Page 8 of Zero Happily Ever Afters (Branches of Past and Future #4)

I’d spent the week allowing my manifestation to follow Milo closely but hadn’t reconnected with the thread that linked us. Enchanter Evergreen had an important case, and I didn’t need to hover over his shoulder every second of it. Well, I supposed I was doing just that, but I’d resigned myself not to check the memories accumulated until the weekend hit. I wanted to prioritize my students, my job, and ensure they were all prepared for the first upcoming showcase event. A lead-in event that wasn’t an actual part of the showcase but quite possibly the most important. It’d been pitched as a little game staff and admin had cooked up to ensure our students made a top-tier introduction to all the potential guilds out there.

“Good morning,” Katherine and Caleb said in unison with bright-eyed smiles.

“Morning,” I said with very little enthusiasm, sipping my coffee and hoping the caffeine would kick in soon.

Tara and Gael strolled toward the classroom, King Clucks plodding between them, crowing at any student foolish enough to stand in their path. The three of them came to a stop momentarily when Tiffany brushed past them, her long blonde hair tied back in a messy bun.

Her beaver partner chomped on a piece of wood, slapping its flat tail in the air to steady the flux of levitation that kept her floating beside her human companion.

“Tara.” Tiffany nodded, then turned to address Gael’s familiar. “King Clucks. Always a pleasure to see you two.”

She turned on her heel and strutted away quickly before reaching another student, some third-year I’d never had in classes, and grabbed his hand. Tiffany made sure to shoot a dagger-eyed smile at Gael while conveying just how over him she was as she walked to class with her new boyfriend.

“She’s still mad?” Tara asked.

“Not sure why. She’s the one who ended things.” Gael shrugged, glossing over any feelings he had for Tiffany and allowing them to fizzle out like a random thought. “Whatever. She’s gonna be disappointed when she realizes Kevin’s head game is weak.”

I choked on my coffee, pounding my chest as it went down the wrong pipe.

“Wait.” Tara paused, contemplating. “I thought he was straight.”

“Tara? Really?” Gael cocked his head, a single judgmental eyebrow raised as if he’d taught her better by now, and she should have a full grasp on his god-level game—ugh, the ego running through Gael’s surface thoughts. “You’ve seen me. I’m a whole damn snack. Of course he’s gonna take a taste.”

“And when Tiffany finds out you messed around with her new boyfriend?”

“Messed around?” Gael smirked. “Bestie, I had that curious boy on all fours, face down, and as—”

“Stop talking,” I snapped, having finally composed myself enough to speak after the worst of the coffee had stopped scalding my throat. “I have no patience for it today.”

“ When does he have the patience for it? ” Tara tilted her head, musing to herself and stifling a slight snicker.

“Sup, Mr. Frosty.” Gael waggled his eyebrows. “You excited for the big day?”

“I’m prepared.” I glowered. “Are you?”

“Always ready to fuck shit up.” He balled a fist and punched his open palm.

“Go away.” I waved my hand, a shooing gesture to usher him into the classroom, where I hoped he’d expel all his chatty energy before the bell rang. It wouldn’t happen. It never happened. I sighed.

But goddamn, a guy can dream.

When the bell finally rang, I stepped into the classroom and immediately went to work discussing today’s expectations. They’d be called down to the auxiliary gym soon, and I wanted to reiterate one final time how important today was for them.

“Today’s event ties to the Spring Showcase as a baseline in a sense,” I said, reminding those who’d lacked the attention span to focus during the other lectures I’d given about this activity. “There will be scouts from every guild in Chicago attending. Does anyone know what a scout does?”

“They’re managerial recruiters that often work on the PR side of things,” Katherine answered with a raised hand.

I nodded, gesturing for her to continue since she wanted to include a lot more in her response.

“They evaluate magic proficiency, collaboration, personality, extracurriculars, and anything else they deem noteworthy when deciding whether or not to list a potential candidate for an enchanter’s observation.” Katherine brushed a stray curl from the rim of her glasses, then tucked it behind her ear.

“Okay, that sounds like a lot,” I said. “But why don’t the enchanters just show up whenever?”

“ Because they’ve got jobs. ” “ Who has that kind of time? ”

“ Is he really going over this again? ”

“ What the fuck, Frost? Kill me now. ”

“ ?No repasamos esto ya? Incluso hubo una prueba. ”

“ Wait. What’s a scout? Like the sailors? ”

“ So is today actually part of the showcase or not? ”

“ Seriously? He’s acting like we don’t already know this. ”

“ When did we learn this? ”

“ Why is he just now going over it the day of? ”

“Well? Does anyone want to vocalize their answer?” I glared, letting them know their thoughts bounced around a little too loudly for my taste.

“Oh.” Caleb raised his hand high, stretching his fingers as far up as possible like there was a cluster of eager people surrounding him, and he desperately wanted to be called on for the answer.

“Yes?” I looked at him.

“Enchanters simply don’t have the time or resources to attend every event,” Caleb said, tempering his hive of a mind that darted in a hundred different directions on an explanation, but he’d learned that sometimes less was more and focused on the key components of his response.

I practically smiled. Good job, Caleb.

“That’s the reason scouts are so vital,” he continued. “They’re trained to understand several important needs. Guild interest, enchanter preferences, and market drive—basically, what magic and personality will appeal to the public. This allows the enchanter to prioritize the time they do have when they show up to the official competition later. Well, determining which events and dates they attend because they really only want to see their prospective candidates casting, so it’s important…”

Caleb noticed the eyes of his classmates glaze over.

“For fuck’s sake.” Kenzo folded his arms and glared. “You’re worse than Frost.”

“And that’s really the most important factor.” Caleb grinned anxiously.

Katherine smiled. “I thought it was very interesting.”

She would. I rolled my eyes.

At least the couple didn’t drown the class in too many details. Today was stressful enough; I didn’t want anyone going in too overwhelmed.

“Wait.” Gael scrunched his face, lost deep in thoughts that merged with the silence of his familiar’s mind. “Sooooo… If I don’t impress any scouts during today’s event, then they won’t tell any enchanters to watch me during the actual showcase events, and they won’t be at my round because there are multiple rounds at the same time?”

“Not the same time,” I said. “More like enchanters don’t have time to take off to sit and watch every single event play out. We’ve got hundreds of second-year students. Plus, try to remember we’re not the only academy putting on a showcase for guilds.”

“Right.” Gael had a monotone voice, expression lost in a fog. It was a truly calming experience for me.

“Have you not listened to a single thing Mr. Frost has said for the past month?” Layla asked, rolling her eyes that’d shifted into her cat form as she practiced enhancing just her senses. “ What a fucking moron. ”

“He just never stops talking,” Gael whined.

I scoffed. And the fog had lifted.

“Ba-ba-bawk.”

“ Right? ” Gael’s mind created an image of me droning on like one of those comic strip teachers who only said ‘blah, blah, blah’ the entire time. “ Always running his mouth like someone’s got all day for those lectures. ”

I wanted to point out the irony of him suggesting that I talked too much considering who Gael was, but his mind darted and zipped and bounced about in a million different directions before he landed on his next concrete thought.

“ We gotta impress the scouts today, King Clucks. Make sure the Cerberus guys report back to Enchanter Evergreen about how awesome we were. If we fuck up, then he won’t get to see our improved magics in action. ”

“Cl-cluck!”

“ You did not tell me that. ”

King Clucks crowed, clearly arguing with Gael about the parts of my lessons even the damn bird paid better attention to than Gael.

Thank goodness the intercom kicked in with a sharp buzzing sound that dulled Gael’s obnoxious thoughts. Headmaster Dower came on, announcing that all the second-year students should make their way to the auxiliary gym. I led my students out of the classroom and through the crowded hallway as every second-year student made their way to the auxiliary gym in anticipation of this pre-emptive showcase event.

Aside from the semi-arena seating added to the outskirts of the auxiliary gym, the training facility remained completely intact, leaving each of the areas unchanged from the rock terrain with a cliffside to the fitness station and all the way to the forest terrain. It perplexed a lot of students who recalled everything had been renovated for the first-round obstacle course last year and the arena layout for the semi-finals and grand finale of the first-year Spring Showcase. This wasn’t a first-year showcase, though, and the academy expected our students to demonstrate their abilities in any and all terrains.

Plus, today wasn’t technically a showcase event. It was a pre-showcase event, hence the small, selective seating holding enough space for about three or four scouts from each of the prospective guilds in Chicago. I studied them, noting barely three hundred had shown up, which meant fewer enchanters were showing an interest in internships.

I sighed. Another year with another uphill battle.

“I know everyone’s eager to get started with today’s little event showcasing everything our second-year students are capable of,” Chanelle said, opening with a speech she hoped would spark enthusiasm in the scouts attending. “Since Gemini Academy is the first in the city to kick off the Spring Showcase this year, we wanted to set the bar high and demonstrate the fantastic skills our students possess.”

Unlike the first-year showcase, this event would be dragged out for the bulk of the semester, with lots of mini-rounds taking place whenever the academy could fit them in, which would also eat into instruction time. It came down to balancing things so enchanters could reasonably fit in attending rounds to see prospective student interns, not only at Gemini Academy but also every academy in the city, which meant we had to balance our tournament dates so they wouldn’t interfere with any of the forty-three other academies also scheduling their showcases.

The real advantage to going first meant our students would catch the interest of scouts before they were bored and exhausted from attending endless competitions. Sure, some scouts already prioritized the to-do lists on their phones, multi-tasking all the things they needed to achieve during recruitment season, but once performance began, they’d take a lot of notes of students to keep an eye on for interested enchanters.

The biggest drawback to performing first was that the second semester had barely begun, which meant our students had less time to strategize and prepare for this event. An event that would determine if any enchanters came to observe them, cheer them on, recruit them as interns. I ran a hand through my shaggy brown hair, mentally preparing for all the polite emails I’d need to send to enchanters, all the wooing I’d have to suffer through to draw attention, and all the monotonous thoughts I’d have to read to gauge how I’d interest an enchanter into observing my second-year students. After all, I didn’t simply rely on my homeroom’s performance today. I played the game as well as any other teacher—better, in fact, because I had already made mental notes on the scouts in attendance so I could gauge which of my students wouldn’t draw enough interest today.

Chanelle strutted across the makeshift stage crafted near the forest terrain, using the lush green trees as a backdrop to make her perfectly picked pink dress pop for the enchanters all the way in the stands. The outfit was meant to compliment her earth brown complexion and accentuate her curves without stealing focus from the students but definitely intended to make her a host those in attendance remembered. After all, the scouts would be visiting a dozen other academies this month alone. Not only that, but her vixen red lipstick matched her jeweled accessories and had a sheen almost as captivating as her voice. Chanelle was quite possibly the only person at Gemini better than me at strategizing which enchanters were worth her students’ time and which weren’t, so she kept close attention on the scouts she needed to wow. And she didn’t even possess a psychic branch for deeper insight.

Oh, fuck me. Speaking of telepathy… Chanelle didn’t even need to think the actual shades of her attire for the particular names to flicker in my mind. Unfortunately, I’d become so attuned to her thoughts that my magic began to fill in the gaps that didn’t flit about on her surface, offering me more insight.

“In today’s thrilling preliminary ceremony of Gemini Academy’s second-year student Showcase, we have 599 students eager to display their mastery over their magics.”

That number hit hard. It practically silenced the crowd and the students, and it left a sour taste in my mouth. The aggravation from admin was palpable in the air, having already given Chanelle more delicate phrasing when referring to the number of students competing.

“ Nearly 600 students, ” popped in a lot of admin surface thoughts along with their frustrations. “ Just say 600. No one’s gonna notice. ”

Chanelle didn’t give a damn because she wanted that singular missing student to resonate, to be remembered. She didn’t want to brush aside Jamie Novak’s absence in a more palatable manner. The ache in her heart clouded her thoughts, giving a much longer pause than intended as she hoped this was enough…this gesture held as a meaningful reminder…a reminder of the student she believed more than anything she failed.

Once the moment passed, the somber silence for a few seconds, Chanelle reeled the students forward with a bright smile and enthusiastic tone. “In order to be a top-ranked enchanter someday, you have to prove proficiency over your root magics, your branch magic, your teammates’ magics, and the world of magic around you!”

“ Christ, that’s wordy as fuck, ” I thought, linking my mind instinctually, almost as if my telepathy sought the familiarity of someone, anyone since Milo had left the city.

“ Oh, shut up, Dorian. You’re just pissy that I have you on proctoring detail. ” Chanelle strutted across the stage, gesturing to me and the other poor bastards she’d wrangled into proctoring today’s ceremony. “Please make sure everyone’s Cast-8-Watch is properly synced.”

I made my way through my homeroom coven, double-checking their tech. Afterward, I made my way to the marble pillars Chanelle had the academy bring in for this showing. I wasn’t sure why she demanded that proctors take their place atop the pillars during the competition, but I wagered it was for some outlandishly theatric reason. Everything Chanelle did was to ensure the audience remained mesmerized and lost in the performance.

“Today’s game is a lot like Will-o’-the-Wisp tag,” Chanelle said, which was met with a lot of groans of complaint.

Will-o’-the-Wisp tag was a simple game. Students chased wisps, and for each one they banished, they earned a single point. It was as elementary as it got. Hell, it was basically how I started day one with my homeroom coven, but I never treated it like a game.

Nothing about tag screamed proficiency. Nothing about wisps said these students were exceptionally talented. And absolutely nothing about Chanelle’s game sounded like a fun thing. This was a childish waste of time; the thought soared collectively from hundreds of minds while Kenzo naturally led the pack declaring his utter contempt for Gemini Academy and their bullshit waste of time tactics.

I half-laughed to myself, quelling the minds of angry teens as Chanelle continued. I was careful not to silence their thoughts as I wanted to hear the revelation when she finished the directions and announced the biggest twist that’d leave them scrambling.

“But banishing a few wisps is only gonna demonstrate so much capability,” Chanelle said. “We here at Gemini want to ensure that our students are prepared for threats from every direction, which is why every coven will stand on their own. Your survival in today’s game depends on your coven mates, your success depends on your casting proficiency, and your likelihood will be determined by your rankings.”

Chanelle shot a fist into the air, gesturing with all the obnoxious theatricality she could muster for the technicians to display the latest updates to the student rankings.

Most of my homeroom coven was fine, seeing their ranking hadn’t changed like Kenzo and Katherine, who continued to place in the top ten. Some were pleasantly surprised to see their ranking had even improved slightly, such as the Gaels, who each showed growth in grades and casting, which paid off in the subtle bump. A few were disappointed, however, like poor Caleb, whose ranking had gone down.

I buried my guilt for withholding that information from him. Academy policy dictated that they should all be informed at the same time about their final set of rankings and when better to present that information than right before a competition that determined their future. Ugh. I hated it even if I agreed. Learning to digest difficult information and pivot was a necessary ability for any witch who wanted to work in the industry.

Caleb sank into his disappointment, wondering where he went wrong last semester and how he could prove he would do better this semester. He hadn’t gone wrong anywhere, but unfortunately, I couldn’t explain that to him. Not right now anyway.

“Now that you all see where you stand among the ranks,” Chanelle said with a strut in her step. “It’s time to explain the rules of this game.”

A lot of students listened closely, attentively, even if they’d already formed theories on the obvious objective. After all, how complicated could Gemini Academy make a game of Will-o’-the-Wisp tag? The thin grin on my face grew because these poor bastards had absolutely no clue how sadistic and maniacal their kind, bubbly Mrs. Whitehurst could be. Even I didn’t know the full extent of what she had in store, as she kept it guarded from all except for the admin team—mainly because they had to approve her ridiculous budget.

“Everyone will begin with a different number of points,” Chanelle explained. “Your ranking will determine how many points you start off with.”

I scoffed. Of course the academy would give an edge to those with higher rankings, allowing them an advantage over their peers. I mean, continuous hard work did deserve a reward, but this match gave them one opportunity to stand out to the scouts in attendance.

“Your beginning score will match your current ranking.”

Well, fuck.

That meant the student ranked very last had already started the game with 599 points, and the student ranked number one had only one point to his name. I expected fury to boom from the crowd of teens, but a furious delight blossomed. Kenzo eyed his peers, calculating which weaklings would be worth eviscerating first. It wasn’t merely about taking down the competition to improve his score in the game, but he wanted the weak witches who’d demonstrate his capability in combat. He knew in order to win, he’d have to raise his score quickly, his covens too, but he also had to keep an eye on those already hundreds of points ahead of him if he wanted to ensure they didn’t win today’s little game. Damn. Even now, Kenzo took into consideration who would help him shine the brightest in front of the scout audience.

“But a simple game of tag for points doesn’t demonstrate how perfectly proficient this class of students truly is.” Chanelle continued her strut, joining Headmaster Dower, who’d walked up to the stage. “I asked myself, how can I make this the most fun and engaging demonstration to date? Will-o’-the-Wisp tag is a blast, but then I think about the games I loved most as a kid: it was The Floor is Lava.”

What?

I shook away the shock of everyone else as best I could. And suddenly, the pillars Chanelle demanded her proctors to stand atop made total sense.

Headmaster Dower took a deep, dragon-like breath. Her chest swelled three times the normal size, her veins glowed a golden red, and she spit literal lava from her mouth, spewing it across the entire auxiliary gym floor.

Everyone screamed and shouted and levitated as quickly as possible to avoid the deathly burn of the headmaster’s primal magic.

“ She could’ve killed us! ” “ It’s everywhere. ”

“ Hot damn. No, that wasn’t a pun, King Clucks! ”

“ What would she have done if someone didn’t levitate in time? ”

“ Ugh, falling into the lava is a whole ass mood right now. ”

“ Worst. Teacher. Ever. ” “ Why is Mrs. Whitehurst like this? ”

“ They’re so dramatic. It’s like no one here understands how Dower’s primal branch works. Fucking morons. ”

“ The lava swarmed the entire auxiliary gym in seconds. ”

“ Makes sense. Headmaster Dower was a guild master candidate back in her day. ” Katherine’s admiration grounded my mind, helping pull me from the collective surprise of surface thoughts stemming from every second-year student and the scouts in attendance. “ That is before they pushed her out of the industry and into education. ”

I cocked my head in surprise. Few knew about that, myself among them purely by happenstance on the singular occasion Headmaster Dower’s thoughts had twisted to past regrets during a staff training, wondering and wishing if she’d fought harder how things would have gone.

But as I dived deeper into Katherine’s thoughts, steadying my own in the process, I grasped that she’d researched every guild master in Chicago, every potential guild master, and learned the number of women dictating the industry laws were few and far apart.

She quietly analyzed the lava casting, forming theories while also pulling from the stacks of research she’d done on empowered women throughout the industry. Katherine didn’t want to simply be a talented enchanter like so many of her peers. She wanted to shape the industry, carve out the old, and introduce something new and better. To accomplish that, Katherine knew she’d need to become the best, which meant becoming a guild master in her own right.

Flashes of the youngest woman to run a guild rose in Katherine’s mind. Guild Master Campbell, who steered the helm of Cerberus Guild. While every student here pondered how to impress the scouts, hoping they’d whisper wonderful things about them to the enchanter of their dreams, Katherine hoped to catch the eye of a guild master.

Huh. I’d never had a student who thought that far ahead in their career. They all dreamed of becoming enchanters, glossing over their internship, the years of service as an acolyte, and the difficult work of the industry. But Katherine ingrained it all in her mind, calculating every step to ensure she wouldn’t falter on the way to the top.

“Don’t worry.” Chanelle hopped off the stage, and nearly everyone from the students to the scouts waited with bated breath as she landed in the molten pit and splashed her boots into the knee-high lava. “It’s as soothing as a dip in a hot tub, which should be a lovely consolation to anyone who gets knocked out of the game before it ends.”

Everyone paid complete and total attention to the rules Chanelle explained.

Scoring would be split into two forms. Individual scoring to show off the top ten students who excelled and coven scoring to show off the top ten teams that demonstrated the best collaboration.

Everyone started with a set number of points based on their ranking. The higher your ranking, the lower your starting score, and vice versa for low-ranked students.

Every wisp banished earned a point for a team member.

If a student fell into the lava pit, they lost all their points, and it wouldn’t be added into the coven scoring.

If they were thrown into the lava pit, the student who knocked them out of the game would receive their points as a reward.

They had one hour to prove their skill.

An hour? That was a long time to maintain root magics in tandem. They’d have to keep their levitation and telekinesis active the entire time. They’d need their banishment root to remove wisps. As the competition thinned, they’d need their sensory root to locate more demonic energy for more points. Most of all, they needed to keep an eye on nearly every single classmate who was their enemy for the next hour.

“Hope you’re all ready for a little fun.” Chanelle kicked a leg, splattering lava ahead of her as she released a high-pitched gleeful, laughter. “Let the game begin!”