After maybe three and a half hours of sleep we all dragged ourselves groaning out of…couch? We’d never made it to a bad. Erin called Sarah and checked to see where we should meet the group. Apparently they had exchanged numbers, and seeing my little sister so excited about making a new friend made me smile. Sarah was a sweet girl, and Erin, despite her exuberance, didn’t have many friends. Our lives lent themselves towards a more solitary existence.

We arrived on campus for the first time with thirty minutes or so to spare. Sarah and the others were waiting, and as soon as we arrived she smiled and shoved a cup into my hands “Ethan! Hey I stopped for hot cocoa on the way so I thought I would get you some. Its this mom and pop place I found last week, they’re really good!” Her smile was sweet and happy and warmed me even more than the heated drink between my palms.

I grinned back “Thanks Sarah, I love hot cocoa! It was really sweet of you to think of me!” I gave her a quick hug, noticing the flush and smiling at her obvious crush. It was pretty natural for her to be interested and she was definitely my type, but it was just a gratitude thing and I was sure she would get over it soon. I still enjoyed having her in my life and definitely wanted us to become better friends, even if she didn’t stay interested. I could almost hear Ali’s teeth grinding behind me too, which was funny. She probably thought I would take advantage, I had to remember to remind her I wasn’t a total asshole.

We all made our way over to orientation, Sarah holding onto my arm and all but skipping next to me. She and Erin chattered to each other about whatever people talk about before noon with Magnus chiming in jauntily once in a while. Shawn was as quiet as ever and Sebastian didn’t seem to feel like getting involved, and it delighted me to see that Abby at least treated mornings with the sneering disdain they deserved.

Finally we made it to a huge red brick ampitheater. I suspected based on their reactions that people who werent in the program couldn’t even see it. The doors to the building were thick and sturdy. Made of dark wood, carved with symbols, some of the patterns I recognized, but more of them appeared to be completely alien. When we got close the symbols pulsed a myriad of different colors as the thick wood parted soundlessly for us. Magnus gave a low chuckle “Showoffs.”

We all chuckled at that, though Abby and Sarah sounded a bit nervous, which made me smile a bit. From what Abby had said she had been aware of her heritage only a bit longer than Sarah and I. My father had apparently known about my own infernal blood for quite some time but never bothered to mention it. We slipped into the mildly busy hall and found some seats on the worn wooden benches before the equally worn wooden stage just as the light began to dim.

A man strolled up onto the stage, young and unassuming with bright green eyes and brown hair. The wire rimmed glasses and tweed jacket looked…off on him somehow. Like someone very dangerous had done some research on the internet into what teachers were supposed to look like and dressed up like one for Halloween. The way he moved and the burning intensity in those emerald eyes spoke of barely constrained violence and a willingness to unleash said violence if provoked.

The mans polite smile put exactly no one in the room at ease as he leaned down to take the microphone. “Hello students. My name is Dean Kelloway. If you made your way into this room you must be aware that this is not a normal school, as you are not normal students. The world is a strange and interesting place, and there are many types of being in it. Through mutual cooperation following millennia of war, we have long since designed a system by which all of these beings, what we call, highsiders, can learn and grow together.”

He glanced around for anyone looking confused or upset “It looks like we don’t have anyone here this year who made it here completely ignorant. That is good. There’s usually at least one. Now as you may know there are many types of supernatural, from many planes, and pure bloods learn and grow on their own home plane. Everyone here is at least part supernatural of one stripe or another and though some have more or less innate power, you all have the chance to become something amazing.”

“Now due to some of the compacts between the powers none of you have access to your natures yet in any meaningful way. A few of you have noticed some unique quirks of your lineage surfacing but for the most part you are all just very impressive humans to the casual observer. Over the course of this first year you will be learning to access and channel that power as well as how to increase your proficiency in its use.” Everyone was staring in rapt attention at the Dean, all interested to learn the method to accessing our powers.

Even I was pretty excited. I hadn’t asked many questions about my infernal blood, because my father wouldn’t have answered them even if he could, but the idea of learning more about where I came from was intriguing. Maybe whatever abilities I got would shed some light on who my demonic ancestor was, I assume that part of me came from mom, and dad never talked about her much at all. I respected his pain at her loss, but knowing nothing about my mother had been a regret for most of my life. Erin and I had a different mother than the others and even they wouldn’t talk about her with us. All I really had of her was a picture of her holding us as babies.

Dean Kelloway went over some more rules citing areas to avoid on campus and making sure we knew not to fight each other outside controlled circumstances, but after talking for a while and introducing our teachers he let us all go. I had been expecting him to teach us to unlock our power or do a big ceremony or something but apparently we were going to cover that in class. We were all mostly quiet as we trekked out of the orientation, we hadn’t heard anything really unexpected but something about the Deans piercing emerald gaze had shaken all of us.

Shawn looked over at me “So which classes are you going to go with? I’m doing enchantment for sure, with my magical talent I’m guessing I can make some seriously cool stuff. I might sit in on a few of the others and check out what they’re like too, but magic theory and enchantment are my big ones.” I had figured he would be looking into those two, but doubted my own strengths would lie in that direction.

When the dean had introduced the teachers he had filled us in on the diverse course catalog. Besides basic classes in combat and magic, they had more specialized courses for things like alchemy and trade skills we could learn. There was even a class in poisons and assassination, though I had no real interest in taking it. I could just imagine the tests in a class like that. I was pretty intrigued by the broad variety of options but hadn’t figured out exactly which ones I wanted to try so I just shrugged and looked questioningly at someone else to deflect.

Magnus just shook his head “I’m going to try combat obviously, and they even have a mining class for some weird reason. I always loved mining in online games so I figure I can give that a shot. Maybe find some cool metals to sell or something. How about you guys?” Abby agreed to try the combat class but was more interested in the smithing class as a secondary, and Sebastian was going to do combat and weapons mastery. The different classes had a weird almost RPG-like feel to them, but I dismissed the impression. This wasn’t a game, and treating it like one would probably get us all killed.

Theo apparently was interested in the alchemy class, which he swore wasn’t just because he wanted to learn to make magic beer and hadn’t decided on a secondary yet.I glanced over at Sarah who looked pensive for a minute before answering “I think I’m going to do magic with healing as a secondary. I’m not really much for fighting. Granted that’s subject to change once we get our ability, but I’ve always liked helping people and I think its going to reflect that.” She seemed a bit uncertain, as if we would judge her for not wanting to chop up…whatever it is we would be learning to fight, but we just smiled back encouragingly.

Her mention of abilities did get me thinking though, I tuned out Aiden and Erin and Ali, knowing them well enough to be able to guess their classes without much trouble, and thought about what the Dean had mentioned. Apparently all highsiders had a special ability, as well as a unique focus that helped them access their powers, the ability was the result of whatever bloodline you inherited, as all of the gods and higher demons and angels had their own individual talents that carried through the bloodline.

He had been mostly vague about what exactly was entailed in the activation of the focus or how the powers actually worked but I figured that’s why we were here. What interested me most was that the ability I would get should be the same as Erins and would help us figure out which demon our infernal blood came from. Ali’s would help her figure it out as well, but she and Aiden seemed less interested in knowing. I thought about what I could learn about my mother and once again decide coming here was worth it. I glanced over at my friends both new and old as we wandered around to find food and smiled, the company wasn’t bad either.