There is no surviving this.

I am actually going to die.

I can’t handle watching those two, talking in the darkest corner of the room. Every once in a while, one of them flicks their eyes to me, signifying that they are most definitely talking about me.

What are they saying?

It has to be about how hopeless I am.

The Prince is going to realize I am a lost cause eventually. Might as well be sooner rather than later.

Eventually, Maybe starts to walk away, and I turn my head so that it doesn’t look like I’ve been staring at them the entire time, like I very much have been. She seems slightly peeved as she marches back to me, loops her arm in my elbow, and drags me away. 

But there is another look on her face as well, and that one I can’t pinpoint so well.

What happened? What did they talk about?

I try to glance back ever so subtly at Prince Rhettlin as Maybe places me in front of one of the double-seated and crooked desks in the room. I don’t think I get away with it, though, because he is also looking right at Maybe and me with a completely different expression.

It almost looks like worry, but what would a Prince have to be worried about?

“Your highness! Excuse me, Your Highness!” calls out a high-pitched voice from a pretty brunette girl sitting at one of the desks near the Prince. “This seat is open! You can sit here!” 

“You can just call me Rhett here,” he responds, still looking towards Maybe and me, but then he turns to the girl. “And thank you, that is very kind.”

The girl blushes as he moves to sit next to her, and I look away. 

“Don’t worry about him. We are going to be the bestest of magic for the homelife partners!” Maybe cheers as she begins sorting through the many trinkets on the strange, gnarled, wooden desk.

There are pots, stones, and a whole lot of dried plants that I have never seen before.

“What… uh… what were you guys talking about?” I ask even though I don’t want to know. But I do want to know.

But I don’t...

…but I do.

“You, mostly,” Maybe says like it’s no big deal as she sorts a plant with small purple petals by stem size.

It’s clear she has no idea she’s just sent my heart shooting into the floor. I’m certain it's no longer supplying blood to my body, as I feel slightly lightheaded.

“M--me? Why me?”

“Because I know him, and I knew he had some hidden reason for helping you, and I wanted to figure out what it was.”

So… there is a reason? That seems to be what she’s implying. 

I mean, obviously. He’s a Prince. I am nobody. He has no real reason to be kind to me, and I knew that from the start.

What if he is just being nice to me to make the new kid comfortable, but behind my back, he and his friends are making fun of me and figuring out the best places to corner me for a good beating? It wouldn’t be the first time.

No. He couldn’t be that awful. He isn’t Marcus Mudfoot. Whatever the reason for his kindness, it has, at least, felt a little genuine. Or I could just be naive. 

He could be collecting dirt for the royal family to use against me to kick me out. That wouldn’t shock me.

I don’t belong here anyway.

Do I dare ask Maybe?

I don’t want to, and luckily I don’t have to because Maybe finally finishes her sorting and looks at me, reading the probably ashen expression on my face.

She sighs. “I guess you should know.”

“O--okay,” I stutter, trying to pretend like I didn’t actually care. I’m sure it isn’t working.

“He is helping you because—” she pauses and, for whatever reason, throws one glance at the Prince, who is being heavily distracted by the pretty girl talking his ear off while touching his shoulder playfully.

He probably got attention like that all the time. You can’t look like him and be a Prince and not. I try not to look any longer than I have to.

Maybe sighs one more time, then finally tells me the reason, “It’s his father…. He, uh… is really obsessed with the school’s record of no one ever flunking out or unenrolling from the school. He asked Rhett to try to protect that record. Which is, like, fine, I guess. If it gets him to do something for someone else for once in his life, what’s the harm? You get extra tutoring, and he gets a life lesson. Win-win.”

She kept talking faster the longer her explanation went on, which is strange but not so much for Maybe, I guess.

My initial reaction is… to not really care.

Yeah. That all makes sense to me, and is far better than the ideas I had. That would put it in the realm of his Princely duties, or whatever, which is why he takes it seriously.

And I don’t have to worry about his friends beating me up.

But the longer it sinks in, the more my stomach starts to brew with something terrible.

No student has ever flunked out of Wizard Prep?!?

Are you kidding me?

Why did they invite the world’s worst probably-not-even-really-a-wizard to Wizard Prep then?!?

I’m going to be the laughing stock of the entire kingdom when I fail my first year entrance exam and get shipped back home.

My breathing starts to quicken the more I think about it.

“Allen? Hey, Allen, you okay?” Maybe asks when my eyes glaze over and I’m staring at nothing except the visions of my dark, dead future. I’m only pulled out when she shakes my shoulders and screams, one more time, “ALLEN!”

I pop back to reality and stare right at her. “I’m gonna flunk out. I’m gonna flunk out and the entire kingdom will know I’m the kid who broke the school’s… what? Several hundred-year-old record?”

“Seven-hundred-and-fourty-two-year record,” Maybe clarifies. Funny enough, that number doesn’t help me calm down.

“I—I can’t do this! I should just drop out and save myself the embarrassment,” I say, and try to stand up.

Maybe keeps me in place by grabbing my jacket pocket and pulling back down. “That won’t work. They’ve never had a dropout either. I told you that already.”

“Oh, curse. So I’m doomed? My life as I know it is over, and I’ll never be able to show my face again.” I bury my head in my hands and flop onto the desk. 

Do I know I am being dramatic? Yes. Will I stop myself? Absolutely not.

“Wow. He was right. You really are taking the pressure poorly,” Maybe says, almost under her breath, but not quiet enough for me not to hear.

“I don’t do well with pressure, okay? I never had and I never will,” I grumble into my arms.

Maybe places her hand on my shoulder and rubs gently like she is trying to comfort me, but has never comforted anything or anyone in her life. “You’re going to be fine, all right? I’m going to help you. Apparently, Rhett is going to help you. We’ll make sure you pass. It’s just a stupid record on the line. No big deal. You’ll definitely pass.”

The end sounds like it’s almost for her own comfort, which confuses me, but I don’t have the energy to think about it.

As the professor—a scrawny, tall woman in a very mismatched plaid skirt and striped button up shirt combo—stumbles in, dropping glass bottles and torn sheets of parchment throughout the classroom, all I can focus on is how this is one more class I’m going to suck at, and how I’m going to disappoint an entire kingdom of people for it.