The man fixed his single eye on me. “Very observant, Miss Everhart. Please sit.” He waved at the chair with one hand, the knuckles disproportionally large.
I remained in that awkward halfway position even as my leg muscles began to burn. Sitting seemed like a bad idea, akin to running away from a snarling dog. But as the man took a step toward me, I plopped down into the chair with an audible thump.
He stopped right before my desk and stared down at me. How someone could look so imperious with only one eye, I couldn’t guess. But it made me understand the unnatural quiet in the room. This guy commanded respect.
“Do you have a note explaining your tardiness?” the man said, brushing a bit of dust off the sleeve of his dark gray, oddly militaristic blazer.
“Um.” I began to fidget, running my hands over the pockets of my jeans, even though I knew I didn’t have one. I hadn’t bothered to ask. “No, but—”
He silenced me with a single jerk of his chin. “I see. Then I’m sure you will understand the detention I must give you in light of this oversight.”
“But—”
He turned away before I could say anything more. “After class tomorrow. Room three thirty-seven, Monmouth Tower. I expect you to be on time.”
Choked by the injustice of it all, I glanced sideways, only now registering that Selene was present. She gave me a sympathetic look, but shook her head when I started to mouth a question at her.
I swallowed and forced my gaze to the front of the classroom where One-Eyed Pirate Man now stood before the teacher’s desk—his desk now, apparently. I wanted to shout and rail at him. I’d been doing something important. Something for the government. I shouldn’t be punished. But I held back, realizing that I couldn’t say any of that.
The teacher addressed the class at large. “As I was saying before our interruption, the city of Atlantis, as described by the philosopher Plato, was comprised of three concentric ring-shaped islands separated by motes.” The man raised his hands, and a swell of powerful magic filled the room, making my skin tingle. “It resembled something like this.”
An involuntary gasp escaped my throat as a holographic image appeared in the air above the man’s head. It was as real and detailed as one of Eli’s dreams. The image depicted a city, one with a strange assortment of buildings. A few looked like Egyptian monuments while others appeared to be straight out of ancient Greece or Rome. Three ringed islands formed the city with a wide expanse of bright, blue water separating each one. A series of stone bridges served as the only connection linking them.
The largest, most prominent building stood at the center of the inner island. It was a towering cathedral-like structure with tall pillars surrounding its entrance. At the very top of the structure, a single tower stretched upward like an ancient space needle.
“But … sir,” someone said. I pulled my gaze away from the image toward the speaker. Never in my life had I heard Travis Kelly refer to one of the teachers as “sir.” As the son of a senator, Travis ran with Lance’s crowd, which meant he considered himself too important to bother showing such respect to a lowly teacher.
Until today. I wondered exactly how many detentions this guy had given out already.
“Yes, Mr. Kelly,” Pirate Man said. It was starting to bug me that I didn’t know his name. I scanned the dry-erase board to see if he’d written it up there, but the magical hologram obscured my sight.
“That can’t be Atlantis,” Travis said.
“Why do you think so?”
“Because it looks just like Lyonshold.”
I turned my gaze back to the vision, intrigued by Travis’s claims.
“Ah, yes, the resemblance is true. But what about now?” The teacher gestured with his hands, rotating the image until a massive gateway appeared front and center. Two statues of a half-horse, half-fish creature perched on each side of the gates like stone sentinels.
“Guess I was wrong,” said Travis, sounding crestfallen. “There aren’t any statues like that in Lyonshold.”
“Indeed not,” said the teacher. “Lyonshold is guarded by stone lions, not hippocampus.” He fanned his fingers and the horses transformed into two regal lions with shaggy manes and wide mouths opening into a snarl.
“Yeah, that’s it,” said Travis, brightening.
Beside me, Selene raised her hand.
“Yes, Miss Rivers,” the teacher said. He lowered his hands and the vision of Atlantis disappeared.
“Why the similarities?” asked Selene.
The man smiled at her. I got the impression it wasn’t something he did very often. His teeth looked alarmingly yellow and sharp. I wondered what magickind he was. I looked around for an item that might be a wand or staff hidden by a glamour, but couldn’t find any. So either he wasn’t a wizard or he had the object hidden beneath his blazer.
“That’s a good question,” the teacher said. “The exact one that we will attempt to answer in the coming weeks as we delve into the dark, tragic history that was the rise and fall of Atlantis.”
Despite my resentment toward the man, I couldn’t help the excitement that came over me at this news. I already knew what ordinaries believed to be a myth was actually real, and the idea of Atlantis intrigued me. A lost island, swallowed by the sea? Definitely cool. I wondered if there were magickind archaeology teams who went around excavating stuff like that. Sign me up for that career choice, please.