Bike-Pump Biceps piped up, their fearless, meathead leader. “We don’t want you at our table. We’re not interested in having an Atlantean hanging around us at all, right now or any other day.”
“Nice to see that you’ve all picked up some deep-rooted discrimination along the way.” I held my ground, wrapping my hands around my mug on the table until my knuckles whitened. “Let me guess, your parents told you that we’re all sly devils who should be avoided at all costs? Or did you learn it at your covens, maybe? Oh, I’d love to have a word with your Magical History teachers—everyone loves a clear-cut, black and white enemy, don’t they? But, tell me, have any of you or your parents or your history teachers actually met an Atlantean?”
I should’ve lowered my voice. A crowd had started to gather, beady eyes watching and waiting for the Atlantean girl to lose her cool and explode in a shower of Chaos sparks. They were forgetting how long I’d been alive. They couldn’t rile me up or get me to throw a punch just by being nasty to me. Their words hurt, and it sucked, but I wasn’t about to give them the satisfaction of seeing me throw a fit.
This was the catalyst, I realized, as I waited for the clammed-up crew to respond. My dad had been so happy about our transition into the wider magical world. That happiness had cracked and faded over the years because of people like this. People who sneered and jeered at him. People who made him feel less than he was. People who battered his pride and his heritage, until the world we’d left no longer seemed like the worst place we could be. He’d dealt with this for nearly twenty years. I was just getting my first proper mouthful of it, out in the open, instead of snide, under-the-breath comments.
“Atlanteans are backward and dangerous.” Ponytail #1 glowered over a half-eaten candy. “They nearly destroyed the magical world, thanks to Princess Kaya and that maniac Davin Doncaster! We wouldn’t be sitting here if our people hadn’t stopped yours.”
I glowered right back, taking a shaky breath to steady my voice. “That ended twenty years ago, and it wasn’t just ‘your’ people who helped prevent outright war. My father nearly got killed fighting back. King Apollo helped stop Kaya, and his best friend, Thebian, gave his life to get the jump on Davin Doncaster. You wouldn’t be sitting here if they hadn’t gone against their own queen. I’m not saying we don’t have our bad eggs, but so do you. Davin wasn’t Atlantean, was he? Neither was Katherine Shipton—a way worse scenario, which you’re conveniently ignoring. Or am I getting my histories crossed?”
“Katherine Shipton and Davin Doncaster were two individuals. Your whole race is messed up,” the ebony-skinned guy shot back.
“How did you work that one out?” I tightened my grip on the mug. “I came from the SDC, where the heroes who saved your mostly unborn asses from Kaya and Davin all live. They don’t have a problem with me, so what makes you think you have the right to? Did you fight Kaya and Davin? No, you didn’t. You don’t know anything except what you’ve been spoon-fed by your bigoted parents who, by the way, didn’t fight either!”
Our argument was attracting attention, and classmates had begun to crowd around us like bloodthirsty spectators at a boxing ring—the kind who wanted to smell the sweat of the boxers and feel the splash of blood on their faces.
“Typical of an Atlantean to start with low blows. Who says this has anything to do with our parents, and who do you think you are, branding us as bigots?” This attack came from a young woman with a sleek dark braid and smug blue eyes, someone I knew to be a part of Charlotte’s hunter clique, although Charlotte herself was nowhere to be seen. Apparently, this had turned into a free-for-all. Hurl an insult at the outsider for two dollars a pop. Unleash your anger at an Atlantean, five for the price of three. Win a stuffed seahorse every time.
“Uh, are you listening to yourselves? Would you like me to whip out a dictionary and show you the definition of ‘bigotry?’” I retorted. “You don’t know anything about me. You see these tattoos on my face and you judge me without having ever interacted with anyone of my race! I’ve tried talking to so many of you in the hallways, and you’ve run away or turned up your noses like I’m covered in frigging scales. Which I’m not, by the way, contrary to popular belief.”
Okay, maybe I’d been wrong. It really hurt now. They were hitting with the low blows, not me. I liked to think I could keep my cool in almost any situation, but I was getting a serious lesson in self-control today. I hadn’t realized just how much venom the wider world had stored up for my kind. And the acid of it burned me, deep in my heart. I might not have considered myself a “proud” Atlantean, but they were prodding at a defensive streak of patriotism I hadn’t known existed. How dare they? How could they spew such hatred as though it were nothing?
Bike-Pump Biceps snorted. “And who cares if you came from the SDC? They’re a bunch of saps for letting you people in in the first place. They might be happy to integrate with your kind, but that doesn’t mean everyone else is. As for your ‘hero’ friends, they cause more trouble than they prevent. Funny you mentioned Katherine Shipton—she’s got family at that beloved commune of yours, so who’s to say they can be trusted? Maybe they saved us from Atlantis because they saw an opportunity. I hear the SDC has secret technology they got from your
