Read Soul Fire for Free Online Page A

blackboard.
All of the students glanced at one another.
“No one... said anything,” the blonde girl in the front
said.
“What?”
“What what?” a young man with red hair asked, a smile
growing on his face.
She eyed him off with her beady little eyes. The red
headed boy was looking around and smirking at the
student next to him. Before any of us could move, Watt
clicked her fingers, and a bolt of lightning snapped
through the air, striking Red Hair on the hand. His hair
stood on end, but his expression was funnier. I snorted
with laughter, and I wasn’t alone.
“Welcome to Magical Theory,” she said loudly,
strutting along to the blackboard and picking up a bit of
chalk. “In this class you will learn how to control the
magic that you’ve been newly introduced to. For some of
you, this will be old news, but please pay attention
anyway.”
The blonde girl who had spoken up before smiled
secretly to herself as she inspected her nails. I’d already
recognised her from the group of giggling teenagers, the
ones Larni had informed me were from this world and had
grown up in this realm. I narrowed my eyes at the back of
her head.
An hour later, we were let out into the corridor. I was
leaning against a wall, struggling to stuff bits of paper into
the satchel Jett had handed me when I was leaving the
hall, when someone bumped into me, causing the papers
to flutter to the flagstones.
“Sorry!” Dena dropped to the ground to pick up the
papers. “I was doing the same thing as you – I suppose I
didn’t see you.”
“That’s alright,” I said, accepting the papers she handed
me. “Bit overwhelming, huh?”
She nodded, pushing her glasses back up her nose.
“I’m from the human realm,” she said. “Nothing could
be more... different.”
“Me too,” I replied, relieved she wasn’t one of the
village mages. “No phone reception or anything.”
Her eyebrows jumped into her hair.
“You brought your phone?”
“Yeah,” I pulled it out of my pocket, where I’d been
keeping it for some kind of familiarity. “It got wet when I
fell in the river, but then it dried out and started up.”
Dena looked at me, confused.
“What river?”
“The river portal. How did you get here?”
“I came through a mirror,” she replied. “One morning, a
couple of days ago, I looked in my mirror and instead of
seeing my reflection, saw this place. When I reached for
it, I got sucked into my dorm room, here.”
I shoved my phone back into my pocket indignantly.
Thanks Jett, I thought savagely.
“What’ve we got next?” Dena was asking.
“Uh,” I scrutinized the time table we’d all been given.
“Fitness. Uh oh. Does this mean exercise?”
It sure did. We headed outside; following the rest of the
students to an area which looked like it had been set up by
a drill sergeant. Jett was waiting for us next to a wall that
went straight up. I shuddered; exercise had never much
appealed to me at all.
“So now that you’re all sorted and organised,” he started
eagerly. “I thought I’d start getting your health up to
standard. Any meals you are supplied with at the
Academy are specifically designed to provide maximum
protein and energy.”
He started handing out shirts for us to wear for this
subject. As I took mine, last as usual, I decided to ask him
about something I’d been wondering.
“Jett, who pays our tuition?”
He packed the last few shirts away and then turned
around.
“The Academy does, for now. When you leave after the
three years, you head out into the mage world and get
jobs. Mages are highly sought as healers and the like. Once
you’ve got a high enough paying job, the Academy starts
taking back the money for the tuition, but only in small
amounts.”
“Oh, ok,” I looked at the plain black shirt I was still
holding. “Where can I get changed?”
I followed the rest of the girls to the small changing
rooms on the edge of the training ground. When we
emerged, the boys