“I’m not going to reveal all my secrets to you at once,” he said in his elegant way of talking.
“Fair enough. What about the reason I am here?”
“Yes, I think you are entitled to know that.” Merlin gently placed his umbrella on his dark cherry rosewood desk and slowly took his seat behind it. “You are lucky to have joined the most prestigious Academy for young people with extraordinary abilities and peculiar talents.”
“Is this what this place really is? Because it seems to me that all you are is a secret society that practices magic and does superhuman stuff.”
“In a way, that is what we are. And you are given the opportunity to join us.”
“What if I do not like it here and decide that I do not want to enroll in the Academy?”
“You will go to jail for misuse of powers. None of us, those with extraordinary powers, are allowed to use them without the permission of the Board of Wizards; or at least mine. And you had been using your power for a while before Mordred finally located you and locked you in.”
“Did you know all this time?” I was confused.
“I have been watching you since you were a toddler. Not only because of my occupation with the Vulgate orphanage, but also because I had recognized your ability to manipulate time. Every time you hopped time; I knew. Every single time.”
“And you did nothing to stop me; or at least to explain what was happening to me. You did nothing to help me cope with this talent, as you call it. Instead, you let me suffer, unable to understand why time was like a turbine for me.”
“You are right,” he said staring at me. “I did nothing to help you deal with your gift. I had to let you discover the depths of our ability and decide how far you wanted to go with it. I had to let you create your own personality without my guidance and interference. You were supposed to be the master of yourself. You were supposed to become a strong woman, brave enough to live the life she would long for.”
“That is what you think I have become?” I could not help but raise an eyebrow.
“No.”
That was not the answer I was expecting to hear. Amused by the baffled look on my face, Merlin cracked a smile, the first one since we met in Mordred’s prison.
“This is what I believe that you will become when your training is finished. The way you talked to Mordred under the stressing conditions of imprisonment showed me that you are gutsy and smart. I am intrigued to help you develop your gift and guide you to discover your real self. But enough for now.”
Merlin pressed a brass button on his desk and a beautiful young woman with long red hair entered the room.
“This is Morgan and she will show you your room and tomorrow, first thing in the morning, you will meet your new tutors and classmates.”
“One more thing,” I said before I closed the door behind me.
“Please,” said Merlin.
“How do you know that I will not try to time hop?”
“Because you cannot. I have cast a spell on you so you will not be able to. Did you try to escape Mordred’s cell by manipulating time?”
“Oh, heck ... I did not,” I said puzzled.
“Did you even think of trying?”
“Er ... no,” I admitted even more confused.
“It is because we had constrained your gift with our magic,” Merin said while moving to close the door in front of me.
“Wait!” I yelled. “Where on earth is this place? What kind of magic did you use to send me here? Oh, and where is the prison Mordred had locked me located?”
“That is more than one thing. And you will get to know the answers to all your questions soon. However, now you are going to call it a night,” Merlin said and closed the door in my face.
“Do not take it personally. It is just Merlin being Merlin,” Morgan said as she led me through a sequence of dim corridors decorated with portraits of men and women dressed in clothes from different eras.
“Which means what exactly?”
“Merlin is the most powerful wizard in the world,” Morgan said as she turned right into another corridor. “He is capable of arranging a meeting with the President of the United States in the middle of a red-alert situation. Even the NSA and MI6 are fully aware of our existence and practices.”
She stopped in front of a door. “Merlin’s longtime friendship with the President of Russia has proven beneficial for our organizations. Avallon Academy has been granted the discreet liberty of working underground to serve its cause, while international secret organizations that work with us benefit from the information our undercover agents gather without them getting their hands dirty.”
She put the key in the keyhole. “We have been working to closely monitor the movements of a group called the Black Sword Riders over the past few months, and so far, we have been able to prevent a deadly attack by them. However, we cannot guarantee that we will be able to keep doing this for much longer, so we need to recruit as many people with peculiar talents as we can in a short time.” She opened the door and motioned me to enter the room.
“This is your room. You will find a change of clothes in the closet and your uniform which you will be wearing every day from now on except on Sundays. Sundays are uniform-free days.”
CHAPTER 6
*
It felt so warm and snuggly, just like a mother’s hugs. Or at least what I thought a mother’s hug would feel like. The thick, fluffy blanket around my body offered delightful warmth. The sound of a crackling fire reminded me of the large sitting hall in the Vulgate orphanage.
I opened
