She picked out three.…

Simon raising the Sword of Mages. Baz lounging on a fanged black throne. The two of them walking together through whirling gold leaves, scarves whipping in the wind.

There were a few more things left in the box—a dried corsage, a ribbon Wren had given her that said CLEAN PLATE CLUB, commemorative busts of Simon and Baz that she’d ordered from the Noble Collection.…

Cath found a place for everything, then sat in the beat-up wooden desk chair. If she sat right here, with her back to Reagan’s bare walls and boxes, it almost felt like home.

There was a boy in Simon’s room.

A boy with slick, black hair and cold, grey eyes. He was spinning around, holding a cat high in the air while a girl jumped and clutched at it. “Give it back,” the girl said. “You’ll hurt him.”

The boy laughed and held the cat higher—then noticed Simon standing in the doorway and stopped, his face sharpening.

“Hullo,” the dark-haired boy said, letting the cat drop to the floor. It landed on all four feet and ran from the room. The girl ran after it.

The boy ignored them, tugging his school jacket neatly into place and smiling with the left side of his mouth. “I know you. You’re Simon Snow … the Mage’s Heir.” He held out his hand smugly. “I’m Tyrannus Basilton Pitch. But you can call me Baz—we’re going to be roommates.”

Simon scowled and ignored the boy’s pale hand. “What did you think you were doing with her cat?”

—from chapter 3, Simon Snow and the Mage’s Heir, copyright © 2001 by Gemma T. Leslie

TWO

In books, when people wake up in a strange place, they always have that disoriented moment when they don’t know where they are.

That had never happened to Cath; she always remembered falling asleep.

But it still felt weird to hear her same-old alarm going off in this brand-new place. The light in the room was strange, too yellow for morning, and the dorm air had a detergenty twang she wasn’t sure she’d get used to. Cath picked up her phone and turned off the alarm, remembering that she still hadn’t texted Abel. She hadn’t even checked her e-mail or her FanFixx account before she went to bed.

“first day,” she texted Abel now. “more later. x, o, etc.”

The bed on the other side of the room was still empty.

Cath could get used to this. Maybe Reagan would spend all her time in her boyfriend’s room. Or at his apartment. Her boyfriend looked older—he probably lived off campus with twenty other guys, in some ramshackle house with a couch in the front yard.

Even with the room to herself, Cath didn’t feel safe changing in here. Reagan could walk in at any minute, Reagan’s boyfriend could walk in at any minute … And either one of them could be a cell phone–camera pervert.

Cath took her clothes to the bathroom and changed in a stall. There was a girl at the sinks, desperately trying to make friendly eye contact. Cath pretended not to notice.

She finished getting ready with plenty of time to eat breakfast but didn’t feel up to braving the dining hall; she still didn’t know where it was, or how it worked.…

In new situations, all the trickiest rules are the ones nobody bothers to explain to you. (And the ones you can’t google.) Like, where does the line start? What food can you take? Where are you supposed to stand, then where are you supposed to sit? Where do you go when you’re done, why is everyone watching you?… Bah.

Cath broke open a box of protein bars. She had four more boxes and three giant jars of peanut butter shoved under her bed. If she paced herself, she might not have to face the dining hall until October.

She flipped open her laptop while she chewed on a carob-oat bar and clicked through to her FanFixx account. There were a bunch of new comments on her page, all people wringing their hands because Cath hadn’t posted a new chapter of Carry On yesterday.

Hey, guys, she typed. Sorry about yesterday. First day of school, family stuff, etc. Today might not happen either. But I promise you I’ll be back in black on Tuesday, and that I have something especially wicked planned. Peace out, Magicath.

*   *   *

Walking to class, Cath couldn’t shake the feeling that she was pretending to be a college student in a coming-of-age movie. The setting was perfect—rolling green lawns, brick buildings, kids everywhere with backpacks. Cath shifted her bag uncomfortably on her back. Look at me—I’m a stock photo of a college student.

She made it to American History ten minutes early, which still wasn’t early enough to get a desk at the back of the class. Everybody in the room looked awkward and nervous, like they’d spent way too much time deciding what to wear.

(Start as you mean to go on, Cath had thought when she laid out her clothes last night. Jeans. Simon T-shirt. Green cardigan.)

The boy sitting in the desk next to her was wearing earbuds and self-consciously bobbing his head. The girl on Cath’s other side kept flipping her hair from one shoulder to the other.

Cath closed her eyes. She could feel their desks creaking. She could smell their deodorant. Just knowing they were there made her feel tight and cornered.

If Cath had slightly less pride, she could have taken this class with her sister—she and Wren both needed the history credits. Maybe she should be taking classes with Wren while they still had a few in common; they weren’t interested in any of the same subjects. Wren wanted to study marketing—and maybe get a job in advertising like their dad.

Cath couldn’t imagine having any sort of job or career. She’d majored in English, hoping that meant she could spend the next four years reading and writing. And maybe the next four years after that.

Anyway, she’d already tested out of Freshman Comp, and when she met with her adviser in the spring, Cath convinced him she could handle Intro to Fiction-Writing, a junior-level course. It was the only class—maybe the only thing about college—Cath was looking forward to. The professor who taught it was an actual novelist. Cath had read all three of her books (about decline and desolation in rural America) over the summer.

“Why are you reading that?” Wren had asked when she noticed.

“What?”

“Something without a dragon or an elf on the cover.”

“I’m branching out.”

“Shh,” Wren said, covering the ears on the movie poster above her bed. “Baz will hear you.”

“Baz is secure in our relationship,” Cath had said, smiling despite herself.

Thinking about Wren now made Cath reach for her phone.

Wren had probably gone out last night.

It had sounded like the whole campus was up partying. Cath felt under siege in her empty dorm room. Shouting. Laughing. Music. All of it coming from every direction. Wren wouldn’t have been able to resist the noise.

Cath dug her phone out of her backpack.

“you up?” Send.

A few seconds later, her phone chimed. “isn’t that my line?”

“too tired to write last night,” Cath typed, “went to bed at 10.”

Chime. “neglecting your fans already…”

Cath smiled. “always so jealous of my fans…”

“have a good day”

“yeah - you too”

A middle-aged Indian man in a reassuring tweed jacket walked into the lecture hall. Cath turned down her phone and slid it into her bag.

*   *   *

When she got back to her dorm, she was starving. At this rate, her protein bars wouldn’t last a week.…

There was a boy sitting outside her room. The same one. Reagan’s boyfriend? Reagan’s cigarette buddy?

“Cather!” he said with a smile. He started to stand up as soon as he saw her—which was more of a production than it should have been; his legs and arms were too long for his body.