The other students’ voices dip, and I don’t hear the next part of their conversation. I concentrate on shooting out sparks of electricity from my palm. Maybe if they focused on practicing their magic in their free time instead of gossiping about me, these people would have a magic level like mine.

I make it to the front of the line and head into the office. One last bit of their conversation drifts my way before I’m out of earshot.

“Plus, she’s, like, part Black. They’re stronger.”

Just a little bit of casual racism to brighten up my morning. Love it. Black people literally have the same exact capacity for magic as anybody else. The only things that make you have a higher density of magic in your body are studying and practicing. Somebody made up this idea that Black people are naturally magically stronger, but that we have less control. All brute magical force, no finesse. I wish that kind of no-thinking nonsense had been left behind in the Civil War era, but it very much was not.

I grimace to myself and keep walking. Part of me wants to give them a piece of my mind, but a larger part of me knows that I’ll probably freeze up if I try to say anything.

It only takes a few minutes for the nurse to draw my blood. I cross my fingers for luck as she labels my sample. Hopefully, the density of magic in my blood has gone up since last time. When the test results come back in a few weeks, I want to beat everybody in my class by such a large margin that nobody can say it’s because of a boost from my family. Success is the best way to spite racists.

Normally I work as a peer tutor before school, but today I head over to the arts building for the Brockton Scholarship meeting. It’s the nicest building on campus, because the Brockton Foundation gave a bunch of money to redo it. The tall stone facade sticks out like a sore thumb from the squat stucco buildings around it.

The school ranking board sits smack in the center of campus because T. K. Anderson wants to make sure you never have to go too far out of your way to check which of your classmates have better GPAs than you. The info they have up is a little out-of-date right now—the results are all from before winter break—but I still can’t resist looking at it. I pause under the section of the board that lists the members of the junior class and stare up at the words that make my stomach churn.

1. Ana Álvarez—GPA: 4.78, Magic Level: 35

2. Shayna Johnson—GPA: 4.67, Magic Level: 38

Ugh. Stupid weighted GPAs. Her extra AP class really put her over the edge.