When I woke up in the morning I climbed out of bed, feeling nervous and excited at the same time. I immediately looked at the calendar which hung beside my bed, even though there was no reason to do so. There was no doubt that today was the day. After all I'd been looking forward to it for weeks.

"I can't believe I'm so excited about going to school," I muttered to myself with a faint shake of my head. "Of course this isn't any normal school..."

My name is Galen Shierman and I am a 16-year-old boy, though I could hardly be called 'normal'. Or I should say that I was normal as far as my family is concerned, but that's not really saying much.

I and my family are members of a people known as the Touched. In older times it was because people said we were touched by demons or touched by gods. The truth is, we are touched by magic. We are a people who are blessed with the proof that magic truly exists in the world and who's lives have been touched by it.

For as long as the human race has existed, or at least as long as anyone knows, some people have been born with the ability to tap into another dimension and use its energies to alter the world around us in strange and miraculous ways. This is the magic which is told of in countless stories and legends throughout history.

But those who are touched with magic in such a way have long been hunted and killed by normal humans out of fear and jealousy. They were called witches or demons and were beheaded, burned at the stake or worse. Most of those who were slaughtered this way were innocent normals, those without magic, though a great many Touched were killed as well.

Those of the Touched who remained realized that they were doomed to extinction. The normals were rapidly increasing in number and it was becoming more increasingly difficult to hide from them. So eventually a plan was formed. The Touched not only went into hiding but actively worked to convince mankind that we didn't even exist. They tricked the normals into believing that magic was merely superstitious nonsense. After all people don't hunt what they don't even believe in.

Ever since then the Touched have secretly lived among normals. We have hidden in their midst for centuries, carefully keeping our very existence from being discovered as we went about our own lives, which were for the most part not so different from their own.

After a moment I shook my head to clear those thoughts from it. I had too much to do today to just sit around thinking about ancient history. So with another glance at my calendar, I rushed to the bathroom to shower and get ready.

A short while later I was fully dressed and running down the stairs to the kitchen. My mom was sitting there with my dad and 3-year-old brother Neil, while there was no sign of my older sister Daria. She was probably still up in her room, though I didn't care enough to bother asking.

"Morning," I called out as I sat down and poured myself a bowl of cereal.

"Morning," my dad nodded to me, barely looking up from the newspaper he was reading.

"Do you have everything packed yet?" my mom asked with concern.

"Yeah," I sighed, rolling my eyes. "I got everything packed and ready last night."

My mom just nodded, "Good."

I rolled my eyes again and went back to eating my breakfast. But I couldn't resist looking around at my family and shaking my head slightly, thinking about just how normal my family seemed at the moment and just how strange it would be to the guys I went to school with... or had gone to school with.

My family is a good example of how perfectly the Touched fit into normal society. We had a big screen TV, a decent car in the garage and as my dad said, a hefty mortgage. As far as any outsider could tell, we were a perfectly ordinary family.

But of course our family wasn't exactly ordinary by most standards. My mom was Touched, and so were Daria and myself. My dad on the other hand was a normal, and we didn't know which Neil would be, since you didn't know if you were Touched or not until you were 16. Being Touched was genetic, though it sometimes skipped a generation or two and could even appear in people who had no history of it in their family.

"Hey Neil," my mom smiled at Neil, "do you want to see a neat trick..."

"Yeah," Neil immediately grinned, knowing what was coming.

"Not again," I groaned, rolling my eyes yet again. It was beginning to become a habit.

When someone who's Touched turns 16, sometime between that birthday and the next one they become linked to the source of magic for the first time. At this time they gain the ability to tap into magic and officially become Touched. Most of the time, though, they are only able to tap into a small amount of magic, just enough to give them a single magic talent that's almost like a super power and is different for nearly every Touched.

At the moment my mom was busy entertaining Neil with her special talent. My mom had the ability to use a small amount of water in order to manipulate a larger amount. She could take a small bowl of water from a swimming pool, bath tub or sink, use a spoon to stir the water in the bowl and magically cause the water in the pool, tub, or sink to start spinning around in the same way. If my mom wanted she could drown people or even sink ships. Fortunately she never used it for anything more than a party trick.

"Again!" Neil laughed.

"That trick never gets old," my dad commented with a smile, watching with fascination.

"Sure it does," I muttered to myself, "after you've seen it a few hundred times..."

Mom just smiled and ran her finger through a glass of water while the water in the sink splashed around in response. Neil just giggled, encouraging her to spin the water around a bit more.

"You'd better make sure you have everything together and ready to go," my dad told me, "you and Daria leave in just a few hours."

"I know," I grinned, feeling nervous at the thought.

"I'm sure that Daria will show you the ropes," dad said.

I groaned at that. Daria was only a year older than me, but my parents tended to treat her as though she was a lot older and more responsible than me. She was also pretty, popular and always had better grades than me, so of course I resented her. She walked on water...literally. Daria's magic talent was that she could make water act solid when she touched it, letting her walk on water or reach into it and pull out balls that seemed solid as long as they remained in her hand. I winced at the realization that I would be going to the same school as Daria again.

My own magic talent had finally manifested just a few weeks ago, though the ability to boil water didn't seem all that ipressive when compared with Daria's. Still it meant that I was now Touched and that I could go to the Academy, the special school just for people like us.

The Academy might seem like a plain and unspecified name, but that was intentional. Whenever anyone mentioned it, every Touched immediately knew exactly which academy they were referring to, while most normals were left completely in the dark. There were only a few such schools for the Touched in the entire world and this particular one served all of North America.

"Galen," my mom suddenly said, "I was about to make some tea... If you wouldn't mind..."

"Sure," I shrugged, looking at the glass of water in her hand and concentrating on it. A moment later the water started to boil.

"Thank you dear," mom smiled at me as she went to find a tea bag.

"What a lame power," Daria said as she stepped into the room, giving me a slight scowl. "I mean, anyone can boil water..."

"Enough of that," mom warned her with one of those motherly looks that brooked no argument.

I glared at Daria, but was smart enough not to say anything with mom and dad right there. At the moment I just accepted the small victory of having mom rebuking her.

"I still don't understand why you all have talents based around water," dad mused, "I thought your gifts were supposed to be more random..."

"They usually are," mom shrugged, "but sometimes similar talents run in families... My aunt Beatrice could look into a pool of water and see what would happen a day or two in the future."

"Sounds pretty useful," dad grinned, "it would be handy knowing what the weather was going to be."

"Yes," mom sighed with a sad shake of her head, "but one day she saw that she was going to die of a heart attack. She became so worked up over it that all the stress caused her to have the heart attack..."

"Ugh," dad winced, "I suppose there are some downsides."

"Well," mom turned to look at Daria and me, "you two had better finish up and get ready, because we'll be leaving in just a little while."

"Show your brother around when you get there," dad told Daria, "and introduce him to some of your friends..."

"Oh, I'll introduce him all right," Daria said, smirking slightly as she said it. Somehow I had a feeling that it would be best just to avoid Daria and her friends at school.

Mom nodded, then mused, "I remember back when I went to school there..." Then she shook her head and said, "It's just a good thing that your gift appeared right before the new semester. It will be a lot easier for you starting off at the beginning of the semester rather than having to transfer in later."

"Yeah yeah," I nodded, "I've got to go get my stuff..."

With that I finished gulping down the last bit of my breakfast, stuck my tongue out at Daria, winked at Neil and rushed from the room. I might have had most of my stuff packed and ready to go, but it certainly wouldn't hurt to double check and maybe see if I had room to stuff anything more into my bags.

A short while later Daria and I had our bags packed in the car and we were on the road. Fortunately, our immediate destination wasn't too far away and it only took us an hour to arrive there.

"We're here," my dad announced, looking just a little uncomfortable.

I looked at the small house where we had stopped, thinking that it didn't look all that impressive, though I knew otherwise. It was a safe house for Touched, though it was also far more.

We all went up to the front door, where a middle aged woman greeted us. She stared at us suspiciously through a thick pair of glasses. Obviously, this was not only the woman who looked after the safe house but who guarded what was inside.

"My kids are Galen and Daria Shierman," dad told her, handing her an envelope, "they're expected at the Academy."

The woman opened the envelope and read the letter, nodding for a moment before gesturing us all inside. "Come on in," she smiled pleasantly, no longer looking suspicious. "I just had another student arrive a few hours ago. Still you never can be too careful."

"I understand," dad smiled weakly.

"Go bring in all of your bags," the woman smiled at us, "I'll get things ready for you..."

Once Daria and I had all of our luggage in the woman's house, she pulled out a key and unlocked a pair of folding double doors to what looked like a closet. However I immediately knew that this was no closet, especially when she said, "Here it is..."

My first impression was that this was indeed just an empty closet, though my eyes went to the large door frame. Once the folding doors were open and I could see the frame inside, I could tell that it was made of some sort of strange ceramic and that it had strange symbols carved all over it. None of this was visible with those doors closed.

"I guess this is it," dad said as he stared at the doorway.

This wasn't just a closet doorway, but a magical portal, a gate that any Touched could step through to suddenly find themselves at the Academy. But if any normal stepped through the gate they would only pass through to the other side, as though it were a normal doorway in a normal closet. There were maybe two or three dozen such gates scattered around North America for those who needed to go to the Academy, and we were quite fortunate that one of them was so close to our house.

For a moment I just stood there and stared at the gate. I'd seen it before, when we had first taken Daria here last year. But this was going to be the first time that I'd go through it myself.

"Way cooler than taking some magic train to school," I grinned at dad, "and quicker too."

"Big deal," Daria frowned, acting as though she had done this so many times that it was now boring. However I knew that she was probably just as excited about going through as I was, only trying harder not to show it.

"I'm really going to miss you two," dad told us, choking up a little. He gave a reassuring smile. "Make sure to take care of each other and don't forget to write."

"Yeah, yeah," Daria responded, looking a little embarrassed by this.

"We'll be looking forward to when you come home on vacation," dad grinned.

Our good-byes took several more minutes before we were finally ready to go. Daria went first, grabbing her luggage, or at least what she could carry, and stepping into the closet. But as soon as she passed through the doorway she vanished. The woman put her hand to the side of the doorway and dad passed Daria's last two bags through, and they vanished as well.

"I guess it's my turn," I took a deep breath, closing my eyes and stepping forward.

I wasn't sure exactly what it was that I was expecting when I stepped through the doorway, perhaps a tearing at my very being as I was stretched between one place and another, or at the very least a powerful tingle. But to my surprise I didn't feel anything at all. I felt absolutely no different than if I'd just walked from one room to another.

Then I opened my eyes and gasped, "Holy shit..."

I was now standing in the middle of a huge white domed room. There were ceramic doorways set all the way around the outside walls, and I was standing right beside one of them. I turned just in time to see my last two bags pass come through the doorway, seemingly appearing right out of mid air.

"Welcome to the Academy," Daria told me from a few feet away, smirking a little as she did so. "This is the hall of doors. Kind of a waste of space, but they need one door here for everyone that's out there..."

"Cool," I responded, staring at everything around me. There were a couple other people in the room already, including a man coming towards us.

"May I see your invitations," he asked, holding out his hand. Daria and I both handed him our invitations. He looked at them for a moment, "Daria and Galen Shierman... We've been expecting you."

"Hi Mr. Eckles," Daria said rolling her eyes, apparently already knowing him.

Mr. Eckles nodded and looked through a folder. Then he handed Daria and me each a folder, "Your room assignments. I'll show you two to your rooms..."

"Same one I had before," Daria shrugged as she looked at hers, "I don't need you to show me..." Then she paused for a moment to grin, "But I could use some help carrying my bags..."

"Make several trips," he told her with a faint smile. "Come Galen, I'll show you your room."

I grimaced, shifted my grip on the bags in my hands and decided to come back for the other two when I could. Daria didn't seem concerned with hers and was already leaving them, so I figured that mine would be all right too.

Mr. Eckles led me out of the building that was the hall of doors. There were a half dozen other buildings within view, most of them looking a bit odd. The hall of doors was just a big white dome, as was an even larger building in the distance that he called the hall of sorcerers.

"The hall of sorcerers," I repeated, feeling a faint chill as I said it.

When most Touched tapped into the source of magic, they were only able to draw just enough energy for a single magical ability. Sorcerers, on the other hand, were Touched who could draw on a large enough amount of raw magic that they could actually learn to do other things with it. They could learn to actually cast real spells and do a lot more than just their single ability. Only one Touched in ten could even draw enough magic for this, and then there was the training.

"Sorcerers get trained here along with the regular students," Mr. Eckles explained. "It's much simpler since much of the schooling is the same. However the hall of sorcerers is reserved for them." Then he started walking again, gesturing for me to follow. "Come... You'll get the tour a little later."

Mr. Eckles led me to another building that was a little more normal looking, with ivy covered stone walls that almost made it look like something from an ivy league school. This was the dormitory and I soon learned that I was going to be living on the third floor.

To my surprise and relief I was given a room to myself, even though it was only about half the size of my old bedroom back home. It was small and cramped and I had to share a communal bathroom with all the other boys in that hall, but at least I wouldn't have to worry about some strange roommate.

"Be in the courtyard in front of the dorm in an hour," Mr. Eckles told me, "you will be given a tour of the Academy and your class schedule." Then he turned and left, leaving me to go back and retrieve the rest of my luggage alone.

An hour later I was standing in the courtyard along with a half dozen other new students who'd just come to the Academy like me. Like me all of them were 16, which was no surprise since the Touched didn't gain their powers and become eligible for the Academy until then.

I just slowly looked at the others who were present, wondering exactly what magical gifts they all possessed. Nor could I resist wondering if any of them had a gift that was even more useless than mine. The ability to boil water might be useful in the kitchen, but it was hardly impressive. As Daria was fond of reminding me, anyone could do the same with a pot of water and a stove.

"I don't know why I'm here," a tall lanky boy with blond hair muttered, almost to himself. "I almost didn't come at all, but my uncle Jack kept telling me about how great it was when he went here..."

"I know what you mean," I told him, having briefly considered not coming to the academy myself. I hadn't really wanted to leave my old school and everything I knew, though I eventually decided that it would be worth it.

There is absolutely no requirement that Touched teens go to the Academy. Most of the time we learn to control our limited magic abilities before we even step through the gates. However the purpose of the Academy wasn't really to teach us how to control our magic, but to give us a place where we could be among our own kind and not have to hide what we were. And of course it was one of the only places on Earth where we could get a proper education on how the world really works.

"I'm Newton," the tall boy introduced himself, holding out his hand, "everyone just calls me Newt though."

"Galen," I introduced myself.

"I'm Misha," a pretty Asian girl introduced herself, "my talent is a rose petal storm..." With that she held out her hand and a mass of rose petals burst forth from nowhere and swirled around her, creating a cloud that obscured her from view. A moment later she lowered her hand and the petals stopped swirling and began to slowly drop to the ground.

"Pretty cool," Newt grinned, "but look at this..."

Newt took a deep breath and closed his eyes. There was a look of intense concentration on his face and a moment later the world around us went completely and totally silent. There was no sound from other students, even though I saw their mouths moving. I tried to say something, but not a single bit of sound escaped my lips.

Then Newt opened his eyes and grinned, just as all sound suddenly returned around us. "Pretty cool..."

"What the...?" I blinked. "You can make it quiet..."

"More than that," News shrugged, holding out his hand which had some sort of bubble in the palm. "All the sound around us got absorbed into this. When I pop the bubble, all that sound comes back out..."

Newt closed his fist, popping the bubble. A moment later I could hear all the sound that had been suppressed before. There was the sound of people talking, even though their mouths were closed. But once it had all played out, the extra sound vanished.

"What about you?" Misha asked me.

"I boil water," I sighed, giving a shrug. "I know... It's not very impressive."

"It could be worse," Misha shrugged. "My mom has the power to turn gold into lead."

"That's got to suck," Newt laughed.

But Misha grinned, "Most of the time. But she was at a party once where this snotty woman kept showing off all her gold jewelry and insulting her... Well..."

"Very nice," I grinned.

Just then I noticed a woman coming towards us. She looked like she was in her thirties, though it was a bit hard to tell, since she had pure white hair and violet eyes that nearly glowed. Everyone immediately went silent as she approached.

"I am Amylia," the woman stated calmly, slowly looking at each of us with a look of absolute confidence. "I am an instructor for the hall of sorcerers, but at the moment I am here to welcome you all to the Academy and help get you situated." Then she pulled out a binder and looked at it, "Now, please tell me your names..."

"Are you really a sorceress?" one of the other new students asked her.

"Of course," Amylia responded, as though he had just asked the stupidest question imaginable. Perhaps he had since she had just introduced herself as an instructor for the hall of sorcerers. "A number of your fellow classmates will be as well. Now your names..."

Newt leaned over and whispered, "Just great. I heard sorcerers are all pretty stuck up. Now we're going to be going to school with a bunch of them."

"Hey," Misha scowled, "I have a cousin who's a sorcerer and he's cool."

Amylia didn't seem to notice that Newt and Misha were whispering, or if she did, she didn't give any sign of it. But once she'd collected everyone's names she wrote down something into her binder and announced, "We will now begin the tour of the Academy. Afterwards I will hand out your class assignments..."

With that Amylia began the tour, starting off by pointing out the half dozen buildings which comprised the Academy and explaining their purposes. Then she began showing us the rest of the grounds while simultaneously giving us a history lesson on the Academy.

The Academy was located on a small island just off of the coast of Oregon and had been established nearly 150 years ago as a secluded place for the Touched in America to learn and study. Even now the very existence of the island was still carefully hidden from the normal, which wasn't easy in these modern times. Fortunately powerful magic helped a lot.

The island itself had two sides, one of them having all of the buildings and Academy facilities, while the other side was left completely undeveloped and natural. A large pond, nearly a small lake, was in the middle of the island and marked the place where the two sides met.

According to Amylia there were currently more than fourhundred students attending the Academy, a few more than I would have expected. There were even several dozen sorcerers training at the school and taking classes along with everyone else.

When I finally finished with the tour and orientation a few hours later I returned to my room with a lot to think about. After that introduction to the school I had no doubts that if nothing else, my time at the Academy was going to be interesting.

It had been a full week since I'd come to the Academy and started school, and the one thing that surprised me more than anything else was just how normal most of the classes are. There were no classes in alchemy or spellcasting, only things like math, English and science. Of course there were some major differences.

For history class I was learning more of the true history of the world, not the sugar coated fantasy that had been taught at my previous school. I was learning just how much the old stories that had been passed off as mere myth were truly based in fact. And I was learning the true place of magic and the Touched in history.

I did have one class on magic theory, which sounded a little more impressive than it actually was. The class itself was part study hall and part excuse to show off our special gifts. Our teacher not only let us show off, but actually encouraged it and offered suggestions. The whole idea was that it would let us cut loose and discover the full range and potential of our rather limited abilities. It was actually kind of fun.

Then there was science, the class that I was in at the moment. You might not think that a school of magic would teach science, that the two were completely contradictory, but I was beginning to learn otherwise.

"Science and magic are not mutually exclusive," my science teacher, Mr. Gotsen, was explaining. "The truth is, magic is merely a field of science that has been unexplored by normal science... partly due to interference from some Touched. Modern science understands the universe to be dominated by gravity, electromagnetism, and the strong and weak nuclear forces. And for decades physicists have been trying to create a Unified Field Theory to understand how they relate. But what these physicists don't understand is that there is a fifth major force...what we call magic. This is the glue which ties the others... and the universe itself together."

Mr. Gotsen continued lecturing on for some time, going on about how magic was both other-dimensional and quantum at the same time. This was all supposed to be just some sort of basic overview of how magic relates to more common science, but I think he was getting a little too in depth because most of it was over my head.

As soon as the bell rang I bolted from my desk, as did half the class. The other half still had to be woken up before they could leave, which relieved me since I wasn't the only one who'd had a hard time with that lecture.

"I hope the rest of the year isn't like this." Newt shook his head as he came up beside me. "Man, I couldn't understand a word he said..."

"You losers wouldn't," a voice said from behind us.

I turned to see Jace McChord standing there with a smirk. Jace was a sorcerer who had come to the Academy at the same time as me, so we shared a lot of our classes. I didn't know much about him, other than that he was a sorcerer and from a family that had a lot of sorcerers in it. Of course I knew that he was something of an arrogant prick as well, though I'd avoided him and hadn't talked to him until now.

"I don't know why I was put in the same class as you two slackers," Jace shook his head, "I should be in advanced placement while you should obviously be in remedial..."

"Watch it," Newt snapped, stepping towards Jace threateningly.

"Or what?" Jace snorted, obviously not impressed. "You'll make me mute?" With that Jace pointed towards us and an icy cold wind started to push me back. I was shivering where I stood while Jace smirked, "Now this is a real magic talent..."

"Enough of that boys," Mr. Gotsen said, coming towards us, "you don't want to be late for your next class..."

Jace didn't even give us another look before he turned and walked off, acting as though it was entirely his own idea to stop and leave. Newt and I just stood there for a moment, both still feeling a bit chilly.

"Damn," Newt shook his head, "that must be a nice power to have in the summer..."

"Yeah," I nodded agreement, "I'd imagine."

I walked to my next class along with Newt, quickly warming up. However I still felt a strange tingling through my body that didn't seem to go with the cold. I don't know why, but I'd been feeling that same tingling off and on over the last week. It had started shortly after I'd arrived at the Academy and I hadn't been able to go a day without it popping up for a while since.

"You okay?" Newt asked, looking a little concerned. "You look kind of odd."

Since Newt had been assigned to the room right across from my own and we most of our classes together, the two of us had spent a lot of time hanging out together and had even become friends. But I still hadn't mentioned the weird tingling to him yet and saw no reason to do so now. I figured that it was just stress or something.

"I'm fine," I told him. "C'mon, we don't want to be late for our next class."

By the time we arrived at magical theory the tingling sensations had begun to fade away and I was easily able to forget all about it. Instead my attention was on our teacher Candace 'Don't EVER call me Candy' Everwood. She was a middle aged woman with glasses and hair pair pulled back into a severe bun, giving her a librarian look. However there was no doubt that she had been quite a looker when she was younger and that she probably still could be if she'd give it some effort.

"Gather around," Everwood called out, gesturing for the students to come closer.

I stared at the teacher for a moment, absently wondering if she was married or not. She had never told us if she was Mrs. or Ms. Everwood, only that we were to address her by her last name. After all her last name seemed especially appropriate since her special talent was the ability to shape wood in her hands as though it were clay.

"Today," Everwood announced, "we will start looking at ways your special gifts might be used for self-defense. Not every talent will have an immediate and obvious use for defense, so I want you to all think about it carefully."

"Well," I told Newt, "I can always boil a pot of water and throw it at people..."

Within a few minutes everyone had spread out around the room to play around with their abilities and see if they could figure out how to use them for self-defense. Some abilities were definitely easier to figure out than other's, especially for the girl who could throw fireballs or the guy who could make other people fall asleep. However it was a lot more difficult for people like Newt and myself.

"I can always create a cloud of pedals to hide me while I run away," Misha said when she came over to check up on how Newt and I were doing. "Not much else I can do with my power."

"More than I can do," I grinned at her.

I carefully looked around the class to see what everyone else was doing. Everwood was going around, talking to one student after another and offering suggestions. She hadn't gotten to Newt and me yet, but it wouldn't be much longer.

For some reason though the tingling feeling had come back with a vengeance. I didn't know why, or why it was getting worse with every passing minute. In fact it was far stronger than it had ever been before and it was driving me to distraction.

"Are you okay?" Misha asked.

"Fine," I lied, feeling extremely...strange. I couldn't place it, but the tingling was getting so intense that I couldn't really feel anything else. The tingling was just about the only thing I could feel. "I think..." I blinked, suddenly hit by a wave of dizziness as well.

"Galen!" Newt gasped in shock as I lost my balance and toppled to the side. Fortunately, he and Misha caught me before I hit the ground. "What's wrong with you?"

My body began jerking and twitching, then jumped to another level that I hadn't even realized was possible. I could feel my very flesh beginning to shift around and move. It felt as though my entire body had suddenly turned into clay and a giant pair of invisible hands was busy remolding me, inside and out. The sensations were extremely intense, nearly overwhelming though not quite painful. Still I did the only thing I could think of. I screamed.

The whole class suddenly went dead silent and then burst into chaos as everyone rushed to see what was happening to me. Newt and Misha were trying to talk to me, but I barely even noticed their presence. Then Everwood appeared beside me, an intensely serious expression on her face.

Fortunately the changes stopped and I collapsed to my knees, feeling exhausted but no longer overwhelmed. However there was no doubt that something about me was different, that my body had been drastically altered, though I had yet to realize how.

"Galen!" Newt and Misha were crying my name, trying to get my attention and see if I was all right.

Everwood shoved them and everyone else back, giving a warning glare that dared anyone to take another step towards me. Then she gently asked me, "Are you all right Galen? Are you in pain?"

"N...no," I shook my head slowly, "I don't really hurt..." I grimaced and slowly stood up while Everwood supported me and kept me from losing my balance. "I just feel weird..."

"What happened to him?" several students were demanding at once while every single one of them stared at me.

"QUIET!" Everwood shouted, giving another glare around the room.

"God," I groaned, shaking my head and trying to make sense of how I felt, "what happened to me?"

Everwood just silently stared at me for a moment, looking as though she were studying me. Then she finally said, "It looks like you've been cursed." Her expression was grim, showing that she was not happy with that at all.

"Cursed?" I gasped, suddenly looking down at myself for a better idea of what she meant and then gasping again at the sight of two round shapes pushing out from my chest.

Newt exclaimed, "You look like a girl..."

"Quiet," Misha snapped at him, giving me a strange look.

I stared down at myself again, gulping at the sight of two protrusions from my chest. I held my hands up, noticing that they looked a little different, a little more feminine. And when I reached to my face I could feel some differences.

Everwood gently gestured for me to sit down, then reached into her pocket and pulled out a small wooden carving of some sort. She stared at it for a moment, then whispered something. Suddenly the carving began to grow and expand, turning into a full sized mirror. For a moment I just stared at Everwood, realizing that she was a sorceress, then feeling embarrassed since I should have guessed it sooner. About half the teachers in the Academy were supposed to be sorcerers.

Finally I turned my attention to the mirror that Everwood had just summoned and gasped at the sight. A single glance was enough to see that it was a girl staring back at me, but she looked sort of like a girl version of me and a lot like Daria. I'd always been pretty normal looking while Daria had been rather pretty. But now I was a little startled to realize that I might be even prettier than my sister.

"This is weird," I gasped, touching my smooth face and running my fingers through my now long black hair.

"Now you'd better be off to the infirmary," Everwood told me gently. "They should be able to remove this curse with little problem and return you to normal." Then she turned and glared at everyone in the class again, her expression going grim. "If I find that any of you had something to do with this..."

"Can we go with him?" Misha asked, gesturing to Newt.

Everwood hesitated a moment before nodding, "Very well. But come straight back to class."

"I hope they can fix you up," Newt commented as we left the classroom. "Who do you think it was that cursed you like this?"

"I don't know," Misha answered, "I mean, I don't think anyone in class has the ability to change people... It was probably a sorcerer."

"Jace," Newt exclaimed with a scowl, "it's got to be him."

Misha frowned thoughtfully, "Maybe, but I don't think he knows enough to do something like this yet."

"I don't care who did it," I snapped in annoyance, poking at my chest before yanking my hand back as though I were poking a scorpion. "I just want to get back to normal."

When we arrived at the infirmary, I was met by the school nurse, Mrs. Reveine, an old woman with white hair. She had me sit down and then immediately told Newt and Misha to leave us be. They didn't argue since they had to be getting back to class anyway.

"I hope you're a guy again the next time I see you," Newt called out as he left.

"Now let's see," Mrs. Reveine mused as she carefully looked me over. "We do have our fair share of curses and the like around here. Accidents can happen when you're not careful around magic, and there's always the occasional fight or prank."

Mrs. Reveine examined me for about fifteen minutes, pulling out a strange blue crystal and staring at me through it and then using several other strange items. She frowned thoughtfully as he did so, muttering a little to herself but not loud or clear enough for me to make anything out.

"Hold this." Mrs. Reveine handed me a clear crystal ball about the size of an orange. "I want you to concentrate on it."

"Okay." I frowned, wondering what this had to do with breaking my curse.

I focused my attention on the crystal ball as I was instructed and to my surprise it began to glow. It was faint at first, but it quickly grew brighter, especially as I concentrated on it even more. Within a minute the crystal ball was too bright to look at directly and I was forced to look away.

"Enough," Mrs. Reveine said, snatching the crystal ball out of my hand. She set it down and tossed a towel over it to dim the light. "Very impressive."

"Can you change me back now?" I asked a bit impatiently.

"No," Mrs. Reveine frowned thoughtfully, "I can't change you back."

"WHAT?" I gasped in shock, "I thought these transformation spells were supposed to be easy to break."

"They are," she responded calmly, "but you're not under a transformation spell. In fact you're not under a spell at all."

I stared at Mrs. Reveine in blank confusion. That didn't make any sense all. Of course I was under some kind of spell. It was obvious from the fact that I had suddenly been turned into a girl.

"Your transformation wasn't caused by an outside source," Mrs. Reveine stated, "it's a side effect."

"What?" I blinked, no more enlightened than before.

Mrs. Reveine sighed, "It's a side effect of drawing too much magical energy. It's quite common for sorcerers to have them appear when they first start drawing that much magic."

"But I'm not a sorcerer," I protested.

"That's not what this says." Mrs. Reveine unveiled the crystal ball, which was still glowing a bit. "This is what's called a sorcerer's light, because it measures the amount of magic that a person can draw and glows accordingly. For normals it doesn't glow at all, and only a little for most Touched. From the way it responded to you, I would say that you can draw a good deal more magic than the average sorcerer."

"You're kidding," I gasped in disbelief, stunned by the revelation that I might be able to become a sorcerer. Then I shook my head, remembering why I was in the infirmary in the first place. "But how do I change back?" I gestured down at myself and grimaced. "I don't want to be stuck like this."

"I'm not at all certain you are," Mrs. Reveine told me. "Let me do a little more work..."

I sat there for the next half hour while Mrs. Reveine poked and prodded me, looking at me through various crystals, mirrors and charms. She flipped through some books, made some thoughtful sounds and generally looked as though she was working hard at figuring out my situation, without actually giving me a clue as to what was going on. I just sat there, trying to be patient, which wasn't easy since I was extremely worried.

"Just great," I grumbled impatiently when all of a sudden I felt it. "I'm changing again..."

I stared down at myself, feeling my flesh beginning to shift and move again. This time though it was a lot less intense, less discomforting. Perhaps it was because I was just returning to my own form, or even that everything had been sort of loosened up during my first change. Either way my body was transforming faster and more easily than the first time.

"You did it!" I exclaimed, grinning at Mrs. Reveine, "You changed me back."

"I didn't do anything," she responded slowly, looking at me with a curious expression. "That might just be the answer."

"What?" I asked, not liking the way she was being all vague again. I swear that the woman liked doing that just to keep her patients as clueless as possible.

"The stronger a sorcerer's ability to draw magic," Mrs. Reveine told me, "the more likely they are to have a side effect from it. The side effects can vary greatly. Sometimes it's just a few permanent physical changes, such as Amylia's white hair and violet eyes or the pointed ears that one of our second year students possesses. Sometimes the side effects are a little stranger."

"At least I'm back to normal," I grumbled, patting my flat chest in relief.

Mrs. Reveine chuckled. "Normal can be a relative term for any Touched, especially a sorcerer." Then she paused, giving me a speculative look before continuing, "I believe your transformation is a result of, for lack of a better term, an allergic reaction."

"An allergic reaction?" I blinked in surprise. "What kind of an allergy turns a guy into a girl?" Then I shook my head. "And what am I supposed to be allergic to anyway?"

"Magic," Mrs. Reveine answered without hesitation. "You said that you've been having tingling sensations since coming to the Academy. You've been reacting to the large amounts of magic that are present, and having everyone using their magic around you at once during class simply pushed you over the limit."

I stared at Mrs. Reveine again, hardly able to believe what I was hearing. "You mean that it'll happen again whenever I'm in magic theory like that?"

"Actually," Mrs. Reveine responded slowly, making me groan at the way she said it, "since your allergy has manifested fully, I suspect that it will take even less magic to trigger a reaction from now on."

"Oh shit," I gulped, not liking the sound of that in the least.

"I'm sure it won't be so bad," Mrs. Reveine said, not sounding all that sympathetic. "I know one sorcerer whose side effect is that he's a werewolf. And as a matter of fact we had a boy through the Academy a few years back with a situation very similar to yours."

I just snorted at that, "Yeah?"

"He reacted to cold water though," Mrs. Reveine mused, "he'd turn female whenever exposed to it and would have to take a warm bath to change back. Unfortunately for him," she chuckled, "it soon became a fad for the students to carry those Super Soaker water guns."

I just snorted at that, knowing at the same time that I'd be laughing if it weren't for the fact that I might have similar problems facing me before very long. I could just imagine Daria and her friends throwing magic around me all that they could to see if they could make me change. Mrs. Reveine put a hand on my shoulder and smiled. "I'm sure things will work out for you. Consider the fact that at your magic level you could become a powerful sorcerer."

"Really?" I gasped in delight, realizing that I could finally outdo Daria at something.

"Or sorceress," Mrs. Reveine mused, shattering my budding dreams of power and glory. "After all using that amount of magic would certainly trigger your condition."

"Just great," I groaned, grimacing from having my hopes raised and then dashed like that. I could actually become a sorcerer, but to do so, I'd have to get used to my 'allergy' flaring up and turning me into a girl. I shook my head in disgust. I'd gained an annoying and embarrassing little problem but didn't really get anything useful in return. "Just my luck."

"Well, you're in good health," Mrs. Reveine told me with a look of amusement, "so off with you. You've got a class to get to and I need the space for people who really are sick."

I grumbled a bit as Mrs. Reveine shooed me out of the infirmary, but I was glad to be going at the same time. The problem was I didn't want to face any of the people who'd seen me transform in class, nor was I looking forward to all the questions that I knew were coming.

When I arrived at class Newt and Misha both gave me looks of relief, while most of the other students chuckled or quickly started talking among themselves. Even the teacher gave me an odd look, probably having heard about my sudden transformation as the reason I hadn't been in class.

I gulped, feeling extremely self-conscious as I made my way to my seat. I knew that everyone was watching me, which only made it worse, though I tried hard not to let it show. I quickly slipped into my seat and turned to my curious looking friends, quietly saying, "I'll tell you about it later." They were obviously both dying to ask me a bunch of questions, though they managed to keep from doing so.

Class resumed a minute later, with the teacher continuing his lecture from where he'd been when I came in and interrupted. I just pretended to pay attention while I let out a sigh of relief, thankful that I was no longer the center of attention. At least not at the moment.

Once class was over though I was almost immediately swarmed by students who wanted to know exactly what had happened earlier and just who it was I'd pissed off enough to curse me like that. Since I wasn't exactly in the mood to explain, I squeezed my way past everyone and gave them the slip, leaving my friends to catch up.

"Safe at last," I exclaimed as I arrived in my dorm room and closed the door behind me.

Within several minutes I heard the knocking on my door that I was expecting. I didn't say a word as I opened it and let Newt and Misha inside.

"What the hell is going on?" Newt demanded, "Who put the curse on you?"

"Tell us," Misha joked, beginning to tap into her magic, "or I'll spread rose petals all over your room. Trust me, they can be a real bitch to clean up."

"Don't," I gasped, feeling the tingling beginning to run through my body. It wasn't strong and I didn't think that I was about to change again, but I didn't want to risk it. "Damn, I've got my own built in magic sensor."

"What?" Misha blinked, giving me a blank look.

I sighed, "You guys probably aren't going to believe this."

"So, who cursed you?" Newt asked impatiently.

"No one," I scowled, shaking my head. "The nurse said that I did it to myself."

"What?" Newt and Misha both gasped at once.

"It turns out that I've got some kind of weird allergy to magic," I explained, "when my allergies kick in, I turn into a girl. At least that's what Mrs. Reveine told me. She said it's a side effect of my actually being a potential sorcerer."

"Holy shit," Newt exclaimed. "You've got to be kidding."

"I wish," I rolled my eyes. "She said I draw enough magic to become a sorcerer, but if I draw that much magic I'll turn into a girl again."

"Damn," Newt shook his head.

"Weird," Misha said, staring at me in disbelief.

Newt and Misha stared at me for a minute as if trying to decide if I was joking. Newt looked especially skeptical while Misha was more thoughtful. I didn't blame them in the least since I still wasn't completely sure about it all myself. After all Mrs. Reveine could have been wrong about all of it. And what if my turning into a girl was really just a one time thing?

"Have you told your sister yet?" Misha asked.

"Hell no," I responded, knowing that Daria would probably hear about my suddenly changing in class before long. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if she came around in a little while to tease me about it.

"Well, I don't know about you guys," Newt suddenly exclaimed, "but I'm getting hungry. Let's head over to the cafeteria for dinner."

"Sounds good to me," Misha grinned, her eyes gleaming with anticipation. I knew that she had a real fondness for chocolate so she was probably thinking about dessert, which had been posted on the bulletin board that morning as being chocolate mousse.

I grinned with my friends, more than happy to change the subject. Besides I was getting kind of hungry too. "C'mon... Let's go..."

When hurried out the door and down the hall, but I stopped when I suddenly felt the tingling return. This time it was hitting me hard, just as hard as it was right before my transformation in magical theory. I looked around, immediately spotting them ahead of me, three guys who were all playing around with their magic abilities.

"Oh shit," I gasped as my flesh began to shift and move.

This time the transformation was quick and easy, much as it had been when I reverted back to my normal self. I grimaced though as my chest swelled outward, as I felt my growing hair tickling my shoulders and my groin pulled inward. The same kind of changes were occurring throughout my entire body at once and I didn't have to look at them to know exactly what they all were.

"HOLY SHIT!" Newt exclaimed as he stared at me in surprise. Misha didn't say anything, but she was staring at me just as hard as Newt.

I just stood there, slowly looking down at myself with a scowl. As much as I hated it, I no longer had any choice but to accept that Mrs. Reveine had been right about my condition. With a shake of my head I grumbled, "Great. Just great."

I slowly walked across the Academy courtyard, feeling a little nervous as I did so. My eyes kept darting around as I looked for any signs of people near me using their magic, careful to avoid them so that I wouldn't have my condition triggered. Avoiding magic in the Academy was not an easy thing to do and took some effort.

It had been just over a week since my unexpected transformation in class and the discovery of my unusual allergy. Unfortunately I had stumbled into people using magic several times since then and had had transformed in front of them, sometimes at very inconvenient and embarrassing times, such as when I was in the middle of going to the bathroom. And since I had been seen changing on more than one occasion, word of my condition and speculation about it was beginning to spread around the school.

During the past week I have discovered a few things about my condition. I can tolerate small amounts of magic without changing, so I can be near someone who's using their gifts and even use my own. It's only when several people are using their magic in a close space or a larger amount is directed at me that it triggers. So I've been careful to avoid those kinds of situations, at least as much as I can.

When I saw a couple of sorcerers practicing some kind of spells on the other side of the courtyard, I sighed, feeling a bit jealous of them. It frustrated me to know that I had the ability to register for the sorcerer course myself, but that circumstances prevented me from do so. Watching them was almost like being teased with something I could almost have, but not quite.

"At least there's no class today," I reminded myself, relieved that it was Sunday, the one day of the week where there were no classes of any sort. Then again I'd heard that sorcerers did have some class work on Sundays, so maybe it was a good thing that I wasn't one of them.

I watched the sorcerers for a while longer, feeling only the faintest sense of tingling. They were far enough away that they weren't a threat to my condition, though they were still quite interesting to watch. I just wished that I could be out there doing that kind of thing too. Sorcerers were sort of the elite of the Touched, able to do magics that were far beyond most. And like most young Touched, I had always dreamed of being a sorcerer, so it seemed almost cruel to have it be so close yet so far away at the same time.

"Sure, I could be a sorcerer," I snorted sarcastically, "if I wanted to walk around as a girl all the time."

After another minute I finally turned and continued on my walk. I didn't really have any destination in mind at the moment, but that wasn't really the point. I just wanted to get out and stretch my legs, maybe even clear my head a bit. That's why I slipped out without telling Newt that I was going.

I eventually found myself coming up on the small lake that marked the division of the island. It was calm and clear at the moment, creating a surface that reminded me of a mirror. The whole thing was soothing to look at, which was perfect since I was currently in a mood to be soothed.

I was just about to go sit down at a bench that overlooked the lake, when I noticed that there was already someone sitting there. It was a middle aged woman I didn't recognize, which meant that she could have been some teacher I hadn't seen yet or possibly a visiting parent. She had long black hair that was streaked with gray and had a single lock of white in the front. Her features were quite striking, making it obvious that she must have been quite beautiful when she was younger, though she was still quite attractive for her age.

"Do you mind if I sit here?" I asked, gesturing to the other side of the bench.

"Go ahead," the woman responded, giving me a faint smile, "there's plenty of room." After I sat down and looked out across the lake, she mused, "I love coming here. It's so serene."

"Yeah," I agreed, just staring out at the water.

The two of us just sat there in silence for a while before the woman casually asked me, "May I know who it is that I am sharing this bench with?"

"Galen," I told her, "Galen Shierman."

"Galen Shierman," she mused, smiling faintly. "I've heard that name before. I believe that I've heard rumors of you being under a curse of some sort? That you keep changing gender..." Then she looked at me strangely for a moment before commenting, "I would think that such a talented faculty as the Academy possesses would have already broken such a curse. That sounds more like a sorcerer's mark to me."

"A sorcerer's mark?" I repeated, "What's that?"

"That's an older term," she answered thoughtfully, "I suppose nowadays they use something else. It's what we used to call it when a sorcerer's own magic changed them. It sort of marked them as being a sorcerer, hence the name."

"Oh," I winced slightly, "yeah, that's what it is I guess."

The woman nodded. "So how are you enjoying the sorcerer's training course?"

"I'm not in it," I answered slowly, staring down at the ground, unable to meet her eyes. "I change like that whenever I get too much magic..."

"And if you became a sorcerer," she finished for me with a look of understanding, "you would be turning into a young woman a lot more frequently."

I nodded at that, blushing brightly. "It's really embarrassing..."

"I quite understand," the woman told me with a knowing look. She was silent for a moment, looking rather thoughtful before musing, "Still it does seem a shame to ignore a great opportunity just because it might be embarrassing."

"I guess," I mumbled, not sure what else I could say to that.

After a few more minutes the woman stood up and announced, "It's time for me to be going. Perhaps we will meet again some day." It wasn't until after she left that I realized she'd never told me her name.

When I got up to leave a short time later the woman's words seemed to echo in my ears. It did seem a shame to miss out on an opportunity like that. But I shook it off and started back towards my dorm, determined not to think about it. After all what did she know?

I took my time going back, and once I got to the central courtyard, I stopped entirely. The two sorcerers who'd been playing around out there earlier were still there, but they were no longer using their magic. Instead someone else was out there showing off his abilities by creating the illusion of a dragon. It was an awesome sight to see, so it was no surprise that a lot of students were gathered around to watch.

The illusion caster was Marcus Tamright, one of the most popular kids at the Academy. He was tall, athletic, and a few years older than me, with blonde hair and blue eyes. The fact that he was also a straight A student and a powerful sorcerer only made me even more jealous of him. Of course most of the boys at the Academy were jealous of him, while most of the girls just had a crush on him.

"Isn't that something?" Daria exclaimed as she came up beside me, staring at Marcus with a look of near worship.

"Yeah, it's pretty impressive," I admitted grudgingly.

The dragon vanished after just a minute and Marcus pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket. He held it up and said something, then tossed the paper to the ground. Suddenly a pillar of fire erupted and shot at least fifty feet straight up before suddenly freezing and turning into ice. The ice pillar exploded and a moment later it was all coming back down as snow.

After this Marcus bowed and turned to leave, obviously finished with the demonstration of his powers. There was a lot of cheering and clapping, especially from Daria. I was actually disappointed that I'd missed the rest of the show since it must have been pretty good.

"So," Daria smirked, finally turning her attention to me, "I keep hearing about you having some kind of curse?"

I blushed, having known that my sister would find out about my condition, though I'd really hoped it would have taken a bit longer. In fact I realized that I was pretty lucky that it had taken her this long to come to me about it.

"So, who'd you piss off?" Daria laughed. "Was it Marcus? Maybe that Jace kid?"

"It's nothing like that," I told her, "it's a sorcerer's mark." I decided to use the same term the mysterious woman had since it sounded a little more dignified than side effect. "It makes me change like that when I get exposed to too much magic."

"Yeah, right," Daria snorted. "I've heard about sorcerer's marks, and to have one of those, you'd have to be a sorcerer."

"I am," I said, then quickly corrected myself, "or at least I could be. I can draw enough magic for it."

Daria just laughed disdainfully, "Bullshit. You don't even have a real magic ability, and you honestly think you could ever be a sorcerer? Get real."

"I could be," I protested, glaring at my sister.

Just then one of the students a few feet away from me used his special ability. I didn't see what he did with it, nor did I need to. Thanks to Marcus and his show the courtyard was filled with magical energy. I had been standing far enough back that it didn't trigger my condition, but this small amount of extra magic was enough to push me over the edge and begin my transformation.

"What the fuck?" Daria gasped, instinctively stepping away from me though she continued to stare at me in disbelief. Then she suddenly burst out laughing.

"It's not funny," I snapped in a girl's voice.

"Sure it is," Daria snickered. Then she turned to walk away, calling back, "You're as much a sorcerer as I am a goldfish."

I just stood where I was, glaring at Daria's back. It was then that I made my decision. Even if it meant spending a lot of time as a girl, I was going to become a sorcerer. I was going to make her eat those words, no matter what it took.

---

"Damn!" I exclaimed as I stood in the middle of my small dorm room, glaring at my reflection in a mirror I'd recently hung from my wall.

At the moment I was staring at a beautiful young brunette, one that I would have to get used to seeing in the mirror more often if I wanted to become a sorcerer. The big problem though was that I had an important appointment in less than half an hour, and now I was going to have to go to it as a girl.

"Damn Daria," I cursed my sister, pissed that she and a couple of her friends had ambushed me a short while ago and intentionally blasted me with enough magic to make me transform. My condition...my sorcerer's mark had provided yet another way for Daria to have fun at my expense. This time her prank couldn't have come at a worse time for me.

I had learned from experience that whenever I turned into a girl I was stuck like that for anywhere between one to three hours before I'd revert back. The length of time that I spent that way seemed random and without much relation to the amount of magic I was exposed to, but if I was exposed to more magic while transformed, it would only delay my return to normal that much longer. Unfortunately I knew that there was almost no chance of changing back before my appointment.

"Stand still," Misha snapped as she came up beside me and began running a brush through my hair. "We need to get you presentable. Maybe we can get some makeup on you real quick..."

"No way," I grimaced, not liking the idea of wearing makeup as a girl and absolutely shuddering at the thought of how much I'd be teased if I changed back into a guy while still wearing it. Daria would never let me live that down.

Misha shrugged, "Your call."

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, wishing that I could reschedule the appointment until I was a guy again but knowing that it wasn't an option. So instead I focused my attention on calming down, knowing that I wouldn't make a very good impression if I was all worked up like that.

After I had made up my mind to apply for the sorcerer's course a few days ago, I done a little research. To my surprise there were more requirements than just being able to draw enough magic. One of the important requirements was an application review, which is what I was scheduled for. For the most part this was just a formality, but I still needed to make a good impression. Unfortunately there was one other major requirement which I was currently lacking, and it worried me a lot.

"Well, you're as presentable as you're going to be," Misha told me with a frown, "if you had time to change your clothes and put on some makeup..."

"Thanks," I cut her off, not wanting her continue with that line of thinking. The last thing I wanted at the moment was for some overzealous girl to think that I was some life sized Barbie doll that she could play dress up with.

"I'm glad I could help out," Misha grinned. "And good luck."

I left my room and made my way to the hall of sorcerers where I was led to the audience chamber. It was a fairly large room, larger than I would have thought necessary. The back of the room had a dozen empty chairs set out while the front had a raised platform with three people sitting behind a podium like judges at a trial.

The person sitting in the middle was an old woman with white hair. This was Arita Roangard, the chairman of the Academy, which meant that she was our principal or headmaster.

There was a rumor going around that Professor Roangard was over 300 years old, which wasn't hard to believe. Powerful sorcerers were able to slow their rate of aging and extend their life spans a great deal, and if they were powerful enough, they could even become virtually immortal. There were only a handful of these 'immortals' on the entire planet.

Amylia, the sorceress who'd given me the tour when I first arrived, sat on one side of Professor Roangard, while an overweight man with a black beard sat on the other side of her. I didn't know who this was, other than that he was another instructor from the hall of sorcerers.

"Galen Shierman?" Professor Roangard asked, adjusting her glasses and giving me a careful look.

"Yes ma'am," I responded, looking down at the floor in embarrassment.

Professor Roangard looked down at some papers in front of me and commented, "Your application mentions your mark, though frankly I would never have expected you to appear here in this form. Anyway, your paperwork appears to be in order."

"Your transcripts show acceptable grades," the man with the beard commented, though he didn't look all that impressed either.

Amylia gave me a steady look with her violet eyes before saying, "Claudia Reveine confirms that you can draw a high level of magic. She even estimates that you're between a class eight and a class ten." I didn't know what she meant by those class numbers, but she sounded fairly impressed. Even the man with the beard was nodding faintly.

They made a few more comments and observations before they finally came to the question that I'd been dreading. "Do you have a sponsor?"

For a student to enter the sorcerer training course at the Academy, they were required to have a sponsor. It's a nod to the old master and apprentice system that was written into the school charter.

At one time it was traditional for sorcerers to learn by masters teaching their apprentices and having complete control over what was taught. For a sorcerer to have an apprentice was a status symbol and a mark of pride, as well as giving them an heir to pass their most prized knowledge and spells to.

When the first school of magic was founded, the elder sorcerers were forced to admit the benefits of having standardized teaching. However they refused to give up certain traditions or the benefits of the old system and found a way to include them into the school. It became a requirement for each student to have a sponsor, the equivalent of a master. This was someone who would be a guidance councilor, would direct additional study, teach their own prized spells, and take care of any funding needs. Now it became a mark of pride and status for a sorcerer to sponsor a student, though they were only allowed to do so for one at a time.

Unfortunately I didn't have a sponsor. A lot of students used sorcerers who were family members or friends of the family, though I didn't have that option since my family didn't know any sorcerers. However this wasn't the only way of finding a sponsor.

There was a notice board on the Academy website set up to announce when a student needed a sponsor. This way any sorcerer who was interested could come to the application review and offer their sponsorship. But since all the seats reserved for potential sponsors were empty, it appeared that my last hopes were about to be dashed.

"I don't have one," I quietly responded, barely able to bring myself to look at my judges.

Now there was no doubt that my application would be turned down because I couldn't get into the sorcerers course without a sponsor. It suddenly seemed a horrible shame that teacher's weren't allowed to sponsor students themselves. Of course this rule was to discourage possible favoritism, but at the moment, that seemed like a small consolation.

"That is a great shame," Professor Roangard said with a tone of regret. "Perhaps you can reply at a later date."

"I'm sure that you can find a sponsor if you continue to look," Amylia stated.

Professor Roangard looked at the empty seats at the back of the room and frowned. "Are there any here who will stand to be Galen Shierman's sponsor?" The question was obviously just a formality as she could clearly see for herself that there wasn't. "Then I will have to close this review."

"WAIT!" a woman's voice suddenly exclaimed, "I will sponsor him."

I snapped around to see a woman in a green cloak standing at the doorway. It took me a moment to realize that this was actually the same woman I'd met at the lake.

"YOU!!!" Professor Roangard exclaimed, jumping to her feet and glaring at the mysterious woman with an intensity I never would have imagined from the old woman.

The man with the beard jumped to his feet as well, pulling an ornate glass vial from his pocket and holding it as though it were a weapon. He looked at the mysterious woman as though she were a deadly threat, while Amylia looked more uncertain, as if she didn't recognize who this newcomer was.

"How dare you come here?" the man with the beard demanded furiously.

But the mysterious woman just walked further into the room, calmly announcing, "I am well within my rights to claim sponsorship."

"She's correct," Professor Roangard reluctantly admitted, sitting back in her seat but keeping a very cautious eye on the woman. The bearded man began to protest, but she snapped, "At ease Master Tonkas. The Academy charter clearly states that we can not deny anyone the right of sponsorship because of political or personal disagreements."

The bearded man, Master Tonkas sat back, glaring at the woman but not saying anything. The ornate glass vial was still clutched firmly in his hand however.

"You have NEVER sponsored a student before," Professor Roangard stared at the woman, "why would you do so now?"

"I have my reasons," the mysterious woman responded coldly. After a moment she turned to me and gently said, "I will be your sponsor, if you will have me."

Before I could answer, Master Tonkas exclaimed, "You do not have to accept any sponsor you do not want."

Professor Roangard gently added, "Other sponsors would come along." It sounded almost as if she was trying hard not to influence my decision too directly, though she still looked concerned. I stared at her, then at the mysterious woman, feeling a little confused. It was obvious that Mrs. Roangard and Master Tonkas would have preferred that I didn't accept her offer. But at the same time, she'd been nice at the lake and she was the only one who'd offered to sponsor me. And then, as she had pointed out previously, it would be a shame to ignore an opportunity just because it wasn't perfect.

"Thank you," I finally said, smiling nervously at my benefactor. "I think I'd like to..."

"Very good," she responded with a satisfied smile.

"Galen Shierman," Professor Roangard said with a grim but professional look. "Do you accept this woman as your sponsor?" The words had the tone of formality to them, as a number of things in this meeting.

"Yes ma'am," I responded nervously.

At this Amylia gave my new sponsor a wary look, then announced, "You have fulfilled all of the requirements for entry into the Academy's training course for sorcerers. Congratulations and welcome to the course. You will meet me in the hall of sorcerers tomorrow morning at nine to begin your training."

"Our review here is completed," Professor Roangard said, looking as though she were using all her willpower to try ignoring my sponsor's presence. "Welcome to the sorcerers course."

With that the three judges left the room through a door behind their podium while I just stood there for a minute with my new sponsor. "Thank you for sponsoring me ma'am," I told her nervously.

"It is my pleasure," she responded, giving me a strange half smile.

I stared at her for a moment, suddenly realizing that I didn't even know who she was. I took a deep breath, embarrassed to admit that I didn't even know my own sponsor's name. "Excuse me ma'am," I started hesitantly, "you never told me your name."

My sponsor gave me a look of amusement, then casually said, "My name is Morgana LeFay."

I nearly choked at that, staring at her in shock and disbelief. Now I suddenly understood exactly why Professor Roangard and Master Tonkas were acting the way they had. Morgana LeFay was a legend among normals, and even more so among the Touched who knew she was real. She was one of the most powerful sorceresses in the world, as well as one of the oldest.

Morgana LeFay's reputation went far beyond just the old King Arthur stories. Back around the time when the Touched went into deep hiding and began the campaign to convince normals that magic didn't exist, she led a rival faction that pushed for an open war with normals instead. She even preached the idea of having Touched take all physical power and government away from normals and replacing it with our own. Of course she failed, and according to my mom, she'd been a complete and total recluse since.

"Come," she said, walking towards the door and gesturing for me to follow. "I believe that we have some things to discuss."

For a moment I just stared at her, then I began to slowly follow. And as I did so, I couldn't help but being nervous and wondering just what in the world I had gotten myself into.

The hall of sorcerers was a large building, much larger than one might think necessary for the number of students who used it. Inside of it were a number of specially created rooms for a variety of purposes, with several even being as large as gyms, so that students had room to practice their magics.

At the moment I was sitting in a study, a room that had been specifically reserved for me and my sponsor. Every sorcery student was assigned a study where they could meet with their sponsors in private, where they could store their materials, and where they could work at casting their spells.

Morgana LeFay sat on the other side of a desk, watching me with a guarded expression that I couldn't read. Then she abruptly broke the uncomfortable silence by announcing, "I can see from your reaction that you have heard stories about me." She gave me a steady look and leaned forward slightly, "You can not believe everything you hear."

"Yes ma'am," I responded nervously. It was strange to be sitting right next to one of the most famous villains in history, and one who also happened to be one of the most powerful sorceresses as well. It was even stranger when I remembered that she was also my sponsor.

"This arrangement will not work well for either of us if you are afraid of me," she told me with a sigh. "I can assure you, I have no intention of harming you or anyone else. The things I am known for occurred a long time ago and have been twisted by time. But if it will ease your nerves, you may ask me any questions about my past that you may have." Then she gave me a faint smile, "I can not promise to answer all of them though."

I took a deep breath, feeling confident that she didn't want to hurt me but not of much else. She'd been nice to me since I met her at the lake and was the only person who offered to sponsor me. But still she had such a reputation that I couldn't help but being suspicious.

For a moment I just looked at her, thinking about her offer to answer my questions. Then I hesitantly asked, "You really fought King Arthur?"

"Of course you would ask about him first," she sighed with a hint of exasperation in her voice. Then she calmly started to explain, "You must understand that history is written by the victors. Events are told from their perspectives and their own flaws are overlooked. One of the things that history overlooks is that Arthur was a conqueror."

"A conqueror?" I gasped in surprise then stared at her skeptically.

Morgana nodded, "History refers to it as uniting Britain, but he did so with a sword, gathering his army and conquering his neighbors, giving them no choice but to submit to him or perish. What else could you call him but a conqueror? My conflict to him was in large part due to his demands that I submit my own lands and vassals to him. To be honest, I had conflicting ambitions of my own, though none so grand as Arthur and Merlin's."

After this Morgana told me her own version of the legend of King Arthur. The story was fairly familiar, with a boy becoming a king and working to unite all Britain, but in her version, King Arthur was mostly a pawn of Merlin, who wanted to impose his own ideas of peace and order on the land. Morgana herself came off in a better light, as someone who was content to keep the lands she already had until she was faced with the threat of attack. Her story was interesting, but when she was done, I wasn't sure how much of it I believed.

"But what about the stories of you trying to declare war on normals," I challenged her, "they say that you wanted to conquer all the normals and turn them into slaves."

"I do not deny this," Morgana said, suddenly looking quite tired. "Except for the slave part."

Morgana sighed and appeared to become lost in her own thoughts. I just sat there, silently watching her and wondering what she was going to say...if she said anything more. At the moment it didn't look like she wanted to continue this.

"The world was quite different back then," she finally said, "normals had already declared war on us. They had been hunting down anyone who was Touched or even remotely suspected of it and brutally murdering them. This had been going on for centuries and our numbers were becoming very thin."

"I heard about that in history class," I said quietly, thinking about how my history teacher at the Academy had referred to that time period as the Secret Holocaust, the one that normals didn't even really remember.

"Many friends suffered horrible deaths," she continued sadly. "My last apprentice and her family were pulled from their home in the middle of the night. Her husband was killed right away, but he was the lucky one. She was forced to watch as her own children where thrown into a bonfire alive before she herself was sent to join them. Even my own sister, who had once been beloved and revered by the normals, was murdered."

"Sister," I gasped in surprise. In all of the stories that I'd heard about Morgana LeFay, none of the credible ones had ever mentioned anything about her having a sister.

"She had the gift of breathing under water," Morgana smiled sadly, "so they called her the Lady of the Lake." At my startled look, she nodded, "Yes, that Lady of the Lake. Our views usually differed, but she was my sister."

"Oh," I whispered in response, not sure what I could possibly say to that. "I'm sorry..."

Morgana merely nodded though her expression was somewhat grim. "It was at this time that the idea of hiding our very existence was suggested. We were not supposed to defend ourselves from attack or take retribution for the murder of our loved ones. Instead we were told that we would run away and hide like cowards. I did not like this idea, nor was I the only one by far. Many of us preferred the idea of uniting our strength and bringing the war back to our attackers. We had the power, and if we could take direct control of their governments, we could end the wars for good. This course of action was much more popular than they would have you believe today and was only avoided because a great many Touched thought that there were too few of us left for open war. Eventually even I was forced to agree that the normals had us so heavily outnumbered that an open conflict would not only prove futile, but disastrous."

"Do...do you still want to fight the normals?" I asked nervously, unable to help but thinking of my dad. He was a normal, as was his entire side of the family.

"No," Morgana shook her head with a faint smile. "The world has changed greatly since then and I am satisfied with things as they are. Our people have survived and even flourished, though I would prefer that it were not necessary to continue hiding our very existence."

"Um...that's good," I said, feeling a little uncomfortable.

"I know that you've heard a great many bad things about me," Morgana sighed, "but be assured, they are not all true. People are used to believing the worst of me and ignore anything that does not fit their preconceptions. I helped defend Britain during the second great war, yet you will find very few who admit this."

"I never heard about that," I gasped, startled by her claim of fighting during World War II. That was something that I'd never heard a mention of anywhere, but she seemed sincere.

Morgana abruptly changed the subject, "I think we've had enough of talking about me. Let's talk about you. I believe that your special talent is boiling water..."

"Um, yeah," I answered, feeling a little embarrassed, "it's not very impressive."

"But quite practical," she quickly pointed out. "How many times a day does someone have cause to use their gifts if they call down lightning? Your ability can be quite useful in the kitchen, as well as other places around the house."

"I guess," I shrugged, "but everyone can boil water with a pot and stove."

"True," she admitted, "but they can't do it as fast as you or without a heat source. This may come in very useful some day. And your talent may also be somewhat more dangerous than you realize."

I blinked in surprise, "Dangerous? Yeah right...if someone climbs into a big thing of water and stays there long enough for me to heat it up. A small cup I can do right away, but something like a bath tub can take a few minutes."

"Do you realize," Morgana mused thoughtfully, "that the human body is composed mostly of water. Could you boil that water?"

"WHAT?" I gasped in shock, hardly able to believe that she'd ask that question. "I couldn't hurt someone like that..."

"I am NOT suggesting that you do...or that you ever use such an ability on a person," Morgana told me with a grim expression. "This is not about hurting people. This is about learning to use your magics and whatever else you have to the fullest. You need to understand just what you are and are not capable of."

"But if I learn sorcery," I protested, "I won't even need to use my boiling water trick."

Morgana just shook her head, "You are missing the point. Sorcery works differently than the Touched abilities we all share. It takes time and effort to craft any spell, but you may not always have the luxury of time. You will need to learn all of the varied ways your talent can be used as your life may one day depend on it. By the same reasoning, you need to learn how to take anything you have and make the most of it. This will make you a better sorceress."

I blinked a little in surprise that she'd called me a sorceress rather than a sorcerer and couldn't resist glancing down at myself. I blushed in embarrassment, having been so caught up in talking with Morgana that I'd almost completely forgotten that I was still my girl self.

"Oh yeah," I muttered in embarrassment.

Just then almost as if waiting for the right cue, I felt the changes beginning to spread over my body. I tried not to look at myself as I changed, in spite of the fact that it was just as strange to watch each time it happened. Just a minute later I was back to being my normal boy self.

"Fascinating," was all that Morgana said, though she gave me a curious look, as if wishing I would change back to a girl so she could watch the transformation process all over again.

"Uncomfortable," I muttered.

"Where were we?" Morgana mused to herself, "Oh yes... My own special ability is hardly impressive either." She held out her hand and I felt the tingling run through me again, though not enough to push me back over into becoming a girl. A moment later a thick mist or fog began to form around the edges of the room. "My mist is useful for hiding, yet I have found that I can also summon it within the lungs of an enemy, making it extremely difficult for them to breath. Fortunately I have not had to do this for many centuries."

"Ugh," I grimaced, thankful when she allowed the mist to fade away after just a minute.

"A sorcerer's power is not measured just in the amount of magic they can draw or the number of spells they know," Morgana explained as she watched me intently. "It also depends on how well they can use the resources they possess."

"I don't really have many resources yet," I gave her a weak smile.

"That will change in time," Morgana said. Then she frowned, "It is time for me to leave, but before I go, I will leave you with a task." I immediately sat up straight at that, watching her suspiciously. "I want you to find some melons and see if you can boil the water within those. You should also test your special ability on other liquids besides water."

I grimaced at the extra homework assignment that she had just given me, though I had to admit that I was becoming a little curious as to what else my special talent could do now that I was thinking about it. "Okay," I started to tell her, then I remembered to exactly whom I was speaking and went into my extra polite, "Yes ma'am."

With that we left the study and locked it behind us, then started towards the hall of doors so Morgana could leave the Academy. Neither of us said a word until we reached the main door to the hall and she stopped, indicating that she would go the rest of the way alone. I wasn't sure why she didn't want me to go any further with her, but I suspected she didn't want me to see exactly which door she went through.

"I will return in a few days to check on your progress," Morgana told me, "until then, take care..." She started through the doorway, then paused right on the other side to turn and look back at me. After a moment she gave a faint smile of amusement and commented, "By the way... You make quite a fetching girl."

Once my sponsor was gone, I hurried back to my dorm, muttering, "What a weird day..." It was hard to believe that just that morning I was hoping to get into the sorcery course, and now I was not only in it but was sponsored by one of the most notorious sorceresses of all time. "God, what will Newt and Misha say?" I was not exactly looking forward to finding out.

---

It was my first day of sorcery class and I sat in a classroom with the other ten first year students of that program. The desks, which were solid wooden ones rather than the cheap aluminum and pressboard used in my old school, were arranged in a semicircle so we could easily see our teacher and each other.

Jace McChord was seated several desks away from me but he kept glaring in my direction, obviously not pleased at my having joined the group. Perhaps he didn't think I was worthy of becoming a sorcerer or maybe he just didn't like me for some reason. I didn't particularly care what his reasons were and made an effort not to look in his direction.

I recognized most of my fellow students, either from other classes that we had together or just from seeing them around the Academy. I was also a little startled to realize that nearly half the class had sorcerer's marks of one sort or another, though none of them were quite like mine.

There was a black kid in class with pure white eyes who'd been left almost entirely blind due to his mark. There was a tall, slender, blonde girl who had pointed ears that made her look something like an elf from Lord of the Rings. And then there was a girl sitting next to me with a stud through her nose, a half dozen rings through each of her ears, and shoulder length hair that was a bright fire engine red. However I wasn't sure whether her hair was that color due to it being a sorcerers mark or just having been dyed.

Then of course there was our teacher Amylia, who stood in the middle of all of the desks. She seemed a little annoyed at my presence when I first came in, as if I had thrown her off of some schedule. But to my relief there was none of the hostility or suspicion that I might have expected, considering who my sponsor was. There was no doubt that by now she had been told exactly who the mysterious woman in the meeting yesterday had been.

"Sorcery is quite a bit different from normal Touched abilities," Amylia lectured the class, then set her violet eyes on me, giving me the impression that this particular lecture was for my benefit. "When a Touched draws on magic for the first time, the magic emerges and has a random effect. Or at least it seems to be random, though studies indicate that genetics and environment take a role in shaping the effect as well. This effect is your special ability, and the very act of drawing it for the first time brands the pattern of this effect onto your very being. This is why the magic continues to have the same effect every time you draw it."

"She gave this lecture before," the girl with the bright red hair whispered to me, letting me know that my suspicions about this lecture being for my benefit were true.

Amylia continued, frequently looking at me to make sure I was paying attention. "Sorcery on the other hand comes from the extra magic that some of us can draw. We can, for lack of a better word, bypass the pattern that has been established for our special abilities and use it for other purposes. However sorcery does not have the simple and easy pattern to follow already established. Normal abilities merely require you to draw magic through your pattern, but with sorcery, you have to create the pattern from scratch every time. This means that by its very nature sorcery is much more versatile than any normal abilities, yet it also requires much more time and effort to use."

The red haired girl leaned over and whispered, "Now comes the candle part."

"Using my special ability like this," Amylia started, then turned and held out her hands, sending a long stream of fire halfway across the room and causing my body to start tingling, "requires little effort. Yet at the same time a single sorcery spell to merely light a candle can take up to three minutes to cast. More powerful and complex spells can even take up to an hour."

I stared at Amylia in surprise, suddenly realizing just how over hyped sorcery must be. If it took that long to cast a spell, then what good was it? By the time you needed it, it would already be too late. And all of a sudden I understood what Morgana had meant when she was talking about not always having the time to cast a spell.

"She already told us this," the red haired girl sighed and rolled her eyes. Then she grinned and raised her hand. In a tone of mock curiosity, she asked, "Gee... If spells take so long to cast, then how do you use them when you need them?"

I nearly laughed at that, especially since she had asked almost the exact same thing I was wondering about myself, even if she was only joking around. Amylia gave her a look of annoyance, then decided to play along. She smiled at the girl and in an exaggerated tone of mock delight responded, "I'm so glad that you asked that..."

Half the class started to chuckle and the boy next to me grinned, "I didn't know she could be funny."

Amylia ignored this and continued with the lecture, returning to her serious tone, "Once you are able to craft spells, you will learn to store them for later use. It is possible to freeze and capture a spell at the moment of completion and to store it into a physical object for later use. Such objects are called tokens. This is a token." Amylia pulled a crystal from her pocket and held it up for the class to see. "It contains a spell to light candles." With that she gestured to a row of candles that were set up against one wall.

"This part is pretty cool," the red haired girl told me with a grin.

"When you create a token," Amylia said, looking straight at me, "you designate the word or phrase that you will use to release the spell. The most common word used for this purpose is INVOKE."

At that moment several things occurred at once. First the crystal in Amylia's hands glowed and every candle against the wall instantly became lit. At the same time though the magical energy level around me became too much to handle and I found myself transforming into a girl once again. I grimaced and hoped that nobody noticed, but that was obviously not the case as the entire class was staring at me.

"Holy shit," the girl exclaimed, "she turned you into a girl..."

"It's my sorcerer's mark," I told her through gritted teeth.

Amylia gave me a look of annoyance for disturbing her class, then calmly continued, "In this manner a long and complex spell can be cast ahead of time and saved until it is actually needed."

"Um...that was pretty cool," I told the girl next to me, gesturing the candles in an attempt to distract her from my transformation. But to my discomfort she continued staring at me, more interested in my changes than our teacher's demonstration.

"Some of you," Amylia suddenly announced, looking around the room with a pointed expression, "have received some training in sorcery before coming to the Academy. Several of you have already even created your own tokens. Please show them to me."

From the looks of surprise that I saw around the room, I guessed that this was a part of the lecture that she hadn't given them before. There was some quiet muttering from the others and an exasperated sigh from the girl beside me.

Jace held out several pieces of paper with strange symbols on them, looking rather smug as he did so. Amylia examined them and nodded, "Simple but effective."

"My father taught me," Jace smirked, "he's my sponsor."

Amylia merely nodded to that and went to the red haired girl. The girl held out her wrist, revealing a charm bracelet that had about a dozen charms of different shapes hanging from it. Amylia stared at them for a moment before exclaiming, "Very good Kaitlen. A perfect example of individualizing your tokens."

After this Amylia continued with her lecture on tokens and the different kinds. According to her most tokens were destroyed as the spells within were released, though she said that it was possible, though more difficult, to make reusable tokens. There were even some of these reusable ones that could hold multiple spells, and she said that the wands and staffs used by sorcerers in the past were an example of that type.

As the class continued Amylia went on to describe other physical objects that could be used to enhance a sorcerer's power, though she didn't go into any detail as to how they were created, since this was just an overview. The whole lecture was extremely fascinating and from the way all the other students were paying attention, I suspected that most of this was new information for them as well.

When the class was finally over Amylia asked for me and the red haired girl to stay behind for a few minutes. "Kaitlen," she frowned at the girl, "since you have been kind enough to help Galen during my class...even while I was talking, I want you to work with her...him and help him catch up."

"Just great," Kaitlen exclaimed once Amylia left the room. Then she glared at me, "This is all your fault."

"My fault?" I blinked in surprise. "How can it be my fault?"

"Because you kept talking to me during class," she scowled.

I stared at her in surprise. "As I remember, you were the one who kept talking..."

"Anyway, I'm not mad at you for getting me in trouble," Kaitlen said, completely ignoring my point. "I'll meet you after dinner tonight so we can do the whole tutor thing."

"Sounds good to me," I told her.

Kaitlen grinned and winked at me then rushed out the door, "See ya then..." It wasn't until after she'd gone that I realized we had never agreed on a place to actually meet.

"Weird girl," I muttered with a shake of my head before starting for my next class.

---

After dinner I tried to find Kaitlen so I could keep my appointment with her, but it did little good. I looked just about everywhere, from the hall of sorcery to her own dorm room, but there was no sign of her anywhere. As I hated to admit it, I was quickly coming to the conclusion that she had intentionally ditched me. After all she was supposed to tutor me as a punishment for talking in class, not because she really wanted to help me out.

Since Kaitlen wasn't around to help me out with sorcery, I turned my attention to working on the task that Morgana had assigned me. I collected up all of the things I thought I'd need for my experiment, then made my way to one of the common rooms in the dorm. It might not be as private as I'd like, but at least it wasn't as cramped as my room.

Newt and Misha both sat beside me, watching with some amusement as I set out glasses of orange juice and milk beside an orange and a slice of watermelon. I had tried getting hold of a whole watermelon, but was forced to make do with what I could get from the cafeteria.

"This has to be the weirdest homework I've ever seen," Newt snickered. "Like the ability to boil orange juice is any better than boiling water."

"Quiet," Misha snapped, "he's trying to concentrate."

I started with what I thought would try the most likely item first and focused on the orange juice. Normally I could make a cup of water that size star boiling in just seconds, though that wasn't the case with the juice. It took half a minute before I had any real reaction at all and then it only came to a very light boil...if that. As much as I tried I couldn't get it to go any further than that. Then I turned my attention to the milk with even less success.

"At least you can make warm milk," Newt snickered. "That might be useful if you're trying to get to sleep."

"Shut up," I snapped at him, "you're beginning to sound like my sister."

Newt winced at that, "Hey, that's not fair."

"Yeah," Misha giggled, "I've talked to your sister a few times and Newt's nowhere as pretty as she is." Then Misha grinned and added, "You should have seen her face though when I mentioned that you were even prettier than her. I thought she was going to slug me."

"At least she didn't start throwing balls of water at you," I told Misha with a grin, "she likes doing that kind of thing to me. I can't tell you how many times I've been hit with a water balloon without the balloon."

After we all had a brief chuckle I turned my attention back to my project. I frowned and tried with the orange, pushing my magic ability as much as I could to see if I could make it boil. Instead all I managed to do was make the orange a little warm and push my tolerance for magic until I felt myself start changing.

"Shit," Newt exclaimed, staring at me, especially at my growing chest, "I don't think I'll ever get used to seeing you do that."

"I don't think I'll ever get used to doing it," I grimaced selfconsciously.

"You look good though," Misha told me, "you've got a great figure..." However that hardly made me feel better.

"Anyway," I grimaced, attempting to change the subject, "I still have to finish this up."

With that I concentrated on the watermelon, trying to bring the water within to a boil. The melon warmed up more easily than the orange, though not by much. It was becoming quite obvious to me that I could use my powers on just about anything that had water in it, but not very effectively. They seemed to work best on pure water with my power being as diluted as the water was.

"Ice," I suddenly exclaimed, "I've never tried my power on ice..."

"I'll get it," Misha exclaimed, promptly running off and coming back a few minutes later with several ice cubes.

When I turned my special talent on the ice, I was stunned by the immediate and exciting response. The ice cube suddenly exploded into a burst of water droplets, steam of slivers of ice. This was such a startling reaction that I tried it again on the other ice cube, getting the exact same effect.

"Cool," Newt exclaimed, immediately followed by Misha's, "Wicked."

"At least that did something interesting," I grinned at my friends, thinking that it even made up for the disappointing effects on everything else I'd tested my abilities on.

"I can't believe she's having you do all this weird stuff," Misha scowled, looking a bit uncomfortable, "I mean, boiling orange juice..."

Newt just grimaced, "I don't see why you don't just get a different sponsor... I mean..." He shuddered visibly.

I sighed, relieved that my friends weren't freaking about who my sponsor was like they'd been last night. At first they thought I was joking, but that was better than the way they'd reacted once they started to believe. They had acted like I'd sold my soul to the devil for agreeing to have Morgana LeFay as a sponsor and it had taken a while to convince them that I'd done nothing of the sort.

"I don't think she's as bad as everyone says," I defended her, remembering the things she'd told me. "Besides, she was the only sponsor I could get."

"But HER," Misha shook her head, "I'd never agree to it. NEVER."

"Yeah," Newt nodded his agreement, "she's got to be the worst sponsor you could have gotten."

Just then Kaitlen came up behind us, commenting, "I couldn't help hearing what you guys were talking about. The way you're talking about your sponsor someone might almost think she was Morgana LeFay." Kaitlen chuckled at her little joke while I shared a nervous look with Newt and Misha.

"Kaitlen," I greeted her with a scowl.

"Where the hell were you?" Kaitlen abruptly asked me, "I was looking all over for you. I mean, how the hell am I supposed to tutor you if you're avoiding me?"

"WHAT?" I gasped, hardly able to believe that she'd try blaming this all on me.

"Don't worry," Kaitlen shrugged it off with a grin, "I'm not mad or anything, but we really should get started."

I looked at Misha and Newt for help but only got sympathetic looks instead. "Good luck," Misha said as she left. I had no doubt that she was wishing me luck in surviving my time with Kaitlen, not in learning anything. Newt hesitated a few seconds before leaving as well.

"Well come on," Kaitlen urged, "we haven't got all night..."

A few minutes later Kaitlen and I found a quiet corner where we could go over the materials she was told to cover. It was a lot more educational than I would have expected, especially since she kept inserting gossip about the various students and faculty. But I couldn't deny that she definitely seemed to know what she was talking about.

"I'm ahead of everyone else in class," Kaitlen told me with a wink, "my mom's a sorceress and started teaching me as much as she could from the moment my own magic appeared."

"That's why you already have those tokens?" I gestured to the charm bracelet around her wrist.

Kaitlen looked quite proud as she showed them off. Each of the charms was completely different, apparently representing the spells contained within. There was a lightning bolt for an electricity spell, a light bulb for a light spell, a feather for an antigravity spell and kitten for a cat repulsion spell.

"I'm allergic to cats," Kaitlen explained the cat repulsion spell, "this one can keep them away from me if I want..." Then she went on to explain, "Most students don't learn to make tokens until their second year, but things are pretty self paced so you can learn faster if you want."

Then Kaitlen demonstrated one of her tokens by removing the charm from her bracelet and holding it in her hand as she exclaimed, "ACTIVATE." Suddenly the charm glowed and vanished while a bunch of bubbles appeared in the air around us. I didn't know what they were made of, but they looked and acted just like soap bubbles, popping and fading away after just a minute.

"Making tokens isn't really all that difficult once you figure out how," Kaitlen shrugged. "It's casting spells that's the pain. Actually that's not really too bad either. It's casting really complex spells or making up new ones that's a pain in the ass. I'm not up to that level yet."

"Since I can't cast any spells yet," I told her, "it's all still pretty impressive to me."

Kaitlen seemed pleased by that statement and we continued with our study session for a few more minutes before deciding that we should stop for now since it was getting late. We made an appointment to meet up again tomorrow, this time even setting a place and time, then said our goodbyes.

I returned to my room and dropped onto my bed, letting out a sigh of relief. It had been an extremely busy day and I'd learned quite a lot about how sorcery really worked. It was also becoming clear that even among most Touched there were a lot of misconceptions about it.

"I can't wait until I'm able to cast those kinds of spells," I grinned, thinking of the various demonstrations of sorcery that I'd been given since my arrival at the Academy. The very thought of being able to do those things myself filled me with excitement.

Then, as I began to undress to get ready for bed, I paused, realizing that something was wrong. It took me a few more seconds to realize what it was, that I was still a girl...due in part to the way Kaitlen had been throwing magic around. I gulped, suddenly uncomfortable and even embarrassed that I'd actually forgotten about my current physical state.

"Ugh," I groaned. This was the first time that I'd still been in my girl form when bed time came around and I felt a bit confused as to what to do. At the same time, I realized that this was stupid and that I should just do what I always did...ignore my body as much as I could and just go about my ordinary business. "I can do that..."

It only took me a minute to get completely undressed, and as I reached for my bath robe as I did every night, I paused, suddenly overcome with feelings of curiosity. Up until then I had made a very conscious effort to avoid looking at my body while I was transformed, something that was usually fairly easy since I usually had my clothes on when I changed. But now I couldn't resist giving into my curiosity, at least a little.

I slowly looked down at myself, seeing a body that was not completely unfamiliar. In spite of my efforts to avoid looking too closely at the changes in my body, I had snuck several peaks and could tell a number of things from what I could see through my clothes. What I saw didn't surprise me, yet I was stunned nonetheless.

My body was obviously that of a teenage girl, with smooth soft skin and all the right curves. My breasts were nice and perky, the kind that any real girl would probably be proud to own. Misha had suggested that I was probably a B cup, though I didn't know enough to either agree or disagree with her.

After a minute I slowly began running my hands over my skin, marveling at just how different it felt. It was so soft and smooth. My hands found themselves moving to my breasts without any conscious thought, startling me with just how sensitive my nipples were. Then one of my hands snaked between my legs, feeling up the flat spot where my johnson usually rested. It felt like something was missing, though it wasn't as noticeable as I would have expected until I reached down.

"So that's what it feels like for a girl," I mused.

I continued looking my body over and feeling myself up for another minute, then I finally got up and went to check out my reflection. Of course I'd looked at myself in the mirror while transformed before and had even stared at my reflection for an hour straight once. But now that I was completely undressed, I could make out a lot more details and put my whole appearance into perspective. I was definitely a good looking girl, which relieved me some. After all if I was going to keep turning into a girl I didn't want to be an ugly one.

"I guess I'd better get used to seeing you if I'm going to study sorcery," I sighed, then turned away from the mirror.

With a faint shake of my head I grabbed my bathrobe and slipped it on, tying it tightly at the waist. I frowned, not particularly liking the idea of going out as a girl with nothing but a bathrobe and slippers on, but I still had to brush my teeth and relieve myself before bed.

"I hate communal bathrooms," I groaned, bracing myself before making the short trip down the hall. When I got into the bathroom, a boy who was in there stared at me, obviously surprised to see what appeared to be a girl in the boy's bathroom, even if he did know who I was. "What the hell are you staring at?" I snapped.

Brushing my teeth only took a minute and then I turned my attention to the task that really made me nervous...relieving myself. I grimaced and sat down on the toilet, thankful for the privacy that the stalls afforded. Taking a leak might be pretty ordinary business, but doing it with my new plumbing was something that made me a bit uncomfortable. Fortunately, the process was pretty much the same as was the relief. I was done and cleaned up in no time at all, much to my relief.

"Not nearly as bad as feared," I sighed in relief, hurrying back to my room as fast as I could.

Several other boys from nearby rooms were hanging around and smirking as they watched me hurry past. Everyone around there knew about me and my sorcerer's mark by now, but they also seemed to find it quite amusing. I just wondered how amusing they'd find it if they were the ones who had a sex change every time they got around too much magic.

Once I was safely back in the privacy of my room, I stripped off my robe and tossed it to the side then turned back to the mirror. I silently inspected myself for nearly a full minute before finally climbing into bed and turning off the light. I wondered how I could possibly get to sleep when my whole body felt off, but that wasn't as big of a problem as I feared and I was soon drifting off to slumber land.

It was two weeks since I had started the sorcerers course and it had turned out to be a lot more difficult than I had imagined. But thanks to Kaitlen's tutoring and the efforts of Morgana, I had not only caught up with the other first year students, but had surpassed most of them as well.

Most sponsors were very hands off, leaving nearly all of their student's training to the Academy. They would show up every week or two, check on progress and occasionally teach one of their favorite tricks. However I had quickly learned that Morgana was nothing like most sponsors. In fact she was probably the most hands on sponsor the Academy had ever seen, much to my chagrin. She showed up nearly every night, giving me extra homework, reading materials and lessons, leaving me little time for anything other than study.

It was currently a Sunday afternoon, but instead of being out and relaxing like everybody else, I was in the middle of another lesson with Morgana. She had insisted on it, going on in great length about how many things were left out of the Academy's curriculum and how she would ensure I had a proper magical education.

At the moment I was in the study, standing in the middle of a spell circle, a special ward that would prevent magic from escaping and insulate me from outside interference. All sorts of strange lines and patterns were drawn on the floor inside of the spell circle and I carefully looked them over as I recited the strange symbols and concentrated on the magical energies that I was weaving.

I had been surprised to learn that all the strange words and the lines drawn on the floor weren't actually necessary for casting spells. The words were more of a mnemonic device than anything, there to help you remember what to do with the magical energies that you're wielding. The patterns on the floor though were guides, lines that you trace over when drawing a complicated picture. You didn't need any of that stuff if you really knew what you were doing, but for a beginner like myself, they were essential.

Then as I completed the ten minute long spell, a ball of fire the size of a volleyball appeared in the air between my hands. I could easily send it flying with a mere wave of my hands, though that would do little good as it would simply hit the invisible magic wall of the spell circle and dissipate. I might not be able to do much with the fireball, but I couldn't help but be excited. It might not be the most complicated spell that I'd cast so far, but it was definitely the most powerful.

"Very good," Morgana said as I let the fireball fade away. "Elemental spells are the most raw and basic of magics, which makes them among the easiest to cast. This is why the special abilities that most Touched possessed are elemental in nature. Elemental magics may be simple, but they can also be the most powerful and dangerous because of this."

"That was pretty cool," I grinned at her, "can I try it again?"

"Of course," Morgana nodded, "then we will wipe the pattern from the floor and attempt something a little more complicated." She opened up a book and gestured to a bunch of patterns and symbols on one page. "A spell to light several candles at once."

Once I had cast the fireball two more times, I went to work on mastering the candle spell. It was a bit more difficult than I would have guessed. But once I managed to successfully cast that spell for the second time I exclaimed, "I think I'm getting the hang of this."

"You are indeed," she smiled, looking rather pleased. "I think that I will be teaching you how to create tokens very soon."

"Really?" I grinned. Kaitlen had mentioned something about possibly teaching me how to do that as well. But when the lesson came from a sorceress as experienced as Morgana LeFay, it meant so much more.

Morgana nodded, slipping into lecture mode. "Most basic tokens are merely sheets of paper, but any competent sorceress will develop their own style. Customizing your tokens to your own tastes is considered a matter of pride and is generally believed to make them more powerful."

I just nodded at that, already knowing about how most sorcerer's customized their tokens from both class and Kaitlen, though I decided not to say anything about that. "So what kind of tokens do you use?"

"I usually use a combination of small amulets and either my wand or staff," Morgana explained, pulling out a small wooden wand and showing me, "most wands can only store three spells, but mine can hold four."

"Cool," I nodded, having learned in class that a lot of the older sorcerers used wands and staffs a lot. Apparently this had been quite traditional until the Touched went underground and everyone started being more subtle.

"Do you have any artistic talents?" Morgana asked thoughtfully, "woodcarving or sculpting? I know such things can make for excellent tokens."

"Well," I started slowly, "I used to be really good at drawing and painting, but I haven't done any of that stuff in awhile."

"You might consider what form of token you want to use," Morgana told me, "there is no hurry, though."

A few minutes after this my lesson with Morgana was over and I was released for the day. I hurried out of the hall of sorcerers, only to find myself in the pouring rain. I winced at the horrible weather, knowing that I shouldn't be surprised. The Academy was on an island off the coast of Oregon, so we got weather like this all the time. I just wondered why they didn't build the Academy someplace a little more welcoming, like California.

"Or at least they could put covered walkways between the buildings," I grumbled as I rushed across the courtyard.

My chest felt a bit odd and jiggling as a ran, reminding me of the fact that I was currently a girl. I'd been spending so much time as one lately do to all of my sorcery practice that I sometimes even forgot which gender I currently was. I glanced own at my chest and gasped in embarrassment at the realization that my nipples were visible through my wet shirt.

"Oh shit," I gasped, hoping I could get back to my room before anyone noticed. "If Misha sees this, she'll give me another lecture about how I should think of wearing a bra."

Just as I was nearly to the dry safety of the dorm building, the door opened up and Jace McChord stepped out. He paused as soon as he saw me, staring at me with a strange expression. Getting strange looks from Jace was nothing new. He always glared at me with some sort of resentment when I was a guy, and whenever I was in my girl form, he would ogle me and try to hide the fact that he was sneaking peaks. It was weird as hell knowing that Jace was attracted to my girl form, so I preferred to just take the glares.

I tried to ignore Jace as I walked past, but I couldn't help but noticing that something was different. I was currently in my girl form, but instead of oglying me or staring at my breasts like he usually did, he was glaring at me with a viciousness that I'd never seen before. It sent chills down my spine.

"Fucking slut," he quietly spat out as I walked past, "I can't believe you fooled everyone with that nice guy act."

"What?" I blinked in confusion, but Jace was already walking, going straight into the rain as though he'd rather be soaking wet than spent a minute talking to me. "That was pretty weird."

I shook my head and went inside, immediately thankful to be out of the rain. Of course I'd still have to dry off and it would be a couple hours before I'd revert to being a guy and could really get comfortable again. But at least I had the rest of the day off.

Once I'd changed clothes into something dry and a little less embarrassing, I went to go find Misha and Newt. I soon found them playing pool in one of the common rooms. It took another minute before they even noticed that I was standing there and watching them.

"Hey girl," Misha grinned at me, "you have got to get some better clothes. I mean, I barely ever see you as a guy anymore so you might as well start wearing some clothes that fit right."

"My clothes are fine," I grumbled, perfectly happy with my loose fitting guy clothes.

Misha shook her head, "C'mon, you've got to at least try some clothes that fit right. I know a girl who's about your size... I bet I can borrow a few things for you to try out."

Newt just snickered, "You know she's not going to give up until you're wearing high heels and a skirt."

"Hey," Misha protested.

I just grimaced, "I'm fine like this." Still I blushed a little as I looked down at myself, unable to help but imagine what I'd look like with girl clothes on. I'd stood in front of the mirror and played games of mental dress-up on more than one occasion, wondering what it would like and feel like to wear sexy girl clothes. Of course I had no intention of ever finding out. "I'm still a guy inside."

"She's right," Newt gestured to Misha, "we don't see you as a guy much anymore...

"Between sorcery class and those lessons with...HER, you're always being changed."

"I know," I sighed, shaking my head, "I kind if knew I'd be spending a lot of time as a girl when I started the sorcery course, I just didn't realize it would be quite so much."

For the next half hour I joined in on a few pool games and had to deal with my friends teasing me about the amount of time that I'd been spending as a girl. It was a little annoying, but they were my friends so I could always tease them back about other things.

Just then Kaitlen came running into the common room with a look of terrified desperation on her face. I'd been spending a lot of time with her lately, and not just during our tutoring sessions. She'd become a good friend and spent a lot of time hanging around with Misha and Newt too. But I'd never seen her with an expression like that before.

"Tell me it's not true," Kaitlen demanded, standing there with her hands on her hips, glaring at me as though I'd done something wrong.

"What?" I blinked in confusion.

"There's a rumor going around that your sponsor is Morgana LeFay," she announced, causing me to nearly choke, "tell me it's not true..."

I stared at her in surprise, then glanced at Newt and Misha for help but they looked just as caught of guard as me. "I...I can't," I responded slowly, unable to meet her eyes.

Kaitlen just stared at me, her expression hardening. "What? She really is your sponsor?"

I felt a surge of guilt as I nodded my head, unable to look Kaitlen in the eyes. At first I hadn't told her because I didn't know her very well, and once I did, I was afraid of how she might react if she found out. I had wanted to tell her but wasn't sure how to bring up the subject that my sponsor was one of history's most notorious villains.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you," I told her honestly, "it's just...kind of hard to talk about?"

"You actually have Morgana LeFay as your sponsor?" Kaitlen shook her head in disbelief, still looking a bit mad at me.

"I couldn't get anyone else," I explained, "then this strange woman showed up in the middle of my application review and said that she'd be my sponsor, just as they were about to toss me out. So I said yes and didn't find out who she was until afterwards?"

"You took a sponsor without even knowing who she was?" Kaitlen blinked in surprise.

"Jeez, you must be a complete idiot..." But since she was smiling when she said that, I let out a sigh of relief. "Fuck, Morgana Le Fay..."

"She's not as bad as everyone says," I tried to defend her, knowing that it probably wouldn't do any good. "She's been pretty good to me."

Kaitlen just snorted, "I'd be careful if I were you. If she tries feeding you some propaganda about taking over the world..." Then she shook her head, "I'll try helping you find a new sponsor..."

"I'm fine with the one I've got," I grumbled, feeling guilty and disloyal for even talking about finding a new sponsor.

Kaitlen didn't look very happy about that but just nodded, "Whatever..."

"Hey," Misha frowned, "where'd you hear about this anyway?"

"It's a rumor going around," Kaitlen gestured, "a bunch of people are talking about it."

"That explains Jace's reaction," I grimaced, feeling almost sick to my stomach at the thought of everyone knowing.

"How the hell did anyone find out?" Newt demanded, looking almost angry that my secret had been spilled, "Did one of the teachers tell...?"

"I don't know," Kaitlen shook her head, "but the list of all the sorcery students and their sponsors is an open record. Anyone could have taken a look if wanted to."

"Damn," I winced, "someone must have recognized her and wondered what she was doing at the Academy..."

"Wait a minute," Kaitlen gasped, staring at me with a look of horror, "that middle aged woman I've seen you with is HER?" When I nodded, she gasped, "I've actually seen Morgana LeFay..."

It took another fifteen minutes to convince Kaitlen that Morgana wasn't the devil herself, but she finally listened to reason. She was still suspicious, and I didn't blame her, but at least she wasn't about to call for an angry mob or take me in for an exorcism, much to my relief.

Around the time I finally had Kaitlen calmed down, I suddenly heard a loud noise coming from down the hall, just a moment before Daria appeared, shoving a first year student out of her way and turning to glare at me with an expression that would curdle milk. Then she suddenly demanded to know what was up with the rumor she'd just heard. I could only gulp at that and look to my friends for help. This was one conversation that I'd give almost anything to avoid.

---

I was sitting in science class, trying to pay attention to what Mr. Gotsen was saying, though it wasn't easy. Even though I was still in my normal boy form, nearly all of the other students were giving me odd looks and glares. However this unwanted attention was hardly surprising.

The rumor of who my sponsor was had started a mere three days ago but had spread through the Academy like wildfire until absolutely everyone knew. Now people who I'd thought were my friends avoided me like the plague while others treated me as though I'd sold my soul to the devil. It was almost as though I'd suddenly become a pariah.

Daria and my parents hadn't been much better than my fellow students. After Daria had told them about my sponsor, they threatened to pull me out of the Academy completely. It had taken all of my begging, pleading and persuasive skills to convince them to let me stay. In the end I don't think they could bring themselves to take away my one and only chance to become a sorcerer. Unfortunately Daria resented that and became even more of a pain in my ass.

Then there was Jace McChord, who was sitting on the other side of the classroom and glaring at me. He had been an obnoxious prick before, but the revelation of who my sponsor was had only made him worse. It was as though that had given him the right to be as much of an asshole towards me as he could, and still feel as though he were staring down at me from some imagined moral high ground.

"Just ignore him," Newt whispered to him.

On the other hand Misha said, "I'd kick his ass if he kept looking at me like that. It's just plain creepy."

As soon as the class was over, Jace came towards me with an expression of grim determination that I really didn't like. He smirked and shoved me out of the way, snapping, "Watch where you're going you blind bitch!"

"Hey," I spat back, "you're the one who walked into me. By the way," I gestured down to myself, "I'm a guy right now, so who's the one who's blind?"

"Oh yeah?" Jace smirked, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a sheet of paper. It only took a moment to realize that it was a token. I tried backing away from him but two of his friends had positioned themselves behind me to keep me from getting away. It was a trap... I gasped in shock at the realization that this whole encounter was one big setup. But right then, Jace exclaimed, "Activate!"

My body quickly began to ripple and transform back into its female version, while Jace and nearly everyone else around burst out laughing. It took me a moment to realize that my clothes had all turned a bright neon pink. Every piece of clothing I had on seemed to have undergone this horrible color change, which was obviously the result of his spell.

"ENOUGH!" Mr. Gotsen shouted, coming over and glaring at everyone, "Detention for both of you."

"WHAT?" I cried out, pointing at the smirking Jace, "he's the one who attacked me."

"I don't care," Mr. Gotsen snapped.

"You can't give Galen detention because he was attacked," Newt exclaimed angrily.

"Wow, an unfair punishment," Misha commented with a look of mock innocence. "I guess he'll have to call his sponsor to come and have a conference with you..."

Mr. Gotsen suddenly went completely pale as he realized that I was well within my rights to do that. If a teacher punished a student unfairly, the student could go to a parent or sponsor and have them come in and lodge a formal complaint. Obviously he didn't want any dealings with my sponsor because he shouted, "Forget the detentions... Just go..."

"Hey," Newt protested, "does that mean that Jace gets off detention too?" But it was too late as Mr. Gotsen had hurried away, leaving all of us behind.

"You fucking bastard," I glared at Jace, "what in the world is wrong with you?"

Jace just snorted, "What are you going to do, threaten me with your sponsor?" Then he stood up straight, "Go ahead... I'm not afraid of HER." There were a few gasps from the people around us at that.

"I can kick your ass on my own," I spat out, clenching my fists and getting ready to jump him.

That seemed to be exactly what Jace was waiting for me to say because he suddenly grinned smugly and exclaimed, "Then I challenge you to a duel!"

"What the...?" I gasped, staring at Jace in surprise, my mouth hanging open.

The founders of the Academy had valued a lot of old traditions and hadn't wanted them forgotten, so they'd written them into the charter. Sorcerer duels were one of these protected traditions that was the Academy was required to allow, though the faculty has long since adapted safety measures to prevent students from getting hurt. There were duels about twice a week, mostly between the senior sorcery students who wanted to show off or have friendly competition with each other, but not always.

Jace was well within his rights to challenge me to a duel, but it was well within mine to refuse. Unfortunately I knew that I couldn't really do that. To turn down a duel challenge after Jace had done something like this would make me look like a chicken. It would almost be like making a public announcement that it was perfectly acceptable for him and anyone else who felt like it to come and mess with me.

"I accept," I spat at him. And since he was the one who had issued the challenge, I was the one who got to choose the time. "A week from today." One week was the longest period of time that the rules allowed me to choose after the challenge had been accepted. I only hoped that it would be enough time for me to get ready.

"I'll be there," Jace smirked. "Just make sure you are..." And with that, he turned and walked away along with his friends.

"I can't believe it," Newt exclaimed, staring at me in disbelief. "I can't believe you're going to duel him..."

"It's not like I had a choice," I grumbled.

Misha just tried to give me a wise look as she commented, "There's always a choice."

I didn't want to have that talk with her, so looked down at my pink clothes and scowled, "I'm going back to my room to get changed. I'll see you guys later..."

"Yeah, and I've got to get to magical theory," Newt waved to me as he and Misha went off, making me almost wish that I was still in that class myself. But I'd been pulled out and my schedule had been changed around a bit when I'd entered the sorcery course.

I turned and hurried back to my room as fast as I could, wanting to get out of those horrible pink clothes as fast as I could. No sooner had I closed my bedroom door behind me than I was tearing off my shirt and reaching into my closet. A minute later, I was dressed in an entirely different outfit.

"That should do it," I sighed in relief, until I noticed the clothes I'd dropped on the floor. They were no longer pink, but back to their normal colors. And to my horror the new clothes that I had just put on had turned the same bright neon pink as the previous ones. "SHIT! It's a fucking curse..."

I just stood there and cursed nonstop for several minutes. Jace had hit me with a persistent spell, one which would keep turning anything I wore pink until it was either broken or wore off. And since I didn't know when it would wear off or how to break that kind of spell yet, I would have to go to one of the teachers to get it removed. That was not something that I was very happy about since this was pretty damn embarrassing as it was.

Once I went to the school nurse Mrs. Reveine and had that annoying curse removed, I was able to return to my normal schedule. Unfortunately this meant going to a sorcery class where Jace was waiting, smirking after his little prank. My only consolation was his look of disappointment when he saw that his spell was gone already.

My current class was a special one that was held once a week. Master Tonkas led the class, which contained all of the sorcery students in the Academy and not just the first years. Technically it was considered to be something of a study hall, though it was far more. It was period where all of the sorcery students could mingle and get to know each other, building contacts, sharing tricks that they'd learned. More importantly it was a time when the senior students could show off what they knew and help tutor the less experienced ones.

The class was held in an oversized gym, with the students spread throughout the available space. They were broken up into small groups, showing off their spells, sharing tips and advice, or just gossiping about completely unrelated topics. It was pretty common for people to spend the entire class just talking with their friends. Master Tonkas just walked around the room, occasionally stopping by one group or another to answer any questions they might have.

I saw Kaitlen with a couple of her friends and waved to her before walking over. Her friends vanished as soon as they saw me approaching, but Kaitlen just grinned and exclaimed, "Hey Gayle."

"Gayle?" I blinked in surprise.

"That's your new name," Kaitlen told me with a casual grin, "I mean, it's just too weird calling such a pretty girl by a guy's name like Galen. So from now on I'm calling you Gayle when you're like this."

"I already have a name," I pointed out with an exasperated sigh, "just because I look like a girl doesn't mean I am one."

"You've got the equipment down there, don't you?" Kaitlen pointed to my crotch, then shrugged, "Anyway, what's this I heard about a duel?"

"What?" I blinked again, surprised by just how quickly she changed the subject. But that was pretty normal for Kaitlen.

"What in the world were you thinking?" Kaitlen suddenly demanded of me, looking upset, "I can't believe you'd go and challenge Jace to a duel."

"But I didn't challenge him," I protested, "he was the one who challenged me."

Kaitlen just shrugged, apparently unconcerned with the facts, which wasn't unusual for her. "Anyway, you're in deep shit. He's a lot better than you."

I grimaced, "I know, but it's not like I have any kind of choice. I just hope I can learn enough to help me before then."

"Well good luck," she snorted. "At least the safety spells won't let you actually get hurt. Just humiliated."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," I rolled my eyes.

Kaitlen shrugged again, "Just being honest."

I sighed, trying to think of what to do but not feeling all that confident myself. Then I noticed Marcus Tamright giving advice to some first and second year students and had an idea. Marcus was not only the most popular guy in school, but was also known as the best duelist. I'd even watched him compete in a couple duels myself. If anyone could give me advice on how to beat Jace, it would be him.

"I wouldn't if I were you," Kaitlen told me when I went to go talk to Marcus.

"Excuse me," I said to get his attention, "I wanted to ask you something..."

Marcus turned to look at me, his expression immediately turning dark. He glared at me with a look of hatred and disgust, shocking me with the sheer intensity of it. "What do YOU want?" he demanded.

"Nothing," I stammered, instinctively taking a step back from such a hostile attitude.

"I know who you are," Marcus narrowed his eyes suspiciously, "I know what you are. And whatever you're planning, you won't get away with it."

"What?" I gasped in confusion.

"You don't belong here at the Academy with us decent folk," he exclaimed, then turned and walked off, leaving me standing there in blank confusion.

"What in the world is his problem?" I gasped to Kaitlen when she came over to me a few seconds later.

"Didn't you know?" Kaitlen asked with a sympathetic expression. "His sponsor is Merlin."

"MERLIN?" I choked out, feeling as though I were about to faint.

"Not the real Merlin of course," Kaitlen quickly added with a forced grin. "I mean, everybody knows that he died centuries ago. Marcus' sponsor was supposedly Merlin's top apprentice, and rumor has it, either his son or adopted son. And when the first Merlin died, this guy took the name to honor him."

I just stood there for a moment, staring first at Kaitlen then at Marcus in disbelief. "I can't believe it," I gasped. Marcus, the most popular guy in school, the one a lot of people looked to as a hero thought that I was some kind of evil villain. And to make matters even worse, he apparently wanted to carry on some ancient feud. I shook my head and groaned, "Things just can't get any worse."

I stood in the middle of a spell circle, concentrating intensely on my task. This was the most complicated spell that I had ever cast and I wanted to make sure that I did it right and created the pattern exactly as I was supposed to. After twenty minutes of careful work the spell was just about complete. And then, just as I completed the spell, I used the trick that Morgana had taught me to freeze the magic and transfer it into a physical token for later use.

"Finally," I exclaimed, letting out a long sigh. I stood back and admired my new token with a feeling of pride.

"Very good," Morgana said as she came forward and picked up my new token. She stared at it carefully. "The accuracy of aiming this one may not be as precise as you would like...but it will suffice."

"I can try it again," I told her, determined to get the spell exactly right.

But to my surprise Morgana shook her head. "Later. I have a new spell I want you to try." Then she handed me some papers which showed the complicated patterns I would need and the instructions to complete them.

I stared at the paper for a moment before cautiously telling her, "This one doesn't look very hard." I looked at her suspiciously, wondering what the trick was. After all there was nothing on the paper to say what the spell actually did when completed, so there had to be a catch with that.

Morgana just smiled and let me get to work. I reached for the bucket of water and sponge and went to work cleaning off all the lines in the spell circle. Once the floor was clean I started drawing the new pattern that the spell would require, frequently looking at the page to ensure I was being accurate. I took my time to make sure that there were no mistakes and was soon ready to actually cast the spell.

As soon as I completed the spell, a thick mist began to form in the spell circle with me. It soon became a thick fog that I could barely even see through and I gasped in realization, "It's just like your special ability."

"Precisely," Morgana told me. "That pattern is the same as the one for my ability. Most spells originate as copies of the special ability of some Touched. They may be greatly modified and improved, but they started out as duplicating the pattern that already existed since creating an entire spell pattern from nothing is exceedingly difficult and dangerous."

"I never thought about how new spells were created," I admitted, feeling a little embarrassed about it. It was something that I probably should have thought about.

"I am giving you the pattern for my ability because it might prove useful," Morgana gestured to the papers, "there may come a time when you need to obscure the sight of your enemies."

"Is this about my duel with Jace tomorrow?" I asked her nervously.

Morgana nodded sadly, "I am sorry that my reputation is making things difficult for you." Since I didn't know what to say to that, I didn't say anything. Then she abruptly announced, "I have a gift for you."

"What?" I blinked in surprise at the sudden change of subject. It reminded me a little of talking to Kaitlen.

"I crafted this talisman specifically for you," Morgana said as she handed me a medallion.

I just stared at it and gasped in surprise. A talisman was one of the most complicated and powerful things a sorcerer could create. Even the most powerful of tokens were nothing more than a storage device for spells. A talisman however was a true magical object, where the magic itself was an integral part of it. These were things like magic swords or rings of invisibility. Only the most skilled sorcerers could create them.

The medallion in my hand was a golden disk about the size of a silver dollar. There was a small red gemstone set into the center of one side, while the other side was engraved with the stylized picture of a bird. "A raven," Morgana told me when she saw me staring at it, "my old crest."

"Um...thank you," I told her as I continued to stare at it, feeling incredibly awed that she would give me a real talisman. They were exceptionally rare. I was even more honored by the fact that she said she'd made it specifically for me. "What does it do?"

"I am tired of my apprentice...of my sponsored student looking so slovenly," Morgana said, looking rather imperious. "It reflects poorly on me and on yourself. If you are going to be a young woman, you should at least dress the part. This talisman will help you with that. It can sense which gender you are and transform your clothes to match."

I stared at the talisman with some skepticism, not sure whether I should be insulted by her comments or not. Then I carefully slipped it over my head. Almost immediately my clothes began to shift and alter. A moment later my clothes suddenly fit much better. But at the same time my chest suddenly felt more snug and constrained. A quick look revealed that I was now wearing a bra.

"There," Morgan nodded with a look of satisfaction, "now that your have clothes that fit, you not only look better but should feel more comfortable as well."

I had to admit that I did feel a little more comfortable, except perhaps for the bra. "Thank you," I told her, looking down at my altered clothes. For the most part they just looked like a girl's version of what I was already wearing. It could have been MUCH worse. I could have ended up in a dress or something.

"The talisman is akin to a battery," Morgana explained. "and you should recharge it after every ten clothing transformations. Just hold the talisman in your hands and channel your magical energy into it."

For a moment I just sat where I was, staring at Morgana. Then I finally brought myself to ask her something that I'd been wondering about for awhile. "They said that you've never sponsored anyone here before. Why now? Why me?"

Morgana was silent for a minute and didn't think she was going to answer. Finally she said, "I am old...older than you can imagine. A sorceress as powerful as myself can live a very long time...but not forever. I am rapidly approaching the limits of my ability to extend my life. If I am extremely lucky, I may yet live one more century. It is far more likely that my life will end within several decades."

"What?" I gasped, hardly able to believe what she'd just told me. The idea of a powerful and nearly immortal sorceress like Morgana LeFay talking about dying soon was almost completely foreign.

Then Morgana looked at me with a strange expression. "It has been centuries since I last took an apprentice and she is long since gone. My reasons for sponsoring you are simple. I want an heir. I want someone I can pass my knowledge to before I go."

I was beginning to feel more than a little shaken up by the direction that this conversation was going. I felt stunned and honored all at once. "But why me? I mean, there had to be others..."

Morgana gave me a look of amusement. "Other sorcerers who had no sponsors? Ones who were desperate enough that they would accept me?"

"Oh," I muttered, having to admit that she had a good point.

"I've told you about my sister," Morgana said, abruptly turning completely serious.

"The Lady of the Lake?" I answered

"Yes," Morgana nodded, her expression turning quite sad and thoughtful. She was silent for nearly a minute before she turned to look at me with the same strange expression I'd seen from her several times before. "What most people do not know is that she had a daughter whom I hid away to keep safe. You are a decendent of that daughter."

I just stared at Morgana with my mouth open, feeling as though I were caught in some kind of weird joke. But I could see from the look on her face that she wasn't joking...as if she ever did. She was very serious.

"I...I'm descended from the Lady of the Lake?" I gasped in disbelief.

Morgana nodded, "From my sister. You are the only living decendent who can draw enough magic to learn sorcery." Then she stood up and sighed, "I had not intended to tell you this. I had thought it best that you not know of connection by blood, not yet at least. But it seems that I have become too sentimental in my old age."

"So," I gulped, feeling shaken by these stunning revelations which just seemed to keep coming, "you're sort of like my great aunt..."

Once again Morgana just nodded, giving me than strange look. Then she abruptly changed the subject. "Enough of this. I have things that need taking care of so I must be going."

"But," I started, wanting to ask her more questions, though it seemed that she'd had enough of answering them at the moment.

"Good luck with your duel tomorrow," she told me with a faint smile. "I look forward to hearing the details when I return."

After Morgana had left I stayed in the study, shaking my head and feeling confused by everything she had told me. I didn't know what to think about those revelations, or what to feel about them. It was one thing to be sponsored by Morgana LeFay, but to actually be related to her, however distantly... In the end I decided not to think about it and turned my attention to more urgent things.

I spent the next hour practicing the mist spell Morgana had given me and some others, storing a number of them into blank tokens for later use. It was good practice, but more importantly, it was preparation for the duel with Jace that I was going to have tomorrow. If I wanted to have any chance against him at all, I would have to be well prepared.

When I was finally finished I went back to the dorms, only to run into Misha in the hallway. She grinned as she saw me and exclaimed, "Hey Gayle..." I sighed at that, a little annoyed at just how much Kaitlen's nickname had spread. Now just about everyone was using it. "Hey, is that a new outfit?"

I automatically glanced down at what I was wearing and responded, "Not exactly..."

"You're finally wearing girl clothes," Misha grinned, carefully looking me over, "and you've even got a bra..."

"It was Mor...my sponsors idea," I told her, trying not to use Morgana's name since it made everyone around me nervous. "She gave me this talisman that changes my clothes." I held it up for Misha to see.

"Cool," Misha nodded, looking appropriately impressed, "well you look good."

"Thanks," I blushed, "just don't think you're getting me to try makeup."

Misha shrugged, "Hey, someone's got all the Harry Potter movies and we were going to have a marathon in the common room tonight. They're pretty silly, but lots of fun."

"But what about class in the morning?" I pointed out, "you'll all be sleeping through everything."

"Already thought of that," Misha grinned. "Someone else is bringing recharge spell so we'll all feel like we got a full night sleep."

I laughed at that, "It sounds like fun, but I've got a lot to do to get ready for tomorrow." I sighed and shook my head. "Maybe I'll stop by for a bit though."

When I finally got to my dorm room a few minutes later, I immediately reached into my pocket and pulled out a small deck of what looked like tarot cards. Each one was carefully painted and had taken some effort to make. These were my custom tokens, though no one except Morgana had seen them yet.

At first I'd had a hard time trying to decide what kind of custom tokens I should make for myself. Then it suddenly dawned on me. I used to play a collectible card game called Yu-Gi-Oh, where the cards represented various monsters and magic spells that you could use against your opponent. I'd really been into the game for a while and had stopped playing partly because it began to seem a little silly when I could see real magic every day, and partly because Daria kept teasing me about it. So when I was choosing my tokens, the idea of using cards with real magic spells on them was too perfect to ignore.

Of course normal cards were too small for me to be able to paint a decent picture on, so I made mine a little larger, closer to the size of most tarot cards. And after I'd gotten my hands on a decent supply of poster board, I went to work creating my tokens.

I stared at the card on the top of the deck and smiled. It was a carefully painted picture of a dragon, breathing out a long blast of fire. This card contained the fireball spell. Each of the cards was painted with an image that represented the spell that was stored within.

"And now for these ones," I paused to stare at several blank white cards. These were the cards that I'd saved Morgana's mist spell inside. After a moment I decided that the perfect image to paint on them was one of Morgana herself standing in the mist

I sat down at my desk and spread all of my tokens out before me. I smiled at the sight, feeling a surge of pride. Even Morgana had complimented them, being impressed by my artwork if nothing else. And after I painted my last few cards and made a few more preparations, I would be ready to make my public debut with them at tomorrow's duel.

---

The Academy had two dueling circles where students, and even the occasional sponsor, could challenge each other in duels of magic. The first was the oldest, set behind the main Academy buildings and built by the founders when the school was first constructed. The other dueling circle was much newer and was located inside of a large gymnasium. Since the first dueling circle was outside and it was raining rather heavily, there was no question as to which of the two we were using.

I stood in the gym and looked across at the dueling circle was about 25 yards across and was permanently etched into the floor. Just like the spell circles that I used in casting spells, the dueling circle was warded to prevent magic from passing through. This protected the spectators from any accidental injuries caused by the spells being used, as well as prevented any outside interference in the duel.

Duels were always a popular form of entertainment at the Academy, so I wasn't surprised to a lot of students gathering for the upcoming one. More than half the student body was soon present, as well as a number of the faculty. Since some of them were already cheering for Jace, I had a feeling that most of the spectators were there just to see me get my ass kicked. With my ties to Morgana LeFay a lot of them were already booing me.

I took a deep breath and tried not to let myself get distracted. I'd worked too hard preparing for this during the last week to let the audience shake me up. Of course I was nervous, but I knew that I couldn't get hurt. With all of the safety procedures in place the worst thing that could happen to me was a little discomfort and humiliation. That didn't really make a whole lot of difference though as I had no intention of losing anyway.

"Hey Gayle," Kaitlen called out as she hurried towards me. She stopped to stare at me for a moment, "Damn you look hot. I can't believe you're wearing that for a duel."

I just looked down at myself and smirked, feeling a bit self-conscious but refusing to show it. Since I knew that I'd be turning into a girl as soon as the first spell was thrown, I'd decided to save myself some embarrassment by changing ahead of time. Of course I'd made up for that by dressing in a somewhat sexy outfit with tight jeans and a skimpy shirt that showed a little cleavage. I knew that Jace was attracted to my girl form and wanted to take advantage of that to distract him. Any advantage I could get would help.

"Hey," I protested to Kaitlen, "it's not like I'm wearing high heels and a miniskirt or anything. Hell, if I thought it would help me beat that bastard, I probably would dress up in that stuff."

Kaitlen just laughed. "Well, this will be fun to watch if nothing else." Then she told me, "I've got to go get a good seat. Just don't get yourself killed."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," I rolled my eyes.

A minute later Newt and Misha both came over to wish me luck. It was a bit awkward having Newt staring at me the way he was doing, but I figured that if my outfit worked for him, then it should work for Jace. I crossed my fingers and hoped that I wouldn't die of embarrassment first.

Then it was finally time to start. Jace and I both walked up to Master Tonkas, who was acting as referee for the duel. He held out a pair of thick silver bands and snapped one around each of our wrists. These were powerful talismans and part of the safety measures for the duel that would protect us from any form of lethal or damaging magic effects.

"Take your places in the dueling circle and I will signal for you to begin," Master Tonkas announced, loud enough for most of the nearby audience to hear.

As I walked into the circle I noticed Daria standing there with an unreadable expression. I frowned slightly, not knowing if she was going to be cheering for me or against. Knowing my sister, though, I wouldn't count on her support.

Jace and I each took our positions on nearly opposite ends of the spell circle. As the rules demanded neither of us held anything in our hands. We were not allowed to start the match with tokens in our hands, and like the shoot-outs in old western movies, it would be a contest to see who could draw first. The first person to get a spell off would have the advantage.

Master Tonkas held up a large yellow flag, then in a single motion, brought it down and yelled, "BEGIN!"

We immediately went for our tokens, with me reaching into a pouch on my side for my deck of cards. But to my surprise Jace started off by using his special ability, causing an icy wind to start shoving me back. This slowed me down and gave him time to pull out a slip of paper with some writing on it. He yelled, "ACTIVATE," sending a barrage of icicles flying straight at me.

I quickly pulled the card in the back of my deck, and without looking at it said, "Invoke."

Suddenly all of Jace's icicles hit an invisible wall about a foot in front of me and shattered against it. My spell created an invisible wall of air around me, effectively a force field. It wouldn't last long, but I didn't need it to. It blocked another icicle barrage spell of Jace's and gave me time to pull the card I wanted.

The moment that my wall of air had ended, I held up the card with the dragon painting and exclaimed, "Invoke." A fireball flew straight at Jace, though he was easily able to jump to the side and avoid it. "Damn," I muttered.

"You really think you're gonna get me with some stupid spell like that?" Jace taunted, "you're even more incompetent than I thought."

Jace held out two slips of paper and unleashed both spells at once. Suddenly a heavy wind began to blow within the spell circle and hailstones began to pelt against me. These were just the effects of his first spell since the other was causing the floor around me to become coated with a thin sheet of ice.

I grimaced, knowing that I shouldn't have been surprised by the sudden appearance of winter in the duel. Since Jace's special ability was to create an icy wind, he seemed to get a real kick out of theming all of his spells along the same lines. He loved using spells that somehow related to either cold or the wind and this was both.

It had only been moments since Jace had cast his new spells, but they were already being a real pain in the butt. The cold wind and pelting hail were distracting to say the least, while the now slippery floor made it difficult to stand. Of course that was the whole idea. Jace just stood back, laughing at my discomfort, which relieved me since he wasn't using the opportunity to attack me more directly.

"C'mon," I grimaced, pulling out a card that contained my most powerful spell. My fingers were getting so cold that I had a hard time keeping a grip on it in the wind. But after a moment I held up the card with a picture of a crashing lightning bold and yelled, "INVOKE!"

The air was filled with a loud rumbling sound just a split second before a bolt of lightning crashed into the middle of the dueling circle. It was my most powerful spell, though not a very accurate one. I had only hoped that it would stun Jace long enough for me to come up with something else. But to my surprise the force of the lightning disrupted his previous spells, getting rid of the wind, hail and most of the ice.

"Thank God it's just magical lightning," I exclaimed, suddenly realizing that it could have electrocuted both of us otherwise. As it was, my lightning was mostly just a whole lot of flash and show.

Then I pulled out my next card and smiled as I saw the picture on the front. It had a picture of Jace himself, wearing a pink dress. This was my revenge spell, one that I had cast for the sole purpose of getting even with Jace over the embarrassing pink clothes curse. I wasted no time activating casting it.

It took Jace a moment to realize that just about the entire audience had started laughing at HIM. Then he looked down and saw why. He was wearing a cute pink dress, the sickeningly sweet kind that you might expect a little girl to wear. Of course it was only an illusion and not nearly as persistent as Jace's curse had been, but it would serve the dual purpose of humiliating him and distracting him from the duel.

"What the hell?" Jace gasped, a look of horror on his face.

"You look cute in that," I taunted him. "Maybe you should make it your permanent look."

Jace grew furious at this and pulled another slip of paper from his pocket. A moment later he revealed that not all of his spells were related to ice and wind. A huge fireball shot out from where the paper had been a moment earlier, split into three and continued coming in my direction. I immediately activated my second and last wall of air, thankful that I'd thought to include two of them. One of the fireballs hit my wall of air but wasn't stopped as completely as the icicles had been. I was thrown backwards and felt the heat along my skin. My clothes even seemed a bit singed. There was no doubt in my mind that I'd just lost some serious points in the duel and that if I hadn't blocked as much of the fireball as I had, such a 'killing' hit would have immediately caused me to be declared the loser.

As I got back to my feet, I saw that Jace was just standing there with an arrogant smirk on his face and a slip of paper between his fingers. "You're going down now you bitch." Then he exclaimed, "Activate."

A moment later a ghostly image began to appear in front of Jace. At first I thought that it looked like an extremely large dog, but as the image became clearer, I realized that it looked more like a wolf. Then it finished solidifying and I got a clear look at it. It was statue of a wolf, made entirely out of ice and standing 4 feet at the shoulders. But to my surprise it was moving, just as though it were made of flesh and blood.

Jace laughed at my expression and ordered, "Get her."

The wolf snarled and started to slowly come towards me. I gasped and desperately tried to remember if I had a spell in my cards that could take care of something like this. Of course there were my fireballs and my lightning bolt, but those had already been used. I wasn't sure that what I had left could do very much against something like that, but I had to try.

It quickly became obvious that the ice wolf was playing with me, at least for the moment. It slowly started to circle around me, getting closer and closer and looking as thought it might leap for my throat at any moment. I pulled a card and activated it, sending a blast of hard wind at it. At most the hard wind would throw it back or give it a solid impact and slow it down. Unfortunately the ice wolf instantly charged straight at me.

For a brief instant I was nearly overwhelmed with terror at being attacked by such a horrible creature. But then I was struck with inspiration, knowing exactly what to do. I lashed out with my special ability, focusing as much energy on the ice wolf as I possibly could. And as with the ice cubes, the ice wolf suddenly exploded, pelting me with droplets of water and slivers of ice.

The whole audience suddenly gasped in shock, obviously wondering how I could have possibly done that. After all I hadn't cast any spells and by now, just about everyone knew that my ability was to boil water. I doubt that many of them realized that when you try to instantly convert water from an ice to steam, it just can't handle the pressure and explodes. I'd only realized that myself after my experiments.

"How'd you do that?" Jade demanded, looking frantic.

I smirked, knowing that this was probably his best and most powerful spell, and I had just taken it out in front of him without using a single token. Of course he didn't know just how terrified I was for a moment, nor did I plan on telling him. Instead I held up another card and released the spell inside. As soon as I had done so, a thick mist began to flood through the spell circle, making it difficult to see Jace, and more importantly, making it difficult for him to see me.

"Where the fuck are you?" Jace yelled.

I heard him activate another spell, but I didn't notice any effect. I could only assume that he aimed something towards where I'd been standing when I released my own spell. But fortunately for me I had started moving the moment the mist came in.

Jace yelled a few insults and activated another spell. I froze when he did so, expecting to get hit with a fireball, a blast of ice or something. But when nothing came, I continued moving towards where I heard his voice. However the mist was rapidly thinning and I was now able to see him fairly clearly. A moment later he saw me as well.

"INVOKE!" I shouted out, holding out one of my last few cards. Jace activated one of his tokens at the same moment.

Our spells activated at the same time, with a spiraling steam of fire coming straight at me while my own high pressured blast of water shot right at Jace. The spells bypassed each other and I dove to one side while the water blast hit Jace straight in the chest, sending him flying backwards an knocking him right out of the duel circle.

"MATCH!" Master shouted, waving a yellow flag to indicate that the duel was officially over.

"NO!" Jace yelled, jumping to his feet.

Master Tonkas stepped into the duel circle and called out, "THE DUEL GOES TO GAYLE SHIERMAN!"

I groaned at the fact that even Master Tonkas was using that nickname Kaitlen gave me. But then I gasped, realizing that he'd just declared me the winner. Knocking Jace out of the circle had given me the victory.

"YES!" I cried out in delight.

Jace just stood there, soaking wet and glaring at me with a look of fury. But then he stared down at the ground in shame, remaining that way for a moment. Finally he looked up, nodded his head slightly to me, then turned and walked away.

As I left the duel circle there were some calls of 'congratulations', as well as some looks of disappointment from the people who'd been wanting to see me get creamed. But for the most part,the crowd seemed happy to cheer for the winner, whoever that happened to be.

"Great duel," Kaitlen exclaimed as she came up beside me, slapping me on the back, "I knew you could do it all the time."

"Yeah right," I rolled my eyes.

Newt and Misha appeared by my side a minute later, each of them congratulating me and looking excited about my victory. Newt kept going on, repeating every move that we'd made in the fight, almost as if he was describing it to someone who hadn't been there. Misha just shook her head and watched him with some amusement.

Then I noticed Daria in the distance. My sister was making no move to come towards me, but she was staring at me with an expression that I wasn't sure I'd ever seen on her before. It could have been a look of respect, though that might just have been my imagination as she soon vanished among the crowd.

"You know," Kaitlen told me after a moment, "something wasn't quite right there." She frowned and stared at me. "That ice wolf he used on you... That spell was way out of Jace's league. He'd never be able to do a spell that complicated. Someone else made that token for him."

"What?" Newt gasped, suddenly paying attention to something other than his replay. "That's cheating. The rules say you can only use the tokens that you make yourself."

"Like there's any proof," Misha pointed out. "Besides, Gayle won."

Kaitlen nodded, "Still something isn't right."

I nodded, agreeing with them both. I had absolutely no proof that Jace had done anything wrong, and even if I did, making a fuss about it would only make me look like some kind of poor winner. But I knew that if Kaitlen was right, then I just might have more problems than I realized.

I was in my dorm room, standing there with my back straight, and all of my token cards spread out along my desk. I felt as though I was in the military and going through some sort of barracks inspection, and in truth, that wasn't really all that far off.

"Very nice," my mom finally said as she put down one of my cards, "you always were good at this art stuff."

"Thanks," I told her, blushing a little as I did so.

A few days ago I'd called my mom and asked her to drop off a few things from my bedroom back home. But of course she couldn't just drop my stuff off and leave. She needed to visit me and Daria and see what we were up to at the Academy. Part of that meant looking at all of my new tokens.

"Some of these paintings are quite beautiful," mom said, looking at the cards.

"Thanks," I told her again. "That's why I wanted you to bring my computer. I get tired of painting the same pictures over and over whenever I make a new token, then watching them burn up when I use them. I figure now I can scan my paintings and print them out onto my cards. That'll make it a lot easier on me."

"Well they're very nice," mom said.

Daria, who was standing beside her, looked less than impressed. I wasn't sure how much of an act that was though since she'd looked interested enough when I first showed the cards to her and mom a few minutes ago.

"What's this I heard about you being in a duel last week?" mom asked, giving me a careful look.

I glared briefly at Daria, annoyed that she'd tell mom about it. "I didn't have any choice," I defended myself, "he came after me."

"Daria said that you won," mom continued.

"He was just lucky," Daria quickly interrupted.

When I nodded that I had won, mom gave me a look as though she couldn't decide whether to be proud of me or disapproving. She apparently decided that the best course was to change topics. "I'm still don't like you hanging around that woman."

It took me a moment to realize that she meant Morgana. "You don't even know her," I protested, feeling a bit defensive of my sponsor.

"I've heard enough," mom snorted.

"So," I in my best innocent tone, "it's perfectly all right to judge people solely on rumors, gossip and second hand accounts."

Mom gave me a look of annoyance while Daria snickered. "Maybe I should meet her sometime," Mom finally said, looking as if she planned on giving Morgana an earful or something.

For a brief moment I thought about telling her what Morgana had said about our ancestry. If nothing else, it would be interesting to see her and Daria's reactions. But I hadn't told anyone about that yet, nor about Morgana wanting to make me her heir. Somehow I didn't think that this was really the right time to bring up that subject either.

"Anyway," Mom said, "I keep hearing about how you're changing into a girl..."

"Um...yeah," I blushed, having expected that she'd want to see a demonstration of that. After all she was like most Touched and just loving seeing displays of magic.

"Can you show me?" she asked the expected question, then followed up with, "I'd like to see you use one of these spells too..." She looked at my cards with an eager expression.

"Sure," I sighed, picking up a card that I thought would be flashy but not too much so. After all I didn't want mom to worry that I was messing around with things that were too dangerous.

I took mom and Daria out into the courtyard so that my spell wouldn't bother anyone in the dorms, then I released it from my card. A moment later a thick mist appeared around us, making my mom gasp in delight. Daria looked less impressed, having seen the same spell during my duel.

"That was great," mom exclaimed in delight, "my own son is a sorcerer..." She was obviously proud, which only earned me a glare of jealousy from Daria.

It was only when the mist began to clear away again that mother looked and noticed that I'd transformed into a girl. She had been so distracted by the spell that she'd notice it's effect on me.

"Galen?" mom gasped in surprise, "Is that you?"

"It's Gayle now mom," Daria told her with a smirk.

I just nodded, feeling extremely self-conscious as my mom stared at me. I was used to being seen like this by all the students at the Academy, but having my own mom see me as a girl was something a little different. It was pretty embarrassing.

"You look so much like your sister," mom observed. Then she added, "Even your clothes have changed..."

"It's a talisman," I told her, pointing to the amulet Morgana had given me, "it changes my clothes when I change."

"Amazing," mom gasped as she bent over for a closer look, "where in the world would you get a talisman? Those things are impossible to find."

Daria stared at me too with a curious expression. I hadn't bothered telling her about it, though she must have noticed that my clothing was now changing along with my body. "I'd guess his sponsor," she said after a moment, sounding somewhat bitter about it.

I could only nod at that, "She made it just for me."

Mom's expression became darker for a moment as she muttered, "I really will have to meet this woman sometime..."

Fortunately mom was quickly distracted from that line of thinking and was soon asking me all sort of questions about what it was like for me to keep changing like that. She looked honestly curious about it, as well as somewhat amused. I was only thankful that dad couldn't come through the magic doorways or I'd have to see how he reacted to it. That wasn't something that I was looking forward to.

I continued showing my mom around and answering her questions for another hour before she finally had to get going. She kissed me on the cheek, which was pretty embarrassing since some other students were around watching, then she left. Almost as soon as mom was gone, Daria vanished without so much as a 'see you later'.

Once mom and Daria were gone I was free to return to my normal routine, which meant finding my friends. It didn't take too long to find Newt, Misha and Kaitlen in one of the dorm common rooms, playing a board game.

"Hey Gayle," Kaitlen grinned at me as I sat down with them, "I see you with Daria and that lady... Was that your mom?"

"Yeah," I sighed, "unfortunately she wanted a demonstration of my mark."

"Well, we can never have too many girls around the Academy," Misha grinned.

"Too many girls if you ask me," Newt muttered, giving me a look that seemed to indicate I was betraying the whole male gender by changing so much.

"Just means more chances for you to find a date," I teased Newt, who just blushed.

"You look a bit like your mom," Kaitlen suddenly said.

I grimaced, not exactly liking the idea of being compared to my mom. It was bad enough when people told me that I looked a lot like my own sister. I'd almost gotten used to comments like that and even weirder ones since my sorcerers mark first appeared.

As soon as the game was over Kaitlen exclaimed, "Hey Gayle, I've got a wicked new book of spells that I want to show you."

"Cool," I grinned, telling Newt and Misha, "I'll see you guys later."

"Later," Misha responded, glancing at Newt and blushing a little.

"So, where's this book?" I asked Kaitlen while we walked down the hall.

"I don't have one," she admitted, "I just wanted to give those two some time alone."

"What for?" I blinked in confusion.

Kaitlen just stared at me for a moment and shook her head in disbelief, "You might look like a girl, but your instincts are all boy..."

"What?" I gasped, wondering what it was that I was missing.

"Damn," Kaitlen gasped in exasperation, "you're hopeless. Didn't you notice the way they've been looking at each other?" At my blank look she rolled her eyes, "They like each other. I mean, REALLY like each other."

"Newt and Misha?" I gasped in surprise. "Why didn't I notice?"

"Because," Kaitlen rolled her eyes, "no matter how hot a girl you are, you're still a guy inside."

"Hey," I protested, not sure whether to be relieved or insulted at her statement.

"Actually," Kaitlen blushed, which was unusual for her, "I find it pretty sexy."

Then to my surprise she suddenly threw herself at me and pressed her lips to mine in a kiss. At first I was completely stunned, then I started to respond. Her tongue snaked into my mouth and I could feel the small metal stud piercing through it. My whole body began to tingle and respond in strange and unfamiliar ways, though they were definitely pleasant.

When we pulled apart I could only gasp in stunned confusion, "Wh...what was that for?"

"I told you that you're not very observant," Kaitlen blushed.

"But...," I stammered, "not that I'm complaining...but I look like a girl..."

Kaitlen nodded, looking self-conscious as she did. "That's why..." At my startled expression she quickly explained, "I'm bi... I like boys, but I like girls just a bit more. I think you're cute when you're a guy, but you're really hot when you're a girl."

I just stared at Kaitlen, trying to absorb and make sense of this revelation. Up until then I'd never had any idea that Kaitlen had a thing for girls, nor did I have any idea that she had a thing for me. To be honest she was quite pretty and I'd had a few fantasies about her when we'd first met, but I was used to just thinking of Kaitlen as a friend and nothing more. This was not only unexpected but completely out of the blue.

Apparently I stood there with my mouth open for just a little too long because Kaitlen turned red and snapped, "Fine... If you're not interested in me..." Her eyes were beginning to tear up as she said, "Just forget I ever said anything." Then she turned and ran off.

"Wait," I finally called out, "Kaitlen..." But it was too late as she was already gone.

For a moment I just stood there, wondering what in the world had gone on. One minute Kaitlen was one of my best friends, the next she was practically throwing herself at me and running off in tears. I felt horrible, angry at myself for making her cry like that and wishing I'd been able to handle things differently. What I did know was that I had to find Kaitlen and talk to her about this. I liked her...I really did. I just didn't know if we could go in the direction she wanted.

I spent the next hour or so looking just about everywhere I could think of for Kaitlen, without much luck. I checked her dorm room, all the main common areas, and even the cafeteria, though there was no sign of her anywhere. For all I knew she might not even be at the Academy anymore. She could have gone through the hall of doors and could be in any of a dozen or so different cities.

After I'd given up on finding Kaitlen, at least for the moment, I wandered around, thinking about what she'd told me...and about that kiss. I blushed at the very memory, especially as my still female body was responding to those thoughts. The sensations were strange, but very nice. My nipples even poked out like a couple of tiny erections, making me turn bright red in fear that someone might notice.

"Does this mean I do like her like that?" I asked myself, still not certain of my feelings towards Kaitlen but becoming more open to the idea of a romantic relationship. If one kiss could do this to me... "I've really got to talk to her."

I was still lost in these thoughts until I noticed a group of other students walking across the courtyard as well. One of them was Marcus, who just glared at me with an expression of intense hostility. The four younger students who were with him gave me similar looks as they came closer.

"You won't get away with it," Marcus hissed as he walked past, "I won't let you succeed."

"I'm not up to anything," I protested, but it did little good as Marcus just continued on his way.

I stood there for a moment and shook my head. After I'd beaten Jace in our duel, he'd not only left me alone, but had been treating me respectfully. Unfortunately Marcus had taken his place as the biggest pain in my butt. Ever since my fight with Jace he had been running around the Academy and telling anyone who would listen that I was a spy for Morgana LeFay and that I was there to recruit people for a new army she planned to conquer the world with. Of course that was all complete and utter bullshit, but he'd convinced enough people to make things difficult for me.

As I continued on my way, I heard one of the students with Marcus call out, "We don't need your kind around here..."

"Just great," I groaned, wishing yet again that the identity of my sponsor wasn't such public knowledge. It just didn't seem fair for people to be judging me off of things my sponsor may or may not have done.

After another shake of my head I tried to shift my thoughts to something a little more pleasant, like what I'd been doing with Kaitlen. Unfortunately the mood had already been broken and all the nice pleasant feelings that I'd been getting from my body were gone. I felt a bit disappointed at that, yet kind of relieved at the same time. But now there was absolutely no doubt that I would definitely have to talk with Kaitlen.

It wasn't until after dinner that I was ready to go looking for Kaitlen again. I figured that by now she'd have calmed down enough and might not be as upset with me. However I didn't have any more luck looking in her dorm or the common areas than I had previously.

Before long I found myself wandering in the area behind the main Academy buildings, wondering just how much I was still looking for Kaitlen and how much I was just looking for some time by myself. After all it was getting dark and the weather was a little wet. Most of the students were inside where it was more comfortable and I had no reason to think that Kaitlen wasn't doing the same. As I wandered towards the lake, I slowly gave up the pretense of looking for her, and accepted that at the moment, I just wanted a little privacy for my thoughts.

"I should be looking for her," I sighed, feeling a little guilty at the way I'd brushed of my search. "She was pretty pissed at me..."

Just then I heard a cracking sound and quickly turned to look at the cluster of trees it had come from. I saw a figure standing among the trees, but it was dark enough that I couldn't make out any more than a vague silhouette.

"Who's there?" I called out.

The figure stepped back into the trees, vanishing entirely from my sight. But a moment later there was a green glow and a new, larger figure appeared. This one came out of the trees and towards me, quickly becoming visible.

"Holy shit!" I exclaimed as I got a good look at it. My heart jumped and I nearly felt as though I was going to faint.

The creature that emerged from the trees was 7 feet tall and looked like a werewolf from some monster movie. It was huge, heavily muscled and hunched over a bit. Its body was covered with thick brown fur and it had long, nasty looking claws that sent a chill down my spine just to look at. Its head was very wolfish, with an extended snout and a big mouth that was full of very sharp looking teeth. But the most terrifying thing about this monstrous beast was the fact that it was coming straight towards me.

"What the hell?" I gasped in shock, quickly stepping backwards.

A deafening roar erupted from the creature's throat and it started coming towards me faster, quickly going from a walk to a near run. I immediately turned to run but tripped and fell flat on my face. It only took me a moment to get to my feet again, but by then it had gotten a lot closer.

I stared at the creature in horror, frantically trying to think of how I could get away from it. Almost out of instinct I reached into my pocket and pulled out one of my tokens. I held it out in desperation and activated the spell within, sending a ball of fire straight at the creature. My body rippled and changed gender in response, though I barely even noticed that. The fireball struck the beast straight in the chest, burning a large amount of hair but not seeming to do much more than making it angrier.

"Oh shit," I gulped, my eyes going wide as I tried to pull out another card.

Before I could even activate the token in my hand the creature roared and again swiped at me with its claws. I felt an intense pain burst through my arm, just an instant before I was thrown at least a dozen feet. I hit the ground with a painful thud and a scream that must have rivaled the monster's roar in volume. I wasn't sure how, but I still clutched the card in my hand.

I grimaced and tried to activate the spell, but the creature was on me before I could do anything. Its powerful jaws clamped down on my leg, causing a surge of intense pain. But that wasn't enough as it swiped at my torso with its claws again, raking my side and snapping something in my ribcage. I screamed as loud and hard as I could, hardly able to think clearly.

Somehow I retained enough awareness to glance at the card in my hand and finally gasp the word, "Invoke..."

In an instant an invisible wall of air snapped into place between me and the vicious creature. It would only last a few seconds, but hopefully that would be enough time for help to arrive. Unfortunately I didn't think I'd last that long. I was already losing consciousness.

The creature roared, scratched and bit at the invisible wall between us, trying to penetrate it. Soon it would be inside and I would be dead. But to my surprise the werewolf creature began to glow an eerie green, then he turned transparent. I could see right through it and see even more clearly with every passing moment as it faded away. And at almost the very same time my wall of air was gone, so was the creature. However this was the last thing I registered before the pain and darkness claimed me.

When I awoke it was to find myself staring up at plain white ceiling and a blurry one at that. It took me a moment to realize that this was the infirmary. Then I noticed that there were some blurry people in the room with me, though they became much more clear as I looked around. I took a deep breath and started to sit up, only to gasp. My whole body was as strange mixture of aches and numbness, which was a hell of a lot better than the intense pain I'd been feeling before going unconscious. Still I didn't exactly feel all that comfortable either.

"She's awake," someone exclaimed from the side.

Daria was suddenly next to me, looking tired and worried. Her eyes looked a little red, as though she'd been crying. "Galen," she gasped, "are you all right?"

"Gayle," Kaitlen rushed over to me, looking just as concerned as Daria.

"Gayle?" I blinked, looking down at myself and seeing that I was in a hospital bed with a white sheet over me. But from the two bumps on my chest I was obviously still in girl mode. "I thought you were mad at me..."

"You've been out of it for two days," Daria quickly told me, which explained her concern.

"Two days?" I gasped in surprise. "Then why am I still a girl? I should have changed back?"

"That's because of all the healing spells we've been using on you," Mrs. Reveine scowled as she shooed Daria and Kaitlen out of the way. "You were pretty badly torn up when you were brought here." She scowled, "Speaking of which, it's time for another spell."

"Another...?" I blinked, suddenly wondering just how badly I'd been hurt.

As if reading my mind, Mrs. Reveine said, "You had four broken bones, a punctured lung and some internal bleeding." She held up a glass ball and activated it, releasing the healing spell that had been stored inside. I gasped as a soothing wave rushed through my body, making the aches I felt ease back even further.

"You almost died," Daria whispered.

"Who did this to you?" Kaitlen demanded, looking furious, "When I get my hands on whoever it is..."

"Don't get her excited," Mrs. Reveine ordered Kaitlen, giving her a warning look.

I gulped, shuddering as I remembered the monstrous creature who'd attacked me. "I don't know," I winced, "it looked like a huge werewolf. It was seven feet tall, half human and half wolf... and it had huge claws..."

"Well it certainly doesn't sound like a real were to me," Mrs. Reveine commented. At my blank look she explained, "Weres are like cousins to the Touched, but instead of gaining unique talents, they turn into animals and back. But they only turn into normal animals, not the kind of monster that you're describing... at least not unless they're mythics. More likely someone set a conjuring on you."

"Conjuring?" Daria looked confused.

"Sort of like a super illusion," Kaitlen told her with a grim expression, "it's like a powerful illusion but actually given substance..."

Mrs. Reveine nodded. "We'll have to report this to Mrs. Roangard. I'm sure that they'll be wanting to ask you some questions about your attacker once you're feeling better."

"I'm just glad you're awake now," Kaitlen told me, "I was a little worried."

"A little?" Daria snorted. "She's been watching over you just about every minute she could. I hope you appreciate having a girlfriend like her."

"Girlfriend?" I blinked, wondering what Kaitlen had told her.

Kaitlen just blushed, "It's not..."

But I grabbed Kaitlen's hand and gave it a gentle squeeze, not having the energy to do much more. "I think I'd like that."

"Really?" Kaitlen asked in surprise.

I nodded, then leaned forward to give her a kiss. Unfortunately I was still hurting bad enough that I couldn't give it as much as I would have liked. But that didn't seem to be much of a problem with Kaitlen who nearly glowed with delight.

Daria watched with a strange expression, as though she couldn't decide whether to be disgusted by this display or amused. She finally frowned. "I still can't believe someone would try killing you like this. I bet it's that woman...your sponsor."

"I can assure you," Morgana said as she stepped into the room, "I had nothing to do with this attack."

Morgana stood in the doorway with a fierce scowl on her face. In one hand she was clutching a long wooden staff, one which was probably loaded full of powerful spells. Her other hand was clutching a long package that was wrapped up in some sort of crimson cloth. She stood there for a moment, making Daria and Mrs. Reveine both go completely pale.

"You...you're..." Daria stammered in fear, looking as though she were about to faint.

"You can relax dear," Morgana told her with a gentle smile, "I'm not going to harm either you or your sister." Daria didn't seem completely reassured by that.

"You shouldn't be in here," Mrs. Reveine tried to tell her, looking nervous but determined.

"I have no intention of harming your patient," Morgana assured her, "but my apprentice was brutally assaulted and I take this very seriously." She came next to me and said, "It is good to see that you are doing well. I was quite worried when I learned of the attack." Her expression was one of concern, not what one would imagine of a woman with her reputation.

"But who else would want to kill Galen?" Daria protested, staring at Morgana suspiciously, as well as confusion. Morgana was not what most people expected, so her behavior had to be messing with my sister quite a bit.

"I do not think that this was an attempt to actually kill you," Morgana said, responding to Daria's question though she was speaking to me. "I believe that this was merely an attempt to frighten you into leaving the Academy."

There were several gasps, but Kaitlen exclaimed, "Those broken bones were a hell of a lot more than a scare."

"Indeed," Morgana scowled. "I believe that whomever conjured the creature expected you to run away, not to stay and fight."

"I didn't stay to fight," I muttered quietly, "I tripped."

Morgana nodded and stared at me for a moment with a serious but unreadable expression. Then she slowly held up the package that she'd brought with her and unwrapped one of the ends, revealing the hilt of a sword.

"What?" Mrs. Reveine gasped in horror. "I'm not going to let you harm her..."

"I have no intention of harming her," Morgana snapped at the nurse, "quite the opposite in fact." Then she turned back to me, "Touch the hilt."

I hesitated a moment, then touched the sword hilt, gasping as it started to glow. A moment later a strange cool feeling rushed through my hand, up my arm and into my body. It flooded through my entire body, causing me to gasp aloud. All of my aches and pains vanished as the cool wave went through me and I suddenly felt perfectly healthy.

"Wow," I gasped as I sat up, no longer feeling even the slightest bruised. "I feel great..."

"What?" Mrs. Reveine gasped, "How...?"

"This is a very old and potent talisman," Morgana explained, gently running her hand over the sword. She had a distant expression on her face as she continued, "For centuries my sister held the great responsibility of protecting it from those who would misuse it. After she was killed, I assumed that responsibility."

I stared at the sword in awe, "But your sister was..."

"It recognizes her blood in you," Morgana told me, giving me an strange look. "This is why it responds to you as it does and why it heals you so fully. It has chosen you as its next guardian." She placed the sword into my hands and stepped back, "From now on, it is your honor and responsibility to guard this talisman."

"What?" I gasped in disbelief.

"You're giving Galen a sword?" Daria blinked in confusion.

Morgana stared at my sister for a moment, as if silently judging her. "This talisman has a name," Morgana said slowly, turning her attention back to me with an intense expression, "it is called Excalibur."

Everyone in the infirmary gasped at once and all eyes locked onto the sword. I stared at it in shock, then slowly pulled it out enough to get a better look at the legendary blade. It was a broadsword, simple looking, but stylish. There were no jewels or gold filigree as one might expect of such a famous blade, but there was no doubt that it was very well made. It practically screamed that it was more than just a mere sword.

"Guarding this talisman was my sister's great task," Morgana told me. "It has been in my own care for longer than you can imagine. Now it is for you to look after. Take care of the talisman and treat it well. It may very well save you from such further attacks." Without another word Morgana turned and left the infirmary. However all attention was on the sword, so no one besides myself really noticed her leaving.

"Is that really Excalibur?" Kaitlen gasped, "I mean THE Excalibur?"

"Why the hell would she give something like that to you?" Daria demanded, looking a little more skeptical.

I hesitated a moment, glancing at Mrs. Reveine who was well within hearing. Then I told Daria, "I'll explain everything to you tonight." I grimaced, wondering what she was going to say when I told her that we were direct decendents of the legendary Lady of the Lake. "Trust me... you'll want to be sitting down for that."

"Whatever the story is," Kaitlen said, "I'll be looking forward to hearing it. But first," she gestured to the sword, "you might want to put that thing somewhere safe. Then I can spend some quality time with my new boyfriend."

"That sounds great to me," I grinned as I hopped out of the bed, clutching the sword firmly in my hands. "But first...where are my clothes?"

In the week since my attack my reputation around the Academy had changed. It had mellowed in a way, yet at the same time it had become even more polarized. Most of the students were horrified by what had happened to me, and offered me their sympathies. Unfortunately not all of the students felt that way.

There was now an undercurrent in the school of students who thought that I'd merely gotten what I deserved. Some were claiming that I faked the whole thing for sympathy, a fact that they considered to be proven by how fast I was healed and wandering around again. But there was also a rumor beginning to circulate that I had been in the middle of summoning a demon to attack some other students but that it had turned on me.

These rumors were obviously vicious lies, but that didn't mean they weren't making things more difficult for me. I'd even found threats posted to my dorm room door a few times, warning me to leave the Academy before it was too late. I had a good idea as to who was behind all of this hostility, though unfortunately, I couldn't prove a thing.

Daria had been almost completely avoiding me as well, though not due to the rumors. My sister was having a difficult time accepting what she'd learned about our family relationship to Morgana LeFay. Of course she'd been delighted to discover that she was a direct decendent of the Lady of the Lake, but once I told her that my sponsor was the sister of our famous ancestor, she had nearly freaked out.

And then there was my problem with the sword. Of course being asked to guard something like Excalibur was an enormous honor, but it didn't really make any sense to me. After all I was just a student at the Academy, and nowhere near as powerful as Morgana. It would have made a whole lot more sense for her to keep something like that in her own safekeeping. Who would even consider trying to steal it from someone like her? It was due to these questions that I'd brought Excalibur with me to talk to Morgana.

I stood in my study room with Excalibur held firmly in my hand. It was much lighter than I would have imagined, proving no problem to hold and even swing with one hand. But the blade was not quite what one would expect in other ways too. The whole thing seemed to be made of smooth gleaming chrome, without any filigree, leather wrapping around the hilt or any of the other additions one would expect a sword to possess. It seemed to have been made...perhaps even grown from a single piece of metal. There were no seams anywhere.

"Excalibur is a very unique talisman," Morgana told me, "but this you already know. Even I am not certain as to its true origins."

"But why me?" I demanded, carefully setting the talisman down on the table, "I mean, I'm not qualified to look after something like this. How the hell am I supposed to protect Excalibur when I can't even take care of myself?"

Morgana raised a skeptical eyebrow at that but said nothing for a moment. "I had intended to introduce you to Excalibur one day, to slowly prepare you to take guardianship when you were ready. It was not my intention or my choice to place it into your custody this soon. As you will learn, Excalibur has a will of its own."

"It's...alive?" I gasped, staring at the sword in awe.

"Not in a way that you would understand," Morgana tried to explain. "Excalibur has no conscious thoughts, merely instinct and will. It senses the blood ties between you and its previous guardian and recognizes you as her heir. It senses that you are in danger and comes to you now in order to help protect you."

"So I'm not really guarding Excalibur," I whispered in realization, "it's here to guard me..."

Morgana merely nodded at that. "Had you not been so injured, you would not have encountered the talisman for years."

Since I didn't know what to say to that, I joked, "Since I have Excalibur now, does that mean I'm the rightful ruler of Britain?"

"No," Morgana responded, her expression not one of amusement. "Most do not remember that there are two swords tied to the story of Arthur. The first was an ordinary sword, enchanted by Merlin and placed into a stone for the purpose of establishing a sense of legitimacy and awe for his pawn. That sword was later broken in battle."

"Then were did Excalibur come from?" I asked in confusion.

"Arthur did not acquire Excalibur until years after he was declared king," Morgana continued, "Merlin convinced my sister that their cause was just so she lent the talisman to him." Then Morgana shook her head with a slight frown, "Merlin was always silvery tongued and my sister too gullible."

"So what does it do?" I asked, quickly adding, "besides healing people."

"I am not entirely certain," Morgana admitted with some embarrassment, "I have guarded this talisman for centuries but have never had occasion to use it. I have seen and heard of it removing disease, protecting its wielder from magic, restoring energy to tired soldiers and compelling others to speak truth. Excalibur gives these abilities at its own convenience, not always to be called upon. It dislikes being overly used or used unnecessarily and will turn on those who attempt this. As Excalibur's guardian, you are only allowed to call upon its powers in defense of it and yourself, and only in dire emergencies. Of course you can lend Excalibur to those whose cause you judge to be just and pure, though this should never be done lightly."

"Oh wow," I whispered, feeling stunned by the sheer immensity of all this.

"I know that this is a great responsibility," Morgana told me gently, "especially for one so young and inexperienced. I shall do my best to help you manage."

Morgana and I spent the next two hours going over new spells and tricks that she thought would help me protect Excalibur. It was a serious responsibility and one that I had no intention of failing at, so I worked hard to learn every little thing she was teaching me about this. By the time we were done I was exhausted, but a little more confident about being able to keep the talisman safe.

Once Morgana was gone I went to work securing Excalibur and using every trick she'd just taught me. I rather liked the idea of carrying it around with me, having that kind of power, especially the healing one, right at hand in case I needed it. Of course that wasn't possible, and not only because I wouldn't be allowed to carry a sword around the Academy. Having Excalibur with me would only serve to make it a much more obvious target for anyone who wanted to try stealing it. Its best security was the fact that almost no one knew that it was even present at the Academy.

I stood back when I was finished and admired my handiwork, feeling rather proud of the defenses that I'd set up. Of course I couldn't have done it without Morgana and I would have been even more comfortable if I'd had some sort of super secure vault, but this was about the best I could come up with under the circumstances.

Excalibur hung from the wall of my dorm room, protected by several interesting spells. There were several wards to keep unauthorized people from touching it or sensing its presence by magic, and another one that acted to make it invisible and appear as though my wall was blank. Add that to the fact that I had just placed a magical lock on my door and I didn't think that it was very likely anyone would get near it without my permission.

"I'd still prefer a bank fault or something," I muttered, imagining it hidden in the middle of a labyrinth that was filled with monsters and traps. Of course that kind of thing was far beyond my limited resources, hough I imagined that this might be very well the kind of security Morgana had used.

Since the talisman was secured as well as I was able to, I left my room, only to find another note stuck to the outside of my door. I rolled my eyes as I pulled it off and glanced at the writing. I didn't even bother reading the whole thing through, knowing that there was no purpose to it. It was just another note saying that I should leave the Academy or I might not be so lucky the next time.

"I am getting so sick of these things," I grimaced, tearing the paper up and tossing it into a garbage can in the hall, "this is the second one today."

A few minutes later I met up with Newt and Misha, who were hanging out together as they usually were these days. It was hard to find either of them when they weren't together anymore and I think that the only ones who hadn't realized that they were a couple were themselves.

"I can't believe you got another one." Newt shook his head when I told them about the latest note. "You'd think the teachers would do something."

"Like some of them wouldn't be happy having Gayle leave," Misha snorted.

"The faculty is being pressured by some parents and sponsors to throw me out," I told them. "They're afraid I might be a danger or something." I snorted at that. "I think the faculty is doing as much as it can just to protect me from them."

"It still stinks," Newt grumbled, and I agreed completely.

As we left the building I couldn't help noticing that my friends positioned themselves on either side of me, almost as if they were my bodyguards. I thought it was kind of silly since neither of them had a special talent that would be very useful for defending me, and I had a couple pouches full of token cards that I'd taken to carrying around at all times. Still the sentiment was more than appreciated.

"Hey, can you show us that new ice spell you were telling me about?" Misha asked with an eager grin.

I just shook my head. "Nope. I'm trying not to do any magic for a while. I've got a kind of date with Kaitlen later tonight and I want to change back to a guy before then."

Newt just laughed. "I guess you've been using magic so much lately that you've been a chick nearly every time I see you."

"Trust me," I sighed, "I'd much rather be my normal self. It's kind of weird dating a girl when I look like one myself."

"I have heard a few rumors too," Newt snickered, "I mean, I've heard a couple people calling you two lezzies..."

"Hey," Misha punched Newt on the arm, "that's not nice."

"I'm not the one calling them that," Newt protested. "I'm just saying what I heard. Besides... when did you ever care about nice?"

Misha just responded by sticking her tongue out at him.

We had just taken a few more steps when I suddenly noticed the students who were stopped right in front of us, intentionally blocking our path. There were four of them, two boys and two girls. I didn't really know all their names, but I recognized them as being some of the people who were always hanging around Marcus. I didn't know how much they were his friends and how much they were his groupies, nor did I really care. They looked up to him as their hero, and as a result automatically thought of me as some sort of villain.

"You two shouldn't be hanging around with a perverted monster like that," a short haired brunette girl said, glaring at me. "People might assume things. Birds of a feather and all that."

Misha and Newt both looked a little confused until they realized that the 'perverted monster' the girl was referring to was me. "I'll pick my own friends, thank you," Misha snapped.

"I don't know what that pervert is promising you," a tall, blonde haired boy scowled, "but it's not worth it. You can do better than being her lackey."

"Lackey?" Newt blinked, "I'm not anyone's lackey."

"Ignore them," I told him, "they're just idiots."

"Are you going to let her tell you what to do?" the blonde boy demanded of Newt and Misha. "Don't you have any pride? If you go along with her, you'll regret your actions for the rest of your lives..."

Misha snorted, "I don't know what this guy's been smoking, but he's tripping like hell."

"We're giving you two a chance to walk away," the other girl said. She was tall and skinny, with long brown hair. "You don't need to side with someone like her."

The last person in the group blocking our path was the one I was most familiar with. His name was Egan Grace, and he was a sorcerer who was rumored to be cousins with Marcus. I didn't know if there was any truth to that rumor, though I did know that he was one of Marcus' closest friends.

"I'm really sorry to see that you won't listen to reason," Egan said as he reached into his pocket, pulling out an origami bird. It took me a moment to realize that this wasn't just a folded piece of paper, but a token.

Misha reacted even before I could, yelling, "Look out," and letting loose with her special talent, sending a blizzard of rose petals into the faces of Egan and his friends.

Egan and his friends yelled as they swatted at the rose petals, but the distraction didn't keep him from activating his spell. Suddenly dozens of birds appeared in the air and flew up above us. A moment later the birds did what birds always do and we had to start dodging a rain of bird droppings. Fortunately I had my wall of air handy or I would have been as messed up as a freshly washed sports car that had been left under a telephone line.

"You wanted to see my new ice spell," I told Misha as I pulled that card from its pouch, thankful that I'd brought it with me. "Invoke."

The moment that I unleashed the magic in the card a wave of cold spread out in the direction of the birds, causing each and every one of them to become coated in a thin layer of ice. It was enough to momentarily freeze them where they were and let gravity do its work. Instead of bird droppings falling all over it, it was now the birds themselves that were doing it.

Unfortunately Egan and his group weren't done with us yet. The tall skinny girl activated her special talent, summoning a small swarm of hornets, which came flying straight towards us. At the same time Egan pulled out another origami figure and activated it, causing a thick brown cloud to form in the air and start moving in our direction.

"One of those fucking bees stung me!" Newt screamed out as he frantically tried to swat the swarming hornets.

I gasped as one of the hornets stung me, then suddenly had a brilliant idea. I quickly reached into one of my pouches and pulled out the card I was looking for, immediately activating it. The moment that the spell was unleashed a heavy wind blast started to shove all of the hornets away from us and back towards Egan's group. And as an added bonus the wind even started to push the brown cloud that Egan had summoned at them as well and they were quickly enveloped by both.

"They're stinging me!" the brunette girl screamed as she tried to swat at the hornets. All four of them were desperately trying to avoid the stinging insects that they'd summoned.

"God it stinks," the blond boy gasped, covering his nose in response to the brown cloud, which seemed to be some sort of stink spell. The girl who'd summoned the hornets had already made them vanish, but all four of the group looked like they were turning green and about to lose their lunches.

For a brief moment I was tempted to use a fireball on them, or at the very least an itching spell that Kaitlen had taught me. Instead I decided that the smartest move was to just get out of there before things got any worse. So I unleashed Morgana's mist spell and used that as a cover for me and my friends to rush away.

"God that hurts," Newt complained once we were far enough away. He held up his arm, revealing three welts were he'd been stung.

"I know what you mean," Misha grimaced, showing that she too had been stung. "If I get my hands on that bitch I shove those bees so far up her ass she'll be buzzing when she talks."

I just nodded at that. "But at least they got a taste of their own medicine."

"Yeah," Newt suddenly brightened up, "did you see the looks on their faces when you blew their own spells back at them? It was priceless."

We all sat back, laughing and excitedly talking about how we'd managed to turn their ambush against them. All three of us thought that our hornet stings were a small price to pay to see them get a taste of their own medicine.

But then Amylia showed up and she was NOT pleased. Our shared good mood was immediately shattered at the notice that we were being sent to the principals office.

A few minutes later I was led to the chairman's office with Misha and Newt following close behind. All three of us were worried, though none of us really wanted to show it, especially in front of Amylia.

I was a little surprised when I stepped into Professor Roangard's office, since it wasn't quite what I'd expect of either a powerful sorceress or the head of a school of magic. Instead of some strange sanctum that was filled with unique and magical things, it looked like an office that might be found in any normal private school. It was large and spacious, with a nice wooden desk and several book cases. There was even a computer on the desk.

Professor Roangard sat behind the desk, with Master Tonkas standing just a few feet to her side with a deep scowl on his face. Egan and the other three were already there, bearing the brunt of Roangard's gaze, though Marcus was present as well and didn't seem to be the target of any anger. Egan and his friends were looking to be in pretty bad shape. All four of them had nasty red welts all over their faces and arms where the hornets had stung them, and a nasty scent that smelled like someone had been bathing in an outhouse filled the room.

"When I saw what happened to my friends," Marcus told Professor Roangard with a self-righteous tone, "I told them to come straight here and report it instead of trying to get even on their own."

"They ambushed us," Egan exclaimed, "they attacked us for no reason."

"Just because we're his friends," the tall skinny girl said, glancing to Marcus, who gave a faint nod of approval.

"No way," Newt burst out, "they attacked us..."

"Look at what that perverted bitch did to us," the brunette girl demanded, gesturing down at the red marks on her arm.

"These brats should be kicked out of the Academy for this," Marcus stated, glaring at me with a satisfied expression. "Attacking my friends..."

"Bullshit," Misha exclaimed, "these assholes are lying."

"This is a setup," I nearly yelled, looking at Professor Roangard. "I've been attacked before, I've been getting death threats just about every day, and now these bastards jump us when we're walking across campus. They're doing everything they can to chase me away from the Academy."

"Why don't you ask who has the power to summon the hornets they sicked on us," Misha pointed out, gesturing to the red welts on her own arm.

"Are you calling me and my friends liars?" Marcus demanded, sounding honestly offended.

Newt snorted, "If the shoe fits."

I glared at Marcus, thinking about all of the rumors he'd been spreading around the Academy amount me. I wouldn't have doubted if he'd sent his goons to attack us personally. Then I noticed the medallion around his neck, a silver necklace with a picture of a wolf. I couldn't help but suddenly thinking of two separate incidents were a magical wolf was involved.

Jace McChord had summoned a magical ice wolf and sent it against me during our duel, and Kaitlen still insisted that this was way behind his power and skill level. She kept insisting that someone else must have created that spell and token for him, and I was inclined to believe her. And then there was the werewolf creature that had nearly killed me.

"You sent that thing after me," I blurted out, "you're the one who sent that werewolf thing after me..."

"What?" Master Tonkas demanded.

Professor Roangard gave me an intense look. "That is a very serious accusation young lady. Do you have any proof?"

"No," I admitted quietly, feeling furious that Marcus would go so far just to get rid of me.

Marcus just looked smug. "I can't believe you'd go so low as to make these accusations. But I guess it's to be expected considering who your sponsor is."

"Fuck you!" I yelled. "You go spreading lies and rumors about me, send your goons after me and then try claiming some moral high ground. Who the hell do you think you are?"

"I think I'm the man who's stopping you from corrupting the Academy," Marcus responded grimly, glaring at me with a ferocity that made me thankful that looks couldn't kill.

"You're fucking insane," Misha spat out.

"ENOUGH!" Professor Roangard snapped, "I will not have anymore of this yelling."

Marcus just snorted, "You've ambushed my friends like cowards, accused me without cause and insulted my honor. I challenge you to a duel."

I was so furious and worked up by this time that I responded, "I accept," without even thinking. It wasn't until I noticed the smug expression on his face that I realized I'd just fallen into his trap.

"Oh shit," Newt muttered from behind me, "you are so dead."

"Very well," Professor Roangard said, looking rather reluctant. "I will let this matter be satisfied by a duel." She glared at Marcus for a moment, then gave me a sympathetic look that seemed to say that she believed me, but couldn't do anything about it without proof. "But there had better not be any more incidents outside of the dueling circle."

"No ma'am," Marcus smirked.

I glared at him, then responded, "I won't start anything."

Master Tonkas snorted at that, as if not quite believing me. But he didn't actually say anything and kept to his position of just standing there and glaring at everyone while Professor Roangard gave us a bit of an ear chewing.

Once we were all excused from the office a few minutes later, I rushed out as fast as I could. Newt and Misha barely kept up, though I wasn't too concerned about them at the moment. Instead I was just thinking about the fact that I'd just agreed to duel Marcus, the toughest duelist and one of the most powerful sorcerers in the entire Academy. I had no idea what I was thinking or what I could possibly do against him. In fact the only thing I knew for certain was that I was in deep shit.

---

I leaned forward and carefully looked over the board game in front of me. I was currently in the middle of a long game with Newt, Misha and Kaitlen and it was my turn. We were playing in teams of two, with the boys versus the girls. And at the moment I was quite thankful to be playing on the boys team.

Ever since Marcus had challenged me to a duel a couple days ago, I'd spent nearly every minute studying and casting new spells. In fact I had spent so much time as a girl because of this that there were even times when I'd actually been afraid that I'd forget what it was like being a guy. Because of that I was sure that I needed this brief break in my schedule and the time as a guy that it would provide.

"You know," Kaitlen grinned at me, "we can always use some more help on our side here... Why don't I activate a token and have you switch teams..."

"Hey," Newt protested, "that would make it three against one and that wouldn't be fair."

"Who cares about fair?" Misha winked, "I just want to win."

"Please don't," I sighed, "I want to enjoy my guy time while I can. I have to get back to work on some of those spells in an hour."

"Party pooper." Kaitlen stuck her tongue out at me.

I just shook my head and let out a sigh at that, wishing that my friends could be a little more supportive. None of them had been very supportive of my duel with Marcus, and in fact they all seemed to think that I was some kind of an idiot for accepting his challenge in the first place. Unfortunately I wasn't sure that I disagreed with them. He was the best duelist in the school and I didn't stand a chance. This was the perfect opportunity for him to completely humiliate me in front of the entire Academy, a fact that Kaitlen wouldn't let me forget.

Morgana hadn't been very pleased when she found out about my encounter with Egan or the duel either. In fact she looked downright pissed, though I wasn't sure that it was entirely at me. Fortunately, instead of giving me an earful or going off on Professor Roangard like I'd half expected her, she was a little more practical and immediately went to work teaching me more spells. As hard as she'd been working me before, that was nothing compared to now.

"It's a miracle I'm even able to stay a guy long enough to play a few games," I commented to my friends as I rolled my die and moved my piece. "I mean, I've been so busy getting ready for the duel."

"It's your own damn fault," Kaitlen told me without much sympathy. In fact she was annoyed that I hadn't been able to spend as much time with her lately as either of us would like. "If you hadn't accepted his stupid duel."

"Well, Galen didn't exactly have a whole lot of choice," Newt defended me. "It was a matter of honor." Both Misha and Kaitlen snorted at that.

We finished the game up just a few minutes later, with Newt and me winning...just barely. I had to turn down the suggestion that we play again, telling them, "I've got to go see Daria. I was on the phone with my mom this morning and she wanted me to give a message to my sister."

A minute later I was on my way to Daria's dorm room, but to my surprise, my friends had all decided to tag along. I wasn't sure why, but I suspected that they wanted to talk me into another game just as soon as my message had been delivered.

When we arrived at Daria's room, I was startled to find her door wide open. "Daria?" I called out, hearing a faint groan from inside the room as a response. "Daria?" I called again as I rushed inside.

The room was a real mess, which was quite unlike my neat freak sister. The bed had been overturned and the contents of the small desk had all been thrown onto the floor. Daria herself was lying in the middle of the floor and I immediately rushed to check on her. She was alive and even partly conscious, though completely dazed and confused.

"What the hell happened here?" Misha demanded.

"I...I don't know," Daria responded, sitting up and looking around her room with an expression of surprise and disbelief. "I don't remember."

"Stand back," Kaitlen ordered me as she pulled a charm token from the bracelet on her wrist. I saw what my girlfriend was about to do and stood back, feeling a tingle of magic rush through my body as she activated her token. Fortunately I was far enough back that it didn't cause me to change into a girl. I immediately went back to Daria's side.

"Someone cast two spells on her in the last half hour," Kaitlen announced as she looked at strange glowing symbols in the air in front of her. She scowled, "Some sort of truth compulsion and a memory erasing spell. Whoever did this probably used the memory spell so you wouldn't remember who used the truth spell on you."

"And maybe so she wouldn't remember what she told them," I pointed out, worried for my sister though she seemed unharmed, only confused.

"Look what I found," Misha exclaimed, picking up a piece of paper from the floor. It wasn't just a piece of a paper, but a carefully folded origami cat. Since Daria didn't do anything like origami, it was definitely out of place.

I took the origami cat from Misha and scowled as I immediately felt the magic pattern that was contained within. And since I only knew one person who used origami tokens, the owner was obvious. "Egan."

Everyone stared at the token, nodding knowingly. My friends weren't the least bit surprised since they had been there and involved in the confrontation with Egan. Daria however looked a little surprised to find herself caught up in the middle of our feud.

"Marcus," Daria spat out furiously, obviously knowing that if Egan was involved, then so was Marcus. Gone was any hint of the hero worship and awe that she used to show to him. "That bastard."

"You really need to take him down," Newt scowled, slowly looking around the room. The others all nodded agreement, including Daria.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" Daria demanded, looking as though she wanted to go and strangle the person responsible herself.

"Anything?" I asked in surprise.

"Anything," she responded with a firm resolve.

"Me too," Misha stated, "I want to help too."

"Me three," Newt added.

"I'm sick of those fucking bastards," Kaitlen spat out. "They do this kind of crap and keep spreading lies about you. It's time to take them down."

I just stood there, silently staring at my sister and my friends. They all looked quite determined. Then my eyes locked on Misha and Newt and I smiled faintly as an idea began to form. "Thanks," I told them, "this means a lot to me. If I'm going to have any chance against Marcus, I'm going to need your help."

Daria stood up and nodded, "You have it."

"We're with you," Newt told me.

I smiled at that, feeling rather touched. "Then it looks like we'd better get started," I announced, sounding more confident than I actually felt, "we've got a lot of work to do before the duel."

I sat at the desk in my special study, silently staring at the various cards that were spread out in front of me. There were so many great pictures, artwork that I had created with the best of my ability. But of course the pictures on the front weren't the main purpose of these cards, these tokens. For the last week I had spent nearly every waking minute either creating these specific spells or thinking about which ones I could use. As much as I hated to admit it, I was as ready as I could possibly be considering my limited time. My duel with Marcus was scheduled to start in less than half an hour.

"I hope these all work," I muttered, standing up and carefully picking up my tokens.

My tokens were already organized in a way that I thought would work best, so I made sure to keep them in that order as I placed them in the half dozen pouches that were tied to my belt. Each card had to be placed in just the right pouch and in just the right order so I'd know where to find the spells I needed without having to search.

Once all of my tokens had been put in place, I turned my attention to the full length mirror which now occupied a corner of my study. I had already changed genders to my girl form ahead of time, so I could get ready for my duel. I knew that showing a little cleavage wouldn't have the same kind of effect on someone like Marcus that it had on Jace, so I'd dressed a little more conservatively, with comfortable clothes and a belt that held all of my necessary pouches. I stared at myself for a minute, then quickly tied my hair back into a pony tail so that it wouldn't get into my eyes. Now I was ready.

I started on my way to the dueling circle, but almost as soon as I'd stepped out of the hall of sorcerers, Newt came rushing up to me, exclaiming, "I've been looking all over the place for you..."

"What's up?" I asked him, noticing the frantic expression on his face.

"I went by your room to find you," Newt quickly blurted out, "but someone broke your door in and trashed the place. You stuff was all over the floor, and whoever did it tore up all your spell cards."

"My tokens?" I gasped in surprise.

"Yeah," Newt nodded, "they were torn to pieces."

I grimaced, pissed that someone would break into my room to try sabotaging me before my duel. Either Marcus or one of his friends must have figured that I wouldn't be able to do much if they destroyed my tokens ahead of time. It was a good thing that all the tokens that I'd been planning on using for the duel had been either on me or in my study instead. The only ones that I'd left in my room were the cards I hadn't saved any spells onto yet and the ones I hadn't planned on using against Marcus.

"Damn," I shook my head, wishing that I had time to go check out the damage to my stuff. Unfortunately it was too close to the duel so my room would have to wait. "Someone's gonna pay for that."

"I can't believe they'd do that," Newt scowled, "I mean, busting into someone's room is just low."

"Yeah," I agreed, patting one of the pouches on my side and reminding myself to stay focused on the duel. I couldn't let myself get distracted by my room being vandalized just yet. Instead I took a deep breath and tried to regain my focus.

I refused to let anyone see me looking upset or worried about the duel, so took my time walking to where the duel would be held. This time the weather was fairly nice so we were using the Academy's original dueling circle. It was set in small crater with stone seating like an old Greek amphitheater. At bottom of this amphitheater was the dueling circle itself, a large circular stone platform that had the same properties as the newer one in the gym.

The amphitheater was packed with students and teachers, all of whom had come to see the duel. Since Marcus was the most popular student at the Academy and I was sponsored by Morgana LeFay herself, a lot of people were booing at me rather loudly. However most people loved an underdog, and since I was most definitely the underdog in this duel, I was actually getting a lot more cheers than I would have expected.

"Good lucky," Newt told me as he spotted Misha and rushed off to join her.

A moment later Kaitlen appeared by my side, greeting me with a passionate kiss. When we pulled apart she told me, "I put twenty bucks down on you winning, so you'd better not make me regret it." Then with a somewhat more worried look, she told me, "Now go kick his ass."

Then I noticed Daria standing right beside the dueling circle, in what had to be one of the best seats in the house. She saw me and looked a little embarrassed, then held up a sign that said "GO GALEN". That was a bit more open support than I'd ever expected to see from my sister so it was kind of touching.

I nodded to Daria, then looked Kaitlen and told her, "Wish me luck." I had little doubt that I was going to need all the luck I could get.

"You've got it," Kaitlen responded, quickly kissing me on the cheek before gently shoving me in the direction of the dueling circle.

"Good luck," Daria yelled out to me as I got closer. Newt and Misha were already both next to her and were calling out good wishes as well. Kaitlen winked to me as she rushed over to join the others.

I waved to my friends, then started towards Master Tonkas, who was standing at the steps to the dueling circle with the magic bracelets that all duelists were required to wear. But as I reached him I was stunned to see Morgana arrive as well. She stepped into view, wearing a green cloak with the hood pulled back. Nearly everyone around her drew away as they realized or overheard who she was.

"I...I didn't know you were going to be here," I gasped.

Morgana nodded. "I felt that I should be here for such an important duel."

"There will be no interference," Master Tonkas quickly pointed out, scowling as he did.

"Of course," Morgana responded in a tone that indicated she'd never even consider it. "I merely came to observe my pupil."

A moment later a strange looking man came forward. He was tall, with a long reddish brown beard that was streaked with gay. His clothes were extremely old fashioned, nearly archaic, though I couldn't place exactly where the style had come from.

"Geiron," Morgana nodded her head to the newcomer, "it has been a long time."

"You know I am called Merlin now," the newcomer glared at Morgana.

Morgana just chuckled, "You can call yourself a duck, but that does not make you into one. No Geiron, you may be a powerful sorcerer, but it is still foolish arrogance to try assuming the name of your old master."

Geiron scowled and changed the subject. "The foolishness is for you to put your student up against mine. Your girl has no chance."

"She might surprise you," Morgana smiled pleasantly.

I just stared at Geiron, who was obviously Marcus' sponsor, here to watch the duel in the same way that Morgana was. I'd heard that he was powerful, that he was the apprentice and prize pupil of the original Merlin. But as much as I'd heard about him, Morgana didn't act as though she was very impressed.

Marcus finally joined us a minute later, not saying a word to me, only giving me an arrogant scowl. He bowed slightly to his sponsor, then took the bracelet that Master Tonkas offered. There was a strange look on his face as he snapped the bracelet around his wrist, one that I didn't like.

Master Tonkas snapped the silver bracelet around my wrist, then asked, "You both know the rules?" When we had both nodded he loudly exclaimed, "Take your places in the dueling circle and I will signal for you to begin."

"You will leave the Academy," Marcus hissed at me as we entered the dueling circle, "one way or another."

"Fuck you," I responded for lack of a better comeback.

"You wish," Marcus sneered, turning and walking to his starting position.

Once Marcus and I were both in position, Master Tonkas held up a large yellow flag and yelled, "BEGIN!"

Marcus responded with blinding speed, pulling out what looked like a silk ribbon with writing on it and unleashing the spell within. An in instant a half dozen shuriken appeared in the air and went flying across the dueling circle. They were moving and turning, almost as if they were under some sort of remote control.

I responded to the start of the duel just a little slower than Marcus, but I'd already planned out my first move as well. I rushed to the side, simultaneously drawing my first card and invoking it. I caught a brief glance of the picture on front of it, an image of Misha surrounded by a swirling mass of rose petals. Then the card vanished as the magic was unleashed, creating a massive blizzard of rose petals that obscured the view between Marcus and myself.

I felt a momentary surge of pride for the spell that I'd just unleashed. Most spells originate as a copy of a special ability that some Touched possesses. With Misha's help I was able to copy her talent's pattern and turn it into a spell I could use, effectively putting her talent at my fingertips. Using her ability like this almost made it feel like she was right there beside me, helping me against Marcus.

Of course Misha's rose petal blizzard was useless for offensive purposes, but that wasn't why I made it my first move in the duel. It provided a quick distraction as well as prevented Marcus from getting a clear look at me for a few seconds. That would provide me enough time to set up for my next move. I quickly made that by activating two more of my spell cards, sending a very large and obvious fireball to where he'd been standing when I'd last seen him, along with a shotgun blast of small ice balls. None of the ice balls would do much damage, but since they would be spread out over the whole area, I was likely to at least hit him a little.

Unfortunately I couldn't tell if my attacks hit anything at all as the rose petals still obscured the view and I couldn't hear anything from Marcus. But a moment later all of the petals simultaneously burst into flame and crumbled to ash. Marcus stood there with a smirk on his face, apparently unharmed by either of my attacks. It was only then that I realized his shuriken were still flying around the duel circle.

Three of the shuriken came flying straight at me, though fortunately I was able to activate a wall of air in time. The shuriken smashed against the invisible wall and vanished, though that still left three of them flying around on their own.

"Invoke," I cried out the moment my wall of air wore off, activating a similar spell, one that sent another wall of air flying out away from me, smashing into two of the remaining shuriken and destroying them.

Unfortunately the last shuriken flew out of the way, then came straight at me. I tried jumping out of the way, but it hit my shoulder, sending a surge of pain through me before it vanished. I grabbed my shoulder and screamed out, feeling the warm sticky blood between my fingers. I stared at the blood in horror and confusion, wondering how this could possibly be. All the safety measures were set up to prevent any kind of actual injuries like this.

Marcus just stood there laughing, holding two silk ribbons in his hands. "I told you that you were leaving the Academy. I'm not going to let you recruit any more of these to your plans. I'm stopping you now, you sick bitch."

"What the hell are you talking about?" I demanded, wincing from the pain and feeling my first real surge terror in the duel. "I'm not up to anything. I'm just trying to learn magic like everyone else here."

"You can't fool me with your lies," Marcus snorted, "I know that you work for her...that you're trying to start a new war with the normals. Well I'm not going to let you. I'm going to stop you right here, right now. I'm going to show everyone what happens when your kind of filth comes around here."

"You're fucking nuts!" I screamed at, wincing again at the pain in my shoulder. I stared at my shoulder, still confused about how I could have been injured.

Just then Master Tonkas yelled out, "HALT THE DUEL." He waved a red flag. "THE SAFETY MEASURES HAVE BEEN DISABLED!" He looked furious, as did Morgan and Geiron.

Marcus just smirked, casually removing the silver bracelet from his wrist. This surprised me as those talismans were supposed to be nearly impossible to remove as long as we were in the dueling circle. "I replaced these things before we started," my opponent exclaimed, "I didn't want any of these stupid rules to save you."

"STOP THIS RIGHT NOW!" Master Tonkas demanded, trying to rush straight into the dueling circle. But as soon as he hit the outside edge, he was thrown back, as though he'd hit an invisible wall.

"They can get through it...but it'll take a while to cast the spell," Marcus commented, glancing to Master Tonkas and then glaring at me. "But by then I'll be a hero for saving the Academy from you."

"Marcus!" Geiron yelled, "Cease this right now!"

Marcus ignored his sponsor, acting as though he didn't hear him. I glanced to Morgan, who looked both furious and worried at the same time. It was immediately obvious that no one out there would be able to help me just yet. I'd just have to try keeping myself alive until they could break through.

"As a demonstration of my honor," Marcus glared at me, clutching the two ribbon tokens in his hand, "I will let you make the next move. I want to give you at least a chance to defend yourself." From his arrogant expression it was clear that he didn't expect anything I did to make a difference.

I gulped, shaking where I stood. I couldn't help thinking about the pain in my shoulder and that it was going to getting a whole lot worse. In fact was terrified...terrified that Marcus was right and nothing I did could save me. He was going to kill me and nothing I did could prevent it. Then I glanced to my friends, afraid that this was the last time I'd see them...and not wanting them to see me die like this. I could see the fear and worry on each of their faces as well.

Then I heard Kaitlen screaming, "KICK HIS ASS!" Daria and the others started cheering for me too, making me smile at their loyalty.

Suddenly I not only felt hope that I might survive this, but I knew exactly how to do so as well. I had an ace up my sleeve, one that I'd planned on using when the time was right. Ironically Marcus himself was giving me the opportunity to use it and turn this to my advantage. I REALLY wanted to see the look on his face when he realized that he'd just made a HUGE mistake.

I actually smiled at Marcus as I reached into one of my pouches and drew the first card in it. There was no need for me to look at the card to know which one it was, but I couldn't help doing so anyway. It had a picture of Newt, standing there with his hands over his ears. And as with the first card I'd used in this duel, this one also contained the special ability of one of my friends. I felt incredibly smug as I activated the magic within.

An instant later a shroud of silence descended on the dueling circle. I could see the all the people in the audience yelling and screaming, but I couldn't hear any of it. Marcus invoked the magic within his own tokens, or at least he tried to. I could see his mouth moving, yet the magic did not come, much to his surprise. I just stood there and smirked, watching the small bubble that floated in the air in front of me.

When most sorcerers created tokens, they did so with a verbal trigger that would unleash the spell frozen within. But thanks to Newt's special talent, which created the field of absolute silence, not a sound could be uttered, including the verbal triggers that Marcus was trying so hard to use. This was the ace up my sleeve, a trick that would render my opponents tokens completely useless. I could thank Morgan for this since she had inspired it with all of her talk about thinking outside the box. I couldn't help but thinking of her statement, that the power level of a sorceress was not only based on how much magic she could draw and the number of different spells she could cast, but also on how well she could use the spells and recourses she did have.

Since Marcus couldn't use his tokens, I didn't feel any urgency as I pulled out my next card. I knew that I might be using the silence spell so I had come prepared. I had created a number of tokens that were triggered by something other than sound. I held up my modified fireball card, drew an X on the back with my finger and unleashed the spell within. A massive fireball shot out, straight towards Marcus.

Marcus dove out of the way, easily avoiding the fireball. He hit the ground and rolled back to his feet, his hand clutching the wolf head amulet around his neck. He glared at me and the amulet began to glow. A moment later a ghostly blue image in the shape of wolf jumped out of the medallion and stood in front of him. He had a look of concentration and a second wolf jumped out, then a third.

I gasped in realization that the amulet Marcus was using was a focus. It was like a much more powerful and long term version of a token. It had the pattern of a spell permanently frozen and stored within it, and all he had to do was channel magic through the item to copy the spell. There was no need for a verbal trigger or anything else to use it. Of course a focus could only be used so many times before it selfdestructed under the stress of the magic, but by then it will have already served its purpose.

Marcus had created five of his ghostly wolves and was in the middle of creating the sixth one when the power of the focus seemed to wear out. The half formed image of a wolf vanished and the amulet itself crumbled to dust. I could see the look of annoyance on his face, until he looked up at me and glared. Then the wolves attacked.

I let out a stream of curses, though the silence field stifled the sound of them all. Fortunately I'd seen the wolves coming in enough time to grab all of my modified spell cards. I activated one card that created a swirling mass of spinning tree leaves and sent them flying at the wolves. Leaves might not seem like much of a weapon, but these ones were as sharp as razor blades and shredded two of the wolves before vanishing.

The three remaining wolves all charged at me, though I was able to activate my next spell just in time. A wave of fire exploded out and caught one of the wolves right in the face, causing it to vanish. I took the opportunity to run away from the others, wishing that these modified spell cards could be activated a little more quickly. Unfortunately I had expected to be the only one able to activate spells while the sound damper was up so hadn't considered that the longer activation time could be dangerous to me.

For a moment I considered popping the bubble that still floated in the air and removing the silence limiter. Then I'd not only be able to activate my spells faster, I'd also have a lot more of them I could use. My selection of modified tokens was rather limited since I'd thought I could end the duel quickly with the ones I had. However I knew that returning the sound would benefit Marcus a hell of a lot more than it would me.

A few seconds later any consideration of turning off Newt's sound dampener was rendered irrelevant. One of the wolves ran straight through the bubble, causing it to pop. Suddenly the sound not only returned, but all of the noise that had been neutralized by the spell came back at once, nearly deafening me.

"Since I can talk again," I grimaced, pulling out one of my normal cards, "INVOKE!"

My new spell caused a mass of vines to burst out of the ground and wrap around both of the remaining wolves. They struggled, to no effect as the fines grow longer and thicker, holding them tighter and tighter until they could barely move at all.

Unfortunately I wasn't the only one able to cast spells again, a fact Marcus proved by summoning what looked like a Chinese style dragon, made entirely of water. Its backside seemed to be fused to the ground in front of Marcus, but that didn't seem to be a problem as it looked at me and opened it's mouth. Instead of breathing fire, this particular dragon fired a powerful blast of water straight at me.

I responded by activating one of my shield spells. This one was similar to the wall of air, but only covered a small area in front of me instead of around my entire body. But this defensive spell was by no means inferior as it was excellent against frontal attacks and had a little trick that my wall of air didn't. It reflected attacks back towards the source.

The powerful blast of water hit my force field and rebounded, hitting the dragon that had created it with full force and causing the conjuration to vanish. Marcus didn't quite escape the effects of the blast either as the water had soaked him and knocked him onto his ass. Too bad he didn't stay there.

I reached into the pouch that held most of my best offensive spells, grabbing several cards and activating them at the same time. A moment later a burst of lightning, a fireball and another razor blade leaf burst were all unleashed at once. Marcus just activated one of his tokens, creating some sort of force field that easily stopped my most powerful attacks dead.

"I'm getting tired of this," Marcus sneered, pulling another silk ribbon from his pocket. He smirked and then activated it.

Suddenly the spell card that I was holding in my hand burst into flame and crumbled to ash. I gasped in shock, especially since smoke was coming from my pouches. I tore one open, only to see it containing ash rather than the expected cards. A quick look revealed that all of my cards were gone, reduced to ash with that single spell.

"No more tokens for you," Marcus laughed.

I stared at him and gulped, "Oh shit."

Then I glared at Marcus with intense annoyance, though not the abject terror that he was obviously expecting. The truth was, this move wasn't entirely unexpected. Kaitlen had told me about how Marcus had used a spell to destroy the paper tokens that his opponent was using in a previous duel, though I hadn't thought he could get all of my cards at once. Still I had come prepared and reached into a pouch to pull out a small roll of poker chips.

"I don't suppose you're any threat without any tokens," Marcus sneered.

"Who says I don't have any," I grinned, yelling, "INVOKE," and throwing all of the poker chips in my hand. They hit the ground and scattered with nothing happening. Marcus just saw this and burst out laughing.

"You're helpless and unarmed," Marcus told me, "I'll just let my friends deal with you." With that he used another of his silk ribbon tokens, releasing a spell that caused the vines holding the wolves with wither and crumble. His strange wolves were free again.

"Damn," I muttered, taking an instinctive step back.

The wolves both snarled and came charging straight at me. The first wolf stepped on one of the poker chips that I'd scattered around dueling circle and it suddenly exploded, causing the wolf to vanish. The second wolf got caught by my magical minefield a moment later and was destroyed as well.

Marcus just stared at me with a look of surprise, warily looking at the poker chips that were still scattered about. He obviously realized that he was going to have to be very careful about where he stepped. Of course I wouldn't have to be nearly so careful since I'd synched them not to go off if I touched them. But if anything else did...BOOM.

I just stood there, feeling rather proud of my mine field as I reached into my pouch for several more poker chips. I held up one that only had the letters FB written on it with a black marker. These tokens weren't nearly as fancy as my normal ones, which wasn't surprising since I'd thrown them together at the last minute. But they did have the advantage of being immune to the paper disintegration spell Marcus had cast at me. I quickly activated the spell inside and sent a fireball flying straight at Marcus.

"Is that the best you've got," Marcus spat with disgust, easily blocking my attack. "Such simple spells..."

Then Marcus pulled out another of his tokens, a black and red silk ribbon that looked quite a bit different from the others that he'd been using against me. He activated it and suddenly the ground began to shake and crack. I was knocked off my feet and fell flat on my ass, while the shaking caused all of my magical land mines to detonate. The shaking stopped a moment later, but the stones which made up the dueling circle were severely cracked and in ruins.

"You're tougher than I expected," Marcus admitted grudgingly, "but you evil types usually are. Still I know the perfect way to finish you off."

"Who the hell are you calling evil?" I screamed at him, "You're the one trying to kill me."

Marcus didn't answer to that though and only turned around and walked a few feet, then bent over to pick something up. A moment later something shimmered and appeared in his hand, something that had been hidden in the dueling circle ahead of time under a spell of invisibility. He raised a sword over his head, causing me to gasp as I recognized it. This wasn't just any sword in his hand...this was Excalibur.

"Oh shit," I whispered, realizing that THIS must have been what he'd gone into my room after. He and his buddies hadn't been trying to destroy my tokens. They'd gone to get Excalibur. They must have found out about it when they were interrogating Daria with that truth spell. "Oh shit."

"THIS," Marcus loudly exclaimed, looking to the crowd as he held the sword high enough for everyone to see, "this is the great Excalibur."

I quickly looked at the audience, seeing a lot of stunned looks and awed expressions. However Morgan had a very dark expression on her face, one that hinted at all the dark stories about her. I gulped, quickly turning my attention back to Marcus, feeling shaken up as I did so.

"This evil bitch STOLE it," Marcus yelled, using the blade to point at me. "I managed to save Excalibur from her, so it's only appropriate that I use it to end her evil."

Marcus came charging straight at me with Excalibur positioned to strike. I frantically looked for a way out, tried to think of something I could do. Unfortunately most of my tokens were gone and I only had a few of the poker chip ones left. But suddenly Excalibur seemed to jump straight out of my opponent's hand and fall blade first into the ground. Marcus tried to pick it up, but it refused to budge. Excalibur might not have actually been the sword that King Arthur drew from the stone in the old stories, but it sure was doing a good job of acting like it.

"Come on," Marcus screamed as he struggled in vain to pull it loose. "I'm worthy... I'm trying to destroy evil..." Then he finally realized the futility of this and glared at me, "I'll destroy you anyway..."

With that Marcus pulled out another of his tokens, this one not being a silk ribbon like the others he'd been using in this duel, but some sort of ceramic sculpture. He glared at me with a look of pure hate and I knew that whatever this spell was, it wouldn't be good for me.

I desperately tried to think of something I could do to stop Marcus, but my resources were almost gone. I didn't think that any of my few remaining tokens would do much good. Then I noticed that he was still soaking wet from the water attack that I'd reflected back at him. Suddenly things snapped into place and I knew a move I could make. Instead of reaching for a poker chip token, I focused my own special ability.

Marcus screamed in agony as every bit of water that soaked his hair, clothes and skin suddenly began to boil. The effect was the same as if I poured a huge bucket of boiling water right on top of him. His skin immediately turned red and began to blister. The agony had to be unbearable.

"Oh shit," I gasped, watching the sight in horror, not having really thought through the kind of damage this use of my power might actually have on him. A huge surge of guilt shot through me, though I quickly tried shoving it down with the reminder that he was trying to kill me. Still I immediately withdrew my power.

Marcus collapsed to his knees, no longer screaming though he was obviously still in intense agony. He remained there for a moment, then looked up at me, glaring with an expression of raw hatred in his eyes that was worse than anything I'd ever seen before. The token he'd been about to use on me was still firmly clutched in his hand and he wasted no more time in activating it.

"Kill you," Marcus snarled.

However I wasn't paying attention to his threats, but to the ghostly image that was appearing in the air in front of him. I stared in horror as it solidified, turning into a very familiar and terrifying looking creature. It was a 7-foot-tall werewolf creature, identical to the one that had attacked me and left me so injured.

"That's the thing that attacked me before!" I cried in terror out as I frantically looked for a way out.

Marcus just laughed as he struggled back to his feet, a task that was obviously quite difficult with all of his pain. He seemed to be driven entirely by rage and hatred as he looked at his creature, then at me. "This time," he hissed, "it'll finish the job."

I desperately scrambled for my remaining tokens as the creature came towards me. I clutched them in my hands and unleashed their spells, all at once. A large fireball, a shotgun blast of four smaller fireballs and a swirling mass of rose petals all hit the creature at the same time. Unfortunately all they did was burn off a large amount of its fur and make it angry. And to make it even worse, those were the last of my tokens.

The werewolf creature came at me and I tried to run, but that did little good as the creature continued to stalk towards me. It almost seemed to be playing with me, which didn't help my confidence. Marcus stood back and watched with eager anticipation, hurting too much to even laugh at my predicament.

"You can't get away from him this time," Marcus snarled, staring at a large blister on the back of his hand in disgust, then glaring back at me with increased venom.

A moment later the creature decided to stop playing games and leaped the distance between us with ease, landing right in front of me and lashing out with its claws. It hit me in the side, sending a crushing pain in my side and giving me an intense feeling of deja vu. It snarled and bit at my shoulder, the one that was already injured from the earlier shuriken. The new injury put the old one to shame and the whole arm now felt numb and useless. Then the creature hit me again, sending me flying across the dueling circle.

I lay motionless on the ground, filled with pain and terror. I KNEW that I was going to die. I no longer had anything left to fight with. Then I saw it from the corner of my eye, merely a few feet away from me. It was hope. A surge of hope filled me and I struggled to get back to my feet, or at least my knees. I did my best to ignore the creature, to avoid looking at it. Instead I used everything I had left to cover the short distance to where Excalibur was sticking out of the ground.

"Please," I gasped, praying that the sword would hear me and help.

Excalibur began to glow the moment I placed my hand on the hilt. A soothing cool energy flowed up my arm and rushed through my booth, easing the pain wherever it passed. I gasped, this time in relief rather than pain. I could feel all of my injuries healing at unbelievable speed. It was just like when Excalibur had healed me in the infirmary, though this time it was left with a lot more to take care of. A moment later I stood there, feeling completely unharmed and full of energy.

"Thank you," I said, giving a gentle tug on the sword. Excalibur easily came out of the ground for me and fit perfectly in my hand. The blade continued to glow, filled with the power that had just saved my life.

The creature roared and charged at me again. This time though I was armed. I swung Excalibur at my attacker, hoping that I could do some damage. But the moment the blade even touched it, the creature began to break apart and vanish. I just stood there, staring at Excalibur in amazement.

Marcus howled with rage and unleashed another of his spells. This time a massive burst of ball lighting came flying straight at me. I instinctively tried holding the sword up to block with it, and to my amazement, the lightning exploded right before it hit. I was completely unharmed, and just as stunned by this as Marcus.

For a moment Marcus and I stood there, both of us realizing that the advantage in our duel had suddenly shifted to me. I saw the look of terror in his eyes, as well as the look of determined fury. I might now have him outmatched with Excalibur, but he was obviously not about to give up.

Just then as if by some strange irony, the magic shield Marcus had created around the dueling circle finally collapsed. Master Tonkas shouted, "The barrier is down," before rushing in. Amylia came rushing into the circle ahead of her fellow sorcery instructor and unleashed a spell of her own, causing golden metal chains to suddenly form around Marcus, holding him in place. He screamed and struggled, though it did no good. "Cease your struggle," Master Tonkas ordered, "it will do no good."

At this point the whole crowd seemed to be rushing in for a better look of what was happening. But then Morgana came and nearly everyone else suddenly backed off, especially when she silently glared at them. About the only ones besides the instructors who weren't intimidated by her were my friends, and they all came straight to me.

"Are you all right Galen?" Daria demanded as she appeared by my side, appearing extremely worried and relieved at the same time.

"Gayle," Kaitlen exclaimed, grabbing hold of me, looking where I'd been wounded and sighing in relief as she saw that my injuries had indeed healed. "Thank God."

My friends all tried to talk at once, congratulating me, trying to make sure I was all right and asking all sorts of questions. I couldn't t make sense of it all. But then Morgana stepped closer and they all suddenly went silent and stepped back. Morgana stared at me for a moment with a strange expression that seemed to be mostly relief. Then she put a hand on my shoulder and said, "I am very proud of you my dear."

"Thanks," I whispered, half afraid that she'd go off on me for letting Excalibur get stolen in the first place. But she didn't say anything about that as she turned to glare at Marcus with a dark expression that made him gulp in terror.

"You tried to murder Galen," Morgana told him with a cold, grim voice, "just because I am her sponsor."

Marcus looked like he was going to faint, though that could have been because of his severe scalding. "You can't get me to join you," he told her defiantly.

Morgana scowled, "Why would I ever want someone like you to join me?" She held her staff in a threatening manner, making me think that she was about to unleash a spell on him. Marcus obviously thought so too from the look on his face. But instead of doing that, Morgana sharply turned away and went to Geiron, whispering something in his ear.

Geiron suddenly glared at Marcus with a look of intense fury. He'd been pissed at him before, but now he seemed even more so. He stood up and loudly exclaimed, "I AM MERLIN THE SECOND!" Everyone went silent and stared at him. Geiron stood there with an arrogant expression, one that gave me an idea where Marcus had gotten his. "IT HAS JUST COME TO MY ATTENTION THAT THIS LADY," he pointed at me, "IS THE DIRECT DECENDENT OF THE LADY OF THE LAKE!"

Suddenly the whole crowd exploded into noise again. Everyone was staring at me with looks of awe and disbelief. Marcus glared at me, spitting, "Liar!"

Geiron snapped around to glare at his student as he yelled, a little quieter than before, "She is also the rightful guardian of Excalibur." He scowled, "You stole Excalibur from its rightful guardian and then tried to kill her. This can NOT be tolerated!"

Marcus gasped, "It's a lie... You know who her mistress is..."

But Geiron shook his head, "No, this is the truth. The truth is that you tried to murder another student. You have dishonored me."

"But," Marcus winced.

"No," Geiron shook his head, turning to look at Amylia and Master Tonkas, "I withdraw my sponsorship of this student."

Marcus looked horrified at this. "You can't... I was just trying to save the Academy..." Geiron sadly shook his head, then quietly turned and walked out of the dueling circle. He didn't even spare a glance back at Marcus as he vanished into the crowd.

"Now," Master Tonkas said, glaring at Marcus, "you are in serious trouble young man. Sabotaging the safety measures, attempting to kill another student..."

"It would also appear that he was behind the previous attack on Shierman," Amylia added, gesturing to me, "as well as the theft of a powerful talisman." From the looks that they both gave Marcus, there was no doubt that he was in serious trouble.

"You don't understand," Marcus winced, "I just did what needed to be done..."

"Quiet!" Master Tonkas snapped. "As it is, I am very tempted not to bother getting you any medical care for your injuries." He shook his head, took a deep breath and only then exclaimed, "First you're going to the infirmary, and then... You don't want to know."

As they hauled Marcus off to the infirmary, he turned to glare at me, giving me a look of absolute hatred. It was the kind of hatred that would never die. At that moment I suddenly knew without any doubt that I now had an enemy for life. One who would do anything to destroy me. I shuddered slightly at the thought but met his stare and refused to look away until he was pulled out of range.

"Thank God that's over," Newt exclaimed, "now maybe we can get some peace."

"You need to sit back and relax," Kaitlen told me, clutching at my arm possessively. "Come on...I'll give you a nice massage." She winked at me, letting me know that I could probably expect more than just a massage once we were alone.

"I'm really proud of you," Daria said, looking a little self-conscious as she said it. She smiled, then threw her arms around me in a surprise hug. "God, it's weird having a little sister..."

"It's probably weirder being one," I pointed out with a grin.

I looked around at my friends, then saw Morgana standing a short distance away. She nodded at me, looking extremely pleased as she turned and followed after Geiron, apparently satisfied that everything was under control. Everyone parted in front of her, so I could follow her progress by watching the sea of students part.

After a moment I looked down at Excalibur, which was no longer glowing, much to my relief. I shifted my grip again, then slowly started to make my own way through the crowd, which parted before me almost as well as they did for Morgana. But where they parted for her out of fear, there was an air of respect for me.

"You've kicked his ass and all," Misha commented, "so what are you going to do now?"

For a brief instant I thought about telling her that I wanted to go to Disneyland. But the truth was, I was a bit wiped out from the whole duel. I shook my head. "I'm going to put this thing somewhere safe," I held up Excalibur, "then I'm going to get some rest." Then I grinned at Kaitlen, silently adding that this included the 'massage' she'd promised me. I could hardly wait.

A half dozen books were opened and scattered around me, along with more than a dozen pages of detailed notes and drawings. I carefully looked my notes over, checking, double checking and even triple checking them all until I was absolutely certain that they were accurate. It had taken me several days of intense work to get this far, but I was finally satisfied that I had it right.

"I think it's ready," I told Morgana who had been watching from a short distance.

Morgana didn't say a word as she slowly came over and looked over my work. She carefully examined every page for the next five minutes, occasionally pausing to make small changes or notations. Then she finally finished and nodded her head, "Very good. Quite impressive in fact. Taking two distinct spell patterns and combining them to create a new spell is quite advanced for someone with your experience. You are well on your way to becoming a first class sorceress."

"Thanks," I blushed with pride, then grabbed my breasts and joked, "Still I think I'd rather be a first class sorcerer."

Morgana looked at me with a raised eyebrow and asked, "Is there something wrong with being female?"

"No, not at all," I quickly backtracked, "I mean...I've been a girl so much that I've gotten pretty used to it. I guess I'm even pretty comfortable like this now. But," I tapped my head, "up here I'm still a guy."

For a moment Morgana just looked at me, then she chuckled, "I understand. Still it is very fortunate for you that you are getting so comfortable with your new gender."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"You can draw a great deal of magic and are becoming a powerful sorceress," Morgana responded slowly. "This means that you have the potential to live a VERY long time. But slowing down your aging requires the use of powerful and permanent magics upon yourself."

"Okay," I responded slowly, impressed by the thought of being virtually immortal, but still not getting her point.

Morgana sighed, "This would almost certainly cause a reaction from your sorcerers mark. You could live for centuries, but you would most likely do so as a woman."

"What?" I gasped in surprise.

But Morgana just smiled at that. "You still have years before you have to make the decision, and by then you might very well decide that you'd prefer staying female full time."

Somehow I doubted that, though I didn't say so. Instead I changed the subject back to the spell I'd been working on. "I think I need to test this out." I gestured to the pile of notes.

The new spell took me a full half hour to cast, and to my intense disappointment I'd done something wrong so the whole thing fell apart. I started over again, this time completing the spell in just a little less time, though the results weren't any more impressive. It took me two more times before I was able to cast accurately, and then I had to cast it one more time in order to save it in a token.

"Very good," Morgana nodded with a pleased look. "You are improving more every day." Then she put a hand on my shoulder, "But I think that this is more than enough for today. You should go and rest now. I'll be back in a few days and we can continue with modifying spell patterns then."

Once Morgana had left I looked around the study and pulled out several blank tokens that I'd been working on. I'd put quite a bit of effort into painting the spell cards and they were some of the best work that I'd ever done. They were each originals as well, not computer printed copies like I'd been doing with most of my tokens. The only things missing with these ones were the spells themselves, and I was just about to rectify that.

It took me more than half an hour to cast the spells that I needed, but it was well worth it. I smiled at my newly created tokens, feeling rather proud as I carefully put them away. I had special plans for these ones.

I locked up my study and left the hall of sorcerers a short while later, letting out a long sigh of relief. I was more than thankful to be done for the day. I'd even caught up on all of the reading I needed to do so there was nothing like that for me to worry about until class in the morning.

As I walked across the courtyard I couldn't help but noticing several students who were staring at me with expressions of awe and reverence. It was kind of creepy, but I'd been getting a lot of that since my duel with Marcus last week. Ever since it had come out that I was not only the decendent of the Lady of the Lake, but also the guardian of Excalibur, I had suddenly become extremely popular around the Academy. The fact that people loved me just because of who my ancestor was seemed no less disturbing than the very same people hating me because of my sponsor.

"At least Daria's enjoying the popularity," I sighed, thinking about how much she was milking the whole 'decendent of the Lady of the Lake' thing. It was actually kind of funny. Or at least it would have been if I hadn't been receiving even more attention from it.

Of course a large part of my new popularity might also have come from the fact that I'd done so well against Marcus in the duel. I'd gone into it as the underdog but had done well enough to earn some serious respect. It was nice to realize that at least some of the respect people were showing me was earned.

But a moment later I was reminded that not everyone at the Academy liked me. I saw Egan and his friends on the other side of the courtyard, standing there and glaring at me. As soon as they realized that I'd seen them, they turned and hurried off. I'd been getting a lot of glares and such from that bunch, though fortunately, they showed no signs of actually doing anything about their grudge. At the moment they were satisfied just to glare at me and mutter insults from the side. However I had a feeling that this wouldn't last forever.

Then my thoughts suddenly turned to Marcus and I scowled. I wasn't sure of all that happened to him, but I knew that he'd been brought in front of a tribunal headed by Professor Roangard. I'd been called in as a witness, to describe everything that he had done to me. However I hadn't been allowed to stay for the full tribunal, nor had anyone else who wasn't a part of it. All I knew was that by the time it was over, Marcus had been completely expelled from the Academy and banned from ever returning under any circumstances. This punishment was especially noteworthy in that he was the first person to be expelled like this in nearly thirty years.

I shuddered as I remembered the last time I saw Marcus two days ago. The'd hauled him to the hall of doors, handcuffed and guarded by several sorcerers. I'd been allowed to witness his expulsion since I was the victim of his crimes. Most of his skin had been healed from the scalding burns, but it still didn't look quite right. It had an almost shiny look to it. But worse than that was the look of utter hatred in his eyes, as if he lived for no other reason than to see me destroyed.

"This isn't finished," Marcus had hissed at me, "I will get you..."

Those were the last words that he'd spoken before being led through the magic doorway. What scared me the most about this scene was the complete and utter certainty that he would make due on his threats. Somewhere, he was out there, hating me with nearly every fiber of his being and just waiting for the opportunity to get revenge. That more than anything else inspired me to work even harder at learning sorcery. Whenever he finally made his move, I wanted to be ready.

"Don't worry about him," I ordered myself, "he can't do anything right now...and maybe not for a LONG time to come."

After all I reminded myself not only had Marcus been expelled from the Academy, but wards placed on all of the doorways insured that he would never be able to pass through any of them again. It was physically impossible for him to come to the Academy through the doorways. And since the exact physical location of the island was a secret, I doubted that I'd have much to worry about him deciding to come here by boat either.

I shook my head and pushed all concerns about Marcus Tamright out of it for the moment. I had much more interesting and more immediate things to think about. With that I glanced at the small box that contained my latest spell cards and hurried on my way.

A few minutes later I joined my friends in one of the dorm common rooms that we'd commandeered. Newt had gotten his hands on a copy of the latest blockbuster movie to come out on DVD, so we'd arranged to watch it together in style. Even Daria had come to join us, bringing the popcorn along with her. Misha had taken care of the drinks, while Kaitlen ensured we had the big TV and DVD player to ourselves. Fortunately all I had to do was make sure I was there on time, and I was only barely able to take care of that.

"Glad you could make it," Kaitlen grinned at me as I sat down beside her and gave her a kiss.

"Guess what," I smirked as I looked at my friends, "I've brought presents."

"Presents?" Kaitlen repeated with a gleam in her eyes that made me wonder if she was expecting jewelry.

I opened the box my cards where in and pulled them out, "Ta da..."

"More of your cards?" Misha asked, not looking all that impressed.

"Ah," I grinned, "these ones are different. I custom made these ones for you guys."

With that I held out a card so that they could all see the picture of Daria, standing on a body of water with a large ball of water held in her hands. The art was some of the best and most detailed that I'd ever done. And to her surprise I handed it to her.

"I made these tokens so that you guys could use them," I explained to Daria, "just hold it up and say invoke, and it releases the spell. Just a heads up though, it can only be used once."

"Very cool picture," Daria admitted as she stared at the front of the card. "But what does it do?"

"Well," I paused dramatically, "basically I just used the pattern for your own special ability, then boosted it with a lot more magic."

At Daria's blank expression, Kaitlen quickly explained, "Basically she's saying that it has your own ability in it, but with a hell of a lot more power."

"Yeah," I admitted, a little annoyed at Kaitlen for interrupting my demonstration, "it's a supercharged version of your own power. With this baby you could probably make a whole Olympic sized swimming pool act completely solid for a minute or so."

Daria stared at the card for a moment, then grinned. "Very cool. Thanks."

After this I handed similar cards to Newt and Misha, each one with amplified versions of their own special abilities. "It's just my way of thanking you for all the help against Marcus," I told them. Then I handed a card to Kaitlen. "I didn't bother making a token out of it, since it would be pointless for you, but I did paint your picture..."

"Wicked," Kaitlen grinned.

"Man," Newt exclaimed, holding up his card, "I loved the way you used my power on that bastard Marcus. I NEVER would have thought of using it like that... I mean, stopping a sorcerer dead like that..." He shook his head, looking rather smug.

"It was a pretty wicked trick," Kaitlen agreed, "but ever since then a lot of guys have been making tokens that don't use verbal triggers."

"I couldn't have done it without you," I grinned at Newt, "without any of you." Then I reached into the box and pulled out four more cards, each one with a picture of me holding a pot of boiling water. "So I made these tokens for you too. These ones all have my ability in them."

"Great," Daria teased, "now I can boil water without having to use a stove..."

"Hey," I protested, "being able to boil water saved my ass a couple times."

Daria paused, the pale look on her face indicating that she remembered what my 'useless' little talent had done to Marcus. "Oh yeah," she muttered, looking down at the card I gave her with a look of wary respect.

"That was fucking nasty," Misha exclaimed, shuddering visibly.

"If you started carrying around a squirt gun," Newt pointed out, "you'd really be dangerous."

"Actually," I told him, "I've been thinking about something like that. I've already got a spell to shoot a blast of water at people, and if I combined that with my own ability..." I paused for dramatic effect. "Basically, it would be like shooting a boiling geyser at people."

"OUCH!" Daria winced. "That would hurt."

Everyone laughed at that and we turned our attention to the movie, at least for a few minutes. Then Newt started taking ice cubes out of his drink and tossing them at people. This worked fine the first two times, until he hit Daria. She just smirked, reached into her glass of water and pulled out a ball of water, which she threw at him, leaving the whole front of his shirt soaked. After this everyone behaved a little better...at least until the popcorn fight started.

We watched two movies, and to my relief, I changed back to a guy shortly before the second one was over. I had gotten so used to being a girl that most of the time I barely even noticed which gender I was anymore. Tonight however, I had plans for after the movies that would work out a whole lot better for me as a guy.

Once the movies were finally over, everyone said goodnight and went their separate ways. Kaitlen and I ended up in my room where our clothes nearly flew off as we began making out. We had a long session of heavy petting, though we didn't take it any further. A part of me wanted to go to the next level, but neither of us was ready for that. Still it was a great way to spend the time with her.

Kaitlen eventually left to return to her own dorm room, which disappointed me and relieved me at the same time. I wanted her to stay longer, but I had something important to do that I couldn't take care of with her around. I waited for another half hour after her departure then began to get ready.

"This should do it," I mused once I was dressed again. Then I reached for the spell cards I would need, especially the one I had created today with Morgan's help. "Now there's only one more thing."

I stood on my bed and carefully retrieved the invisible sword that was attached to my ceiling. Excalibur immediately became visible in my hand and I just stood there for a moment admiring it. Finally, I climbed off my bed, taking a look around my room. I'd done the best I could at guarding it here, using a variety of spells. But as the incident with Marcus had shown, that just wasn't secure enough. That's why I'd been spent a lot of time over the last week working out a new way of protecting Excalibur.

A minute later, I had Excalibur wrapped up in cloth so that it would be less noticeable. Then I slipped from my room and out of the dorm building, doing my best to avoid being seen as I hurried towards the lake. Fortunately there weren't many people who would be out at night, but since the there had been a full moon just a couple nights ago, there was just a little too much light for my comfort.

I made my way all the way to the lake and then walked halfway around without seeing anyone else, much to my relief. Still I stood there for a minute, feeling paranoid as I looked for any sign of another person. Once I felt more confident that I was alone, I decided to use the next step in my security. I pulled out one of my tokens and activated it, transforming myself into a girl and releasing a heavy layer of Morgana's mist that would blanket half the lake. Anyone who saw the mist would probably just assume it was normal fog.

"Now for the next step," I muttered, drawing my next card.

I stared at the card in my hand with a proud smile. It had a picture of my mom on one side with a bowl in her hand, Daria on the other with a ball of water, and in the background there was a picture of Moses parting the red sea. Of course the picture might be a little too obvious so I'd have to keep it more vague on the next one. This was my prize spell, a carefully created combination of my mom's pattern and Daria's. It took my mom's ability to control water and Daria's ability to make it act solid and combined them, creating a new effect.

As soon as I activated the spell the card crumbled to dust in my hand and the water of the lake began to shimmer and move. I stared in awe as the water began to part in front of me, moving to the sides and creating a dry path along the lake bottom that stretched out for a hundred yards.

"So this is what Moses felt like," I exclaimed as I took my hesitant first step.

I felt more than a little nervous as I started walking along the dry lake bottom towards the center of the lake, especially as I got deeper and the water went over my head. I gulped as I stared a the walls of water on both sides of me, fighting back the urge to touch them and see what they felt like. Would they be hard like ice, or maybe more like jello? And then there was the fear that the water would suddenly rush back in at any moment, completely flooding my dry path and quite possibly drowning me.

"Just get this done and get out of here," I told myself, moving just a little faster.

When I had gone about a hundred yards towards the center of the lake, the path of water came to an end. There was a rough wall of water just a short distance ahead of me, so I wouldn't be going any further. But that was perfectly fine as this was the perfect spot. A large rock, or more accurately, a small boulder stuck out of the water on one side. It was almost like a table or alter, just sitting there.

"This should do," I grinned.

I quickly pulled Excalibur from the cloth I'd wrapped it in and stood there, staring at it and admiring its perfection. Then I took a deep breath and suddenly drove the blade into the boulder. It went in easily, as the rock were made out of mud instead of stone. Once I'd pushed the blade halfway in, I stepped back and admired my handiwork.

"Let's see anyone else try getting it now," I smirked to myself, feeling rather proud of my cleverness.

Since I would leave the sword underwater and embedded in a rock, in a location that no one else knew, there was no doubt that it would be MUCH safer than in my room. And I didn't even have to worry that Excalibur would rust from being left there since it had been kept safe in a very similar manner once before. In fact it was the story of my ancestor, the Lady of the Lake which had inspired me to hide the Excalibur this way.

"Of course," I mused to myself, "her talent was to breath under water, so this would be a hell of a lot easier for her."

For a moment I just stood there, admiring the sight of the sword being embedded in the stone, surrounded by all that water. Then I remembered that the spell wouldn't last for too much longer and turned to hurry back to shore. However I had barely covered any of the distance when water started leaking from the walls, running down the sides and into the 'dry' path. The walls of water were jiggling and melting, so they certainly collapse in moments. There was no way I could get back to shore in time.

"Damn," I exclaimed, glancing down at the water that was now up to my ankles. In just a few seconds it would probably be over my head.

I knew that I could probably swim to shore, though I quickly realized that with all this water rushing in, it would probably push me down and drown me. And since I didn't have another copy of the water parting spell, I couldn't very well use it to keep the path open. Fortunately I had another option available just in case something like this and quickly pulled out the two spell cards that I'd need.

The first spell created a bubble of air around me, which slowly levitated me up into the air. I'd released this just in time because the walls of water broke and flooded back into the path, washing over the bubble for a moment before I was raised out of harms way. A moment later the bubble was floating on the surface of the lake so it was time to use my second card. This one was a copy of the card I had given Daria, with a picture of her standing on a body of water and holding a ball of water in her hands. As soon as I released the spell based off of her special ability, I stepped out of the bubble and onto the surface of the lake, which supported me as though it were solid ground.

"Weird," I muttered as I looked down at my feet and the water beneath them. I felt a surge of fear and couldn't help thinking that I would fall in at any moment. Fortunately the water continued to hold me so I started walking back towards the shore. "So this is what Daria feels like when she does this..."

I reached shore again just a couple minutes later and the spell automatically broke the instant I touched dry ground. I let out a sigh of relief, glad to have made it. "Next time," I muttered, "I'll have to make the water parting spell a lot stronger." I'd need it strong enough so that I could at least get to Excalibur and back. Then I looked down at my wet feet and scowled. Of course having soaking wet shoes was a hell of a lot better than having my entire body being soaked, but that didn't make me feel a whole lot better as I considered the walk back to my room.

After a minute I turned my attention back to the lake and stared across the surface, finding it hard to believe that it concealed one of the most powerful and famous talismans in history. But Excalibur was safe and in a location only I knew. This small lake would not only be the perfect hiding place, but a very appropriate one too. I could retrieve Excalibur if I needed it for any reason, though I hoped it would say where it was, safe, sound and hidden for the rest of my time at the Academy.

I frowned slightly as I considered just how much time I had left at the Academy before I graduated and what might happen in that time. So much had happened to me already in just the short time I'd been here. I'd become a part time girl, a sorceress and the guardian of a legendary sword. I had made some good friends, gained a girlfriend and surprisingly enough, even started getting along with Daria. And of course, I'd made a mortal enemy and discovered I was descended from the Lady of the Lake and related to Morgana LeFay as well. If all that could happen in just a few months, who knew what could happen in the years ahead.

"Well," I muttered, "I guess I can't say the Academy is boring."

Finally I shook my head then turned and started back to the dorm. I would have liked to just stand out there, watching the moon being reflected off the lake and thinking about what was hidden under it, but it was late and I had a class to get to in the morning. I sighed, wishing that I could just skip class and sleep in, but I had a feeling that I was going to need it.

I had no doubt that with Marcus still being out there and with the responsibility of guarding Excalibur resting in my hands, I would need all the training I could possibly get. I had no idea what the future would hold, though I wanted to be prepared. With that in mind, I took one more glance back towards the lake, grimacing in determination and silently swearing that I would become the best sorcerer...or sorceress that I could. Whatever the future held, I was going to be ready.