
"I can't believe you don't want this for me!" Elizabeth wasn't shouting, but
she was close to it.

Her mother looked at her from across the dining room table, "Honey, I do want
you to get a magical education, but Greenwood isn't the place to do it. We
can find some other place for you."

I could feel Elizabeth roll her eyes, "I barely got in. Greenwood might not
be the best school out there, but it is the one that took me. I've worked
really hard for this mom. I spent the whole summer trying to get strong
enough to handle a real magical education. I'm not turning down this
opportunity."

"I know you've been working really hard. You have made some really impressive
progress with you meditation." I felt a touch of amusement as I imagined
Elizabeth meditating all day. "And at this rate you might be strong enough to
get trained as a wyird surgeon like your father. You certainly have the control
for it. Just don't do something you'll regret later in life. Greenwood
grads have to work hard to prove that they have never played with the dark.
And frankly, I'm worried about what might happen to you there. Do you know
what happened to your great uncle when he went to Greenwood?"

"That was in like 1894! I'm not going to join a dark coven or anything mom!"
What had happened to Elizabeth's great uncle? *Crazy old coot got burned at the
stake.* Elizabeth answered my unspoken question.

Elizabeth's mother pursed her lips. "You're not going to Greenwood."

I felt my Mistress's rage burning through our connection. I was worried she
might do something violent, but all she did was say, "You can't stop me."
and stalk out of the room.

================================================================================

Elizabeth set her huge trunk down gently. The box of belongings weighed an
enormous amount, but she was so strong that she hardly noticed. Standing up,
she looked over at the mousy girl hunched over something on her desk. A
thread of blue smoke curled up through the sheer bangs hiding her face, and
Elizabeth realized that she was soldering.

"Hi! I'm Elizabeth." She said.

Apparently not ready to be interrupted, the girl continued her work for a few
seconds before looking up. "Hi." She said, looking steadily back at Elizabeth.
It was pretty normal for a first look at Elizabeth's splendor to leave people
speechless, so I was not too surprised, but then I remembered what she looked
like now. Before going to Greenwood, Elizabeth had decided that looking like
a sex bomb might not be the best idea, so she spun an illusion which sapped
the intense beauty from her face. She was still striking, but looking at her
was no longer quite so distracting. She had also toned down her figure.
Rather than look like the amazon with KK-cups that she was, she just
appeared to be an athletic girl with perky C-cups. She was still hot, but
again, not so distracting.

After a few seconds the girl started and said, "I'm Helen. Sorry. I forget
what I'm supposed to say when I meet new people on earth."

"On earth?" Elizabeth asked, *What, is this girl from mars?* she thought to
me.

"Yeah. I've spent so long in the Summer Court that it's hard to remember
sometimes. Do you know where we can get fairy fruit here?" She asked.
There was a wistful look in her eyes.

*Great, my roomie's a fucking junky.* Elizabeth thought to me. "I don't
know. I've never tried it."

Helen grinned, "Neither have I." She giggled, "You should have seen the
look on your face. You thought you were going to have to deal with a
fruit-eater roommate." After she stopped giggling she straitened up
and said, "Sorry. That was mean."

Elizabeth smiled, "You did get me." *I like this girl.* I thought to her.
In response I just felt a sense of dry amusement.

Heather did not know what to say, so she turned back to her soldering.
Hiding her face under her bangs.

"What are you working on?" Asked Elizabeth.

When Heather looked back up I could see that she had been waiting for the
question. "I'm fixing the smoke alarm!" She said. She seemed to be waiting
for Elizabeth to ask her more.

"Was it broken?" She said, playing along.

"Well... All it did was detect smoke. That's boring. When I'm done with it
it will be able to tell us if anyone breaks in to the room!" Heather explained.

"Oh cool. What kind of warding spell are you using?" Elizabeth asked. She
could never resist a technical discussion.

Heather just looked confused. "It's not a spell. I'm just giving this little
guy eyes, and asking him to keep a look out for us."

*Can you talk to smoke detectors? Is that a thing?* I asked.

*Not as far as I know.* Elizabeth thought back. To Heather she said,
"Oh. I've never heard of doing that before. Is that tech magic?"

Heather looked confused at the mention of a specific school of magic. "We never
called it that in the Moon Court."

I felt Elizabeth's confusion. "Oh ok. Well, I bet the professors know about it."

*Didn't she say living at the Summer Court was a joke?* I thought.

*Yeah, but this chick might not be playing with all her cards.* Elizabeth
replied.

================================================================================

"Come in Elizabeth. Is that what you prefer to be called?" Professor Sam Brine
ushered his new advisee into his little cliff office.

"Thanks. Elizabeth is fine." She said, stepping through the rough hewn rocks
oh his doorway. She had just climbed up what seemed like a thousand feet of
stairs to get to the Contracts building. The Contracts department did not
have a real building, and was instead housed in a warren of twisting tunnels
bored through the red sandstone cliffs which surrounded the university on
three sides.

Elizabeth was lucky to get Professor Brine as her adviser. Greenwood might be
a third rate school, but it's Contracts department was second to none, and he
was one of the department's rising stars. While, not explicitly dark
magic, spell casters who treated with demons tended to rely on contract
magic more than those who dealt in more savory supernatural entities.
Despite the somewhat dark reputation of contract magic, it was integral to
the magical economy. Mundane economists have known for a long time that
trust makes markets more efficient, and magical contracts allow complete
strangers to place enormous trust in one another. The fact that there was
no real magical governing body to enforce deals made contract magic even
more indispensable. Some of the more hyperbolic sages liked to say that
mages would still be in the dark ages if it were not for contract magic.
Even though she was more interested in illusion, Elizabeth planned on taking
as many Contracts classes as she could fit into her schedule.

"Ok then: Elizabeth. Have you had time to settle in?" Sam asked with a
warm smile.

The professor was only in his early thirties, and drinking in his athletic
frame, Elizabeth wished she had decided not to hide her body with a glamour.
"Uuuhh. Yeah. I have. Greenwood is really... red." She said with a giggle.
The red sand and clay of the surrounding southwestern landscape gave
the school a haunting beauty, but it looked nothing like the pastoral
grove that the school's name brought to mind.

He laughed, "That's what everyone says. It's like how Greenland is covered
in ice, and Iceland is as lush as can be."

Elizabeth smiled. "Nothing like a little false advertising." She hesitated
for a moment, "So do you want to take a look at my class list?"

"Sure. Let's see: Intro to Divination, History of Arabian Magic,
Energy Theory 1, and Illusion 23." He glanced up at her, "You know that
Illusion 23 has a prerequisite, right?"

Elizabeth nodded, "Yeah, but I have a lot of experience with illusion, so
I was hoping to talk to Professor Bakers about starting off in Illusion 23."

He nodded, "Ok. I assume your backup is just Illusion 9 if she doesn't think
you are ready?"

Elizabeth smiled.

"Well, this looks good to me. You have one purely mundane class in here. That's
good. I see a lot of students who want to do nothing but magic, but there is
value to things like calculus and history. I think it gives students a real
depth. You are going to have a lot of transfer credits because of your year
of mundane college, but that doesn't mean you should take nothing but magic
classes."

She nodded, "Thanks a bunch."

Before she could get out the door Sam stopped her, "Elizabeth, you are going to
need this." He said signing her schedule and handing it to her.

"Oh. Thanks." She said, taking the paper from him.

================================================================================
