"So here's where they live." The gray-haired man in the navy blue coat looked around, taking in the small, peaceful street. "Nice little place. Might just go buy myself a house here when I retire."
His companion, a tall, looming figure in all black and sunglasses, gave a snort and stuck his hands into his pockets. "You say that like you're planning to retire."
"That's the joke, Nero, that's the joke." The older man smirked at his companion's humorless face. "Now would you mind staying here while I talk to the girl? Kid might have a heart attack if she sees you, and we don't have Bonnie or Hecate with us today. Healing's not my specialty."
Nero frowned. "I still think it's a bad idea to talk to her in the first place."
"Why?"
"It's illegal to talk to an exile. We are supposed to treat them like they don't exist."
"But I'm not talking to an exile. That would be the girl's mother– her hypothetical mother, Nero, don't make that face." The man snorted. "No rule against talking to Twilits anymore, remember?"
"But what you want to do–"
"Shush, it's not forbidden. And what else are we supposed to do, leave a whole group of mages to their own devices? No training or education? That's the fast lane to creating people who can't control their powers, or worse, people who hate us and want to kill us." The old man tucked his hands into his pockets. "If they plan to come for me for countering that, I'd like to see them try."
Nero adjusted his sunglasses. "As you like, Principal. Don't say I didn't warn you."
"All right, all right. I'm a warned man. Can I go now?"
"Mind the distance limit. You know what happened last time."
"Nero, it's ten feet away. Don't be so fussy." The man shrugged and turned into the street, hands in his pockets, walking up to one of the houses just as a girl of about fourteen years came walking his way. Her eyes were glued to the pages of a notebook she was writing into, perfectly unaware of her surroundings.
The man was just getting ready to approach her when she walked straight past her garden gate, still scribbling forlornly into her notebook, and knocked right into him.
The girl stumbled back. The notebook and pencil fell out of her hands, clattering to the ground. Her eyes went wide as she suddenly grew aware of the situations, blushing with shame and frantically stumbling to pick up her notebook and stuff it into her backpack, hiding its contents from sight. The man thought he briefly caught the words, How many frogs would fit into a shopping cart?
"S-Sorry!" she burst out, flailing her hands about and almost dropping the pencil she had only just retrieved. "So sorry! I wasn't paying attention...sorry...I shouldn't have done that, I'll be more careful in the future...Are you all right?"
"Better than ever," the man replied casually, his eyes taking in every detail of her face.
She looked every bit like the picture, but even without the aid of a photo he would have known he was standing in front of the right person. She wasn't very tall and neither fat nor skinny, her brown skin and shoulder-length black curls a carbon copy of her mother's, with her father's bright gray eyes forming a jarring contrast to the rest of her, almost like she was wearing contacts. Her face was honest and friendly, with full lips and chubby cheeks and a kind-hearted, thoughtful expression in her wide eyes. Part of her hair was pulled out of her face with a flower clip, and there were bits of grass and leaves all over her pink hoodie.
A simple, ordinary, good-natured girl. That was what she looked like.
"Excuse me," the man said, and she inadvertently took a step back. "Are you Mercury Day? The daughter of Gabriel and Regina Day?"
She blinked, surprised, and then fear dawned on her face. A sudden cloud passed over the sun. "Y-Yes," she said slowly. "What's wrong? Did something happen–"
The man smiled. "Don't worry, your parents are all right. And you're not in trouble either."
She gave a sigh of relief, and the cloud disappeared. "That's good! But..." She fidgeted nervously. "Then what...I mean...why..."
"I'd like to have a word with you, Miss Day. Or two or five." The man smiled and extended a hand, which she shook awkwardly. "My name is Sullivan Blake, principal of Andromeda Institute of Dark Magic." His smile widened. "Does that name ring a bell?"
Andromeda...Dark Magic...
Of course it rang a bell. That had to be the school her mother had gone to. She and her father would often talk about their high school days, and there wasn't a conversation like that where the name Andromeda wouldn't fall, or Andie's, as her mother had nicknamed it. She knew what that place was, vaguely. She even recognized this man's name. But she didn't understand.
"It...does," she said slowly. "My mom went there, but...what does that have to do with me? I mean..."
I'm not a Dark Mage. I'm not a mage at all.
"So you know what your parents are. That's good." Principal Blake gave an acknowledging nod. "Miss Day, do you also know what you are?"
Mercury blinked. What kind of question was that? He was saying that like she was something special...like she might be a mage too.
"I...think so," she said slowly. "I'm half Light Mage, half Dark Mage...so I can't be either, right? So I'm not a mage, even though my parents are...I...think...?"
That was what she'd always thought. So why did this strange old man suddenly make her doubt everything?
Principal Blake sighed, unsurprised but not disappointed. "Partly true, Miss Day. Five out of ten. It's true that you're neither Light nor Dark Mage. But," he leaned closer, black eyes looking straight into hers, "there's a third kind of mages, and that's what you are."
A third type of magic? Mercury's heart skipped a beat. She might be a mage too? She might have powers...she might be able to perform miracles the way her parents did...
No way, no way. This had to be a prank, and yet...it seemed real. Too real not to believe it.
"It's still unresearched, and people don't know much about it, probably not even your parents. Doesn't help that it's been hushed away by both magic communities because neither group wants it to exist. A hybrid between Light and Dark Magic..." Principal Blake lightly rested a hand on her shoulder. "It's called Twilit Magic, Miss Day. That's what you are."
Mercury stared up at him, wide-eyed and stupefied.
This had to be a joke. This couldn't be true. She had lived in this world for fourteen years, and not once had she been able to do magic. And suddenly this strange man appeared out of nowhere and tried to tell her she was a mage too...How could that be? How could she have lived her whole life not realizing that she had magical powers?
"I...I'm sorry." She swallowed hard. "I...think you've got the wrong person..." I'd really like it to be true. But I just can't believe it.
Principal Blake raised an eyebrow, unfazed. "So you've never had anything happen to you that couldn't be explained?"
"Of course n–" Mercury stopped in her tracks. What happened at school earlier...If he was right...
Had she actually made herself invisible for a moment?
"W-Well," she said slowly, looking down. "I don't know. Maybe."
"Maybe's good enough. Don't worry about details, Miss Day. Most important thing's that you have the powers, you don't have to control them yet." Principal Blake straightened and cleared his throat, adjusting his tie. "Making sure you learn how to do that's what I'm here for."
Mercury looked up at him and said nothing. There were a million questions burning on her tongue, a million doubts, but she couldn't say a word. Everything she wanted to say sounded stupid in the face of this official-looking man with his suit and tie and his straightforward, honest dark eyes.
She should probably doubt him. But as she looked up at this stranger, she couldn't help hoping he was telling the truth. She couldn't help wishing all of this was real, and she'd really be able to become a mage and do the same amazing things her parents did every day.
"I..." she stuttered at last, her eyes darting nervously from side to side. "Is it...really okay?"
Principal Blake smiled again and reached into his pocket, pulling out a plain white envelope addressed to Ms Mercury Day, Twilit Mage. Mercury looked back and forth between him and the envelope. Then she took it.
It jumped open in her hands.
Mercury gave a startled leap, nearly dropping it to the ground as she watched a stack of papers slip out of it and unfold itself in front of her eyes. Her eyes went wide as saucers. This was...
"An...enrollment form?"
"Does it look like a postcard to you?"
Mercury blushed at her own stupid question. "Sorry...just...this is all a bit..."
"S'fine. Think it over. Not like you can sign stuff on your own yet, anyway. Your parents– I mean guardians have to sign it." Principal Blake stuck his hands into his pockets. "Talk it out with them. If I was allowed to bring up your mother, I'd say she could vouch for me. Oh well, laws and all that." He ignored Mercury's increasingly puzzled face to lean against the nearest lamppost, looking very much like the hero of a vintage movie. "Deal?"
Mercury didn't have it in her to do anything else but nod.
"Good choice. Promise you won't regret it, Miss Day. I'd do the exact same thing." Principal Blake cracked a grin, as if he found his own joke funny. Then he glanced at his watch and frowned. "Ah, looks like I have to go back or my dog will kill me. Don't really feel like dying yet..." Your what? Mercury wanted to ask, but he continued before she could speak. "Anyway, just ask your mo– a mage you know to show you how to send those papers back. And don't tell your parents I said hi."
With that he hurried off and disappeared around a corner, and if Mercury didn't have the envelope and forms in her hands, she would have thought this whole scene had been a figment of her imagination.
"What..." she said to no one in particular, staring at the papers and then at the corner Principal Blake had just disappeared to. "What...was that?"
"Mercury?"
She almost jumped out of her skin.
"Mercury, what are you doing here? Forgot your key again?" Her mother came walking up to her, a curious smile on her face. "What happened?"
For a second Mercury felt tempted to tell her about the encounter on the spot.
Then she shook off the thought. Bad time, bad place. She should wait until she and her parents were all together, inside the house where nobody could listen in on their conversation and think they had all gone nuts.
Come to think of it, shouldn't somebody already have noticed her and Principal Blake talking...?
Mercury decided she wouldn't think about that even as anxiety perked up inside her, bouncing up and down and making her heart stumble and her skin turn cold. No one had heard. She would stick to believing that until someone or something proved her wrong.
"Nothing," she said, quickly stuffing the envelope and forms into her backpack as she turned towards her mother. "I just thought I saw something...All fine!"
On the sidewalk behind her a dry leaf rustled, moved, and turned into a tiny dragon.
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