He kept his eyes steady on her and asked, “You’ll look after my baby girl this year, won’t you, Alex?”
She blinked with surprise. “Um, sure. I mean, yes, Your Majesty. As much as I can, anyway. When I’m with her—which is most of the time.” She snapped her mouth shut in an effort to keep the words from continuing to spill out, but it was too late, and both the king and D.C. were already laughing.
“I can’t tell you how safe I feel,” D.C. said, still sniggering.
Alex decided to keep her mouth closed, but that just caused the king and his daughter to laugh even more.
“At least she’s enthusiastic,” King Aurileous said.
“That she is,” D.C. agreed, smiling fondly at Alex.
“Don’t we have to go?” Alex asked, trying to cover her embarrassment.
“Yeah,” D.C. said. “We don’t want to be late.”
“Make sure you say goodbye to your mother before you take off,” the king said, hugging his daughter again. “She misses you when you’re gone.”
“Of course,” D.C. promised.
King Aurileous smiled at her one last time and turned to Alex. “You take care, Alex. I have a feeling we’ll need you more than we yet know.”
She looked at him wonderingly, trying to fathom the meaning behind his ominous words. But then he winked at her, easing her concern. She couldn’t tell if his comment was serious or a joke, but she was certain he didn’t mean to cause her any anxiety.
“Thank you, Your Majesty,” she said with a slight bow.
D.C. led the way out of the room and Alex followed her through the corridors and up the numerous staircases until they reached the princess’s room.
After some quick packing, D.C. grabbed her small bag of belongings and said, “Okay, I’m ready. Let’s go find Mother and get out of here.”
Locating the queen in the palace’s butterfly garden— and yes, to Alex’s shock, it was an actual garden full of live, fluttering butterflies—D.C.’s goodbye with her mother was short but heartfelt. Queen Osmada even wrapped Alex in a motherly hug, saying that she looked forward to getting to know her daughter’s best friend better in the future.
After their fleeting farewell, D.C. handed Alex a Bubbler vial and, with an excited gleam in her eyes, offered, “After you.”
Alex grinned and threw the glass to the ground, sending butterflies scattering when the Bubbledoor rose up in front of them. As she stepped into the colourful mass, she thought of exactly where she wanted to arrive, and within a matter of moments she was out the other side and staring up at the academy’s Tower building.
D.C. stepped through after her and they both grinned at each other, pleased to be back at Akarnae.
After stashing D.C.’s belongings with Alex’s in the dorm room they’d shared the previous year, they headed directly over to the food court.
Alex was relieved that the noise covered their entrance so no one noticed them sneaking in a few minutes late. She’d never seen the room so full of people. Normally the hungry occupants came and went as they pleased within the designated eating times, but now the court was packed full of students and teachers alike.
“Alex! Dix! Over here!”
Alex heard Jordan call out for them and she led D.C. over to where their friends were sitting.
“We were worried you weren’t going to make it in time,” Bear said as they took their seats between the two boys.
“Us? Late?” Alex asked with wide eyes. “Never.”
“Right. I’ll remember that next time we have to barge into your dorm to get you up in time for PE,” Bear said.
“Once. That only happened once,” Alex grumbled. “And I was the one who opened the door and let you in. There was no barging
Ignoring the stifled sounds of amusement from eavesdropping classmates, her attention moved to the rest of her table. Normally the food court was set up into clusters of randomly shaped and sized tables, but tonight all the furniture was larger, with groups of people seated together. Looking around her table, Alex recognised many faces from her classes last year.
Jordan must have seen her curious expression because he spoke before she could ask. “The first night of every new year we all sit in age-based groups so it’s easier to organise getting our new class schedules.”
That seemed logical. But unfortunately for Alex, she’d been so overwhelmed by the transition into Akarnae—and Medora—during the previous year that she hadn’t had much of a chance to get to know many of her fellow classmates.
“I don’t know most of these people,” she admitted quietly to Jordan. “Can you give me a brief rundown?”
“No problem.” He turned away and called out loudly enough to draw the attention of everyone at their table, “Hey, guys, let’s do an icebreaker!”
“Jordan!” Alex hissed.
“What?” he asked innocently. “This way we’ll all get to know each other even better.”
“Sparker,” called one of the guys sitting further down the table. “What gives?”
“You know, an icebreaker,” Jordan repeated. “We’ll each say something random about ourselves. Something that not many people here know. Fun, right?”
No one else seemed thrilled by the idea, but in true Jordan fashion, he managed to get them all to grudgingly agree.
“I’ll start,” he said. “My name is Jordan Sparker, and when I was three years old I shoved a pea so far up my nose that it had to be surgically removed. Your turn, Alex.”
Turning to eagerly awaiting eyes, Alex’s mind suddenly blanked. “I’m Alexandra Jennings—but just ‘Alex’ is fine—and I, um, like reading?”
She wished she hadn’t made it sound like a question. In fact, she wasn’t sure why she’d said it, since she didn’t read all that much. But it wasn’t as if she could have said she was from another world.
D.C. went next, then Bear, followed by Connor and Mel O’Malley, the cousins who Alex had spent some time with in the previous school year. The introductions continued around the table and Alex had a chance to learn about some of her other classmates.
“I’m Savannah Hill, and I’m a virtual reality addict,” said a blond girl who Alex remembered from her Delta PE class last year. “The projector in the Rec Room here is way better than the one I have back home, so I’m a little obsessed with it.”
“Kelly Gleeson,” said the next girl, who had short brown hair and squinty eyes. “My favourite movie is Beyond the Crescent Moon.”
Next up was a tall, lanky, extremely tanned guy with spiky hair who, when he spoke, sounded like he’d walked straight out of a surfing commercial. “Whazzup! Friends call me ‘Blink’. I’m into extremes—extreme sports, extreme food, extreme music—anything extreme. Embrace the rush!”
The introductions continued until the names all blended together and Alex knew she wouldn’t be able to remember everyone. Chelsea Jones… Kimberly Cooke… Mathew Parker… Andrew Nickles… Tate Golde… Ruth Voran… Anna Ford… Elliott Parvie… Samuel Hortham… The names kept coming until there were only two people left.