Ice Cold

Chapter Three

As I followed Flora into the ice building, I was immediately handed a blue jacket from someone I couldn't get the name of before they'd run off down a different hall than the one we were going down.

"What was that about?"

Flora let out a little laugh and then waved it away with a flick of her wrist. "Some people, Penelope, you'll come to understand still have a flick of nervousness to them. Even though a specialty has chosen them, it doesn't mean it's necessarily what they want. It might not even be what they need."

I shrugged into the jacket, a burst of warmth costing the ice in the air. "What they need? What does that even mean? I've never heard of such a thing."

She led me down another hall that had a tall ornately carved wooden door waiting for us. "It's a rare thing to happen. It's something that only really happens with human-fae like yourself. The human part of you doesn't always take to the magic. Sometimes it tends to reject the very notion of magic. The rejection doesn't always happen right away either, it can take years to fully ensconce a person."

That made me shudder. I never knew a specialty could be rejected. I'd thought that once it found you, that was that and you became a part of that family. To have a specialty reject you? I couldn't imagine the pain that would come from that. That made me think of the young person who'd run from us after delivering the jacket, why Flora'd said when she said it.

"Does that mean..." I gestured down the hall.

Flora nodded. "Diera there's going through a rejection as we speak. It doesn't seem to be affecting her health overall, it just seems that the magic is leaving her body, going someplace else."

"Why would it go someplace else?" I asked as we reached the door. "How could it go anywhere? I thought it was always inside of a person. Didn't think it could be a gas in the air so to speak."

Flora bowed her head. "I wish I knew the answers to give to you, little one. For now, I don't. For now, you must visit with the headmaster of the Ice Building. I will leave you here to speak with him."

She turned to leave; I placed a hand on her elbow. "You cant be leaving me already!" I hissed in a whisper. "I've just gotten here."

She gave me a warm smile as she removed my hand from her arm. "You'll be fine, little one. I helped to raise you so that you'd always be fine on your own. No, go about your way in there." She winked. "He's expecting you."

It was cold in the Ice Building and though I should've expected it and welcomed it, I didn't like the feel of it. Did that mean I'd be going through a rejection as well as Diera?

I shivered at the thought. No. I wouldn't think about that as a possibility, for now, I'd focus on nothing else except meeting the Ice Building headmaster and let him explain to me what I was to expect in here until graduation.

Knocking on the large wooden doors, I waited for them to open, waited to have my nerves relaxed into nothing. But nothing happened. Not even a creak from the other side of the door.

I knocked again. "Hello? Headmaster? My name is Penelope, Flora left me here to see you!" I pressed my ear to the wood and immediately jumped back due to the icy chill it radiated. "Stupid ice." I muttered, rubbing my ear to bring some warmth back to it. How was I ever going to belong here if the headmaster didn't even see me? Did he even want to see me?