Cover

Dedication

For my parents.

This book wouldn’t exist without you.

Chapter 1

Each year, T. K. Anderson Magical Magnet School brings together a class of highly motivated and magically talented students from Palm Beach County. Students are selectively admitted based upon prior school record, magic level, and a rigorous admissions test.

On our campus, we prepare students for the world of higher education by encouraging an atmosphere of healthy competition.

—T. K. Anderson promotional brochure

I stare at the curlicues of magic swirling through the brown liquid in my Port-a-Cauldron. The stupid piece of equipment should be heating faster. This Flora-Grow potion is due tomorrow, so I have to finish enough to turn in, or my grade in AP Potions will take a serious hit. Probably not a good look for a girl trying to go to college for potionwork.

The numbers on my alarm clock glow from my bedside table—2:32 a.m. It’s only two weeks after winter break, and my sleep schedule is already shot. That’s cool. Who needs rest anyway? I was stuck singing in a choir performance at our school’s Salute to America concert until eight, so I probably shouldn’t have decided to pick an extra-complicated brewing project for tonight’s assignment. I could have just done a simple cold-curing potion instead, but I couldn’t resist brewing something new.

I stick my temperature gauge into the liquid. It beeps loudly, the sound piercing the quiet of our apartment. I wince. Hopefully Mom is sleeping deeply enough to not have heard that. Sometimes she has insomnia, so she’ll sit awake doing sudoku puzzles, but I checked before I started brewing, and the lights were off in my parents’ room.

The temperature gauge shows that the potion is done heating, so I turn down the burner and focus on the liquid. I concentrate to activate my magic sight, which allows me to see the web of invisible magical energy that exists in every physical object. The thin, silvery filaments of magic come into view, twisting and turning within the liquid. The shape and movements of magic reflect an object’s physical properties, and speed correlates to heat, so the magic in this heated potion moves quickly.

I mentally reach for the magic, bending it to my will. The strands vibrate, still holding to their natural patterning, then begin to weave themselves into the lattice framework I have in mind. Once the lattice is complete, the liquid thickens and turns from brown to a brilliant emerald green.

I reach for the magic one last time to seal my intention into the potion. Growth. Life. Green, natural things. I hold those thoughts in mind and push them toward the potion. A thread of my magic wisps out of my head. In it, I see flashes of the images I held in my mind. Once it sinks into the cauldron, the liquid shivers, and then the potion is done.