Chapter 5: Dinner with New Friends (part 1)

By the time the bells had rung for dinner, Misty had not yet returned; I assumed she was back at work for the sleigh company.

So off I went to my first meal at Mousseline Academy alone.

I was more annoyed than nervous. There’s very little anyone can do to you when your formative memories are starving in a dovecote and you’ve since acquired the skills and knowledge to burn an entire city to the ground. On the one hand, you’ve already experienced the worst that can happen to you; on the other, you can instantly become the worst that can happen to other people.

I don’t recommend it for everybody but I’ve found it to be extremely liberating.

But…

But, gossip being what it is, I was sure that my fellow students were already well aware of Misty and myself. Since I wouldn’t be entering the dining hall with a giant white wolf, that meant I had to establish myself as an interesting person in my own right.

And without magic.

Hmmm.

It seemed rather last-moment to start relying on my personality, but it would have to do.

The dining hall was set up for buffet dining, the most practical way to serve several hundred people at once. The food was laid out on sideboards set against a wall and seemed the typical fare for the upper classes; meats, cheeses, jams, and breads. There was something boiled to the point of a hideous paste—possibly the last surviving summer squash—and a stack of apples. Dull but plentiful, with a small table at the end holding an assortment of pastries.

I had been starting to get a little hungry, and just seeing the table was a massive relief. Food means a lot to me, and I shan’t apologize.

I tucked into the line behind several older boys to wait for my turn to fill a plate.

“Hey.” One of the boys, a lovely fellow with dark eyes and darker hair curling around his ears, had noticed me. “You’re the wolf girl.”

“Boopsie,” I said, straight-faced.

The boys elbowed each other. The dark-haired one who had spoken asked, “Really?”

I curtsied. “Bernadette Red-Rose-of-Thorns GlassClaw, but Boopsie is much…shorter.”

“Oh!” Another boy turned to look at me. “I’ve heard of you—you’re the girl from the lake.” He explained my history to his friends in a couple of tangled sentences before he ended with, “Did you really fall out of the sky and into the water?”

“I was six. I don’t remember much,” I said honestly. “How would I get into the sky?”

A third boy joined in with, “Dragons!”

I pulled up the sleeve of my shirt the tiniest bit to show them my wrist. “No claw marks!”

“The Weavers tried to drown you!”

“Weavers don’t do that!” I protested. That much I was sure of.

“Dryads?” asked the dark-haired boy. Someone else punched him in the shoulder and said, “Those are the tree kind. What’s the water kind?”

“Naiads,” I said. “They checked. The closest pool of water nymphs was a hundred kilometers from Old BlueHouse.”

“Did anyone call the Weavers to do a memory charm?”

“I was six,” I reminded them. “All I would tell them was that once I hit the water, I didn’t know how to swim.”

“Marcus. Gavril. Again?” A very different voice froze the conversation. It was a girl’s voice, and strong. “We don’t bully people here at Mousseline Academy.”

A beautiful girl around the same age as the group of boys swanned up, three other students in her wake. She was a good hand taller than Marcus, the dark-haired boy, and had light brown skin and curling dark red hair in a long riot down her shoulders. Her green school uniform was cut with a formal-looking blue sash.

Gavril, blond and stocky, rolled his eyes. He nudged me and whispered, “Princess Jade.”

I tipped my head very slightly towards the red-haired girl. “A real—”

“I am not a princess.” Jade placed a hand on my shoulder, as if preparing to shove me behind her. “What I am is very protective of the younger students, and I don’t allow bullying.”

I dipped a proper curtsey to her. “Then, miss, you’ll be glad to know these gentlemen weren’t bullying me!”

“True enough,” Marcus said, smiling at Jade. “We’re having a conversation.”

“Well, she’s in First Form, and we’re in Fifth,” Jade said. “You shouldn’t be talking to her at all.”

“But they’ve been so nice!” I said, as earnestly as I could to Jade. “Please, I know no one else here. May we sit together, just for this evening?”

“Yes, Jade,” Marcus said, placing his arm on hers and smiling deeply at her. “May we?”