“Oh, thunder sprites!” Clem cried with glee. She clapped her hands together excitedly. “They say it’s very lucky if they dust you.”
Just then, a trio of the agile creatures swooped through the air above us and unleashed a storm of fine, glittering particles. Most of it landed on me, and I yelped in surprise as a hundred tiny shocks erupted across my scalp and down the back of my neck. My skin tingled after the surprising pain died down, and threads of jinsei spun down into my core.
Clem and Eric both squealed with surprise, too, and grinned. The sprites gave me another dusting for good measure, then zipped away laughing as I yelped.
The other upperclassmen in the hallway pointed and shouted with delight as the sprites approached them, turning their faces up toward the dust clouds and beaming with pride. Clearly, they thought a little pain was worth a blessing from the tiny creatures.
“I don’t recognize any of these people,” I pointed out to Clem. “Are they new?”
“New to you!” Clem shouted to be heard over the laughter and surprised yelps from the other students. “Last year, we only saw the other initiates and second-year students. Third years on up through adepts keep their distance from the newbies. Less chance of an accident that way.”
It was hard to wrap my mind around what Clem said. Students spent seven years at the School. We’d seen less than a third of our classmates last year. If the other students and professors had a whole other section of the school to themselves, just how big was this place?
As it turned out, the answer to that question was very, very big.
The dormitory hall was fifty yards long, with thick wooden doors spaced evenly down each side. Scripted name placards projected the names of the occupants onto the floor in front of each door. I had to resist an urge to take off my soft boots and curl my toes in that thick carpet.
“This is me!” Clem called out. The placard projected “C. Hark” on the carpet.
“It’s perfect!” she exclaimed as she threw the door open and burst into her room. She raked her nails through her short pink hair and turned in a slow circle to take in everything. Eric and I shrugged and followed her inside, curious about just how special a dorm room could be.
Everything in the room perfectly matched Clem’s personality. The jet-black floor was splattered with pink swirls of light that crisscrossed it like strokes of random graffiti. It wasn’t carpeted, but it was soft and had a slight give to it, like a training mat. The walls were covered with moving images of giant thunderheads that flickered with silent flashes of cloud-to-cloud lightning.
A queen-sized bed dominated the far corner of the room. A mountain of fluffy pillows was piled on top of gray sheets pulled so tight you could have bounced an obolus off them. A closet on the room’s left side was open to reveal neat wooden hangers that held a variety of clan robes, from formal to the new casual style Clem was wearing. A desk occupied the wall between the closet and the bed. A sleek laptop had been placed in the center of the desk’s dark wooden surface.
“Is that one of the quantic models?” Eric asked. He was halfway across the room, his hand reaching for the smooth rectangle of what appeared to be polished copper.
“Don’t you touch it,” Clem called. “I bet you have one in your room, too.”
“Let’s go see!” Eric called. His excitement was infectious, and after we spent a few more minutes admiring Clem’s room, we took off for the Resplendent Suns’ dormitory tower.
The Resplendent Suns’ dorm hall lived up to the clan’s glorious tradition. Instead of carpet, the hall had dark wooden floors sanded to a satin-smooth finish, varnished with a translucent red lacquer that gave the wood a mysterious inner light. Copper candlesticks mounted on the walls shed artificial flames from scrivened wicks to give the hall a somber, yet somehow cozy atmosphere. The walls were finished with a rustic plastered treatment that had a surprising depth of earthen hues and made the hall feel as if it were an ageless relic from another time. Crouching stone tigers with manes of crimson fire had been placed between the doors, and they watched us with inscrutable granite eyes as we made our way down the hall.
Eric hustled from door to door, his eyes scanning the nameplates. The impressive doors were solid pieces of black metal with heavy ringed handles set into their centers. Unlike Clem’s dorm hall, the placards didn’t project the names onto the floor, but glowed like a fire above the doorways.
“This one!” Eric called. A lion growled and rose from its crouch as we approached the doorway. It didn’t settle back onto its haunches when Eric glanced at it.
“No sprites, but we’ve got some killer guard dogs,” he said with a grin. “Make sure you knock before you try to open the door if you come visit me.”
“I’m not coming here without an escort,” Clem said. “These lions look too dangerous to have loose in the school.”
“More dangerous than open portals to each of the overcities?” Eric asked with a wry grin. “Your clan would shut all those down if they were really worried about security.”
“It’s not the same thing,” Clem protested. “The portals the Children operate are for the good of the school. We couldn’t get supplies in or out of here without them. My clan also pays for most of the Portal Defense Force, so I think we’ve taken more than our share of responsibility for security while the rest of you enjoy the rewards of our risk.”
“Settle down,” Eric said. “I’m only kidding. Come on, don’t spoil the mood.”
Eric flung his door open, and for a moment I had to double-check to make sure we were still in the School. The square bedroom bore little resemblance to the traditional
