A new year at Nine Petal Academy means a new crop of students, including a boy who can't control his magic, a thief, an angel, and even a suit of armor? Adela, Lei, and their friends are tasked with welcoming the new class of first years and helping...
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I smiled as the boat rocked back and forth. The sea breeze felt good against my nostrils. Since we had Tamara and Jude, we only needed to pick up one more person.
"You look like you're enjoying this," Carter said as he leaned against the side. He had been vomiting earlier, but his body was slowly adjusting.
I raised my spyglass over my right eye to look for any surrounding land. A mountain range poked out from Tozan Hoshi. It sure had a lot of them on the western side. "Yeah, I used to dream of being a pirate as a kid," I said, laughing.
"A pirate? You've met a pirate before?"
I lowered my spyglass. "Yeah, a couple. My gramps on my mom's side was one. Grandma found him one day and nursed him back to health. I grew up listening to his tales about looking for gold."
Cart smiled. "Is that what made you want to see the outside world?"
I snickered. "That's a part of it."
"I'm sure that you'll be able to explore the world one day, Au. Don't give up your dream, my child," my grandfather's parting words echoed in my head. He died defending our town from the Shadow People while my dad and the others went to protect other parts of our lands.
I hugged myself as I tried to push aside the images of burning fields and people getting impaled by monstrous claws. Their screams vibrated in my psyche as if teleported back to that time.
"You okay?" Carter asked, shaking me a little. "You're sweating bullets."
I rubbed the back of my head. Carter was right; I was sweating a lot.
"I'm going to go back inside," I said, pointing at the door.
"Hey, it looks like we've made it to our destination," Carter said, pointing south.
I gasped as I saw what appeared to be a small dock surrounded by a pristine forest. It was lusher than the ones from back home.
"So that's Xian," I said, smiling. I brought the spyglass up to my eye and watched as birds flew around the forest. "It's incredible!"
"I think. I could be wrong. Everything west of eastern Tora is new for me."
"The boat is heading there, so I think you're right." I looked through my spyglass again and saw a light-green-haired girl standing on top of a sea cliff overlooking the town. She seemed to be on the lookout for the boat as her eyes dilated as soon as she saw it.
"What do you see?"
"I think we found our last member!" I said, grinning.
"Really, where is he?" he asked, taking the spyglass from me.
"It's a girl."
His cheeks reddened. "She's pretty."
I chuckled. "Leave the talking to me. I don't want you to embarrass yourself."
