When they got to the Great Hall, Simon noticed something different. The long makeshift table at the front just before the bench-style tables was no longer there. And the rest of the rectangular tables were now arranged end to end in groups of two, all of them perpendicular to the bench-style tables at the head of the room.

  Those bench-style tables, also, were not empty, but were full of adults ranging all the way from those just slightly older than Amy to some who were elderly. They all wore robes and mage’s hats - but the style and color of those clothes were different for each of them.

  It was the students who were all dressed in uniform, seated at the rectangular tables that covered the rest of the Great Hall. Simon looked around hoping to find Clara, but couldn’t see her anywhere - so he sat down next to Amy. Lacy sat at Amy’s other side. Across from them sat Lilith and Samantha.

  “Hey there,” Simon heard a familiar voice say after a few minutes. He turned and saw Jesse sit down to his left. Across from Jesse sat Tom, right next to Samantha - and Ricky sat to Jesse’s left.

  “Hello,” Simon said back to Jesse.

  Lilith stood up and waved at someone in the crowd. Moments later, the girl that Ethan had brought to Hemlock Tower together with Simon and Jesse sat down in the empty seat beside her.

  “So,” said Tom, “looks like you’ve been getting around, my friend.”

  “Around where?” asked Simon, confused.

  “You know what I mean,” he replied, in a playful tone.

  Simon, however, did not know what Tom meant. As everyone sat there chatting, he puzzled over this. But he didn’t puzzle for long, because after a few moments, a low bell chimed three times in rapid succession. As a hush spread through the Great Hall, Simon looked toward the front of the room and saw a middle-aged man with grey hair behind the middle of the second of the three bench-style tables. He was standing, ringing a bell that sat on the table right in front of him. He wore a black robe and mage’s hat with shiny white stars sown all over the robe and the hat alike.

  “Welcome, everyone, to Misty Peaks Academy of the Magical Arts,” said the man. Even though he was at a fair distance and wasn’t shouting, Simon could hear him as though he were standing right next to him. “I am Professor Parker, your Headmaster, and I want to wish each and every one of you an enlightening - and fun - school year.

  “Now, I am sure y’all are hungry and eager to start your late lunch,” continued the man, “but before we chow down, I’ve got some start-of-term announcements. For starters, before I forget, Miss Simmons, our Head Enchantineer, has asked me to remind you that the basement of Montrose Tower has been deemed unsafe, and is therefore off limits for until this safety issue can be resolved.”

  Simon didn’t know which of the towers in the castle was Montrose Tower, but he figured he could ask Amy later on.

  “That out of the way,” continued Professor Parker, “the rules that are enforced in this school every year apply once again this year. During curfew hours, no student is allowed to leave their residential tower except for very specific approved purposes. Generally, at all times, students are to remain within the castle - but there is the exception of field trips. If you leave the castle in a field-trip, you are to remain within the bounds specified by the activity of that field trip. Your teacher will make sure that you know what those boundaries are.”

  He went on, for a little while longer explaining additional rules that the students were to follow.

  “Finally,” he said after a while, “it is important that every student be aware of the rock gremlins. They are a natural part of the magical wildlife of the Smoky Mountains, but sometimes they venture into the castle’s underground tunnels - and they have a tendency to throw rather raucous parties there. No matter how much of a Party Animal you think you are — trust me, these parties are too much for any human, you included. I promise you, if you allow yourself to be engulfed by one of those parties, you will be traumatized by it. If you happen to see any rock gremlins, do not engage. Just let a member of the faculty or staff know about it — and they will deal with it. There’s no mistaking it if you see one. They’re about three feet tall — and as their name suggests, their bodies are made out entirely of rocks.

  “Anyway - with all that said, I know y’all are hungry and eager to eat. So without any further ado, let’s bring in the grub!”

  Simon could see a circle of light begin to draw itself on the table in front of him just as when he had received his key clip - a circle large enough that one could easily fit a dinner plate inside of it, as well as some utensils and maybe a bit more. He saw a few more such circles of light form in front of everyone else who was seated at the table - and a few other such circles of light of various sizes elsewhere on the table. Within moments, the entire cylinders of light had form. And when they vanished, instead of an empty table, they revealed a dinner plate, a cup, and utensils in front of each person, and several communal dishes elsewhere on the table.

  Simon saw everyone at the table begin helping themselves to the food, but was afraid to touch it himself.

  “What were those?” he asked.

  “Conveyor cylinders,” explained Jesse. “They’re a really handy way to move things around.”

  “It’s okay,” said Amy. “Food’s brought out this way all the time.”

  Simon hadn’t seen anything like this before - even the day that he had had lunch at La Italia in the Magical Levels beneath Lenox Square. But after another few moments of hesitation, he finally helped himself to a bread-roll from one plate, some salad from another, and some chicken from yet another. Finally, he poured some fruit juice into his glass, and timidly began to eat.

  * * *

  Toward the end of lunch, when some students were still eating but others had finished, a few faculty members made announcements about sports and other student-life activities. Among those teachers was an elderly man whom Simon had seen earlier that day when he had been to the Great Hall to receive his dorm assignment. It was the old man in the patch-repaired light-blue robe and mage’s hat. This was Professor Rowan Sinclair. He looked out his half-circle glasses at the crowd of students talking in a low drawl about something called the Thaumabiology Club before sitting down and letting the next teacher speak.

  When the ceremony officially concluded, some students lingered in the Great Hall talking among themselves, while others got up one by one to explore the castle at their leisure.

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  “Let’s go,” said Amy, tapping Simon on his shoulder, as soon as it was clear he had finished eating. Eagerly, he got out of his seat and followed her.

  “What is Montrose Tower?” he asked her, as soon as the two of them were in the crabapple orchard.

  “One of the towers in the North Wing,” she explained. “But don’t worry. We’re headed to the East Wing.”

  “The East Wing?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she answered. “It’s the newest wing. The only one that wasn’t built until after this place became a public school.”

  As soon as the two of them reached the wall of the orchard, Amy pushed open a double oak door, and the two of them entered another hallway that was unlike any other that Simon had seen at Misty Peaks. This one went a few hundred feet onward toward the end, where it seemed to hit a T-shaped intersection. This hallway was significantly higher than those he had previously been in at the school. It was still made of wood, but with large windows spaced along each side. Through these windows, Simon could see the walls of the castle in the distance, and even a few students in the field playin some sport that he wasn’t familiar with. He wasn’t sure, of course, whether his lack of familiarity with the sport they were playing was a result of the fact that he never paid close attention to sports in the first place, or whether this sport was unique to the magical world.

  At the end of hall, the two of them took a left turn onto another hallway that was just like the previous one, only this one only had windows on the right side. And after another few turns, they found themselves in another hallway, slightly narrower than the earlier ones. Like the underground tunnels, this hallway didn’t have any windows at all, but the wood seemed to be of a much finer finish. Thanks to the torches lining its walls, this hallway was just as well lit as though it were fully exposed to daylight. There weren’t any oramasynthic paintings hanging here - but that was fine, because it really wasn’t a very long hallway at all.

  Finally, the two found themselves in a large hexagonal room with a spiral staircase in the center. Amy went toward the staircase, and when she was near it, made a quick motion with her hands. Before Simon knew it, she was holding a wooden stick. It wasn’t just a plain wooden stick, but an elegant wand about a foot long, that seemed to have images of birds and butterflies carved over most of it. “Fiat lux,” she said, and a point of pure white light appeared on the tip of her wand. In seconds, the orb grew to a diameter of one foot and moved to hover two feet above Amy’s head. Another quick motion of her hands, and the wand was once again nowhere to be seen. She started down the staircase.

  “You coming?” she beckoned.

  “Is it safe?” asked Simon.

  “Sure it is!” insisted Amy. “That warning Professor Parker gave only applies to Montrose Tower. This is Hamilton Tower.”

  Reluctantly, Simon came and started down the stairway himself. Amy continued downward as soon as he caught up with her. They went down four levels from the well-lit ground level to a subterranean level where they were only able to see thanks to the glowing orb above Amy’s head.

  Once again, they were in a large, hexagonal room, with the spiral stairway at the center - one way headed up toward the surface, the other headed down to even further depths than the two had descended.

  Amy looked around, and finally went to a door with the letter “C” above its frame. She turned the knob and pushed the door open. Timidly, Simon followed her, and they found themselves in a classroom with a familiar chalkboard at the far end behind what seemed like a large, abandoned desk. Several smaller desks faced that far wall, each with a chair behind it.

  Another quick motion with her hands, and again Amy was holding her wand. She pointed it at a copper disk in the middle of the ceiling and called out: “accendit lucernam”. Immediately, a pulse of light shot out from the tip of her wand and hit that disc. From there, it turned into eight pules and traveled to each of six lanterns that were protruding from the walls throughout the room, each of which promptly filled with a luminous flame the moment it received its pulse.

  Finally, she lifted her wand to the orb above her head and chanted: “non sit nux.” Immediately, the orb vanished, as though in a puff of smoke.

  “So - we don’t have light-switches here?” asked Simon.

  “Well, we do in the dorm rooms,” answered Amy, “but not really anywhere else, no.” She motioned to the chair at one of the desks. “Just sit down,” she said. “Make yourself comfortable.”

  “So will they be okay with me using somamorphy?” asked Simon.

  “Who?” asked Amy.

  “The school,” answered Simon.

  “Well,” said Amy, sitting backward on the chair in front of Simon, “brief transformations for the purpose of learning how to do things aren’t generally a problem. Somamorphy isn’t a forbidden art - they just don’t want it to be a distraction or anything.”

  “But I don’t want to just be a girl for a few minutes,” protested Simon.

  “That’s okay,” said Amy. “They understand the importance of being right with your gender identity.”

  “Gender identity?” asked Simon.

  “Yes,” explained Amy. “That’s who you are inside. Everyone has their assigned gender - that’s what you look like, how people treat you. But gender identity is about who you are inside, underneath all that.”

  “And how do you know what … ?” asked Simon. He trailed off, unable to finish putting his question to words.

  “Well,” answered Amy, “a lot of introspection. That means, looking inside yourself. But giving yourself permission to be who you think you are can go a long way toward knowing if you’re a boy or a girl inside, or neither.”

  “Neither?” asked Simon.

  “Yeah,” explained Amy. “Some people find that neither being a boy nor being a girl fits them. You just have to see what works for you - what makes you truly happy.”

  “I see,” acknowledged Simon.

  “Now,” said Amy, getting a white, square stone about two-and-a-half inches on each side out of her robe and placing it on the desk, “I’m going to have this stone scan you to get your protoprint. It will take a few minutes to do. You don’t have to sit still or anything - but you need to stay in the location that it’s scanning.”

  “How far is that?” asked Simon, nervously.

  “As long as you stay in your seat, you should be fine,” answered Amy. “Anything else before I start?”

  “You’ll tell me when it’s done?” verified Simon.

  “Of course,” assured Amy. “Are you ready?”

  Simon didn’t say anything. He just nodded. Again Amy took her wand, placed its tip on the stone, and said: “tua forma recordor”. Immediately, a white glow enveloped the stone. She lifted the wand, and Simon could see that a beam of white light also shone from the stone to the wand, and another from the tip of the wand directly forward in the direction that the wand was pointed, stopping at the desk. She lifted the wand until the beam coming from the tip hit Simon and the same luminous glow that had covered the stone enveloped him as well. “Tu es fons,” she said, and the beams of light connecting the stone and himself to Amy’s wand vanished, replaced now by just one beam of light connecting him directly to the stone.

  “Now, Professor Brown will want to know if you transform full time,” explained Amy, “just so she won’t have a girl rooming with three guys.”

  “So - I - have to tell her?” panicked Simon.

  “Not for little transformations that you do with me here,” said Amy. “Everyone knows coming out can be difficult. But for your own safety, they need to know if a girl becomes your everyday form.”

  Simon tensed up and began fidgeting nervously.

  “Don’t worry about it,” said Amy, noticing his unease. “You won’t have to come out until you’re ready.” She sat for a moment trying to think of a way to take his mind off the subject - and finally asked: “Have you thought of a girl’s name?”

  Simon thought back to the Italian restaurant he and his family had eaten lunch at the day he had first met Amy - and the pleasant herb that he had learned about that day. “Rosemary,” he responded.

  Amy looked him up and down. “That fits,” she said with a smile.

  As the scan continued, the beam connecting Simon to the stone, as well as the glow around both of them, gradually changed in color from white to a light blue. Finally, the beam of light vanished and the auras of light both faded away. Amy picked up the stone that had been white when she placed it on the table, but was now an electric blue - and placed it back in her robe.

  “Something wrong?” she asked.

  “I don’t feel like I’ve changed at all,” said Simon, crestfallen.

  “Of course you haven’t,” said Amy. “All we did now is record your protoprint. I need it when I make the trait imprint stone so I can make sure it’s compatible with you. It’s only once I’ve made that trait imprint stone that you can transform.”

  “Does that take long?” asked Simon.

  “No,” assured Amy. “I should be able to help you transform Thursday after classes. And once you have your own wand, I can show you how to transform yourself.”