T. K. Anderson Magical Magnet School is known for two things. First, it’s ridiculously hard to get in. Even if you live in the school zone and get preferred application status, you only have a 10 percent chance of acceptance. If you live outside the zone, your chance of acceptance shrinks to 1 percent. Mom rerouted all our mail to my rich auntie’s house for a few months so she could pretend we lived nearby. She would have moved us near the school, but we couldn’t afford any of the expensive properties in the area.

The other thing T. K. Anderson is known for is the Brockton Scholarship. The scholarship is awarded in junior year, and it gives one student a full ride to whatever licensing university they’re accepted to. That’s why most people are so desperate to get into T. K. Anderson.

Dad drives me to school, which is in West Palm Beach, a whole forty-five minutes away from our apartment. The opportunity is worth the commute. Sometimes it’s hard to remember that when I have to wake up at the ass-crack of dawn to get there, but it is.

When I get to campus, I stop by the nurse’s office for magic-level testing. T. K. Anderson is intense about tracking student progress, so we all get tested four times a year. I practice generating electricity at my fingertips while I wait in line. Any downtime is a good time to practice basic magic skills. Just as I get to the front, a group of other juniors joins the line. They clock me, then immediately turn in to discuss me. Typical. Their voices are quiet, but I can still hear most of what they’re saying.

“Do you think she’s going to win the scholarship?”

“It’s either her or Ana. And Ana’s grades are better.”

Electricity crackles at my fingertips. Ana freaking Álvarez. She’s not even here, and she’s annoying me.

“But Shay’s magic level is higher. If it went up any more—”

“Her magic level can’t go up anymore. It was already thirty-eight last time. Nobody gets over forty as a junior.”

“She has a big family, though, so it doesn’t really count.”

That is completely false. My family does share magic with me for these tests—everyone does that—but there are only three of us, so the effect isn’t huge. I could take more from my parents, I guess. Even now, I can feel the connection to their magic, and it would be easy enough to pull on that connection for more power. But I wouldn’t want to take anything they hadn’t planned to give me and exhaust them at work.