My third morning in Dragon Tower was already shaping up to be my least favorite so far. And no it wasn't because of the ghost-like inhabitants we were sharing our quarters with.

Not even the one whose death I witnessed yesterday.

No. I was worried about the nearly six-foot girl with blue skin looking like she was about to strangle one of our friends with his red tie.

"Who taught you how to tie these? You are terrible at this," Celica was complaining.

"Save me," Russel asked from over her shoulder.

"Appearances are important. If we are to all be a part of the same Tower I expect each of you to not make us look bad," Celica continued without acknowledging his pleas.

Fethris was off to the side. Either he was being spared or had passed Celica's inspection.

"What's going on?" I asked.

"No one told me that Celica was a mother hen," Jarec commented.

"We are the first Dragon students in over a century. People are going to look at us no matter what we do. Might as well give them something to look at. If we want people to take our Tower seriously then we have to take ourselves seriously," Celica pulled harshly on the front of Russel's coat.

She was satisfied with her handiwork and then turned her attention to me.

"Your hair is going to be the bane of my existence, isn't it?"

"What's wrong with my hair?" I demanded.

"Everything," She sounded so exasperated. It was kind of funny. "You could try. Or wear make-up."

"Over my cold, decaying corpse," I told her. I wanted no ambiguity about it.

"Fine. Be that way. But at least have your representative badge show. Why are you trying to hide it?" She started messing with my coat.

"I am a first-year. I don't want people to think I'm anything more than that," I explained.

"But you are more. You are Dragon Tower Representative Stewart. And the girl that opened Dragon Tower. I don't see how hiding that will do you any good."

I sighed and gave up. Thankfully she seemed to have no other issues with how I was wearing my uniform. If she had tried to complain about me wearing the gloves we would have had a real issue.

But maybe she understood why hiding scars and my curse mark was a good idea. Or at least why I preferred it.

"Anything else?" I asked.

"No, we're good. Time to go reintroduce ourselves to the rest of the school."

I hated this.

But at least I was free.

The five of us walked together to get breakfast. All of us in the Dragon uniforms for the first time.

Most of the school was already in the hall. Something I'm sure Celica had planned to some degree.

Nearly a thousand students, and only the five of us were wearing red.

It was one of the most mortifying moments of my life.

But I was saved by a waving hand in a pink coat.

Angelina had saved some seats by herself.

I made a beeline towards her and the small haven she was offering. Anything to get the ocean of eyes to look away.

"Look at you!" Angelina squealed. "Dragons!"

"We're Dragons," I shrugged. "And I can already tell it's going to be a long day."

"It won't be so bad," Angelina tried to soothe.

"I'll try to believe that. But we'll just have to wait and see."

"Positivity will not kill you," Celica nudged.

Yes, it would. "We'll have to see."

"What were you doing in Pixie?" Fethris joked.

I let out a laugh that was slightly hysterical, "I don't know!" I let out an exasperated sigh, "but I am in Dragon now. See the red?" I held out my arm covered by a red sleeve and a black and red fingerless glove.

(*********)

Spellcraft was calm compared to my fears. Jarec left for his usual seat and I left for mine.

It was alright, despite the Pegasus blue in the room.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

At least until class was over.

Lucky me I wasn't the one accosted by Mr. Newspaper Club Albenion.

Jarec was.

"Come on. Just a small interview? Like five questions max."

There was a certain amount of karma about this. I continued walking towards the door to leave.

"If this is a formal request to ask me about Dragon Tower, I think that would have to go through the Tower Representative, right Stewart?"

Bastard. "If the Newspaper Club wants to do a formal piece on Dragon Tower then yes. If he just wants to talk to you then it's your problem."

Hah.

"Wait what? Her?"

I hate my friends.

I sighed and made a detour to their conversation. "Hi," I greeted purposely deadpan.

"This fine gentleman wants to do a piece on our lovely new home for the Newspaper club. What are your thoughts?"

"If the Newspaper wants to do a piece they can file the proper formal paperwork and me and the Tower head can go over it and make a final decision. I'm sure your club's leader can figure it out." I kept my tone flat and I was proud of myself for it.

Jarec barked a laugh.

Albenion didn't look happy about that.

I really didn't care.

"Stewart. Then in that case I'll be sure to let Thoth know."

"I look forward to sharing some of Dragon Tower's hospitality." I hoped that both of them could tell how annoyed I was.

Albenion walked away with a huff and Jarec waited for about five seconds before he started giggling to himself.

"You're handling this whole Representative thing better than I thought," Jarec commented around his giggles, "Did you see his face?"

I sighed again.

"Oh, this was so worth it," Jarec was grinning.

"I'm glad one of us is happy about this. I'm going to head to History. See you later."

I could handle this. I could. Everything would be fine. I just had to coast by. One year. One year and then I could pass off this whole thing on to one of those traitors.

Or maybe Fethris would lose the duel Saturday and then he could take the job from me.

Did it make me a bad friend to have mixed feelings about the whole thing? On the one hand, seeing Fethris win against Anubis would be fun on its own. On the other, I really didn't want to have to deal with this for the rest of the year.

But it was out of my hands now. Fethris was either going to win or lose and there was nothing I could do about it.

Story of my life.

(*********)

One spot of good fortune in History was that Pixies and Salamanders were not the gossipy ones.

I wondered if my relief was palpable.

Another was our new topic.

"This week we are going over the long history of a group that you may have heard of. They're a bit infamous now but they had started out as a group doing real tangible good. Can I get a show of hands, who here has heard of the Mists of Hecate?"

I raised my hand, so did Russel and a handful of other students. Roughly a fourth of the class.

"Hmm. Less than I thought. Alright, would anyone care to summarize for your classmates what you know?"

I put my hand down. The only thing I knew for certain was that one of their members went around cursing people.

Or maybe just whoever I happened to be related to.

"Mr. Kingsley."

Russel was probably the person in this room with the closest background to mine. I guess if anyone else would be wary of people like that it would be him.

"They're a radical group. They like to go around kidnapping people and murdering others who don't agree with them," Russel's voice had an unidentifiable tone to me. I was fairly sure he was upset talking about this.

"That is…not an inaccurate assessment of some of their more recent activities," Professor Dellik looked around awkwardly.

"It's true. Some of them even broke into this school once and kidnapped a whole group of kids," Russel scoffed, now he was definitely angry about something.

I had no idea if I was equipped to even begin having that conversation or if he even wanted it. Oh boy.

"Oh. You heard about that."

"Yes. Yes, I did."

Okay I was one hundred percent missing context here. Maybe I should ask someone else about it. Vivian Hearth might know something about it. She seems like she's been here a while. Definitely the 'if there's dark secrets I know them' type.

What was with our Tower and dark secrets anyway?

Was that like our thing? Like the friendliness of Pixies?

"Anyway," Dellik clapped once as if to dispel the strange air in the classroom. "Why don't we start with the origins of the Mists?"

There was a moment of very awkward silence.

"Right. About fourteen hundred years after our school was built the Roman Empire was spreading all over the world. And with it the belief that certain practices of ours needed to be…not practiced anymore. Sometimes with violence. A handful of people in these very trying times decided to risk themselves to protect others."

I was already connecting the dots to the modern Mists.

"Usually by nightfall on foggy evenings they would go into to towns where a member of our community was seen as being at risk and help them and their family escape to places more…welcoming of people like us. They even helped found the Grand Arch Council that we still use as our central governing body today."

My question was when did they turn to violence against those people who got too close to humans? When did they start cursing the community they seemed intent on serving?

"Though these days they have no political power to speak of. Any connections to the Mists are seen as more symbolic than anything else. But even as recent as a few decades ago they were still held in some regard."

Hmph.

"It was two centuries of this hidden heroism before things started to take a turn for the…unpleasant."

Between him sugar-coating and praising the people who cursed me I was fighting down the urge to gag.

"But for now I want to keep our focus on those early years. Can anyone describe their groups symbol?"

Considering it was marked on my skin by scars and magic, yes. Yes, I could.

I raised my hand.

"Miss Stewart!" He could not sound excited about it.

"The all-seeing eye in a pyramid," I told them.

The mark on my hand ached a little. Could it sense I was talking about it?

If it was going to be pissy at me for talking about it then it could at least be helpful.

"That is correct. Egypt was a very popular region for the people they relocated and the eye was meant to represent that they could find people no matter the circumstances."

Who wants to bet that last part remained true despite the fact they were no longer protectors?

That would explain Vivian Hearth's reaction.

Assuming they cared enough to come looking. Or that they even knew I existed. Probably for the best if they didn't.

"How it worked was simple; somewhere in the home, usually by the fireplace, the symbol would appear. Then in three days the town would get covered in a thick layer of fog. When the fog was gone the at-risk person or persons would be gone with it. Like they were never there in the first place. A few towns pitched a fit about this phenomenon but tracking a person down who has moved hundreds to thousands of miles away was far harder back then."

But how hard was it to track people today in the magical world?

Either harder than I wanted or too easily for my safety.

"Who here knows who Yelmund Folgile is?" Dellik asked the class.

Crickets. Awkward crickets.

"No one? Ah well. He was the first emissary between the Mists and the Grand Arch Council. He even ran it for a brief few years. He led the organization into being the political power it was for so long."

Wonderful. Just wonderful. No wonder there's so much secrecy about the curse. Ugh. Why did every word he spoke make my life more complicated?

Let's hope Vivian Hearth's solution worked out.

Because if my only hope was to find the person who cursed me then it might truly be impossible.

But that wasn't going to stop me from trying anything and everything.

Neither this curse nor these Mists folks were going to stop me.

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