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  Penelope’s skin was very pale, but not in a sickly kind of way. I could see why many of the school’s Magics said she looked like an angel. Her white-blonde hair, round face, and tiny frame gave her an air of innocence, which only served to confirm the kind soul that lay beneath. She had wire-rimmed glasses and a severe pony tail that made her look the part of one of the BSMU’s top students.

  She tilted her head back to give me a challenging stare. Penelope and I had been competing for the valedictorian spot for the Class of 2070 since I started at the school three years ago. Our rivalry was a fierce but friendly one. We’d traded the Number 1 spot back and forth so many times the Dean officially declared us co-valedictorians.

  We’d loudly condemned the decision, but we were both not-so-secretly pleased about it. It was an honor we both deserved.

  “How’s it feel to be second-best, Graysen?” Penelope asked me.

  I shrugged and tried to keep a serious look on my face. “I wouldn’t know. I turned in the extra credit for Laney’s class yesterday.” I raised my eyebrows at Penelope as I tapped my chest. “You’re looking at the guy with a solid 4.0 GPA, which if I’m not mistaken, puts us exactly even.”

  “Nuh-uh!” Penelope stomped her foot on the ground as she tried to keep a straight face.

  I gave her a sympathetic look. “Listen, if it took me all five years to graduate, I might be getting a little stale, too.”

  Our audience oohed.

  “Burn,” one of Penelope’s friends said, but she was giving me a thumb’s-up.

  Graduating from the BSMU took five years for normal students—and many stayed for six or seven to earn enough credits. It was the most competitive college in the country, even though everyone across the river still liked to pretend Harvard was the best. I was about to be the youngest graduate in the history of the BSMU, and the first to graduate in three years instead of the usual five.

  “Maybe if you weren’t so lazy and had three majors like me, it would’ve taken you the usual amount of time, too,” Penelope retorted.

  Our friends hooted with laughter.

  I glared at Penelope. She stuck out her tongue. That was as long as we could keep up our pretense at anger, and we both laughed.

  The BSMU was founded thirty years ago when Magics first revealed their existence to the world, but until recently, the BSMU had separate facilities and programs of study for Naturals and Magics. They even had two separate campuses. Five years ago, the BSMU had taken the belated step of combining the two schools into one. This year, the class of 2070, was the first when Magics and Naturals would graduate together in the same ceremony. It was a change that spoke both to how far the city of Boston had come, and how far it had yet to go.

  “Hey, Galder, you going to remember any of us once you’re a big honcho at the Alliance?” one of the football players in the class asked.

  “Maybe.” I grinned and gave him a little shrug, enjoying the audience we’d attracted. “Guess it depends on whether you’re buying drinks for everyone to celebrate the end of exams.”

  Appreciative hollers came from our audience.

  “Sit down, Mr. Galder,” Professor Brodis grumbled as he strode into the exam room and slammed his I’m a professor, not a magician coffee mug down on the desk.

  He straightened the already-straight stack of test booklets before scowling at me. “Honestly. You aren’t the Director yet.”

  “Sorry, Professor,” I said, but I was still grinning as we all dispersed to take our seats.

  There were sighs of resignation as everyone put away their textbooks and index cards. Foil crinkled as the last of breakfast sandwiches disappeared. The dregs of coffee were slurped. There was the rhythmic rustle of paper as Professor Brodis handed out the exams.

  I turned around in my seat to get one more dig in at Penelope.

  4.0, I mouthed.

  Don’t mess up, she mouthed back.

  Still smirking, I opened my test book. I scanned the questions, reassuring myself I had studied the right material. Rolling my shoulders, I clicked my pen, and began to write.

  The exam moved chronologically, beginning thirty years ago when Magics first revealed themselves to the world. I wrote about the killings that had broken out world-wide, known generally as the Slaughters, as Naturals and Magics clashed. Many Naturals, non-magical people, were threatened by the revelation that there had been people with magical abilities living among the rest of the population for centuries. Additionally, many Naturals felt cheated because Magics had been able to use their abilities to gain unfair advantages.

  What began as isolated pockets of violence soon escalated to what was on its way to becoming an eradication of Magics. Naturals far outnumbered Magics, but the combination of modern weapons and magical abilities had devastated the entirety of the world’s population.

  The after-effects of the Slaughters were still being felt in many parts of the world. While the United States had mostly recovered, the US Government had lost control of the country’s major cities, which were now governed by pockets of powerful Magics or Naturals. As a result, most of our major cities still hovered on the edge of violence. Only Boston was different.

  The Alliance started out in Boston as a small group of Naturals and Magics who believed it was possible to live and work together in unity.

  Because of the Alliance, Boston quickly became a kind of sanctuary for Naturals and Magics who wished to co-exist rather than fight against each other. The laws passed by the Alliance and implemented city-wide were beginning to spread to the rest of the country. The result was a slow but sure movement toward ending the barbarism of the past decades.

  I put down my pen and stretched my wrist as I perused the next section of the exam, which asked specific questions about the Alliance’s Report of Laws for Naturals and Magics. This was the section of the test that had kept most of my classmates up the entire night, but I wasn’t worried. I’d been studying for it basically since high school, when I first decided I wanted to work in the Magical Law branch of the Alliance. There was a 5,771-page report on all of the laws that were written to protect the harmonious co-existence of Naturals and Magics. I was probably one of the few people who had actually read the report in its entirety. I knew the document’s contents well enough that I could even quote particularly relevant sections.

  What could I say? Magical law was fascinating. Seriously.

  The entirety of the Alliance’s Report of Laws only applied to the citizens of Boston; however, there were three essential laws that every American was required to uphold, regardless of which city’s jurisdiction they fell under. They were called the high laws, and there was a zero-tolerance policy for breaking any one of them. Being convicted of a high crime carried the sentence of death.

  If you got caught.

  The first high law forbade magically-motivated murders. It had been the most effective means of bringing the bloody Slaughters to an end. Any murder that was found to be motivated by magical prejudice carried the automatic penalty of death.

  The second high law required every Magic to be Marked. The law was written into being for the simple fact that Magics could recognize their own kind on sight, and thus, could identify Naturals. Naturals had no such inherent ability.

  There was no visible means of identifying a Magic, which was why Magics had managed to stay hidden for so many centuries. There was a great deal of resentment among the Natural population about how many of history’s unsolved crimes were committed by Magics who had used their abilities to subvert the justice system.

  This sense of inequality and unfairness had prompted Naturals to begin the Slaughters. The only way to end the violence had been to give people a sense that they were on a level playing field. Thus, every governing body in the US started requiring hospitals to implant trackers into all Magic newborns. The information from the trackers was kept on secure databases and was only accessible to the police and high-level government officials.

  At the age of eightee
n, all Magics were required to take the Magical Proficiency & Aptitude Test, usually just referred to as the Test, to identify the strength of their abilities. Their magical level, which was scored from 1-10, with ten being the most powerful Magic, was recorded and kept in secure files in the Magical Marking Office.

  I had written my final thesis about Marking, and how it suppressed Magic freedoms and slowed the progression of peace between Naturals and Magics. I’d even won an award for the paper. Still, I understood the logic behind the policy, which was the only way to ease the fears of Naturals who felt powerless compared to Magics.

  Any Magic who tried to duck the Test or removed their tracker was guilty of breaking the second high law. Any Natural who had knowledge of such a Magic and didn’t report him or her was in breach of the same law.

  The third high law forbade relationships of a romantic or sexual nature between Naturals and Magics. Collaboration and peace between Naturals and Magics was applauded. Friendships were tolerated. Anything more was unthinkable.

  The reasoning behind this law was drummed into every child’s head as early as kindergarten. All children born to a couple that was made up of a Natural and a Magic had a genetic malfunction—a deadly bacterium that lived in every Magic but was only activated if the genes were combined with a Natural.

  After Magics revealed themselves to the world, Natural scientists learned that Magics had 25 pairs of chromosomes, while Natural humans only had 23. The two additional chromosomes, named Chromosome 24 and Chromosome M, resulted in magical abilities. When combined with the genetics of a Natural, the dormant bacterium produced a deadly growth in the child’s lungs in one-hundred percent of cases. The bacteria spread through the air and bodily fluids, causing an agonizing death for both the host and any all-Natural or all-Magic infants it encountered.

  The genetic mutation was dubbed the Deadly Acriobacterial from Magic and Natural Descendants. Most people just called them DAMND babies. The disease was also referred to as the “Baby Killer Syndrome,” because the bacterium was deadly to all normal infants. It also killed the elderly and any member of the population who was immune-deficient.

  Magics were aware of the dangers of reproducing with Naturals and had implemented their own version of the third high law centuries ago. Even with as strict as the law was, just about everyone knew someone who had lost a relative at some point in their lineage because of a DAMND baby.

  As a kid, my dreams had been haunted by the pictures in my science textbook of the deranged, grotesque-looking DAMND babies that seemed more alien than human. There was a famous case about a Natural and Magic couple in Missouri who had a baby shortly after Magics revealed themselves to the world. There was a graveyard of hundreds of tombstones, all of them babies and elderly. It had become a tourist attraction for some, and a warning to all about the reason for the third high law’s inception.

  The penalty of execution, which was carried out promptly for any violator of the high laws, was enough of a deterrent for most people. But no one wanted the brand of being a baby killer.

  A nauseous sensation tugged at my insides that had nothing to do with the body odor of the football player sitting next to me.

  I’d broken exactly two laws in my entire life. Both of them were high crimes. It was a part of my life I was desperate to forget.

  The testing room was quiet except for the sound of pens scratching on paper. My pen jerked when a scream tore through the room. A chill raced down my spine at the piercing, tormented sound.

  I whipped around in my seat and saw that the scream had come from Penelope. She was sitting rigid in her seat, and her blue eyes had rolled back in her head. Her pale skin was white as a ghost.

  “Rough time for a vision,” body odor football player said to me in a low voice.

  As the most powerful Clairvoyant in the school, it wasn’t unusual for Penelope to have a vision somewhere public. I’d seen her do it on a number of occasions. But this time was different. Usually, her face remained blank and she spoke the words of her vision in a monotone. This time, her terror filled the room like it was some living thing.

  “No, please,” she moaned. “Please don’t kill me.”

  I felt the whole room come alert at that.

  I exchanged a look with the football player.

  “Crazy bunch,” he whispered.

  I didn’t disagree. Clairvoyants were…odd. Penelope was the most normal one I’d ever met, but there must have been something about seeing all those possible futures that messed with their heads.

  Penelope screamed again.

  “Leave me alone,” she cried. “Please, please don’t kill me. I’ll—”

  Her words cut off. She made a gurgling sound, like she was choking. It raised the hairs on my arms.

  Normally, it was frowned on to interrupt a Clairvoyant when she was having a vision. But it was clear this was no ordinary vision. Penelope’s friends crowded around her, putting hands on her back and trying to offer her silent comfort. She didn’t seem to notice any of them as she let out another choked scream.

  Even with her eyes glazed-over and unseeing, she looked terrified. Her face was screwed up in horror. I could see the tension in every muscle in her body. She sat ramrod straight, and her hands had gone bloodless from gripping the sides of her desk.

  “No.” She jerked in her chair like she was ducking a blow. “No, no, no!”

  Professor Brodis strode up the aisle and hovered next to Penelope’s seat. He gave her arm an awkward pat, even though it was obvious Penelope had no awareness of anything outside of her vision.

  “Please!”

  She was sobbing even as she continued to make that horrible gagging sound, like she was choking on her own blood.

  Someone needs to wake her up, I thought desperately. No one deserved to feel afraid like this, especially not Penelope. I was half out of my seat, ready to do…something…to help her, when Professor Brodis spoke.

  “Who’s trying to kill you?” he asked in a low voice.

  Penelope’s eyes swiveled forward at that moment. I’d never seen so much terror on a person’s face. It filled me with an icy cold.

  “Who’s trying to kill you?” the professor asked again.

  Penelope’s hand trembled as she raised it to point a finger. I froze, still halfway out of my seat, as I stared at her shaking finger. Her voice was hoarse with fear, but there was no mistaking her words when she spoke.

  “Graysen Galder.”

  CHAPTER 3

  After she fully came out of her trance, Penelope apologized to me. She told me what I already knew—that divinations were tricky and her visions were often incomplete.

  She gave me a shaky laugh, saying she knew I wasn’t a murderer and that I should forget it.

  I told her not to worry about it and made some joke about her trying to rattle me during the exam. We’d exchanged weak smiles before turning in our finals and parting ways.

  As I cut across campus, I couldn’t get the sound of her screams out of my head. I saw her terrified expression as she pointed her shaking finger at me and called out my name. The whole thing was just creepy.

  By the time I finished a workout that had my joints shrieking in protest, I had mostly forgotten about the vision. I went back to my dorm and put some work into my valedictorian speech.

  I’d been using every spare minute I had for the last two weeks to draft my speech. I kept a pen and pad of paper next to my bed for when I woke up in the middle of the night with an idea about something else I wanted to say.

  As much as I was agonizing over the writing of the speech, I knew that when it came time to actually give it in front of the BSMU’s 4,000 students and their families, I’d be in my element.

  Maybe it was the public speaking experience I’d gotten on my middle school’s debate team. Maybe it was all the speeches I’d already given as class president. Whatever the reason, I always got the opposite of stage fright. The bigger the crowd the better, as far as I was concerned.


  I’m proud to be a Bostonian, I typed. We’ve got the best model for peace and unity that’s out there. But we still have a long way to go, and the changes we need aren’t going to come from the actions of a few….

  I checked the time and closed my laptop. I showered, made a mental reminder about getting a haircut before graduation, and put on my suit. I was knotting my tie when my door opened and Adam strolled in.

  “Well, aren’t you looking like the BSMU posterchild I know and resent.”

  I threw him a quick grin.

  “What time’s the party?”

  “Six, but Penelope and I are supposed to be there early. Pictures with Director Remwald and some other Alliance people.”

  “The Director’s gonna be there?!” Adam did a dramatic flop onto my bed.

  “Want me to get him to autograph something for you?” I asked. “Pair of your boxers, maybe?”

  Adam scowled. “You’re a lucky bastard.”

  I didn’t disagree. Edwardian Remwald was the third director of the Alliance, and he’d recently taken over when the previous director retired. Not much was known about his early years, but I had read that Remwald came from a family of modest means and had worked his way up in the Alliance through his bold policies and dedication to the cause. He was outgoing and more politician-like than the previous director. Like all his predecessors, Edwardian Remwald was a Natural. Unlike his predecessors, he was liked by both Naturals and Magics, which in and of itself seemed like its own breed of magic.

  I had seen the Director from across the room a few times during my summer internship at the Alliance. Tonight, I’d actually get a chance to talk with him.

  The Dean was throwing a private party to celebrate the joining of the Natural and Magic campuses into a single unit for the Class of 2070. Since the BSMU was the most prestigious university in the country, a lot of important people from the Alliance would be in attendance.

  “You going stag again?” Adam asked, sprawling out on my bed.