A Magical Bond | 7

Things with Britta quickly started heating up. Sione was officially smitten. She was just so... sweet. He had never dated a girl quite like her before. She wasn't a slacker like Amanda, but she still knew how to have a good time, and she wasn't a snob like Janie, but academics were still important to her. In other words, she was the perfect middle ground, not extreme in any way but not boring either. Their relationship felt easy in a way his others hadn't.

"You know," she began coyly, as they were taking a breather in between steamy make-out sessions in Laurel Library's rare books section, "you still haven't taken me out on a real date."

Sione furrowed his brow in confusion. "What do you mean? We've been dating for weeks now."

"I mean that we're always just hanging at your place or the lab or the library. But we haven't gone out out." She shoved at his chest playfully. "What I mean is that I want you to show me off!"

He told her to put on her fanciest dress and meet him outside Pepper's Pub the next evening. Of course, it was a game night, so practically every inch of the place was swarming with rowdy students. "I know this doesn't exactly seem like the most romantic place for a date," he told her, over the clamor of overlapping chatter and bass-heavy music blaring through the speakers. "I am a college student on a budget after all. But I bet we can find a quiet corner somewhere and make this night a special one anyway."

"It's special enough just to be here with you," Britta insisted. They shouldered through the crowd until they reached a secluded area in the back that hadn't yet been overtaken by drunk soccer fans. With overpriced glasses of middling wine in hand, they felt almost classy. As they gazed into each other's eyes, the cacophony around them slowly faded away, until it was just the two of them and their true surroundings hardly mattered.

"What's up with all the baked goods?" Sione asked on a rare morning when he and Cassie were actually both home at the same time. "Are you having some sort of quarter-life crisis? Got your eye on some dude who wants to make you his perfect little housewife?"

Cassie rolled her eyes. This wasn't a good start to their first conversation consisting of more than one-syllable small talk in months. "That's so insanely sexist. I don't know how your girlfriend stands you."

"Dude, come on!" he exclaimed in exasperation. "It was a joke!"

"Yeah, a lazy and bad one."

He shook his head at her nonexistent sense of humor. "Anyway, can I take a cookie or two for the road?"

She was silent for a long moment before caving to his exaggerated puppy dog eyes. "Fine. But don't touch that cake!"

Sione could make all the shitty jokes he wanted: these days, she was barely thinking about him at all - for real this time. After countless hours spent scouring the Internet for recipes and over a dozen failed attempts, Cassie thought she had finally arrived at a chocolate cake delectable enough to please even the fussiest of spirits - or gods or fairies or demons or unicorns or whatever the hell else might be up there silently and invisibly casting its cloud of judgment over Britechester's campus. In all actuality, it was probably nothing but a silly urban legend, made up by turn-of-the-century students who had been just as restless in their academic pursuits then as Cassie was now. She certainly felt silly, as she placed an entire cake down in front of the statue and then casually backed away, like it was a totally natural thing to do. With her luck, some dazed stoner would come stumbling along to scoop the cake up for themselves before her offering was even acknowledged by its intended recipient.

As she cycled off campus, making a concentrated effort not to look back, she thought she glimpsed something strange way off in the distance. Was that... a ghost? Sure, she had to squint to arrive at that conclusion. Otherwise, it just looked like a vaguely ominous shadow cast at just the right angle to register as unusual. But surely it meant something. Was it a sign that her offering had been accepted, or was her gullible mind just playing tricks on her?

Meanwhile, Sione had just put the finishing touches on his trimester-long utili-bot project, and it wasn't just any old utili-bot - it was a Party-Bot, programmed with the most popular dance hits to turn any room into an instant night club! He invited his best Bot Savant friends and, of course, Britta up to the lab to experience the miracle of his creation for themselves.

"And that's not all it's capable of!" he announced, barely able to contain his excitement. He was as proud as he imagined a parent might feel upon the arrival of their first child. "It's got a spigot on the bottom so you can pre-load your favorite beverage, alcoholic or otherwise, and... voila!" He held an empty glass beneath the Party-Bot and pressed a button, quickly filling it to the brim with soda. "Besides that, it's fully-functional as a mini fridge! Load it up with snacks, and you're ready to go all night!"

His invention soon had drawn the attention of every single student in the immediate vicinity of the robotics lab. "Hey, this isn't half-bad," one of his fellow engineering majors, Martin, muttered through a mouth half-full of the plateful of snacks the Party-Bot had produced. "Too bad I've got the utili-bot contest on lock, my friend! Otherwise, you might stand a fighting chance." Sione narrowed his eyes suspiciously. What sort of trick did Martin have up his sleeve that could possibly compete with that?

Goddamn it, he immediately thought as he jogged confidently onto the quad to submit his entry into the contest a few days later. He stopped dead in his tracks when he saw Martin's invention. He had somehow programmed a Servo to fly an RC Quadcopter drone - a robot operating its own mini-robot! It was genius - and an instant blow to Sione's ego. He was reminded that there were still people here far smarter than he was. Even the most painstakingly modded invention of his life wasn't impressive enough.

Still, he couldn't be a sore loser and leave his Party-Bot to fend for itself. He tracked down one of the contest's judges and made sure she had a first-rate view of all of its bells and whistles. But even his Bot Savant friends seemed unable to peel their eyes away from Martin's Servo long enough to help him talk up his own device.

Britta's arrival couldn't have been timed more perfectly. "Thank God you're here!" Sione exclaimed, and she smiled brightly, but her face slowly started to fall as he breathlessly rushed on. "You have to help me explain to the judges how many sleepless hours I invested in my bot! Sure, it may not look impressive next to a fully bipedal humanoid Servo, but appearance isn't everything. I'd argue my bot is actually far more practical - and far more fun, besides. This walking hunk of metal would kill the party, not start it!"

The judge smiled at him politely. "We'll certainly take all that under consideration." The competition was as good as lost. He'd just have to try again next trimester.

When the judge walked away, Britta burst into tears without warning. "Whoa, whoa, whoa," Sione said, grabbing her around the waist and pulling her aside so that they could have some privacy. "It totally sucks that I put in all that hard work just to lose, but it's not worth crying over."

"No, Sione, you don't get it!" Her voice was shaky but determined. "All trimester, you've been going on and on about that stupid robot, but I could see how much it meant to you, so I tried to be supportive. But you never even ask me about my classes or my interests or my projects! It's all about you. I don't want to be your accessory. I want to be your girlfriend."

Sione's mouth dropped open in shock. Was that really how he'd been treating her? He'd thought they were having so much fun together, but then he remembered all the times she'd hung around the lab while he worked late into the night or patiently listened to his technical ramblings when she was trying to study for her own exams. With a mortified shiver, he realized that he didn't even know the names or subjects of a single course she was taking.

"I guess you're right," he admitted. "But I didn't even know I was doing any of that! I'm sorry. I've just been so focused. I promise things will be different now if you'll just give me a second chance." He put on his best self-deprecating smirk. "Come on. How can you say no to this face?"

"Our relationship started with a promise that you'd change. But have you really changed at all if you're still making the same promise now? I had some good times with you, Sione, but I think I just need a break." And just like that, what was supposed to be one of the best days of his college life so far turned out to be one of the worst. He would certainly remember it forever, for reasons he hadn't - but maybe should've - anticipated.

The winter trimester was finally winding down when Cassie awoke one night to the sound of strange footfalls and hushed whispers in the hall outside her bedroom. Immediately, she knew who it was. The magical mushroom club, as she'd started calling them in her head, had finally come to initiate her into their secret ritual! She'd almost convinced herself that her offering had meant nothing. As she untangled her limbs from her comforter, she smiled to herself, wondering idly if she should be more concerned about what could very well turn out to be some freaky death cult intent on making her their human sacrifice breaking into her house to possibly kidnap her in the dead of night. But, really, she just hoped Sione was still out. She would never be able to explain this to him.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity of ominously tip-toeing around, two of the cloaked women she had met before dramatically burst in through her closed bedroom door. "We have come to deliver a message from the Sprites," the lead woman announced in a resonant, theatrical tone that seemed to rattle the entire house.

While her partner kept watch in the hall, she dragged Cassie into a corner by her elbow and leaned in close. "Congrats, girl, you're in," she whispered hurriedly, seeming annoyed by the pomp and circumstance of it all. "Now, I have to say this part or else the universe will surely smite me, blah, blah, blah. Just play along, okay?" She took a deep breath and resumed her fanciful presentation. "We visit on behalf of those who greatly appreciate your generous offering. The Sprites have determined that you possess the potential they've been seeking. If your heart is pure, we invite you to join the Order of Enchantment and be a keeper of the most clandestine secrets of the Realm. Do you accept?"

 "Um... yes?" Cassie responded blankly, feeling like she had missed the memo on a script she'd been meant to memorize.

"Yay!" the woman squealed, jumping up and down excitedly. "All right. I'm going to have to throw some magical fairy dust shit in your face now. Are you ready?"

"I guess?"

Cassie had no idea what sort of nonsense she was getting herself into. Sprites? Order of Enchantment? The Realm? All of this was starting to sound like the bizarre, psychedelic ramblings of someone on an intense drug trip. There were mushrooms involved, after all. "Wait," she blurted at the last minute. "When you say fairy dust, what exactly do you-"

But it was already too late. The woman had rubbed her hands together then swiftly parted them to reveal a mass of glowing light suspended between her palms. Cassie gasped in amazement. Either she was somehow already high as a kite or there was actual magic happening right in front of her eyes. The woman tossed the shimmering bundle in Cassie's direction, and the light enveloped her entire body before seemingly absorbing into her skin.

Suddenly, her bedroom was filled with tiny green orb-like masses rapidly fluttering their wings. Sprites! Cassie hadn't seen anything like this since the island spirits that visited her mother when she was a child. She turned back toward the woman with a bewildered expression. "Are you seeing what I'm seeing?"

The woman smiled and nodded approvingly. "The Sprites have chosen well. The Sight resides within you. It only needed to be awakened."

Naturally, Cassie had about a million questions buzzing in the back of her mind, but they would have to wait. The first order of business was making sure she fit in with her new friends. She quickly changed into the balled-up cloak the woman had pulled from beneath her own flowing robe and thrown at her. "Do I really have to wear this thing?" she asked, feeling more than a little ridiculous in the strange get-up. "Will the Sprites not recognize me without it?"

"Hey, I know it's not the most fashion forward thing in the world, but don't blame me. Blame our founders. They weren't exactly hip to the trends, even way back then. It's all written down in the Enchanted Decree. You'll be learning it soon enough."

"Don't tell me there's a secret handshake eternally consecrated in this decree, too," Cassie joked.

"Well, seeing as you mentioned it..." The woman's voice trailed off as she wrapped one wrist around the other so that the backsides of her hands touched then engaged her entire body in an ethereal shimmying movement.

Cassie couldn't help cracking up. "You might as well put on a white sheet and walk around moaning, 'Oooooooo!'"

The woman laughed, too. "It's amazing how quickly you adapt. Trust me. You'll be doing this without batting an eyelash before long."

Now that she officially belonged to the Order of Enchantment, Cassie expected to somehow be transformed into an entirely new person, but she mostly felt the same. It was hard to believe she was expected to go back to her life as usual. Shouldn't the entire world have been blown open to reveal some deep eternal truth she'd always known had been buried there all along? At the very least, the Sprites could have bestowed upon her an unearthly talent for the violin. Otherwise, she was surely going to fail her class, and was that really what they wanted?