and lost to me forever. Yesterday, it was another Sunday in my normal life. Now, I was here, a non-practicing member of the blessed.

"Where is Aletheia?" I asked.

"I am not her keeper," he said. "I would guess that she is badgering her poor new roommate into compliance."

I wasn't sure that I ought to trust Taliesin's perspective when it came to his ex-girlfriend, or frankly any girl, but it seemed a neutral prediction.

"What do they expect us to do for the rest of the day?" I asked.

"'Acclimate,'" he said. "That's always what they tell us. Get the lay of the land. Get comfortable. Make ourselves at home, as though the Locks meant this to be even remotely like our homes."

"I'm not overly inclined to trust that," I said. I had yet to meet the person who told me to make myself at home who expected me to be on anything less than my best behavior. But the lie was reliable information then. The Locks were adults and would persist in the fiction that adults always told anyone younger than them. I doubted I would ever feel as though this were anything like home. I had no father here, no brother.

He laughed, his eyes darting conspiratorially. "You know that they are watching us, right?"

"I guessed," I said. "That's what people say, at least, when they are speculating about what goes on at Academies. So much of the speculation couldn't be less than envy, so I always clung to anything that might be less flattering."

He seemed entertained by this slight cynicism. "So, they are seeing what we--you and I--do now."

Though I was cynical, I wasn't even a confident believer in that. "If it were true, how could you get far with that Lock's daughter? Weren't you being watched then?"

He shrugged. "They get slack once they figure out what you are about. I may be a rake, but they assumed that she knew better than to be seen long in my company."

I scoffed. "They figure out that you are a hornball and leave you to your own devices?"

"What did Aletheia say? They know that we aren't going to break any cardinal rules," he said, oddly serious. "Fooling about with the wrong girl? Embarrassing a Lock? Adolescent monkeyshines. They expect it. They'd worry if we didn't. If we were too virtuous, then we might be up to something. Otherwise, we are just teenagers. Some Locks focus on making certain that we still hit our developmental goals--or the goals that mundane teens should have. It's a weird balance, but they try."

The way he said "mundane" sounded like a commonplace slur, the sort that Taliesin might not say around anyone he considered so dismissed, but that he thought nothing of sharing with another blessed. I couldn't ignore the sting, though, that he would have passed me over as a mundane mere days ago. He only cared about me now because the Locks had decided I was blessed. Otherwise, he wouldn't even see me. I hated him a little for this.

"What are the cardinal rules?" I asked instead of confronting him for this prejudice, being defensive on my behalf and those of my loved ones. But his family were almost certainly all mundane too. How could he be a consistent snob when he returned on holidays to a house full of those he must see as lesser?

"Oh, that is not the question to ask," he said, serious again. "You are a good kid. I'm not worried." He nodded toward my hand, where there was only a bite left of the sandwich. "Pretty good, right? Possibly the best part of the Academies is the food. I hear they put drugs in it."

My eyes went wide, considering how much I'd eaten, which only caused him to double over laughing.

"Sweetie, I am not going to roofie you. I only mean that the food is good. Supertasters make amazing cooks, and it is another thing that the Locks want to provide us, so we don't get curious about the outside world, trying to order insufficient pizza and Chinese."

I couldn't tell if this were more of his blather. The longer we talked, the more I was torn about him. He was, as far as I could tell, an arrogant player. He was also sweet and decided I was either his little sister or his pet. I needed friendship if I were not going to be miserable here. I didn't want to need it, but I couldn't argue I did. He could be a friend.

Maybe, though I would never tell him this, he could even be a temporary substitute brother until I convinced Trevor not to hate me.

He nudged me with his shoulder. "Why not let me give you the tour?"

I raised an eyebrow, expecting a trick. "Because you do not know this Academy."

"No, I do not specifically know this Academy yet."

"Is this like your old Academy?"

He looked around as though appraising it for the first time. "Not particularly. My old one was old stone buildings up a mountain. There were secret passageways! This is a serious step down, all things considered."

What a rip off! I could have lived in a castle and was instead in the school equivalent of a mini-mall!

"So, what makes you think you could give me a tour?" I asked.

"I know the feeling of an Academy," he said. "You think the last one was the first I'd seen?" He tapped the side of his head. "I've got a mental map of these things. I'm sure we'll be fine."

I looked at the road disappearing back into the trees. "What if we just left? Walked into town?"

He gave a curious half-smile, almost disapproving. "Spicy thought, Cass, but you can't. Psychics on staff. Without permission, you won't get halfway down." He waved his hand toward the road. "But you are welcome to give it a shot. It could be a fun experiment."

I believed it, not needing to test this. The idea of it had made him uncomfortable, though he had tried to mask it under talk, which startled me a little. I didn't think that Taliesin was capable of being made uneasy.

He offered the crook of his arm, and I took it.

He made a passable impression of a tour guide, making jokes and faking being flustered whenever he led us into a dead end. ("I swear," he said in a stuffy British accent, "there didn't use to be a wall here! Damned contractors. Always paid for union workers.") There wasn't too much unexpected at this Academy; all he could show me resembled my high school. I had spent so long in the gossip of Academies that I couldn't help but be a bit let down, though.

"You seem disappointed," Taliesin observed.

I gave a self-conscious laugh.

"What?"

"I thought the Academy would be--I don't know--nefarious?"

"Nefarious?" he asked, perplexed.

"The Locks have kidnapped me, signed away by my father, taken to a mysterious location to stay for an indeterminate time," I said. "You'd think there would be a forbidden graveyard or secret laboratory where they experiment on us, but nothing, it's just a boarding school."

He nodded. "It is, indeed, just a boarding school. Aletheia has some ideas about how they experiment on us, but it is all paranoia. Don't pay her any mind."

We came to the end of his improvised tour in front of the Parker dorm. "So," he said, shuffling his feet, "want to come up and see my room?"

"Have you seen your room?" I asked.

"No, but I wouldn't it be scandalous to burst in there, groupie on my arm? Make an appearance."

I looked at the clock in the quad. "Would your roommate be there? Shouldn't he be in class?"

Taliesin's eyes held mild guilt. "Who is really to say?"

"Then you are asking me up to your room--which you haven't seen--where we would be alone, even though Alethia made you admit that you want in my pants?" I motioned to the clock, "Within three hours of us first setting foot on campus?"

He looked me in the eyes. "I am going to make a solemn promise to you now--no, stay looking at me--I won't so much as hug you if you don't want me to. You are my Baby Cassie. Okay?"

I sniffed, narrowing my eyes, but I believed him.

"Come up to my room. It'll be educational. Plus? I haven't been there yet, so I can't have set up any traps for you. Make yourself at home."