Tillo Lando February 29th,20XX

I fought the instinct to look down at the floor as over thirty pairs of eyes bore into our faces. Kaja, who I knew was currently regretting the exorbitant amount of eyeshadow she had piled on top of her eyelids, didn’t shy away from their stares but instead choose to look around the room and make eye contact with each of them.

One by one.

I could tell this threw them off by the way they would shift in their seats and switch their focus of attention to whatever else was in the room. My classmates would first stare at Kaja and then, when she met them with an even more intense glare, would look at something else. The ceiling, the student that had brought us here… or me.

It would be too childish to hold Kaja’s hand because I was nervous, but I couldn’t stop my hand from grasping around me and reaching for her hand. It would make a poor first impression, and we’d probably have to suffer through a few weird jokes, but I was so nervous I could barely see five feet in front of myself.

I’d half expected Kaja to avoid my hand or to push it off hers, but she grabbed it in a solid grip and squeezed my hand. She didn’t look back at me, but she didn’t let go.

Encouraged by her support and somewhat embarrassed that I’d needed it so quickly, I tried my best to copy Kaja and meet their gazes. I tried my best, but I ended up giving up after the first few and switched my attention to the teacher.

The teacher was an older man that looked to be in his early fifties. He was on the smaller side and had a bit of a gut, but otherwise looked to be in good shape.

“Well then. Could the two of you introduce yourselves?”

Kaja immediately stepped forward and forced a bright smile onto her face.

“Hello everyone! I’m Kaja Lando, a recent transfer! I’m sixteen years, three months, twenty-nine days and=”

She took a break to check the clock on the wall.

“Forty-six minutes old! Nice to meet you all!”

Although she had gone first without checking with me, I was happy. As her bright voice charmed the class, I matched her the best I could.

“Hello! I’m Tillo Lando, and as you probably guessed, Kaja and I are twins. We transferred at the same time and I’m sixteen years, three months, twenty-nine days, and forty-three minutes years old! Nice to meet you all as well.”

My voice came out slightly higher pitched than I’d wanted, and my words were fast, but it didn’t look like they minded too much.

None of them looked openly hostile, but none of them had looked especially friendly either.

“Well, wasn’t that a lovely introduction? And thank you for bringing them Nikki! You can go back to class. Now let’s see, Ember! You’re the class president, can I trust these two into your hands?”

The girl that brought us here, Nikki, sent us one more kind smile before nodding at the teacher and leaving. As she did, a tall and buff guy with a mean expression on his face stood up and gave a shockingly gentle wave.

Kaja brightly waved back, and I did the same.

Now that we were back in such a high-tensioned situation, the fight we’d had before suddenly seemed so minor to me. Yeah, she was pushy, but in times like this wasn’t I the one that mirrored her every action like a shadow.

“Well, it looks like you’ll all get along fine! Could you take a seat beside Ember? He’ll show you around the school during the break. I’m not sure if you’ve heard, but our school has a relatively longer lunch break compared to other schools! Its one of our selling points!”

The old man cracked a non-joke and left an awkward space for us to laugh. Kaja caught on pretty quickly and let out a loud guffaw that I had a hard time following.

The class rounded up quickly, and the teacher left the room, leaving Kaja and I at the mercy of the curious kids’ barrage of questions.

I tried my best to answer everything they asked me, but an icy voice suddenly pierced through the buzz and the room went quiet.

“So you two are the ones that became Squires.”

The crowd parted like a sea of weeds and a beautiful girl with long black hair and an athletic build revealed herself. She somewhat resembled Archer, but only as much as they were both very good-looking people.

“Ah. Yeah.”

Kaja had paid little mind to the sudden question, so I’d ended up being the chief recipient and the one that had to answer.

“Yeah? Awfully casual with a stranger, aren’t you?”

She was hostile and her voice cut into me like daggers, but she kept her distance and remained at the edge of the classroom.

“So how much did you pay?”

“What?”

I didn’t know why she was so hostile towards us, but the sudden question about money threw me off.

I mean, we may have been wearing decent clothes, but nothing about us or our accessories suggested we had enough money to pay our way into anything.

“You heard me, how much did you pay to get into the program? I looked you two up, and you two… weren’t all that good. Now, I didn’t apply to that program, but I know many people that did. Unless you sent in something that was so much more impressive than what I could find on your school’s page, then you must have paid your way in.”

Something about the way she emphasized she didn’t apply made me guess that she’d tried to get in but hadn’t made it.

It hadn’t really occurred to me that others had applied for the program Joyce had made to find us super-powered kids, but seeing the bitter girl in front of me made me uncomfortably aware. The realization made it difficult for me to say anything, but thankfully I wasn’t being confronted alone.

“Calm down, missy. You’re right that we aren’t the best dancers but if paying our way in would have worked then why aren’t you a Page? You look like you have enough money to try at least.”

Instead of blowing up at Kaja, or even acknowledging her, she kept her eyes trained on me and let out a small sigh before getting up and walking away.

“Ah, ignore Thelma. She’s not great with new people. If you’ll come with me, I’ll show you around.”

Ember quickly stepped in before Kaja went after the rude girl and started the tour with friendly enthusiasm.