A Magical Bond | 9

Cassie didn't know what to expect when she tip-toed back into the house at the first stroke of daylight. She hoped Sione would take her advice and drop the whole thing immediately, but she knew him too well to believe it would be that easy. He was worried about her, and as much as it annoyed her, she couldn't exactly say she blamed him - on the surface, the Order of Enchantment did appear suspiciously cult-like. Hell, she'd been a member for weeks now, and she still couldn't say in complete honesty that it wasn't actually a cult. There was still too much even she didn't know.

She got her answer as soon as she cracked the door open. Although she tried to slide through as soundlessly as possible, Sione was on her instantly, stomping down the stairs with the sternness of a parent who'd been sitting up all night waiting to discipline their rebellious child. The look on his face was one Cassie knew well; it was the same look her mother had greeted her with the night she tried to sail away from Sulani on a stolen boat. "You'd better tell me everything," he demanded. "Right now."

"I have to change," she muttered, slithering past him and dashing up the staircase before he could stop her. As she slammed her bedroom door shut, her heart began racing. He clearly wasn't going to let up anytime soon, so what on earth would she tell him?

She stalled as much as she could before daring to venture back downstairs, but she knew Sione wouldn't abandon his line of questioning, no matter how long she kept him waiting. She found him standing over a sizzling pan of eggs in the kitchen and guiltily slid into a chair at the table. Her stomach was grumbling fiercely, she had to admit, but she wasn't about to let her entire guard down because of one measly breakfast. "I know we must have looked crazy to you," she began carefully, unable to fully meet his skeptical gaze. "But it's nothing you should be worried about. It's like a role-playing thing, really, just a few silly girls pretending to do magic in dumb costumes. You know I've always held onto that fantasy. Well, turns out I'm not the only one."

"So, basically, what you're telling me is you're part of an exclusive and clandestine Henry Puffer Cosplay Club that can only conduct its meetings beneath the cloak of darkness?"

"Exactly!"

"Come on, Cassie." He slammed a platter of toast and eggs down on the table and aggressively divvied up two portions. "That's complete bullshit, and you know it."

"I'm a gigantic nerd! How is that hard to believe? You only spent every second of high school making fun of me for it."

"Those girls reacted like I stumbled into the middle of a human sacrifice, not a secret costume party, ranting on about Orders and Sprites and God knows what else. It was utter nonsense, but you could tell they believed every word of it."

"They're fucking drama majors, Sione! They were committing to their characters, and you fell for it."

"That's ridiculous, Cass. Do you think I'm a complete idiot?" She kept her head down and picked at her food noncommittally. "We're friends," he persisted emphatically. "Why do you feel like you have to lie to me? We're supposed to be past all that. We can be honest with each other now."

Cassie found herself exploding, unable to contain her frustration with him a moment longer. "Honest?" She barked out an ugly, bitter laugh. "I don't think you know the meaning of that word, Sione. You can't even be honest with yourself about the fact that you haven't been a real friend to me for a long time. Every time you do something stupid, you make yourself feel better by pretending to care about your poor little childhood BFF. You use me and then drop me the second someone more interesting comes along. Somehow, I always fall for it. I think maybe you've really changed. But you're the same disappointing person every time. You don't deserve to know the truth about my life."

"Well, if that's how you really feel, I guess I'll just see myself out," Sione said quietly before calmly pushing back his chair and leaving the table. She was angry, and he didn't want to antagonize her further. Maybe she had a right to be upset. He had brute-forced his way into a part of her life she wasn't ready to share with him instead of proving that she could trust him enough to reveal it in her own time. He'd thought he'd been motivated by concern, but was it really selfishness? She was right. He didn't know how to be a good friend. He always made everything about himself.

Cassie arrived at the next Order of Enchantment meeting with a memorized apology speech she'd been crafting in her head for days. At first, Katy gave her a hard time about leading an ignorant outsider into their midst and breaking the sanctity of their divine vows. Like most of her big, dramatic speeches, her words sounded like lines from an ancient text she'd clearly rehearsed, delivered with flair but also an air of detached boredom. Once satisfied that Cassie was suitably chastened, she changed tack. "Listen, Kenzie and Kari will be pissed I didn't make you sweat it out a bit longer, but do you want to lead the ritual tonight?"

"Are you serious?" Cassie asked skeptically.

"To be perfectly honest, I think you've got more innate talent than they can muster up between the two of them combined. Isn't it about time you showed us what you're made of?" Cassie appreciated the unexpected praise, but she wasn't sure she entirely shared Katy's confidence in her latent abilities. After all, what had she done so far besides bake cakes and pick mushrooms? What good would any of that do her when it came to casting actual magic? Katy gave her a motivating push closer to the ceremonial stone. "Remind them you're here for a reason," she said before leaning in to whisper a spell Cassie had never heard them use before in her ear.

Was Katy setting her up to fail by feeding her words that would backfire the moment they left her lips? It was entirely possible. But even though she didn't know Katy well, she liked her and, as a result, wanted to believe she could trust her. There was more to Katy than met the eye, and Cassie felt she was on the cusp of figuring her out. Taking a deep breath, Cassie strode over to the others with all the false bravado she could muster, flung her arm forward dramatically, and gravely intoned the syllables she'd heard Katy mutter. Suddenly, a flurry of sparks escaped her fingers, leapt forward to consume the sacrificial hunk of crytunium, and burst outward to consume them all in white light. At first, everything was eerily still.

"What the hell did you just do?" Kenzie demanded.

"You're actually letting her cast?" Kari shouted disbelievingly in Katy's direction. Katy only smirked back at her, an expectant eyebrow raised like she knew exactly what would happen next.

Then, out of nowhere, the Sprites appeared, vengeful and furious, their fiery auras a far cry from how Cassie had ever seen them appear before. They aimed straight for Kari's head, causing her to shriek and flap her arms ineffectively as they darted at her from all directions. "Get these fucking pests off of me!" she screamed, covering her head against the assault of their battering wings. She knew it was wrong, but Cassie couldn't help cackling out loud at the sight of Kari's struggle. All of a sudden, she felt like a proper witch.

"Real funny," Kenzie snarled, her eyes staring daggers in Cassie's direction. "I'm out of here." She stomped hurriedly out of the clearing before the Sprites could descend upon her next.

"Oh, God, they're going to kill me," Cassie moaned once the Sprites had finally worn themselves out and Kenzie was finally able to make her escape, sobbing the entire way. She whirled on her heel to face Katy. "You totally set me up!"

"Please." Katy rolled her eyes. "Those spoilsports had it coming. Besides, now they know what you're capable of. The Sprites won't go into attack mode for just anybody. It takes real power to harness them like that."

"Well, thanks... I guess," Cassie said hesitantly. She wasn't sure Kenzie and Kari would see it that way.

"I mean it, forget about them. They're harmless. Hey, why don't we grab coffee tomorrow morning, just you and me?" Katy laughed at the panic that briefly flickered in Cassie's eyes. "I'm way less intimidating outside of this musty old robe, I promise."

Cassie had no idea what to expect from Katy, considering she had only ever been permitted to see the bottom half of her face until now, so it was quite a shock to be greeted by a head of perfectly-coiffed candy pink hair at the campus coffee kiosk the next day. "Wow," she couldn't stop herself blurting out. "I wasn't expecting you to be so..."

Katy smiled devilishly and tried to finish Cassie's sentence. "Chic? Crazy cute? Au courant? Super cool?"

Cassie laughed. "All of the above," she admitted.

"Let's find somewhere to sit," Katy told her. "We have a lot to talk about."

"I definitely have, like, a million burning questions," Cassie admitted once they had settled on an empty bench far enough away from any prying ears. "But I think most of them can be aptly summed up in one, which is what the fuck is the Order of Enchantment really all about? There's got to be more to it than what I'm seeing, right?"

"Yes and no," Katy responded cryptically, the octaves of her voice rising and lowering in a mysterious sing-song. Even without her secret society garb, she was as dramatic as ever. "I'll tell you everything," she continued. "You'll probably be disappointed at first, but hear me out. It's complicated. So..." She stretched out the single syllable interminably, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath in.

"The Order of Enchantment is a crock of shit." Cassie was so stunned by the admission that she didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Had she really gotten her hopes up for nothing... again? Katy continued rubbing salt in the wound, either not realizing or not caring that Cassie's pasted-on smile was only a mask behind which all of her dreams were being agonizingly crushed. "It's a big old pile of nothing. It's smoke and mirrors and just a tiny little bit of pixie dust."

"You're enjoying yourself, aren't you?" Cassie asked sardonically. "But if it's all just a ruse, explain how-"

"Ah, ah, ah," Katy said, raising a single finger like a schoolteacher scolding an impatient child, "I'm not finished. The Order of Enchantment is a recruitment tool. You see, there are different levels to being able to perform magic. Most people lack any capacity for it whatsoever, a few people have gathered enough residual energy to dabble in it, and even fewer have the inborn power to be a real spellcaster. So all those bright, shiny Sprites keep the neophytes distracted while we sort out who's got the true talent. In other words, The Order of Enchantment is meant to separate the wheat from the chaff. Cassie, my dear, I believe you are the wheat."

"So what does that make Kari and Kenzie?"

"Kari and Kenzie..." She sighed heavily, as though they weren't even worth bringing up. "Bless their hearts, they're certainly hard workers, but they're magical flops. Let's just say I'm never going to have this conversation with them. But back to you, Cassie. Most people with such strong magical bloodlines know where they came from. Hell, I usually know where they came from. My family's been in the initiation business for damn near a century. But it seems like you just appeared out of thin air. What's your story?"

"Well, I've always been interested in magic, I guess. When I was little, my mom claimed she could convene with the island spirits, and I swear I remember seeing them myself, even though now she denies everything, and then I got obsessed with Henry Puffer-"

"Wait, wait, wait," Katy interrupted, belatedly catching up to her words. "Did you say island spirits?"

"Yeah, I grew up in Sulani."

"That makes so much sense!" she exclaimed. "All of us mainland spellcasters are still connected, but we lost touch with the Sulani clan years and years and years ago, way before my parents were even born. It's always been assumed the bloodline just died out. This is amazing!" She gasped, barely able to contain her excitement. "Do you not even know about the Realm?"

"The Realm?" It wasn't the first time she'd heard Katy mention the place. Before, she had always assumed it to be metaphorical - or at least entirely inaccessible to humans. Now, she closed her eyes and immediately pulled a familiar image to the front of her mind: the dream portal. She remembered the mysterious floating world on the other side, the world her dream self had once reached for a tantalizing moment before being jerked back to reality. Despite the brevity of the experience, she'd felt like she belonged there more than anywhere else she'd ever been. Until recently, she'd maintained certainty that it must be real. Could this finally be the confirmation she'd sought for so long?

"What are you thinking?" Katy asked.

"I think I might've seen it once... in a dream." With her eyes still squeezed shut, she described it all to Katy, every last detail she could remember of the Realm itself, the portal to the Realm, and the remote, thickly forested area that surrounded it.

"The Door," Katy whispered reverently.

Cassie opened her eyes to take in the rapt expression on her face. "The Door?" she repeated. "Do you know it? Can you tell me where it is? Can you take me there?"

"Oh, Cassie..." Her heart fell at the disappointment that imbued Katy's voice. "I wish I could. But every spellcaster bloodline has their own unique Door. It's like a fingerprint, basically. Mine isn't the same as yours."

"So then take me through yours!" Cassie blurted out desperately.

Katy shook her head. "It doesn't work that way. Mine wouldn't allow you to pass. If you're entering the Realm for the first time, your own Door is the only way in. You're sure no one in your family knows where it is?"

"There's only my mom. I don't think she knows anything. Besides, she's totally denounced whatever magic she once had." Cassie's shoulders sagged. "It's hopeless. I'm never going to find it, am I?"

"It won't be easy, but it's not impossible. Each Door is like a magnet. It has a certain pull on its owner, one that grows stronger the closer you get. It wants you to find it."

"Well, where do I even begin?"

Katy contemplated this for a moment. "It might be a long shot, but my aunt has a vacation home in Windenburg, and the foliage in that forest you described sounds an awfully lot like what I've seen up there." She shrugged. "It's a place to start, at least." Suddenly, her face lit up like a light bulb. "Got any plans yet for summer break?"

"No..."

"You do now," she said, and from that moment it was decided. "Windenburg, here we come."

Meanwhile, the dynamic duo of Sione and Martin were back at the utili-bot contest, poised to take first place bar one tiny problem: though Sione's robo-arm controller appeared to be fully operational, their Servo was on the fritz, in the midst of a full-fledged mechanical breakdown just as the judging period was poised to begin.

"You told me last night all systems were go," Sione hissed as the two of them power-walked in the malfunctioning Servo's direction, trying to keep their quickly mounting panic under wraps. "What the hell happened?"

"Everything looked perfect, I swear! I tightened all the screws and triple-checked every line of code!" He twisted his head toward Sione and narrowed his eyes, his expression immediately darkening. "Maybe you snuck into the lab after I locked up and sabotaged my last-minute efforts."

"Dude, are you seriously accusing me of vandalizing our own work? We're partners, man!"

Martin's bravado visibly faded, but he insisted on barreling forward anyway, jabbing his finger at Sione aggressively. "For all I know, you're still jealous of me for stealing the top prize from you last trimester!"

"You think I'm enough of a sore loser to want to lose again?"

"Whatever." Martin crossed his arms stubbornly, failing to admit defeat. "I'm just saying it'll be awfully convenient when you miraculously manage to get that thing up and running again by the time the judges get over here. Suddenly, Sione's the star of the show!"

"What on earth are you two idiots arguing about?" asked Delilah, one of the Bot Savants' newest recruits and Martin's current crush. He laughed jovially, his mood shifting on a dime.

"Just some good old-fashioned ribbing between best buds," he told her. She and Sione swapped amused eyebrow raises at Martin's clumsy attempt at backpedaling. "Sometimes he just needs a little shove to get that thinker of his humming. After all, we both know I'm the real brains of this operation."

In the nick of time, the Servo sprung back to life, dutifully fulfilling the commands electronically beamed into its complex system of circuitry by Sione's robo-arm. "He's a good guy," he said to Delilah, nodding in the direction of Martin nervously pacing back and forth across the lawn. "Competition might make him a little crazy, but he's a real softie otherwise, I swear."

Sione felt good going into finals: his quick thinking not only saved their submission but easily nabbed them first place, he got his friend a date with the girl he'd been making googly eyes at all trimester, and his trusty Party-Bot served up good food and an endless selection of top-notch party tunes, bringing the competition to a festive close. Things couldn't be going better.

Later that week, Sione came home from his last day of exams to find the house completely empty. In the end, Cassie had left without even saying goodbye. She'd simply packed up her most important belongings and gone. But she hadn't taken everything, and surely that was cause for relief. Didn't that mean she planned on returning? Maybe by the end of summer, the ups and downs in their friendship would be ancient history and they would both be ready to give it one more try. He didn't want to believe in a world where the better option was for them to vanish completely from one another's lives. One of these times, they would have to get it right. He stood in Cassie's room for a long time, deep in thought, before the distant sound of knocking pulled him abruptly back into the present moment.

He was surprised to open the front door and find Britta standing there. They hadn't spoken to each other since Britta had tearfully admitted she thought they should take a break at the end of the previous trimester. Come to think of it, he hadn't even seen her since then either. Suddenly, he felt deeply ashamed that he hadn't once thought to call or text her to ask how things were going. Here he was once again, thinking only about himself.

"Hey," she ventured shyly.

"Hey!" he responded, shuffling out onto the patio. "It's good to see you. Where have you been lately?"

"I was on a study abroad program in Selvadorada. Sorry I didn't tell you I was going. It was kind of a last-minute decision. I just figured we could both use some time on our own."

"But..." she began and then faltered, her shoulders slouching uncertainly.

"But what?"

"I missed you," she admitted after a long pause, tilting her head back up to meet his gaze. "A lot. I had a good time, but I just kept thinking about how much more fun I would've been having if you were there with me."

Sione gulped, a million thoughts running through his mind simultaneously. It felt good to hear those words from her, really good. But he had no idea what he wanted anymore. Britta was a smart, nice, beautiful girl, and he had enjoyed spending time with her, but could he actually say he loved her? Would it be fair to Britta for them to get back together even though he already knew she wasn't the one? Would it be fair to himself to settle for someone just because feeling comfortable was less scary than feeling alone? He'd had hardly any time to contemplate these questions let alone formulate an answer before Britta scooped him up in a deep, hungry embrace. He hugged her back, although even that small gesture already felt somehow deceitful. "I'll call you later," he promised, and her smile was so bright he knew they were already boyfriend and girlfriend again in her mind.

What was he getting himself into, he wondered, as he carved out a generous hunk of the vanilla cake Cassie had left in the refrigerator and plopped down at the kitchen table with it. The first bite deliciously melted in his mouth, and Britta left his mind entirely. Instead, he cycled through his memories of every last interaction he'd had with Cassie over the last several months. Suddenly, it was as though he saw it all in a whole new light. All she'd wanted was for him to give her a fair shake, and instead he'd tried to turn her into his fucking wingman. It had been somehow embarrassing to admit he might possibly have feelings for his childhood best friend. He refused to even entertain the thought. Yet all trimester long he'd obsessed over her whereabouts to an unhealthy level. He cared for her. He loved her. "Time to face the facts, buddy," he muttered to himself through a delectable mouthful of frosting and crumbs.