The screaming started immediately, and the room erupted into a full-blown panic.

"Why didn't you tell me not to touch it?" The normally calm and collected Nova's face was white while she glared daggers across the table to her roommate. "You saw me pass my hand through the plants to show you my goddamn phone! Why didn't you say anything?!"

"You didn't touch the flowers! And I thought—" Beatrice stammered.

"Thought what?"

"I thought that it was common knowledge not to touch wolfsbane without gloves on!"

"Common knowledge—" Nova spluttered in disbelief. "You privileged little b—"

"Professor Meowstaff! I touched it too!"

"What do we do?"

"Infirmary? We need to find... Who was the academy nurse? I can't remember!"

"Professor Hope! It was Professor Hope, she's the Head Healer!"

“Okay, uh, let’s go to her! Right now!”

“I-I’m feeling itchy, am I going to die?”

At the head of the table, Meowstaff shrank back. The cat's ears were flat against his head from the barrage of noise, and his thick grey and brown coat stood on edge. "Professor Laurence, I don't believe your prank is being well received... Perhaps this has gone too far. The students are in a panic!"

Beside the cat's perch, Laurence smirked. "Ah, all in good fun, Professor Meowstaff. Settle down, children! You are in no danger." He waved his wand at the plants on the table, and the air seemed to shift as the students watched.

The cluster of purple flowers began to change in front of their very eyes. Bell-shaped flowers with a deep violet color became clusters of tiny purple-pink flowers that quivered in the slightest breeze.

Beatrice sighed with relief when she saw them.

"What? What are these now?" Nova rounded on the professor, glaring at him. "What did you do?"

Laurence snickered. "I've only lifted the illusion I had placed on these. They are not wolfsbane flowers, and you haven't touched any real wolfsbane plants."

Meowstaff's eyes are large and shone with concern as he sat straight and looked at his students. "I would never start a new class with the toxic wolfsbane! Experienced witches and wizards handling the plant must always wear gloves and eye protection, and instruction on wolfsbane is reserved for third-year classes and older." The cat licked at his paw and cleaned his face for a moment, the gesture calming him down somewhat. "I understand, as all professors of Ravensburl Academy do, that not every student comes from a background of magic. These pretty flowers being toxic is simply not common knowledge."

Nova blatantly glanced at Beatrice as she sat down. The panic of the moment was dissipating, but her heart still hammered.

Beatrice couldn't look back at her roommate. Her hands shook as she wiped her glasses, and even as she looked back at Professor Meowstaff, her vision was clouded.

Laurence still held a self-satisfied smirk, but his expression shifted just a bit till it was an awkward, concerned smile. "I do apologize, but I am the Illusion professor, after all. What better way to get you ready for it than by a harmless prank?"

Hanan, who was white as a sheet from having touched the "wolfsbane" flowers to inspect them, turned to Adeline and Sascha to mouth, "Prank?!"

Meowstaff purred loudly, cleaning his face again. Once done, he looked back to Beatrice. "Miss Beatrice, could you tell me what these flowers are now?" His voice was soft and kind.

The earth witch sniffled, but nodded and looked back at the clusters of flowers. They looked harmless and beautiful, but then so did the wolfsbane. "These flowers are called vervain, professor. Also known as verbena. It is used in many herbal remedies to..." She took a breath. "To manage seizures and calm the nerves."

The cat nodded. "Vervain oil is good for the nerves and for the heart. You will be helping me tend to the vervain plants throughout the year, along with some other ones that have medicinal uses, to help Professor Hope stock the infirmary." Meowstaff jumped down from his perch and playfully swatted at a particularly low-hanging cluster of flowers. "The plants are not toxic at all to humans or animals, as long as its oil is consumed in reasonable doses. Now do get familiar with these plants please, you will be seeing these flowers and leaves plenty during the year, and in your Alchemy classes. Professor Laurence?"

The other professor nodded and resumed his role as assistant to the Botany professor. His tasks, as Beatrice noticed throughout the class, was mostly to pick up and move plant pots and write notes on the blackboard at the front of the room.

Professor Meowstaff continued to patiently explain the properties of the vervain plant, and his soft, level voice helped to calm the students from their earlier panic. He even let Beatrice and a few others touch his fur as he walked the length of the table while lecturing.

But even with such a patient professor, Beatrice couldn't focus. She was a druid, of all things! She was most comfortable around plants, whether it was digging holes for them in the garden or plucking leaves and stems for use in poultices. And even then, she could hardly focus on writing down her notes. It was all things she had already known about vervain, there was a cluster of the plants back at home. But instead of the healing properties of vervain, all Beatrice heard was Nova's accusing voice in her head, ringing and cutting.

Was she really privileged? What if the plants really were wolfsbane, and her roommate and classmates had gotten seriously hurt? She didn't say anything, which was true. It was second nature to her to spot the purple, bell-shaped flowers, and not to touch them unprepared! She simply didn't think that she needed to warn others, didn't think that they didn't know...

Beatrice suddenly blinked. Where she was staring at the blank page of her notebook, there was now a mass of grey and brown fur. Professor Meowstaff had sat on her notebook.

The cat's tail swished, and the tip of it brushed Beatrice's nose. She sneezed.

"Sorry, professor!" She said immediately after. "Um...?"

"Well, I saw you were not taking any notes," Meowstaff replied with a brief pause to yawn. "I imagine you already know everything there is to know about vervain, yes? I've heard you came from a druidic background."

Beatrice felt the strange feeling that she was being glared at from behind the plants.

"Oh! Yes I do, professor." Beatrice nodded. She gently patted the cat's back and found that Professor Meowstaff's gray and brown fur had a pattern of swirls at his sides. "I come from the Gaia family, from Oakendale."

"Oakendale! My, my, I haven't been there in years." Meowstaff purred. He settled on his student's notebook and laid fully across it with his paws tucked underneath his body. "The great oak still stands strong?"

"Yes, professor. I don't think I'd be here if it wasn't, to be honest."

"What makes you say that?"

"Well," Beatrice scratched her head. It was a bit difficult to explain to people who weren't from their druidic culture just how important the great tree really was. "It's a sacred tree, I guess you could say. It's so connected to the land and the life around it that—"

"If it dies, the surroundings begin to fail?"

"Yes! Yes exactly. How did you know, Professor?"

The cat yawned. "Well, I do know a thing or two about plants."

Beatrice smiled and gave the cat a scratch on the chin. After another minute or so of looking like a gray and brown loaf of bread, Meowstaff got up and walked around the table looking for other students we weren't taking down notes.

The rest of the class went by normally, or as normally as a class could be when the professor is a talking cat. Once dismissed, Professor Laurence smiled and bid the students a good lunch and that he would be seeing them later for Illusion class.

"If Illusion class was anything like the prank he pulled earlier, I don't think I want to go," Hanan said, looking a little sick as she remembered her earlier panic.

"I agree, that was a terrible thing to have done. It wasn't fair to you or the others, and the panic on everyone's face!" Adeline threw her hands up in exasperation. "And he calls himself a professor?"

"It's alright. At least it wasn't actual wolfsbane and no one was in any danger. That's what matters, right?" Beatrice's voice was small, and she clutched the strap of her satchel tight. "It was fake, and we're all okay."

Beatrice and her three friends walked back through the west courtyard and into the castle proper. She couldn't focus on the light banter they made or the jokes that were cracked to ease the tension. She didn't answer when Hanan had a question about vervain and healing plants, and she didn't even look up when Sascha accidentally bumped her as they turned into the main hall for lunch.

All she could see was her roommate's face, and hear her piercing words. No one had ever spoken to her like that before, with such accusatory anger. No one had ever looked at her like that before, with such contempt.

"Why?" Beatrice suddenly burst out. "Why is she like that?"

Her three friends froze, a spoonful of soup halfway to Sascha's mouth. They were seated together at one of the tables, with trays bearing plates and bowls of various lunch food in front of them. Beatrice didn't even notice they had gotten food and had sat down already, she was so distracted.

"I'm sorry?" Adeline asked once the tense silence had gone on for too long. "What— who are you talking about?"

"Nova! What is her problem with me? I don't understand it!" Beatrice couldn't stop. It was like a dam had burst, and try as she might, no amount of being nice and patient to her new roommate could hold it back. "It's only the first day of school and she's already screaming at me. I made an honest mistake, I know, I should have warned her about the wolfsbane. I should have warned everyone about the wolfsbane! But I thought it was common knowledge, I didn't know not everyone knew they were toxic!"

The three other witches shared a glance. Sascha's spoonful of food finally made it to their mouth, and they inclined their head to Hanan and Adeline. Adeline shrugged, leaving the Filipino witch to clear her throat and lean across the table.

"I think I know what's eating Nova." She said quietly. "I was able to talk to her during the first feast, remember? She's actually, well..."

"I remember you did get to talk to her, yes." The earth witch could only sigh and lean back in her chair. A quick glance around the room showed that Nova wasn't in the hall. She had either eaten quickly and left, or hadn't arrived yet. Maybe she was skipping lunch.

"I don't know much about your roommate, Beatrice. But I think it'll be good to just...be patient."

"Haven't I been patient enough already? I'm sure she went to the Headmistress to complain about me yesterday. Then when I went back to my room after we gathered some plants, she was dividing our room!" Beatrice buried her face in her hands. "She hates me, and it's only the first day."

"I don't quite think it's that, Beatrice," Adeline said. Her slight French accent was more prominent when she spoke slowly. "You, me, and Sascha, we're alike. We come from a magical background. Both Hanan and Nova don't, so..." She trailed off pointedly.

Beatrice's eyes shone with helplessness and confusion as she looked back to Adeline. "Are you saying it's my fault I come from a family of druids? I know we have different backgrounds, but screaming at me on the first day?"

"Beatrice Gaia, of the Oakendale Gaias?" Sascha asked, brow raised.

"Why does everyone keep asking that? Yes, of the Oakendale Gaias. There's only one "Gaia" family around, I think."

The three witches shared a glance again, then fell silent. Adeline shrugged and went back to her flatbread, while Hanan struggled to cut through a chicken-fried steak.

"Well don't you worry your pretty little head about it, darling. We have Illusion next, and that is a much bigger problem than Nova, I think." Adeline offered Beatrice a slice of flatbread, topped with garlic and cheese. "As you said, it's just the first day. Who knows what else will happen as the year goes on?"

"You might even become the best of friends!" Hanan said.

"Me and Nova?" The earth witch scoffed. "As if that will ever happen."

Illusions class was strange, to say the least. All of Beatrice's classes were on the west side of the castle, but while Botany was held adjacent to a greenhouse and Abjuration held an amphitheater inside, the Illusion classroom was unique even by magical standards.

Beatrice found herself standing at the threshold of the classroom, staring into its open doorway while a crowd of her classmates was gathering behind her.

"Hey, what are you all standing around for?" A brash voice said, and Adeline rolling her eyes and whispering told Beatrice it was Arnold approaching. "This is Illusion class, isn't it? Just go inside! We're all going to be late."

"Well, you see... We do know its illusion. The sign is on the door." Adeline patiently turned to Arnold, but the look in her eye was anything but patient. "But would you really want to step in there, with it looking like that? Be my guest."

Beatrice chuckled, she heard the muttering and grumbling as Arnold pushed his way through to the front of their small crowd. She stepped aside to let him pass, and he stopped in his tracks as well.

Just past the door was a void; a completely black void, with no hint of a bottom. It was if the room itself didn't exist.

"Ah. I see what you mean," came the sheepish reply. Arnold took a step back.

"Hey."

Beatrice looked behind her for the source of the sharp voice, then tilted her gaze up. Her roommate was standing behind her, sharp dark eyes looking into her's and looking unamused. As usual. Nova had her hands in the pockets of her form-fitting pants. "You know Laurence is probably in there laughing at us," she said.

"Professor Laurence." Beatrice corrected her quickly. "But—"

Nova cut her off. "Like you all said. Illusion." She pushed past Beatrice and the still-gawking Arnold and stepped into the void.

The clacking sound her boots made on the stone of the hall didn't stop as she stepped into the darkness. She kept walking in a straight line, as if standing on nothing at all, then paused some distance away from the door.

"Nova? Are you okay?" Beatrice asked, still hesitating to enter.

Her roommate didn't reply, tersely avoided answering Beatrice in fact and only pulled her phone out from her pocket. Holding it out in front of her, Beatrice heard her take a breath and hold it for a moment. On her exhale, think bolts of yellowish electricity began to arc from her phone, her wand. The bolts arced around her for a moment, singing in the air with high-pitched hums as they sought the paths with least resistance. They seemed to stop as they struck objects that were hidden around her in the void, until—

"Ow!" A voice in the void said, then laughed. "Very well, Nova. You found me. I'm rather impressed."

The darkness of the void began to recede, pulling back from the doorway like a dark blanket that had been covering a floor of normal stone squares. The void gathered into a central point, the blackness swirling inwards till it disappeared into the tip of Professor Laurence's wand. Nova herself had made it into the exact center of a normal-sized classroom, though the desks closest to her sported brand new but thankfully small burn marks. The man had a self-satisfied smirk on his face as he waved the rest of his students into the Illusion classroom.

The Asian witch, satisfied with how she did, sat at a desk by the front of the class. Beatrice went to sit with her friends when suddenly Professor Laurence tutted loudly.

“Now, now. I understand you would rather sit with your friends, but I would like to disrupt that habit for a moment.” Laurence’s deep voice cut through the din of the students’ chatter and creak of chairs being pulled out. “Sit with someone you’re not familiar with. Just for my class.”

The students stared back at their professor, confusion clearly written on their faces. An awkward silence well over them while they slowly began to shuffle around and sit with others they weren't familiar with. Beatrice found herself sitting across the aisle from Nova but beside Felix. Hanan, Adeline, and Sascha were separated somewhere to the back of the classroom.

Laurence looked out at the uncomfortable class, his drawn eyes crinkling at the corners in hints of a smile. Beatrice couldn't help but stare at her professor, even this didn't bring mirth to his eyes. She felt a shiver down her spine.

"Wonderful, wonderful." He continued. "Now, onto introductions. I am Professor Laurence, your master of illusions for this year. Miss Nova, would you please explain why you decided to step into the void, as it were?"

Nova rolled her eyes. "It's illusions class. It said right out there on the wall. Of course, none of it is real."

Laurence chuckled, and he waved a finger at Nova. "You are absolutely correct there, Miss. But therein lies the danger of illusions. They deceive, conceal, and confuse. Illusions obfuscate the truth and baffle the senses. You are quite lucky that all I did was hide the interior of the classroom. I very likely could have laid traps for you to foolishly fall into, so assured you were that these were harmless illusions."

Nova's eyes went wide. "You wouldn't have dared," she hissed.

Laurence smirked in response. "I wouldn't have, you are correct. Or would I? Illusions. Now then, notebooks out, write this down everyone! Our first lesson is visual illusions, much like the void earlier. What you do with this knowledge is entirely up to you..."