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Except it wasn’t as simple as Ansel thought. I didn’t sneak out to the Spirit Tree because I wanted the spirits to give me magic. I did it because I had to hide that I already had magic.

If that got out, I wouldn’t just be that weird girl who didn’t fit in anywhere on Gaia; I’d be that weird girl with weird, unexplained magic who didn’t fit in anywhere in the Many Realms.

“I’m Dante,” my brother said, reaching out his hand.

“You’re cool, Dante,” Ansel told him after the two of them finished some complicated boy handshake. It was probably some trendy gesture I knew nothing about.

Dante grinned. “You too, Ansel.”

“Hey, what about me? I’m cool too, right?” I tried to replicate their handshake—and failed.

Ansel snorted. “See you around, Savannah.”

He circled around me, then headed off toward the Scoreboard.

I turned to Dante, frowning. “I’m cool, right?”

“Do you seriously want me to answer that question?”

“Of course!” I told him.

“Fine.” He set his hands on my shoulders and met my eyes. “You’re my sister. So I really can’t call youcool.”

“Why not?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s against the rules.”

“Gee, thanks. That helps a lot.”

“That’s why I’m here.” Dante gave me a thumbs up.

“Attention, Apprentices!” Ms. Featherdale’s voice cut through the chatter. Everyone turned toward her. “I will now reveal the six Apprentice teams. Pay attention. These people will be your comrades for the duration of the Apprentice Program. To succeed, you will need to work together with all of them.” She clicked the remote in her hand, and the names on the Scoreboard rearranged themselves into six columns.

I searched for my own name. It was there, in the same column as Bronte. Kylie, the girl who’d trained beside us yesterday, was also there. So was a boy named Asher. It was the fifth name in the column that turned my stomach.

It was Dutch, one of the bullies from Victory.

CHAPTER5

DISCOVERY QUEST

Like good, rule-abiding citizens, the Apprentices quickly clustered into their assigned teams. Kylie soon found us, and she brought along a boy with pale hair and suntanned skin.

“Hey, girls. This is Asher. Asher, this is Bronte,” Kylie said as Bronte dipped her chin, “and Savannah.”

“Oh, I know whoyouare,” Asher said, grinning and bouncing slightly into his knees. “You’re the one the White Knight escorted out of the Garden yesterday. So what did he do to you? Interrogate you? Throw you into the Castle’s dungeon? Strike you with lightning repeatedly until you talked?”

He sounded way too excited about those horrific scenarios.

“Don’t mind Asher.” Kylie rolled her eyes at him before diverting her gaze to me and Bronte. “He tends to get a bit carried away.”

“How would you know? We just met five minutes ago!” Asher protested.

“Five seconds was all I needed have you all figured out,” she replied with a sweet smile. “You’re not very complex.”

Asher laughed. Well, at least he wasn’t offended by her words. This would all work a lot better if everyone on our team got along.

“Where’s our fifth teammate?” Asher asked.