AnnouncementHey, everyone. Here's the new chapter of Book 2, thanks for reading :3 Magic css was held in the auditorium, at least the first part of the session, and it was different than most other csses. There was one magic css offered per semester and it was to give an introduction to how to use and properly control the magic of our elements. Basically, it was a css for beginners to teach the fundamentals and get us off to a good start in exploring our magic. As such, most students only needed to take it once and the css was open to students of any grade who hadn’t taken it before.

  There weren’t very many seniors in the css, basically only me, Melody, Trixie, Crice, and one other girl with catlike ears and a pair of feline tails. While the css was a requirement for any students who had the ability to use magic, most seniors who actually needed the css took it in their first year at St. Michelle’s. Melody and I were both new here though and Crisse and Trixie had both already learned the basics of their magic, Earth and Wood respectively, from their mothers and didn’t think they even needed the css. For them, this css was going to be mostly review and the teachers trying to get them out of any bad habits they had picked up.

  Thankfully, Carmen seemed to be in this css as well, though she was looking nervous as she joined me, Melody, and our new friends. Maybe we could find some way for me to help her with casting illusions, sealing spells, and anything else that she couldn’t do as a Healer but would be expected of a Divine Mage. Fooling a teacher with experience in Divine magic would be no easy task though.

  There were nine teachers in the css, almost one to teach each element and they came from a wide variety of Paranormal species, including a pair of human Mages. There was even a Dryad, which made me smile since the Wood-aligned women with bark-like skin and foliage for hair are closely reted to Nymphs and share some of our quirks. She seemed to be the one in charge as she called for the attention of nearly forty students in the room who were chattering and making quite a bit of noise.

  “Greetings, students, and welcome to Magic 101. I am Mrs. Grover, and the nine of us will be your teachers for this css. Each of us will read out a list of names. When called, please follow your teacher to their workroom, where you will be attending this css after today,” she instructed before turning her gaze directly onto me. “Unfortunately, Ms. Cummings, our teacher for Ice Magic is on maternity leave for this semester and we were not expecting any students aligned to Ice to be taking the css until the st minute, but Ms. Norstrom will take you in hand.”

  I squirmed as I was put on the spot like that and did my best to remain casual as we waited to be called. I guess they were working on the smallest groups first as what looked like a woman with at least a little Demon blood (probably half or a quarter Demon and the rest human) introduced herself as Ms. Ellis, the teacher for Death Magic. It didn’t take her long to call up her css, since there was only Melody and a dark-haired human girl who looked like she might be in grade eight or nine.

  I wasn’t too surprised since primary element users were fairly uncommon and most of those who really needed the css probably took it in the first semester or an earlier grade. The fact that most of the css seemed to be made up of grade eight and nine students seemed to support this. The headmistress seemed to think it was a good idea for my girlfriend to learn to use Death magic too since we weren’t hiding her dual alignment, and she already had a grasp on Fire magic. Melody wasn’t looking forward to it, but my mother, Aunt Merry, and the headmistress had managed to convince her that it would be wise to at least have some knowledge of how Death magic worked.

  Next up was Ms. Norstrom, a tall, muscur, and beautiful blonde woman with rge, white feathered wings. Her eyes had been on Carmen and me since we entered the room as if she already knew who we were and could easily pick us out in a group of forty students. She only called the two of us, and I couldn’t believe our luck as the Angel beckoned us to follow and we parted with our new friends.

  I was lost in my thoughts as we followed the Angel through the hallways. While Carmen and I were very lucky to have the same teacher and be the only two students, I couldn’t help but worry that this teacher wasn’t going to be easy to fool into thinking Carmen was a proper Divine Mage. The way that she had been watching the two of us while we waited for our names to be called was unnerving, it was like she was looking right into our souls.

  She seemed stiff and, as we followed her to her magic workshop, I was starting to get a little nervous. I had met an Angel before, Braedan, who owned and operated a clothing store geared toward Paranormal teens called Cloud Nine. While he had been helpful while we were shopping there, I got the distinct feeling that he disapproved of my public dispys of affection with Melody, not to mention the fact that my girlfriend was half Demon. He had been handsome but there was a very rge stick lodged somewhere deeply and firmly in his behind.

  I didn’t want to believe that all Angels were like that, but the way Ms. Norstrom had been watching me and Carmen so intently wasn’t exactly encouraging. As we walked, Carmen and I were too nervous to say much, we didn’t even talk privately along the Samander network. Once we were inside the workroom, Ms. Norstrom sat casually on top of her desk rather than in the chair behind it and motioned for Carmen and me to take a seat at one of the nine worktables in the room, the one directly in front of her desk.

  There was a long awkward silence before the teacher asked, “Since you were standing near one another in the auditorium, I take it that you know one another already?” Her voice held a definite Scandinavian accent, and it didn’t sound like she was being judgmental or anything.

  I would have breathed a sigh of relief, but the tense atmosphere hadn’t completely dissipated yet. Instead, I looked at Carmen and took a deep breath before speaking for us both. “Yes, Ma’am, we’re like sisters. We both live above the club that my mother and her partner own.”

  “Ah yes, Pandora’s Box, the adult entertainment club,” she replied with a thoughtful nod. It was a mere statement of fact, not nearly as derisive in tone as I had been fearing. Then she gave us both a smile as she let out a sigh of relief. “Well, I guess that will make this a lot easier for all of us then since I assume that you know one another’s secrets already, given the nervous gnces you have been casting toward one another.”

  “W-what? Secrets?” Carmen stammered. I could hear her swallowing a lump in her throat without even looking at her.

  This was met with another smile, one that reached the teacher’s eyes and seemed to radiate kindness. “Please, Miss Diaz, do not take me for a fool. I am a Divine elemental; I can see the nature of the Divine better than any mere mortal can ever conceive of. You are no Divine Mage, your connection to the element is powerful but extremely focused. I would assume that you are a Healer, a rare gift.” Again, it was a statement of fact, not an accusation.

  “What… ummm… I…” Carmen sputtered in shock as she tried to come up with something to counter the statement.

  Then Ms. Norstrom turned her attention toward me. “As for you, Miss Cummings, dual alignments are rare, usually the result of specific bloodlines, but I have never heard of them happening in Nymphs… or should I say Muses?” I couldn’t speak, all the words seemed to just stop before leaving my throat as a whirlwind of anxiety took residence within my chest.

  “Please, calm yourselves,” the Angel told us gently. “You are wise to keep your true natures a secret and I will not reveal what either of you are to anyone, not even Headmistress Collins. You have my word. Guard your secrets closely, children, lest someone use them against you. It is fortunate that I only have the two of you to worry about in this css. If it had not been for that, I would have approached you both privately about this matter, and probably had you work as b partners so Miss Cummings could help make the other students believe that you are a true Divine Mage, Miss Diaz.”

  That would have been my pn as well, and I looked at the Angel suspiciously. “You’ve known what we are since you first saw us in the auditorium, haven’t you?”

  “Yes,” she replied with that steady smile. “Though the pn already was, and still is, for me to instruct you in your Ice magic, what with our usual teacher for that away for the remainder of the school year. I have a… history with the Ice element and should be able to teach you to use both of your elements adequately. For this first css though, I think that we should all get to know one another better, and you can tell me what you both hope to get out of this css.”

  “You seem more… well, chill than I would have expected,” Carmen pointed out as we both rexed somewhat in our seats.

  “Yeah, you’re not a dick, like some other Angels I’ve met,” I added candidly, hoping to get a reaction out of her.

  I did get a reaction, but not the one I was expecting. Ms. Norstrom started ughing and it took a few minutes for her to calm herself down before she could talk again. “Oh, you have no idea, but since I know your secrets, maybe I should tell you one of mine. I am not an Angel, I am a Valkyrie, and we hold no love for our male counterparts. They were arrogant and sanctimonious when we left them thousands of years ago, and they have not improved in the millennia since.”

  “A Valkyrie?” Carmen asked in confusion.

  “Yes, that is what we called ourselves, though I fear that I may now be the st of my kind,” she expined. “I was barely old enough to begin warrior training when our vilge mobilized to assist the Aesir in stopping the Frost Giants from invading this pne. We drove them back to the Frozen Pne, but I was trapped on the other side when we closed their portal for good. They far outnumbered us and were terrifying creatures, and when the battle was over, all my people were dead. I assume they thought me dead as well.”

  The Valkyrie told us her story then. How she had crawled from the battlefield through ice and snow to find a cave. She spent hundreds of years on the Frozen Pne, all alone, first healing her injuries and then staying hidden from her enemies as she trained her skills and magic. Eventually, she formed a strong enough connection to the Divine to travel to the Holy Pne, and from there back to the Material Pne and the pce where her vilge once stood.

  That was a little over thirty years ago. When she returned, there was no sign of her vilge or her people. Half a dozen of them had stayed behind on our pne to close the Frost Giants’ portal, but she had no idea what might have happened to them in the centuries since. So, she wandered in a world that was far different than the one she remembered and followed rumors until she ended up in Canada and eventually found a job teaching Divine magic at St. Michelle’s.

  She wouldn’t tell us anything about her people, other than what they called themselves, or what other Paranormal abilities she possessed, but from what little she had told us, I was a little in awe. This woman had survived in a hostile environment for hundreds of years. Not only that, but she had been to two of the most dangerous elemental pnes, the two that I was aligned to, and my mother made me swear to never go to. She had also developed a lot of tricks with Ice magic during that time.

  For the rest of our css, Ms. Norstrom, Carmen, and I talked about what she would be teaching each of us and what we hoped to get out of the css. Carmen in particur seemed to grow a lot more rexed the more that we talked. She had been so worried about magic css and having to fake being a Divine Mage that her mood had improved greatly by the time we left for our next csses.

  Thankfully, my next css wasn’t too far away, and I made it to the Art cssroom as Jessica and Rose were leaving. They had just finished their Art css and were now on their way to their Shapeshifting css, which Melody would be attending as well. I was a little nervous about this css since it was my st css today and I wouldn’t have my sister or either of our girlfriends with me. I had been able to mostly suppress the urges to get naked and the sexual desire that had been steadily growing since the start of lunch so far, but I had caught my thoughts drifting toward the end of Magic css, and being nervous wasn’t going to help.

  I soon discovered that none of the girls from my Auto Shop css were in this css with me either. In fact, there was only one face that I recognized, and that was Delih. I made certain to sit as far away from her as possible.

  Our Art teacher, Mrs. Bealey, was a Lamia, and as soon as she finished taking roll call, she started talking about the wonders of creativity and artistic expression. She asked if anyone did anything artistic in their spare time and while I could have talked about dancing, I didn’t bring it up because I didn’t want to give Delih any ammunition to use against me. Not that it mattered since she seemed to be ready to create her own opportunities.

  “Okay, css, so today we’re going to start with drawing. Would one of you like to volunteer to be our model for today?” Mrs. Bealey asked after her speech about the joys of art.

  “Maybe we should let the new girl pose for us, Mrs. Bealey,” Delih suggested far too sweetly as she gred daggers at me.

  “That’s a great idea. Don’t be shy, Crystal, just come have a seat here on this stool and find a comfortable pose that you can hold for a while,” the teacher instructed me cheerfully.

  I gred daggers right back at the bitch who had suggested it as I got to my feet. It wasn’t that I was uncomfortable with the idea of modeling for the css since we Nymphs are vain as all hell and have zero sense of modesty. No, I was far more concerned about where my thoughts were going to end up going if I didn’t have some sort of distraction to keep both my hands and mind occupied.

  As soon as I was walking past her toward the stool at the front, Delih hissed, “Oh, and Crystal, this is the kind of posing where we keep our clothes on.”

  I gritted my teeth and tried not to let her little barbs get to me as I got comfortable on the stool and found a comfortable and modest position to sit in. Posing was as difficult as I thought it was going to be. Without something to keep my hands and mind occupied with, I found myself constantly having to push down my desire to get out of my uncomfortable clothes, and my increasing horniness was making it hard to sit still or keep my mind from wandering.

  Talking with Cinder and giving her some mental affection helped for the first half of css but inevitably I was lost in my very dirty thoughts when a voice drew me back to reality. “…stal. I said that css is almost over, you can go back to your seat. I have an assignment to hand out before you all leave for the day.”

  “Sorry, I was lost in my thoughts,” I mumbled as I stood up and tried to clear my thoughts of sexy times with Melody.

  “Yeah, I think we all know where the Nymph’s thoughts were,” Delih said with a sneer, causing the bootlickers sitting near her to ugh.

  I wasn’t sure if I was angrier that she went there, or that she was actually right. Apparently, the only thing she had learned earlier in the changing room about compulsion shaming was to not do it near the angry bunnies. I took a deep breath to control myself as I turned to smile at her while I passed her seat, “Oh, don’t worry, Delih, if I did have fantasies, you certainly didn’t feature in them. I may be horny and attracted to anything with a pulse, but I’m not desperate.”

  “Bitch,” she muttered under her breath.

  I stopped and turned toward her and whispered back, “It takes one to know one.” Then I got a good look at her sketchpad, and whatever she was drawing, it wasn’t me. It looked like a cow, but I’m only guessing here since she had, like, zero artistic talent. If that cartoon caricature was supposed to be me, my boobs should have been much bigger than that. Before turning to return to my seat I delivered my parting shot. “And I thought we Nymphs were vain, it wasn’t supposed to be a self-portrait, Delih.”

  When I got back to my seat, she was fuming in hers. She still looked like a teapot ready to boil over once we had collected our assignments for the week and the bell rang to dismiss us for the day.

  I was halfway back to my locker when Jess, Rose, and Melody met up with me. “Is there some reason you’ve got a very angry-looking Fire Mage gring daggers at your back, Babe?” my girlfriend asked.

  “Oh, you know, we had Art css together and she tried to humiliate me, but she forgot that I’d need a sense of modesty to get embarrassed at things like wanting to get naked or thinking about sex,” I replied with a casual shrug.

  “The bitch didn’t learn anything earlier,” my sister grumbled. “I hope she’s gring because you got her back, Sis.”

  I turned to grin at her and Rose as Melody came to my other side and wrapped an arm protectively around my shoulders. “You know what Aunt Merry always says, Sis. A Fey always pays their debts.”

  “Let’s just be careful around her from now on, okay, Babe?” Melody’s voice sounded concerned as she said that, and then quickly added, “I’m worried that she might try something more than words if she thinks you’re a threat to her little high school queendom.”

  “That’s why I have my sexy bodyguard with me,” I replied sweetly. I too was worried that Delih might try something more than insults eventually though.

  ~ * ~

  The other girls from Auto Shop were all waiting for us at the front doors of the school by the time Carmen joined us, and we had all gathered our things to leave for the day. Crice was the one to ask, “So, are you guys going to come hang with us at my parents’ café?”

  “And when can we see the Charger?!” Nova asked eagerly as she bounced on the balls of her feet.

  “Yeah, we’ll come hang out a bit, if the others are cool with it,” I agreed. “I’ll need to go pick up Selina first though, so if I can get an address for my GPS that would be great. As for the Charger, it’s right here in the parking lot.”

  As we crossed the parking lot to where the Charger was parked, we made pns. Rose was only working weekends now that school had started up, so even she was able to come, as long as she could get a ride there and home. It turned out that Alison didn’t live too far from my sister’s girlfriend though and offered to give her and Bel a ride while Crice drove Nova, Trixie, and Nikki.

  Once my new gearhead friends had gotten their fill of looking under the hood of my baby, Crice wrote down the address of the café for me and Alison and we all split up with pns to meet there as soon as we could. Once my sister, girlfriend, and Carmen all climbed into the car with me and we were on our way, Jessica let out a long sigh. “Well, that was an interesting first day at school.”

  “Yeah, it certainly had its ups and downs,” I agreed. “At least we’ve made some new friends though.” Unspoken was the fact that we had probably made at least one enemy as well.

  “It seems like our Samander deception is working too,” Carmen added. “I had, like, ten people today ask me about creating illusion tattoos for them, but I kept to the script. I am, like, so relieved that Crystal and I have our magic css together though, and the dy who is teaching us is really cool.”

  “She kinda saw right through us both though, just like Ashe,” I reminded her as we turned off the access road and onto the main street. “She promised to keep our secret though, and I think her word is good. I think we can both learn a lot from her too.”

  “I’m worried about that Delih bitch though,” my sister grumbled. “Those looks that she was giving us during Home Ec and P.E. were nasty. I didn’t think she could look more pissed off until I saw the gres she was giving you after csses, Sis. She is not going to let this go and Mel won’t be there to watch our backs every css.”

  “Yeah, I’ll think about what to do about it, Jess, but I doubt trying to keep a low profile is gonna work. She’s vainer than I am, and that’s saying something. Do me a favor please and call Selina to tell her to get ready to go out. I’d like us all to have some fun with our new friends tonight, while we still have our evenings mostly free. We can worry about Delih ter.”

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