Chapter3 If she had magic, the whole town would've known by now

Wren Hale's POV

“We didn't get the wrong person. You’re Wren Hale, right? I’m Iris Kade — I handle admissions at the Academy. As you can see, I’m an Elf.”

She said it while turning her portable magic terminal a half-turn so the screen faced the collector, and the green PAID IN FULL on it glowed almost too bright in the barn's half-dark.

The collector looked twice, and the second time he spread his folder open to check the last digits of the account number against it, and then he said nothing at all, tucked the folder back under his arm, and walked out the way he'd come, boots still muddy.

The people at the door shifted to let him through. Nobody said anything, but I knew they were all watching — watching to see who had bought the girl who owed one million two hundred thousand.

At the edge of the crowd, Bonnie's handkerchief stopped against her nose. She stared at the terminal screen, then at Iris's sleeve, and that smile of hers collapsed piece by piece, like someone had pulled a support out from under it.

"Wait," she said. "Show me that arm again."

Iris pushed her sleeve up, showed the Academy crest tattooed on her left forearm, and pulled the sleeve back down. Bonnie leaned in, backed off, leaned in again, and finally took the handkerchief away from her nose.

"It's real," she said. Her voice came out half as loud as before. "But it doesn't make sense. Aurelis only takes people with talent. Wren Hale never even finished middle school. She's an ordinary farm girl. Her family can't even pay the electric bill. What do you actually want from her?"

"That's none of your business," Iris said. "Our admissions office has never made a mistake."

"Then you should at least check her readings first." Bonnie raised her voice. "Test her right here, in front of everyone. I've known her for over ten years. If she had magic, the whole town would've known by now."

I did have magic. Ruth just never let me use it off the farm, so of course, none of them knew. I wasn't going to explain that to anybody here.

"Entrance evaluations happen at the Academy," Iris said. "Not in a barn."

Bonnie turned back to me, and there was no smile on her face at all. She looked me up and down, angry, and somewhere under the anger, contempt. "Then say it yourself. Your parents have been dead for years. What were they? Can you even answer that?"

I didn't answer. Because I knew I couldn't throw that second punch — it was my grandmother's day, and the rest of it I was going to have to swallow.

Iris ignored Bonnie completely.

"Anyway," she said to me, "the Academy has already cleared what you owed. We're not paying that off out of charity. We don't want our students coming in with creditors hanging over them from the outside. Once you're enrolled, focus on your studies and on earning. You can pay us back afterward. No interest."

Someone behind me laughed under their breath. I didn't see who. Bonnie's face went red. She pressed the handkerchief back to her nose, then let it drop as if she'd finally found a handhold.

"Fine. If the Academy takes humans now, take me too. My grades are better than hers. My family has more money than hers. If you're picking people, there's no reason to pick her."

Iris looked at her, and there was impatience in it now, and something close to contempt. "We don't take just anyone," she said. "You have no talent."

For a second, Bonnie just stood there, like the words hadn't landed yet. Then her face went blotchy red from the collar up, and she turned to me, because I was the one thing in that barn she could still stand above.

"So that's how it is," she said, her voice climbing until it cracked. "You don't even have parents left. You don't even have a house that's really yours. And they take you."

She spun back to Iris and flung her arm toward the door, half laughing. "Then I guess the number one magic school in the world isn't all it's cracked up to be. Some taste. What do they do next, recruit from the gutter?"

She was still talking when she went for the door, and she shoved me with her shoulder on the way past, hard enough that I had to catch myself on a folding chair.

Once I had my feet under me, I looked at Iris. She'd been standing off to the side the whole time, waiting quietly for my answer. The thing was, I didn't have another answer.

The Academy had already paid the money. My debt had moved to a different name, and the name was theirs. There was nothing left to weigh. Everything I could do came down to one thing — keep the farm.

I looked at Iris. "Okay."

"Good. That was a smart decision." Her face didn't change. She said like she'd known all along I wouldn't refuse.

"After you enroll, the farm in your name will be maintained under Academy trusteeship. If you withdraw, or if you're expelled, the trusteeship ends automatically, and the debt comes back."

She set her folder on a wooden crate first, squared it, lined it up parallel with the edge, and only then sat down. She handed me a piece of paper. It was an enrollment confirmation, and under my name was a line of small print.

Parent Names: Isla Hale / Elias Hale. Enrollment Records: SEALED.

I stared at that line. "Why do you have my parents' records?"

"They were students here once—" She stopped. "That's all I can tell you. The rest isn't mine to say."

I didn't push it, but I kept thinking about it. If enrolling was about paying off the debt, then now I had a second reason, too. Aurelis Academy might have something about my parents.