“Ahhh! I’m never going to pass my entrance exam,” I say as I slam my face into a textbook over and over again.

The words in the book might as well be in a different language.

Maybe looks up from her hyper-focus on a bit of fabric she is embroidering.

Or, more accurately, a piece of fabric about seven sewing needles are embroidering while she watches. I am sure she is doing something to magically help them along, but my little probably-not-even-a-wizard brain can’t even begin to comprehend.

“So, you really have zero experience with magic?” she asks, probably the quietest I’d heard her since moving in that morning.

“Zero is an understatement,” I say and give up holding myself up. I fully face-plant into my bed and say with my face squished into the mattress, “I donf efen knof why theyf sent mef here.”

“Oh come on, buck up! If I know the King, he doesn’t just send any old nobody to Wizard Prep.”

Sure, but... how well does any random citizen in Starstorm know their King? Because clearly Maybe does not at all. 

“Wanna bet?” I say as I roll over to stare at the rocky ceiling. Moss is growing all over it in the most perfect of patterns. “I start magical classes tomorrow and I still have no idea how to do the simplest of spells. So much for having a mentor.”

“Who? Rhett?” Maybe chuckles. “Yeah, sorry to break it to you, he probably isn’t going to help you with anything. I don’t know if that guy has it in him to help a sick puppy.”

“Y-you don't think—?”

I didn’t finish the sentence before the disappointment took over. Had I really expected this dashing prince to help little old me flunk out of school? No.

But...

That doesn’t make it not disappointing to know that dream is dead on arrival… even if the thought of actually hanging out with the Prince is the most anxiety-inducing thing I can think of.

I let out a huge sigh.

There is a long stretch of silence, then the clicking of heels on the stone floor before I see a puff of rainbow fabric as Maybe jumps over me and right onto my bed next to me. I fly so far in the air as her fall displaces me that I nearly get shot off. 

“Okay, Okay. I’ll help you, since you’ve asked so nicely,” Maybe says as she settles in next to me on the bed and picks up the textbook. Her dress takes up the entire bed.

“I didn’t ask—”

Her glare stops me before I can say more. “What, you really do think Prince Rhett-loser is going to help you? Pah-lease. You’re lucky I’m such a kind, wonderful person. You know that?”

I gasp and put my hand over my mouth. “Are you even allowed to say that?”

“What? That I’m wonderful? It’s only the facts,” she says and flips her hair over her shoulder.

“No, I mean—”

“I know what you mean,” Maybe says and puts the book on her lap. “And I can say whatever I want. It’s a free kingdom. Trust me, if there is anything I know about Rhett, it’s that he will not help anyone unless there is something in it for him. Hell, he can’t even help himself with magic. He’s infamously bad at it. Plus, I have no idea what helping you could possibly do for him.”

The number of emphasises she put on specific words smashes my confidence harder and harder into the floor. One by one.

She isn’t wrong, though. I can’t think of an idea where I am any use to a prince either.

But I can't help wishing I could.

I sigh again. “You sure know a lot about the royal family, don’t you?”  

“Indeed,” Maybe says and lifts the book back up to read what I had been studying.

Prince Rhettlin can’t be that bad. Can he? He is intimidating, sure. Serious, I guess. But he still took the time to tour around some new student he didn’t even know. Even if he left that same student to rot away on his own, unable to do even the simplest magic…

Unless there truly is something in it for him…

Or… he really is bad at magic. In which case… why would someone even assign him to be my mentor?

What is the point of any of it?

Just to remind me how much of a loser I look like next to someone as beautiful and famous as him?

“I know that look,” Maybe says while leaning into me. She is mere inches from my face before my brain clicks back to reality and not thinking about the Prince. I lean back instinctively and nearly fall off the bed once more.

My voice pitches up so much higher than I expect it to. “W-what? What look?”

“You are already infatuated with him.”

“What?” I squeal even louder. “No. No! I hardly know him.”

“So? No one knows him. Yet everryonneee loooves him juuust soooo freaakinng much,” Maybe elongates every word for extra sarcasm. “Sure, he’s tall, and handsome, and talks all rich-boy-like or whatever, but don’t fall for it. He’s a selfish jerk surrounded by selfish jerk friends who act all selfish and jerky, because they all think they are untouchable because they hang out with one royal, selfish jerk guy.”

I try to follow all the selfishes and jerks but I get lost somewhere in the middle while trying to follow along with all her theatrical hand movements.

“So… I suppose you’ve had some interactions with him?” My voice remains quiet to drain out the high-pitched tone I can't stop using.

“A few,” Maybe says but her eyes stay on the textbook in her lap. “Okay, look, here is your problem.” Maybe taps at the book, clearly eager to move on. “You’re just going head-first into whatever you find in this book. The Sticky Fingers spell? Ew.”

With one last, heavy sigh, I sit up and cross my legs, locking bits of her dress in between. “It’s the first spell in the first textbook.”

“Yeah, and the point is to be funny to six-year-olds so they’ll actually do it.” Maybe slams the book shut and tosses it onto the floor with a huge thunk. “Magic is mostly a mental thing, and you have to find what works for you. Outside of complaining and bad fashion, what are you interested in?”

“I… uh…” I’m not sure if my stutter comes from the insult or the lack of knowing what to say. “I like to paint.”

“There! That’s something!” Maybe shrieks and bounces up and down, causing the bed to squeak. “If you figure out how magic can help you paint, you’ll have an easier time caring enough to understand it.”

My face scrunches up in all sorts of unnatural ways. “But I don’t want to use magic to paint. That’s cheating.”

I guess she isn’t so wrong about the whole complaining thing.

Maybe rolls her eyes so hard her whole body rolls, legs kick, and she rolls off the front of the bed and back to standing. “Ugh. You’re missing the point! Magic is its own talent. And you don’t have to use it to ‘cheat.’” She uses two fingers to emphasize quotations. “It’s still you even if you use magic. You think I didn’t design all of this?”

Maybe throws up her arms and spins around to show the entire room covered from floor to ceiling in various sewed goods, from backpacks, to dresses, to hats, shirts, even shoes.

“Well, no… but—”

“My point is,” Maybe’s hands pin to her hips. “Magic is about wanting it. The more you want it, the easier it is.”

“Good. Then I am screwed and I’ll be back to my old high school before summer,” I toss Maybe a big thumbs up before flopping back into my bed, face up.

Maybe leans over me with a scowl on her face. “You don’t even like magic, do you?”

“Gee, I was trying to hide it so well,” I say with enough sarcasm to drown in.

She places an insulted hand to her chest. “Is… is that even possible? I… I don’t… who are you?”

I grumble and sit up once more. “Magic isn’t really a thing where I come from, okay? There is a little bit, but not like… like this.” I motion to all of Maybe’s flying sewing supplies. “You know what, I should just go home. I don’t even know why I showed up at all. This was a bad idea from the start.”

The moment I stand to march back to the office—assuming I could find it—Maybe pushes me back down to the bed.

“No.” Both of her hands fly out to her side, palms to the walls. “No. You can’t leave.”

“I’m fairly sure I can,” I say and try to dodge past her.

“But you don’t actually want to.”

“I actually do,” I reassure.

I don’t belong here. Not among magic, princes, and flying ribbons.

“Wait. Okay. Okay. We can save this. You can still be a respectable human.” Maybe says as she starts pacing around the room. “You just need to learn. That’s all. You just don’t know. You need to see. All good stories have a reluctant hero. Of course, you’d be more of the reluctant sidekick.” She tosses her hair once more. “It’s my job to show you the way.”

“I don’t know if I like that sound of that,” I grumble under my breath.

“Too bad. Let’s go.”

“Go whe—” but I don’t get the chance to even ask before Maybe grabs my hand and pulls me out of West Dorm 417.

“Ground!” Maybe yells with a growl in her voice.

I hardly blink before I am no longer staring at the stone wall of the stairwell, but the entrance where the Prince left me a few hours prior.

What the—

No time to let that sink in. Maybe continues to drag me right back into the belly of Wizard Prep.