Chapter Fifteen: Festival

The first thing that Lily did the next day was call me into her office and chew me out. She wanted to punish me, too, I'm sure, but the school's punishments would not work on a witch with a witch name. Lucky me. Lily knew my one name, Storm, which gave her some small foothold of power over me - but it wasn't enough to transform my body in any meaningful way, nor put a compulsion over me.

"You must sign a new blood pact with the school - otherwise, we cannot claim any hold over you," she said quickly, her eyes never leaving mine.

"Isn't that the point? A witch would never submit to such a thing - her body, her mind, her power... all are her own," I said. "I am a witch and my body is my own."

Lily considered that - she'd only asked me in the off-chance that I'd acquiesce, but it had been an audacious thing for her to ask. Witch mother or not, I wouldn't give Lily that sort of power over me. She tapped her rings against the table. "You are still a student here, and I can still exact punishment - just not magical punishment." She scribbled something into her leger. "To wit, I've just added four hours a week to your assistantship here, effective immediately and extending into the foreseeable future. Do something so audacious again, and I'll change your classes, remove you from activities, and reassign your room to the custodial closet you like so much. Am I clear?"

"Yes, headmistress."

"Good. Good," she said. She glanced up for a moment, her flinty eyes drawing contact with mine. "Out of curiosity, sister, when you looked up into the Vault of Stars, how did you feel when your name chose you?"

I pondered the question for a minute - what an odd question. "My name didn't choose me, headmistress," I said eventually. "I chose it."

The headmistress's crimson lips pursed. We stood in silence. "I thought as much," she said eventually. "Your first act of penance to me will be to clean out A012. You know where the cleaning supplies are. I expect it to be serviceable within the week."

+++++

There were some difficulties with Lily's request. The first was that there was no room A012. The basement hallway ended with A009 on one side - a storage room stacked with rickety wooden student desks out of the Cold War - and the hidden door to A010 on the other. The hallway ended there. I'd availed myself of the full complement of cleaning supplies and the modest janitorial cart and trundled them down to the end of the hallway. No A012 - so how was I supposed to clean it?

I looked about the place - I could see the door to A010 easily enough, now that I was a full witch (even initiates could see the door just fine). I knew how to spot hidden objects - you could use magic to hide things from everybody, but there was always a residual trace that one could seek out and see through. I tried all sorts of things to see a hidden door - I even tried a clear-seeing ritual (cleaning supplies were great for this) to reveal anything that had been hidden. The only little glimmer I got was the wall at the end of the hallway... and, even then, no door. Just an odd wall.

It was the same plastered cinderblock as everything else in the basement, the paint slightly chipped and peeled by decades of negligence. It was cool to the touch and solid - no doors here. But still... there was something. On a lark, I pushed on the wall... and it shifted back. Not much, but an inch or two. The whole wall soundlessly extended back, revealing the tip of a new floor tile. I gave a more sustained push... and the whole hallway walked back as I advanced. Twenty feet of brand old hallway before I could push no more (or, rather, it was just like pressing against regular wall). And there, on either side of the extended hallway, were new rooms, their doors the same sturdy and ancient wood as those in the rest of the basement, their sheen long since dulled. A011 and A012.

I was to clean out A012. I put a slim hand on the doorknob, rattled it open, coughed up some dust, and got to work. I had my work cut out for me.

+++++

Cleaning A012 became my main and only hobby. Truth be told, between that and preparations for the festival, I had zero spare time. The Winter Festival, apparently, was a pretty big deal - the St. Circe's reputation was on the line. The festival wasn't school-only. Instead, the 'big eight' schools of witchcraft and warlockery (wizardry?) were meeting, apparently, somewhere in Hawaii for the event, a contest and pageant that was three parts elite private school extravaganza and one part magic user's conference. Schools that fared poorly could lose influence, recruiting power, and benefactor money. Thus, the typical student spent a lot of time preparing for it, and it became my singular pastime.

In Voice class, we settled upon three pieces that were adequately difficult but that we could sing passably well - Doctor Clay was satisfied of a good showing. In Best Behavior, we worked on pennants and decorations for our opening march. And in gymnastics, we worked our butts off. Despite being a lot stronger than I'd been during my embarrassing debut and having secured a conditioning tiara for Michelle and myself to use to catch up, I was just competent enough to participate in the group floor routine and Ms. Azucar vacillated on whether Michelle, with her natural knack for the art and I, with my unusual degree of flexibility, could be ready for individual or small group performances. Certainly, we weren't ready to compete in the actual five-school junior gymnastics competition (there were eight schools, but two were all-boys, and Sanctuary Valley didn't have a team).

"What if Natalie and I collaborate on something?" Michelle asked hopefully - she really wanted to do something beyond the floor routine.

Ms. Azucar clicked her tongue, as she did when she was thinking. "Not unless I know exactly what it is. It has to be between one and two minutes, and you'll have to show it to me by Thursday."

"But Thursday's in two days..."

"And the festival is on Saturday," she said. "Show me something on Thursday or the answer's nyet."

Michelle did a fist pump and shot me a triumphant look… and I rolled my eyes. I was in gymnastics for conditioning and agility, not to prance in my leotard in front of our brother and sister schools. But, on the other hand, Michelle really wanted this. She was a friend, and so I'd do it for her - as a little, she didn't get her way much, and I didn't want that expectation to become ingrained in any of my friends the way they had with most of the Advanced littles.

"Just don't get your hopes up," I said. "I can put my feet on top of my head, but I can barely do a backflip."

"But you can do a flip?"

"Barely," I reiterated.

So then I had to practice a gymnastics routine on top of everything else. We eventually settled on a 'few' handsprings for me (which I'd definitely have to practice) and some slow-mo walkovers where I could display my flexibility and balance, which were a lot better. I'd try my best but was, frankly, hoping that Ms. Azucar would shelf the whole thing because I had enough on my plate to worry about. Namely:

1) Marie still didn't know that I knew her True Name, so I was still in 'good little' mode, but inching away from it - I just didn't have the time to attend to Bigs hand and foot. Nor the patience. Now that the Bigs didn't have the threat of yorkiedom to dangle over my head, I had to figure out how to make them know it without causing too much disruption.

2) Maintaining the school's showing in the Winter Festival - there was, apparently, some byzantine ranking system of schools, and St. Circe's had placed fifth and sixth among the eight in each of the past two years. Another poor showing and bad things would happen.

Headmistress Lily explained #2 as she paced across A012. I'd cleaned the area out as best I could, jamming as much clutter as possible into A011 across the hall to clear things out. Lily picked a desiccated cricket out of the corner and threw it into the wastebasket. "After last year, there were already murmurs about my job... can you imagine Doctor Sauvage as headmistress?"

"I can," I said - probably not the answer Lily was looking for. She nodded just the same.

"Then you know why that can't happen. And, regardless, the School Board will almost certainly want a full accounting if we place below 4th. That means a very thorough audit."

Her pointed look said enough: if they discovered the extent of what I'd done to the little behavior plans, I, Natalia Cadence Storm, would be in Mariana Trench deep shit, and she, Headmistress Bethany Lily (True Name unknown), wouldn't be much better off. And, though the school could no longer magically punish me, who knew what they might do to Simone, Michelle, Emilia, and Helena, all of whom were still subject to magical blood pacts?

The school's performance was the whole point of clearing out A012 - it was a secret-secret room for the administration to hold their meetings in and, alternately, for student and staff alike to discuss festival strategy and, occasionally, practice their magics in. Perhaps she was just being paranoid, but Lily was convinced that at least one of the other schools had an inside scoop. Maybe they were using magic to cheat, or maybe they were spying - it was unclear which.

"Occultus Imperial Prep - our British sisters - barely edged us out in seven out of the twelve events and managed to eke out fourth place," Lily fumed. "No coincidence, that... we ought to have gotten third overall, but that showing nudged us all the way to sixth, and now we're having a very different conversation."

"That's why we're speaking in A012 and not your office?" I asked.

She nodded. I'd done a great job of cleaning out the place (or 'adequate' if you asked Lily - St. Circe's had high standards). The floor tiles gleamed, the dust was gone, and there was enough room for a meeting of twenty or a convenient practice space for whatever else. I proved as much by doing a cartwheel and roll into a handstand.

"I can see your underwear," Lily stated.

Obviously, I should have realized that my navy blue and embarrassingly frilly thong would be visible when doing gymnastics in my school uniform - the skirt flipped right up when I was past horizontal. "I'd have my leotard on, obviously," I said, blushing. I returned to my feet and flattened my uniform skirt. "So... what can I do to make sure St. Circe's doesn't get audited? Aside from renovation duties..."

Lily shrugged. "You're a clever young witch. I'm sure you'll figure something out."

+++++

That was clear enough: Lily wanted me to do something, but she couldn't give me leave to do it. I was going to be a St. Circe's NOC agent.

I already had something figured out, sort-of. After going through the festival plans - which, for once, I was actually privy to on three fronts (Lily, gymnastics, and chorus), instead of being left completely in the dark - I had a seed of an idea. As a witch in the Sisterhood of the Starry Night, I was obliged to follow the Creed of the Mistress, the fourth rule of which was:

'4) Do not teach our ways to the uninitiated; our ways are not their ways.'

And, of course, the first and foremost rule was:

'1) Do as thou wilt; judge and be judged.'

And the staff of St. Circe's judged early and often. That was their job. But the first rule was more an invitation than anything else - our rules were inviolable, but they were stated deliberately and with a certain amount of interpretability in mind. The creed couldn't be broken but, insofar as you could reasonably interpret it, you were welcome to do so - and to suffer the consequences if your interpretation was found wanting. So be it. I wasn't going to teach Simone magic - not technically - but I was going to put her in a position to learn it herself. She was motivated and very, very smart.

I had enough experience with the school's books that I knew a bit about magical bookmaking - and still had access to Ms. Sturm's stockpile of supplies via Emi via Michelle. I asked through the grapevine for her to arrange for bookmaking materials and sturdy cardstock - I asked Michelle during our latest practice session. This was the session where, with the help of the conditioning collars, I was supposed to really be getting the hang of serial handsprings... they were doable, but the wobble factor from my boobs introduced some degree of uncertainty. I was at the point where they were reliably doable but not beautiful.

"Look, it's not that hard," Michelle sighed. "Do you want to be in the festival or not?"

"Of course I do," I lied. "It's just... look, no offense, but you've got a much more balance-efficient body. I know, not forever, you're welcome, but maybe, when Michelle blooms womanly again, you'll understand how no amount of leotard can constrain two F-cup pendulums on your chest."

"Fine, rub it in," Michelle said, absently rubbing her own flat chest. "Look, it's just one-two-three of them. That's basically nothing." She took a running start and did three handsprings in our little practice area, ending with a little flourish of her hands.

I rolled my eyes. "Yes, thank you Miss Biles, I'll take that into consideration. But I say: it's basically and exactly one-two-three of them. So you'll get me the materials tonight?"

She nodded and stretched her arms. "I'll hide them under the serving table in the dining room."

True to her word, she left all of the requisite materials underneath the big table that sported Bigs' dinner platters. I served the Bigs, ate my own meal, fetched the supplies as I cleaned the tables, and got to work with Simone after dinner. She was pretty excited at the prospect.

"You're really going to teach me magic?" she asked.

"No," I said. "I'm basically and exactly not going to teach you magic. We're going to make a book that will teach you magic while I practice, completely coincidentally, the finer points of libromancy."

"You sound like a lawyer."

"Worse: I'm a witch."

Simone didn't know the Creed of the Mistress and I wasn't allowed to divulge it to her - rule #4 - but she knew that there were things that each of us couldn't talk about on threat of punishment. Making the books was a piece of minor artistry that we'd each done several times already during the construction of our fake behavior plans. No big deal there. The more difficult part was engineering the bit of sympathetic magic that would link my book with Simone's. This was a particularly ingenious bit of witchcraft that, fortunately, I was already passing familiar with: our St. Circe's rule books and behavior plans. The pages of the two books were cut from the same larger sheets and, therefore, already had a tendency to sympathetically link. All we (yours truly) had to do was formalize it with a seal - a bit of silvered ink bound with a spot of blood. The school had a way to do it without the blood but I, a novice witch, had to tolerate a sore finger. Ten pages per book meant twenty spots of blood. I'd survived worse.

Simone held her little clay-red book up and flipped through the manila pages. "It's not a very long book."

"It doesn't have to be long," I said. "The pages will update as you complete exercises in it... I'll have to write the exercises ahead of you. That means I'll have to code it... look..."

I scrawled some symbols into my book - a dozen or so that I'd already planned out - along with a box encapsulating a few sentences of text, and then activated it all with a drawn symbol. The text and a little glittering symbol appeared in Simone's book.

"Lumieh looks like a slash at first," she read. "But look more carefully - it extends into many dimensions. To draw it properly, you'll have to start with the tail and reach the tip before it rotates beyond our dimension." She frowned, scratching the black braids of her hair. "That doesn't make sense. It's... oh! It moved! It's moving!"

"I cannot teach magic to the uninitiated," I said with a smile. "But it's not my fault if my practice book, which I am crafting for my own edification, happens to have magic lessons that an enterprising student might complete. The catch is that I'll need you to do magic for me at the Winter Festival?"

"Wait... what? What do you mean?"

"I mean I need your help running counter-espionage against Occultus Imperial Prep. To do that, you'll need to know exactly two symbols, both of them more complex than our little linear lumieh. If you'll humor me, I'll fill your book with as many exercises as you care to set your big brain against."

Simone huffed. "That's extortion, Natalie!" It was, but that was sort of the point.

I shrugged. "Is that a 'no'?" I reached for the little red book. "I guess I could ask Helena..."

"What? No!" Simone clutched the book tightly enough that her knuckles blanched. "Helena's, like, barely any good at math. You said witchcraft is like math, right?"

"There's a deep homology."

"Okay, then I'm your girl. I don't think Helena even knows calculus..."

I shrugged. "I'll take what I can get. You'll do it?"

Simone tapped at her chin. "I won't get in trouble?"

"Not if you don't get caught. The better you are, the less detectable you are. Here's the deal: if St. Circe's does poorly, the School Board, whoever the fuck they are, is going to audit the whole school, probably shitcan Lily..."

"Good."

"Not so fast - she's the only one stopping Sauvage from having the run of the place... the devil you know..."

Simone frowned. "You're right... shit."

"Shit, indeed, mon amie. They'll probably shitcan Lily, discover the changes I've made to all of your behavior plans, and then have Doctor Sauvage intercede accordingly. You're my number one choice because you're my best friend and because you're my smartest friend."

Simone snorted. "Cassie's your best friend."

"We'll call it a tie... you're definitely the smartest, and my best friend who I don't fuck," I added with a smirk.

"Gross," Simone said. "But valid. Okay, I'm in. Well? You'd better get your ass started, because I'm finishing luminos tonight."

"Lumieh," I corrected. "Good..." I held up my little fist. "Pound it home."

"You're such a dork," Simone said, pulling me into a hug. "A beautiful, brilliant dork," she whispered. "Let's do this thing."

+++++

The day of the Winter Festival fast approached and, amid the tumult of regular preparations, I finalized my plans to foil our unfair foe. First off, I failed at gymnastics - by which I mean I failed at failing. My floor exercise passed muster with Ms. Azucar and, therefore, I committed myself to a brief duo performance with Michelle for the 'intermediate' group performance - this group was scored just like the 'expert gymnastics' group, but only accounted for a quarter as many points in whatever metric the interscholastic competition used. It was an obligation I could do without, but it was Michelle's only event, so she was understandably ecstatic. And she was, Ms. Azucar said, the most promising 'late beginner' she'd ever seen. And I was, Ms. Azucar stated, 'adequate'. High praise, indeed.

As soon as we got our marching orders from Ms. Azucar to practice our routine 'fifty to a hundred times' before Saturday (she'd be lucky to get twenty), and after I got Michelle to stop hyperventilating before she passed out, I retreated to my room to complete another exercise for Simone's book - as I added pages and progressed into more complex symbols and proceeded to the first few exercises of paired symbols, the coding on my end got progressively more elaborate. It started to look like something out of our behavior plans.

"What are you looking at, little?" Marie asked me.

I was sitting cross-legged on my bed and squinting at my book - Simone had completed an exercise and the sympathetic magic between our books reordered and reorganized my own book accordingly. I'd learned to anticipate most of the changes (I had to if I wanted the damn thing to work for beans), but it was still pretty neat to watch.

"Just my book," I said.

"Room's getting a bit messy..." she offered a pointed look and gestured toward a small pile of bike parts she'd discarded for the time being.

I shrugged. "I've got things to do - things festival-related. I'll clean as much as you like on Sunday."

"Remember who you're talking to, Natalie," she said. Good - she used my name again.

The look I returned suggested that I knew exactly who I was talking to, and that I wasn't particularly impressed. At least, I hope that's what it suggested. I was in no mood to play coy and would play my trump card if I had to. I wiggled my pinkie finger a bit to give her the hint - pink and smooth with no hint of wizening. "I'm working at Lily's request," I said. "Maybe you could meet with her and tell her I need more time to clean up your messes."

"Don't be a smartass," Marie said, and she started cleaning up her own things. Good.

I smiled and motioned zipping my lips before returning to my book... and to my cards. That was the next part of my plan - a trio of sympathetic cards. One card could be activated by each of two special symbols cast against a third card, feeding back into one another to reverse whatever magical hijinks a cheater might pull. It worked like this:

Imagine two racers, A and C, engaged in a footrace, but racer A is intent upon using magic to cheat. Now imagine you place special cards A' and C' in the shoes (or anywhere on the person) of racers A and C. Now imagine A has a confederate that casts magic against C to make her left shoe a half-pound heavier... not a huge effect, but enough to switch the race from favoring C to favoring A. Now, imagine racer C's confederate, B, has a special card linking cards A' and C'. As soon as magic is used against C, B's card (B') detects the magical energy (through sympathy with card C') and vibrates a bit. She can then use one symbol to absorb at least part (and hopefully all) of the magical effect into card B' and then use another symbol to transfer the effect to card A'. In effect, B has switched the cheating effect from C onto A by rerouting the magical effect. While this would only work for small effects - cards, no matter how heavy the stock, aren't powerful magical receptacles - any sufficiently large effect would be too obvious to use in any case, and thus only card-absorbable effects were likely to be seen in the first place. My countermeasure was magically uncomplicated but, as far as I know, our Winter Festival was the first time such a thing was ever attempted.

I finished with four sets of three cards - twelve cards in total. I wanted to make more, but that's all I had time and good card stock for after a few early failed attempts. Assuming I could plant the cards but couldn't risk retrieving them later, that gave us exactly four events to thwart Occultus - that is, if they were cheating via magic. If not? We'd already set up A012 as a 'safe room' so, unless the hypothetical mole was somebody high in the St. Circe's administration, the spy would have almost no access to our plans.

The next day was the terminal preparation for the festival - setting up our pennants and decorations in the morning; practicing my gymnastics routine, both the intro march and my pairs routine with Michelle in the afternoon; and checking up on Simone's progress in the evening. She still wasn't very far along - there's only so much magic a budding witch can absorb in two evenings - but she'd progressed past the minimum for what I'd need.

"These will... reverse magic?" She examined the cards - they weren't anything special, slightly thicker stock than playing cards and about the same size, several very faint symbols on either side of the cream-white surface.

"Not exactly, but we can reroute the energy if it's directed from afar, which it pretty much has to be. Let's see those symbols."

"The card vibrated!" Simone said. She held it up to her face, the corners still wiggling.

"That's because I did something to Card C'... now, use 'halepha' to absorb the effect and then 'gerion' to transfer it."

Simone got halepha right on the first try - the easier of the two, and only needed three tries to get gerion, which was an intermediate symbol not usually taught until a month or two into initiate training. All in all, a good effort. Card C's burden of weight lifted and card A' fell, slapping against the ground as it suddenly gained the weight of a whole pack of cards.

"I did that?" Simone asked.

"Congratulations, you are a hedge witch," I said. Simone humored me with a fist bump, her bony knuckles butting up against my small hand. "I wish I could take credit."

"You've been working yourself ragged. Get some sleep."

I took her advice. After a nice long shower with Cassie, which always got me well-centered, I retreated to my room, just now wondering whether I'd see Magnus tomorrow. Cassie's unintentional moans of 'Oh Liam' to my oral attentions in the shower had elicited giggling from both of us and kindled my memory of St. Lovelock's boys. Those worries would have to wait. I fell asleep even before Marie and slept a dreamless sleep right up until Ms. Irons sounded the tone for us to wake up, It was close to an hour before dawn.

+++++

I donned my school uniform, pink-ribboned pigtails and all, and packed my leotard and special cards in a little pack. No service uniform for me today - Ms. Azucar and Mrs. Bishop had, apparently, gotten into a shouting match over it, which only Headmistress Lily could resolve. Being littles, Michelle and I were supposed to participate in the Collar March but, being on the gymnastics squad, we were supposed to participate in that march, too. Ultimately, it was decided that gymnasics were a more appropriate display of the school's extracurricular acumen than was parading an extra two girls around for public humiliation. I'd probably hear it from Mrs. Bishop tomorrow, but fuck her. If I never wore my service uniform again, it would be too soon.

There were twenty-two gymnastics girls in all but, being gymnastics girls, we didn't take up much space. We stowed our things and piled into the backs of four big, black SUVs helmed by seemingly-mute, dark-clad drivers of the kind we were now well-accustomed to. I waved to Cassie before I hopped up into my ride - she was boarding with the Big faction of the crew team along with a clearly-overworked Dr. Clay, who had to manage both a crew competition and a choral number, both important events. I wondered how they planned on holding a crew event in the middle of winter, having forgotten Cassie's mentioning the festival location over a month before.

I remembered it soon enough. Our SUVs pulled away, rumbling down the cobblestones, rolling out past the standing stones that delimited the campus, and our windows suddenly fogged up with the muggy warmth of a tropical rainforest. Broad, flat leaves and little clusters of orange and yellow flowers brushed by the vehicle and, moments later, we were cruising along a rocky seascape, shuttling past explosions of grass and denser vegetation amid a dark volcanic slope. The road wound part-way around the island mountain until we came to the grounds of a posh resort with a great big sign above its tiki-themed arch:

'Walukau Welcomes Students and Staff from the Eight Schools!'

Blue waters, palm trees, waterside bungalows, and white sand: this was where we were having the Winter Festival. Suddenly, our SUV was filled with excited chatter, Michelle tugging at the sleeve of my blazer and bouncing up and down. It was the closest she'd been to a vacation since enrolling over a year ago. Our vehicles dropped us off in front of one of the larger bungalows and we went in to change for the school's entrance march.

"Remember, our entrance performance isn't scored," Ms. Azucar said. "So just try not to embarrass yourself."

I could manage that well enough - I suppose I'd gotten used to dressing in feminine ways, to being vaguely degraded by my uniform requirements, and to the occasional public shaming a little endures. Even so, there was something offputting about being a sixteen year-old girl, dressing up in a skintight crimson leotard, and strutting out in front of God-knows-who. Did they just see me as eye candy? Was I right to feel a bit creeped? And, most important, would the Bryces be there - and, if so, how careful did I have to be to not reveal how far off the rails my behavior plan had gone? I was not the Natalie Bryce that Rowan had shelled out big bucks to create.

"I wish we'd known we'd be in Hawaii," Michelle said. "I'd have brought a swimsuit..."

"A boring St. Circe's-issue one piece thing?" Ms. Azucar said with a scoff. "You can take your pick later on - the resort will have a wardrobe to choose from."

That garnered a minor cheer from the girls and a minor tremor of apprehension from me. I'd never worn a swimsuit before - not as a woman - and had no idea what would work with my body type. Nor how much I ought to expose - a one piece? A bikini? If the latter, how revealing? I'd have to play it by ear.

Ms. Azucar ran down a list of items on her clipboard, nodding to herself. "You'd best pick your bunk-mates now," she added absently. "I don't want to hear any complaining this evening."

"Bunk mates?" Lorelei Waters asked. She was one of the more advanced gymnasts, our star of the uneven bars.

Ms. Azucar nodded, giving her a wary look. "Bunk mates. We'll be staying here tonight and most of the day tomorrow. We sure as hell didn't come all the way to Walukau just for one measly day of performances... though," she waved her clipboard sternly, "the performances are very important." Another day? That garnered a bigger cheer.

Thirty minutes later, it wasn't even eleven in the morning yet and we were all in our leotards and strutting out from the bungalow. We filed down the pathway, converging along a major avenue paved in alabaster-white stone, where we met up with other groups of students. Some of the more inveterate girls waved to students they recognized from previous years, calling out their greetings.

"Mrs. Bishop might be watching," Ms. Azucar warned - implying that, if she was, she probably wouldn't appreciate undue ebullience.

So we walked on with only a little waving and a little chattering when our group got close to the others. The students from the other schools, as with the students from St. Circe's, were largely dressed in their student uniforms. These were mostly the proper and decidedly 20th-Century uniforms of high-echelon boarding schools, though one group of students wore loose robes and sandals like a group of gurus-in-training and another wore white tie tuxedos, complete with cotton-white gloves. Then there were the gymnastics girls in their leotards. The students dressed in the uniforms of their 'main' event - in my case, gymnastics took precedence over being a little or being in chorus - so there were leotards, swim suits, gym uniforms, and a host of other outfits. I took the whole march in with aloof aplomb - no waving or calling out for me. Until…

"Natalie," somebody whispered.

"Magnus!" I shouted far too loudly. "Magnus!" I almost-whispered. "Hi!"

He was dressed in some sort of gi - judo? Jiu-jitsu? I wasn't sure I knew the difference. The sleeves stopped half-way down his forearms, revealing a few inches of powerful, corded wrist. The lapels parted enough to display his smooth and powerful chest to half-way down his sternum. I realized I was staring.

"I like your leotard," he said, gaze fixed on my barely-constrained boobs.

"I like yours, too." I giggled, blushing. "Your gi, I mean."

"Get a room, you two," Michelle said with a sigh.

We were fortunate in that the St. Circe's gymnastics team and the St. Lovelock's BJJ club were lined up next to one another as we awaited entrance into the main festival hall. Despite Ms. Azucar's implicit disapproval, we chatted for another few minutes, catching up and making plans to reconnoiter come supper-time. Then the St. Circe's girls were announced over the loudspeaker system and off we went - but not before I leapt forward and gave Magnus a quick kiss. His nearby club-mates chuckled and slapped his shoulders in congratulations.

"Slow reflexes, man," one of them laughed. "She could have taken you down!"

+++++

The main hall had the look of a refurbished aircraft hangar - huge, arched, and linear with perhaps a thousand tiered stadium chairs to either side and a big elevated platform smack dab in the middle. Our gymnastics group marched right down the middle, splitting in two just before the stage - about twenty VIPs roosted upon the stage, including Headmistress Lily and Mrs. Bishop. Doctor Sauvage was, presumably, holding down the fort back at St. Circe's.

"The Intermediate and Advanced Gymnastics Teams," the tuxedoed man at the podium announced to scattered applause.

My part in the march was simple - smile, wave, cartwheel... smile, wave, hand walk, jog (to catch up), repeat. Then, once we got just past the stage, we formed our three-high tower. Nine girls on the bottom, each group of three holding another girl at shoulder level, and that upper group of three girls boosting Lorelei to shoulder level (or, for me, a bit higher) around eight feet off the ground. Being as small as I was, and now being reasonably strong, I was one of those three middle-level girls. We hoisted Lorelei up, held the tower for about five seconds, and then boosted her up into the air where, with a little leap, she did a double-flip and (of course) stuck the landing. Then it was the turn of the middle-level girls. Michelle could do a backflip from that position easily, but I couldn't, so for us, it was a boost, splits in the air, and stick the landing. For Valerie Sun in the middle, it was a front flip, and then the girls in the nine-girl base did a hand springs over the three of us, and we all got to our feet, smiling and waving at the VIPs on stage. It was all very cheerleader-y and I felt vaguely ridiculous about it, the same way I did about most silly ceremonies. But it meant a lot to Ms. Azucar and my teammates, so I'd grin and bear it (literally).

We filed up into the seats just in time for me to miss Cassie and the crew team (carrying their shell with, I hear, Tiffany Chalmers sitting in the boat and miming a one-woman row). Right after crew was the 'March of the littles', though most of the Bigs were on one team or another and Michelle and I were in gymnastics. Therefore, it was two littles each in the front and back carrying signs: 'St. Circe's Behavior and Control Club' with six Bigs and six littles marching in between, their littles chained on their glittering silvery leashes, all doing their little turns, waves, and so on. I resisted the urge to wave at Simone - she'd be embarrassed enough as it was. Fortunately, there was no public shaming here, merely the demonstration of control.

So it went for most of an hour - each of the remaining schools filing in and giving little demonstrations of their talent as they did. Eight school in all - St. Circe's, of course, and St. Lovelock's; the Occultus Imperial school (our rivals, it seemed); The Sanctuary Valley Collective (the folks dressed like gurus, apparently from somewhere in the California desert); and so on. Europe, the Americas, and Oceania were present - all of the the centers of 'Western' magical education, it seemed, all of them exclusive, and all of them competitive.

After the arrivals, there was a ceremony much like the autumn ceremony at St. Circe's, this time for winter. I felt the wave of magic wash over me with the sudden change in seasons... but winter on the island of Walukau wasn't much different from any of the other seasons, so nothing really changed. The shadows shifted a bit, maybe. There was polite clapping from the crowd and then the festival started in earnest. A strange, pale man in a broad-brimmed hat approached the podium.

"For two hundred forty-seven years, the great centers of junior magical learning have gathered for the solstice festival," he said, his voice strangely dry and hoarse but nonetheless carrying great command. "Under our modern rules, each school may compete in twelve events out of twenty, with points awarded for each placement, from one to one thousand, depending on overall placement and judge's decision... the overall winner, of course, gets to host the Ancient Idol for the year, bringer of luck and inspiration, but more importantly shall have boasting rights over the other seven schools. But there is honor, too, in merely competing, and thus the Board of Magiarchs wishes you all luck, may it be a good and fair competition. Now that winter is truly upon us, let the festival begin!"

Everybody cheered - even I cheered - and, just like that, the 'good and fair competition' began.